Training Effective Node Classifiers for Cascade Classification

Cascade classifiers are widely used in real-time object detection. Different from conventional classifiers that are designed for a low overall classification error rate, a classifier in each node of the cascade is required to achieve an extremely high detection rate and moderate false positive rate. Although there are a few reported methods addressing this requirement in the context of object detection, there is no principled feature selection method that explicitly takes into account this asymmetric node learning objective. We provide such an algorithm here. We show that a special case of the biased minimax probability machine has the same formulation as the linear asymmetric classifier (LAC) of Wu et al. (linear asymmetric classifier for cascade detectors, 2005). We then design a new boosting algorithm that directly optimizes the cost function of LAC. The resulting totally-corrective boosting algorithm is implemented by the column generation technique in convex optimization. Experimental results on object detection verify the effectiveness of the proposed boosting algorithm as a node classifier in cascade object detection, and show performance better than that of the current state-of-the-art.     

FloatBoost learning and statistical face detection

A novel learning procedure, called FloatBoost, is proposed for learning a boosted classifier for achieving the minimum error rate. FloatBoost learning uses a backtrack mechanism after each iteration of AdaBoost learning to minimize the error rate directly, rather than minimizing an exponential function of the margin as in the traditional AdaBoost algorithms. A second contribution of the paper is a novel statistical model for learning best weak classifiers using a stagewise approximation of the posterior probability. These novel techniques lead to a classifier which requires fewer weak classifiers than AdaBoost yet achieves lower error rates in both training and testing, as demonstrated by extensive experiments. Applied to face detection, the FloatBoost learning method, together with a proposed detector pyramid architecture, leads to the first real-time multiview face detection system reported.     

Convex ensemble learning with sparsity and diversity

Classifier ensemble has been broadly studied in two prevalent directions, i.e., to diversely generate classifier components, and to sparsely combine multiple classifiers. While most current approaches are emphasized on either sparsity or diversity only, we investigate classifier ensemble focused on both in this paper. We formulate the classifier ensemble problem with the sparsity and diversity learning in a general mathematical framework, which proves beneficial for grouping classifiers. In particular, derived from the error-ambiguity decomposition, we design a convex ensemble diversity measure. Consequently, accuracy loss, sparseness regularization, and diversity measure can be balanced and combined in a convex quadratic programming problem. We prove that the final convex optimization leads to a closed-form solution, making it very appealing for real ensemble learning problems. We compare our proposed novel method with other conventional ensemble methods such as Bagging, least squares combination, sparsity learning, and AdaBoost, extensively on a variety of UCI benchmark data sets and the Pascal Large Scale Learning Challenge 2008 webspam data. Experimental results confirm that our approach has very promising performance.     

基于肤色分割和AdaBoost算法的彩色图像的人脸检测

文章提出了肤色分割和AdaBoost算法结合的人脸检测算法。首先,对彩色图像进行肤色分割,通过人脸肤色的统计特征得到候选人脸区域：然后,基于AdaBoost算法,使用由强分类器组成的级联分类器对候选人脸区域进行扫描,最终得到精确定位的人脸。实验证明,该方法具有肤色检测快速和AdaBoost算法误检率低的优点,可以有效的运用于多姿态、多人脸和复杂背景的情况。     

基于AdaBoost和匹配追踪的选择性集成算法

为了平衡集成学习中差异性和准确性的关系并提高学习系统的泛化性能, 提出一种基于AdaBoost 和匹配追踪的选择性集成算法. 其基本思想是将匹配追踪理论融合于AdaBoost 的训练过程中, 利用匹配追踪贪婪迭代的思想来最小化目标函数与基分类器线性组合之间的冗余误差, 并根据冗余误差更新AdaBoost 已训练基分类器的权重, 进而根据权重大小选择集成分类器成员. 在公共数据集上的实验结果表明, 该算法能够获得较高的分类精度.     

