In this paper, it is shown how to extract a hypothesis with small risk from the ensemble of hypotheses generated by an arbitrary on-line learning algorithm run on an independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) sample of data. Using a simple large deviation argument, we prove tight data-dependent bounds for the risk of this hypothesis in terms of an easily computable statistic associated with the on-line performance of the ensemble. Via sharp pointwise bounds on , we then obtain risk tail bounds for kernel Perceptron algorithms in terms of the spectrum of the empirical kernel matrix. These bounds reveal that the linear hypotheses found via our approach achieve optimal tradeoffs between hinge loss and margin size over the class of all linear functions, an issue that was left open by previous results.A distinctive feature of our approach is that the key tools for our analysis come from the model of prediction of individual sequences; i.e., a model making no probabilistic assumptions on the source generating the data. In fact, these tools turn out to be so powerful that we only need very elementary statistical facts to obtain our final risk bounds.Index Terms-Kernel functions, on-line learning, pattern recognition, perceptron algorithm, statistical learning theory.

Kernel-based linear-threshold algorithms, such as support vector machines and Perceptron-like algorithms, are among the best available techniques for solving pattern classification problems. In this paper, we describe an extension of the classical Perceptron algorithm, called second-order Perceptron, and analyze its performance within the mistake bound model of on-line learning. The bound achieved by our algorithm depends on the sensitivity to second-order data information and is the best known mistake bound for (efficient) kernel-based linear-threshold classifiers to date. This mistake bound, which strictly generalizes the well-known Perceptron bound, is expressed in terms of the eigenvalues of the empirical data correlation matrix and depends on a parameter controlling the sensitivity of the algorithm to the distribution of these eigenvalues. Since the optimal setting of this parameter is not known a priori, we also analyze two variants of the second-order Perceptron algorithm: one that adaptively sets the value of the parameter in terms of the number of mistakes made so far, and one that is parameterless, based on pseudoinverses.

Kernel-based linear-threshold algorithms, such as support vector machines and Perceptron-like algorithms, are among the best available techniques for solving pattern classification problems. In this paper, we describe an extension of the classical Perceptron algorithm, called second-order Perceptron, and analyze its performance within the mistake bound model of on-line learning. The bound achieved by our algorithm depends on the sensitivity to second-order data information and is the best known mistake bound for (efficient) kernel-based linear-threshold classifiers to date. This mistake bound, which strictly generalizes the well-known Perceptron bound, is expressed in terms of the eigenvalues of the empirical data correlation matrix and depends on a parameter controlling the sensitivity of the algorithm to the distribution of these eigenvalues. Since the optimal setting of this parameter is not known a priori, we also analyze two variants of the second-order Perceptron algorithm: one that adaptively sets the value of the parameter in terms of the number of mistakes made so far, and one that is parameterless, based on pseudoinverses.

We introduce efficient margin-based algorithms for selective sampling and filtering in binary classification tasks. Experiments on real-world textual data reveal that our algorithms perform significantly better than popular and similarly efficient competitors. Using the so-called Mammen-Tsybakov low noise condition to parametrize the instance distribution, and assuming linear label noise, we show bounds on the convergence rate to the Bayes risk of a weaker adaptive variant of our selective sampler. Our analysis reveals that, excluding logarithmic factors, the average risk of this adaptive sampler converges to the Bayes risk at rate N −(1+α)(2+α)/2(3+α) where N denotes the number of queried labels, and α > 0 is the exponent in the low noise condition. For all α > √ 3 − 1 ≈ 0.73 this convergence rate is asymptotically faster than the rate N −(1+α)/(2+α) achieved by the fully supervised version of the base selective sampler, which queries all labels. Moreover, for α → ∞ (hard margin condition) the gap between the semi-and fully-supervised rates becomes exponential.

In this paper, it is shown how to extract a hypothesis with small risk from the ensemble of hypotheses generated by an arbitrary on-line learning algorithm run on an independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) sample of data. Using a simple large deviation argument, we prove tight data-dependent bounds for the risk of this hypothesis in terms of an easily computable statistic associated with the on-line performance of the ensemble. Via sharp pointwise bounds on , we then obtain risk tail bounds for kernel Perceptron algorithms in terms of the spectrum of the empirical kernel matrix. These bounds reveal that the linear hypotheses found via our approach achieve optimal tradeoffs between hinge loss and margin size over the class of all linear functions, an issue that was left open by previous results. A distinctive feature of our approach is that the key tools for our analysis come from the model of prediction of individual sequences; i.e., a model making no probabilistic assumptions on the source generating the data. In fact, these tools turn out to be so powerful that we only need very elementary statistical facts to obtain our final risk bounds.

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