Publications | Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

165 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2012

Towards Multi-DOF model mediated teleoperation: Using vision to augment feedback

Willaert, B., Bohg, J., Van Brussel, H., Niemeyer, G.

In IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments and Games (HAVE), pages: 25-31, October 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this paper, we address some of the challenges that arise as model-mediated teleoperation is applied to systems with multiple degrees of freedom and multiple sensors. Specifically we use a system with position, force, and vision sensors to explore an environment geometry in two degrees of freedom. The inclusion of vision is proposed to alleviate the difficulties of estimating an increasing number of environment properties. Vision can furthermore increase the predictive nature of model-mediated teleoperation, by effectively predicting touch feedback before the slave is even in contact with the environment. We focus on the case of estimating the location and orientation of a local surface patch at the contact point between the slave and the environment. We describe the various information sources with their respective limitations and create a combined model estimator as part of a multi-d.o.f. model-mediated controller. An experiment demonstrates the feasibility and benefits of utilizing vision sensors in teleoperation.

DOI [BibTex]

2012

am Willaert, B., Bohg, J., Van Brussel, H., Niemeyer, G. Towards Multi-DOF model mediated teleoperation: Using vision to augment feedback In IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments and Games (HAVE), pages: 25-31, October 2012 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

Failure Recovery with Shared Autonomy

Sankaran, B., Pitzer, B., Osentoski, S.

In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, October 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Building robots capable of long term autonomy has been a long standing goal of robotics research. Such systems must be capable of performing certain tasks with a high degree of robustness and repeatability. In the context of personal robotics, these tasks could range anywhere from retrieving items from a refrigerator, loading a dishwasher, to setting up a dinner table. Given the complexity of tasks there are a multitude of failure scenarios that the robot can encounter, irrespective of whether the environment is static or dynamic. For a robot to be successful in such situations, it would need to know how to recover from failures or when to ask a human for help. This paper, presents a novel shared autonomy behavioral executive to addresses these issues. We demonstrate how this executive combines generalized logic based recovery and human intervention to achieve continuous failure free operation. We tested the systems over 250 trials of two different use case experiments. Our current algorithm drastically reduced human intervention from 26% to 4% on the first experiment and 46% to 9% on the second experiment. This system provides a new dimension to robot autonomy, where robots can exhibit long term failure free operation with minimal human supervision. We also discuss how the system can be generalized.

link (url) [BibTex]

am Sankaran, B., Pitzer, B., Osentoski, S. Failure Recovery with Shared Autonomy In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, October 2012 (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

Lie Bodies: A Manifold Representation of 3D Human Shape

Freifeld, O., Black, M. J.

In European Conf. on Computer Vision (ECCV), pages: 1-14, Part I, LNCS 7572, (Editors: A. Fitzgibbon et al. (Eds.)), Springer-Verlag, October 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Three-dimensional object shape is commonly represented in terms of deformations of a triangular mesh from an exemplar shape. Existing models, however, are based on a Euclidean representation of shape deformations. In contrast, we argue that shape has a manifold structure: For example, summing the shape deformations for two people does not necessarily yield a deformation corresponding to a valid human shape, nor does the Euclidean difference of these two deformations provide a meaningful measure of shape dissimilarity. Consequently, we define a novel manifold for shape representation, with emphasis on body shapes, using a new Lie group of deformations. This has several advantages. First we define triangle deformations exactly, removing non-physical deformations and redundant degrees of freedom common to previous methods. Second, the Riemannian structure of Lie Bodies enables a more meaningful definition of body shape similarity by measuring distance between bodies on the manifold of body shape deformations. Third, the group structure allows the valid composition of deformations. This is important for models that factor body shape deformations into multiple causes or represent shape as a linear combination of basis shapes. Finally, body shape variation is modeled using statistics on manifolds. Instead of modeling Euclidean shape variation with Principal Component Analysis we capture shape variation on the manifold using Principal Geodesic Analysis. Our experiments show consistent visual and quantitative advantages of Lie Bodies over traditional Euclidean models of shape deformation and our representation can be easily incorporated into existing methods.

pdf supplemental material youtube poster eigenshape video code Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ps Freifeld, O., Black, M. J. Lie Bodies: A Manifold Representation of 3D Human Shape In European Conf. on Computer Vision (ECCV), pages: 1-14, Part I, LNCS 7572, (Editors: A. Fitzgibbon et al. (Eds.)), Springer-Verlag, October 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf supplemental material youtube poster eigenshape video code Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Coregistration: Simultaneous alignment and modeling of articulated 3D shape

Hirshberg, D., Loper, M., Rachlin, E., Black, M.

