arXiv subjects

Xianming Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Xianming Liu.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

An Elementary Proof of a Classical Information-Theoretic Formula

A renowned information-theoretic formula by Shannon expresses the mutual information rate of a white Gaussian channel with a stationary Gaussian input as an integral of a simple function of the power spectral density of the channel input. We give in this paper a rigorous yet elementary proof of this classical formula. As opposed to all the conventional approaches, which either rely on heavy mathematical machineries or have to resort to some "external" results, our proof, which hinges on a recently proven sampling theorem, is elementary and self-contained, only using some well-known facts from basic calculus and matrix theory.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2018

On Continuous-Time Gaussian Channels

A continuous-time white Gaussian channel can be formulated using a white Gaussian noise, and a conventional way for examining such a channel is the sampling approach based on the Shannon-Nyquist sampling theorem, where the original continuous-time channel is converted to an equivalent discrete-time channel, to which a great variety of established tools and methodology can be applied. However, one of the key issues of this scheme is that continuous-time feedback and memory cannot be incorporated into the channel model. It turns out that this issue can be circumvented by considering the Brownian motion formulation of a continuous-time white Gaussian channel. Nevertheless, as opposed to the white Gaussian noise formulation, a link that establishes the information-theoretic connection between a continuous-time channel under the Brownian motion formulation and its discrete-time counterparts has long been missing. This paper is to fill this gap by establishing causality-preserving connections between continuous-time Gaussian feedback/memory channels and their associated discrete-time versions in the forms of sampling and approximation theorems, which we believe will play important roles in the long run for further developing continuous-time information theory. As an immediate application of the approximation theorem, we propose the so-called approximation approach to examine continuous-time white Gaussian channels in the point-to-point or multi-user setting. It turns out that the approximation approach, complemented by relevant tools from stochastic calculus, can enhance our understanding of continuous-time Gaussian channels in terms of giving alternative and strengthened interpretation to some long-held folklore, recovering "long known" results from new perspectives, and rigorously establishing new results predicted by the intuition that the approximation approach carries.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2018

Information-Theoretic Extensions of the Shannon-Nyquist Sampling Theorem

A continuous-time white Gaussian channel can be formulated using a white Gaussian noise, and a conventional way for examining such a channel is the sampling approach based on the classical Shannon-Nyquist sampling theorem, where the original continuous-time channel is converted to an equivalent discrete-time channel, to which a great variety of established tools and methodology can be applied. However, one of the key issues of this scheme is that continuous-time feedback cannot be incorporated into the channel model. It turns out that this issue can be circumvented by considering the Brownian motion formulation of a continuous-time white Gaussian channel. Nevertheless, as opposed to the white Gaussian noise formulation, a link that establishes the information-theoretic connection between a continuous-time white Gaussian channel under the Brownian motion formulation and its discrete-time counterparts has long been missing. This paper is to fill this gap by establishing information-theoretic extensions of the Shannon-Nyquist theorem, which naturally yield causality-preserving connections between continuous-time Gaussian feedback channels and their associated discrete-time versions in the forms of sampling and approximation theorems. As an example of the possible applications of the extensions, we use the above-mentioned connections to analyze the capacity of a continuous-time white Gaussian feedback channel.

math.PR↗

arXiv2018

Connecting Image Denoising and High-Level Vision Tasks via Deep Learning

Image denoising and high-level vision tasks are usually handled independently in the conventional practice of computer vision, and their connection is fragile. In this paper, we cope with the two jointly and explore the mutual influence between them with the focus on two questions, namely (1) how image denoising can help improving high-level vision tasks, and (2) how the semantic information from high-level vision tasks can be used to guide image denoising. First for image denoising we propose a convolutional neural network in which convolutions are conducted in various spatial resolutions via downsampling and upsampling operations in order to fuse and exploit contextual information on different scales. Second we propose a deep neural network solution that cascades two modules for image denoising and various high-level tasks, respectively, and use the joint loss for updating only the denoising network via back-propagation. We experimentally show that on one hand, the proposed denoiser has the generality to overcome the performance degradation of different high-level vision tasks. On the other hand, with the guidance of high-level vision information, the denoising network produces more visually appealing results. Extensive experiments demonstrate the benefit of exploiting image semantics simultaneously for image denoising and high-level vision tasks via deep learning. The code is available online: https://github.com/Ding-Liu/DeepDenoising

cs.CV↗

arXiv2018

A role of random slow manifolds in detecting stochastic bifurcation

We consider the relation for the stochastic equilibrium states between the reduced system on a random slow manifold and the original system. This provides a theoretical basis for the reduction about sophisti- cated detailed models by the random slow manifold without significant damage to the overall qualitative properties. Based on this result, we reveal a role of random slow manifolds in detecting stochastic bifurca- tion by an example. The example exhibits a stochastic bifurcation phenomenon and possesses a random slow manifold that carries the stochastic bifurcation information of the system. Specifically, the lower dimensional reduced system on the random slow manifold retains the stochastic bifurcation phenomenon from the original system.

math.DS↗

arXiv2018

A Wong-Zakai Approximation for Random Slow Manifolds with Application to Parameter Estimation

