In traditional boosting algorithms, the focus on misclassified training samples emphasizes their importance based on difficulty during the learning process. While using a standard Support Vector Machine (SVM) as a weak learner in an AdaBoost framework can enhance model performance by concentrating on error samples, this approach introduces significant challenges. Specifically, SVMs, characterized by their stability and robustness, may require destabilization to fit the boosting paradigm, which in turn can constrain performance due to reliance on the weighted results from preceding iterations. To address these challenges, we propose the Support Vector Boosting Machine (SVBM), which integrates a novel subsampling process with SVM algorithms and residual connection techniques. This method updates sample weights by considering both the current model's predictions and the outputs from prior rounds, allowing for effective sparsity control. The SVBM framework enhances the ability to form complex decision boundaries, thereby improving classification performance. The MATLAB source code for SVBM can be accessed at https://github.com/junbolian/SVBM.

In this paper, we propose enhanced feature based granular ball twin support vector machine (EF-GBTSVM). EF-GBTSVM employs the coarse granularity of granular balls (GBs) as input rather than individual data samples. The GBs are mapped to the feature space of the hidden layer using random projection followed by the utilization of a non-linear activation function. The concatenation of original and hidden features derived from the centers of GBs gives rise to an enhanced feature space, commonly referred to as the random vector functional link (RVFL) space. This space encapsulates nuanced feature information to GBs. Further, we employ twin support vector machine (TSVM) in the RVFL space for classification. TSVM generates the two non-parallel hyperplanes in the enhanced feature space, which improves the generalization performance of the proposed EF-GBTSVM model. Moreover, the coarser granularity of the GBs enables the proposed EF-GBTSVM model to exhibit robustness to resampling, showcasing reduced susceptibility to the impact of noise and outliers. We undertake a thorough evaluation of the proposed EF-GBTSVM model on benchmark UCI and KEEL datasets. This evaluation encompasses scenarios with and without the inclusion of label noise. Moreover, experiments using NDC datasets further emphasize the proposed model's ability to handle large datasets. Experimental results, supported by thorough statistical analyses, demonstrate that the proposed EF-GBTSVM model significantly outperforms the baseline models in terms of generalization capabilities, scalability, and robustness. The source code for the proposed EF-GBTSVM model, along with additional results and further details, can be accessed at https://github.com/mtanveer1/EF-GBTSVM.

Summary The paper proposes an SVM-like classification method for estimating sets containing a pre-specified amount of samples for each class. The overlap of these two sets is a region with ambiguity and should thus be small. The key results are: problem formulation and reformulation using a convex surrogate loss function. Impression The problem formulation is very interesting and the combination of theoretical and experimental results is above standard. In addition, the paper is easy to follow. My main concerns are: - What is the conceptional difference between the proposed approach and classification with reject option as in [2].

The authors analyze the use of random Fourier Features (RFF) for training linear support vector machines in the RFF feature space. Their result bounds the expected risk difference of the hinge loss (i.e. the generalization error on unseen data) for a number of different scenarios. The analysis is based on a number of assumptions, on the noise distribution, on the RKHS containing the optimal classifier, and most crucially on access to the optimal feature weights by Bach 2017. The first main result is a fast rate for kernels whose spectrum decays polynomially when the Bayes classifier is in the feature space. The second result is a fast rate specifically for the Gaussian kernel when the Bayes classifier is not necessarily in the feature space, but the data is separable by some minimum distance.

On Efficient and Scalable Computation of the Nonparametric Maximum Likelihood Estimator in Mixture ModelsTwin support vector machine (TSVM) is an emerging machine learning model with versatile applicability in classification and regression endeavors. Nevertheless, TSVM confronts noteworthy challenges: $(i)$ the imperative demand for matrix inversions presents formidable obstacles to its efficiency and applicability on large-scale datasets; $(ii)$ the omission of the structural risk minimization (SRM) principle in its primal formulation heightens the vulnerability to overfitting risks; and $(iii)$ the TSVM exhibits a high susceptibility to noise and outliers, and also demonstrates instability when subjected to resampling. In view of the aforementioned challenges, we propose the granular ball twin support vector machine (GBTSVM). GBTSVM takes granular balls, rather than individual data points, as inputs to construct a classifier. These granular balls, characterized by their coarser granularity, exhibit robustness to resampling and reduced susceptibility to the impact of noise and outliers. We further propose a novel large-scale granular ball twin support vector machine (LS-GBTSVM). LS-GBTSVM's optimization formulation ensures two critical facets: $(i)$ it eliminates the need for matrix inversions, streamlining the LS-GBTSVM's computational efficiency, and $(ii)$ it incorporates the SRM principle through the incorporation of regularization terms, effectively addressing the issue of overfitting. The proposed LS-GBTSVM exemplifies efficiency, scalability for large datasets, and robustness against noise and outliers. We conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the GBTSVM and LS-GBTSVM models on benchmark datasets from UCI, KEEL, and NDC datasets. Our experimental findings and statistical analyses affirm the superior generalization prowess of the proposed GBTSVM and LS-GBTSVM models.

