Computer Systems Engineering

We developed a system that classifies masses or microcalci-fications observed in a mammogram as either benign or malignant. The system assumes prior manual segmentation of the image. The image segment is then processed for its statistical parameters and applied to a computational intelligence system for classification. We used Cartesian Genetic Programming Evolved Artificial Neural Network (CGPANN) for classification. To train and test our system we selected 2000 mammogram images with equal number of benign and malignant cases from the well-known Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM). To find the input parameters for our network we exploited the overlay files associated with the mammograms. These files mark the boundaries of masses or microcalcifications. A Gray Level Co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) was developed for a rectangular region enclosing each boundary and its statistical parameters computed. Five experiments were conducted in each fold of a 10-fold cross validation strategy. Testing accuracy of 100 % was achieved in some experiments.

A fast learning neuro-evolutionary technique that evolves Artificial Neural Networks using Cartesian Genetic Programming (CGPANN) is used to detect the presence of breast cancer. Features from breast mass are extracted using fine needle aspiration (FNA) and are applied to the CGPANN for diagnosis of breast cancer. FNA data is obtained from the Wisconsin Diagnostic Breast Cancer website and is used for training and testing the network. The developed system produces fast and accurate results when compared to contemporary work done in the field. The error of the model comes out to be as low as 1% for Type-I (classifying benign sample falsely as malignant) and 0.5% for Type-II (classifying malignant sample falsely as benign).

Viola-Jones algorithm and skin detection are the two widely used approaches for face detection. This paper aims at showing, experimentally, the trade-offs associated with each of the algorithm. The parameters used in this work are the ones encountered in real images. These include the illumination, color-space representation, face orientation, image sharpness and image complexity. Experimentally, the peculiarities associated with each algorithm are shown. Based on these experimental results, the situations are commented upon where these algorithms will be efficacious. This paper moreover aims at to provide an objective comparison of the two algorithms rather than going into the subjective details of peculiarities of any individual implementation.

In this paper, we propose a new scale-free social networks (SNs) evolution model that is based on homophily combined with preferential attachments. Our model enables the SN researchers to generate SN synthetic data for the evaluation of multi-facet SN models that are dependent on users’ attributes and similarities. Homophily is one of the key factors for interactive relationship formation in SN. The synthetic graph generated by our model is scale-invariant and has symmetric relationships. The model is dynamic and sustainable to changes in input parameters, such as number of nodes and nodes’ attributes, by conserving its structural properties. Simulation and evaluation of models for large-scale SN applications need large datasets. One way to get SN data is to generate synthetic data by using SN evolution models. Various SN evolution models are proposed to approximate the real-life SN graphs in previous research. These models are based on SN structural properties such as preferential attachment. The data generated by these models is suitable to evaluate SN models that are structure dependent but not suitable to evaluate models which depend on the SN users’ attributes and similarities. In our proposed model, users’ attributes and similarities are utilized to synthesize SN graphs. We evaluated the resultant synthetic graph by analyzing its structural properties. In addition, we validated our model by comparing its measures with the publicly available real-life SN datasets and previous SN evolution models. Simulation results show our resultant graph to be a close representation of real-life SN graphs with users’ attributes.