Fengying Xie

Bio: Fengying Xie is an academic researcher from Beihang University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Computer science & Image segmentation. The author has an hindex of 20, co-authored 63 publications receiving 1528 citations. Previous affiliations of Fengying Xie include Peking University & Chinese Ministry of Education.

Automatic Fastener Classification and Defect Detection in Vision-Based Railway Inspection Systems

Abstract: The detection of fastener defects is an important task in railway inspection systems, and it is frequently performed to ensure the safety of train traffic. Traditional inspection is usually operated by trained workers who walk along railway lines to search for potential risks. However, the manual inspection is very slow, costly, and dangerous. This paper proposes an automatic visual inspection system for detecting partially worn and completely missing fasteners using probabilistic topic model. Specifically, our method is able to simultaneously model diverse types of fasteners with different orientations and illumination conditions using unlabeled data. To assess the damages, the test fasteners are compared with the trained models and automatically ranked into three levels based on the likelihood probability. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of this method.

Multilevel Cloud Detection in Remote Sensing Images Based on Deep Learning

Abstract: Cloud detection is one of the important tasks for remote sensing image processing. In this paper, a novel multilevel cloud detection method based on deep learning is proposed for remote sensing images. First, the simple linear iterative clustering (SLIC) method is improved to segment the image into good quality superpixels. Then, a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) with two branches is designed to extract the multiscale features from each superpixel and predict the superpixel as one of three classes including thick cloud, thin cloud, and noncloud. Finally, the predictions of all the superpixels in the image yield the cloud detection result. In the proposed cloud detection framework, the improved SLIC method can obtain accurate cloud boundaries by optimizing initial cluster centers, designing dynamic distance measure, and expanding search space. Moreover, different from traditional cloud detection methods that cannot achieve multilevel detection of cloud, the designed deep CNN model can not only detect cloud but also distinguish thin cloud from thick cloud. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method can detect cloud with higher accuracy and robustness than compared methods.

Melanoma Classification on Dermoscopy Images Using a Neural Network Ensemble Model

Abstract: We develop a novel method for classifying melanocytic tumors as benign or malignant by the analysis of digital dermoscopy images. The algorithm follows three steps: first, lesions are extracted using a self-generating neural network (SGNN); second, features descriptive of tumor color, texture and border are extracted; and third, lesion objects are classified using a classifier based on a neural network ensemble model. In clinical situations, lesions occur that are too large to be entirely contained within the dermoscopy image. To deal with this difficult presentation, new border features are proposed, which are able to effectively characterize border irregularities on both complete lesions and incomplete lesions. In our model, a network ensemble classifier is designed that combines back propagation (BP) neural networks with fuzzy neural networks to achieve improved performance. Experiments are carried out on two diverse dermoscopy databases that include images of both the xanthous and caucasian races. The results show that classification accuracy is greatly enhanced by the use of the new border features and the proposed classifier model.

I and i

Abstract: There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality. Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

Machine learning

Abstract: Machine Learning is the study of methods for programming computers to learn. Computers are applied to a wide range of tasks, and for most of these it is relatively easy for programmers to design and implement the necessary software. However, there are many tasks for which this is difficult or impossible. These can be divided into four general categories. First, there are problems for which there exist no human experts. For example, in modern automated manufacturing facilities, there is a need to predict machine failures before they occur by analyzing sensor readings. Because the machines are new, there are no human experts who can be interviewed by a programmer to provide the knowledge necessary to build a computer system. A machine learning system can study recorded data and subsequent machine failures and learn prediction rules. Second, there are problems where human experts exist, but where they are unable to explain their expertise. This is the case in many perceptual tasks, such as speech recognition, hand-writing recognition, and natural language understanding. Virtually all humans exhibit expert-level abilities on these tasks, but none of them can describe the detailed steps that they follow as they perform them. Fortunately, humans can provide machines with examples of the inputs and correct outputs for these tasks, so machine learning algorithms can learn to map the inputs to the outputs. Third, there are problems where phenomena are changing rapidly. In finance, for example, people would like to predict the future behavior of the stock market, of consumer purchases, or of exchange rates. These behaviors change frequently, so that even if a programmer could construct a good predictive computer program, it would need to be rewritten frequently. A learning program can relieve the programmer of this burden by constantly modifying and tuning a set of learned prediction rules. Fourth, there are applications that need to be customized for each computer user separately. Consider, for example, a program to filter unwanted electronic mail messages. Different users will need different filters. It is unreasonable to expect each user to program his or her own rules, and it is infeasible to provide every user with a software engineer to keep the rules up-to-date. A machine learning system can learn which mail messages the user rejects and maintain the filtering rules automatically. Machine learning addresses many of the same research questions as the fields of statistics, data mining, and psychology, but with differences of emphasis. Statistics focuses on understanding the phenomena that have generated the data, often with the goal of testing different hypotheses about those phenomena. Data mining seeks to find patterns in the data that are understandable by people. Psychological studies of human learning aspire to understand the mechanisms underlying the various learning behaviors exhibited by people (concept learning, skill acquisition, strategy change, etc.).