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Abstract: In this paper, we propose lazy bagging (LB), which builds bootstrap replicate bags based on the characteristics of test instances. Upon receiving a test instance , LB trims bootstrap bags by taking into consideration ''s nearest neighbors in the training data. Our hypothesis is that an unlabeled instance''s nearest neighbors provide valuable information to enhance local learning and generate a classifier with refined decision boundaries emphasizing the test instance''s surrounding region. In particular, by taking full advantage of ''s nearest neighbors, classifiers are able to reduce classification bias and variance when classifying . As a result, LB, which is built on these classifiers, can significantly reduce classification error, compared with the traditional bagging (TB) approach. To investigate LB''s performance, we first use carefully designed synthetic data sets to gain insight into why LB works and under which conditions it can outperform TB. We then test LB against four rival algorithms on a large suite of 35 real-world benchmark data sets using a variety of statistical tests. Empirical results confirm that LB can statistically significantly outperform alternative methods in terms of reducing classification error. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Synthetic pattern generation is one of the strategies to overcome the curse of dimensionality, but it has its own drawbacks. Most of the synthetic pattern generation techniques take more time than simple classification. In this paper, we propose a new strategy to reduce the time and memory requirements by applying prototyping as an intermediate step in the synthetic pattern generation technique. Results show that through the proposed strategy, classification can be done much faster without compromising much in terms of classification accuracy, in fact for some cases it gives better accuracy in lesser time. The classification time and accuracy can be balanced according to available memory and computing power of a system to get the best possible results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Shape contour is a key low-level characteristic, making shape description an important aspect in many computer vision problems, with several challenges such as variations in scale, rotation, and noise. In this paper, we introduce an approach for shape analysis and classification from binary images based on representations learned by applying Randomized Neural Networks (RNNs) on feature maps derived from a Complex Network (CN) framework. Our approach models the contour in a complex network and computes their topological measures using a dynamic evolution strategy. This evolution of the CN provides significant information into the physical aspects of the shape's contour. Therefore, we propose embedding the topological measures computed from the dynamics of the CN evolution into a matrix representation, which we have named the Topological Feature Map (TFM). Then, we employ the RNN to learn representations from the TFM through a sliding window strategy. The proposed representation is formed by the learned weights between the hidden and output layers of the RNN. Our experimental results show performance improvements in shape classification using the proposed method across two generic shape datasets. We also applied our approach to the recognition of plant leaves, achieving high performance in this challenging task. Furthermore, the proposed approach has demonstrated robustness to noise and invariance to transformations in scale and orientation of the shapes. • A complex representation for shape classification is proposed. • It is based on combining a complex network model and randomized neural networks. • Shape contours are modeled as complex networks. • Randomized neural networks learn the features from the modeled complex networks. • The Complex Representations are the output weights of the neural network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tensor based methods have gained popularity for being able to represent multi-aspect real world data in a lower dimensional space. Among them, methods with orthogonal factors perform relatively better in classification. However, most of them cannot handle higher order data. Recently, Tensor Ring (TR) based methods are proposed to combat with the higher order issue more effectively focusing on both classification and reconstruction. A TR-based method with orthogonal cores performs reasonably well for a given error. However, its computational complexity is very high and might produce extra features. To solve these issues, in this paper, we propose a method named as Orthogonal basis-core extraction using Tensor Ring (OTR) that can facilitate better discrimination and reconstruction at a lower cost. To maintain the ring property, we also show, theoretically, that reshaping of the product of semi-orthogonal reshaped cores remains semi-orthogonal. Rigorous experiments over eighteen benchmark datasets from different fields demonstrate the superiority of OTR over state-of-the-art methods in terms of classification and reconstruction. • Orthogonal basis-core extraction using Tensor Ring (OTR) can deal with higher order. • It produces semi-orthogonal basis-cores at a lower cost. • We proof that the basis-cores and their circular products are semi-orthogonal. • OTR captures discriminative information reasonably well in a fewer number of steps. • Basis-cores obtained using OTR can be used for reconstruction of the original tensor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degree to which objects differ from each other with respect to observations on a set of variables, plays an important role in many statistical methods. Many data analysis methods require a quantification of differences in the observed values which we can call distances. An appropriate definition of a distance depends on the nature of the data and the problem at hand. For distances between numerical variables, there exist many definitions that depend on the size of the observed differences. For categorical data, the definition of a distance is more complex as there is no straightforward quantification of the size of the observed differences. In this paper, we introduce a flexible framework for efficiently computing distances between categorical variables, supporting existing and new formulations tailored to specific contexts. In supervised classification, it enhances performance by integrating relationships between response and predictor variables. This framework allows measuring differences among objects across diverse data types and domains. • Measuring distances among objects is important in many statistical methods. • Defining distance accurately relies on the data's nature and the specific problem. • The definition of a categorical distance is not straightforward. • An efficient framework for implementing distances in categorical variables is needed. • The framework can help improve the performance of distance-based classifiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few-class object detection is a critical task in numerous scenes, such as autonomous driving and intelligent surveillance. The current researches mainly focus on the correlation or decoupling between classification and regression subtasks in object detection. However, they rarely take advantage of the potential of re-decoupling the classification subtask. In this paper, we propose to re-decouple the classification branch in object detection for few-class scenes by reducing multi-classification features to multiple binary-classification features. Since multi-classification losses cannot supervise the network to learn decoupled binary-classification features, we introduce a single-class loss to supervise decoupled multiple binary-classification branches. In particular, we propose a basic feature degradation head (FD-Head) structure that decouples the classification branches and applies binary-classification loss to encourage each branch to learn only the degraded single-class features. In addition, based on the mutual exclusion between classes, we propose a mutual exclusion constraint (FD-Head-M) module to constrain the scores of all classes, promoting the detector performance. Finally, we replace the original convolution with more powerful feature extraction modules to form the enhanced FD-Head (FD-Head-E). Notably, our method can be used as a universal module and embedded into the existing object detectors to boost their performance. When applying our method to typical object detectors, it experimentally achieves performance gains of 1.2–2.2%, 1.7–2.5% on the KITTI-3, SeaShips datasets respectively. When using ResNet50 as the backbone network, our method gains an accuracy of 45.9% on the MS COCO dataset. • A feature degradation head for few-class scenes is proposed. • Guiding all sub-branches to learn more significant single-class features. • A mutually exclusive constraint module is proposed to reduce false detection. • Feature degradation head has also been extended to multi-class scenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning using privileged information (LUPI) has shown promise in improving supervised learning by embedding additional knowledge. However, its reliance on the assumption of readily available privileged information may not hold true in practical scenarios due to limitations in access or confidentiality. To address these challenges, this paper presents a novel weakly privileged learning (WPL) framework, integrating knowledge extraction methods within the LUPI context. An effective strategy is proposed to implement the WPL framework, where knowledge extraction techniques