@STRING{colt93 = "Proceedings of the Sixth Annual ACM Conference on Computational Learning Theory" } @STRING{jacm = "Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery" } @STRING{jma = "Journal of Multivariate Analysis" } @STRING{lncs = "Lecture Notes of Computer Science, Springer" } @STRING{lncs = "Lecture Notes in Computer Science" } @STRING{nips = "Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems" } @STRING{pecs = "Colloquia Mathematica Societatis Janos Bolai, 57.\ Limit Theorem in Probability and Statistics, Pecs (Hungary)" } @STRING{spl = "Statistics \& Probability Letters" } @Article{HauserETAL:12, author = {H. Hauser and A. J. Ijspeert and R. M. Füchslin and R. Pfeifer and W. Maass}, title = {Towards a Theoretical Foundation for Morphological Computation with Compliant Bodies}, journal = {Biological Cybernetics}, year = {2012}, pages = {}, volume = {}, number = {}, abstract = {The control of compliant robots is, due to their often nonlinear and complex dynamics, inherently difficult. The vision of morphological computation proposes to view these aspects not only as problems, but rather as parts of the solution. Non-rigid body parts are not seen anymore as imperfect realizations of rigid body parts, but rather as potential computational resources. The applicability of this vision has already been demonstrated for a variety of complex robot control problems. Nevertheless, a theoretical basis for understanding the capabilities and limitations of morphological computation has been missing so far.We present a model for morphological computation with compliant bodies, where a precise mathematical characterization of the potential computational contribution of a complex physical body is feasible. The theory suggests that complexity and nonlinearity, typically unwanted properties of robots, are desired features in order to provide computational power. We demonstrate that simple generic models of physical bodies, based on mass-spring systems, can be used to implement complex nonlinear operators. By adding a simple readout (which is static and linear) to the morphology, such devices are able to emulate complex mappings of input to output streams in continuous time. Hence, by outsourcing parts of the computation to the physical body, the difficult problem of learning to control a complex body, could be reduced to a simple and perspicuous learning task, which can not get stuck in local minima of an error function.}, note = {in press} } @Article{A:Circle-Homogen, author = {P. Auer}, title = {The circle homogeneously covered by random walk on {Z}$^2$}, journal = spl, year = 1990, pages = {403--407}, volume = 9 } @InProceedings{A:CombinationTheories, author = {P. Auer}, booktitle = {Word Equations and Related Topics}, pages = {177--186}, publisher = {Lecture Notes of Computer Science 677, Springer}, title = {Unification in the Combination of Disjoint Theories}, year = {1991} } @InProceedings{A:Hitting-Prob, author = {P. Auer}, booktitle = pecs, pages = {9--25}, title = {Some Hitting Probabilities of Random Walks on {Z}$^2$}, year = 1989 } @InProceedings{A:Relative-Frequ, author = {P. Auer and P. R\'{e}v\'{e}sz}, booktitle = pecs, pages = {27--33}, title = {On the Relative Frequency of Points Visited by random Walk on {Z}$^2$}, year = 1989 } @InProceedings{A:WordEquations, author = {P. Auer}, booktitle = {Word Equations and Related Topics}, key = {A:WordEquations}, pages = {103--132}, publisher = {Lecture Notes of Computer Science 677, Springer}, title = {Solving String Equations with Constant Restrictions}, year = {1991} } @InProceedings{AC94, author = {P. Auer and N. C{esa-Bianchi}}, booktitle = {Algorithmic Learning Theory, AII'94, ALT'94}, editor = {Setsuo Arikawa and Klaus P. Jantke}, pages = {229--247}, publisher = {Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 872, Springer}, title = {On-line Learning with Malicious Noise and the Closure Algorithm}, year = {1994} } @Article{AC94j, author = {P. Auer and N. C{esa-Bianchi}}, journal = {Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence}, title = {On-line Learning with Malicious Noise and the Closure Algorithm}, year = {1998}, volume = {23}, pages = {83--99}, note = {A preliminary version has appeared in {\em Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence} 872, Springer} } @InProceedings{AC96, author = {P. Auer and P. Caianiello and N. Cesa-Bianchi}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 15th Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing}, note = {Abstract}, pages = {312}, title = {Tight Bounds on the Cumulative Profit of Distributed Voters}, year = {1996} } @InProceedings{ACFS95, author = {P. Auer and N. Cesa-Bianchi and Y. Freund and R. E. Schapire}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 36th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}, pages = {322--331}, publisher = {IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA}, title = {Gambling in a Rigged Casino: The Adversarial Multi-Armed Bandit Problem}, year = {1995} } @Article{AH94gL, author = {P. Auer and K. Hornik}, journal = {Journal of Multivariate Analysis}, pages = {37--51}, title = {The Number of Points of an Empirical or {Poisson} Process Covered by Unions of Sets}, volume = {57}, year = {1996} } @Article{AH94jma, author = {P. Auer and K. Hornik}, journal = jma, number = {1}, pages = {115--156}, title = {On the Number of Points of a Homogeneous {P}oisson Process}, volume = {48}, year = {1994} } @Article{AH96, author = {P. Auer and K. Hornik}, journal = {Studia Scientiarum Mathematicarum Hungarica}, pages = {1--13}, title = {Limit Laws for the Maximal and Minimal Increments of the {P}oisson Process}, volume = {31}, year = {1996} } @Article{AHR91, author = {P. Auer and K. Hornik and P. R\'{e}v\'{e}sz}, journal = spl, pages = {91--96}, title = {Some Limit Theorems for the Homogeneous {P}oisson Process}, volume = 12, year = 1991 } @InCollection{AHW95, author = {P. Auer and M. Herbster and M. K. Warmuth}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 8}, editor = {D. S. Touretzky and M. C. Mozer and M. E. Hasselmo}, pages = {316--322}, publisher = {MIT Press}, title = {Exponentially Many Local Minima for Single Neurons}, year = {1996} } @Article{AL93, author = {P. Auer and P. M. Long}, title = {Structural Results About On-line Learning Models With and Without Queries}, journal = {Machine Learning}, year = {1999}, volume = {36}, pages = {147--181}, note = {A preliminary version has appeared in {\em Proceedings of the 26th ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing}} } @InProceedings{AL94, author = {P. Auer and P. M. Long}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 26th Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing}, pages = {263--272}, publisher = {ACM Press}, title = {Simulating access to hidden information while learning}, year = {1994} } @InProceedings{ALS97, author = {P. Auer and P. M. Long and A. Srinivasan}, booktitle = {Proc.\ 29th Ann.\ Symp.\ Theory of Computing}, month = {May}, pages = {314--323}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {Approximating Hyper-Rectangles: Learning and Pseudo-random Sets}, year = {1997} } @Article{ALS97j, author = {P. Auer and P. M. Long and A. Srinivasan}, title = {Approximating Hyper-Rectangles: Learning and Pseudorandom Sets}, journal = {Journal of Computer and System Sciences}, year = {1998}, volume = {57}, number = {3}, pages = {376--388}, note = {A preliminary version has appeared in {\em Proc.\ 29th Ann.\ Symp.\ Theory of Computing}} } @InProceedings{AW95, author = {P. Auer and M. K. Warmuth}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 36th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}, pages = {312--321}, publisher = {IEEE Computer Society Press}, title = {Tracking the Best Disjunction}, year = {1995} } @Article{AW95j, author = {P. Auer and M. K. Warmuth}, title = {Tracking the Best Disjunction}, journal = {Machine Learning}, year = {1998}, volume = {32}, pages = {127--150}, note = {A preliminary version has appeared in {\em Proceedings of the 36th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}} } @Article{AlonMaass:86, author = {N. Alon and W. Maass}, journal = {Proceedings of the 27th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}, pages = {410--417}, title = {Meanders, Ramsey's theorem and lower bounds for branching programs}, year = {1986} } @Article{AlonMaass:88, author = {N. Alon and W. Maass}, journal = {J. Comput. System Sci.}, note = {Invited paper for a special issue of J. Comput. System Sci.}, pages = {118--129}, title = {Meanders and their applications in lower bound arguments}, volume = {37}, year = {1988} } @InProceedings{Aue93, author = {P. Auer}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Sixth Annual ACM Conference on Computational Learning Theory}, pages = {253--261}, publisher = {ACM Press, New York, NY}, title = {On-line Learning of Rectangles in Noisy Environments}, year = {1993} } @InProceedings{Aue95, author = {P. Auer}, booktitle = {6th International Workshop, ALT`95, Proceedings}, editor = {Klaus P. Jantke and Takeshi Shinohara and Thomas Zeugmann}, note = {LNAI 997}, pages = {123--137}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Learning Nested Differences in the Presence of Malicious Noise}, year = {1995} } @Article{Aue95j, author = {P. Auer}, title = {Learning Nested Differences in the Presence of Malicious Noise}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, year = {1997}, volume = {185}, pages = {159--175}, note = {A preliminary version has appeared in {\em Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Algorithmic Learning Theory, ALT`95.}} } @InProceedings{Aue96, author = {P. Auer}, booktitle = {Proc.\ 14th Int.\ Conf.\ Machine Learning}, editor = {D. H. Fisher}, pages = {21--29}, publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann}, title = {On Learning from Multi-Instance Examples: Empirical Evaluation of a Theoretical Approach}, year = {1997} } @InProceedings{AuerETAL:01, author = {P. Auer and H. Burgsteiner and W. Maass}, title = {Reducing Communication for Distributed Learning in Neural Networks}, booktitle = {Proc. of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks -- ICANN 2002}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, editor = {Jos\'{e} R. Dorronsoro}, pages = {123--128}, volume = {2415}, year = {2002}, publisher = {Springer}, keywords = {learning algorithm, perceptrons, parallel, aVLSI }, abstract = {A learning algorithm is presented for circuits consisting of a single layer of perceptrons. We refer to such circuits as parallel perceptrons. In spite of their simplicity, these circuits are universal approximators for arbitrary boolean and continuous functions. In contrast to backprop for multi-layer perceptrons, our new learning algorithm - the parallel delta rule (p-delta rule) - only has to tune a single layer of weights, and it does not require the computation and communication of analog values with high precision. This distinguishes our new learning rule also from other learning rules for such circuits such as MADALINE with far higher communication. Our algorithm also provides an interesting new hypothesis for the organization of learning in biological neural systems. A theoretical analysis shows that the p-delta rule does in fact implement gradient descent - with regard to a suitable error measure - although it does not require to compute derivatives. Furthermore it is shown through experiments on common real-world benchmark datasets that its performance is competitive with that of other learning approaches from neural networks and machine learning.} } @Article{AuerETAL:01a, author = {P. Auer and H. Burgsteiner and W. Maass}, title = {A learning rule for very simple universal approximators consisting of a single layer of perceptrons}, journal = {Neural Networks}, year = {2008}, volume = {21}, number = {5}, pages = {786--795}, abstract = {A learning algorithm is presented for circuits consisting of a single layer of perceptrons (= threshold gates, or equivalently gates with a Heaviside activation function). We refer to such circuits as parallel perceptrons. In spite of their simplicity, these circuits can compute any boolean function if one views the majority of the binary perceptron outputs as the binary outputs of the parallel perceptron, and they are universal approximators for arbitrary continuous functions with values in [0,1] if one views the fraction of perceptrons that output 1 as the analog output of the parallel perceptron. For a long time one has thought that there exists no competitive learning algorithms for these extremely simple circuits consisting of gates with binary outputs, which also became known as committee machines. It is commonly believed that one has to replace the hard threshold gates by sigmoidal gates and that one has to tune the weights on at least two successive layers in order to get satisfactory learning results. We show that this is not true by exhibiting a simple learning algorithm for parallel perceptrons - the parallel delta rule (p-delta rule), whose performance is comparable to that of backprop for multilayer networks consisting of sigmoidal gates. In contrast to backprop, the p-delta rule does not require the computation and communication of analog values with high precision, although it does in fact implement gradient descent - with regard to a suitable error measure. Therefore it provides an interesting new hypothesis for the organization of learning in biological neural systems.} } @InProceedings{AuerETAL:93, author = {P. Auer and P. M. Long and W. Maass and G. J. Woeginger}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Computational Learning Theory}, pages = {392--401}, title = {On the complexity of function learning}, year = {1993} } @Article{AuerETAL:93j, author = {P. Auer and P. M. Long and W. Maass and G. J. Woeginger}, title = {On the complexity of function learning}, journal = {Machine Learning}, note = {Invited paper in a special issue of Machine Learning}, year = {1995}, volume = {18}, pages = {187--230} } @InProceedings{AuerETAL:95, author = {P. Auer and R. C. Holte and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 12th International Machine Learning Conference, Tahoe City (USA)}, publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann (San Francisco)}, pages = {21--29}, title = {Theory and applications of agnostic {PAC}-learning with small decision trees}, year = {1995} } @InProceedings{AuerETAL:96, author = {P. Auer and S. Kwek and W. Maass and M. K. Warmuth}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 9th Conference on Computational Learning Theory 1996}, pages = {333--343}, publisher = {ACM-Press (New York)}, title = {Learning of depth two neural nets with constant fan-in at the hidden nodes}, year = {1996} } @Article{AuerMaass:98, author = {P. Auer and W. Maass}, title = {Introduction to the Special Issue on Computational Learning Theory}, journal = {Algorithmica}, year = {1998}, volume = {22}, number = {1/2}, pages = {1--2} } @MastersThesis{Bachler:05, author = {M. Bachler}, title = {Task dependent feature optimization in machine learning}, school = {Technische Universitaet Graz}, year = 2005 } @TechReport{Bachler:06, author = {M. Bachler}, title = {Bayesian and information theoretic methods for the selection and creation of high-level features applied to real-world object classification tasks}, institution = {Technische Universitaet Graz}, year = {2006} } @Unpublished{BachlerMaass:06, author = {M. Bachler and W. Maass}, title = {A {B}ayesian {H}ebb Rule for Incremental Learning of Optimal Inference in {B}ayesian Networks}, note = {submitted for publication}, year = {2006} } @InCollection{BartlettMaass:03, author = {Peter L. Bartlett and W. Maass}, title = {Vapnik-{C}hervonenkis Dimension of Neural Nets}, booktitle = {The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, year = {2003}, editor = {M. A. Arbib}, edition = {2nd}, pages = {1188--1192} } @Article{BertschingerNatschlaeger:03, author = {N. Bertschinger and T. Natschlaeger}, title = {Real-Time Computation at the Edge of Chaos in Recurrent Neural Networks}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = 2004, volume = 16, number = 7, pages = {1413--1436}, urlwillbe = {psfiles/eoc-v11pl1.ps}, abstract = {Depending on the connectivity recurrent networks of simple computational units can show very different types of dynamics ranging from totally ordered to chaotic. We analyze how the type of dynamics (ordered or chaotic) exhibited by randomly connected networks of threshold gates driven by a time varying input signal depends on the parameters describing the distribution of the connectivity matrix. In particular we calculate the critical boundary in parameter space where the transition from ordered to chaotic dynamics takes places. Employing a recently developed framework for analyzing real-time computations we show that only near the critical boundary such networks can perform complex computations on time series. Hence, this result strongly supports conjectures that dynamical systems which are capable of doing complex computational tasks should operate near the edge of chaos, i.e. the transition from ordered to chaotic dynamics.} } @MastersThesis{Bill:08, author = {J. Bill}, title = {Self-Stabilizing Network Architectures on a Neuromorphic Hardware System}, school = {Universitaet Heidelberg}, year = {2008} } @Article{BillETAL:10, author = {J. Bill and K. Schuch and D. Br\"uderle and J. Schemmel and W. Maass and K. Meier}, title = {Compensating inhomogeneities of neuromorphic {VLSI} devices via short-term synaptic plasticity}, journal = {Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience}, year = {2010}, volume = {4}, number = {}, pages = {1--14}, abstract = {Recent developments in neuromorphic hardware engineering make mixed-signal VLSI neural network models promising candidates for neuroscientific research tools and massively parallel computing devices, especially for tasks which exhaust the computing power of software simulations. Still, like all analog hardware systems, neuromorphic models suffer from a constricted configurability and production-related fluctuations of device characteristics. Since also future systems, involving ever-smaller structures, will inevitably exhibit such inhomogeneities on the unit level, self-regulation properties become a crucial requirement for their successful operation. By applying a cortically inspired self-adjusting network architecture, we show that the activity of generic spiking neural networks emulated on a neuromorphic hardware system can be kept within a biologically realistic firing regime and gain a remarkable robustness against transistorlevel variations. As a first approach of this kind in engineering practice, the short-term synaptic depression and facilitation mechanisms implemented within an analog VLSI model of I\&F neurons are functionally utilized for the purpose of network level stabilization. We present experimental data acquired both from the hardware model and from comparative software simulations which prove the applicability of the employed paradigm to neuromorphic VLSI devices.}, note = {article 129} } @Article{BorgwardtETAL:06, author = {K. M. Borgwardt and A. Gretton and M. J. Rasch and H.-P. Kriegel and B. Schoelkopf and A. J. Smola}, journal = {Bioinformatics}, title = {Integrating structured biological data by kernel {M}aximum {M}ean {D}iscrepancy}, year = {2006}, volume = {22}, number = {14}, pages = {349--e57} } @Article{BretteETAL:07, author = {R. Brette and M. Rudolph and T. Carnevale and M. Hines and D. Beeman and J. M. Bower and M. Diesmann and A. Morrison and P. H. Goodman and F. C. Harris and M. Zirpe and T. Natschlaeger and D. Pecevski and B. Ermentrout and M. Djurfeldt and A. Lansner and O. Rochel and T. Vieville and E. Muller and A. P. Davison and S. ElBoustani and A. Destexhe}, title = {Simulation of networks of spiking neurons: A review of tools and strategies}, journal = {J. of Computational Neuroscience}, year = {2007}, volume = {23}, number = {3}, pages = {349--398}, note = {}, abstract = {We review different aspects of the simulation of spiking neural networks. We start by reviewing the different types of simulation strategies and algorithms that are currently implemented. We next review the precision of those simulation strategies, in particular in cases where plasticity depends on the exact timing of the spikes. We overview different simulators and simulation environments presently available (restricted to those freely available, open source and documented). For each simulation tool, its advantages and pitfalls are reviewed, with an aim to allow the reader to identify which simulator is appropriate for a given task. Finally, we provide a series of benchmark simulations of different types of networks of spiking neurons, including Hodgkin-Huxley type, integrate-and-fire models, interacting with current-based or conductance-based synapses, using clock-driven or event-driven integration strategies. The same set of models are implemented on the different simulators, and the codes are made available. The ultimate goal of this review is to provide a resource to facilitate identifying the appropriate integration strategy and simulation tool to use for a given modeling problem related to spiking neural networks.} } @Article{BuesingETAL:09, author = {L. Buesing and B. Schrauwen and R. Legenstein}, title = {Connectivity, Dynamics, and Memory in Reservoir Computing with Binary and Analog Neurons}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = {2010}, volume = {22}, number = {5}, pages = {1272-1311}, abstract = {Reservoir Computing (RC) systems are powerful models for online computations on input sequences. They consist of a memoryless readout neuron which is trained on top of a randomly connected recurrent neural network. RC systems are commonly used in two flavors: with analog or binary (spiking) neurons in the recurrent circuits. Previous work indicated a fundamental difference in the behavior of these two implementations of the RC idea. The performance of a RC system built from binary neurons seems to depend strongly on the network connectivity structure. In networks of analog neurons such clear dependency has not been observed. In this article we address this apparent dichotomy by investigating the influence of the network connectivity (parametrized by the neuron in-degree) on a family of network models that interpolates between analog and binary networks. Our analyses are based on a novel estimation of the Lyapunov exponent of the network dynamics with the help of branching process theory, rank measures which estimate the kernel-quality and generalization capabilities of recurrent networks, and a novel mean-field predictor for computational performance. These analyses reveal that the phase transition between ordered and chaotic network behavior of binary circuits qualitatively differs from the one in analog circuits, leading to differences in the integration of information over short and long time scales. This explains the decreased computational performance observed in binary circuits that are densely connected. The mean-field predictor is also used to bound the memory function of recurrent circuits of binary neurons.} } @Article{BuesingETAL:11, author = {L. B\"using and J. Bill and B. Nessler and W. Maass}, title = {Neural Dynamics as Sampling: A Model for Stochastic Computation in Recurrent Networks of Spiking Neurons}, journal = {PLoS Computational Biology}, year = {published 03 Nov 2011}, pages = {}, volume = {}, abstract = {The organization of computations in networks of spiking neurons in the brain is still largely unknown, in particular in view of the inherently stochastic features of their firing activity and the experimentally observed trial-to-trial variability of neural systems in the brain. In principle there exists a powerful computational framework for stochastic computations, probabilistic inference by sampling, which can explain a large number of macroscopic experimental data in neuroscience and cognitive science. But it has turned out to be surprisingly difficult to create a link between these abstract models for stochastic computations and more detailed models of the dynamics of networks of spiking neurons. Here we create such a link, and show that under some conditions the stochastic firing activity of networks of spiking neurons can be interpreted as probabilistic inference via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. Since common methods for MCMC sampling in distributed systems, such as Gibbs sampling, are inconsistent with the dynamics of spiking neurons, we introduce a different approach based on non-reversible Markov chains, that is able to reflect inherent temporal processes of spiking neuronal activity through a suitable choice of random variables. We propose a neural network model and show by a rigorous theoretical analysis that its neural activity implements MCMC sampling of a given distribution, both for the case of discrete and continuous time. This provides a step towards closing the gap between abstract functional models of cortical computations and more detailed models of networks of spiking neurons.}, note = {doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002211} } @InProceedings{BuesingMaass:07, author = {L. Buesing and W. Maass}, title = {Simplified Rules and Theoretical Analysis for Information Bottleneck Optimization and {PCA} with Spiking Neurons}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2007, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2008}, volume = {20}, pages = {}, abstract = {We show that under suitable assumptions (primarily linearization) a simple and perspicuous online learning rule for Information Bottleneck optimization with spiking neurons can be derived. This rule performs on common benchmark tasks as well as a rather complex rule that has previously been proposed [2]. Furthermore, the transparency of this new learning rule makes a theoretical analysis of its convergence properties feasible. If this learning rule is applied to an assemble of neurons, it provides a theoretically founded method for performing principal component analysis ({PCA}) with spiking neurons. In addition it makes it possible to preferentially extract those principal components from incoming signals X that are related to some additional target signal $Y_T$ . This target signal $Y_T$ (also called relevance variable) could represent in a biological interpretation proprioception feedback, input from other sensory modalities, or top-down signals.} } @Article{BuesingMaass:09, author = {Buesing, L. and Maass, W.}, title = {A Spiking Neuron as Information Bottleneck}, journal = {submitted for publication}, year = {2009} } @Article{BuesingMaass:10, author = {L. Buesing and W. Maass}, title = {A Spiking Neuron as Information Bottleneck}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = {2010}, volume = {22}, number = {}, pages = {1961--1992}, abstract = {Neurons receive thousands of presynaptic input spike trains while emitting a single output spike train. This drastic dimensionality reduction suggests to consider a neuron as a bottleneck for information transmission. Extending recent results, we propose a simple learning rule for the weights of spiking neurons derived from the Information Bottleneck (IB) framework that minimizes the loss of relevant information transmitted in the output spike train. In the IB framework relevance of information is defined with respect to contextual information, the latter entering the proposed learning rule as a "third" factor besides pre- and postsynaptic activities. This renders the theoretically motivated learning rule a plausible model for experimentally observed synaptic plasticity phenomena involving three factors. Furthermore, we show that the proposed IB learning rule allows spiking neurons to learn a "predictive code",i.e. to extract those parts of their input that are predictive for future input.} } @InProceedings{BultmanMaass:91, author = {W. J. Bultman and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th Annual ACM Workshop on Computational Learning Theory,}, pages = {337--353}, title = {Fast identification of geometric objects with membership queries}, year = {1991} } @Article{BultmanMaass:91j, author = {W. J. Bultman and W. Maass}, title = {Fast identification of geometric objects with membership queries}, journal = {Information and Computation}, year = 1995, volume = 118, pages = {48--64} } @Article{BuonomanoMaass:08, author = {D. Buonomano and W. Maass}, title = {State-dependent Computations: Spatiotemporal Processing in Cortical Networks.}, journal = {Nature Reviews in Neuroscience}, year = {2009}, volume = {10}, number = {2}, pages = {113--125}, note = {}, abstract = {A conspicuous ability of the brain is to seamlessly assimilate and process spatial and temporal features of sensory stimuli. This ability is indispensable for the recognition of natural stimuli. Yet, a general computational framework for processing spatiotemporal stimuli remains elusive. Recent theoretical and experimental work suggests that spatiotemporal processing emerges from the interaction between incoming stimuli and the internal dynamic state of neural networks which includes not only ongoing spiking activity, but also 'hidden' neuronal states such as short-term synaptic plasticity.} } @MastersThesis{Burgsteiner:98, author = {H. Burgsteiner}, title = {{N}eural {N}etworks with {S}piking {N}eurons}, school = {Graz University of Technology}, year = 1998, month = {November}, keywords = {spiking neurons, dynamic synapses, pools of dynamic synapses, aVLSI, hardware model, simulations}, abstract = {In this diploma thesis I investigate new models of synapses called Dynamic Synapses (DS) and a possible implementation in analog electronics which could be realized in an analog very large scale integrated silicon chip (aVLSI). These mathematical models of DS were first introduced by Wolfgang Maass and Anthony Zador in 1998, after recent results in neurobiology suggested that synapses -- in their computational meanings -- could be more than just static ``weights''. It soon became obvious that this model exhibits a behavior very close to their biological counterparts. For a better understanding of the later presented material a few essential models of neurons and also the typical use of synapses are discussed in the beginning. The pages following after the introduction are dedicated to the original model of the DS. Then a newer and slightly different model of a dynamic synapse is introduced which is easier to implement in aVLSI. I present results of simulations that reveal the computational power in comparison to the original model. At the end a possible implementation in analog electronics and results of simulations of such implementations are shown. In future work a small neural network with these types of synapses could be realized in aVLSI and applied in real world studies.} } @TechReport{Burgsteiner:99, author = {H. Burgsteiner}, title = {Integration of XVision and Khepera}, institution = {Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, Graz University of Technology}, year = 1999, abstract = {This paper was written as a part of a documentation for a project at our institute, combining machine learning and machine vision. I present an approach of integrating the mobile robot platform Khepera with the machine vision package XVision. Both products are introduced in brief. The neccessary modifications and extensions to a typical XVision source file are described for use under the free operating system Linux. As an example, a simple tracker based on XVision and the Khepera equipped with a camera is presented. It uses blob detection and basic Khepera control functions. Khepera tracks a ball and is able to rotate around its z-axis to keep the ball centered in its view.}, keywords = {xvision, khepera, programming, robotic, vision} } @Article{BurgsteinerETAL:07, author = {H. Burgsteiner and M. Kr\"{o}ll and A. Leopold and G. Steinbauer}, title = {Movement Prediction from real-world Images using a Liquid State Machine}, journal = {Applied Intelligence}, volume = {26}, number = {2}, pages = {99--109}, year = {2007} } @InProceedings{ChenMaass:92, author = {Z. Chen and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Workshop on Computational Learning Theory}, pages = {16--28}, title = {On-line learning of rectangles}, year = {1992} } @InProceedings{ChenMaass:92a, author = {Z. Chen and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 3rd Int. Workshop on Analogical and Inductive Inference}, pages = {26--34}, publisher = {Springer}, series = {Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence}, title = {A solution of the credit assignment problem in the case of learning rectangles}, volume = {642}, year = {1992} } @Article{ChenMaass:94, author = {Z. Chen and W. Maass}, journal = {Machine Learning}, note = {Invited paper for a special issue of Machine Learning}, pages = {201--223}, title = {On-line learning of rectangles and unions of rectangles}, volume = {17}, year = {1994} } @Article{ClopathETAL:08, author = {C. Clopath and L. Ziegler and E. Vasilaki and L. Buesing and W. Gerstner}, title = {Tag-Trigger-Consolidation: A Model of Early and Late Long-Term-Potentiation and Depression}, journal = {PLOS Computational Biology}, year = {2008}, volume = {4}, number = {12}, pages = {e1000248}, note = {}, abstract = {Changes in synaptic efficacies need to be long-lasting in order to serve as a substrate for memory. Experimentally,synaptic plasticity exhibits phases covering the induction of long-term potentiation and depression (LTP/LTD) during the early phase of synaptic plasticity, the setting of synaptic tags, a trigger process for protein synthesis, and a slow transition leading to synaptic consolidation during the late phase of synaptic plasticity. We present a mathematical model that describes these different phases of synaptic plasticity. The model explains a large body of experimental data on synaptic tagging and capture, cross-tagging, and the late phases of LTP and LTD. Moreover, the model accounts for the dependence of LTP and LTD induction on voltage and presynaptic stimulation frequency. The stabilization of potentiated synapses during the transition from early to late LTP occurs by protein synthesis dynamics that are shared by groups of synapses. The functional consequence of this shared process is that previously stabilized patterns of strong or weak synapses onto the same postsynaptic neuron are well protected against later changes induced by LTP/LTD protocols at individual synapses. } } @Article{DietzfelbingerETAL:91a, author = {M. Dietzfelbinger and W. Maass and G. Schnitger}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, pages = {113--129}, title = {The complexity of matrix transposition on one-tape off-line {T}uring machines}, volume = {82}, year = {1991} } @InProceedings{DietzfelbingerMaass:85, author = {M. Dietzfelbinger and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1984 Recursion Theory Week Oberwolfach, Germany}, pages = {89--120}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Mathematics}, title = {Strong reducibilities in alpha- and beta-recursion theory}, volume = {1141}, year = {1985} } @InProceedings{DietzfelbingerMaass:86, author = {M. Dietzfelbinger and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Structure in Complexity Theory Conference, Berkeley 1986}, pages = {163--183}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {Two lower bound arguments with ``inaccessible'' numbers}, volume = {223}, year = {1986} } @Article{DietzfelbingerMaass:88, author = {M. Dietzfelbinger and W. Maass}, journal = {J. Comput. System Sci.}, note = {Invited paper for a special issue of J. Comput. System Sci.}, pages = {313--335}, title = {Lower bound arguments with ``inaccesible'' numbers}, volume = {36}, year = {1988} } @InProceedings{DietzfelbingerMaass:88a, author = {M. Dietzfelbinger and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 15th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming}, pages = {188--200}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {The complexity of matrix transposition on one-tape off-line {T}uring machines with output tape}, volume = {317}, year = {1988} } @Article{DietzfelbingerMaass:93, author = {M. Dietzfelbinger and W. Maass}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, pages = {271--290}, title = {The complexity of matrix transposition on one-tape off-line {T}uring machines with output tape}, volume = {108}, year = {1993} } @Article{DobkinETAL:96, author = {D. P. Dobkin and D. Gunopulos and W. Maass}, journal = {Journal of Computer and System Sciences}, month = {June}, number = {3}, pages = {453--470}, title = {Computing the maximum bichromatic discrepancy, with applications to computer graphics and machine learning}, volume = {52}, year = {1996} } @InProceedings{FregnacETAL:05, author = {Y. Fregnac and M. Blatow and J.-P. Changeux and J. de Felipe and A. Lansner and W. Maass and D. A. McCormick and C. M. Michel and H. Monyer and E. Szathmary and R. Yuste}, title = {U{P}s and {DOWN}s in Cortical Computation}, booktitle = {The Interface between Neurons and Global Brain Function}, editor = {S. Grillner and A. M. Graybiel}, year = {2006}, pages = {393--433}, chapter = {19}, publisher = {MIT Press}, series = {Dahlem Workshop Report 93} } @Article{GrettonETAL:05, author = {A. Gretton and R. Herbrich and A. Smola and O. Bousquet and B. Sch\"olkopf}, title = {Kernel Methods for Measuring Independence}, journal = {Journal of Machine Learning Research}, year = {2005}, pages = {2075--2129}, volume = {6} } @Article{GrettonETAL:06, author = {A. Gretton and K. M. Borgwardt and M. J. Rasch and A. J. Smola}, title = {Data-content based schema matching via {M}aximum {M}ean {D}iscrepancy}, journal = {submitted for publication}, year = {2006} } @InProceedings{GrettonETAL:06b, author = {A. Gretton and K. M. Borgwardt and M. J. Rasch and B. Sch\"olkopf and A. J. Smola}, title = {A Kernel Method for the Two-Sample-Problem}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2006 Conference Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19}, editor = {}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2006}, volume = {20}, pages = {513--520} } @InProceedings{GrettonETAL:06c, author = {A. Gretton and K. M. Borgwardt and M. J. Rasch and B. Sch\"olkopf and A. J. Smola}, title = {A Kernel Method to Comparing Distributions}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Twenty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-07)}, editor = {}, publisher = {AAAI Press, Menlo Park, CA, USA}, year = {2007}, volume = {22}, pages = {1637--1641} } @Article{HSWA, author = {K. Hornik and M. Stinchcombe and H. White and P. Auer}, journal = {Neural Computation}, pages = {1262--1275}, title = {Degree of approximation results for feedforward networks approximating unknown mappings and their derivatives}, volume = {6}, year = {1994} } @Article{HabenschussETAL:11, author = {S. Habenschuss and H. Purr and W. Maass}, title = {Emergence of optimal decoding of population codes through {STDP}}, journal = {in preparation}, year = {2011}, pages = {}, volume = {} } @Article{HaeuslerETAL:03, author = {S. Haeusler and H. Markram and W. Maass}, title = {Perspectives of the High Dimensional Dynamics of Neural Microcircuits from the Point of View of Low-Dimensional Readouts}, journal = {Complexity (Special Issue on Complex Adaptive Systems)}, year = {2003}, volume = {8}, number = {4}, pages = {39--50} } @Article{HaeuslerETAL:07, author = {S. Haeusler and W. Singer and W. Maass and D. Nikolic}, title = {Superposition of information in large ensembles of neurons in primary visual cortex}, journal = {37th Annual Conference of the Society for Neuroscience, Program 176.2, Poster II23}, year = {2007}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {We applied methods from machine learning in order to analyze the temporal evolution of stimulus-related information in the spiking activity of large ensembles of around 100 neurons in primary visual cortex of anesthetized cats. We present ed sequences of up to 3 different visual stimuli (letters) that lasted 100 ms and followed at intervals of 100 ms. We f ound that most of the information about visual stimuli extractable by advanced methods from machine learning (e.g., Sup port Vector Machines) could also be extracted by simple linear classifiers (perceptrons). Hence, in principle this info rmation can be extracted by a biological neuron. A surprising result was that new stimuli did not erase information abo ut previous stimuli. In fact, information about the nature of the preceding stimulus remained as high as the informatio n about the current stimulus. Separately trained linear readouts could retrieve information about both the current and the preceding stimulus from responses to the current stimulus. This information was encoded both in the discharge rates (response amplitudes) of the ensemble of neurons and in the precise timing of individual spikes, and persisted for seve ral 100 ms beyond the offset of stimuli. This superposition of information about sequentially presented stimuli constrains computational models for visual proce ssing. It poses a conundrum for models that assume separate classification processes for each frame of visual input and supports models for cortical computation ([Buonomano, Merzenich, 1995], [Maass, Natschlaeger, Markram, 2002]) which arg ue that a frame-by frame processing is neither feasible within highly recurrent networks nor useful for classifying and predicting rapidly changing stimulus sequences. Specific predictions of these alternative computational models are tha i) information from different frames of visual input is superimposed in recurrent circuits and ii) nonlinear combinations of different information components are immediately provided in the spike output. Our results indicate that the network from which we recorded provided nonlinear combinations of information from sequen tial frames. Such nonlinear preprocessing increases the discrimination capability of any linear readout neurons receivi ng distributed input from the kind of cells we recorded from. These readout neurons could be implemented within V1 and/ or at subsequent processing levels.} } @Article{HaeuslerETAL:08, author = {S. Haeusler and K. Schuch and W. Maass}, title = {Motif distribution, dynamical properties, and computational performance of two data-based cortical microcircuit templates}, journal = {J. of Physiology (Paris)}, year = {2009}, volume = {103}, number = {1-2}, pages = {73--87}, abstract = {The neocortex is a continuous sheet composed of rather stereotypical local microcircuits that consist of neurons on several laminae with characteristic synaptic connectivity patterns. An understanding of the structure and computational function of these cortical microcircuits may hold the key for understanding the enormous computational power of the neocortex. Two templates for the structure of laminar cortical microcircuits have recently been published by Thomson et al. and Binzegger et al., both resulting from long-lasting experimental studies (but based on different methods). We analyze and compare in this article the structure of these two microcircuit templates. In particular, we examine the distribution of network motifs, i.e. of subcircuits consisting of a small number of neurons. The distribution of these building blocks has recently emerged as a method for characterizing similarities and differences among complex networks. We show that the two microcircuit templates have quite different distributions of network motifs, although they both have a characteristic small-world property. In order to understand the dynamical and computational properties of these two microcircuit templates, we have generated computer models of them, consisting of Hodgkin-Huxley point neurons with conductance based synapses that have a biologically realistic short-term plasticity. The performance of these two cortical microcircuit models was studied for seven generic computational tasks that require accumulation and merging of information contained in two afferent spike inputs. Although the two models exhibit a different performance for some of these tasks, their average computational performance is very similar. When we changed the connectivity structure of these two microcircuit models in order to see which aspects of it are essential for computational performance, we found that the distribution of degrees of nodes is a common key factor for their computational performance. We also show that their computational performance is correlated with specific statistical properties of the circuit dynamics that is induced by a particular distribution of degrees of nodes.} } @Article{HaeuslerETAL:08a, author = {S. Haeusler and K. Schuch and W. Maass}, title = {Motif distribution and computational performance of two data-based cortical microcircuit templates}, journal = {38th Annual Conference of the Society for Neuroscience, Program 220.9}, year = {2008}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {The neocortex is a continuous sheet composed of rather stereotypical local microcircuits that consist of neurons on several laminae with characteristic synaptic connectivity patterns. An understanding of the structure and computational function of these cortical microcircuits may hold the key for understanding the enormous computational power of the neocortex. Two templates for the structure of laminar cortical microcircuits have recently been published by Thomson et al. (2002) and Binzegger et al. (2004), both resulting from long-lasting experimental studies (but based on different methods). We analyze and compare in this study the structure and computational properties of these two microcircuit templates. In particular, we examine the distribution of network motifs, i.e. of sub-circuits consisting of a small number of neurons. The distribution of these building blocks of complex networks has recently emerged as a method for characterizing similarities and differences among complex networks. We show that the two microcircuit templates have quite different distributions of network motifs, although they both share characteristic global structural properties, like degree distributions (distribution of the number of synapses per neuron) and small-world properties. In order to understand the computational properties of the two microcircuit templates, we have generated computer models of them, consisting of Hodgkin-Huxley point neurons with conductance based synapses that have a biologically realistic short-term plasticity. The information processing capabilities of the two cortical microcircuit models were studied for 7 generic computational tasks that require accumulation and merging of information contained in two afferent spike inputs. Although the two models exhibit a different performance for some of these tasks, their average computational performance is very similar. When we changed the connectivity structure of these two microcircuit models in order to see which aspects of it are essential for computational performance, we found that the distribution of degrees of nodes is a key factor for their computational performance. References Thomson et al. (2002), Cerebral Cortex, 12(9):936 Binzegger et al. (2004), J. Neurosci., 24(39):8441} } @Article{HaeuslerMaass:04, author = {S. Haeusler and W. Maass}, title = {A statistical analysis of information processing properties of lamina-specific cortical microcircuit models}, journal = {Cerebral Cortex}, year = 2007, volume = {17}, number = {1}, pages = {149-162} } @Article{HaeuslerMaass:06, author = {S. Haeusler and W. Maass}, title = {Computational impact of laminar structure and small world properties of cortical microcircuit models}, journal = {submitted for publication}, year = 2006 } @InProceedings{HajnalETAL:87a, author = {A. Hajnal and W. Maass and P. Pudlak and M. Szegedy and G. Turan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 28th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}, pages = {99--110}, title = {Threshold circuits of bounded depth}, year = {1987} } @InProceedings{HajnalETAL:88, author = {A. Hajnal and W. Maass and G. Turan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 20th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing}, pages = {186--191}, title = {On the communication complexity of graph properties}, year = {1988} } @Article{HajnalETAL:93, author = {A. Hajnal and W. Maass and P. Pudlak and M. Szegedy and G. Turan}, journal = {J. Comput. System Sci.