Kai Puolamäki

Bio: Kai Puolamäki is an academic researcher from University of Helsinki. The author has contributed to research in topics: Supersymmetry & Exploratory data analysis. The author has an hindex of 26, co-authored 122 publications receiving 2259 citations. Previous affiliations of Kai Puolamäki include Helsinki Institute of Physics & Helsinki Institute for Information Technology.

Explaining Interval Sequences by Randomization

Abstract: Sequences of events are an ubiquitous form of data. In this paper, we show that it is feasible to present an event sequence as an interval sequence. We show how sequences can be efficiently randomized, how to choose a correct null model and how to use randomizations to derive confidence intervals. Using these techniques, we gain knowledge of the temporal structure of the sequence. Time and Fourier space representations, autocorrelations and arbitrary features can be used as constraints in investigating the data. The methods presented are applied to two real-life datasets; a medical heart interbeat interval dataset and a word dataset from a book. We find that the interval sequence representation and randomization methods provide a powerful way to explore interval sequences and explain their structure.

Human-guided data exploration using randomisation.

Abstract: An explorative data analysis system should be aware of what the user already knows and what the user wants to know of the data: otherwise the system cannot provide the user with the most informative and useful views of the data. We propose a principled way to do exploratory data analysis, where the user's background knowledge is modeled by a distribution parametrised by subsets of rows and columns in the data, called tiles. The user can also use tiles to describe his or her interests concerning relations in the data. We provide a computationally efficient implementation of this concept based on constrained randomisation. The implementation is used to model both the background knowledge and the user's information request and is a necessary prerequisite for any interactive system. Furthermore, we describe a novel linear projection pursuit method to find and show the views most informative to the user, which at the limit of no background knowledge and with generic objectives reduces to PCA. We show that our method is robust under noise and fast enough for interactive use. We also show that the method gives understandable and useful results when analysing real-world data sets. We will release an open source library implementing the idea, including the experiments presented in this paper. We show that our method can outperform standard projection pursuit visualisation methods in exploration tasks. Our framework makes it possible to construct human-guided data exploration systems which are fast, powerful, and give results that are easy to comprehend.

SIDE : a web app for interactive visual data exploration with subjective feedback

Abstract: Data visualization and iterative/interactive data mining are growing rapidly in attention, both in research as well as in industry. However, integrated methods and tools that combine advanced visualization and/or interaction with data mining techniques are rare, and those that exist are specialized to a single problem or domain. We present SIDE, a generic tool for Subjective Interactive Data Exploration, which lets users explore high dimensional data via subjectively informative two-dimensional data visualizations. In contrast to most visualization tools, it is not based on the traditional dogma of manually zooming and rotating data. Instead, the tool initially presents the user with an ‘interesting’ projection, and then allows users to flexibly and intuitively express their interests or beliefs using visual interactions that update/constrain a background model of the data. These constraints expressed by the user are then taken into account by a projection-finding algorithm employing data randomization to compute a new ‘interesting’ projection. This process can be iterated until the user runs out of time or finds that the difference between the randomized data and the real data is no longer interesting. We present the tool by means of two case studies, one controlled study on synthetic data and another on real census data.

Two-Way Latent Grouping Model for User Preference Prediction

Abstract: We introduce a novel latent grouping model for predicting the relevance of a new document to a user. The model assumes a latent group structure for both users and documents. We compared the model against a state-of-the-art method, the User Rating Profile model, where only users have a latent group structure. We estimate both models by Gibbs sampling. The new method predicts relevance more accurately for new documents that have few known ratings. The reason is that generalization over documents then becomes necessary and hence the twoway grouping is profitable.

Minimum-Width Confidence Bands via Constraint Optimization

Abstract: The use of constraint optimization has recently proven to be a successful approach to providing solutions to various NP-hard search and optimization problems in data analysis. In this work we extend the use of constraint optimization systems further within data analysis to a central problem arising from the analysis of multivariate data, namely, determining minimum-width multivariate confidence intervals, i.e., the minimum-width confidence band problem (MWCB). Pointing out drawbacks in recently proposed formalizations of variants of MWCB, we propose a new problem formalization which generalizes the earlier formulations and allows for circumvention of their drawbacks. We present two constraint models for the new problem in terms of mixed integer programming and maximum satisfiability, as well as a greedy approach. Furthermore, we empirically evaluate the scalability of the constraint optimization approaches and solution quality compared to the greedy approach on real-world datasets.

The Theory of Island Biogeography

Abstract: Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

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.

Machine Learning : A Probabilistic Perspective

Abstract: Today's Web-enabled deluge of electronic data calls for automated methods of data analysis. Machine learning provides these, developing methods that can automatically detect patterns in data and then use the uncovered patterns to predict future data. This textbook offers a comprehensive and self-contained introduction to the field of machine learning, based on a unified, probabilistic approach. The coverage combines breadth and depth, offering necessary background material on such topics as probability, optimization, and linear algebra as well as discussion of recent developments in the field, including conditional random fields, L1 regularization, and deep learning. The book is written in an informal, accessible style, complete with pseudo-code for the most important algorithms. All topics are copiously illustrated with color images and worked examples drawn from such application domains as biology, text processing, computer vision, and robotics. Rather than providing a cookbook of different heuristic methods, the book stresses a principled model-based approach, often using the language of graphical models to specify models in a concise and intuitive way. Almost all the models described have been implemented in a MATLAB software package--PMTK (probabilistic modeling toolkit)--that is freely available online. The book is suitable for upper-level undergraduates with an introductory-level college math background and beginning graduate students.

Computer vision : a modern approach = 计算机视觉 : 一种现代的方法

Abstract: From the Publisher: The accessible presentation of this book gives both a general view of the entire computer vision enterprise and also offers sufficient detail to be able to build useful applications. Users learn techniques that have proven to be useful by first-hand experience and a wide range of mathematical methods. A CD-ROM with every copy of the text contains source code for programming practice, color images, and illustrative movies. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this book includes essential topics that either reflect practical significance or are of theoretical importance. Topics are discussed in substantial and increasing depth. Application surveys describe numerous important application areas such as image based rendering and digital libraries. Many important algorithms broken down and illustrated in pseudo code. Appropriate for use by engineers as a comprehensive reference to the computer vision enterprise.