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46 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2018

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Poster Abstract: Toward Fast Closed-loop Control over Multi-hop Low-power Wireless Networks

Mager, F., Baumann, D., Trimpe, S., Zimmerling, M.

Proceedings of the 17th ACM/IEEE Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), pages: 158-159, Porto, Portugal, April 2018 (poster)

ics

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

2018

ics Mager, F., Baumann, D., Trimpe, S., Zimmerling, M. Poster Abstract: Toward Fast Closed-loop Control over Multi-hop Low-power Wireless Networks Proceedings of the 17th ACM/IEEE Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), pages: 158-159, Porto, Portugal, April 2018 (poster)

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Representation of sensory uncertainty in macaque visual cortex

Goris, R., Henaff, O., Meding, K.

Computational and Systems Neuroscience (COSYNE) 2018, March 2018 (poster)

ei

[BibTex]

ei Goris, R., Henaff, O., Meding, K. Representation of sensory uncertainty in macaque visual cortex Computational and Systems Neuroscience (COSYNE) 2018, March 2018 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Detailed Dense Inference with Convolutional Neural Networks via Discrete Wavelet Transform

Ma, L., Stueckler, J., Wu, T., Cremers, D.

arxiv, 2018, arXiv:1808.01834 (techreport)

ev

[BibTex]

ev Ma, L., Stueckler, J., Wu, T., Cremers, D. Detailed Dense Inference with Convolutional Neural Networks via Discrete Wavelet Transform arxiv, 2018, arXiv:1808.01834 (techreport)

[BibTex]

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Generalized phase locking analysis of electrophysiology data

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M.

7th AREADNE Conference on Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2018 (poster)

ei

link (url) Project Page [BibTex]

ei Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M. Generalized phase locking analysis of electrophysiology data 7th AREADNE Conference on Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2018 (poster)

link (url) Project Page [BibTex]

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Photorealistic Video Super Resolution

Pérez-Pellitero, E., Sajjadi, M. S. M., Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B.

Workshop and Challenge on Perceptual Image Restoration and Manipulation (PIRM) at the 15th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2018 (poster)

ei

[BibTex]

ei Pérez-Pellitero, E., Sajjadi, M. S. M., Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B. Photorealistic Video Super Resolution Workshop and Challenge on Perceptual Image Restoration and Manipulation (PIRM) at the 15th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2018 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Retinal image quality of the human eye across the visual field

Meding, K., Hirsch, M., Wichmann, F. A.

14th Biannual Conference of the German Society for Cognitive Science (KOGWIS 2018), 2018 (poster)

ei

[BibTex]

ei Meding, K., Hirsch, M., Wichmann, F. A. Retinal image quality of the human eye across the visual field 14th Biannual Conference of the German Society for Cognitive Science (KOGWIS 2018), 2018 (poster)

[BibTex]

2009

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Learning an Interactive Segmentation System

Nickisch, H., Kohli, P., Rother, C.

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, December 2009 (techreport)

Abstract
Many successful applications of computer vision to image or video manipulation are interactive by nature. However, parameters of such systems are often trained neglecting the user. Traditionally, interactive systems have been treated in the same manner as their fully automatic counterparts. Their performance is evaluated by computing the accuracy of their solutions under some fixed set of user interactions. This paper proposes a new evaluation and learning method which brings the user in the loop. It is based on the use of an active robot user - a simulated model of a human user. We show how this approach can be used to evaluate and learn parameters of state-of-the-art interactive segmentation systems. We also show how simulated user models can be integrated into the popular max-margin method for parameter learning and propose an algorithm to solve the resulting optimisation problem.

ei

Web [BibTex]

2009

ei Nickisch, H., Kohli, P., Rother, C. Learning an Interactive Segmentation System Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, December 2009 (techreport)

Web [BibTex]

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An Incremental GEM Framework for Multiframe Blind Deconvolution, Super-Resolution, and Saturation Correction

Harmeling, S., Sra, S., Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B.

(187), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, November 2009 (techreport)

Abstract
We develop an incremental generalized expectation maximization (GEM) framework to model the multiframe blind deconvolution problem. A simplistic version of this problem was recently studied by Harmeling etal~cite{harmeling09}. We solve a more realistic version of this problem which includes the following major features: (i) super-resolution ability emph{despite} noise and unknown blurring; (ii) saturation-correction, i.e., handling of overexposed pixels that can otherwise confound the image processing; and (iii) simultaneous handling of color channels. These features are seamlessly integrated into our incremental GEM framework to yield simple but efficient multiframe blind deconvolution algorithms. We present technical details concerning critical steps of our algorithms, especially to highlight how all operations can be written using matrix-vector multiplications. We apply our algorithm to real-world images from astronomy and super resolution tasks. Our experimental results show that our methods yield improve d resolution and deconvolution at the same time.

