Modernized and advanced electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure ensures reliable, efficient, and affordable delivery of electric power. The complexity of fault location problem increases with the proliferation of unusual topologies and with the advent of renewable energy-based power generation in the smart grid environment. The proliferation of new Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) provides a venue for the implementation of more accurate and intelligent fault location methods. This dissertation focuses on intelligent fault location methods for smart power grids and it aims at improving fault location accuracies and decreasing the cost and the mean time to repair damaged equipment in major power outages subsequently increasing the reliability of the grid. The developed methods utilize wavelet transformation to extract the traveling wave information in the very fast voltage and current transients which are initiated immediately after a fault occurs, support vector machines to classify the fault type and identify the faulted branches and finally Bewley diagrams to precisely locate the fault. The approach utilizes discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) for analysis of transient voltage and current measurements. The transient wavelet energies are calculated and utilized as the input for support vector machine (SVM) classifiers. SVM learns the mapping between inputs (i.e. transient voltages and/or currents wavelet energies) and desired outputs (i.e. faulty phase and/or faulty section) through processing a set of training cases. This dissertation presents the proposed methodologies applied to three complex power transmission systems. The first transmission system is a three-terminal (teed) three-phase AC transmission network, a common topology in high- and extra high-voltage networks. It is used to connect three substations that are wide apart from each other through long transmission lines with a tee-point, which is not supported by a substation nor equipped with a measuring device. The developed method overcomes the difficulties introduced by the discontinuity: the tee point. The second topology is a hybrid high voltage alternative current (HVAC) transmission line composed of an overhead line combined with an underground cable. The proposed fault location method is utilized to overcome the difficulties introduced by the discontinuity at the transition point from the overhead line to the underground cable and the different traveling wave velocities along the line and the cable. The third topology is a segmented high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line including an overhead line combined with an underground cable. This topology is widely utilized to transmit renewable energy-based electrical power from remote locations to the load centers such as from off-shore wind farms to on-shore grids. This dissertation introduces several enhancements to the existing fault type and fault location algorithms: improvement in the concept of fault type classification and faulty section identification by using SVMs with smaller inputs and improvements in the fault location in the complex configurations by utilizing less measurements from the terminals. / Ph. D.

Pathogens colonize their hosts by releasing molecules that can enter host cells. A biotrophic oomycete plant pathogen, Phytophthora sojae harbors a superfamily of effector genes whose protein products enter the cells of the host, soybean. Many of the effectors contain an RXLR-dEER motif in their N-terminus. More than 400 members belonging to this family have been previously identified using a Hidden Markov Model. Amino acids flanking the RXLR motif have been utilized to identify effector proteins from the P. sojae secretome, despite the high level of sequence divergence among the members of this protein family. I present here machine learning methods to identify protein candidates that belong to a particular class, such as the effector superfamily. Converting the flanking amino acid sequences of RXLR motifs (or other candidate motifs) into numeric values that reflect their physical properties enabled the protein sequences to be analyzed through these methods. The methods evaluated include Support Vector Machines and a related spherical classification method that I have developed. I also approached the effector prediction problem by building functional linkage networks and have produced lists of predicted P. sojae effector proteins. I tested the best candidate through gene gun bombardment assays using the beta-glucuronidase reporter system, which revealed that there is a high likelihood that the candidate can enter the soybean cells. / Ph. D.

