arXiv subjects

Robert Sabourin

Publications and source records attributed to Robert Sabourin.

52 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Segmentation-Free Approaches for Handwritten Numeral String Recognition

This paper presents segmentation-free strategies for the recognition of handwritten numeral strings of unknown length. A synthetic dataset of touching numeral strings of sizes 2-, 3- and 4-digits was created to train end-to-end solutions based on Convolutional Neural Networks. A robust experimental protocol is used to show that the proposed segmentation-free methods may reach the state-of-the-art performance without suffering the heavy burden of over-segmentation based methods. In addition, they confirmed the importance of introducing contextual information in the design of end-to-end solutions, such as the proposed length classifier when recognizing numeral strings.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2018

Fixed-sized representation learning from Offline Handwritten Signatures of different sizes

Methods for learning feature representations for Offline Handwritten Signature Verification have been successfully proposed in recent literature, using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks to learn representations from signature pixels. Such methods reported large performance improvements compared to handcrafted feature extractors. However, they also introduced an important constraint: the inputs to the neural networks must have a fixed size, while signatures vary significantly in size between different users. In this paper we propose addressing this issue by learning a fixed-sized representation from variable-sized signatures by modifying the network architecture, using Spatial Pyramid Pooling. We also investigate the impact of the resolution of the images used for training, and the impact of adapting (fine-tuning) the representations to new operating conditions (different acquisition protocols, such as writing instruments and scan resolution). On the GPDS dataset, we achieve results comparable with the state-of-the-art, while removing the constraint of having a maximum size for the signatures to be processed. We also show that using higher resolutions (300 or 600dpi) can improve performance when skilled forgeries from a subset of users are available for feature learning, but lower resolutions (around 100dpi) can be used if only genuine signatures are used. Lastly, we show that fine-tuning can improve performance when the operating conditions change.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2018

Dynamic Ensemble Selection VS K-NN: why and when Dynamic Selection obtains higher classification performance?

Multiple classifier systems focus on the combination of classifiers to obtain better performance than a single robust one. These systems unfold three major phases: pool generation, selection and integration. One of the most promising MCS approaches is Dynamic Selection (DS), which relies on finding the most competent classifier or ensemble of classifiers to predict each test sample. The majority of the DS techniques are based on the K-Nearest Neighbors (K-NN) definition, and the quality of the neighborhood has a huge impact on the performance of DS methods. In this paper, we perform an analysis comparing the classification results of DS techniques and the K-NN classifier under different conditions. Experiments are performed on 18 state-of-the-art DS techniques over 30 classification datasets and results show that DS methods present a significant boost in classification accuracy even though they use the same neighborhood as the K-NN. The reasons behind the outperformance of DS techniques over the K-NN classifier reside in the fact that DS techniques can deal with samples with a high degree of instance hardness (samples that are located close to the decision border) as opposed to the K-NN. In this paper, not only we explain why DS techniques achieve higher classification performance than the K-NN but also when DS should be used.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2018

K-Nearest Oracles Borderline Dynamic Classifier Ensemble Selection

Dynamic Ensemble Selection (DES) techniques aim to select locally competent classifiers for the classification of each new test sample. Most DES techniques estimate the competence of classifiers using a given criterion over the region of competence of the test sample (its the nearest neighbors in the validation set). The K-Nearest Oracles Eliminate (KNORA-E) DES selects all classifiers that correctly classify all samples in the region of competence of the test sample, if such classifier exists, otherwise, it removes from the region of competence the sample that is furthest from the test sample, and the process repeats. When the region of competence has samples of different classes, KNORA-E can reduce the region of competence in such a way that only samples of a single class remain in the region of competence, leading to the selection of locally incompetent classifiers that classify all samples in the region of competence as being from the same class. In this paper, we propose two DES techniques: K-Nearest Oracles Borderline (KNORA-B) and K-Nearest Oracles Borderline Imbalanced (KNORA-BI). KNORA-B is a DES technique based on KNORA-E that reduces the region of competence but maintains at least one sample from each class that is in the original region of competence. KNORA-BI is a variation of KNORA-B for imbalance datasets that reduces the region of competence but maintains at least one minority class sample if there is any in the original region of competence. Experiments are conducted comparing the proposed techniques with 19 DES techniques from the literature using 40 datasets. The results show that the proposed techniques achieved interesting results, with KNORA-BI outperforming state-of-art techniques.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2018