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Harmeling, S., Sra, S., Hirsch, M., Schölkopf, B. An Incremental GEM Framework for Multiframe Blind Deconvolution, Super-Resolution, and Saturation Correction (187), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, November 2009 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Efficient Filter Flow for Space-Variant Multiframe Blind Deconvolution

Hirsch, M., Sra, S., Schölkopf, B., Harmeling, S.

(188), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, November 2009 (techreport)

Abstract
Ultimately being motivated by facilitating space-variant blind deconvolution, we present a class of linear transformations, that are expressive enough for space-variant filters, but at the same time especially designed for efficient matrix-vector-multiplications. Successful results on astronomical imaging through atmospheric turbulences and on noisy magnetic resonance images of constantly moving objects demonstrate the practical significance of our approach.

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Hirsch, M., Sra, S., Schölkopf, B., Harmeling, S. Efficient Filter Flow for Space-Variant Multiframe Blind Deconvolution (188), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, November 2009 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Clinical PET/MRI-System and Its Applications with MRI Based Attenuation Correction

Kolb, A., Hofmann, M., Sossi, V., Wehrl, H., Sauter, A., Schmid, A., Schlemmer, H., Claussen, C., Pichler, B.

IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC 2009), 2009, pages: 1, October 2009 (poster)

Abstract
Clinical PET/MRI is an emerging new hybrid imaging modality. In addition to provide an unique possibility for multifunctional imaging with temporally and spatially matched data, it also provides anatomical information that can also be used for attenuation correction with no radiation exposure to the subjects. A plus of combined compared to sequential PET and MR imaging is the reduction of total scan time. Here we present our initial experience with a hybrid brain PET/MRI system. Due to the ethical approval patient scans could only be performed after a diagnostic PET/CT. We estimate that in approximately 50% of the cases PET/MRI was of superior diagnostic value compared to PET/CT and was able to provide additional information, such as DTI, spectroscopy and Time Of Flight (TOF) angiography. Here we present 3 patient cases in oncology, a retropharyngeal carcinoma in neurooncology, a relapsing meningioma and in neurology a pharyngeal carcinoma in addition to an infraction of the right hemisphere. For quantitative PET imaging attenuation correction is obligatory. In current PET/MRI setup we used our MRI based atlas method for calculating the mu-map for attenuation correction. MR-based attenuation correction accuracy was quantitatively compared to CT-based PET attenuation correction. Extensive studies to assess potential mutual interferences between PET and MR imaging modalities as well as NEMA measurements have been performed. The first patient studies as well as the phantom tests clearly demonstrated the overall good imaging performance of this first human PET/MRI system. Ongoing work concentrates on advanced normalization and reconstruction methods incorporating count-rate based algorithms.

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Kolb, A., Hofmann, M., Sossi, V., Wehrl, H., Sauter, A., Schmid, A., Schlemmer, H., Claussen, C., Pichler, B. Clinical PET/MRI-System and Its Applications with MRI Based Attenuation Correction IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC 2009), 2009, pages: 1, October 2009 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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A flowering-time gene network model for association analysis in Arabidopsis thaliana

Klotzbücher, K., Kobayashi, Y., Shervashidze, N., Borgwardt, K., Weigel, D.

2009(39):95-96, German Conference on Bioinformatics (GCB '09), September 2009 (poster)

Abstract
In our project we want to determine a set of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which have a major effect on the flowering time of Arabidopsis thaliana. Instead of performing a genome-wide association study on all SNPs in the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana, we examine the subset of SNPs from the flowering-time gene network model. We are interested in how the results of the association study vary when using only the ascertained subset of SNPs from the flowering network model, and when additionally using the information encoded by the structure of the network model. The network model is compiled from the literature by manual analysis and contains genes which have been found to affect the flowering time of Arabidopsis thaliana [Far+08; KW07]. The genes in this model are annotated with the SNPs that are located in these genes, or in near proximity to them. In a baseline comparison between the subset of SNPs from the graph and the set of all SNPs, we omit the structural information and calculate the correlation between the individual SNPs and the flowering time phenotype by use of statistical methods. Through this we can determine the subset of SNPs with the highest correlation to the flowering time. In order to further refine this subset, we include the additional information provided by the network structure by conducting a graph-based feature pre-selection. In the further course of this project we want to validate and examine the resulting set of SNPs and their corresponding genes with experimental methods.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Klotzbücher, K., Kobayashi, Y., Shervashidze, N., Borgwardt, K., Weigel, D. A flowering-time gene network model for association analysis in Arabidopsis thaliana 2009(39):95-96, German Conference on Bioinformatics (GCB '09), September 2009 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Initial Data from a first PET/MRI-System and its Applications in Clinical Studies Using MRI Based Attenuation Correction

Kolb, A., Hofmann, M., Sossi, V., Wehrl, H., Sauter, A., Schmid, A., Judenhofer, M., Schlemmer, H., Claussen, C., Pichler, B.