快速多分类器集成算法研究

研究快速多分类器集成算法。对多分类器集成需选定一定数量的弱分类器,再为每个弱分类器分配一定权重。在选择弱分类器时,通过计算每个弱分类器在全部训练样本集上的分类错误率,对其进行排序,挑选出分类效果最好的若干弱分类器。在多分类器权重分配策略上,提出2种权重分配方法：Biased AdaBoost算法与基于差分演化的多分类器集成算法。在人脸数据库上的实验结果表明,与经典AdaBoost算法相比,该算法能有效降低训练时间,提高识别准确率。     

An analysis of diversity measures

Diversity among the base classifiers is deemed to be important when constructing a classifier ensemble. Numerous algorithms have been proposed to construct a good classifier ensemble by seeking both the accuracy of the base classifiers and the diversity among them. However, there is no generally accepted definition of diversity, and measuring the diversity explicitly is very difficult. Although researchers have designed several experimental studies to compare different diversity measures, usually confusing results were observed. In this paper, we present a theoretical analysis on six existing diversity measures (namely disagreement measure, double fault measure, KW variance, inter-rater agreement, generalized diversity and measure of difficulty), show underlying relationships between them, and relate them to the concept of margin, which is more explicitly related to the success of ensemble learning algorithms. We illustrate why confusing experimental results were observed and show that the discussed diversity measures are naturally ineffective. Our analysis provides a deeper understanding of the concept of diversity, and hence can help design better ensemble learning algorithms. Editor: Tom Fawcett     

Fast and Robust Face Detection Using Evolutionary Pruning

Face detection task can be considered as a classifier training problem. Finding the parameters of the classifier model by using training data is a complex process. To solve such a complex problem, evolutionary algorithms can be employed in cascade structure of classifiers. This paper proposes evolutionary pruning to reduce the number of weak classifiers in AdaBoost-based cascade detector, while maintaining the detection accuracy. The computation time is proportional to the number of weak classifiers and, therefore, a reduction in the number of weak classifiers results in an increased detection speed. Three kinds of cascade structures are compared by the number of weak classifiers. The efficiency in computation time of the proposed cascade structure is shown experimentally. It is also compared with the state-of-the-art face detectors, and the results show that the proposed method outperforms the previous studies. A multiview face detector is constructed by incorporating the three face detectors: frontal, left profile, and right profile.     

双阈值级联分类器的加速人脸检测算法

提出了一种基于双阈值的两级级联分类器的人脸检测加速方法。该方法首先应用Gabor滤波器提取经模板匹配保留的似人脸样本特征,经主成分分析（PCA）降维后的特征作为第一级BP神经网络输入进行检测,在输出端应用双阈值对人脸/非人脸进行粗检测,然后把介于双阈值之间的人脸/非人脸模块作为第二级AdaBoost算法设计的输入并再次进行精检测,从而在提高检测速度的同时达到提高检测率和降低误检率的目的。实验表明,应用双阈值进行级联分类加速检测后,该方法的检测精度要优于基于简单阈值的分类器。     

A variant of Rotation Forest for constructing ensemble classifiers

Rotation Forest, an effective ensemble classifier generation technique, works by using principal component analysis (PCA) to rotate the original feature axes so that different training sets for learning base classifiers can be formed. This paper presents a variant of Rotation Forest, which can be viewed as a combination of Bagging and Rotation Forest. Bagging is used here to inject more randomness into Rotation Forest in order to increase the diversity among the ensemble membership. The experiments conducted with 33 benchmark classification data sets available from the UCI repository, among which a classification tree is adopted as the base learning algorithm, demonstrate that the proposed method generally produces ensemble classifiers with lower error than Bagging, AdaBoost and Rotation Forest. The bias–variance analysis of error performance shows that the proposed method improves the prediction error of a single classifier by reducing much more variance term than the other considered ensemble procedures. Furthermore, the results computed on the data sets with artificial classification noise indicate that the new method is more robust to noise and kappa-error diagrams are employed to investigate the diversity–accuracy patterns of the ensemble classifiers.     

