Unsupervised event detection and classification of multichannel signals

In this paper, we present a new unsupervised method to classify a set of Multichanel Signals (MC) with unknown events. Each signal is characterized by a sequence of events where the number of events, the start time and the duration between events can change randomly. The proposed method helps in the classification and event detection of the MC signals by an expert which usually becomes a tedious and difficult task. To this end, first, the problem of classification of MC signals characterized by a succession of events is analyzed by transforming the MC signals into a set of temporal sequences of easy interpretation. The algorithm detects events by means of an optimal unsupervised classification. It is not necessary to know the nature of the events and formulate hypotheses regarding their behavior. Then, a set of multichannel electromyographic (EMG) signals with events is generated. These MC signals are used to test the proposed method.     

Unsupervised scene segmentation using sparse coding context

This paper presents an approach to image understanding on the aspect of unsupervised scene segmentation. With the goal of image understanding in mind, we consider ‘unsupervised scene segmentation’ a task of dividing a given image into semantically meaningful regions without using annotation or other human-labeled information. We seek to investigate how well an algorithm can achieve at partitioning an image with limited human-involved learning procedures. Specifically, we are interested in developing an unsupervised segmentation algorithm that only relies on the contextual prior learned from a set of images. Our algorithm incorporates a small set of images that are similar to the input image in their scene structures. We use the sparse coding technique to analyze the appearance of this set of images; the effectiveness of sparse coding allows us to derive a priori the context of the scene from the set of images. Gaussian mixture models can then be constructed for different parts of the input image based on the sparse-coding contextual prior, and can be combined into an Markov-random-field-based segmentation process. The experimental results show that our unsupervised segmentation algorithm is able to partition an image into semantic regions, such as buildings, roads, trees, and skies, without using human-annotated information. The semantic regions generated by our algorithm can be useful, as pre-processed inputs for subsequent classification-based labeling algorithms, in achieving automatic scene annotation and scene parsing.     

Unsupervised detection of acoustic events using information bottleneck principle

An unsupervised approach based on Information Bottleneck (IB) principle is proposed for detecting acoustic events from audio streams. In this paper, the IB principle is first concisely presented, and then the practical issues related to the application of IB principle to acoustic event detection are described in detail, including definitions of various variables, criterion for determining the number of acoustic events, tradeoff between amount of information preserved and compression of the initial representation, and detection steps. Further, we compare the proposed approach with both unsupervised and supervised approaches on four different types of audio files. Experimental results show that the proposed approach obtains lower detection errors and higher running speed compared to two state-of-the-art unsupervised approaches, and is little inferior to the state-of-the-art supervised approach in terms of both detection errors and runtime. The advantage of the proposed unsupervised approach over the supervised approach is that it does not need to pre-train classifiers and pre-know any prior information about audio streams.     

Unsupervised detection and localization of structural textures using projection profiles

The main goal of existing approaches for structural texture analysis has been the identification of repeating texture primitives and their placement patterns in images containing a single type of texture. We describe a novel unsupervised method for simultaneous detection and localization of multiple structural texture areas along with estimates of their orientations and scales in real images. First, multi-scale isotropic filters are used to enhance the potential texton locations. Then, regularity of the textons is quantified in terms of the periodicity of projection profiles of filter responses within sliding windows at multiple orientations. Next, a regularity index is computed for each pixel as the maximum regularity score together with its orientation and scale. Finally, thresholding of this regularity index produces accurate localization of structural textures in images containing different kinds of textures as well as non-textured areas. Experiments using three different data sets show the effectiveness of the proposed method in complex scenes.     

Unsupervised minor prototype detection using an adaptive population partitioning algorithm

This paper presents a new partitioning algorithm, designated as the Adaptive C-Populations (ACP) clustering algorithm, capable of identifying natural subgroups and influential minor prototypes in an unlabeled dataset. In contrast to traditional Fuzzy C-Means clustering algorithms, which partition the whole dataset equally, adaptive clustering algorithms, such as that presented in this study, identify the natural subgroups in unlabeled datasets. In this paper, data points within a small, dense region located at a relatively large distance from any of the major cluster centers are considered to form a minor prototype. The aim of ACP is to adaptively separate these isolated minor clusters from the major clusters in the dataset. The study commences by introducing the mathematical model of the proposed ACP algorithm and demonstrates its convergence to a stable solution. The ability of ACP to detect minor prototypes is confirmed via its application to the clustering of three different datasets with different sizes and characteristics.     

Unsupervised and non-parametric learning-based anomaly detection system using vibration sensor data

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In this paper, we propose an anomaly detection system of machines using a hybrid learning mechanism that combines two kinds of machine learning approaches,...     

