Non-parametric Classification Algorithm Research Articles

Taxonomy of Subkilometer Near-Earth Objects from Multiwavelength Photometry with RATIR

We present results from observations of 238 near-Earth objects (NEOs) obtained with the RATIR instrument on the 1.5 m robotic telescope at San Pedro Martir’s National Observatory in Mexico, in the frame of our multiobservatory, multifilter campaign. Our project is focused on rapid response photometric observations of NEOs with absolute magnitudes in the range 18.1–27.1 (diameter ≈ 600 and 10 m, respectively). Data with coverage in the near-infrared and visible range were analyzed with a nonparametric classification algorithm, while visible-only data were independently analyzed via Monte Carlo simulations and a 1-Nearest Neighbor method. The rapid response and the use of spectrophotometry allows us to obtain taxonomic classifications of subkilometer objects with small telescopes, representing a convenient characterization strategy. We present taxonomic classifications of the 87 objects observed in the visible and near-infrared. We also present the taxonomic distribution of an additional 151 objects observed in the visible. Our most accurate method suggests a nonfeatured-to-featured ratio of ≈0.75, which is consistent with the value found by the Mission Accessible Near-Earth Object Survey, which conducted a similar study using a spectral analysis. The results from the Monte Carlo method suggest a ratio of ≈0.8, although this method has some limitations. The 1-Nearest Neighbor method showed to be not suitable for NEO classifications.

Analysis of the trade-offs between parametric and non-parametric classifiers for classification of faults in pneumatic actuator. Case: DAMADICS

This paper disseminates an extra dimension of substantial analysis demonstrating the trade-offs between the performance of Parametric (P) and Non-Parametric (NP) classification algorithms when applied to classify faults occurring in pneumatic actuators. Owing to the criticality of the actuator failures, classifying faults accurately may lead to robust fault tolerant models. In most cases, when applying machine learning, the choice of existing classifier algorithms for an application is random. This work, addresses the issue and quantitatively supports the selection of appropriate algorithm for non-parametric datasets. For the case study, popular parametric classification algorithms namely: Naïve Bayes (NB), Logistic Regression (LR), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Perceptron (PER) and non-parametric algorithms namely: Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), k Nearest Neighbor (kNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Tree (DT) and Random Forest (RF) are implemented over a non-parametric, imbalanced synthetic dataset of a benchmark actuator process. Upon using parametric classifiers, severe adultery in results is witnessed which misleads the interpretation towards the accuracy of the model. Experimentally, about 20% improvement in accuracy is obtained on using non-parametric classifiers over the parametric ones. The robustness of the models is evaluated by inducing label noise varying between 5% to 20%. Triptych analysis is applied to discuss the interpretability of each machine learning model. The trade-offs in choice and performance of algorithms and the evaluating metrics for each estimator are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. For a more cogent reasoning through validation, the results obtained for the synthetic dataset are compared against the industrial dataset of the pneumatic actuator of the sugar refinery, Development and Application of Methods for Actuator Diagnosis in Industrial Control Systems (DAMADICS). The efficiency of non-parametric classifiers for the pneumatic actuator dataset is well proved.

Urban tourism expansion monitoring by remote sensing and random forest

Tourism and urban areas experienced rapid development at the beginning of the 21st century. This condition is caused by natural, cultural, and artificial tourist destinations and adequate infrastructure support. Tourist destinations in urban areas add to urbanization because apart from being the center of government, trade, and industry, it is also a tourist destination that can attract tourists. Monitoring the development of urban tourism is carried out in the cities of Denpasar and Bali, as well-known destinations at the world level. The development of the urban area can be detected through multi-temporal and multispectral remote sensing imagery in combination with machine learning technology. This study aims to determine the spatial distribution of urban tourism development from 2013 to 2021. This study uses remote sensing and machine learning methods with the Random Forest (RF) algorithm on Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud computing. The RF algorithm is one of the non-parametric classification algorithms which is widely applied in remote sensing data classification because of its insensitivity to excessive noise and training data and its good performance. The material used is Landsat 8, especially on the Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensor. The result showed that integrating remote sensing, GEE cloud computing, and machine learning, especially the RF algorithm, effectively monitors urban tourism expansion. The overall accuracy of the RF model with simple training data is above 90%. We found that within nine years, vegetated land was changed into an urban area of 20.23 km2. For this reason, special attention is needed from the government to make regulations on spatial planning and control over land conversion so that there will still be green open spaces in the future.

