Fast Approximated Discriminative Common Vectors Using Rank-One SVD Updates

2013

An efficient incremental approach to the discriminative common vector (DCV) method for dimensionality reduction and classification is presented. The proposal consists of a rank-one update along with an adaptive restriction on the rank of the null space which leads to an approximate but convenient solution. The algorithm can be implemented very efficiently in terms of matrix operations and space complexity, which enables its use in large-scale dynamic application domains. Deep comparative experimentation using publicly available high dimensional image datasets has been carried out in order to properly assess the proposed algorithm against several recent incremental formulations.

A naive relevance feedback model for content-based image retrieval using multiple similarity measures

2010

This paper presents a novel probabilistic framework to process multiple sample queries in content based image retrieval (CBIR). This framework is independent from the underlying distance or (dis)similarity measures which support the retrieval system, and only assumes mutual independence among their outcomes. The proposed framework gives rise to a relevance feedback mechanism in which positive and negative data are combined in order to optimally retrieve images according to the available information. A particular setting in which users interactively supply feedback and iteratively retrieve images is set both to model the system and to perform some objective performance measures. Several repo…

A NSGA Based Approach for Content Based Image Retrieval

2013

The purpose of CBIR Content Based Image Retrieval systems is to allow users to retrieve pictures related to a semantic concept of their interest, when no other information but the images themselves is available. Commonly, a series of images are presented to the user, who judges on their relevance. Several different models have been proposed to help the construction of interactive systems based on relevance feedback. Some of these models consider that an optimal query point exists, and focus on adapting the similarity measure and moving the query point so that it appears close to the relevant results and far from those which are non-relevant. This implies a strong causality between the low l…

A local complexity based combination method for decision forests trained with high-dimensional data

2012

Accurate machine learning with high-dimensional data is affected by phenomena known as the “curse” of dimensionality. One of the main strategies explored in the last decade to deal with this problem is the use of multi-classifier systems. Several of such approaches are inspired by the Random Subspace Method for the construction of decision forests. Furthermore, other studies rely on estimations of the individual classifiers' competence, to enhance the combination in the multi-classifier and improve the accuracy. We propose a competence estimate which is based on local complexity measurements, to perform a weighted average combination of the decision forest. Experimental results show how thi…

A Comparative Analysis of Residual Block Alternatives for End-to-End Audio Classification

2020

Residual learning is known for being a learning framework that facilitates the training of very deep neural networks. Residual blocks or units are made up of a set of stacked layers, where the inputs are added back to their outputs with the aim of creating identity mappings. In practice, such identity mappings are accomplished by means of the so-called skip or shortcut connections. However, multiple implementation alternatives arise with respect to where such skip connections are applied within the set of stacked layers making up a residual block. While residual networks for image classification using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been widely discussed in the literature, their a…

Cognitive Reasoning and Inferences through Psychologically based Personalised Modelling of Emotions Using Associative Classifiers

2014

The development of Microsoft Kinect opened up the research field of computational emotions to a wide range of applications, such as learning environments, which are excellent candidates to trial computational emotions based algorithms but were never feasible for given consumer technologies. Whilst Kinect is accessible and affordable technology it comes with its' own additional challenges such as the limited number of extracted Action Units (AUs). This paper presents a new approach that attempts at finding patterns of interaction between AUs and each other on one hand and patterns that link the related AUs to a given emotion. In doing so, this paper presents the ground work necessary to reac…

Accelerated Proximal Gradient Descent in Metric Learning for Kernel Regression

2018

The purpose of this paper is to learn a specific distance function for the Nadayara Watson estimator to be applied as a non-linear classifier. The idea of transforming the predictor variables and learning a kernel function based on Mahalanobis pseudo distance througth an low rank structure in the distance function will help us to lead the development of this problem. In context of metric learning for kernel regression, we introduce an Accelerated Proximal Gradient to solve the non-convex optimization problem with better convergence rate than gradient descent. An extensive experiment and the corresponding discussion tries to show that our strategie its a competitive solution in relation to p…

Improving Nearest Neighbor Based Multi-target Prediction Through Metric Learning

2017

The purpose of this work is to learn specific distance functions to be applied for multi-target regression problems using nearest neighbors. The idea of preserving the order relation between input and output vectors considering their corresponding distances is used along a maximal margin criterion to formulate a specific metric learning problem. Extensive experiments and the corresponding discussion try to put forward the advantages of the proposed algorithm that can be considered as a generalization of previously proposed approaches. Preliminary results suggest that this line of work can lead to very competitive algorithms with convenient properties.

