Interactive image segmentation via kernel propagation

In this paper, we propose a new approach to interactive image segmentation via kernel propagation (KP), called KP Cut. The key to success in interactive image segmentation is to preserve characteristics of the user?s interactive input and maintain data-coherence effectively. To achieve this, we employ KP which is very effective in propagating the given supervised information into the entire data set. KP first learns a small-size seed-kernel matrix, and then propagates it into a large-size full-kernel matrix. It is based on a learned kernel, and thus can fit the given data better than a predefined kernel. Based on KP, we first generate a small-size seed-kernel matrix from the user?s interactive input. Then, the seed-kernel matrix is propagated into the full-kernel matrix of the entire image. During the propagation, foreground objects are effectively segmented from background. Experimental results demonstrate that KP Cut effectively extracts foreground objects from background, and outperforms the state-of-the-art methods for interactive image segmentation.     

Bagging Constraint Score for feature selection with pairwise constraints

Constraint Score is a recently proposed method for feature selection by using pairwise constraints which specify whether a pair of instances belongs to the same class or not. It has been shown that the Constraint Score, with only a small amount of pairwise constraints, achieves comparable performance to those fully supervised feature selection methods such as Fisher Score. However, one major disadvantage of the Constraint Score is that its performance is dependent on a good selection on the composition and cardinality of constraint set, which is very challenging in practice. In this work, we address the problem by importing Bagging into Constraint Score and a new method called Bagging Constraint Score (BCS) is proposed. Instead of seeking one appropriate constraint set for single Constraint Score, in BCS we perform multiple Constraint Score, each of which uses a bootstrapped subset of original given constraint set. Diversity analysis on individuals of ensemble shows that resampling pairwise constraints is helpful for simultaneously improving accuracy and diversity of individuals. We conduct extensive experiments on a series of high-dimensional datasets from UCI repository and gene databases, and the experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Two-stage nonparametric kernel leaning: From label propagation to kernel propagation

We introduce a kernel learning algorithm, called kernel propagation (KP), to learn a nonparametric kernel from a mixture of a few pairwise constraints and plentiful unlabeled samples. Specifically, KP consists of two stages: the first is to learn a small-sized sub-kernel matrix just restricted to the samples with constrains, and the second is to propagate this learned sub-kernel matrix into a large-sized full-kernel matrix over all samples. As an interesting fact, our approach exposes a natural connection between KP and label propagation (LP), that is, one LP can naturally induce its KP counterpart. Thus, we develop three KPs from the three typical LPs correspondingly. Following the idea in KP, we also naturally develop an out-of-sample extension to directly capture a kernel matrix for outside-training data without the need of relearning. The final experiments verify that our developments are more efficient, more error-tolerant and also comparably effective in comparison with the state-of-the-art algorithm.     

A Semi-supervised Learning Algorithm on Gaussian Mixture with Automatic Model Selection

In Gaussian mixture modeling, it is crucial to select the number of Gaussians for a sample set, which becomes much more difficult when the overlap in the mixture is larger. Under regularization theory, we aim to solve this problem using a semi-supervised learning algorithm through incorporating pairwise constraints into entropy regularized likelihood (ERL) learning which can make automatic model selection for Gaussian mixture. The simulation experiments further demonstrate that the presented semi-supervised learning algorithm (i.e., the constrained ERL learning algorithm) can automatically detect the number of Gaussians with a good parameter estimation, even when two or more actual Gaussians in the mixture are overlapped at a high degree. Moreover, the constrained ERL learning algorithm leads to some promising results when applied to iris data classification and image database categorization.     

Column subset selection for active learning in image classification

Image classification is an important task in computer vision and machine learning. However, it is known that manually labeling images is time-consuming and expensive, but the unlabeled images are easily available. Active learning is a mechanism which tries to determine which unlabeled data points would be the most informative (i.e., improve the classifier the most) if they are labeled and used as training samples. In this paper, we introduce the idea of column subset selection, which aims to select the most representation columns from a data matrix, into active learning and propose a novel active learning algorithm, column subset selection for active learning (CSS_active). CSS_active selects the most representative images to label, then the other images are reconstructed by these labeled images. The goal of CSS_active is to minimize the reconstruction error. Besides, most of the previous active learning approaches are based on linear model, and hence they only consider linear functions. Therefore, they fail to discover the intrinsic geometry in images when the image space is highly nonlinear. Therefore, we provide a kernel-based column subset selection for active learning (KCSS_active) algorithm which performs the active learning in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS) instead of the original image space to address this problem. Experimental results on Yale, AT&T and COIL20 data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approaches.     