2009 World Molecular Imaging Congress, 2009, pages: 1200, September 2009 (poster)

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Kolb, A., Hofmann, M., Sossi, V., Wehrl, H., Sauter, A., Schmid, A., Judenhofer, M., Schlemmer, H., Claussen, C., Pichler, B. Initial Data from a first PET/MRI-System and its Applications in Clinical Studies Using MRI Based Attenuation Correction 2009 World Molecular Imaging Congress, 2009, pages: 1200, September 2009 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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A High-Speed Object Tracker from Off-the-Shelf Components

Lampert, C., Peters, J.

First IEEE Workshop on Computer Vision for Humanoid Robots in Real Environments at ICCV 2009, 1, pages: 1, September 2009 (poster)

Abstract
We introduce RTblob, an open-source real-time vision system for 3D object detection that achieves over 200 Hz tracking speed with only off-the-shelf hardware component. It allows fast and accurate tracking of colored objects in 3D without expensive and often custom-built hardware, instead making use of the PC graphics cards for the necessary image processing operations.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Lampert, C., Peters, J. A High-Speed Object Tracker from Off-the-Shelf Components First IEEE Workshop on Computer Vision for Humanoid Robots in Real Environments at ICCV 2009, 1, pages: 1, September 2009 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Estimating Critical Stimulus Features from Psychophysical Data: The Decision-Image Technique Applied to Human Faces

Macke, J., Wichmann, F.

Journal of Vision, 9(8):31, 9th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), August 2009 (poster)

Abstract
One of the main challenges in the sensory sciences is to identify the stimulus features on which the sensory systems base their computations: they are a pre-requisite for computational models of perception. We describe a technique---decision-images--- for extracting critical stimulus features based on logistic regression. Rather than embedding the stimuli in noise, as is done in classification image analysis, we want to infer the important features directly from physically heterogeneous stimuli. A Decision-image not only defines the critical region-of-interest within a stimulus but is a quantitative template which defines a direction in stimulus space. Decision-images thus enable the development of predictive models, as well as the generation of optimized stimuli for subsequent psychophysical investigations. Here we describe our method and apply it to data from a human face discrimination experiment. We show that decision-images are able to predict human responses not only in terms of overall percent correct but are able to predict, for individual observers, the probabilities with which individual faces are (mis-) classified. We then test the predictions of the models using optimized stimuli. Finally, we discuss possible generalizations of the approach and its relationships with other models.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Macke, J., Wichmann, F. Estimating Critical Stimulus Features from Psychophysical Data: The Decision-Image Technique Applied to Human Faces Journal of Vision, 9(8):31, 9th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), August 2009 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Consistent Nonparametric Tests of Independence

Gretton, A., Györfi, L.

(172), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, July 2009 (techreport)

Abstract
Three simple and explicit procedures for testing the independence of two multi-dimensional random variables are described. Two of the associated test statistics (L1, log-likelihood) are defined when the empirical distribution of the variables is restricted to finite partitions. A third test statistic is defined as a kernel-based independence measure. Two kinds of tests are provided. Distribution-free strong consistent tests are derived on the basis of large deviation bounds on the test statistcs: these tests make almost surely no Type I or Type II error after a random sample size. Asymptotically alpha-level tests are obtained from the limiting distribution of the test statistics. For the latter tests, the Type I error converges to a fixed non-zero value alpha, and the Type II error drops to zero, for increasing sample size. All tests reject the null hypothesis of independence if the test statistics become large. The performance of the tests is evaluated experimentally on benchmark data.

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Gretton, A., Györfi, L. Consistent Nonparametric Tests of Independence (172), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, July 2009 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Semi-supervised Analysis of Human fMRI Data

Shelton, JA., Blaschko, MB., Lampert, CH., Bartels, A.

Berlin Brain Computer Interface Workshop on Advances in Neurotechnology, 2009, pages: 1, July 2009 (poster)

Abstract
Kernel Canonical Correlation Analysis (KCCA) is a general technique for subspace learning that incorporates principal components analysis (PCA) and Fisher linear discriminant analysis (LDA) as special cases. By finding directions that maximize correlation, CCA learns representations tied more closely to underlying process generating the the data and can ignore high-variance noise directions. However, for data where acquisition in a given modality is expensive or otherwise limited, CCA may suffer from small sample effects. We propose to use semisupervised Laplacian regularization to utilize data that are present in only one modality. This approach is able to find highly correlated directions that also lie along the data manifold, resulting in a more robust estimate of correlated subspaces. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) acquired data are naturally amenable to subspace techniques as data are well aligned. fMRI data of the human brain are a particularly interesting candidate. In this study we implemented various supervised and semi-supervised versions of CCA on human fMRI data, with regression to single and multivariate labels (corresponding to video content subjects viewed during the image acquisition). In each variate condition, the semi-supervised variants of CCA performed better than the supervised variants, including a supervised variant with Laplacian regularization. We additionally analyze the weights learned by the regression in order to infer brain regions that are important to different types of visual processing.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Shelton, JA., Blaschko, MB., Lampert, CH., Bartels, A. Semi-supervised Analysis of Human fMRI Data Berlin Brain Computer Interface Workshop on Advances in Neurotechnology, 2009, pages: 1, July 2009 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Semi-supervised subspace analysis of human functional magnetic resonance imaging data

Shelton, J., Blaschko, M., Bartels, A.