In European Conf. on Computer Vision (ECCV), pages: 242-255, LNCS 7577, Part IV, (Editors: A. Fitzgibbon et al. (Eds.)), Springer-Verlag, October 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) shape models are powerful because they enable the inference of object shape from incomplete, noisy, or ambiguous 2D or 3D data. For example, realistic parameterized 3D human body models have been used to infer the shape and pose of people from images. To train such models, a corpus of 3D body scans is typically brought into registration by aligning a common 3D human-shaped template to each scan. This is an ill-posed problem that typically involves solving an optimization problem with regularization terms that penalize implausible deformations of the template. When aligning a corpus, however, we can do better than generic regularization. If we have a model of how the template can deform then alignments can be regularized by this model. Constructing a model of deformations, however, requires having a corpus that is already registered. We address this chicken-and-egg problem by approaching modeling and registration together. By minimizing a single objective function, we reliably obtain high quality registration of noisy, incomplete, laser scans, while simultaneously learning a highly realistic articulated body model. The model greatly improves robustness to noise and missing data. Since the model explains a corpus of body scans, it captures how body shape varies across people and poses.

pdf publisher site poster supplemental material (400MB) Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ps Hirshberg, D., Loper, M., Rachlin, E., Black, M. Coregistration: Simultaneous alignment and modeling of articulated 3D shape In European Conf. on Computer Vision (ECCV), pages: 242-255, LNCS 7577, Part IV, (Editors: A. Fitzgibbon et al. (Eds.)), Springer-Verlag, October 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf publisher site poster supplemental material (400MB) Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Lessons and insights from creating a synthetic optical flow benchmark

Wulff, J., Butler, D. J., Stanley, G. B., Black, M. J.

In ECCV Workshop on Unsolved Problems in Optical Flow and Stereo Estimation, pages: 168-177, Part II, LNCS 7584, (Editors: A. Fusiello et al. (Eds.)), Springer-Verlag, October 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf dataset poster youtube Project Page [BibTex]

ps Wulff, J., Butler, D. J., Stanley, G. B., Black, M. J. Lessons and insights from creating a synthetic optical flow benchmark In ECCV Workshop on Unsolved Problems in Optical Flow and Stereo Estimation, pages: 168-177, Part II, LNCS 7584, (Editors: A. Fusiello et al. (Eds.)), Springer-Verlag, October 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf dataset poster youtube Project Page [BibTex]

3D2PM – 3D Deformable Part Models

Pepik, B., Gehler, P., Stark, M., Schiele, B.

In Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), pages: 356-370, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, (Editors: Fitzgibbon, Andrew W. and Lazebnik, Svetlana and Perona, Pietro and Sato, Yoichi and Schmid, Cordelia), Springer, Firenze, October 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf video poster Project Page [BibTex]

ps Pepik, B., Gehler, P., Stark, M., Schiele, B. 3D2PM – 3D Deformable Part Models In Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), pages: 356-370, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, (Editors: Fitzgibbon, Andrew W. and Lazebnik, Svetlana and Perona, Pietro and Sato, Yoichi and Schmid, Cordelia), Springer, Firenze, October 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf video poster Project Page [BibTex]

A naturalistic open source movie for optical flow evaluation

Butler, D. J., Wulff, J., Stanley, G. B., Black, M. J.

In European Conf. on Computer Vision (ECCV), pages: 611-625, Part IV, LNCS 7577, (Editors: A. Fitzgibbon et al. (Eds.)), Springer-Verlag, October 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Ground truth optical flow is difficult to measure in real scenes with natural motion. As a result, optical flow data sets are restricted in terms of size, complexity, and diversity, making optical flow algorithms difficult to train and test on realistic data. We introduce a new optical flow data set derived from the open source 3D animated short film Sintel. This data set has important features not present in the popular Middlebury flow evaluation: long sequences, large motions, specular reflections, motion blur, defocus blur, and atmospheric effects. Because the graphics data that generated the movie is open source, we are able to render scenes under conditions of varying complexity to evaluate where existing flow algorithms fail. We evaluate several recent optical flow algorithms and find that current highly-ranked methods on the Middlebury evaluation have difficulty with this more complex data set suggesting further research on optical flow estimation is needed. To validate the use of synthetic data, we compare the image- and flow-statistics of Sintel to those of real films and videos and show that they are similar. The data set, metrics, and evaluation website are publicly available.

pdf dataset youtube talk supplemental material Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ps Butler, D. J., Wulff, J., Stanley, G. B., Black, M. J. A naturalistic open source movie for optical flow evaluation In European Conf. on Computer Vision (ECCV), pages: 611-625, Part IV, LNCS 7577, (Editors: A. Fitzgibbon et al. (Eds.)), Springer-Verlag, October 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf dataset youtube talk supplemental material Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Task-Based Grasp Adaptation on a Humanoid Robot

Bohg, J., Welke, K., León, B., Do, M., Song, D., Wohlkinger, W., Aldoma, A., Madry, M., Przybylski, M., Asfour, T., Marti, H., Kragic, D., Morales, A., Vincze, M.

In 10th IFAC Symposium on Robot Control, SyRoCo 2012, Dubrovnik, Croatia, September 5-7, 2012., pages: 779-786, September 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this paper, we present an approach towards autonomous grasping of objects according to their category and a given task. Recent advances in the field of object segmentation and categorization as well as task-based grasp inference have been leveraged by integrating them into one pipeline. This allows us to transfer task-specific grasp experience between objects of the same category. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated on the humanoid robot ARMAR-IIIa.

