Semi-supervised Classification Method Research Articles

Novel Method for Evaluating Wetland Ecological Environment Quality Based on Coupled Remote Sensing Ecological Index and Landscape Pattern Indices: Case Study of Dianchi Lake Wetlands, China

Wetlands serve as crucial ecological buffers, significantly influencing temperature reduction, carbon storage, regional climate regulation, and urban wastewater treatment. To elucidate the relationship between wetland landscape patterns and ecological environment, and to accurately assess lake ecosystems, this study proposes a semi-supervised classification method based on RSEI and K-Means. By integrating landscape pattern indices, the Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI), and disturbance proximity, a comprehensive evaluation of the ecological quality of the Dianchi wetlands was conducted. The results indicate that the RSEI-K-Means method, with K set to 50, achieved overall accuracies (OAs) and Kappa values of 0.91 and 0.88, surpassing the SVM’s 0.85 and 0.80. This method effectively combines ecological and landscape indices without relying on extensive training samples, enhancing accuracy and speed in wetland information extraction and addressing the challenges of spatial heterogeneity. This study reveals that from 2007 to 2009, and 2013 to 2015, landscape patterns were significantly influenced by the rapid expansion of Kunming city, exacerbating wetland fragmentation. Notably, significant ecological quality changes were observed in 2009 and 2013, with gradual recovery post-2013 due to strengthened environmental protection policies. The RSEI disturbance proximity analysis indicated that the affected areas were primarily concentrated in regions of high human activity, confirming the method’s high sensitivity and effectiveness. This study can help in wetland ecosystem research and management.

SSML: Semi-supervised metric learning with hard samples for hyperspectral image classification

Deep learning is widely used in hyperspectral image (HSI) classification due to its powerful learning capabilities. However, its excellent performance typically requires a large number of samples, which can be time-consuming and labor-intensive to produce. The limitation of available samples greatly constrains the model's generalization performance. To alleviate the sample pressure, we propose a semi-supervised metric learning method for HSI classification that focuses on hard samples and can obtain reliable pseudo-labels through multiscale prediction. Additionally, we employ a hard sample learning strategy for network training, which concentrates on enhancing network discrimination by adaptively optimizing intra-class and inter-class distances. Performance tests on three public datasets indicate that the proposed method surpasses other state-of-the-art methods across multiple validation metrics.

Unsupervised PolSAR Image Classification Based on Superpixel Pseudo-Labels and a Similarity-Matching Network

Supervised polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) image classification demands a large amount of precisely labeled data. However, such data are difficult to obtain. Therefore, many unsupervised methods have been proposed for unsupervised PolSAR image classification. The classification maps of unsupervised methods contain many high-confidence samples. These samples, which are often ignored, can be used as supervisory information to improve classification performance on PolSAR images. This study proposes a new unsupervised PolSAR image classification framework. The framework combines high-confidence superpixel pseudo-labeled samples and semi-supervised classification methods. The experiments indicated that this framework could achieve higher-level effectiveness in unsupervised PolSAR image classification. First, superpixel segmentation was performed on PolSAR images, and the geometric centers of the superpixels were generated. Second, the classification maps of rotation-domain deep mutual information (RDDMI), an unsupervised PolSAR image classification method, were used as the pseudo-labels of the central points of the superpixels. Finally, the unlabeled samples and the high-confidence pseudo-labeled samples were used to train an excellent semi-supervised method, similarity matching (SimMatch). Experiments on three real PolSAR datasets illustrated that, compared with the excellent RDDMI, the accuracy of the proposed method was increased by 1.70%, 0.99%, and 0.8%. The proposed framework provides significant performance improvements and is an efficient method for improving unsupervised PolSAR image classification.

