This article describes flexible statistical methods that may be used to identify and characterize nonlinear regression effects. These methods are called "generalized additive models". For example, a commonly used statistical model in medical research is the logistic regression model for binary data. Here we relate the mean of the binary response ¯ = P (y = 1) to the predictors via a linear regression model and the logit link function: log

We present a novel approach to measuring similarity between shapes and exploit it for object recognition. In our framework, the measurement of similarity is preceded by (1) solv- ing for correspondences between points on the two shapes, (2) using the correspondences to estimate an aligning transform. In order to solve the correspondence problem, we attach a descriptor, the shape context, to each point. The shape context at a reference point captures the distribution of the remaining points relative to it, thus offering a globally discriminative characterization. Corresponding points on two similar shapes will have similar shape con- texts, enabling us to solve for correspondences as an optimal assignment problem. Given the point correspondences, we estimate the transformation that best aligns the two shapes; reg- ularized thin plate splines provide a flexible class of transformation maps for this purpose. The dissimilarity between the two shapes is computed as a sum of matching errors between corresponding points, together with a term measuring the magnitude of the aligning trans- form. We treat recognition in a nearest-neighbor classification framework as the problem of finding the stored prototype shape that is maximally similar to that in the image. Results are presented for silhouettes, trademarks, handwritten digits and the COIL dataset.

We introduce a new method of constructing kernels on sets whose elements are discrete structures like strings, trees and graphs. The method can be applied iteratively to build a kernel on an infinite set from kernels involving generators of the set. The family of kernels generated generalizes the family of radial basis kernels. It can also be used to define kernels in the form of joint Gibbs probability distributions. Kernels can be built from hidden Markov random elds, generalized regular expressions, pair-HMMs, or ANOVA decompositions. Uses of the method lead to open problems involving the theory of infinitely divisible positive definite functions. Fundamentals of this theory and the theory of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces are reviewed and applied in establishing the validity of the method.

This paper presents a general theoretical framework for ensemble methods of constructing significantly improved regression estimates. Given a population of regression estimators, we construct a hybrid estimator which is as good or better in the MSE sense than any estimator in the population. We argue that the ensemble method presented has several properties: 1) It efficiently uses all the networks of a population - none of the networks need be discarded. 2) It efficiently uses all the available data for training without over-fitting. 3) It inherently performs regularization by smoothing in functional space which helps to avoid over-fitting. 4) It utilizes local minima to construct improved estimates whereas other neural network algorithms are hindered by local minima. 5) It is ideally suited for parallel computation. 6) It leads to a very useful and natural measure of the number of distinct estimators in a population. 7) The optimal parameters of the ensemble estimator are given in clo...

Abstract — In this paper we present a new approach for the nonrigid registration of contrast-enhanced breast MRI. A hierarchical transformation model of the motion of the breast has been developed. The global motion of the breast is modeled by an affine transformation while the local breast motion is described by a free-form deformation (FFD) based on B-splines. Normalized mutual information is used as a voxel-based similarity measure which is insensitive to intensity changes as a result of the contrast enhancement. Registration is achieved by minimizing a cost function, which represents a combination of the cost associated with the smoothness of the transformation and the cost associated with the image similarity. The algorithm has been applied to the fully automated registration of three-dimensional (3-D) breast MRI in volunteers and patients. In particular, we have compared the results of the proposed nonrigid registration algorithm to those obtained using rigid and affine registration techniques. The results clearly indicate that the nonrigid registration algorithm is much better able to recover the motion and deformation of the breast than rigid or affine registration algorithms. I.

We had previously shown that regularization principles lead to approximation schemes which are equivalent to networks with one layer of hidden units, called Regularization Networks. In particular, standard smoothness functionals lead to a subclass of regularization networks, the well known Radial Basis Functions approximation schemes. This paper shows that regularization networks encompass a much broader range of approximation schemes, including many of the popular general additive models and some of the neural networks. In particular, we introduce new classes of smoothness functionals that lead to different classes of basis functions. Additive splines as well as some tensor product splines can be obtained from appropriate classes of smoothness functionals. Furthermore, the same generalization that extends Radial Basis Functions (RBF) to Hyper Basis Functions (HBF) also leads from additive models to ridge approximation models, containing as special cases Breiman's hinge functions, som...

This paper aims to present a review of recent as well as classic image registration methods. Image registration is the process of overlaying images (two or more) of the same scene taken at different times, from different viewpoints, and/or by different sensors. The registration geometrically align two images (the reference and sensed images). The reviewed approaches are classified according to their nature (areabased and feature-based) and according to four basic steps of image registration procedure: feature detection, feature matching, mapping function design, and image transformation and resampling. Main contributions, advantages, and drawbacks of the methods are mentioned in the paper. Problematic issues of image registration and outlook for the future research are discussed too. The major goal of the paper is to provide a comprehensive reference source for the researchers involved in image registration, regardless of particular application areas. q 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Regularization Networks and Support Vector Machines are techniques for solving certain problems of learning from examples – in particular the regression problem of approximating a multivariate function from sparse data. Radial Basis Functions, for example, are a special case of both regularization and Support Vector Machines. We review both formulations in the context of Vapnik’s theory of statistical learning which provides a general foundation for the learning problem, combining functional analysis and statistics. The emphasis is on regression: classification is treated as a special case.

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.

We propose a family of learning algorithms based on a new form of regularization that allows us to exploit the geometry of the marginal distribution. We focus on a semi-supervised framework that incorporates labeled and unlabeled data in a general-purpose learner. Some transductive graph learning algorithms and standard methods including Support Vector Machines and Regularized Least Squares can be obtained as special cases. We utilize properties of Reproducing Kernel Hilbert spaces to prove new Representer theorems that provide theoretical basis for the algorithms. As a result (in contrast to purely graph-based approaches) we obtain a natural out-of-sample extension to novel examples and so are able to handle both transductive and truly semi-supervised settings. We present experimental evidence suggesting that our semi-supervised algorithms are able to use unlabeled data effectively. Finally we have a brief discussion of unsupervised and fully supervised learning within our general framework. 1.