}, pages = {129--154}, title = {Threshold circuits of bounded depth}, abstract = {We examine a powerful model of parallel computation: polynomial size threshold circuits of bounded depth (the gates compute threshold functions with polynomial weights). Lower bounds are given to separate polynomial size threshold circuits of depth 2 from polynomial size threshold circuits of depth 3 and from probabilistic polynomial size circuits of depth 2. With regard to the unreliability of bounded depth circuits, it is shown that the class of functions computed reliably with bounded depth circuits of unreliable A, v , 1 gates is narrow. On the other hand, functions computable by bounded depth, polynomial-size threshold circuits can also be computed by such circuits of unreliable threshold gates. Furthermore we examine to what extent imprecise threshold gates (which behave unpredictably near the threshold value) can compute nontrivial functions in bounded depth and a bound is given for the permissible amount of imprecision. We also discuss threshold quantifiers and prove an undefinability result for graph connectivity.}, volume = {46}, year = {1993} } @InProceedings{HauserETAL:07, author = {H. Hauser and G. Neumann and A. J. Ijspeert and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {IEEE}-{RAS} 7th {I}nternational {C}onference on {H}umanoid {R}obots ({H}umanoids 2007)}, title = {Biologically Inspired Kinematic Synergies Provide a New Paradigm for Balance Control of Humanoid Robots}, publisher = {}, year = {2007}, pages = {}, abstract = {Nature has developed methods for controlling the movements of organisms with many degrees of freedom which differ strongly from existing approaches for balance control in humanoid robots: Biological organisms employ kinematic synergies that simultaneously engage many joints, and which are apparently designed in such a way that their superposition is approximately linear. We show in this article that this control strategy can in principle also be applied to balance control of humanoid robots. In contrast to existing approaches, this control strategy reduces the need to carry out complex computations in real time (replacing the iterated solution of quadratic optimization problems by a simple linear controller), and it does not require knowledge of a dynamic model of the robot. Therefore it can handle unforeseen changes in the dynamics of the robot that may for example arise from wind or other external forces. We demonstrate the feasibility of this novel approach to humanoid balance control through simulations of the humanoid robot HOAP-2 for tasks that require balance control on a randomly moving surfboard.}, note = {Best {P}aper {A}ward. http://planning.cs.cmu.edu/humanoids07/p/37.pdf} } @Article{HauserETAL:11, author = {H. Hauser and G. Neumann and A. J. Ijspeert and W. Maass}, title = {Biologically Inspired Kinematic Synergies Enable Linear Balance Control of a Humanoid Robot}, journal = {Biological Cybernetics}, year = {2011}, pages = {235--249}, volume = {104}, note = {}, abstract = {Despite many efforts, balance control of humanoid robots in the presence of unforeseen external or internal forces has remained an unsolved problem. The difficulty of this problem is a consequence of the high dimensionality of the action space of a humanoid robot, due to its large number of degrees of freedom (joints), and of nonlinearities in its kinematic chains. Biped biological organisms face similar difficulties, but have nevertheless solved this problem. Experimental data reveal that many biological organisms reduce the high dimensionality of their action space by generating movements through linear superposition of a rather small number of stereotypical combinations of simultaneous movements of many joints, to which we refer as kinematic synergies in this paper. We show that by constructing two suitable nonlinear kinematic synergies for the lower part of the body of a humanoid robot, balance control can in fact be reduced to a linear control problem, at least in the case of relatively slow movements. We demonstrate for a variety of tasks that the humanoid robot HOAP-2 acquires through this approach the capability to balance dynamically against unforeseen disturbances that may arise from external forces or from manipulating unknown loads.} } @InProceedings{HochbaumMaass:84, author = {D. Hochbaum and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Symp. on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (Paris 1984)}, pages = {55--62}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {Approximation schemes for covering and packing problems in robotics and {VLSI} (extended abstract)}, volume = {166}, year = {1984} } @Article{HochbaumMaass:85, author = {D. Hochbaum and W. Maass}, journal = {J. Assoc. Comp. Mach.}, pages = {130--136}, title = {Approximation algorithms for covering and packing problems in image processing and {VLSI}}, volume = {32}, year = {1985} } @Article{HochbaumMaass:87, author = {D. Hochbaum and W. Maass}, journal = {J. Algorithms}, pages = {305--323}, title = {Fast approximation algorithms for a nonconvex problem}, volume = {8}, year = {1987} } @TechReport{HoeflerBachler:06, author = {M. Hoefler and M. Bachler}, title = {A software framework for adaptive biologically inspired image classification}, institution = {Technische Universitaet Graz}, year = {2006} } @MastersThesis{Hoerzer:08, author = {G. Hoerzer}, title = {Extraction of information about the behavioral state of monkeys from neuronal recordings with methods from machine learning}, school = {Graz University of Technology, Institute for Theoretical Computer Sciences}, year = {2008} } @TechReport{Hoerzer:09, author = {G. Hoerzer}, title = {Methods for the Analysis of Uni-, Bi- and Multivariate Data}, institution = {University of Technology, Institute for Theoretical Computer Sciences}, year = {2009} } @Article{HomerMaass:83, author = {S. Homer and W. Maass}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, pages = {279--289}, title = {Oracle dependent properties of the lattice of {NP}-sets}, volume = {24}, year = {1983} } @InProceedings{JahrerETAL:10, author = {M. Jahrer and A. T\"oscher and R. Legenstein}, title = {Combining Predictions for Accurate Recommender Systems}, booktitle = {KDD '10: Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining}, year = {2010}, isbn = {978-1-4503-0055-1}, pages = {693--702}, location = {Washington, DC, USA}, doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1835804.1835893}, publisher = {ACM}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, abstract = {We analyze the application of ensemble learning to recommender systems on the Netflix Prize dataset. For our analysis we use a set of diverse state-of-the-art collaborative filtering (CF) algorithms, which include: SVD, Neighborhood Based Approaches, Restricted Boltzmann Machine, Asymmetric Factor Model and Global Effects. We show that linearly combining (blending) a set of CF algorithms increases the accuracy and outperforms any single CF algorithm. Furthermore, we show how to use ensemble methods for blending predictors in order to outperform a single blending algorithm. The dataset and the source code for the ensemble blending are available online.} } @MastersThesis{Joshi:02, author = {P. Joshi}, title = {Synthesis of a Liquid State Machine with Hopfield/Brody Transient Synchrony}, school = {Center for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, USA}, year = 2002, month = {November}, abstract = {Understanding the mechanism of spatiotemporal integration used by our brain to perform recognition of complex temporal sequences is a challenge for current researchers in neuroscience. Recent research has proposed transient synchrony as a plausible mechanism for spatiotemporal integration. This thesis studies a biologically plausible network architecture made of simulated minicolumns that performs a temporal integration task, specifically spoken-word recognition. The network's ability to recognize a spoken word and its natural variants is independent of variations across speakers, simple masking noises and variations in system parameters. The network demonstrates inter columnar and intra columnar synchrony, which in turn leads to word recognition. The intra columnar synchrony of minicolumns acts as an event detection mechanism for events in a particular frequency band. The inter columnar transient synchrony enables the network to recognize words. Each of the minicolumns exhibit a very unique temporal signature when presented with a temporal input. These signatures looked nearly the same for similar inputs (e.g., the same word spoken by different speakers etc.) and were strikingly different for different temporal inputs (e.g., different words).} } @InProceedings{Joshi:06, author = {P. Joshi}, title = {Modeling working memory and decision making using generic neural microcircuits}, editor = {Stefanos Kollias and Andreas Stafylopatis and W{\l}odzis{\l}aw Duch and Erkki Oja}, booktitle = {Artificial Neural Networks -- ICANN 2006}, pages = {515--524}, year = {2006}, volume = {4131}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, publisher = {Springer}, isbn = {3-540-38625-4}, abstract = {Classical behavioral experiments to study working memory typically involve three phases. First the subject receives a stimulus, then holds it in the working memory, and finally makes a decision by comparing it with another stimulus. A neurocomputational model using generic neural microcircuits with feedback is presented here that integrates the three computational stages into a single unified framework. The architecture is tested using the two-interval discrimination and delayed-match-to-sample experimental paradigms as benchmarks.} } @Article{Joshi:06b, author = {P. Joshi}, title = {From memory based decisions to decision based movements: A model of interval discrimination followed by action selection}, journal = {Neural Networks}, volume = {20}, year = {2007}, publisher = {}, pages = {298--311}, abstract = {The interval discrimination task is a classical experimental paradigm that is employed to study working memory and decision making and typically involves four phases. First, the subject receives a stimulus, then holds it in the working memory, then makes a decision by comparing it with another stimulus and finally acts on this decision, usually by pressing one of the two buttons corresponding to the binary decision. This article demonstrates that simple linear readouts from generic neural microcircuits that send feedback of their activity to the circuit, can be trained using identical learning mechanisms to perform quite separate tasks of decision making and generation of subsequent motor commands. In this sense, the neurocomputational algorithm presented here is able to integrate the four computational stages into a single unified framework. The algorithm is tested using two-interval discrimination and delayed-match-to-sample experimental paradigms as benchmarks.} } @PhDThesis{Joshi:07, author = {P. Joshi}, title = {On the role of feedback in enhancing the computational power of generic neural microcircuits}, school = {Graz University of Technology}, year = 2007, abstract = {Circuits of neurons in the brain perform diverse cortical computations in parallel, endowing the organism with diverse cortical modalities, e.g. motor control, vision, and audition; and higher order cognitive processes, e.g. planning, and decision making. It is believed that these computations are carried out by network of neurons in cortical microcircuits, where each microcircuit is composed of rather stereotypical circuit of neurons within a cortical column. A characteristic property of these cortical circuits is the presence of abundant feedback connections, be it on the level of recurrent axon collaterals projecting back onto the same neuron, or on the network level between different cortical areas. This thesis explores the functional role of neural feedback in enhancing the computational power of generic neural microcircuits. It is shown that feedback endows standard models for neural circuits with the capability to emulate arbitrary Turing machines. In fact, with a suitable feedback such circuits can simulate any dynamical system, in particular any conceivable analog computer. Under realistic noise conditions the computational power of these circuits is obviously reduced. However it is demonstrated through computer simulations that feedback also provides a significant gain in computational power for quite detailed models of cortical microcircuits with in-vivo-like high levels of noise. Furthermore neurocomputational models using generic neural microcircuits with feedback are explored in the context of motor control, decision making, and ``action selection in presence of decisions''.} } @InProceedings{Joshi:08a, author = {P. Joshi and J. Triesch}, title = {A Globally Asymptotically Stable Plasticity Rule for Firing Rate Homeostasis}, editor = {}, booktitle = {Artificial Neural Networks -- ICANN 2008}, pages = {}, year = {2008}, volume = {}, series = {}, publisher = {}, isbn = {}, abstract = {How can neural circuits maintain stable activity states when they are constantly being modified by Hebbian processes that are notori- ous for being unstable? A new synaptic plasticity mechanism is presented here that enables a neuron to obtain homeostasis of its firing rate over longer timescales while leaving the neuron free to exhibit fluctuating dynamics in response to external inputs. Mathematical results demon- strate that this rule is globally asymptotically stable. Performance of the rule is benchmarked through simulations from single neuron to network level, using sigmoidal neurons as well as spiking neurons with dynamic synapses. } } @InProceedings{Joshi:08b, author = {C. Savin and P. Joshi and J. Triesch}, title = {ICA with spiking neurons}, booktitle = {Submitted for publication}, abstract = {We propose a biologically plausible mechanism for performing ICA with spiking neurons. We show that a stochastically spiking neuron is able to learn one inde- pendent component in the input, by combining spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) with an intrinsic plasticity rule, which regulates the neuron response prop- erties to maximize information transmission, under the constraint of a fixed mean firing rate. A population of such neurons is shown to perform ICA when their activities are decorrelated by adaptive lateral inhibition. }, year = {2008}, volume = {}, pages = {}, publisher = {}, editor = {} } @InProceedings{Joshi:08c, author = {P. Joshi and J. Triesch}, title = {Rules for information-maximization in spiking neurons using intrinsic plasticity}, booktitle = {Submitted for publication}, abstract = {Information theory predicts the need for information maximization as sensory in- formation must be compressed into a limited range of responses that spiking neu- rons can generate. We propose computational theory and learning rules based on information theory that lead to information maximization using intrinsic plasticity in a stochastically spiking neuron model. Computer simulations are used to verify the theoretical results. Further experiments show that the intrinsic plasticity rules described in this article lead to a desired exponential output distribution, firing- rate homeostasis, and adaptation to sensory deprivation in our model as observed in cortical neurons. }, year = {2008}, volume = {}, pages = {}, publisher = {}, editor = {} } @Article{JoshiETAL:09, author = {P. Joshi and G. Rainer and W. Maass}, title = {Computational role of theta oscillations in delayed-decision tasks}, journal = {in preparation}, year = {2009}, pages = {}, volume = {} } @InProceedings{JoshiMaass:03, author = {P. Joshi and W. Maass}, title = {Movement Generation and Control with Generic Neural Microcircuits}, booktitle = {Biologically Inspired Approaches to Advanced Information Technology. First International Workshop, Bio{ADIT} 2004, Lausanne, Switzerland, January 2004, Revised Selected Papers}, pages = {258--273}, year = {2004}, editor = {A. J. Ijspeert and M. Murata and N. Wakamiya}, volume = {3141}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {Simple linear readouts from generic neural microcircuit models consisting of spiking neurons and dynamic synapses can be trained to generate and control basic movements, for example, reaching with an arm to various target points. After suitable training of these readouts on a small number of target points; reaching movements to other target points can also be generated. Sensory or proprioceptive feedback turns out to be essential for such movement control, even if it is noisy and substantially delayed. Such feedback turns out to optimally improve the performance of the neural microcircuit model if it arrives with a biologically realistic delay of 100 to 200 ms. Furthermore, additional feedbacks of ``prediction of sensory variables'' are shown to improve the performance significantly. The proposed model also provides a new approach for movement control in robotics. Existing control methods in robotics that take the particular dynamics of the sensors and actuators into account (``embodiment of robot control'') are taken one step further by this approach, which provides methods for also using the ``embodiment of computation'', i.e. the inherent dynamics and spatial structure of neural circuits, for the design of robot movement controllers.} } @Article{JoshiMaass:04, author = {P. Joshi and W. Maass}, journal = {Neural Computation}, title = {Movement Generation with Circuits of Spiking Neurons}, year = {2005}, volume = 17, number = 8, pages = {1715--1738}, abstract = {How can complex movements that take hundreds of milliseconds be generated by stereotypical neural microcircuits consisting of spiking neurons with a much faster dynamics? We show that linear readouts from generic neural microcircuit models can be trained to generate basic arm movements. Such movement generation is independent of the arm-model used and the type of feedbacks that the circuit receives. We demonstrate this by considering two different models of a two-jointed arm, a standard model from robotics and a standard model from biology, that each generate different kinds of feedback. Feedbacks that arrive with biologically realistic delays of 50--280 ms turn out to give rise to the best performance. If a feedback with such desirable delay is not available, the neural microcircuit model also achieves good performance if it uses internally generated estimates of such feedback. Existing methods for movement generation in robotics that take the particular dynamics of sensors and actuators into account (``embodiment of motor systems'') are taken one step further with this approach, which provides methods for also using the ``embodiment of motion generation circuitry'', i.e., the inherent dynamics and spatial structure of neural circuits, for the generation of movements.} } @Article{KWA97, author = {J. Kivinen and M. K. Warmuth and P. Auer}, title = {The Perceptron algorithm vs. {Winnow}: linear vs. logarithmic mistake bounds when few input variables are relevant}, journal = {Artificial Intelligence}, year = {1997}, pages = {325--343} } @Article{KaskeBertschinger:05, author = {A. Kaske and N. Bertschinger}, title = {Travelling wave patterns in a model of the spinal pattern generator using spiking neurons}, journal = {Biol. Cybern.}, year = 2005, volume = 92, number = 3, pages = {206--218} } @Article{KaskeMaass:04, author = {A. Kaske and W. Maass}, title = {A model for the interaction of oscillations and pattern generation with real-time computing in generic neural microcircuit models}, journal = {Neural Networks}, year = {2006}, volume = {19}, number = {5}, pages = {600--609}, abstract = {It is shown that real-time computations on spike patterns and temporal integration of information in neural microcircuit models are compatible with potentially descruptive additional inputs such as oscillations. A minor change in the connection statistics of such circuits (making synaptic connections to more distal target neurons more likely for excitatory than for inhibitory neurons) endows such generic neural microcircuit model with the ability to generate periodic patterns autonomously. We show that such pattern generation can also be multiplexed with pattern classification and temporal integration of information in the same neural circuit. These results can be interpreted as showing that periodic activity provides a second channel for communication in neural systems which can be used to synchronize or coordinate spatially separated processes, without encumbering local real-time computations on spike trains in diverse neural circuits.} } @MastersThesis{Klampfl:06, author = {S. Klampfl}, title = {Extracting Statistically Independent Components with a Generalized {BCM} Rule for Spiking Neurons}, school = {Graz University of Technology}, year = {2006} } @Article{KlampflETAL:07, author = {S. Klampfl and R. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {Spiking neurons can learn to solve information bottleneck problems and extract independent components}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = {2009}, volume = {21}, number = {4}, pages = {911--959}, abstract = {Independent Component Analysis (or blind source separation) is assumed to be an essential component of sensory processing in the brain and could provide a less redundant representation about the external world. Another powerful processing strategy is the optimization of internal representations according to the information bottleneck method. This method would allow to extract preferentially those components from high-dimensional sensory input streams that are related to other information sources, such as internal predictions or proprioceptive feedback. However there exists a lack of models that could explain how spiking neurons could learn to execute either of these two processing strategies. We show in this article how stochastically spiking neurons with refractoriness could in principle learn in an unsupervised manner to carry out both information bottleneck optimization and the extraction of independent components. We derive suitable learning rules, which extend the well known BCM-rule, from abstract information optimization principles. These rules will simultaneously keep the firing rate of the neuron within a biologically realistic range.} } @InProceedings{KlampflETAL:07b, author = {S. Klampfl and R. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {Information Bottleneck Optimization and Independent Component Extraction with Spiking Neurons}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2006, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2007}, volume = {19}, pages = {713--720}, abstract = {The extraction of statistically independent components from high-dimensional multi-sensory input streams is assumed to b e an essential component of sensory processing in the brain. Such independent component analysis (or blind source separat ion) could provide a less redundant representation of inform ation about the external world. Another powerful processing strategy is to extract preferentially those components from high-dimensional input streams that are related to other inf ormation sources, such as internal predictions or propriocep tive feedback. This strategy allows the optimization of inte rnal representation according to the information bottleneck method. However, concrete learning rules that implement thes e general unsupervised learning principles for spiking neuro ns are still missing. We show how both information bottlenec k optimization and the extraction of independent components can in principle be implemented with stochastically spiking neurons with refractoriness. The new learning rule that achi eves this is derived from abstract information optimization principles.} } @Article{KlampflETAL:09, author = {S. Klampfl and S.V. David and P. Yin and S.A. Shamma and W. Maass}, title = {Integration of stimulus history in information conveyed by neurons in primary auditory cortex in response to tone sequences}, journal = {39th Annual Conference of the Society for Neuroscience, Program 163.8, Poster T6 }, year = {2009}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {A critical component of auditory processing is integrating information about sound features that change over time. Previous studies have shown that the context of a sound -- the immediate history of auditory stimulation -- can have a substantial effect on responses of auditory neurons to a current sound. In order to characterize these effects, we measured the information contained in the neural activity in primary auditory cortex (A1) about both current and preceding sounds. Neural recordings were made from single A1 neurons (n=122) isolated from 23 multi-channel recordings in 4 passively listening ferrets. The stimulus was a sequence of tones (150 ms duration). The frequency step between two consecutive tones was always half an octave up or down. For each neuron, we measured at particular points in time the mutual information (MI) between its response during a sliding window (20ms) and the identity of the current and preceding tone. Since direct estimates of MI from spike trains typically suffer from a systematic error (bias) due to the limited number of available response trials for a given stimulus, we used a recently proposed shuffling-based estimator with additional quadratic extrapolation bias correction (Panzeri et al., 2007). This method produces reliable information estimates for this particular setup. We found that most responses (102 out of 122 neurons) contained significant information about the stimulus throughout the duration of the tone. Of this information, on average, 60\% was about the current tone, while 40\% was about the previous tone. We also trained linear classifiers (Support Vector Machines with linear kernel) on the low-pass filtered response spike trains of multiple simultaneously recorded neurons (4-10) to discriminate between the two possible predecessors for a given tone. The performance the linear classifier can be viewed as a lower bound on the information contained in the responses about the previous tone. Performance of up to 80\% was achieved. These results quantify the amount of information contained in the responses of A1 neurons about both currently and previously played tones and demonstrate that neurons in A1 integrate information about previous input into their current responses. References: Panzeri et al. (2007), J Neurophysiol, 98(3):1064} } @Article{KlampflMaass:09, author = {S. Klampfl and W. Maass}, title = {A neuron can learn anytime classification of trajectories of network states without supervision}, journal = {submitted for publication}, year = {Feb. 2009}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, note = {} } @Article{KlampflMaass:09a, author = {S. Klampfl and W. Maass}, title = {A theoretical basis for emergent pattern discrimination in neural systems through slow feature extraction}, journal = {submitted}, year = {2009}, pages = {}, volume = {} } @InProceedings{KlampflMaass:09b, author = {S. Klampfl and W. Maass}, title = {Replacing supervised classification learning by {S}low {F}eature {A}nalysis in spiking neural networks}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2009: Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2010}, volume = {22}, pages = {988--996}, abstract = {Many models for computations in recurrent networks of neurons assume that the network state moves from some initial state to some fixed point attractor or limit cycle that represents the output of the computation. However experimental data show that in response to a sensory stimulus the network state moves from its initial state through a trajectory of network states and eventually returns to the initial state, without reaching an attractor or limit cycle in between. This type of network response, where salient information about external stimuli is encoded in characteristic trajectories of continuously varying network states, raises the question how a neural system could compute with such code, and arrive for example at a temporally stable classification of the external stimulus. We show that a known unsupervised learning algorithm, Slow Feature Analysis (SFA), could be an important ingredient for extracting stable information from these network trajectories. In fact, if sensory stimuli are more often followed by another stimulus from the same class than by a stimulus from another class, SFA approaches the classification capability of Fisher’s Linear Discriminant (FLD), a powerful algorithm for supervised learning. We apply this principle to simulated cortical microcircuits, and show that it enables readout neurons to learn discrimination of spoken digits and detection of repeating firing patterns within a stream of spike trains with the same firing statistics, without requiring any supervision for learning.} } @Article{KlampflMaass:10, author = {S. Klampfl and W. Maass}, title = {A theoretical basis for emergent pattern discrimination in neural systems through slow feature extraction}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = {2010}, volume = {22}, number = {12}, pages = {2979--3035}, abstract = {Neurons in the brain are able to detect and discriminate salient spatio-temporal patterns in the firing activity of presynaptic neurons. It is open how they can learn to achieve this, especially without the help of a supervisor. We show that a well-known unsupervised learning algorithm for linear neurons, Slow Feature Analysis (SFA), is able to acquire the discrimination capability of one of the best algorithms for supervised linear discrimination learning, the Fisher Linear Discriminant (FLD), given suitable input statistics. We demonstrate the power of this principle by showing that it enables readout neurons from simulated cortical microcircuits to learn without any supervision to discriminate between spoken digits, and to detect repeated firing patterns that are embedded into a stream of noise spike trains with the same firing statistics. Both these computer simulations and our theoretical analysis show that slow feature extraction enables neurons to extract and collect information that is spread out over a trajectory of firing states that lasts several hundred ms. In addition, it enables neurons to learn without supervision to keep track of time (relative to a stimulus onset, or the initiation of a motor response). Hence these results elucidate how the brain could compute with trajectories of firing states, rather than only with fixed point attractors. It also provides a theoretical basis for understanding recent experimental results on the emergence of view- and position-invariant classification of visual objects in inferior temporal cortex.}, note = {Epub 2010 Sep 21} } @InProceedings{KranakisETAL:95, author = {E. Kranakis and D. Krizanc and B. Ruf and J. Urrutia and G. Woeginger}, booktitle = {Graph-theoretic concepts in computer science}, editor = {M. Nagl}, pages = {1--13}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {{VC}-dimensions for graphs}, volume = {1017}, year = {1995}, keywords = {VC-Dimensions, graphs} } @Article{KranakisETAL:97, author = {E. Kranakis and D. Krizanc and B. Ruf and J. Urrutia and G. Woeginger}, journal = {Journal of Discrete Applied Mathematics}, pages = {237--257}, title = {The {VC}-dimension of set-systems defined by graphs}, volume = {77}, year = {1997}, keywords = {VC-dimensions, graph} } @PhDThesis{Legenstein:02a, author = {R. A. Legenstein}, title = {The Wire-Length Complexity of Neural Networks}, school = {Graz University of Technology}, year = 2002, abstract = {The ability of our nervous system to rapidly process and react on the huge amount of sensory input data is grounded on its massively parallel architecture. Arguably, physical cost for communication, that is to say the space needed for wires, is the most severe bottleneck in biological as well as in artificial architectures of this type. In this thesis the complexity of wiring in biological and artificial neural networks, the implications of wiring constraints to models for brain circuits, and the implementation of wire-efficient circuit designs in hardware are studied. We present a simple mathematical framework that allows us to study the wiring complexity of neural circuits in a formal and general manner. In this model, the complexity of a circuit is measured by the total length of wires needed to implement the circuit, a complexity measure that is one of the most salient ones if real-world constraints of implementations in hardware or ``wetware'' are considered.Furthermore, we study the layout of general computational structures like tree computations. We give tight upper and lower bounds on the wire length of constrained tree layouts and show efficient layout strategies for prefix computations.} } @Article{Legenstein:02b, author = {R. A. Legenstein}, title = {On the Complexity of Knock-Knee Channel Routing with 3-Terminal Nets}, journal = {Technical Report}, year = {2002}, abstract = {In this article we consider a basic problem in the layout of VLSI-circuits, the channel-routing problem in the knock-knee mode. We show that knock-knee channel routing with 3-terminal nets is NP-complete and thereby settling a problem that was open for more than a decade. In 1987, Sarrafzadeh showed that knock-knee channel routing with 5-terminal nets is NP-complete. Furthermore, it is known that this problem is solvable in polynomial time if only 2-terminal nets are involved (This problem was addressed for example by Frank in 1982 and by Formann, D. Wagner, and F. Wagner in 1993).} } @MastersThesis{Legenstein:99, author = {R. A. Legenstein}, title = {Effizientes {L}ayout von {N}euronalen {N}etzen}, school = {Technische Universitaet Graz}, year = 1999, month = {September} } @Article{LegensteinETAL:03, author = {R. Legenstein and H. Markram and W. Maass}, title = {Input Prediction and Autonomous Movement Analysis in Recurrent Circuits of Spiking Neurons}, year = {2003}, journal = {Reviews in the Neurosciences (Special Issue on Neuroinformatics of Neural and Artificial Computation)}, volume = {14}, number = {1--2}, pages = {5--19}, abstract = {Temporal integration of information and prediction of future sensory inputs are assumed to be important computational tasks of generic cortical microcircuits. However it has remained open how cortical microcircuits could possibly achieve this, especially since they consist in contrast to most neural network models of neurons and synapses with heterogeneous dynamic responses. However it turns out that the diversity of computational units increases the capability of microcircuit models for temporal integration. Furthermore the prediction of future input may be rather easy for such circuits since it suffices to train the readouts from such microcircuits. In this article we show that very simple readouts from a generic recurrently connected circuit of integrate-and-fire neurons with diverse dynamic synapses can be trained in an unsupervised manner to predict movements of different objects, that move within an unlimited number of combinations of speed, angle, and offset over a simulated sensor field. The autonomously trained microcircuit model is also able to compute the direction of motion, which is a computationally difficult problem ("aperture problem") since it requires disambiguation of local sensor readings through the context of other sensor readings at the current and preceding moments. Furthermore the same circuit can be trained simultaneously in a supervised manner to also report the shape and velocity of the moving object. Finally it is shown that the trained neural circuit supports novelty detection and the generation of "imagined movements". Altogether the results of this article suggest that it is not necessary to construct specific and biologically unrealistic neural circuit models for specific sensory processing tasks, since "found" generic cortical microcircuit models in combination with very simple perceptron-like readouts can easily be trained to solve such computational tasks.} } @Article{LegensteinETAL:04, author = {R. Legenstein and C. Naeger and W. Maass}, title = {What can a Neuron Learn with Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity?}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = {2005}, volume = {17}, number = {11}, pages = {2337--2382}, abstract = {Spiking neurons are very flexible computational modules, which can implement with different values of their adjustable synaptic parameters an enormous variety of different transformations F from input spike trains to output spike trains. We examine in this letter the question to what extent a spiking neuron with biologically realistic models for dynamic synapses can be taught via spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) to implement a given transformation F. We consider a supervised learning paradigm where during training, the output of the neuron is clamped to the target signal (teacher forcing). The well-known perceptron convergence theorem asserts the convergence of a simple supervised learning algorithm for drastically simplified neuron models (McCulloch-Pitts neurons). We show that in contrast to the perceptron convergence theorem, no theoretical guarantee can be given for the convergence of STDP with teacher forcing that holds for arbitrary input spike patterns. On the other hand, we prove that average case versions of the perceptron convergence theorem hold for STDP in the case of uncorrelated and correlated Poisson input spike trains and simple models for spiking neurons. For a wide class of cross-correlation functions of the input spike trains, the resulting necessary and sufficient condition can be formulated in terms of linear separability, analogously as the well-known condition of learnability by perceptrons. However, the linear separability criterion has to be applied here to the columns of the correlation matrix of the Poisson input. We demonstrate through extensive computer simulations that the theoretically predicted convergence of STDP with teacher forcing also holds for more realistic models for neurons, dynamic synapses, and more general input distributions. In addition, we show through computer simulations that these positive learning results hold not only for the common interpretation of STDP, where STDP changes the weights of synapses, but also for a more realistic interpretation suggested by experimental data where STDP modulates the initial release probability of dynamic synapses.} } @InProceedings{LegensteinETAL:04a, author = {R. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {A criterion for the convergence of learning with spike timing dependent plasticity}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {Y. Weiss and B. Schoelkopf and J. Platt}, volume = {18}, pages = {763--770}, year = 2006, publisher = {MIT Press}, abstract = {We investigate under what conditions a neuron can learn by experimentally supported rules for spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP) to predict the arrival times of strong ``teacher inputs'' to the same neuron. It turns out that in contrast to the famous Perceptron Convergence Theorem, which predicts convergence of the perceptron learning rule for a strongly simplified neuron model whenever a stable solution exists, no equally strong convergence guarantee can be given for spiking neurons with STDP. But we derive a criterion on the statistical dependency structure of input spike trains which characterizes exactly when learning with STDP will converge on average for a simple model of a spiking neuron. This criterion is reminiscent of the linear separability criterion of the Perceptron Convergence Theorem, but it applies here to the rows of a correlation matrix related to the spike inputs. In addition we show through computer simulations for more realistic neuron models that the resulting analytically predicted positive learning results not only hold for the common interpretation of STDP where STDP changes the weights of synapses, but also for a more realistic interpretation suggested by experimental data where STDP modulates the initial release probability of dynamic synapses.} } @InProceedings{LegensteinETAL:08, author = {R. Legenstein and D. Pecevski and W. Maass}, title = {Theoretical Analysis of Learning with Reward-Modulated Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2007, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2008}, volume = {20}, pages = {881--888}, abstract = {Reward-modulated spike-timing-dependent plasticity ({STDP}) has recently emerged as a candidate for a learning rule that could explain how local learning rules at single synapses support behaviorally relevant adaptive changes in complex networks of spiking neurons. However the potential and limitations of this learning rule could so far only be tested through computer simulations. This article provides tools for an analytic treatment of reward-modulated {STDP}, which allow us to predict under which conditions reward-modulated {STDP} will be able to achieve a desired learning effect. In particular, we can produce in this way a theoretical explanation and a computer model for a fundamental experimental finding on biofeedback in monkeys (reported in [1])} } @Article{LegensteinETAL:08a, author = {R. Legenstein and D. Pecevski and W. Maass}, title = {A Learning Theory for Reward-Modulated Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity with Application to Biofeedback}, journal = {PLoS Computational Biology}, year = {2008}, volume = {4}, number = {10}, pages = {1--27}, abstract = {Reward-modulated spike-timing-dependent plasticity ({STDP}) has recently emerged as a candidate for a learning rule that could explain how behaviorally relevant adaptive changes in complex networks of spiking neurons could be achieved in a self-organizing manner through local synaptic plasticity. However the capabilities and limitations of this learning rule could so far only be tested through computer simulations. This article provides tools for an analytic treatment of reward-modulated {STDP}, which allows us to predict under which conditions reward-modulated {STDP} will achieve a desired learning effect. These analytical results imply that neurons can learn through reward-modulated {STDP} to classify not only spatial, but also temporal firing patterns of presynaptic neurons. They also can learn to respond to specific presynaptic firing patterns with particular spike patterns. Finally, the resulting learning theory predicts that even difficult credit-assignment problems, where it is very hard to tell which synaptic weights should be modified in order to increase the global reward for the system, can be solved in a self-organizing manner through reward-modulated {STDP}. This yields an explanation for a fundamental experimental result on biofeedback in monkeys by Fetz and Baker. In this experiment monkeys were rewarded for increasing the firing rate of a particular neuron in the cortex, and were able to solve this extremely difficult credit assignment problem. Our model for this experiment relies on a combination of reward-modulated {STDP} with variable spontaneous firing activity. Hence it also provides a possible functional explanation for trial-to-trial variability, which is characteristic for cortical networks of neurons, but has no analogue in currently existing artificial computing systems. In addition our model demonstrates that reward-modulated {STDP} can be applied to all synapses in a large recurrent neural network without endangering the stability of the network dynamics.} } @Article{LegensteinETAL:08b, author = {R. Legenstein and D. Pecevski and W. Maass}, title = {Supplementary Information to: "{A} Learning Theory for Reward-Modulated Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity with Application to Biofeedback"}, journal = {PLoS Computational Biology}, year = {2008}, volume = {4}, number = {10}, pages = {} } @Article{LegensteinETAL:08c, author = {R. Legenstein and S. A. Chase and A. B. Schwartz and W. Maass}, title = {A model for learning effects in motor cortex that may facilitate the brain control of neuroprosthetic devices}, journal = {38th Annual Conference of the Society for Neuroscience, Program 517.6}, year = {2008}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {Recent experimental results have shown that the direction preference of neurons in monkey motor cortex changes in order to compensate for purposeful misreading of preferred directions for brain control of a robot arm. We show that a simple neural network model in combination with a new rule for reward-modulated Hebbian plasticity can explain this effect. This rule requires substantial trial-to-trial variability of the neuronal output for exploration. In contrast to previously proposed rules for reward-modulated Hebbian plasticity, the new rule does not require that the plasticity mechanism `knows' the noise explicitly. It is able to optimize the performance of the model system within biologically realistic periods of time and under high noise levels. When the neuronal noise is fitted to experimental data, the model produces learning effects similar to those found in monkey experiments. We quantified these effects and found a surprisingly good match to those observed in experiments. This study shows that reward-modulated learning can explain detailed experimental results about neuronal tuning changes in a motor control task and suggests that reward-modulated learning is an essential plasticity mechanism in the cortex for the acquisition of goal-directed behavior. Self-tuning effects of the type considered in this model are obviously important for successful use of neuroprosthetic devices.} } @InProceedings{LegensteinETAL:09, author = {B. Schrauwen and L. Buesing and R. Legenstein}, title = {On Computational Power and the Order-Chaos Phase Transition in Reservoir Computing}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2008, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2009}, volume = {21}, pages = {1425--1432}, abstract = {Randomly connected recurrent neural circuits have proven to be very powerful models for online computations when a trained memoryless readout function is appended. Such {\em Reservoir Computing (RC)} systems are commonly used in two flavors: with analog or binary (spiking) neurons in the recurrent circuits. Previous work showed a fundamental difference between these two incarnations of the RC idea. The performance of a RC system build from binary neurons seems to depend strongly on the network connectivity structure. In networks of analog neurons such dependency has not been observed. In this article we investigate this apparent dichotomy in terms of the in-degree of the circuit nodes. Our analyses based amongst others on the Lyapunov exponent reveal that the phase transition between ordered and chaotic network behavior of binary circuits qualitatively differs from the one in analog circuits. This explains the observed decreased computational performance of binary circuits of high node in-degree. Furthermore, a novel mean-field predictor for computational performance is introduced and shown to accurately predict the numerically obtained results.} } @InProceedings{LegensteinETAL:09a, author = {R. Legenstein and S. A. Chase and A. B. Schwartz and W. Maass}, title = {Functional network reorganization in motor cortex can be explained by reward-modulated {H}ebbian learning}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2009: Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {D. Koller and D. Schuurmans and Y. Bengio and L. Bottou}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2010}, volume = {22}, pages = {1105--1113}, abstract = {The control of neuroprosthetic devices from the activity of motor cortex neurons benefits from learning effects where the function of these neurons is adapted to the control task. It was recently shown that tuning properties of neurons in monkey motor cortex are adapted selectively in order to compensate for an erroneous interpretation of their activity. In particular, it was shown that the tuning curves of those neurons whose preferred directions had been misinterpreted changed more than those of other neurons. In this article, we show that the experimentally observed self-tuning properties of the system can be explained on the basis of a simple learning rule. This learning rule utilizes neuronal noise for exploration and performs Hebbian weight updates that are modulated by a global reward signal. In contrast to most previously proposed reward-modulated Hebbian learning rules, this rule does not require extraneous knowledge about what is noise and what is signal. The learning rule is able to optimize the performance of the model system within biologically realistic periods of time and under high noise levels. When the neuronal noise is fitted to experimental data, the model produces learning effects similar to those found in monkey experiments.