A balanced sample generation method for semi-supervised carotid ultrasound image classification via pseudo-label distribution and model confidence

Abstract The rupture of carotid plaques dramatically increases the risk of stroke, making it essential to classify these plaques to promptly identify high-risk cases and assist in patient management. Deep learning-based plaque classification methods need large labeled datasets, which are often challenging to acquire. Semi-supervised learning offers a solution by enabling deep learning networks to perform well with fewer labeled images. However, this method filters pseudo-labels based on thresholds, resulting in imbalanced quantities and cognitive bias in the network. To tackle this issue, we present a Balanced Sample Generation based Pseudo-label algorithm (BSGP) for semi-supervised carotid ultrasound image classification. BSGP generates new samples based on pseudo-label distribution and model confidence in each category, reducing cognitive bias from imbalanced pseudo-label quantities. Evaluated on 1,270 ultrasound carotid plaque images, our BSGP outperformed other semi-supervised methods (FixMatch, FlexMatch, AdaMatch, FreeMatch) when using 10%, 30%, and 50% labeled data. This illustrates the efficacy of our method in leveraging unlabeled images for model training, potentially advancing the use of deep learning in ultrasound-based plaque classification and supporting clinical diagnoses.

Tri-training algorithm based nuclear power systems semi-supervised fault diagnosis under multiple restricted data conditions

An improved tri-training semi-supervised classification method was proposed as a solution to the restricted data conditions of supervised classification models relying on labeled data, semi-supervised models not considering imbalanced proportion of faults data and the presence of faults data with similar feature or varying severity in existing data-driven nuclear power system fault diagnosis studies. Based on the structure of three identical sub-classifiers in the original tri-training algorithm, data update paths have been added, the updated data selection has been strengthened, and the initial information and permissions of sub-models have been differentiated. The novel method only requires the dataset to meet the Smoothness Assumption, and through multiple strict data update paths, it improves the utilization of unlabeled training data while reducing Pseudo-labeling process errors. The difference in permissions and initial information between sub-classifiers is utilized to improve the training rigor for fault types with smaller sample sizes, in order to alleviate the problem of imbalanced data. Based on a marine nuclear power system secondary circuit model and a widely recognized nuclear power plant dataset, multiple nuclear power system common restricted fault diagnosis datasets faced in ships and power plants were obtained to verify the novel method's advantages and generalization. The conclusion is that under the same conditions, compared with the original tri-training method and other semi-supervised learning methods, the Accuracy, AUC, Precision Rate and Recall Rate of the novel method have improved by about 21 %, 10 %, 20 %, and 21 %, respectively, and can reduce about 25 % of misjudgments between similar feature faults.

Indoor occupancy monitoring using environmental feature fusion and semi-supervised machine learning models

Smart buildings optimize energy consumption and occupant comfort through Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning, and lighting management. Nevertheless, large venues require data fusion techniques to improve analysis and forecasting. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of using different feature fusion techniques, environmental sensors, and semi-supervised learning to estimate indoor occupancy in a 230 m2 office. Using five Internet of Things devices measuring air temperature, relative humidity, and barometric pressure, data was collected for 99 days with 6800 entries (on average) and only 14% labeled. Eight feature selection methods were evaluated along with three supervised and two semi-supervised classification methods. Results indicate that the Chi-squared-based approach for feature fusion outperformed others. Similarly, the semi-supervised Self-Training model achieved better performance than the supervised methods. This research shows that combining semi-supervised learning and data fusion allows for estimating the occupancy level in large indoor spaces with high accuracy and low labeling costs. Highlights This study pioneers in exploring semi-supervised learning and distinct feature fusion methods for estimating indoor occupancy levels in a 230 m 2 open office using only Internet of Things (IoT) environmental sensors (air temperature, relative humidity, and barometric pressure). A comprehensive comparison of statistical methods, feature selection, and dimensionality reduction techniques are conducted to determine their ability to generate robust feature fusion sets. The feature fusion selected through the Chi-squared test stood out with a high accuracy F1-score (average of 0.95) and an average accuracy of 0.99. The Self-Training model reached the best performance from semi-supervised learning, with an average F1-Score of 0.90 and an average accuracy of 0.97, based on a dataset with a large proportion of unlabelled data (16,847 entries) and only 9367 labels. For supervised learning, Random Forest achieved a high accuracy (average of 0.98) and F1-score (average of 0.93) across various feature sets.

