A new method for assessing the performance of popular image matching algorithms is presented. Specifically, the method assesses the type of images under which each of the algorithms reviewed herein perform to its maximum or highest efficiency. The efficiency is measured in terms of the number of matches founds by the algorithm and the number of type I and type II errors encountered when the algorithm is tested against a specific pair of images. Current comparative studies asses the performance of the algorithms based on the results obtained in different criteria such as speed, sensitivity, occlusion, and others. These studies are an important resource to understand the behavior of the algorithms and their influence on the results obtained. But they do not account for the inherent characteristics of the algorithms that derive the process through which the matching features are evaluated, filtered, and finally selected. Moreover, these methods cannot be used to predict the efficiency or level of accuracy that could be reached by using one algorithm or the other depending on of the type of images. This ability to predict performance becomes handy in situations where time is a limiting factor in a project because it allows one to quickly predict which algorithm will save the most time and resources.

It is the aim of this paper to review some of the work done on stable matching, and on stable marriage problems in particular. Variants of the stable marriage problem will be considered, and the similarities and differences from a mathematical point of view will be highlighted. The correlation between preference and stability is a main theme, and the way in which diluted or incomplete preferences affect stability is explored. Since these problems have a wide range of practical applications, it is of interest to develop useful algorithms for the derivation of solutions. Time-complexity is a key factor in designing computable algorithms, making work load a strong consideration for practical purposes. Average and worst-case complexity are discussed. The number of different solutions that are possible for a given problem instance is surprising, and counter-intuitive. This leads naturally to a study of the solution sets and the lattice structure of solutions that emerges for any stable marriage problem. Many theorems derive from the lattice structure of stable solutions and it is shown that this can lead to the design of more efficient algorithms. The research on this topic is well established, and many theorems have been proved and published, although some published proofs have omitted the detail. In this paper, the author selects some key theorems, providing detailed proofs or alternate proofs, showing the mathematical richness of this field of study. Various applications are discussed, particularly with relevance to the social sciences, although mention is made of applications in computer science, game theory, and economics. The current research that is evident in this subject area, by reference to technical papers in periodicals and on the internet, suggests that it will remain a key topic for some time to come. / MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES / MSC (MATHEMATICS)

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Esta dissertaÃÃo apresenta um estudo de tÃcnicas que podem ser empregadas como apoio para a correÃÃo de questÃes dissertativas com base na adaptaÃÃo de algoritmos de comparaÃÃo textual combinados a tÃcnicas de prÃ-processamento de textos. O principal desafio na concepÃÃo de uma ferramenta para este tipo de aplicaÃÃo à a ambiguidade da linguagem natural. Para analisar situaÃÃes de correÃÃo de questÃes subjetivas, foram efetuados testes com esses algoritmos, tendo-se desenvolvido uma ferramenta para tal propÃsito. Confrontando respostas de alunos ao padrÃo de resposta de questÃes propostas em provas subjetivas, foram analisados o desempenho individual dos algoritmos e de um conjunto de tÃcnicas de prÃ-processamento que sÃo encontrados na literatura, de maneira isolada e combinada. Buscando contornar situaÃÃes especÃficas de falso negativo e falso positivo, foram propostas algumas tÃcnicas auxiliares como contribuiÃÃo deste trabalho. ApÃs a anÃlise dos experimentos realizados, os resultados de Ãndice de similaridade entre respostas indicam o uso da soluÃÃo como suporte a correÃÃo de questÃes discursivas, podendo, ainda, ser aplicado na detecÃÃo de plÃgio e ser integrado a um ambiente virtual de ensino e aprendizagem. / This master thesis presents a study of techniques used as support for a correction of essay questions based in an adaptation of string-matching algorithms combined with text preprocessing techniques. The main challenge to design a tool like this is an ambiguity of natural language. To analyze a correction of subjective questions, tests were performed with these algorithms, and a tool have been developed for this purpose. Comparing student responses with response pattern of questions proposed in subjective tests, we analyzed the performance of individual algorithms and a set of pre-processing techniques that are found in the literature, in isolation and combined. Seeking to neutralize specific situations of false negative and false positive, some techniques have been proposed as auxiliary contribution of this work. After analyzing the experiments, the results of similarity index between responses indicate the use of the solution to support the correction of essay questions, and may also be applied in the detection of plagiarism and be integrated to a learning management system.

