Estudio de métodos de construcción de ensembles de clasificadores y aplicaciones

La inteligencia artificial se dedica a la creación de sistemas informáticos con un comportamiento inteligente. Dentro de este área el aprendizaje computacional estudia la creación de sistemas que aprenden por sí mismos. Un tipo de aprendizaje computacional es el aprendizaje supervisado, en el cual, se le proporcionan al sistema tanto las entradas como la salida esperada y el sistema aprende a partir de estos datos. Un sistema de este tipo se denomina clasificador. En ocasiones ocurre, que en el conjunto de ejemplos que utiliza el sistema para aprender, el número de ejemplos de un tipo es mucho mayor que el número de ejemplos de otro tipo. Cuando esto ocurre se habla de conjuntos desequilibrados. La combinación de varios clasificadores es lo que se denomina "ensemble", y a menudo ofrece mejores resultados que cualquiera de los miembros que lo forman. Una de las claves para el buen funcionamiento de los ensembles es la diversidad. Esta tesis, se centra en el desarrollo de nuevos algoritmos de construcción de ensembles, centrados en técnicas de incremento de la diversidad y en los problemas desequilibrados. Adicionalmente, se aplican estas técnicas a la solución de varias problemas industriales.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, proyecto TIN-2011-2404

Experimental evaluation of ensemble classifiers for imbalance in Big Data

Datasets are growing in size and complexity at a pace never seen before, forming ever larger datasets known as Big Data. A common problem for classification, especially in Big Data, is that the numerous examples of the different classes might not be balanced. Some decades ago, imbalanced classification was therefore introduced, to correct the tendency of classifiers that show bias in favor of the majority class and that ignore the minority one. To date, although the number of imbalanced classification methods have increased, they continue to focus on normal-sized datasets and not on the new reality of Big Data. In this paper, in-depth experimentation with ensemble classifiers is conducted in the context of imbalanced Big Data classification, using two popular ensemble families (Bagging and Boosting) and different resampling methods. All the experimentation was launched in Spark clusters, comparing ensemble performance and execution times with statistical test results, including the newest ones based on the Bayesian approach. One very interesting conclusion from the study was that simpler methods applied to unbalanced datasets in the context of Big Data provided better results than complex methods. The additional complexity of some of the sophisticated methods, which appear necessary to process and to reduce imbalance in normal-sized datasets were not effective for imbalanced Big Data.“la Caixa” Foundation, Spain, under agreement LCF/PR/PR18/51130007. This work was supported by the Junta de Castilla y León, Spain under project BU055P20 (JCyL/FEDER, UE) co-financed through European Union FEDER funds, and by the Consejería de Educación of the Junta de Castilla y León and the European Social Fund, Spain through a pre-doctoral grant (EDU/1100/2017)

Integrated Machine Learning Approaches to Improve Classification performance and Feature Extraction Process for EEG Dataset

Epileptic seizure or epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder that occurs due to brain neurons\u27 abnormal activities and has affected approximately 50 million people worldwide. Epilepsy can affect patients’ health and lead to life-threatening emergencies. Early detection of epilepsy is highly effective in avoiding seizures by intervening in treatment. The electroencephalogram (EEG) signal, which contains valuable information of electrical activity in the brain, is a standard neuroimaging tool used by clinicians to monitor and diagnose epilepsy. Visually inspecting the EEG signal is an expensive, tedious, and error-prone practice. Moreover, the result varies with different neurophysiologists for an identical reading. Thus, automatically classifying epilepsy into different epileptic states with a high accuracy rate is an urgent requirement and has long been investigated. This PhD thesis contributes to the epileptic seizure detection problem using Machine Learning (ML) techniques. Machine learning algorithms have been implemented to automatically classifying epilepsy from EEG data. Imbalance class distribution problems and effective feature extraction from the EEG signals are the two major concerns towards effectively and efficiently applying machine learning algorithms for epilepsy classification. The algorithms exhibit biased results towards the majority class when classes are imbalanced, while effective feature extraction can improve classification performance. In this thesis, we presented three different novel frameworks to effectively classify epileptic states while addressing the above issues. Firstly, a deep neural network-based framework exploring different sampling techniques was proposed where both traditional and state-of-the-art sampling techniques were experimented with and evaluated for their capability of improving the imbalance ratio and classification performance. Secondly, a novel integrated machine learning-based framework was proposed to effectively learn from EEG imbalanced data leveraging the Principal Component Analysis method to extract high- and low-variant principal components, which are empirically customized for the imbalanced data classification. This study showed that principal components associated with low variances can capture implicit patterns of the minority class of a dataset. Next, we proposed a novel framework to effectively classify epilepsy leveraging summary statistics analysis of window-based features of EEG signals. The framework first denoised the signals using power spectrum density analysis and replaced outliers with k-NN imputer. Next, window level features were extracted from statistical, temporal, and spectral domains. Basic summary statistics are then computed from the extracted features to feed into different machine learning classifiers. An optimal set of features are selected leveraging variance thresholding and dropping correlated features before feeding the features for classification. Finally, we applied traditional machine learning classifiers such as Support Vector Machine, Decision Tree, Random Forest, and k-Nearest Neighbors along with Deep Neural Networks to classify epilepsy. We experimented the frameworks with a benchmark dataset through rigorous experimental settings and displayed the effectiveness of the proposed frameworks in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F-beta score