(185), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2009 (techreport)

Abstract
Kernel Canonical Correlation Analysis is a very general technique for subspace learning that incorporates PCA and LDA as special cases. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) acquired data is naturally amenable to these techniques as data are well aligned. fMRI data of the human brain is a particularly interesting candidate. In this study we implemented various supervised and semi-supervised versions of KCCA on human fMRI data, with regression to single- and multi-variate labels (corresponding to video content subjects viewed during the image acquisition). In each variate condition, the semi-supervised variants of KCCA performed better than the supervised variants, including a supervised variant with Laplacian regularization. We additionally analyze the weights learned by the regression in order to infer brain regions that are important to different types of visual processing.

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Shelton, J., Blaschko, M., Bartels, A. Semi-supervised subspace analysis of human functional magnetic resonance imaging data (185), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, May 2009 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Optimization of k-Space Trajectories by Bayesian Experimental Design

Seeger, M., Nickisch, H., Pohmann, R., Schölkopf, B.

17(2627), 17th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), April 2009 (poster)

Abstract
MR image reconstruction from undersampled k-space can be improved by nonlinear denoising estimators since they incorporate statistical prior knowledge about image sparsity. Reconstruction quality depends crucially on the undersampling design (k-space trajectory), in a manner complicated by the nonlinear and signal-dependent characteristics of these methods. We propose an algorithm to assess and optimize k-space trajectories for sparse MRI reconstruction, based on Bayesian experimental design, which is scaled up to full MR images by a novel variational relaxation to iteratively reweighted FFT or gridding computations. Designs are built sequentially by adding phase encodes predicted to be most informative, given the combination of previous measurements with image prior information.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Seeger, M., Nickisch, H., Pohmann, R., Schölkopf, B. Optimization of k-Space Trajectories by Bayesian Experimental Design 17(2627), 17th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), April 2009 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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MR-Based Attenuation Correction for PET/MR

Hofmann, M., Steinke, F., Bezrukov, I., Kolb, A., Aschoff, P., Lichy, M., Erb, M., Nägele, T., Brady, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B.

17(260), 17th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), April 2009 (poster)

Abstract
There has recently been a growing interest in combining PET and MR. Attenuation correction (AC), which accounts for radiation attenuation properties of the tissue, is mandatory for quantitative PET. In the case of PET/MR the attenuation map needs to be determined from the MR image. This is intrinsically difficult as MR intensities are not related to the electron density information of the attenuation map. Using ultra-short echo (UTE) acquisition, atlas registration and machine learning, we present methods that allow prediction of the attenuation map based on the MR image both for brain and whole body imaging.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Hofmann, M., Steinke, F., Bezrukov, I., Kolb, A., Aschoff, P., Lichy, M., Erb, M., Nägele, T., Brady, M., Schölkopf, B., Pichler, B. MR-Based Attenuation Correction for PET/MR 17(260), 17th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), April 2009 (poster)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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The SL simulation and real-time control software package

Schaal, S.

University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 2009, clmc (techreport)

Abstract
SL was originally developed as a Simulation Laboratory software package to allow creating complex rigid-body dynamics simulations with minimal development times. It was meant to complement a real-time robotics setup such that robot programs could first be debugged in simulation before trying them on the actual robot. For this purpose, the motor control setup of SL was copied from our experience with real-time robot setups with vxWorks (Windriver Systems, Inc.)Ñindeed, more than 90% of the code is identical to the actual robot software, as will be explained later in detail. As a result, SL is divided into three software components: 1) the generic code that is shared by the actual robot and the simulation, 2) the robot specific code, and 3) the simulation specific code. The robot specific code is tailored to the robotic environments that we have experienced over the years, in particular towards VME-based multi-processor real-time operating systems. The simulation specific code has all the components for OpenGL graphics simulations and mimics the robot multi-processor environment in simple C-code. Importantly, SL can be used stand-alone for creating graphics an-imationsÑthe heritage from real-time robotics does not restrict the complexity of possible simulations. This technical report describes SL in detail and can serve as a manual for new users of SL.

am

link (url) [BibTex]

am Schaal, S. The SL simulation and real-time control software package University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 2009, clmc (techreport)

link (url) [BibTex]

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The SL simulation and real-time control software package

Schaal, S.