It is the aim of this paper to review some of the work done on stable matching, and on stable marriage problems in particular. Variants of the stable marriage problem will be considered, and the similarities and differences from a mathematical point of view will be highlighted. The correlation between preference and stability is a main theme, and the way in which diluted or incomplete preferences affect stability is explored. Since these problems have a wide range of practical applications, it is of interest to develop useful algorithms for the derivation of solutions. Time-complexity is a key factor in designing computable algorithms, making work load a strong consideration for practical purposes. Average and worst-case complexity are discussed. The number of different solutions that are possible for a given problem instance is surprising, and counter-intuitive. This leads naturally to a study of the solution sets and the lattice structure of solutions that emerges for any stable marriage problem. Many theorems derive from the lattice structure of stable solutions and it is shown that this can lead to the design of more efficient algorithms. The research on this topic is well established, and many theorems have been proved and published, although some published proofs have omitted the detail. In this paper, the author selects some key theorems, providing detailed proofs or alternate proofs, showing the mathematical richness of this field of study. Various applications are discussed, particularly with relevance to the social sciences, although mention is made of applications in computer science, game theory, and economics. The current research that is evident in this subject area, by reference to technical papers in periodicals and on the internet, suggests that it will remain a key topic for some time to come. / MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES / MSC (MATHEMATICS)

This paper describes basic methods used for optical character recognition. It explains all procedures of recognition from adjustment of picture, processing, feature extracting to matching algorithms. It compares methods and algorithms for character recognition obtained graphically distorted or else modified image so-called „captcha“, used in present. Further it compares method based on invariant moments and neural network as final classifier and method based on correlation between normals and recognized characters.

In this study, an algorithm named ClustOrth is proposed for determining and matching functionally orthologous protein clusters in different species. The algorithm requires protein interaction networks of the organisms to be compared and GO terms of the proteins in these interaction networks as prior information. After determining the functionally related protein groups using the Repeated Random Walks algorithm, the method maps the identified protein groups according to the similarity metric defined. In order to evaluate the similarities of protein groups, graph theoretical information is used together with the context information about the proteins. The clusters are aligned using GO-Term-based protein similarity measures defined in previous studies. These alignments are used to evaluate cluster similarities by defining a cluster similarity metric from protein similarities. The top scoring cluster alignments are considered as orthologous. Several data sources providing orthology information have shown that the defined cluster similarity metric can be used to make inferences about the orthological relevance of protein groups. Comparison with a protein orthology prediction algorithm named ISORANK also showed that the ClustOrth algorithm is successful in determining orthologies between proteins. However, the cluster similarity metric is too strict and many cluster matches are not able to produce high scores for this metric. For this reason, the number of predictions performed is low. This problem can be overcomed with the introduction of different sources of information related to proteins in the clusters for the evaluation of the clusters. The ClustOrth algorithm also outperformed the NetworkBLAST algorithm which aims to find orthologous protein clusters using protein sequence information directly for determining orthologies. It can be concluded that this study is one of the leading studies addressing the protein cluster matching problem for identifying orthologous functional modules of protein interaction networks computationally.

