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Multiple-instance learning via multiple-point concept based instance selection

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Abstract

Multiple-instance learning (MIL) is a kind of weakly supervised learning where a single label is assigned to a bag of instances. To solve MIL problems, researchers have presented an effective embedding based framework that projects bags into a new feature space, which is constructed from some selected instances that can represent target concepts to some extent. Most previous studies use single-point concepts for the instance selection, where every possible concept is represented by only a single point (i.e., instance). However, multiple points may be more powerful for the same concept than a single. In this paper, we propose the notion of multiple-point concept, jointly represented by a group of similar points, and then build an iterative instance-selection method for MIL upon Multiple-Point Concepts. The proposed algorithm is thus named MILMPC, and its main difference from other MIL algorithms is selecting instances via multiple-point concept rather than single-point concept. The experimental results on five data sets have validated the convergence of the iterative instance-selection method, and the generality of the resulting MIL model in that it performs consistently well under three different kinds of relevance evaluation criteria (used to measure the relevance of a candidate concept to the target). Furthermore, compared to other MIL algorithms, the proposed model has been demonstrated not only suitable for common MIL problems, but more suitable for hybrid problems.

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Notes

  1. In details, this group of similar instances can represent the target concept under the standard MIL assumption or a sub-concept under the generalized assumption.

  2. MUSK1 and MUSK2 are available at http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/.

  3. COREL is available at http://www.cs.olemiss.edu/~ychen/ddsvm.html.

  4. Elephant, Fox, and Tiger are available at http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~andrews/mil/datasets.html.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the constructive suggestions from the anonymous reviewers. This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin (18JCYBJC84800, 18JCYBJC85500, and 17JCYBJC15600), National Natural Science Foundation of China (61971309), New-Generation AI Major Scientific and Technological Special Project of Tianjin (18ZXZNGX00150), and Scientific Research Program of Tianjin Municipal Education Commission (2017KJ255).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, China

    Liming Yuan, Guangping Xu, Xianbin Wen & Haixia Xu

  2. School of Computer and Information Engineering, Tianjin Chengjian University, Tianjin, China

    Lu Zhao

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  1. Liming Yuan
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  2. Guangping Xu
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  3. Lu Zhao
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Correspondence to Guangping Xu.

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Yuan, L., Xu, G., Zhao, L. et al. Multiple-instance learning via multiple-point concept based instance selection. Int. J. Mach. Learn. & Cyber. 11, 2113–2126 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13042-020-01105-7

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