A Distributed Learning Architecture for Scientific Imaging Problems

 

Authors: A. Panousopoulou, S. Farrens, K. Fotiadou, A. Woiselle, G. Tsagkatakis, J-L. Starck,  P. Tsakalides
Journal: arXiv
Year: 2018
Download: ADS | arXiv


Abstract

Current trends in scientific imaging are challenged by the emerging need of integrating sophisticated machine learning with Big Data analytics platforms. This work proposes an in-memory distributed learning architecture for enabling sophisticated learning and optimization techniques on scientific imaging problems, which are characterized by the combination of variant information from different origins. We apply the resulting, Spark-compliant, architecture on two emerging use cases from the scientific imaging domain, namely: (a) the space variant deconvolution of galaxy imaging surveys (astrophysics), (b) the super-resolution based on coupled dictionary training (remote sensing). We conduct evaluation studies considering relevant datasets, and the results report at least 60\% improvement in time response against the conventional computing solutions. Ultimately, the offered discussion provides useful practical insights on the impact of key Spark tuning parameters on the speedup achieved, and the memory/disk footprint.

Improving Weak Lensing Mass Map Reconstructions using Gaussian and Sparsity Priors: Application to DES SV

 

Authors: N. JeffreyF. B. AbdallaO. LahavF. LanusseJ.-L. Starck, et al
Journal:  
Year: 01/2018
Download: ADS| Arxiv


Abstract

Mapping the underlying density field, including non-visible dark matter, using weak gravitational lensing measurements is now a standard tool in cosmology. Due to its importance to the science results of current and upcoming surveys, the quality of the convergence reconstruction methods should be well understood. We compare three different mass map reconstruction methods: Kaiser-Squires (KS), Wiener filter, and GLIMPSE. KS is a direct inversion method, taking no account of survey masks or noise. The Wiener filter is well motivated for Gaussian density fields in a Bayesian framework. The GLIMPSE method uses sparsity, with the aim of reconstructing non-linearities in the density field. We compare these methods with a series of tests on the public Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification (SV) data and on realistic DES simulations. The Wiener filter and GLIMPSE methods offer substantial improvement on the standard smoothed KS with a range of metrics. For both the Wiener filter and GLIMPSE convergence reconstructions we present a 12% improvement in Pearson correlation with the underlying truth from simulations. To compare the mapping methods' abilities to find mass peaks, we measure the difference between peak counts from simulated {\Lambda}CDM shear catalogues and catalogues with no mass fluctuations. This is a standard data vector when inferring cosmology from peak statistics. The maximum signal-to-noise value of these peak statistic data vectors was increased by a factor of 3.5 for the Wiener filter and by a factor of 9 using GLIMPSE. With simulations we measure the reconstruction of the harmonic phases, showing that the concentration of the phase residuals is improved 17% by GLIMPSE and 18% by the Wiener filter. We show that the correlation between the reconstructions from data and the foreground redMaPPer clusters is increased 18% by the Wiener filter and 32% by GLIMPSE.

Wasserstein Dictionary Learning: Optimal Transport-based unsupervised non-linear dictionary learning

 

Authors: M.A. Schmitz, M. Heitz, N. Bonneel, F.-M. Ngolè, D. Coeurjolly, M. Cuturi, G. Peyré & J.-L. Starck
Journal: SIAM SIIMS
Year: 2018
Download: ADS | arXiv

 


Abstract

This article introduces a new non-linear dictionary learning method for histograms in the probability simplex. The method leverages optimal transport theory, in the sense that our aim is to reconstruct histograms using so called displacement interpolations (a.k.a. Wasserstein barycenters) between dictionary atoms; such atoms are themselves synthetic histograms in the probability simplex. Our method simultaneously estimates such atoms, and, for each datapoint, the vector of weights that can optimally reconstruct it as an optimal transport barycenter of such atoms. Our method is computationally tractable thanks to the addition of an entropic regularization to the usual optimal transportation problem, leading to an approximation scheme that is efficient, parallel and simple to differentiate. Both atoms and weights are learned using a gradient-based descent method. Gradients are obtained by automatic differentiation of the generalized Sinkhorn iterations that yield barycenters with entropic smoothing. Because of its formulation relying on Wasserstein barycenters instead of the usual matrix product between dictionary and codes, our method allows for non-linear relationships between atoms and the reconstruction of input data. We illustrate its application in several different image processing settings.

Unsupervised feature learning for galaxy SEDs with denoising autoencoders

 

Authors: Frontera-Pons, J., Sureau, F., Bobin, J. and Le Floc'h E.
Journal: Astronomy & Astrophysics
Year: 2017
Download: ADS | arXiv


Abstract

With the increasing number of deep multi-wavelength galaxy surveys, the spectral energy distribution (SED) of galaxies has become an invaluable tool for studying the formation of their structures and their evolution. In this context, standard analysis relies on simple spectro-photometric selection criteria based on a few SED colors. If this fully supervised classification already yielded clear achievements, it is not optimal to extract relevant information from the data. In this article, we propose to employ very recent advances in machine learning, and more precisely in feature learning, to derive a data-driven diagram. We show that the proposed approach based on denoising autoencoders recovers the bi-modality in the galaxy population in an unsupervised manner, without using any prior knowledge on galaxy SED classification. This technique has been compared to principal component analysis (PCA) and to standard color/color representations. In addition, preliminary results illustrate that this enables the capturing of extra physically meaningful information, such as redshift dependence, galaxy mass evolution and variation over the specific star formation rate. PCA also results in an unsupervised representation with physical properties, such as mass and sSFR, although this representation separates out less other characteristics (bimodality, redshift evolution) than denoising autoencoders.

