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Sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) induced by tropical cyclones (TCs) is closely associated with oscillations and is a crucial proxy for thermocline structure and ocean heat content in the upper ocean. The prediction of TC-induced SSHA, however, has been rarely investigated. This study presents a new composite analysis-based random forest (RF) approach to predict daily TC-induced SSHA. The proposed method utilizes TC’s characteristics and pre-storm upper oceanic parameters as input features to predict TC-induced SSHA up to 30 days after TC passage. Simulation results suggest that the proposed method is skillful at inferring both the amplitude and temporal evolution of SSHA induced by TCs of different intensity groups. Using a TC-centered 5°×5° box, the proposed method achieves highly accurate prediction of TC-induced SSHA over the Western North Pacific with root mean square error of 0.024m, outperforming alternative machine learning methods and the numerical model. Moreover, the proposed method also demonstrated good prediction performance in different geographical regions, i.e., the South China Sea and the Western North Pacific subtropical ocean. The study provides insight into the application of machine learning in improving the prediction of SSHA influenced by extreme weather conditions. Accurate prediction of TC-induced SSHA allows for better preparedness and response, reducing the impact of extreme events (e.g., storm surge) on people and property.

Cloud removal in optical remote sensing imagery is essential for many Earth observation applications. To recover the cloud obscured information, some preconditions must be satisfied. For example, the cloud must be semitransparent or relationships between contaminated and cloud-free pixels must be assumed. Due to the inherent imaging geometry features in satellite remote sensing, it is impossible to observe the ground under the clouds directly; therefore, cloud removal algorithms are always not perfect owing to the loss of ground truth. Recently, the use of passenger aircraft as a platform for remote sensing has been proposed by some researchers and institutes, including Airbus and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Passenger aircraft have the advantages of short visitation frequency and low cost. Additionally, because passenger aircraft fly at lower altitudes compared to satellites, they can observe the ground under the clouds at an oblique viewing angle. In this study, we examine the possibility of creating cloud-free remote sensing data by stacking multiangle images captured by passenger aircraft. To accomplish this, a processing framework is proposed, which includes four main steps: first, multiangle image acquisition from passenger aircraft, second, cloud detection based on deep learning semantic segmentation models, third, cloud removal by image stacking, and fourth, image quality enhancement via haze removal. This method is intended to remove cloud contamination without the requirements of reference images and predetermination of cloud types. The proposed method was tested in multiple case studies, wherein the resultant cloud- and haze-free orthophotos were visualized and quantitatively analyzed in various land cover type scenes. The results of the case studies demonstrated that the proposed method could generate high quality, cloud-free orthophotos. Therefore, we conclude that this framework has great potential for creating cloud-free remote sensing imag

Large-scale {(large-area)}, fine spatial resolution satellite sensor images are valuable data sources for Earth observation while not yet fully exploited by research communities for practical applications. Often, such images exhibit highly complex geometrical structures and spatial patterns, and distinctive characteristics of multiple land-use categories may appear at the same region. Autonomous information extraction from these images is essential in the field of pattern recognition within remote sensing, but this task is extremely challenging due to the spectral and spatial complexity captured in satellite sensor imagery. In this research, a semi-supervised deep rule-based approach for satellite sensor image analysis (SeRBIA) is proposed, where large-scale satellite sensor images are analysed autonomously and classified into detailed land-use categories. Using an ensemble feature descriptor derived from pre-trained AlexNet and VGG-VD-16 models, SeRBIA is capable of learning continuously from both labelled and unlabelled images through self-adaptation without human involvement or intervention. Extensive numerical experiments were conducted on both benchmark datasets and real-world satellite sensor images to comprehensively test the validity and effectiveness of the proposed method. The novel information mining technique developed here can be applied to analyse large-scale satellite sensor images with high accuracy and interpretability, across a wide range of real-world applications.

