Crowd-Counting through a Cascaded, Multi-Task Convolutional Neural Network

Deep Learning and Beyond: AI’s New Horizons” is an expansive monograph that delves into the dynamic and rapidly evolving field of deep learning, a key area of artificial intelligence. This comprehensive work provides an insightful exploration of the revolutionary developments, foundational concepts, and future directions of deep learning, positioning itself as a crucial resource for understanding this transformative technology. The monograph commences with an introductory chapter that lays the groundwork by elucidating the background of machine learning and chronicling the ascent of deep learning. This foundational perspective is vital for comprehending the underlying principles and methodologies that have propelled deep learning to the forefront of technological innovation. Subsequent chapters delve into the “Historical Evolution” of AI, tracing the origins of neural networks from their early inception to the Renaissance period of deep learning. This historical analysis is pivotal in understanding the field’s trajectory and significant milestones. The “Foundations of Deep Learning” chapter presents an in-depth analysis of neural networks, covering their basic architecture, activation functions, layers, and the critical process of backpropagation and gradient descent. This is followed by examining “Advanced Neural Network Architectures,” where the focus shifts to state-of-the-art models such as convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks, and groundbreaking transformers and attention mechanisms. In addressing the “Training Deep Models,” the monograph explores regularization techniques, optimization strategies, and the increasingly significant role of transfer learning and pre-trained models. The application-oriented chapter, “Applications of Deep Learning,” showcases real-world implementations in domains like image recognition, natural language viii processing, and autonomous systems, illustrating deep learning technologies’ vast potential and versatility. The monograph also tackles the “Challenges in Deep Learning,” including overfitting, interpretability, and the ethical considerations surrounding AI deployment. It then ventures into the “Future of Deep Learning,” contemplating emerging trends such as integrating quantum computing, neural architecture search, and the convergence of neuroscience and deep learning. “Case Studies” provide practical insights and empirical evidence of the impact of deep learning. At the same time, the concluding chapter synthesizes the current state of deep learning, offers predictions for the future, and provides reflective thoughts on this transformative field. “Deep Learning and Beyond: AI’s New Horizons” educates and informs readers about the vast potential and future possibilities of deep learning and artificial intelligence. Keywords: Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks, Machine Learning, Convolutional Neural Networks, Recurrent Neural Networks, Transformers, Quantum Computing, Ethical AI, Neural Architecture Search, Natural Language Processing, Autonomous Systems, AI in Healthcare, Future of AI, AI Applications, AI Challenges.

Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning, hierarchical learning, or deep machine learning) is a branch of machine learning based on a set of algorithms that attempt to model high-level abstractions in data by using a deep graph with multiple processing layers, composed of multiple linear and nonlinear transformations. Deep learning has been characterized as a class of machine learning algorithms with the following characteristics [257]: • They use a cascade of many layers of nonlinear processing units for feature extraction and transformation. Each successive layer uses the output from the previous layer as input. The algorithms may be supervised or unsupervised and applications include pattern analysis (unsupervised) and classification (supervised). • They are based on the (unsupervised) learning of multiple levels of features or representations of the data. Higher-level features are derived from lower-level features to form a hierarchical representation. • They are part of the broader machine learning field of learning representations of data. • They learn multiple levels of representations that correspond to different levels of abstraction; the levels form a hierarchy of concepts. These definitions have in common: multiple layers of nonlinear processing units and the supervised or unsupervised learning of feature representations in each layer, with the layers forming a hierarchy from low-level to high-level features. Various deep learning architectures such as deep neural networks, convolutional deep neural networks, deep belief networks (DBN), and recurrent neural networks have been applied to fields like computer vision, automatic speech recognition, natural language processing, audio recognition, and bioinformatics where they have been shown to produce state-of-the-art results on various tasks. In this chapter we start in Section 7.1 with an introduction, giving a brief history of this field, the relevant literature, and its applications. Then we study some basic concepts of deep learning such as convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks, backpropagation algorithm, restricted Boltzmann machines, and deep learning networks in Section 7.2. Then we illustrate three examples for Apache Spark implementation for mobile big data (MBD), user moving pattern extraction, and combination with nonparametric Bayesian learning, respectively, in Sections 7.3 through 7.5. Finally, we have summary in Section 7.6.

