Chronic pain (CP) is a personal and economic burden that affects more than 30% of the world's population. While being the leading cause of disability, it is complicated to diagnose and manage. The optimal way to treat CP is to identify the pain mechanism or the underlying cause. The substantial overlap of the pain mechanisms (i.e., Nociceptive, Neuropathic, and Nociplastic) usually makes identification unreachable in a clinical setting where finding the dominant mechanism is complicated. Additionally, many specialists regard CP classification as a spectrum or continuum. Despite the importance, a data-driven way to identify co-existing CP mechanisms and quantification is still absent. This work successfully identified the co-existing CP mechanisms within a patient using Unsupervised Learning while quantifying them without the help of diagnosis established by the clinicians. Two different datasets from different cohorts comprised of patient-reported history and questionnaires were used in this work. Unsupervised Learning (k-prototypes) revealed notable overlaps in the data. It was further emphasized by the outcomes of the Semi-supervised Learning algorithms when the same trend was observed with some diagnosis or class information. It became evident that the CP mechanisms overlap and cannot be classified as distinct conditions. Additionally, mixed pain mechanisms do not make an individual cluster or class, and CP should be considered as a continuum. To reduce data dimension and extract hidden features, Autoencoder was used. Using an overlapping clustering technique, the pain mechanisms were identified. The pain mechanisms were also quantified while elucidating overlaps, and the dominant CP mechanism was successfully pointed out with explainable element. The hamming loss of 0.43 and average precision of 0.5 were achieved when considered as a multi-label classification problem. This work is a data-driven validation that there are significant overlaps in CP conditions, and CP should be considered a continuum where all CP mechanisms may co-exist. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc) / Chronic pain (CP) is a global burden and the primary cause for patients to seek medical attention. Despite continuous efforts in this area, CP remains clinically challenging to manage. The most effective method of treating CP is identifying the underlying cause or mechanism, which is often unattainable. This thesis attempted to identify the CP mechanisms existing in a patient while quantifying them from patient-reported history and questionnaire data. Unsupervised Learning was used to identify clinically meaningful clusters that revealed the three main CP mechanisms, i.e., Nociceptive, Neuropathic, and Nociplastic, achieving acceptable hamming loss (0.43) and average precision (0.5). The results exhibited that the CP mechanisms co-exist and CP should be regarded as a continuum rather than distinct entities. The algorithm successfully indicated the dominant CP mechanism, a goal for optimal CP management and treatment. The results were also validated by a comparative analysis with data from another cohort that demonstrated a similar trend.

With the development of deep learning methods the requirement of having access to large amounts of data has increased. In this study, we have looked at methods for leveraging unlabeled data while only having access to small amounts of labeled data, which is common in real-world scenarios. We have investigated a method called self-training for leveraging the unlabeled data when training a model. It works by training a teacher model on the labeled data that then labels the unlabeled data for a student model to train on. A popular method in machine learning is ensembling which is a way of improving a single model by combining multiple models. With previous studies mainly focusing on self-training with image data and showing that ensembles can successfully be used for images, we wanted to see if the same applies to text data. We mainly focused on investigating how ensembles can be used as teachers for training a single student model. This was done by creating different ensemble models and comparing them against the individual members in the ensemble. The results showed that ensemble do not necessarily improves the accuracy of the student model over a single model but in certain cases when used correctly they can provide benefits. We found that depending on the dataset bagging BERT models can perform the same or better than a larger BERT model and this translates to the student model. Bagging multiple smaller models also has the benefit of being easier to scale and more computationally efficient to train in comparison to scaling a single model. / Med utvecklingen av metoder för djupinlärning har kravet på att ha tillgång till stora mängder data ökat som är vanligt i verkliga scenarier. I den här studien har vi tittat på metoder för att utnytja oannoterad data när vi bara har tillgång till små mängder annoterad data. Vi har undersökte en metod som kallas självträning för att utnytja oannoterd data när man tränar en modell. Det fungerar genom att man tränar en lärarmodell på annoterad data som sedan annoterar den oannoterade datan för en elevmodell att träna på. En populär metod inom maskininlärning är ensembling som är en teknik för att förbättra en ensam modell genom att kombinera flera modeller. Tidigare studier har främst inriktade på självträning med bilddata och visat att ensembler framgångsrikt kan användas för bild data, vill vi se om detsamma gäller för textdata. Vi fokuserade främst på att undersöka hur ensembler kan användas som lärare för att träna en enskild elevmodell. Detta gjordes genom att skapa olika ensemblemodeller och jämföra dem med de enskilda medlemmarna i ensemblen. Resultaten visade att ensembler inte nödvändigtvis förbättrar elevmodellens noggrannhet jämfört med en enda modell, men i vissa fall kan de ge fördelar när de används på rätt sätt. Vi fann att beroende på datasetet kan bagging av BERT-modeller prestera likvärdigt eller bättre än en större BERT-modell och detta översätts även till studentmodellen prestandard. Att använda bagging av flera mindre modeller har också fördelen av att de är lättare att skala up och mer beräkningseffektivt att träna i jämförelse med att skala up en enskild modell.