Video pdf DOI [BibTex]

am Bohg, J., Welke, K., León, B., Do, M., Song, D., Wohlkinger, W., Aldoma, A., Madry, M., Przybylski, M., Asfour, T., Marti, H., Kragic, D., Morales, A., Vincze, M. Task-Based Grasp Adaptation on a Humanoid Robot In 10th IFAC Symposium on Robot Control, SyRoCo 2012, Dubrovnik, Croatia, September 5-7, 2012., pages: 779-786, September 2012 (inproceedings)

Video pdf DOI [BibTex]

A framework for relating neural activity to freely moving behavior

Foster, J. D., Nuyujukian, P., Freifeld, O., Ryu, S., Black, M. J., Shenoy, K. V.

In 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC’12), pages: 2736 -2739 , IEEE, San Diego, August 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

ps Foster, J. D., Nuyujukian, P., Freifeld, O., Ryu, S., Black, M. J., Shenoy, K. V. A framework for relating neural activity to freely moving behavior In 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC’12), pages: 2736 -2739 , IEEE, San Diego, August 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

Pottics – The Potts Topic Model for Semantic Image Segmentation

Dann, C., Gehler, P., Roth, S., Nowozin, S.

In Proceedings of 34th DAGM Symposium, pages: 397-407, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, (Editors: Pinz, Axel and Pock, Thomas and Bischof, Horst and Leberl, Franz), Springer, August 2012 (inproceedings)

code pdf poster [BibTex]

ps Dann, C., Gehler, P., Roth, S., Nowozin, S. Pottics – The Potts Topic Model for Semantic Image Segmentation In Proceedings of 34th DAGM Symposium, pages: 397-407, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, (Editors: Pinz, Axel and Pock, Thomas and Bischof, Horst and Leberl, Franz), Springer, August 2012 (inproceedings)

code pdf poster [BibTex]

Influence Maximization in Continuous Time Diffusion Networks

Gomez Rodriguez, M., Schölkopf, B.

In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 313-320, (Editors: J, Langford and J, Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, July 2012 (inproceedings)

Web [BibTex]

ei Gomez Rodriguez, M., Schölkopf, B. Influence Maximization in Continuous Time Diffusion Networks In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 313-320, (Editors: J, Langford and J, Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, July 2012 (inproceedings)

Web [BibTex]

Submodular Inference of Diffusion Networks from Multiple Trees

Gomez Rodriguez, M., Schölkopf, B.

In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning , pages: 489-496, (Editors: J Langford, and J Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, July 2012 (inproceedings)

Web [BibTex]

ei Gomez Rodriguez, M., Schölkopf, B. Submodular Inference of Diffusion Networks from Multiple Trees In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning , pages: 489-496, (Editors: J Langford, and J Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, July 2012 (inproceedings)

Web [BibTex]

Quasi-Newton Methods: A New Direction

Hennig, P., Kiefel, M.

In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 25-32, ICML ’12, (Editors: John Langford and Joelle Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, July 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Four decades after their invention, quasi- Newton methods are still state of the art in unconstrained numerical optimization. Although not usually interpreted thus, these are learning algorithms that fit a local quadratic approximation to the objective function. We show that many, including the most popular, quasi-Newton methods can be interpreted as approximations of Bayesian linear regression under varying prior assumptions. This new notion elucidates some shortcomings of classical algorithms, and lights the way to a novel nonparametric quasi-Newton method, which is able to make more efficient use of available information at computational cost similar to its predecessors.

ei ps pn

website+code pdf link (url) [BibTex]

ei ps pn Hennig, P., Kiefel, M. Quasi-Newton Methods: A New Direction In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 25-32, ICML ’12, (Editors: John Langford and Joelle Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, July 2012 (inproceedings)

website+code pdf link (url) [BibTex]

Image denoising: Can plain Neural Networks compete with BM3D?

Burger, H., Schuler, C., Harmeling, S.

In pages: 2392 - 2399, 25th IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), June 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Image denoising can be described as the problem of mapping from a noisy image to a noise-free image. The best currently available denoising methods approximate this mapping with cleverly engineered algorithms. In this work we attempt to learn this mapping directly with a plain multi layer perceptron (MLP) applied to image patches. While this has been done before, we will show that by training on large image databases we are able to compete with the current state-of-the-art image denoising methods. Furthermore, our approach is easily adapted to less extensively studied types of noise (by merely exchanging the training data), for which we achieve excellent results as well.