} } @Article{LegensteinETAL:09b, author = {R. Legenstein and S. M. Chase and A. B. Schwartz and W. Maass}, title = {A reward-modulated {H}ebbian learning rule can explain experimentally observed network reorganization in a brain control task}, journal = {The Journal of Neuroscience}, year = {2010}, volume = {30}, number = {25}, pages = {8400--8410}, abstract = {It has recently been shown in a brain-computer interface experiment that motor cortical neurons change their tuning properties selectively to compensate for errors induced by displaced decoding parameters. In particular, it was shown that the three-dimensional tuning curves of neurons whose decoding parameters were reassigned changed more than those of neurons whose decoding parameters had not been reassigned. In this article, we propose a simple learning rule that can reproduce this effect. Our learning rule uses Hebbian weight updates driven by a global reward signal and neuronal noise. In contrast to most previously proposed learning rules, this approach does not require extrinsic information to separate noise from signal. The learning rule is able to optimize the performance of a model system within biologically realistic periods of time under high noise levels. Furthermore, when the model parameters are matched to data recorded during the brain-computer interface learning experiments described above, the model produces learning effects strikingly similar to those found in the experiments.} } @InProceedings{LegensteinETAL:09sup, author = {B. Schrauwen and L. Buesing and R. Legenstein}, title = {Supplementary Material to: On Computational Power and the Order-Chaos Phase Transition in Reservoir Computing}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2008, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2009}, volume = {21}, note = {in press}, pages = {} } @Article{LegensteinETAL:10, author = {R. Legenstein and N. Wilbert and L. Wiskott}, title = {Reinforcement Learning on Slow Features of High-Dimensional Input Streams}, journal = {PLoS Computational Biology}, year = {2010}, volume = {6}, number = {8}, pages = {e1000894}, abstract = {Humans and animals are able to learn complex behaviors based on a massive stream of sensory information from different modalities. Early animal studies have identified learning mechanisms that are based on reward and punishment such that animals tend to avoid actions that lead to punishment whereas rewarded actions are reinforced. However, most algorithms for reward-based learning are only applicable if the dimensionality of the state-space is sufficiently small or its structure is sufficiently simple. Therefore, the question arises how the problem of learning on high-dimensional data is solved in the brain. In this article we propose a biologically plausible generic two-stage learning system that can directly be applied to raw high-dimensional input streams. The system is composed of a hierarchical slow feature analysis (SFA) network for preprocessing and a simple neural network on top that is trained based on rewards. We demonstrate by computer simulations that this generic architecture is able to learn quite demanding reinforcement learning tasks on high-dimensional visual input streams in a time that is comparable to the time needed when an explicit highly informative low-dimensional state-space representation is given instead of the high-dimensional visual input. The learning speed of the proposed architecture in a task similar to the Morris water maze task is comparable to that found in experimental studies with rats. This study thus supports the hypothesis that slowness learning is one important unsupervised learning principle utilized in the brain to form efficient state representations for behavioral learning. } } @TechReport{LegensteinMaass:04, author = {R. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {Additional material to the paper: What can a Neuron Learn with Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity?}, institution = {Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, Graz University of Technology}, htmlnote = {(PDF)}, year = {2004} } @InCollection{LegensteinMaass:05, author = {R. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {What makes a dynamical system computationally powerful?}, booktitle = {New Directions in Statistical Signal Processing: From Systems to Brains}, publisher = {MIT Press}, editor = {S. Haykin and J. C. Principe and T.J. Sejnowski and J.G. McWhirter}, pages = {127--154}, year = {2007}, abstract = {We review methods for estimating the computational capability of a complex dynamical system. The main examples that we discuss are models for cortical neural microcircuits with varying degrees of biological accuracy, in the context of online computations on complex input streams. We address in particular the question to what extent earlier results ab out the relationship between the edge of chaos and the compu tational power of dynamical systems in discrete time for off -line computing also apply to this case.} } @Article{LegensteinMaass:05a, author = {R. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {Edge of Chaos and Prediction of Computational Performance for Neural Circuit Models}, journal = {Neural Networks}, year = {2007}, volume = {20}, number = {3}, pages = {323--334}, note = {}, abstract = {We analyze in this article the significance of the edge of chaos for real-time computations in neural microcircuit models consisting of spiking neurons and dynamic synapses. We find that the edge of chaos predicts quite well those values of circuit parameters that yield maximal computational performance. But obviously it makes no prediction of their computational performance for other parameter values. Therefore, we propose a new method for predicting the computational performance of neural microcircuit models. The new measure estimates directly the kernel property and the generalization capability of a neural microcircuit.We validate the proposed measure by comparing its prediction with direct evaluations of the computational performance of various neural microcircuit models. The proposed method also allows us to quantify differences in the computational performance and generalization capability of neural circuits in different dynamic regimes (UP- and DOWN-states) that have been demonstrated through intracellular recordings in vivo.} } @Article{LegensteinMaass:07, author = {R. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {On the classification capability of sign-constrained perceptrons}, journal = {Neural Computation}, volume = {20}, number = {1}, pages = {288--309}, year = {2008}, abstract = {The perceptron (also referred to as McCulloch-Pitts neuron, or linear threshold gate) is commonly used as a simplified model for the discrimination and learning capability of a biological neuron. Criteria that tell us when a perceptron can implement (or learn to implement) all possible dichotomies over a given set of input patterns are well-known, but only for the idealized case where one assumes that the sign of a synaptic weight can be switched during learning. We present in this article an analysis of the classification capability of the biologically more realistic model of a sign-constrained perceptron, where the signs of synaptic weights remain fixed during learning (which is the case for most types of biological synapses). In particular, the VC-dimension of sign-constrained perceptrons is determined, and a necessary and sufficient criterion is provided that tells us when all $2^m$ dichotomies over a given set of m patterns can be learned by sign-constrained perceptron. We also show that uniformity of {L1} norms of input patterns is a sufficient condition for full representation power in the case where all weights are required to be nonnegative. Finally, we also exhibit cases where the sign-constraint of a perceptron drastically reduces its classification capability. Our theoretical analysis is complemented by computer simulations, which demonstrate in particular that sparse input patterns improve the classification capability of sign-constrained perceptrons.} } @Article{LegensteinMaass:09, author = {R. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {An integrated learning rule for branch strength potentiation and {STDP}}, journal = {39th Annual Conference of the Society for Neuroscience, Program 895.20, Poster HH36}, year = {2009}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {Recent experimental data (Losonczy, Makara, and Magee, Nature 2008) show that not only the strength of synaptic efficacy is plastic, but also the coupling between dendritic branches and the soma (via dendritic spikes). More precisely, the strength of this coupling can be increased both through a coincidence of dendritic branch activations with action potential generation, and through a coincidence of branch activation with ACh. This effect has been called Branch Strength Potentiation (BSP). We show through theoretical analysis and computer simulations that the learning capability of single neurons is substantially increased if STDP is combined with BSP. More precisely, we show that a simple learning rule, based on a error-minimization principle, contains both BSP and STDP as special cases. The learning rule includes a homeostatic mechanism which acts locally at the site of the dendritic branch. The depression that was observed for post-before-pre pairings in standard STDP experiments is also observed in simulations of this learning rule. It can be explained by the combined effect of this local homeostatic mechanism and the backpropagating action potential. This powerful new learning rule endows single neurons with learning capabilities which were previously unattainable. For example, a single neuron acquires through this new learning rule the capability to solve a "binding problem". I.e., a single neuron can learn to respond to fire upon activation of presynaptic pools A and B, and also upon activation of presynaptic pools C and D, but NOT in response to concurrent activation of presynaptic pools A and C, or B and D. We also consider a variation of this learning rule where changes at synapses and branches are not only based on local activity, but also on a global reward signal that is indicated to the neuron by the concentration of a neuromodulatory signal such as ACh. We show that this biologically plausible learning rule for reward-based learning is much more efficient than previously proposed rules based on simple neuron models without nonlinear branches.} } @Article{LegensteinMaass:11, author = {R. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {Branch-specific plasticity enables self-organization of nonlinear computation in single neurons}, journal = {The Journal of Neuroscience}, year = {2011}, volume = {31}, number = {30}, pages = {10787--10802}, abstract = {It has been conjectured that nonlinear processing in dendritic branches endows individual neurons with the capability to perform complex computational operations that are needed in order to solve for example the binding problem. However, it is not clear how single neurons could acquire such functionality in a self-organized manner, since most theoretical studies of synaptic plasticity and learning concentrate on neuron models without nonlinear dendritic properties. In the meantime, a complex picture of information processing with dendritic spikes and a variety of plasticity mechanisms in single neurons has emerged from experiments. In particular, new experimental data on dendritic branch strength potentiation in rat hippocampus have not yet been incorporated into such models. In this article, we investigate how experimentally observed plasticity mechanisms, such as depolarization-dependent STDP and branch-strength potentiation could be integrated to self-organize nonlinear neural computations with dendritic spikes. We provide a mathematical proof that in a simplified setup these plasticity mechanisms induce a competition between dendritic branches, a novel concept in the analysis of single neuron adaptivity. We show via computer simulations that such dendritic competition enables a single neuron to become member of several neuronal ensembles, and to acquire nonlinear computational capabilities, such as for example the capability to bind multiple input features. Hence our results suggest that nonlinear neural computation may self-organize in single neurons through the interaction of local synaptic and dendritic plasticity mechanisms.}, htmlnote = {(Commentary by R. P. Costa and P. J. Sj\"ostr\"om in Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience PDF)} } @Article{LiebeETAL:09, author = {S. Liebe and G. Hoerzer and N.K. Logothetis and W. Maass and G. Rainer}, title = {Long range coupling between {V4} and {PF} in theta band during visual short-term memory}, journal = {39th Annual Conference of the Society for Neuroscience, Program 652.20, Poster Y31}, year = {2009}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {Both extrastriate area V4 and the lateral prefrontal cortex (PF) are thought to be part of a neural network contributing to sensory and mnemonic processing of visual information. However, it is not well understood how V4 and PF might interact during visual memory. Here, we addressed this question by recording Local Field Potentials (LFP) simultaneously in both brain regions while two rhesus monkeys performed a delayed matching-to sample task. In the task, a sample stimulus (250ms) was presented followed by a probe stimulus (600ms) after a delay period (1500ms). A lever press was required if the sample stimulus matched the probe. We assessed coupling between LFP sites within and between the different brain regions by both measuring pair-wise phase-synchrony (phase locking value, PLV) using a wavelet based method and employing a coupling measure that relies on the concept of Granger causality (partial-directed coherence; PDC) using multivariate autoregressive (MVAR) modeling. In both monkeys we consistently found increases in theta-band phase synchrony (3.5-7 Hz) between V4 and PF LFP site pairs during the delay period of the task. Specifically, a significant proportion of pairs (26.1\%, 62/231 for monkey 1 and 25\%, 40/160 for monkey 2, p<0.001) showed increased coherence during the delay phase compared to the pre-stimulus baseline period. In contrast, only a small proportion of sites showed significant coupling in gamma (42-97 Hz, 5.9\%/13\% for monkeys 1/2, respectively) or beta (16-36Hz, 6.9\%/16\%) frequencies. In addition, we obtained comparable results using PDC, which also assesses the directionality of information flow between the brain areas. Our preliminary results indicate that the interaction between V4 and PF during short-term memory might be primarily mediated through neuronal coherence in the theta band. Furthermore, our analyses using MVAR modeling suggest that this interaction can be characterized by a bidirectional information flow between these areas. These findings support the idea that long-range interactions play an important role in short-term maintenance of short-term memory.} } @InCollection{Maass:00, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Spike trains -- Im {R}hythmus neuronaler {Z}ellen}, booktitle = {Katalog der steirischen Landesausstellung gr2000az}, pages = {36--42}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, year = {2000}, editor = {H. Konrad, R. Kriesche} } @InCollection{Maass:00a, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Lernende {M}aschinen}, booktitle = {Katalog der steirischen Landesausstellung gr2000az}, pages = {50--56}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, year = 2000, editor = {H. Konrad, R. Kriesche} } @InCollection{Maass:00b, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Neural computation: a research topic for theoretical computer science? {S}ome thoughts and pointers}, booktitle = {Current Trends in Theoretical Computer Science, Entering the 21th Century}, publisher = {World Scientific Publishing}, year = {2001}, pages = {680--690}, editor = {Rozenberg G. and Salomaa A. and Paun G.} } @InProceedings{Maass:00c, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Neural computation: a research topic for theoretical computer science? {S}ome thoughts and pointers}, booktitle = {Bulletin of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS)}, pages = {149--158}, year = {2000}, volume = {72} } @InProceedings{Maass:01a, author = {W. Maass}, title = {wetware ({E}nglish version)}, booktitle = {{TAKEOVER}: {W}ho is {D}oing the {A}rt of {T}omorrow ({A}rs {E}lectronica 2001)}, pages = {148--152}, year = {2001}, publisher = {Springer} } @InProceedings{Maass:01b, author = {W. Maass}, title = {wetware (deutsche {V}ersion)}, booktitle = {{TAKEOVER}: {W}ho is {D}oing the {A}rt of {T}omorrow ({A}rs {E}lectronica 2001)}, year = {2001}, pages = {153--157}, publisher = {Springer} } @Article{Maass:02, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Computing with Spikes}, journal = {Special Issue on Foundations of Information Processing of {TELEMATIK}}, year = {2002}, pages = {32--36}, volume = {8}, number = {1} } @InProceedings{Maass:02a, author = {W. Maass}, title = {On the Computational Power of Neural Microcircuit Models: Pointers to the Literature}, booktitle = {Proc. of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks -- ICANN 2002}, pages = {254--256}, year = {2002}, editor = {Jos\'{e} R. Dorronsoro}, volume = {2415}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, publisher = {Springer} } @InCollection{Maass:03, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Computation with Spiking Neurons}, booktitle = {The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks}, edition = {2nd}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, editor = {M. A. Arbib}, year = {2003}, pages = {1080--1083} } @Article{Maass:06, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Book Review of "{I}mitation of life: how biology is inspiring computing" by {N}ancy {F}orbes}, journal = {Pattern Analysis and Applications}, year = {2006}, volume = {8}, number = {4}, pages = {390--391}, note = {Springer (London)} } @InProceedings{Maass:07, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Conference CiE'07: {COMPUTABILITY IN EUROPE} 2007, Siena (Italy)}, title = {Liquid Computing}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, volume = {}, year = {2007}, pages = {507--516}, abstract = {This review addresses structural differences between that type of computation on which computability theory and computational complexity theory have focused so far, and those computations that are usually carried out in biological organisms (either in the brain, or in the form of gene regulation within a single cell). These differences concern the role of time, the way in which the input is presented, the way in which an algorithm is implemented, and in the end also the definition of what a computation is. This article describes liquid computing as a new framework for analyzing those types of computations that are usually carried out in biological organisms.} } @InCollection{Maass:09, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Liquid State Machines: Motivation, Theory, and Applications}, booktitle = {Computability in Context: Computation and Logic in the Real World}, editor = {B. Cooper and A. Sorbi}, year = {2010}, publisher = {Imperial College Press}, pages = {275--296}, keywords = {}, note = {}, abstract = {The Liquid State Machine (LSM) has emerged as a computational model that is more adequate than the Turing machine for describing computations in biological networks of neurons. Characteristic features of this new model are (i) that it is a model for adaptive computational systems, (ii) that it provides a method for employing randomly connected circuits, or eve "found" physical objects for meaningful computations, (iii) that it provides a theoretical context where heterogeneous, rather than stereotypical, local gates or processors increase the computational power of a circuit, (iv) that it provides a method for multiplexing different computations (on a common input) within the same circuit. This chapter reviews the motivation for this model, its theoretical background, and current work on implementations of this model in innovative artificial computing devices.} } @InProceedings{Maass:75, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proof Theory Symposium Kiel 1974}, editor = {J. Diller and G. H. Mueller}, journal = {Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Springer (Berlin)}, pages = {257--263}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Mathematics}, title = {Church Rosser Theorem fuer Lambda-Kalkuele mit unendlich langen Termen}, volume = {500}, year = {1975} } @Article{Maass:76, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Archive Math. Logik Grundlagen}, pages = {27--46}, title = {Eine {F}unktionalinterpretation der praedikativen {A}nalysis}, volume = {18}, year = {1976} } @Article{Maass:77, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Archive Math. Logik Grundlagen}, pages = {169--186}, title = {On minimal pairs and minimal degrees in higher recursion theory}, volume = {18}, year = {1977} } @Article{Maass:78, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Ann. of Math. Logic}, pages = {149--170}, title = {Inadmissibility, tame r.e. sets and the admissible collapse}, volume = {13}, year = {1978} } @Article{Maass:78a, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {J. Symbolic Logic}, pages = {270-279}, title = {The uniform regular set theorem in alpha-recursion theory}, volume = {43}, year = {1978} } @InProceedings{Maass:78b, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Higher Set Theory}, editor = {G. H. Mueller and D. Scott}, pages = {339--359}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Mathematics}, title = {Fine structure theory of the constructible universe in alpha- and beta-recursion theory}, volume = {669}, year = {1978} } @MastersThesis{Maass:78c, author = {W. Maass}, note = {Minerva Publikation (Muenchen)}, school = {Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen}, title = {Contributions to alpha- and beta-recursion theory}, type = {Habilitationsschrift}, year = {1978} } @InCollection{Maass:78d, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Generalized Recursion Theory II}, editor = {E. Fenstad and R. O. Gandy and G. E. Sacks}, pages = {239--269}, publisher = {North-Holland (Amsterdam)}, title = {High alpha-recursively enumerable degrees}, year = {1978} } @Conference{GuptaMaass:91, author = {A. Gupta and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {R. P. Lippmann and J. E. Moody and D. S. Touretzky}, pages = {825--831}, publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann, (San Mateo)}, title = {A method for the efficient design of {B}oltzmann machines for classification problems}, volume = {3}, year = {1991} } @Article{Maass:79, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Ann. of Math. Logic}, pages = {205--231}, title = {On alpha- and beta-recursively enumerable degrees}, volume = {16}, year = {1979} } @InProceedings{Maass:81, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Conf. on Recursion Theory and Computational Complexity}, editor = {G. Lolli}, pages = {229--236}, publisher = {Liguori editore (Napoli)}, title = {Recursively invariant beta-recursion theory -- a preliminary survey}, year = {1981} } @Article{Maass:81a, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Proceedings Amer. Math. Soc.}, pages = {267--270}, title = {A countable basis for sigma-one-two sets and recursion theory on aleph-one}, volume = {82}, year = {1981} } @Article{Maass:81b, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Ann. of Math. Logic}, pages = {27--73}, title = {Recursively invariant beta-recursion theory}, volume = {21}, year = {1981} } @Article{Maass:83, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {J. Symbolic Logic}, pages = {809--823}, title = {Recursively enumerable generic sets}, volume = {47}, year = {1983} } @Article{Maass:83a, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.}, pages = {311--336}, title = {Characterization of recursively enumerable sets with supersets effectively isomorphic to all recursively enumerable sets}, volume = {279}, year = {1983} } @Article{Maass:84, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {J. Symbolic Logic}, pages = {51--62}, title = {On the orbits of hyperhypersimple sets}, volume = {49}, year = {1984} } @InProceedings{Maass:84a, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of 16th Annual ACM Symp. on Theory of Computing}, pages = {401--408}, title = {Quadratic lower bounds for deterministic and nondeterministic one-tape {T}uring machines}, abstract = {We introduce new techniques for proving quadratic lower bounds for deterministic and nondeterministic i-tape Turing machines (all considered Turing machines have an additional oneway input tape). In particular we produce quadratic lower bounds for the simulation of 2-tape TM's by l-tape TM's and thus answer a rather old question (problem No.1 and No.7 in the l i s t of Duris, Galil, Paul, Reischuk [3]). Further we demo6strate a substantial superiority of nondeterminism over determinism and of co-nondeterminism over nondeterminism for l-tape TM's.}, year = {1984} } @Article{Maass:85, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {J. Symbolic Logic}, pages = {138--148}, title = {Variations on promptly simple sets}, volume = {50}, year = {1985} } @Article{Maass:85a, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Proceedings of Symposia in Pure Mathematics}, pages = {21--32}, title = {Major subsets and automorphisms of recursively enumerable sets}, volume = {42}, year = {1985} } @Article{Maass:85b, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Transactions of the American Mathematical Society}, pages = {675--693}, title = {Combinatorial lower bound arguments for deterministic and nondeterministic {T}uring machines}, abstract = {We introduce new techniques for proving quadratic lower bounds for deterministic and nondeterminisitc 1-tape {T}uring machines (all considered {T}uring machines have an additional one-way input tape). In particular, we derive for the simulation of 2-tape {T}uring machines by 1-tape {T}uring machines an optimal quadratic lower bound in the deterministic case and a nearly optimal lower bound in the nonderterministic case. This answers the rather old question whether the computing power of the considered types of {T}uring machines is significantly increased when more than one tape is used (problem Nos. 1 and 7 in the list of {D}uris, {G}alil, {P}aul, {R}eischuk [3]). Further, we demonstrate a substantial superiority of nonderterminism over determinism and of co-nondeterminism over nondeterminism for 1-tage {T}uring machines}, volume = {292}, number = {2}, year = {1985}, note = {hard copy} } @InProceedings{Maass:86, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Logic, Methodology and Philosphy of Science, Salzburg 1983}, pages = {141--158}, publisher = {North-Holland (Amsterdam)}, title = {Are recursion theoretic arguments useful in complexity theory}, year = {1986} } @Article{Maass:86a, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {SIAM J. Computing}, pages = {453--467}, title = {On the complexity of nonconvex covering}, volume = {15}, year = {1986} } @Article{Maass:88, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {J. Symbolic Logic}, pages = {1098--1109}, title = {On the use of inaccessible numbers and order indiscernibles in lower bound arguments for random access machines}, volume = {53}, year = {1988} } @InProceedings{Maass:91, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th Annual ACM Workshop on Computational Learning Theory}, pages = {167--175}, publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann (San Mateo)}, title = {On-line learning with an oblivious environment and the power of randomization}, year = {1991} } @InProceedings{Maass:93, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 25th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory Computing}, pages = {335-344}, title = {Bounds for the computational power and learning complexity of analog neural nets}, year = {1993} } @Article{Maass:93j, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Bounds for the computational power and learning complexity of analog neural nets}, journal = {SIAM J. on Computing}, year = 1997, volume = 26, number = 3, pages = {708--732} } @InProceedings{Maass:94, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, pages = {311--318}, title = {Agnostic {PAC}-learning of functions on analog neural nets}, editors = {G. Tesauro and D. S. Touretzky and T. K. Leen}, volume = {7}, year = {1995} } @InProceedings{Maass:94a, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks 1994 (ICANN'94)}, pages = {581--584}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, title = {Neural nets with superlinear {VC}-dimension}, year = {1994} } @InCollection{Maass:94b, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Theoretical Advances in Neural Computation and Learning}, editor = {V. P. Roychowdhury and K. Y. Siu and A. Orlitsky}, pages = {295-336}, publisher = {Kluwer Academic Publishers (Boston)}, title = {Perspectives of current research about the complexity of learning on neural nets}, year = {1994} } @InProceedings{Maass:94c, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Theoretical Andvances in Neural Computation and Learning}, editor = {V. P. Roychowdhury and K. Y. Siu and A. Orlitsky}, pages = {153--172}, publisher = {Kluwer Academics Publisher (Boston)}, title = {Computing on analog neural nets with arbitrary real weights}, year = {1994} } @InProceedings{Maass:94d, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 7th Annual ACM Conference on Computational Learning Theory}, pages = {67--75}, title = {Efficient agnostic {PAC}-learning with simple hypotheses}, year = {1994} } @InCollection{Maass:94e, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Computational Learning Theory: EuroColt'93}, editor = {J. Shawe-Taylor and M. Anthony}, pages = {1--17}, publisher = {Oxford University Press (Oxford)}, title = {On the complexity of learning on neural nets}, year = {1994} } @Article{Maass:94f, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Agnostic {PAC}-learning of functions on analog neural nets}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = 1995, volume = 7, pages = {1054--1078} } @Article{Maass:94j, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Neural nets with superlinear {VC}-dimension}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = 1994, volume = 6, pages = {877--884} } @InProceedings{Maass:95, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 7th Italian Workshop on Neural Nets 1995}, pages = {99--104}, publisher = {World Scientific (Singapore)}, title = {Analog computations on networks of spiking neurons (extended abstract)}, year = {1996} } @InCollection{Maass:95a, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks}, editor = {M.~A.~Arbib}, pages = {1000--1003}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, title = {Vapnik-{C}hervonenkis dimension of neural nets}, year = {1995} } @InProceedings{Maass:95b, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {G. Tesauro and D. S. Touretzky and T. K. Leen}, pages = {183--190}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, title = {On the computational complexity of networks of spiking neurons}, volume = {7}, year = {1995} } @Article{Maass:95c, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Telematik}, pages = {53--60}, volume = {1}, title = {{N}euronale {N}etze und {M}aschinelles {L}ernen am {I}nstitut fuer {G}rundlagen der {I}nformationsverarbeitung an der {T}echnischen {U}niversitaet {G}raz}, year = {1995} } @Article{Maass:96, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Neural Computation}, pages = {1--40}, title = {Lower Bounds for the Computational Power of Networks of Spiking Neurons}, volume = {8}, number = {1}, year = {1996} } @InProceedings{Maass:96a, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {D. Touretzky and M. C. Mozer and M. E. Hasselmo}, pages = {211--217}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, title = {On the computational power of noisy spiking neurons}, volume = {8}, year = {1996} } @InProceedings{Maass:96b, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Networks of spiking neurons: the third generation of neural network models}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 7th Australian Conference on Neural Networks 1996 in Canberra, Australia}, pages = {1-10}, year = {1996} } @Article{Maass:97a, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Neural Computation}, pages = {279--304}, title = {Fast sigmoidal networks via spiking neurons}, volume = {9}, year = {1997} } @Article{Maass:97b, author = {W. Maass}, howpublished = {FTP-host: archive.cis.ohio-state.edu FTP-filename: /pub/neuroprose/maass.third-generation.ps.Z}, journal = {Neural Networks}, pages = {1659--1671}, title = {Networks of spiking neurons: the third generation of neural network models}, volume = {10}, year = {1997} } @InProceedings{Maass:97c, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Computational Neuroscience: Trends in research}, editor = {James Bower}, pages = {123--127}, title = {A model for fast analog computations with noisy spiking neurons}, year = {1997} } @InCollection{Maass:97d, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Spatiotemporal Models in Biological and Artificial Systems}, editor = {F. L. Silva}, pages = {97-104}, publisher = {IOS-Press}, title = {Analog computations with temporal coding in networks of spiking neurons}, year = {1997} } @InProceedings{Maass:97e, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {M. Mozer and M. I. Jordan and T. Petsche}, pages = {211--217}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, title = {Noisy spiking neurons with temporal coding have more computational power than sigmoidal neurons}, volume = {9}, year = {1997} } @InProceedings{Maass:97f, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 8th International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory in Sendai (Japan)}, editor = {M. Li and A. Maruoka}, pages = {364--384}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {On the relevance of time in neural computation and learning}, volume = {1316}, year = {1997} } @Article{Maass:97g, author = {W. Maass}, title = {On the relevance of time in neural computation and learning}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, year = 2001, volume = {261}, pages = {157-178} } @InProceedings{Maass:98a, author = {W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proc. of the Federated Conference of CLS'98 and MFCS'98, Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 1998}, title = {On the role of time and space in neural computation}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, volume = {1450}, year = {1998}, pages = {72-83}, note = {Invited talk} } @Article{Maass:98b, author = {W. Maass}, journal = {Network: Computation in Neural Systems}, number = {3}, pages = {381-397}, title = {A simple model for neural computation with firing rates and firing correlations}, volume = {9}, year = {1998} } @InProceedings{Maass:98d, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Models for fast analog computation with spiking neurons}, booktitle = {Proc. of the International Conference on Neural Information Processing 1998 (ICONIP'98) in Kytakyusyu, Japan}, pages = {187--188}, year = 1998, publisher = {IOS Press (Amsterdam)}, note = {Invited talk at the special session on ``Dynamic Brain''} } @InProceedings{Maass:98e, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Spiking neurons}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ICSC/IFAC Symposium on Neural Computation 1998 (NC'98)}, pages = {16--20}, year = 1998, publisher = {ICSC Academic Press (Alberta)}, note = {Invited talk} } @InCollection{Maass:98f, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Computing with spiking neurons}, booktitle = {Pulsed Neural Networks}, pages = {55--85}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, year = {1999}, editor = {W. Maass and C.~M.~Bishop} } @InProceedings{Maass:99, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Neural Computation with Winner-Take-All as the only Nonlinear Operation}, booktitle = {Advances in Information Processing Systems}, editor = {Sara A. Solla and Todd K. Leen and Klaus-Robert Mueller}, volume = {12}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, year = {2000}, pages = {293--299} } @InCollection{Maass:99a, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Das menschliche {G}ehirn -- nur ein {R}echner?}, booktitle = {Zur Kunst des Formalen Denkens}, publisher = {Passagen Verlag (Wien)}, year = 2000, pages = {209-233}, editor = {R. E. Burkard and W. Maass and P. Weibel} } @InCollection{Maass:99c, author = {W. Maass}, title = {Paradigms for computing with spiking neurons}, booktitle = {Models of Neural Networks. Early Vision and Attention}, publisher = {Springer (New York)}, year = {2002}, editor = {J. L. van Hemmen and J. D. Cowan and E. Domany}, volume = {4}, chapter = {9}, pages = {373--402} } @Article{Maass:99e, author = {W. Maass}, title = {On the computational power of winner-take-all}, year = {2000}, journal = {Neural Computation}, volume = {12}, number = {11}, pages = {2519--2535} } @Article{MaassETAL:00, author = {W. Maass and A. Pinz and R. Braunstingl and G. Wiesspeiner and T. Natschlaeger and O. Friedl and H. Burgsteiner}, title = {Konstruktion von {L}ernfaehigen {R}obotern im {S}tudentenwettbewerb ``{R}obotik 2000'' an der {T}echnischen {U}niversitaet {G}raz}, journal = {in: Telematik}, year = {2000}, pages = {20--24} } @Article{MaassETAL:01a, author = {W. Maass and T. Natschlaeger and H. Markram}, title = {Real-time Computing Without Stable States: A New Framework for Neural Computation Based on Perturbations}, journal = {Neural Computation}, volume = 14, number = 11, pages = {2531-2560}, year = 2002, abstract = {A key challenge for neural modeling is to explain how a continuous stream of multi-modal input from a rapidly changing environment can be processed by stereotypical recurrent circuits of integrate-and-fire neurons in real-time. We propose a new framework for neural computation that provides an alternative to previous approaches based on attractor neural networks. It is shown that the inherent transient dynamics of the high-dimensional dynamical system formed by a neural circuit may serve as a universal source of information about past stimuli, from which readout neurons can extract particular aspects needed for diverse tasks in real-time. Stable internal states are not required for giving a stable output, since transient internal states can be transformed by readout neurons into stable target outputs due to the high dimensionality of the dynamical system. Our approach is based on a rigorous computational model, the liquid state machine, that unlike Turing machines, does not require sequential transitions between discrete internal states. Like the Turing machine paradigm it allows for universal computational power under idealized conditions, but for real-time processing of time-varying input. The resulting new framework for neural computation has novel implications for the interpretation of neural coding, for the design of experiments and data-analysis in neurophysiology, and for neuromorphic engineering.} } @InProceedings{MaassETAL:02, author = {W. Maass and G. Steinbauer and R. Koholka}, title = {Autonomous fast learning in a mobile robot}, booktitle = {Sensor Based Intelligent Robots. International Workshop, Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, October 15--25, 2000, Selected Revised Papers }, pages = {345--356}, year = {2002}, editor = {G. D. Hager and H. I. Christensen and H. Bunke and R. Klein}, volume = {2238}, series = lncs, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)} } @InProceedings{MaassETAL:02a, author = {W. Maass and R. Legenstein and H. Markram}, title = {A New Approach towards Vision suggested by Biologically Realistic Neural Microcircuit Models}, booktitle = {Biologically Motivated Computer Vision. Proc. of the Second International Workshop, BMCV 2002, Tuebingen, Germany, November 22--24, 2002}, editor = {H. H. Buelthoff and S. W. Lee and T. A. Poggio and C. Wallraven}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, volume = {2525}, pages = {282--293}, year = {2002}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, abstract = {We propose an alternative paradigm for processing time-varying visual inputs, in particular for tasks involving temporal and spatial integration, which is inspired by hypotheses about the computational role of cortical microcircuits. Since detailed knowledge about the precise structure of the microcircuit is not needed for that, it can in principle also be implemented with partially unknown or faulty analog hardware. In addition, this approach supports parallel realtime processing of time-varying visual inputs for diverse tasks, since different readouts can be trained to extract concurrently from the same microcircuit completely different information components.} } @InProceedings{MaassETAL:02b, author = {W. Maass and T. Natschlaeger and H. Markram}, title = {A Model for Real-Time Computation in Generic Neural Microcircuits}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2002, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {S. Becker and S. Thrun and K. Obermayer}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2003}, volume = {15}, pages = {229--236}, abstract = {A key challenge for neural modeling is to explain how a continuous stream of multi-modal input from a rapidly changing environment can be processed by stereotypical recurrent circuits of integrate-and-fire neurons in real-time. We propose a new computational model that does not require a task-dependent construction of neural circuits. Instead it is based on principles of high dimensional dynamical systems in combination with statistical learning theory, and can be implemented on generic evolved or found recurrent circuitry.} } @Article{MaassETAL:02c, author = {W. Maass and T. Natschlaeger and H. Markram}, title = {Fading Memory and Kernel Properties of Generic Cortical Microcircuit Models}, journal = {Journal of Physiology -- Paris}, year = {2004}, pages = {315--330}, volume = {98}, number = {4--6}, abstract = {It is quite difficult to construct circuits of spiking neurons that can carry out complex computational tasks. On the other hand even randomly connected circuits of spiking neurons can in principle be used for complex computational tasks such as time-warp invariant speech recognition. This is possible because such circuits have an inherent tendency to integrate incoming information in such a way that simple linear readouts can be trained to transform the current circuit activity into the target output for a very large number of computational tasks. Consequently we propose to analyze circuits of spiking neurons in terms of their roles as analog fading memory and nonlinear kernels, rather than as implementations of specific computational operations and algorithms. This article is a sequel to \cite{LSM}, and contains new results about the performance of generic neural microcircuit models for the recognition of speech that is subject to linear and nonlinear time-warps, as well as for computations on time-varying firing rates. These computations rely, apart from general properties of generic neural microcircuit models, just on capabilities of simple linear readouts trained by linear regression. This article also provides detailed data on the fading memory property of generic neural microcircuit models, and a quick review of other new results on the computational power of such circuits of spiking neurons.} } @InCollection{MaassETAL:03, author = {W. Maass and T. Natschlaeger and H. Markram}, title = {Computational Models for Generic Cortical Microcircuits}, booktitle = {Computational Neuroscience: A Comprehensive Approach}, publisher = {Chapman \& Hall/CRC}, year = {2004}, editor = {J. Feng}, chapter = {18}, pages = {575--605}, address = {Boca Raton}, abstract = {The human nervous system processes a continuous stream of multi-modal input from a rapidly changing environment. A key challenge for neural modeling is to explain how the neural microcircuits (columns, minicolumns, etc.) in the cerebral cortex whose anatomical and physiological structure is quite similar in many brain areas and species achieve this enormous computational task. We propose a computational model that could explain the potentially universal computational capabilities and does not require a task-dependent construction of neural circuits. Instead it is based on principles of high dimensional dynamical systems in combination with statistical learning theory, and can be implemented on generic evolved or found recurrent circuitry. This new approach towards understanding neural computation on the micro-level also suggests new ways of modeling cognitive processing in larger neural systems. In particular it questions traditional ways of thinking about neural coding.} } @InProceedings{MaassETAL:04, author = {W. Maass and R. Legenstein and N. Bertschinger}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, title = {Methods for Estimating the Computational Power and Generalization Capability of Neural Microcircuits}, year = {2005}, volume = {17}, pages = {865--872}, editor = {L. K. Saul and Y. Weiss and L. Bottou}, publisher = {MIT Press}, abstract = {What makes a neural microcircuit computationally powerful? Or more precisely, which measurable quantities could explain why one microcircuit $C$ is better suited for a particular family of computational tasks than another microcircuit $C'$? We propose in this article quantitative measures for evaluating the computational power and generalization capability of a neural microcircuit, and apply them to generic neural microcircuit models drawn from different distributions. We validate the proposed measures by comparing their prediction with direct evaluations of the computational performance of these microcircuit models. This procedure is applied first to microcircuit models that differ with regard to the spatial range of synaptic connections and with regard to the scale of synaptic efficacies in the circuit, and then to microcircuit models that differ with regard to the level of background input currents and the level of noise on the membrane potential of neurons. In this case the proposed method allows us to quantify differences in the computational power and generalization capability of circuits in different dynamic regimes (UP- and DOWN-states) that have been demonstrated through intracellular recordings in vivo.} } @InProceedings{MaassETAL:06, author = {W. Maass and P. Joshi and E. D. Sontag}, title = {Principles of real-time computing with feedback applied to cortical microcircuit models}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, abstract = {The network topology of neurons in the brain exhibits an abundance of feedback connections, but the computational function of these feedback connections is largely unknown. We present a computational theory that characterizes the gain in computational power achieved through feedback in dynamical systems with fading memory. It implies that many such systems acquire through feedback universal computational capabilities for analog computing with a non-fading memory. In particular, we show that feedback enables such systems to process time-varying input streams in diverse ways according to rules that are implemented through internal states of the dynamical system. In contrast to previous attractor-based computational models for neural networks, these flexible internal states are {\em high-dimensional} attractors of the circuit dynamics, that still allow the circuit state to absorb new information from online input streams. In this way one arrives at novel models for working memory, integration of evidence, and reward expectation in cortical circuits. We show that they are applicable to circuits of conductance-based Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) neurons with high levels of noise that reflect experimental data on in-vivo conditions. }, year = {2006}, volume = {18}, pages = {835--842}, publisher = {MIT Press}, editor = {Y. Weiss and B. Schoelkopf and J. Platt} } @Article{MaassETAL:06a, author = {W. Maass and P. Joshi and E. D. Sontag}, title = {Computational aspects of feedback in neural circuits}, journal = {PLoS Computational Biology}, year = 2007, volume = {3}, number = {1}, pages = {e165, 1--20} } @Article{MaassETAL:07, author = {H. Jaeger and W. Maass and J. Principe}, title = {Introduction to the Special Issue on Echo State Networks and Liquid State Machines}, journal = {Neural Networks}, year = {2007}, volume = {20}, number = {3}, pages = {287--289}, note = {} } @Article{MaassETAL:81, author = {W. Maass and A. Shore and M. Stob}, journal = {Israel J. Math.