Task: Language Identification
Input (Spanish, English): This paper develops Submodular Sum Product Networks (SSPNs) and an efficient inference algorithm for approximately computing the most probable labeling of variables in the model. The main application in the paper is on scene parsing. In this context, SSPNs define an energy function with a grammar component for representing a hierarchy of labels and an MRF for encoding smoothness of labels over space. To perform inference, the authors develop a move-making algorithm, somewhat in the spirit of fusion moves (Lempitsky et al., 2010) that repeatedly improves a solution by considering a large neighborhood of alternative segmentations and solving an optimization problem to choose the best neighbor. Empirical results show that the proposed algorithm achieves better energy that belief propagation of alpha expansion and is much faster.  This is generally a well-executed paper. The model is interesting and clearly defined, the algorithm is well presented with proper analysis of the relevant runtimes and guarantees on the behavior. Overall, the algorithm seems effective at minimizing the energy of SSPN models.  Having said that, I don't think this paper is a great fit for ICLR. The model is even somewhat to the antithesis of the idea of learning representations, in that a highly structured form of energy function is asserted by the human modeller, and then inference is performed. I don't see the connection to learning representations. One additional issue is that while the proposed algorithm is faster than alternatives, the times are still on the order of 1-287 seconds per image, which means that the applicability of this method (as is) to something like training ConvNets is limited.  Finally, there is no attempt to argue that the model produces better segmentations than alternative models. The only evaluations in the paper are on energy values achieved and on training data.  So overall I think this is a good paper that should be published at a good machine learning conference, but I don't think ICLR is the right fit.
Output (English): en