Quadratic Projection Based Feature Extraction with Its Application to Biometric Recognition

This paper presents a novel quadratic projection based feature extraction framework, where a set of quadratic matrices is learned to distinguish each class from all other classes. We formulate quadratic matrix learning (QML) as a standard semidefinite programming (SDP) problem. However, the con- ventional interior-point SDP solvers do not scale well to the problem of QML for high-dimensional data. To solve the scalability of QML, we develop an efficient algorithm, termed DualQML, based on the Lagrange duality theory, to extract nonlinear features. To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed framework, we conduct extensive experiments on biometric recognition. Experimental results on three representative biometric recogni- tion tasks, including face, palmprint, and ear recognition, demonstrate the superiority of the DualQML-based feature extraction algorithm compared to the current state-of-the-art algorithm

Asymmetric Pruning for Learning Cascade Detectors

Cascade classifiers are one of the most important contributions to real-time object detection. Nonetheless, there are many challenging problems arising in training cascade detectors. One common issue is that the node classifier is trained with a symmetric classifier. Having a low misclassification error rate does not guarantee an optimal node learning goal in cascade classifiers, i.e., an extremely high detection rate with a moderate false positive rate. In this work, we present a new approach to train an effective node classifier in a cascade detector. The algorithm is based on two key observations: 1) Redundant weak classifiers can be safely discarded; 2) The final detector should satisfy the asymmetric learning objective of the cascade architecture. To achieve this, we separate the classifier training into two steps: finding a pool of discriminative weak classifiers/features and training the final classifier by pruning weak classifiers which contribute little to the asymmetric learning criterion (asymmetric classifier construction). Our model reduction approach helps accelerate the learning time while achieving the pre-determined learning objective. Experimental results on both face and car data sets verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. On the FDDB face data sets, our approach achieves the state-of-the-art performance, which demonstrates the advantage of our approach.Comment: 14 page

Evolving Ensemble Fuzzy Classifier

The concept of ensemble learning offers a promising avenue in learning from data streams under complex environments because it addresses the bias and variance dilemma better than its single model counterpart and features a reconfigurable structure, which is well suited to the given context. While various extensions of ensemble learning for mining non-stationary data streams can be found in the literature, most of them are crafted under a static base classifier and revisits preceding samples in the sliding window for a retraining step. This feature causes computationally prohibitive complexity and is not flexible enough to cope with rapidly changing environments. Their complexities are often demanding because it involves a large collection of offline classifiers due to the absence of structural complexities reduction mechanisms and lack of an online feature selection mechanism. A novel evolving ensemble classifier, namely Parsimonious Ensemble pENsemble, is proposed in this paper. pENsemble differs from existing architectures in the fact that it is built upon an evolving classifier from data streams, termed Parsimonious Classifier pClass. pENsemble is equipped by an ensemble pruning mechanism, which estimates a localized generalization error of a base classifier. A dynamic online feature selection scenario is integrated into the pENsemble. This method allows for dynamic selection and deselection of input features on the fly. pENsemble adopts a dynamic ensemble structure to output a final classification decision where it features a novel drift detection scenario to grow the ensemble structure. The efficacy of the pENsemble has been numerically demonstrated through rigorous numerical studies with dynamic and evolving data streams where it delivers the most encouraging performance in attaining a tradeoff between accuracy and complexity.Comment: this paper has been published by IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy System

From Novelty Detection to a Genetic Algorithm Optimized Classification for the Diagnosis of a SCADA-Equipped Complex Machine

In the field of Diagnostics, the fundamental task of detecting damage is basically a binary classification problem, which is addressed in many cases via Novelty Detection (ND): an observation is classified as novel if it differs significantly from reference, healthy data. ND is practically implemented summarizing a multivariate dataset with univariate distance information called Novelty Index. As many different approaches are possible to produce NIs, in this analysis, the possibility of implementing a simple classifier in a reduced-dimensionality space of NIs is studied. In addition to a simple decision-tree-like classification method, the process for obtaining the NIs can result as a dimension reduction method and, in turn, the NIs can be used for other classification algorithms. In addition, a case study will be analyzed thanks to the data published by the Prognostics and Health Management Europe (PHME) society, on the occasion of the Data Challenge 2021