15052539
A Further Result on the ICA One-Bit-Matching Conjecture
The one-bit-matching conjecture for independent component analysis (ICA) has been widely believed in the ICA community. Theoretically, it has been proved that under the assumption of zero skewness for the model probability density functions, the global maximum of a cost function derived from the typical objective function on the ICA problem with the one-bit-matching condition corresponds to a feasible solution of the ICA problem. In this note, we further prove that all the local maximums of the cost function correspond to the feasible solutions of the ICA problem in the two-source case under the same assumption. That is, as long as the one-bit-matching condition is satisfied, the two-source ICA problem can be successfully solved using any local descent algorithm of the typical objective function with the assumption of zero skewness for all the model probability density functions.
14770227
Data smoothing regularization, multi-sets-learning, and problem solving strategies
First, we briefly introduce the basic idea of data smoothing regularization, which was firstly proposed by Xu [Brain-like computing and intelligent information systems (1997) 241] for parameter learning in a way similar to Tikhonov regularization but with an easy solution to the difficulty of determining an appropriate hyper-parameter. Also, the roles of this regularization are demonstrated on Gaussian-mixture via smoothed versions of the EM algorithm, the BYY model selection criterion, adaptive harmony algorithm as well as its related Rival penalized competitive learning. Second, these studies are extended to a mixture of reconstruction errors of Gaussian types, which provides a new probabilistic formulation for the multi-sets learning approach [Proc. IEEE ICNN94 I (1994) 315] that learns multiple objects in typical geometrical structures such as points, lines, hyperplanes, circles, ellipses, and templates of given shapes. Finally, insights are provided on three problem solving strategies, namely the competition-penalty adaptation based learning, the global evidence accumulation based selection, and the guess-test based decision, with a general problem solving paradigm suggested.
18349973
Bayesian Ying-Yang machine, clustering and number of clusters
Abstract It is shown that a particular case of the Bayesian Ying–Yang learning system and theory reduces to the maximum likelihood learning of a finite mixture, from which we have obtained not only the EM algorithm for its parameter estimation and its various approximate but fast algorithms for clustering in general cases (including Mahalanobis distance clustering or elliptic clustering), but also criteria for the selection of the number of densities in a mixture, and the number k in the conventional Mean Square Error clustering. Moreover, a Re-weighted EM algorithm is also proposed and shown to be more robust in learning. Finally, experimental results are provided.
11044770
A PCA approach for fast retrieval of structural patterns in attributed graphs
An attributed graph (AG) is a useful data structure for representing complex patterns in a wide range of applications such as computer vision, image database retrieval, and other knowledge representation tasks where similar or exact corresponding structural patterns must be found. Existing methods for attributed graph matching (AGM) often suffer from the combinatorial problem whereby the execution cost for finding an exact or similar match is exponentially related to the number of nodes the AG contains. The square matching error of two AGs subject to permutations is approximately relaxed to a square matching error of two AGs subject to orthogonal transformations. Hence, the principal component analysis (PCA) algorithm can be used for the fast computation of the approximate matching error, with a considerably reduced execution complexity. Experiments demonstrate that this method works well and is robust against noise and other simple types of transformations.
16709558
One-Bit-Matching Conjecture for Independent Component Analysis
The one-bit-matching conjecture for independent component analysis (ICA) could be understood from different perspectives but is basically stated as all the sources can be separated as long as there is a one-toone same-sign-correspondence between the kurtosis signs of all source probability density functions (pdf's) and the kurtosis signs of all model pdf's (Xu, Cheung, & Amari, 1998a). This conjecture has been widely believed in the ICA community and implicitly supported by many ICA studies, such as the Extended Infomax (Lee, Girolami, & Sejnowski, 1999) and the soft switching algorithm (Welling & Weber, 2001). However, there is no mathematical proof to confirm the conjecture theoretically. In this article, only skewness and kurtosis are considered, and such a mathematical proof is given under the assumption that the skewness of the model densities vanishes. Moreover, empirical experiments are demonstrated on the robustness of the conjecture as the vanishing skewness assumption breaks. As a by-product, we also show that the kurtosis maximization criterion (Moreau & Macchi, 1996) is actually a special case of the minimum mutual information criterion for ICA.