Continual learning from stationary and non-stationary data

Continual learning aims at developing models that are capable of working on constantly evolving problems over a long-time horizon. In such environments, we can distinguish three essential aspects of training and maintaining machine learning models - incorporating new knowledge, retaining it and reacting to changes. Each of them poses its own challenges, constituting a compound problem with multiple goals. Remembering previously incorporated concepts is the main property of a model that is required when dealing with stationary distributions. In non-stationary environments, models should be capable of selectively forgetting outdated decision boundaries and adapting to new concepts. Finally, a significant difficulty can be found in combining these two abilities within a single learning algorithm, since, in such scenarios, we have to balance remembering and forgetting instead of focusing only on one aspect. The presented dissertation addressed these problems in an exploratory way. Its main goal was to grasp the continual learning paradigm as a whole, analyze its different branches and tackle identified issues covering various aspects of learning from sequentially incoming data. By doing so, this work not only filled several gaps in the current continual learning research but also emphasized the complexity and diversity of challenges existing in this domain. Comprehensive experiments conducted for all of the presented contributions have demonstrated their effectiveness and substantiated the validity of the stated claims

Otimização multi-objetivo em aprendizado de máquina

Orientador: Fernando José Von ZubenTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: Regressão logística multinomial regularizada, classificação multi-rótulo e aprendizado multi-tarefa são exemplos de problemas de aprendizado de máquina em que objetivos conflitantes, como funções de perda e penalidades que promovem regularização, devem ser simultaneamente minimizadas. Portanto, a perspectiva simplista de procurar o modelo de aprendizado com o melhor desempenho deve ser substituída pela proposição e subsequente exploração de múltiplos modelos de aprendizado eficientes, cada um caracterizado por um compromisso (trade-off) distinto entre os objetivos conflitantes. Comitês de máquinas e preferências a posteriori do tomador de decisão podem ser implementadas visando explorar adequadamente este conjunto diverso de modelos de aprendizado eficientes, em busca de melhoria de desempenho. A estrutura conceitual multi-objetivo para aprendizado de máquina é suportada por três etapas: (1) Modelagem multi-objetivo de cada problema de aprendizado, destacando explicitamente os objetivos conflitantes envolvidos; (2) Dada a formulação multi-objetivo do problema de aprendizado, por exemplo, considerando funções de perda e termos de penalização como objetivos conflitantes, soluções eficientes e bem distribuídas ao longo da fronteira de Pareto são obtidas por um solver determinístico e exato denominado NISE (do inglês Non-Inferior Set Estimation); (3) Esses modelos de aprendizado eficientes são então submetidos a um processo de seleção de modelos que opera com preferências a posteriori, ou a filtragem e agregação para a síntese de ensembles. Como o NISE é restrito a problemas de dois objetivos, uma extensão do NISE capaz de lidar com mais de dois objetivos, denominada MONISE (do inglês Many-Objective NISE), também é proposta aqui, sendo uma contribuição adicional que expande a aplicabilidade da estrutura conceitual proposta. Para atestar adequadamente o mérito da nossa abordagem multi-objetivo, foram realizadas investigações mais específicas, restritas à aprendizagem de modelos lineares regularizados: (1) Qual é o mérito relativo da seleção a posteriori de um único modelo de aprendizado, entre os produzidos pela nossa proposta, quando comparado com outras abordagens de modelo único na literatura? (2) O nível de diversidade dos modelos de aprendizado produzidos pela nossa proposta é superior àquele alcançado por abordagens alternativas dedicadas à geração de múltiplos modelos de aprendizado? (3) E quanto à qualidade de predição da filtragem e agregação dos modelos de aprendizado produzidos pela nossa proposta quando aplicados a: (i) classificação multi-classe, (ii) classificação desbalanceada, (iii) classificação multi-rótulo, (iv) aprendizado multi-tarefa, (v) aprendizado com multiplos conjuntos de atributos? A natureza determinística de NISE e MONISE, sua capacidade de lidar adequadamente com a forma da fronteira de Pareto em cada problema de aprendizado, e a garantia de sempre obter modelos de aprendizado eficientes são aqui pleiteados como responsáveis pelos resultados promissores