Enhancing Kernel Flexibility via Learning Asymmetric Locally-Adaptive
  Kernels
Fan He Mingzhen He Lei Shi Xiaolin Huang Johan A. K. Suykens
The lack of sufficient flexibility is the key bottleneck of kernel-based
learning that relies on manually designed, pre-given, and non-trainable
kernels. To enhance kernel flexibility, this paper introduces the concept of
Locally-Adaptive-Bandwidths (LAB) as trainable parameters to enhance the Radial
Basis Function (RBF) kernel, giving rise to the LAB RBF kernel. The parameters
in LAB RBF kernels are data-dependent, and its number can increase with the
dataset, allowing for better adaptation to diverse data patterns and enhancing
the flexibility of the learned function. This newfound flexibility also brings
challenges, particularly with regards to asymmetry and the need for an
efficient learning algorithm. To address these challenges, this paper for the
first time establishes an asymmetric kernel ridge regression framework and
introduces an iterative kernel learning algorithm. This novel approach not only
reduces the demand for extensive support data but also significantly improves
generalization by training bandwidths on the available training data.
Experimental results on real datasets underscore the remarkable performance of
the proposed algorithm, showcasing its superior capability in handling
large-scale datasets compared to Nystr\"om approximation-based algorithms.
Moreover, it demonstrates a significant improvement in regression accuracy over
existing kernel-based learning methods and even surpasses residual neural
networks.