The elderly population is growing at a rapid pace, and falls are a significant problem facing adults aged 65 and older in terms of both human suffering and economic losses. Falls are the leading cause of mortality among older adults, and non-fatal falls result in reduced function and poor quality of life for older adults. Although much is known about the mechanisms and contributing risk factors relevant to falls, falls still remain a significant problem associated with this age group. Therefore, new strategies and knowledge need to be introduced to understand and prevent falls. Studies show that early detection of impaired mobility is critical to the prevention of falls. In this study, the relationship between gait and postural parameters and falls among elderly participants using wearable inertial sensors was investigated. As such, the aim of this study is to investigate the critical gait and postural parameters contributing to falls, then further to classify fallers and non-fallers by utilizing gait and postural parameters and machine learning techniques, e.g. support vector machines (SVMs). Additionally, as the assessment of fall risk is linked to noisy environment, it is important to understand the capability of the SVM classifier to effectively address noisy data. Therefore, the robustness of the SVM classifier was also investigated in this study. In summary, the presented work addresses several challenges through research on the following three issues: 1) the significant differences in gait and pastoral parameters between fallers and non-fallers; 2) a machine learning based framework for classification of fallers and non-fallers by using only one IMU located at the sternum; and 3) robustness of SVM classifier to classify fallers and non-fallers in a noisy environment. The machine learning based framework developed in this dissertation contribute to advancing the state-of-art in fall risk assessment by 1) classifying fallers and non-fallers from a single IMU located at the sternum; 2) developing machine learning method for classification of fallers and non-fallers; and 3) investigating the robustness of SVM classifier in a noisy environment. / Ph. D.

Classification of human movement is a large field of interest to Human-Machine Interface researchers. The reason for this lies in the large emphasis humans place on gestures while communicating with each other and while interacting with machines. Such gestures can be digitized in a number of ways, including both passive methods, such as cameras, and active methods, such as wearable sensors. While passive methods might be the ideal, they are not always feasible, especially when dealing in unstructured environments. Instead, wearable sensors have gained interest as a method of gesture classification, especially in the upper limbs. Lower arm movements are made up of a combination of multiple electrical signals known as Motor Unit Action Potentials (MUAPs). These signals can be recorded from surface electrodes placed on the surface of the skin, and used for prosthetic control, sign language recognition, human machine interface, and a myriad of other applications. In order to move a step closer to these goal applications, this thesis compares three different machine learning tools, which include Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), Support Vector Machines (SVMs), and Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), to recognize a number of different gestures classes. It further contrasts the applicability of these tools to noisy data in the form of the Ninapro dataset, a benchmarking tool put forth by a conglomerate of universities. Using this dataset as a basis, this work paves a path for the analysis required to optimize each of the three classifiers. Ultimately, care is taken to compare the three classifiers for their utility against noisy data, and a comparison is made against classification results put forth by other researchers in the field. The outcome of this work is 90+ % recognition of individual gestures from the Ninapro dataset whilst using two of the three distinct classifiers. Comparison against previous works by other researchers shows these results to outperform all other thus far. Through further work with these tools, an end user might control a robotic or prosthetic arm, or translate sign language, or perhaps simply interact with a computer. / Master of Science

No / Ethnicity is one of the most salient clues to face identity. Analysis of ethnicity-specific facial data is a challenging problem and predominantly carried out using computer-based algorithms. Current published literature focusses on the use of frontal face images. We addressed the challenge of binary (British Pakistani or other ethnicity) ethnicity classification using profile facial images. The proposed framework is based on the extraction of geometric features using 10 anthropometric facial landmarks, within a purpose-built, novel database of 135 multi-ethnic and multi-racial subjects and a total of 675 face images. Image dimensionality was reduced using Principle Component Analysis and Partial Least Square Regression. Classification was performed using Linear Support Vector Machine. The results of this framework are promising with 71.11% ethnic classification accuracy using a PCA algorithm + SVM as a classifier, and 76.03% using PLS algorithm + SVM as a classifier.

[pt] As expressões faciais transmitem muita informação sobre um indivíduo, tornando a capacidade de interpretá-las uma tarefa muito importante, com aplicações em diversas áreas, tais como Interação Homem Máquina, Jogos Digitais, storytelling interativo e TV/Cinema digital. Esta dissertação discute o processo de reconhecimento de emoções em tempo real usando ASM (Active Shape Model) e SVM (Support Vector Machine) e apresenta uma comparação entre duas formas comumente utilizadas na etapa de extração de atributos: faces neutra e média. Como não existe tal comparação na literatura, os resultados apresentados são valiosos para o desenvolvimento de aplicações envolvendo expressões de emoção em tempo real. O presente trabalho considera seis tipos de emoções: felicidade, tristeza, raiva, medo, surpresa e desgosto. / [en] The facial expressions provide a high amount of information about a person, making the ability to interpret them a high valued task that can be used in several fields of Informatics such as Human Machine Interface, Digital Games, interactive storytelling and digital TV/Cinema. This dissertation discusses the process of recognizing emotions in real time using ASM (Active Shape Model) and SVM (Support Vector Machine) and presents a comparison between two commonly used ways when extracting the attributes: neutral face and average. As such comparison can not be found in the literature, the results presented are valuable to the development of applications that deal with emotion expression in real time. The current study considers six types of emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust.