Semi-Supervised Subcategory Centroid Alignment-Based Scene Classification for High-Resolution Remote Sensing Images

It is usually hard to obtain adequate annotated data for delivering satisfactory scene classification results. Semi-supervised scene classification approaches can transfer the knowledge learned from previously annotated data to remote sensing images with scarce samples for satisfactory classification results. However, due to the differences between sensors, environments, seasons, and geographical locations, cross-domain remote sensing images exhibit feature distribution deviations. Therefore, semi-supervised scene classification methods may not achieve satisfactory classification accuracy. To address this problem, a novel semi-supervised subcategory centroid alignment (SSCA)-based scene classification approach is proposed. The SSCA framework is made up of two components, namely the rotation-robust convolutional feature extractor (RCFE) and the neighbor-based subcategory centroid alignment (NSCA). The RCFE aims to suppress the impact of rotation changes on remote sensing image representation, while the NSCA aims to decrease the impact of intra-category variety across domains on cross-domain scene classification. The SSCA algorithm and several competitive approaches are validated on two datasets to demonstrate its effectiveness. The results prove that the proposed SSCA approach performs better than most competitive approaches by no less than 2% overall accuracy.

Artificial neural networks with better analysis reliability in data mining

If there are relatively few cases, semi-supervised learning approaches make advantage of a large amount of unlabeled data to assist develop a better classifier. To expand the labeled training set and update the classifier, a fundamental method is to select and label the unlabeled instances for which the current classifier has higher classification confidence. This approach is primarily used in two distinct semi-supervised learning paradigms: co-training and self-training. However, compared to self-labeled examples that would be tagged by a classifier, the real labeled instances will be more trustworthy. Incorrect label assignment to unlabeled occurrences might potentially compromise the classifier's accuracy in classification. This research presents a novel instance selection method based on actual labeled data. This will take into account the classifier's current performance on unlabeled data in addition to its performance on actual labeled data alone. This uses the accuracy changes in the newly trained classifier over the original labeled data as a criterion in each iteration to determine whether or not the selected most confident unlabeled examples would be accepted by a subsequent iteration. Naïve Bayes (NB) will be used as the basic classifier in the co-training and self-training studies. The findings indicate that the accuracy and categorization of self-training and co-training will be greatly enhanced by SIS. As compared to semi-supervised classification methods, it will enhance accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score, according to the findings.

An Efficient and Versatile Variational Method for High-Dimensional Data Classification

High-dimensional data classification is a fundamental task in machine learning and imaging science. In this paper, we propose an efficient and versatile multi-class semi-supervised classification method for classifying high-dimensional data and unstructured point clouds. To begin with, a warm initialization is generated by using a fuzzy classification method such as the standard support vector machine or random labeling. Then an unconstraint convex variational model is proposed to purify and smooth the initialization, followed by a step which is to project the smoothed partition obtained previously to a binary partition. These steps can be repeated, with the latest result as a new initialization, to keep improving the classification quality. We show that the convex model of the smoothing step has a unique solution and can be solved by a specifically designed primal–dual algorithm whose convergence is guaranteed. We test our method and compare it with the state-of-the-art methods on several benchmark data sets. Thorough experimental results demonstrate that our method is superior in both the classification accuracy and computation speed for high-dimensional data and point clouds.

Small Sample Time Series Classification Based on Data Augmentation and Semi-supervised Learning