A self-constructing cascade classifier with AdaBoost and SVM for pedestriandetection

In this paper, we propose a cascade classifier combining AdaBoost and support vector machine, and applied this to pedestrian detection. The pedestrian detection involved using a window of fixed size to extract the candidate region from left to right and top to bottom of the image, and performing feature extractions on the candidate region. Finally, our proposed cascade classifier completed the classification of the candidate region. The cascade-AdaBoost classifier has been successfully used in pedestrian detection. We have improved the initial setting method for the weights of the training samples in the AdaBoost classifier, so that the selected weak classifier would be able to focus on a higher detection rate other than accuracy. The proposed cascade classifier can automatically select the AdaBoost classifier or SVM to construct a cascade classifier according to the training samples, so as to effectively improve classification performance and reduce training time. In order to verify our proposed method, we have used our extracted database of pedestrian training samples, PETs database, INRIA database and MIT database. This completed the pedestrian detection experiment whose result was compared to those of the cascade-AdaBoost classifier and support vector machine. The result of the experiment showed that in a simple environment involving campus experimental image and PETs database, both our cascade classifier and other classifiers can attain good results, while in a complicated environment involving INRA and MIT database experiments, our cascade classifier had better results than those of other classifiers.     

AdaBoost ensemble for financial distress prediction: An empirical comparison with data from Chinese listed companies

Due to the important role of financial distress prediction (FDP) for enterprises, it is crucial to improve the accuracy of FDP model. In recent years, classifier ensemble has shown promising advantage over single classifier, but the study on classifier ensemble methods for FDP is still not comprehensive enough and leaves to be further explored. This paper constructs AdaBoost ensemble respectively with single attribute test (SAT) and decision tree (DT) for FDP, and empirically compares them with single DT and support vector machine (SVM). After designing the framework of AdaBoost ensemble method for FDP, the article describes AdaBoost algorithm as well as SAT and DT algorithm in detail, which is followed by the combination mechanism of multiple classifiers. On the initial sample of 692 Chinese listed companies and 41 financial ratios, 30 times of holdout experiments are carried out for FDP respectively one year, two years, and three years in advance. In terms of experimental results, AdaBoost ensemble with SAT outperforms AdaBoost ensemble with DT, single DT classifier and single SVM classifier. As a conclusion, the choice of weak learner is crucial to the performance of AdaBoost ensemble, and AdaBoost ensemble with SAT is more suitable for FDP of Chinese listed companies.     

多标签代价敏感分类集成学习算法

尽管多标签分类问题可以转换成一般多分类问题解决,但多标签代价敏感分类问题却很难转换成多类代价敏感分类问题.通过对多分类代价敏感学习算法扩展为多标签代价敏感学习算法时遇到的一些问题进行分析,提出了一种多标签代价敏感分类集成学习算法.算法的平均错分代价为误检标签代价和漏检标签代价之和,算法的流程类似于自适应提升（Adaptive boosting,AdaBoost）算法,其可以自动学习多个弱分类器来组合成强分类器,强分类器的平均错分代价将随着弱分类器增加而逐渐降低.详细分析了多标签代价敏感分类集成学习算法和多类代价敏感AdaBoost算法的区别,包括输出标签的依据和错分代价的含义.不同于通常的多类代价敏感分类问题,多标签代价敏感分类问题的错分代价要受到一定的限制,详细分析并给出了具体的限制条件.简化该算法得到了一种多标签AdaBoost算法和一种多类代价敏感AdaBoost算法.理论分析和实验结果均表明提出的多标签代价敏感分类集成学习算法是有效的,该算法能实现平均错分代价的最小化.特别地,对于不同类错分代价相差较大的多分类问题,该算法的效果明显好于已有的多类代价敏感AdaBoost算法.     