alcançados em todas essas três frentes de investigação específicasAbstract: Regularized multinomial logistic regression, multi-label classification, and multi-task learning are examples of machine learning problems in which conflicting objectives, such as losses and regularization penalties, should be simultaneously minimized. Therefore, the narrow perspective of looking for the learning model with the best performance should be replaced by the proposition and further exploration of multiple efficient learning models, each one characterized by a distinct trade-off among the conflicting objectives. Committee machines and a posteriori preferences of the decision-maker may be implemented to properly explore this diverse set of efficient learning models toward performance improvement. The whole multi-objective framework for machine learning is supported by three stages: (1) The multi-objective modelling of each learning problem, explicitly highlighting the conflicting objectives involved; (2) Given the multi-objective formulation of the learning problem, for instance, considering loss functions and penalty terms as conflicting objective functions, efficient solutions well-distributed along the Pareto front are obtained by a deterministic and exact solver named NISE (Non-Inferior Set Estimation); (3) Those efficient learning models are then subject to a posteriori model selection, or to ensemble filtering and aggregation. Given that NISE is restricted to two objective functions, an extension for many objectives, named MONISE (Many Objective NISE), is also proposed here, being an additional contribution and expanding the applicability of the proposed framework. To properly access the merit of our multi-objective approach, more specific investigations were conducted, restricted to regularized linear learning models: (1) What is the relative merit of the a posteriori selection of a single learning model, among the ones produced by our proposal, when compared with other single-model approaches in the literature? (2) Is the diversity level of the learning models produced by our proposal higher than the diversity level achieved by alternative approaches devoted to generating multiple learning models? (3) What about the prediction quality of ensemble filtering and aggregation of the learning models produced by our proposal on: (i) multi-class classification, (ii) unbalanced classification, (iii) multi-label classification, (iv) multi-task learning, (v) multi-view learning? The deterministic nature of NISE and MONISE, their ability to properly deal with the shape of the Pareto front in each learning problem, and the guarantee of always obtaining efficient learning models are advocated here as being responsible for the promising results achieved in all those three specific investigationsDoutoradoEngenharia de ComputaçãoDoutor em Engenharia Elétrica2014/13533-0FAPES

IoT Data Analytics in Dynamic Environments: From An Automated Machine Learning Perspective

With the wide spread of sensors and smart devices in recent years, the data generation speed of the Internet of Things (IoT) systems has increased dramatically. In IoT systems, massive volumes of data must be processed, transformed, and analyzed on a frequent basis to enable various IoT services and functionalities. Machine Learning (ML) approaches have shown their capacity for IoT data analytics. However, applying ML models to IoT data analytics tasks still faces many difficulties and challenges, specifically, effective model selection, design/tuning, and updating, which have brought massive demand for experienced data scientists. Additionally, the dynamic nature of IoT data may introduce concept drift issues, causing model performance degradation. To reduce human efforts, Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) has become a popular field that aims to automatically select, construct, tune, and update machine learning models to achieve the best performance on specified tasks. In this paper, we conduct a review of existing methods in the model selection, tuning, and updating procedures in the area of AutoML in order to identify and summarize the optimal solutions for every step of applying ML algorithms to IoT data analytics. To justify our findings and help industrial users and researchers better implement AutoML approaches, a case study of applying AutoML to IoT anomaly detection problems is conducted in this work. Lastly, we discuss and classify the challenges and research directions for this domain.Comment: Published in Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (Elsevier, IF:7.8); Code/An AutoML tutorial is available at Github link: https://github.com/Western-OC2-Lab/AutoML-Implementation-for-Static-and-Dynamic-Data-Analytic