Improve the performance of transfer learning without fine-tuning using dissimilarity-based multi-view learning for breast cancer histology images

Breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancer and leading cancer-related death causes for women. In the context of ICIAR 2018 Grand Challenge on Breast Cancer Histology Images, we compare one handcrafted feature extractor and five transfer learning feature extractors based on deep learning. We find out that the deep learning networks pretrained on ImageNet have better performance than the popular handcrafted features used for breast cancer histology images. The best feature extractor achieves an average accuracy of 79.30%. To improve the classification performance, a random forest dissimilarity based integration method is used to combine different feature groups together. When the five deep learning feature groups are combined, the average accuracy is improved to 82.90% (best accuracy 85.00%). When handcrafted features are combined with the five deep learning feature groups, the average accuracy is improved to 87.10% (best accuracy 93.00%).

cs.CV↗

arXiv2018

Dissimilarity-based representation for radiomics applications

Radiomics is a term which refers to the analysis of the large amount of quantitative tumor features extracted from medical images to find useful predictive, diagnostic or prognostic information. Many recent studies have proved that radiomics can offer a lot of useful information that physicians cannot extract from the medical images and can be associated with other information like gene or protein data. However, most of the classification studies in radiomics report the use of feature selection methods without identifying the machine learning challenges behind radiomics. In this paper, we first show that the radiomics problem should be viewed as an high dimensional, low sample size, multi view learning problem, then we compare different solutions proposed in multi view learning for classifying radiomics data. Our experiments, conducted on several real world multi view datasets, show that the intermediate integration methods work significantly better than filter and embedded feature selection methods commonly used in radiomics.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2017

Offline Handwritten Signature Verification - Literature Review

The area of Handwritten Signature Verification has been broadly researched in the last decades, but remains an open research problem. The objective of signature verification systems is to discriminate if a given signature is genuine (produced by the claimed individual), or a forgery (produced by an impostor). This has demonstrated to be a challenging task, in particular in the offline (static) scenario, that uses images of scanned signatures, where the dynamic information about the signing process is not available. Many advancements have been proposed in the literature in the last 5-10 years, most notably the application of Deep Learning methods to learn feature representations from signature images. In this paper, we present how the problem has been handled in the past few decades, analyze the recent advancements in the field, and the potential directions for future research.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2017

Learning Features for Offline Handwritten Signature Verification using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

Verifying the identity of a person using handwritten signatures is challenging in the presence of skilled forgeries, where a forger has access to a person's signature and deliberately attempt to imitate it. In offline (static) signature verification, the dynamic information of the signature writing process is lost, and it is difficult to design good feature extractors that can distinguish genuine signatures and skilled forgeries. This reflects in a relatively poor performance, with verification errors around 7% in the best systems in the literature. To address both the difficulty of obtaining good features, as well as improve system performance, we propose learning the representations from signature images, in a Writer-Independent format, using Convolutional Neural Networks. In particular, we propose a novel formulation of the problem that includes knowledge of skilled forgeries from a subset of users in the feature learning process, that aims to capture visual cues that distinguish genuine signatures and forgeries regardless of the user. Extensive experiments were conducted on four datasets: GPDS, MCYT, CEDAR and Brazilian PUC-PR datasets. On GPDS-160, we obtained a large improvement in state-of-the-art performance, achieving 1.72% Equal Error Rate, compared to 6.97% in the literature. We also verified that the features generalize beyond the GPDS dataset, surpassing the state-of-the-art performance in the other datasets, without requiring the representation to be fine-tuned to each particular dataset.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2017