Combining similarity measures in content-based image retrieval

2008

The purpose of content based image retrieval (CBIR) systems is to allow users to retrieve pictures from large image repositories. In a CBIR system, an image is usually represented as a set of low level descriptors from which a series of underlying similarity or distance functions are used to conveniently drive the different types of queries. Recent work deals with combination of distances or scores from different and usually independent representations in an attempt to induce high level semantics from the low level descriptors of the images. Choosing the best method to combine these results requires a careful analysis and, in most cases, the use of ad-hoc strategies. Combination based on or…

Incremental Generalized Discriminative Common Vectors for Image Classification.

2015

Subspace-based methods have become popular due to their ability to appropriately represent complex data in such a way that both dimensionality is reduced and discriminativeness is enhanced. Several recent works have concentrated on the discriminative common vector (DCV) method and other closely related algorithms also based on the concept of null space. In this paper, we present a generalized incremental formulation of the DCV methods, which allows the update of a given model by considering the addition of new examples even from unseen classes. Having efficient incremental formulations of well-behaved batch algorithms allows us to conveniently adapt previously trained classifiers without th…

An Open-set Recognition and Few-Shot Learning Dataset for Audio Event Classification in Domestic Environments

2020

The problem of training with a small set of positive samples is known as few-shot learning (FSL). It is widely known that traditional deep learning (DL) algorithms usually show very good performance when trained with large datasets. However, in many applications, it is not possible to obtain such a high number of samples. In the image domain, typical FSL applications include those related to face recognition. In the audio domain, music fraud or speaker recognition can be clearly benefited from FSL methods. This paper deals with the application of FSL to the detection of specific and intentional acoustic events given by different types of sound alarms, such as door bells or fire alarms, usin…

Improving distance based image retrieval using non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm

2015

Image retrieval is formulated as a multiobjective optimization problem.A multiobjective genetic algorithm is hybridized with distance based search.A parameter balances exploration (genetic search) or exploitation (nearest neighbors).Extensive comparative experimentation illustrate and assess the proposed methodology. Relevance feedback has been adopted as a standard in Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR). One major difficulty that algorithms have to face is to achieve and adequate balance between the exploitation of already known areas of interest and the exploration of the feature space to find other relevant areas. In this paper, we evaluate different ways to combine two existing relevan…

An interactive evolutionary approach for content based image retrieval

2009

Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) systems aim to provide a means to find pictures in large repositories without using any other information except its contents usually as low-level descriptors. Since these descriptors do not exactly match the high level semantics of the image, assessing perceptual similarity between two pictures using only their feature vectors is not a trivial task. In fact, the ability of a system to induce high level semantic concepts from the feature vector of an image is one of the aspects which most influences its performance. This paper describes a CBIR algorithm which combines relevance feedback, evolutionary computation concepts and ad-hoc strategies in an attem…

About Combining Metric Learning and Prototype Generation

2014

Distance metric learning has been a major research topic in recent times. Usually, the problem is formulated as finding a Mahalanobis-like metric matrix that satisfies a set of constraints as much as possible. Different ways to introduce these constraints and to effectively formulate and solve the optimization problem have been proposed. In this work, we start with one of these formulations that leads to a convex optimization problem and generalize it in order to increase the efficiency by appropriately selecting the set of constraints. Moreover, the original criterion is expressed in terms of a reduced set of representatives that is learnt together with the metric. This leads to further im…

Improving the k-NCN classification rule through heuristic modifications

1998

Abstract This paper presents an empirical investigation of the recently proposed k-Nearest Centroid Neighbours ( k -NCN) classification rule along with two heuristic modifications of it. These alternatives make use of both proximity and geometrical distribution of the prototypes in the training set in order to estimate the class label of a given sample. The experimental results show that both alternatives give significantly better classification rates than the k -Nearest Neighbours rule, basically due to the properties of the plain k -NCN technique.