O objetivo principal desta tese consiste no desenvolvimento de ferramentas matemáticas e computacionais dedicadas a um sistema de diagnóstico de barras quebradas no rotor de Motores de Indução Trifásicos. O sistema proposto é baseado em um método matemático de decomposição de sinais elétricos, denominado de Decomposição em Componentes Ortogonais, e ferramentas de aprendizagem de máquinas. Como uma das principais contribuições desta pesquisa, realizou-se um aprofundamento do entendimento da técnica de Decomposição em Componentes Ortogonais e de sua aplicabilidade como ferramenta de processamento de sinais para sistemas elétricos e eletromecânicos. Redes Neurais Artificiais e Support Vector Machines, tanto para classificação multi-classes quanto para detecção de novidades, foram configurados para receber índices advindos do processamento de sinais elétricos de motores, e a partir deles, identificar os padrões normais e os padrões com falhas. Além disso, a severidade da falha também é diagnosticada, a qual é representada pelo número de barras quebradas no rotor. Para a avaliação da metodologia, considerou-se o acionamento de motores de indução pela tensão de alimentação da rede e por inversores de frequência, operando sob diversas condições de torque de carga. Os resultados alcançados demonstram a eficácia das ferramentas matemáticas e computacionais desenvolvidas para o sistema de diagnóstico, sendo que os índices criados se mostraram altamente correlacionados com o fenômeno da falha. Mais especificamente, foi possível criar índices monotônicos com a severidade da falha e com baixa variabilidade, demonstrando-se que as ferramentas são eficientes extratores de características. / This doctoral thesis consists of the development of mathematical and computational tools dedicated to a diagnostic system for broken rotor bars in Three Phase Induction Motors. The proposed system is based on a mathematical method for decomposing electrical signals, named the Orthogonal Components Decomposition, and machine learning tools. As one of the main contributions of this research, an in-depth investigation of the decomposition technique and its applicability as a signal processing tool for electrical and electromechanical systems was carried-out. Artificial Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines for multi-class classification and novelty detection were configured to receive indices derived from the processing of electrical signals and then identify normal motors and faulty motors. In addition, the fault severity is also diagnosed, which is represented by the number of broken rotor bars. Experimental data was tested in order to evaluate the proposed method. Signals were obtained from induction motors operating with different torque levels and driven either directly by the grid or by frequency inverters. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the mathematical and computational tools developed for the diagnostic system since the indices created are highly correlated with the fault phenomenon. More specifically, it was possible to create monotonic indices with the fault severity and with low variability, what supports that the solution is an efficient fault-specific feature extractor.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-04-04T11:46:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Allan de Barcelos Silva_.pdf: 2298557 bytes, checksum: dc876b1dd44e7a7095219195e809bb88 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-04T11:46:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Allan de Barcelos Silva_.pdf: 2298557 bytes, checksum: dc876b1dd44e7a7095219195e809bb88 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-14 / Nenhuma / Na área de Processamento de Linguagem Natural, a avaliação da similaridade semântica textual é considerada como um elemento importante para a construção de recursos em diversas frentes de trabalho, tais como a recuperação de informações, a classificação de textos, o agrupamento de documentos, as aplicações de tradução, a interação através de diálogos, entre outras. A literatura da área descreve aplicações e técnicas voltadas, em grande parte, para a língua inglesa. Além disso, observa-se o uso prioritário de recursos probabilísticos, enquanto os aspectos linguísticos são utilizados de forma incipiente. Trabalhos na área destacam que a linguística possui um papel fundamental na avaliação de similaridade semântica textual, justamente por ampliar o potencial dos métodos exclusivamente probabilísticos e evitar algumas de suas falhas, que em boa medida são resultado da falta de tratamento mais aprofundado de aspectos da língua. Este contexto é potencializado no tratamento de frases curtas, que