}, pages = {210--224}, title = {Splitting properties and jump classes}, volume = {39}, year = {1981} } @InProceedings{MaassETAL:87, author = {W. Maass and G. Schnitger and E. Szemeredi}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 19th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing}, pages = {94--100}, title = {Two tapes are better than one for off-line Turing machines}, year = {1987} } @InProceedings{MaassETAL:91, author = {W. Maass and G. Schnitger and E. Sontag}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 32nd Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science 1991}, pages = {767-776}, title = {On the computational power of sigmoid versus boolean threshold circuits}, year = {1991} } @InCollection{MaassETAL:91a, author = {W. Maass and G. Schnitger and E. Sontag}, title = {On the computational power of sigmoid versus boolean threshold circuits}, booktitle = {Theoretical Advances in Neural Computation and Learning}, pages = {127--151}, publisher = {Kluwer Academic Publishers (Boston)}, year = {1994}, editor = {V.~P.~Roychowdhury and K.~Y.~Siu and A.~Orlitsky} } @Article{MaassETAL:93, author = {W. Maass and G. Schnitger and E. Szemeredi and G. Turan}, journal = {Computational Complexity}, pages = {392--401}, title = {Two tapes versus one for off-line {T}uring machines}, volume = {3}, year = {1993} } @InProceedings{MaassLegenstein:01, author = {R. A. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {Foundations for a circuit complexity theory of sensory processing}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2000, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {T. K. Leen and T. G. Dietterich and V. Tresp}, year = {2001}, volume = {13}, pages = {259--265}, publisher = {MIT Press}, address = {Cambridge}, htmlnote = {The poster presented at NIPS is available as gzipped Postscript.}, abstract = {We introduce {\em total wire length} as salient complexity measure for an analysis of the circuit complexity of sensory processing in biological neural systems and neuromorphic engineering. Furthermore we introduce a set of basic computational problems that apparently need to be solved by circuits for translation- and scale-invariant sensory processing. Finally we exhibit a number of circuit design strategies for these new benchmark functions that can be implemented within realistic complexity bounds, in particular with linear or almost linear total wire length.} } @Article{MaassLegenstein:01a, author = {R. A. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {Wire Length as a Circuit Complexity Measure}, journal = {Journal of Computer and System Sciences}, year = {2005}, volume = {70}, pages = {53--72}, abstract = { We introduce {\em wire length} as a salient complexity measure for analyzing the circuit complexity of sensory processing in biological neural systems. This new complexity measure is applied in this paper to two basic computational problems that arise in translation- and scale-invariant pattern recognition, and hence appear to be useful as benchmark problems for sensory processing. We present new circuit design strategies for these benchmark problems that can be implemented within realistic complexity bounds, in particular with linear or almost linear wire length. Finally we derive some general bounds which provide information about the relationship between new complexity measure wire length and traditional circuit complexity measures.} } @Article{MaassLegenstein:01c, author = {R. A. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {Neural circuits for pattern recognition with small total wire length}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, volume = {287}, pages = {239--249}, year = {2002}, abstract = {One of the most basic pattern recognition problems is whether a certain local feature occurs in some linear array to the left of some other local feature. We construct in this article circuits that solve this problem with an asymptotically optimal number of threshold gates. Furthermore it is shown that much fewer threshold gates are needed if one employs in addition a small number of winner-take-all gates. In either case the circuits that are constructed have linear or almost linear total wire length, and are therefore not unrealistic from the point of view of physical implementations.} } @Article{MaassLegenstein:01d, author = {R. A. Legenstein and W. Maass}, title = {Optimizing the Layout of a Balanced Tree}, journal = {Technical Report}, year = {2001}, abstract = { It is shown that the total wire length of layouts of a balanced binary tree on a 2-dimensional grid can be reduced by 33% if one does not choose the obvious ``symmetric'' layout strategy. Furthermore it is shown that the more efficient layout strategy that is presented in this article is optimal, not only for binary trees but for m-ary trees with any m >= 2.} } @Article{MaassMarkram:00, author = {W. Maass and H. Markram}, title = {Synapses as dynamic memory buffers}, journal = {Neural Networks}, volume = {15}, pages = {155--161}, year = {2002} } @Article{MaassMarkram:02, author = {W. Maass and H. Markram}, title = {On the Computational Power of Recurrent Circuits of Spiking Neurons}, journal = {Journal of Computer and System Sciences}, year = {2004}, volume = {69}, number = {4}, pages = {593--616} } @InCollection{MaassMarkram:02a, author = {W. Maass and H. Markram}, title = {Temporal Integration in Recurrent Microcircuits}, booktitle = {The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, year = {2003}, editor = {M. A. Arbib}, edition = {2nd}, pages = {1159--1163} } @InProceedings{MaassMarkram:04, author = {W. Maass and H. Markram}, title = {Theory of the Computational Function of Microcircuit Dynamics}, booktitle = {The Interface between Neurons and Global Brain Function}, editor = {S. Grillner and A. M. Graybiel}, year = {2006}, pages = {371--390}, chapter = {18}, publisher = {MIT Press}, series = {Dahlem Workshop Report 93} } @Article{MaassNatschlaeger:97a, author = {W. Maass and T. Natschlaeger}, title = {Networks of Spiking Neurons can Emulate Arbitrary {H}opfield nets in Temporal Coding}, journal = {Network: Computation in Neural Systems}, year = 1997, volume = 8, number = 4, pages = {355--371}, keywords = {spiking neurons, hopfield net, temporal coding}, userlabel = {4}, abstract = {A theoretical model for analog computation with temporal coding is introduced and tested through simulations in GENESIS. It turns out that the use of multiple synapses yields very noise robust mechanisms for analog computations with temporal coding in networks of detailed compartmental neuron models. One arrives in this way at a method for emulating arbitrary Hopfield nets with spiking neurons in temporal coding, yielding new models for associative recall of spatio-temporal firing patterns. A corresponding layered architecture yields a refinement of the synfire-chain model that can assume a fairly large set of different firing patterns for different inputs.} } @InProceedings{MaassNatschlaeger:98, author = {W. Maass and T. Natschlaeger}, title = {Associative Memory with Networks of Spiking Neurons in Temporal Coding}, booktitle = {Neuromorphic Systems: Engineering Silicon from Neurobiology}, editor = {L. S. Smith and A. Hamilton}, year = 1998, publisher = {World Scientific}, pages = {21--32}, keywords = {spiking neurons, hopfield net, temporal coding}, abstract = {A theoretical model for analog computation with temporal coding is introduced and tested through simulations in GENESIS. It turns out that the use of multiple synapses yields very noise robust mechanisms for analog computations with temporal coding in networks of detailed compartmental neuron models. One arrives in this way at a method for emulating arbitrary Hopfield nets with spiking neurons in temporal coding, yielding new models for associative recall of spatio-temporal firing patterns.} } @InProceedings{MaassNatschlaeger:98b, author = {W. Maass and T. Natschlaeger}, title = {Emulation of {H}opfield Networks with Spiking Neurons in Temporal Coding}, booktitle = {Computational Neuroscience: Trends in Research}, editor = {J. M. Bower}, year = 1998, publisher = {Plenum Press}, pages = {221--226}, keywords = {spiking neurons, hopfield net, temporal coding}, abstract = {A theoretical model for analog computation with temporal coding is introduced and tested through simulations in GENESIS. It turns out that the use of multiple synapses yields very noise robust mechanisms for analog computations with temporal coding in networks of detailed compartmental neuron models. One arrives in this way at a method for emulating arbitrary Hopfield nets with spiking neurons in temporal coding, yielding new models for associative recall of spatio-temporal firing patterns. A corresponding layered architecture yields a refinement of the synfire-chain model that can assume a fairly large set of different firing patterns for different inputs.} } @Article{MaassNatschlaeger:99, author = {W. Maass and T. Natschlaeger}, title = {A model for Fast Analog Computation Based on Unreliable Synapses}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = 2000, pages = {1679--1704}, volume = {12}, number = {7}, keywords = {unreliable synapses, universal function approximation, fast analog computation, time series, hebbian learning, space rate coding, population activity}, abstract = {We investigate through theoretical analysis and computer simulations the consequences of unreliable synapses for fast analog computations in networks of spiking neurons, with analog variables encoded by the current firing activities of pools of spiking neurons. Our results suggest that the known unreliability of synaptic transmission may be viewed as a useful tool for analog computing, rather than as a ``bug'' in neuronal hardware. We also investigate computations on time series and Hebbian learning in this context of space-rate coding.} } @InProceedings{MaassOrponen:97, author = {W. Maass and P. Orponen}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {M. Mozer and M. I. Jordan and T. Petsche}, pages = {218--224}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, title = {On the effect of analog noise in discrete-time analog computations}, volume = {9}, year = {1997} } @Article{MaassOrponen:97j, author = {W. Maass and P. Orponen}, title = {On the effect of analog noise in discrete-time analog computations}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = 1998, volume = 10, pages = {1071--1095} } @InProceedings{MaassRuf:95, author = {W. Maass and B. Ruf}, address = {Paris}, booktitle = {Proc. of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks ICANN}, pages = {515--520}, publisher = {EC2\&Cie}, title = {On the Relevance of the Shape of Postsynaptic Potentials for the Computational Power of Networks of Spiking Neurons}, year = {1995}, keywords = {spiking neuron, postsynaptic potential, computational complexity} } @Article{MaassRuf:97, author = {W. Maass and B. Ruf}, journal = {Information and Computation}, title = {On computation with pulses}, year = {1999}, volume = {148}, pages = {202--218}, keywords = {spiking neuron, computational complexity, postsynaptic potential} } @InProceedings{MaassSchmitt:97, author = {W. Maass and M. Schmitt}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 10th Conference on Computational Learning Theory 1997}, note = {See also Electronic Proc. of the Fifth International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics (http://rutcor.rutgers.edu/\~{}amai)}, pages = {54--61}, publisher = {ACM-Press (New York)}, title = {On the complexity of learning for a spiking neuron}, year = {1997} } @Article{MaassSchmitt:98, author = {W. Maass and M. Schmitt}, journal = {Information and Computation}, title = {On the complexity of learning for spiking neurons with temporal coding}, year = {1999}, volume = {153}, pages = {26--46} } @InProceedings{MaassSchnitger:86, author = {W. Maass and G. Schnitger}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Structure in Complexity Theory Conference, Berkeley 1986}, pages = {249--264}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {An optimal lower bound for {T}uring machines with one Work Tape and Two-Way Input Tape}, year = {1986}, volume = {223} } @Article{MaassSchorr:87, author = {W. Maass and A. Schorr}, journal = {SIAM J. Comput.}, pages = {195--202}, title = {Speed-up of {T}uring machines with one work tape and a two-way input tape}, volume = {16}, year = {1987} } @InProceedings{MaassSlaman:89, author = {W. Maass and T. A. Slaman}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Logic Colloquium '88, Padova, Italy}, editor = {Ferro and Bonotto and Valentini and Zanardo}, pages = {79-89}, publisher = {Elsevier Science Publishers (North-Holland)}, title = {Some problems and results in the theory of actually computable functions}, year = {1989} } @InProceedings{MaassSlaman:89a, author = {W. Maass and T. A. Slaman}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th Annual Conference on Structure in Complexity Theory}, pages = {231--239}, publisher = {IEEE Computer Society Press (Washington)}, title = {The complexity types of computable sets (extended abstract)}, year = {1989} } @InProceedings{MaassSlaman:89b, author = {W. Maass and T. A. Slaman}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Fundamentals of Computation Theory}, pages = {318--326}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {Extensional properties of sets of time bounded complexity (extended abstract)}, volume = {380}, year = {1989} } @InProceedings{MaassSlaman:90, author = {W. Maass and T. A. Slaman}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1989 Recursion Theory Week Oberwolfach}, pages = {297--322}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, title = {On the relationship between the complexity, the degree, and the extension of a computable set}, year = {1990} } @InProceedings{MaassSlaman:91, author = {W. Maass and T. A. Slaman}, booktitle = {Proceedings of a Workshop on Logic from Computer Science}, editor = {Y. N. Moschovakis}, pages = {359--372}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, title = {Splitting and density for the recursive sets of a fixed time complexity}, year = {1991} } @Article{MaassSlaman:92, author = {W. Maass and T. A. Slaman}, journal = {J. Comput. Syst. Sci.}, note = {Invited paper for a special issue of the J. Comput. Syst. Sci.}, pages = {168--192}, title = {The complexity types of computable sets}, volume = {44}, year = {1992} } @Article{MaassSontag:97, author = {W. Maass and E. Sontag}, journal = {Neural Computation}, title = {Analog neural nets with {G}aussian or other common noise distributions cannot recognize arbitrary regular languages}, year = {1999}, volume = {11}, pages = {771--782} } @Article{MaassSontag:99a, author = {W. Maass and E. D. Sontag}, title = {Neural systems as nonlinear filters}, journal = {Neural Computation}, volume = {12}, number = {8}, year = {2000}, pages = {1743--1772} } @InProceedings{MaassSontag:99b, author = {W. Maass and E. D. Sontag}, title = {A precise characterization of the class of languages recognized by neural nets under {G}aussian and other common noise distributions}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, year = 1999, volume = {11}, pages = {281--287}, editor = {M.~S.~Kearns and S.~S.~Solla and D.~A.~Cohn}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)} } @Article{MaassStob:83, author = {W. Maass and M. Stob}, journal = {Ann. of Pure and Applied Logic}, pages = {189--212}, title = {Intervals of the lattice of recursively enumerable sets determined by major subsets}, volume = {24}, year = {1983} } @Article{MaassSutner:88, author = {W. Maass and K. Sutner}, journal = {Acta Informatica}, pages = {93-122}, title = {Motion planning among time dependent abstacles}, volume = {26}, year = {1988} } @InProceedings{MaassTuran:89, author = {W. Maass and G. Turan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 30th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}, pages = {262--267}, title = {On the complexity of learning from counterexamples (extended abstract)}, year = {1989} } @InProceedings{MaassTuran:90, author = {W. Maass and G. Turan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 31th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}, pages = {203--210}, title = {On the complexity of learning from counterexamples and membership queries}, year = {1990} } @Article{MaassTuran:92, author = {W. Maass and G. Turan}, journal = {Machine Learning}, note = {Invited paper for a special issue of Machine Learning}, pages = {107--145}, title = {Lower bound methods and separation results for on-line learning models}, volume = {9}, year = {1992} } @InCollection{MaassTuran:94, author = {W. Maass and G. Turan}, booktitle = {Computational Learning Theory and Natural Learning System: Constraints and Prospects}, editor = {S. J. Hanson and G. A. Drastal and R. L. Rivest}, pages = {381--414}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, title = {How fast can a threshold gate learn}, year = {1994} } @Article{MaassTuran:94a, author = {W. Maass and G. Turan}, journal = {Machine Learning}, pages = {251--269}, title = {Algorithms and lower bounds for on-line learning of geometrical concepts}, volume = {14}, year = {1994} } @InProceedings{MaassTuran:95, author = {W. Maass and G. Turan}, address = {Jerusalem}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 4th Bar-Ilan Symposium on Foundations of Artificial Intelligence (BISFAI'95)}, title = {On learnability and predicate logic (extended abstract)}, year = {1995}, pages = {75--85} } @InProceedings{MaassWarmuth:95, author = {W. Maass and M. Warmuth}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 12th International Machine Learning Conference, Tahoe City, USA}, editor = {Morgan Kaufmann (San Francisco)}, pages = {378-386}, title = {Efficient learning with virtual threshold gates}, year = {1995} } @Article{MaassWarmuth:95j, author = {W. Maass and M. Warmuth}, title = {Efficient learning with virtual threshold gates}, journal = {Information and Computation}, year = 1998, volume = 141, number = 1, pages = {66--83} } @InCollection{MaassWeibel:97, author = {W. Maass and P. Weibel}, booktitle = {{Jenseits von Kunst}}, editor = {P. Weibel}, pages = {745--747}, publisher = {Passagen Verlag}, title = {{I}st die {V}ertreibung der {V}ernunft reversibel? {U}eberlegungen zu einem {W}issenschafts- und {M}edienzentrum}, year = {1997} } @InProceedings{MaassZador:98, author = {W. Maass and A. M. Zador}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Processing Systems}, publisher = {MIT Press (Cambridge)}, title = {Dynamic stochastic synapses as computational units}, volume = {10}, pages = {194--200}, year = {1998} } @InCollection{MaassZador:98a, author = {W. Maass and A. Zador}, booktitle = {Pulsed Neural Networks}, editor = {W. Maass and C. Bishop}, publisher = {MIT-Press (Cambridge)}, title = {Computing and learning with dynamic synapses}, year = {1998}, pages = {321-336} } @Article{MaassZador:98j, author = {W. Maass and A. M. Zador}, title = {Dynamic stochastic synapses as computational units}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = 1999, volume = 11, number = 4, pages = {903--917} } @Article{MelamedETAL:03, author = {O. Melamed and W. Gerstner and W. Maass and M. Tsodyks and H. Markram}, title = {Coding and Learning of Behavioral Sequences}, abstract = {A major challenge to understanding behavior is how the nervous system allows the learning of behavioral sequences that can occur over arbitrary timescales, ranging from milliseconds up to seconds, using a fixed millisecond learning rule. This article describes some potential solutions, and then focuses on a study by Mehta et al. that could contribute towards solving this puzzle. They have discovered that an experience-dependent asymmetric shape of hippocampal receptive fields combined with oscillatory inhibition can serve to map behavioral sequences on a fixed timescale.}, journal = {Trends in Neurosciences}, volume = 27, number = 1, year = {2004}, pages = {11--14} } @Article{MontemurroETAL:08, author = {M. A. Montemurro and M. J. Rasch and Y. Murayam and N. K. Logothetis and S. Panzeri}, title = {Phase-of-Firing Coding of Natural Visual Stimuli in Primary Visual Cortex}, journal = {Current Biology}, year = {2008}, volume = {18}, number = {}, pages = {375--380}, note = {}, abstract = {We investigated the hypothesis that neurons encode rich naturalistic stimuli in terms of their spike times relative to the phase of ongoing network fluctuations rather than only in terms of their spike count. We recorded local field potentials (LFPs) and multiunit spikes from the primary visual cortex of anaesthetized macaques while binocularly presenting a color movie. We found that both the spike counts and the low-frequency LFP phase were reliably modulated by the movie and thus conveyed information about it. Moreover, movie periods eliciting higher firing rates also elicited a higher reliability of LFP phase across trials. To establish whether the LFP phase at which spikes were emitted conveyed visual information that could not be extracted by spike rates alone,wecompared the Shannon information about the movie carried by spike counts to that carried by the phase of firing. We found that at low LFP frequencies, the phase of firing conveyed 54 \% additional information beyond that conveyed by spike counts. The extra information available in the phase of firing was crucial for the disambiguation between stimuli eliciting high spike rates of similar magnitude. Thus, phase coding may allow primary cortical neurons to represent several effective stimuli in an easily decodable format.} } @Article{MullerETAL:07, author = {E. Muller and L. Buesing and J. Schemmel and K. Meier}, title = {Spike-frequency adapting neural ensembles: Beyond mean adaptation and renewal theories}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = {2007}, volume = {19}, number = {11}, note = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {} } @MastersThesis{Natschlaeger:96, author = {T. Natschlaeger}, title = {{R}aum- zeitliche {S}trukturen von {B}erechnungen in biologisch realistischen neuronalen {N}etzwerken}, school = {Technische Universitaet Graz}, year = 1996, month = {February}, userlabel = {2}, keywords = {spiking neurons, hopfield net, temporal coding} } @InCollection{Natschlaeger:96a, author = {T. Natschlaeger}, title = {{N}etzwerke von {S}piking {N}euronen: {D}ie dritte {G}eneration von {M}odellen fuer neuronale {N}etzwerke}, booktitle = {Jenseits von Kunst}, publisher = {Passagen Verlag}, year = 1996, htmlnote = {Online version}, userlabel = 3, keywords = {spiking neurons, hopfield net, CPG, central pattern generator}, abstract = {Dieser Artikel beschreibt in allgemein verstaendlicher Form einige Ergebnisse ueber Netzwerke von ``spiking'' Neuronen, die an unserem Institut erarbeitet wurden. Einer kurzen Einfuehrung, die die biologischen Grundlagen beleuchtet, folgt eine Erklaerung des Modells und inwiefern sich dieses Modell von der ersten und zweiten Generation von Modellen fuer neuronale Netzwerke unterscheidet. Daran anschliessend werden einige Arbeiten, die von den Mitarbeitern unseres Institutes durchgefuehrt wurden, vorgestellt. Der Kernpunkt dieser Ergebnisse betrifft die grosse Berechnungsstaerke dieser Netzwerkmodelle. In diesem Uebersichtsartikel wird kein fundiertes a priori Wissen ueber diese Art von Modellen von neuronalen Netzwerken vorausgesetzt.} } @InCollection{Natschlaeger:98b, author = {T. Natschlaeger}, title = {Networks of Spiking Neurons: A New Generation of Neural Network Models}, booktitle = {Jenseits von Kunst}, publisher = {Passagen Verlag}, year = 1998, htmlnote = {Online version} } @PhDThesis{Natschlaeger:99, author = {T. Natschlaeger}, title = {Efficient Computation in Networks of Spiking Neurons -- Simulations and Theory}, school = {Graz University of Technology}, year = 1999, abstract = {One of the most prominent features of biological neural systems is that individual neurons communicate via short electrical pulses, the so called action potentials or spikes. In this thesis we investigate possible mechanisms which can in principle explain how complex computations in spiking neural networks (SNN) can be performed very fast, i. e. within a few 10 milliseconds. Some of these models are based on the assumption that relevant information is encoded by the timing of individual spikes (temporal coding). We will also discuss a model which is based on a population code and still is able to perform fast complex computations. In their natural environment biological neural systems have to process signals with a rich temporal structure. Hence it is an interesting question how neural systems process time series. In this context we explore possible links between biophysical characteristics of single neurons (refractory behavior, connectivity, time course of postsynaptic potentials) and synapses (unreliability, dynamics) on the one hand and possible computations on times series on the other hand. Furthermore we describe a general model of computation that exploits dynamic synapses. This model provides a general framework for understanding how neural systems process time-varying signals. } } @InCollection{NatschlaegerETAL-SOM:01, author = {T. Natschlaeger and B. Ruf and M. Schmitt}, title = {Unsupervised Learning and Self-Organization in Networks of Spiking Neurons}, booktitle = {Self-Organizing Neural Networks. Recent Advances and Applications}, publisher = {Springer-Verlag}, year = 2001, editor = {U. Seiffert and L. C. Jain}, volume = 78, series = {Springer Series on Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing}, address = {Heidelberg}, note = {in press}, abstract = {One of the most prominent features of biological neural systems is that individual neurons communicate via short electrical pulses, the so-called action potentials or spikes. In this chapter we investigate possible mechanisms of unsupervised learning and self-organization in networks of spiking neurons. After giving a brief introduction to spiking neuron networks we describe a biologically plausible algorithm for these networks to find clusters in a high dimensional input space or a subspace of it. The algorithm is shown to work even in a dynamically changing environment. Furthermore, we study self-organizing maps of spiking neurons showing that networks of spiking neurons using temporal coding can achieve a topology preserving behavior quite similar to that of Kohonen's self-organizing map. For these networks a mechanism of competitive computation is proposed that is based on action potential timing. Thus, the winner in a population of competing neurons can be determined locally and in generally faster than in approaches which use rate coding. The models and algorithms presented in this chapter establish further steps toward more realistic descriptions of unsupervised learning in biological neural systems.} } @InProceedings{NatschlaegerETAL:01, author = {T. Natschlaeger and W. Maass and E. D. Sontag and A. Zador}, title = {Processing of Time Series by Neural Circuits with Biologically Realistic Synaptic Dynamics}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 2000 ({NIPS '2000})}, editor = {Todd K. Leen and Thomas G. Dietterich and Volker Tresp}, year = 2001, volume = 13, pages = {145--151}, address = {Cambridge}, publisher = {MIT Press}, abstract = {Experimental data show that biological synapses behave quite differently from the symbolic synapses in common artificial neural network models. Biological synapses are dynamic, i.e., their weight changes on a short time scale by several hundred percent in dependence of the past input to the synapse. In this article we explore the consequences that this synaptic dynamics entails for the computational power of feedforward neural networks. It turns out that even with just a single hidden layer such networks can approximate a surprisingly large class of nonlinear filters: all filters that can be characterized by Volterra series. This result is robust with regard to various changes in the model for synaptic dynamics. Furthermore we show that simple gradient descent suffices to approximate a given quadratic filter by a rather small neural system with dynamic synapses. We demonstrate that with this approach the nonlinear filter considered in (Back and Tsoi 93) can be approximated even better than by their model.}, htmlnote = {The poster presented at NIPS is available as Acrobat PDF file.} } @Article{NatschlaegerETAL:01a, author = {T. Natschlaeger and W. Maass and A. Zador}, title = {Efficient Temporal Processing with Biologically Realistic Dynamic Synapses}, journal = {Network: Computation in Neural Systems}, year = 2001, pages = {75--87}, volume = 12, abstract = {Experimental data show that biological synapses behave quite differently from the symbolic synapses in common artificial neural network models. Biological synapses are dynamic, i.e., their ``weight'' changes on a short time scale by several hundred percent in dependence of the past input to the synapse. Here we describe a general model of computation that exploits dynamic synapses, and use a backpropagation-like algorithm to adjust the synaptic parameters. We show that such gradient descent suffices to approximate a given quadratic filter by a rather small neural system with dynamic synapses. We demonstrate that with this approach the nonlinear filter considered in (Back and Tsoi, 1993) can be approximated slightly better than by their model. Our numerical results are complemented by theoretical analysis which show that even with just a single hidden layer such networks can approximate a surprisingly large class of nonlinear filters: all filters that can be characterized by Volterra series. This result is robust with regard to various changes in the model for synaptic dynamics. } } @Article{NatschlaegerETAL:02, author = {T. Natschlaeger and W. Maass and H. Markram}, title = {The "Liquid Computer": A Novel Strategy for Real-Time Computing on Time Series}, journal = {Special Issue on Foundations of Information Processing of {TELEMATIK}}, year = {2002}, pages = {39--43}, volume = {8}, number = {1}, abstract = {We will discuss in this survey article a new framework for analysing computations on time series and in particular on spike trains, introduced in (Maass et. al. 2002). In contrast to common computational models this new framework does not require that information can be stored in some stable states of a computational system. It has recently been shown that such models where all events are transient can be successfully applied to analyse computations in neural systems and (independently) that the basic ideas can also be used to solve engineering tasks such as the design of nonlinear controllers. Using an illustrative example we will develop the main ideas of the proposed model. This illustrative example is generalized and cast into a rigorous mathematical model: the Liquid State Machine. A mathematical analysis shows that there are in principle no computational limitations of liquid state machines in the domain of time series computing. Finally we discuss several successful applications of the framework in the area of computational neuroscience and in the field of artificial neural networks.} } @InCollection{NatschlaegerETAL:03, author = {T. Natschlaeger and H. Markram and W. Maass}, title = {Computer Models and Analysis Tools for Neural Microcircuits}, booktitle = {Neuroscience Databases. A Practical Guide}, publisher = {Kluwer Academic Publishers (Boston)}, year = {2003}, editor = {R. Koetter}, chapter = {9}, pages = {121--136}, abstract = {This chapter surveys web resources regarding computer models and analysis tools for neural microcircuits. In particular it describes the features of a new website (www.lsm.tugraz.at) that facilitates the creation of computer models for cortical neural microcircuits of various sizes and levels of detail, as well as tools for evaluating the computational power of these models in a Matlabenvironment.} } @InCollection{NatschlaegerETAL:04, author = {T. Natschlaeger and N. Bertschinger and R. Legenstein}, title = {At the Edge of Chaos: Real-time Computations and Self-Organized Criticality in Recurrent Neural Networks}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 17}, editor = {Lawrence K. Saul and Yair Weiss and {L\'{e}on} Bottou}, publisher = {MIT Press}, address = {Cambridge, MA}, pages = {145-152}, year = 2005, abstract = {In this paper we analyze the relationship between the computational capabilities of randomly connected networks of threshold gates in the timeseries domain and their dynamical properties. In particular we propose a complexity measure which we find to assume its highest values near the edge of chaos, i.e. the transition from ordered to chaotic dynamics. Furthermore we show that the proposed complexity measure predicts the computational capabilities very well: only near the edge of chaos are such networks able to perform complex computations on time series. Additionally a simple synaptic scaling rule for self-organized criticality is presented and analyzed.} } @Article{NatschlaegerMaass:01a, author = {T. Natschlaeger and W. Maass}, title = {Computing the Optimally Fitted Spike Train for a Synapse}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = 2001, volume = 13, number = 11, pages = {2477--2494}, abstract = {Experimental data have shown that synapses are heterogeneous: different synapses respond with different sequences of amplitudes of postsynaptic responses to the same spike train. Neither the role of synaptic dynamics itself nor the role of the heterogeneity of synaptic dynamics for computations in neural circuits is well understood. We present in this article two computational methods that make it feasible to compute for a given synapse with known synaptic parameters the spike train that is optimally fitted to the synapse in a certain sense. With the help of these methods one can compute for example the temporal pattern of a spike train (with a given number of spikes) that produces the largest sum of postsynaptic responses for a specific synapse. Several other applications are also discussed. To our surprise we find that most of these optimally fitted spike trains match common firing patterns of specific types of neurons that are discussed in the literature. Hence our analysis provides a possible functional explanation for the experimentally observed regularity in the combination of specific types of synapses with specific types of neurons in neural circuits. } } @InProceedings{NatschlaegerMaass:01b, author = {T. Natschlaeger and W. Maass}, title = {Finding the Key to a Synapse}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems ({NIPS '2000})}, editor = {Todd K. Leen and Thomas G. Dietterich and Volker Tresp}, year = 2001, pages = {138--144}, volume = 13, address = {Cambridge}, publisher = {MIT Press}, abstract = {Experimental data have shown that synapses are heterogeneous: different synapses respond with different sequences of amplitudes of postsynaptic responses to the same presynaptic spike train. Neither the role of synaptic dynamics itself nor the role of the heterogeneity of synaptic dynamics for computations in neural circuits is well understood. We present in this article methods that make it feasible to compute for a given synapse with known synaptic parameters the spike train that is optimally fitted to the synapse, in the sense that it produces the largest sum of postsynaptic responses. To our surprise we find that most of these optimally fitted spike trains match common firing patterns of specific types of neurons that are discussed in the literature. Hence our analysis provides a possible functional explanation for the experimentally observed regularity in the combination of specific types of synapses with specific types of neurons in neural circuits.}, htmlnote = {The poster presented at NIPS is available as Acrobat PDF file.} } @InProceedings{NatschlaegerMaass:03, author = {T. Natschlaeger and W. Maass}, title = {Information Dynamics and Emergent Computation in Recurrent Circuits of Spiking Neurons}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2003, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, year = {2004}, volume = {16}, pages = {1255--1262}, editor = {S. Thrun and L. Saul and B. Schoelkopf}, publisher = {MIT Press}, address = {Cambridge}, abstract = {An efficient method using Bayesian and linear classifiers is presented for analyzing the dynamics of information in high dimensional circuit states, and applied to investigate emergent computation in generic cortical microcircuit models. It is shown that such recurrent circuits of spiking neurons have an inherent capability to carry out rapid computations on complex spike patterns, merging information contained in the order of spike arrival with previously acquired context information.} } @Article{NatschlaegerMaass:04, author = {T. Natschlaeger and W. Maass}, title = {Dynamics of Information and Emergent Computation in Generic Neural Microcircuit Models}, journal = {Neural Networks}, volume = {18}, number = {10}, pages = {1301--1308}, year = {2005}, abstract = {Numerous methods have already been developed to estimate the information contained in single spike trains. In this article we explore efficient methods for estimating the information contained in the simultaneous firing activity of hundreds of neurons. Obviously such methods are needed to analyze data from multi-unit recordings. We test these methods on generic neural microcircuit models consisting of 800 neurons, and analyze the temporal dynamics of information about preceding spike inputs in such circuits. It turns out that information spreads with high speed in such generic neural microcircuit models, thereby supporting -- without the postulation of any additional neural or synaptic mechanisms -- the possibility of ultra-rapid computations on the first input spikes.} } @Article{NatschlaegerMaass:2001, author = {T. Natschlaeger and W. Maass}, title = {Spiking Neurons and the Induction of Finite State Machines}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science: Special Issue on Natural Computing}, volume = 287, year = 2002, pages = {251--265}, abstract = {We discuss in this short survey article some current mathematical models from neurophysiology for the computational units of biological neural systems: neurons and synapses. These models are contrasted with the computational units of common artificial neural network models, which reflect the state of knowledge in neurophysiology 50 years ago. We discuss the problem of carrying out computations in circuits consisting of biologically realistic computational units, focusing on the biologically particularly relevant case of computations on time series. Finite state machines are frequently used in computer science as models for computations on time series. One may argue that these models provide a reasonable common conceptual basis for analyzing computations in computers and biological neural systems, although the emphasis in biological neural systems is shifted more towards asynchronous computation on analog time series. In the second half of this article some new computer experiments and theoretical results are discussed, which address the question whether a biological neural system can in principle learn to behave like a given simple finite state machine. } } @InProceedings{NatschlaegerMaass:99, author = {T. Natschlaeger and W. Maass}, title = {Fast Analog Computation in Networks of Spiking Neurons Using Unreliable Synapses}, booktitle = {{ESANN'99} Proceedings of the European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks}, year = 1999, address = {Bruges, Belgium}, pages = {417--422}, keywords = {unreliable synapses, universal function approximation, fast analog computation, time series, hebbian learning, space rate coding, population activity}, abstract = {We investigate through theoretical analysis and computer simulations the consequences of unreliable synapses for fast analog computations in networks of spiking neurons, with analog variables encoded by the firing activities of pools of spiking neurons. Our results suggest that the known unreliability of synaptic transmission may be viewed as a useful tool for analog computing, rather than as a ``bug'' in neuronal hardware. We also investigate computations on analog time series encoded by the firing activities of pools of spiking neurons.} } @Article{NatschlaegerRuf:98a, author = {T. Natschlaeger and B. Ruf}, title = {Spatial and temporal pattern analysis via spiking neurons}, journal = {Network: Computation in Neural Systems}, year = 1998, volume = 9, number = 3, pages = {319--332}, userlabel = 7, keywords = {spiking neurons, RBF networks, clustering, hebbian learning}, abstract = {Spiking neurons, receiving temporally encoded inputs, can compute radial basis functions (RBFs) by storing the relevant information in their delays. In this paper we show how these delays can be learned using exclusively locally available information (basically the time difference between the pre- and postsynaptic spike). Our approach gives rise to a biologically plausible algorithm for finding clusters in a high dimensional input space with networks of spiking neurons, even if the environment is changing dynamically. Furthermore, we show that our learning mechanism makes it possible that such RBF neurons can perform some kind of feature extraction where they recognize that only certain input coordinates carry relevant information. Finally we demonstrate that this model allows the recognition of temporal sequences even if they are distorted in various ways.} } @InProceedings{NatschlaegerRuf:98b, author = {T. Natschlaeger and B. Ruf}, title = {Online Clustering with Spiking Neurons Using Temporal Coding}, booktitle = {Neuromorphic Systems: Engineering Silicon from Neurobiology}, editor = {L. S. Smith and A. Hamilton}, year = 1998, publisher = {World Scientific}, pages = {33--42}, userlabel = {6}, keywords = {spiking neurons, RBF networks, clustering, hebbian learning}, abstract = {Spiking neurons, receiving temporally encoded inputs, can compute radial basis functions in a biologically realistic way. They store the relevant information in their delays. In this paper we show how these delays can be learned using exclusively locally available information (basically the time difference between the pre- and postsynaptic spike). Our approach gives rise to a biologically plausible algorithm for finding clusters in a high dimensional input space with networks of spiking neurons, even if the environment is changing dynamically.} } @Article{NatschlaegerRuf:99c, author = {T. Natschlaeger and B. Ruf}, title = {Pattern Analysis with Spiking Neurons using Delay Coding}, journal = {Neurocomputing}, year = 1999, pages = {463-469}, volume = {26-27}, number = {1-3}, keywords = {spiking neurons, RBF networks, clustering, hebbian learning}, abstract = {Spiking neurons, receiving temporally encoded inputs, can compute radial basis functions (RBFs) by storing the relevant information in their delays. These delays can be learned using exclusively locally available information (basically the time difference between the pre- and postsynaptic spike). Our approach gives rise to a biologically plausible algorithm for finding clusters in a high dimensional input space. Furthermore, we show that our learning mechanism makes it possible that such RBF neurons can perform some kind of feature extraction. Finally we demonstrate that this model allows the recognition of temporal sequences even if they are distorted in various ways.} } @Article{NatschlaegerSchmitt:96, author = {T. Natschlaeger and M. Schmitt}, title = {Exact {VC}-{D}imension of Boolean Monomials}, journal = {Information Processing Letters}, year = 1996, volume = 59, pages = {19--20}, userlabel = {1}, keywords = {monome, VC-dimension, combinatorial problems, computational complexity, learnability }, abstract = {We show that the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension of Boolean monomials over $n$ variables is at most $n$ for all $n < 2$. It follows that the VC-dimension is determined exactly and is, except for $n=1$, equal to the VC-dimension of the proper subclass of monotone monomials.} } @Article{NesslerETAL:08, author = {B. Nessler and M. Pfeiffer and W. Maass}, title = {Hebbian learning of {B}ayes optimal decisions}, journal = {In Proc. of NIPS 2008: Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, year = {2009}, volume = {21}, number = {}, pages = {}, note = {MIT Press}, abstract = {When we perceive our environment, make a decision, or take an action, our brain has to deal with multiple sources of uncertainty. The Bayesian framework of statistical estimation provides computational methods for dealing optimally with uncertainty. Bayesian inference however is algorithmically quite complex, and learning of Bayesian inference involves the storage and updating of probability tables or other data structures that are hard to implement in neural networks. Hence it is unclear how our nervous system could acquire the capability to approximate optimal Bayesian inference and action selection. This article shows that the simplest and experimentally best supported type of synaptic plasticity, Hebbian learning, can in principle achieve this. Even inference in complex Bayesian networks can be approximated by Hebbian learning in combination with population coding and lateral inhibition (``Winner-Take-All'') in cortical microcircuits that produce a sparse encoding of complex sensory stimuli. We also show that a corresponding reward-modulated Hebbian plasticity rule provides a principled framework for understanding how Bayesian inference could support fast reinforcement learning in the brain. In particular we show that recent experimental results by Yang and Shadlen on reinforcement learning of probabilistic inference in primates can be modeled in this way.} } @InProceedings{NesslerETAL:10, author = {B. Nessler and M. Pfeiffer and W. Maass}, title = {{STDP} enables spiking neurons to detect hidden causes of their inputs}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2009: Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2010}, volume = {22}, pages = {1357--1365}, abstract = {The principles by which spiking neurons contribute to the astounding computational power of generic cortical microcircuits, and how spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) of synaptic weights could generate and maintain this computational function, are unknown. We show here that STDP, in conjunction with a stochastic soft winner-take-all (WTA) circuit, induces spiking neurons to generate through their synaptic weights implicit internal models for subclasses (or “causes”) of the high-dimensional spike patterns of hundreds of pre-synaptic neurons. Hence these neurons will fire after learning whenever the current input best matches their internal model. The resulting computational function of soft WTA circuits, a common network motif of cortical microcircuits, could therefore be a drastic dimensionality reduction of information streams, together with the autonomous creation of internal models for the probability distributions of their input patterns. We show that the autonomous generation and maintenance of this computational function can be explained on the basis of rigorous mathematical principles. In particular, we show that STDP is able to approximate a stochastic online Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm for modeling the input data. A corresponding result is shown for Hebbian learning in artificial neural networks.} } @InProceedings{NeumannETAL:07, author = {G. Neumann and M. Pfeiffer and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Machine Learning (ECML) and the 11th European Conference on Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (PKDD) 2007, Warsaw (Poland)}, title = {Efficient Continuous-Time Reinforcement Learning with Adaptive State Graphs}, publisher = {Springer (Berlin)}, year = {2007}, pages = {}, note = {in press}, abstract = {We present a new reinforcement learning approach for deterministic continuous control problems in environments with unknown, arbitrary reward functions. The difficulty of finding solution trajectories for such problems can be reduced by incorporating limited prior knowledge of the approximative local system dynamics. The presented algorithm builds an adaptive state graph of sample points within the continuous state space. The nodes of the graph are generated by an efficient principled exploration scheme that directs the agent towards promising regions, while maintaining good online performance. Global solution trajectories are formed as combinations of local controllers that connect nodes of the graph, thereby naturally allowing continuous actions and continuous time steps. We demonstrate our approach on various movement planning tasks in continuous domains.