Fusing Automatically Extracted Annotations for the Semantic Web

This research focuses on the problem of semantic data fusion. Although various solutions have been developed in the research communities focusing on databases and formal logic, the choice of an appropriate algorithm is non-trivial because the performance of each algorithm and its optimal configuration parameters depend on the type of data, to which the algorithm is applied. In order to be reusable, the fusion system must be able to select appropriate techniques and use them in combination. Moreover, because of the varying reliability of data sources and algorithms performing fusion subtasks, uncertainty is an inherent feature of semantically annotated data and has to be taken into account by the fusion system. Finally, the issue of schema heterogeneity can have a negative impact on the fusion performance. To address these issues, we propose KnoFuss: an architecture for Semantic Web data integration based on the principles of problem-solving methods. Algorithms dealing with different fusion subtasks are represented as components of a modular architecture, and their capabilities are described formally. This allows the architecture to select appropriate methods and configure them depending on the processed data. In order to handle uncertainty, we propose a novel algorithm based on the Dempster-Shafer belief propagation. KnoFuss employs this algorithm to reason about uncertain data and method results in order to refine the fused knowledge base. Tests show that these solutions lead to improved fusion performance. Finally, we addressed the problem of data fusion in the presence of schema heterogeneity. We extended the KnoFuss framework to exploit results of automatic schema alignment tools and proposed our own schema matching algorithm aimed at facilitating data fusion in the Linked Data environment. We conducted experiments with this approach and obtained a substantial improvement in performance in comparison with public data repositories

Advances and Applications of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) for Information Fusion (Collected Works), Vol. 4

The fourth volume on Advances and Applications of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) for information fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different fields of applications and in mathematics. The contributions (see List of Articles published in this book, at the end of the volume) have been published or presented after disseminating the third volume (2009, http://fs.unm.edu/DSmT-book3.pdf) in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals. First Part of this book presents the theoretical advancement of DSmT, dealing with Belief functions, conditioning and deconditioning, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Decision Making, Multi-Criteria, evidence theory, combination rule, evidence distance, conflicting belief, sources of evidences with different importance and reliabilities, importance of sources, pignistic probability transformation, Qualitative reasoning under uncertainty, Imprecise belief structures, 2-Tuple linguistic label, Electre Tri Method, hierarchical proportional redistribution, basic belief assignment, subjective probability measure, Smarandache codification, neutrosophic logic, Evidence theory, outranking methods, Dempster-Shafer Theory, Bayes fusion rule, frequentist probability, mean square error, controlling factor, optimal assignment solution, data association, Transferable Belief Model, and others. More applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the third book of DSmT 2009. Subsequently, the second part of this volume is about applications of DSmT in correlation with Electronic Support Measures, belief function, sensor networks, Ground Moving Target and Multiple target tracking, Vehicle-Born Improvised Explosive Device, Belief Interacting Multiple Model filter, seismic and acoustic sensor, Support Vector Machines, Alarm classification, ability of human visual system, Uncertainty Representation and Reasoning Evaluation Framework, Threat Assessment, Handwritten Signature Verification, Automatic Aircraft Recognition, Dynamic Data-Driven Application System, adjustment of secure communication trust analysis, and so on. Finally, the third part presents a List of References related with DSmT published or presented along the years since its inception in 2004, chronologically ordered

Heterogeneous information fusion: combination of multiple supervised and unsupervised classification methods based on belief functions

International audienceIn real-life machine learning applications, a common problem is that raw data (e.g. remote sensing data) is sometimes inaccessible due to confidentiality and privacy constrains of corporations, making classification methods arduous to work in the supervised context. Moreover, even though raw data is accessible, limited labeled samples can also seriously affect supervised methods. Recently, supervised and unsupervised classification (clustering) results related to specific applications are published by more and more organizations. Therefore, combination of supervised classification and clustering results has gained increasing attention to improve the accuracy of supervised predictions. Incorporating clustering results with supervised classifications at the output level can help to lessen the recline on information at the raw data level, so that is pertinent to improve the accuracy for the applications when raw data is inaccessible or training samples are limited. We focus on the combination of multiple supervised classification and clustering results at the output level based on belief functions for three purposes: (1) to improve the accuracy of classification when raw data is inaccessible or training samples are highly limited; (2) to reduce uncertain and imprecise information in the supervised results; and (3) to study how supervised classification and clustering results affect the combination at the output level. Our contributions consist of a transformation method to transfer heterogeneous information into the same frame, and an iterative fusion strategy to retain most of the trustful information in multiple supervised classification and clustering results