Convolutional neural network (CNN) based image steganalysis are increasingly popular because of their superiority in accuracy. The most straightforward way to employ CNN for image steganalysis is to learn a CNN-based classifier to distinguish whether secret messages have been embedded into an image. However, it is difficult to learn such a classifier because of the weak stego signals and the limited useful information. To address this issue, in this paper, a multi-task learning CNN is proposed. In addition to the typical use of CNN, learning a CNN-based classifier for the whole image, our multi-task CNN is learned with an auxiliary task of the pixel binary classification, estimating whether each pixel in an image has been modified due to steganography. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to employ CNN to perform the pixel-level classification of such type. Experimental results have justified the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed multi-task learning CNN.

Nowadays, machine learning (ML) has attained a high level of achievement in many contexts. Considering the significance of ML in medical and bioinformatics owing to its accuracy, many investigators discussed multiple solutions for developing the function of medical and bioinformatics challenges using deep learning (DL) techniques. The importance of DL in Internet of Things (IoT)-based bio- and medical informatics lies in its ability to analyze and interpret large amounts of complex and diverse data in real time, providing insights that can improve healthcare outcomes and increase efficiency in the healthcare industry. Several applications of DL in IoT-based bio- and medical informatics include diagnosis, treatment recommendation, clinical decision support, image analysis, wearable monitoring, and drug discovery. The review aims to comprehensively evaluate and synthesize the existing body of the literature on applying deep learning in the intersection of the IoT with bio- and medical informatics. In this paper, we categorized the most cutting-edge DL solutions for medical and bioinformatics issues into five categories based on the DL technique utilized: convolutional neural network, recurrent neural network, generative adversarial network, multilayer perception, and hybrid methods. A systematic literature review was applied to study each one in terms of effective properties, like the main idea, benefits, drawbacks, methods, simulation environment, and datasets. After that, cutting-edge research on DL approaches and applications for bioinformatics concerns was emphasized. In addition, several challenges that contributed to DL implementation for medical and bioinformatics have been addressed, which are predicted to motivate more studies to develop medical and bioinformatics research progressively. According to the findings, most articles are evaluated using features like accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, F-score, latency, adaptability, and scalability.

The use of machine learning (ML) has been increasing rapidly in the medical imaging field, including computer-aided diagnosis (CAD), radiomics, and medical image analysis. Recently, an ML area called deep learning emerged in the computer vision field and became very popular in many fields. It started from an event in late 2012, when a deep-learning approach based on a convolutional neural network (CNN) won an overwhelming victory in the best-known worldwide computer vision competition, ImageNet Classification. Since then, researchers in virtually all fields, including medical imaging, have started actively participating in the explosively growing field of deep learning. In this paper, the area of deep learning in medical imaging is overviewed, including (1) what was changed in machine learning before and after the introduction of deep learning, (2) what is the source of the power of deep learning, (3) two major deep-learning models: a massive-training artificial neural network (MTANN) and a convolutional neural network (CNN), (4) similarities and differences between the two models, and (5) their applications to medical imaging. This review shows that ML with feature input (or feature-based ML) was dominant before the introduction of deep learning, and that the major and essential difference between ML before and after deep learning is the learning of image data directly without object segmentation or feature extraction; thus, it is the source of the power of deep learning, although the depth of the model is an important attribute. The class of ML with image input (or image-based ML) including deep learning has a long history, but recently gained popularity due to the use of the new terminology, deep learning. There are two major models in this class of ML in medical imaging, MTANN and CNN, which have similarities as well as several differences. In our experience, MTANNs were substantially more efficient in their development, had a higher performance, and required a lesser number of training cases than did CNNs. "Deep learning", or ML with image input, in medical imaging is an explosively growing, promising field. It is expected that ML with image input will be the mainstream area in the field of medical imaging in the next few decades.

Deep learning is a complex machine learning algorithm that can learn the deep inner rules of a sample. In recent years, deep learning has achieved good results in the field of image processing. The essence of deep learning is to build a multi-layered machine learning architecture that trains on large-scale data. With the development of computer technology, deep learning has achieved good results in image recognition and natural language processing. Deep learning is also becoming more and more widely used in industry. This paper introduces the applications of deep learning in the industrial field, and finally discusses development and challenges of deep learning in industrial applications in the future.