6083596
Improved learning algorithms for mixture of experts in multiclass classification
Mixture of experts (ME) is a modular neural network architecture for supervised learning. A double-loop Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm has been introduced to the ME architecture for adjusting the parameters and the iteratively reweighted least squares (IRLS) algorithm is used to perform maximization in the inner loop [Jordan, M.I., Jacobs, R.A. (1994). Hierarchical mixture of experts and the EM algorithm, Neural Computation, 6(2), 181-214]. However, it is reported in literature that the IRLS algorithm is of instability and the ME architecture trained by the EM algorithm, where IRLS algorithm is used in the inner loop, often produces the poor performance in multiclass classification. In this paper, the reason of this instability is explored. We find out that due to an implicitly imposed incorrect assumption on parameter independence in multiclass classification, an incomplete Hessian matrix is used in that IRLS algorithm. Based on this finding, we apply the Newton-Raphson method to the inner loop of the EM algorithm in the case of multiclass classification, where the exact Hessian matrix is adopted. To tackle the expensive computation of the Hessian matrix and its inverse, we propose an approximation to the Newton-Raphson algorithm based on a so-called generalized Bernoulli density. The Newton-Raphson algorithm and its approximation have been applied to synthetic data, benchmark, and real-world multiclass classification tasks. For comparison, the IRLS algorithm and a quasi-Newton algorithm called BFGS have also been applied to the same tasks. Simulation results have shown that the use of the proposed learning algorithms avoids the instability problem and makes the ME architecture produce good performance in multiclass classification. In particular, our approximation algorithm leads to fast learning. In addition, the limitation of our approximation algorithm is also empirically investigated in this paper.
3234740
Stochastic Ordering for Internet Congestion Control and its Applications
Window growth function for congestion control is a strong determinant of protocol behaviors, especially its second and higher-order behaviors associated with the distribution of transmission rates, its variances, and protocol stability. This paper presents a new stochastic tool, called convex ordering, that provides an ordering of any convex function of transmission rates of two protocols and valuable insights into high order behaviors of protocols. As the ordering determined by this tool is consistent with any convex function of rates, it can be applied to any unknown metric for protocol performance that consists of some high-order moments of transmission rates, as well as those already known such as rate variance. Using the tool, it is analyzed that a protocol with a growth function that starts off with a concave function and then switches to a convex function (e.g., an odd order function such as x3 and x5) around the maximum window size in the previous loss epoch, gives the smallest rate variation under a variety of network conditions. Among existing protocols, BIC and CUBIC have this window growth function. Experimental and simulation results confirm the analytical findings.
8691766
Media Streaming via TFRC: An Analytical Study of the Impact of TFRC on User-Perceived Media Quality
TCP-Friendly Rate Control (TFRC) is being adopted in Internet standards for congestion control of various streaming media applications. In this paper, we consider the transmission of pre-recorded media from a server to a client by using TFRC, and analytically study the impact of TFRC on user-perceived media quality, which is roughly measured by calculating the rebuffering probability. A rebuffering probability is defined to be the probability that the total duration of all rebuffering events experienced by a user is longer than a certain threshold. Two approaches are presented to help an application determine an appropriate initial buffering delay and media playback rate in order to achieve a certain rebuffering probability under a given network condition. First, we derive a closed- form expression to approximate the average TFRC sending rate, which could be used as the maximum allowed playback rate of a media stream. Second, we develop a queueing model for a TFRC client buffer with the traffic described by a Markov-Renewal- Modulated Deterministic Process (MRMDP), and present an iterative method to calculate the rebuffering probability.
8227025
A Browser Compatibility Testing Method Based on Combinatorial Testing
For ensuring the displaying effects of Web applications, it is important to perform compatibility testing for browsers under the different configurations and it is a hard task to test all. So this paper focused on the improvements for browser compatibility testing. Firstly, we introduced the related work. Then we analysed the functional speciality of the current popular browsers, and provided the preconditions to simplify problems. Next we gave an instance and brought forward the single factor covering method and the pair-wise covering design to gain testing suits. Finally, we introduced the assistant tools we have developed and the future work.
31040454
Determining optimum edible films for kiwifruits using an analytical hierarchy process
Fresh fruits undergo vigorous biological reaction after harvest and their respiration accelerates the natural loss of fruit tissue. Therefore, fruits tend to lose water at room temperature, change appearance, texture, and quality, and thus reduce their commercial value. Kiwifruits rot faster than other fruits due to their high ethylene concentration in atmosphere and their sensitivity to ethylene. Coating fruits with an edible film is an effective storage method at room temperature. In this paper, mathematical models of the permeability of edible films and the analytic hierarchy process model are used to determine the optimum edible film for preserving kiwifruits.
34666787
Applying Agent into Web Testing and Evolution
Automatic Web testing and evolution is an effective method to ensure the quality of Web applications. In this paper, we apply Agent into this area, i.e. firstly, we explain the necessity and feasibility, and also give the general description of our method; then, we apply Agent into the Web performance testing, Web regression testing and Web usability evolution; conclusion remarks are given at last.