This thesis focuses on bare hand gesture recognition by proposing a new architecture to solve the problem of real-time vision-based hand detection, tracking, and gesture recognition for interaction with an application via hand gestures. The first stage of our system allows detecting and tracking a bare hand in a cluttered background using face subtraction, skin detection and contour comparison. The second stage allows recognizing hand gestures using bag-of-features and multi-class Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms. Finally, a grammar has been developed to generate gesture commands for application control. Our hand gesture recognition system consists of two steps: offline training and online testing. In the training stage, after extracting the keypoints for every training image using the Scale Invariance Feature Transform (SIFT), a vector quantization technique will map keypoints from every training image into a unified dimensional histogram vector (bag-of-words) after K-means clustering. This histogram is treated as an input vector for a multi-class SVM to build the classifier. In the testing stage, for every frame captured from a webcam, the hand is detected using my algorithm. Then, the keypoints are extracted for every small image that contains the detected hand posture and fed into the cluster model to map them into a bag-of-words vector, which is fed into the multi-class SVM classifier to recognize the hand gesture. Another hand gesture recognition system was proposed using Principle Components Analysis (PCA). The most eigenvectors and weights of training images are determined. In the testing stage, the hand posture is detected for every frame using my algorithm. Then, the small image that contains the detected hand is projected onto the most eigenvectors of training images to form its test weights. Finally, the minimum Euclidean distance is determined among the test weights and the training weights of each training image to recognize the hand gesture. Two application of gesture-based interaction with a 3D gaming virtual environment were implemented. The exertion videogame makes use of a stationary bicycle as one of the main inputs for game playing. The user can control and direct left-right movement and shooting actions in the game by a set of hand gesture commands, while in the second game, the user can control and direct a helicopter over the city by a set of hand gesture commands.

Protein tertiary structure plays a very important role in determining its possible functional sites and chemical interactions with other related proteins. Experimental methods to determine protein structure are time consuming and expensive. As a result, the gap between protein sequence and its structure has widened substantially due to the high throughput sequencing techniques. Problems of experimental methods motivate us to develop the computational algorithms for protein structure prediction. In this work, the clustering system is used to predict local protein structure. At first, recurring sequence clusters are explored with an improved K-means clustering algorithm. Carefully constructed sequence clusters are used to predict local protein structure. After obtaining the sequence clusters and motifs, we study how sequence variation for sequence clusters may influence its structural similarity. Analysis of the relationship between sequence variation and structural similarity for sequence clusters shows that sequence clusters with tight sequence variation have high structural similarity and sequence clusters with wide sequence variation have poor structural similarity. Based on above knowledge, the established clustering system is used to predict the tertiary structure for local sequence segments. Test results indicate that highest quality clusters can give highly reliable prediction results and high quality clusters can give reliable prediction results. In order to improve the performance of the clustering system for local protein structure prediction, a novel computational model called Clustering Support Vector Machines (CSVMs) is proposed. In our previous work, the sequence-to-structure relationship with the K-means algorithm has been explored by the conventional K-means algorithm. The K-means clustering algorithm may not capture nonlinear sequence-to-structure relationship effectively. As a result, we consider using Support Vector Machine (SVM) to capture the nonlinear sequence-to-structure relationship. However, SVM is not favorable for huge datasets including millions of samples. Therefore, we propose a novel computational model called CSVMs. Taking advantage of both the theory of granular computing and advanced statistical learning methodology, CSVMs are built specifically for each information granule partitioned intelligently by the clustering algorithm. Compared with the clustering system introduced previously, our experimental results show that accuracy for local structure prediction has been improved noticeably when CSVMs are applied.

For several years, FORAN Remote Sensing in Linköping has been using pulseintense laser scannings together with multispectral imaging for developing analysismethods in forestry. One area these laser scannings and images are used for is toclassify the species of single trees in forests. The species have been divided intopine, spruce and deciduous trees, classified by a Maximum Likelihood classifier.This thesis presents the work done on a more spectrally high-resolution imagery,hyperspectral images. These images are divided into more, and finer gradedspectral components, but demand more signal processing. A new classifier, SupportVector Machine, is tested against the previously used Maximum LikelihoodClassifier, to see if it is possible to increase the performance. The classifiers arealso set to divide the deciduous trees into aspen, birch, black alder and gray alder.The thesis shows how the new data set is handled and processed to the differentclassifiers, and shows how a better result can be achieved using a Support VectorMachine.