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Burger, H., Schuler, C., Harmeling, S. Image denoising: Can plain Neural Networks compete with BM3D? In pages: 2392 - 2399, 25th IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), June 2012 (inproceedings)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

Climate classifications: the value of unsupervised clustering

Zscheischler, J., Mahecha, M., Harmeling, S.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Science , 9, pages: 897-906, Procedia Computer Science, (Editors: H. Ali, Y. Shi, D. Khazanchi, M. Lees, G.D. van Albada, J. Dongarra, P.M.A. Sloot, J. Dongarra), Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, ICCS, June 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Classifying the land surface according to dierent climate zones is often a prerequisite for global diagnostic or predictive modelling studies. Classical classifications such as the prominent K¨oppen–Geiger (KG) approach rely on heuristic decision rules. Although these heuristics may transport some process understanding, such a discretization may appear “arbitrary” from a data oriented perspective. In this contribution we compare the precision of a KG classification to an unsupervised classification (k-means clustering). Generally speaking, we revisit the problem of “climate classification” by investigating the inherent patterns in multiple data streams in a purely data driven way. One question is whether we can reproduce the KG boundaries by exploring dierent combinations of climate and remotely sensed vegetation variables. In this context we also investigate whether climate and vegetation variables build similar clusters. In terms of statistical performances, k-means clearly outperforms classical climate classifications. However, a subsequent stability analysis only reveals a meaningful number of clusters if both climate and vegetation data are considered in the analysis. This is a setback for the hope to explain vegetation by means of climate alone. Clearly, classification schemes like K¨oppen-Geiger will play an important role in the future. However, future developments in this area need to be assessed based on data driven approaches.

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Zscheischler, J., Mahecha, M., Harmeling, S. Climate classifications: the value of unsupervised clustering In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Science , 9, pages: 897-906, Procedia Computer Science, (Editors: H. Ali, Y. Shi, D. Khazanchi, M. Lees, G.D. van Albada, J. Dongarra, P.M.A. Sloot, J. Dongarra), Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, ICCS, June 2012 (inproceedings)

Web DOI [BibTex]

From pictorial structures to deformable structures

Zuffi, S., Freifeld, O., Black, M. J.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pages: 3546-3553, IEEE, June 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Pictorial Structures (PS) define a probabilistic model of 2D articulated objects in images. Typical PS models assume an object can be represented by a set of rigid parts connected with pairwise constraints that define the prior probability of part configurations. These models are widely used to represent non-rigid articulated objects such as humans and animals despite the fact that such objects have parts that deform non-rigidly. Here we define a new Deformable Structures (DS) model that is a natural extension of previous PS models and that captures the non-rigid shape deformation of the parts. Each part in a DS model is represented by a low-dimensional shape deformation space and pairwise potentials between parts capture how the shape varies with pose and the shape of neighboring parts. A key advantage of such a model is that it more accurately models object boundaries. This enables image likelihood models that are more discriminative than previous PS likelihoods. This likelihood is learned using training imagery annotated using a DS “puppet.” We focus on a human DS model learned from 2D projections of a realistic 3D human body model and use it to infer human poses in images using a form of non-parametric belief propagation.

pdf sup mat code poster Project Page Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ps Zuffi, S., Freifeld, O., Black, M. J. From pictorial structures to deformable structures In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pages: 3546-3553, IEEE, June 2012 (inproceedings)

pdf sup mat code poster Project Page Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Teaching 3D Geometry to Deformable Part Models

Pepik, B., Stark, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B.

In IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pages: 3362 -3369, IEEE, Providence, RI, USA, June 2012, oral presentation (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

ps Pepik, B., Stark, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B. Teaching 3D Geometry to Deformable Part Models In IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pages: 3362 -3369, IEEE, Providence, RI, USA, June 2012, oral presentation (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Learning Tracking Control with Forward Models

Bócsi, B., Hennig, P., Csató, L., Peters, J.

In pages: 259 -264, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Performing task-space tracking control on redundant robot manipulators is a difficult problem. When the physical model of the robot is too complex or not available, standard methods fail and machine learning algorithms can have advantages. We propose an adaptive learning algorithm for tracking control of underactuated or non-rigid robots where the physical model of the robot is unavailable. The control method is based on the fact that forward models are relatively straightforward to learn and local inversions can be obtained via local optimization. We use sparse online Gaussian process inference to obtain a flexible probabilistic forward model and second order optimization to find the inverse mapping. Physical experiments indicate that this approach can outperform state-of-the-art tracking control algorithms in this context.

ei pn

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei pn Bócsi, B., Hennig, P., Csató, L., Peters, J. Learning Tracking Control with Forward Models In pages: 259 -264, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2012 (inproceedings)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

A Kernel-based Approach to Direct Action Perception

Kroemer, O., Ugur, E., Oztop, E., Peters, J.

In International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2012), pages: 2605-2610, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

The direct perception of actions allows a robot to predict the afforded actions of observed novel objects. In addition to learning which actions are afforded, the robot must also learn to adapt its actions according to the object being manipulated. In this paper, we present a non-parametric approach to representing the affordance-bearing subparts of objects. This representation forms the basis of a kernel function for computing the similarity between different subparts. Using this kernel function, the robot can learn the required mappings to perform direct action perception. The proposed approach was successfully implemented on a real robot, which could then quickly learn to generalize grasping and pouring actions to novel objects.

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Kroemer, O., Ugur, E., Oztop, E., Peters, J. A Kernel-based Approach to Direct Action Perception In International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2012), pages: 2605-2610, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2012 (inproceedings)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

Accelerating Nearest Neighbor Search on Manycore Systems

Cayton, L.