Disease detection in sugarcane, particularly the identification of asymptomatic infectious diseases such as Ratoon Stunting Disease (RSD), is critical for effective crop management. This study employed various machine learning techniques to detect the presence of RSD in different sugarcane varieties, using vegetation indices derived from freely available satellite-based spectral data. Our results show that the Support Vector Machine with a Radial Basis Function Kernel (SVM-RBF) was the most effective algorithm, achieving classification accuracy between 85.64% and 96.55%, depending on the variety. Gradient Boosting and Random Forest also demonstrated high performance achieving accuracy between 83.33% to 96.55%, while Logistic Regression and Quadratic Discriminant Analysis showed variable results across different varieties. The inclusion of sugarcane variety and vegetation indices was important in the detection of RSD. This agreed with what was identified in the current literature. Our study highlights the potential of satellite-based remote sensing as a cost-effective and efficient method for large-scale sugarcane disease detection alternative to traditional manual laboratory testing methods.

People's decision-making abilities often fail to improve or may even erode when they rely on AI for decision-support, even when the AI provides informative explanations. We argue this is partly because people intuitively seek contrastive explanations, which clarify the difference between the AI's decision and their own reasoning, while most AI systems offer "unilateral" explanations that justify the AI's decision but do not account for users' thinking. To align human-AI knowledge on decision tasks, we introduce a framework for generating human-centered contrastive explanations that explain the difference between AI's choice and a predicted, likely human choice about the same task. Results from a large-scale experiment (N = 628) demonstrate that contrastive explanations significantly enhance users' independent decision-making skills compared to unilateral explanations, without sacrificing decision accuracy. Amid rising deskilling concerns, our research demonstrates that incorporating human reasoning into AI design can foster human skill development.

This paper presents approaches to compute sparse solutions of Generalized Singular Value Problem (GSVP). The GSVP is regularized by $\ell_1$-norm and $\ell_q$-penalty for $0

Frank-Wolfe (FW) algorithms with linear convergence rates have recently achieved great efficiency in many applications. Garber and Meshi (2016) designed a new decomposition-invariant pairwise FW variant with favorable dependency on the domain geometry. Unfortunately it applies only to a restricted class of polytopes and cannot achieve theoretical and practical efficiency at the same time. In this paper, we show that by employing an away-step update, similar rates can be generalized to arbitrary polytopes with strong empirical performance. A new "condition number" of the domain is introduced which allows leveraging the sparsity of the solution. We applied the method to a reformulation of SVM, and the linear convergence rate depends, for the first time, on the number of support vectors.

The adoption of automated, data-driven decision making in an ever expanding range of applications has raised concerns about its potential unfairness towards certain social groups. In this context, a number of recent studies have focused on defining, detecting, and removing unfairness from data-driven decision systems. However, the existing notions of fairness, based on parity (equality) in treatment or outcomes for different social groups, tend to be quite stringent, limiting the overall decision making accuracy. In this paper, we draw inspiration from the fairdivision and envy-freeness literature in economics and game theory and propose preference-based notions of fairness--given the choice between various sets of decision treatments or outcomes, any group of users would collectively prefer its treatment or outcomes, regardless of the (dis)parity as compared to the other groups. Then, we introduce tractable proxies to design margin-based classifiers that satisfy these preference-based notions of fairness. Finally, we experiment with a variety of synthetic and real-world datasets and show that preference-based fairness allows for greater decision accuracy than parity-based fairness.