Confused about BP Neural Network - machine-learning

Recently I'm learning BP Neural Network for my English letter recognition. I implement a simple edition and find somthing confusing.
My simple edition is to recognize whether the input binary image is a u.
I have a binary image of a letter and extract the feature vector of that image by counting the foreground pixels of every 3x3 block. For example, for a 24x24 image, the size of feature vector is 64.
Output 1 for is a u and 0 for isn't a u.
Then there's what I'm confused about:
First I input a u for training. and input u, c, p, b, d one by one to test. I get 5 1s.
Then I input u, c, p, b, d one by one for training, and input u, c, p, b, d one by one to test. I get 5 0s
Is it that the result of new training changes the result of old training makes the recognition fail?

Related

Machine Learning: Why xW+b instead of Wx+b?

I started to learn Machine Learning. Now i tried to play around with tensorflow.
Often i see examples like this:
pred = tf.add(tf.mul(X, W), b)
I also saw such a line in a plain numpy implementation. Why is always x*W+b used instead of W*x+b? Is there an advantage if matrices are multiplied in this way? I see that it is possible (if X, W and b are transposed), but i do not see an advantage. In school in the math class we always only used Wx+b.
Thank you very much
This is the reason:
By default w is a vector of weights and in maths a vector is considered a column, not a row.
X is a collection of data. And it is a matrix nxd (where n is the number of data and d the number of features) (upper case X is a matrix n x d and lower case only 1 data 1 x d matrix).
To correctly multiply both and use the correct weight in the correct feature you must use X*w+b:
With X*w you mutliply every feature by its corresponding weight and by adding b you add the bias term on every prediction.
If you multiply w * X you multipy a (1 x d)*(n x d) and it has no sense.
I'm also confused with this. I guess this may be a dimension matter. For a n*m-dimension matrix W and a n-dimension vector x, using xW+b can be easily viewed as that maping a n-dimension feature to a m-dimension feature, i.e., you can easily think W as a n-dimension -> m-dimension operation, where as Wx+b (x must be m-dimension vector now) becomes a m-dimension -> n-dimension operation, which looks less comfortable in my opinion. :D

