Despite many empirical successes of spectral clustering methods -- algorithms that cluster points using eigenvectors of matrices derived from the distances between the points -- there are several unresolved issues. First, there is a wide variety of algorithms that use the eigenvectors in slightly different ways. Second, many of these algorithms have no proof that they will actually compute a reasonable clustering. In this paper, we present a simple spectral clustering algorithm that can be implemented using a few lines of Matlab. Using tools from matrix perturbation theory, we analyze the algorithm, and give conditions under which it can be expected to do well. We also show surprisingly good experimental results on a number of challenging clustering problems.

Abstract One of the central problems in machine learning and pattern recognition is to develop appropriate representations for complex data. We consider the problem of constructing a representation for data lying on a low dimensional manifold embedded in a high dimensional space. Drawing on the correspondence between the graph Laplacian, the Laplace Beltrami operator on the manifold, and the connections to the heat equation, we propose a geometrically motivated algorithm for representing the high dimensional data. The algorithm provides a computationally efficient approach to non-linear dimensionality reduction that has locality preserving properties and a natural connection to clustering. Some potential applications and illustrative examples are discussed. 1 Introduction In many areas of artificial intelligence, information retrieval and data mining, one is often confronted with intrinsically low dimensional data lying in a very high dimensional space. Consider, for example, gray scale images of an object taken under fixed lighting conditions with a moving camera. Each such image would typically be represented by a brightness value at each pixel. If there were n 2

The primary goal of pattern recognition is supervised or unsupervised classification. Among the various frameworks in which pattern recognition has been traditionally formulated, the statistical approach has been most intensively studied and used in practice. More recently, neural network techniques and methods imported from statistical learning theory have bean receiving increasing attention. The design of a recognition system requires careful attention to the following issues: definition of pattern classes, sensing environment, pattern representation, feature extraction and selection, cluster analysis, classifier design and learning, selection of training and test samples, and performance evaluation. In spite of almost 50 years of research and development in this field, the general problem of recognizing complex patterns with arbitrary orientation, location, and scale remains unsolved. New and emerging applications, such as data mining, web searching, retrieval of multimedia data, face recognition, and cursive handwriting recognition, require robust and efficient pattern recognition techniques. The objective of this review paper is to summarize and compare some of the well-known methods used in various stages of a pattern recognition system and identify research topics and applications which are at the forefront of this exciting and challenging field.

In this tutorial we give an overview of the basic ideas underlying Support Vector (SV) machines for function estimation. Furthermore, we include a summary of currently used algorithms for training SV machines, covering both the quadratic (or convex) programming part and advanced methods for dealing with large datasets. Finally, we mention some modifications and extensions that have been applied to the standard SV algorithm, and discuss the aspect of regularization from a SV perspective.

This paper provides an introduction to support vector machines (SVMs), kernel Fisher discriminant analysis, and

A non-linear classification technique based on Fisher's discriminant is proposed. The main ingredient is the kernel trick which allows the efficient computation of Fisher discriminant in feature space. The linear classification in feature space corresponds to a (powerful) non-linear decision function in input space. Large scale simulations demonstrate the competitiveness of our approach.

this article with the regression case. To explain this, we will introduce a suitable definition of a margin that is maximized in both cases

A major problem for kernel-based predictors (such as Support Vector Machines and Gaussian processes) is that the amount of computation required to find the solution scales as O(n ), where n is the number of training examples. We show that an approximation to the eigendecomposition of the Gram matrix can be computed by the Nyström method (which is used for the numerical solution of eigenproblems). This is achieved by carrying out an eigendecomposition on a smaller system of size m < n, and then expanding the results back up to n dimensions. The computational complexity of a predictor using this approximation is O(m n). We report experiments on the USPS and abalone data sets and show that we can set m n without any significant decrease in the accuracy of the solution.

The problem of dimensionality reduction arises in many fields of information processing, including machine learning, data compression, scientific visualization, pattern recognition, and neural computation.

We show how to learn a Mahanalobis distance metric for k-nearest neighbor (kNN) classification by semidefinite programming. The metric is trained with the goal that the k-nearest neighbors always belong to the same class while examples from different classes are separated by a large margin. On seven data sets of varying size and difficulty, we find that metrics trained in this way lead to significant improvements in kNN classification—for example, achieving a test error rate of 1.3 % on the MNIST handwritten digits. As in support vector machines (SVMs), the learning problem reduces to a convex optimization based on the hinge loss. Unlike learning in SVMs, however, our framework requires no modification or extension for problems in multiway (as opposed to binary) classification. 1