We study a Wong-Zakai approximation for the random slow manifold of a slow-fast stochastic dynamical system. We first deduce the existence of the random slow manifold about an approximation system driven by an integrated Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (O-U) process. Then we compute the slow manifold of the approximation system, in order to gain insights of the long time dynamics of the original stochastic system. By restricting this approximation system to its slow manifold, we thus get a reduced slow random system. This reduced slow random system is used to accurately estimate a system parameter of the original system. An example is presented to illustrate this approximation.

math.DS↗

arXiv2018

When Image Denoising Meets High-Level Vision Tasks: A Deep Learning Approach

Conventionally, image denoising and high-level vision tasks are handled separately in computer vision. In this paper, we cope with the two jointly and explore the mutual influence between them. First we propose a convolutional neural network for image denoising which achieves the state-of-the-art performance. Second we propose a deep neural network solution that cascades two modules for image denoising and various high-level tasks, respectively, and use the joint loss for updating only the denoising network via back-propagation. We demonstrate that on one hand, the proposed denoiser has the generality to overcome the performance degradation of different high-level vision tasks. On the other hand, with the guidance of high-level vision information, the denoising network can generate more visually appealing results. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work investigating the benefit of exploiting image semantics simultaneously for image denoising and high-level vision tasks via deep learning. The code is available online https://github.com/Ding-Liu/DeepDenoising.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2018

Graph-Based Blind Image Deblurring From a Single Photograph

Blind image deblurring, i.e., deblurring without knowledge of the blur kernel, is a highly ill-posed problem. The problem can be solved in two parts: i) estimate a blur kernel from the blurry image, and ii) given estimated blur kernel, de-convolve blurry input to restore the target image. In this paper, we propose a graph-based blind image deblurring algorithm by interpreting an image patch as a signal on a weighted graph. Specifically, we first argue that a skeleton image---a proxy that retains the strong gradients of the target but smooths out the details---can be used to accurately estimate the blur kernel and has a unique bi-modal edge weight distribution. Then, we design a reweighted graph total variation (RGTV) prior that can efficiently promote a bi-modal edge weight distribution given a blurry patch. Further, to analyze RGTV in the graph frequency domain, we introduce a new weight function to represent RGTV as a graph $l_1$-Laplacian regularizer. This leads to a graph spectral filtering interpretation of the prior with desirable properties, including robustness to noise and blur, strong piecewise smooth (PWS) filtering and sharpness promotion. Minimizing a blind image deblurring objective with RGTV results in a non-convex non-differentiable optimization problem. We leverage the new graph spectral interpretation for RGTV to design an efficient algorithm that solves for the skeleton image and the blur kernel alternately. Specifically for Gaussian blur, we propose a further speedup strategy for blind Gaussian deblurring using accelerated graph spectral filtering. Finally, with the computed blur kernel, recent non-blind image deblurring algorithms can be applied to restore the target image. Experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm successfully restores latent sharp images and outperforms state-of-the-art methods quantitatively and qualitatively.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2018

Weak order in averaging principle for two-time-scale stochastic partial differential equations

This work is devoted to averaging principle of a two-time-scale stochastic partial differential equation on a bounded interval $[0, l]$, where both the fast and slow components are directly perturbed by additive noises. Under some regular conditions on drift coefficients, it is proved that the rate of weak convergence for the slow variable to the averaged dynamics is of order $1-\varepsilon$ for arbitrarily small $\varepsilon>0$. The proof is based on an asymptotic expansion of solutions to Kolmogorov equations associated with the multiple-time-scale system.

math.PR↗

arXiv2017

Blind Image Deblurring via Reweighted Graph Total Variation

cs.CV↗

arXiv2017

Strong convergence rate in averaging principle for stochastic hyperbolic-parabolic equations with two time-scales

In this article, we investigate averaging principle for stochastic hyperbolic-parabolic equations with two time-scales, in which both the slow and fast components are perturbed by multiplicative noises. Particularly, we prove that the rate of strong convergence for the slow component to the averaged dynamics is of order $1/2$, which significantly improves the order $1/4$ established in our previous work.

math.PR↗

arXiv2017

Mapping the world population one building at a time

High resolution datasets of population density which accurately map sparsely-distributed human populations do not exist at a global scale. Typically, population data is obtained using censuses and statistical modeling. More recently, methods using remotely-sensed data have emerged, capable of effectively identifying urbanized areas. Obtaining high accuracy in estimation of population distribution in rural areas remains a very challenging task due to the simultaneous requirements of sufficient sensitivity and resolution to detect very sparse populations through remote sensing as well as reliable performance at a global scale. Here, we present a computer vision method based on machine learning to create population maps from satellite imagery at a global scale, with a spatial sensitivity corresponding to individual buildings and suitable for global deployment. By combining this settlement data with census data, we create population maps with ~30 meter resolution for 18 countries. We validate our method, and find that the building identification has an average precision and recall of 0.95 and 0.91, respectively and that the population estimates have a standard error of a factor ~2 or less. Based on our data, we analyze 29 percent of the world population, and show that 99 percent lives within 36 km of the nearest urban cluster. The resulting high-resolution population datasets have applications in infrastructure planning, vaccination campaign planning, disaster response efforts and risk analysis such as high accuracy flood risk analysis.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2017