Automatic Temperature Setpoint Tuning of a Thermoforming Machine using Fuzzy Terminal Iterative Learning Control

This paper presents a new way to design a Fuzzy Terminal Iterative Learning Control (TILC) to control the heater temperature setpoints of a thermoforming machine. This fuzzy TILC is based on the inverse of a fuzzy model of this machine, and is built from experimental (or simulation) data with kriging interpolation. The Fuzzy Inference System usually used for a fuzzy model is the zero order Takagi Sugeno Kwan system (constant consequents). In this paper, the 1st order Takagi Sugeno Kwan system is used, with the fuzzy model rules expressed using matrices. This makes the inversion of the fuzzy model much easier than the inversion of the fuzzy model based on the TSK of order 0. Based on simulation results, the proposed fuzzy TILC seems able to give a very good initial guess as to the heater temperature setpoints, making it possible to have almost no wastage of plastic sheets. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the fuzzy TILC compared to a crisp TILC, even though the fuzzy controller is based on a fuzzy model built from noisy data.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2016

Analyzing features learned for Offline Signature Verification using Deep CNNs

Research on Offline Handwritten Signature Verification explored a large variety of handcrafted feature extractors, ranging from graphology, texture descriptors to interest points. In spite of advancements in the last decades, performance of such systems is still far from optimal when we test the systems against skilled forgeries - signature forgeries that target a particular individual. In previous research, we proposed a formulation of the problem to learn features from data (signature images) in a Writer-Independent format, using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), seeking to improve performance on the task. In this research, we push further the performance of such method, exploring a range of architectures, and obtaining a large improvement in state-of-the-art performance on the GPDS dataset, the largest publicly available dataset on the task. In the GPDS-160 dataset, we obtained an Equal Error Rate of 2.74%, compared to 6.97% in the best result published in literature (that used a combination of multiple classifiers). We also present a visual analysis of the feature space learned by the model, and an analysis of the errors made by the classifier. Our analysis shows that the model is very effective in separating signatures that have a different global appearance, while being particularly vulnerable to forgeries that very closely resemble genuine signatures, even if their line quality is bad, which is the case of slowly-traced forgeries.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2016

Bayesian Hyperparameter Optimization for Ensemble Learning

In this paper, we bridge the gap between hyperparameter optimization and ensemble learning by performing Bayesian optimization of an ensemble with regards to its hyperparameters. Our method consists in building a fixed-size ensemble, optimizing the configuration of one classifier of the ensemble at each iteration of the hyperparameter optimization algorithm, taking into consideration the interaction with the other models when evaluating potential performances. We also consider the case where the ensemble is to be reconstructed at the end of the hyperparameter optimization phase, through a greedy selection over the pool of models generated during the optimization. We study the performance of our proposed method on three different hyperparameter spaces, showing that our approach is better than both the best single model and a greedy ensemble construction over the models produced by a standard Bayesian optimization.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2016

Writer-independent Feature Learning for Offline Signature Verification using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

Automatic Offline Handwritten Signature Verification has been researched over the last few decades from several perspectives, using insights from graphology, computer vision, signal processing, among others. In spite of the advancements on the field, building classifiers that can separate between genuine signatures and skilled forgeries (forgeries made targeting a particular signature) is still hard. We propose approaching the problem from a feature learning perspective. Our hypothesis is that, in the absence of a good model of the data generation process, it is better to learn the features from data, instead of using hand-crafted features that have no resemblance to the signature generation process. To this end, we use Deep Convolutional Neural Networks to learn features in a writer-independent format, and use this model to obtain a feature representation on another set of users, where we train writer-dependent classifiers. We tested our method in two datasets: GPDS-960 and Brazilian PUC-PR. Our experimental results show that the features learned in a subset of the users are discriminative for the other users, including across different datasets, reaching close to the state-of-the-art in the GPDS dataset, and improving the state-of-the-art in the Brazilian PUC-PR dataset.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2015

A DEEP analysis of the META-DES framework for dynamic selection of ensemble of classifiers