A Comparison between Supervised Classification Methods: Study Case on Land Cover Change Detection Caused by a Hydroelectric Complex Installation in the Brazilian Amazon

The Volta Grande do Xingu (VGX) in the Amazon Forest of Brazil was chosen to analyze the land use and land cover changes (LULCC) from 2000 to 2017, with the aim of assessing the most suitable classification method for the area. Three parametric (Mahalanobis distance, maximum likelihood and minimum distance) and three non-parametric (neural net, random forest and support vector machine) classification algorithms were tested in two Landsat scenes. The accuracy assessment was evaluated through a confusion matrix. Change detection of the landscape was analyzed through the post-classification comparison method. While maximum likelihood was more capable of highlighting errors in individual classes, support vector machine was slightly superior when compared with the other non-parametric options, these being the most suitable classifiers within the scope of this study. The main changes detected in the landscape were from forest to agro-pasture, from forest/agro-pasture to river, and from river to non-river, resulting in rock exposure. The methodology outlined in this research highlights the usefulness of remote sensing tools in follow-up observations of LULCC in the study area (with the possibility of application to the entire Amazon rainforest). Thus, it is possible to carry out adaptive management that aims to minimize unforeseen or underestimated impacts in previous stages of environmental licensing.

Nonparametric Classification Method for Multiple-Choice Items in Cognitive Diagnosis

The multiple-choice (MC) item format has been widely used in educational assessments across diverse content domains. MC items purportedly allow for collecting richer diagnostic information. The effectiveness and economy of administering MC items may have further contributed to their popularity not just in educational assessment. The MC item format has also been adapted to the cognitive diagnosis (CD) framework. Early approaches simply dichotomized the responses and analyzed them with a CD model for binary responses. Obviously, this strategy cannot exploit the additional diagnostic information provided by MC items. De la Torre’s MC Deterministic Inputs, Noisy “And” Gate (MC-DINA) model was the first for the explicit analysis of items having MC response format. However, as a drawback, the attribute vectors of the distractors are restricted to be nested within the key and each other. The method presented in this article for the CD of DINA items having MC response format does not require such constraints. Another contribution of the proposed method concerns its implementation using a nonparametric classification algorithm, which predestines it for use especially in small-sample settings like classrooms, where CD is most needed for monitoring instruction and student learning. In contrast, default parametric CD estimation routines that rely on EM- or MCMC-based algorithms cannot guarantee stable and reliable estimates—despite their effectiveness and efficiency when samples are large—due to computational feasibility issues caused by insufficient sample sizes. Results of simulation studies and a real-world application are also reported.

Classification of Transmission Line Corridor Tree Species Based on Drone Data and Machine Learning

Tree growth in power line corridors poses a threat to power lines and requires regular inspections. In order to achieve sustainable and intelligent management of transmission line corridor forests, a transmission line corridor tree barrier management system is needed, and tree species classification is an important part of this. In order to accurately identify tree species in transmission line corridors, this study combines airborne LiDAR (light detection and ranging) point-cloud data and synchronously acquired high-resolution aerial image data to classify tree species. First, individual-tree segmentation and feature extraction are performed. Then, the random forest (RF) algorithm is used to sort and filter the feature importance. Finally, two non-parametric classification algorithms, RF and support vector machine (SVM), are selected, and 12 classification schemes are designed to perform tree species classification and accuracy evaluation research. The results show that after using RF for feature filtering, the classification results are better than those without feature filtering, and the overall accuracy can be improved by 3.655% on average. The highest classification accuracy is achieved when using SVM after combining a digital orthorectification map (DOM) and LiDAR for feature filtering, with an overall accuracy of 85.16% and a kappa coefficient of 0.79.

Conformal isotonic separation for binary classification

Isotonic Separation (IS) is a non-parametric classification algorithm which constructs an isotonic function as a model from given data with monotonic nature. This paper proposes an approach in which a novel conformal prediction framework is deployed in two setups to improve the classification performance of isotonic separation: Transductive and Inductive method. This paper introduces a new Non-Conformity Measure (NCM) which is specific to isotonic separation to compute the uniqueness of a data point to a set of data points. This measure is deployed on two different forms of conformal prediction methods: Transductive Conformal Isotonic Separation (TCIS) and Inductive Conformal Isotonic Separation (ICIS). Experiments are conducted on different monotonic data sets using transductive and inductive isotonic separation techniques. Experimental and statistical results reveal that transductive and inductive conformal isotonic separation give significant results in terms of performance measures.

