Learning Generative Visual Models from Few Training Examples: An Incremental Bayesian Approach Tested on 101 Object Categories
Current computational approaches to learning visual object categories require thousands of training images, are slow, cannot learn in an incremental manner and cannot incorporate prior information into the learning process. In addition, no algorithm presented in the literature has been tested on more than a handful of object categories. We present an method for learning object categories from just a few training images. It is quick and it uses prior information in a principled way. We test it on a dataset composed of images of objects belonging to 101 widely varied categories. Our proposed method is based on making use of prior information, assembled from (unrelated) object categories which were previously learnt. A generative probabilistic model is used, which represents the shape and appearance of a constellation of features belonging to the object. The parameters of the model are learnt incrementally in a Bayesian manner. Our incremental algorithm is compared experimentally to an earlier batch Bayesian algorithm, as well as to one based on maximum-likelihood. The incremental and batch versions have comparable classification performance on small training sets, but incremental learning is significantly faster, making real-time learning feasible. Both Bayesian methods outperform maximum likelihood on small training sets.

title: OPTIMOL: automatic Online Picture collecTion via Incremental MOdel Learning
abstract: A well-built dataset is a necessary starting point for advanced computer vision research. It plays a crucial role in evaluation and provides a continuous challenge to state-of-the-art algorithms. Dataset collection is, however, a tedious and time-consuming task. This paper presents a novel automatic dataset collecting and model learning approach that uses object recognition techniques in an incremental method. The goal of this work is to use the tremendous resources of the web to learn robust object category models in order to detect and search for objects in real-world cluttered scenes. It mimics the human learning process of iteratively accumulating model knowledge and image examples. We adapt a non-parametric graphical model and propose an incremental learning framework. Our algorithm is capable of automatically collecting much larger object category datasets for 22 randomly selected classes from the Caltech 101 dataset. Furthermore, we offer not only more images in each object category dataset, but also a robust object model and meaningful image annotation. Our experiments show that OPTIMOL is capable of collecting image datasets that are superior to Caltech 101 and LabelMe.

title: Unsupervised Learning of Human Action Categories Using Spatial-Temporal Words
abstract: We present a novel unsupervised learning method for human action categories. A video sequence is represented as a collection of spatial-temporal words by extracting space-time interest points. The algorithm automatically learns the probability distributions of the spatial-temporal words and the intermediate topics corresponding to human action categories. This is achieved by using latent topic models such as the probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (pLSA) model and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Our approach can handle noisy feature points arisen from dynamic background and moving cameras due to the application of the probabilistic models. Given a novel video sequence, the algorithm can categorize and localize the human action(s) contained in the video. We test our algorithm on three challenging datasets: the KTH human motion dataset, the Weizmann human action dataset, and a recent dataset of figure skating actions. Our results reflect the promise of such a simple approach. In addition, our algorithm can recognize and localize multiple actions in long and complex video sequences containing multiple motions.

title: Spatially Coherent Latent Topic Model for Concurrent Segmentation and Classification of Objects and Scenes
abstract: We present a novel generative model for simultaneously recognizing and segmenting object and scene classes. Our model is inspired by the traditional bag of words representation of texts and images as well as a number of related generative models, including probabilistic latent semantic analysis (pLSA) and latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA). A major drawback of the pLSA and LDA models is the assumption that each patch in the image is independently generated given its corresponding latent topic. While such representation provides an efficient computational method, it lacks the power to describe the visually coherent images and scenes. Instead, we propose a spatially coherent latent topic model (spatial-LTM). Spatial-LTM represents an image containing objects in a hierarchical way by over-segmented image regions of homogeneous appearances and the salient image patches within the regions. Only one single latent topic is assigned to the image patches within each region, enforcing the spatial coherency of the model. This idea gives rise to the following merits of spatial-LTM: (1) spatial-LTM provides a unified representation for spatially coherent bag of words topic models; (2) spatial-LTM can simultaneously segment and classify objects, even in the case of occlusion and multiple instances; and (3) spatial-LTM can be trained either unsupervised or supervised, as well as when partial object labels are provided. We verify the success of our model in a number of segmentation and classification experiments.