Abstracting soft constraints: Framework, properties, examples

Soft constraints are very flexible and expressive. However, they are also very complex to handle. For this reason, it may be reasonable in several cases to pass to an abstract version of a given soft constraint problem, and then to bring some useful information from the abstract problem to the concrete one. This will hopefully make the search for a solution, or for an optimal solution, of the concrete problem, faster.In this paper we propose an abstraction scheme for soft constraint problems and we study its main properties. We show that processing the abstracted version of a soft constraint problem can help us in finding good approximations of the optimal solutions, or also in obtaining information that can make the subsequent search for the best solution easier.We also show how the abstraction scheme can be used to devise new hybrid algorithms for solving soft constraint problems, and also to import constraint propagation algorithms from the abstract scenario to the concrete one. This may be useful when we don't have any (or any efficient) propagation algorithm in the concrete setting.     

Constraint scores for semi-supervised feature selection: A comparative study

Recent feature selection scores using pairwise constraints (must-link and cannot-link) have shown better performances than the unsupervised methods and comparable to the supervised ones. However, these scores use only the pairwise constraints and ignore the available information brought by the unlabeled data. Moreover, these constraint scores strongly depend on the given must-link and cannot-link subsets built by the user. In this paper, we address these problems and propose a new semi-supervised constraint score that uses both pairwise constraints and local properties of the unlabeled data. Experiments using Kendall’s coefficient and accuracy rates, show that this new score is less sensitive to the given constraints than the previous scores while providing similar performances.     

多专家AHP的算法改进及其在供应商选择模型中的应用

本文以集成供应链管理(ISCM)软件开发项目为背景,重点研究多专家层次分析法在供应商选择模型中的应用问题。首先提出一种改进的多专家层次分析法,其软件实现更为安全稳健;进而建立供应商选择软件的UML功能模型,给出该方法在供应商选择中的具体应用;最后通过一个应用实例来验证软件运行的有效性。     

Image segmentation based on multi-scan constraint satisfaction neural network

A novel image segmentation method based on a constraint satisfaction neural network (CSNN) is presented. The new method uses CSNN-based relaxation but with a modified scanning scheme of the image. The pixels are visited with more distant intervals and wider neighborhoods in the first level of the algorithm. The intervals between pixels and their neighborhoods are reduced in the following stages of the algorithm. This method contributes to the formation of more regular segments rapidly and consistently. A cluster validity index to determine the number of segments is also added to complete the proposed method into a fully automatic unsupervised segmentation scheme. The results are compared quantitatively by means of a novel segmentation evaluation criterion. The results are promising.     

The Complexity of Reasoning with Global Constraints

Constraint propagation is one of the techniques central to the success of constraint programming. To reduce search, fast algorithms associated with each constraint prune the domains of variables. With global (or non-binary) constraints, the cost of such propagation may be much greater than the quadratic cost for binary constraints. We therefore study the computational complexity of reasoning with global constraints. We first characterise a number of important questions related to constraint propagation. We show that such questions are intractable in general, and identify dependencies between the tractability and intractability of the different questions. We then demonstrate how the tools of computational complexity can be used in the design and analysis of specific global constraints. In particular, we illustrate how computational complexity can be used to determine when a lesser level of local consistency should be enforced, when constraints can be safely generalized, when decomposing constraints will reduce the amount of pruning, and when combining constraints is tractable.     

An Analysis of Arithmetic Constraints on Integer Intervals

Arithmetic constraints on integer intervals are supported in many constraint programming systems. We study here a number of approaches to implement constraint propagation for these constraints. To describe them we introduce integer interval arithmetic. Each approach is explained using appropriate proof rules that reduce the variable domains. We compare these approaches using a set of benchmarks. For the most promising approach we provide results that characterize the effect of constraint propagation. The work of the second author was supported by NWO, The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, under project number 612.069.003.     

