An Overview of the Use of Neural Networks for Data Mining Tasks

In the recent years the area of data mining has experienced a considerable demand for technologies that extract knowledge from large and complex data sources. There is a substantial commercial interest as well as research investigations in the area that aim to develop new and improved approaches for extracting information, relationships, and patterns from datasets. Artificial Neural Networks (NN) are popular biologically inspired intelligent methodologies, whose classification, prediction and pattern recognition capabilities have been utilised successfully in many areas, including science, engineering, medicine, business, banking, telecommunication, and many other fields. This paper highlights from a data mining perspective the implementation of NN, using supervised and unsupervised learning, for pattern recognition, classification, prediction and cluster analysis, and focuses the discussion on their usage in bioinformatics and financial data analysis tasks

Recognition of Tifinagh Characters using Self Organizing Map and Fuzzy k-Nearest Neighbor

In this paper we present a comparison between SOM (Self-Organization Map) neural network and Fuzzy Knearest Neighbor algorithms and their application to handwriting Tifinagh character recognition.The Box approach proposed in [1] is used for features extraction. Experimentation is carried out on a limited database of nearly 200 samples. The results showed that Fuzzy K-Nearest Neighbor had a very good performance

Chronological Profiling for Paleography

This paper approaches manuscript dating from a Bayesian perspective. Prior work on paleographic date recovery has generally sought to predict a single date for a manuscript. Bayesian analysis makes it possible to estimate a probability distribution that varies with respect to time. This in turn enables a number of alternative analyses that may be of more use to practitioners. For example, it may be useful to identify a range of years that will include a document’s creation date with a particular confidence level. The methods are demonstrated on a selection of Syriac documents created prior to 1300 CE

Player modeling using self-organization in Tomb Raider : Underworld

We present a study focused on constructing models of players for the major commercial title Tomb Raider: Underworld (TRU). Emergent self-organizing maps are trained on high-level playing behavior data obtained from 1365 players that completed the TRU game. The unsupervised learning approach utilized reveals four types of players which are analyzed within the context of the game. The proposed approach automates, in part, the traditional user and play testing procedures followed in the game industry since it can inform game developers, in detail, if the players play the game as intended by the game design. Subsequently, player models can assist the tailoring of game mechanics in real-time for the needs of the player type identified.peer-reviewe

Feature-extraction methods for historical manuscript dating based on writing style development

Paleographers and philologists perform significant research in finding the dates of ancient manuscripts to understand the historical contexts. To estimate these dates, the traditional process of using classical paleography is subjective, tedious, and often time-consuming. An automatic system based on pattern recognition techniques that infers these dates would be a valuable tool for scholars. In this study, the development of handwriting styles over time in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient manuscripts, is used to create a model that predicts the date of a query manuscript. In order to extract the handwriting styles, several dedicated feature-extraction techniques have been explored. Additionally, a self-organizing time map is used as a codebook. Support vector regression is used to estimate a date based on the feature vector of a manuscript. The date estimation from grapheme-based technique outperforms other feature-extraction techniques in identifying the chronological style development of handwriting in this study of the Dead Sea Scrolls

From collection to reflection : on designing Freed, a tool for free and flexible organization of designers' digital work