One of the main limitations of training deep learning-based object detection models is the availability of large amounts of data annotations. When annotations are scarce, semi-supervised learning provides frameworks to improve object detection performance by utilising unlabelled data. This is particularly useful in plant leaf detection and possible leaf stress recognition, where data annotations are expensive to obtain due to the need for specialised domain knowledge. This project aims to investigate the feasibility of the Unbiased Teacher, a semi-supervised object detection algorithm, for detecting plant leaves and recognising possible leaf stress in experimental settings where few annotations are available during training. We build an annotated data set for this task and implement the Unbiased Teacher algorithm. We optimise the Unbiased Teacher algorithm and compare its performance to that of a baseline model. Finally, we investigate which hyperparameters of the Unbiased Teacher algorithm most significantly affect its performance and its ability to utilise unlabelled images. We find that the Unbiased Teacher algorithm outperforms the baseline model in the experimental settings when limited annotated data are available during training. Amongst the hyperparameters we consider, we identify the confidence threshold as having the most effect on the algorithm’s performance and ability to leverage unlabelled data. Ultimately, we demonstrate the feasibility of improving object detection performance with the Unbiased Teacher algorithm in plant leaf detection and possible stress recognition when few annotations are available. The improved performance reduces the amount of annotated data required for this task, reducing annotation costs and thereby increasing usage for real-world tasks. / En av huvudbegränsningarna med att träna djupinlärningsbaserade objektdetekteringsmodeller är tillgången på stora mängder annoterad data. Vid små mängder av tillgänglig data kan semi-övervakad inlärning erbjuda ett ramverk för att förbättra objektdetekteringsprestanda genom att använda icke-annoterad data. Detta är särskilt användbart vid detektering av växtblad och möjlig igenkänning av stressymptom hos bladen, där kostnaden för annotering av data är hög på grund av behovet av specialiserad kunskap inom området. Detta projekt syftar till att undersöka genomförbarheten av Opartiska Läraren (eng. ”Unbiased Teacher”), en semi-övervakad objektdetekteringsalgoritm, för att upptäcka växtblad och känna igen möjliga stressymptom hos blad i experimentella miljöer när endast en liten mängd annoterad data finns tillgänglig under träning. För att åstadkomma detta bygger vi ett annoterat dataset och implementerar Opartiska Läraren. Vi optimerar Opartiska Läraren och jämför dess prestanda med en baslinjemodell. Slutligen undersöker vi de hyperparametrar som mest påverkar Opartiska Lärarens prestanda och dess förmåga att använda icke-annoterade bilder. Vi finner att Opartiska Läraren överträffar baslinjemodellen i de experimentella inställningarna när det finns en begränsad mängd annoterad data under träningen. Bland hyperparametrarna vi överväger identifierar vi konfidensgränsen som har störst effekt på algoritmens prestanda och dess förmåga att utnyttja icke-annoterad data. Vi demonstrerar möjligheten att förbättra objektdetekteringsprestandan med Opartiska Läraren i växtbladsdetektering och möjlig stressigenkänning när få anteckningar finns tillgängliga. Den förbättrade prestandan minskar mängden annoterad data som krävs, vilket minskar anteckningskostnaderna och ökar därmed användbarheten för användning inom mer praktiska områden.