title: What, where and who? Classifying events by scene and object recognition
abstract: We propose a first attempt to classify events in static images by integrating scene and object categorizations. We define an event in a static image as a human activity taking place in a specific environment. In this paper, we use a number of sport games such as snow boarding, rock climbing or badminton to demonstrate event classification. Our goal is to classify the event in the image as well as to provide a number of semantic labels to the objects and scene environment within the image. For example, given a rowing scene, our algorithm recognizes the event as rowing by classifying the environment as a lake and recognizing the critical objects in the image as athletes, rowing boat, water, etc. We achieve this integrative and holistic recognition through a generative graphical model. We have assembled a highly challenging database of 8 widely varied sport events. We show that our system is capable of classifying these event classes at 73.4% accuracy. While each component of the model contributes to the final recognition, using scene or objects alone cannot achieve this performance.

title: ImageNet: A large-scale hierarchical image database
abstract: The explosion of image data on the Internet has the potential to foster more sophisticated and robust models and algorithms to index, retrieve, organize and interact with images and multimedia data. But exactly how such data can be harnessed and organized remains a critical problem. We introduce here a new database called “ImageNet”, a large-scale ontology of images built upon the backbone of the WordNet structure. ImageNet aims to populate the majority of the 80,000 synsets of WordNet with an average of 500-1000 clean and full resolution images. This will result in tens of millions of annotated images organized by the semantic hierarchy of WordNet. This paper offers a detailed analysis of ImageNet in its current state: 12 subtrees with 5247 synsets and 3.2 million images in total. We show that ImageNet is much larger in scale and diversity and much more accurate than the current image datasets. Constructing such a large-scale database is a challenging task. We describe the data collection scheme with Amazon Mechanical Turk. Lastly, we illustrate the usefulness of ImageNet through three simple applications in object recognition, image classification and automatic object clustering. We hope that the scale, accuracy, diversity and hierarchical structure of ImageNet can offer unparalleled opportunities to researchers in the computer vision community and beyond.

title: CTH01-3: A Low-complexity Adaptive Subcarrier, Bit, and Power Allocation Algorithm for OFDMA Systems
abstract: Adaptive subcarrier, bit, and power allocation schemes for orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems are considered. A low-complexity algorithm is proposed to minimize the overall transmit power under certain fairness constraints: Data rate and bit-error-rate (BER) requirements for each user. In the proposed algorithm, subcarrier allocation is first executed, which follows two steps: An initial subcarrier allocation to satisfy the individual data rate requirement; then a residual subcarrier allocation to further reduce the overall transmit power. After that, a single-user optimal bit and power allocation is performed for each user based on the water-filling strategy. The proposed heuristic subcarrier allocation algorithm has linear complexity in the number of users and subcarriers, as opposed to the combinatorial nature of the optimal solutions. More importantly, the proposed resource allocation scheme explores frequency diversity in a more efficient way compared with reference schemes of similar complexity, which makes it more preferable in highly frequency-selective fading channels.

title: Composite Pattern Query Expression over Medical Data Streams
abstract: ICU is a typical environment where data stream has been applied to real-life scenarios. Medical data streams share the characteristic of real-time, complex semantics as well as meaningful patterns. Since traditional query methods or pattern process are inherently unable to satisfy real time analysis on various medical data streams, we introduce a novel concept of composite pattern, generalize it to the SQL-like query expression, and propose a method to support ad hoc queries with complex semantic patterns. Our experiments show it is feasible and effective on medical data streams.

title: A Novel Method for Evaluating Trustworthiness between Strangers in Large, Dynamic Ad Hoc Networks
abstract: The performance of ad hoc networks depends on cooperation and trust among distributed nodes. To enhance security in ad hoc networks, it is important to evaluate trustworthiness of other nodes without centralized authorities. In this work, we are focusing on the evaluation of trustworthiness between two strangers in large, dynamic ad hoc networks. This novel evaluation process is modeled as a common problem on two Trust Graphs, where nodes represent entities, and edges represent trust relations. According to the character of Quasi-Clique, we show how two strangers can efficiently establish an indirect trust relationship in large, dynamic ad hoc networks without a centralized trust authority.