Advances and Applications of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) for Information Fusion (Collected works), Vol. 2

This second volume dedicated to Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) in Information Fusion brings in new fusion quantitative rules (such as the PCR1-6, where PCR5 for two sources does the most mathematically exact redistribution of conflicting masses to the non-empty sets in the fusion literature), qualitative fusion rules, and the Belief Conditioning Rule (BCR) which is different from the classical conditioning rule used by the fusion community working with the Mathematical Theory of Evidence. Other fusion rules are constructed based on T-norm and T-conorm (hence using fuzzy logic and fuzzy set in information fusion), or more general fusion rules based on N-norm and N-conorm (hence using neutrosophic logic and neutrosophic set in information fusion), and an attempt to unify the fusion rules and fusion theories. The known fusion rules are extended from the power set to the hyper-power set and comparison between rules are made on many examples. One defines the degree of intersection of two sets, degree of union of two sets, and degree of inclusion of two sets which all help in improving the all existing fusion rules as well as the credibility, plausibility, and communality functions. The book chapters are written by Frederic Dambreville, Milan Daniel, Jean Dezert, Pascal Djiknavorian, Dominic Grenier, Xinhan Huang, Pavlina Dimitrova Konstantinova, Xinde Li, Arnaud Martin, Christophe Osswald, Andrew Schumann, Tzvetan Atanasov Semerdjiev, Florentin Smarandache, Albena Tchamova, and Min Wang

Recommendation Framework Based on Subjective Logic in Decision Support Systems

In this thesis our goals are to investigate the suitability of subjective logic within the decision support context that requires connectivity to complex data, user specification of frames of discernment, representation of complex reasoning expressions, an architecture that supports distributed usage of a decision support tool based on a client-server approach that separates user interactions on the browser side from computational engines for calculations on the server side, and analysis of the suitability and limitations of the proposed architecture

Advances and Applications of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT), Vol. 1

The Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) of plausible and paradoxical reasoning is a natural extension of the classical Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST) but includes fundamental differences with the DST. DSmT allows to formally combine any types of independent sources of information represented in term of belief functions, but is mainly focused on the fusion of uncertain, highly conflicting and imprecise quantitative or qualitative sources of evidence. DSmT is able to solve complex, static or dynamic fusion problems beyond the limits of the DST framework, especially when conflicts between sources become large and when the refinement of the frame of the problem under consideration becomes inaccessible because of vague, relative and imprecise nature of elements of it. DSmT is used in cybernetics, robotics, medicine, military, and other engineering applications where the fusion of sensors\u27 information is required

Brain Tumor Diagnosis Support System: A decision Fusion Framework

An important factor in providing effective and efficient therapy for brain tumors is early and accurate detection, which can increase survival rates. Current image-based tumor detection and diagnosis techniques are heavily dependent on interpretation by neuro-specialists and/or radiologists, making the evaluation process time-consuming and prone to human error and subjectivity. Besides, widespread use of MR spectroscopy requires specialized processing and assessment of the data and obvious and fast show of the results as photos or maps for routine medical interpretative of an exam. Automatic brain tumor detection and classification have the potential to offer greater efficiency and predictions that are more accurate. However, the performance accuracy of automatic detection and classification techniques tends to be dependent on the specific image modality and is well known to vary from technique to technique. For this reason, it would be prudent to examine the variations in the execution of these methods to obtain consistently high levels of achievement accuracy. Designing, implementing, and evaluating categorization software is the goal of the suggested framework for discerning various brain tumor types on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using textural features. This thesis introduces a brain tumor detection support system that involves the use of a variety of tumor classifiers. The system is designed as a decision fusion framework that enables these multi-classifier to analyze medical images, such as those obtained from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The fusion procedure is ground on the Dempster-Shafer evidence fusion theory. Numerous experimental scenarios have been implemented to validate the efficiency of the proposed framework. Compared with alternative approaches, the outcomes show that the methodology developed in this thesis demonstrates higher accuracy and higher computational efficiency

