Computer Sciences Commons^™

Optimization And Application Of Graph Neural Networks, Shuo Zhang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are widely recognized for their potential in learning from graph-structured data and solving complex problems. However, optimal performance and applicability of GNNs have been an open-ended challenge. This dissertation presents a series of substantial advances addressing this problem. First, we investigate attention-based GNNs, revealing a critical shortcoming: their ignorance of cardinality information that impacts their discriminative power. To rectify this, we propose Cardinality Preserved Attention (CPA) models that can be applied to any attention-based GNNs, which exhibit a marked improvement in performance. Next, we introduce the Directional Node Pair (DNP) descriptor and the Robust Molecular Graph …

Coded Distributed Function Computation, Pedro J. Soto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A ubiquitous problem in computer science research is the optimization of computation on large data sets. Such computations are usually too large to be performed on one machine and therefore the task needs to be distributed amongst a network of machines. However, a common problem within distributed computing is the mitigation of delays caused by faulty machines. This can be performed by the use of coding theory to optimize the amount of redundancy needed to handle such faults. This problem differs from classical coding theory since it is concerned with the dynamic coded computation on data rather than just statically …

Learn Biologically Meaningful Representation With Transfer Learning, Di He

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Machine learning has made significant contributions to bioinformatics and computational biol­ogy. In particular, supervised learning approaches have been widely used in solving problems such as bio­marker identification, drug response prediction, and so on. However, because of the limited availability of comprehensively labeled and clean data, constructing predictive models in super­ vised settings is not always desirable or possible, especially when using data­hunger, red­hot learning paradigms such as deep learning methods. Hence, there are urgent needs to develop new approaches that could leverage more readily available unlabeled data in driving successful machine learning ap­ plications in this area.

In my dissertation, …

A New Feature Selection Method Based On Class Association Rule, Sami A. Al-Dhaheri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Feature selection is a key process for supervised learning algorithms. It involves discarding irrelevant attributes from the training dataset from which the models are derived. One of the vital feature selection approaches is Filtering, which often uses mathematical models to compute the relevance for each feature in the training dataset and then sorts the features into descending order based on their computed scores. However, most Filtering methods face several challenges including, but not limited to, merely considering feature-class correlation when defining a feature’s relevance; additionally, not recommending which subset of features to retain. Leaving this decision to the end-user may …

Machine Learning Applications For Drug Repurposing, Hansaim Lim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The cost of bringing a drug to market is astounding and the failure rate is intimidating. Drug discovery has been of limited success under the conventional reductionist model of one-drug-one-gene-one-disease paradigm, where a single disease-associated gene is identified and a molecular binder to the specific target is subsequently designed. Under the simplistic paradigm of drug discovery, a drug molecule is assumed to interact only with the intended on-target. However, small molecular drugs often interact with multiple targets, and those off-target interactions are not considered under the conventional paradigm. As a result, drug-induced side effects and adverse reactions are often neglected …

Robust Neural Machine Translation, Abdul Rafae Khan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis aims for general robust Neural Machine Translation (NMT) that is agnostic to the test domain. NMT has achieved high quality on benchmarks with closed datasets such as WMT and NIST but can fail when the translation input contains noise due to, for example, mismatched domains or spelling errors. The standard solution is to apply domain adaptation or data augmentation to build a domain-dependent system. However, in real life, the input noise varies in a wide range of domains and types, which is unknown in the training phase. This thesis introduces five general approaches to improve NMT accuracy and …

Towards Improving Accuracy And Interpretability Of Deep Learning Based On Satellite Image Classification, Yamile Patino Vargas

Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

The study of satellite images provides a way to monitor changes in the surface of the Earth and the atmosphere. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have shown accurate results in solving practical problems in multiple fields. Some of the more recognized fields using CNNs are satellite imagery processing, medicine, communication, transportation, and computer vision. Despite the success of CNNs, there remains a need to explain the network predictions further and understand what the network is determining as valuable information.

There are several frameworks and methodologies developed to explain how CNNs predict outputs and what their internal representations are [1, 4, …

Multimodal Depression Detection: An Investigation Of Features And Fusion Techniques For Automated Systems, Michelle Renee Morales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Depression is a serious illness that affects a large portion of the world’s population. Given the large effect it has on society, it is evident that depression is a serious health issue. This thesis evaluates, at length, how technology may aid in assessing depression. We present an in-depth investigation of features and fusion techniques for depression detection systems. We also present OpenMM: a novel tool for multimodal feature extraction. Lastly, we present novel techniques for multimodal fusion. The contributions of this work add considerably to our knowledge of depression detection systems and have the potential to improve future systems by …

Multimodal Sensing And Data Processing For Speaker And Emotion Recognition Using Deep Learning Models With Audio, Video And Biomedical Sensors, Farnaz Abtahi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The focus of the thesis is on Deep Learning methods and their applications on multimodal data, with a potential to explore the associations between modalities and replace missing and corrupt ones if necessary. We have chosen two important real-world applications that need to deal with multimodal data: 1) Speaker recognition and identification; 2) Facial expression recognition and emotion detection.

The first part of our work assesses the effectiveness of speech-related sensory data modalities and their combinations in speaker recognition using deep learning models. First, the role of electromyography (EMG) is highlighted as a unique biometric sensor in improving audio-visual speaker …

Travel Mode Identification With Smartphone Sensors, Xing Su

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Personal trips in a modern urban society typically involve multiple travel modes. Recognizing a traveller's transportation mode is not only critical to personal context-awareness in related applications, but also essential to urban traffic operations, transportation planning, and facility design. While the state of the art in travel mode recognition mainly relies on large-scale infrastructure-based fixed sensors or on individuals' GPS devices, the emergence of the smartphone provides a promising alternative with its ever-growing computing, networking, and sensing powers. In this thesis, we propose new algorithms for travel mode identification using smartphone sensors. The prototype system is built upon the latest …