generate a weight matrix as weak privileged information. Extensive experiments employing various existing knowledge extraction techniques demonstrate that the proposed WPL outperforms traditional supervised learning and approaches the performance of standard privileged learning where privileged information is given in advance. This research establishes WPL as a promising learning paradigm, addressing limitations in privileged information availability and advancing the field of machine learning in practical settings. • Introduce a novel weakly privileged learning framework (WPL). • Knowledge extraction methods are used to generate weak privileged information. • Extensive experiments verify the superiority of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classifying the training data correctly without over-fitting is one of the goals in machine learning. In this paper, we propose a general Generalization Memorization Machine (GMM) to obtain zero empirical risk with better generalization. The widely applied loss-based learning models can be extended by the GMM to improve their memorization and generalization abilities. Specifically, we propose two new models based on the GMM, called Hard Generalization Memorization Machine (HGMM) and Soft Generalization Memorization Machine (SGMM). Both HGMM and SGMM obtain zero empirical risks with well generalization, and the SGMM further improves the capacity and applicability of HGMM. The optimization problems in the proposed models are quadratic programming problems and could be solved efficiently. Additionally, the recently proposed generalization memorization kernel and the corresponding support vector machine are the special cases of our SGMM. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed HGMM and SGMM both on memorization and generalization. [Display omitted] • A SVM-type model (GMM) is proposed with zero empirical risk. • Any loss-based learning models could be improved by GMM directly. • The SVMm proposed by Vapnik is actually a special case of the proposed model. • The zero empirical risks of the proposed models are proved theoretically. • Experiments verify the zero empirical risk and competitive generalization of GMMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Imbalance coefficient fosters measuring imbalance. • Geometric Mean and Bookmaker Informedness constitute the best unbiased metrics. • Matthews Correlation Coefficient is the best option for error consideration. • The concept of Class Balance Accuracy can be extended to other metrics. Abstract A major issue in the classification of class imbalanced datasets involves the determination of the most suitable performance metrics to be used. In previous work using several examples, it has been shown that imbalance can exert a major impact on the value and meaning of accuracy and on certain other well-known performance metrics. In this paper, our approach goes beyond simply studying case studies and develops a systematic analysis of this impact by simulating the results obtained using binary classifiers. A set of functions and numerical indicators are attained which enables the comparison of the behaviour of several performance metrics based on the binary confusion matrix when they are faced with imbalanced datasets. Throughout the paper, a new way to measure the imbalance is defined which surpasses the Imbalance Ratio used in previous studies. From the simulation results, several clusters of performance metrics have been identified that involve the use of Geometric Mean or Bookmaker Informedness as the best null-biased metrics if their focus on classification successes (dismissing the errors) presents no limitation for the specific application where they are used. However, if classification errors must also be considered, then the Matthews Correlation Coefficient arises as the best choice. Finally, a set of null-biased multi-perspective Class Balance Metrics is proposed which extends the concept of Class Balance Accuracy to other performance metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • This paper introduces new set of moment invariants for image classification. • This paper provides a fast and accurate method for computing moment invariants. • Numerical experiments are performed to demonstrate its validity and superiority. Abstract In this paper, a new set of moment invariants, named Racah Moment Invariants (RMI), is introduced in the field of image analysis. This new set can be used to describe pattern feature independently of Rotation, Scaling and Translation transforms. Moreover, new fast and accurate algorithm, using recursive method, is developed for accelerating the computation time of the newly proposed invariants, as well as, for enhancing their numerical stability. Subsequently, several experiments have been performed. Initially, the numerical stability and computational cost are depicted. Secondly, the global and local features extraction are clearly illustrated. Then, invariability property and noise robustness are investigated. Finally, the discrimination power and the classification accuracy of the proposed invariants are extensively tested on several publicly available databases. The presented theoretical and experimental results, clearly show that the proposed method can be extremely useful in the fields of image classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper solves the problem of orthogonal linear discriminant analysis (OLDA) from the novel viewpoint of scatter matrix orthogonal decomposition. • The method can obtain approximately orthogonal sparse discriminative vectors for dimensionality reduction and jointly sparse feature extraction. • Theoretical analysis shows that OLDA can be derived by the constrained scatter matrix decomposition. • The method outperforms several well-known LDA-based and sparse learning methods on four data sets (i.e., COIL100, USPS, ICADAR2003 and CMU PIE). Orthogonal Linear Discriminant Analysis (OLDA) based on generalized Eigen-equation is widely used in the field of computer vision and pattern recognition. However, the performance of OLDA for feature extraction and classification needs to be improved as it lacks sparsity for better interpretation of the features. Moreover, computing the orthogonal sparse projections based on LDA is very difficult and is still unsolved. To solve these problems, in this paper, we propose a method called Jointly Sparse Orthogonal Linear Discriminant Analysis (JSOLDA). Different from the existing OLDA, JSOLDA is proposed from a novel viewpoint of scatter matrix decomposition. Theoretical analysis shows that OLDA can be derived by the constrained scatter matrix decomposition. In addition, by imposing L 2,1 -norm on the penalty term, the proposed JSOLDA can obtain the jointly sparse orthogonal projections to perform feature extraction. We also design an iterative algorithm to obtain the optimal solution. Systematic theoretical analysis between the OLDA and JSOLDA are uncovered. Both of convergence and computational complexity are also discussed. Experimental results on four data sets (i.e., COIL100, USPS, ICADAR2003 and CMU PIE) indicate that JSOLDA outperforms several well-known LDA-based and L 2,1 -norm based methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple instance learning (MIL) is a form of weakly supervised learning where training instances are arranged in sets, called bags, and a label is provided for the entire bag. This formulation is gaining interest because it naturally fits various problems and allows to leverage weakly labeled data. Consequently, it has been used in diverse application fields such as computer vision and document classification. However, learning from bags raises important challenges that are unique to MIL. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the characteristics which define and differentiate the types of MIL problems. Until now, these problem characteristics have not been formally identified and described. As a result, the variations in performance of MIL algorithms from one data set to another are difficult to explain. In this paper, MIL problem characteristics are grouped into four broad categories: the composition of the bags, the types of data distribution, the ambiguity of instance labels, and the task to be performed. Methods specialized to address each category are reviewed. Then, the extent to which these characteristics manifest themselves in key MIL application areas are described. Finally, experiments are conducted to compare the performance of 16 state-of-the-art MIL methods on selected problem characteristics. This paper provides insight on how the problem characteristics affect MIL algorithms, recommendations for future benchmarking and promising avenues for research. Code is available on-line at https://github.com/macarbonneau/MILSurvey . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-label classification associates an unseen instance with multiple relevant labels. In recent years, a variety of methods have been proposed to handle the multi-label problems. Classifier chains is one of the most popular multi-label methods because of its efficiency and simplicity. In this paper, we consider to optimize classifier chains from the viewpoint of conditional likelihood maximization. In the proposed unified framework, classifier chains can be optimized in either or both of two aspects: label correlation modeling and multi-label feature selection. In this paper we show that previous classifier chains algorithms are specified in the unified framework. In addition, previous information theoretic multi-label feature selection algorithms are specified with different assumptions on the feature and label spaces. Based on these analyses, we propose a novel multi-label method, k -dependence classifier chains with label-specific features, and demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an innovative averaging of a set of time-series based on the Dynamic Time Warping (DTW). The DTW is widely used in data mining since it provides not only a similarity measure, but also a temporal alignment of time-series. However, its use is often restricted to the case of a pair of signals. In this paper, we propose to extend its application to a set of signals by providing an average time-series that opens a wide range of applications in data mining process. Starting with an existing well-established method called DBA (for DTW Barycenter Averaging), this paper points out its limitations and suggests an alternative based on a Constrained Dynamic Time Warping. Secondly, an innovative tolerance is added to take into account the admissible variability around the average signal. This new modeling of time-series is evaluated on a classification task applied on several datasets and results show that it outperforms state of the art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multilabel classification as a data mining task has recently attracted increasing interest from researchers. Many current data mining applications address problems with instances that belong to more than one class. These problems require the development of new, efficient methods. Advantageously using the correlation among different labels can provide better performance than methods that manage each label separately. In recent decades, many methods have been developed to deal with multilabel datasets, which makes it difficult to decide which method is the most appropriate for a given task. In this paper, we present the most comprehensive comparison carried out so far. We compare a total of 62 different methods and several configurations of each one for a total of 197 trained models. We also use a large set of problems comprising 65 datasets. In addition, we studied the efficiency of the methods considering six different classification performance metrics. Our results show that, although there are methods that repeatedly appear among the top-performing models, the best methods are closely related to the metric used for evaluating the performance. We also analyzed different aspects of the behavior of the methods. • We present a thorough comparison of multi-label methods. • The behavior depending on base classifiers is studied for many methods. • Six different metrics are used in the comparison. • Clustering of similar methods is carried out. • The behavior of the methods depending characteristics is carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep learning techniques have been widely used for two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) computer vision problems, such as object detection, super-resolution (SR) and classification to name a few. Radar images suffer from poor resolution as compared to optical images, hence developing a high-accuracy model to solve computer vision problems, such as a classifier, is a challenge. This is because of the lack of high-frequency details in the input images which makes it difficult for the classifier model to generate accurate predictions. Ways of addressing this challenge include training the learning model with a large dataset or using a more complicated model, such as deeper layer architecture. However, employing such approaches might result in the overfitting of the model, where the model might not generalize well on previously unseen data. Also, generating a large dataset for training the model is a challenging task, especially in the case of radar images. An alternate solution for achieving high accuracy in radar classification problems is provided in this paper wherein a CNN-enabled super-resolution (SR) model is integrated with the classifier model. The SR model is trained to generate high-resolution (HR) millimeter-wave (mmW) images from any input low-resolution (LR) mmW images. These resolved images from the SR model will be used by the classifier model to classify the input images into appropriate classes, consisting of threat and non-threat objects. The training data for the dual CNN layers are generated using a numerical model of a near-field coded-aperture computational imaging (CI) system. This trained dual CNN model is tested with simulated data generated from the CI numerical model wherein a high classification accuracy of 95% and a fast inference time of 0.193 s are obtained, making it suitable for real-time automated threat classification applications. For fair comparison, the developed CNN model is also validated with experimentally generated reconstruction data, in which case, a classification accuracy of 94% is obtained. • An integrated convolutional neural network is developed which jointly performs super-resolution and classification tasks. The super-resolution part enhances the resolution of millimeter-wave input images and the classifier part predicts a class for the enhanced image. • The super-resolution part of the model enhances both the cross-range and range resolutions of the input images. In addition, the model uses both the real and imaginary parts of the reconstruction data to perform the super-resolution task. • The super-resolution and the classifier models are trained on synthesized data instead of experimentally generated data. To offer a realistic approach, additive Gaussian noise is incorporated into the synthesized data. • Validation of the integrated model with both synthesized and experimental data shows a real-time accurate super-resolution and multi-label classification performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Node classification is a popular and challenging task in graph neural networks, and existing approaches are mainly developed for a single network. With the advances in domain adaptation, researchers tend to leverage knowledge extracted from a fully-labeled source network to further improve the node classification performance in an unlabeled target network. This learning paradigm refers to cross-network node classification, which is the topic we studied in this paper. Specifically, we propose a novel model named Transferable Graph Auto-Encoders (TGAE), which first encodes the initial network data into latent representations and then decodes the learned features to preserve graph information. In the encoding phase, TGAE adopts the attentional mechanism to fuse the local and global information of nodes to discover latent node representations. To obtain transferable features between the source and target networks, TGAE aligns their distributions based on the learned representations by reducing marginal and conditional distribution differences. In the decoding phase, the latent representations are subjected to pairwise and reconstruction constraints, thus preserving structural proximity and graph topology information to learn discriminative features. Besides, a node classifier is trained to enhance the discriminant of the node representations further. Experimental results on several real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed model achieves state-of-the-art performance in cross-network node classification tasks compared with existing methods. • TGAE is proposed to handle cross-network node classification problem. • TGAE encodes local and global information and preserves structural graph information. • Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-view learning has demonstrated promising performance for 3D shape recognition. However, existing multi-view methods usually focus on fusing multiple views and ignore the structural and discriminative information carried by 2D views. In this paper, we propose a multi-view hierarchical self-attention network (MHSAN) to explore the geometric and discriminative information from complex 2D views. Specifically, MHSAN consists of two self-attention networks. First, a global self-attention network is adopted to exploit the structure information by embedding position information of views. Then, the discriminative self-attention network learns discriminative information from the views with high classification scores. Through the proposed MHSAN, the geometric and discriminative information is condensed as the novel representation of 3D shapes. To validate the effectiveness of our proposed method, extensive experiments have been conducted on three 3D shape benchmarks. Experimental results demonstrate that our method is generally superior to the state-of-the-art methods in 3D shape classification and retrieval tasks. • A hierarchical self-attention network for 3D shape recognition is proposed. • The global information and the discriminative information are extracted. • Position information helps to learn the structure information of 3D object. • The views with high discriminative scores are given special attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We proposed the method of constructing a fuzzy granular recurrence plot (FGRP method). • We designed an FGRP method based classification model. • The experiment shows the good performance of the FGRP method in reducing the influence of noise. • The experiment presents the good performance of the FGRP method based classification model. Recently, recurrence plot (RP) and its quantification techniques have become an important research tool in nonlinear analysis. In the existing researches, an RP is directly established on a time series ignoring the influence of noise on data, which will affect our judgement on the dynamic properties of a system. To tackle the problem there, this paper proposes a novel recurrence plot, namely fuzzy granular recurrence plot (FGRP). An FGRP of a time series is built not directly on the time series itself but on its corresponding granular time series which is composed of fuzzy information granules. With specific capability, fuzzy information granules are used as building blocks of an FGRP to achieve high-level, compact and understandable signal models. In order to apply the FGRP method to time series classification tasks, an FGRP based classification model is designed in this paper. Subsequent experiments show that the FGRP of a time series can reduce the effect of noise, and the FGRP based classification model can improve the classification performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a principled method for partial correlation estimation, sparse inverse covariance estimation (SICE) has been employed to model brain connectivity networks, which holds great promise for brain disease diagnosis. For each subject, the SICE method naturally leads to a set of connectivity networks with various sparsity. However, existing methods usually select a single network from them for classification and the discriminative power of this set of networks has not been fully exploited. This paper argues that the connectivity networks at different sparsity levels present complementary connectivity patterns and therefore they should be jointly considered to achieve high classification performance. In this paper, we propose a subject-adaptive method to integrate multiple SICE networks as a unified representation for classification. The integration weight is learned adaptively for each subject in order to endow the method with the flexibility in dealing with subject variations. Furthermore, to respect the manifold geometry of SICE networks, Stein kernel is employed to embed the manifold structure into a kernel-induced feature space, which allows a linear integration of SICE networks to be designed. The optimization of the integration weight and the classification of the integrated networks are performed via a sparse representation framework. Through our method, we provide a unified and effective network representation that is transparent to the sparsity level of SICE networks, and can be readily utilized for further medical analysis. Experimental study on ADHD and ADNI data sets demonstrates that the proposed integration method achieves notable improvement of classification performance in comparison with methods using a single sparsity level of SICE networks and other commonly used integration methods, such as Multiple Kernel Learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Discrete network embedding (DNE) is proposed for compact representation. DNE leverages hash code to represent node, and dramatically reduces computational and storage costs. • Deep discrete attributed network embedding (DDANE) is proposed to effectively leverage node attribute and network structure in attributed network. The proposed DDANE trains an improved graph convolutional network autoencoder to encode node attribute and network structure into latent discrete embedding. • Extensive experiments demonstrate the proposed methods exhibit lower storage and computational complexity than state-of-the-art network embedding methods, and achieve satisfactory accuracy. Network embedding has shown promising performance in real-world applications. The network embedding typically lies in a continuous vector space, where storage and computation costs are high, especially in large-scale applications. This paper proposes more compact representation to fulfill the gap. The proposed discrete network embedding (DNE) leverages hash code to represent node in Hamming space. The Hamming similarity between hash codes approximates the ground-truth similarity. The embedding and classifier are jointly learned to improve compactness and discrimination. The proposed multi-class classifier is further constrained to be discrete to expedite classification. In addition, this paper further extends DNE and proposes deep discrete attributed network embedding (DDANE) to learn compact deep embedding from more informative attributed network. From the perspective of generalized signal smoothing, the proposed DDANE trains an improved graph convolutional network autoencoder to effectively leverage node attribute and network structure. Extensive experiments on node classification demonstrate the proposed methods exhibit lower storage and computational complexity than state-of-the-art network embedding methods, and achieve satisfactory accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose a big and real RGB 3D hand pose estimation dataset that contains the 2D and 3D coordinates of the joints, status of the joints occlusion, classes of different gestures, and segmentation of the 15 parts of the hand. • We propose semantic segmentation of the hand parts for estimating the weight of the occlusion at hand joints. • We exploit the occlusion information for estimating the 3D hand pose from a single RGB image. • The proposed framework is a hybrid method of classification and estimation networks to increase the validity and the accuracy of the predicted hand poses. • Classification of the hand poses is based on the different aspects including gesture, the direction of the palm, and direction of the hand. In this paper, a new framework for 3D hand pose estimation using a single RGB image is proposed. The framework is composed of two blocks. The first block formulates the hand pose estimation as a classification problem. Since the human hand can perform numerous poses, the classification network needs a huge number of parameters. So, we propose to classify hand poses based on three different aspects, including hand gesture, hand direction, and palm direction. In this way, the number of parameters will be significantly reduced. The motivation behind the classification block is that the model deals with the image as a whole and extracts global features. Furthermore, the output of the classification model is a valid pose that does not include any unexpected angle at joints. The second block estimates the 3D coordinates of the hand joints and focuses more on the details of the image pattern. RGB-based 3D hand pose estimation is an inherently ill-posed problem due to the lack of depth information in the 2D image. We propose to use the occlusion status of the hand joints to solve this problem. The occlusion status of the joints has been labeled manually. Some joints are partially occluded, and we propose to compute the extent of the occlusion by semantic segmentation. The existing methods in this field mostly used synthetic datasets. But all the models proposed in this paper are trained on more than 50 K real images. Extensive experiments on our new dataset and two other benchmark datasets show that the proposed method can achieve good performance. We also analyze the validity of the predicted poses, and the results show that the classification block increases the validity of the poses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a new biometric pattern recognition method. In classical techniques only features of raw objects are compared. In our approach we will use composed signatures’ features. Features of a signature are associated with appropriate similarity coefficients and individually matched to a given signature. If it is necessary, composed features can be reduced. In the proposed study the most promising results are obtained from Hotelling's approach. Data comprising the composed features allow to achieve higher signature recognition level, compared to unprocessed (raw) data. It is the greatest novelty of the paper—the proposed method of data reduction together with a new type of similarity measure gives a high signature recognition level for various classes of classifiers. Leaning on investigations carried out, the classifier based on the Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) has been introduced. Optimal parameters of the PNN have been determined by means of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) procedure. The two class PNN classifier demonstrates high efficiency, compared to other classifiers. The described signature verification system consists of three units where features are captured, composed features are prepared, data are reduced and verified. The results of the study carried on signatures of the SVC2004 and MCYT databases and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in comparison with other methods from the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time series classification using phase-independent subsequences called shapelets is one of the best approaches in the state of the art. This approach is especially characterized by its interpretable property and its fast prediction time. However, given a dataset of n time series of length at most m , learning shapelets requires a computation time of O (n 2 m 4) which is too high for practical datasets. In this paper, we exploit the fact that shapelets are shared by the members of the same class to propose the SAST (Scalable and Accurate Subsequence Transform) algorithm which has a time complexity of O (n m 3). SAST is accurate, interpretable and does not learn redundant shapelets. The experiments we conducted on the UCR archive datasets showed that SAST is more accurate than the state of the art Shapelet Transform algorithm while being significantly more scalable. • We introduce the core shapelet recognition task. • We claim that time series classification by shapelets is a core shapelet recognition task. • We propose the SAST method to successfully performs the core shapelet recognition task in O (n m 3). • SAST is competive and more scalable than the SOTA shapelet methods on the UCR archive. • The implementation of our method is publicly accessible on GitHub. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In real applications, label noise has a great influence on data modeling. As one kind of label noise treatment method, noise filter has attracted extensive attention recently. The existing filters perform well in dealing with label noise completely at random (NCAR) but poorly in dealing with the label noise in the form of clusters (LLC). Besides, the existing filters may over remove the samples located at the classification boundaries, thereby affecting the generalization performance of classifiers. To fill these gaps, we propose a general elevating framework for label noise filters. The core idea of the framework is to improve the filtering performance of the existing filters by sample reduction. Specifically, since most of the existing filters are based on classifier prediction, and the complexity of samples at the boundary will affect the prediction performance of classifiers. Therefore, reducing the complexity of the boundary sample is very helpful to improve the performance of the filters. To this end, we propose a sample reduction method, which can not only reduce the complexity of the sample at the boundary but also convert LLC to NCAR, to get some representative samples. Next, the filter based on classifier prediction is employed to recognize the noisy representative samples. Finally, the noisy labeled samples in the given data set are found according to the identified noisy representatives. Furthermore, through empirical analysis, we found that compared with some classical metrics for evaluating the performance of noise filters, classification accuracy is more suitable to measure the performance of filters. Exhaustive experiments testify the validity of the framework, and the experimental results demonstrate that the performance of our framework is especially outstanding for LLC treatment. • The proposed noise filtering framework can alleviate the phenomenon of over-cleaning. • The performance of most existing noise filters can be improved with this framework. • The metric recommended in this paper can guide the research of the noise filter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep Neural Networks have received considerable attention in recent years. As the complexity of network architecture increases in relation to the task complexity, it becomes harder to manually craft an optimal neural network architecture and train it to convergence. As such, Neural Architecture Search (NAS) is becoming far more prevalent within computer vision research, especially when the construction of efficient, smaller network architectures is becoming an increasingly important area of research, for which NAS is well suited. However, despite their promise, contemporary and end-to-end NAS pipeline require vast computational training resources. In this paper, we present a comprehensive overview of contemporary NAS approaches with respect to image classification, object detection, and image segmentation. We adopt consistent terminology to overcome contradictions common within existing NAS literature. Furthermore, we identify and compare current performance limitations in addition to highlighting directions for future NAS research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision tree algorithm, because of its strong interpretability and high algorithm efficiency, is widely used in the field of pattern recognition and classification. When the number of data samples is small and there is uncertainty in the data, it is difficult for the traditional decision tree algorithm to fully mine the effective information in the data. In this paper, we use the Dempster–Shafer framework to model data uncertainty and propose a hierarchical interval estimation method to improve decision tree algorithms. The proposed method constructs intervals through two methods of attribute boundary and mean square error estimation, which not only utilizes the characteristics of intervals to model the inaccuracy of data, but also constrains intervals from two aspects, narrowing the representation range of available information. By comparing with the classic decision tree algorithm and the decision tree algorithm based on single interval estimation, the proposed method can perform classification tasks robustly and accurately in different types of data under seven data sets. • We propose an evidential decision tree based on a reliability-based BPA generation method and hierarchical interval estimation. • The proposed method greatly reduces the influence of the labels of uncertain data on the classification accuracy of the decision tree and strengthens the robustness of the algorithm. • Comparison with fifteen different decision trees, the accuracy of our proposed method on seven datasets is higher than other methods especially in the face of with uncertain attributes and labels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plenty of models have been presented to handle the hypergraph node classification. However, very few of these methods consider contrastive learning, which is popular due to its great power to represent instances. This paper makes an attempt to leverage contrastive learning to hypergraph representation learning. Specifically, we propose a novel method called Collaborative Contrastive Learning (CCL), which incorporates a generated standard graph with the hypergraph. The main technical contribution here is that we develop a collaborative contrastive schema, which performs contrast between the node views obtained from the standard graph and hypergraph in each network layer, thus making the contrast collaborative. To be precise, in the first layer, the view from the standard graph is used to augment that from the hypergraph. Then, in the next layer, the augmented features are adopted to train a new representation to augment the view from the standard graph conversely. With this setting, the learning procedure is alternated between the standard graph and hypergraph. As a result, the learning on the standard graph and hypergraph is collaborative and leads to the final informative node representation. Experimental results on several widely used datasets validate the effectiveness of the proposed model. • CCL is proposed to handle hypergraph node classification problem. • CCL considers the contrast in each layer from GCN and HGCN. • CCL exploits the convolutional networks on the standard graph and hypergraph. • Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensemble pruning is an important task in supervised learning because of the performance and efficiency advantage it begets to predictive modelling. Performance based empirical comparison (primarily on accuracy) is the most common modus operandi for critical evaluation of ensembles pruned by different algorithms. Deep analysis of existing literature reveals that ensemble size is an ignored attribute while judging the quality of ensembles. In this paper, we argue that the cost-effectiveness of an ensemble is a function of both performance and size. Hence, equitable comparison of two ensembles must take into account both these attributes to judge their relative merits. Following this argument, we propose an objective function called accrual function which quantifies the difference in performance and size of two ensembles, to gauge their relative cost-effectiveness. The function can be parameterized and has nice mathematical properties. Semantic interpretations of these properties are delineated in the paper. Finally, we apply the accrual function on published results from selected publications and demonstrate its ability to beget clarity while comparing ensembles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age estimation from facial images is increasingly receiving attention to solve age-based access control, age-adaptive targeted marketing, amongst other applications. Since even humans can be induced in error due to the complex biological processes involved, finding a robust method remains a research challenge today. In this paper, we propose a new framework for the integration of Active Appearance Models (AAM), Local Binary Patterns (LBP), Gabor wavelets (GW) and Local Phase Quantization (LPQ) in order to obtain a highly discriminative feature representation which is able to model shape, appearance, wrinkles and skin spots. In addition, this paper proposes a novel flexible hierarchical age estimation approach consisting of a multi-class Support Vector Machine (SVM) to classify a subject into an age group followed by a Support Vector Regression (SVR) to estimate a specific age. The errors that may happen in the classification step, caused by the hard boundaries between age classes, are compensated in the specific age estimation by a flexible overlapping of the age ranges. The performance of the proposed approach was evaluated on FG-NET Aging and MORPH Album 2 datasets and a mean absolute error ( MAE ) of 4.50 and 5.86 years was achieved respectively. The robustness of the proposed approach was also evaluated on a merge of both datasets and a MAE of 5.20 years was achieved. Furthermore, we have also compared the age estimation made by humans with the proposed approach and it has shown that the machine outperforms humans. The proposed approach is competitive with current state-of-the-art and it provides an additional robustness to blur, lighting and expression variance brought about by the local phase features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the challenging problem of the recognition and classification of textured surfaces given a single instance acquired under unknown pose, scale and illumination conditions. We propose a novel texture