Designers collect a lot of information during the design process, such as background research, ideas, notes, sketches, photos, videos and feedback from various stakeholders. A large part of this information gets lost in folders on individual computers, inside documents and presentations, or on pages in designers' notebooks. This is wasteful, because this information can be used for reflection. Reflection enables designers to give meaning to their experience and to develop. When reflecting designers think about what, how and why they design, or more specifically: It allows them to gain overview of, gain insight in and give direction to their design process, ideas, designs, skills, knowledge, interests, ambitions, identity and community. Reflection concerns integration, i.e., to explore relations, and diversity, i.e., to explore new perspectives. Reflection has a dual nature. On the one hand, it is an explicit action that requires designers to step out of the flow of designing. On the other hand, it is an implicit process that happens automatically while designing. This dual nature also holds true for how reflection can be supported. On the one hand, one can specifically dedicate time for reflection. On the other hand, reflection can be captured ¿in the action', during or right after other activities that are part of the design process. This project adopts a Research-through-Design approach: By designing and evaluating a software application called Freed, insight is gained in how designers' reflection can be supported by means of their digital collections. Freed is discussed and evaluated with design students and designer-researchers at the department of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology. This context, which has strongly inspired and influenced this work, is introduced in the first chapter. In the second chapter, the foundations, goals and approach of this research are outlined. Based on the goal of supporting both integration and diversity, the case is made for free and flexible organization. Freedom is defined as the possibility to let structure and meaning emerge during interaction, instead of being imposed by the structure of the application. It can also be referred to as the openness of the application, or its ability to be appropriated and used in diverse situations. Flexibility is defined as the possibility to easily reorganize and reuse design work and to switch between perspectives on this work. Related work concerning reflection, design and collection, is discussed in the third chapter. This chapter ends with the conclusion that design is about action and exploration, and that reflection cannot be seen independent from action. Opportunities for reflection can be provided by a flexible person- and context- dependent design process that allows for many switches between activities, and regular reframing of the design situation. A system for supporting reflection should fit this flexible nature, and give designers the freedom to use the system for their own purposes. This desired combination of freedom and flexibility is not found in existing tools and systems. For example, existing tools and systems include elements that may inhibit free and flexible organization of the collection, such as similarity criteria, IBIS notations, and hierarchical relations. The main process of design and evaluation is discussed chronologically in chapters four to seven. The fourth chapter introduces initial design concepts, and argues for a focus on software. A first software prototype called ¿The Magnetic Collage Software' is discussed, along with a personal reflection on the use of it. From this reflection is concluded that the initial prototype works well for gaining overview quickly, but that it needed to be improved in order to support more active exploration of relations and perspectives. In chapter five the initial version of Freed is discussed. The main elements of Freed are a zoomable unconstrained canvas, a forcebased layout, and the possibility to create multiple organizations of the same content. The purpose of the force-based layout, in which related content attracts each other and non-related content repulses each other, is to encourage the exploration of relations and different spatial organizations. These organizations, or ¿views', can for example be used for a specific design activity or project phase (e.g. presenting, mapping related work), for creating an overview of the entire design process, for a portfolio of multiple projects, or for explaining the perspective of a given designer or stakeholder. The chapter concludes with a discussion of first feedback from design students and a case study in which the software was used for building a presentation and collection of the research group in which this research is carried out. The case study showed how the activities of building a presentation and collection can support each other and how this active, integrated use can lead to reflection. Chapter six focuses on the use of Freed during the design process. It discusses a design iteration, an introductory workshop and questionnaire, and a semester-long evaluation during student design projects. This evaluation showed that Freed was valued as a tool for gaining overview of and revisiting design work and process. Additionally, it showed that in order to support more exploration and reflection during and after the design process, the threshold for documentation and communication needed to be lowered, a better balance between organization and visualization needed to be obtained, and the integration and overview of views needed to be improved. Chapter seven focuses on using Freed as a tool for exploring relations and perspectives. It discusses a final design iteration, an evaluation during which students used Freed to explore their personal views on design theory, a case study of designerresearchers using the software for organizing student projects, and a reflection on personal use of Freed. These cases showed how Freed provides the freedom to be used differently by various design students and how multiple views can help to integrate work and to explore relations and perspectives. They also showed that both freedom and structure are needed for reflection, and how Freed can be used complementary to other activities such as physical diagramming or clustering. For example, physical clustering (e.g. of Post-it notes or printed images) helps to quickly gain consensus among a group and to make decisions, while Freed provides input for more dynamic discussions, allows for personal exploration (i.e. to temporarily loose the group consensus), and allows for insight to develop gradually. Chapter 8 concerns a reflection on this research as a whole, and discusses ¿conditions for collection and reflection', future work, and Research-through-Design. The main conclusions are that reflection builds on active use of a digital collection, that active use benefits from having a rich, visual, integrated collection, that reflection requires both freedom and structure, that structure emerges from direct, expressive local interaction, and that using a digital collection for reflection requires time and skill. In future work, there's a need to move beyond the confinements of a single software application, and to explore how to design for systems that integrate diverse products and applications. Additionally, there's a need to explore the integration of collection and reflection in a collaborative setting (and) in design practice

Offline Bengali writer verification by PDF-CNN and siamese net

© 2018 IEEE. Automated handwriting analysis is a popular area of research owing to the variation of writing patterns. In this research area, writer verification is one of the most challenging branches, having direct impact on biometrics and forensics. In this paper, we deal with offline writer verification on complex handwriting patterns. Therefore, we choose a relatively complex script, i.e., Indic Abugida script Bengali (or, Bangla) containing more than 250 compound characters. From a handwritten sample, the probability distribution functions (PDFs) of some handcrafted features are obtained and input to a convolutional neural network (CNN). For such a CNN architecture, we coin the term 'PDFCNN', where handcrafted feature PDFs are hybridized with auto-derived CNN features. Such hybrid features are then fed into a Siamese neural network for writer verification. The experiments are performed on a Bengali offline handwritten dataset of 100 writers. Our system achieves encouraging results, which sometimes exceed the results of state-of-The-Art techniques on writer verification