基于网络结构极值优化的半监督社团检测方法

网络中的社团结构检测问题已被广泛研究,但当网络中的噪音不断增加时,已有的社团结构检测方法的性能下降较快.为解决此问题,文中将成对约束形式的先验信息结合现有的社团结构检测方法,通过先验信息引导极值优化社团发现过程,提出基于网络结构极值优化的半监督社团划分方法.实验表明,相对已有方法,文中方法能提高社团划分准确度,且在噪音网络中也显示出较好性能.     

一种自动识别最优阈值的图像分割方法

阈值分割是图像分割的常用方法,但至今没有一种对多数图像都适用的阈值选择的通用方法。本文基于图像的灰度级特征,以前景和背景最大程度地分开为判据,提出了一种简捷的自动识别最优阈值的图像分割方法。该方法对更多图像都可以给出最佳的闽值,达到较好的图像分割效果。     

一种基于边缘轮廓信息的多源遥感图象子象素匹配定位方法

提出了一种基于图象边缘轮廓信息的多源图象匹配定位方法,其目的是利用定位精度较高的高分辩率遥感图象对低分辨率图象实现子象素级的匹配定位,该方法有效地利用了多源遥感图象中共有的区域结构信息,将特征匹配和最小二乘影象匹配相结合,具有较好的普适性,且运算快速、抗噪性能好,采用该方法进行ＮＯＡＡＡＶＨＲＲ图象和Ｌａｎｄｓａｔ ＴＭ图象、１：１００万数字地图的边缘图象匹配,并应用于ＮＯＡＡ ＡＶＨＲＲ图象的几     

遥感影像多尺度分割中最优尺度的选取及评价

多尺度分割是面向对象图像分析技术的前提和关键,多尺度分割的质量直接影响着面向对象分类的精度,但尺度选择仍然是多尺度分割中的一个难题。针对此问题,根据遥感影像的最优分割尺度与影像上目标复杂度密切相关的事实,提出了一种自上而下基于分割对象复杂度选取最优尺度的方法。该方法在分割过程中,提取每一对象的影像特征构建其复杂度函数,通过设置阈值,经迭代计算来确定每一对象的最优分割尺度,进而得到具有全局最优尺度的分割结果,并将其应用于ZY-3多光谱数据和GF-2融合影像,得到分割和分类结果。并将其与单一最优尺度和非监督评价法的分割及分类结果进行比较,结果表明：该方法能够获取与地面目标相匹配的分割尺度,改善了分割效果,提高了分类精度,具有一定实用价值。     

Constraint-based functional design verification for conceptual design

In the early stages of mechanical product design, designers not only need to determine the physical structure of the design, but also need to verify that the design functions properly with the allowable values or ranges of values of the relevant design attributes. Existing work on design verification is either aimed at specific design problems, which are generally carried out at the downstream design stages, or aimed at deriving design behavior using a behavioral simulation approach. Functional design verification has largely been neglected by the research society. To tackle this problem, we propose a generic constraint-based approach that is based on a comprehensive functional design model. A number of strategies are proposed for the approach, including strategies for design variables reduction, variable dependency graph development, constraint propagation, and dynamic verification of a design over an assigned set of attributes (variables). The approach is implemented as part of a functional modeling design environment. A simple design verification case is presented to illustrate our approach.     

Enhanced locality preserving projections using robust path based similarity

Curse of dimensionality is a bothering problem in high dimensional data analysis. To enhance the performances of classification or clustering on these data, their dimensionalities should be reduced beforehand. Locality Preserving Projections (LPP) is a widely used linear dimensionality reduction method. It seeks a subspace in which the neighborhood graph structure of samples is preserved. However, like most dimensionality reduction methods based on graph embedding, LPP is sensitive to noise and outliers, and its effectiveness depends on choosing suitable parameters for constructing the neighborhood graph. Unfortunately, it is difficult to choose effective parameters for LPP. To address these problems, we propose an Enhanced LPP (ELPP) using a similarity metric based on robust path and a Semi-supervised ELPP (SELPP) with pairwise constraints. In comparison with original LPP, our methods are not only robust to noise and outliers, but also less sensitive to parameters selection. Besides, SELPP makes use of pairwise constraints more efficiently than other comparing methods. Experimental results on real world face databases confirm their effectiveness.