A hybrid multi-objective optimization algorithm for content based image retrieval

2013

Abstract Relevance feedback methods in CBIR (Content Based Image Retrieval) iteratively use relevance information from the user to search the space for other relevant samples. As several regions of interest may be scattered through the space, an effective search algorithm should balance the exploration of the space to find new potential regions of interest and the exploitation of areas around samples which are known relevant. However, many algorithms concentrate the search on areas which are close to the images that the user has marked as relevant, according to a distance function in the (possibly deformed) multidimensional feature space. This maximizes the number of relevant images retriev…

Adaptive motion estimation and video vector quantization based on spatiotemporal non-linearities of human perception

1997

The two main tasks of a video coding system are motion estimation and vector quantization of the signal. In this work a new splitting criterion to control the adaptive decomposition for the non-uniform optical flow estimation is exposed. Also, a novel bit allocation procedure is proposed for the quantization of the DCT transform of the video signal. These new approaches are founded on a perception model that reproduce the relative importance given by the human visual system to any location in the spatial frequency, temporal frequency and amplitude domain of the DCT transform. The experiments show that the proposed procedures behave better than their equivalent (fixed-block-size motion estim…

Comparative study of techniques for large-scale feature selection* *This work was suported by a SERC grant GR/E 97549. The first author was also supp…

1994

The combinatorial search problem arising in feature selection in high dimensional spaces is considered. Recently developed techniques based on the classical sequential methods and the (l, r) search called Floating search algorithms are compared against the Genetic approach to feature subset search. Both approaches have been designed with the view to give a good compromise between efficiency and effectiveness for large problems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the applicability of these techniques to high dimensional problems of feature selection. The aim is to establish whether the properties inferred for these techniques from medium scale experiments involving up to a few tens …

Colour segmentation based on a light reflection model to locate citrus fruits for robotic harvesting

1993

Abstract Colour segmentation with a vision system is a good procedure to identify and locate fruits in robotic harvesting. Natural illumination conditions present in these environments produce a very variable illumination of the scene, in addition, fruits are usually partially occluded, and complete visual information about them is not available. The colour segmentation used for these purposes must take into account the appearance of highlights and shadows that natural illumination conditions produce. A method based on the Dichromatic Reflection Model for the light reflected from the surface object is reported here. Through the assumption of this model the light rays reflected from points o…

An overview of incremental feature extraction methods based on linear subspaces

2018

Abstract With the massive explosion of machine learning in our day-to-day life, incremental and adaptive learning has become a major topic, crucial to keep up-to-date and improve classification models and their corresponding feature extraction processes. This paper presents a categorized overview of incremental feature extraction based on linear subspace methods which aim at incorporating new information to the already acquired knowledge without accessing previous data. Specifically, this paper focuses on those linear dimensionality reduction methods with orthogonal matrix constraints based on global loss function, due to the extensive use of their batch approaches versus other linear alter…

The role of perceptual contrast non-linearities in image transform quantization

2000

Abstract The conventional quantizer design based on average error minimization over a training set does not guarantee a good subjective behavior on individual images even if perceptual metrics are used. In this work a novel criterion for transform coder design is analyzed in depth. Its aim is to bound the perceptual distortion in each individual quantization according to a non-linear model of early human vision. A common comparison framework is presented to describe the qualitative behavior of the optimal quantizers under the proposed criterion and the conventional rate-distortion based criterion. Several underlying metrics, with and without perceptual non-linearities, are used with both cr…

Adaptive Distance-Based Pooling in Convolutional Neural Networks for Audio Event Classification

2020

In the last years, deep convolutional neural networks have become a standard for the development of state-of-the-art audio classification systems, taking the lead over traditional approaches based on feature engineering. While they are capable of achieving human performance under certain scenarios, it has been shown that their accuracy is severely degraded when the systems are tested over noisy or weakly segmented events. Although better generalization could be obtained by increasing the size of the training dataset, e.g. by applying data augmentation techniques, this also leads to longer and more complex training procedures. In this article, we propose a new type of pooling layer aimed at …

An Empirical Evaluation of Common Vector Based Classification Methods and Some Extensions

2008

An empirical evaluation of linear and kernel common vector based approaches has been considered in this work. Both versions are extended by considering directions (attributes) that carry out very little information as if they were null. Experiments on different kinds of data confirm that using this as a regularization parameter leads to usually better (and never worse) results than the basic algorithms.

