Semisupervised biased maximum margin analysis for interactive image retrieval

With many potential practical applications, content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has attracted substantial attention during the past few years. A variety of relevance feedback (RF) schemes have been developed as a powerful tool to bridge the semantic gap between low-level visual features and high-level semantic concepts, and thus to improve the performance of CBIR systems. Among various RF approaches, support-vector-machine (SVM)-based RF is one of the most popular techniques in CBIR. Despite the success, directly using SVM as an RF scheme has two main drawbacks. First, it treats the positive and negative feedbacks equally, which is not appropriate since the two groups of training feedbacks have distinct properties. Second, most of the SVM-based RF techniques do not take into account the unlabeled samples, although they are very helpful in constructing a good classifier. To explore solutions to overcome these two drawbacks, in this paper, we propose a biased maximum margin analysis (BMMA) and a semisupervised BMMA (SemiBMMA) for integrating the distinct properties of feedbacks and utilizing the information of unlabeled samples for SVM-based RF schemes. The BMMA differentiates positive feedbacks from negative ones based on local analysis, whereas the SemiBMMA can effectively integrate information of unlabeled samples by introducing a Laplacian regularizer to the BMMA. We formally formulate this problem into a general subspace learning task and then propose an automatic approach of determining the dimensionality of the embedded subspace for RF. Extensive experiments on a large real-world image database demonstrate that the proposed scheme combined with the SVM RF can significantly improve the performance of CBIR systems.     

Multitraining support vector machine for image retrieval.

Relevance feedback (RF) schemes based on support vector machines (SVMs) have been widely used in content-based image retrieval (CBIR). However, the performance of SVM-based RF approaches is often poor when the number of labeled feedback samples is small. This is mainly due to 1) the SVM classifier being unstable for small-size training sets because its optimal hyper plane is too sensitive to the training examples; and 2) the kernel method being ineffective because the feature dimension is much greater than the size of the training samples. In this paper, we develop a new machine learning technique, multitraining SVM (MTSVM), which combines the merits of the cotraining technique and a random sampling method in the feature space. Based on the proposed MTSVM algorithm, the above two problems can be mitigated. Experiments are carried out on a large image set of some 20,000 images, and the preliminary results demonstrate that the developed method consistently improves the performance over conventional SVM-based RFs in terms of precision and standard deviation, which are used to evaluate the effectiveness and robustness of a RF algorithm, respectively.     

Similarity-based online feature selection in content-based image retrieval.

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has been more and more important in the last decade, and the gap between high-level semantic concepts and low-level visual features hinders further performance improvement. The problem of online feature selection is critical to really bridge this gap. In this paper, we investigate online feature selection in the relevance feedback learning process to improve the retrieval performance of the region-based image retrieval system. Our contributions are mainly in three areas. 1) A novel feature selection criterion is proposed, which is based on the psychological similarity between the positive and negative training sets. 2) An effective online feature selection algorithm is implemented in a boosting manner to select the most representative features for the current query concept and combine classifiers constructed over the selected features to retrieve images. 3) To apply the proposed feature selection method in region-based image retrieval systems, we propose a novel region-based representation to describe images in a uniform feature space with real-valued fuzzy features. Our system is suitable for online relevance feedback learning in CBIR by meeting the three requirements: learning with small size training set, the intrinsic asymmetry property of training samples, and the fast response requirement. Extensive experiments, including comparisons with many state-of-the-arts, show the effectiveness of our algorithm in improving the retrieval performance and saving the processing time.     

一种自适应提取最优特征维的相关反馈算法

本文提出一种新的相关反馈算法,该算法依据用户的反馈信息自适应选取用户最感兴趣的特征维用于图像检索,并结合正负反馈图像集的预处理,图像检索精确度得到较大提高。算法在500幅和4500幅两个图像库中做了实验,通过与RuiY特征内相关反馈算法的比较,验证了算法的高效性。     

A framework for medical image retrieval using machine learning and statistical similarity matching techniques with relevance feedback.

