In many applications involving multi-media data, the definition of similarity between items is integral to several key tasks, e.g., nearest-neighbor retrieval, classification, and recommendation. Data in such regimes typically exhibits multiple modalities, such as acoustic and visual content of video. Integrating such heterogeneous data to form a holistic similarity space is therefore a key challenge to be overcome in many real-world applications. We present a novel multiple kernel learning technique for integrating heterogeneous data into a single, unified similarity space. Our algorithm learns an optimal ensemble of kernel transfor- mations which conform to measurements of human perceptual similarity, as expressed by relative comparisons. To cope with the ubiquitous problems of subjectivity and inconsistency in multi- media similarity, we develop graph-based techniques to filter similarity measurements, resulting in a simplified and robust training procedure.

The Aviation Safety Reporting System collects voluntarily submitted reports on aviation safety incidents to facilitate research work aiming to reduce such incidents. To effectively reduce these incidents, it is vital to accurately identify why these incidents occurred. More precisely, given a set of possible causes, or shaping factors, this task of cause identification involves identifying all and only those shaping factors that are responsible for the incidents described in a report. We investigate two approaches to cause identification. Both approaches exploit information provided by a semantic lexicon, which is automatically constructed via Thelen and Riloff's Basilisk framework augmented with our linguistic and algorithmic modifications. The first approach labels a report using a simple heuristic, which looks for the words and phrases acquired during the semantic lexicon learning process in the report. The second approach recasts cause identification as a text classification problem, employing supervised and transductive text classification algorithms to learn models from incident reports labeled with shaping factors and using the models to label unseen reports. Our experiments show that both the heuristic-based approach and the learning-based approach (when given sufficient training data) outperform the baseline system significantly.

Spam is commonly known as unsolicited or unwanted email messages in the Internet causing potential threat to Internet Security. Users spend a valuable amount of time deleting spam emails. More importantly, ever increasing spam emails occupy server storage space and consume network bandwidth. Keyword-based spam email filtering strategies will eventually be less successful to model spammer behavior as the spammer constantly changes their tricks to circumvent these filters. The evasive tactics that the spammer uses are patterns and these patterns can be modeled to combat spam. This paper investigates the possibilities of modeling spammer behavioral patterns by well-known classification algorithms such as Na\"ive Bayesian classifier (Na\"ive Bayes), Decision Tree Induction (DTI) and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). Preliminary experimental results demonstrate a promising detection rate of around 92%, which is considerably an enhancement of performance compared to similar spammer behavior modeling research.

Addressing the problem of spam emails in the Internet, this paper presents a comparative study on Na\"ive Bayes and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) based modeling of spammer behavior. Keyword-based spam email filtering techniques fall short to model spammer behavior as the spammer constantly changes tactics to circumvent these filters. The evasive tactics that the spammer uses are themselves patterns that can be modeled to combat spam. It has been observed that both Na\"ive Bayes and ANN are best suitable for modeling spammer common patterns. Experimental results demonstrate that both of them achieve a promising detection rate of around 92%, which is considerably an improvement of performance compared to the keyword-based contemporary filtering approaches.

In the last few years, many different performance measures have been introduced to overcome the weakness of the most natural metric, the Accuracy. Among them, Matthews Correlation Coefficient has recently gained popularity among researchers not only in machine learning but also in several application fields such as bioinformatics. Nonetheless, further novel functions are being proposed in literature. We show that Confusion Entropy, a recently introduced classifier performance measure for multi-class problems, has a strong (monotone) relation with the multi-class generalization of a classical metric, the Matthews Correlation Coefficient. Computational evidence in support of the claim is provided, together with an outline of the theoretical explanation.

Although falls are undesirable in humanoid robots, they are also inevitable, especially as robots get deployed in physically interactive human environments. We consider the problem of fall prediction, i.e., to predict if a robot's balance controller can prevent a fall from the current state. A trigger from the fall predictor is used to switch the robot from a balance maintenance mode to a fall control mode. Hence, it is desirable for the fall predictor to signal imminent falls with sufficient lead time before the actual fall, while minimizing false alarms. Analytical techniques and intuitive rules fail to satisfy these competing objectives on a large robot that is subjected to strong disturbances and therefore exhibits complex dynamics. Today effective supervised learning tools are available for finding patterns in high-dimensional data. Our paper contributes a novel approach to engineer fall data such that a supervised learning method can be exploited to achieve reliable prediction. Specifically, we introduce parameters to control the tradeoff between the false positive rate and lead time. Several parameter combinations yield solutions that improve both the false positive rate and the lead time of hand-coded solutions. Learned predictors are decision lists with typical depths of 5-10, in a 16-dimensional feature space. Experiments are carried out in simulation on an Asimo-like robot.