Predicting human performance in interactive tasks by using dynamic models

2017

The selection of an appropriate sequence of activities is an essential task to keep student motivation and foster engagement. Usually, decisions in this respect are made by taking into account the difficulty of the activities, in relation to the student's level of competence. In this paper, we present a dynamic model that aims to predict the average performance of a group of students at solving a given series of maths problems. The system takes into account both student- and task-related features. This model was built and validated by using the data gathered in an experimental session that involved 64 participants solving a sequence of 26 arithmetic problems. The data collected from the fir…

Learning Improved Feature Rankings through Decremental Input Pruning for Support Vector Based Drug Activity Prediction

2010

The use of certain machine learning and pattern recognition tools for automated pharmacological drug design has been recently introduced. Different families of learning algorithms and Support Vector Machines in particular have been applied to the task of associating observed chemical properties and pharmacological activities to certain kinds of representations of the candidate compounds. The purpose of this work, is to select an appropriate feature ordering from a large set of molecular descriptors usually used in the domain of Drug Activity Characterization. To this end, a new input pruning method is introduced and assessed with respect to commonly used feature ranking algorithms.

Scaling Up a Metric Learning Algorithm for Image Recognition and Representation

2008

Maximally Collapsing Metric Learning is a recently proposed algorithm to estimate a metric matrix from labelled data. The purpose of this work is to extend this approach by considering a set of landmark points which can in principle reduce the cost per iteration in one order of magnitude. The proposal is in fact a generalized version of the original algorithm that can be applied to larger amounts of higher dimensional data. Exhaustive experimentation shows that very similar behavior at a lower cost is obtained for a wide range of the number of landmark points used.

Average-case analysis in an elementary course on algorithms

1998

Average-case algorithm analysis is usually viewed as a tough subject by students in the first courses in Computer Science. Traditionally, these topics are fully developed in advanced courses with a clear mathematical orientation. The work presented here is not an alternative to this, but, it presents the analysis of algorithms (and average-case in particular) adapted to the mathematical background of students in an elementary course on Algorithms or Programming by using some specially selected examples.

A Random Extension for Discriminative Dimensionality Reduction and Metric Learning

2009

A recently proposed metric learning algorithm which enforces the optimal discrimination of the different classes is extended and empirically assessed using different kinds of publicly available data. The optimization problem is posed in terms of landmark points and then, a stochastic approach is followed in order to bypass some of the problems of the original algorithm. According to the results, both computational burden and generalization ability are improved while absolute performance results remain almost unchanged.

Complexity reduction in efficient prototype-based classification

2006

An efficient method for clustered multi-metric learning

2019

Abstract Distance metric learning, which aims at finding a distance metric that separates examples of one class from examples of the other classes, is the key to the success of many machine learning tasks. Although there has been an increasing interest in this field, learning a global distance metric is insufficient to obtain satisfactory results when dealing with heterogeneously distributed data. A simple solution to tackle this kind of data is based on kernel embedding methods. However, it quickly becomes computationally intractable as the number of examples increases. In this paper, we propose an efficient method that learns multiple local distance metrics instead of a single global one.…

Distance-based relevance feedback using a hybrid interactive genetic algorithm for image retrieval

2011

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems aim to provide a means to find pictures in large repositories without using any other information except the own content of the images, which is usually represented as a feature vector extracted from low-level descriptors. This paper describes a CBIR algorithm which combines relevance feedback, evolutionary computation concepts and distance-based learning in an attempt to reduce the existing gap between the high level semantic content of the images and the information provided by their low-level descriptors. In particular, a framework which is independent from the particular features used is presented. The effect of different crossover strategies…

Null Space Based Image Recognition Using Incremental Eigendecomposition

2011

An incremental approach to the discriminative common vector (DCV) method for image recognition is considered. Discriminative projections are tackled in the particular context in which new training data becomes available and learned subspaces may need continuous updating. Starting from incremental eigendecomposition of scatter matrices, an efficient updating rule based on projections and orthogonalization is given. The corresponding algorithm has been empirically assessed and compared to its batch counterpart. The same good properties and performance results of the original method are kept but with a dramatic decrease in the computation needed.