Vein contraction and venous compression typically caused by low temperature and excessive placement pressure can blur the captured finger vein images and severely impair the quality of extracted features. To improve the quality of captured finger vein image, this paper proposes a 26-layer generator network constrained by Neighbors-based Binary Patterns (NBP) texture loss to recover the clear image (guessing the original clear image). Firstly, by analyzing various types and degrees of blurred finger vein images captured in real application scenarios, a method to mathematically model the local and global blurriness using a pair of defocused and mean blur kernels is proposed. By iteratively and alternatively convoluting clear images with both kernels in a multi-scale window, a polymorphic blur training set is constructed for network training. Then, NBP texture loss is used for training the generator to enhance the deblurring ability of the network on images. Lastly, a novel network structure is proposed to retain more vein texture feature information, and two residual connections are added on both sides of the residual module of the 26-layer generator network to prevent degradation and overfitting. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed neighbors-based binary-GAN (NB-GAN) can achieve better deblurring performance than the the-state-of-the-art approaches.

In order to tackle high dimensional, complex problems, learning models have to go deeper. In this article, a novel multilayer ensemble learning model with first-order evolving fuzzy systems as its building blocks is introduced. The proposed approach can effectively learn from streaming data on a sample-by-sample basis and self-organizes its multilayered system structure and meta-parameters in a feedforward, noniterative manner. Benefiting from its multilayered distributed representation learning ability, the ensemble system not only demonstrates the state-of-the-art performance on various problems, but also offers high level of system transparency and explainability. Theoretical justifications and experimental investigation show the validity and effectiveness of the proposed concept and general principles.

A novel self-organizing fuzzy proportional-integral-derivative (SOF-PID) control system is proposed in this paper. The proposed system consists of a pair of control and reference models, both of which are implemented by a first-order autonomous learning multiple model (ALMMo) neuro-fuzzy system. The SOF-PID controller self-organizes and self-updates the structures and meta-parameters of both the control and reference models during the control process "on the fly". This gives the SOF-PID control system the capability of quickly adapting to entirely new operating environments without a full re-training. Moreover, the SOF-PID control system is free from user- and problem-specific parameters and is entirely data-driven. Simulations and real-world experiments with mobile robots demonstrate the effectiveness and validity of the proposed SOF-PID control system.

The antecedent and consequent parts of a first-order evolving intelligent system (EIS) determine the validity of the learning results and overall system performance. Nonetheless, the state-of-the-art techniques mostly stress on the novelty from the system identification point of view but pay less attention to the optimality of the learned parameters. Using the recently introduced autonomous learning multiple model (ALMMo) system as the implementation basis, this article introduces a particle swarm-based approach for the EIS optimization. The proposed approach is able to simultaneously optimize the antecedent and consequent parameters of ALMMo and effectively enhance the system performance by iteratively searching for optimal solutions in the problem spaces. In addition, the proposed optimization approach does not adversely influence the ``one pass'' learning ability of ALMMo. Once the optimization process is complete, ALMMo can continue to learn from new data to incorporate unseen data patterns recursively without full retraining. The experimental studies with a number of real-world benchmark problems validate the proposed concept and general principles. It is also verified that the proposed optimization approach can be applied to other types of EISs with similar operating mechanisms.

In this paper, a new deep rule-based approach using high-level ensemble feature descriptor is proposed for aerial scene classification. By creating an ensemble of three pre-trained deep convolutional neural networks as the feature descriptor, the proposed approach is able to extract more discriminative representations from the local regions of aerial images. With a set of massively parallel IF…THEN rules built upon the prototypes identified through a self-organizing, nonparametric, transparent and highly human-interpretable learning process, the proposed approach is able to produce the state-of-the-art classification results on the unlabeled images outperforming the alternatives. Numerical examples on benchmark datasets demonstrate the strong performance of the proposed approach.