A content-based image retrieval (CBIR) framework for diverse collection of medical images of different imaging modalities, anatomic regions with different orientations and biological systems is proposed. Organization of images in such a database (DB) is well defined with predefined semantic categories; hence, it can be useful for category-specific searching. The proposed framework consists of machine learning methods for image prefiltering, similarity matching using statistical distance measures, and a relevance feedback (RF) scheme. To narrow down the semantic gap and increase the retrieval efficiency, we investigate both supervised and unsupervised learning techniques to associate low-level global image features (e.g., color, texture, and edge) in the projected PCA-based eigenspace with their high-level semantic and visual categories. Specially, we explore the use of a probabilistic multiclass support vector machine (SVM) and fuzzy c-mean (FCM) clustering for categorization and prefiltering of images to reduce the search space. A category-specific statistical similarity matching is proposed in a finer level on the prefiltered images. To incorporate a better perception subjectivity, an RF mechanism is also added to update the query parameters dynamically and adjust the proposed matching functions. Experiments are based on a ground-truth DB consisting of 5000 diverse medical images of 20 predefined categories. Analysis of results based on cross-validation (CV) accuracy and precision-recall for image categorization and retrieval is reported. It demonstrates the improvement, effectiveness, and efficiency achieved by the proposed framework.     

Relevance feedback in content-based image retrieval: Bayesian framework, feature subspaces, and progressive learning

Research has been devoted in the past few years to relevance feedback as an effective solution to improve performance of content-based image retrieval (CBIR). In this paper, we propose a new feedback approach with progressive learning capability combined with a novel method for the feature subspace extraction. The proposed approach is based on a Bayesian classifier and treats positive and negative feedback examples with different strategies. Positive examples are used to estimate a Gaussian distribution that represents the desired images for a given query; while the negative examples are used to modify the ranking of the retrieved candidates. In addition, feature subspace is extracted and updated during the feedback process using a principal component analysis (PCA) technique and based on user's feedback. That is, in addition to reducing the dimensionality of feature spaces, a proper subspace for each type of features is obtained in the feedback process to further improve the retrieval accuracy. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method increases the retrieval speed, reduces the required memory and improves the retrieval accuracy significantly.     

基于视觉感知的图像检索的研究

基于内容图像检索的一个突出问题是图像低层特征与高层语义之间存在的巨大鸿沟.针对相关反馈和感兴趣区检测在弥补语义鸿沟时存在主观性强、耗时的缺点,提出了视觉信息是一种客观反映图像高层语义的新特征,基于视觉信息进行图像检索可以有效减小语义鸿沟;并在总结视觉感知的研究进展和实现方法的基础上,给出了基于视觉感知的图像检索在感兴趣区检测、图像分割、相关反馈和个性化检索四个方面的研究思路.     

Relevance feedback for CBIR: a new approach based on probabilistic feature weighting with positive and negative examples.

In content-based image retrieval, understanding the user's needs is a challenging task that requires integrating him in the process of retrieval. Relevance feedback (RF) has proven to be an effective tool for taking the user's judgement into account. In this paper, we present a new RF framework based on a feature selection algorithm that nicely combines the advantages of a probabilistic formulation with those of using both the positive example (PE) and the negative example (NE). Through interaction with the user, our algorithm learns the importance he assigns to image features, and then applies the results obtained to define similarity measures that correspond better to his judgement. The use of the NE allows images undesired by the user to be discarded, thereby improving retrieval accuracy. As for the probabilistic formulation of the problem, it presents a multitude of advantages and opens the door to more modeling possibilities that achieve a good feature selection. It makes it possible to cluster the query data into classes, choose the probability law that best models each class, model missing data, and support queries with multiple PE and/or NE classes. The basic principle of our algorithm is to assign more importance to features with a high likelihood and those which distinguish well between PE classes and NE classes. The proposed algorithm was validated separately and in image retrieval context, and the experiments show that it performs a good feature selection and contributes to improving retrieval effectiveness.     

