Lecture 17, ECE662: Decision Theory

Lecture notes for ECE662 Spring 2008, Prof. Boutin.

Other lectures: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28,



Nearest Neighbor Classification Rule

  • useful when there are several labels
  • e.g. fingerprint-based recognition

Problem: Given the labeled training samples: $ \vec{X_1}, \vec{X_2}, \ldots, \vec{X_d} $ $ \in \mathbb{R}^n $ (or some other feature space) and an unlabeled test point $ \vec{X_0} $ $ \in \mathbb{R}^n $.

Classification: Let $ \vec{X_i} $ be the closest training point to $ \vec{X_0} $, then we assign the class of $ \vec{X_i} $ to $ \vec{X_0} $.


What do we mean by closest?

There are many meaning depending on the metric we choose for the feature space.


Definition A "metric" on a space S is a function

$ D: S\times S\rightarrow \mathbb{R} $

that satisfies the following 4 properties:

  • Non-negativity $ D(\vec{x_1},\vec{x_2})\geq 0, \forall \vec{x_1},\vec{x_2}\in S $
  • Symmetry $ D(\vec{x_1},\vec{x_2})=D(\vec{x_2},\vec{x_1}), \forall \vec{x_1},\vec{x_2}\in S $
  • Reflexivity $ D(\vec{x},\vec{x})=0, \forall \vec{x}\in S $
  • Triangle Inequality $ D(\vec{x_1},\vec{x_2})+D(\vec{x_2},\vec{x_3})\geq D(\vec{x_1},\vec{x_3}) , \forall \vec{x_1}, \vec{x_2}, \vec{x_3}\in S $

Distances Old Kiwi.jpg Illustration of 3 different metrics


Examples of metrics

Euclidean distance: $ D(\vec{x_1},\vec{x_2})=||\vec{x_1}-\vec{x_2}||_{L_2}=\sqrt{\sum_{i=1}^n ({x_1}^i-{x_2}^i)^2} $

Manhattan (cab driver) distance: $ D(\vec{x_1},\vec{x_2})=||\vec{x_1}-\vec{x_2}||_{L_1}=\sum_{i=1}^n |{x_1}^i-{x_2}^i| $

Minkowski metric: $ D(\vec{x_1},\vec{x_2})=||\vec{x_1}-\vec{x_2}||_{L_p}=(\sum_{i=1}^n ({x_1}^i-{x_2}^i)^p)^{\frac{1}{p}} $

Riemannian metric: $ D(\vec{x_1},\vec{x_2})=\sqrt{(\vec{x_1}-\vec{x_2})^\top \mathbb{M}(\vec{x_1}-\vec{x_2})} $

Infinite norm: $ D(\vec{x_1},\vec{x_2})=||\vec{x_1}-\vec{x_2}||_{\infty}=max_i |{x_1}^i-{x_2}^i| $


where M is a symmetric positive definite $ n\times n $ matrix. Different choices for M enable associating different weights with different components.

In this way, we see that $ \mathbb{R}^n $, $ \mathbb{Z}^n $, $ \mathbb{C}^n $ have many natural metrics, but feature could be in some other set, e.g. a discrete set.

for example,

$ x_1 $={fever, skinrash, high blodd pressure}

$ x_2 $={fever, neckstiffness}

Tanimoto metric

$ D(set1, set2) = \frac {|set1|+|set2|-2|set1 \bigcap set2| }{|set1|+|set2|-|set1 \bigcap set2|} $

Example: previous approach to shape recognition Given is a set of ordered points in $ R_n =(p_1,p_2,\cdots,p_N) $ We want to recognize the shape

Lec17 fig1 Old Kiwi.JPG Figure 1

Given template (triangle form): (T1,T2,...,TN); We want to assign one of test template to a test (P1,P2,P3) In this case, we should not use Euclidean distance!,

Lec17 fig2 Old Kiwi.JPG Figure 2

becasue shape defined by point is unchanged (invariant) by rotation and translation of triangles.

Therefore, distance between 2 triangles (or shapes) must be independent on the position and orientation of triangles.

Procrustes metric

$ D(p,\bar p)= \sum_{\begin{matrix}i=1 \\ rotation R, translation T \end{matrix}}^n {\begin{Vmatrix} Rp_i+T-\bar p_i \end{Vmatrix}} _{L^2} $

$ p=(p_1, p_2, \cdots ,p_N),\bar p = (\bar p_1, \bar p_2, \cdots ,\bar p_N) $

Alternative approach "Use invariant coordinate to repeat $ p=(p_1, p_2, \cdots ,p_N) $ "

i.e find $ \varphi $ such that

$ \varphi : \mathbb{R}^n\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^k $ (where, typically $ k \leq n $)

s.t $ \varphi (x) = \varphi (\bar x) $

whenever $ \exists $ R, T with $ R \bar X + \bar T = X $

Example of phi with triangle (Figure 3): Lec17 rot tri Old Kiwi.png

(p1,p2,p3) -> (new p1, new p2, new p3)


Back to ECE662, Spring 2008, Prof. Boutin

Alumni Liaison

Ph.D. 2007, working on developing cool imaging technologies for digital cameras, camera phones, and video surveillance cameras.

Buyue Zhang