Realistic scenarios produce labeled data and unlabeled data, however, there are significant challenges in labeling time series data. It is imperative to effectively integrate the relationship between labeled and unlabeled data within semi-supervised classification model. This paper presents a novel semi-supervised classification method, namely Data Augmentation-Fast Shapelet Semi-Supervised Classification, which employs a data augmentation module to enhance the diversity of data and improve the generalization ability of the model, as well as a feature fusion module to enhance the semi-supervised network. A conditional generative adversarial network is used to synthesize excellent labeled time series samples to enhance the homogeneous data in the sample space, the fast shapelets method is used to quickly extract the important shape feature vectors in the time series, self-supervised and supervised learning are combined to fully learn the unlabeled and labeled data of the time series dataset. Thejoint loss function combines the loss functions of the two networks to optimize multiple objectives. Reinforcement learning is used to determine the weight coefficients of the joint loss function, at the same time, the reward function is modified to bias the supervisory loss, which improves the classification performance of the model under limited labeled data, and the model can also better achieve the semi-supervised classification task. The proposed method is validated on the UCR benchmark dataset, Electrocardiogram dataset, and Electroencephalogram dataset, the results show that the semi-supervised classification method can perform a more accurate semi-supervised classification of the time series, with an accuracy better than the comparison methods. Meanwhile, we use the plant electrical signal dataset obtained from actual measurements for testing, the visualizationanalysis can clearly show the model role in the semi-supervised classification task, and the experimental results fully demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method.

Dual-Training-Based Semi-Supervised Learning with Few Labels

The continual expansion in the number of images poses a great challenge for the annotation of the data. Therefore, improving the model performance for image classification with limited labeled data has become an important problem to solve. To address the problem, we propose in this paper a simple and effective dual-training-based semi-supervised learning method for image classification. To enable the model to acquire more valuable information, we propose a dual training approach to enhance model training. Specifically, the model is trained with different augmented data at the same time with soft labels and hard labels, respectively. In addition, we propose a simple and effective weight generation method for generating the weight of samples during training to guide the model training. To further improve the model performance, we employ a projection layer at the end of the network to guide the self-learning of the model by minimizing the distance of features extracted from different layers. Finally, we evaluate the proposed approach on three benchmark image classification datasets. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach.

A sea–land clutter classification framework for over-the-horizon radar based on weighted loss semi-supervised generative adversarial network

Deep convolutional neural network has made great achievements in sea–land clutter classification for over-the-horizon radar (OTHR). The premise is that a large number of labeled training samples must be provided for a sea–land clutter classifier. In practical engineering applications, it is relatively easy to obtain label-free sea–land clutter samples. However, the labeling process is extremely cumbersome and requires expertise in the field of OTHR. To solve this problem, we propose an improved generative adversarial network, namely weighted loss semi-supervised generative adversarial network (WL-SSGAN). Specifically, we propose a joint feature matching loss by weighting the middle layer features of the discriminator of semi-supervised generative adversarial network (SSGAN). Furthermore, we propose the weighted loss of WL-SSGAN by linearly weighting the standard adversarial loss of SSGAN and the joint feature matching loss. The classification performance of WL-SSGAN is evaluated on sea–land clutter datasets. The experimental results show that WL-SSGAN can improve the performance of the fully supervised classifier with only a small number of labeled samples by utilizing a large number of unlabeled sea–land clutter samples. Further, the proposed weighted loss is superior to both the adversarial loss and the feature matching loss. Additionally, we compare WL-SSGAN with conventional semi-supervised classification methods and demonstrate that WL-SSGAN achieves the highest classification accuracy.

Semi-supervised multiview fuzzy broad learning

Semi-supervised learning models often rely on restricted assumptions, and can easily suffer from covariate shift or noise. Few studies have investigated the use of fuzzy rule-based methods in the semi-supervised discipline. To improve model accuracy against covariate shift and to introduce fuzzy methods for interpretability, we first build a semi-supervised fuzzy broad learning model named SSFBLS, which employs a Mean-Teacher framework. Then, a trusted multiview semi-supervised classification method, termed TMSSC, is proposed by integrating the SSFBLS with a multiview fusion network to enhance the robustness of the model. Under the Mean-Teacher framework, SSFBLS involves the Takagi-Sugeno-Kang fuzzy model which can effectively deal with imprecision and uncertainty, and broad learning system which has strong learning ability and high computational efficiency. TMSSC utilizes a trusted mechanism to blend multiple views, so as to enhance its learning ability in semi-supervised scenarios. Experiments on the benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed methods have better anti-noise ability, competitive classification accuracy, as well as fast running speed.