Emotion recognition from physiological signals using wireless sensors for presence technologies

In this article we describe a new approach to enhance presence technologies. First, we discuss the strong relationship between cognitive processes and emotions and how human physiology is uniquely affected when experiencing each emotion. Secondly, we introduce our prototype multimodal affective user interface. In the remainder of the paper we describe the emotion elicitation experiment we designed and conducted and the algorithms we implemented to analyse the physiological signals associated with emotions. These algorithms can then be used to recognise the affective states of users from physiological data collected via non-invasive technologies. The affective intelligent user interfaces we plan to create will adapt to user affect dynamically in the current context, thus providing enhanced social presence.     

Unsupervised visit detection in smart homes

Assistive technologies for elderly often use ambient sensor systems to infer activities of daily living (ADL). In general such systems assume that only a single person (the resident) is present in the home. However, in real world environments, it is common to have visits and it is crucial to know when the resident is alone or not. We deal with this challenge by presenting a novel method that models regular activity patterns and detects visits. Our method is based on the Markov modulated Poisson process (MMPP), but is extended to allow the incorporation of multiple feature streams. The results from the experiments on nine months of sensor data collected in two apartments show that our model significantly outperforms the standard MMPP. We validate the generalisation of the model using two new data sets collected from an other sensor network.     

Unsupervised texture segmentation using Gabor filters

This paper presents a texture segmentation algorithm inspired by the multi-channel filtering theory for visual information processing in the early stages of human visual system. The channels are characterized by a bank of Gabor filters that nearly uniformly covers the spatial-frequency domain, and a systematic filter selection scheme is proposed, which is based on reconstruction of the input image from the filtered images. Texture features are obtained by subjecting each (selected) filtered image to a nonlinear transformation and computing a measure of “energy” in a window around each pixel. A square-error clustering algorithm is then used to integrate the feature images and produce a segmentation. A simple procedure to incorporate spatial information in the clustering process is proposed. A relative index is used to estimate the “true” number of texture categories.     

Unsupervised manifold alignment using soft-assign technique

In this paper, we propose a robust unsupervised algorithm for automatic alignment of two manifolds in different datasets with possibly different dimensionalities. The significant contribution is that the proposed alignment algorithm is performed automatically without any assumptions on the correspondences between the two manifolds. For such purpose, we first automatically extract local feature histograms at each point of the manifolds and establish an initial similarity between the two datasets by matching their histogram-based features. Based on such similarity, an embedding space is estimated where the distance between the two manifolds is minimized while maximally retaining the original structure of the manifolds. The elegance of this idea is that such complicated problem is formulated as a generalized eigenvalue problem, which can be easily solved. The alignment process is achieved by iteratively increasing the sparsity of correspondence matrix until the two manifolds are correctly aligned and consequently one can reveal their joint structure. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm on different datasets by aligning protein structures, 3D face models and facial images of different subjects under pose and lighting variations. Finally, we also compare with a state-of-the-art algorithm and the results show the superiority of the proposed manifold alignment in terms of vision effect and numerical accuracy.     

Random eye state change detection in real-time using EEG signals

Maximum and minimum computed across channels is used to monitor the Electroencephalogram signals for possible change of the eye state. Upon detection of a possible change, the last two seconds of the signal is passed through Multivariate Empirical Mode Decomposition and relevant features are extracted. The features are then fed into Logistic Regression and Artificial Neural Network classifiers to confirm the eye state change. The proposed algorithm detects the eye state change with 88.2% accuracy in less than two seconds. This provides a valuable improvement in comparison to a recent procedure that takes about 20 minutes to classify new instances with 97.3% accuracy. The introduced algorithm is promising in the real-time eye state classification as increasing the training examples would increase its accuracy.     

Unsupervised change detection using spectral features and a texture difference measure for VHR remote-sensing images

This article proposes an unsupervised change-detection method using spectral and texture information for very-high-resolution (VHR) remote-sensing images. First, a new local-similarity-based texture difference measure (LSTDM) is defined using a grey-level co-occurrence matrix. A mathematical analysis shows that LSTDM is robust with respect to noise and spectral similarity. Second, the difference image is generated by integrating the spectral and texture features. Then, the unsupervised change-detection problem in VHR remote-sensing images is formulated as minimizing an energy function related with changed and unchanged classes in the difference image. A modified expectation-maximization-based active contour model (EMCVM) is applied to the difference image to separate the changed and unchanged regions. Finally, two different experiments are performed with SPOT-5 images and compared with state-of-the-art unsupervised change-detection methods to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results indicate that the proposed method can sufficiently increase the robustness with respect to noise and spectral similarity and obtain the highest accuracy among the methods addressed in this article.     

Unsupervised change detection using a novel fuzzy c-means clustering simultaneously incorporating local and global information

Multimedia Tools and Applications - This paper presents a novel fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering simultaneously incorporating local and global information (FLGICM) method to unsupervised change...     