Space variant deconvolution of galaxy survey images

 

Authors: S. Farrens, J-L. Starck, F. Ngolè Mboula
Journal: A&A
Year: 2017
Download: ADS | arXiv


Abstract

Removing the aberrations introduced by the Point Spread Function (PSF) is a fundamental aspect of astronomical image processing. The presence of noise in observed images makes deconvolution a nontrivial task that necessitates the use of regularisation. This task is particularly difficult when the PSF varies spatially as is the case for the Euclid telescope. New surveys will provide images containing thousand of galaxies and the deconvolution regularisation problem can be considered from a completely new perspective. In fact, one can assume that galaxies belong to a low-rank dimensional space. This work introduces the use of the low-rank matrix approximation as a regularisation prior for galaxy image deconvolution and compares its performance with a standard sparse regularisation technique. This new approach leads to a natural way to handle a space variant PSF. Deconvolution is performed using a Python code that implements a primal-dual splitting algorithm. The data set considered is a sample of 10 000 space-based galaxy images convolved with a known spatially varying Euclid-like PSF and including various levels of Gaussian additive noise. Performance is assessed by examining the deconvolved galaxy image pixels and shapes. The results demonstrate that for small samples of galaxies sparsity performs better in terms of pixel and shape recovery, while for larger samples of galaxies it is possible to obtain more accurate estimates of the galaxy shapes using the low-rank approximation.


Summary

Point Spread Function

The Point Spread Function or PSF of an imaging system (also referred to as the impulse response) describes how the system responds to a point (unextended) source. In astrophysics, stars or quasars are often used to measure the PSF of an instrument as in ideal conditions their light would occupy a single pixel on a CCD. Telescopes, however, diffract the incoming photons which limits the maximum resolution achievable. In reality, the images obtained from telescopes include aberrations from various sources such as:

  • The atmosphere (for ground based instruments)
  • Jitter (for space based instruments)
  • Imperfections in the optical system
  • Charge spread of the detectors

Deconvolution

In order to recover the true image properties it is necessary to remove PSF effects from observations. If the PSF is known (which is certainly not trivial) one can attempt to deconvolve the PSF from the image. In the absence of noise this is simple. We can model the observed image \(\mathbf{y}\) as follows

\(\mathbf{y}=\mathbf{Hx}\)

where \(\mathbf{x}\) is the true image and \(\mathbf{H}\) is an operator that represents the convolution with the PSF. Thus, to recover the true image, one would simply invert \(\mathbf{H}\) as follows

\(\mathbf{x}=\mathbf{H}^{-1}\mathbf{y}\)

Unfortunately, the images we observe also contain noise (e.g. from the CCD readout) and this complicates the problem.

\(\mathbf{y}=\mathbf{Hx} + \mathbf{n}\)

This problem is ill-posed as even the tiniest amount of noise will have a large impact on the result of the operation. Therefore, to obtain a stable and unique solution, it is necessary to regularise the problem by adding additional prior knowledge of the true images.

Sparsity

One way to regularise the problem is using sparsity. The concept of sparsity is quite simple. If we know that there is a representation of \(\mathbf{x}\) that is sparse (i.e. most of the coefficients are zeros) then we can force our deconvolved observation \(\mathbf{\hat{x}}\) to be sparse in the same domain. In practice we aim to minimise a problem of the following form

\(\begin{aligned} & \underset{\mathbf{x}}{\text{argmin}} & \frac{1}{2}\|\mathbf{y}-\mathbf{H}\mathbf{x}\|_2^2 + \lambda\|\Phi(\mathbf{x})\|_1 & & \text{s.t.} & & \mathbf{x} \ge 0 \end{aligned}\)

where \(\Phi\) is a matrix that transforms \(\mathbf{x}\) to the sparse domain and \(\lambda\) is a regularisation control parameter.

Low-Rank Approximation

Another way to regularise the problem is assume that all of the images one aims to deconvolve live on a underlying low-rank manifold. In other words, if we have a sample of galaxy images we wish to deconvolve then we can construct a matrix X X where each column is a vector of galaxy pixel coefficients. If many of these galaxies have similar properties then we know that X X will have a smaller rank than if images were all very different. We can use this knowledge to regularise the deconvolution problem in the following way

\(\begin{aligned} & \underset{\mathbf{X}}{\text{argmin}} & \frac{1}{2}\|\mathbf{Y}-\mathcal{H}(\mathbf{X})\|_2^2 + \lambda|\mathbf{X}\|_* & & \text{s.t.} & & \mathbf{X} \ge 0 \end{aligned} \)

Results

In the paper I implement both of these regularisation techniques and compare how well they perform at deconvolving a sample of 10,000 Euclid-like galaxy images. The results show that, for the data used, sparsity does a better job at recovering the image pixels, while the low-rank approximation does a better job a recovering the galaxy shapes (provided enough galaxies are used).


Code

SF_DECONVOLVE is a Python code designed for PSF deconvolution using a low-rank approximation and sparsity. The code can handle a fixed PSF for the entire field or a stack of PSFs for each galaxy position.