Batch Normalization in Convolutional Neural Network

I am newbie in convolutional neural networks and just have idea about feature maps and how convolution is done on images to extract features. I would be glad to know some details on applying batch normalisation in CNN.
I read this paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03167v3.pdf and could understand the BN algorithm applied on a data but in the end they mentioned that a slight modification is required when applied to CNN:
For convolutional layers, we additionally want the normalization to obey the convolutional property – so that different elements of the same feature map, at different locations, are normalized in the same way. To achieve this, we jointly normalize all the activations in a mini- batch, over all locations. In Alg. 1, we let B be the set of all values in a feature map across both the elements of a mini-batch and spatial locations – so for a mini-batch of size m and feature maps of size p × q, we use the effec- tive mini-batch of size m′ = |B| = m · pq. We learn a pair of parameters γ(k) and β(k) per feature map, rather than per activation. Alg. 2 is modified similarly, so that during inference the BN transform applies the same linear transformation to each activation in a given feature map.
I am total confused when they say
"so that different elements of the same feature map, at different locations, are normalized in the same way"
I know what feature maps mean and different elements are the weights in every feature map. But I could not understand what location or spatial location means.
I could not understand the below sentence at all
"In Alg. 1, we let B be the set of all values in a feature map across both the elements of a mini-batch and spatial locations"
I would be glad if someone cold elaborate and explain me in much simpler terms
Let's start with the terms. Remember that the output of the convolutional layer is a 4-rank tensor [B, H, W, C], where B is the batch size, (H, W) is the feature map size, C is the number of channels. An index (x, y) where 0 <= x < H and 0 <= y < W is a spatial location.
Usual batchnorm
Now, here's how the batchnorm is applied in a usual way (in pseudo-code):
# t is the incoming tensor of shape [B, H, W, C]
# mean and stddev are computed along 0 axis and have shape [H, W, C]
mean = mean(t, axis=0)
stddev = stddev(t, axis=0)
for i in 0..B-1:
out[i,:,:,:] = norm(t[i,:,:,:], mean, stddev)
Basically, it computes H*W*C means and H*W*C standard deviations across B elements. You may notice that different elements at different spatial locations have their own mean and variance and gather only B values.
Batchnorm in conv layer
This way is totally possible. But the convolutional layer has a special property: filter weights are shared across the input image (you can read it in detail in this post). That's why it's reasonable to normalize the output in the same way, so that each output value takes the mean and variance of B*H*W values, at different locations.
Here's how the code looks like in this case (again pseudo-code):
# t is still the incoming tensor of shape [B, H, W, C]
# but mean and stddev are computed along (0, 1, 2) axes and have just [C] shape
mean = mean(t, axis=(0, 1, 2))
stddev = stddev(t, axis=(0, 1, 2))
for i in 0..B-1, x in 0..H-1, y in 0..W-1:
out[i,x,y,:] = norm(t[i,x,y,:], mean, stddev)
In total, there are only C means and standard deviations and each one of them is computed over B*H*W values. That's what they mean when they say "effective mini-batch": the difference between the two is only in axis selection (or equivalently "mini-batch selection").
Some clarification on Maxim's answer.
I was puzzled by seeing in Keras that the axis you specify is the channels axis, as it doesn't make sense to normalize over the channels - as every channel in a conv-net is considered a different "feature". I.e. normalizing over all channels is equivalent to normalizing number of bedrooms with size in square feet (multivariate regression example from Andrew's ML course). This is usually not what you want - what you do is normalize every feature by itself. I.e. you normalize the number of bedrooms across all examples to be with mu=0 and std=1, and you normalize the the square feet across all examples to be with mu=0 and std=1.
This is why you want C means and stds, because you want a mean and std per channel/feature.
After checking and testing it myself I realized the issue: there's a bit of a confusion/misconception here. The axis you specify in Keras is actually the axis which is not in the calculations. i.e. you get average over every axis except the one specified by this argument. This is confusing, as it is exactly the opposite behavior of how NumPy works, where the specified axis is the one you do the operation on (e.g. np.mean, np.std, etc.).
I actually built a toy model with only BN, and then calculated the BN manually - took the mean, std across all the 3 first dimensions [m, n_W, n_H] and got n_C results, calculated (X-mu)/std (using broadcasting) and got identical results to the Keras results.
Hope this helps anyone who was confused as I was.
I'm only 70% sure of what I say, so if it does not make sense, please edit or mention it before downvoting.
About location or spatial location: they mean the position of pixels in an image or feature map. A feature map is comparable to a sparse modified version of image where concepts are represented.
About so that different elements of the same feature map, at different locations, are normalized in the same way:
some normalisation algorithms are local, so they are dependent of their close surrounding (location) and not the things far apart in the image. They probably mean that every pixel, regardless of their location, is treated just like the element of a set, independently of it's direct special surrounding.
About In Alg. 1, we let B be the set of all values in a feature map across both the elements of a mini-batch and spatial locations: They get a flat list of every values of every training example in the minibatch, and this list combines things whatever their location is on the feature map.
Firstly we need to make it clear that the depth of a kernel is determined by previous feature map's channel num, and the number of kernel in this layer determins the channel num of next feature map (the next layer).
then we should make it clear that each kernel(three dimentional usually) will generate just one channel of feature map in the next layer.
thirdly we should try to accept the idea of each points in the generated feature map (regardless of their position) are generated by the same kernel, by sliding on previous layer. So they could be seen as a distribution generated by this kernel, and they could be seen as samples of a stochastic variable. Then they should be averaged to obtain the mean and then the variance. (it not rigid, only helps to understand)
This is what they say "so that different elements of the same feature map, at different locations, are normalized in the same way"

Non sequential (un-ordered) data for neural network

I'm looking for how to input non sequential (un-ordered) data into neural network.
For example, I want to cluster 2 classes with the following samples.
sample 1-1: A, B, C, D
sample 1-2: A, C, D (B may be lacked)
sample 1-3: D, A, C, B (the order can be changed)
sample 2-1: X, Y, Z
sample 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 should be in a same cluster even if they are a little different each other.
sample 1-? and 2-1 should be in different clusters.
I tried to sum them all (like A+B+C+D compared with A+C+D) to make it fixed size but it was no good.
Do you have good idea?

