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The situation in which the results of several different classifiers and learning algorithms are obtainable for a single classification problem is common. In this paper, we propose a method that takes a collection of existing classifiers and learning algorithms, together with a set of available data, and creates a combined classifier that takes advantage of all of these sources of knowledge. The basic idea is that each classifier has a particular subdomain for which it is most reliable. Therefore, we induce a referee for each classifier, which describes its area of expertise. Given such a description, we arbitrate between the component classifiers by using the most reliable classifier for the examples in each subdomain. In experiments in several domains, we found such arbitration to be significantly more effective than various voting techniques which do not seek out subdomains of expertise. Our results further suggest that the more fine grained the analysis of the areas of expertise of the competing classifiers, the more effectively they can be combined. In particular, we find that classification accuracy increases greatly when using intermediate subconcepts from the classifiers themselves as features for the induction of referees.

This paper presents a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm to optimize radial basis function neural networks (RBFNNs) in order to approach target functions from a set of input-output pairs. The procedure allows the application of heuristics to improve the solution of the problem at hand by including some new genetic operators in the evolutionary process. These new operators are based on two well-known matrix transformations: singular value decomposition (SVD) and orthogonal least squares (OLS), which have been used to define new mutation operators that produce local or global modifications in the radial basis functions (RBFs) of the networks (the individuals in the population in the evolutionary procedure). After analyzing the efficiency of the different operators, we have shown that the global mutation operators yield an improved procedure to adjust the parameters of the RBFNNs.

This paper proposes a framework for constructing and training a radial basis function (RBF) neural network. For this purpose, a sequential learning algorithm is presented to adapt the structure of the network, in which it is possible to create a new hidden unit and also to detect and remove inactive units. The structure of the Gaussian functions is modi"ed using a pseudoGaussian function (PG) in which two scaling parameters are introduced, which eliminates the symmetry restriction and provides the neurons in the hidden layer with greater #exibility with respect to function approximation. Other important characteristics of the proposed neural system are that the activation of the hidden neurons is normalized which, as described in the bibliography, provides a better performance than nonnormalization and instead of using a single parameter for the output weights, these are functions of the input variables which leads to a signi"cant reduction in the number of hidden units compared to the classical RBF network. Finally, we examine the result of applying the proposed algorithm to time series prediction.

Feature selection is an important and active issue in clustering and classification problems. By choosing an adequate feature subset, a dataset dimensionality reduction is allowed, thus contributing to decreasing the classification computational complexity, and to improving the classifier performance by avoiding redundant or irrelevant features. Although feature selection can be formally defined as an optimisation problem with only one objective, that is, the classification accuracy obtained by using the selected feature subset, in recent years, some multi-objective approaches to this problem have been proposed. These either select features that not only improve the classification accuracy, but also the generalisation capability in case of supervised classifiers, or counterbalance the bias toward lower or higher numbers of features that present some methods used to validate the clustering/classification in case of unsupervised classifiers. The main contribution of this paper is a multi-objective approach for feature selection and its application to an unsupervised clustering procedure based on Growing Hierarchical Self-Organising Maps (GHSOMs) that includes a new method for unit labelling and efficient determination of the winning unit. In the network anomaly detection problem here considered, this multiobjective approach makes it possible not only to differentiate between normal and anomalous traffic but also among different anomalies. The efficiency of our proposals has been evaluated by using the well-known DARPA/NSL-KDD datasets that contain extracted features and labelled attacks from around 2 million connections. The selected feature sets computed in our experiments provide detection rates up to 99.8% with normal traffic and up to 99.6% with anomalous traffic, as well as accuracy values up to 99.12%.

The growth of the Internet and, consequently, the number of interconnected computers, has exposed significant amounts of information to intruders and attackers. Firewalls aim to detect violations according to a predefined rule-set and usually block potentially dangerous incoming traffic. However, with the evolution of attack techniques, it is more difficult to distinguish anomalies from normal traffic. Different detection approaches have been proposed, including the use of machine learning techniques based on neural models such as Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs). In this paper, we present a classification approach that hybridizes statistical techniques and SOM for network anomaly detection. Thus, while Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Fisher Discriminant Ratio (FDR) have been considered for feature selection and noise removal, Probabilistic Self-Organizing Maps (PSOM) aim to model the feature space and enable distinguishing between normal and anomalous connections.

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