University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 2009, clmc (techreport)

Abstract
SL was originally developed as a Simulation Laboratory software package to allow creating complex rigid-body dynamics simulations with minimal development times. It was meant to complement a real-time robotics setup such that robot programs could first be debugged in simulation before trying them on the actual robot. For this purpose, the motor control setup of SL was copied from our experience with real-time robot setups with vxWorks (Windriver Systems, Inc.)â??indeed, more than 90% of the code is identical to the actual robot software, as will be explained later in detail. As a result, SL is divided into three software components: 1) the generic code that is shared by the actual robot and the simulation, 2) the robot specific code, and 3) the simulation specific code. The robot specific code is tailored to the robotic environments that we have experienced over the years, in particular towards VME-based multi-processor real-time operating systems. The simulation specific code has all the components for OpenGL graphics simulations and mimics the robot multi-processor environment in simple C-code. Importantly, SL can be used stand-alone for creating graphics an-imationsâ??the heritage from real-time robotics does not restrict the complexity of possible simulations. This technical report describes SL in detail and can serve as a manual for new users of SL.

am

link (url) [BibTex]

am Schaal, S. The SL simulation and real-time control software package University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 2009, clmc (techreport)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Biologically Inspired Polymer Microfibrillar Arrays for Mask Sealing

Cheung, E., Aksak, B., Sitti, M.

CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA, 2009 (techreport)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Cheung, E., Aksak, B., Sitti, M. Biologically Inspired Polymer Microfibrillar Arrays for Mask Sealing CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA, 2009 (techreport)

[BibTex]

2006

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Some observations on the pedestal effect or dipper function

Henning, B., Wichmann, F.

Journal of Vision, 6(13):50, 2006 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The pedestal effect is the large improvement in the detectabilty of a sinusoidal “signal” grating observed when the signal is added to a masking or “pedestal” grating of the same spatial frequency, orientation, and phase. We measured the pedestal effect in both broadband and notched noise - noise from which a 1.5-octave band centred on the signal frequency had been removed. Although the pedestal effect persists in broadband noise, it almost disappears in the notched noise. Furthermore, the pedestal effect is substantial when either high- or low-pass masking noise is used. We conclude that the pedestal effect in the absence of notched noise results principally from the use of information derived from channels with peak sensitivities at spatial frequencies different from that of the signal and pedestal. The spatial-frequency components of the notched noise above and below the spatial frequency of the signal and pedestal prevent the use of information about changes in contrast carried in channels tuned to spatial frequencies that are very much different from that of the signal and pedestal. Thus the pedestal or dipper effect measured without notched noise is not a characteristic of individual spatial-frequency tuned channels.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

2006

ei Henning, B., Wichmann, F. Some observations on the pedestal effect or dipper function Journal of Vision, 6(13):50, 2006 Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America, December 2006 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Minimal Logical Constraint Covering Sets

Sinz, F., Schölkopf, B.

(155), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, December 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
We propose a general framework for computing minimal set covers under class of certain logical constraints. The underlying idea is to transform the problem into a mathematical programm under linear constraints. In this sense it can be seen as a natural extension of the vector quantization algorithm proposed by Tipping and Schoelkopf. We show which class of logical constraints can be cast and relaxed into linear constraints and give an algorithm for the transformation.

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Sinz, F., Schölkopf, B. Minimal Logical Constraint Covering Sets (155), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, December 2006 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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New Methods for the P300 Visual Speller

Biessmann, F.

(1), (Editors: Hill, J. ), Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, November 2006 (techreport)

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Biessmann, F. New Methods for the P300 Visual Speller (1), (Editors: Hill, J. ), Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, November 2006 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Optimizing Spatial Filters for BCI: Margin- and Evidence-Maximization Approaches

Farquhar, J., Hill, N., Schölkopf, B.

Challenging Brain-Computer Interfaces: MAIA Workshop 2006, pages: 1, November 2006 (poster)

Abstract
We present easy-to-use alternatives to the often-used two-stage Common Spatial Pattern + classifier approach for spatial filtering and classification of Event-Related Desychnronization signals in BCI. We report two algorithms that aim to optimize the spatial filters according to a criterion more directly related to the ability of the algorithms to generalize to unseen data. Both are based upon the idea of treating the spatial filter coefficients as hyperparameters of a kernel or covariance function. We then optimize these hyper-parameters directly along side the normal classifier parameters with respect to our chosen learning objective function. The two objectives considered are margin maximization as used in Support-Vector Machines and the evidence maximization framework used in Gaussian Processes. Our experiments assessed generalization error as a function of the number of training points used, on 9 BCI competition data sets and 5 offline motor imagery data sets measured in Tubingen. Both our approaches sho w consistent improvements relative to the commonly used CSP+linear classifier combination. Strikingly, the improvement is most significant in the higher noise cases, when either few trails are used for training, or with the most poorly performing subjects. This a reversal of the usual "rich get richer" effect in the development of CSP extensions, which tend to perform best when the signal is strong enough to accurately find their additional parameters. This makes our approach particularly suitable for clinical application where high levels of noise are to be expected.

