Aristidis Likas

Bio: Aristidis Likas is an academic researcher from University of Ioannina. The author has contributed to research in topics: Mixture model & Artificial neural network. The author has an hindex of 43, co-authored 205 publications receiving 8688 citations. Previous affiliations of Aristidis Likas include National Technical University of Athens & Foundation for Research & Technology – Hellas.

Artificial neural networks for solving ordinary and partial differential equations

Abstract: We present a method to solve initial and boundary value problems using artificial neural networks. A trial solution of the differential equation is written as a sum of two parts. The first part satisfies the initial/boundary conditions and contains no adjustable parameters. The second part is constructed so as not to affect the initial/boundary conditions. This part involves a feedforward neural network containing adjustable parameters (the weights). Hence by construction the initial/boundary conditions are satisfied and the network is trained to satisfy the differential equation. The applicability of this approach ranges from single ordinary differential equations (ODE), to systems of coupled ODE and also to partial differential equations (PDE). In this article, we illustrate the method by solving a variety of model problems and present comparisons with solutions obtained using the Galerkin finite element method for several cases of partial differential equations. With the advent of neuroprocessors and digital signal processors the method becomes particularly interesting due to the expected essential gains in the execution speed.

The variational approximation for Bayesian inference

Abstract: The influence of this Thomas Bayes' work was immense. It was from here that "Bayesian" ideas first spread through the mathematical world, as Bayes's own article was ignored until 1780 and played no important role in scientific debate until the 20th century. It was also this article of Laplace's that introduced the mathematical techniques for the asymptotic analysis of posterior distributions that are still employed today. And it was here that the earliest example of optimum estimation can be found, the derivation and characterization of an estimator that minimized a particular measure of posterior expected loss. After more than two centuries, we mathematicians, statisticians cannot only recognize our roots in this masterpiece of our science, we can still learn from it.

Neural-network methods for boundary value problems with irregular boundaries

Abstract: Partial differential equations (PDEs) with boundary conditions (Dirichlet or Neumann) defined on boundaries with simple geometry have been successfully treated using sigmoidal multilayer perceptrons in previous works. The article deals with the case of complex boundary geometry, where the boundary is determined by a number of points that belong to it and are closely located, so as to offer a reasonable representation. Two networks are employed: a multilayer perceptron and a radial basis function network. The later is used to account for the exact satisfaction of the boundary conditions. The method has been successfully tested on two-dimensional and three-dimensional PDEs and has yielded accurate results.

Artificial Neural Networks for Solving Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations

Abstract: We present a method to solve initial and boundary value problems using artificial neural networks. A trial solution of the differential equation is written as a sum of two parts. The first part satisfies the boundary (or initial) conditions and contains no adjustable parameters. The second part is constructed so as not to affect the boundary conditions. This part involves a feedforward neural network, containing adjustable parameters (the weights). Hence by construction the boundary conditions are satisfied and the network is trained to satisfy the differential equation. The applicability of this approach ranges from single ODE's, to systems of coupled ODE's and also to PDE's. In this article we illustrate the method by solving a variety of model problems and present comparisons with finite elements for several cases of partial differential equations.

Going deeper with convolutions

Abstract: We propose a deep convolutional neural network architecture codenamed Inception that achieves the new state of the art for classification and detection in the ImageNet Large-Scale Visual Recognition Challenge 2014 (ILSVRC14). The main hallmark of this architecture is the improved utilization of the computing resources inside the network. By a carefully crafted design, we increased the depth and width of the network while keeping the computational budget constant. To optimize quality, the architectural decisions were based on the Hebbian principle and the intuition of multi-scale processing. One particular incarnation used in our submission for ILSVRC14 is called GoogLeNet, a 22 layers deep network, the quality of which is assessed in the context of classification and detection.

Machine learning

Abstract: Machine Learning is the study of methods for programming computers to learn. Computers are applied to a wide range of tasks, and for most of these it is relatively easy for programmers to design and implement the necessary software. However, there are many tasks for which this is difficult or impossible. These can be divided into four general categories. First, there are problems for which there exist no human experts. For example, in modern automated manufacturing facilities, there is a need to predict machine failures before they occur by analyzing sensor readings. Because the machines are new, there are no human experts who can be interviewed by a programmer to provide the knowledge necessary to build a computer system. A machine learning system can study recorded data and subsequent machine failures and learn prediction rules. Second, there are problems where human experts exist, but where they are unable to explain their expertise. This is the case in many perceptual tasks, such as speech recognition, hand-writing recognition, and natural language understanding. Virtually all humans exhibit expert-level abilities on these tasks, but none of them can describe the detailed steps that they follow as they perform them. Fortunately, humans can provide machines with examples of the inputs and correct outputs for these tasks, so machine learning algorithms can learn to map the inputs to the outputs. Third, there are problems where phenomena are changing rapidly. In finance, for example, people would like to predict the future behavior of the stock market, of consumer purchases, or of exchange rates. These behaviors change frequently, so that even if a programmer could construct a good predictive computer program, it would need to be rewritten frequently. A learning program can relieve the programmer of this burden by constantly modifying and tuning a set of learned prediction rules. Fourth, there are applications that need to be customized for each computer user separately. Consider, for example, a program to filter unwanted electronic mail messages. Different users will need different filters. It is unreasonable to expect each user to program his or her own rules, and it is infeasible to provide every user with a software engineer to keep the rules up-to-date. A machine learning system can learn which mail messages the user rejects and maintain the filtering rules automatically. Machine learning addresses many of the same research questions as the fields of statistics, data mining, and psychology, but with differences of emphasis. Statistics focuses on understanding the phenomena that have generated the data, often with the goal of testing different hypotheses about those phenomena. Data mining seeks to find patterns in the data that are understandable by people. Psychological studies of human learning aspire to understand the mechanisms underlying the various learning behaviors exhibited by people (concept learning, skill acquisition, strategy change, etc.).

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Abstract: Probability Distributions.- Linear Models for Regression.- Linear Models for Classification.- Neural Networks.- Kernel Methods.- Sparse Kernel Machines.- Graphical Models.- Mixture Models and EM.- Approximate Inference.- Sampling Methods.- Continuous Latent Variables.- Sequential Data.- Combining Models.

Survey of clustering algorithms

Abstract: Data analysis plays an indispensable role for understanding various phenomena. Cluster analysis, primitive exploration with little or no prior knowledge, consists of research developed across a wide variety of communities. The diversity, on one hand, equips us with many tools. On the other hand, the profusion of options causes confusion. We survey clustering algorithms for data sets appearing in statistics, computer science, and machine learning, and illustrate their applications in some benchmark data sets, the traveling salesman problem, and bioinformatics, a new field attracting intensive efforts. Several tightly related topics, proximity measure, and cluster validation, are also discussed.