Satellite scene images contain multiple sub-regions of different land use categories; however, traditional approaches usually classify them into a particular category only. In this paper, a new approach is proposed for automatically analyzing the semantic content of sub-regions of satellite images. At the core of the proposed approach is the recently introduced deep rule-based image classification method. The proposed approach includes a self-organizing set of transparent zero order fuzzy IF-THEN rules with human-interpretable prototypes identified from the training images and a pre-trained deep convolutional neural network as the feature descriptor. It requires a very short, nonparametric, highly parallelizable training process and can perform a highly accurate analysis on the semantic features of local areas of the image with the generated IF-THEN rules in a fully automatic way. Examples based on benchmark datasets demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Evolving fuzzy systems (EFSs) are now well developed and widely used, thanks to their ability to self-adapt both their structures and parameters online. Since the concept was first introduced two decades ago, many different types of EFSs have been successfully implemented. However, there are only very few works considering the stability of the EFSs, and these studies were limited to certain types of membership functions with specifically predefined parameters, which largely increases the complexity of the learning process. At the same time, stability analysis is of paramount importance for control applications and provides the theoretical guarantees for the convergence of the learning algorithms. In this paper, we introduce the stability proof of a class of EFSs based on data clouds, which are grounded at the AnYa type fuzzy systems and the recently introduced empirical data analytics (EDA) methodological framework. By employing data clouds, the class of EFSs of AnYa type considered in this paper avoids the traditional way of defining membership functions for each input variable in an explicit manner and its learning process is entirely data driven. The stability of the considered EFS of AnYa type is proven through the Lyapunov theory, and the proof of stability shows that the average identification error converges to a small neighborhood of zero. Although, the stability proof presented in this paper is specially elaborated for the considered EFS, it is also applicable to general EFSs. The proposed method is illustrated with Box-Jenkins gas furnace problem, one nonlinear system identification problem, Mackey-Glass time series prediction problem, eight real-world benchmark regression problems as well as a high-frequency trading prediction problem. Compared with other EFSs, the numerical examples show that the considered EFS in this paper provides guaranteed stability as well as a better approximation accuracy.

In this letter, we propose a new approach for remote sensing scene classification by creating an ensemble of the recently introduced massively parallel deep (fuzzy) rule-based (DRB) classifiers trained with different levels of spatial information separately. Each DRB classifier consists of a massively parallel set of human-interpretable, transparent zero-order fuzzy IF...THEN... rules with a prototype-based nature. The DRB classifier can self-organize “from scratch” and self-evolve its structure. By employing the pretrained deep convolution neural network as the feature descriptor, the proposed DRB ensemble is able to exhibit human-level performance through a transparent and parallelizable training process. Numerical examples using benchmark data set demonstrate the superior accuracy of the proposed approach together with human-interpretable fuzzy rules autonomously generated by the DRB classifier.

In this paper, an approach to autonomous learning of a multimodel system from streaming data, named ALMMo, is proposed. The proposed approach is generic and can easily be applied also to probabilistic or other types of local models forming multimodel systems. It is fully data driven and its structure is decided by the nonparametric data clouds extracted from the empirically observed data without making any prior assumptions concerning data distribution and other data properties. All metaparameters of the proposed system are obtained directly from the data and can be updated recursively, which improves memory and calculation efficiencies of the proposed algorithm. The structural evolution mechanism and online data cloud quality monitoring mechanism of the ALMMo system largely enhance the ability of handling shifts and/or drifts in the streaming data pattern. Numerical examples of the use of ALMMo system for streaming data analytics, classification, and prediction are presented as a proof of the proposed concept.

Future intelligent machines will be more human-friendly and human-like, while offering much higher throughput and automation, thus augmenting our (human) capabilities. Anthropomorphic machine learning is an emerging direction for future development in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science. This revolutionary shift offers human-like abilities to the next generation of machine learning with greater potential for underpinning breakthroughs in technology development as well as in various aspects of everyday life.