Content-based image retrieval using local visual attention feature

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has been an active research topic in the last decade. As one of the promising approaches, salient point based image retrieval has attracted many researchers. However, the related work is usually very time consuming, and some salient points always may not represent the most interesting subset of points for image indexing. Based on fast and performant salient point detector, and the salient point expansion, a novel content-based image retrieval using local visual attention feature is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the salient image points are extracted by using the fast and performant SURF (Speeded-Up Robust Features) detector. Then, the visually significant image points around salient points can be obtained according to the salient point expansion. Finally, the local visual attention feature of visually significant image points, including the weighted color histogram and spatial distribution entropy, are extracted, and the similarity between color images is computed by using the local visual attention feature. Experimental results, including comparisons with the state-of-the-art retrieval systems, demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposal.     

一种新的图像检索方法

常规基于内容图像检索的方法是提取图像的颜色、纹理等物理特征,运用相似性度量准则从图像库中查询相似的图像。为了提高图像检索的正确率,这里提出改进的方法。具体方法是:提取图像的物理特征,并将特征作为支持向量机(SVM)的输入向量,对图像进行分类,然后利用分类结果,对检索图像进行相似性匹配,从同类图像中找出相似的图像。实验结果显示,该方法的检索结果优于常规方法。     

A new way for multidimensional medical data management: volume of interest (VOI)-based retrieval of medical images with visual and functional features.

The advances in digital medical imaging and storage in integrated databases are resulting in growing demands for efficient image retrieval and management. Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) refers to the retrieval of images from a database, using the visual features derived from the information in the image, and has become an attractive approach to managing large medical image archives. In conventional CBIR systems for medical images, images are often segmented into regions which are used to derive two-dimensional visual features for region-based queries. Although such approach has the advantage of including only relevant regions in the formulation of a query, medical images that are inherently multidimensional can potentially benefit from the multidimensional feature extraction which could open up new opportunities in visual feature extraction and retrieval. In this study, we present a volume of interest (VOI) based content-based retrieval of four-dimensional (three spatial and one temporal) dynamic PET images. By segmenting the images into VOIs consisting of functionally similar voxels (e.g., a tumor structure), multidimensional visual and functional features were extracted and used as region-based query features. A prototype VOI-based functional image retrieval system (VOI-FIRS) has been designed to demonstrate the proposed multidimensional feature extraction and retrieval. Experimental results show that the proposed system allows for the retrieval of related images that constitute similar visual and functional VOI features, and can find potential applications in medical data management, such as to aid in education, diagnosis, and statistical analysis.     

基于潜在语义分析和相关反馈的图像检索方法

为了解决传统的CBIR系统中存在的"语义鸿沟"问题,提出一种基于潜在语义索引技术(LSI)和相关反馈技术的图像检索方法.在进行图像检索时,先在HSV空间下提取颜色直方图作为底层视觉特征进行图像检索,然后引入潜在语义索引技术试图将底层特征赋予更高层次的语义含义;并且结合相关反馈技术,通过与用户交互进一步提高检索精度.实验...     

Robust discriminative extreme learning machine for relevance feedback in image retrieval

Relevance feedback (RF) has long been an important approach for multi-media retrieval because of the semantic gap in image content, where SVM based methods are widely applied to RF of content-based image retrieval. However, RF based on SVM still has some limitations: (1) the high dimension of image features always make the RF time-consuming; (2) the model of SVM is not discriminative, because labels of image features are not sufficiently exploited. To solve above problems, we proposed robust discriminative extreme learning machine (RDELM) in this paper. RDELM involved both robust within-class and between-class scatter matrices to enhance the discrimination capacity of ELM for RF. Furthermore, an angle criterion dimensionality reduction method is utilized to extract the discriminative information for RDELM. Experimental results on four benchmark datasets (Corel-1K, Corel-5K, Corel-10K and MSRC) illustrate that our proposed RF method in this paper achieves better performance than several state-of-the-art methods.     