Matching problems arise in several real-world scenarios like assigning posts to applicants, houses to trainees and room-mates to one another. In this thesis we consider the bipartite matching problem where one side of the bipartition specifies preferences over the other side. That is, we are given a bipartite graph G = (A ∪ P,E) where A denotes the set of applicants, P denotes the set of posts, and the preferences of applicants are specified by ranks on the edges. Several notions of optimality like pareto-optimality, rank-maximality, popularity have been studied in the literature; we focus on the notion of popularity. A matching M is more popular than another matching M′ if the number of applicants that prefer M to M′ exceeds the number of applicants that prefer M′ to M. A matching M is said to be popular if there exists no matching that is more popular than M. Popular matchings have the desirable property that no applicant majority can force a migration to another matching. However, popular matchings do not provide a complete answer since there exist simple instances that do not admit any popular matching. Abraham et al. (SICOMP 2007) characterized instances that admit a popular matching and also gave efficient algorithms to find one when it exists. We present several generalizations of the popular matchings problem in this thesis. Majority of our work deals with instances that do not admit any popular matching. We propose three different solution concepts for such instances. A reasonable solution when an instance does not admit a popular matching is to output a matching that is least unpopular amongst the set of unpopular matchings. McCutchen (LATIN 2008) introduced and studied measures of unpopularity, namely the unpopularity factor and unpopularity margin. He proved that computing either a least unpopularity factor matching or a least unpopularity margin matching is NP-hard. We build upon this work and design an O(km√n) time algorithm which produces matchings with bounded unpopularity provided a certain subgraph of G admits an A-complete matching (a matching that matches all the applicants). Here n and m denote the number of vertices and the number of edges in G respectively, and k, which is bounded by |A|, is the number of iterations taken by our algorithm to terminate. We also show that if a certain subgraph of G admits an A-complete matching, then we have computed a matching with the least unpopularity factor. Another feasible solution for instances without any popular matching is to output a mixed matching that is popular. A mixed matching is simply a probability distribution over the set of matchings. A mixed matching Q is popular if no mixed matching is more popular than Q. We seek to answer the existence and computation of popular mixed matchings in a given instance G. We begin with a linear programming formulation to compute a mixed matching with the least unpopularity margin. We show that although the linear program has exponentially many constraints, we have a polynomial time separation oracle and hence a least unpopularity margin mixed matching can be computed in polynomial time. By casting the popular mixed matchings problem as a two player zero-sum game, it is possible to prove that every instance of the popular matchings problem admits a popular mixed matching. Therefore, the matching returned by our linear program is indeed a popular mixed matching. Finally, we propose augmentation of the input graph for instances that do not admit any popular matching. Assume that we are dealing with a set of items B (say, DVDs/books) instead of posts and it is possible to make duplicates of these items. Our goal is to make duplicates of appropriate items such that the augmented graph admits a popular matching. However, since allowing arbitrarily many copies for items is not feasible in practice, we impose restrictions in two forms – (i) associating costs with items, and (ii) bounding the number of copies. In the first case, we assume that we pay a price of cost(b) for every extra copy of b that we make; the first copy is assumed to be given to us at free. The total cost of the augmented instance is the sum of costs of all the extra copies that we make. Our goal is to compute a minimum cost augmented instance which admits a popular matching. In the second case, along with the input graph G = (A ∪ B,E), we are given a vector hc1, c2, . . . , c|B|i denoting upper bounds on the number of copies of every item. We seek to answer whether there exists a vector hx1, x2, . . . , x|B|i such that having xi copies of item bi where 1 ≤ xi ≤ ci enables the augmented graph to admit a popular matching. We prove that several problems under both these models turn out to be NP-hard – in fact they remain NP-hard even under severe restrictions on the preference lists. Our final results deal with instances that admit popular matchings. When the input instance admits a popular matching, there may be several popular matchings – in fact there may be several maximum cardinality popular matchings. Hence one may not be content with returning any maximum cardinality popular matching and instead ask for an optimal popular matching. Assuming that the notion of optimality is specified as a part of the problem, we present an O(m + n21 ) time algorithm for computing an optimal popular matching in G. Here m denotes the number of edges in G and n1 denotes the number of applicants. We also consider the problem of computing a minimum cost popular matching where with every post p, a price cost(p) and a capacity cap(p) are associated. A post with capacity cap(p) can be matched with up to cap(p) many applicants. We present an O(mn1) time algorithm to compute a minimum cost popular matching in such instances. We believe that the work provides interesting insights into the popular matchings problem and its variants.