Software defect prediction aims to reduce software testing efforts by guiding testers through the defect-prone sections of software systems. Defect predictors are widely used in organizations to predict defects in order to save time and effort as an alternative to other techniques such as manual code reviews. The application of a defect prediction model in a real-life setting is difficult because it requires software metrics and defect data from past projects to predict the defect-proneness of new projects. It is, on the other hand, very practical because it is easy to apply, can detect defects using less time and reduces the testing effort. We have built a learning-based defect prediction model for a telecommunication company during a period of one year. In this study, we have briefly explained our model, presented its pay-off and described how we have implemented the model in the company. Furthermore, we have compared the performance of our model with that of another testing strategy applied in a pilot project that implemented a new process called Team Software Process (TSP). Our results show that defect predictors can be used as supportive tools during a new process implementation, predict 75% of code defects, and decrease the testing time compared with 25% of the code defects detected through more labor-intensive strategies such as code reviews and formal checklists.

Labor monitoring is crucial in modern health care, as it can be used to detect (and help avoid) significant problems with the fetus. In this paper we focus on hypoxia (or oxygen deprivation), a very serious condition that can arise from different pathologies and can lead to life-long disability and death. We present a novel approach to hypoxia detection based on recordings of the uterine pressure and fetal heart rate, which are routinely monitored during labor. The key idea is to learn models of the fetal response to signals from its environment, using time series data recorded during labor. Then, we use the parameters of these models as attributes in a binary classification problem. A majority vote over several periods is taken to provide the current label for the fetus. We use a unique database of real clinical recordings, both from normal and pathological cases. Our approach classifies correctly more than half the pathological cases, 1.5 hours before delivery. These are cases that were missed by clinicians; early detection of this type would have allowed the physician to perform a Caesarean section, possibly avoiding the negative outcome

As the Internet-based crowdsourcing services become more and more popular, learning from multiple teachers or sources has received more attention of the researchers in the machine learning area. In this setting, the learning system is dealing with samples and labels provided by multiple teachers, who in common cases, are non-expert. Their labeling styles and behaviors are usually diverse, some of which are even detrimental to the learning system. Thus, simply putting them together and utilizing the algorithms designed for single-teacher scenario would be not only improper, but also damaging. The problem calls for more specific methods. Our work focuses on a case where the teachers are composed of good ones and irresponsible ones. By irresponsible, we mean the teacher who takes the labeling task not seriously and label the sample at random without inspecting the sample itself. This behavior is quite common when the task is not attractive enough and the teacher just wants to finish it as soon as possible. Sometimes, the irresponsible teachers could take a considerable part among all the teachers. If we do not take out their effects, our learning system would be ruined with no doubt. In this paper, we propose a method for picking out the good teachers with promising experimental results. It works even when the irresponsible teachers are dominating in numbers.

People tracking is a key technology for autonomous systems, intelligent cars and social robots operating in populated environments. What makes the task difficult is that the appearance of humans in range data can change drastically as a function of body pose, distance to the sensor, self-occlusion and occlusion by other objects. In this paper we propose a novel approach to pedestrian detection in 3D range data based on supervised learning techniques to create a bank of classifiers for different height levels of the human body. In particular, our approach applies AdaBoost to train a strong classifier from geometrical and statistical features of groups of neighboring points at the same height. In a second step, the AdaBoost classifiers mutually enforce their evidence across different heights by voting into a continuous space. Pedestrians are finally found efficiently by mean-shift search for local maxima in the voting space. Experimental results carried out with 3D laser range data illustrate the robustness and efficiency of our approach even in cluttered urban environments. The learned people detector reaches a classification rate up to 96% from a single 3D scan.