ei

PDF PDF [BibTex]

ei Farquhar, J., Hill, N., Schölkopf, B. Optimizing Spatial Filters for BCI: Margin- and Evidence-Maximization Approaches Challenging Brain-Computer Interfaces: MAIA Workshop 2006, pages: 1, November 2006 (poster)

PDF PDF [BibTex]

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Geometric Analysis of Hilbert Schmidt Independence criterion based ICA contrast function

Shen, H., Jegelka, S., Gretton, A.

(PA006080), National ICT Australia, Canberra, Australia, October 2006 (techreport)

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Shen, H., Jegelka, S., Gretton, A. Geometric Analysis of Hilbert Schmidt Independence criterion based ICA contrast function (PA006080), National ICT Australia, Canberra, Australia, October 2006 (techreport)

Web [BibTex]

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Learning Eye Movements

Kienzle, W., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M.

Sensory Coding And The Natural Environment, 2006, pages: 1, September 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The human visual system samples images through saccadic eye movements which rapidly change the point of fixation. Although the selection of eye movement targets depends on numerous top-down mechanisms, a number of recent studies have shown that low-level image features such as local contrast or edges play an important role. These studies typically used predefined image features which were afterwards experimentally verified. Here, we follow a complementary approach: instead of testing a set of candidate image features, we infer these hypotheses from the data, using methods from statistical learning. To this end, we train a non-linear classifier on fixated vs. randomly selected image patches without making any physiological assumptions. The resulting classifier can be essentially characterized by a nonlinear combination of two center-surround receptive fields. We find that the prediction performance of this simple model on our eye movement data is indistinguishable from the physiologically motivated model of Itti & Koch (2000) which is far more complex. In particular, we obtain a comparable performance without using any multi-scale representations, long-range interactions or oriented image features.

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Kienzle, W., Wichmann, F., Schölkopf, B., Franz, M. Learning Eye Movements Sensory Coding And The Natural Environment, 2006, pages: 1, September 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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A tutorial on spectral clustering

von Luxburg, U.

(149), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, August 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
In recent years, spectral clustering has become one of the most popular modern clustering algorithms. It is simple to implement, can be solved efficiently by standard linear algebra software, and very often outperforms traditional clustering algorithms such as the k-means algorithm. Nevertheless, on the first glance spectral clustering looks a bit mysterious, and it is not obvious to see why it works at all and what it really does. This article is a tutorial introduction to spectral clustering. We describe different graph Laplacians and their basic properties, present the most common spectral clustering algorithms, and derive those algorithms from scratch by several different approaches. Advantages and disadvantages of the different spectral clustering algorithms are discussed.

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei von Luxburg, U. A tutorial on spectral clustering (149), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, August 2006 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Towards the Inference of Graphs on Ordered Vertexes

Zien, A., Raetsch, G., Ong, C.

(150), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, August 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
We propose novel methods for machine learning of structured output spaces. Specifically, we consider outputs which are graphs with vertices that have a natural order. We consider the usual adjacency matrix representation of graphs, as well as two other representations for such a graph: (a) decomposing the graph into a set of paths, (b) converting the graph into a single sequence of nodes with labeled edges. For each of the three representations, we propose an encoding and decoding scheme. We also propose an evaluation measure for comparing two graphs.

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Zien, A., Raetsch, G., Ong, C. Towards the Inference of Graphs on Ordered Vertexes (150), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, August 2006 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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Classification of natural scenes: Critical features revisited

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

Journal of Vision, 6(6):561, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Abstract
Human observers are capable of detecting animals within novel natural scenes with remarkable speed and accuracy. Despite the seeming complexity of such decisions it has been hypothesized that a simple global image feature, the relative abundance of high spatial frequencies at certain orientations, could underly such fast image classification (A. Torralba & A. Oliva, Network: Comput. Neural Syst., 2003). We successfully used linear discriminant analysis to classify a set of 11.000 images into “animal” and “non-animal” images based on their individual amplitude spectra only (Drewes, Wichmann, Gegenfurtner VSS 2005). We proceeded to sort the images based on the performance of our classifier, retaining only the best and worst classified 400 images (“best animals”, “best distractors” and “worst animals”, “worst distractors”). We used a Go/No-go paradigm to evaluate human performance on this subset of our images. Both reaction time and proportion of correctly classified images showed a significant effect of classification difficulty. Images more easily classified by our algorithm were also classified faster and better by humans, as predicted by the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis. We then equated the amplitude spectra of the 400 images, which, by design, reduced algorithmic performance to chance whereas human performance was only slightly reduced (cf. Wichmann, Rosas, Gegenfurtner, VSS 2005). Most importantly, the same images as before were still classified better and faster, suggesting that even in the original condition features other than specifics of the amplitude spectrum made particular images easy to classify, clearly at odds with the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of natural scenes: Critical features revisited Journal of Vision, 6(6):561, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control

Wichmann, F., Henning, B.