An improved distance-based relevance feedback strategy for image retrieval

2013

Most CBIR (content based image retrieval) systems use relevance feedback as a mechanism to improve retrieval results. NN (nearest neighbor) approaches provide an efficient method to compute relevance scores, by using estimated densities of relevant and non-relevant samples in a particular feature space. In this paper, particularities of the CBIR problem are exploited to propose an improved relevance feedback algorithm based on the NN approach. The resulting method has been tested in a number of different situations and compared to the standard NN approach and other existing relevance feedback mechanisms. Experimental results evidence significant improvements in most cases.

Gui-driven intelligent tutoring system with affective support to help learning the algebraic method

2017

Despite many research efforts focused on the development of algebraic reasoning and the resolution of story problems, several investigations have reported that relatively advanced students experience serious difficulties in symbolizing certain meaningful relations by using algebraic equations. In this paper, we describe and justify the Graphical User Interface of an Intelligent Tutoring System that allows learning and practising the procedural aspects involved in translating the information contained in a story problem into a symbolic representation. The application design has been driven by cognitive findings from several previous investigations. First, the process of translating a word pr…

Some insights into the impact of affective information when delivering feedback to students

2018

The relation between affect-driven feedback and engagement on a given task has been largely investigated. This relation can be used to make personalised instructional decisions and/or modif...

Automatic Detection and Characterization of Acoustic Plane-Wave Reflections Using Circular Microphone Arrays

2013

The spatial characteristics of the sound field inside a room can be meaningfully described by means of microphone array processing techniques. In this context, the set of impulse responses sampled by a microphone array can be seen as an image made of acoustic plane-wave footprints. Due to the circular geometry of the microphone array, these footprints have a cosine-like shape that can be fully described as a function of the direction of arrival (DOA) of the impinging plane wave. This paper proposes a Hough-transform-based approach to plane-wave detection in microphone array multi-trace impulse responses. Experiments using a set of real microphone recordings are described, showing the potent…

On the use of neighbourhood-based non-parametric classifiers

1997

Alternative non-parametric classification schemes, which come from the use of different definitions of neighbourhood, are introduced. In particular, the Nearest Centroid Neighbourhood along with the neighbourhood relation derived from the Gabriel Graph and the Relative Neighbourhood Graph are used to define the corresponding (k-)Nearest Neighbour-like classifiers. Experimental results are reported to compare the performance of the approaches proposed here to the one obtained with the k-Nearest Neighbours rule.

An Online Metric Learning Approach through Margin Maximization

2011

This work introduces a method based on learning similarity measures between pairs of objects in any representation space that allows to develop convenient recognition algorithms. The problem is formulated through margin maximization over distance values so that it can discriminate between similar (intra-class) and dissimilar (inter-class) elements without enforcing positive definiteness of the metric matrix as in most competing approaches. A passive-aggressive approach has been adopted to carry out the corresponding optimization procedure. The proposed approach has been empirically compared to state of the art metric learning on several publicly available databases showing its potential bot…

Regularization operators for natural images based on nonlinear perception models.