} } @InProceedings{NeumannETAL:09, author = {G. Neumann and W. Maass and J. Peters}, title = {Learning Complex Motions by Sequencing Simpler Motion Templates}, booktitle = {Proc. of the Int. Conf. on Machine Learning (ICML 2009), Montreal}, year = {2009}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, note = {in press}, abstract = {Abstraction of complex, longer motor tasks into simpler elemental movements enables humans and animals to exhibit motor skills which have not yet been matched by robots. Humans intuitively decompose complex motions into smaller, simpler segments. For example when describing simple movements like drawing a triangle with a pen, we can easily name the basic steps of this movement. Surprisingly, such abstractions have rarely been used in artificial motor skill learning algorithms. These algorithms typically choose a new action (such as a torque or a force) at a very fast time-scale. As a result, both policy and temporal credit assignment problem become unnecessarily complex - often beyond the reach of current machine learning methods. We introduce a new framework for temporal abstractions in reinforcement learning (RL), i.e. RL with motion templates. We present a new algorithm for this framework which can learn high-quality policies by making only few abstract decisions. } } @Article{NikolicETAL:06, author = {D. Nikolic and S. Haeusler and W. Singer and W. Maass}, title = {Temporal dynamics of informational contents carried by neurons in the primary visual cortex}, journal = {submitted for publication}, year = 2006 } @Article{NikolicETAL:07, author = {D. Nikolic and S. Haeusler and W. Singer and W. Maass}, title = {Distributed fading memory for stimulus properties in the primary visual}, journal = {submitted for publication}, year = {2009}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {} } @InProceedings{NikolicETAL:07a, author = {D. Nikoli\'{c} and S. Haeusler and W. Singer and W. Maass}, title = {Temporal dynamics of information content carried by neurons in the primary visual cortex}, booktitle = {Proc. of NIPS 2006, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, editor = {}, publisher = {MIT Press}, year = {2007}, volume = {19}, pages = {1041--1048}, abstract = {We use multi-electrode recordings from cat primary visual cortex and investigate whether a simple linear classifier ca n extract information about the presented stimuli. We find that information is extractable and that it even las ts for several hundred milliseconds after the stimulus has b een removed. In a fast sequence of stimulus presentation, information about both new and old stimuli is present simultaneously and nonlinear relations between these stimuli can be extracted. These results suggest nonlinear properties of cortical representat ions. The implications of these properties for the nonlinear brain theory are discussed.} } @Article{NikolicETAL:09, author = {D. Nikolic and S. Haeusler and W. Singer and W. Maass}, title = {Distributed fading memory for stimulus properties in the primary visual cortex}, journal = {PLoS Biology}, year = {2009}, volume = {7}, number = {12}, pages = {1--19}, abstract = {It is currently not known how distributed neuronal responses in early visual areas carry stimulus-related information. We made multi-electrode recordings from cat primary visual cortex and applied methods from machine learning in order to analyze the temporal evolution of stimulus-related information in the spiking activity of large ensembles of around 100 neurons. We used sequences of up to three different visual stimuli (letters) presented for 100 ms and with intervals of 100 ms or larger. Most of the information about visual stimuli extractable by sophisticated methods of machine learning, i.e. support vector machines with non-linear kernel functions, was also extractable by simple linear classification such as can be achieved by individual neurons. New stimuli did not erase information about previous stimuli. The responses to the most recent stimulus contained about equal amounts of information about both this and the preceding stimulus. This information was encoded both in the discharge rates (response amplitudes) of the ensemble of neurons and, when using short time-constants for integration (e.g., 20 ms), in the precise timing of individual spikes (<= $~20$ ms), and persisted for several 100 ms beyond the offset of stimuli. The results indicate that the network from which we recorded is endowed with fading memory and is capable of performing online computations utilizing information about temporally sequential stimuli. This result challenges models assuming frame-by-frame analyses of sequential inputs.}, note = {} } @Article{PecevskiETAL:07, author = {R. Brette and D. Pecevski}, title = {Simulation of networks of spiking neurons: a review of tools and strategies}, journal = {J. Computer Neuroscience}, year = {2007}, volume = {23}, number = {3}, pages = {349--398}, abstract = {} } @Article{PecevskiETAL:09, author = {D. Pecevski and T. Natschlaeger and K. Schuch}, title = {{PCSIM}: A Parallel Simulation Environment for Neural Circuits Fully Integrated with {P}ython}, journal = {Frontiers in Neuroinformatics}, year = {2009}, volume = {3}, number = {}, pages = {}, note = {doi:10.3389/neuro.11.011.2009}, abstract = {The {P}arallel {C}ircuit {SIM}ulator ({PCSIM}) is a software package for simulation of neural circuits. It is primarily designed for distributed simulation of large scale networks of spiking point neurons. Although its computational core is written in {C}++, {PCSIM}'s primary interface is implemented in the {P}ython programming language, which is a powerful programming environment and allows the user to easily integrate the neural circuit simulator with data analysis and visualization tools to manage the full neural modeling life cycle. The main focus of this paper is to describe {PCSIM}'s full integration into {P}ython and the benefits thereof. In particular we will investigate how the automatically generated bidirectional interface and {PCSIM}'s object-oriented modular framework enable the user to adopt a hybrid modeling approach: using and extending {PCSIM}'s functionality either employing pure {P}ython or {C}++ and thus combining the advantages of both worlds. Furthermore, we describe several supplementary {PCSIM} packages written in pure {P}ython and tailored towards setting up and analyzing neural simulations.} } @TechReport{PecevskiETAL:11, author = {D. Pecevski and L. B\"using and W. Maass}, title = {Networks of spiking neurons are able to carry out probabilistic inference in general graphical models through their inherent stochastic dynamics}, institution = {Graz University of Technology}, year = {2011} } @Article{PecevskiETAL:11a, author = {D. Pecevski and L. B\"using and W. Maass}, title = {Probabilistic Inference in General Graphical Models through Sampling in Stochastic Networks of Spiking Neurons}, journal = {PLoS Computational Biology}, year = {2011}, pages = {e1002294}, volume = {7}, number = {12}, abstract = {An important open problem of computational neuroscience is the generic organization of computations in networks of neurons in the brain. We show here through rigorous theoretical analysis that inherent stochastic features of spiking neurons, in combination with simple nonlinear computational operations in specific network motifs and dendritic arbors, enable networks of spiking neurons to carry out probabilistic inference through sampling in general graphical models. In particular, it enables them to carry out probabilistic inference in Bayesian networks with converging arrows (“explaining away”) and with undirected loops, that occur in many real-world tasks. Ubiquitous stochastic features of networks of spiking neurons, such as trial-to-trial variability and spontaneous activity, are necessary ingredients of the underlying computational organization. We demonstrate through computer simulations that this approach can be scaled up to neural emulations of probabilistic inference in fairly large graphical models, yielding some of the most complex computations that have been carried out so far in networks of spiking neurons.}, note = {} } @InProceedings{PfeifferETAL:06, author = {M. Pfeiffer and A. R. Saffari A. A. and A. Juffinger}, title = {Predicting Text Relevance from Sequential Reading Behavior}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the NIPS 2005 Workshop on Machine Learning for Implicit Feedback and User Modeling}, year = {2006}, editor = {K. Puolamaeki and S. Kaski}, pages = {25--30}, address = {Otaniemi, Finland}, month = {May}, organization = {Helsinki University of Technology} } @Article{PfeifferETAL:09, author = {M. Pfeiffer and B. Nessler and W. Maass and R. J. Douglas}, title = {Reward-modulated {H}ebbian Learning of Optimal Decision Making}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = {2009}, pages = {}, volume = {} } @Article{PfeifferETAL:09b, author = {M. Pfeiffer and B. Nessler and W. Maass}, title = {{STDP} approximates Expectation Maximization in networks of spiking neurons with lateral inhibition}, journal = {in preparation}, year = {2009}, pages = {}, volume = {} } @Article{PfeifferETAL:09c, author = {M. Pfeiffer and B. Nessler and R. Douglas and W. Maass}, title = {Reward-modulated {H}ebbian {L}earning of {D}ecision {M}aking}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = {2010}, volume = {22}, pages = {1399--1444}, abstract = {We introduce a framework for decision making in which the learning of decision making is reduced to its simplest andbiologically most plausible form: Hebbian learning on a linear neuron. We cast our Bayesian-Hebb learning rule as reinforcement learning in which certain decisions are rewarded and prove that each synaptic weight will on average converge exponentially fast to the log-odd of receiving a reward when its pre- and postsynaptic neurons are active. In our simple architecture, a particular action is selected from the set of candidate actions by a winner-takeall operation. The global reward assigned to this action then modulates the update of each synapse. Apart from this global reward signal, our reward-modulated Bayesian Hebb rule is a pure Hebb update that depends only on the coactivation of the pre- and postsynaptic neurons, not on theweighted sum of all presynaptic inputs to the postsynaptic neuron as in the perceptron learning rule or the Rescorla-Wagner rule. This simple approach to action-selection learning requires that information about sensory inputs be presented to the Bayesian decision stage in a suitably preprocessed form resulting from other adaptive processes (acting on a larger timescale) that detect salient dependencies among input features. Hence our proposed framework for fast learning of decisions also provides interesting new hypotheses regarding neural nodes and computational goals of cortical areas that provide input to the final decision stage.} } @PhDThesis{Rasch:08, author = {M. Rasch}, title = {Analysis of neural signals: Interdependence, information coding, and relation to network models}, school = {Graz University of Technology, Institute for Theoretical Computer Science}, year = {2008} } @TechReport{RaschETAL:06, author = {M. Rasch and S. Haeusler and Z. Kisvarday and W. Maass and N. Logothetis}, title = {Comparison of a detailed model for area {V}1 with simultaneous recordings from {LGN} and {V}1}, institution = {Technische Universitaet Graz and MPI Tuebingen}, year = {2006} } @TechReport{RaschETAL:06b, author = {M. Rasch and A. Gretton and Y. Murayama and W. Maass and N. Logothetis}, title = {Interaction of local field potential and spiking activity in area {V}1}, institution = {Technische Universitaet Graz and MPI Tuebingen}, year = {2006} } @Article{RaschETAL:07, author = {M. J. Rasch and A. Gretton and Y. Murayama and W. Maass and N. K. Logothetis}, title = {Inferring spike trains from local field potentials}, journal = {Journal of Neurophysiology}, year = {2008}, volume = {99}, number = {}, pages = {1461--1476}, note = {}, abstract = {We investigated whether it is possible to infer spike trains solely on the basis of the underling local field potentials ({LFP}s). Employing support vector machines and linear regression models, we found that in the primary visual cortex ({V}1) of monkeys, spikes can indeed be inferred from {LFP}s, at least with moderate success. Although there is a considerable degree of variation across electrodes, the low-frequency structure in spike trains (in the 100 ms range) can be inferred with reasonable accuracy, whereas exact spike positions are not reliably predicted. Two kinds of features of the {LFP} are exploited for prediction: the frequency power of bands in the high $\gamma$-range (40-90 {H}z), and information contained in low-frequency oscillations (<10 {H}z), where both phase and power modulations are informative. Information analysis revealed that both features code (mainly) independent aspects of the spike-to-{LFP} relationship, with the low-frequency {LFP} phase coding for temporally clustered spiking activity. Although both features and prediction quality are similar during semi-natural movie stimuli and spontaneous activity, prediction performance during spontaneous activity degrades much more slowly with increasing electrode distance. The general trend of data obtained with anesthetized animals is qualitatively mirrored in that of a more limited data set recorded in {V}1 of awake monkeys. In contrast to the cortical field potentials, thalamic {LFP}s (e.g. {LFP}s derived from recordings in d{LGN}) hold no useful information for predicting spiking activity.} } @Article{RaschETAL:09, author = {M. J. Rasch and K. Schuch and N. K. Logothetis and W. Maass}, title = {Statistical characterization of the spike response to natural stimuli in monkey area {V}1 and in a detailed model for a patch of {V}1}, journal = {submitted}, year = {2009}, pages = {}, volume = {} } @Article{RaschETAL:10, author = {M. J. Rasch and K. Schuch and N. K. Logothetis and W. Maass}, title = {Statistical Comparision of Spike Responses to Natural Stimuli in Monkey Area {V}1 With Simulated Responses of a Detailed Laminar Network Model for a Patch of {V}1}, journal = {J Neurophysiol}, year = {2011}, pages = {757--778}, volume = {105}, abstract = {A major goal of computational neuroscience is the creation of computer models for cortical areas whose response to sensory stimuli resembles that of cortical areas in vivo in important aspects. It is seldom considered whether the simulated spiking activity is realistic (in a statistical sense) in response to natural stimuli. Because certain statistical properties of spike responses were suggested to facilitate computations in the cortex, acquiring a realistic firing regimen in cortical network models might be a prerequisite for analyzing their computational functions. We present a characterization and comparison of the statistical response properties of the primary visual cortex (V1) in vivo and in silico in response to natural stimuli. We recorded from multiple electrodes in area V1 of 4 macaque monkeys and developed a large state-of-the-art network model for a 5 x 5-mm patch of V1 composed of 35,000 neurons and 3.9 million synapses that integrates previously published anatomical and physiological details. By quantitative comparison of the model response to the "statistical fingerprint" of responses in vivo, we find that our model for a patch of V1 responds to the same movie in a way which matches the statistical structure of the recorded data surprisingly well. The deviation between the firing regimen of the model and the in vivo data are on the same level as deviations among monkeys and sessions. This suggests that, despite strong simplifications and abstractions of cortical network models, they are nevertheless capable of generating realistic spiking activity. To reach a realistic firing state, it was not only necessary to include both N-methyl- D-aspartate and GABAB synaptic conductances in our model, but also to markedly increase the strength of excitatory synapses onto inhibitory neurons (more than 2-fold) in comparison to literature values, hinting at the importance to carefully adjust the effect of inhibition for achieving realistic dynamics in current network models.}, htmlnote = {(Commentary by W.S. Anderson and B. Kreiman in Current Biology 2011 PDF)} } @TechReport{RaschKisvarday:06, author = {M. Rasch and Z. Kisvarday}, title = {Design of stimuli for investigating spatial integration of information in optical recordings}, institution = {Technische Universitaet Graz and University of Debrecen}, year = {2006} } @MastersThesis{Ruf:93, author = {B. Ruf}, note = {(in German)}, school = {Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany}, title = {Sequentielle und parallele {L}ernverfahren fuer {B}oltzmann-{M}aschinen}, year = {1993}, keywords = {boltzmann machine, learning algorithm} } @InProceedings{Ruf:94, author = {B. Ruf}, address = {Brussels}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 2nd european symposium on artificial neural networks}, editor = {M. Verleysen}, pages = {109--116}, title = {A stop criterion for the Boltzmann machine learning algorithm}, year = {1994}, keywords = {boltzmann machine, learning} } @InProceedings{Ruf:96, author = {B. Ruf}, booktitle = {Workshop on Neural Networks Dynamics and Pattern Recognition, Toulouse}, pages = {25--26}, publisher = {Onera, Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches de Toulouse}, title = {Pattern Recognition with Networks of Spiking Neurons}, year = {1996}, keywords = {spiking neurons, pattern recognition, temporal coding} } @InProceedings{Ruf:97, author = {B. Ruf}, booktitle = {Biological and artificial computation: From neuroscience to technology}, editor = {J. Mira and R. Moreno-Diaz and J. Cabestany}, pages = {265--272}, publisher = {Springer, Berlin}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {Computing functions with spiking neurons in temporal coding}, volume = {1240}, year = {1997}, keywords = {spiking neuron, linear function, temporal coding, approximation} } @PhDThesis{Ruf:98a, author = {B. Ruf}, school = {TU Graz}, title = {Computing and learning with spiking neurons - theory and simulations}, year = {1998} } @InProceedings{Ruf:98b, author = {B. Ruf}, booktitle = {Proc. of the VI-Dynn 98 conference}, editor = {T. Lindblad}, publisher = {Spie}, title = {Networks of spiking neurons can compute linear functions using action potential timing}, year = {1998} } @Article{RufSchmitt:97, author = {B. Ruf and M. Schmitt}, journal = {Neural Processing Letters}, number = {1}, pages = {9--18}, title = {Learning temporally encoded patterns in networks of spiking neurons}, volume = {5}, year = {1997}, keywords = {spiking neuron, temporal coding, hebbian learning} } @InProceedings{RufSchmitt:97a, author = {B. Ruf and M. Schmitt}, booktitle = {Biological and artificial computation: From neuroscience to technology}, editor = {J. Mira and R. Moreno-Diaz and J. Cabestany}, pages = {380--389}, publisher = {Springer, Berlin}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {Hebbian Learning in Networks of Spiking Neurons Using Temporal Coding}, volume = {1240}, year = {1997}, keywords = {spiking neuron, hebbian learning, temporal coding} } @InProceedings{RufSchmitt:97b, author = {B. Ruf and M. Schmitt}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 7th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks}, editor = {W. Gerstner and A. Germond and M. Hasler and J. Nicoud}, pages = {361--366}, publisher = {Springer, Berlin}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, title = {Unsupervised learning in networks of spiking neurons using temporal coding}, volume = {1327}, year = {1997}, keywords = {unsupervised learning, self organizing map, spiking neuron} } @Article{RufSchmitt:97d, author = {B. Ruf and M. Schmitt}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 7th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks}, pages = {575--578}, title = {Self-organization of spiking neurons using action potential timing}, volume = {9:3}, year = {1998}, keywords = {unsupervised learning, self organizing map, spiking neuron} } @InProceedings{RufSchmitt:98, author = {B. Ruf and M. Schmitt}, booktitle = {Computational Neuroscience: Trends in Research 1998 (to appear)}, editor = {J. Bower}, publisher = {Plenum Press}, title = {Self-organizing maps of spiking neurons using temporal coding}, year = {1998}, keywords = {unsupervised learning, spiking neuron, self-organizing map} } @MastersThesis{Schwaighofer00, author = {Schwaighofer, A.}, title = {Fingerprint Matching with Spectral Features}, school = {Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, Graz University of Technology, Austria}, year = 2000, month = may, abstract = {The underlying purpose of this thesis is to investigate methods of fingerprint recognition which employ principles from the field of machine learning, and that do not require much image pre-processing. Fingerprint images are represented by features derived from their spectrum. The features are to a certain extent invariant with respect to translation and rotation. The features are chosen such that the two classes of identical and different fingerprints are best separated. The features are used in different classification methods, namely nearest neighbour classifier, MLP and SVM, with specifically adapted training methods. The resulting matchers are compared. In addition, a pre-matcher based on these features is constructed, together with figures to describe its characteristics. This thesis makes two major contributions: The spectral features are optimised such that a low-dimensional representation with high discriminative power is obtained. Secondly, the proposed pre-matching system drastically reduces both the error rates and the overall runtime, while the pre-matcher itself requires only little computational effort.}, aschwaig_label= 1 } @PhDThesis{Schwaighofer_thesis, author = {Schwaighofer, Anton}, title = {Kernel Systems for Regression and Graphical Modelling}, school = {Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, Graz University of Technology, Austria}, year = 2003, month = {October}, aschwaig_label= 12 } @Article{SteimerETAL:09, author = {A. Steimer and W. Maass and R. Douglas}, title = {Belief-propagation in networks of spiking neurons}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = {2009}, volume = {21}, number = {}, pages = {2502--2523}, abstract = {From a theoretical point of view, statistical inference is an attractive model of brain operation. However, it is unclear how to implement these inferential processes in neuronal networks. We offer a solution to this problem by showing in detailed simulations how the Belief-Propagation algorithm on a factor graph can be embedded in a network of spiking neurons. We use pools of spiking neurons as the function nodes of the factor graph. Each pool gathers 'messages' in the form of population activities from its input nodes and combines them through its network dynamics. The various output messages to be transmitted over the edges of the graph are each computed by a group of readout neurons that feed in their respective destination pools. We use this approach to implement two examples of factor graphs. The first example is drawn from coding theory. It models the transmission of signals through an unreliable channel and demonstrates the principles and generality of our network approach. The second, more applied example, is of a psychophysical mechanism in which visual cues are used to resolve hypotheses about the interpretation of an object's shape and illumination. These two examples, and also a statistical analysis, all demonstrate good agreement between the performance of our networks and the direct numerical evaluation of beliefpropagation.} } @Article{SteinbauerETAL:02, author = {G. Steinbauer and R. Koholka and W. Maass}, title = {A very short story about autonomous robots}, journal = {Special Issue on Foundations of Information Processing of {TELEMATIK}}, year = {2002}, volume = {8}, number = {1}, pages = {26--29} } @Article{SussilloETAL:07, author = {D. Sussillo and T. Toyoizumi and W. Maass}, title = {Self-tuning of neural circuits through short-term synaptic plasticity}, journal = {Journal of Neurophysiology}, year = {2007}, volume = {97}, pages = {4079--4095}, abstract = {Circuits of neurons in the cortex have a remarkable capability to maintain functional and dynamic stability in spite of changes in the level of external inputs, synaptic plasticity and changes in the circuit structure that occur during development and adult learning. The source of this characteristic stability of cortical circuits has remained a mystery, especially since even stronglysimplified models of such circuits do not exhibit similar stability properties. One simplification that is usually made in such models is that the empirically found nonlinear and diverse inherent short term dynamics (paired-pulse facilitation and depression) of biological synapses is replaced by static and uniform linear synapse models. We show in this article that this is a mistake, since the complex and diverse nonlinear dynamics of biological synapses supports the implementation of powerful control principles that endow circuits of spiking neurons with almost in-vivo like stability properties.} } @InProceedings{ToescherETAL:08, author = {Andreas Toescher and Michael Jahrer and Robert Legenstein}, title = {Improved Neighborhood-Based Algorithms for Large-Scale Recommender Systems}, note = {in press}, pages = {}, booktitle = {KDD-Cup and Workshop}, publisher = {ACM}, year = 2008, abstract = {Neighborhood-based algorithms are frequently used modules of recommender systems. Usually, the choice of the similarity measure used for evaluation of neighborhood relationships is crucial for the success of such approaches. In this article we propose a way to calculate similarities by formulating a regression problem which enables us to extract the similarities from the data in a problem-specific way. Another popular approach for recommender systems is regularized matrix factorization (RMF). We present an algorithm -- neighborhood-aware matrix factorization -- which efficiently includes neighborhood information in a RMF model. This leads to increased prediction accuracy. The proposed methods are tested on the Netflix dataset.} } @Article{UchizawaETAL:06, author = {K. Uchizawa and R. Douglas and W. Maass}, title = {On the Computational Power of Threshold Circuits with Sparse Activity}, journal = {Neural Computation}, year = 2006, volume = 18, number = 12, pages = {2994--3008}, abstract = {Circuits composed of threshold gates (McCulloch-Pitts neurons, or perceptrons) are simplified models of neural circuits with the advantage that they are theoretically more tractable than their biological counterparts. However, when such threshold circuits are designed to perform a specific computational task they usually differ in one important respect from computations in the brain: they require very high activity. On average every second threshold gate fires (sets a ``1'' as output) during a computation. By contrast, the activity of neurons in the brain is much more sparse, with only about 1\% of neurons firing. This mismatch between threshold and neuronal circuits is due to the particular complexity measures (circuit size and circuit depth) that have been minimized in previous threshold circuit constructions. In this article we investigate a new complexity measure for threshold circuits, {\em energy complexity}, whose minimization yields computations with sparse activity. We prove that all computations by threshold circuits of polynomial size with entropy $O(\log n)$ can be restructured so that their energy complexity is reduced to a level near the {\em entropy of circuit states}. This entropy of circuit states is a novel circuit complexity measure, which is of interest not only in the context of threshold circuits, but for circuit complexity in general. As an example of how this measure can be applied we show that any polynomial size threshold circuit with entropy $O(\log n)$ can be simulated by a polynomial size threshold circuit of depth 3. Our results demonstrate that the structure of circuits which result from a minimization of their energy complexity is quite different from the structure which results from a minimization of previously considered complexity measures, and potentially closer to the structure of neural circuits in the nervous system. In particular, different pathways are activated in these circuits for different classes of inputs. This article shows that such circuits with sparse activity have a surprisingly large computational power.} } @InProceedings{UchizawaETAL:06a, author = {K. Uchizawa and R. Douglas and W. Maass}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 33rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming, ICALP (1) 2006, Venice, Italy, July 10-14, 2006, Part I}, title = {Energy Complexity and Entropy of Threshold Circuits}, year = {2006}, volume = {4051}, pages = {631--642}, publisher = {Springer}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, editor = {M. Bugliesi and B. Preneel and V. Sassone and I. Wegener}, abstract = {Circuits composed of threshold gates (McCulloch-Pitts neurons, or perceptrons) are simplified models of neural circuits with the advantage that they are theoretically more tractable than their biological counterparts. However, when such threshold circuits are designed to perform a specific computational task they usually differ in one important respect from computations in the brain: they require very high activity. On average every second threshold gate fires (sets a ``1'' as output) during a computation. By contrast, the activity of neurons in the brain is much more sparse, with only about 1\% of neurons firing. This mismatch between threshold and neuronal circuits is due to the particular complexity measures (circuit size and circuit depth) that have been minimized in previous threshold circuit constructions. In this article we investigate a new complexity measure for threshold circuits, {\em energy complexity}, whose minimization yields computations with sparse activity. We prove that all computations by threshold circuits of polynomial size with entropy $O(\log n)$ can be restructured so that their energy complexity is reduced to a level near the {\em entropy of circuit states}. This entropy of circuit states is a novel circuit complexity measure, which is of interest not only in the context of threshold circuits, but for circuit complexity in general. As an example of how this measure can be applied we show that any polynomial size threshold circuit with entropy $O(\log n)$ can be simulated by a polynomial size threshold circuit of depth 3.} } @TechReport{WinterETAL:06, author = {M. Winter and H. Bischof and M. Rasch and W. Maass}, title = {Results and open problems regarding the role of local feature descriptors for image classification in computer vision, and image representations in primary visual cortex}, institution = {Technische Universitaet Graz}, year = {2006} } @InProceedings{a-aagt-88, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Algorithmic aspects of {G}ale transforms (abstract)}, booktitle = {Proc. $13^{th}$ 3-Ann. Int'l Symp. Mathematical Programming}, pages = 176, year = 1988, address = {Tokyo, Japan} } @Article{a-caecc-87, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {A criterion for the affine equivalence of cell complexes in {$R^d$} and convex polyhedra in {$R^{d+1}$}}, journal = {Discrete \& Computational Geometry}, year = 1987, volume = 2, number = 1, pages = {49--64}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 205, TU Graz, Austria, 1985]}, abstract = {A criterion is gives that decides, for a convex tiling $C$ of $R^d$, whether $C$ is the projection of the faces in the boundary of some convex polyhedron $P$ in $R^{d+1}$. Its applicability is restricted neither by the properties nor by the dimension of $C$. It turns out to be simpler than other criteria and allows the easy examination of various classes of cell complexes. In addition, the criterion is constructive, that is, it can be used to construct $P$ provided it exists.} } @PhDThesis{a-ccphn-97, author = {O. Aichholzer}, title = {Combinatorial \& Computational Properties of the Hypercube - New Results on Covering, Slicing, Clustering and Searching on the Hypercube}, school = {IGI-TU Graz, Austria}, year = 1997, abstract = { The central topic of this thesis is the $d$-dimensional hypercube ($d$-cube). Despite of its simple definition, the $d$-cube has been an object of study from various points of view. The contributions of this thesis are twofold. In the combinatorial part we investigate the structure of hyperplanes intersecting the $d$-cube: How many and which types of hyperplanes can be spanned by vertices of the $d$-cube? What is the minimum number of skew hyperplanes that cover all the vertices of the $d$-cube? What is the best arrangement of slicing hyperplanes to linearly separate all neighbours on the $d$-cube? Such results are then used e.g. for determining the maximal number of facets a 5-dimensional $0/1$-polytope can achieve. In the second part of the thesis we consider algorithmical properties of the $d$-cube. We first obtain efficient clustering methods for objects represented as binary strings of fixed length $d$, including various agglomerative hierarchical methods like single linkage and complete linkage. Utilizing these hierarchical structures we derive a new efficient approach to the ${0,1}$-string searching problem, where for a given set of binary strings of fixed length $d$ and a query string one asks for the most similar string in this set. Motivation for investigating these problems stems, among other areas, from coding theory, communication theory, and learning theory.} } @Article{a-cgeqr-01, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Computational geometry -- some easy questions and their recent solutions}, journal = {J. Universal Computer Science}, year = 2001, volume = 7, pages = {338--354}, note = {Special Issue.}, abstract = {We address three basic questions in computational geometry which can be phrased in simple terms but have only recently received (more or less) satisfactory answers: point set enumeration, optimum triangulation, and polygon decomposition.} } @TechReport{a-ch-96, author = {O. Aichholzer}, title = {Clustering the Hypercube}, institution = {SFB 'Optimierung und Kontrolle', TU Graz, Austria}, year = 1996, type = {SFB-Report}, number = {F003-93}, abstract = {In this paper we consider various clustering methods for objects represented as binary strings of fixed length $d$. The dissimilarity of two given objects is the number of disagreeing bits, that is, their Hamming distance. Clustering these objects can be seen as clustering a subset of the vertices of a $d$-dimensional hypercube, and thus is a geometric problem in d dimensions. We give algorithms for various agglomerative hierarchical methods (including single linkage and complete linkage) as well as for two-clusterings and divisive methods.\\ We only present linear space algorithms since for most practical applications the number of objects to be clustered is usually to large for non-linear space solutions to be practicable. All algorithms are easy to implement and the constants in their asymptotic runtime are small. We give experimental results for all cluster methods considered, and for uniformly distributed hypercube vertices as well as for specially chosen sets. These experiments indicate that our algorithms work well in practice.} } @InProceedings{a-e0ssb-98, author = {O. Aichholzer}, title = {Efficient $\{0,1\}$-String Searching Based on Pre-clustering}, booktitle = {Proc. $14^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '98}, pages = {11--13}, year = 1998, address = {Barcelona, Spain}, note = {[SFB Report F003-94, TU Graz, Austria, 1996]}, abstract = {In this paper we consider the ${0,1}$-string searching problem. For a given set $S$ of binary strings of fixed length $d$ and a query string $q$ one asks for the most similar string in $S$. Thereby the dissimilarity of two given strings is the number of disagreeing bits, that is, their Hamming distance. We present an efficient ${0,1}$-string searching algorithm based on hierarchical pre-clustering. To this end we give several useful observations on the inter- and intra-cluster distances.\\ The presented algorithms are easy to implement and we give exhaustive experimental results for uniformly distributed sets as well as for specially chosen strings. These experiments indicate that our algorithms work well in practice.} } @InCollection{a-ep0pd-00, author = {O. Aichholzer}, title = {Extremal Properties of 0/1-Polytopes of Dimension 5}, booktitle = {Polytopes - Combinatorics and Computation}, publisher = {Birkhaeuser}, year = 2000, editor = {G. Ziegler and G. Kalai}, pages = {111--130}, note = {[SFB-Report F003-132, TU Graz, Austria, 1998]}, htmlnote = {You can also investigate 0/1-polytopes by e-mail!}, abstract = {In this paper we consider polytopes whose vertex coordinates are $0$ or $1$, so called $0/1$-polytopes. For the first time we give a complete enumeration of all $0/1$-polytopes of dimension $5$, which enables us to investigate various of their combinatorial extremal properties.\\ For example we show that the maximum number of facets of a five-dimensional $0/1$-polytope is $40$, answering an open question of Ziegler. Based on the complete enumeration for dimension $5$ we obtain new results for $2$-neighbourly $0/1$-polytopes for higher dimensions.} } @InProceedings{a-gcvtp-93, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Geometric clustering and {V}oronoi-type partitions}, booktitle = {$16^{th}$ IFIP Conf. System Modelling and Optimization}, year = 1993, pages = {93-94}, address = {Compiegne, France} } @Article{a-gefsi-95, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Guest editor's foreword of the special issue on computational geometry}, journal = {Int'l Journal of Computational Geometry \& Applications}, year = 1995, volume = {5}, pages = {1} } @TechReport{a-gpd-83, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {On the generality of power diagrams}, institution = {TU Graz, Austria}, year = 1983, type = {IIG Report}, number = {F126}, abstract = {A set $s = \{ x \mid ^2 = r^2 \}$ in Euclidean space is called a sphere with center $z$ and positive radius $r$. For an arbitrary point $x$, $^2 = r^2$ is the power of $x$ with respect to $s$. Extending these concepts to imaginary radii, they are exploited to show the equivalence of two types of cell complexes: those that can be obtained by projection of convex polyhedra, and those that come from projecting levels in arrangement of hyperplanes. As a consequence, higher-order Voronoi diagrams can be constructed by determining a convex hull.} } @InProceedings{a-gv-85, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Gewichtete {V}oronoidiagramme}, booktitle = {Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '85}, year = 1985, address = {Karlsruhe, Germany} } @PhDThesis{a-gvdgd-84, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Gewichtete {V}oronoi {D}iagramme: {G}eometrische {D}eutung und {K}onstruktions-{A}lgorithmen}, school = {IIG-TU Graz, Austria}, year = 1984, note = {Report B53}, abstract = {Das oft als Computational Geometry bezeichnete Teilgebiet der Computerwissenschaften beschaeftigt sich mit der algorithmischen Loesung elementargeometrischer Probleme. Einen Schwerpunkt in der Computational Geometry bildet die Untersuchung von Abstandsproblemen. In diesem Zusammenhang spielt das Voronoi Diagramm einer endlichen Punktmenge eine zentrale Rolle. Die vorliegende Arbeit ist eine geometrische und algorithmische Studie sogenannter gewichteter Voronoi Diagramme. Diese Diagramme leiten sich aus dem Original durch Ersetzen des Euklidabstandes durch individuell gewichtete Abstaende her. Das Anwendungsspektrum solcher Konzepte umfasst die Wissenschaften Geographie, Oekonomie, Biologie, Mathematik, Physik und Chemie. Die Hauptergebnisse dieser Arbeit sind die Erforschung der Verwandtschaft gewichteter Diagramme zu anderen geometrischen Objekten (konvexe Huellen, Zellkomplexe und Arrangements) mit Hilfe geometrischer Transformationen, und der Entwurf effizienter Algorithmen fuer ihre Konstruktion. Ein Teil der Resultate wurde bereits in Schnelldruckserien und wissenschaftlichen Journalen veroeffentlicht.} } @MastersThesis{a-hhkq-92, author = {O. Aichholzer}, title = {{H}yperebenen in {H}yperkuben - {E}ine {K}lassifizierung und {Q}uantifizierung}, school = {IGI-TU Graz, Austria}, year = 1992, abstract = {In dieser Arbeit werden affine Hyperebenen in hoeherdimensionalen Raeumen behandelt, die den $n$-dimensionalen Hyperkubus schneiden. Dabei konzentriert sich die Untersuchung auf folgende Fragestellung: Wieviele und welche Arten von Hyperebenen gibt es, die durch Eckpunkte des Hyperkubus eindeutig festgelegt sind? Neben der Betrachtung, wieviele solcher Hyperebenen existieren, wird eine Klassifizierung nach verschiedenen Kriterien wie Symmetrie, Parallelitaet zu den Koordinatenachsen, Anzahl der geschnittenen Eckpunkte etc. untersucht. Die Arbeit enthaelt sowohl eine vollstaendige enumerative Berechnung aller relevanten Werte bis einschliesslich der achten Dimension, als auch die theoretische Herleitung allgemein gueltiger Saetze ueber solche Hyperebenen. Die Beitraege dieser Arbeit fallen in das Gebiet der geometrischen Kombinatorik und finden sowohl in der Codierungs- und Lerntheorie als auch in der linearen Optimierung sowie im VLSI-Design Anwendung.} } @Article{a-iadbu-88, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Improved algorithms for discs and balls using power diagrams}, journal = {Journal of Algorithms}, year = 1988, volume = 9, number = 2, pages = {151--161}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 209, TU Graz, Austria, 1985]}, abstract = {The properties of a particular generalization of Voronoi diagrams called power diagrams are exploited to obtain new and improved algorithms for union, intersection, and measure problems for discs and balls.} } @InProceedings{a-jschc-87, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {{J}ordan sorting via convex hulls of certain non-simple polygons}, booktitle = {Proc. $3^{rd}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {21--29}, year = 1987, address = {Waterloo, Canada} } @Article{a-lai-97, author = {P. Auer}, title = {On Learning from Ambiguous Information}, journal = {Periodica Polytechnica Electrical Engineering}, year = {1998}, volume = {42}, number = {1}, pages = {115-122} } @Article{a-lcpd-88, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Linear combinations from power domains}, journal = {Geometriae Dedicata}, year = 1988, volume = 28, pages = {45--52}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 243, TU Graz, Austria, 1987]}, abstract = {The well-known concept of power domains defined via subsets of a finite set $S$ of weighted points in $R^d$ is exploited to obtain various linear combinations among the points in $S$. This generalizes a result of Sibson who considered the special case of singleton subsets and unweighted points.} } @InProceedings{a-lpt-95, author = {O. Aichholzer}, title = {Local properties of triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $11^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '95}, pages = {27--30}, year = 1995, address = {Hagenberg/Linz, Austria}, abstract = {In this paper we study local properties of two well known triangulations of a planar point set $S$, both of which are defined in a non-local way. The first one is the greedy triangulation (GT) that is defined procedurally: it can be obtained by starting with the empty set and at each step adding the shortest compatible edge between two points of $S$, where a compatible edge is defined to be an edge that does not cross any of the previously inserted edges. The other triangulation we deal with is the minimum-weight triangulation (MWT) which minimizes the sum of the length of the edges among all possible triangulations of $S$. We present several results on exclusion- and inclusion-regions for these two triangulations.} } @InProceedings{a-ndrcv-86, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {A new duality result concerning {V}oronoi diagrams}, booktitle = {Proc. $13^{th}$ Ann. ICALP, Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, pages = {21--32}, year = 1986, volume = 226, address = {Rennes, France}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {A new duality between order-$k$ Voronoi diagrams in $E^d$ and convex hulls in $E^{d+1}$ is established. It implies a reasonably simple algorithm for computing the order-$k$ Voronoi diagram for $n$ points in the palne in $O(k^2 n \log n)$ time and optimal $O(k(n-k))$ space.} } @Article{a-ndrcv-90, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {A new duality result concerning {V}oronoi diagrams}, journal = {Discrete \& Computational Geometry}, year = 1990, volume = 5, number = 3, pages = {243--254}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 216, TU Graz, Austria, 1985]}, abstract = {A new duality between order-$k$ Voronoi diagrams in $E^d$ and convex hulls in $E^{d+1}$ is established. It implies a reasonably simple algorithm for computing the order-$k$ Voronoi diagram for $n$ points in the palne in $O(k^2 n \log n)$ time and optimal $O(k(n-k))$ space.} } @Article{a-odwvd-86, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {The one-dimensional weighted {V}oronoi diagram}, journal = {Information Processing Letters}, year = 1986, volume = 22, number = 3, pages = {119--123}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series F110, TU Graz, Austria, 1983]} } @Article{a-olsts-88a, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {On-line sorting of twisted sequences in linear time}, journal = {BIT}, year = 1988, volume = 28, pages = {194--204}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 232, TU Graz, Austria, 1987]}, abstract = {A sequence of real numbers is called twisted if it can be produced from the sorted sequence by repeatedly reversing the order of consecutive subsequences. It is shown that twisted sequences constitute a class of exponentially many members each of which can be recognized and sorted, by a simple on-line algorithm, in linear time.} } @InProceedings{a-olsts-88b, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {On-line sorting of twisted sequences in linear time}, booktitle = {$2^{nd}$ Workshop on Computational Geometry and Discrete Algorithms}, year = 1988, address = {Osaka, Japan} } @Article{a-pdpaa-87, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Power diagrams: properties, algorithms, and applications}, journal = {SIAM Journal on Computing}, year = 1987, volume = 16, number = 1, pages = {78--96}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series F120, TU Graz, Austria, 1983]}, abstract = {The power $pow(x,s)$ of a point $x$ with respect to a sphere $s$ in Euclidean $d$-space $E^d$ is given by $d^2(x,z)-r^2$, where $d$ denotes the Euclidean distance function, and $z$ and $r$ are the center and the radius of $s$. The power diagram of a finite set $S$ of spheres in $E^d$ is a cell complex that associates each $s \in S$ with the convex domain $\{x \in E^d \mid pow(x,s) < pow(x,t), \mbox{for all} t \in S - \{s\} \}$. The close relationship to convex hulls and arrangements of hyperplanes is investigated and exploited. Efficient algorithms that compute the power diagram and its order-$k$ modifications are obtained. Among the applications of these results are algorithms for detecting $k$-sets, for union and intersection problems for cones and paraboloids, and for constructing weighted Voronoi diagrams and Voronoi diagrams for spheres. Upper space bounds for these geometric problems are derived.} } @InProceedings{a-pgdtf-05, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Pre-triangulations: A generalization of {D}elaunay triangulations and flips}, booktitle = {$2^{nd}$ Intern. Symp. on Voronoi Diagrams in Science and Engineering}, pages = {235}, year = 2005, address = {Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea}, note = {(plenar talk)} } @InProceedings{a-psd-03, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Pseudo-simplices and their derivation}, booktitle = {Voronoi Conference on Analytic Number Theory and Spatial Tesselations}, pages = {11}, year = 2003, address = {Inst. Math. National Academy of Sciences, Kiev, Ukraine} } @InProceedings{a-pt-97, author = {O. Aichholzer}, title = {The Path of a Triangulation}, booktitle = {Proc. $13^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '97}, pages = {1--3}, year = 1997, address = {Wuerzburg, Germany}, htmlnote = {For an implementation see my page on triangulation counting.}, abstract = {For a planar point set $S$ let $T$ be a triangulation of $S$ and $l$ a line properly intersecting $T$. We show that there always exists a unique path in $T$ with certain properties with respect to $l$. This path is then generalized to (non triangulated) point sets restricted to the interior of simple polygons. This so-called triangulation path enables us to treat several triangulation problems on planar point sets in a divide \& conquer-like manner. For example, we give the first algorithm for counting triangulations of a planar point set which is observed to run in time sublinear in the number of triangulations. Moreover, the triangulation path proves to be useful for the computation of optimal triangulations.