Journal of Vision, 6(6):194, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The pedestal or dipper effect is the large improvement in the detectabilty of a sinusoidal grating observed when the signal is added to a pedestal or masking grating having the signal‘s spatial frequency, orientation, and phase. The effect is largest with pedestal contrasts just above the ‘threshold‘ in the absence of a pedestal. We measured the pedestal effect in both broadband and notched masking noise---noise from which a 1.5- octave band centered on the signal and pedestal frequency had been removed. The pedestal effect persists in broadband noise, but almost disappears with notched noise. The spatial-frequency components of the notched noise that lie above and below the spatial frequency of the signal and pedestal prevent the use of information about changes in contrast carried in channels tuned to spatial frequencies that are very much different from that of the signal and pedestal. We conclude that the pedestal effect in the absence of notched noise results principally from the use of information derived from channels with peak sensitivities at spatial frequencies that are different from that of the signal and pedestal. Thus the pedestal or dipper effect is not a characteristic of individual spatial-frequency tuned channels.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Wichmann, F., Henning, B. The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control Journal of Vision, 6(6):194, 6th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), June 2006 (poster)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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An Automated Combination of Sequence Motif Kernels for Predicting Protein Subcellular Localization

Zien, A., Ong, C.

(146), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, April 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
Protein subcellular localization is a crucial ingredient to many important inferences about cellular processes, including prediction of protein function and protein interactions. While many predictive computational tools have been proposed, they tend to have complicated architectures and require many design decisions from the developer. We propose an elegant and fully automated approach to building a prediction system for protein subcellular localization. We propose a new class of protein sequence kernels which considers all motifs including motifs with gaps. This class of kernels allows the inclusion of pairwise amino acid distances into their computation. We further propose a multiclass support vector machine method which directly solves protein subcellular localization without resorting to the common approach of splitting the problem into several binary classification problems. To automatically search over families of possible amino acid motifs, we generalize our method to optimize over multiple kernels at the same time. We compare our automated approach to four other predictors on three different datasets.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Zien, A., Ong, C. An Automated Combination of Sequence Motif Kernels for Predicting Protein Subcellular Localization (146), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, April 2006 (techreport)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Training a Support Vector Machine in the Primal

Chapelle, O.

(147), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, April 2006, The version in the "Large Scale Kernel Machines" book is more up to date. (techreport)

Abstract
Most literature on Support Vector Machines (SVMs) concentrate on the dual optimization problem. In this paper, we would like to point out that the primal problem can also be solved efficiently, both for linear and non-linear SVMs, and there is no reason for ignoring it. Moreover, from the primal point of view, new families of algorithms for large scale SVM training can be investigated.

ei

PDF [BibTex]

ei Chapelle, O. Training a Support Vector Machine in the Primal (147), Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, April 2006, The version in the "Large Scale Kernel Machines" book is more up to date. (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

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The Pedestal Effect is Caused by Off-Frequency Looking, not Nonlinear Transduction or Contrast Gain-Control

Wichmann, F., Henning, G.

9, pages: 174, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The pedestal or dipper effect is the large improvement in the detectability of a sinusoidal grating observed when the signal is added to a pedestal or masking grating having the signal‘s spatial frequency, orientation, and phase. The effect is largest with pedestal contrasts just above the ‘threshold’ in the absence of a pedestal. We measured the pedestal effect in both broadband and notched masking noise---noise from which a 1.5-octave band centered on the signal and pedestal frequency had been removed. The pedestal effect persists in broadband noise, but almost disappears with notched noise. The spatial-frequency components of the notched noise that lie above and below the spatial frequency of the signal and pedestal prevent the use of information about changes in contrast carried in channels tuned to spatial frequencies that are very much different from that of the signal and pedestal. We conclude that the pedestal effect in the absence of notched noise results principally from the use of information derived from channels with peak sensitivities at spatial frequencies that are different from that of the signal and pedestal. Thus the pedestal or dipper effect is not a characteristic of individual spatial-frequency tuned channels.

