Sholom M. Weiss

Bio: Sholom M. Weiss is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Computer network programming. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 1128 citations.

Statistical pattern recognition: a review

Abstract: The primary goal of pattern recognition is supervised or unsupervised classification. Among the various frameworks in which pattern recognition has been traditionally formulated, the statistical approach has been most intensively studied and used in practice. More recently, neural network techniques and methods imported from statistical learning theory have been receiving increasing attention. The design of a recognition system requires careful attention to the following issues: definition of pattern classes, sensing environment, pattern representation, feature extraction and selection, cluster analysis, classifier design and learning, selection of training and test samples, and performance evaluation. In spite of almost 50 years of research and development in this field, the general problem of recognizing complex patterns with arbitrary orientation, location, and scale remains unsolved. New and emerging applications, such as data mining, web searching, retrieval of multimedia data, face recognition, and cursive handwriting recognition, require robust and efficient pattern recognition techniques. The objective of this review paper is to summarize and compare some of the well-known methods used in various stages of a pattern recognition system and identify research topics and applications which are at the forefront of this exciting and challenging field.

A Probabilistic Theory of Pattern Recognition

Abstract: Preface * Introduction * The Bayes Error * Inequalities and alternatedistance measures * Linear discrimination * Nearest neighbor rules *Consistency * Slow rates of convergence Error estimation * The regularhistogram rule * Kernel rules Consistency of the k-nearest neighborrule * Vapnik-Chervonenkis theory * Combinatorial aspects of Vapnik-Chervonenkis theory * Lower bounds for empirical classifier selection* The maximum likelihood principle * Parametric classification *Generalized linear discrimination * Complexity regularization *Condensed and edited nearest neighbor rules * Tree classifiers * Data-dependent partitioning * Splitting the data * The resubstitutionestimate * Deleted estimates of the error probability * Automatickernel rules * Automatic nearest neighbor rules * Hypercubes anddiscrete spaces * Epsilon entropy and totally bounded sets * Uniformlaws of large numbers * Neural networks * Other error estimates *Feature extraction * Appendix * Notation * References * Index

Irrelevant features and the subset selection problem

Abstract: We address the problem of finding a subset of features that allows a supervised induction algorithm to induce small high-accuracy concepts. We examine notions of relevance and irrelevance, and show that the definitions used in the machine learning literature do not adequately partition the features into useful categories of relevance. We present definitions for irrelevance and for two degrees of relevance. These definitions improve our understanding of the behavior of previous subset selection algorithms, and help define the subset of features that should be sought. The features selected should depend not only on the features and the target concept, but also on the induction algorithm. We describe a method for feature subset selection using cross-validation that is applicable to any induction algorithm, and discuss experiments conducted with ID3 and C4.5 on artificial and real datasets.

An introduction to neural networks

Abstract: From the Publisher: An Introduction to Nueral Networks will be warmly welcomed by a wide readership seeking an authoritative treatment of this key subject without an intimidating level of mathematics in the presentation.

Supervised and unsupervised discretization of continuous features

Abstract: Many supervised machine learning algorithms require a discrete feature space. In this paper, we review previous work on continuous feature discretization, identify defining characteristics of the methods, and conduct an empirical evaluation of several methods. We compare binning, an unsupervised discretization method, to entropy-based and purity-based methods, which are supervised algorithms. We found that the performance of the Naive-Bayes algorithm significantly improved when features were discretized using an entropy-based method. In fact, over the 16 tested datasets, the discretized version of Naive-Bayes slightly outperformed C4.5 on average. We also show that in some cases, the performance of the C4.5 induction algorithm significantly improved if features were discretized in advance; in our experiments, the performance never significantly degraded, an interesting phenomenon considering the fact that C4.5 is capable of locally discretizing features.