2006

Image restoration requires some a priori knowledge of the solution. Some of the conventional regularization techniques are based on the estimation of the power spectrum density. Simple statistical models for spectral estimation just take into account second-order relations between the pixels of the image. However, natural images exhibit additional features, such as particular relationships between local Fourier or wavelet transform coefficients. Biological visual systems have evolved to capture these relations. We propose the use of this biological behavior to build regularization operators as an alternative to simple statistical models. The results suggest that if the penalty operator take…

Online Metric Learning Methods Using Soft Margins and Least Squares Formulations

2012

Online metric learning using margin maximization has been introduced as a way to learn appropriate dissimilarity measures in an efficient way when information as pairs of examples is given to the learning system in a progressive way. These schemes have several practical advantages with regard to global ones in which a training set needs to be processed. On the other hand, they may suffer from a poor performance depending on the quality of the examples and the particular tuning or other implementation details. This paper formulates several online metric learning alternatives using a passive-aggressive schema. A new formulation of the online problem using least squares is also introduced. The…

Interactive Image Retrieval Using Smoothed Nearest Neighbor Estimates

2010

Relevance feedback has been adopted by most recent Content Based Image Retrieval systems to reduce the semantic gap that exists between the subjective similarity among images and the similarity measures computed in a given feature space. Distance-based relevance feedback using nearest neighbors has been recently presented as a good tradeoff between simplicity and performance. In this paper, we analyse some shortages of this technique and propose alternatives that help improving the efficiency of the method in terms of the retrieval precision achieved. The resulting method has been evaluated on several repositories which use different feature sets. The results have been compared to those obt…

Restricted Decontamination for the Imbalanced Training Sample Problem

2003

The problem of imbalanced training data in supervised methods is currently receiving growing attention. Imbalanced data means that one class is much more represented than the others in the training sample. It has been observed that this situation, which arises in several practical domains, may produce an important deterioration of the classification accuracy, in particular with patterns belonging to the less represented classes. In the present paper, we report experimental results that point at the convenience of correctly downsizing the majority class while simultaneously increasing the size of the minority one in order to balance both classes. This is obtained by applying a modification o…

On the Robustness of Deep Features for Audio Event Classification in Adverse Environments

2018

Deep features, responses to complex input patterns learned within deep neural networks, have recently shown great performance in image recognition tasks, motivating their use for audio analysis tasks as well. These features provide multiple levels of abstraction which permit to select a sufficiently generalized layer to identify classes not seen during training. The generalization capability of such features is very useful due to the lack of complete labeled audio datasets. However, as opposed to classical hand-crafted features such as Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), the performance impact of having an acoustically adverse environment has not been evaluated in detail. In this p…

A case study on feature sensitivity for audio event classification using support vector machines

2016

Automatic recognition of multiple acoustic events is an interesting problem in machine listening that generalizes the classical speech/non-speech or speech/music classification problem. Typical audio streams contain a diversity of sound events that carry important and useful information on the acoustic environment and context. Classification is usually performed by means of hidden Markov models (HMMs) or support vector machines (SVMs) considering traditional sets of features based on Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) and their temporal derivatives, as well as the energy from auditory-inspired filterbanks. However, while these features are routinely used by many systems, it is not …

Advances in the statistical methodology for the selection of image descriptors for visual pattern representation and classification

1995

Recent advances in the statistical methodology for selecting optimal subsets of features (image descriptors) for visual pattern representation and classification are presented. The paper attempts to provide a guideline about which approach to choose with respect to the a priori knowledge of the problem. Two basic approaches are reviewed and the conditions under which they should be used are specified. References to more detailed material about each one of the methods are given and experimental results supporting the main conclusions are briefly outlined.

Reverse engineering expert visual observations: From fixations to the learning of spatial filters with a neural-gas algorithm

2013

Human beings can become experts in performing specific vision tasks, for example, doctors analysing medical images, or botanists studying leaves. With sufficient knowledge and experience, people can become very efficient at such tasks. When attempting to perform these tasks with a machine vision system, it would be highly beneficial to be able to replicate the process which the expert undergoes. Advances in eye-tracking technology can provide data to allow us to discover the manner in which an expert studies an image. This paper presents a first step towards utilizing these data for computer vision purposes. A growing-neural-gas algorithm is used to learn a set of Gabor filters which give h…

Drug Activity Characterization Using One-Class Support Vector Machines with Counterexamples

2013

The problem of detecting chemical activity in drugs from its molecular description constitutes a challenging and hard learning task. The corresponding prediction problem can be tackled either as a binary classification problem (active versus inactive compounds) or as a one class problem. The first option leads usually to better prediction results when measured over small and fixed databases while the second could potentially lead to a much better characterization of the active class which could be more important in more realistic settings. In this paper, a comparison of these two options is presented when support vector models are used as predictors.