In Parallel Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), 2012 IEEE 26th International, pages: 402-413, IPDPS, May 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We develop methods for accelerating metric similarity search that are effective on modern hardware. Our algorithms factor into easily parallelizable components, making them simple to deploy and efficient on multicore CPUs and GPUs. Despite the simple structure of our algorithms, their search performance is provably sublinear in the size of the database, with a factor dependent only on its intrinsic dimensionality. We demonstrate that our methods provide substantial speedups on a range of datasets and hardware platforms. In particular, we present results on a 48-core server machine, on graphics hardware, and on a multicore desktop.

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Cayton, L. Accelerating Nearest Neighbor Search on Manycore Systems In Parallel Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), 2012 IEEE 26th International, pages: 402-413, IPDPS, May 2012 (inproceedings)

Web DOI [BibTex]

PAC-Bayes-Bernstein Inequality for Martingales and its Application to Multiarmed Bandits

Seldin, Y., Cesa-Bianchi, N., Auer, P., Laviolette, F., Shawe-Taylor, J.

In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings 26, pages: 98-111, JMLR, Cambridge, MA, USA, On-line Trading of Exploration and Exploitation 2, April 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We develop a new tool for data-dependent analysis of the exploration-exploitation trade-off in learning under limited feedback. Our tool is based on two main ingredients. The first ingredient is a new concentration inequality that makes it possible to control the concentration of weighted averages of multiple (possibly uncountably many) simultaneously evolving and interdependent martingales. The second ingredient is an application of this inequality to the exploration-exploitation trade-off via importance weighted sampling. We apply the new tool to the stochastic multiarmed bandit problem, however, the main importance of this paper is the development and understanding of the new tool rather than improvement of existing algorithms for stochastic multiarmed bandits. In the follow-up work we demonstrate that the new tool can improve over state-of-the-art in structurally richer problems, such as stochastic multiarmed bandits with side information (Seldin et al., 2011a).

PDF PDF [BibTex]

ei Seldin, Y., Cesa-Bianchi, N., Auer, P., Laviolette, F., Shawe-Taylor, J. PAC-Bayes-Bernstein Inequality for Martingales and its Application to Multiarmed Bandits In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings 26, pages: 98-111, JMLR, Cambridge, MA, USA, On-line Trading of Exploration and Exploitation 2, April 2012 (inproceedings)

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Hierarchical Relative Entropy Policy Search

Daniel, C., Neumann, G., Peters, J.

In Fifteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, 22, pages: 273-281, JMLR Proceedings, (Editors: Lawrence, N. D. and Girolami, M.), JMLR.org, AISTATS, April 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Many real-world problems are inherently hierarchically structured. The use of this structure in an agent's policy may well be the key to improved scalability and higher performance. However, such hierarchical structures cannot be exploited by current policy search algorithms. We will concentrate on a basic, but highly relevant hierarchy - the `mixed option' policy. Here, a gating network first decides which of the options to execute and, subsequently, the option-policy determines the action. In this paper, we reformulate learning a hierarchical policy as a latent variable estimation problem and subsequently extend the Relative Entropy Policy Search (REPS) to the latent variable case. We show that our Hierarchical REPS can learn versatile solutions while also showing an increased performance in terms of learning speed and quality of the found policy in comparison to the nonhierarchical approach.

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Daniel, C., Neumann, G., Peters, J. Hierarchical Relative Entropy Policy Search In Fifteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, 22, pages: 273-281, JMLR Proceedings, (Editors: Lawrence, N. D. and Girolami, M.), JMLR.org, AISTATS, April 2012 (inproceedings)

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Movement Segmentation and Recognition for Imitation Learning

Meier, F., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S.

In Seventeenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, La Palma, Canary Islands, Fifteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics , April 2012 (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

am Meier, F., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S. Movement Segmentation and Recognition for Imitation Learning In Seventeenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, La Palma, Canary Islands, Fifteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics , April 2012 (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

Personalized medicine: from genotypes and molecular phenotypes towards computed therapy

Stegle, O., Roth, FP., Morris, Q., Listgarten, J.

In pages: 323-326, (Editors: Altman, R.B. , A.K. Dunker, L. Hunter, T. Murray, T.E. Klein), World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB), January 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Joint genotyping and large-scale phenotyping of molecular traits are currently available for a number of important patient study cohorts and will soon become feasible in routine medical practice. These data are one component of several that are setting the stage for the development of personalized medicine, promising to yield better disease classification, enabling more specific treatment, and also allowing for improved preventive medical screening. This conference session explores statistical challenges and new opportunities that arise from application of genome-scale experimentation for personalized genomics and medicine.

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Stegle, O., Roth, FP., Morris, Q., Listgarten, J. Personalized medicine: from genotypes and molecular phenotypes towards computed therapy In pages: 323-326, (Editors: Altman, R.B. , A.K. Dunker, L. Hunter, T. Murray, T.E. Klein), World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB), January 2012 (inproceedings)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Approximate Gaussian Integration using Expectation Propagation

Cunningham, J., Hennig, P., Lacoste-Julien, S.

