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This paper presents a new learning algorithm for multitask pattern recognition (MTPR) problems. We consider learning multiple multiclass classification tasks online where no information is ever provided about the task category of a training example. The algorithm thus needs an automated task recognition capability to properly learn the different classification tasks. The learning mode is "online" where training examples for different tasks are mixed in a random fashion and given sequentially one after another. We assume that the classification tasks are related to each other and that both the tasks and their training examples appear in random during "online training." Thus, the learning algorithm has to continually switch from learning one task to another whenever the training examples change to a different task. This also implies that the learning algorithm has to detect task changes automatically and utilize knowledge of previous tasks for learning new tasks fast. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated for ten MTPR problems using five University of California at Irvine (UCI) data sets. The experiments verify that the proposed algorithm can indeed acquire and accumulate task knowledge and that the transfer of knowledge from tasks already learned enhances the speed of knowledge acquisition on new tasks and the final classification accuracy. In addition, the task categorization accuracy is greatly improved for all MTPR problems by introducing the reorganization process even if the presentation order of class training examples is fairly biased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature selection is an effective way to reduce the data dimensionality of hyperspectral imagery and obtain a better performance in the subsequent applications, such as classification. The ideal approach is to obtain the optimal tradeoff between two criteria for hyperspectral image feature selection: 1) information preservation and 2) redundancy reduction. However, constructing a hyperspectral feature selection model for the above two criteria is difficult due to the complexity of hyperspectral imagery. Although evolutionary multiobjective optimization methods have been recently presented to simultaneously optimize the above criteria, they cannot control the global exploration versus local exploitation capabilities in the search space for the hyperspectral feature selection problem. Thus, in this article, a novel discrete sine cosine algorithm (SCA)-based multiobjective feature selection (MOSCA_FS) approach is proposed for hyperspectral imagery. In the proposed method, a novel and effective framework of multiobjective hyperspectral feature selection is designed. In the framework, the ratio between the Jeffries–Matusita (JM) distance and mutual information (MI) is modeled to minimize the redundancy and maximize the relevance of the selected feature subset. In addition, another measurement—the variance (Var)—is applied for maximizing the information amount. Furthermore, to resolve the discrete hyperspectral feature selection problem, a novel discrete SCA is first proposed, which enhances the selection of the ideal feature subset. The effectiveness and universality of the proposed method was verified by experiments with ten University of California at Irvine (UCI) data sets, five hyperspectral image data sets, and one spectral data set of typical surface features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trained radial basis function networks are well-suited for use in extracting rules and explanations because they contain a set of locally tuned units. However, for rule extraction to be useful, these networks must first be pruned to eliminate unnecessary weights. The pruning algorithm cannot search the network exhaustively because of the computational effort involved. It is shown that using multiple pruning methods with smart ordering of the pruning candidates, the number of weights in a radial basis function network can be reduced to a small fraction of the original number. The complexity of the pruning algorithm is quadratic (instead of exponential) in the number of network weights. Pruning performance is shown using a variety of benchmark problems from the University of California, Irvine machine learning database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two well-known drawbacks in fuzzy clustering are the requirement of assigning in advance the number of clusters and random initialization of cluster centers. The quality of the final fuzzy clusters depends heavily on the initial choice of the number of clusters and the initialization of the clusters, then, it is necessary to apply a validity index to measure the compactness and the separability of the final clusters and run the clustering algorithm several times. We propose a new fuzzy C-means algorithm in which a validity index based on the concepts of maximum fuzzy energy and minimum fuzzy entropy is applied to initialize the cluster centers and to find the optimal number of clusters and initial cluster centers in order to obtain a good clustering quality, without increasing time consumption. We test our algorithm on UCI (University of California at Irvine) machine learning classification datasets comparing the results with the ones obtained by using well-known validity indices and variations of fuzzy C-means by using optimization algorithms in the initialization phase. The comparison results show that our algorithm represents an optimal trade-off between the quality of clustering and the time consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]