Dynamic ensemble selection (DES) techniques work by estimating the level of competence of each classifier from a pool of classifiers. Only the most competent ones are selected to classify a given test sample. Hence, the key issue in DES is the criterion used to estimate the level of competence of the classifiers in predicting the label of a given test sample. In order to perform a more robust ensemble selection, we proposed the META-DES framework using meta-learning, where multiple criteria are encoded as meta-features and are passed down to a meta-classifier that is trained to estimate the competence level of a given classifier. In this technical report, we present a step-by-step analysis of each phase of the framework during training and test. We show how each set of meta-features is extracted as well as their impact on the estimation of the competence level of the base classifier. Moreover, an analysis of the impact of several factors in the system performance, such as the number of classifiers in the pool, the use of different linear base classifiers, as well as the size of the validation data. We show that using the dynamic selection of linear classifiers through the META-DES framework, we can solve complex non-linear classification problems where other combination techniques such as AdaBoost cannot.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2015

Evaluation of Genotypic Diversity Measurements Exploited in Real-Coded Representation

Numerous genotypic diversity measures (GDMs) are available in the literature to assess the convergence status of an evolutionary algorithm (EA) or describe its search behavior. In a recent study, the authors of this paper drew attention to the need for a GDM validation framework. In response, this study proposes three requirements (monotonicity in individual varieties, twinning, and monotonicity in distance) that can clearly portray any GDMs. These diversity requirements are analysed by means of controlled population arrangements. In this paper four GDMs are evaluated with the proposed validation framework. The results confirm that properly evaluating population diversity is a rather difficult task, as none of the analysed GDMs complies with all the diversity requirements.

cs.NE↗

arXiv2014

Offline Signature-Based Fuzzy Vault (OSFV: Review and New Results

An offline signature-based fuzzy vault (OSFV) is a bio-cryptographic implementation that uses handwritten signature images as biometrics instead of traditional passwords to secure private cryptographic keys. Having a reliable OSFV implementation is the first step towards automating financial and legal authentication processes, as it provides greater security of confidential documents by means of the embedded handwritten signatures. The authors have recently proposed the first OSFV implementation which is reviewed in this paper. In this system, a machine learning approach based on the dissimilarity representation concept is employed to select a reliable feature representation adapted for the fuzzy vault scheme. Some variants of this system are proposed for enhanced accuracy and security. In particular, a new method that adapts user key size is presented. Performance of proposed methods are compared using the Brazilian PUCPR and GPDS signature databases and results indicate that the key-size adaptation method achieves a good compromise between security and accuracy. While average system entropy is increased from 45-bits to about 51-bits, the AER (average error rate) is decreased by about 21%.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2014

A Classifier-free Ensemble Selection Method based on Data Diversity in Random Subspaces

The Ensemble of Classifiers (EoC) has been shown to be effective in improving the performance of single classifiers by combining their outputs, and one of the most important properties involved in the selection of the best EoC from a pool of classifiers is considered to be classifier diversity. In general, classifier diversity does not occur randomly, but is generated systematically by various ensemble creation methods. By using diverse data subsets to train classifiers, these methods can create diverse classifiers for the EoC. In this work, we propose a scheme to measure data diversity directly from random subspaces, and explore the possibility of using it to select the best data subsets for the construction of the EoC. Our scheme is the first ensemble selection method to be presented in the literature based on the concept of data diversity. Its main advantage over the traditional framework (ensemble creation then selection) is that it obviates the need for classifier training prior to ensemble selection. A single Genetic Algorithm (GA) and a Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) were evaluated to search for the best solutions for the classifier-free ensemble selection. In both cases, objective functions based on different clustering diversity measures were implemented and tested. All the results obtained with the proposed classifier-free ensemble selection method were compared with the traditional classifier-based ensemble selection using Mean Classifier Error (ME) and Majority Voting Error (MVE). The applicability of the method is tested on UCI machine learning problems and NIST SD19 handwritten numerals.

cs.LG↗