16664439
An alternative approach for the evaluation of the neocognitron
The neocognitron network is analysed from the point of view of the contribution of the di erent layers to the nal classi cation. A variation to the neocognitron which gives improved performance is suggested. This variant combines the low level feature extraction capabilities of the initial layers with alternative classi ers such as LVQ and Class Based Means Clustering. This is shown to give performance which is superior to the either of those classi ers acting on their own, and to the neocognitron in its standard form on two di erent instances of the letter recognition problem.
45324898
A Memetic Algorithm With Self-Adaptive Local Search: TSP as a case study
In this paper we introduce a promising hybridization scheme for a Memetic Algorithm (MA). Our MA is composed of two optimization processes, a Genetic Algorithm and a Monte Carlo method (MC). In contrast with other GA-Monte Carlo hybridized memetic algorithms, in our work the MC stage serves two purposes: 
 
• when the population is diverse it acts like a local search procedure and 
 
• when the population converges its goal is to diversify the search. 
 
To achieve this, the MC is self-adaptive based on observations from the underlying GA behavior; the GA controls the long-term optimization process. 
 
We present preliminary, yet statistically significant, results on the application of this approach to the TSP problem. We also comment it successful application to a molecular conformational problem: Protein Folding. 
 
Paper Category: Genetic Scheduling and TSP
2766632
On Appropriate Adaptation Levels for the Learning of Gene Linkage
A number of algorithms have been proposed aimed at tackling the problem of learning “Gene Linkage” within the context of genetic optimisation, that is to say, the problem of learning which groups of co-adapted genes should be inherited together during the recombination process. These may be seen within a wider context as a search for appropriate relations which delineate the search space and “guide” heuristic optimisation, or, alternatively, as a part of a comprehensive body of work into Adaptive Evolutionary Algorithms.In this paper, we consider the learning of Gene Linkage as an emergent property of adaptive recombination operators. This is in contrast to the behaviour observed with fixed recombination strategies in which there is no correspondence between the sets of genes which are inherited together between generations, other than that caused by distributional bias. A discrete mathematical model of Gene Linkage is introduced, and the common families of recombination operators, along with some well known linkage-learning algorithms, are modelled within this framework. This model naturally leads to the specification of a recombination operator that explicitly operates on sets of linked genes.Variants of that algorithm, are then used to examine one of the important concepts from the study of adaptivity in Evolutionary Algorithms, namely that of the level (population, individual, or component) at which learning takes place. This is an aspect of adaptation which has received considerable attention when applied to mutation operators, but which has been paid little attention in the context of adaptive recombination operators and linkage learning. It is shown that even with the problem restricted to learning adjacent linkage, the population based variants are not capable of correctly identifying building blocks. This is in contrast to component level adaptation which outperforms conventional operators whose bias is ideal for the problems considered.
2206785
What Have Gene Libraries Done for AIS?
Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) have been shown to be useful, practical and realisable approaches to real-world problems. Most AIS implementations are based around a canonical algorithm such as clonotypic learning, which we may think of as individual, lifetime learning. Yet a species also learns. Gene libraries are often thought of as a biological mechanism for generating combinatorial diversity of antibodies. However, they also bias the antibody creation process, so that they can be viewed as a way of guiding the lifetime learning mechanisms. Over time, the gene libraries in a species will evolve to an appropriate bias for the expected environment (based on species memory). Thus gene libraries are a form of meta-learning which could be useful for AIS. Yet they are hardly ever used. In this paper we consider some of the possible benefits and implications of incorporating the evolution of gene libraries into AIS practice. We examine some of the issues that must be considered if the implementation is to be successful and beneficial.
16182080
Self adaptation of mutation rates in a steady state genetic algorithm
This paper investigates the use of genetically encoded mutation rates within a "steady state" genetic algorithm in order to provide a self-adapting mutation mechanism for incremental evolution. One of the outcomes of this work will be a reduction in the number of parameters required to be set by the operator, thus facilitating the transfer of evolutionary computing techniques into an industrial setting. The NK family of landscapes is used to provide a variety of different problems with known statistical features in order to examine the effects of changing various parameters on the performance of the search. A number of policies are considered for the replacement of members of the population with newly created individuals and recombination of material between parents, and a number of methods of encoding for mutation rate are investigated. Empirical comparisons (using the "best-of current-population" metric) over a range of test problems show that a genetic algorithm incorporating the best "flavour" of the adaptive mutation operator outperformed the same algorithm when using any one of a variety of "standard" fixed mutation rates suggested by other authors.