In this paper, a new type of fast deep learning (DL) network for handwriting recognition is proposed. In contrast to the existing DL networks the proposed approach has clearly interpretable structure that is entirely data-driven and free from user- or problem-specific assumptions. It is entirely parallelizable and very efficient. First, same fundamental image transformation techniques (rotation and scaling) that are used by other existing DL methods are used to improve the generalization. The commonly used descriptors are then used to extract the global features from the training set and based on them a bank/ensemble of zero order AnYa type fuzzy rule-based (FRB) models is built through the recently introduced Autonomous Learning Multiple Model (ALMMo) method working in parallel. The final decision about the winning class label is made by a committee on the basis of the fuzzy mixture of the trained ALMMo-0 models (where “0” stands for 0 order meaning that the consequent represent a class label, a singleton, not a regression model as in the first order). The training of the proposed MICE system is very efficient and highly parallelizable. It significantly outperforms the best known methods in terms of time and is on par in terms of precision/accuracy. Critically, it offers a high level of interpretability, transparency of the classification model, full repeatability (unlike the methods that use probabilistic elements) of the results. Moreover, it allows an evolving scenario whereby the data is provided in an incremental, online manner and the system structure is being developed in parallel with the classification which opens opportunities for online and real-time applications (on a sample by sample basis). Numerical examples from the well-known handwritten digits recognition problem (MNIST) were used and the results demonstrated the very high repeatable performance after a very short training process which is in addition to the high level of interpretability, transpa

In this paper, a fast, transparent, self-evolving, deep learning fuzzy rule-based (DLFRB) image classifier is proposed. This new classifier is a cascade of the recently introduced DLFRB classifier and a SVM based auxiliary. The DLFRB classifier serves as the main engine and can identify a number of human interpretable fuzzy rules through a very short, transparent, highly parallelizable training process. The SVM based auxiliary plays the role as a conflict resolver when the DLFRB classifier produces two highly confident labels for a single image. Only the fundamental image transformation techniques (rotation, scaling and segmentation) and feature descriptors (GIST and HOG) are used for pre-processing and feature extraction, but the proposed approach significantly outperforms the state-of-art methods in terms of both time and precision. Numerical experiments based on a handwriting digits recognition problem are used to demonstrate the highly accurate and repeatable performance of the proposed approach after a very shorting training process.

In this paper, a new type of fast deep learning (DL) network for handwriting recognition is proposed. In contrast to the existing DL networks the proposed approach has clearly interpretable structure that is entirely data-driven and free from user- or problem-specific assumptions. It is entirely parallelizable and very efficient. First, same fundamental image transformation techniques (rotation and scaling) that are used by other existing DL methods are used to improve the generalization. The commonly used descriptors are then used to extract the global features from the training set and based on them a bank/ensemble of zero order AnYa type fuzzy rule-based (FRB) models is built through the recently introduced Autonomous Learning Multiple Model (ALMMo) method working in parallel. The final decision about the winning class label is made by a committee on the basis of the fuzzy mixture of the trained ALMMo-0 models (where “0” stands for 0 order meaning that the consequent represent a class label, a singleton, not a regression model as in the first order). The training of the proposed MICE system is very efficient and highly parallelizable. It significantly outperforms the best known methods in terms of time and is on par in terms of precision/accuracy. Critically, it offers a high level of interpretability, transparency of the classification model, full repeatability (unlike the methods that use probabilistic elements) of the results. Moreover, it allows an evolving scenario whereby the data is provided in an incremental, online manner and the system structure is being developed in parallel with the classification which opens opportunities for online and real-time applications (on a sample by sample basis). Numerical examples from the well-known handwritten digits recognition problem (MNIST) were used and the results demonstrated the very high repeatable performance after a very short training process which is in addition to the high level of interpretability, transpa

In this paper, a new approach for autonomous anomaly detection is introduced within the Empirical Data Analytics (EDA) framework. This approach is fully data-driven and free from thresholds. Employing the nonparametric EDA estimators, the proposed approach can autonomously detect anomalies in an objective way based on the mutual distribution and ensemble properties of the data. The proposed approach firstly identifies the potential anomalies based on two EDA criteria, and then, partitions them into shape-free, non-parametric data clouds. Finally, it identifies the anomalies in regards to each data cloud (locally). Numerical examples based on synthetic and benchmark datasets demonstrate the validity and efficiency of the proposed approach.