descriptor, the Adaptive Median Binary Pattern (AMBP) based on an adaptive analysis window of local patterns. The principal idea of the AMBP is to convert a small local image patch to a binary pattern using adaptive threshold selection that switches between the central pixel value as used in the Local Binary Pattern (LBP) and the median as in Median Binary Pattern (MBP), but within a variable sized analysis window depending on the local microstructure of the texture. The variability of the local adaptive window is included as joint information to increase the discriminative properties. A new multiscale scheme is also proposed in this paper to handle the texture resolution problem. AMBP is evaluated in relation to other recent binary pattern techniques and many other texture analysis methods on three large texture corpora with and without noise added, CUReT, Outex_TC00012 and KTH_TIPS2. Generally, the proposed method performs better than the best state-of-the-art techniques in the noiseless case and significantly outperforms all of them in the presence of impulse noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Multimodal classification results surpasses the state-of-the-art methods. • Works with missing modalities. • Works with any kind and any number of modalities. In this paper, a graph-based, supervised classification method for multimodal data is introduced. It can be applied on data of any type consisting of any number of modalities and can also be used for the classification of datasets with missing modalities. The proposed method maps the features extracted from every modality to a space where the intrinsic structure of the multimodal data is kept. In order to map the extracted features of the different modalities into the same space and, at the same time, maintain the feature distances between similar and dissimilar modality data instances, a metric learning method is used. The proposed method has been evaluated on NUS-Wide, NTU-RGBD and AV-Letters multimodal datasets and has shown competitive results with the state-of-the-art methods in the field, while is able to cope with datasets with missing modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Scalar time series is unfolded to phase space to find its original structure. • Covariance matrix fuses global features, local features and their interactions. • Classification is carried out in the tangent space of statistical manifolds. Time series classification has been considered as one of the most challenging problems in data mining and widely used in a broad range of fields, such as climate, finance, medicine and computer science. The main challenges of time series classification are to select the appropriate representation (feature extraction) of time series and choose the similarity metric between time series. Compared with the traditional feature extraction method, in this paper, we focus on the fusion of global features, local features and the interaction between them, while preserving the temporal information of the local features. Based on this strategy, a highly comparative approach to univariate time series classification is introduced that uses covariance matrices as interpretable features. From the perspective of probability theory, each covariance matrix can be seen as a zero-mean Gaussian distribution. Our idea is to incorporate covariance matrix into the framework of information geometry, which is to study the geometric structures on the manifolds of the probability distributions. The space of covariance matrices is a statistical (Riemannian) manifold and the geodesic distance is introduced to measure the similarity between them. Our method is to project each distribution (covariance matrix) to a vector on the tangent space of the statistical manifold. Finally, the classification is carried out in the tangent space which is a Euclidean space. Concepts of a structural and functional network are also presented which provide us an understanding of the properties of the data set and guide further interpretation to the classifier. Experimental evaluation shows that the performance of the proposed approach exceeded some competitive methods on benchmark datasets from the UCR time series repository. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent graph neural networks (GNN) has achieved remarkable performance in node representation learning. One key factor of GNN's success is the smoothness property on node representations. Despite this, most GNN models are fragile to the perturbations on graph inputs and could learn unreliable node representations. In this paper, we study how to learn node representations against perturbations in GNN. Specifically, we consider that a node representation should remain stable under slight perturbations on the input, and node representations from different structures should be identifiable, which two are termed as the stability and identifiability on node representations, respectively. To this end, we propose a novel model called Stability-Identifiability GNN Against Perturbations (SIGNNAP) that learns reliable node representations in an unsupervised manner. SIGNNAP formalizes the stability and identifiability by a contrastive objective and preserves the smoothness with existing GNN backbones. The proposed method is a generic framework that can be equipped with many other backbone models (e.g. GCN, GraphSage and GAT). Extensive experiments on six benchmarks under both transductive and inductive learning setups of node classification demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Codes and data are available online: https://github.com/xuChenSJTU/SIGNNAP-master-online [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a new version of penalty-based aggregation functions, the Multi Cost Aggregation choosing functions (MCAs), in which the function to minimize is constructed using a convex combination of two relaxed versions of restricted equivalence and dissimilarity functions instead of a penalty function. We additionally suggest two different alternatives to train a MCA in a supervised classification task in order to adapt the aggregation to each vector of inputs. We apply the proposed MCA in a Motor Imagery-based Brain–Computer Interface (MI-BCI) system to improve its decision making phase. We also evaluate the classical aggregation with our new aggregation procedure in two publicly available datasets. We obtain an accuracy of 82.31% for a left vs. right hand in the Clinical BCI challenge (CBCIC) dataset, and a performance of 62.43% for the four-class case in the BCI Competition IV 2a dataset compared to a 82.15% and 60.56% using the arithmetic mean. Finally, we have also tested the goodness of our proposal against other MI-BCI systems, obtaining better results than those using other decision making schemes and Deep Learning on the same datasets. • We develop relaxed versions of Restricted Equivalence Functions. • We aggregate information from different classifiers trained on different wave bands. • The new aggregations learn from the input data to discriminate between classes. • The novel aggregation functions can be adapted to the original data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-tailed learning is attracting increasing attention due to the unbalanced distributions of real-world data. The aim is to train well-performing depth models. Traditional knowledge transfer methods for long-tailed learning are classified into feature-based horizontal knowledge transfer (HKT) and class-based vertical knowledge transfer (VKT). HKT transfers head-to-tail feature knowledge from different classes to improve classification performance when there are few tail classes. However, HKT easily leads to invalid transfer due to the deviation caused by the difference between the knowledge of head and tail classes. Fortunately, the class space has a multi-grained relationship and can form a multi-granularity knowledge graph (MGKG), which can be recast as coarse-grained and fine-grained losses to guide VKT. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical long-tailed classification method based on multi-granularity knowledge transfer (MGKT), which vertically transfers knowledge from coarse- to fine-grained classes. First, we exploit the semantic information of classes to construct an MGKG, which forms an affiliation of fine- and coarse-grained classes. Fine-grained knowledge can inherit coarse-grained knowledge to reduce transfer bias with the help of MGKG. We then propose a multi-scale feature fusion network, which aims to fully mine the rich information of the features to drive MGKT. Experiments show that the proposed model outperforms several state-of-the-art models in classifying long-tailed data. For example, our model performed 4.46% better than the next-best model on the SUN-LT dataset. • We propose a multi-scale feature fusion network about channel and spatial features. • We investigate a multi-granularity relationship of class space. • We explore a vertical transfer of coarse- to fine-grained knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose novel graph classification method for better classification performance. • We develop an edge feature scheme and an add-on layer for discriminative feature learning. • We create corresponding graph datasets based upon ModelNet40, ModelNet10 and ShapeNet Part datasets and will release them to the community. Spectral graph convolutional neural networks (GCNNs) have been producing encouraging results in graph classification tasks. However, most spectral GCNNs utilize fixed graphs when aggregating node features while omitting edge feature learning and failing to get an optimal graph structure. Moreover, many existing graph datasets do not provide