BPSO-SLM: a binary particle swarm optimization-based self-labeled method for semi-supervised classification

BPSO-SLM: a binary particle swarm optimization-based self-labeled method for semi-supervised classification

FireMatch: A semi-supervised video fire detection network based on consistency and distribution alignment

Deep learning techniques have greatly enhanced the performance of fire detection in videos. However, video-based fire detection models heavily rely on labeled data, and the process of data labeling is particularly costly and time-consuming, especially when dealing with videos. Considering the limited quantity of labeled video data, we propose a semi-supervised fire detection model called FireMatch, which is based on consistency regularization and adversarial distribution alignment. Specifically, we first combine consistency regularization with pseudo-label. For unlabeled data, we design video data augmentation to obtain corresponding weakly augmented and strongly augmented samples. The proposed model predicts weakly augmented samples and retains pseudo-label above a threshold, while training on strongly augmented samples to predict these pseudo-labels for learning more robust feature representations. Secondly, we generate video cross-set augmented samples by adversarial distribution alignment to expand the training data and alleviate the decline in classification performance caused by insufficient labeled data. Finally, we introduce a fairness loss to help the model produce diverse predictions for input samples, thereby addressing the issue of high confidence with the non-fire class in fire classification scenarios. The FireMatch achieved an accuracy of 76.92% and 91.80% on two real-world fire datasets, respectively. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the current state-of-the-art semi-supervised classification methods.

FPGA-based remote target classification in hyperspectral imaging using multi-graph neural network

Hyperspectral imagery (HSI) is widely used in remote sensing for target classification; however, its accurate classification remains challenging due to the scarcity of labeled data. Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have emerged as a popular method for semi-supervised classification, attracting significant interest in the context of HSI analysis. Nevertheless, conventional GNN-based approaches often rely on a single graph filter to extract HSI characteristics, failing to fully exploit the potential benefits of different graph filters. Additionally, oversmoothing issues plague classical GNNs, further affecting classification performance. To address these drawbacks, we propose a novel approach called Spectral and Autoregressive Moving Average Graph Filter for the Multi-Graph Neural Network (SAM-GNN). This approach leverages two distinct graph filters: one specialized in extracting the spectral characteristics of nodes and the other effectively suppressing graph distortion. Through extensive evaluations, we compare the performance of SAM-GNN with other state-of-the-art methods, employing metrics such as overall accuracy (OA), individual class accuracy (IA), and Kappa coefficient (KC). The results shows that the SAM-GNN provides an improvement in KC, IA, and OA of 6.71%, 5.7%, and 3.93% for the Pavia University dataset and 4.67%, 3.67%, and 3.49% for the Cuprite dataset respectively. Furthermore, we implement SAM-GNN on the Virtex-7 field-programmable gate array (FPGA), demonstrating that the method achieves highly accurate target localization results, bringing us closer to real-world applications in HSI classification.

SemiRS-COC: Semi-Supervised Classification for Complex Remote Sensing Scenes with Cross-Object Consistency.

Semi-supervised learning (SSL), which aims to learn with limited labeled data and massive amounts of unlabeled data, offers a promising approach to exploit the massive amounts of satellite Earth observation images. The fundamental concept underlying most state-of-the-art SSL methods involves generating pseudo-labels for unlabeled data based on image-level predictions. However, complex remote sensing (RS) scene images frequently encounter challenges, such as interference from multiple background objects and significant intra-class differences, resulting in unreliable pseudo-labels. In this paper, we propose the SemiRS-COC, a novel semi-supervised classification method for complex RS scenes. Inspired by the idea that neighboring objects in feature space should share consistent semantic labels, SemiRS-COC utilizes the similarity between foreground objects in RS images to generate reliable object-level pseudo-labels, effectively addressing the issues of multiple background objects and significant intra-class differences in complex RS images. Specifically, we first design a Local Self-Learning Object Perception (LSLOP) mechanism, which transforms multiple background objects interference of RS images into usable annotation information, enhancing the model's object perception capability. Furthermore, we present a Cross-Object Consistency Pseudo-Labeling (COCPL) strategy, which generates reliable object-level pseudo-labels by comparing the similarity of foreground objects across different RS images, effectively handling significant intra-class differences. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our proposed method achieves excellent performance compared to state-of-the-art methods on three widely-adopted RS datasets.

