While Machine Learning is one of the most popular research areas in Computer Science, there are still only a few deployed applications intended for use by the general public. We have developed an exemplary application that can be directly applied to eBay trading. Our system predicts how much an item would sell for on eBay based on that item's attributes. We ran our experiments on the eBay laptop category, with prior trades used as training data. The system implements a feature-weighted k-Nearest Neighbor algorithm, using genetic algorithms to determine feature weights. Our results demonstrate an average prediction error of 16%; we have also shown that this application greatly reduces the time a reseller would need to spend on trading activities, since the bulk of market research is now done automatically with the help of the learned model.

Gait disorders are common in neurodegenerative diseases and distinguishing between seemingly similar kinematic patterns associated with different pathological entities is a challenge even for the experienced clinician. Ultimately, muscle activity underlies the generation of kinematic patterns. Therefore, one possible way to address this problem may be to differentiate gait disorders by analyzing intrinsic features of muscle activations patterns. Here, we examined whether it is possible to differentiate electromyography (EMG) gait patterns of healthy subjects and patients with different gait disorders using machine learning techniques. Nineteen healthy volunteers (9 male, 10 female, age 28.2 ± 6.2 years) and 18 patients with gait disorders (10 male, 8 female, age 66.2 ± 14.7 years) resulting from different neurological diseases walked down a hallway 10 times at a convenient pace while their muscle activity was recorded via surface EMG electrodes attached to 5 muscles of each leg (10 channels in total). Gait disorders were classified as predominantly hypokinetic (n = 12) or ataxic (n = 6) gait by two experienced raters based on video recordings. Three different classification methods (Convolutional Neural Network—CNN, Support Vector Machine—SVM, K-Nearest Neighbors—KNN) were used to automatically classify EMG patterns according to the underlying gait disorder and differentiate patients and healthy participants. Using a leave-one-out approach for training and evaluating the classifiers, the automatic classification of normal and abnormal EMG patterns during gait (2 classes: “healthy” and “patient”) was possible with a high degree of accuracy using CNN (accuracy 91.9%), but not SVM (accuracy 67.6%) or KNN (accuracy 48.7%). For classification of hypokinetic vs. ataxic vs. normal gait (3 classes) best results were again obtained for CNN (accuracy 83.8%) while SVM and KNN performed worse (accuracy SVM 51.4%, KNN 32.4%). These results suggest that machine learning methods are useful for distinguishing individuals with gait disorders from healthy controls and may help classification with respect to the underlying disorder even when classifiers are trained on comparably small cohorts. In our study, CNN achieved higher accuracy than SVM and KNN and may constitute a promising method for further investigation.

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In this project, we explored the usage of machine learning in classifying portable electronic devices. The primary objective was to identify devices such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets, based on their physical and technical specification. These specifications, sourced from the Pricerunner price comparison website, contain height, Wi-Fi standard, and screen resolution. We aggregated this information into a dataset and split it into a training set and a testing set. To achieve the classification of devices, we trained four popular machine learning models: Random Forest (RF), Logistic Regression (LR), k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN), and Fully Connected Network (FCN). We then compared the performance of these models. The evaluation metrics used to compare performance included precision, recall, F1-score, accuracy, and training time. The RF model achieved the highest overall accuracy of 95.4% on the original dataset. The FCN, applied to a dataset processed with standardization followed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA), reached an accuracy of 92.7%, the best within this specific subset. LR excelled in a few class-specific metrics, while kNN performed notably well relative to its training time. The RF model was the clear winner on the original dataset, while the kNN model was a strong contender on the PCA-processed dataset due to its significantly faster training time compared to the FCN. In conclusion, the RF was the best-performing model on the original dataset, the FCN showed impressive results on the standardized and PCA-processed dataset, and the kNN model, with its highest macro precision and rapid training time, also demonstrated competitive performance.