A new globally adaptive k-nearest neighbor classifier based on local mean optimization

The k-nearest neighbor (KNN) rule is a simple and effective nonparametric classification algorithm in pattern classification. However, it suffers from several problems such as sensitivity to outliers and inaccurate classification decision rule. Thus, a local mean-based k-nearest neighbor classifier (LMKNN) was proposed to address these problems, which assigns the query sample with a class label based on the closest local mean vector among all classes. It is proven that the LMKNN classifier achieves better classification performance and is more robust to outliers than the classical KNN classifier. Nonetheless, the unreliable nearest neighbor selection rule and single local mean vector strategy in LMKNN classifier severely have negative effect on its classification performance. Considering these problems in LMKNN, we propose a globally adaptive k-nearest neighbor classifier based on local mean optimization, which utilizes the globally adaptive nearest neighbor selection strategy and the implementation of local mean optimization to obtain more convincing and reliable local mean vectors. The corresponding experimental results conducted on twenty real-world datasets demonstrated that the proposed classifier achieves better classification performance and is less sensitive to the neighborhood size $$k$$ compared with other improved KNN-based classification methods.

A new locally adaptive [formula omitted]-nearest neighbor algorithm based on discrimination class

The k-nearest neighbor (kNN) rule is a classical non-parametric classification algorithm in pattern recognition, and has been widely used in many fields due to its simplicity, effectiveness and intuitiveness. However, the classification performance of the kNN algorithm suffers from the choice of a fixed and single value of k for all queries in the search stage and the use of simple majority voting rule in the decision stage.In this paper, we propose a new kNN-based algorithm, called locally adaptive k-nearest neighbor algorithm based on discrimination class (DC-LAKNN). In our method, the role of the second majority class in classification is for the first time considered. Firstly, the discrimination classes at different values of k are selected from the majority class and the second majority class in the k-neighborhood of the query. Then, the adaptive k value and the final classification result are obtained according to the quantity and distribution information on the neighbors in the discrimination classes at each value of k.Extensive experiments on eighteen real-world datasets from UCI (University of California, Irvine) Machine Learning Repository and KEEL (Knowledge Extraction based on Evolutionary Learning) Repository show that the DC-LAKNN algorithm achieves better classification performance compared to standard kNN algorithm and nine other state-of-the-art kNN-based algorithms.

Assessing the Accuracy of Multiple Classification Algorithms for Crop Classification Using Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 Data

The launch of Sentinel-2A and B satellites has boosted the development of many applications that could benefit from the fine resolution of the supplied information, both in time and in space. Crop classification is a necessary task for efficient land management. We evaluated the benefits of combining Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2A information for irrigated crop classification. We also assessed the robustness and efficiency of 22 nonparametric classification algorithms for classifying irrigated crops in a semiarid region in the southeast of Spain. A parcel-based approach was proposed calculating the mean normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of each plot and the standard deviation to generate a calibration-testing set of data. More than 2000 visited plots for 12 different crops along the study site were utilized as ground truth. Ensemble classifiers were the most robust algorithms but not the most efficient because of their low prediction rate. Nearest neighbor methods and support vector machines have the best balance between robustness and efficiency as methods for classification. Although the F1 score is close to 90%, some misclassifications were found for spring crops (e.g., barley, wheat and peas). However, crops with quite similar cycles could be differentiated, such as purple garlic and white garlic, showing the powerfulness of the developed tool.

Environmental land-cover classification for integrated watershed studies: Cape Bounty, Melville Island, Nunavut

Thematic maps developed from remote sensing data are extremely useful for designing intensive field studies, particularly for large areas that are logistically challenging to access. The integrated watershed studies at the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory (CBAWO), Melville Island, Nunavut, rely heavily on land cover for establishing sampling locations regardless of the type of research being conducted (e.g., permafrost degradation, greenhouse gas exchange, surface water chemistry, etc.). Here, we present an environmental land-cover classification of the CBAWO that was developed through an iterative process employing parametric and non-parametric classification algorithms applied to WorldView-2 satellite data and topographic variables. The support vector machine classification of eight-band WorldView-2 spectral data and a topographic wetness index produced the highest classification accuracy for eight land-cover classes (overall classification accuracy: 90.7%; Kappa coefficient (κ): 0.89). This analysis also provided a more precise classification scheme, particularly in the context of the relationship between vegetation type and moisture regime. The environmental land-cover classification derived will better inform future integrated studies of the watershed and allow for upscaling of site-level characteristics to the watershed-scale using the updated vegetation classes.