一种基于线性SVM的级联分类器的构造方法

为了对目标进行快速的检测,提出了一种新的基于支持向量机的级联式分类器的构造方法。该级联分类器由若干个线性SVM弱分类器构成,结构简单,分类时间极快。针对级联结构中的每个节点的训练给出了一个新的SVM框架下的二次规划模型,这使得每个节点都有较高的正样本检测率和适当的负样本错检率。实际的实验结果表明,与经典非线性SVM分类器相比,这种分类器在保持SVM较强泛化性能的优点的同时,在检测效率方面更是具有明显的优势。     

基于模糊集理论的人脸检测

分析了模糊集理论运用于人脸检测的可行性,采用Haar矩形特征和隶属度函数对样本集进行训练,运用特征集的熵和AdaBoost算法选取适当的弱分类器,并构建了分发型人脸检测器。检测时,对于不像人脸的子窗口通过靠前的结构简单的强分类器快速将其淘汰掉;对于像人脸的子窗口,根据其与人脸的相似程度,由分发器动态地选择后面的强分类器进行判定。在MIT+CMU的正面人脸图片集中进行了测试,实验结果表明,此检测器在检测性能降低不大的情况下,可以有效地提高检测效率。     

人脸检测级联分类器快速训练算法

目前AdaBoost训练算法已被广泛地应用于人脸检测中级联分类器的构建,而AdaBoost算法训练级联分类器的周期却十分漫长.为了减少训练时间,文中提出了一种基于AdaBoost的改进训练算法.该算法通过对弱分类器的阈值选择进行一趟处理来降低运算时间复杂度,并根据AdaBoost训练迭代中只改变样本权值而不更新样本的特点对特征值和排序结果进行缓存来提高训练算法的性能.实验结果表明,该算法大幅提高了人脸检测分类器训练系统的性能,使得分类器的训练时间缩短了60多倍.由于AdaBoost算法的通用性,该改进算法不仅适用于人脸检测,也适合所有进行权值更新迭代训练的Boosting算法.     

人脸检测的继承式集成学习方法

基于"遗传+变异"模式,提出继承式集成学习方法框架,它可以训练出四种不同形式的层叠分类器。除了基于"无遗传"模式的基本层叠分类器与基于"全部遗传"模式的嵌入式层叠分类器两种传统方法之外,还有基于"部分遗传+部分变异"模式的特征继承层叠分类器与弱分类器继承层叠分类器。虽然后两种层叠分类器都有一定的继承代价,但是其拟合性更好,可以更好地均衡收敛速度和扩展性能,其综合性能优于传统方法。基于RAB、GAB算法与LUT弱分类器的正面直立人脸检测实验结果表明了新的继承式集成学习方法的有效性。     

Ensemble tracking

We consider tracking as a binary classification problem, where an ensemble of weak classifiers is trained online to distinguish between the object and the background. The ensemble of weak classifiers is combined into a strong classifier using AdaBoost. The strong classifier is then used to label pixels in the next frame as either belonging to the object or the background, giving a confidence map. The peak of the map and, hence, the new position of the object, is found using mean shift. Temporal coherence is maintained by updating the ensemble with new weak classifiers that are trained online during tracking. We show a realization of this method and demonstrate it on several video sequences     

基于相关性的AdaBoost人脸检测算法

为提高传统AdaBoost算法的集成性能,降低算法复杂度,提出2种基于分类器相关性的AdaBoost算法。在弱分类器的训练过程中,加入Q统计量进行判定。每个弱分类器的权重更新不仅与当前分类器有关,而且需要考虑到前面的若干分类器,以有效降低弱分类器间的相似性,剔除相似特征。仿真结果表明,该算法具有更好的检测率,同时可降低误检率,改进分类器的整体性能。     

一种基于AdaBoost的快速动态人脸检测算法

提出了一种结合人脸检测和跟踪的快速动态人脸检测算法。在层次型AdaBoost检测算法的基础上，结合提出的一种基于线性预测的人脸跟踪算法来缩小搜索空间，使得检测速度提高到24ms／帧。还设计了一种结合层次型AdaBoost算法、负样本反馈方式和利用权值缩减训练时间的检测器训练方法，可以方便地应用于物体检测技术上。