Este trabalho apresenta a formulação de um sistema híbrido de apoio à decisão que, através de técnicas adaptativas, permite que múltiplos dispositivos sejam utilizados de forma colaborativa para encontrar uma solução para um problema de tomada de decisão. É proposta uma estratégia particular para o trabalho colaborativo que restringe o acesso aos dispositivos mais lentos com base na dificuldade encontrada pelos dispositivos mais rápidos para solucionar um problema específico. As soluções encontradas por cada dispositivo são propagadas aos demais, permitindo que cada um deles agregue estas novas soluções com o auxílio de técnicas adaptativas. É feito um estudo sobre aprendizagem de máquina mediante incertezas para verificar e minimizar os impactos negativos que uma nova solução, possivelmente errônea, possa ter. O sistema híbrido proposto é apresentado numa aplicação particular, utilizando testes padronizados para compará-lo com os dispositivos individuais que o compõem e com sistemas híbridos de mesma finalidade. Através destes testes, é mostrado que dispositivos consolidados, mesmo que de naturezas distintas, podem ser utilizados de maneira colaborativa, permitindo não só calibrar um compromisso entre o tempo de resposta e a taxa de acerto, mas também evoluir de acordo com o histórico de problemas processados. / This work presents a formulation of a hybrid decision-making system that employs adaptive techniques as a way to coordinate multiple devices in order to make a collaborative decision. The strategy proposed here is to restrict the use of slower devices, based on how difficult the specific problem is - easier problems may be solved on faster devices. Each device is able to learn through solutions given by the others, aggregating new knowledge with the aid of adaptive techniques. In order to evaluate and minimize the negative impact those new solutions may have, a study concerning machine learning under uncertainty is carried out. A particular application of this system has been tested and compared, not only to each individual device that is part of the system itself, but to similar hybrid systems as well. It is shown that even devices of distinct natures may be reused in a collaborative manner, making it possible to calibrate the trade-off between hit rate and response time, and to evolve according to the input stimuli received as well.

Este trabalho apresenta a formulação de um sistema híbrido de apoio à decisão que, através de técnicas adaptativas, permite que múltiplos dispositivos sejam utilizados de forma colaborativa para encontrar uma solução para um problema de tomada de decisão. É proposta uma estratégia particular para o trabalho colaborativo que restringe o acesso aos dispositivos mais lentos com base na dificuldade encontrada pelos dispositivos mais rápidos para solucionar um problema específico. As soluções encontradas por cada dispositivo são propagadas aos demais, permitindo que cada um deles agregue estas novas soluções com o auxílio de técnicas adaptativas. É feito um estudo sobre aprendizagem de máquina mediante incertezas para verificar e minimizar os impactos negativos que uma nova solução, possivelmente errônea, possa ter. O sistema híbrido proposto é apresentado numa aplicação particular, utilizando testes padronizados para compará-lo com os dispositivos individuais que o compõem e com sistemas híbridos de mesma finalidade. Através destes testes, é mostrado que dispositivos consolidados, mesmo que de naturezas distintas, podem ser utilizados de maneira colaborativa, permitindo não só calibrar um compromisso entre o tempo de resposta e a taxa de acerto, mas também evoluir de acordo com o histórico de problemas processados. / This work presents a formulation of a hybrid decision-making system that employs adaptive techniques as a way to coordinate multiple devices in order to make a collaborative decision. The strategy proposed here is to restrict the use of slower devices, based on how difficult the specific problem is - easier problems may be solved on faster devices. Each device is able to learn through solutions given by the others, aggregating new knowledge with the aid of adaptive techniques. In order to evaluate and minimize the negative impact those new solutions may have, a study concerning machine learning under uncertainty is carried out. A particular application of this system has been tested and compared, not only to each individual device that is part of the system itself, but to similar hybrid systems as well. It is shown that even devices of distinct natures may be reused in a collaborative manner, making it possible to calibrate the trade-off between hit rate and response time, and to evolve according to the input stimuli received as well.