In pages: 1-11, -, January 2012 (inproceedings) Submitted

Abstract

While Gaussian probability densities are omnipresent in applied mathematics, Gaussian cumulative probabilities are hard to calculate in any but the univariate case. We offer here an empirical study of the utility of Expectation Propagation (EP) as an approximate integration method for this problem. For rectangular integration regions, the approximation is highly accurate. We also extend the derivations to the more general case of polyhedral integration regions. However, we find that in this polyhedral case, EP's answer, though often accurate, can be almost arbitrarily wrong. These unexpected results elucidate an interesting and non-obvious feature of EP not yet studied in detail, both for the problem of Gaussian probabilities and for EP more generally.

ei pn

Web [BibTex]

ei pn Cunningham, J., Hennig, P., Lacoste-Julien, S. Approximate Gaussian Integration using Expectation Propagation In pages: 1-11, -, January 2012 (inproceedings) Submitted

Web [BibTex]

Kernel Topic Models

Hennig, P., Stern, D., Herbrich, R., Graepel, T.

In Fifteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, 22, pages: 511-519, JMLR Proceedings, (Editors: Lawrence, N. D. and Girolami, M.), JMLR.org, AISTATS , 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Latent Dirichlet Allocation models discrete data as a mixture of discrete distributions, using Dirichlet beliefs over the mixture weights. We study a variation of this concept, in which the documents' mixture weight beliefs are replaced with squashed Gaussian distributions. This allows documents to be associated with elements of a Hilbert space, admitting kernel topic models (KTM), modelling temporal, spatial, hierarchical, social and other structure between documents. The main challenge is efficient approximate inference on the latent Gaussian. We present an approximate algorithm cast around a Laplace approximation in a transformed basis. The KTM can also be interpreted as a type of Gaussian process latent variable model, or as a topic model conditional on document features, uncovering links between earlier work in these areas.

ei pn

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ei pn Hennig, P., Stern, D., Herbrich, R., Graepel, T. Kernel Topic Models In Fifteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, 22, pages: 511-519, JMLR Proceedings, (Editors: Lawrence, N. D. and Girolami, M.), JMLR.org, AISTATS , 2012 (inproceedings)

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Structured Apprenticeship Learning

Boularias, A., Kroemer, O., Peters, J.

In European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML-PKDD), 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Boularias, A., Kroemer, O., Peters, J. Structured Apprenticeship Learning In European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML-PKDD), 2012 (inproceedings)

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Blind Correction of Optical Aberrations

Schuler, C., Hirsch, M., Harmeling, S., Schölkopf, B.

In Computer Vision - ECCV 2012, LNCS Vol. 7574, pages: 187-200, (Editors: A Fitzgibbon, S Lazebnik, P Perona, Y Sato, and C Schmid), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 12th IEEE European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV, 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Camera lenses are a critical component of optical imaging systems, and lens imperfections compromise image quality. While traditionally, sophisticated lens design and quality control aim at limiting optical aberrations, recent works [1,2,3] promote the correction of optical flaws by computational means. These approaches rely on elaborate measurement procedures to characterize an optical system, and perform image correction by non-blind deconvolution. In this paper, we present a method that utilizes physically plausible assumptions to estimate non-stationary lens aberrations blindly, and thus can correct images without knowledge of specifics of camera and lens. The blur estimation features a novel preconditioning step that enables fast deconvolution. We obtain results that are competitive with state-of-the-art non-blind approaches.

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Schuler, C., Hirsch, M., Harmeling, S., Schölkopf, B. Blind Correction of Optical Aberrations In Computer Vision - ECCV 2012, LNCS Vol. 7574, pages: 187-200, (Editors: A Fitzgibbon, S Lazebnik, P Perona, Y Sato, and C Schmid), Springer, Berlin, Germany, 12th IEEE European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV, 2012 (inproceedings)

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Interactive Domain Adaptation Technique for the Classification of Remote Sensing Images

Persello, C., Dinuzzo, F.

In IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium , pages: 6872-6875, IEEE, IGARSS, 2012 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

ei Persello, C., Dinuzzo, F. Interactive Domain Adaptation Technique for the Classification of Remote Sensing Images In IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium , pages: 6872-6875, IEEE, IGARSS, 2012 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

Point Cloud Completion Using Symmetries and Extrusions

Kroemer, O., Ben Amor, H., Ewerton, M., Peters, J.

In IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots , pages: 680-685, IEEE, HUMANOIDS, 2012 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

ei Kroemer, O., Ben Amor, H., Ewerton, M., Peters, J. Point Cloud Completion Using Symmetries and Extrusions In IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots , pages: 680-685, IEEE, HUMANOIDS, 2012 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

The representer theorem for Hilbert spaces: a necessary and sufficient condition

Dinuzzo, F., Schölkopf, B.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 189-196, (Editors: P Bartlett, FCN Pereira, CJC. Burges, L Bottou, and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Dinuzzo, F., Schölkopf, B. The representer theorem for Hilbert spaces: a necessary and sufficient condition In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 189-196, (Editors: P Bartlett, FCN Pereira, CJC. Burges, L Bottou, and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

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Same, same, but different: EEG correlates of n-back and span working memory tasks

Scharinger, C., Cienak, G., Walter, C., Zander, TO., Gerjets, P.