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Wichmann, F., Henning, G. The Pedestal Effect is Caused by Off-Frequency Looking, not Nonlinear Transduction or Contrast Gain-Control 9, pages: 174, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Classification of Natural Scenes: Critical Features Revisited

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

9, pages: 92, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Abstract
Human observers are capable of detecting animals within novel natural scenes with remarkable speed and accuracy. Despite the seeming complexity of such decisions it has been hypothesized that a simple global image feature, the relative abundance of high spatial frequencies at certain orientations, could underly such fast image classification [1]. We successfully used linear discriminant analysis to classify a set of 11.000 images into “animal” and “non-animal” images based on their individual amplitude spectra only [2]. We proceeded to sort the images based on the performance of our classifier, retaining only the best and worst classified 400 images ("best animals", "best distractors" and "worst animals", "worst distractors"). We used a Go/No-go paradigm to evaluate human performance on this subset of our images. Both reaction time and proportion of correctly classified images showed a significant effect of classification difficulty. Images more easily classified by our algorithm were also classified faster and better by humans, as predicted by the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis. We then equated the amplitude spectra of the 400 images, which, by design, reduced algorithmic performance to chance whereas human performance was only slightly reduced [3]. Most importantly, the same images as before were still classified better and faster, suggesting that even in the original condition features other than specifics of the amplitude spectrum made particular images easy to classify, clearly at odds with the Torralba & Oliva hypothesis.

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of Natural Scenes: Critical Features Revisited 9, pages: 92, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Factorial Coding of Natural Images: How Effective are Linear Models in Removing Higher-Order Dependencies?

Bethge, M.

9, pages: 90, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Abstract
The performance of unsupervised learning models for natural images is evaluated quantitatively by means of information theory. We estimate the gain in statistical independence (the multi-information reduction) achieved with independent component analysis (ICA), principal component analysis (PCA), zero-phase whitening, and predictive coding. Predictive coding is translated into the transform coding framework, where it can be characterized by the constraint of a triangular filter matrix. A randomly sampled whitening basis and the Haar wavelet are included into the comparison as well. The comparison of all these methods is carried out for different patch sizes, ranging from 2x2 to 16x16 pixels. In spite of large differences in the shape of the basis functions, we find only small differences in the multi-information between all decorrelation transforms (5% or less) for all patch sizes. Among the second-order methods, PCA is optimal for small patch sizes and predictive coding performs best for large patch sizes. The extra gain achieved with ICA is always less than 2%. In conclusion, the `edge filters‘ found with ICA lead only to a surprisingly small improvement in terms of its actual objective.

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Bethge, M. Factorial Coding of Natural Images: How Effective are Linear Models in Removing Higher-Order Dependencies? 9, pages: 90, 9th T{\"u}bingen Perception Conference (TWK), March 2006 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

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Cross-Validation Optimization for Structured Hessian Kernel Methods

Seeger, M., Chapelle, O.

Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, February 2006 (techreport)

Abstract
We address the problem of learning hyperparameters in kernel methods for which the Hessian of the objective is structured. We propose an approximation to the cross-validation log likelihood whose gradient can be computed analytically, solving the hyperparameter learning problem efficiently through nonlinear optimization. Crucially, our learning method is based entirely on matrix-vector multiplication primitives with the kernel matrices and their derivatives, allowing straightforward specialization to new kernels or to large datasets. When applied to the problem of multi-way classification, our method scales linearly in the number of classes and gives rise to state-of-the-art results on a remote imaging task.

ei

PDF Web [BibTex]

ei Seeger, M., Chapelle, O. Cross-Validation Optimization for Structured Hessian Kernel Methods Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, February 2006 (techreport)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Classification of natural scenes: critical features revisited

Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K.

Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 251, 2006 (poster)

ei

[BibTex]

ei Drewes, J., Wichmann, F., Gegenfurtner, K. Classification of natural scenes: critical features revisited Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 251, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: combination is sensitive to reliability but not statistically optimal

Rosas, P., Wagemans, J., Ernst, M., Wichmann, F.

Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP 2006), 48, pages: 80, 2006 (poster)

ei

[BibTex]

ei Rosas, P., Wagemans, J., Ernst, M., Wichmann, F. Texture and haptic cues in slant discrimination: combination is sensitive to reliability but not statistically optimal Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP 2006), 48, pages: 80, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Ähnlichkeitsmasse in Modellen zur Kategorienbildung

Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F.

Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 223, 2006 (poster)

ei

[BibTex]

ei Jäkel, F., Wichmann, F. Ähnlichkeitsmasse in Modellen zur Kategorienbildung Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 223, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control

Wichmann, F., Henning, B.

Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 205, 2006 (poster)

ei

[BibTex]

ei Wichmann, F., Henning, B. The pedestal effect is caused by off-frequency looking, not nonlinear transduction or contrast gain-control Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitr{\"a}ge zur 48. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, 48, pages: 205, 2006 (poster)

[BibTex]

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Statistical Learning of LQG controllers

Theodorou, E.

Technical Report-2006-1, Computational Action and Vision Lab University of Minnesota, 2006, clmc (techreport)

am

PDF [BibTex]

am Theodorou, E. Statistical Learning of LQG controllers Technical Report-2006-1, Computational Action and Vision Lab University of Minnesota, 2006, clmc (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]