We propose a novel privacy-preserving support vector machine (SVM) classifier for a data matrixAwhose input feature columns are divided into groups belonging to different entities. Each entity is unwilling to share its group of columns or make it public. Our classifier is based on the concept of a reduced kernelK(A,B′), whereB′ is the transpose of a random matrixB. The column blocks ofBcorresponding to the different entities are privately generated by each entity and never made public. The proposed linear or nonlinear SVM classifier, which is public but does not reveal any of the privately held data, has accuracy comparable to that of an ordinary SVM classifier that uses the entire set of input features directly.

In this brief, prior knowledge over general nonlinear sets is incorporated into nonlinear kernel classification problems as linear constraints in a linear program. These linear constraints are imposed at arbitrary points, not necessarily where the prior knowledge is given. The key tool in this incorporation is a theorem of the alternative for convex functions that converts nonlinear prior knowledge implications into linear inequalities without the need to kernelize these implications. Effectiveness of the proposed formulation is demonstrated on publicly available classification data sets, including a cancer prognosis data set. Nonlinear kernel classifiers for these data sets exhibit marked improvements upon the introduction of nonlinear prior knowledge compared to nonlinear kernel classifiers that do not utilize such knowledge.

Prior knowledge over arbitrary general sets is incorporated into nonlinear kernel approximation problems in the form of linear constraints in a linear program. The key tool in this incorporation is a theorem of the alternative for convex functions that converts nonlinear prior knowledge implications into linear inequalities without the need to kernelize these implications. Effectiveness of the proposed formulation is demonstrated on two synthetic examples and an important lymph node metastasis prediction problem. All these problems exhibit marked improvements upon the introduction of prior knowledge over nonlinear kernel approximation approaches that do not utilize such knowledge.

A new approach to support vector machine (SVM) classification is proposed wherein each of two data sets are proximal to one of two distinct planes that are not parallel to each other. Each plane is generated such that it is closest to one of the two data sets and as far as possible from the other data set. Each of the two nonparallel proximal planes is obtained by a single MATLAB command as the eigenvector corresponding to a smallest eigenvalue of a generalized eigenvalue problem. Classification by proximity to two distinct nonlinear surfaces generated by a nonlinear kernel also leads to two simple generalized eigenvalue problems. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by tests on simple examples as well as on a number of public data sets. These examples show the advantages of the proposed approach in both computation time and test set correctness.