In Proceedings of the 48th Congress of the German Society for Psychology, 2012 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

ei Scharinger, C., Cienak, G., Walter, C., Zander, TO., Gerjets, P. Same, same, but different: EEG correlates of n-back and span working memory tasks In Proceedings of the 48th Congress of the German Society for Psychology, 2012 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Probabilistic Modeling of Human Movements for Intention Inference

Wang, Z., Deisenroth, M., Ben Amor, H., Vogt, D., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J.

In Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems VIII, pages: 8, R:SS, 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Inference of human intention may be an essential step towards understanding human actions [21] and is hence important for realizing efficient human-robot interaction. In this paper, we propose the Intention-Driven Dynamics Model (IDDM), a latent variable model for inferring unknown human intentions. We train the model based on observed human behaviors/actions and we introduce an approximate inference algorithm to efficiently infer the human’s intention from an ongoing action. We verify the feasibility of the IDDM in two scenarios, i.e., target inference in robot table tennis and action recognition for interactive humanoid robots. In both tasks, the IDDM achieves substantial improvements over state-of-the-art regression and classification.

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ei Wang, Z., Deisenroth, M., Ben Amor, H., Vogt, D., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J. Probabilistic Modeling of Human Movements for Intention Inference In Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems VIII, pages: 8, R:SS, 2012 (inproceedings)

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Solving Nonlinear Continuous State-Action-Observation POMDPs for Mechanical Systems with Gaussian Noise

Deisenroth, M., Peters, J.

In The 10th European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning (EWRL), 2012 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

ei Deisenroth, M., Peters, J. Solving Nonlinear Continuous State-Action-Observation POMDPs for Mechanical Systems with Gaussian Noise In The 10th European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning (EWRL), 2012 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

On Causal and Anticausal Learning

Schölkopf, B., Janzing, D., Peters, J., Sgouritsa, E., Zhang, K., Mooij, J.

In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 1255-1262, (Editors: J Langford and J Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Schölkopf, B., Janzing, D., Peters, J., Sgouritsa, E., Zhang, K., Mooij, J. On Causal and Anticausal Learning In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 1255-1262, (Editors: J Langford and J Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, 2012 (inproceedings)

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Learning from distributions via support measure machines

Muandet, K., Fukumizu, K., Dinuzzo, F., Schölkopf, B.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 10-18, (Editors: P Bartlett, FCN Pereira, CJC. Burges, L Bottou, and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Muandet, K., Fukumizu, K., Dinuzzo, F., Schölkopf, B. Learning from distributions via support measure machines In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 10-18, (Editors: P Bartlett, FCN Pereira, CJC. Burges, L Bottou, and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

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Scalable nonconvex inexact proximal splitting

Sra, S.

In Advances of Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 539-547, (Editors: P Bartlett and FCN Pereira and CJC. Burges and L Bottou and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Sra, S. Scalable nonconvex inexact proximal splitting In Advances of Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 539-547, (Editors: P Bartlett and FCN Pereira and CJC. Burges and L Bottou and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

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A min-cut solution to mapping phenotypes to networks of genetic markers

Azencott, C., Grimm, D., Kawahara, Y., Borgwardt, K.

In 17th Annual International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB), 2012 (inproceedings) Submitted

[BibTex]

ei Azencott, C., Grimm, D., Kawahara, Y., Borgwardt, K. A min-cut solution to mapping phenotypes to networks of genetic markers In 17th Annual International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB), 2012 (inproceedings) Submitted

[BibTex]

Efficiently mapping phenotypes to networks of genetic loci

Azencott, C., Grimm, D., Kawahara, Y., Borgwardt, K.

In NIPS Workshop on Machine Learning in Computational Biology (MLCB), 2012 (inproceedings) Submitted

[BibTex]

ei Azencott, C., Grimm, D., Kawahara, Y., Borgwardt, K. Efficiently mapping phenotypes to networks of genetic loci In NIPS Workshop on Machine Learning in Computational Biology (MLCB), 2012 (inproceedings) Submitted

[BibTex]

Modelling transition dynamics in MDPs with RKHS embeddings

Grünewälder, S., Lever, G., Baldassarre, L., Pontil, M., Gretton, A.

In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 535-542, (Editors: J Langford and J Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Grünewälder, S., Lever, G., Baldassarre, L., Pontil, M., Gretton, A. Modelling transition dynamics in MDPs with RKHS embeddings In Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 535-542, (Editors: J Langford and J Pineau), Omnipress, New York, NY, USA, ICML, 2012 (inproceedings)

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Clustering: Science or Art?

von Luxburg, U., Williamson, R., Guyon, I.