<p dir="ltr">The parallel growth of contemporary machine learning (ML) technologies alongside edge/-fog networking has necessitated the development of novel paradigms to effectively manage their intersection. Specifically, the proliferation of edge devices equipped with data generation and ML model training capabilities has given rise to an alternative paradigm called federated learning (FL), moving away from traditional centralized ML common in cloud-based networks. FL involves training ML models directly on edge devices where data are generated.</p><p dir="ltr">A fundamental challenge of FL lies in the extensive heterogeneity inherent to edge/fog networks, which manifests in various forms such as (i) statistical heterogeneity: edge devices have distinct underlying data distributions, (ii) structural heterogeneity: edge devices have diverse physical hardware, (iii) data quality heterogeneity: edge devices have varying ratios of labeled and unlabeled data, and (iv) adversarial compromise: some edge devices may be compromised by adversarial attacks. This dissertation endeavors to capture and model these intricate relationships at the intersection of FL and highly heterogeneous edge/fog networks. To do so, this dissertation will initially develop closed-form expressions for the trade-offs between ML performance and resource cost considerations within edge/fog networks. Subsequently, it optimizes the fundamental processes of FL, encompassing aspects such as batch size control for stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and sampling for global aggregations. This optimization is jointly formulated with networking considerations, which include communication resource consumption and device-to-device (D2D) cooperation.</p><p dir="ltr">In the former half of the dissertation, the emphasis is first on optimizing device sampling for global aggregations in FL, and then on developing a self-sufficient hierarchical meta-learning approach for FL. These methodologies maximize expected ML model performance while addressing common challenges associated with statistical and system heterogeneity. Novel techniques, such as management of D2D data offloading, adaptive CPU clock cycle control, integration of meta-learning, and much more, enable these methodologies. In particular, the proposed hierarchical meta-learning approach enables rapid integration of new devices in large-scale edge/fog networks.</p><p dir="ltr">The latter half of the dissertation directs its ocus towards emerging forms of heterogeneity in FL scenarios, namely (i) heterogeneity in quantity and quality of local labeled and unlabeled data at edge devices and (ii) heterogeneity in terms of adversarially comprised edge devices. To deal with heterogeneous labeled/unlabeled data across edge networks, this dissertation proposes a novel methodology that enables multi-source to multi-target federated domain adaptation. This proposed methodology views edge devices as sources – devices with mostly labeled data that perform ML model training, or targets - devices with mostly unlabeled data that rely on sources’ ML models, and subsequently optimizes the network relationships. In the final chapter, a novel methodology to improve FL robustness is developed in part by viewing adversarial attacks on FL as a form of heterogeneity.</p>

Capacitor discharge welding is an efficient, cost-effective and stable process. It is mostly used for projection welding. Real-time monitoring is desired to ensure quality. Until this point, measured process quantities were evaluated through expert systems. This method takes much time for developing, is strongly restricted to specific welding tasks and needs deep understanding of the process. Another possibility is quality prediction based on process data with machine learning. This method can overcome the downsides of expert systems. But it requires classified welding experiments to achieve a high prediction probability. In industrial manufacturing, it is rarely possible to generate big sets of this type of data. Therefore, semi-supervised learning will be investigated to enable model development on small data sets. Supervised learning is used to develop machine learning models on large amounts of data. These models are used as a comparison to the semi-supervised models. The time signals of the process parameters are evaluated in these investigations. A total of 389 classified weld tests were performed. With semi-supervised learning methods, the amount of training data necessary was reduced to 31 classified data sets.

