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Please predict whether this patent is acceptable.PATENT ABSTRACT: An apparatus for classifying an input includes a classifier and a feature extractor. The feature extractor is configured to generate a feature vector based on the input. The feature vector is also configured to set a number of elements of the feature vector to zero to produce a sparse feature vector. The sparse feature vector has the same dimensions as the feature vector generated by the feature extractor. However, the sparse feature vector includes fewer non-zero elements than the feature vector generated by the feature extractor. The feature vector is further configured to forward the sparse feature vector to the classifier to classify the input.