Building Detection from Satellite Images on a Global Scale

In the last several years, remote sensing technology has opened up the possibility of performing large scale building detection from satellite imagery. Our work is some of the first to create population density maps from building detection on a large scale. The scale of our work on population density estimation via high resolution satellite images raises many issues, that we will address in this paper. The first was data acquisition. Labeling buildings from satellite images is a hard problem, one where we found our labelers to only be about 85% accurate at. There is a tradeoff of quantity vs. quality of labels, so we designed two separate policies for labels meant for training sets and those meant for test sets, since our requirements of the two set types are quite different. We also trained weakly supervised footprint detection models with the classification labels, and semi-supervised approaches with a small number of pixel-level labels, which are very expensive to procure.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2017

Slow manifolds for stochastic systems with non-Gaussian stable Lévy noise

This work is concerned with the dynamics of a class of slow-fast stochastic dynamical systems with non-Gaussian stable Lévy noise with a scale parameter. Slow manifolds with exponentially tracking property are constructed, eliminating the fast variables to reduce the dimension of these coupled dynamical systems. It is shown that as the scale parameter tends to zero, the slow manifolds converge to critical manifolds in distribution, which helps understand long time dynamics. The approximation of slow manifolds with error estimate in distribution are also considered.

math.DS↗

arXiv2017

Weak order in averaging principle for stochastic wave equations with a fast oscillation

This article deals with the weak errors for averaging principle for a stochastic wave equation in a bounded interval $[0,L]$, perturbed by a oscillating term arising as the solution of a stochastic reaction-diffusion equation evolving with respect to the fast time. Under suitable conditions, it is proved that the rate of weak convergence to the averaged effective dynamics is of order $1$ via an asymptotic expansion approach.

math.PR↗

arXiv2016

Feedback Neural Network for Weakly Supervised Geo-Semantic Segmentation

Learning from weakly-supervised data is one of the main challenges in machine learning and computer vision, especially for tasks such as image semantic segmentation where labeling is extremely expensive and subjective. In this paper, we propose a novel neural network architecture to perform weakly-supervised learning by suppressing irrelevant neuron activations. It localizes objects of interest by learning from image-level categorical labels in an end-to-end manner. We apply this algorithm to a practical challenge of transforming satellite images into a map of settlements and individual buildings. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves superior performance and efficiency when compared with various baseline models.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2016

Random Walk Graph Laplacian based Smoothness Prior for Soft Decoding of JPEG Images

Given the prevalence of JPEG compressed images, optimizing image reconstruction from the compressed format remains an important problem. Instead of simply reconstructing a pixel block from the centers of indexed DCT coefficient quantization bins (hard decoding), soft decoding reconstructs a block by selecting appropriate coefficient values within the indexed bins with the help of signal priors. The challenge thus lies in how to define suitable priors and apply them effectively. In this paper, we combine three image priors---Laplacian prior for DCT coefficients, sparsity prior and graph-signal smoothness prior for image patches---to construct an efficient JPEG soft decoding algorithm. Specifically, we first use the Laplacian prior to compute a minimum mean square error (MMSE) initial solution for each code block. Next, we show that while the sparsity prior can reduce block artifacts, limiting the size of the over-complete dictionary (to lower computation) would lead to poor recovery of high DCT frequencies. To alleviate this problem, we design a new graph-signal smoothness prior (desired signal has mainly low graph frequencies) based on the left eigenvectors of the random walk graph Laplacian matrix (LERaG). Compared to previous graph-signal smoothness priors, LERaG has desirable image filtering properties with low computation overhead. We demonstrate how LERaG can facilitate recovery of high DCT frequencies of a piecewise smooth (PWS) signal via an interpretation of low graph frequency components as relaxed solutions to normalized cut in spectral clustering. Finally, we construct a soft decoding algorithm using the three signal priors with appropriate prior weights. Experimental results show that our proposal outperforms state-of-the-art soft decoding algorithms in both objective and subjective evaluations noticeably.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2016

Analyzing User Preference for Social Image Recommendation

With the incredibly growing amount of multimedia data shared on the social media platforms, recommender systems have become an important necessity to ease users' burden on the information overload. In such a scenario, extensive amount of heterogeneous information such as tags, image content, in addition to the user-to-item preferences, is extremely valuable for making effective recommendations. In this paper, we explore a novel hybrid algorithm termed {\em STM}, for image recommendation. STM jointly considers the problem of image content analysis with the users' preferences on the basis of sparse representation. STM is able to tackle the challenges of highly sparse user feedbacks and cold-start problmes in the social network scenario. In addition, our model is based on the classical probabilistic matrix factorization and can be easily extended to incorporate other useful information such as the social relationships. We evaluate our approach with a newly collected 0.3 million social image data set from Flickr. The experimental results demonstrate that sparse topic modeling of the image content leads to more effective recommendations, , with a significant performance gain over the state-of-the-art alternatives.

cs.IR↗