TOWARDS A HOLISTIC EFFICIENT STACKING ENSEMBLE INTRUSION DETECTION SYSTEM USING NEWLY GENERATED HETEROGENEOUS DATASETS

With the exponential growth of network-based applications globally, there has been a transformation in organizations\u27 business models. Furthermore, cost reduction of both computational devices and the internet have led people to become more technology dependent. Consequently, due to inordinate use of computer networks, new risks have emerged. Therefore, the process of improving the speed and accuracy of security mechanisms has become crucial.Although abundant new security tools have been developed, the rapid-growth of malicious activities continues to be a pressing issue, as their ever-evolving attacks continue to create severe threats to network security. Classical security techniquesfor instance, firewallsare used as a first line of defense against security problems but remain unable to detect internal intrusions or adequately provide security countermeasures. Thus, network administrators tend to rely predominantly on Intrusion Detection Systems to detect such network intrusive activities. Machine Learning is one of the practical approaches to intrusion detection that learns from data to differentiate between normal and malicious traffic. Although Machine Learning approaches are used frequently, an in-depth analysis of Machine Learning algorithms in the context of intrusion detection has received less attention in the literature.Moreover, adequate datasets are necessary to train and evaluate anomaly-based network intrusion detection systems. There exist a number of such datasetsas DARPA, KDDCUP, and NSL-KDDthat have been widely adopted by researchers to train and evaluate the performance of their proposed intrusion detection approaches. Based on several studies, many such datasets are outworn and unreliable to use. Furthermore, some of these datasets suffer from a lack of traffic diversity and volumes, do not cover the variety of attacks, have anonymized packet information and payload that cannot reflect the current trends, or lack feature set and metadata.This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of some of the existing Machine Learning approaches for identifying network intrusions. Specifically, it analyzes the algorithms along various dimensionsnamely, feature selection, sensitivity to the hyper-parameter selection, and class imbalance problemsthat are inherent to intrusion detection. It also produces a new reliable dataset labeled Game Theory and Cyber Security (GTCS) that matches real-world criteria, contains normal and different classes of attacks, and reflects the current network traffic trends. The GTCS dataset is used to evaluate the performance of the different approaches, and a detailed experimental evaluation to summarize the effectiveness of each approach is presented. Finally, the thesis proposes an ensemble classifier model composed of multiple classifiers with different learning paradigms to address the issue of detection accuracy and false alarm rate in intrusion detection systems

QoE Estimation of WebRTC-based Audio-visual Conversations from Facial and Speech Features

The utilization of user’s facial- and speech-related features for the estimation of the Quality of Experience (QoE) of multimedia services is still underinvestigated despite its potential. Currently, only the use of either facial or speech features individually has been proposed, and relevant limited experiments have been performed. To advance in this respect, in this study, we focused on WebRTC-based videoconferencing, where it is often possible to capture both the facial expressions and vocal speech characteristics of the users. First, we performed thorough statistical analysis to identify the most significant facial- and speech-related features for QoE estimation, which we extracted from the participants’ audio-video data collected during a subjective assessment. Second, we trained individual QoE estimation machine learning-based models on the separated facial and speech datasets. Finally, we employed data fusion techniques to combine the facial and speech datasets into a single dataset to enhance the QoE estimation performance due to the integrated knowledge provided by the fusion of facial and speech features. The obtained results demonstrate that the data fusion technique based on the Improved Centered Kernel Alignment (ICKA) allows for reaching a mean QoE estimation accuracy of 0.93, whereas the values of 0.78 and 0.86 are reached when using only facial or speech features, respectively