} } @InProceedings{a-pt-99, author = {O. Aichholzer}, title = {The Path of a Triangulation}, booktitle = {Proc. $15^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {14--23}, year = 1999, address = {Miami Beach, Florida, USA}, htmlnote = {For an implementation see my page on triangulation counting.}, abstract = {For a planar point set $S$ let $T$ be a triangulation of $S$ and $l$ a line properly intersecting $T$. We show that there always exists a unique path in $T$ with certain properties with respect to $l$. This path is then generalized to (non triangulated) point sets restricted to the interior of simple polygons. This so-called triangulation path enables us to treat several triangulation problems on planar point sets in a divide \& conquer-like manner. For example, we give the first algorithm for counting triangulations of a planar point set which is observed to run in time sublinear in the number of triangulations. Moreover, the triangulation path proves to be useful for the computation of optimal triangulations.} } @Article{a-rbgtv-90, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {A relationship between {G}ale transforms and {V}oronoi diagrams}, journal = {Discrete Applied Mathematics}, year = 1990, volume = 28, pages = {83--91}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 247, TU Graz, Austria, 1988]}, abstract = {Gale transforms and Voronoi diagrams for finite point sets in $R^d$ are two structures well known in discrete and computational geometry. It is shown that they are related in the sense that Gale transforms of a point set can be computed from (generalizations of) its Voronoi diagram.} } @Article{a-rpccc-87, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Recognizing polytopical cell complexes and constructing projection polyhedra}, journal = {Journal of Symbolic Computation}, year = 1987, volume = 3, number = 3, pages = {249--255}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 203, TU Graz, Austria, 1985]}, abstract = {A simple cell complex $C$ in Euclidean $d$-space $E^d$ is a covering of $E^d$ by finitely many convex $j$-dimensional polyhedra (the $j$-faces of $C$), each of which is in the closure of exactly $d-j+1$ $d$-faces of $C$. An algorithm that recognises when $C$ is the projection of the set of faces bounding some convex polyhedron $P(C)$ in $E^{d+1}$, and that constructs $P(C)$ provided its existence is outlined. The method is optimal at least for $d=2$. No complexity results were previously known for both problems. The results have applications in statics, to the recognition of Voronoi diagrams, and to planar point location.} } @InProceedings{a-srlfa-99, author = {P. Auer}, title = {An Improved On-line Algorithm for Learning Linear Evaluation Functions}, booktitle = {Proc. 13th Ann. Conf. Computational Learning Theory}, pages = {118--125}, year = {2000}, publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann} } @InProceedings{a-tnnb-98, author = {P. Auer}, title = {Some thoughts on Boosting and Neural Networks}, booktitle = {Beitraege zum 3.~Cottbuser Workshop `Aspekte des Neuronalen Lernens' CoWAN'98}, editor = {L. Cromme and T. Kolb and H. Koch}, optvolume = {}, optnumber = {}, optseries = {}, year = {1998}, optorganization={}, publisher = {Shaker Verlag}, address = {Cottbus, Germany}, month = {October}, pages = {11--28}, note = {Invited paper} } @Article{a-ucbeeto-2002, author = {P. Auer}, title = {Using Confidence Bounds for Exploitation-Exploration Trade-offs}, journal = {J. Machine Learning Research}, year = {2002}, volume = {3(Nov)}, pages = {397--422}, note = {A preliminary version has appeared in {\em Proc. of the 41th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}} } @InProceedings{a-ugtcg-88, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Using {G}ale transforms in computational geometry}, booktitle = {Proc. $4^{th}$ Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '88, Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, pages = {202--216}, year = 1988, volume = 333, address = {Wuerzburg, Germany}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {Let $P$ denote a set of $n \geq d+1$ points in $d$-space $R^d$. A Gale transform of $P$ assigns to each point in $P$ a vector in space $R^{d+1}$ such that the resulting $n$-tuple of vectors reflects all affinely invariant properties of $P$. First utilized by Gale in the 1950s, Gale transforms have been recognized as a powerful tool in combinatorial geometry. This paper introduces Gale transforms to computational geometry. It offers a direct algorithm for their construction and sketches applications to convex hull and visibility problems. An application to scene analysis is worked out in some more detail.} } @Article{a-ugtcg-91, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Using {G}ale transforms in computational geometry}, journal = {Mathematical Programming}, year = 1991, volume = {B 52}, pages = {179--190}, note = {Special Issue. [IIG-Report-Series 248, TU Graz, Austria, 1988]}, abstract = {Let $P$ denote a set of $n \geq d+1$ points in $d$-space $R^d$. A Gale transform of $P$ assigns to each point in $P$ a vector in space $R^{d+1}$ such that the resulting $n$-tuple of vectors reflects all affinely invariant properties of $P$. First utilized by Gale in the 1950s, Gale transforms have been recognized as a powerful tool in combinatorial geometry. This paper introduces Gale transforms to computational geometry. It offers a direct algorithm for their construction and addresses applications to convex hull and visibility problems. An application to scene analysis is worked out in detail.} } @InProceedings{a-uucbol-00, author = {P. Auer}, title = {Using Upper Confidence Bounds for Online Learning}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 41th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}, pages = {270--293}, year = {2000}, publisher = {IEEE Computer Society} } @Article{a-vdsfg-91a, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {{V}oronoi diagrams -- a survey of a fundamental geometric data structure}, journal = {ACM Computing Surveys}, year = 1991, volume = 23, number = 3, pages = {345--405}, note = {{H}abilitationsschrift. [Report B 90-09, FU Berlin, Germany, 1990]}, abstract = {This paper presents a survey of the Voronoi diagram, one of the most fundamental data structures in computational geometry. It demonstrates the importance and usefulness of the Voronoi diagram in a wide variety of fields inside and outside computer science and surveys the history of its development. The paper puts particular emphasis on the unified exposition of its mathematical and algorithmic properties. Finally, the paper provides the first comprehensive bibliography on Voronoi diagrams and related structures.} } @Article{a-vdsfg-91b, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {{V}oronoi diagrams -- a survey of a fundamental geometric data structure}, journal = {bit acm computing surveys '91 (Japanese translation), Kyoritsu Shuppan Co., Ltd.}, year = 1993, pages = {131--185} } @Article{a-wsdaq-02, author = {P. Auer}, title = {Why Students Don't Ask Questions}, journal = {TELEMATIK}, year = {2002}, pages = {21--23}, volume = {8}, number = {1}, note = {Special Issue on Foundations of Information Processing for the 21st Century}, optannote = {} } @Article{a-wsfsd-07, author = {F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Weighted skeletons and fixed-share decomposition}, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, year = {2007}, volume = {40}, pages = {93-101}, abstract = {We introduce the concept of weighted skeleton of a polygon and present various decomposition and optimality results for this skeletal structure when the underlying polygon is convex.} } @InProceedings{aa-chh-94, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Classifying hyperplanes in hypercubes}, booktitle = {Proc. $10^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '94}, pages = {53--57}, year = 1994, address = {Santander, Spain}, abstract = {We consider hyperplanes spanned by vertices of the unit $d$-cube. We classify these hyperplanes by parallelism to coordinate axes, by symmetry of the $d$-cube vertices they avoid, as well as by so-called hull-honesty. (Hull-honest hyperplanes are those whose intersection figure with the $d$-cube coincides with the convex hull of the $d$-cube vertices they contain; they do not cut $d$-cube edges properly.) We describe relationships between these classes, and give the exact number of hull-honest hyperplanes, in general dimensions. An experimental enumeration of all spanned hyperplanes up to dimension eight showed us the intrinsic difficulty of developing a general enumeration scheme. Motivation for considering such hyperplanes stems from coding theory, from linear programming, and from the theory of machine learning.} } @Article{aa-chh-96, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Classifying hyperplanes in hypercubes}, journal = {SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics}, year = 1996, volume = 9, number = 2, pages = {225--232}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 408, TU Graz, Austria, 1995]}, abstract = {We consider hyperplanes spanned by vertices of the unit $d$-cube. We classify these hyperplanes by parallelism to coordinate axes, by symmetry of the $d$-cube vertices they avoid, as well as by so-called hull-honesty. (Hull-honest hyperplanes are those whose intersection figure with the $d$-cube coincides with the convex hull of the $d$-cube vertices they contain; they do not cut $d$-cube edges properly.) We describe relationships between these classes, and give the exact number of hull-honest hyperplanes, in general dimensions. An experimental enumeration of all spanned hyperplanes up to dimension eight showed us the intrinsic difficulty of developing a general enumeration scheme. Motivation for considering such hyperplanes stems from coding theory, from linear programming, and from the theory of machine learning.} } @InProceedings{aa-ssgpf-96, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Straight skeletons for general polygonal figures}, booktitle = {Proc. $2^{nd}$ Ann. Int'l. Computing and Combinatorics Conf. COCOON'96, Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, pages = {117--126}, year = 1996, volume = 1090, address = {Hong Kong}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 423, TU Graz, Austria, 1995]}, abstract = {A novel type of skeleton for general polygonal figures, the straight skeleton $S(G)$ of a planar straight line graph $G$, is introduced and discussed. Exact bounds on the size of $S(G)$ are derived. The straight line structure of $S(G)$ and its lower combinatorial complexity may make $S(G)$ preferable to the widely used Voronoi diagram (or medial axis) of $G$ in several applications. We explain why $S(G)$ has no Voronoi diagram based interpretation and why standard construction techniques fail to work. A simple $O(n)$ space algorithm for constructing $S(G)$ is proposed. The worst-case running time is $O(n^3 \log n)$, but the algorithm can be expected to be practically efficient, and it is easy to implement. We also show that the concept of $S(G)$ is flexible enough to allow an individual weighting of the edges and vertices of $G$, without changes in the maximal size of $S(G)$, or in the method of construction. Apart from offering an alternative to Voronoi-type skeletons, these generalizations of $S(G)$ have applications to the reconstruction of a geographical terrain from a given river map, and to the construction of a polygonal roof above a given layout of ground walls.} } @InCollection{aa-ssgpf-98, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Straight skeletons for general polygonal figures in the plane}, booktitle = {Voronoi's Impact on Modern Sciences II}, pages = {7--21}, publisher = {Proc. Institute of Mathematics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine}, year = 1998, editor = {A.M. Samoilenko}, volume = 21, address = {Kiev, Ukraine}, abstract = {A novel type of skeleton for general polygonal figures, the straight skeleton $S(G)$ of a planar straight line graph $G$, is introduced and discussed. Exact bounds on the size of $S(G)$ are derived. The straight line structure of $S(G)$ and its lower combinatorial complexity may make $S(G)$ preferable to the widely used Voronoi diagram (or medial axis) of $G$ in several applications. We explain why $S(G)$ has no Voronoi diagram based interpretation and why standard construction techniques fail to work. A simple $O(n)$ space algorithm for constructing $S(G)$ is proposed. The worst-case running time is $O(n^3 \log n)$, but the algorithm can be expected to be practically efficient, and it is easy to implement. We also show that the concept of $S(G)$ is flexible enough to allow an individual weighting of the edges and vertices of $G$, without changes in the maximal size of $S(G)$, or in the method of construction. Apart from offering an alternative to Voronoi-type skeletons, these generalizations of $S(G)$ have applications to the reconstruction of a geographical terrain from a given river map, and to the construction of a polygonal roof above a given layout of ground walls.} } @Article{aa-vdcgf-02, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer}, title = {Voronoi Diagrams - Computational Geometry's Favorite}, journal = {Special Issue on Foundations of Information Processing of {TELEMATIK}}, pages = {7--11}, volume = 1, year = {2002}, address = {Graz, Austria} } @InProceedings{aaacjr-at-10, author = {O. Aichholzer and W. Aigner and F. Aurenhammer and K. \v{C}ech Dobi\.a\v{s}ov\.a and B. J\"uttler and G. Rote}, title = {Arc triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $26^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EuroCG '2010}, pages = {17--20}, year = 2010, address = {Dortmund, Germany}, abstract = {An important objective in the choice of a triangulation of a given point set is that the smallest angle becomes as large as possible. In the straight line case, it is known that the Delaunay triangulation is optimal in this respect. We propose and study the concept of a circular arc triangulation, a simple and effective alternative that offers flexibility for additionally enlarging small angles. We show that angle optimization and related questions lead to linear programming problems that can be formulated as simple graph-theoretic problems, and we define flipping operations in arc triangles. Moreover, special classes of arc triangulations are considered, for applications in finite element methods and graph drawing.} } @InProceedings{aaacjr-twca-11, author = {O. Aichholzer and W. Aigner and F. Aurenhammer and K. \v{C}ech Dobi\.a\v{s}ov\.a and B. J\"uttler and G. Rote}, title = {Triangulations with circular arcs}, booktitle = {Proc. $19^{th}$ Int. Symposium on Graph Drawing, Springer LNCS}, volume = 7034, pages = {296--307}, year = 2011, address = {Eindhoven, Netherlands}, abstract = {An important objective in the choice of a triangulation is that the smallest angle becomes as large as possible. In the straight line case, it is known that the Delaunay triangulation is optimal in this respect. We propose and study the concept of a circular arc triangulation---a simple and effective alternative that offers flexibility for additionally enlarging small angles---and discuss its applications in graph drawing.} } @Article{aaag-ntsp-95, author = {O. Aichholzer and D. Alberts and F. Aurenhammer and B. Gaertner}, title = {A novel type of skeleton for polygons}, journal = {Journal of Universal Computer Science}, year = 1995, volume = 1, number = 12, pages = {752--761}, htmlnote = {Click here for the Online Version}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 424, TU Graz, Austria, 1995]}, abstract = {A new internal structure for simple polygons, the straight skeleton, is introduced and discussed. It is composed of pieces of angular bisectores which partition the interior of a given $n$-gon $P$ in a tree-like fashion into $n$ monotone polygons. Its straight-line structure and its lower combinatorial complexity may make the straight skeleton preferable to the widely used medial axis of a polygon. As a seemingly unrelated application, the straight skeleton provides a canonical way of constructing a polygonal roof above a general layout of ground walls.} } @InProceedings{aaag-sssp-95, author = {O. Aichholzer and D. Alberts and F. Aurenhammer and B. Gaertner}, title = {Straight skeletons of simple polygons}, booktitle = {Proc. $4^{th}$ Int. Symp. of LIESMARS}, pages = {114--124}, year = 1995, address = {Wuhan, P. R. China}, abstract = {A new internal structure for simple polygons, the straight skeleton, is introduced and discussed. It is a tree and partitions the interior of a given $n$-gon $P$ into $n$ monotone polygons, one for each edge of $P$. Its straight-line structure and its lower combinatorial complexity may make the straight skeleton $S(P)$ preferable to the widely used medial axis of $P$. We show that $S(P)$ has no Voronoi diagram structure and give an $O(n r \log n)$ time and $O(n)$ space construction algorithm, where $r$ counts the reflex vertices of $P$. As a seemingly unrelated application, the straight skeleton provides a canonical way of constructing a roof of given slope above a polygonal layout of ground walls.} } @InProceedings{aaahjpr-dcvdr-09, author = {O. Aichholzer and W. Aigner and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. J\"uttler and E. Pilgerstorfer and M. Rabl}, title = {Divide-and conquer for {V}oronoi diagrams revisited}, booktitle = {Proc. $25^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, address = {Aarhus, Denmark}, pages = {189--197}, year = 2009, abstract = {We show how to divide the edge graph of a Voronoi diagram into a tree that corresponds to the medial axis of an (augmented) planar domain. Division into base cases is then possible, which, in the bottom-up phase, can be merged by trivial concatenation. The resulting construction algorithm---similar to Delaunay triangulation methods---is not bisector-based and merely computes dual links between the sites, its atomic steps being inclusion tests for sites in circles. This guarantees computational simplicity and numerical stability. Moreover, no part of the Voronoi diagram, once constructed, has to be discarded again. The algorithm works for polygonal and curved objects as sites and, in particular, for circular arcs which allows its extension to general free-form objects by Voronoi diagram preserving and data saving biarc approximations. The algorithm is randomized, with expected runtime $O(n\logn)$ under certain assumptions on the input data. Experiments substantiate an efficient behavior even when these assumptions are not met. Applications to offset computations and motion planning for general objects are described.} } @Article{aaahjpr-dcvdr-10, author = {O. Aichholzer and W. Aigner and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. J\"uttler and E. Pilgerstorfer and M. Rabl}, title = {Divide-and conquer for {V}oronoi diagrams revisited}, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, volume = {43}, pages = {688-699}, year = 2010, abstract = {We show how to divide the edge graph of a Voronoi diagram into a tree that corresponds to the medial axis of an (augmented) planar domain. Division into base cases is then possible, which, in the bottom-up phase, can be merged by trivial concatenation. The resulting construction algorithm---similar to Delaunay triangulation methods---is not bisector-based and merely computes dual links between the sites, its atomic steps being inclusion tests for sites in circles. This guarantees computational simplicity and numerical stability. Moreover, no part of the Voronoi diagram, once constructed, has to be discarded again. The algorithm works for polygonal and curved objects as sites and, in particular, for circular arcs which allows its extension to general free-form objects by Voronoi diagram preserving and data saving biarc approximations. The algorithm is randomized, with expected runtime $O(n\logn)$ under certain assumptions on the input data. Experiments substantiate an efficient behavior even when these assumptions are not met. Applications to offset computations and motion planning for general objects are described.} } @InProceedings{aaahjpr1-dcvdr-09, author = {O. Aichholzer and W. Aigner and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. J\"uttler and E. Pilgerstorfer and M. Rabl}, title = {Divide-and conquer for {V}oronoi diagrams revisited}, booktitle = {Proc. $25^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EuroCG'09}, address = {Brussels, Belgium}, pages = {293--296}, year = 2009, abstract = {We propose a simple and practical divide-and-conquer algorithm for constructing planar Voronoi diagrams. The novel aspect of the algorithm is its emphasis on the top-down phase, which makes it applicable to sites of general shape.} } @Article{aaahjr-macpffs-08, author = {O. Aichholzer and W. Aigner and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. Juettler and M. Rabl}, title = {Medial axis computation for planar free-form shapes}, journal = {Computer Aided Design}, year = 2009, volume = 41, pages = {339--349}, note = {Special Issue}, abstract = {We present a simple, efficient, and stable method for computing---with any desired precision---the medial axis of simply connected planar domains. The domain boundaries are assumed to be given as polynomial spline curves. Our approach combines known results from the field of geometric approximation theory with a new algorithm from the field of computational geometry. Challenging steps are (1) the approximation of the boundary spline such that the medial axis is geometrically stable, and (2) the efficient decomposition of the domain into base cases where the medial axis can be computed directly and exactly. We solve these problems via spiral biarc approximation and a randomized divide \& conquer algorithm.} } @InProceedings{aaaj-emactsrplm-11, author = {O. Aichholzer and W. Aigner and F. Aurenhammer and B. J\"uttler}, title = {Exact medial axis computation for triangulated solids with respect to piecewise linear metrics}, booktitle = {Proc. Int. Conf. Curves and Surfaces, Springer LNCS}, address = {Avignon, France}, year = 2011, volume = 6920, pages = {1--27}, abstract = {We propose a novel approach for the medial axis approximation of triangulated solids by using a polyhedral unit ball $B$ instead of the standard Euclidean unit ball. By this means, we compute the exact medial axis $MA(\Omega)$ of a triangulated solid $\Omega$ with respect to a piecewise linear (quasi-)metric $d_B$. The obtained representation of $\Omega$ by the medial axis transform $MAT(\Omega)$ allows for a convenient computation of the trimmed offset of $\Omega$ with respect to $d_B$. All calculations are performed within the field of rational numbers, resulting in a robust and efficient implementation of our approach. Adapting the properties of $B$ provides an easy way to control the level of details captured by the medial axis, making use of the implicit pruning at flat boundary features.} } @InProceedings{aabekm-nesca-00, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and B. Brandtstaetter and T. Ebner and H. Krasser and C. Magele}, title = {Niching evolution strategy with cluster algorithms}, booktitle = {$9^{th}$ Biennial IEEE Conf. Electromagnetic Field Computations}, year = 2000, address = {Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA}, abstract = {In most real world optimization problems one tries to determine the global among some or even numerous local solutions within the feasible region of parameters. On the other hand, it could be worth to investigate some of the local solutions as well. Therefore, a most desirable behaviour would be, if the optimization strategy behaves globally and yields additional information about local minima detected on the way to the global solution. In this paper a clustering algorithm has been implemented into an Higher Order Evolution Strategy in order to achieve these goals.} } @Article{aabk-ptsnt-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and P. Brass and H. Krasser}, title = {Pseudo-Triangulations from Surfaces and a Novel Type of Edge Flip}, journal = {SIAM Journal on Computing}, volume = {32}, year = {2003}, pages = {1621--1653}, abstract = {We prove that planar pseudo-triangulations have realizations as polyhedral surfaces in three-space. Two main implications are presented: The spatial embedding leads to a novel flip operation that allows for a drastical reduction of flip distances, especially between (full) triangulations. Moreover, several key results for triangulations, like flipping to optimality, (constrained) Delaunayhood, and a convex polytope representation, are extended to pseudo-triangulations in a natural way.}, address = {Graz, Austria} } @InProceedings{aabk-sept-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and P. Brass and H. Krasser}, title = {Spatial Embedding of Pseudo-Triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $19^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, address = {San Diego, California, USA}, pages = {144--153}, year = 2003, abstract = {We show that pseudo-triangulations have natural embeddings in three-space. As a consequence, various concepts for triangulations, like flipping to optimality, (constrained) Delaunayhood, and a polytope representation carry over to pseudo-triangulations.} } @InProceedings{aabkmmr-eshc-01, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and B. Brandtstaetter and H. Krasser and C. Magele and M. Muehlmann and W. Renhart}, title = {Evolution trategy and ierarchical lustering}, booktitle = {$13^{th}$ COMPUMAG Conference on the Computation of Electromagnetic Fields}, year = 2001, address = {Lyon-Evian, France}, abstract = {Multi-objective optimization problems, in general, exhibit several local optima besides a global one. A desirable feature of any optimization strategy would therefore be to supply the user with as many information as possible about local optima on the way to the global solution. In this paper a hierarchical clustering algorithm implemented into a higher order Evolution Strategy is applied to achieve these goals.} } @Article{aackrtx-tin-96, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and S.-W. Cheng and N. Katoh and G. Rote and M. Taschwer and Y.-F. Xu}, title = {Triangulations intersect nicely}, journal = {Discrete \& Computational Geometry}, year = 1996, volume = 16, pages = {339--359}, note = {Special Issue. [SFB Report F003-030, TU Graz, Austria, 1995]}, abstract = {We show that there is a matching between the edges of any two triangulations of a planar point set such that an edge of one triangulation is matched either to the identical edge in the other triangulation or to an edge that crosses it. This theorem also holds for the triangles of the triangulations and in general independence systems. As an application, we give some lower bounds for the minimum weight triangulation which can be computed in polynomial time by matching and network flow techniques. We exhibit an easy-to-recognize class of point sets for which the minimum-weight triangulation coincides with the greedy triangulation.} } @InProceedings{aaclmp-vddsd-97, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and D.Z. Chen and D.T. Lee and A. Mukhopadhyay and E. Papadopoulou}, title = {{V}oronoi diagrams for direction-sensitive distances (communication)}, booktitle = {Proc. $13^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {418--420}, year = 1997, address = {Nice, France}, note = {[SFB Report F003-098, TU Graz, Austria, 1996]}, abstract = {On a tilted plane $T$ in three-space, direction-sensitive distances are defined as the Euclidean distance plus a multiple of the signed difference in height. These direction-sensitive distances, called skew distances generalize the Euclidean distance and may model realistic environments more closely than the Euclidean distance. Various Voronoi diagrams and related problems under this kind of distances are investigated. A relationship to convex distance functions and to Euclidean Voronoi diagrams for planar circles is shown, and is exploited for a geometric analysis and a plane-sweep construction of Voronoi diagrams on $T$. Several optimal algorithms based on the direction-sensitive distances on $T$ are presented. For example, an output-sensitive algorithm is developed for computing the skew distance Voronoi diagram with $n$ sites on $T$, in $O(n \log h)$ time and $O(n)$ space, where $h$ is the number of sites which have non-empty Voronoi regions ($1 \leq h \leq n$). $O(n \log n)$ time and $O(n)$ space algorithms are also given for several other problems under skew distances, including the all nearest neighbors and the layers of Voronoi diagram. These algorithms have certain features different from their 'ordinary' counterparts based on the Euclidean distance.} } @Article{aaclp-svd-99, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and D.Z. Chen and D.T. Lee and E. Papadopoulou}, title = {Skew {V}oronoi diagrams}, journal = {Int'l. Journal of Computational Geometry \& Applications}, year = 1999, volume = 9, pages = {235--247}, htmlnote = {Click here for Figures and Animations of Skew Voronoi Diagrams}, abstract = {On a tilted plane $T$ in three-space, {\em skew distances\/} are defined as the Euclidean distance plus a multiple of the signed difference in height. Skew distances may model realistic environ\-ments more closely than the Euclidean distance. Voro\-noi diagrams and related problems under this kind of distances are investigated. A relationship to convex distance functions and to Euclidean Voronoi diagrams for planar circles is shown, and is exploited for a geometric analysis and a plane-sweep construction of Voronoi diagrams on $T$. An output-sensitive algorithm running in time $O(n \log h)$ is developed, where $n$ and $h$ is the number of sites and non-empty Voronoi regions, respectively. The all nearest neighbors problem for skew distances, which has certain features different from its Euclidean counterpart, is solved in $O(n \log n)$ time.} } @Article{aadhru-okcp-11, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and E.D. Demaine and F. Hurtado and P. Ramos and J. Urrutia}, title = {On $k$-convex polygons}, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, year = 2012, volume = 45, pages = {73--87}, abstract = {We introduce the notion of $k$-convexity and explore polygons in the plane that have this property. Polygons which are $k$-convex can be triangulated with fast yet simple algorithms. However, recognizing them is a 3SUM-hard problem. We give a characterization of 2-convex polygons, a particularly interesting class, and show how to recognize them in $O(n \log n)$ time. A description of their shape is given as well, which leads to Erd\"os-Szekeres type results regarding subconfigurations of their vertex sets. Finally, we introduce the concept of generalized geometric permutations, and show that their number can be exponential in the number of 2-convex objects considered.} } @InProceedings{aadhtv-09, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and O. Devillers and T. Hackl and M. Teillaud and B. Vogtenhuber}, title = {Lower and upper bounds on the number of empty cylinders and ellipsoids}, booktitle = {Proc. $25^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EuroCG'09}, address = {Brussels, Belgium}, pages = {139--141}, year = 2009 } @InProceedings{aaghhhkrv-mefpp-05, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and P. Gonzalez-Nava and T. Hackl and C. Huemer and F. Hurtado and H. Krasser and S. Ray and B. Vogtenhuber}, title = {Matching edges and faces in polygonal partitions}, booktitle = {Proc. $17^{th}$ Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry CCCG '05}, pages = {123--126}, year = 2005, address = {Windsor, Ontario}, abstract = {We define general Laman (count) conditions for edges and faces of polygonal partitions in the plane. Several well-known classes, including $k$-regular partitions, $k$-angulations, and rank-$k$ pseudo-triangulations, are shown to fulfill such conditions. As a consequence, non-trivial perfect matchings exist between the edge sets (or face sets) of two such structures when they live on the same point set. We also describe a link to spanning tree decompositions that applies to quadrangulations and certain pseudo-triangulations.} } @Article{aaghhhkrv-mefpp-07, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and P. Gonzalez-Nava and T. Hackl and C. Huemer and F. Hurtado and H. Krasser and S. Ray and B. Vogtenhuber}, title = {Matching edges and faces in polygonal partitions}, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, year = {2008}, volume = 39, pages = {134--141}, abstract = {We define general Laman (count) conditions for edges and faces of polygonal partitions in the plane. Several well-known classes, including $k$-regular partitions, $k$-angulations, and rank-$k$ pseudo-triangulations, are shown to fulfill such conditions. As a consequence, non-trivial perfect matchings exist between the edge sets (or face sets) of two such structures when they live on the same point set. We also describe a link to spanning tree decompositions that applies to quadrangulations and certain pseudo-triangulations.} } @InProceedings{aah-eoncs-00, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and F. Hurtado}, title = {Edge Operations on Non-Crossing Spanning Trees}, booktitle = {Proc. $16^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '2000}, pages = {121--125}, year = 2000, address = {Eilat, Israel}, htmlnote = {You can download our MST-Tool.} , abstract = {Let $S$ be a set of $n$ points in the Euclidean plane. Consider the set ${\cal T}_S$ of all non-crossing spanning trees of $S$. A {\em tree graph\/} ${\cal TG}_{\tt op}(S)$ is the graph that has ${\cal T}_S$ as its vertex set and that connects vertex (tree) $T$ to vertex $T'$ iff $T' = {\tt op}(T)$, where ${\tt op}$ is some operation that exchanges two tree edges following a specific rule. The existence of a path between two vertices in ${\cal TG}_{\tt op}(S)$ means transformability of the corresponding trees into each other by repeated application of the operation ${\tt op}$. The length of a shortest path corresponds to the distance between the two trees with respect to the operation ${\tt op}$. Distances of this kind provide a measure of similarity between trees. We prove new results on ${\cal TG}_{\tt op}(S)$ for two classical operations ${\tt op}$, namely the (improving and crossing-free) {\em edge move\/} and the (crossing-free) {\em edge slide\/}. Applications to morphing of trees and to the continuous deformation of sets of line segments seem reasonable. Our results mainly rely on a fact of interest in its own right: Let $MST(S)$ and $DT(S)$ be the minimum spanning tree and the Delaunay triangulation of $S$, respectively. Then any pair $(T,\Delta)$, for $T \in {\cal T}_S$ and $\Delta$ being $T's$ constrained Delaunay triangulation, can be transformed into the pair $(MST(S),DT(S))$ via a canonical tree/triangulation sequence.} } @InProceedings{aah-fps-01a, author = {O. Aichholzer and L.S. Alboul and F. Hurtado}, title = {On Flips in Polyhedral Surfaces}, booktitle = {Proc. $17^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '2001}, pages = {27--30}, year = 2001, address = {Berlin, Germany}, htmlnote = {See also our interactive web-page.}, abstract = {Let $V$ be a finite point set in 3D-space, and let ${\cal S}(V)$ be the set of triangulated polyhedral surfaces homeomorphic to a sphere and with vertex set $V$. Let $abc$ and $cbd$ be two adjacent triangles belonging to a surface $S\in {\cal S}(V)$; the {\sl flip} of the edge $bc$ would replace these two triangles by the triangles $abd$ and $adc$. The flip operation is only considered when it does not produce a self--intersecting surface. In this paper we show that given two surfaces $S_1, S_2\in {\cal S}(V)$, it is possible that there is no sequence of flips transforming $S_1$ into $S_2$, even in the case that $V$ consists of points in convex position.} } @Article{aah-fps-01b, author = {O. Aichholzer and L.S. Alboul and F. Hurtado}, title = {On Flips in Polyhedral Surfaces}, journal = {International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science (IJFCS), special issue on Volume and Surface Triangulations}, year = 2002, volume = 13, number = 2, pages = {303--311}, abstract = {Let $V$ be a finite point set in 3-space, and let ${\cal S}(V)$ be the set of triangulated polyhedral surfaces homeomorphic to a sphere and with vertex set $V$. Let $abc$ and $cbd$ be two adjacent triangles belonging to a surface $S\in {\cal S}(V)$; the {\sl flip} of the edge $bc$ would replace these two triangles by the triangles $abd$ and $adc$. The flip operation is only considered when it does not produce a self--intersecting surface. In this paper we show that given two surfaces $S_1, S_2\in {\cal S}(V)$, it is possible that there is no sequence of flips transforming $S_1$ into $S_2$, even in the case that $V$ consists of points in convex position.} } @Article{aah-nrms-99, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and R. Hainz}, title = {New results on {MWT} subgraphs}, journal = {Information Processing Letters}, year = 1999, volume = 69, pages = {215--219}, note = {[SFB Report F003-140, TU Graz, Austria, 1998]}, abstract = {Let $P$ be a polygon in the plane. We disprove the conjecture that the so-called LMT-skeleton coincides with the intersection of all locally minimal triangulations, $LMT(P)$, even for convex polygons $P$. We introduce an improved LMT-skeleton algorithm which, for any simple polygon $P$, exactly computes $LMT(P)$, and thus a larger subgraph of the minimum-weight triangulation $MWT(P)$. The algorithm achieves the same in the general point set case provided the connectedness of the improved LMT-skeleton, which is given in allmost all practical instances. We further observe that the $\beta$-skeleton of $P$ is a subset of $MWT(P)$ for all values $\beta > \sqrt{\frac{4}{3}}$ provided $P$ is convex or near-convex. This gives evidence for the tightness of this bound in the general point set case.} } @InProceedings{aah-ptlc-06, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl}, title = {Pre-triangulations and liftable complexes}, booktitle = {$22^{nd}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, year = 2006, pages = {282--291}, address = {Sedona, Arizona, USA}, abstract = {We introduce and discuss the concept of pre-triangulations, a relaxation of triangulations that goes beyond the well-established class of pseudo-triangulations.} } @Article{aah-ptlc-07, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl}, title = {Pre-triangulations and liftable complexes}, journal = {Discrete \& Computational Geometry}, volume = 38, year = 2007, pages = {701--725}, abstract = {We introduce the concept of pre-triangulations, a relaxation of triangulations that goes beyond the frequently used concept of pseudo-triangulations. Pre-triangulations turn out to be more natural than pseudo-triangulations in certain cases. We show that pre-triangulations arise in three different contexts: In the characterization of polygonal complexes that are liftable to three-space in a strong sense, in flip sequences for general polygonal complexes, and as graphs of maximal locally convex functions.} } @Article{aah-sstft-00, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and F. Hurtado}, title = {Sequences of spanning trees and a fixed tree theorem}, year = 2002, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, volume = {21}, number = {1--2}, pages = {3--20}, note = {Special Issue. [Report MA2-IR-00-00026, Universitat Polite\'cnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, 2000]}, htmlnote = {You can also download the nice program MST-Tool we used to check and visualize some of the presented results!}, abstract = {Let ${\cal T}_S$ be the set of all crossing-free spanning trees of a planar $n$-point set $S$. We prove that ${\cal T}_S$ contains, for each of its members $T$, a length-decreasing sequence of trees $T_o,\ldots,T_k$ such that $T_o=T$, $T_k=MST(S)$, $T_i$ does not cross $T_{i-1}$ for $i=1,\ldots,k$, and $k=O(\log n)$. Here $MST(S)$ denotes the Euclidean minimum spanning tree of the point set $S$. As an implication, the number of length-improving and planar edge moves needed to transform a tree $T \in {\cal T}_S$ into $MST(S)$ is only $O(n\log n)$. Moreover, it is possible to transform any two trees in ${\cal T}_S$ into each other by means of a local and constant-size edge slide operation. Applications of these results to morphing of simple polygons are possible by using a crossing-free spanning tree as a skeleton description of a polygon.} } @Article{aahh-ccps-06, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and C. Huemer}, title = {Connecting colored point sets}, journal = {Discrete Applied Mathematics}, volume = 155, year = 2007, pages = {271--278}, abstract = {We study the following Ramsey-type problem. Let \mbox{$S = B \cup R$} be a two-colored set of $n$ points in the plane. We show how to construct, in \mbox{$O(n \log n)$} time, a crossing-free spanning tree $T(R)$ for~$R$, and a crossing-free spanning tree $T(B)$ for~$B$, such that both the number of crossings between $T(R)$ and $T(B)$ and the diameters of~$T(R)$ and $T(B)$ are kept small. The algorithm is conceptually simple and is implementable without using any non-trivial data structure. This improves over a previous method in Tokunaga~\cite{T} that is less efficient in implementation and does not guarantee a diameter bound.} } @InProceedings{aahhpv-3cpt, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and C. Huemer and A. Pilz and B. Vogtenhuber}, title = {3-colorability of pseudo-triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $26^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EuroCG'10}, address = {Dortmund, Germany}, pages = {21--24}, year = 2010, abstract = {Deciding $3$-colorability for general plane graphs is known to be an NP-complete problem. However, for certain classes of plane graphs, like triangulations, polynomial time algorithms exist. We consider the family of pseudo-triangulations (a generalization of triangulations) and prove NP-completeness for this class, even if the maximum face-degree is bounded to four, or pointed pseudo-triangulations with maximum face degree five are considered. As a complementary result, we show that for pointed pseudo-triangulations with maximum face-degree four, a $3$-coloring always exists and can be found in linear time.} } @InProceedings{aahjos-csacbr-07, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. Juettler and M. Oberneder and Z. Sir}, title = {Computational and Structural Advantages of Circular Boundary Representation}, booktitle = {Proc. 10th Int. Workshop on Algorithms and Data Structures, WADS'07, Springer LNCS 4619}, year = 2007, address = {Halifax, Canada}, pages = {374-385}, abstract = {Boundary approximation of planar shapes by circular arcs has quantitive and qualitative advantages compared to using straight-line segments. We demonstrate this by way of three basic and frequent computations on shapes -- convex hull, decomposition, and medial axis. In particular, we propose a novel medial axis algorithm that beats existing methods in simplicity and practicality, and at the same time guarantees convergence to the medial axis of the original shape. } } @Article{aahjos-csacbr-10, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. Juettler and M. Oberneder and Z. Sir}, title = {Computational and Structural Advantages of Circular Boundary Representation}, journal = {Int'l Journal of Computational Geometry \& Applications}, volume = 21, year = 2011, pages = {47--69}, abstract = {Boundary approximation of planar shapes by circular arcs has quantitive and qualitative advantages compared to using straight-line segments. We demonstrate this by way of three basic and frequent computations on shapes -- convex hull, decomposition, and medial axis. In particular, we propose a novel medial axis algorithm that beats existing methods in simplicity and practicality, and at the same time guarantees convergence to the medial axis of the original shape.} } @InProceedings{aahk-tct-01, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and F. Hurtado and H. Krasser}, title = {Towards Compatible Triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $7^{th}$ Ann. Int'l. Computing and Combinatorics Conf. COCOON'01, Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, pages = {101--110}, year = 2001, volume = {2108}, address = {Guilin, China}, editor = {Jie Wang}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {We state the following conjecture: any two planar $n$-point sets (that agree on the number of convex hull points) can be triangulated in a compatible manner, i.e., such that the resulting two planar graphs are isomorphic. The conjecture is proved true for point sets with at most three interior points. We further exhibit a class of point sets which can be triangulated compatibly with any other set (that satisfies the obvious size and hull restrictions). Finally, we prove that adding a small number of Steiner points (the number of interior points minus two) always allows for compatible triangulations.} } @Article{aahk-tct-01b, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and F. Hurtado and H. Krasser}, title = {Towards Compatible Triangulations}, year = 2003, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, note = {Special Issue}, volume = {296}, pages = {3--13}, publisher = {Elsevier}, abstract = {We state the following conjecture: any two planar $n$-point sets (that agree on the number of convex hull points) can be triangulated in a compatible manner, i.e., such that the resulting two triangulations are topologically equivalent. The conjecture is proved true for point sets with at most three interior points. We further exhibit a class of point sets which can be triangulated compatibly with any other set that satisfies the obvious size and hull restrictions. Finally, we prove that adding a small number of extraneous points (the number of interior points minus two) always allows for compatible triangulations.} } @InProceedings{aahk-tspt-05, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and C. Huemer and H. Krasser}, title = {Transforming spanning trees and pseudo-triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $21^{st}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EuroCG '05}, pages = {81--84}, year = 2005, address = {Eindhoven, The Netherlands}, abstract = {Let $T_{S}$ be the set of all crossing-free straight line spanning trees of a planar $n$-point set~$S$. Consider the graph ${\cal T}_S$ where two members $T$ and $T'$ of $T_{S}$ are adjacent if $T$ intersects $T'$ only in points of~$S$ or in common edges. We prove that the diameter of~${\cal T}_S$ is $O(\log k)$, where $k$ denotes the number of convex layers of $S$. Based on this result, we show that the flip graph~${\cal P}_S$ of pseudo-triangulations of~$S$ (where two pseudo-triangulations are adjacent if they differ in exactly one edge -- either by replacement or by removal) has a dia\-meter of $O(n \log k)$. This sharpens a known $O(n \log n)$ bound. Let~${\cal \widehat{P}}_S$ be the induced subgraph of pointed pseudo-triangulations of~${\cal P}_S$. We present an example showing that the distance between two nodes in~${\cal \widehat{P}}_S$ is strictly larger than the distance between the corresponding nodes in~${\cal P}_S$.} } @Article{aahk-tspt-06, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and C. Huemer and H. Krasser}, title = {Transforming spanning trees and pseudo-triangulations}, journal = {Information Processing Letters}, pages = {19--22}, volume = {97}, year = 2006, abstract = {Let $T_{S}$ be the set of all crossing-free straight line spanning trees of a planar $n$-point set~$S$. Consider the graph ${\cal T}_S$ where two members $T$ and $T'$ of $T_{S}$ are adjacent if $T$ intersects $T'$ only in points of~$S$ or in common edges. We prove that the diameter of~${\cal T}_S$ is $O(\log k)$, where $k$ denotes the number of convex layers of $S$. Based on this result, we show that the flip graph~${\cal P}_S$ of pseudo-triangulations of~$S$ (where two pseudo-triangulations are adjacent if they differ in exactly one edge -- either by replacement or by removal) has a dia\-meter of $O(n \log k)$. This sharpens a known $O(n \log n)$ bound. Let~${\cal \widehat{P}}_S$ be the induced subgraph of pointed pseudo-triangulations of~${\cal P}_S$. We present an example showing that the distance between two nodes in~${\cal \widehat{P}}_S$ is strictly larger than the distance between the corresponding nodes in~${\cal P}_S$.