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à diverses composantes du traitement et de l’analyse d’images par méthodes non locales. Ces méthodes sont basées sur la redondance d’information présente dans d’autres images, et utilisent des algorithmes de recherche de correspondance, généralement basés sur l’utilisation patchs, pour extraire et transférer de l’information depuis ces images d’exemples. Ces approches, largement utilisées par la communauté de vision par ordinateur, sont souvent limitées par le temps de calcul de l’algorithme de recherche, appliqué à chaque pixel, et par la nécessité d’effectuer un prétraitement ou un apprentissage pour utiliser de grandes bases de données.Pour pallier ces limites, nous proposons plusieurs méthodes générales, sans apprentissage,rapides, et qui peuvent être facilement adaptées à diverses applications de traitement et d’analyse d’images naturelles ou médicales. Nous introduisons un algorithme de recherche de correspondances permettant d’extraire rapidement des patchs d’une grande bibliothèque d’images 3D, que nous appliquons à la segmentation d’images médicales. Pour utiliser de façon similaire aux patchs,des présegmentations en superpixels réduisant le nombre d’éléments de l’image,nous présentons une nouvelle structure de voisinage de superpixels. Ce nouveau descripteur permet d’utiliser efficacement les superpixels dans des approches non locales. Nous proposons également une méthode de décomposition régulière et précise en superpixels. Nous montrons comment évaluer cette régularité de façon robuste, et que celle-ci est nécessaire pour obtenir de bonnes performances de recherche de correspondances basées sur les superpixels. / This thesis focuses on several aspects of image analysis and processing with non local methods. These methods are based on the redundancy of information that occurs in other images, and use matching algorithms, that are usually patch-based, to extract and transfer information from the example data. These approaches are widely used by the computer vision community, and are generally limited by the computational time of the matching algorithm, applied at the pixel scale, and by the necessity to perform preprocessing or learning steps to use large databases. To address these issues, we propose several general methods, without learning, fast, and that can be easily applied to different image analysis and processing applications on natural and medical images. We introduce a matching algorithm that enables to quickly extract patches from a large library of 3D images, that we apply to medical image segmentation. To use a presegmentation into superpixels that reduces the number of image elements, in a way that is similar to patches, we present a new superpixel neighborhood structure. This novel descriptor enables to efficiently use superpixels in non local approaches. We also introduce an accurate and regular superpixel decomposition method. We show how to evaluate this regularity in a robust manner, and that this property is necessary to obtain good superpixel-based matching performances.

The Intrusion Detection System (IDS) needs to compare the contents of all packets arriving at the network interface with a set of signatures for indicating possible attacks, a task that consumes much CPU processing time. In order to alleviate this problem, some researchers have tried to parallelize the IDS's comparison engine, transferring execution from the CPU to GPU. This This dissertation aims to parallelize the Brute Force and Aho-Corasick string matching algorithms and to propose a new compression of the State Transition Table of the Aho-Corasick algorithm in order to make it possible to use it in shared memory and accelerate the comparison of strings. The two algorithms were parallelized using the NVIDIA CUDA platform and executed in the GPU memories to allow a comparative analysis of the performance of these memories. Initially, the AC algorithm proved to be faster than the Brute Force algorithm and so it was followed for optimization. The AC algorithm was compressed and executed in parallel in shared memory, achieving a performance gain of 15% over other GPU memories and being 48 times faster than its serial version when testing with real network packets. When the tests were done with synthetic data (less random data) the gain reached 73% and the parallel algorithm was 56 times faster than its serial version. Thus, it can be seen that the use of compression in shared memory becomes a suitable solution to accelerate the processing of IDSs that need agility in the search for patterns. / Um Sistema de Detecção de Intrusão (IDS) necessita comparar o conteúdo de todos os pacotes que chegam na interface da rede com um conjunto de assinaturas que indicam possíveis ataques, tarefa esta que consome bastante tempo de processamento da CPU. Para amenizar esse problema, tem-se tentado paralelizar o motor de comparação dos IDSs transferindo sua execução da CPU para a GPU. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo fazer a paralelização dos algoritmos de comparação de strings Força-Bruta e Aho-Corasick e propor uma nova compactação da Tabela de Transição de Estados do algoritmo Aho-Corasick a fim de possibilitar o uso dela na memória compartilhada e acelerar a comparação de strings. Os dois algoritmos foram paralelizados utilizando a plataforma CUDA da NVIDIA e executados nas memórias da GPU a fim de possibilitar uma análise comparativa de desempenho dessas memórias. Inicialmente, o algoritmo AC mostrou-se mais veloz do que o algoritmo Força-Bruta e por isso seguiu-se para sua otimização. O algoritmo AC foi compactado e executado de forma paralela na memória compartilhada, alcançando um ganho de desempenho de 15% em relação às outras memórias da GPU e sendo 48 vezes mais rápido que sua versão na CPU quando os testes foram feitos com pacotes de redes reais. Já quando os testes foram feitos com dados sintéticos (dados menos aleatórios) o ganho chegou a 73% e o algoritmo paralelo chegou a ser 56 vezes mais rápido que sua versão serial. Com isso, pode-se perceber que o uso da compactação na memória compartilhada torna-se uma solução adequada para acelerar o processamento de IDSs que necessitem de agilidade na busca por padrões.

