Gaussian Processes (GPs) are promising Bayesian methods for classification and regression problems. They have also been used for semi-supervised learning tasks. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for solving semi-supervised binary classification problem using sparse GP regression (GPR) models. It is closely related to semi-supervised learning based on support vector regression (SVR) and maximum margin clustering. The proposed algorithm is simple and easy to implement. It gives a sparse solution directly unlike the SVR based algorithm. Also, the hyperparameters are estimated easily without resorting to expensive cross-validation technique. Use of sparse GPR model helps in making the proposed algorithm scalable. Preliminary results on synthetic and real-world data sets demonstrate the efficacy of the new algorithm.

Gaussian Processes (GPs) are promising Bayesian methods for classification and regression problems. They have also been used for semi-supervised learning tasks. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for solving semi-supervised binary classification problem using sparse GP regression (GPR) models. It is closely related to semi-supervised learning based on support vector regression (SVR) and maximum margin clustering. The proposed algorithm is simple and easy to implement. It gives a sparse solution directly unlike the SVR based algorithm. Also, the hyperparameters are estimated easily without resorting to expensive cross-validation technique. Use of sparse GPR model helps in making the proposed algorithm scalable. Preliminary results on synthetic and real-world data sets demonstrate the efficacy of the new algorithm.

Despite the success of Gaussian processes (GPs) in modelling spatial stochastic processes, dealing with large datasets is still challenging. The problem arises by the need to invert a potentially large covariance matrix during inference. In this paper we address the complexity problem by constructing a new stationary covariance function (Mercer kernel) that naturally provides a sparse covariance matrix. The sparseness of the matrix is defined by hyper-parameters optimised during learning. The new covariance function enables exact GP inference and performs comparatively to the squared-exponential one, at a lower computational cost. This allows the application of GPs to large-scale problems such as ore grade prediction in mining or 3D surface modelling. Experiments show that using the proposed covariance function, very sparse covariance matrices are normally obtained which can be effectively used for faster inference and less memory usage.

Automatic recognition of human activities is among the key capabilities of many intelligent systems with vision/perception. Most existing approaches to this problem require sophisticated feature extraction before classification can be performed. This paper presents a novel approach for human action recognition using only simple low-level visual features: motion captured from direct frame differencing. A codebook of key poses is first created from the training data through unsupervised clustering. Videos of actions are then coded as sequences of super-frames, defined as the key poses augmented with discriminative attributes. A weighted-sequence distance is proposed for comparing two super-frame sequences, which is further wrapped as a kernel embedded in a SVM classifier for the final classification. Compared with conventional methods, our approach provides a flexible non-parametric sequential structure with a corresponding distance measure for human action representation and classification without requiring complex feature extraction. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated with the widely-used KTH human activity dataset, for which the proposed method outperforms the existing state-of-the-art.

Robots operating in home environments must be able to interact with articulated objects such as doors or drawers.  Ideally, robots are able to autonomously infer articulation models by observation.  In this paper, we present an approach to learn kinematic models by inferring the connectivity of rigid parts and the articulation models for the corresponding links.  Our method uses a mixture of parameterized and parameter-free (Gaussian process) representations and finds low-dimensional manifolds that provide the best explanation of the given observations.  Our approach has been implemented and evaluated using real data obtained in various realistic home environment settings.

Road network information simplifies autonomous driving by providing strong priors about environments. It informs a robotic vehicle with where it can drive, models of what can be expected, and contextual cues that influence driving behaviors. Currently, however, road network information is manually generated using a combination of GPS survey and aerial imagery. These manual techniques are labor intensive and error prone. To full exploit the benefits of digital imagery, these processes should be automated. As a step toward this goal, we present an algorithm that extracts the structure of parking lot visible from a given aerial image. To minimize human intervention in the use of aerial imagery, we devise a self-supervised learning algorithm that automatically generates a set of parking spot templates to learn the appearance of a parking lot and estimates the structure of the parking lot from the learned model. The data set extracted from a single image alone is too small to sufficiently learn an accurate parking spot model. However, strong priors trained using large data sets collected across multiple images dramatically improvce performance. Our self-supervised approach outperforms the prior alone by adapting the distribution of examples toward that found in the current image. A thorough empirical analysis compares leading state-of-the-art learning techniques on this problem.

Detecting abnormal activities from sensor readings is an important research problem in activity recognition. A number of different algorithms have been proposed in the past to tackle this problem. Many of the previous state-based approaches suffer from the problem of failing to decide the appropriate number of states, which are difficult to find through a trial and-error approach, in real-world applications. In this paper, we propose an accurate and flexible framework for abnormal activity recognition from sensor readings that involves less human tuning of model parameters. Our approach first applies a Hierarchical Dirichlet Process Hidden Markov Model (HDP-HMM), which supports an infinite number of states, to automatically find an appropriate number of states. We incorporate a Fisher Kernel into the One-Class Support Vector Machine (OCSVM) model to filter out the activities that are likely to be normal. Finally, we derive an abnormal activity model from the normal activity models to reduce false positive rate in an unsupervised manner. Our main contribution is that our proposed HDP-HMM models can decide the appropriate number of states automatically, and that by incorporating a Fisher Kernel into the OCSVM model, we can combine the advantages from generative model and discriminative model. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by using several real-world datasets to test our algorithm’s performance.

This paper deals with evolutionary clustering, which refers to the problem of clustering data with distribution drifting along time. Starting from a density estimation view to clustering problems, we propose two general on-line frameworks. In the first framework, i.e., historical data dependent (HDD), current model distribution is designed to approximate both current and historical data distributions. In the second framework, i.e., historical model dependent (HMD), current model distribution is designed to approximate both current data distribution and historical model distribution. Both frameworks are based on the general exponential family mixture (EFM) model. As a result, all conventional clustering algorithms based on EFMs can be extended to evolutionary setting under the two frameworks. Empirical results validate the two frameworks.

We propose a novel approach to context sensitive semantic smoothing by making use of an intermediate, "semantically light" representation for sentences, called Semantically Relatable Sequences (SRS). SRSs of a sentence are tuples of words appearing in the semantic graph of the sentence as linked nodes depicting dependency relations. In contrast to patterns based on consecutive words, SRSs make use of groupings of non-consecutive but semantically related words. Our experiments on TREC AP89 collection show that the mixture model of SRS translation model and Two Stage Language Model (TSLM) of Lafferty and Zhai achieves MAP scores better than the mixture model of MultiWord Expression (MWE) translation model and TSLM. Furthermore, a system, which for each test query selects either the SRS or the MWE mixture model based on better query MAP score, shows significant improvements over the individual mixture models.

We have developed a simulation model that accepts instructions in unconstrained natural language, and then guides a robot to the correct destination. The instructions are segmented on the basis of the actions to be taken, and each segment is labeled with the required action. This flat formulation reduces the problem to a sequential labeling task, to which machine learning methods are applied. We propose an innovativemachine learningmethod for explicitly modeling the actions described in instructions and integrating learning and inference about the physical environment. We obtained a corpus of 840 route instructions that experimenters verified as follow-able, given by people in building navigation situations. Using the four-fold cross validation, our experiments showed that the simulated robot reached the correct destination 88% of the time.