} } @InProceedings{aahkpp-abtob-07, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. Kornberger and M. Peternell and H. Pottmann}, title = {Approximating boundary-triangulated objects with balls}, booktitle = {Proc. 23rd European Workshop on Computational Geometry, EWCG'07}, year = 2007, address = {Graz, Austria}, pages = {130--133}, abstract = {We compute a set of balls that approximates a given 3D object, and we derive small additive bounds for the overhead in balls with respect to the minimal solution with the same quality. The algorithm has been implemented and tested using the CGAL library.} } @InProceedings{aahkprsv-spia-08, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. Kornberger and S. Plantinga and G. Rote and A. Sturm and G. Vegter}, title = {Seed polytopes for incremental approximation}, booktitle = {Proc. $24^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EuroCG '08}, year = 2008, pages = {13--16}, address = {Nancy, France}, abstract = {Approximating a three-dimensional object in order to simplify its handling is a classical topic in computational geometry and related fields. A typical approach is based on incremental approximation algorithms, which start with a small and topologically correct polytope representation (the seed polytope) of a given sample point cloud or input mesh. In addition, a correspondence between the faces of the polytope and the respective regions of the object boundary is needed to guarantee correctness. We construct such a polytope by first computing a simplified though still homotopy equivalent medial axis transform of the input object. Then, we inflate this medial axis to a polytope of small size. Since our approximation maintains topology, the simplified medial axis transform is also useful for skin surfaces and envelope surfaces.} } @InProceedings{aahlrss-swe-05, author = {B. Aronov and F. Aurenhammer and F. Hurtado and S. Langerman and D. Rappaport and S. Smorodinsky and C. Seara}, title = {Small weak epsilon nets}, booktitle = {Proc. $17^{th}$ Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry CCCG '05}, pages = {51--54}, year = 2005, address = {Windsor, Ontario}, abstract = {Let S be a family of sets in the plane. Let 0 < epsilon(S,i) < 1 denote the minimum real number such that for any finite point set P there exists a set Q of i points that is a weak epsilon(S,i)-net for P with respect to S. We derice upper and lower bounds on epsilon(S,i) for small integers i and when S is the family of all convex sets, or the family of all axis-parallel rectangles.} } @Article{aahlrss-swe-07, author = {B. Aronov and F. Aurenhammer and F. Hurtado and S. Langerman and D. Rappaport and S. Smorodinsky and C. Seara}, title = {Small weak epsilon nets}, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, year = 2009, volume = 42, pages = {455--462}, note = {Special Issue}, abstract = {Let S be a family of sets in the plane. Let 0 < epsilon(S,i) < 1 denote the minimum real number such that for any finite point set P there exists a set Q of i points that is a weak epsilon(S,i)-net for P with respect to S. We derice upper and lower bounds on epsilon(S,i) for small integers i and when S is the family of all convex sets, or the family of all axis-parallel rectangles.} } @InProceedings{aahru-tcp-09, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and F. Hurtado and P.A. Ramos and J. Urrutia}, title = {Two-convex polygons}, booktitle = {Proc. $25^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EuroCG'09}, address = {Brussels, Belgium}, pages = {117--120}, year = 2009, abstract = {We introduce a notion of k-convexity and explore some properties of polygons that have this property. In particular, 2-convex polygons can be recognized in \mbox{$O(n \log n)$} time, and k-convex polygons can be triangulated in $O(kn)$ time.} } @Article{aahs-mwpt-08, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. Speckmann}, title = {On minimum weight pseudo-triangulations}, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, year = 2009, volume = 42, pages = {627--631}, abstract = {In this note we discuss some structural properties of minimum weight pseudo-triangulations.} } @InProceedings{aahs-pmwpt-07, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Hackl and B. Speckmann}, title = {On (pointed) minimum weight pseudo-triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $19^{th}$ Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry CCCG '07}, year = 2007, address = {Ottawa, Canada}, pages = {209-212}, abstract = {In this note we discuss some structural properties of minimum weight (pointed) pseudo-triangulations.} } @InProceedings{aahv-gcepslg-06, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and C. Huemer and B. Vogtenhuber}, title = {Gray code enumeration of plane straight-line graphs}, booktitle = {Proc. $22^{nd}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EuroCG '06}, year = 2006, pages = {71--74}, address = {Delphi, Greece}, abstract = {We develop Gray code enumeration schemes for geometric graphs in the plane. The considered graph classes include plane straight-line graphs, plane spanning trees, and connected plane straight-line graphs. Previous results were restricted to the case where the underlying vertex set is in convex position.} } @Article{aahv-gcepslg-07, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and C. Huemer and B. Vogtenhuber}, title = {Gray code enumeration of plane straight-line graphs}, journal = {Graphs and Combinatorics}, year = 2007, volume = 23, pages = {467--479}, abstract = {We develop Gray code enumeration schemes for geometric graphs in the plane. The considered graph classes include plane straight-line graphs, plane spanning trees, and connected plane straight-line graphs. Previous results were restricted to the case where the underlying vertex set is in convex position.} } @InProceedings{aaiklr-gsac-98a, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and C. Icking and R. Klein and E. Langetepe and G. Rote}, title = {Generalized self-approaching curves}, booktitle = {Proc. $14^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '98}, pages = {15--18}, year = 1998, address = {Barcelona, Spain}, abstract = {We consider all planar oriented curves that have the following property. For each point $B$ on the curve, the rest of the curve lies inside a wedge of angle $\varphi$ with apex in $B$, where $\varphi < \Pi$ is fixed. This property restrains the curve's meandering. we provide an upper bound $c(\varphi)$ for the length of such a curve, divided by the distance between its endpoints, and prove this bound to be tight. A main step is in proving that the curve's length cannot exceed the perimeter of its convex hull, divided by $1+\cos(\varphi)$.} } @InProceedings{aaiklr-gsac-98b, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and C. Icking and R. Klein and E. Langetepe and G. Rote}, title = {Generalized self-approaching curves}, booktitle = {Proc. $9^{th}$ Int. Symp. Algorithms and Computation ISAAC'98, Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, pages = {317--326}, year = 1998, volume = 1533, address = {Taejon, Korea}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {We consider all planar oriented curves that have the following property depending on a fixed angle $\varphi$. For each point $B$ on the curve, the rest of the curve lies inside a wedge of angle $\varphi$ with apex in $B$. This property restrains the curve's meandering, and for $\varphi \leq \Pi/2$ this means that a point running along the curve always gets closer to all points on the remaining part. For all $\varphi < \Pi$, we provide an upper bound $c(\varphi)$ for the length of such a curve, divided by the distance between its endpoints, and prove this bound to be tight. A main step is in proving that the curve's length cannot exceed the perimeter of its convex hull, divided by $1+\cos(\varphi)$.} } @Article{aaiklr-vsac-00, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and C. Icking and R. Klein and E. Langetepe and G. Rote}, title = {Generalized self-approaching curves}, journal = {Discrete Applied Mathematics}, year = 2001, note = {Special Issue. [SFB-Report F003-134, TU Graz, Austria, 1998]}, pages = {3--24}, volume = {109}, number = {1-2}, abstract = {We consider all planar oriented curves that have the following property depending on a fixed angle $\varphi$. For each point $B$ on the curve, the rest of the curve lies inside a wedge of angle $\varphi$ with apex in $B$. This property restrains the curve's meandering, and for $\varphi \leq \Pi/2$ this means that a point running along the curve always gets closer to all points on the remaining part. For all $\varphi < \Pi$, we provide an upper bound $c(\varphi)$ for the length of such a curve, divided by the distance between its endpoints, and prove this bound to be tight. A main step is in proving that the curve's length cannot exceed the perimeter of its convex hull, divided by $1+\cos(\varphi)$.} } @InProceedings{aak-aptnl-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {Adapting (Pseudo)-Triangulations with a Near-Linear Number of Edge Flips}, booktitle = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2748, Proc. 8th International Workshop on Algorithms and Data Structures (WADS)}, volume = {2748}, pages = {12--24}, year = 2003, abstract = {We provide two results on flip distances in pseudo-triangulations -- for minimum pseudo-triangulations when using traditional flips operations, as well as for triangulations when a novel and natural edge flip operation is included into the repertoire of admissible flips. The obtained flip distance lengths are $O(n \log^2 n)$ and $O(n \log n)$, respectively. Our results partially rely on new partitioning results for pseudo-triangulations which may be of separate interest.} } @InProceedings{aak-cncg-02, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {On the Crossing Number of Complete Graphs}, year = 2002, booktitle = {Proc. $18^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {19--24}, address = {Barcelona, Spain}, htmlnote = {See also our crossing number homepage.}, abstract = {Let $\overline{cr}(G)$ denote the rectilinear crossing number of a graph $G$. We determine $\overline{cr}(K_{11})=102$ and $\overline{cr}(K_{12})=153$. Despite the remarkable hunt for crossing numbers of the complete graph~$K_n$ -- initiated by R.~Guy in the 1960s -- these quantities have been unknown for $n>10$ to~date. Our solution mainly relies on a tailor-made method for enumerating all inequivalent sets of points (so-called order types) of size $11$. Based on these findings, we establish new upper and lower bounds on $\overline{cr}(K_{n})$ for general~$n$. Specific values for $n \leq 45$ are given, along with significantly improved asymptotic values. The asymptotic lower bound is immediate from the fact $\overline{cr}(K_{11})=102$, whereas the upper bound stems from a novel construction of drawings with few crossings. The construction is shown to be optimal within its frame. The tantalizing question of determining $\overline{cr}(K_{13})$ is left open. The latest ra(n)ge is $\{221,223,225,227,229\}$; our conjecture is $\overline{cr}(K_{13}) = 229$.} } @InProceedings{aak-cncg-02b, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {On the Crossing Number of Complete Graphs - Extended Abstract}, year = 2002, booktitle = {Proc. $18^{th}$ European Workshop on Computationl Geometry CG '02 Warszawa}, pages = {90-92}, address = {Warszawa, Poland}, htmlnote = {See also our crossing number homepage.}, abstract = {Let $\overline{cr}(G)$ denote the rectilinear crossing number of a graph $G$. We determine $\overline{cr}(K_{11})=102$ and $\overline{cr}(K_{12})=153$. Despite the remarkable hunt for crossing numbers of the complete graph~$K_n$ -- initiated by R.~Guy in the 1960s -- these quantities have been unknown for $n>10$ to~date. Our solution mainly relies on a tailor-made method for enumerating all inequivalent sets of points (so-called order types) of size $11$. Based on these findings, we establish new upper and lower bounds on $\overline{cr}(K_{n})$ for general~$n$. Specific values for $n \leq 45$ are given, along with significantly improved asymptotic values. The asymptotic lower bound is immediate from the fact $\overline{cr}(K_{11})=102$, whereas the upper bound stems from a novel construction of drawings with few crossings. The construction is shown to be optimal within its frame. The tantalizing question of determining $\overline{cr}(K_{13})$ is left open. The latest ra(n)ge is $\{221,223,225,227,229\}$; our conjecture is $\overline{cr}(K_{13}) = 229$.} } @Article{aak-cncg-06, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {On the Crossing Number of Complete Graphs}, year = 2006, journal = {Computing}, pages = {165--176}, volume = {76}, htmlnote = {See also our crossing number homepage.}, abstract = {Let $\overline{cr}(G)$ denote the rectilinear crossing number of a graph~$G$. We determine $\overline{cr}(K_{11})=102$ and $\overline{cr}(K_{12})=153$. Despite the remarkable hunt for crossing numbers of the complete graph~$K_n$ -- initiated by R.~Guy in the 1960s -- these quantities have been unknown for \mbox{$n>10$} to~date. Our solution mainly relies on a tailor-made method for enumerating all inequivalent sets of points (order types) of size~$11$. Based on these findings, we establish a new upper bound on $\overline{cr}(K_{n})$ for general~$n$. The bound stems from a novel construction of drawings of $K_{n}$ with few crossings.} } @InProceedings{aak-ctps-01, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {On Compatible Triangulations of Point Sets}, booktitle = {Proc. $17^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '2001}, pages = {23--26}, year = 2001, address = {Berlin, Germany}, abstract = {Two conjectures on compatible triangulations for planar point sets are stated and proven for small sets and for special sets of arbitrary size.} } @InProceedings{aak-eotsp-01, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {Enumerating Order Types for Small Point Sets with Applications}, booktitle = {Proc. $17^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {11--18}, year = 2001, address = {Medford, Massachusetts, USA}, htmlnote = {See also our order type homepage.}, abstract = {Order types are a means to characterize the combinatorial properties of a finite point configuration. In particular, the crossing properties of all straight-line segments spanned by a planar $n$-point set are reflected by its order type. We establish a complete and reliable data base for all possible order types of size $n=10$ or less. The data base includes a realizing point set for each order type in small integer grid representation. To our knowledge, no such project has been carried out before. We substantiate the usefulness of our data base by applying it to several problems in computational and combinatorial geometry. Problems concerning triangulations, simple polygonalizations, complete geometric graphs, and $k$-sets are addressed. This list of possible applications is not meant to be exhaustive. We believe our data base to be of value to many researchers who wish to examine their conjectures on small point configurations. } } @Article{aak-eotsp-01a, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {Enumerating Order Types for Small Point Sets with Applications}, journal = {Order}, pages = {265--281}, volume = 19, year = {2002}, htmlnote = {See also our order type homepage.}, abstract = {Order types are a means to characterize the combinatorial properties of a finite point configuration. In particular, the crossing properties of all straight-line segments spanned by a planar $n$-point set are reflected by its order type. We establish a complete and reliable data base for all possible order types of size $n=10$ or less. The data base includes a realizing point set for each order type in small integer grid representation. To our knowledge, no such project has been carried out before. We substantiate the usefulness of our data base by applying it to several problems in computational and combinatorial geometry. Problems concerning triangulations, simple polygonalizations, complete geometric graphs, and $k$-sets are addressed. This list of possible applications is not meant to be exhaustive. We believe our data base to be of value to many researchers who wish to examine their conjectures on small point configurations. } } @Article{aak-pc-02, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {Points and Combinatorics}, journal = {Special Issue on Foundations of Information Processing of {TELEMATIK}}, pages = {12--17}, volume = 1, year = {2002}, address = {Graz, Austria} } @TechReport{aak-prcn-01, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {Progress on rectilinear crossing numbers}, institution = {IGI-TU Graz, Austria}, year = 2002, abstract = {Let $\overline{cr}(G)$ denote the rectilinear crossing number of a graph $G$. We show $\overline{cr}(K_{11})=102$ and $\overline{cr}(K_{12})=153$. Despite the remarkable hunt for the crossing number of the complete graph $K_n$, initiated by R. Guy in the 1960s, these quantities have been unknown for $n>10$ to date. We also establish new upper and lower bounds on $\overline{cr}(K_{n})$ for $13 \leq n \leq 20$, along with an improved general lower bound for $\overline{cr}(K_{n})$. The results mainly rely on recent methods developed by the authors for exhaustively enumerating all combinatorially inequivalent sets of points (so-called order types). }, htmlnote = {See also our crossing number homepage.} } @InProceedings{aakprsv-rsro-09, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and B. Kornberger and S. Plantinga and G. Rote and A. Sturm and G. Vegter}, title = {Recovering structure from $r$-sampled objects}, booktitle = {Eurographics Symposium on Geometry Processing, Computer Graphics Forum}, volume = {28}, year = 2009, address = {Berlin, Germany}, pages = {1349-1360}, note = {Special Issue} } @InProceedings{aaks-cmpt-02, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser and B. Speckmann}, title = {Convexity Minimizes Pseudo-Triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $14th$ Annual Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry CCCG 2002}, pages = {158--161}, year = 2002, address = {Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada}, abstract = {For standard triangulations it is not known which sets of points have the fewest or the most triangulations. In contrast, we show that sets of points in convex position minimize the number of minimum pseudo-triangulations. This adds to the common belief that minimum pseudo-triangulations are more tractable in many respects.} } @Article{aaks-cmpt-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser and B. Speckmann}, title = {Convexity Minimizes Pseudo-Triangulations}, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, volume = {28}, pages = {3--10}, year = 2004, abstract = {The number of minimum pseudo-triangulations is minimized for point sets in convex position.} } @InProceedings{aap-qpssc-02, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and B. Palop}, title = {Quickest Paths, Straight Skeletons, and the City {V}oronoi Diagram}, year = 2002, booktitle = {Proc. $18^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {151--159}, address = {Barcelona, Spain}, abstract = {The city Voronoi diagram is induced by quickest paths, in the $L_1$~plane speeded up by an isothetic transportation network. We investigate the rich geometric and algorithmic properties of city Voronoi diagrams, and report on their use in processing quickest-path queries.\\ In doing so, we revisit the fact that not every Voronoi-type diagram has interpretations in both the distance model and the wavefront model. Especially, straight skeletons are a relevant example where an interpretation in the former model is lacking. We clarify the relation between these models, and further draw a connection to the bisector-defined abstract Voronoi diagram model, with the particular goal of computing the city Voronoi diagram efficiently. } } @Article{aap-qpssc-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and B. Palop}, title = {Quickest Paths, Straight Skeletons, and the City {V}oronoi Diagram}, journal = {Discrete \& Computational Geometry}, volume = 31, number = 1, pages = {17--35}, year = {2004}, abstract = {The city Voronoi diagram is induced by quickest paths, in the $L_1$~plane speeded up by an isothetic transportation network. We investigate the rich geometric and algorithmic properties of city Voronoi diagrams, and report on their use in processing quickest-path queries.\\ In doing so, we revisit the fact that not every Voronoi-type diagram has interpretations in both the distance model and the wavefront model. Especially, straight skeletons are a relevant example where an interpretation in the former model is lacking. We clarify the relation between these models, and further draw a connection to the bisector-defined abstract Voronoi diagram model, with the particular goal of computing the city Voronoi diagram efficiently. } } @InProceedings{aar-msrp-94a, author = {O. Aichholzer and H. Alt and G. Rote}, title = {Matching Shapes with a Reference Point}, booktitle = {Proc. $10^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {85--92}, year = 1994, address = {Stony Brook, New York, USA}, abstract = {For two given point sets, we present a very simple (almost trivial) algorithm to translate one set so that the Hausdorff distance between the two sets is not larger than a constant factor times the minimum Hausdorff distance which can be achieved in this way. The algorithm just matches the so-called Steiner points of the two sets.\\ The focus of our paper is the general study of reference points (like the Steiner point) and their properties with respect to shape matching.\\ For more general transformations than just translations, our method eliminates several degrees of freedom from the problem and thus yields good matchings with improved time bounds.} } @InProceedings{aar-msrp-94b, author = {O. Aichholzer and H. Alt and G. Rote}, title = {Matching Shapes with a Reference Point}, booktitle = {Proc. $10^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '94}, pages = {81--84}, year = 1994, address = {Santander, Spain}, abstract = {For two given point sets, we present a very simple (almost trivial) algorithm to translate one set so that the Hausdorff distance between the two sets is not larger than a constant factor times the minimum Hausdorff distance which can be achieved in this way. The algorithm just matches the so-called Steiner points of the two sets.\\ The focus of our paper is the general study of reference points (like the Steiner point) and their properties with respect to shape matching.\\ For more general transformations than just translations, our method eliminates several degrees of freedom from the problem and thus yields good matchings with improved time bounds.} } @Article{aar-msrp-97, author = {O. Aichholzer and H. Alt and G. Rote}, title = {Matching Shapes with a Reference Point}, journal = {Int'l Journal of Computational Geometry \& Applications}, year = 1997, volume = 7, number = 4, pages = {349--363}, abstract = {For two given point sets, we present a very simple (almost trivial) algorithm to translate one set so that the Hausdorff distance between the two sets is not larger than a constant factor times the minimum Hausdorff distance which can be achieved in this way. The algorithm just matches the so-called Steiner points of the two sets.\\ The focus of our paper is the general study of reference points (like the Steiner point) and their properties with respect to shape matching.\\ For more general transformations than just translations, our method eliminates several degrees of freedom from the problem and thus yields good matchings with improved time bounds.} } @TechReport{aar-ogosa-95, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and G. Rote}, title = {Optimal graph orientation with storage applications}, institution = {SFB 'Optimierung und Kontrolle', TU Graz, Austria}, year = 1995, type = {SFB-Report}, number = {F003-51}, abstract = {We show that the edges of a graph with maximum edge density $d$ can always be oriented such that each vertex has in-degree at most $d$. Hence, for arbitrary graphs, edges can always be assigned to incident vertices as uniformly as possible. For example, in-degree 3 is achieved for planar graphs. This immediately gives a space-optimal data structure that answers edge membership queries in a maximum edge density-$d$ graph in $O(\log d)$ time.} } @InProceedings{aart-tin-95, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and G. Rote and M. Taschwer}, title = {Triangulations intersect nicely}, booktitle = {Proc. $11^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {220--229}, year = 1995, address = {Vancouver, Canada}, abstract = {We prove that two different triangulations of the same planar point set always intersect in a systematic manner, concerning both their edges and their triangles. As a consequence, improved lower bounds on the weight of a triangulation are obtained by solving an assignment problem. The new bounds cover the previously known bounds and can be computed in polynomial time. As a by-product, an easy-to-recognize class of point sets is exhibited where the minimum-weight triangulation coincides with the greedy triangulation.} } @InProceedings{aarx-clgta-96, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and G. Rote and Y.-F. Xu}, title = {Constant-level greedy triangulations approximate the {MWT} well}, booktitle = {Proc. $2^{nd}$ Int'l. Symp. Operations Research \& Applications ISORA'96, Lecture Notes in Operations Research}, pages = {309--318}, year = 1996, editor = {Du, Zhang, Cheng}, volume = 2, address = {Guilin, P. R. China}, publisher = {World Publishing Corporation}, abstract = {The well-known greedy triangulation $GT(S)$ of a finite point set $S$ is obtained by inserting compatible edges in increasing length order, where an edge is compatible if it does not cross previously inserted ones. Exploiting the concept of so-called light edges, we introduce a definition of $GT(S)$ that does not rely on the length ordering of the edges. Rather, it provides a decomposition of $GT(S)$ into levels, and the number of levels allows us to bound the total edge length of $GT(S)$. In particular, we show $|GT(S)| \leq 3 \cdot 2^{k+1} |MWT(S)|$, where $k$ is the number of levels and $MWT(S)$ is the minimum-weight triangulation of $S$.} } @Article{aarx-clgta-99, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and G. Rote and Y.-F. Xu}, title = {Constant-level greedy triangulations approximate the {MWT} well}, journal = {Journal of Combinatorial Optimization}, year = 1999, volume = 2, pages = {361--369}, note = {[SFB-Report F003-050, TU Graz, Austria, 1995]}, abstract = {The well-known greedy triangulation $GT(S)$ of a finite point set $S$ is obtained by inserting compatible edges in increasing length order, where an edge is compatible if it does not cross previously inserted ones. Exploiting the concept of so-called light edges, we introduce a definition of $GT(S)$ that does not rely on the length ordering of the edges. Rather, it provides a decomposition of $GT(S)$ into levels, and the number of levels allows us to bound the total edge length of $GT(S)$. In particular, we show $|GT(S)| \leq 3 \cdot 2^{k+1} |MWT(S)|$, where $k$ is the number of levels and $MWT(S)$ is the minimum-weight triangulation of $S$.} } @InProceedings{aarx-ngta-96, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and G. Rote and Y.-F. Xu}, title = {New greedy triangulation algorithms}, booktitle = {Proc. $12^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '96}, pages = {11--14}, year = 1996, address = {Muenster, Germany}, abstract = {The classical greedy triangulation (GT) of a set $S$ of $n$ points in the plane is the triangulation obtained by starting with the empty set (of edges) and at each step adding the shortest compatible edge between two of the points of $S$, where a compatible edge is defined to be an edge that crosses none of the previously added edges. In this paper we use the greedy method as a general concept to compute a triangulation of a planar point set. We use either edges or triangles as basic objects. Furthermore we give different variants to compute the weight of the objects, either in a static or dynamic way, leading to a total of $156$ different greedy triangulation algorithms. We investigate these algorithms in their quality of approximating the MWT.} } @Article{aaw-afa-02, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer and T. Werner}, title = {Algorithmic Fun - {A}balone}, journal = {Special Issue on Foundations of Information Processing of {TELEMATIK}}, pages = {4--6}, year = {2002}, volume = 1, address = {Graz, Austria} } @InProceedings{abdhkkrsu-ggt-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and D. Bremner and E.D. Demaine and F. Hurtado and E. Kranakis and H. Krasser and S. Ramaswami and S. Sethia and J. Urrutia}, title = {Geometric Games on Triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $19^{th}$ European Workshop on Computationl Geometry CG '03 Bonn }, pages = {89--92}, year = 2003, address = {Bonn, Germany}, abstract = {We analyze several perfect-information combinatorial games played on planar triangulations. We describe main broad categories of these games and provide in various situations polynomial-time algorithms to determine who wins a given game under optimal play, and ideally, to find a winning strategy. Relations to relevant existing combinatorial games, such as Kayles, are also shown.} } @InProceedings{abdhkkrsu-pwt-02, author = {O. Aichholzer and D. Bremner and E.D. Demaine and F. Hurtado and E. Kranakis and H. Krasser and S. Ramaswami and S. Sethia and J. Urrutia}, title = {Playing with Triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. Japan Conference on Discrete and Computational Geometry JCDCG 2002}, pages = {46--54}, year = 2002, address = {Tokyo, Japan}, abstract = {We analyze several perfect-information combinatorial games played on planar triangulations. We describe main broad categories of these games and provide in various situations polynomial-time algorithms to determine who wins a given game under optimal play, and ideally, to find a winning strategy. Relations to relevant existing combinatorial games, such as Kayles, are also shown.} } @InProceedings{abdhkkrsu-pwt-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and D. Bremner and E.D. Demaine and F. Hurtado and E. Kranakis and H. Krasser and S. Ramaswami and S. Sethia and J. Urrutia}, title = {Playing with Triangulations}, booktitle = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2866, Japanese Conference, JCDCG 2002}, pages = {22--37}, year = 2003, abstract = {We analyze several perfect-information combinatorial games played on planar triangulations. We introduce three broad categories of such games constructing, transforming and marking triangulations. In various situations, we develop polynomial-time algorithms to determine who wins a given game under optimal play, and to find a winning strategy. Along the way we show connections to existing combinatorial games, such as Kayles.} } @InProceedings{abdmss-lpuof-01, author = {O. Aichholzer and D. Bremner and E.D. Demaine and D. Meijer and V. Sacrist\'{a}n and M. Soss}, title = {Long Proteins with Unique Optimal Foldings in the H-P Model}, booktitle = {Proc. $17^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '2001}, pages = {59--62}, year = 2001, address = {Berlin, Germany}, abstract = {We explore a problem suggested by Brian Hayes in 1998: what proteins in the two-dimensional hydrophilic-hydrophobic (H-P) model have {\it unique} optimal foldings? In particular, we prove that there are closed chains of monomers (amino acids) with this property for all (even) lengths; and that there are open monomer chains with this property fo all lengths divisible by four. Along the way, we prove and conjecture several results about bonds in the H-P model.} } @Article{abdmss-lpuof-02, author = {O. Aichholzer and D. Bremner and E.D. Demaine and D. Meijer and V. Sacrist\'{a}n and M. Soss}, title = {Long Proteins with Unique Optimal Foldings in the H-P Model}, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, year = 2003, pages = {139--159}, volume = {25}, abstract = {It is widely accepted that (1) the natural or folded state of proteins is a global energy minimum, and (2) in most cases proteins fold to a unique state determined by their amino acid sequence. The H-P (hydrophobic-hydrophilic) model is a simple combinatorial model designed to answer qualitative questions about the protein folding process. In this paper we consider a problem suggested by Brian Hayes in 1998: what proteins in the two-dimensional H-P model have \emph{unique} optimal (minimum energy) foldings? In particular, we prove that there are closed chains of monomers (amino acids) with this property for all (even) lengths; and that there are open monomer chains with this property for all lengths divisible by four.} } @Article{acbfs-nsmabp-2002, author = {P. Auer and N. Cesa-Bianchi and Y. Freund and R. E. Schapire }, title = {The Nonstochastic Multiarmed Bandit Problem}, journal = {SIAM Journal on Computing}, year = {2002}, volume = {32}, number = {1}, pages = {48--77}, note = {A preliminary version has appeared in {\em Proceedings of the 36th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science}} } @Article{acbg-ascolla-2003, author = {P. Auer and N. Cesa-Bianchi and C. Gentile}, title = {Adaptive and Self-Confident On-Line Learning Algorithms}, journal = {JCSS}, year = {2002}, volume = {64}, number = {1}, pages = {48--75}, note = {A preliminary version has appeared in {\em Proc. 13th Ann. Conf. Computational Learning Theory}} } @InProceedings{acddemoprt-fp-00a, author = {O. Aichholzer and C. Cort\'{e}s and E.D. Demaine and V. Dujmovi\'{c} and J. Erickson and H. Meijer and M. Overmars and B. Palop and S. Ramaswami and G.T. Toussaint}, title = {Flipturning Polygons}, booktitle = {Proc. Japan Conference on Discrete and Computational Geometry JCDCG 2000}, year = 2000, address = {Tokay University, Tokyo, Japan}, htmlnote = {See also Jeff'shomepage about this paper.}, abstract = {A flipturn is an operation that transforms a nonconvex simple polygon into another simple polygon, by rotating a concavity 180 degrees around the midpoint of its bounding convex hull edge. Joss and Shannon proved in 1973 that a sequence of flipturns eventually transforms any simple polygon into a convex polygon. This paper describes several new results about such flipturn sequences. We show that any orthogonal polygon is convexified after at most $n-5$ arbitrary flipturns, or at most $5(n-4)/6$ well-chosen flipturns, improving the previously best upper bound of $(n-1)!/2$. We also show that any simple polygon can be convexified by at most $n^2-4n+1$ flipturns, generalizing earlier results of Ahn et al. These bounds depend critically on how degenerate cases are handled; we carefully explore several possibilities. We describe how to maintain both a simple polygon and its convex hull in $O(\log^4 n)$ time per flipturn, using a data structure of size $O(n)$. We show that although flipturn sequences for the same polygon can have very different lengths, the shape and position of the final convex polygon is the same for all sequences and can be computed in $O(n \log n)$ time. Finally, we demonstrate that finding the longest convexifying flipturn sequence of a simple polygon is NP-hard.} } @Article{acddemoprt-fp-00b, author = {O. Aichholzer and C. Cort\'{e}s and E.D. Demaine and V. Dujmovi\'{c} and J. Erickson and H. Meijer and M. Overmars and B. Palop and S. Ramaswami and G.T. Toussaint}, title = {Flipturning Polygons}, journal = {Discrete \& Computational Geometry}, year = 2002, pages = {231--253}, volume = {28}, note = {[Report UU-CS-2000-31, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2000]}, htmlnote = {See also Jeff'shomepage about this paper.}, abstract = {A flipturn is an operation that transforms a nonconvex simple polygon into another simple polygon, by rotating a concavity 180 degrees around the midpoint of its bounding convex hull edge. Joss and Shannon proved in 1973 that a sequence of flipturns eventually transforms any simple polygon into a convex polygon. This paper describes several new results about such flipturn sequences. We show that any orthogonal polygon is convexified after at most $n-5$ arbitrary flipturns, or at most $5(n-4)/6$ well-chosen flipturns, improving the previously best upper bound of $(n-1)!/2$. We also show that any simple polygon can be convexified by at most $n^2-4n+1$ flipturns, generalizing earlier results of Ahn et al. These bounds depend critically on how degenerate cases are handled; we carefully explore several possibilities. We describe how to maintain both a simple polygon and its convex hull in $O(\log^4 n)$ time per flipturn, using a data structure of size $O(n)$. We show that although flipturn sequences for the same polygon can have very different lengths, the shape and position of the final convex polygon is the same for all sequences and can be computed in $O(n \log n)$ time. Finally, we demonstrate that finding the longest convexifying flipturn sequence of a simple polygon is NP-hard.} } @Article{acf-ftamabp-02, author = {P. Auer and N. Cesa-Bianchi and P. Fischer}, title = {Finite Time Analysis of the Multiarmed Bandit Problem}, journal = {Machine Learning}, year = {2002}, volume = {47}, number = {2/3}, pages = {235--256}, note = {A preliminary version has appeared in {\em Proc. of the 15th International Conference on Machine Learning}} } @InProceedings{acf-ftamabp-99, author = {P. Auer and N. Cesa-Bianchi and P. Fischer}, title = {Finite Time Analysis of the Multiarmed Bandit Problem}, booktitle = {IT Workshop on Decision, Estimation, Classification and Imaging}, year = {1999}, optorganization={}, optpublisher = {}, address = {Santa Fe}, month = {Feb} } @InProceedings{adehost-rcp-00a, author = {O. Aichholzer and E.D. Demaine and J. Erickson and F. Hurtado and M. Overmars and M.A. Soss and G.T. Toussaint}, title = {Reconfiguring Convex Polygons}, booktitle = {Proc. $12th$ Annual Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry CCCG 2000}, pages = {17--20}, year = 2000, address = {Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada}, abstract = {We prove that there is a motion from any convex polygon to any convex polygon with the same counterclockwise sequence of edge lengths, that preserves the lengths of the edges, and keeps the polygon convex at all times. Furthermore, the motion is ``direct'' (avoiding any intermediate canonical configuration like a subdivided triangle) in the sense that each angle changes monotonically throughout the motion. In contrast, we show that it is impossible to achieve such a result with each vertex-to-vertex distance changing monotonically.} } @Article{adehost-rcp-00b, author = {O. Aichholzer and E.D. Demaine and J. Erickson and F. Hurtado and M. Overmars and M.A. Soss and G.T. Toussaint}, title = {Reconfiguring Convex Polygons}, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, year = 2001, pages = {85--95}, volume = 20, note = {[Report UU-CS-2000-30, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2000]}, abstract = {We prove that there is a motion from any convex polygon to any convex polygon with the same counterclockwise sequence of edge lengths, that preserves the lengths of the edges, and keeps the polygon convex at all times. Furthermore, the motion is ``direct'' (avoiding any intermediate canonical configuration like a subdivided triangle) in the sense that each angle changes monotonically throughout the motion. In contrast, we show that it is impossible to achieve such a result with each vertex-to-vertex distance changing monotonically. We also demonstrate that there is a motion between any two such polygons using three-dimensional moves known as pivots, although the complexity of the motion cannot be bounded as a function of the number of vertices in the polygon.} } @Article{adk-flsvd-06, author = {F. Aurenhammer and R.L.S.Drysdale and H. Krasser}, title = {Farthest line segment {V}oronoi diagrams}, journal = {Information Processing Letters}, year = 2006, pages = {220--225}, volume = {100}, abstract = {The farthest line segment Voronoi diagram shows properties different from both the closest-segment Voronoi diagram and the farthest-point Voronoi diagram. Surprisingly, this structure did not receive attention in the computational geometry literature. We analyze its combinatorial and topological properties and outline an $O(n \log n)$ time construction algorithm that is easy to implement. No restrictions are placed upon the~$n$ input line segments; they are allowed to touch or cross.} } @TechReport{adr-sltgt-95, author = {O. Aichholzer and R.L.S. Drysdale and G. Rote}, title = {A Simple Linear Time Greedy Triangulation Algorithm for Uniformly Distributed Points}, institution = {TU Graz, Austria}, year = 1995, type = {IIG-Report-Series}, number = {408}, note = {Presented at the Workshop on Computational Geometry, Army MSI Cornell, Stony Brook, 1994}, abstract = {The greedy triangulation (GT) of a set $S$ of $n$ points in the plane is the triangulation obtained by starting with the empty set and at each step adding the shortest compatible edge between two of the points, where a compatible edge is defined to be an edge that crosses none of the previously added edges. In this paper we present a simple, practical algorithm that computes the greedy triangulation in expected time $O(n)$ and space $O(n)$, for $n$ points drawn independently from a uniform distribution over some fixed convex shape.\\ This algorithm is an improvement of the $O(n \log n)$ algorithm of Dickerson, Drysdale, McElfresh, and Welzl. It uses their basic approach, but generates only $O(n)$ plausible greedy edges instead of $O(n \log n)$. It uses some ideas similar to those presented in Levcopoulos and Lingas's $O(n)$ expected time algorithm. Since we use more knowledge about the structure of a random point set and its greedy triangulation, our algorithm needs only elementary data structures and simple bucketing techniques. Thus it is a good deal simpler to explain and to implement than the algorithm of Levcopoulos and Lingas. } } @InProceedings{ads-ccq-08, author = {F. Aurenhammer and M. Demuth and T. Schiffer}, title = {Computing convex quadrangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. 5th Ann. Int. Symp. Voronoi Diagrams in Science and Engineering, Voronoi's Impact on Modern Science}, year = 2008, address = {Kiev, Ukraine}, volume = 4, pages = {32--43}, abstract = {We use projected Delaunay tetrahedra and a maximum independent set approach to compute large subsets of convex quadrangulations on a given set of points in the plane. The new method improves over the popular pairing method based on triangulating the point set.} } @Article{sad-ccq-11, author = {T. Schiffer and F. Aurenhammer and M. Demuth}, title = {Computing convex quadrangulations}, journal = {Discrete Applied Mathematics}, year = 2011, volume = {x}, pages = {xxx--yyy}, abstract = {We use projected Delaunay tetrahedra and a maximum independent set approach to compute large subsets of convex quadrangulations on a given set of points in the plane. The new method improves over the popular pairing method based on triangulating the point set.} } @Article{ae-oacwv-84, author = {F. Aurenhammer and H. Edelsbrunner}, title = {An optimal algorithm for constructing the weighted {V}oronoi diagram in the plane}, journal = {Pattern Recognition}, year = 1984, volume = 17, number = 2, pages = {251--257}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series F109, TU Graz, Austria, 1983]}, abstract = {Let $S$ denote a set of $n$ points in the plane such that each point $p$ has assigned a positive weight $w(p)$ which expresses its capability to influence its neighborhood. In this sense, the weighted distance of an arbitrary point $x$ from $p$ is gived by $d_e(x,p)/w(p)$, where $d_e$ denotes the Euclidean distance function. The weighted Voronoi diagram for $S$ is a subdivision of the plane such that each point $p$ in $S$ is associated with a region consisting of all points $x$ in the plane for which $p$ is a weighted nearest point of $S$. An algorithm which constructs the weighted Voronoi diagram for $S$ in $O(n^2)$ time is outlined in this paper. The method is optimal as the diagram can consist of $\Theta(n^2)$ faces, edges, and vertices.} } @Article{afisw-fiepc-94, author = {F. Aurenhammer and M. Formann and R. Idury and A. Schaeffer and F. Wagner}, title = {Faster isometric embedding in products of complete graphs}, journal = {Discrete Applied Mathematics}, year = 1994, volume = 52, pages = {17--28}, note = {[Report B-90-06, FU Berlin, Germany, 1990]}, abstract = {An isometric embedding of a connected graph $G$ into a cartesian product of complete graphs is equivalent to a labeling of each vertex of $G$ by a string of fixed length such that the distance in $G$ between two vertices is equal to the Hamming distance between their labels. We give a simple $O(D(m,n)+n^{2})$-time algorithm for deciding if $G$ admits such an embedding, and for labeling $G$ if one exists, where $D(m,n)$ is the time needed to compute the all-pairs distance matrix of a graph with $m$ edges and $n$ vertices. If the distance matrix is part of the input, our algorithm runs in $O(n^{2})$ time. We also show that an $n$-vertex subgraph of $(K_{a})^{d}$, the cartesian product of $d$ equal-sized complete graphs, cannot have more than $\frac{a-1}{2}n\log_a n$ edges. With this result our algorithm can be used to decide whether a graph $G$ is an $a$-ary Hamming graph in $O(n^2\log n)$ time (for fixed $a$).} } @InProceedings{ag-asola-00, author = {P. Auer and C. Gentile}, title = {Adaptive and Self-Confident On-Line Learning Algorithms}, booktitle = {Proc. 13th Ann. Conf. Computational Learning Theory}, year = {2000}, pages = {107--117}, publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann} } @InProceedings{ah-ceceg-89, author = {F. Aurenhammer and J. Hagauer}, title = {Computing equivalence classes among the edges of a graph with applications}, booktitle = {Proc. Int'l Conf. Algebraic Graph Theory}, year = 1989, pages = {11}, address = {Leibnitz, Austria}, abstract = {For two edges $e=(x,y)$ and $e'=(x',y')$ of a connected graph $G=(V,E)$ let $e \Theta e'$ iff $d(x,x') + d(y,y') \neq d(x,y') + d(x',y)$. Here $d(x,y)$ denotes the length of a shortest path in $G$ joining vertices $x$ and $y$. An algorithm is presented that computes the equivalence classes induced on $E$ by the transitive closure $\hat{\Theta}$ of $\Theta$ in time $O(|V||E|)$ and space $O(|V|^2)$. Finding the equivalence classes of $\hat{\Theta}$ is the primary step of several graph algorithms.} } @Article{ah-ceceg-92, author = {F. Aurenhammer and J. Hagauer}, title = {Computing equivalence classes among the edges of a graph with applications}, journal = {Discrete Mathematics}, year = 1992, volume = 109, pages = {3--12}, note = {Special Issue. [IIG-Report-Series 271, TU Graz, Austria, 1989]}, abstract = {For two edges $e=(x,y)$ and $e'=(x',y')$ of a connected graph $G=(V,E)$ let $e \Theta e'$ iff $d(x,x') + d(y,y') \neq d(x,y') + d(x',y)$. Here $d(x,y)$ denotes the length of a shortest path in $G$ joining vertices $x$ and $y$. An algorithm is presented that computes the equivalence classes induced on $E$ by the transitive closure $\hat{\Theta}$ of $\Theta$ in time $O(|V||E|)$ and space $O(|V|^2)$. Finding the equivalence classes of $\hat{\Theta}$ is the primary step of several graph algorithms.} } @InProceedings{ah-fmmrr-93, author = {O. Aichholzer and H. Hassler}, title = {A fast method for modulus reduction in Residue Number System}, booktitle = {Proc. epp'93}, pages = {41--54}, year = 1993, address = {Vienna, Austria}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 312, TU Graz, Austria, 1991]}, abstract = {Over the last three decades there has been considerable interest in the implementation of digital computer elements using hardware based on the residue number system. We propose a technique to compute a residue in this number system using a parallel network. Our technique enables scaling, to. We improve a former result of $O(n)$ cycles to $O(\log n)$, where $n$ is the number of moduli. The hardware expense is the same, $O(n^2)$. Further advantages are that scaling factors can be chosen almost freely allowing scaling with radix $2$. Negative numbers are covered as well, requiring no additional effort. Applications are RSA encryption and scaling.