Solve Record Linkage as a Constraint Satisfaction with Machine Learning

I have pairs of sets such as
A = { L, M, N, P } = { <"Lll", 47, 0.004>, <"Mm", 60, 0.95>, <"Nnnn", 33, 0.2892>, <"P", 47, 0.0125> }
B = { l, m, n, o } = { <"l", 46, 0.004>, <"m", 0, 0.95>, <"nn", 33, 0.2892>, <"oOo", 33, 0.5773> }
... and I want to automatically train an algorithm based on known-good data to know how to link the set members as
{ <L, l>, <M, m>, <N, n>, <?, o>, <P, ?> }
... with, at most, one match for each element of either set. The sets do not have to have the same size and have no guarantees about their overlap - maybe no matches, maybe all matches, maybe a mix of matches and non-matches. But there is expected to be a human-identifiable matching in many cases and the computer should approximate it.
Tried so far
H(a, b, w1, w2, w3) scores a pair of tuples <a1, a2, a3> from A and <b1, b2, b3> from B as f1(a1, b1) * w1 + f2(a2, b2) * w2 + f3(a3, b3) * w3 where f1, f2, and f3 are hand-crafted and w1, w2, and w3 are parameterized weights. I sort all pairs A × B by their scores and take the pairs for which neither member is already represented by a higher-scored pair. I use a crude hill-climbing to train for the weights so that the resulting pairs map as the training data expects. A perfect weighting configuration has a threshold t which delineates correct pair scores S_ab from incorrect pair scores. This algorithm routinely finds perfect configurations after a few hundred or thousand iterations for my training data of about 800 (A, B) sets totaling 2500 pairs of 8-uples (instead of the 3-uples illustrated). I have yet to give it a validation dataset to find out how badly this method is overfitting.
I'm not happy about the hardcoded treatment of the set-ness aspect of the problem. I can only imagine machine learning techniques for scoring pairs but the subsequent mapping is hand-crafted and perhaps isn't as smart as an ideal solution that considers the set-mapping as a whole. Because the machine learning part doesn't consider the whole set, it seems to me to be missing out on some information it could be using to make better decisions.
I think my illustration above could be refactored to first score all pairs in A × B as S_ab = < f1(a1, b1), f2(a2, b2), ..., fn(an, bn) > (for n-tuples) and then use an [n, ?, 1] neural network training on matches and non-matches by each S_ab. This considers a pair and outputs match/no match and does nothing to consider the whole set.
It is my understanding that neural networks don't handle variable-sized input, though perhaps I could choose an upper-bound for ||A|| and ||B|| and find some neutral encoding for padding unused nodes. And the output could be a matrix of matches along the axes indexing the elements of A along the side and B along the bottom, say. But then still the net would be sensitive to the order of elements, no?
So ...
Is there a machine learning technique that could reliably map sets to sets in this way? It is related to record linkage in obvious ways. It is a constraint satisfaction problem in that each element can be matched at most once. It would be ideal if human corrections of results could be incorporated as feedback for improved future results. If you have a way, could please spell it out for me because I'm not well versed in machine learning concepts.

Machine Learning Model for Multi-Label Classification where we know relationship between the labels

I am having a problem at hand where,
I need to classify the input data to one or more of the labels S1, S2, S3, S4
There is a relationship between the labels S1, S2, S3 and S4 which is,
If input is labelled Sn it must be labelled S1..Sn.
S1, S2, S3 and S4 are like different stages for an entity X to pass through. Based on input data X might get through one or many of the stages, X must pass through S1 to go to S2, S2 to go to S3 and so on
We want to ensure that only those X are allowed to pass which reach S3, so based on input data we decide whether to allow X to go through S1 or not
What machine learning models can we choose to predict if X reaches S3 if we have information like, input data and what stages X has passed for that input data
I am thinking in direction of a multi label classification There might be some relationship between input data stage S1 and S2
Update: I have to train with examples like
1. Input data is s1
2. Input data is s2
3. ..
4 ..
Some doubts
Your question is far from being clear, for example:
We want to optimize that most X reaches S3, so based on input data we decide whether to allow X to go through S1 or not
Actually suggest, that the best model would be "always answer yes" ,as it maximized number of objects reaching S3 (as it simply lets any object reach this point)
General ideas
I assume two possible interpretations:
You have a labels "pipeline", which simply means, that object cannot be labelled S_n if it has not been already labelled with all S_i for i < n
This does not seem to be the problem for one single model, you can pipeline models in a natural way, ie. train a model 1 which regognizes, if object x should have label S_1. Next, you train a model 2 on all data that has label S_1 in the training set and predict label S_2, and so on. During execution you simply ask each model i if it accepts (labels) the incoming object x, and stop when the first one says "no"
You have some more complex constraints on the labels, which may be strict or not.For such cases, you should try one of many methods of multi label classification with constraints, in particular there is a tech report regarding this aspect of ML.
Solution 1 - approximating test functions
If your problem can be described as:
You have data points X, such that for each of them you know the maximum number of some pipelineable tests T_i which x passes
You want to train a classifier able to predict, what is the maximum number of consequtive tests that your point x passes
You do not have access to actual tests T_i or they are very inefficient
Then the simplest way would be to apply the following training procedure instead of one classifier:
Take all your data points, label those with y=0 as 0 and those with y>=1 as 1 and train some binary classifier (for example SVM). So you simply temporarly relabel your data so it shows points that pass the first test and those who don't. Lets call this classifier cl_1
Now take your data points, label those with y=1 as 0 and those with y>=2 as 1 and again train binary classifier, and call it cl_2
Repest until all tests have their classifier, in general in we call the classifier cl_i when it can distinguish between points labeled with y=i-1 and those with y>=i.
Now, to classify your new point, you simply check iteratively all your cl_i for i=1,..,tests and answer with the largest such i that cl_i(x)=1. So you "simulate" your tests with classifiers, and simply say how many this tests' approximations it passed.
To sum up: each test can be approximated with one binary classifier, and then the question of "What is the biggest consequtive test number that our point passes" is approximated with "what is the biggest consequtive classifier number that out point is classified as true".
Solution 2 - simple regression
You can also simply apply regression from your input space into the number of tests it reaches. Regression actually has an imprinted assumption, that the output values are correlated. So if you train your data with pairs (x,y) where y is the number of last test passed by x, then you are actually using the fact, that the output y=3 is highly related to first getting y=2 in the computations. Such regression (non-linear!) could be simply done using neural networks (possibly regularized)

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