A hybrid classification method based on fusion of parametric and non-parametric classification algorithms for Landuse/Landcover map in Hirkani Forests

تهیه نقشه‌های پوشش اراضی با دقت بالا، همواره یکی از اهداف مهم محققان در زمینه مدیریت اراضی بوده است. هدف از‌این پژوهش، ارائه روش نوینی جهت تهیه نقشه‌های کاربری اراضی با استفاده از پردازش تصاویر ماهواره‌ای بوده است. به همین منظور، از تصاویر ماهواره لندست 8، به عنوان تصویر پایه و نقشه مدل رقومی ارتفاعی (DEM)، داده‌های حاصل از تجزیه به عنوان مولفه‌­های اصلی و شاخص‌های طیفی جهت استخراج نقشه پوشش اراضی در منطقه مطالعاتی استفاده شد. پس از پیش‌پردازش‌ها و آماده‌سازی داده‌های مورد نیاز، اقدام به تهیه نمونه‌های آموزشی شد. در‌این پژوهش، نمونه‌های آموزشی در دو بخش به کار گرفته شدند؛ در بخش اول از آنها به عنوان ورودی، جهت طبقه‌بندی تصویر با الگوریتم‌های نظارت شده، حداکثر احتمال و ماشین بردار پشتیبان استفاده شد. در بخش دوم، به‌منظور طبقه‌بندی با روش درخت تصمیم گیری، از‌ این نمونه‌ها برای تعیین محدوده بازتاب طیفی هر پوشش در طیف امواج الکترومغناطیس (باندهای تصویر، PCA، شاخص‌های طیفی و DEM) استفاده شد. سپس با استفاده از ‌این داده‌ها و شروط دودویی درخت تصمیم‌گیری، هر پوشش مشخص و نقشه پوشش آن استخراج شد. پس از تهیه نقشه‌های ذکر شده، به منظور تلفیق نتایج طبقه‌بندی و حصول دقت بالاتر، از روش حداکثر رای‌گیری به منظور تهیه نقشه تلفیقی جدید پوشش اراضی منطقه استفاده شد. همچنین به منظور ارزیابی دقت نقشه‌های تولیدی، از پارامترهای آماری منتج از ماتریس ابهام شامل دقت کلی، ضریب کاپا، دقت کاربر و دقت تولیدکننده استفاده شد. بر اساس نتایج حاصله، روش تلفیقی با دقت کلی 37/93 درصد و ضریب کاپا 91/0 دارای بیشترین دقت بوده است. دقت کلی نقشه پوشش روش درخت تصمیم‌گیری، ماشین بردار پشتیبان و حداکثر احتمال نیز به ترتیب 61/89، 01/88 و 6/87 درصد بوده‌اند. با توجه به‌اینکه در طبیعت پوشش خالص، به ندرت مشاهده می‌شود و بیشتر پوشش‌ها به صورت ترکیبی وجود دارند، لذا بهتر است از روش‌های نوینی که همه ابعاد پدیده‌ها را پوشش می‌دهند استفاده شود. در‌این پژوهش، اطلاعات حاصل از طبقه‌بندی نظارت شده و همچنین اطلاعات حاصل از روش منطقی درخت تصمیم‌گیری با یکدیگر تلفیق شده و نتایج حاصله به خوبی، بیانگر بهبود دقت نهایی طبقه‌بندی بودند.

Learn a Hybrid Collaborative Representation for Fine-Grained Image Classification

Image classification has attracted more and more interest over the recent years. Consequently, a number of excellent non-parametric classification algorithms, such as collaborative representation based classification (CRC), have emerged and achieved superior performance to parametric classification algorithms. However, for fine-grained image classification task, both the class specific attributes and the shared attributes play significant roles in describing the image. CRC scheme does not consider the characteristics and merely utilizes all attributes without separation to represent an image. In this paper, we propose a hybrid collaborative representation based classification method to describe an image from perspective of the shared features, as well as the class specific features. Moreover, to reduce the representation error and obtain precise description, we learn a dictionary for hybrid collaborative representation with the training samples. We conduct extensive experiments on fine-grained image datasets to verify the superior performance of our proposed algorithm compared with the conventional approaches.