In this thesis, the geometric margin is used for the first time as the robustness indicator of an uncoupled cellular neural network implementing a given Boolean function. First, robust template design for uncoupled cellular neural networks implementing linearly separable Boolean functions by support vector machines is proposed. A fast sequential minimal optimization algorithm is presented to find maximal margin classifiers, which in turn determine the robust templates. Some general properties of robust templates are investigated. An improved CFC algorithm implementing an arbitrarily given Boolean function is proposed. Two illustrative examples are provided to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.

There has been no commonsense on how to identify problem domain concerns in architectural modeling of software systems. Even, there is no commonly accepted method for modeling the Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) effectively associated with the architectural aspects in the solution domain. This thesis introduces the use of a Machine Learning (ML) method based on Support Vector Machines to relate NFRs to classified &quot / architectural concerns&quot / in an automated way. This method uses Natural Language Processing techniques to fragment the plain NFR texts under the supervision of domain experts. The contribution of this approach lies in continuously applying ML techniques against previously discovered &ldquo / NFR - architectural concerns&rdquo / associations to improve the intelligence of repositories for requirements engineering. The study illustrates a charted roadmap and demonstrates the automated requirements engineering toolset for this roadmap. It also validates the approach and effectiveness of the toolset on the snapshot of a real-life project.

Diese Arbeit zeigt ausgehend von einer Darstellung der theoretischen Grundlagen automatischer Textklassifikation, dass die aus der Statistical Learning Theory stammenden Support Vector Machines geeignet sind, zu einer präziseren Erkennung unerwünschter E-Mail-Werbung beizutragen. In einer Testumgebung mit einem Corpus von 20 000 E-Mails wurden Testläufe verschiedene Parameter der Vorverarbeitung und der Support Vector Machine automatisch evaluiert und grafisch visualisiert. Aufbauend darauf wird eine Erweiterung für die Open-Source-Software SpamAssassin beschrieben, die die vorhandenen Klassifikationsmechanismen um eine Klassifikation per Support Vector Machine erweitert.

Plankton imaging systems such as SIPPER produce a large quantity of data in the form of plankton images from a variety of classes. A system known as PICES was developed to quickly extract, classify and manage the millions of images produced from a single one-week research cruise. A new fast technique for parameter tuning and feature selection for Support Vector Machines using Wrappers was created. This technique allows for faster feature selection, while at the same time maintaining and sometimes improving classification accuracy. It also gives the user greater flexibility in the management of class contents in existing training libraries. Support vector machines are binary classifiers that can implement multi-class classifiers by creating a classifier for each possible combination of classes or for each class using a one class versus all strategy. Feature selection searches for a single set of features to be used by each of the binary classifiers. This ignores the fact that features that may be good discriminators for two particular classes might not do well for other class combinations. As a result, the feature selection process may not include these features in the common set to be used by all support vector machines. It is shown through experimentation that by selecting features for each binary class combination, overall classification accuracy can be improved and the time required for training a multi-class support vector machine can be reduced. Another benefit of this approach is that significantly less time is required for feature selection when additional classes are added to the training data. This is because the features selected for the existing class combinations are still valid, so that feature selection only needs to be run for the new combination added. This work resulted in a system called PICES, a GUI based user friendly system, which aids in the classification management of over 55 million images of plankton split amongst 180 classes. PICES embodies an improved means of performing Wrapper based feature selection that creates classifiers that train faster and are just as accurate and sometimes more accurate, while reducing the feature selection time.