A novel long-term learning algorithm for relevance feedback in content-based image retrieval

Relevance feedback has proven to be a powerful tool to bridge the semantic gap between low-level features and high-level human concepts in content-based image retrieval (CBIR). However, traditional short-term relevance feedback technologies are confined to using the current feedback record only. Log-based long-term learning captures the semantic relationships among images in a database by analyzing the historical relevance information to boost the retrieval performance effectively. In this paper, we propose an expanded-judging model to analyze the historical log data’s semantic information and to expand the feedback sample set from both positive and negative relevant information. The index table is used to facilitate the log analysis. The expanded-judging model is applied in image retrieval by combining with short-term relevance feedback algorithms. Experiments were carried out to evaluate the proposed algorithm based on the Corel image database. The promising experimental results validate the effectiveness of our proposed expanded-judging model.     

Support Vector Machine Learning for Region‐Based Image Retrieval with Relevance Feedback

We present a relevance feedback approach based on multi‐class support vector machine (SVM) learning and cluster‐merging which can significantly improve the retrieval performance in region‐based image retrieval. Semantically relevant images may exhibit various visual characteristics and may be scattered in several classes in the feature space due to the semantic gap between low‐level features and high‐level semantics in the user's mind. To find the semantic classes through relevance feedback, the proposed method reduces the burden of completely re‐clustering the classes at iterations and classifies multiple classes. Experimental results show that the proposed method is more effective and efficient than the two‐class SVM and multi‐class relevance feedback methods.     

基于彩色空间3D广义共发矩阵的视觉信息检索

本文针对基于内容的图象检索（CBIR）提出一组基于HSV空间的3D广义共发矩阵的新颖的图象纹理特征，通过在CBIR检索系统iPhoto中（25，000张图象）上测试，利用本文特征地传统灰度共发矩阵。     

Asymmetric Semi‐Supervised Boosting Scheme for Interactive Image Retrieval

Support vector machine (SVM) active learning plays a key role in the interactive content‐based image retrieval (CBIR) community. However, the regular SVM active learning is challenged by what we call “the small example problem” and “the asymmetric distribution problem.” This paper attempts to integrate the merits of semi‐supervised learning, ensemble learning, and active learning into the interactive CBIR. Concretely, unlabeled images are exploited to facilitate boosting by helping augment the diversity among base SVM classifiers, and then the learned ensemble model is used to identify the most informative images for active learning. In particular, a bias‐weighting mechanism is developed to guide the ensemble model to pay more attention on positive images than negative images. Experiments on 5000 Corel images show that the proposed method yields better retrieval performance by an amount of 0.16 in mean average precision compared to regular SVM active learning, which is more effective than some existing improved variants of SVM active learning.     

基于混合学习框架的SVM反馈算法研究

 基于支持向量机（SupportVectorMachine,SVM）理论的相关反馈技术是可有效提高图像检索性能的重要手段之一。然而,大多数SVM反馈算法普遍受到小样本问题的制约。本文综合了集成学习、半监督学习和主动学习三种方法的技术特点,提出一种混合学习框架下的SVM反馈算法。该算法在Boosting迭代过程中使用了未标记图像,以增加个体SVM之间的差异,从而获得高效的集成学习模型。同时,高效的集成学习模型更有利于寻找富有信息（most informative）图像,从而也提高了用户主动反馈的效率。实验结果及对比分析表明,混合学习策略可有效改进相关反馈的性能。     

A unified image retrieval framework on local visual and semantic concept-based feature spaces

This paper presents a learning-based unified image retrieval framework to represent images in local visual and semantic concept-based feature spaces. In this framework, a visual concept vocabulary (codebook) is automatically constructed by utilizing self-organizing map (SOM) and statistical models are built for local semantic concepts using probabilistic multi-class support vector machine (SVM). Based on these constructions, the images are represented in correlation and spatial relationship-enhanced concept feature spaces by exploiting the topology preserving local neighborhood structure of the codebook, local concept correlation statistics, and spatial relationships in individual encoded images. Finally, the features are unified by a dynamically weighted linear combination of similarity matching scheme based on the relevance feedback information. The feature weights are calculated by considering both the precision and the rank order information of the top retrieved relevant images of each representation, which adapts itself to individual searches to produce effective results. The experimental results on a photographic database of natural scenes and a bio-medical database of different imaging modalities and body parts demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.