On the Learnability and Design of Output Codes for Multiclass Problems

Output coding is a general framework for solving multiclass categorization problems. Previous research on output codes has focused on building multiclass machines given predefined output codes. In this paper we discuss for the first time the problem of designing output codes for multiclass problems. For the design problem of discrete codes, which have been used extensively in previous works, we present mostly negative results. We then introduce the notion of continuous codes and cast the design problem of continuous codes as a constrained optimization problem. We describe three optimization problems corresponding to three different norms of the code matrix. Interestingly, for the ¢¤£ norm our formalism results in a quadratic program whose dual does not depend on the length of the code. A special case of our formalism provides a multiclass scheme for building support vector machines which can be solved efficiently. We give a time and space efficient algorithm for solving the qua...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: COLT
• Authors: Koby Crammer, Yoram Singer
• Keywords: Building Multiclass Machines, COLT 2000, Machine Learning, Multiclass Categorization Problems, Output Codes