Incrementally Assessing Cluster Tendencies with a~Maximum Variance Cluster Algorithm

2003

A straightforward and efficient way to discover clustering tendencies in data using a recently proposed Maximum Variance Clustering algorithm is proposed. The approach shares the benefits of the plain clustering algorithm with regard to other approaches for clustering. Experiments using both synthetic and real data have been performed in order to evaluate the differences between the proposed methodology and the plain use of the Maximum Variance algorithm. According to the results obtained, the proposal constitutes an efficient and accurate alternative.

Analysis of data fusion techniques for multi-microphone audio event detection in adverse environments

2017

Acoustic event detection (AED) is currently a very active research area with multiple applications in the development of smart acoustic spaces. In this context, the advances brought by Internet of Things (IoT) platforms where multiple distributed microphones are available have also contributed to this interest. In such scenarios, the use of data fusion techniques merging information from several sensors becomes an important aspect in the design of multi-microphone AED systems. In this paper, we present a preliminary analysis of several data-fusion techniques aimed at improving the recognition accuracy of an AED system by taking advantage of the diversity provided by multiple microphones in …

Generalized Multitarget Linear Regression with Output Dependence Estimation

2019

Multitarget regression has recently received attention in the context of modern, large-scale problems in which finding good enough solutions in a timely manner is crucial. Different proposed alternatives use a combination of regularizers that lead to different ways of solving the problem. In this work, we introduce a general formulation with several regularizers. This leads to a biconvex minimization problem and we use an alternating procedure with accelerated proximal gradient steps to solve it. We show that our formulation is equivalent but more efficient than some previously proposed approaches. Moreover, we introduce two new variants. The experimental validation carried out, suggests th…

BIG-AFF

2017

Recent research has provided solid evidence that emotions strongly affect motivation and engagement, and hence play an important role in learning. In BIG-AFF project, we build on the hypothesis that ``it is possible to provide learners with a personalised support that enriches their learning process and experience by using low intrusive (and low cost) devices to capture affective multimodal data that include cognitive, behavioural and physiological information''. In order to deal with the affect management complete cycle, thus covering affect detection, modelling and feedback, there is lack of standards and consolidated methodologies. Being our goal to develop realistic affect-aware learnin…

Efficient Analysis and Synthesis Using a New Factorization of the Gabor Frame Matrix

2018

In this paper, we consider the case in which one needs to carry out Gabor analysis and synthesis on large signals using a short support analysis window and its corresponding, possibly longer canonical dual window, respectively. In this asymmetric context, we propose a novel factorization of the Gabor frame operator that exploits its strong and well-known structure and leads to a computational cost for synthesis, which is comparable to the one needed for short support analysis. The proposed factorization applies to any Gabor system with very mild conditions and leads to a potentially promising alternative to current synthesis algorithms in the case of short analysis windows whose support is …

Sound Event Envelope Estimation in Polyphonic Mixtures

2019

Sound event detection is the task of identifying automatically the presence and temporal boundaries of sound events within an input audio stream. In the last years, deep learning methods have established themselves as the state-of-the-art approach for the task, using binary indicators during training to denote whether an event is active or inactive. However, such binary activity indicators do not fully describe the events, and estimating the envelope of the sounds could provide more precise modeling of their activity. This paper proposes to estimate the amplitude envelopes of target sound event classes in polyphonic mixtures. For training, we use the amplitude envelopes of the target sounds…

Adaptive Mid-Term Representations for Robust Audio Event Classification

2018

Low-level audio features are commonly used in many audio analysis tasks, such as audio scene classification or acoustic event detection. Due to the variable length of audio signals, it is a common approach to create fixed-length feature vectors consisting of a set of statistics that summarize the temporal variability of such short-term features. To avoid the loss of temporal information, the audio event can be divided into a set of mid-term segments or texture windows. However, such an approach requires to estimate accurately the onset and offset times of the audio events in order to obtain a robust mid-term statistical description of their temporal evolution. This paper proposes the use of…

Estimating feature discriminant power in decision tree classifiers

1995

Feature Selection is an important phase in pattern recognition system design. Even though there are well established algorithms that are generally applicable, the requirement of using certain type of criteria for some practical problems makes most of the resulting methods highly inefficient. In this work, a method is proposed to rank a given set of features in the particular case of Decision Tree classifiers, using the same information generated while constructing the tree. The preliminary results obtained with both synthetic and real data confirm that the performance is comparable to that of sequential methods with much less computation.