Comparison of support vector machine, random forest and neural network classifiers for tree species classification on airborne hyperspectral APEX images

ABSTRACTKnowledge of tree species composition in a forest is an important topic in forest management. Accurate tree species maps allow for much more detailed and in-depth analysis of biophysical forest variables. The paper presents a comparison of three classification algorithms: support vector machines (SVM), random forest (RF) and artificial neural networks (ANN) for tree species classification using airborne hyperspectral data from the Airborne Prism EXperiment sensor. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the three nonparametric classification algorithms (SVM, RF and ANN) in an attempt to classify the five most common tree species of the Szklarska Poręba area: spruce (Picea alba L. Karst), larch (Larix decidua Mill.), alder (Alnus Mill), beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and birch (Betula pendula Roth). To avoid human introduced biases a 0.632 bootstrap procedure was used during evaluation of each compared classifier. Of all compared classification results, ANN achieved the highest median overall classification accuracy (77%) followed by SVM with 68% and RF with 62%. Analysis of the stability of results concluded that RF and SVM had the lowest variance of overall accuracy and kappa coefficient (12 percentage points) while ANN had 15 percentage points variance in results.

Synergistic application of geometric and radiometric features of LiDAR data for urban land cover mapping

Urban land cover map is essential for urban planning, environmental studies and management. This paper aims to demonstrate the potential of geometric and radiometric features derived from LiDAR waveform and point cloud data in urban land cover mapping with both parametric and non-parametric classification algorithms. Small footprint LiDAR waveform data acquired by RIEGL LMS-Q560 in Zhangye city, China is used in this study. A LiDAR processing chain is applied to perform waveform decomposition, range determination and radiometric characterization. With the synergic utilization of geometric and radiometric features derived from LiDAR data, urban land cover classification is then conducted using the Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC), Support Vector Machines (SVM) and random forest algorithms. The results suggest that the random forest classifier achieved the most accurate result with overall classification accuracy of 91.82% and the kappa coefficient of 0.88. The overall accuracies of MLC and SVM are 84.02, and 88.48, respectively. The study suggest that the synergic utilization of geometric and radiometric features derived from LiDAR data can be efficiently used for urban land cover mapping, the non-parametric random forest classifier is a promising approach for the various features with different physical meanings.

A Novel Weighted Distance KNN Algorithm Based on Instances Condensing

As a nonparametric classification algorithm, K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) is very efficient and can be easily realized. However, for large dataset, the computational demands for classifying instances using KNN can be expensive. A way to solve this problem is through the condensing approach. It means we remove instances that will bring computational burden but do not contribute to better classification accuracy. This paper proposes a novel weighted distance KNN algorithm based on instances condensing algorithm. The proposed idea is to extract some representative instances and take the processed result as a new training sample set. Meanwhile, use the distance-weighted WDKNN algorithm to improve the prediction accuracy, our experiments show that the proposed strategy can dramatically shorten the time consumption compared with the traditional KNN. On average, the speedup ratios improve 90% while classification accuracy only has 2% decreases.

A data-adaptive strategy for inverse weighted estimation of causal effects

In most nonrandomized observational studies, differences between treatment groups may arise not only due to the treatment but also because of the effect of confounders. Therefore, causal inference regarding the treatment effect is not as straightforward as in a randomized trial. To adjust for confounding due to measured covariates, the average treatment effect is often estimated by using propensity scores. Typically, propensity scores are estimated by logistic regression. More recent suggestions have been to employ nonparametric classification algorithms from machine learning. In this article, we propose a weighted estimator combining parametric and nonparametric models. Some theoretical results regarding consistency of the procedure are given. Simulation studies are used to assess the performance of the newly proposed methods relative to existing methods, and a data analysis example from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database is presented.