Counting the number of person has received much attention in recent years. Most of the existing crowd counting methods adopted density map regression pipeline, which formulates the crowd counting problem to two fragmented part: density map regression and integration of the overall counting. To solve this problem, this paper presents a multi-task deep learning scheme to enhance the counting performance. More specifically, we firstly build a multi-scale deep convolutional neural network, based on combining the feature maps of conv layers with different filters, to solve the multi-scale problem in crowd counting. Secondly, we develop the multi-task structure that can simultaneously learn the density map and the global counting. Experiments on large scale crowd counting datasets, Shanghaitech and WorldExpo10, demonstrate that the proposed method achieves much reduction in counting error respectively

In today’s digital environment, the pattern is everywhere. It is present in many aspects of our daily life. Algorithms can be used to detect or mathematically observe a pattern physically. Vector feature values represent a pattern in the digital world. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in the recent era, there are so many machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) models that have been developed. ML is the branch of AI, which can perform tasks like data analysis, analytical model building, and classification without being explicitly programmed. DL is the subset of ML in AI. In DL, mostly artificial neural networks (ANNs) are utilized. It has the capability of work based upon unsupervised learning from the data that is unlabeled and unstructured. Using these DL and ML models, extract the meaningful features from the given image or video is known as pattern recognition (PR). PR is used in many engineering applications such as computer vision, natural language processing, character recognition, robotics, speech recognition, and so on. It is also used in many medical image processing applications and telemedicine. The present work discussed the pattern recognition problem and its various stages in detail. In addition to that, the application of deep learning and machine learning in pattern recognition is also explained briefly.

Accurate fault information is critical for optimal scheduling of production activities, improving system reliability, and reducing operation and maintenance costs. In recent years, many fault diagnosis methods for rolling element bearings have been developed based on deep learning. Most of them are totally data-driven and do not consider the domain knowledge that has been used in fault diagnosis for years. Meanwhile, operating conditions such as rotating speed and load that have great influence on vibration signals are also ignored. It may cause a decrease in accuracy when the bearing type or operating condition changes. To address these problems, this article proposes a rolling element bearing fault diagnosis and localization approach based on multitask convolutional neural network (CNN) with information fusion. In the proposed approach, domain knowledge, operating conditions, and vibration signals are fused into a three-dimensional input that can be processed well by CNN. Then, a multitask CNN with dynamic training rates is constructed to simultaneously accomplish two tasks, fault diagnosis and localization. Experimental results on two rolling element bearing test beds with different bearing types and operating conditions are presented and compared with existing state-of-the-art approaches to demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed approach.

In this chapter, we introduce several applications of machine learning and deep learning in different domains, including sensor and time-series, image and vision, text and natural language processing, relational data, energy, manufacturing, social media, health, security, and Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. Until 2010, traditional ML models such as SVMs and decision trees have enjoyed successes in various tasks, including handwritten digit classification, face detection, and pattern recognition. Though traditional ML models are easy to interpret, the model’s inputs need to be well-designed, handcrafted features. On the other hand, deep learning models circumvent this problem and directly take the raw data as input and provide end-to-end learning capability. There is an unprecedented increase in machine learning and deep learning applications, especially with the emergence of fast mobile devices with access to cloud computing. While cloud computing provides the necessary computational power to train deep learning models, trained models can be easily deployed in the cloud or on embedded devices at the edge of the cloud to carry out the inference.

Recently, automatic vehicle identification system has great significance in practical life and with modern technology now widely available, the research on automatic vehicle recognition based on computer vision is becoming increasingly thorough and extensive. However, automatic vehicle identification also faces significant challenges, such as changes in lighting, weather conditions and distortion of captured images in natural road scenes. Since 2012, as a deep learning in image classification, the convolution neural network has become a major subject in many fields, so this study would focus on the vehicle identification in terms of the convolutional neural network. The Cars196 data set and an improved Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) network capable of multi-attribute recognition are applied to study the optimization network problem of the convolutional neutral network and to realize the multi-attribute classification and identification of automobile brands, models and colors. The data analysis shows that the improved CNN recognition network has a recognition accuracy in automatic vehicle recognition, but the overall recognition network is affected by many factors. According to the results of data analysis, in practice, alongside the improvement of traditional convolutional neural network, the improved new neural network structure should also be used for vehicle recognition, so as to improve the accuracy of vehicle identification to better serve the community.