From Segmentation to Classification: A Deep Learning Scheme for Sintered Surface Images Processing

Effectively managing the quality of iron ore is critical to iron and steel metallurgy. Although quality inspection is crucial, the perspective of sintered surface identification remains largely unexplored. To bridge this gap, we propose a deep learning scheme for mining the necessary information in sintered images processing to replace manual labor and realize intelligent inspection, consisting of segmentation and classification. Specifically, we first employ a DeepLabv3+ semantic segmentation algorithm to extract the effective material surface features. Unlike the original model, which includes a high number of computational parameters, we use SqueezeNet as the backbone to improve model efficiency. Based on the initial annotation of the processed images, the sintered surface dataset is constructed. Then, considering the scarcity of labeled data, a semi-supervised deep learning scheme for sintered surface classification is developed, which is based on pseudo-labels. Experiments show that the improved semantic segmentation model can effectively segment the sintered surface, achieving 98.01% segmentation accuracy with only a 5.71 MB size. In addition, the effectiveness of the adopted semi-supervised learning classification method based on pseudo-labels is validated in six state-of-the-art models. Among them, the ResNet-101 model has the best classification performance, with 94.73% accuracy for the semi-supervised strategy while only using 30% labeled data, which is an improvement of 1.66% compared with the fully supervised strategy.

Sample-weighted fused graph-based semi-supervised learning on multi-view data

Research in semi-supervised learning on graphs has attracted more and more attention in recent years, as learning on graphs is applied in more and more domains and labeling data is expensive and time-consuming. Some scenarios have inherent graph structures in their data, such as the relationships between people in social scenarios or the relationships between objects that are mutually referenced. However, there are also many data types without inherent graph structures, such as image data, and each image can be described with different features, which is a typical type of multi-view data. For image data and other non-graph data, there are significantly fewer deep learning approaches that target multi-view graph-based semi-supervised learning. This paper attempts to fill this gap. Based on the Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) architecture, we propose a Sample-weighted Fused Graph-based Semi-supervised Classification (WFGSC) method for multi-view data in this paper. It (i) constructs a semi-supervised graph in each view using a flexible model for joint graph and label estimation, (ii) obtains an additional graph based on the representation of nodes provided by the joint estimator, and then obtains a fused graph between all views, (iii) gives higher weights to hard-to-classify samples, (iv) proposes a loss function to train the GCN on the fused features and the consensus graph that integrates graph auto-encoder loss and label smoothing over the consensus graph. The results of our experiments on six multi-view datasets show that our WFGSC performs well on both fused graph construction and semi-supervised classification, and generally outperforms traditional GCNs and other multi-view semi-supervised multi-view classification methods.11Source code: https://github.com/BiJingjun/WFGSC.

Sentiment classification of time-sync comments: A semi-supervised hierarchical deep learning method

Time-sync comment (TSC) has emerged as a new type of textual comment for real-time user interactions on online video platforms. The sentiment classification of TSCs provides considerable potential for platforms to optimize operation strategies but inevitably faces great challenges due to the TSCs’ often uninformative and informal text. Considering the contextual dependency among TSCs posted within the same video clip, this study posits that contextual TSCs may benefit the sentiment classification of a target TSC. To address the challenges of leveraging contextual TSCs, such as their semantic representation and fusion, we propose a semi-supervised hierarchical deep learning method for the sentiment classification of TSCs. We design a hierarchical architecture to capture the semantics of TSCs at the word, comment, and context levels. Considering the varying importance of words and comments, we also design attention mechanisms to focus on important sentiment information and fuse semantic representations. Empirical evaluation shows that the proposed method outperforms benchmarked sentiment classification methods. This study advances our knowledge of contextual information indicative of TSC sentiment, and contributes to improving the service operation of online video platforms.