Mapping Regolith and Gossan for Mineral Exploration in the Eastern Kumaon Himalaya, India using hyperion data and object oriented image classification

Crystalline in the Kumaon Himalaya, India near Askot area is a prominent site of the base metal mineralization and gossanised surface. This area is hosted by the sulphides and sulphates of Cu, Pb, Zn and Au and Ag mineralization with the altered rocks like sericite chlorite schist, gneiss etc. Due to the deep weathering this area is also a good illustration site of the gossanised outcrop.Regolith mapping through the multispectral remotely sensed data using different parametric and nonparametric classification algorithm has been used for many years. In recent years, object oriented classification for classification of object rather than pixel has gained a good success within the geospatial community. On the other hand, space borne hyperspectral remote sensing has gained a great success in identification of the minerals from space. The narrow contiguous bands of this hyperspectral remote sensing data can provide more information of the chemical content of the different minerals.In this study EO1 (Earth Observation) Hyperion hyperspectral sensor data has been evaluated for regolith and gossan mapping using the object oriented image classification technique. The efficacy of the hyperion data is evaluated in and around the Askot base metal mineral deposits for hydrothermal alteration and base metal minerals. Three sites were selected by regolith mapping using object oriented image classification method and were evaluated by the aid of hyperspectral data for alteration minerals. During the field verification it was found that the mineralization within these sites was associated with the dolomite, gneiss and schists. Strong hydrothermal activity and shearing were dominated at these sites. Minerals like carbonates, sulphates and sulphides of copper, lead, zinc and silver, magnetite along with the altered minerals like, mica, chlorite, talc etc. were found at the target sites. eCognition™ and ENVI® software’s were used for the object based classification and for the hyperspectral data processing, respectively. It was concluded from this study that object oriented classification is a suitable classification algorithm for regolith and gossan mapping as it uses the spatial, spectral and textural information of the remote sensing dataset. Target areas suggested by the object oriented classification method were examined by the hyperspectral data analysis. Results of the hyperspectral analysis were in good confirmation of the minerals found in the field as well as in the lab. Though the signal to noise ratio of the scene was low but still hyperion data was able to highlight the mineralogy of the Askot and nearby areas. It was also concluded by this study that the spectral analysis was very helpful for identification of the gossan and limonite over the conventional petrography analysis.

DD-Classifier: Nonparametric Classification Procedure Based on DD-Plot

Using the DD-plot (depth vs. depth plot), we introduce a new nonparametric classification algorithm and call it DD-classifier. The algorithm is completely nonparametric, and it requires no prior knowledge of the underlying distributions or the form of the separating curve. Thus, it can be applied to a wide range of classification problems. The algorithm is completely data driven and its classification outcome can be easily visualized in a two-dimensional plot regardless of the dimension of the data. Moreover, it has the advantage of bypassing the estimation of underlying parameters such as means and scales, which is often required by the existing classification procedures. We study the asymptotic properties of the DD-classifier and its misclassification rate. Specifically, we show that DD-classifier is asymptotically equivalent to the Bayes rule under suitable conditions, and it can achieve Bayes error for a family broader than elliptical distributions. The performance of the classifier is also examined using simulated and real datasets. Overall, the DD-classifier performs well across a broad range of settings, and compares favorably with existing classifiers. It can also be robust against outliers or contamination.

Wavelet filtering of time-series moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer data for rice crop mapping using support vector machines and maximum likelihood classifier

Rice is the most important economic crop in Vietnam's Mekong Delta (MD). It is the main source of employment and income for rural people in this region. Yearly estimates of rice growing areas and delineation of spatial distribution of rice crops are needed to devise agricultural economic plans and to ensure security of the food supply. The main objective of this study is to map rice cropping systems with respect to monitoring agricultural practices in the MD using time-series moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) 250-m data. These time-series NDVI data were derived from the 8-day MODIS 250-m data acquired in 2008. Various spatial and nonspatial data were also used for accuracy verification. The method used in this study consists of the following three main steps: 1. filtering noise from the time-series NDVI data using wavelet transformation (Coiflet 4); 2. classification of rice cropping systems using parametric and nonparametric classification algorithms: the maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) and support vector machines (SVMs); and 3. verification of classification results using ground truth data and government rice statistics. Good results can be found using wavelet transformation for cleaning rice signatures. The results of classification accuracy assessment showed that the SVMs outperformed the MLC. The overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient achieved by the SVMs were 89.7% and 0.86, respectively, while those achieved by the MLC were 76.2% and 0.68, respectively. Comparison of the MODIS-derived areas obtained by the SVMs with the government rice statistics at the provincial level also demonstrated that the results achieved by the SVMs (R2 = 0.95) were better than the MLC (R2 = 0.91). This study demonstrates the effectiveness of using a nonparametric classification algorithm (SVMs) and time-series MODIS NVDI data for rice crop mapping in the Vietnamese MD.