Smirnakis Lyman Laboratory of Physics Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 Lei Xu * Dept. of Computer Science HSH ENG BLDG, Room 1006 The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, NT Hong Kong Abstract Recent work by Becker and Hinton (Becker and Hinton, 1992) shows a promising mechanism, based on maximizing mutual information assumingspatial coherence, by which a system can selforganize itself to learn visual abilities such as binocular stereo. We introduce a more general criterion, based on Bayesian probability theory, and thereby demonstrate a connection to Bayesian theories ofvisual perception and to other organization principles for early vision (Atick and Redlich, 1990). Methods for implementation usingvariants of stochastic learning are described and, for the special case of linear filtering, we derive an analytic expression for the output. 1 Introduction The input intensity patterns received by the human visual system are typically complicated functions of the object surfaces and light sources in the world. It *Lei Xu was a research scholar in the Division of Applied Sciences at Harvard University while this work was performed. Thus the visual system must be able to extract information from the input intensities that is relatively independent of the actual intensity values.

We address the problem of optical flow reconstruction and in particular theproblem of resolving ambiguities near edges. They occur due to (i) the aperture problem and (ii) the occlusion problem, where pixels on both sides of an intensity edge are assigned the same velocity estimates (and confidence). However, these measurements are correct for just one side of the edge (the non occluded one). Our approach is to introduce an uncertamty field with respect to the estimates and confidence measures. We note that the confidence measuresare large at intensity edges and larger at the convex sides of the edges, i.e. inside corners, than at the concave side. We resolve the ambiguities through local interactions via coupled Markov random fields (MRF). The result is the detection of motion for regions of images with large global convexity.

Padhraic Smyth Jet Propulsion Laboratory 238-420 California Institute of Technology 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91109 Abstract This paper describes probabilistic methods for novelty detection when using pattern recognition methods for fault monitoring of dynamic systems. The problem of novelty detection is particularly acutewhen prior knowledge and training data only allow one to construct an incomplete classification model. Allowance must be made in model design so that the classifier will be robust to data generated by classes not included in the training phase. For diagnosis applications one practical approach is to construct both an input density model and a discriminative class model. Using Bayes' rule and prior estimates of the relative likelihood of data of known and unknown origin the resulting classification equations are straightforward.

In solving these tasks, one is faced with a large variety of learning algorithms and a vast selection of possible network architectures. After all the training, how does one know which is the best network? This decision is further complicated by the fact that standard techniques can be severely limited by problems such as over-fitting, data sparsity and local optima. The usual solution to these problems is a winner-take-all cross-validatory model selection. However, recent experimental and theoretical work indicates that we can improve performance by considering methods for combining neural networks.

Online cursive handwriting recognition is currently one of the most intriguing challenges in pattern recognition. This study presents a novel approach to this problem which is composed of two complementary phases.The first is dynamic encoding of the writing trajectory into a compact sequence of discrete motor control symbols. In this compact representation we largely remove the redundancy of the script, while preserving most of its intelligible components. In the second phase these control sequences are used to train adaptive probabilistic acyclic automata (PAA) for the important ingredients of the writing trajectories, e.g.

This paper presents a simple algorithm to learn trajectories with a continuous time, continuous activation version of the Boltzmann machine. The algorithm takes advantage of intrinsic Brownian noise in the network to easily compute gradients using entirely local computations. The algorithm may be ideal for parallel hardware implementations. This paper presents a learning algorithm to train continuous stochastic networks to respond with desired trajectories in the output units to environmental input trajectories. This is a task, with potential applications to a variety of problems such as stochastic modeling of neural processes, artificial motor control, and continuous speech recognition.

The conventional Bayesian justification of backprop is that it finds the MAP weight vector. As this paper shows, to find the MAP io function instead one must add a correction tenn to backprop. That tenn biases one towards io functions with small description lengths, and in particular favors (somekinds of) feature-selection, pruning, and weight-sharing.

Signal processing and classification algorithms often have limited applicability resulting from an inaccurate model of the signal's underlying structure.We present here an efficient, Bayesian algorithm for modeling a signal composed of the superposition of brief, Poisson-distributed functions. This methodology is applied to the specific problem of modeling and classifying extracellular neural waveforms which are composed of a superposition of an unknown number of action potentials CAPs). Previous approaches have had limited success due largely to the problems of determining the spike shapes, deciding how many are shapes distinct, and decomposing overlapping APs. A Bayesian solution to each of these problems is obtained by inferring a probabilistic model of the waveform. This approach quantifies the uncertainty of the form and number of the inferred AP shapes and is used to obtain an efficient method for decomposing complex overlaps. This algorithm can extract many times more information than previous methods and facilitates the extracellular investigation of neuronal classes and of interactions within neuronal circuits.

In this paper, we discuss the nature of the time dependence currently employed in our systems using recurrent networks (RNs) and feed-forward multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs). In particular, we introduce local recurrences into a MLP to produce an enhanced input representation. This is in the form of an adaptive gamma filter and incorporates an automatic approach for learning temporal dependencies. We have experimented on a speakerindependent phonerecognition task using the TIMIT database. Results using the gamma filtered input representation have shown improvement over the baseline MLP system. Improvements have also been obtained through merging the baseline and gamma filter models.

We apply HMMs to the problem of modeling exons, intronsand detecting splice sites in the human genome. Our most interesting result so far is the detection of particular oscillatory patterns,with a minimal period ofroughly 10 nucleotides, that seem to be characteristic of exon regions and may have significant biological implications.