This master thesis project is carried out by one student at the Royal Institute of Technology in collaboration with Cybercom Group. The aim was to evaluate and compare system design strategies for fruit recognition in harvesting robots and the performance of supervised machine learning classification methods when applied to this specific task. The thesis covers the basics of these systems; to which parameters, constraints, requirements, and design decisions have been investigated. The framework is used as a foundation for the implementation of both sensing system, and processing and classification algorithms. A plastic tomato plant with fruit of varying maturity was used as a basis for training and testing, and a Kinect v2 for Windows including sensors for high resolution color-, depth, and IR data was used for image acquisition. The obtained data were processed and features of objects of interest extracted using MATLAB and a SDK for Kinect provided by Microsoft. Multiple views of the plant were acquired by having the plant rotate on a platform controlled by a stepper motor and an Ardunio Uno. The algorithms tested were binary classifiers, including Support Vector Machine, Decision Tree, and k-Nearest Neighbor. The models were trained and validated using a five fold cross validation in MATLABs Classification Learner application. Peformance metrics such as precision, recall, and the F1-score, used for accuracy comparison, were calculated. The statistical models k-NN and SVM achieved the best scores. The method considered most promising for fruit recognition purposes was the SVM. / Det här masterexamensarbetet har utförts av en student från Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan i samarbete med Cybercom Group. Målet var att utvärdera och jämföra designstrategier för igenkänning av frukt i en skörderobot och prestandan av klassificerande maskininlärningsalgoritmer när de appliceras på det specifika problemet. Arbetet omfattar grunderna av dessa system; till vilket parametrar, begränsningar, krav och designbeslut har undersökts. Ramverket användes sedan som grund för implementationen av sensorsystemet, processerings- och klassifikationsalgoritmerna. En tomatplanta i pplast med frukter av varierande mognasgrad användes som bas för träning och validering av systemet, och en Kinect för Windows v2 utrustad med sensorer för högupplöst färg, djup, och infraröd data anvöndes för att erhålla bilder. Datan processerades i MATLAB med hjälp av mjukvaruutvecklingskit för Kinect tillhandahållandet av Windows, i syfte att extrahera egenskaper ifrån objekt på bilderna. Multipla vyer erhölls genom att låta tomatplantan rotera på en plattform, driven av en stegmotor Arduino Uno. De binära klassifikationsalgoritmer som testades var Support Vector MAchine, Decision Tree och k-Nearest Neighbor. Modellerna tränades och valideras med hjälp av en five fold cross validation i MATLABs Classification Learner applikation. Prestationsindikatorer som precision, återkallelse och F1- poäng beräknades för de olika modellerna. Resultatet visade bland annat att statiska modeller som k-NN och SVM presterade bättre för det givna problemet, och att den sistnömnda är mest lovande för framtida applikationer.

In the hope to increase the detection rate of faults in combined heat and power plant boilers thus lowering unplanned maintenance three machine learning models are constructed and evaluated. The algorithms; k-Nearest Neighbor, One-Class Support Vector Machine, and Auto-encoder have a proven track record in research for anomaly detection, but are relatively unexplored for industrial applications such as this one due to the difficulty in collecting non-artificial labeled data in the field.The baseline versions of the k-Nearest Neighbor and Auto-encoder performed very similarly. Nevertheless, the Auto-encoder was slightly better and reached an area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC) of 0.966 and 0.615 on the trainingand test period, respectively. However, no sufficiently good results were reached with the One-Class Support Vector Machine. The Auto-encoder was made more sophisticated to see how much performance could be increased. It was found that the AUPRC could be increased to 0.987 and 0.801 on the trainingand test period, respectively. Additionally, the model was able to detect and generate one alarm for each incident period that occurred under the test period.The conclusion is that ML can successfully be utilized to detect faults at an earlier stage and potentially circumvent otherwise costly unplanned maintenance. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of room for improvements in the model and the collection of the data. / I hopp om att öka identifieringsgraden av störningar i kraftvärmepannor och därigenom minska oplanerat underhåll konstrueras och evalueras tre maskininlärningsmodeller.Algoritmerna; k-Nearest Neighbor, One-Class Support Vector Machine, och Autoencoder har bevisad framgång inom forskning av anomalidetektion, men är relativt outforskade för industriella applikationer som denna på grund av svårigheten att samla in icke-artificiell uppmärkt data inom området.Grundversionerna av k-Nearest Neighbor och Auto-encoder presterade nästan likvärdigt. Dock var Auto-encoder-modellen lite bättre och nådde ett AUPRC-värde av 0.966 respektive 0.615 på träningsoch testperioden. Inget tillräckligt bra resultat nåddes med One-Class Support Vector Machine. Auto-encoder-modellen gjordes mer sofistikerad för att se hur mycket prestandan kunde ökas. Det visade sig att AUPRC-värdet kunde ökas till 0.987 respektive 0.801 under träningsoch testperioden. Dessutom lyckades modellen identifiera och generera ett larm vardera för alla incidenter under testperioden. Slutsatsen är att ML framgångsrikt kan användas för att identifiera störningar iett tidigare skede och därigenom potentiellt kringgå i annat fall dyra oplanerade underhåll. Emellertid finns det fortfarande mycket utrymme för förbättringar av modellen samt inom insamlingen av data.

