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.).

Machine learning

Feature matching is at the base of many computer vision problems, such as object recognition or structure from motion. Current methods rely on costly descriptors for detection and matching. In this paper, we propose a very fast binary descriptor based on BRIEF, called ORB, which is rotation invariant and resistant to noise. We demonstrate through experiments how ORB is at two orders of magnitude faster than SIFT, while performing as well in many situations. The efficiency is tested on several real-world applications, including object detection and patch-tracking on a smart phone.

ORB: An efficient alternative to SIFT or SURF

We propose a semi-direct monocular visual odometry algorithm that is precise, robust, and faster than current state-of-the-art methods. The semi-direct approach eliminates the need of costly feature extraction and robust matching techniques for motion estimation. Our algorithm operates directly on pixel intensities, which results in subpixel precision at high frame-rates. A probabilistic mapping method that explicitly models outlier measurements is used to estimate 3D points, which results in fewer outliers and more reliable points. Precise and high frame-rate motion estimation brings increased robustness in scenes of little, repetitive, and high-frequency texture. The algorithm is applied to micro-aerial-vehicle state-estimation in GPS-denied environments and runs at 55 frames per second on the onboard embedded computer and at more than 300 frames per second on a consumer laptop. We call our approach SVO (Semi-direct Visual Odometry) and release our implementation as open-source software.

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SVO: Fast semi-direct monocular visual odometry

In the real world, a realistic setting for computer vision or multimedia recognition problems is that we have some classes containing lots of training data and many classes contain a small amount of training data. Therefore, how to use frequent classes to help learning rare classes for which it is harder to collect the training data is an open question. Learning with Shared Information is an emerging topic in machine learning, computer vision and multimedia analysis. There are different level of components that can be shared during concept modeling and machine learning stages, such as sharing generic object parts, sharing attributes, sharing transformations, sharing regularization parameters and sharing training examples, etc. Regarding the specific methods, multi-task learning, transfer learning and deep learning can be seen as using different strategies to share information. These learning with shared information methods are very effective in solving real-world large-scale problems. This special issue aims at gathering the recent advances in learning with shared information methods and their applications in computer vision and multimedia analysis. Both state-of-the-art works, as well as literature reviews, are welcome for submission. Papers addressing interesting real-world computer vision and multimedia applications are especially encouraged. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:  • Multi-task learning or transfer learning for large-scale computer vision and multimedia analysis • Deep learning for large-scale computer vision and multimedia analysis • Multi-modal approach for large-scale computer vision and multimedia analysis • Different sharing strategies, e.g., sharing generic object parts, sharing attributes, sharing transformations, sharing regularization parameters and sharing training examples, • Real-world computer vision and multimedia applications based on learning with shared information, e.g., event detection, object recognition, object detection, action recognition, human head pose estimation, object tracking, location-based services, semantic indexing. • New datasets and metrics to evaluate the benefit of the proposed sharing ability for the specific computer vision or multimedia problem. • Survey papers regarding the topic of learning with shared information.  Authors who are unsure whether their planned submission is in scope may contact the guest editors prior to the submission deadline with an abstract, in order to receive feedback.

IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence

With the invention of the low-cost Microsoft Kinect sensor, high-resolution depth and visual (RGB) sensing has become available for widespread use. The complementary nature of the depth and visual information provided by the Kinect sensor opens up new opportunities to solve fundamental problems in computer vision. This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent Kinect-based computer vision algorithms and applications. The reviewed approaches are classified according to the type of vision problems that can be addressed or enhanced by means of the Kinect sensor. The covered topics include preprocessing, object tracking and recognition, human activity analysis, hand gesture analysis, and indoor 3-D mapping. For each category of methods, we outline their main algorithmic contributions and summarize their advantages/differences compared to their RGB counterparts. Finally, we give an overview of the challenges in this field and future research trends. This paper is expected to serve as a tutorial and source of references for Kinect-based computer vision researchers.

Enhanced Computer Vision With Microsoft Kinect Sensor: A Review

The search for a suitable golf course is a very important issue in the travel plans of any modern manager. Modern management is also infamous for its penchant for high-tech gadgetry. Here we combine these two facets of modern management life. We aim to provide the cutting-edge manager with a method of finding golf courses from space!

In this paper, we present GENIE: a hybrid evolutionary algorithm-based system that tackles the general problem of finding features of interest in multi-spectral remotely-sensed images, including, but not limited to, golf courses. Using this system we are able to successfully locate golf courses in 10-channel satellite images of several desirable US locations.

Finding Golf Courses: The Ultra High Tech Approach

The stratigraphical distribution of palynological taxa in the Liassic to Kimmeridgian succession of the Brora Outlier is presented mainly in charts. The palynological implications in terms of depositional environment and correlations with other Mesozoic sections are briefly discussed.

The distribution of palynomorphs in the Jurassic rocks of the Brora Outlier, NE Scotland

The retrieval of scene properties (surface temperature, material type, vegetation health, etc.) from remotely sensed data is the ultimate goal of many earth observing satellites. The algorithms that have been developed for these retrievals are informed by physical models of how the raw data were generated. This includes models of radiation as emitted and/or reflected by the scene, propagated through the atmosphere, collected by the optics, detected by the sensor, and digitized by the electronics. To some extent, the retrieval is the inverse of this 'forward' modeling problem. But in contrast to this forward modeling, the practical task of making inferences about the original scene usually requires some ad hoc assumptions, good physical intuition, and a healthy dose of trial and error. The standard MTI data processing pipeline will employ algorithms developed with this traditional approach. But we will discuss some preliminary research on the use of a genetic programming scheme to 'evolve' retrieval algorithms. Such a scheme cannot compete with the physical intuition of a remote sensing scientist, but it may be able to automate some of the trial and error. In this scenario, a training set is used, which consists of multispectral image data and the associated 'ground truth;' that is, a registered map of the desired retrieval quantity. The genetic programming scheme attempts to combine a core set of image processing primitives to produce an IDL (Interactive Data Language) program which estimates this retrieval quantity from the raw data.

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Evolving retrieval algorithms with a genetic programming scheme

The goal of interactive machine learning is to help scientists and engineers exploit more specialized data from within their deployed environment in less time, with greater accuracy and fewer costs. A basic introduction to the main components is provided here, untangling the many ideas that must be combined to produce practical interactive learning systems. This article also describes recent developments in machine learning that have significantly advanced the theoretical and practical foundations for the next generation of interactive tools.

Interactive Machine Learning in Data Exploitation

We have developed a lexicon to consistently and objectively describe morphological features observed in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. Here we provide the lexicon flowsheet, define the terminology, and detail step-by-step characterization of SEM images collected from a set of actinide oxides. We conclude that this lexicon can be used to characterize texture and surface features, particle structure and size, and grain boundaries in an image of a material. The lexicon should be applicable to characterization of images collected from other techniques for measuring morphology, as well. LA-UR-15-26746

Reid B. Porter

Papers

Finding Golf Courses: The Ultra High Tech Approach

The distribution of palynomorphs in the Jurassic rocks of the Brora Outlier, NE Scotland

Evolving retrieval algorithms with a genetic programming scheme

Interactive Machine Learning in Data Exploitation

A lexicon for consistent description of material images for nuclear forensics