Abstract: In order to increase the classification performance obtained using Error-Correcting Output Codes designs (ECOC), introducing weights in the decoding phase of the ECOC has attracted a lot of interest. In this work, we present a method for ECOC designs that focuses on increasing hypothesis margin on the data samples given a base classifier. While achieving this, we implicitly reward the base classifiers with high performance, whereas punish those with low performance. The resulting objective function is of the fractional programming type and we deal with this problem through the Dinkelbach’s Algorithm. The conducted tests over well known UCI datasets show that the presented method is superior to the unweighted decoding and that it outperforms the results of the state-of-the-art weighted decoding methods in most of the performed experiments.

Abstract: ChaLearn is organizing for IJCNN 2015 an Automatic Machine Learning challenge (AutoML) to solve classification and regression problems from given feature representations, without any human intervention. This is a challenge with code
submission: the code submitted can be executed automatically on the challenge servers to train and test learning machines on new datasets. However, there is no obligation to submit code. Half of the prizes can be won by just submitting prediction results.
There are six rounds (Prep, Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert, and Master) in which datasets of progressive difficulty are introduced (5 per round). There is no requirement to participate in previous rounds to enter a new round. The rounds alternate AutoML phases in which submitted code is “blind tested” on
datasets the participants have never seen before, and Tweakathon phases giving time (' 1 month) to the participants to improve their methods by tweaking their code on those datasets. This challenge will push the state-of-the-art in fully automatic machine learning on a wide range of problems taken from real world
applications. The platform will remain available beyond the termination of the challenge: http://codalab.org/AutoML

Abstract: By increasing popularity of wearable cameras, life-logging data analysis is becoming more and more important and useful to derive significant events out of this substantial collection of images. In this study, we introduce a new tracking method applied to visual life-logging, called bag-of-tracklets, which is based on detecting, localizing and tracking of people. Given the low spatial and temporal resolution of the image data, our model generates and groups tracklets in a unsupervised framework and extracts image sequences of person appearance according to a similarity score of the bag-of-tracklets. The model output is a meaningful sequence of events expressing human appearance and tracking them in life-logging data. The achieved results prove the robustness of our model in terms of efficiency and accuracy despite the low spatial and temporal resolution of the data.

Abstract: Graph-based representations are experiencing a growing usage in visual recognition and retrieval due to their representational power in front of classical appearance-based representations in terms of feature vectors. Retrieving a query graph from a large dataset of graphs has the drawback of the high computational complexity required to compare the query and the target graphs. The most important property for a large-scale retrieval is the search time complexity to be sub-linear in the number of database examples. In this paper we propose a fast indexation formalism for graph retrieval. A binary embedding is defined as hashing keys for graph nodes. Given a database of labeled graphs, graph nodes are complemented with vectors of attributes representing their local context. Hence, each attribute counts the length of a walk of order k originated in a vertex with label l. Each attribute vector is converted to a binary code applying a binary-valued hash function. Therefore, graph retrieval is formulated in terms of finding target graphs in the database whose nodes have a small Hamming distance from the query nodes, easily computed with bitwise logical operators. As an application example, we validate the performance of the proposed methods in a handwritten word spotting scenario in images of historical documents.

Abstract: Even though online education is a very important pillar of lifelong education, institutions are still reluctant to wager for a fully online educational model. At the end, they keep relying on on-site assessment systems, mainly because fully virtual alternatives do not have the deserved social recognition or credibility. Thus, the design of virtual assessment systems that are able to provide effective proof of student authenticity and authorship and the integrity of the activities in a scalable and cost efficient manner would be very helpful. This paper presents ValID, a virtual assessment approach based on a continuous trust level evaluation between students and the institution. The current trust level serves as the main mechanism to dynamically decide which kind of controls a given student should be subjected to, across different courses in a degree. The main goal is providing a fair trade-off between security, scalability and cost, while maintaining the perceived quality of the educational model.