Deep (machine) learning in recent years has significantly increased the predictive modeling strengths for applications in the areas of computer vision, speech recognition, and natural language processing. Being heavily data-driven, conventional general-purpose deep learning methods mainly rely on training data to learn task-specific data representations. In this thesis, we focus on leveraging novel learning algorithms in deep learning to tackle visual recognition challenges at the three key levels -- namely pixel, object, and image levels. Throughout the thesis, we demonstrate how each and every of our proposed methods can address a specific visual recognition problem. Firstly, we apply deep learning to improve the saliency detection performance of deep networks. A coarse saliency map of the input image's salient object is initially predicted by a convolutional-deconvolutional network (or equivalently a fully convolutional network). Following that, the coarse saliency map is sequentially refined by a separate network called Recurrent Attentional Convolutional-Deconvolutional Network (RACDNN) that shares its network weights across its sequential steps. At every sequential (temporal) step, the same RACDNN is applied to a newly selected/attended image sub-region and it performs saliency map refinement for that particular sub-region. Despite having many learnable network parameters and no access to additional training data, RADCNN can be trained well and it outperforms the "single-step" (coarse saliency detection) baseline and state-of-the-art saliency detection methods by large margins, on several saliency detection benchmark datasets. Secondly, we introduce auto-encoder weight transfer networks (AE-WTN+), a deep model for scaling up object detection. Conventional WTN transfers object class knowledge from the classification weights of a pretrained large-scale image classification network, to the classification weights of an object detection network. However, they suffer from under-fitting and are not able to preserve the rich object class information of novel classes. In this work, we propose a new WTN method -- AE-WTN+ which makes use of normalization techniques to ease network optimization. Inputs and intermediate features are normalized to improve trainability for reduced under-fitting. More importantly, a novel auto-encoding (reconstruction) loss is proposed to encourage information preservation of all classes in the weight predictions of AE-WTN+. This enables the predicted weights of AE-WTN+ to maintain the class discriminability and neighbourhood relationships contained in the pre-trained large-scale classification weights. Experiments on large-scale detection datasets validate the effectiveness of AE-WTN+ on both seen and novel classes. Thirdly, we improve the efficiency of cross-layer network connections for very deep convolutional network in the context of image classification. This gives rise to a new convolutional network architecture called Deluge Networks (DelugeNets) which pass the output (feature activations) of any preceding composite network layer as direct inputs to all succeeding composite layers. For the incoming feature activations of preceding composite layers, the succeeding composite layers first apply rather lightweight cross-layer depthwise convolutional weights on them for feature aggregation. The heavy lifting is carried out by the last convolutional weight layer in each preceding composite layer that performs cross-channel convolutions. The proposed technique enables unimpeded information flow among many layers in very deep DelugeNets with great efficiency. Experiments on small-scale and large-scale datasets show that DelugeNets perform competitively to state-of-the-art deep convolutional networks at lower computational and parameter costs. Fourthly, we propose Stochastic Downsampling (SDPoint), a method to overcome a major limitation suffered by conventional deep convolutional networks -- their computational costs during inference are fixed and cannot be changed. SDPoint downsamples the feature maps at a randomly selected point (layer index) in the network hierarchy during training. The many downsampling configurations known as SDPoint instances each entail a unique downsampling point and downsampling ratio. The same convolutional network weights are shared across the different SDPoint instances that downsample feature maps differently. During inference, the computational cost of a network trained with SDPoint can be instantaneously adjusted to fit a given computational budget, by manually selecting an appropriate SDPoint instance. Additionally, sharing weights between different feature map scales provides significant regularization benefits, making the networks trained with SDPoint less sensitive to scales and more competent. In image classification experiments, SDPoint demonstrates significant cost-accuracy and computational advantages, over independently-trained (non-weight-shared) baselines with various inference costs.