Unsupervised image segmentation using triplet Markov fields

Hidden Markov fields (HMF) models are widely applied to various problems arising in image processing. In these models, the hidden process of interest X is a Markov field and must be estimated from its observable noisy version Y. The success of HMF is mainly due to the fact that the conditional probability distribution of the hidden process with respect to the observed one remains Markovian, which facilitates different processing strategies such as Bayesian restoration. HMF have been recently generalized to “pairwise” Markov fields (PMF), which offer similar processing advantages and superior modeling capabilities. In PMF one directly assumes the Markovianity of the pair (X, Y). Afterwards, “triplet” Markov fields (TMF), in which the distribution of the pair (X, Y) is the marginal distribution of a Markov field (X, U, Y), where U is an auxiliary process, have been proposed and still allow restoration processing. The aim of this paper is to propose a new parameter estimation method adapted to TMF, and to study the corresponding unsupervised image segmentation methods. The latter are validated via experiments and real image processing.     

Automated major depressive disorder detection using melamine pattern with EEG signals

Applied Intelligence - Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common modern ailments affected huge population throughout the world. The electroencephalogram (EEG) signal is widely used...     

Unsupervised strategies for shilling detection and robust collaborative filtering

Collaborative filtering systems are essentially social systems which base their recommendation on the judgment of a large number of people. However, like other social systems, they are also vulnerable to manipulation by malicious social elements. Lies and Propaganda may be spread by a malicious user who may have an interest in promoting an item, or downplaying the popularity of another one. By doing this systematically, with either multiple identities, or by involving more people, malicious user votes and profiles can be injected into a collaborative recommender system. This can significantly affect the robustness of a system or algorithm, as has been studied in previous work. While current detection algorithms are able to use certain characteristics of shilling profiles to detect them, they suffer from low precision, and require a large amount of training data. In this work, we provide an in-depth analysis of shilling profiles and describe new approaches to detect malicious collaborative filtering profiles. In particular, we exploit the similarity structure in shilling user profiles to separate them from normal user profiles using unsupervised dimensionality reduction. We present two detection algorithms; one based on PCA, while the other uses PLSA. Experimental results show a much improved detection precision over existing methods without the usage of additional training time required for supervised approaches. Finally, we present a novel and highly effective robust collaborative filtering algorithm which uses ideas presented in the detection algorithms using principal component analysis.     

Unsupervised skin lesions border detection via two-dimensional image analysis

The skin cancer was analyzed by dermoscopy helpful for dermatologists. The classification of melanoma and carcinoma such as basal cell, squamous cell, and merkel cell carcinomas tumors can be increased the sensitivity and specificity. The detection of an automated border is an important step for the correctness of subsequent phases in the computerized melanoma recognition systems. The artifacts such as, dermoscopy-gel, specular reflection and outline (skin lines, blood vessels, and hair or ruler markings) were also contained in the dermoscopic images. In this paper, we present an unsupervised approach for multiple lesion segmentation, modification of Region-based Active Contours (RACs) as well as artifact diminution steps. Iterative thresholding is applied to initialize level set automatically; the stability of curves is enforced by maximum smoothing constraints on Courant–Friedreichs–Lewy (CFL) function. The work has been tested on dermoscopic database of 320 images. The border detection error is quantified by five distinct statistical metrics and manually used to determine the borders from a dermatologist as the ground truth. The segmentation results were compared with other state-of-the-art methods along with the evaluation criteria. The unsupervised border detection system increased the true detection rate (TDR) is 4.31% and reduced the false positive rate (FPR) of 5.28%.     

Unsupervised segmentation of ERS and Radarsat sea ice images using multiresolution peak detection and aggregated population equalization

In this paper we describe Automated Sea Ice Segmentation (ASIS), a system that automatically segments Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sea ice imagery. This system integrates image processing, data mining, and machine learning methodologies to determine the number of visually separable classes in ERS and Radarsat sea ice images. We introduce two new techniques: multiresolution peak detection and spatial clustering. The detection is a noise-resistant data discretization methodology that results in an initial segmentation of the image. The clustering is based on an innovative concept called Aggregated Population Equalization that utilizes spatial relationships among classes to merge and split the population environment. Its self-organizing ability produces the final segmentation and automates ASIS. In addition, we have designed a Java-based graphical user interface that facilitates post-segmentation human evaluation and classification. Thus, ASIS can be used as a pre-processor to help analyse sea ice images as well as a basis for human classification of sea ice images. We have tested the system on more than 300 ERS-1, ERS-2 and Radarsat SAR sea ice images and analysed the results to point out the strengths and weaknesses of ASIS in the automated segmentation of sea ice images.