Uncooperative gait recognition by learning to rank

Gait is a useful biometric because it can operate from a distance and without subject cooperation. However, it is affected by changes in covariate conditions (carrying, clothing, view angle, etc.). Existing methods suffer from lack of training samples, can only cope with changes in a subset of conditions with limited success, and implicitly assume subject cooperation. We propose a novel approach which casts gait recognition as a bipartite ranking problem and leverages training samples from different people and even from different datasets. By exploiting learning to rank, the problem of model over-fitting caused by under-sampled training data is effectively addressed. This makes our approach suitable under a genuine uncooperative setting and robust against changes in any covariate conditions. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach drastically outperforms existing methods, achieving up to 14-fold increase in recognition rate under the most difficult uncooperative settings.     

Comparing techniques for authorship attribution of source code

Attributing authorship of documents with unknown creators has been studied extensively for natural language text such as essays and literature, but less so for non‐natural languages such as computer source code. Previous attempts at attributing authorship of source code can be categorised by two attributes: the software features used for the classification, either strings of n tokens/bytes (n‐grams) or software metrics; and the classification technique that exploits those features, either information retrieval ranking or machine learning. The results of existing studies, however, are not directly comparable as all use different test beds and evaluation methodologies, making it difficult to assess which approach is superior. This paper summarises all previous techniques to source code authorship attribution, implements feature sets that are motivated by the literature, and applies information retrieval ranking methods or machine classifiers for each approach. Importantly, all approaches are tested on identical collections from varying programming languages and author types. Our conclusions are as follows: (i) ranking and machine classifier approaches are around 90% and 85% accurate, respectively, for a one‐in‐10 classification problem; (ii) the byte‐level n‐gram approach is best used with different parameters to those previously published; (iii) neural networks and support vector machines were found to be the most accurate machine classifiers of the eight evaluated; (iv) use of n‐gram features in combination with machine classifiers shows promise, but there are scalability problems that still must be overcome; and (v) approaches based on information retrieval techniques are currently more accurate than approaches based on machine learning. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Image clustering based on sparse patch alignment framework

Image clustering methods are efficient tools for applications such as content-based image retrieval and image annotation. Recently, graph based manifold learning methods have shown promising performance in extracting features for image clustering. Typical manifold learning methods adopt appropriate neighborhood size to construct the neighborhood graph, which captures local geometry of data distribution. Because the density of data points’ distribution may be different in different regions of the manifold, a fixed neighborhood size may be inappropriate in building the manifold. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm, named sparse patch alignment framework, for the embedding of data lying in multiple manifolds. Specifically, we assume that for each data point there exists a small neighborhood in which only the points that come from the same manifold lie approximately in a low-dimensional affine subspace. Based on the patch alignment framework, we propose an optimization strategy for constructing local patches, which adopt sparse representation to select a few neighbors of each data point that span a low-dimensional affine subspace passing near that point. After that, the whole alignment strategy is utilized to build the manifold. Experiments are conducted on four real-world datasets, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

融合异构特征的子空间迁移学习算法

特征迁移重在领域共有特征间学习,然而其忽略领域特有特征的判别信息,使算法的适应性受到一定的局限. 针对此问题,提出了一种融合异构特征的子空间迁移学习（The subspace transfer learning algorithm integrating with heterogeneous features,STL-IHF）算法.该算法将数据的特征空间看成共享和特有两个特征子空间的组合,同时基于经验风险最 小框架将共享特征和特有特征共同嵌入到支持向量机（Support vector machine,SVM）的训练过程中.其在共享特征子空间上实现知识迁移的 同时兼顾了领域特有的异构信息,增强了算法的适应性.模拟和真实数据集上的实验结果表明了所提方法的有效性.     

基于有限时间跟踪微分器的迭代学习控制

针对迭代学习控制（Iterative learning control,ILC）中的初始状态问题,提出了采用有限时间跟踪微分器安排过渡过程方法,根据迭代学习控制中期望轨迹已知的特点,设计了其参数有明显物理意义并且调节方便的有限时间跟踪微分器. 在此基础上,针对一类具有不确定性的非线性时变系统的迭代学习控制问题,提出了具有对不确定项进行估计的迭代学习控制算法,并应用类Lyapunov方法给出了相关定理证明. 仿真结果表明所提出的方法是有效的.     

正交拉普拉斯语种识别方法

提出了一种正交拉普拉斯语种识别方法,即在提取语音的i-vector后,采用正交局部保持投影进行子空间映射,将信号整体空间映射到语言信息加信道信息子空间,然后对映射后的矢量进行信道补偿处理,最后用支持向量机进行识别. 尽管i-vector最大限度地保留了语音的声学信息,但是并没有发现这些信息之间的内在结构. 利用正交局部保持投影在去除声学无关信息的基础上,进一步发现声学特征的内在结构,能够有效地提高特征的区分性. 在对NIST LRE 2003测试数据库实验后,发现新方法相较于基线系统来说,平均代价降低了28.91%.     

用于提高谷歌图像搜索结果的二分类器在线学习方法

对于基于关键词的图像检索,利用检索结果的视觉相似性学习二分类器有望成为改善检索结果的最有效途径之一. 为改善搜索引擎的搜索结果,本文提出一种算法框架并且基于此框架着重研究训练数据选择这一关键问题. 训练数据选择过程由两个阶段组成:1）训练数据初始化以开始分类器学习过程;2）分类器迭代学习过程中的动态数据选择. 对于初始训练数据的选择,我们探讨了基于聚类和基于排序两种方法,并且对比了自动训练数据选择与人工标注的结果. 对于动态数据选择,我们比较了支持向量机和基于最大最小后验伪概率的贝叶斯分类器的分类效果. 组合上述两个阶段的不同方法,我们得到了8种不同的算法,并将其用于谷歌搜索引擎进行基于关键词的图像检索. 实验结果证明,如何从含有噪声的搜索结果中选择训练数据是搜索结果改善的关键问题. 实验显示我们的方法能够有效的改善谷歌搜索的结果,尤其是排序在前的结果. 尽早为用户提供更相关的结果能够更大程度的减少用户逐个翻页查看结果的工作. 另外,如何使自动训练数据选择与人工标注媲美仍是需要继续研究的一个问题.     

单向通信拓扑领航者动态未知线性多智能体系统的协同迭代学习控制（英文）

This paper considers the cooperative tracking of linear multi-agent systems with a dynamic leader whose input information is unavailable to any followers. Cooperative iterative learning controllers, based on the relative state information of neighboring agents, are proposed for tracking the dynamic leader over directed communication topologies. Stability and convergence of the proposed controllers are established using Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals. Furthermore, this result is extended to the output feedback case where only the output information of each agent can be obtained. A local observer is constructed to estimate the unmeasurable states. Then, cooperative iterative learning controllers, based on the relative observed states of neighboring agents,are devised. For both cases, it is shown that the multi-agent systems whose communication topologies contain a spanning tree can reach synchronization with the dynamic leader, and meanwhile identify the unknown input of the dynamic leader using distributed iterative learning laws. An illustrative example is provided to verify the proposed control schemes.