Neural activity classification with machine learning models trained on interspike interval series data

The flow of information through the brain is reflected by the activity patterns of neural cells. Indeed, these firing patterns are widely used as input data to predictive models that relate stimuli and animal behavior to the activity of a population of neurons. However, relatively little attention was paid to single neuron spike trains as predictors of cell or network properties in the brain. In this work, we introduce an approach to neuronal spike train data mining which enables effective classification and clustering of neuron types and network activity states based on single-cell spiking patterns. This approach is centered around applying state-of-the-art time series classification/clustering methods to sequences of interspike intervals recorded from single neurons. We demonstrate good performance of these methods in tasks involving classification of neuron type (e.g. excitatory vs. inhibitory cells) and/or neural circuit activity state (e.g. awake vs. REM sleep vs. nonREM sleep states) on an open-access cortical spiking activity dataset

Voting margin: A scheme for error-tolerant k nearest neighbors classifiers for machine learning

Machine learning (ML) techniques such as classifiers are used in many applications, some of which are related to safety or critical systems. In this case, correct processing is a strict requirement and thus ML algorithms (such as for classification) must be error tolerant. A naive approach to implement error tolerant classifiers is to resort to general protection techniques such as modular redundancy. However, modular redundancy incurs in large overheads in many metrics such as hardware utilization and power consumption that may not be acceptable in applications that run on embedded or battery powered systems. Another option is to exploit the algorithmic properties of the classifier to provide protection and error tolerance at a lower cost. This paper explores this approach for a widely used classifier, the k Nearest Neighbors ( k NNs), and proposes an efficient scheme to protect it against errors. The proposed technique is based on a time-based modular redundancy (TBMR) scheme. The proposed scheme exploits the intrinsic redundancy of k NNs to drastically reduce the number of re-computations needed to detect errors. This is achieved by noting that when voting among the k nearest neighbors has a large majority, an error in one of the voters cannot change the result, hence voting margin (VM). This observation has been refined and extended in the proposed VM scheme to also avoid re-computations in some cases in which the majority vote is tight. The VM scheme has been implemented and evaluated with publicly available data sets that cover a wide range of applications and settings. The results show that by exploiting the intrinsic redundancy of the classifier, the proposed scheme is able to reduce the cost compared to modular redundancy by more than 60 percent in all configurations evaluated.Pedro Reviriego and Josée Alberto Hernández would like to acknowledge the support of the TEXEO project TEC2016-80339-R funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity and of the Madrid Community research project TAPIR-CM Grant no. P2018/TCS-4496

Intelligent Waste Separator

Nowadays, trash has become a problem in the society and the ecosystem due to the way people get rid of it. Most of garbage is buried or burnt or even kept in places to which it does not belong. Big volumes of garbage thrown away and the methods used to store it cause air, water, and soil pollution. Fortunately, people can count on other methods to reduce the quantity of produced litter. An answer is recycling by re-using the materials. Currently, the traditional way to separate waste is to use different containers for each kind of waste separating trash manually, which does not always work. The aim of this paper is to present an Intelligent Waste Separator (IWS) which can replace the traditional way of dealing with waste; the proposed device receives the incoming waste and places it automatically in different containers by using a multimedia embedded processor, image processing, and machine learning in order to select and separate waste.ITESO, A.C

TOWARDS VIDEO FINGERPRINTING ATTACKS OVER TOR

As web users resort to adopting encrypted networks like Tor to protect their anonymity online, adversaries find new ways to collect their private information. Since videos over the internet are a major source of recruitment, training, incitement to commit acts of terrorism, and more, this project envisions developing a machine learning algorithm that can help the Department of Defense find terrorists who take advantage of the dark web to help promote extremist ideology. This thesis describes the steps for training a machine learning classifier in a closed-world scenario to predict YouTube video patterns over an encrypted network like Tor. Our results suggest an adversary may predict the video that a user downloads over Tor with up to 92% accuracy, or may predict the length of a video with error as low as 5.3s. Similar to known website fingerprinting attacks, we show that Tor is susceptible to video fingerprinting, suggesting that Tor does not provide the level of anonymity as previously thought.Lieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