Text data is easy to retrieve but often expensive to classify, which is why labeled textual data is a resource often lacking in quantity. However, the use of labeled data is crucial in supervised tasks such as text classification, but semi-supervised learning algorithms have shown that the use of unlabeled data during training has the potential to improve model performance, even in comparison to a fully supervised setting. One approach to do semi-supervised learning is consistency training, in which the difference between the prediction distribution of an original unlabeled example and its augmented version is minimized. This thesis explores the performance difference between two techniques for augmenting unlabeled data used for detecting sentiment in movie reviews. The study examines whether the use of augmented data through neural style transfer paraphrasing could achieve comparable or better performance than the use of data augmented through back-translation. Five writing styles were used to generate the augmented datasets: Conversational Speech, Romantic Poetry, Shakespeare, Tweets and Bible. The results show that applying neural style transfer paraphrasing as a data augmentation technique for unlabeled examples in a semi-supervised setting does not improve the performance for sentiment classification with any of the styles used in the study. However, the use of style transferred augmented data in the semi-supervised approach generally performs better than using a model trained in a supervised scenario, where orders of magnitude more labeled data are needed and no augmentation is conducted. The study reveals that the experimented semi-supervised approach is superior to the fully supervised setting but worse than the semi-supervised approach using back-translation. / Textdata är lätt att få tag på men dyr att beteckna, vilket är varför annoterad textdata ofta inte finns i stora kvantiteter. Annoterad data är dock av yttersta vikt för övervakad inlärning, exempelvis för textklassificering, men semiövervakade inlärningsalgoritmer har visat att användandet av textdata utan annoteringar har potential att förbättra en inlärningsalgoritms resultat, även i jämförelse med helt övervakade algoritmer. Ett semi-övervakad inlärningsteknik är konsistensträning, där skillnaden mellan inferensen på en oförändrad datapunkt och en förändrar datapunkt minimeras. Denna uppsats utforskar skillnaden i resultat av att använda två olika tekniker för att förändra data som inte är annoterad för att detektera sentiment i filmrecensioner. Studien undersöker huruvida data förändrad via neural stilöverföring kan åstadkomma jämförbara eller bättre resultat i jämförelse med data förändrad genom tillbaka-översättning. Fem olika skrivstilar använda för att generera den förändrade datan: konversationellt tal, romantisk poesi, Shakespeare, Twitter-skrift samt Bibel. Resultaten visar att applicera neural stilöverföring på att förändra ej annoterade exempel för konsistensträning inte förbättrar resultaten i jämförelse med tillbaka-översättning. Semi-övervakad inlärning med stiltransferering presterar dock generellt bättre än en fullt övervakad, jämbördig algoritm som behöver flera magnituder fler annoteringar. Studien visar att den semiövervakade inlärningstekniken är bättre än den fullt övervakade modellen, men sämre än den semi-övervakade tekniken som använder tillbaka-översättning.

Pharmacogivilance consists in carefully monitoring drugs in order to re-evaluate their risk for people’s health. The sooner the Adverse Drug Reactions are detected, the sooner one can act consequently. This thesis aims at discovering such reactions in electronical health records under the constraint of lacking annotated data, in order to replicate the scenario of the Regional Center for Pharmacovigilance of Nice. We investigate how in a semi-supervised learning design the unlabeled data can contribute to improve classification scores. Results suggest an excellent recall in discovering adverse reactions and possible classification improvements under specific data distribution. / Läkemedelsövervakningen består i kolla försiktigt läkemedlen så att utvärdera dem för samhällets hälsa. Ju tidigare de läkemedelsrelaterade biverkningarna upptäcks, desto tidigare man får handla dem. Detta exjobb söker att upptäcka de där läkemedelsrelaterade biverkningarnna inom elektroniska hälsopost med få datamärkningar, för att återskapa Nice regionalt läkemedelelsöveraknings-centrumets situationen. Vi undersöker hur en halvväglett lärande lösning kan hjälpa att förbättra klassificeringsresultat. Resultaten visar en god återställning med biverknings-upptäckning och möjliga förbättringar.

Recent developments in the field of Semi-Supervised Learning are working to avoid the bottleneck of data labeling. This can be achieved by leveraging unlabeled data to limit the amount of labeled data needed for training deep learning models. Semi-supervised learning algorithms are showing promising results; however, research has been focusing on algorithm development, without proceeding to test their effectiveness in real-world applications. This research project has adapted and tested some semi-supervised learning algorithms on a dataset extracted from the manufacturing en-vironment, in the context of the surface analysis of stainless steel, in collaboration with Outokumpu Stainless Oy. In particular, a simple algorithm combining Pseudo-Labeling and Consistency Regularization has been developed, inspired by the state-of-the-art algorithm Fix match. The results show some potential, because the usage of Semi-Supervised Learning techniques has significantly reduced overfitting on the training set, while maintaining a good accuracy on the test set. However, some doubts are raised regarding the application of these techniques in a real environment, due to the imperfect nature of real datasets and the high algorithm development cost due to the increased complexity introduced with these methods. / Den senaste utvecklingen inom området Semi-Supervised Learning arbetarför att undvika flaskhalsen med datamärkning. Detta kan uppnås genom att utnyttja omärkta data för att begränsa mängden märkt data som behövs för att träna modeller för djupinlärning. Semi-övervakade inlärningsalgoritmer visarlovande resultat; forskning har dock fokuserat på algoritmutveckling, utan att testa deras effektivitet i verkliga tillämpningar. Detta forskningsprojekt har anpassat och testat några semi-övervakade in-lärningsalgoritmer på en datauppsättning extraherad från tillverkningsmiljön, i samband med ytanalys av rostfritt stål, i samarbete med Outokumpu Stainless Oy. I synnerhet har en enkel algoritm som kombinerar Pseudo-Labeling och Consistency Regularization utvecklats, inspirerad av den toppmoderna algoritmen Fixmatch .Resultaten visar en viss potential, eftersom användningen av Semi-Supervised Learning-tekniker avsevärt har minskat överanpassningen av träningssetet, samtidigt som en god noggrannhet på testsetet bibehålls. Vissa tvivel reses dock angående tillämpningen av dessa tekniker i en verklig miljö, på grund av den ofullkomliga karaktären hos riktiga datauppsättningar och den höga algoritmutvecklingskostnaden på grund av den ökade komplexiteten som introduceras med dessa metoder.