Red tides pose a significant economic and environmental threat in the Gulf of Mexico. Detecting red tide is important for understanding this phenomenon. In this thesis, machine learning approaches based on Random Forests, Support Vector Machines and K-Nearest Neighbors have been evaluated for red tide detection from MODIS satellite images. Detection results using machine learning algorithms were compared to ship collected ground truth red tide data. This work has three major contributions. First, machine learning approaches outperformed two of the latest thresholding red tide detection algorithms based on bio-optical characterization by more than 10% in terms of F measure and more than 4% in terms of area under the ROC curve. Machine Learning approaches are effective in more locations on the West Florida Shelf. Second, the thresholds developed in recent thresholding methods were introduced as input attributes to the machine learning approaches and this strategy improved Random Forests and KNearest Neighbors approaches' F-measures. Third, voting the machine learning and thresholding methods could achieve the better performance compared with using machine learning alone, which implied a combination between machine learning models and biocharacterization thresholding methods can be used to obtain effective red tide detection results.

A CT-scan of lungs has become ubiquitous as a thoracic diagnostic tool. Thus, using CT-scan images in developing predictive models for tumor types and survival time of patients afflicted with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) would provide a novel approach to non-invasive tumor analysis. It can provide an alternative to histopathological techniques such as needle biopsy. Two major tumor analysis problems were addressed in course of this study, tumor type classification and survival time prediction. CT-scan images of 109 patients with NSCLC were used in this study. The first involved classifying tumor types into two major classes of non-small cell lung tumors, Adenocarcinoma and Squamous-cell Carcinoma, each constituting 30% of all lung tumors. In a first of its kind investigation, a large group of 2D and 3D image features, which were hypothesized to be useful, are evaluated for effectiveness in classifying the tumors. Classifiers including decision trees and support vector machines (SVM) were used along with feature selection techniques (wrappers and relief-F) to build models for tumor classification. Results show that over the large feature space for both 2D and 3D features it is possible to predict tumor classes with over 63% accuracy, showing new features may be of help. The accuracy achieved using 2D and 3D features is similar, with 3D easier to use. The tumor classification study was then extended by introducing the Bronchioalveolar Carcinoma (BAC) tumor type. Following up on the hypothesis that Bronchioalveolar Carcinoma is substantially different from other NSCLC tumor types, a two-class problem was created, where an attempt was made to differentiate BAC from the other two tumor types. To make a three-class problem a two-class problem, misclassification amongst Adenocarcinoma and Squamous-cell Carcinoma were ignored. Using the same prediction models as the previous study and just 3D image features, tumor classes were predicted with around 77% accuracy. The final study involved predicting two year survival time in patients suffering from NSCLC. Using a subset of the image features and a handful of clinical features, predictive models were developed to predict two year survival time in 95 NSCLC patients. A support vector machine classifier, naive Bayes classifier and decision tree classifier were used to develop the predictive models. Using the Area Under the Curve (AUC) as a performance metric, different models were developed and analyzed for their effectiveness in predicting survival time. A novel feature selection method to group features based on a correlation measure has been proposed in this work along with feature space reduction using principal component analysis. The parameters for the support vector machine were tuned using grid search. A model based on a combination of image and clinical features, achieved the best performance with an AUC of 0.69, using dimensionality reduction by means of principal component analysis along with grid search to tune the parameters of the SVM classifier. The study showed the effectiveness of a predominantly image feature space in predicting survival time. A comparison of the performance of the models from different classifiers also indicate SVMs consistently outperformed or matched the other two classifiers for this data.

<p>Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) play a key role in the innate immune response. They can be ubiquitously found in a wide range of eukaryotes including mammals, amphibians, insects, plants, and protozoa. In lower organisms, AMPs function merely as antibiotics by permeabilizing cell membranes and lysing invading microbes. Prediction of antimicrobial peptides is important because experimental methods used in characterizing AMPs are costly, time consuming and resource intensive and identification of AMPs in insects can serve as a template for the design of novel antibiotic. In order to fulfil this, firstly, data on antimicrobial peptides is extracted from UniProt, manually curated and stored into a centralized database called dragon antimicrobial peptide database (DAMPD). Secondly, based on the curated data, models to predict antimicrobial peptides are created using support vector machine with optimized hyperparameters. In particular, global optimization methods such as grid search, pattern search and derivative-free methods are utilised to optimize the SVM hyperparameters. These models are useful in characterizing unknown antimicrobial peptides. Finally, a webserver is created that will be used to predict antimicrobial peptides in haemotophagous insects such as Glossina morsitan and Anopheles gambiae.</p>