consistem no maior campo de utilização das técnicas de similaridade semântica textual, pois este tipo de sentença é composto por um conjunto reduzido de informações, diminuindo assim a capacidade de tratamento probabilístico eficiente. Logo, considera-se vital a identificação e aplicação de recursos a partir do estudo mais aprofundado da língua para melhor compreensão dos aspectos que definem a similaridade entre sentenças. O presente trabalho apresenta uma abordagem para avaliação da similaridade semântica textual em frases curtas no idioma português brasileiro. O principal diferencial apresentado é o uso de uma abordagem híbrida, na qual tanto os recursos de representação distribuída como os aspectos léxicos e linguísticos são utilizados. Para a consolidação do estudo, foi definida uma metodologia que permite a análise de diversas combinações de recursos, possibilitando a avaliação dos ganhos que são introduzidos com a ampliação de aspectos linguísticos e também através de sua combinação com o conhecimento gerado por outras técnicas. A abordagem proposta foi avaliada com relação a conjuntos de dados conhecidos na literatura (evento PROPOR 2016) e obteve bons resultados. / One of the areas of Natural language processing (NLP), the task of assessing the Semantic Textual Similarity (STS) is one of the challenges in NLP and comes playing an increasingly important role in related applications. The STS is a fundamental part of techniques and approaches in several areas, such as information retrieval, text classification, document clustering, applications in the areas of translation, check for duplicates and others. The literature describes the experimentation with almost exclusive application in the English language, in addition to the priority use of probabilistic resources, exploring the linguistic ones in an incipient way. Since the linguistic plays a fundamental role in the analysis of semantic textual similarity between short sentences, because exclusively probabilistic works fails in some way (e.g. identification of far or close related sentences, anaphora) due to lack of understanding of the language. This fact stems from the few non-linguistic information in short sentences. Therefore, it is vital to identify and apply linguistic resources for better understand what make two or more sentences similar or not. The current work presents a hybrid approach, in which are used both of distributed, lexical and linguistic aspects for an evaluation of semantic textual similarity between short sentences in Brazilian Portuguese. We evaluated proposed approach with well-known and respected datasets in the literature (PROPOR 2016) and obtained good results.

L'Analyse des Données Fonctionnelles est un domaine important et dynamique en statistique. Elle offre des outils efficaces et propose de nouveaux développements méthodologiques et théoriques en présence de données de type fonctionnel (fonctions, courbes, surfaces, ...). Le travail exposé dans cette thèse apporte une nouvelle contribution aux thèmes de l'apprentissage statistique et des quantiles conditionnels lorsque les données sont assimilables à des fonctions. Une attention particulière a été réservée à l'utilisation de la technique Support Vector Machines (SVM). Cette technique fait intervenir la notion d'Espace de Hilbert à Noyau Reproduisant. Dans ce cadre, l'objectif principal est d'étendre cette technique non-paramétrique d'estimation aux modèles conditionnels où les données sont fonctionnelles. Nous avons étudié les aspects théoriques et le comportement pratique de la technique présentée et adaptée sur les modèles de régression suivants. Le premier modèle est le modèle fonctionnel de quantiles de régression quand la variable réponse est réelle, les variables explicatives sont à valeurs dans un espace fonctionnel de dimension infinie et les observations sont i.i.d.. Le deuxième modèle est le modèle additif fonctionnel de quantiles de régression où la variable d'intérêt réelle dépend d'un vecteur de variables explicatives fonctionnelles. Le dernier modèle est le modèle fonctionnel de quantiles de régression quand les observations sont dépendantes. Nous avons obtenu des résultats sur la consistance et les vitesses de convergence des estimateurs dans ces modèles. Des simulations ont été effectuées afin d'évaluer la performance des procédures d'inférence. Des applications sur des jeux de données réelles ont été considérées. Le bon comportement de l'estimateur SVM est ainsi mis en évidence. / Functional Data Analysis is an important and dynamic area of statistics. It offers effective new tools and proposes new methodological and theoretical developments in the presence of functional type data (functions, curves, surfaces, ...). The work outlined in this dissertation provides a new contribution to the themes of statistical learning and quantile regression when data can be considered as functions. Special attention is devoted to use the Support Vector Machines (SVM) technique, which involves the notion of a Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space. In this context, the main goal is to extend this nonparametric estimation technique to conditional models that take into account functional data. We investigated the theoretical aspects and practical attitude of the proposed and adapted technique to the following regression models.The first model is the conditional quantile functional model when the covariate takes its values in a bounded subspace of the functional space of infinite dimension, the response variable takes its values in a compact of the real line, and the observations are i.i.d.. The second model is the functional additive quantile regression model where the response variable depends on a vector of functional covariates. The last model is the conditional quantile functional model in the dependent functional data case. We obtained the weak consistency and a convergence rate of these estimators. Simulation studies are performed to evaluate the performance of the inference procedures. Applications to chemometrics, environmental and climatic data analysis are considered. The good behavior of the SVM estimator is thus highlighted.

O objetivo principal desta tese consiste no desenvolvimento de ferramentas matemáticas e computacionais dedicadas a um sistema de diagnóstico de barras quebradas no rotor de Motores de Indução Trifásicos. O sistema proposto é baseado em um método matemático de decomposição de sinais elétricos, denominado de Decomposição em Componentes Ortogonais, e ferramentas de aprendizagem de máquinas. Como uma das principais contribuições desta pesquisa, realizou-se um aprofundamento do entendimento da técnica de Decomposição em Componentes Ortogonais e de sua aplicabilidade como ferramenta de processamento de sinais para sistemas elétricos e eletromecânicos. Redes Neurais Artificiais e Support Vector Machines, tanto para classificação multi-classes quanto para detecção de novidades, foram configurados para receber índices advindos do processamento de sinais elétricos de motores, e a partir deles, identificar os padrões normais e os padrões com falhas. Além disso, a severidade da falha também é diagnosticada, a qual é representada pelo número de barras quebradas no rotor. Para a avaliação da metodologia, considerou-se o acionamento de motores de indução pela tensão de alimentação da rede e por inversores de frequência, operando sob diversas condições de torque de carga. Os resultados alcançados demonstram a eficácia das ferramentas matemáticas e computacionais desenvolvidas para o sistema de diagnóstico, sendo que os índices criados se mostraram altamente correlacionados com o fenômeno da falha. Mais especificamente, foi possível criar índices monotônicos com a severidade da falha e com baixa variabilidade, demonstrando-se que as ferramentas são eficientes extratores de características. / This doctoral thesis consists of the development of mathematical and computational tools dedicated to a diagnostic system for broken rotor bars in Three Phase Induction Motors. The proposed system is based on a mathematical method for decomposing electrical signals, named the Orthogonal Components Decomposition, and machine learning tools. As one of the main contributions of this research, an in-depth investigation of the decomposition technique and its applicability as a signal processing tool for electrical and electromechanical systems was carried-out. Artificial Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines for multi-class classification and novelty detection were configured to receive indices derived from the processing of electrical signals and then identify normal motors and faulty motors. In addition, the fault severity is also diagnosed, which is represented by the number of broken rotor bars. Experimental data was tested in order to evaluate the proposed method. Signals were obtained from induction motors operating with different torque levels and driven either directly by the grid or by frequency inverters. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the mathematical and computational tools developed for the diagnostic system since the indices created are highly correlated with the fault phenomenon. More specifically, it was possible to create monotonic indices with the fault severity and with low variability, what supports that the solution is an efficient fault-specific feature extractor.