Today, there is a demand for reliable ways to perform automatic modulation recognition of Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) radar signals, not least in the defense industry. This study explores the possibility of performing automatic modulation recognition on these signals through clustering and more specifically how to learn representations of input signals for this task. A semi-supervised approach using a bootstrapped convolutional neural network classifier for representation learning is proposed. A comparison is made between training the representation learner on raw time-series and on spectral representations of the input signals. It is concluded that, overall, the system trained on spectral representations performs better, though both approaches show promise and should be explored further. The proposed system is tested both on known modulation types and on previously unseen modulation types in the task of novelty detection. The results show that the system can successfully identify known modulation types with adjusted mutual information of 0.86 for signal-to-noise ratios ranging from -10 dB to 10 dB. When introducing previously unseen modulations, up to six modulations can be identified with adjusted mutual information above 0.85. Furthermore, it is shown that the system can learn to separate LPI radar signals from telecom signals which are present in most signal environments. / Idag finns ett behov av pålitlig automatiserad modulationsigenkänning (AMR) av Low Probability of Inercept (LPI)-radarsignaler, inte minst hos försvarsindustrin. Denna studie utforskar möjligheten att utföra AMR av dessa signaler genom klustring och mer specifikt hur man bör lära in representationer av signalerna i detta syfte. En halvövervakad inlärningsmetod som använder en klassificerare baserad på faltningsnätverk föreslås. En jämförelse görs mellan ett system som tränar för representationsinlärning på råa tidsserier och ett system som tränar på spektrala representationer av signalerna. Resultaten visar att systemet tränat på spektrala representationer på det stora hela presterar bättre, men båda metoderna visar lovande resultat och bör utforskas vidare. Systemet testas på signaler från både kända och för systemet tidigare okända modulationer i syfte att pröva förmågan att upptäcka nya typer av modulationer. Systemet identifierar kända modulationer med adjusted mutual information på 0.86 i brusnivåer från -10 dB till 10 dB. När tidigare okända modulationer introduceras till systemet ligger adjusted mutual information över 0.85 för upp till sex modulationer. Studien visar dessutom att systemet kan lära sig skilja LPI-radarsignaler från telekommunikationssignaler som är vanliga i de flesta signalmiljöer.

Recommender systems are widely used in e-commerce websites to improve the buying experience of the customer. In recent years, e-commerce has been quickly expanding and its growth has been accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when customers and retailers were asked to keep their distance and do lockdowns. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for items and good recommendations to the users to improve their shopping experience. In this master’s thesis a recommender system for a real-estate website is built, based on Support Vector Machines (SVM). The main characteristic of the built model is that it is trained with a few labelled samples and the rest of unlabelled samples, using a semi-supervised machine learning paradigm. The model is constructed step-by-step from the simple SVM, until the semi-supervised Nested Cost-Sensitive Support Vector Machine (NCS-SVM). Then, we compare our model using four different kernel functions: gaussian, second-degree polynomial, fourth-degree polynomial, and linear. We also compare a user with strict housing requirements against a user with vague requirements. We finish with a discussion focusing principally on parameter tuning, and briefly in the model downsides and ethical considerations.