Abstract: In this chapter we describe an application for efficient error-free labeling of medical images. In this scenario, the compilation of a complete training set for building a realistic model of a given class of samples is not an easy task, making the process tedious and time consuming. For this reason, there is a need for interactive labeling applications that minimize the effort of the user while providing error-free labeling. We propose a new algorithm that is based on data similarity in feature space. This method actively explores data in order to find the best label-aligned clustering and exploits it to reduce the labeler effort, that is measured by the number of “clicks. Moreover, error-free labeling is guaranteed by the fact that all data and their labels proposals are visually revised by en expert.

Abstract: Today, robust learners trained in a real supervised machine learning application should count with a rich collection of positive and negative examples. Although in many applications, it is not difficult to obtain huge amount of data, labeling those data can be a very expensive process, especially when dealing with data of high variability and complexity. A good example of such cases are data from medical imaging applications where annotating anomalies like tumors, polyps, atherosclerotic plaque or informative frames in wireless endoscopy need highly trained experts. Building a representative set of training data from medical videos (e.g. Wireless Capsule Endoscopy) means that thousands of frames to be labeled by an expert. It is quite normal that data in new videos come different and thus are not represented by the training set. In this paper, we review the main approaches on active learning and illustrate how active learning can help to reduce expert effort in constructing the training sets. We show that applying active learning criteria, the number of human interventions can be significantly reduced. The proposed system allows the annotation of informative/non-informative frames of Wireless Capsule Endoscopy video containing more than 30000 frames each one with less than 100 expert ”clicks”.

Abstract: We have previously developed an original method to evaluate small bowel motor function based on computer vision analysis of endoluminal images obtained by capsule endoscopy. Our aim was to demonstrate intestinal motor abnormalities in patients with functional bowel disorders by endoluminal vision analysis. Patients with functional bowel disorders (n = 205) and healthy subjects (n = 136) ingested the endoscopic capsule (Pillcam-SB2, Given-Imaging) after overnight fast and 45 min after gastric exit of the capsule a liquid meal (300 ml, 1 kcal/ml) was administered. Endoluminal image analysis was performed by computer vision and machine learning techniques to define the normal range and to identify clusters of abnormal function. After training the algorithm, we used 196 patients and 48 healthy subjects, completely naive, as test set. In the test set, 51 patients (26%) were detected outside the normal range (P < 0.001 vs. 3 healthy subjects) and clustered into hypo- and hyperdynamic subgroups compared with healthy subjects. Patients with hypodynamic behavior (n = 38) exhibited less luminal closure sequences (41 ± 2% of the recording time vs. 61 ± 2%; P < 0.001) and more static sequences (38 ± 3 vs. 20 ± 2%; P < 0.001); in contrast, patients with hyperdynamic behavior (n = 13) had an increased proportion of luminal closure sequences (73 ± 4 vs. 61 ± 2%; P = 0.029) and more high-motion sequences (3 ± 1 vs. 0.5 ± 0.1%; P < 0.001). Applying an original methodology, we have developed a novel classification of functional gut disorders based on objective, physiological criteria of small bowel function.

Abstract: Error Correcting Output Codes (ECOC) have demonstrate to be a powerful tool for treating multi-class problems. Nevertheless, predefined ECOC designs may not benefit from Error-correcting principles for particular multi-class data. In this paper, we introduce the Separability matrix as a tool to study and enhance designs for ECOC coding. In addition, a novel problem-dependent coding design based on the Separability matrix is tested over a wide set of challenging multi-class problems, obtaining very satisfactory results.

Abstract: IF JCR CCIA 1.303 2009 54/103
The classification of large number of object categories is a challenging trend in the pattern recognition field. In literature, this is often addressed using an ensemble of classifiers. In this scope, the Error-correcting output codes framework has demonstrated to be a powerful tool for combining classifiers. However, most state-of-the-art ECOC approaches use a linear or exponential number of classifiers, making the discrimination of a large number of classes unfeasible. In this paper, we explore and propose a minimal design of ECOC in terms of the number of classifiers. Evolutionary computation is used for tuning the parameters of the classifiers and looking for the best minimal ECOC code configuration. The results over several public UCI datasets and different multi-class computer vision problems show that the proposed methodology obtains comparable (even better) results than state-of-the-art ECOC methodologies with far less number of dichotomizers.

Abstract: IF=1.77 (2010)
Social interactions are a very important component in peopleís lives. Social network analysis has become a common technique used to model and quantify the properties of social interactions. In this paper, we propose an integrated framework to explore the characteristics of a social network extracted from multimodal dyadic interactions. For our study, we used a set of videos belonging to New York Timesí Blogging Heads opinion blog.
The Social Network is represented as an oriented graph, whose directed links are determined by the Influence Model. The linksí weights are a measure of the ìinfluenceî a person has over the other. The states of the Influence Model encode automatically extracted audio/visual features from our videos using state-of-the art algorithms. Our results are reported in terms of accuracy of audio/visual data fusion for speaker segmentation and centrality measures used to characterize the extracted social network.