Image Recognition through Incremental Discriminative Common Vectors

2010

An incremental approach to the discriminative common vector (DCV) method for image recognition is presented. Two different but equivalent ways of computing both common vectors and corresponding subspace projections have been considered in the particular context in which new training data becomes available and learned subspaces may need continuous updating. The two algorithms are based on either scatter matrix eigendecomposition or difference subspace orthonormalization as with the original DCV method. The proposed incremental methods keep the same good properties than the original one but with a dramatic decrease in computational burden when used in this kind of dynamic scenario. Extensive …

Towards Psychologically based Personalised Modelling of Emotions Using Associative Classifiers

2016

Learning environments, among other user-centred applications, are excellent candidates to trial Computational Emotions and their algorithms to enhance user experience and to expand the system usability. However, this was not feasible because of the paucity in affordable consumer technologies that support the requirements of systems with advanced cognitive capabilities. Microsoft Kinect provides an accessible and affordable technology that can enable cognitive features such as facial expressions extraction and emotions detection. However, it comes with its own additional challenges, such as the limited number of extracted Animation Units (AUs). This paper presents a new approach that attempt…

A Feature Set Decomposition Method for the Construction of Multi-classifier Systems Trained with High-Dimensional Data

2013

Data mining for the discovery of novel, useful patterns, encounters obstacles when dealing with high-dimensional datasets, which have been documented as the "curse" of dimensionality. A strategy to deal with this issue is the decomposition of the input feature set to build a multi-classifier system. Standalone decomposition methods are rare and generally based on random selection. We propose a decomposition method which uses information theory tools to arrange input features into uncorrelated and relevant subsets. Experimental results show how this approach significantly outperforms three baseline decomposition methods, in terms of classification accuracy.

An efficient prototype merging strategy for the condensed 1-NN rule through class-conditional hierarchical clustering

2002

Abstract A generalized prototype-based classification scheme founded on hierarchical clustering is proposed. The basic idea is to obtain a condensed 1-NN classification rule by merging the two same-class nearest clusters, provided that the set of cluster representatives correctly classifies all the original points. Apart from the quality of the obtained sets and its flexibility which comes from the fact that different intercluster measures and criteria can be used, the proposed scheme includes a very efficient four-stage procedure which conveniently exploits geometric cluster properties to decide about each possible merge. Empirical results demonstrate the merits of the proposed algorithm t…

Case-studies on average-case analysis for an elementary course on algorithms

1999

Average-case algorithm analysis is usually viewed as a tough subject by students in the first courses in computer science. Traditionally, these topics are fully developed in advanced courses with a clear mathematical orientation. The work presented here is not an alternative to this, rather, it presents the analysis of algorithms (and average-case in particular) adapted to the mathematical background of students in an elementary course on algorithms or programming by using two selected case-studies.

Non-linear Invertible Representation for Joint Statistical and Perceptual Feature Decorrelation

2000

The aim of many image mappings is representing the signal in a basis of decorrelated features. Two fundamental aspects must be taken into account in the basis selection problem: data distribution and the qualitative meaning of the underlying space. The classical PCA techniques reduce the statistical correlation using the data distribution. However, in applications where human vision has to be taken into account, there are perceptual factors that make the feature space uneven, and additional interaction among the dimensions may arise. In this work a common framework is presented to analyse the perceptual and statistical interactions among the coefficients of any representation. Using a recen…

Prototype selection for the nearest neighbour rule through proximity graphs

1997

Abstract In this paper, the Gabriel and Relative Neighbourhood graphs are used to select a suitable subset of prototypes for the Nearest Neighbour rule. Experiments and results are reported showing the effectiveness of the method and comparing its performance to those obtained by classical techniques.