15346455
An Adaptive Poly-Parental Recombination Strategy
A genetic recombination framework is presented within which both the unit of inheritance of genetic material from a parent, and the number of parents involved in the creation of a new individual are potentially learnt through the evolution of competing subpopulations representing different strategies.
5170537
The TREC2001 Video Track: Information Retrieval on Digital Video Information
The development of techniques to support content-based access to archives of digital video information has recently started to receive much attention from the research community. During 2001, the annual TREC activity, which has been benchmarking the performance of information retrieval techniques on a range of media for 10 years, included a "track" or activity which allowed investigation into approaches to support searching through a video library. This paper is not intended to provide a comprehensive picture of the different approaches taken by the TREC2001 video track participants but instead we give an overview of the TREC video search task and a thumbnail sketch of the approaches taken by different groups. The reason for writing this paper is to highlight the message from the TREC video track that there are now a variety of approaches available for searching and browsing through digital video archives, that these approaches do work, are scalable to larger archives and can yield useful retrieval performance for users. This has important implications in making digital libraries of video information attainable.
16693115
An Experimental Performance Evaluation of Join Algorithms for Parallel Object Databases
Parallel relational databases have been successful in providing scalable performance for data intensive applications, and much work has been carried out on query processing techniques in such systems. However, although many applications associated with object databases also have stringent performance requirements, there has been much less work investigating parallel object database systems. An important feature for the performance of object databases is the speed at which relationships can be explored. In queries, this depends upon the effectiveness of different join algorithms into which queries that follow relationships can be compiled. This paper presents the results of empirical evaluations of four parallel join algorithms, two value based and two pointer based. The experiments have been run on Polar, a parallel ODMG object database system.
18087423
Image and video search engine for the World Wide Web
We describe a visual information system prototype for searching for images and videos on the World-Wide Web. New visual information in the form of images, graphics, animations and videos is being published on the Web at an incredible rate. However, cataloging this visual data is beyond the capabilities of current text-based Web search engines. In this paper, we describe a complete system by which visual information on the Web is (1) collected by automated agents, (2) processed in both text and visual feature domains, (3) catalogued and (4) indexed for fast search and retrieval. We introduce an image and video search engine which utilizes both text-based navigation and content-based technology for searching visually through the catalogued images and videos. Finally, we provide an initial evaluation based upon the cataloging of over one half million images and videos collected from the Web.
5601548
Visual information retrieval from large distributed online repositories
Digital images and video are becoming an integral part of human communications. The ease of capturing and creating digital images has caused most on-line information sources look more “visual”. We use more and more visual content in expressing ideas, reporting, education, and entertainment. With the tremendous amount of visual information becoming on-line, how does one find visual information from distributed repositories efficiently, at least to the same extent as that of existing information retrieval systems. With the growing number of on-line users, how does one design a system with performance scalable to a large extent?
2262504
Video personalization and summarization system
A video personalization and summarization system is designed and implemented to dynamically generate a personalized video summary. The personalization system adopts the three-tier server-middleware-client architecture in order to select, adapt, and deliver rich media content to the user. The server stores the content sources along with their corresponding MPEG-7 metadata descriptions. These semantic metadata are provided through the use of our VideoAnnEx MPEG-7 video annotation tool. When the user initiates a request for content, the client communicates the user request and usage environment descriptions to the middleware. The middleware is powered by the personalization engine and the content adaptation engine. Our personalization engine includes the VideoSue summarization on usage environment engine that selects the optimal set of desired contents according to user preferences. Afterwards, the adaptation engine performs the required transformations and compositions of the selected contents for the specific usage environment using our VideoEd editing and composition tool. Finally, a personalization and summarization system is demonstrated on the IBM Websphere Portal Server for PCs and pervasive devices.