In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings, Volume 27, pages: 65-79, Workshop on Unsupervised Learning and Transfer Learning, 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We examine whether the quality of dierent clustering algorithms can be compared by a general, scientically sound procedure which is independent of particular clustering algorithms. We argue that the major obstacle is the diculty in evaluating a clustering algorithm without taking into account the context: why does the user cluster his data in the rst place, and what does he want to do with the clustering afterwards? We argue that clustering should not be treated as an application-independent mathematical problem, but should always be studied in the context of its end-use. Dierent techniques to evaluate clustering algorithms have to be developed for dierent uses of clustering. To simplify this procedure we argue that it will be useful to build a \taxonomy of clustering problems" to identify clustering applications which can be treated in a unied way and that such an eort will be more fruitful than attempting the impossible | developing \optimal" domain-independent clustering algorithms or even classifying clustering algorithms in terms of how they work.

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ei von Luxburg, U., Williamson, R., Guyon, I. Clustering: Science or Art? In JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings, Volume 27, pages: 65-79, Workshop on Unsupervised Learning and Transfer Learning, 2012 (inproceedings)

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A Brain-Robot Interface for Studying Motor Learning after Stroke

Meyer, T., Peters, J., Brötz, D., Zander, T., Schölkopf, B., Soekadar, S., Grosse-Wentrup, M.

In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages: 4078 - 4083 , IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IROS, 2012 (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

ei Meyer, T., Peters, J., Brötz, D., Zander, T., Schölkopf, B., Soekadar, S., Grosse-Wentrup, M. A Brain-Robot Interface for Studying Motor Learning after Stroke In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages: 4078 - 4083 , IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IROS, 2012 (inproceedings)

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Generalization of Human Grasping for Multi-Fingered Robot Hands

Ben Amor, H., Kroemer, O., Hillenbrand, U., Neumann, G., Peters, J.

In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems , pages: 2043-2050, IROS, 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Ben Amor, H., Kroemer, O., Hillenbrand, U., Neumann, G., Peters, J. Generalization of Human Grasping for Multi-Fingered Robot Hands In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems , pages: 2043-2050, IROS, 2012 (inproceedings)

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Learning Concurrent Motor Skills in Versatile Solution Spaces

Daniel, C., Neumann, G., Peters, J.

In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems , pages: 3591-3597, IROS, 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Daniel, C., Neumann, G., Peters, J. Learning Concurrent Motor Skills in Versatile Solution Spaces In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems , pages: 3591-3597, IROS, 2012 (inproceedings)

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Learning to Select and Generalize Striking Movements in Robot Table Tennis

Mülling, K., Kober, J., Kroemer, O., Peters, J.

In AAAI Fall Symposium on Robots Learning Interactively from Human Teachers, 2012 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

ei Mülling, K., Kober, J., Kroemer, O., Peters, J. Learning to Select and Generalize Striking Movements in Robot Table Tennis In AAAI Fall Symposium on Robots Learning Interactively from Human Teachers, 2012 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Computational vascular morphometry for the assessment of pulmonary vascular disease based on scale-space particles

Estépar, R., Ross, J., Krissian, K., Schultz, T., Washko, G., Kindlmann, G.

In pages: 1479-1482, IEEE, 9th International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) , 2012 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

ei Estépar, R., Ross, J., Krissian, K., Schultz, T., Washko, G., Kindlmann, G. Computational vascular morphometry for the assessment of pulmonary vascular disease based on scale-space particles In pages: 1479-1482, IEEE, 9th International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) , 2012 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

Hilbert space embedding for Dirichlet Process mixtures

Muandet, K.

In NIPS Workshop on confluence between kernel methods and graphical models, 2012 (inproceedings)

arXiv [BibTex]

ei Muandet, K. Hilbert space embedding for Dirichlet Process mixtures In NIPS Workshop on confluence between kernel methods and graphical models, 2012 (inproceedings)

arXiv [BibTex]

Causal discovery with scale-mixture model for spatiotemporal variance dependencies

Chen, Z., Zhang, K., Chan, L.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 1736-1744, (Editors: P Bartlett and FCN Pereira and CJC. Burges and L Bottou and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Chen, Z., Zhang, K., Chan, L. Causal discovery with scale-mixture model for spatiotemporal variance dependencies In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 1736-1744, (Editors: P Bartlett and FCN Pereira and CJC. Burges and L Bottou and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

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Bridging Offline and Online Social Graph Dynamics

Gomez Rodriguez, M., Rogati, M.

In 21st ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, pages: 2447-2450, (Editors: Chen, X., Lebanon, G., Wang, H. and Zaki, M. J.), ACM, CIKM, 2012 (inproceedings)

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ei Gomez Rodriguez, M., Rogati, M. Bridging Offline and Online Social Graph Dynamics In 21st ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, pages: 2447-2450, (Editors: Chen, X., Lebanon, G., Wang, H. and Zaki, M. J.), ACM, CIKM, 2012 (inproceedings)

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A new metric on the manifold of kernel matrices with application to matrix geometric means

Sra, S.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 144-152, (Editors: P Bartlett and FCN Pereira and CJC. Burges and L Bottou and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

ei Sra, S. A new metric on the manifold of kernel matrices with application to matrix geometric means In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 144-152, (Editors: P Bartlett and FCN Pereira and CJC. Burges and L Bottou and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

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