Ein zunehmend wichtiges Thema in der Informatik ist der Umgang mit Ähnlichkeit in einer großen Anzahl unterschiedlicher Domänen. Derzeit existiert keine universell verwendbare Infrastruktur für die Ähnlichkeitssuche in allgemeinen metrischen Räumen. Ziel der Arbeit ist es, die Grundlage für eine derartige Infrastruktur zu legen, die in klassische Datenbankmanagementsysteme integriert werden könnte. Im Rahmen einer Analyse des State of the Art wird der M-Baum als am besten geeignete Basisstruktur identifiziert. Dieser wird anschließend zum EM-Baum erweitert, wobei strukturelle Kompatibilität mit dem M-Baum erhalten wird. Die Abfragealgorithmen werden im Hinblick auf eine Minimierung notwendiger Distanzberechnungen optimiert. Aufbauend auf einer mathematischen Analyse der Beziehung zwischen Baumstruktur und Abfrageaufwand werden Freiheitsgrade in Baumänderungsalgorithmen genutzt, um Bäume so zu konstruieren, dass Ähnlichkeitsanfragen mit einer minimalen Anzahl an Anfrageoperationen beantwortet werden können. / A topic of growing importance in computer science is the handling of similarity in multiple heterogenous domains. Currently there is no common infrastructure to support this for the general metric space. The goal of this work is lay the foundation for such an infrastructure, which could be integrated into classical data base management systems. After some analysis of the state of the art the M-Tree is identified as most suitable base and enhanced in multiple ways to the EM-Tree retaining structural compatibility. The query algorithms are optimized to reduce the number of necessary distance calculations. On the basis of a mathematical analysis of the relation between the tree structure and the query performance degrees of freedom in the tree edit algorithms are used to build trees optimized for answering similarity queries using a minimal number of distance calculations.

Com o crescente aumento no número de imagens geradas em mídias digitais surgiu a necessidade do desenvolvimento de novas técnicas de recuperação desses dados. Um critério de busca que pode ser utilizado na recuperação das imagens é o da dissimilaridade, no qual o usuário deseja recuperar as imagens semelhantes à uma imagem de consulta. Para a realização das consultas são empregados vetores de características extraídos das imagens e funções de distância para medir a dissimilaridade entre pares desses vetores. Infelizmente, a busca por conteúdo de imagens em consultas simples tende a gerar resultados que não correspondem ao interesse do usuário misturados aos resultados significativos encontrados, pois em geral há uma descontinuidade semântica entre as características extraídas automaticamente e a subjetividade da interpretação humana. Com o intuito de tratar esse problema, diversos métodos foram propostos para a diminuição da descontinuidade semântica. O foco principal desta tese é o desenvolvimento de métodos escaláveis para a redução da descontinuidade semântica em sistemas recuperação de imagens por conteúdo em tempo real. Nesta sentido, são apresentados: a formalização de consultas por similaridade que permitem a utilização de múltiplos centros de consulta em espaços métricos como base para métodos de realimentação de relevância; um método exato para otimização dessas consultas nesses espaços; e um modelo para tratamento da diversidade em consultas por similaridade e heurísticas para sua otimização / The increasing number of images captured in digital media fostered the developmet of new methods for the recovery of these images. Dissimilarity is a criteria that can be used for image retrieval, where the results are images that are similar to a given reference. The queries are based on feature vectors automatically extracted from the images and on distance functions to measure the dissimilarity between pair of vectors. Unfortunately, the search for images in simple queries may result in images that do not fulfill the user interest together with meaningful images, due to the semantic gap between the image features and to the subjectivity of the human interpretation. This problem leaded to the development of many methods to deal with the semantic gap. The focus of this thesis is the development of scalable methods aiming the semantic gap reduction in real time for content-based image retrieval systems. For this purpose, we present the formal definition of similarity queries based on multiple query centers in metric spaces to be used in relevance feedback methods, an exact method to optimize these queries and a model to deal with diversity in nearest neighbor queries including heuristics for its optimization