Trustworthy Deep Learning for Medical Image Segmentation

Despite the recent success of deep learning methods at achieving new state-of-the-art accuracy for medical image segmentation, some major limitations are still restricting their deployment into clinics. One major limitation of deep learning-based segmentation methods is their lack of robustness to variability in the image acquisition protocol and in the imaged anatomy that were not represented or were underrepresented in the training dataset. This suggests adding new manually segmented images to the training dataset to better cover the image variability. However, in most cases, the manual segmentation of medical images requires highly skilled raters and is time-consuming, making this solution prohibitively expensive. Even when manually segmented images from different sources are available, they are rarely annotated for exactly the same regions of interest. This poses an additional challenge for current state-of-the-art deep learning segmentation methods that rely on supervised learning and therefore require all the regions of interest to be segmented for all the images to be used for training. This thesis introduces new mathematical and optimization methods to mitigate those limitations.Comment: PhD thesis successfully defended on 1st July 2022. Examiners: Prof Sotirios Tsaftaris and Dr Wenjia Ba

Semantic Decision Support for Information Fusion Applications

La thèse s'inscrit dans le domaine de la représentation des connaissances et la modélisation de l'incertitude dans un contexte de fusion d'informations. L'idée majeure est d'utiliser les outils sémantiques que sont les ontologies, non seulement pour représenter les connaissances générales du domaine et les observations, mais aussi pour représenter les incertitudes que les sources introduisent dans leurs observations. Nous proposons de représenter ces incertitudes au travers d'une méta-ontologie (DS-ontology) fondée sur la théorie des fonctions de croyance. La contribution de ce travail porte sur la définition d'opérateurs d'inclusion et d'intersection sémantique et sur lesquels s'appuie la mise en œuvre de la théorie des fonctions de croyance, et sur le développement d'un outil appelé FusionLab permettant la fusion d'informations sémantiques à partir du développement théorique précédent. Une application de ces travaux a été réalisée dans le cadre d'un projet de surveillance maritime.This thesis is part of the knowledge representation domain and modeling of uncertainty in a context of information fusion. The main idea is to use semantic tools and more specifically ontologies, not only to represent the general domain knowledge and observations, but also to represent the uncertainty that sources may introduce in their own observations. We propose to represent these uncertainties and semantic imprecision trough a metaontology (called DS-Ontology) based on the theory of belief functions. The contribution of this work focuses first on the definition of semantic inclusion and intersection operators for ontologies and on which relies the implementation of the theory of belief functions, and secondly on the development of a tool called FusionLab for merging semantic information within ontologies from the previous theorical development. These works have been applied within a European maritime surveillance project.ROUEN-INSA Madrillet (765752301) / SudocSudocFranceF

Uncertainty Management of Intelligent Feature Selection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are envisioned to revolutionize the paradigm of monitoring complex real-world systems at a very high resolution. However, the deployment of a large number of unattended sensor nodes in hostile environments, frequent changes of environment dynamics, and severe resource constraints pose uncertainties and limit the potential use of WSN in complex real-world applications. Although uncertainty management in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is well developed and well investigated, its implications in wireless sensor environments are inadequately addressed. This dissertation addresses uncertainty management issues of spatio-temporal patterns generated from sensor data. It provides a framework for characterizing spatio-temporal pattern in WSN. Using rough set theory and temporal reasoning a novel formalism has been developed to characterize and quantify the uncertainties in predicting spatio-temporal patterns from sensor data. This research also uncovers the trade-off among the uncertainty measures, which can be used to develop a multi-objective optimization model for real-time decision making in sensor data aggregation and samplin