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Approximate Parameter Learning in Conditional Random Fields: An Empirical Investigation

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Pattern Recognition (DAGM 2008)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNIP,volume 5096))

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Abstract

We investigate maximum likelihood parameter learning in Conditional Random Fields (CRF) and present an empirical study of pseudo-likelihood (PL) based approximations of the parameter likelihood gradient. We show, as opposed to [1][2], that these parameter learning methods can be improved and evaluate the resulting performance employing different inference techniques. We show that the approximation based on penalized pseudo-likelihood (PPL) in combination with the Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) inference yields results comparable to other state of the art approaches, while providing advantages to formulating parameter learning as a convex optimization problem. Eventually, we demonstrate applicability on the task of detecting man-made structures in natural images.

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Gerhard Rigoll

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Korč, F., Förstner, W. (2008). Approximate Parameter Learning in Conditional Random Fields: An Empirical Investigation. In: Rigoll, G. (eds) Pattern Recognition. DAGM 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5096. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69321-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69321-5_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-69320-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69321-5

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