ROBUST DETECTION OF CORONARY HEART DISEASE USING MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS

Predicting whether or not someone will get heart or cardiac disease is now one of the most difficult jobs in the area of medicine. Heart disease is responsible for the deaths of about one person per minute in the contemporary age. Processing the vast amounts of data that are generated in the field of healthcare is an important application for data science. Because predicting cardiac disease is a difficult undertaking, there is a pressing need to automate the prediction process to minimize the dangers that are connected with it and provide the patient with timely warning. The chapter one in this thesis report highlights the importance of this problem and identifies the need to augment the current technological efforts to produce relatively more accurate system in facilitating the timely decision about the problem. The chapter one also presents the current literature about the theories and systems developed and assessed in this direction.This thesis work makes use of the dataset on cardiac illness that can be found in the machine learning repository at UCI. Using a variety of data mining strategies, such as Naive Bayes, Decision Tree, Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN), and Random Forest, the work that has been reported in this thesis estimates the likelihood that a patient would develop heart disease and can categorize the patient\u27s degree of risk. The performance of chosen classifiers is tested on chosen feature space with help of feature selection algorithm. On Cleveland heart datasets of heart disease, the models were placed for training and testing. To assess the usefulness and strength of each model, several performance metrics are utilized, including sensitivity, accuracy, AUC, specificity, ROC curve and F1-score. The effort behind this research leads to conduct a comparative analysis by computing the performance of several machine learning algorithms. The results of the experiment demonstrate that the Random Forest and Support Vector machine algorithms achieved the best level of accuracy (94.50% and 91.73% respectively) on selected feature space when compared to the other machine learning methods that were employed. Thus, these two classifiers turned out to be promising classifiers for heart disease prediction. The computational complexity of each classifier was also investigated. Based on the computational complexity and comparative experimental results, a robust heart disease prediction is proposed for an embedded platform, where benefits of multiple classifiers are accumulated. The system proposes that heart disease detection is possible with higher confidence if and only if many of these classifiers detect it. In the end, results of experimental work are concluded and possible future strategies in enhancing this effort are discussed

Machine Learning and Neutron Sensing in Mobile Nuclear Threat Detection

A proof of concept (PoC) neutron/gamma-ray mobile threat detection system was constructed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This device, the Dual Detection Localization and Identification (DDLI) system, was designed to detect threat sources at standoff distance using neutron and gamma ray coded aperture imaging. A major research goal of the project was to understand the benefit of neutron sensing in the mobile threat search scenario. To this end, a series of mobile measurements were conducted with the completed DDLI PoC. These measurements indicated that high detection rates would be possible using neutron counting alone in a fully instrumented system. For a 280,000 neutrons per second Cf-252 source placed 15.9 meters away, a 4σ [sigma] detection rate of 99.3% was expected at 5 m/s. These results support the conclusion that neutron sensing enhances the detection capabilities of systems like the DDLI when compared to gamma-only platforms. Advanced algorithms were also investigated to fuse neutron and gamma coded aperture images and suppress background. In a simulated 1-D coded aperture imaging study, machine learning algorithms using both neutron and gamma ray data outperformed gamma-only threshold methods for alarming on weapons grade plutonium. In a separate study, a Random Forest classifier was trained on a source injection dataset from the Large Area Imager, a mobile gamma ray coded aperture system. Geant4 simulations of weapons-grade plutonium (WGPu) were combined with background data measured by the Large Area Imager to create nearly 4000 coded aperture images. At 30 meter standoff and 10 m/s, the Random Forest classifier was able to detect WGPu with error rates as low as 0.65% without spectroscopic information. A background subtracting filter further reduced this error rate to 0.2%. Finally, a background subtraction method based on principal component analysis was shown to improve detection by over 150% in figure of merit

Handgrip pattern recognition

There are numerous tragic gun deaths each year. Making handguns safer by personalizing them could prevent most such tragedies. Personalized handguns, also called smart guns, are handguns that can only be fired by the authorized user. Handgrip pattern recognition holds great promise in the development of the smart gun. Two algorithms, static analysis algorithm and dynamic analysis algorithm, were developed to find the patterns of a person about how to grasp a handgun. The static analysis algorithm measured 160 subjects\u27 fingertip placements on the replica gun handle. The cluster analysis and discriminant analysis were applied to these fingertip placements, and a classification tree was built to find the fingertip pattern for each subject. The dynamic analysis algorithm collected and measured 24 subjects\u27 handgrip pressure waveforms during the trigger pulling stage. A handgrip recognition algorithm was developed to find the correct pattern. A DSP box was built to make the handgrip pattern recognition to be done in real time. A real gun was used to evaluate the handgrip recognition algorithm. The result was shown and it proves that such a handgrip recognition system works well as a prototype