} } @InProceedings{ah-rbhgo-91, author = {F. Aurenhammer and J. Hagauer}, title = {Recognizing binary {H}amming graphs in {$O(n^{2} \log n)$} time}, booktitle = {Proc. $16^{th}$ Int'l Workshop on Graph-Theoretical Concepts in Computer Science, Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, pages = {90--98}, year = 1991, volume = 484, address = {Berlin, Germany}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {A graph $G$ is called a binary Hamming graph if each vertex of $G$ can be assigned a binary address of fixed length such that the Hamming distance between two addresses equals the length of a shortest path between the corresponding vertices. It is shown that $O(n^2 \log n)$ time suffices for deciding whether a given $n$-vertex graph $G$ is a binary Hamming graph, and for computing a valid addressing scheme for $G$ provided its existence. This is not far from being optimal as $n$ addresses of length $n-1$ have to be computed in the worst case.} } @Article{ah-rbhgo-95, author = {F. Aurenhammer and J. Hagauer}, title = {Recognizing binary {H}amming graphs in {$O(n^{2} \log n)$} time}, journal = {Mathematical Systems Theory}, year = 1995, volume = 28, pages = {387--395}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 273, TU Graz, Austria, 1989]}, abstract = {A graph $G$ is called a binary Hamming graph if each vertex of $G$ can be assigned a binary address of fixed length such that the Hamming distance between two addresses equals the length of a shortest path between the corresponding vertices. It is shown that $O(n^2 \log n)$ time suffices for deciding whether a given $n$-vertex graph $G$ is a binary Hamming graph, and for computing a valid addressing scheme for $G$ provided its existence. This is not far from being optimal as $n$ addresses of length $n-1$ have to be computed in the worst case.} } @InProceedings{aha-lsp-92, author = {F. Aurenhammer and F. Hoffmann and B. Aronov}, title = {Least-squares partitioning}, booktitle = {Proc. $8^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '92}, pages = {55--57}, year = 1992, address = {Utrecht, the Netherlands} } @InProceedings{aha-mttls-92, author = {F. Aurenhammer and F. Hoffmann and B. Aronov}, title = {{M}inkowski-type theorems and least-squares partitioning}, booktitle = {Proc. $8^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {350--357}, year = 1992, address = {Berlin, Germany}, note = {[Report B-92-09, FU Berlin, Germany, 1992]}, abstract = {The power diagram of $n$ weighted sites partitions a given $m$-point set into clusters, one cluster for each region of the diagram. In this way, an assignment of points to sites is induced. We show the equivalence of such assignments to constrained Euclidean least-squares assignments. As a corollary, there always exists a power diagram whose regions partition a given $d$-dimensional $m$-point set into clusters of prescribed sizes, no matter where the sites are placed. Another consequence is that least-squares assignments can be computed by finding suitable weights for the sites. In the plane, this takes roughly $O(n^2m)$ time and optimal space $O(m)$, which improves on previous methods. We further show that a constrained least-squares assignment can be computed by solving a particular linear program in $n+1$ dimensions. This leads to an algorithm for iteratively improving the weights. Aside from the obvious application, least-squares assignments are shown to be useful in solving a certain transportation problem, and in finding least-squares fittings where translation and scaling are allowed. Finally, we extend the concept of a constrained least-squares assignment to continuous point sets, thereby obtaining results on power diagrams with prescribed region volumes that are related to Minkowski's theorem for convex polytopes.} } @Article{aha-mttls-98, author = {F. Aurenhammer and F. Hoffmann and B. Aronov}, title = {{M}inkowski-type theorems and least-squares clustering}, journal = {Algorithmica}, year = 1998, volume = 20, pages = {61--76}, note = {[SFB Report F003-075, TU Graz, Austria, 1996]}, abstract = {Dissecting Euclidean $d$-space with the power diagram of $n$ weighted point sites partitions a given $m$-point set into clusters, one cluster for each region of the diagram. In this manner, an assignment of points to sites is induced. We show the equivalence of such assignments to constrained Euclidean least-squares assignments. As a corollary, there always exists a power diagram whose regions partition a given $d$-dimensional $m$-point set into clusters of prescribed sizes, no matter where the sites are placed. Another consequence is that constrained least-squares assignments can be computed by finding suitable weights for the sites. In the plane, this takes roughly $O(n^2m)$ time and optimal space $O(m)$, which improves on previous methods. We further show that a constrained least-squares assignment can be computed by solving a specially structured linear program in $n+1$ dimensions. This leads to an algorithm for iteratively improving the weights, based on the gradient-descent method. Besides having the obvious optimization property, least-squares assignments are shown to be useful in solving a certain transportation problem, and in finding a least-squares fitting of two point sets where translation and scaling are allowed. Finally, we extend the concept of a constrained least-squares assignment to continuous distributions of points, thereby obtaining existence results for power diagrams with prescribed region volumes. These results are related to Minkowski's theorem for convex polytopes. The aforementioned iterative method for approximating the desired power diagram applies to continuous distributions as well.} } @Article{ahi-cgflc-92, author = {F. Aurenhammer and J. Hagauer and W. Imrich}, title = {{C}artesian graph factorization at logarithmic cost per edge}, journal = {Computational Complexity}, year = 1992, volume = 2, pages = {331--349}, abstract = {Let $G$ be a connected graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges. We develop an algorithm that finds the prime factors of $G$ with respect to Cartesian multiplication in $O(m \log n)$ time and $O(m)$ space. This shows that factoring $G$ is at most as costly as sorting its edges. The algorithm gains its efficiency and practicality from using only basic properties of product graphs and simple data structures.} } @InProceedings{ahi-fcpgl-90, author = {F. Aurenhammer and J. Hagauer and W. Imrich}, title = {Factoring {C}artesian-product graphs at logarithmic cost per edge}, booktitle = {Proc. MPS Conf. Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization IPCO'90}, pages = {29--44}, year = 1990, address = {Waterloo, Canada}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 287, TU Graz, Austria, 1990]}, abstract = {Let $G$ be a connected graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges. We develop an algorithm that finds the prime factors of $G$ with respect to Cartesian multiplication in $O(m \log n)$ time and $O(m)$ space. This shows that factoring $G$ is at most as costly as sorting its edges. The algorithm gains its efficiency and practicality from using only basic properties of product graphs and simple data structures.} } @InProceedings{ahk-twpst-04, author = {O. Aichholzer and C. Huemer and H. Krasser}, title = {Triangulations Without Pointed Spanning Trees - Extended Abstract}, booktitle = {Proc. $20^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EWCG '04}, year = 2004, pages = {221--224}, address = {Sevilla, Spain}, abstract = {Problem $50$ in the Open Problems Project~\cite{OPP} asks whether any triangulation on a point set in the plane contains a pointed spanning tree as a subgraph. We provide a counterexample. As a consequence we show that there exist triangulations which require a linear number of edge flips to become Hamiltonian. } } @Article{ahn-lbntp-04, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Hurtado and M. Noy}, title = {A Lower Bound on the Number of Triangulations of Planar Point Sets}, year = 2004, journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications}, volume = {29}, number = {2}, pages = {135--145}, htmlnote = {See also the Counting Triangulations - Olympics.}, abstract = {We show that the number of straight-edge triangulations exhibited by any set of $n$ points in general position in the plane is bounded from below by $\Omega(2.33^n)$.} } @InProceedings{ahn-ntepp-01, author = {O. Aichholzer and F. Hurtado and M. Noy}, title = {On the Number of Triangulations Every Planar Point Set Must Have}, booktitle = {Proc. $13th$ Annual Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry CCCG 2001}, pages = {13--16}, year = 2001, address = {Waterloo, Ontario, Canada}, htmlnote = {See also the Counting Triangulations - Olympics.}, abstract = {We show that the number of straight line triangulations exhibited by any set of $n$ points in general position in the plane is bounded from below by $\Omega((2+\varepsilon)^n)$ for some $\varepsilon > 0$. To the knowledge of the authors this is the first non-trivial lower bound.} } @InProceedings{ahst-dbcpt-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and M. Hoffmann and B. Speckmann and C. D. T\'oth}, title = {Degree Bounds for Constrained Pseudo-Triangulations}, booktitle = {Proc. $15th$ Annual Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry CCCG 2003}, pages = {155--158}, year = 2003, address = {Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada}, abstract = {We introduce the concept of a constrained pointed pseudo-triangulation $\mathcal{T}_G$ of a point set $S$ with respect to a pointed planar straight line graph $G = (S, E)$. For the case that $G$ forms a simple polygon $P$ with vertex set $S$ we give tight bounds on the vertex degree of $\mathcal{T}_G$. } } @InProceedings{ai-gravd-87, author = {F. Aurenhammer and H. Imai}, title = {Geometric relations among {V}oronoi diagrams}, booktitle = {Proc. $4^{th}$ Ann. STACS, Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, pages = {53--65}, year = 1987, volume = 247, address = {Passau, Germany}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {Two general classes of Voronoi diagrams are introduced and, along with their modifications to higher order, are shown to be geometrically related. This geometric background, on the one hand, serves to analyze the size and the combinatorial structure, and on the other hand, implies general and efficient methods of construction, for various important types of Voronoi diagrams considered in the literature.} } @Article{ai-grvd-88, author = {F. Aurenhammer and H. Imai}, title = {Geometric relations among {V}oronoi diagrams}, journal = {Geometriae Dedicata}, year = 1988, volume = 27, pages = {65--75}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 228, TU Graz, Austria, 1986]}, abstract = {Two general classes of Voronoi diagrams are introduced and, along with their modifications to higher order, are shown to be geometrically related. This geometric background, on the one hand, serves to analyze the size and the combinatorial structure, and on the other hand, implies general and efficient methods of construction, for various important types of Voronoi diagrams considered in the literature.} } @Article{ak-psclcf-06, author = {F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {Pseudo-simplicial complexes from maximal locally convex functions}, journal = {Discrete \& Computional Geometry}, year = 2006, pages = {201--221}, volume = 35, abstract = {We introduce and discuss pseudo-simplicial complexes in~$R^d$ as generalizations of pseudo-triangulations in~$R^2$. Our approach is based on the concept of maximal locally convex functions on polytopal domains.} } @InProceedings{ak-psotd-01, author = {O. Aichholzer and H. Krasser}, title = {The Point Set Order Type Data Base: A Collection of Applications and Results}, booktitle = {Proc. $13th$ Annual Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry CCCG 2001}, pages = {17--20}, year = 2001, address = {Waterloo, Ontario, Canada}, htmlnote = {See also our order type homepage.}, abstract = {Order types are a common tool to provide the combinatorial structure of point sets in the plane. For many problems in combinatorial and computational geometry only the order type of the underlying point set has to be considered. Recently a complete order type data base of $n$-point sets has been developed for $n\leq 10$, which gives a way to examine the combinatorial properties of all possible point sets for fixed size $n$. Based on this result we present applications and results for problems concerning intersection properties, convexity, crossing-free straight line graphs, and others, thus confirming or disproving several conjectures on these topics. Besides providing concrete results the aim of this work is to stimulate further research by revealing structural relations of extreme examples for $17$ geometrical and combinatorial problems.} } @InProceedings{ak-ptc-05, author = {F. Aurenhammer and H. Krasser}, title = {Pseudo-tetrahedral complexes}, booktitle = {Proc. $21^{st}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EuroCG '05}, pages = {85--88}, year = 2005, address = {Eindhoven, The Netherlands}, abstract = {Pseudo-triangulations are interesting and flexible generalizations of triangulations that have found their place in computational geometry. Unlike triangulations, pseudo-triangulations eluded a meaningful generalization to higher dimensions so far. In this paper, we define pseudo-simplices and pseudo-simplicial complexes in d-space in a way consistent to pseudo-triangulations in the plane. Flip operations in pseudo-complexes are specified, as combinations of flips in pseudo-triangulations, and of bistellar flips in simplicial complexes. Our results are based on the concept of maximal locally convex functions on polyhedral domains, that allows us to unify several well-known structures, namely pseudo-triangulations, constrained Delaunay triangulations, and regular simplicial complexes.} } @InCollection{ak-vd-00, author = {F. Aurenhammer and R. Klein}, title = {{V}oronoi diagrams}, booktitle = {Handbook of Computational Geometry, Chapter V}, pages = {201--290}, publisher = {Elsevier Science Publishing}, year = 2000, editor = {J. Sack and G. Urrutia}, note = {[SFB Report F003-092, TU Graz, Austria, 1996]}, abstract = {The topic of this chapter -- Voronoi diagrams -- differs from other areas of computational geometry, in that its origin dates back to the 17th century. In his book on the principles of philosophy, R.~Descartes' illustrations show a decomposition of space into convex regions, whose underlying idea seems to be that of a Voronoi diagram. This concept has independently emerged, and proven useful, in various fields of science. Different names particular to the respective field have been used, such as {\em medial axis transform\/} in biology and physiology, {\em Wigner-Seitz zones\/} in chemistry and physics, {\em domains of action\/} in crystallography, and {\em Thiessen polygons\/} in metereology and geography. The mathematicians Dirichlet and Voronoi were the first to formally introduce this concept. The resulting structure has been called {\em Dirichlet tessellation\/} or {\em Voronoi diagram\/}, which has become its standard name today. Voronoi was the first to consider the {\em dual\/} of this structure, where any two point sites are connected whose regions have a boundary in common. Later, Delaunay obtained the same by defining that two point sites are connected if and only if they lie on a circle whose interior contains no other point site. After him, the dual of the Voronoi diagram has been denoted {\em Delaunay tessellation\/} or {\em Delaunay triangulation\/}. Besides its applications in other fields of science, the Voronoi diagram and its dual can be used for solving numerous, and surprisingly different, geometric problems. Moreover, these structures are very appealing, and a lot of research has been devoted to their study (about one out of 16 papers in computational geometry), ever since Shamos and Hoey introduced them to the field. Within one chapter, we cannot review all known results and applications. Instead, we are trying to highlight the intrinsic potential of Voronoi diagrams, that lies in its structural properties, in the existence of efficient algorithms for its construction, and in its adaptability.} } @Article{akkox-autmp-00a, author = {F. Aurenhammer and N. Katoh and H. Kojima and M. Ohsaki and Y.-F. Xu}, title = {Approximating uniform triangular meshes in polygons}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, year = 2002, volume = 289, pages = {879--895}, note = {Special Issue. [SFB Report F003-159, TU Graz, Austria, 1999]}, abstract = {We consider the problem of triangulating a convex polygon using $n$ Steiner points under the following optimality criteria: (1) minimizing the overall edge length ratio, (2) minimizing the maximum edge length, and (3) minimizing the maximum triangle perimeter. We establish a relation of these problems to a certain extreme packing problem. Based on this relationship, we develop a heuristic producing constant approximations for all the optimality criteria above (provided $n$ is chosen sufficiently large). That is, the produced triangular mesh is {\em uniform} in these respects. The method is easy to implement and runs in $O(n^2 \log n)$ time and $O(n)$ space. The observed runtime is much less. Moreover, for criterion (1) the method works -- within the same complexity and approximation bounds -- for {\em arbitrary} polygons with possible holes, and for criteria (2) and (3) it does so for a large subclass.} } @InProceedings{akkox-autmp-00b, author = {F. Aurenhammer and N. Katoh and H. Kojima and M. Ohsaki and Y.-F. Xu}, title = {Approximating uniform triangular meshes in polygons}, booktitle = {Proc. $6^{th}$ Ann. Intl. Computing and Combinatorics Conference, Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, pages = {23--33}, year = 2000, volume = {1558}, address = {Sydney, Australia}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {We consider the problem of triangulating a convex polygon using $n$ Steiner points under the following optimality criteria: (1) minimizing the overall edge length ratio, (2) minimizing the maximum edge length, and (3) minimizing the maximum triangle perimeter. We establish a relation of these problems to a certain extreme packing problem. Based on this relationship, we develop a heuristic producing constant approximations for all the optimality criteria above (provided $n$ is chosen sufficiently large). That is, the produced triangular mesh is {\em uniform} in these respects. The method is easy to implement and runs in $O(n^2 \log n)$ time and $O(n)$ space. The observed runtime is much less. Moreover, for criterion (1) the method works -- within the same complexity and approximation bounds -- for {\em arbitrary} polygons with possible holes, and for criteria (2) and (3) it does so for a large subclass.} } @Article{aksb-isve-2002, author = {K. Andrews and W. Kienreich and V. Sabol and J. Becker and G. Droschl and F. Kappe and M. Granitzer and P. Auer and K. Tochtermann}, title = {The {InfoSky} visual explorer: exploiting hierarchical structure and document similarities}, journal = {Information Visualization}, year = {2002}, volume = {1}, pages = {166--181} } @InProceedings{aoss-nptcp-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and D. Orden and F. Santos and B. Speckmann}, title = {On the Number of Pseudo-Triangulations of Certain Point Sets}, booktitle = {Proc. $15th$ Annual Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry CCCG 2003}, pages = {141--144}, year = 2003, address = {Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada}, abstract = {We compute the exact number of pseudo-triangulations for two prominent point sets, namely the so-called double circle and the double chain. We also derive a new asymptotic lower bound for the maximal number of pseudo-triangulations which lies significantly above the related bound for triangulations. } } @InProceedings{aoss-nptcp-04, author = {O. Aichholzer and D. Orden and F. Santos and B. Speckmann}, title = {On the Number of Pseudo-Triangulations of Certain Point Sets}, booktitle = {Proc. $20^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EWCG '04}, year = 2004, pages = {119--122}, address = {Sevilla, Spain}, abstract = {We compute the exact number of pseudo-triangulations for two prominent point sets, namely the so-called double circle and the double chain. We also derive a new asymptotic lower bound for the maximal number of pseudo-triangulations which lies significantly above the related bound for triangulations. } } @InProceedings{appw-vdos-07, author = {F. Aurenhammer and M. Peternell and H. Pottmann and J. Wallner}, title = {Voronoi Diagrams for Oriented Spheres}, booktitle = {Proc. 4th Int. Symp. on Voronoi Diagrams in Science and Engineering, ISVD'07}, year = 2007, pages = {33--37}, address = {Pontypridd, UK}, abstract = {We consider finite sets of oriented spheres in (k-1)-space and, by interpreting such spheres as points in k-space, study the Voronoi diagrams they induce for several variants of distance between spheres. We give bounds on the combinatorial complexity of these diagrams in the plane and in 3-space, and derive properties useful for constructing them. Our results are motivated by applications to special relativity theory.} } @InProceedings{ar-qdbsb-04, author = {O. Aichholzer and K. Reinhardt}, title = {A quadratic distance bound on sliding between crossing-free spanning trees - Extended Abstract}, booktitle = {Proc. $20^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry EWCG '04}, year = 2004, pages = {13--16}, address = {Sevilla, Spain}, abstract = {Let $S$ be a set of $n$ points in the plane and let ${\mathcal T}_S$ be the set of all crossing-free spanning trees of $S$. We show that any two trees in ${\mathcal T}_S$ can be transformed into each other by $O(n^2)$ local and constant-size edge slide operations. No polynomial upper bound for this task has been known, but in~\cite{AAH} a bound of $O(n^2 \log n)$ operations was conjectured.} } @InProceedings{arss-zppt-03, author = {O. Aichholzer and G. Rote and B. Speckmann and I. Streinu}, title = {The Zigzag Path of a Pseudo-Triangulation}, booktitle = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2748, Proc. 8th International Workshop on Algorithms and Data Structures (WADS)}, volume = {2748}, pages = {377--389}, year = 2003, abstract = {We define the zigzag path of a pseudo-triangulation, a concept generalizing the path of a triangulation of a point set. The pseudo-tri\-an\-gu\-la\-tion zigzag path allows us to use divide-and-conquer type of approaches for suitable (i.e., decomposable) problems on pseudo-tri\-an\-gu\-la\-tions. For this we provide an algorithm that enumerates all pseudo-triangulation zigzag paths (of all pseudo-triangulations of a given point set with respect to a given line) in $O(n^2)$ time per path and $O(n^2)$ space, where $n$ is the number of points. We illustrate applications of our scheme which include a novel algorithm to count the number of pseudo-triangulations of a point set. } } @InProceedings{as-fvd-90, author = {F. Aurenhammer and G. Stoeckl}, title = {Fenster - {V}oronoi {D}iagramme ({A}bstract)}, booktitle = {Tagungsband DMV Jubilaeumstagung}, pages = 52, year = 1990, address = {Bremen, Germany}, abstract = {In the peeper's Voronoi diagram for $n$ sites, any point in the plane belongs to the region of the closest site visible from it. Visibility is constrained to a segment on a line avoiding the convex hull of the sites. We show that the peeper's Voronoi diagram attains a size of $\Theta(n^{2})$ in the worst case, and that it can be computed in $O(n^{2})$ time and space.} } @Article{as-pvd-91, author = {F. Aurenhammer and G. Stoeckl}, title = {On the peeper's {V}oronoi diagram}, journal = {SIGACT News}, year = 1991, volume = 22, number = 4, pages = {50--59}, note = {[IIG-Report-Series 264, TU Graz, Austria, 1988]}, abstract = {In the peeper's Voronoi diagram for $n$ sites, any point in the plane belongs to the region of the closest site visible from it. Visibility is constrained to a segment on a line avoiding the convex hull of the sites. We show that the peeper's Voronoi diagram attains a size of $\Theta(n^{2})$ in the worst case, and that it can be computed in $O(n^{2})$ time and space.} } @InProceedings{as-solri-91, author = {F. Aurenhammer and O. Schwarzkopf}, title = {A simple on-line randomized incremental algorithm for computing higher order {V}oronoi diagrams}, booktitle = {Proc. $7^{th}$ Ann. ACM Symp. Computational Geometry}, pages = {142--151}, year = 1991, address = {North Conway, U.S.A.}, abstract = {We present a simple algorithm for maintaining order-$k$ Voronoi diagrams in the plane. By using a duality transform that is of interest in its own right, we show that the insertion or deletion of a site involves little more than the construction of a single convex hull in three-space. In particular, the order-$k$ Voronoi diagram for $n$ sites can be computed in time $O(nk^{2} \log n + nk \log^{3} n)$ and optimal space $O(k(n-k))$ by an on-line randomized incremental algorithm. The time bound can be improved by a logarithmic factor without losing much simplicity. For $k \geq \log^{2} n$, this is optimal for a randomized incremental construction; we show that the expected number of structural changes during the construction is $\Theta (nk^{2})$. Finally, by going back to primal space, we obtain a dynamic data structure that supports $k$-nearest neighbor queries, insertions, and deletions in a planar set of sites. The structure promises easy implementation, exhibits a satisfactory expected performance, and occupies no more storage than the current order-$k$ Voronoi diagram.} } @Article{as-solri-92, author = {F. Aurenhammer and O. Schwarzkopf}, title = {A simple on-line randomized incremental algorithm for computing higher order {V}oronoi diagrams}, journal = {Int'l Journal of Computational Geometry \& Applications}, year = 1992, volume = 2, pages = {363--381}, note = {Special Issue. [Report B 91-02, FU Berlin, Germany, 1991]}, abstract = {We present a simple algorithm for maintaining order-$k$ Voronoi diagrams in the plane. By using a duality transform that is of interest in its own right, we show that the insertion or deletion of a site involves little more than the construction of a single convex hull in three-space. In particular, the order-$k$ Voronoi diagram for $n$ sites can be computed in time $O(nk^{2} \log n + nk \log^{3} n)$ and optimal space $O(k(n-k))$ by an on-line randomized incremental algorithm. The time bound can be improved by a logarithmic factor without losing much simplicity. For $k \geq \log^{2} n$, this is optimal for a randomized incremental construction; we show that the expected number of structural changes during the construction is $\Theta (nk^{2})$. Finally, by going back to primal space, we obtain a dynamic data structure that supports $k$-nearest neighbor queries, insertions, and deletions in a planar set of sites. The structure promises easy implementation, exhibits a satisfactory expected performance, and occupies no more storage than the current order-$k$ Voronoi diagram.} } @InProceedings{as-sslro-92a, author = {F. Aurenhammer and G. Stoeckl}, title = {Searching for segments with largest relative overlap}, booktitle = {Proc. $15^{th}$ IFIP Conf. System Modelling and Optimization, Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences}, pages = {77--84}, year = 1992, volume = 180, address = {Zuerich, Switzerland}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {Let $S$ be a set of $n$ possibly intersecting line segments on the $x$-axis. A data structure is developed that -- for an arbitrary query segment $\sigma$ -- reports in $O(\log)$ time a segment in $S$ which yields the largest relative overlap with $\sigma$. The structure needs $O(n \log)$ time and $O(n)$ space for construction. These bounds are asymptotically optimal.} } @Article{as-sslro-92b, author = {F. Aurenhammer and G. Stoeckl}, title = {Searching for segments with largest relative overlap}, journal = {Information Processing Letters}, year = 1992, volume = 41, pages = {103--108}, note = {[Report B 91-10, FU Berlin, Germany, 1991]}, abstract = {Let $S$ be a set of $n$ possibly intersecting line segments on the $x$-axis. A data structure is developed that -- for an arbitrary query segment $\sigma$ -- reports in $O(\log)$ time a segment in $S$ which yields the largest relative overlap with $\sigma$. The structure needs $O(n \log)$ time and $O(n)$ space for construction. These bounds are asymptotically optimal.} } @InProceedings{ass-ppt-02, author = {O. Aichholzer and B. Speckmann and I. Streinu}, title = {The Path of a Pseudo-Triangulation}, booktitle = {Abstracts of the DIMACS Workshop on Computational Geometry 2002}, pages = {2}, year = 2002, address = {Piscataway (NJ), USA}, abstract = {We define the path of a pseudo-triangulation, a data structure generalizing the path of a triangulation of a point set. This structure allows us to use divide-and-conquer type of approaches for suitable (i.e. decomposable) problems on pseudo-triangulations. We illustrate this method by presenting a novel algorithm that counts the number of pseudo-triangulations of a point set.} } @InProceedings{asw-popfp-91, author = {F. Aurenhammer and G. Stoeckl and E. Welzl}, title = {The post-office problem for fuzzy point sets}, booktitle = {Proc. $7^{th}$ Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '91, Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, pages = {1--11}, year = 1991, volume = 553, address = {Bern, Switzerland}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, note = {[Report B 91-07, FU Berlin, Germany, 1991]}, abstract = {The post-office problem for $n$ point sites in the plane (determine which site is closest to a later specified query point) is generalized to the situation when the residence of each site is uncertain and it is described via uniform distribution within a disk. Two probabilistic concepts of neighborhood, -- expected closest site and probably closest site -- are discussed and the resulting Voronoi diagrams are investigated from a combinatorial and computational point of view.} } @InCollection{ax-ot-07, author = {F. Aurenhammer and Y.-F.Xu}, title = {Optimal triangulations}, booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Optimization, Second Edition}, publisher = {Springer}, editor = {C.A.Floudas, P.M.Pardalos}, year = 2008, pages = {2757--2764}, abstract = {A {\em triangulation} of a given set $S$ of $n$ points in the plane is a maximal set of non-crossing line segments spanned by $S$. The problem of automatically generating {\em optimal triangulations} for a point set $S$ has been a subject of research since decades. As the number of different triangulations of $S$ is an exponential function of $n$, enumerating all possible triangulations and selecting an optimal one (exhaustive search) is too time-consuming even for small $n$. In fact, constructing optimal triangulations in polynomial time is a challenging task. Results on optimizing {\em combinatorial} properties of triangulations, such as their degree or connectivity, are rare. Most optimization criteria for which efficient algorithms are known concern {\em geometric} properties of the edges and triangles. The present survey article is devoted to this topic.} } @InCollection{ax-ot-99, author = {F. Aurenhammer and Y.-F.Xu}, title = {Optimal triangulations}, booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Optimization}, publisher = {Kluwer Academic Publishing}, editor = {C.A.Floudas, P.M.Pardalos}, year = 2000, pages = {160--166}, volume = 4, note = {[SFB Report F003-099, Tu Graz, Austria, 1998]}, abstract = {A {\em triangulation} of a given set $S$ of $n$ points in the Euclidean plane is a maximal set of non-crossing line segments spanned by $S$. The problem of automatically generating {\em optimal triangulations} for a point set $S$ has been a subject of research since decades. As the number of different triangulations of $S$ is an exponential function of $n$, enumerating all possible triangulations and selecting an optimal one (exhaustive search) is too time-consuming even for small $n$. In fact, constructing optimal triangulations in polynomial time is a challenging task. Results on optimizing {\em combinatorial} properties of triangulations, such as their degree or connectivity, are rare. Most optimization criteria for which efficient algorithms are known concern {\em geometric} properties of the edges and triangles. The present survey article is devoted to this topic.} } @InProceedings{cikm02_collabfiltering, author = {Yu, Kai and Xu, Xiaowei and Schwaighofer, Anton and Tresp, Volker and Kriegel, Hans-Peter}, title = {Removing Redundancy and Inconsistency in Memory-based Collaborative Filtering}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management CIKM02}, year = 2002, publisher = {ACM}, pages = {52--59}, abstract = {The application range of memory-based collaborative filtering (CF) is limited due to CF's high memory consumption and long runtime. The approach presented in this paper removes redundant and inconsistent instances (users) from the data. Our work shows that a satisfactory accuracy can be achieved by using only a small portion of the original data set, thereby alleviating the storage and runtime cost of the CF algorithm. In our approach, we consider instance selection as the problem of selecting informative data that increase the \textit{a posteriori} probability of the optimal model. We evaluate the empirical performance of our approach on two realworld data sets and attain very promising results. Data size and prediction time are significantly reduced, while the prediction accuracy is on a par with results achieved by using the complete database.}, aschwaig_label= 9 } @InProceedings{dap-ssbi-10, author = {M. Demuth and F. Aurenhammer and A. Pinz}, title = {Straight skeletons for binary shapes}, booktitle = {$3^{rd}$ Workshop on non-rigid shape analysis and deformable image alignment (NORDIA'10)}, year = 2010, address = {San Francisco, USA}, abstract = {This paper reviews the concept of straight skeletons, which is well known in computational geometry, and applies it to binary shapes that are used in vision-based shape and object recognition. We devise a novel algorithm for computing discrete straight skeletons from binary input images, which is based on a polygonal approximation of the input shape and a hybrid method that combines continuous and discrete geometry. In our experiments, we analyze the potential of straight skeletons in shape recognition, by comparing their performance with medial-axis based shock graphs on the Kimia shape databases. Our discrete straight skeleton algorithm is not only outperforming typical skeleton algorithms in terms of computational complexity, it also delivers surprisingly good results in its straightforward application to shape recognition.} } @InProceedings{haa-nrmwt-97, author = {R. Hainz and O. Aichholzer and F. Aurenhammer}, title = {New results on minimum-weight triangulations and the {LMT} skeleton}, booktitle = {Proc. $13^{th}$ European Workshop on Computational Geometry CG '97}, pages = {4--6}, year = 1997, address = {Wuerzburg, Germany}, abstract = {Let $P$ be a simple polygon in the plane and let $MWT(P)$ be a minimum-weight triangulation of $P$. We prove that the $\beta$-skeleton of $P$ is a subset of $MWT(P)$ for all values $\beta$ > $\sqrt{\frac{4}{3}}$ provided $P$ is convex or near-convex. This settles the question of tightness of this bound for a special case and gives evidence for its validity in the general point set case.\\ We further disprove the conjecture that the so-called $LMT$-skeleton coincides with the intersection of all locally minimal triangulations, $LMT(P)$, even for convex polygons $P$. We introduce an improved $LMT$-skeleton algorithm which, for simple polygons $P$, exactly computes $LMT(P)$, and thus a larger subgraph of $MWT(P)$. The algorithm achieves the same in the general point set case provided the connectedness of the improved $LMT$-skeleton, which is given in allmost all practical instances.} } @InProceedings{icann01_bcsvm, author = {Schwaighofer, A. and Tresp, V.}, title = {The {B}ayesian Committee Support Vector Machine}, booktitle = {Artificial Neural Networks -- ICANN 2001}, editor = {Dorffner, G. and Bischof, H. and Hornik, K.}, series = lncs # {2130}, pages = {411--417}, year = 2001, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {Empirical evidence indicates that the training time for the support vector machine (SVM) scales to the square of the number of training data points. In this paper, we introduce the Bayesian committee support vector machine (BC-SVM) and achieve an algorithm for training the SVM which scales linearly in the number of training data points. We verify the good performance of the BC-SVM using several data sets.}, aschwaig_label= 2 } @InProceedings{icann01_kernels, author = {Tresp, V. and Schwaighofer, A.}, title = {Scalable Kernel Systems}, booktitle = {Artificial Neural Networks -- ICANN 2001}, year = 2001, editor = {Dorffner, G. and Bischof, H. and Hornik, K.}, series = lncs # {2130}, pages = {285--291}, publisher = {Springer Verlag}, abstract = {Kernel-based systems are currently very popular approaches to supervised learning. Unfortunately, the computational load for training kernel-based systems increases drastically with the number of training data points. Recently, a number of approximate methods for scaling kernel-based systems to large data sets have been introduced. In this paper we investigate the relationship between three of those approaches and compare their performances experimentally.}, aschwaig_label= 3 } @MastersThesis{k-ktep-99, author = {H. Krasser}, title = {Kompatible Triangulierungen ebener Punktmengen}, note = {(in German)}, school = {Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, Graz University of Technology, Austria}, year = 1999, month = {June}, keywords = {computational geometry, triangulations, compatible, isomorphic}, abstract = {Triangulations are very important in computational geometry, since a lot of algorithms make use of this data structure. The subject of this thesis is the special problem of compatible triangulations. The original motivation to investigate this problem comes from cartography. Two point sets in the plane are called compatible if isomorphic triangulations exist. First the structure of the convex hulls of compatible triangulations is analyzed in the case of edge-compatibility. Then it is shown that triangle-compatibility simplifies the situation. A connection to lambda-matrices is also given. If two point sets have the same lambda-matrices then every triangulation of one point set admits a compatible triangulation of the other point set. At last the main conjecture on compatible triangulations, namely that every two point sets of same cardinality in general position that have an identical number of points on the convex hulls admit compatible triangulations, is proved for some special cases. } } @PhDThesis{k-otpsp-03, author = {H. Krasser}, title = {Order Types of Point Sets in the Plane}, school = {Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, Graz University of Technology, Austria}, year = 2003, month = {October}, keywords = {computational geometry, combinatorial geometry, order types, point sets, pseudoline arrangements, rectilinear crossing number, triangulation, pseudo-triangulation}, abstract = {Order types are a means to characterize the combinatorial properties of a finite point set in the plane. In particular, the crossing properties of all straight-line segments spanned by a point configuration are reflected by its order type. We establish a complete and reliable data base for all different order types of size up to $11$. To the best of our knowledge, such a project has not been carried out before, not even for point sets of smaller size. We discuss several applications of this data base and related techniques to prominent problems in computational and combinatorial geometry. These include problems on crossing-free graphs like triangulations or simple polygonalizations, but also general crossing problems like the rectilinear crossing number.} } @InProceedings{nips02_approxgp, author = {Schwaighofer, Anton and Tresp, Volker}, title = {Transductive and Inductive Methods for Approximate {G}aussian Process Regression}, booktitle = nips # { 15}, year = 2003, editor = {Becker, Suzanna and Thrun, Sebastian and Obermayer, Klaus}, publisher = {MIT Press}, abstract = {Gaussian process regression allows a simple analytical treatment of exact Bayesian inference and has been found to provide good performance, yet scales badly with the number of training data. In this paper we compare several approaches towards scaling Gaussian processes regression to large data sets: the subset of representers method, the reduced rank approximation, online Gaussian processes, and the Bayesian committee machine. Furthermore we provide theoretical insight into some of our experimental results. We found that subset of representers methods can give good and particularly fast predictions for data sets with high and medium noise levels. On complex low noise data sets, the Bayesian committee machine achieves significantly better accuracy, yet at a higher computational cost.}, aschwaig_label= 6 } @InProceedings{nips02_rheuma, author = {Schwaighofer, Anton and Tresp, Volker and Mayer, Peter and Scheel, Alexander K. and Mueller, Gerhard A. }, title = {The {RA} Scanner: Prediction of Rheumatoid Joint Inflammation Based on Laser Imaging}, booktitle = nips # { 15}, year = 2003, editor = {Becker, Suzanna and Thrun, Sebastian and Obermayer, Klaus}, publisher = {MIT Press}, abstract = {We describe the RA scanner, a novel system for the examination of patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. The RA scanner is based on a novel laser-based imaging technique which is sensitive to the optical characteristics of finger joint tissue. Based on the laser images, finger joints are classified according to whether the inflammatory status has improved or worsened. To perform the classification task, various linear and kernel-based systems were implemented and their performances were compared. Special emphasis was put on measures to reliably perform parameter tuning and evaluation, since only a very small data set was available. Based on the results presented in this paper, it was concluded that the RA scanner permits a reliable classification of pathological finger joints, thus paving the way for a further development from prototype to product stage.}, aschwaig_label= 7 } @InProceedings{nips03_gplocation, author = {Schwaighofer, Anton and Grigora{\c{s}}, Marian and Tresp, Volker and Hoffmann, Clemens}, title = {{GPPS}: A {G}aussian Process Positioning System for Cellular Networks}, booktitle = nips # { 16}, editor = {Thrun, Sebastian and Saul, Lawrence and Schoelkopf, Bernhard}, year = 2004, abstract = {In this article, we present a novel approach to solving the localization problem in cellular networks. The goal is to estimate a mobile user's position, based on measurements of the signal strengths received from network base stations. Our solution works by building Gaussian process models for the distribution of signal strengths, as obtained in a series of calibration measurements. In the localization stage, the user's position can be estimated by maximizing the likelihood of received signal strengths with respect to the position. We investigate the accuracy of the proposed approach on data obtained within a large indoor cellular network.}, aschwaig_label= 13 } @Article{omics_mining, author = {Dejori, Mathaeus and Schwaighofer, Anton and Tresp, Volker and Stetter, Martin}, title = {Mining Functional Modules in Genetic Networks with Decomposable Graphical Models}, journal = {OMICS A Journal of Integrative Biology}, year = 2004, note = {Accepted for publication}, aschwaig_label= 14 } @Article{tbe_rheuma, author = {Schwaighofer, A. and Tresp, V. and Mayer, P. and Scheel, A. and Reuss-Borst, M. and Krause, A. and Mesecke-von Rheinbaben, I. and Rost, H.}, title = {Prediction of Rheumatoid Joint Inflammation Based on Laser Imaging Using Linear and Kernel-Based Classifiers}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering}, year = 2002, note = {Accepted for publication}, abstract = {We describe a novel system for the examination of patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Basis of this system is a laser imaging technique which is sensitive to the optical characteristics of finger joint tissue. From the laser images acquired at baseline and followup, finger joints can automatically be classified according to whether the inflammatory status has improved or worsened. To perform the classification task, various linear and kernel-based systems were implemented and their performances were compared. From the results presented in this paper, we concluded that the laser-based imaging permits a reliable classification of pathological finger joints, making it a sensitive method for detecting arthritic changes.}, aschwaig_label= 4 } @TechReport{techrep_nystrom, author = {Williams, Christopher K.I. and Rasmussen, Carl Edward and Schwaighofer, Anton and Tresp, Volker}, title = {Observations on the {N}ystroem Method for {G}aussian Process Prediction}, institution = {Available from the authors' web pages}, month = may, year = 2002, aschwaig_label= 8 } @Article{telematik_fingerprint, author = {Schwaighofer, Anton}, title = {Sorting it out: Machine Learning and Fingerprints}, journal = {Telematik}, year = 2002, volume = 8, number = 1, pages = {18--20}, abstract = {Machine learning concepts can find applications in many domains. We describe here one such application to the problem of fingerprint verification. In biometric verification using fingerprints, one often has to handle large archives of fingerprint images. When verifying an individual fingerprint, it is important to have a fast method at hand that selects suitable candidate images out of a large archive. We present an approach to sort a fingerprint archive according to similarity with a given fingerprint, inspired by an opto-electronic device called the wedge-ring-detector.}, aschwaig_label= 5 } @Article{tkde_collabfiltering, author = {Yu, Kai and Schwaighofer, Anton and Tresp, Volker and Xu, Xiaowei and Kriegel, Hans-Peter}, title = {Probabilistic Memory Based Collaborative Filtering: Learning Individual and Social Preferences}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (Special issue on mining and searching the web)}, year = 2004, volume = 16, number = 1, pages = {56--69}, abstract = {Memory-based collaborative filtering (CF) has been extensively studied in the literature and has proven to be successful in various types of personalized recommender systems. In this paper we develop a probabilistic framework for memory-based CF (PMCF). While this framework has clear links with classical memory-based CF, it allows us to find principled solutions to known problems of CF-based recommender systems. In particular, we show that a probabilistic active learning method can be used to actively query the user, thereby solving the ``new user problem'' . Furthermore, the probabilistic framework allows us to reduce the computational cost of memory-based CF by working on a carefully selected subset of user profiles, while retaining high accuracy. We report experimental results based on two real world data sets, which demonstrate that our proposed PMCF framework allows an accurate and efficient prediction of user preferences.}, aschwaig_label= 10 } @InProceedings{uai03_collabensemble, author = {Yu, Kai and Schwaighofer, Anton and Tresp, Volker and Ma, Wei-Ying and Zhang, HongJiang}, title = {Collaborative Ensemble Learning: Combining Collaborative and Content-Based Information Filtering via Hierarchical {B}ayes}, booktitle = {Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence: Proceedings of the 19th Conference (UAI-2003)}, editor = {Meek, Christopher and Kj{\ae}rulff, Uffe}, publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann}, year = 2003, pages = {616--623}, abstract = {Collaborative filtering (CF) and content-based filtering (CBF) have widely been used in information filtering applications, both approaches having their individual strengths and weaknesses. This paper proposes a novel probabilistic framework to unify CF and CBF, named collaborative ensemble learning. Based on content based probabilistic models for each user's preferences (the CBF idea), it combines a society of users' preferences to predict an active user's preferences (the CF idea). While retaining an intuitive explanation, the combination scheme can be interpreted as a hierarchical Bayesian approach in which a common prior distribution is learned from related experiments. It does not require a global training stage and thus can incrementally incorporate new data. We report results based on two data sets, the Reuters-21578 text data set and a data base of user opionions on art images. For both data sets, collaborative ensemble achieved excellent performance in terms of recommendation accuracy. In addition to recommendation engines, collaborative ensemble learning is applicable to problems typically solved via classical hierarchical Bayes, like multisensor fusion and multitask learning.}, aschwaig_label= 11 }