Since radiology reports needed for clinical practice and research are written and stored in free-text narrations, extraction of relative information for further analysis is difficult. In these circumstances, natural language processing (NLP) techniques can facilitate automatic information extraction and transformation of free-text formats to structured data. In recent years, deep learning (DL)-based models have been adapted for NLP experiments with promising results. Despite the significant potential of DL models based on artificial neural networks (ANN) and convolutional neural networks (CNN), the models face some limitations to implement in clinical practice. Transformers, another new DL architecture, have been increasingly applied to improve the process. Therefore, in this study, we propose a transformer-based fine-grained named entity recognition (NER) architecture for clinical information extraction. We collected 88 abdominopelvic sonography reports in free-text formats and annotated them based on our developed information schema. The text-to-text transfer transformer model (T5) and Scifive, a pre-trained domain-specific adaptation of the T5 model, were applied for fine-tuning to extract entities and relations and transform the input into a structured format. Our transformer-based model in this study outperformed previously applied approaches such as ANN and CNN models based on ROUGE-1, ROUGE-2, ROUGE-L, and BLEU scores of 0.816, 0.668, 0.528, and 0.743, respectively, while providing an interpretable structured report.

Facial expression recognition and virtual animation character generation are crucial for animation production and human-computer interaction, but traditional models often perform poorly in complex scenes. This paper proposes a novel expression recognition and generation framework based on an improved Multi-Task Convolutional Neural Network (MTCNN), augmented by a High-Resolution Parallel Convolutional Network (HR-PCN) and Octave Convolution (OctConv). Specifically, HR-PCN enhances multi-scale feature extraction for facial keypoint detection, while OctConv improves frequency-aware representation learning. In terms of facial expression generation, Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) are adopted to model the semantic relationships between facial Action Units (AUs) and further enhanced with SE-ResNet50 for better spatial attention. The proposed MTCNN model was evaluated on the AFEW and CK+ datasets, achieving 89.70% and 93.50% accuracies, surpassing MTCNN’s 78.90% and 85.30% and SSD’s 85.40% and 90.10%. RMSE was reduced to 0.1 after 30 iterations, and inference time was kept within 40 ms/frame. For expression generation, the SE-ResNet50-GCN model attained a generation accuracy of up to 93.5%, significantly outperforming ResNet50-GCN (90.8%) and GCN (80.2%). These results validate the proposed framework’s effectiveness in improving both recognition accuracy and expression realism under complex conditions.

Coastal aquifers are vital for sustaining ecosystems and providing freshwater for agriculture and domestic use. However, rising groundwater salinity in these regions demands innovative approaches for accurate modeling and prediction. In recent decades, machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) techniques have been extensively used across various water resource management fields, often yielding promising outcomes. This review examines the growing usage of ML and DL techniques in modeling groundwater salinity in coastal aquifers. The analysis is based on 104 peer-reviewed journal articles including the review articles indexed in PubMed, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Scopus, and SpringerLink using keywords like "saltwater intrusion", "machine learning", “deep learning”, and "groundwater salinity". The review discusses recent advancements, challenges, and future directions for improving ML model accuracy and applicability. Studies reveal an increasing reliance on ML techniques to predict groundwater salinity and manage seawater intrusion across various coastal geological settings. Researchers have employed a range of ML models, from traditional methods like Artificial Neural Networks and Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference Systems to advanced DL-based models like Convolutional Neural Networks and Long Short-Term Memory Networks, often using ensemble methods to enhance accuracy. Key findings include the top-tier output of ensemble and optimized models, including Random Forest and Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm-XGBoost. These studies highlight the importance of model selection, input variable ranking, and computational efficiency, demonstrating ML's global relevance in environmental management. The review highlights the prospects of ML, DL, and ensemble models to redefine groundwater management in coastal aquifers, offering more effective and sustainable solutions to the challenges posed by groundwater salinity and saltwater intrusion. Future advancements will focus on further integrating DL, explainable artificial intelligence, and ensemble approaches, along with other innovative techniques, to explore sparsely studied variables, model new or unique study areas, and apply ML methods for managing groundwater salinity.