initialized edge features, further restraining the ability of learning edge features via spectral GCNNs. In this paper, we try to address this issue by designing an edge feature scheme and an add-on layer between every two stacked graph convolution layers in spectral GCNN. Both are lightweight while effective in filling the gap between edge feature learning and performance enhancement of graph classification. The edge feature scheme makes edge features adapt to node representations at different spectral graph convolution layers. The add-on layer helps adjust the edge features to an optimal graph structure. To test the effectiveness of our method, we take Euclidean positions as initial node features and extract graphs with semantic information from point cloud objects. The node features of our extracted graphs are more scalable for edge feature learning than most existing graph datasets (in one-hot encoded label format). Three new graph datasets are constructed based on ModelNet40, ModelNet10 and ShapeNet Part datasets. Experimental results show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art graph classification methods on the new datasets. Our code and the constructed graph datasets will be released to the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel method CIDA, which uses the independence/dependence between features and the corresponding class/domain labels, is proposed to deal with UDA problem. • The objective function can be embedded into deep network architectures, and the whole model can be trained in an end-to-end manner. • A probabilistic interpretation of CIDA with Gaussian process is presented. • The effectiveness of CIDA is validated by several UDA benchmark datasets. Learning domain-adaptive features is important to tackle the dataset bias problem, where data distributions in the labeled source domain and the unlabeled target domain can be different. The critical issue is to identify and then reduce the redundant information including class-irrelevant and domain-specific features. In this paper, a conditional independence induced unsupervised domain adaptation (CIDA) method is proposed to tackle the challenges. It aims to find the low-dimensional and transferable feature representation of each observation, namely the latent variable in the domain-adaptive subspace. Technically, two mutual information terms are optimized at the same time. One is the mutual information between the latent variable and the class label, and the other is the mutual information between the latent variable and the domain label. Note that the key module can be approximately reformulated as a conditional independence/dependence based optimization problem, and thus, it has a probabilistic interpretation with the Gaussian process. Temporary labels of the target samples and the model parameters are alternatively optimized. The objective function can be incorporated with deep network architectures, and the algorithm is implemented iteratively in an end-to-end manner. Extensive experiments are conducted on several benchmark datasets, and the results show effectiveness of CIDA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a method for improved ensemble learning, by treating the optimization of an ensemble of classifiers as a compressed sensing problem. Ensemble learning methods improve the performance of a learned predictor by integrating a weighted combination of multiple predictive models. Ideally, the number of models needed in the ensemble should be minimized, while optimizing the weights associated with each included model. We solve this problem by treating it as an example of the compressed sensing problem, in which a sparse solution must be reconstructed from an under-determined linear system. Compressed sensing techniques are then employed to find an ensemble which is both small and effective. An additional contribution of this paper, is to present a new performance evaluation method (a new pairwise diversity measurement) called the roulette-wheel kappa-error. This method takes into account the different weightings of the classifiers, and also reduces the total number of pairs of classifiers needed in the kappa-error diagram, by selecting pairs through a roulette-wheel selection method according to the weightings of the classifiers. This approach can greatly improve the clarity and informativeness of the kappa-error diagram, especially when the number of classifiers in the ensemble is large. We use 25 different public data sets to evaluate and compare the performance of compressed sensing ensembles using four different sparse reconstruction algorithms, combined with two different classifier learning algorithms and two different training data manipulation techniques. We also give the comparison experiments of our method against another five state-of-the-art pruning methods. These experiments show that our method produces comparable or better accuracy, while being significantly faster than the compared methods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Verification of identity based on the analysis of dynamic signatures is an important problem of biometrics. The effectiveness of the verification significantly increases when the dynamic characteristics of signature (e.g. velocity of the pen) are considered. These characteristics are individual for each user and difficult to imitate. The effectiveness of the verification can be further improved by using partitioning. In this paper we propose a new method which uses partitioning. In our method partitions represent areas of high and low speed of signature and high and low pen׳s pressure. All selected partitions are used by our algorithm, but more important in the classification process are these partitions, in which the signatures of the user acquired during training phase are more stable. Moreover, final classification is interpretable. In this paper we present the simulation results of the proposed method for the two databases: SVC2004 and BioSecure Database. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A particle swarm optimization based simultaneous learning framework for clustering and classification (PSOSLCC) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, an improved particle swarm optimization (PSO) is used to partition the training samples, the number of clusters must be given in advance, an automatic clustering algorithm rather than the trial and error is adopted to find the proper number of clusters, and a set of clustering centers is obtained to form classification mechanism. Secondly, in order to exploit more useful local information and get a better optimizing result, a global factor is introduced to the update strategy update strategy of particle in PSO. PSOSLCC has been extensively compared with fuzzy relational classifier (FRC), vector quantization and learning vector quantization (VQ+LVQ3), and radial basis function neural network (RBFNN), a simultaneous learning framework for clustering and classification (SCC) over several real-life datasets, the experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm not only greatly reduces the time complexity, but also obtains better classification accuracy for most datasets used in this paper. Moreover, PSOSLCC is applied to a real world application, namely texture image segmentation with a good performance obtained, which shows that the proposed algorithm has a potential of classifying the problems with large scale. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper studies Fisher linear discriminants (FLDs) based on classification accuracies for imbalanced datasets. An optimal threshold is found out from a series of empirical formulas developed, which is related not only to sample sizes but also to distribution regions. A mixed binary–decimal coding system is suggested to make the very dense datasets sparse and enlarge the class margins on condition that the neighborhood relationships of samples are nearly preserved. The within-class scatter matrices being or approximately singular should be moderately reduced in dimensionality but not added with tiny perturbations. The weight vectors can be further updated by a kind of epoch-limited (three at most) iterative learning strategy provided that the current training error rates come down accordingly. Putting the above ideas together, this paper proposes a type of integrated FLDs. The extensive experimental results over real-world datasets have demonstrated that the integrated FLDs have obvious advantages over the conventional FLDs in the aspects of learning and generalization performances for the imbalanced datasets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• The paper proposes a high-level semantic mapping within semantic space to increase the semantic deduction ability of the deep neural network. • Different from multi-level label learning, the proposed model can not only learn features but also deduct high-level semantic expression by itself. • The deduction learning is realized by the semantic prior and the proposed random search for opposite semantic to ensure the smoothness of semantic clustering. • The proposed model achieves stable convergence and high classification accuracy. It can be taken as a plug-in module for various deep learning applications. The paper proposes a semantic clustering based deduction learning by mimicking the learning and thinking process of human brains. Human beings can make judgments based on experience and cognition, and as a result, no one would recognize an unknown animal as a car. Inspired by this observation, we propose to train deep learning models using the clustering prior that can guide the models to learn with the ability of semantic deducing and summarizing from classification attributes, such as a cat belonging to animals while a car pertaining to vehicles. The proposed approach realizes the high-level clustering in the semantic space, enabling the model to deduce the relations among various classes during the learning process. In addition, the paper introduces a semantic prior based random search for the opposite labels to ensure the smooth distribution of the clustering and the robustness of the classifiers. The proposed approach is supported theoretically and empirically through extensive experiments. We compare the performance across state-of-the-art classifiers on popular benchmarks, and the generalization ability is verified by adding noisy labeling to the datasets. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a novel, simple, yet powerful and robust method for rotation invariant texture classification. Like the Local Binary Patterns (LBP), the proposed method considers at each pixel a neighboring function defined on a circle of radius R. We define local frequency components as the magnitude of the coefficients of the 1D Fourier transform of the neighboring function. By applying different bandpass filters on the 2D Fourier transform of the local frequency components, we define our Local Frequency Descriptors (LFD). The LFD features are added dynamically from low frequencies to high. The features defined in this paper are invariant to rotation. As well, they are robust to noise. The experimental results on the Outex, CUReT, and KTH-TIPS datasets show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art texture analysis methods. The results also show that the proposed method is very robust to noise. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper offers a survey of recent work on particle swarm classification (PSC), a promising offshoot of particle swarm optimization (PSO), with the goal of positioning it in the overall classification domain. The richness of the related literature shows that this new classification approach may be an efficient alternative, in addition to existing paradigms. After describing the various PSC approaches found in the literature, the paper identifies and discusses two data-related problems that may affect PSC efficiency: high-dimensional datasets and mixed-attribute data. The solutions that have been proposed in the literature for each of these issues are described including recent improvements by a novel PSC algorithm developed by the authors. Subsequently, a positioning PSC for these problems with respect to other classification approaches is made. This is accomplished by using one proprietary and five well known benchmark datasets to determine the performances of PSC algorithm and comparing the obtained results with those reported for various other classification approaches. It is concluded that PSC can be efficiently applied to classification problems with large numbers of instances, both in continuous and mixed-attribute problem description spaces. Moreover, the obtained results show that PSC may not only be applied to more demanding problem domains, but it can also be a competitive alternative to well established classification techniques. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Supervised feature selection is an important problem in pattern recognition. Of the many methods introduced, those based on the mutual information and conditional mutual information measures are among the most widely adopted approaches. In this paper, we re-analyze an interesting paper on this topic recently published by Sotoca and Pla (Pattern Recognition, Vol. 43 Issue 6, June, 2010, pp. 2068–2081). In that work, a method for supervised feature selection based on clustering the features into groups is proposed, using a conditional mutual information based distance measure. The clustering procedure minimizes the objective function named the minimal relevant redundancy—mRR criterion. It is proposed that this objective function is the upper bound of the information loss when the full set of features is replaced by a smaller subset. We have found that their proof for this proposition is based on certain erroneous assumptions, and that the proposition itself is not true in general. In order to remedy the reported work, we characterize the specific conditions under which the assumptions used in the proof, and hence the proposition, hold true. It is our finding that there is a reasonable condition, namely when all features are independent given the class variable (as assumed by the popular naive Bayes classifier), under which the assumptions as required by Sotoca and Pla''s framework hold true. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Non-rigid 3D shape retrieval has become an active and important research topic in content-based 3D object retrieval. The aim of this paper is to measure and compare the performance of state-of-the-art methods for non-rigid 3D shape retrieval. The paper develops a new benchmark consisting of 600 non-rigid 3D watertight meshes, which are equally classified into 30 categories, to carry out experiments for 11 different algorithms, whose retrieval accuracies are evaluated using six commonly utilized measures. Models and evaluation tools of the new benchmark are publicly available on our web site . [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we present research results on off-line Arabic handwriting recognition using structural techniques. Statistical methods have been more common in the reported research on Arabic handwriting recognition. Structural methods have remained largely unexplored in this regard. However, both statistical and structural techniques can be effectively integrated in multi-classifier based systems. This paper presents, to our knowledge, the first integrated offline Arabic handwritten text recognition system based on structural techniques. In implementing the system, several novel algorithms and techniques for structural recognition of Arabic handwriting are introduced. An Arabic text line is segmented into words/sub-words and dots are extracted. An adaptive slant correction algorithm that is able to correct the different slant angles of the different components of a text line is presented. A novel segmentation algorithm, which is integrated into the recognition phase, is designed based on the nature of Arabic writing and utilizes a polygonal approximation algorithm. This is followed by Arabic character modeling by ‘fuzzy’ polygons and later recognized using a novel fuzzy polygon matching algorithm. Dynamic programming is used to select best hypotheses of a sequence of recognized characters for each word/sub-word. In addition, several other key ideas, namely prototype selection using set-medians, lexicon reduction using dot-descriptors etc. are utilized to design a robust handwriting recognition system. Results are reported on the benchmarking IfN/ENIT database of Tunisian city names which indicate the robustness and the effectiveness of our system. The recognition rates are comparable to multi-classifier implementations and better than single classifier systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper we show that the performance of binary classifiers based on Boosted Random Ferns can be significantly improved by appropriately bootstrapping the training step. This results in a classifier which is both highly discriminative and computationally efficient and is particularly suitable when only small sets of training images are available. During the learning process, a small set of labeled images is used to train the boosting binary classifier. The classifier is then evaluated over the training set and warped versions of the classified and misclassified patches are progressively added into the positive and negative sample sets for a new re-training step. In this paper we thoroughly study the conditions under which this bootstrapping scheme improves the detection rates. In particular we assess the quality of detection both as a function of the number of bootstrapping iterations and the size of the training set. We compare our algorithm against state-of-the-art approaches for several databases including faces, cars, motorbikes and horses, and show remarkable improvements in detection rates with just a few bootstrapping steps. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The current paper presents an automatic and context sensitive system for the dynamic recognition of pain expression among the six basic facial expressions and neutral on acted and spontaneous sequences. A machine learning approach based on the Transferable Belief Model, successfully used previously to categorize the six basic facial expressions in static images , is extended in the current paper for the automatic and dynamic recognition of pain expression from video sequences in a hospital context application. The originality of the proposed method is the use of the dynamic information for the recognition of pain expression and the combination of different sensors, permanent facial features behavior, transient features behavior, and the context of the study, using the same fusion model. Experimental results, on 2-alternative forced choices and, for the first time, on 8-alternative forced choices (i.e. pain expression is classified among seven other facial expressions), show good classification rates even in the case of spontaneous pain sequences. The mean classification rates on acted and spontaneous data reach 81.2% and 84.5% for the 2-alternative and 8-alternative forced choices, respectively. Moreover, the system performances compare favorably to the human observer rates (76%), and lead to the same doubt states in the case of blend expressions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]