In this article, we describe an approach to computational modeling and autonomous learning of the perception of sensory inputs by individuals. A hierarchical process of summarization of heterogeneous raw data is proposed. At the lower level of the hierarchy, the raw data autonomously form semantically meaningful concepts. Instead of clustering based on visual or audio similarity, the concepts are formed at the second level of the hierarchy based on observed physiological variables (PVs) such as heart rate and skin conductance and are mapped to the emotional state of the individual. Wearable sensors were used in the experiments

In this paper, a new type of 0-order multi-model classifier, called Autonomous Learning Multiple-Model (ALMMo-0), is proposed. The proposed classifier is non-iterative, feedforward and entirely data-driven. It automatically extracts the data clouds from the data per class and forms 0-order AnYa type fuzzy rule-based (FRB) sub-classifier for each class. The classification of new data is done using the “winner takes all” strategy according to the scores of confidence generated objectively based on the mutual distribution and ensemble properties of the data by the sub-classifiers. Numerical examples based on benchmark datasets demonstrate the high performance and computation-efficiency of the proposed classifier.

In this paper, a new type of fast deep learning (DL) network for handwriting recognition is proposed. In contrast to the existing DL networks, the proposed approach has a clearly interpretable structure that is entirely data- driven and free from user- or problem-specific assumptions. Firstly, the fundamental image transformation techniques (rotation and scaling) used by other existing DL methods are used to improve the generalization. The commonly used descriptors are then used to extract the global features from the training set and based on them a bank/ensemble of zero order AnYa type fuzzy rule-based (FRB) models is built in parallel through the recently introduced Autonomous Learning Multiple Model (ALMMo) method. The final decision about the winning class label is made by a committee on the basis of the fuzzy mixture of the trained zero order ALMMo models. The training of the proposed MICE system is very efficient and highly parallelizable. It significantly outperforms the best-known methods in terms of time and is on par in terms of precision/accuracy. Critically, it offers a high level of interpretability, transparency of the classification model, full repeatability (unlike the methods that use probabilistic elements) of the results. Moreover, it allows an evolving scenario whereby the data is provided in an incremental, online manner and the system structure evolves in parallel with the classification which opens opportunities for online and real-time applications (on a sample by sample basis). Numerical examples from the well-known handwritten digits recognition problem (MNIST) were used and the results demonstrated the very high repeatable performance after a very short training process exhibiting high level of interpretability, transparency.

In this paper, a new type of feedforward non-parametric deep learning network with automatic feature extraction is proposed. The proposed network is based on human-understandable local aggregations extracted directly from the images. There is no need for any feature selection and parameter tuning. The proposed network involves nonlinear transformation, segmentation operations to select the most distinctive features from the training images and builds RBF neurons based on them to perform classification with no weights to train. The design of the proposed network is very efficient (computation and time wise) and produces highly accurate classification results. Moreover, the training process is parallelizable, and the time consumption can be further reduced with more processors involved. Numerical examples demonstrate the high performance and very short training process of the proposed network for different applications.

In this paper, a fast, transparent, self-evolving, deep learning fuzzy rule-based (DLFRB) image classifier is proposed. This new classifier is a cascade of the recently introduced DLFRB classifier called MICE and an auxiliary SVM. The DLFRB classifier serves as the main engine and can identify a number of human interpretable fuzzy rules through a very short, transparent, highly parallelizable training process. The SVM based auxiliary plays the role of a conflict resolver when the DLFRB classifier produces two highly confident labels for a single image. Only the fundamental image transformation techniques (rotation, scaling and segmentation) and feature descriptors (GIST and HOG) are used for pre-processing and feature extraction, but the proposed approach significantly outperforms the state-of-art methods in terms of both time and precision. Numerical experiments based on a handwritten digits recognition problem are used to demonstrate the highly accurate and repeatable performance of the proposed approach.

In this paper, a new data partitioning algorithm, named “local modes-based data partitioning”, is proposed. This algorithm is entirely data-driven and free from any user input and prior assumptions. It automatically derives the modes of the empirically observed density of the data samples and results in forming parameter-free data clouds. The identified focal points resemble Voronoi tessellations. The proposed algorithm has two versions, namely, offline and evolving. The two versions are both able to work separately and start “from scratch”, they can also perform a hybrid. Numerical experiments demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm as a fully autonomous partitioning technique, and achieve better performance compared with alternative algorithms.