Robust classification of advanced power quality disturbances in smart grids

The insertion of new devices, increased data flow, intermittent generation and massive computerization have considerably increased current electrical systems’ complexity. This increase resulted in necessary changes, such as the need for more intelligent electrical net works to adapt to this different reality. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays an important role in society, especially the techniques based on the learning process, and it is extended to the power systems. In the context of Smart Grids (SG), where the information and innovative solutions in monitoring is a primary concern, those techniques based on AI can present several applications. This dissertation investigates the use of advanced signal processing and ML algorithms to create a Robust Classifier of Advanced Power Quality (PQ) Dis turbances in SG. For this purpose, known models of PQ disturbances were generated with random elements to approach real applications. From these models, thousands of signals were generated with the performance of these disturbances. Signal processing techniques using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) were used to extract the signal’s main charac teristics. This research aims to use ML algorithms to classify these data according to their respective features. ML algorithms were trained, validated, and tested. Also, the accuracy and confusion matrix were analyzed, relating the logic behind the results. The stages of data generation, feature extraction and optimization techniques were performed in the MATLAB software. The Classification Learner toolbox was used for training, validation and testing the 27 different ML algorithms and assess each performance. All stages of the work were previously idealized, enabling their correct development and execution. The results show that the Cubic Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier achieved the maximum accuracy of all algorithms, indicating the effectiveness of the proposed method for classification. Considerations about the results were interpreted as explaining the per formance of each technique, its relations and their respective justifications.A inserção de novos dispositivos na rede, aumento do fluxo de dados, geração intermitente e a informatização massiva aumentaram consideravelmente a complexidade dos sistemas elétricos atuais. Esse aumento resultou em mudanças necessárias, como a necessidade de redes elétricas mais inteligentes para se adaptarem a essa realidade diferente. A nova ger ação de técnicas de Inteligência Artificial, representada pelo "Big Data", Aprendizado de Máquina ("Machine Learning"), Aprendizagem Profunda e Reconhecimento de Padrões representa uma nova era na sociedade e no desenvolvimento global baseado na infor mação e no conhecimento. Com as mais recentes Redes Inteligentes, o uso de técnicas que utilizem esse tipo de inteligência será ainda mais necessário. Esta dissertação investiga o uso de processamento de sinais avançado e também algoritmos de Aprendizagem de Máquina para desenvolver um classificador robusto de distúrbios de qualidade de energia no contexto das Redes Inteligentes. Para isso, modelos já conhecidos de alguns proble mas de qualidade foram gerados junto com ruídos aleatórios para que o sistema fosse similar a aplicações reais. A partir desses modelos, milhares de sinais foram gerados e a Transformada Wavelet Discreta foi usada para extrair as principais características destas perturbações. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo utilizar algoritmos baseados no con ceito de Aprendizado de Máquina para classificar os dados gerados de acordo com suas classes. Todos estes algoritmos foram treinados, validados e por fim, testados. Além disso, a acurácia e a matriz de confusão de cada um dos modelos foi apresentada e analisada. As etapas de geração de dados, extração das principais características e otimização dos dados foram realizadas no software MATLAB. Uma toolbox específica deste programa foi us ada para treinar, validar e testar os 27 algoritmos diferentes e avaliar cada desempenho. Todas as etapas do trabalho foram previamente idealizadas, possibilitando seu correto desenvolvimento e execução. Os resultados mostram que o classificador "Cubic Support Vector Machine" obteve a máxima precisão entre todos os algoritmos, indicando a eficácia do método proposto para classificação. As considerações sobre os resultados foram inter pretadas, como por exemplo a explicação da performance de cada técnica, suas relações e suas justificativas

Design of software-oriented technician for vehicle’s fault system prediction using AdaBoost and random forest classifiers

Detecting and isolating faults on heavy duty vehicles is very important because it helps maintain high vehicle performance, low emissions, fuel economy, high vehicle safety and ensures repair and service efficiency. These factors are important because they help reduce the overall life cycle cost of a vehicle. The aim of this paper is to deliver a Web application model which aids the professional technician or vehicle user with basic automobile knowledge to access the working condition of the vehicles and detect the fault subsystem in the vehicles. The scope of this system is to visualize the data acquired from vehicle, diagnosis the fault component using trained fault model obtained from improvised Machine Learning (ML) classifiers and generate a report. The visualization page is built with plotly python package and prepared with selected parameter from On-board Diagnosis (OBD) tool data. The Histogram data is pre-processed with techniques such as null value Imputation techniques, Standardization and Balancing methods in order to increase the quality of training and it is trained with Classifiers. Finally, Classifier is tested and the Performance Metrics such as Accuracy, Precision, Re-call and F1 measure which are calculated from the Confusion Matrix. The proposed methodology for fault model prediction uses supervised algorithms such as Random Forest (RF), Ensemble Algorithm like AdaBoost Algorithm which offer reasonable Accuracy and Recall. The Python package joblib is used to save the model weights and reduce the computational time. Google Colabs is used as the python environment as it offers versatile features and PyCharm is utilised for the development of Web application. Hence, the Web application, outcome of this proposed work can, not only serve as the perfect companion to minimize the cost of time and money involved in unnecessary checks done for fault system detection but also aids to quickly detect and isolate the faulty system to avoid the propagation of errors that can lead to more dangerous cases