Ljudigenkänning möjliggörs genom spektralanalys, som beräknas av den snabba fouriertransformen (FFT), och har under senare år nått stora genombrott i samband med ökningen av datorprestanda och artificiell intelligens. Tekniken är nu allmänt förekommande, i synnerhet inom bioakustik för identifiering av djurarter, en viktig del av miljöövervakning. Det är fortfarande ett växande vetenskapsområde och särskilt igenkänning av fågelsång som återstår som en svårlöst utmaning. Även de främsta algoritmer i området är långt ifrån felfria. I detta kandidatexamensarbete implementerades och utvärderades enkla algoritmer för att para ihop ljud med en ljuddatabas. En filtreringsmetod utvecklades för att urskilja de karaktäristiska frekvenserna vid fem tidsramar som utgjorde basen för jämförelsen och proceduren för ihopparning. Ljuden som användes var förinspelad fågelsång (koltrast, näktergal, kråka och fiskmås) så väl som egeninspelad mänsklig röst (4 unga svenska män). Våra resultat visar att framgångsgraden normalt är 50–70%, den lägsta var fiskmåsen med 30% för en liten databas och den högsta var koltrasten med 90% för en stor databas. Rösterna var svårare för algoritmen att särskilja, men de hade överlag framgångsgrader mellan 50% och 80%. Dock gav en ökning av databasstorleken generellt inte en ökning av framgångsgraden. Sammanfattningsvis visar detta kandidatexamensarbete konceptbeviset bakom fågelsångigenkänning och illustrerar såväl styrkorna som bristerna av dessa enkla algoritmer som har utvecklats. Algoritmerna gav högre framgångsgrad än slumpen (25%) men det finns ändå utrymme för förbättring eftersom algoritmen vilseleddes av ljud av samma frekvenser. Ytterligare studier behövs för att bedöma den utvecklade algoritmens förmåga att identifiera ännu fler fåglar och röster. / Sound recognition is made possible through spectral analysis, computed by the fast Fourier transform (FFT), and has in recent years made major breakthroughs along with the rise of computational power and artificial intelligence. The technology is now used ubiquitously and in particular in the field of bioacoustics for identification of animal species, an important task for wildlife monitoring. It is still a growing field of science and especially the recognition of bird song which remains a hard-solved challenge. Even state-of-the-art algorithms are far from error-free. In this thesis, simple algorithms to match sounds to a sound database were implemented and assessed. A filtering method was developed to pick out characteristic frequencies at five time frames which were the basis for comparison and the matching procedure. The sounds used were pre-recorded bird songs (blackbird, nightingale, crow and seagull) as well as human voices (4 young Swedish males) that we recorded. Our findings show success rates typically at 50–70%, the lowest being the seagull of 30% for a small database and the highest being the blackbird at 90% for a large database. The voices were more difficult for the algorithms to distinguish, but they still had an overall success rate between 50% and 80%. Furthermore, increasing the database size did not improve success rates in general. In conclusion, this thesis shows the proof of concept and illustrates both the strengths as well as short-comings of the simple algorithms developed. The algorithms gave better success rates than pure chance of 25% but there is room for improvement since the algorithms were easily misled by sounds of the same frequencies. Further research will be needed to assess the devised algorithms' ability to identify even more birds and voices.