An adaptive nonlinear signal-filtering model of the cochlea is proposed based on the functional properties of the inner ear. The model consists of the cochlear filtering segments taking into account the longitudinal, transverse and radial pressure wave propagation. On the basis of an analytical description of different parts of the model and the results of computer modeling, the biological significance of the nonlinearity of signal transduction processes in the outer hair cells, their role in signal compression and adaptation, the efferent control over the characteristics of the filtering structures (frequency selectivity and sensitivity) are explained. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the cochlea of the inner ear, outer hair cells (OHC) together with the local passive structures of the tectorial and basilar membranes comprise non-linear resonance circuits with the local and central (afferent–efferent) feedback. The characteristics of these circuits and their control possibilities depend on the mechanomotility of the OHC. The main element of our functional model of the OHC is the mechanomotility circuit with the general transfer characteristic y = k tanh(x − a). The parameter k of this characteristic reflects the axial stiffness of the OHC, and the parameter a working position of the hair bundle. The efferent synaptic signals act on the parameter k directly and on the parameter a indirectly through changes in the membrane potential. The dependences of the sensitivity and selectivity on changes in the parameters a and k are obtained by the computer simulation. Functioning of the model at low-level input signals is linear. Due to the non-linearity of the transfer characteristic of the mechanomotility circuit the high-level signals are compressed. For the adaptation and efferent control, however, the transfer characteristic with respect to the initial operating point should be asymmetrical (a > 0). The asymmetry relies on the deflection of the hair bundle from the axis of the OHC.

Various intelligent systems show a rapidly growing potential use of visual information processing technologies. This paper presents an example of employing visual information processing technologies for detecting and measuring rings in banknote images. The size of the rings is one of parameters used to inspect the banknote printing quality. The approach developed consists of two phases. In the first phase, based on histogram processing and data clustering, image areas containing rings are localized and edges of the rings are detected. Then, in the second phase, applying the hard and possibilistic spherical shell clustering to the extracted edge pixels the ring centre and radii are estimated. The experimental investigations performed have shown that even highly occluded rings are robustly detected. Several prototypes of the system developed have been installed in two banknote printing shops in Europe. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the present paper, referring to known characteristics of the outer hair cells functioning in the cochlea of the inner ear, a functional model of the outer hair cells is constructed. It consists of a linear feed-forward circuit and a non-linear positive feedback circuit. The feed-forward circuit reflects the contribution of local basilar and tectorial membrane areas and passive outer hair cells’ physical parameters to the forming of low-selectivity resonance characteristics. The non-linear positive feedback circuit reflects the non-linear outer hair cell signal transduction processes and the active role of efferents from the medial superior olive in altering circuit sensitivity and selectivity.

Referring to an analytical description of the circuit model and computer simulation results, an explanation is given over the biological meaning of the outer hair cells’ non-linearities in signal transduction processes and the role of the non-linearities in achieving the following: signal compression, the dependency of circuit sensitivity and frequency selectivity upon the input signal amplitude, the compatibility of high-frequency selectivity and short transient response of the biological filtering circuits.

Speck count is increasingly used as a parameter to assess the quality of secondary fibre pulps. The resolution of most of the commercial image analysis systems is too low for detecting small specks. Therefore, small specks are not taken into consideration when using conventional image analysis systems to assess pulp quality. We have recently developed a colour speck counter which can detect specks ranging in size from ∼5 to 300 μm. In this paper, we present the results of experimental investigations related to the use of the speck counter to assess the dirt level in secondary fibre pulps. We assume an exponential speck size distribution and advocate the idea of using the scale parameter λ of the distribution to characterize the size content of a set of specks detected. Experimental investigations performed have shown that the scale parameter, together with the expected speck area and the speck number, can be used to characterize and rank secondary fibre pulps according to dirt level and the dirt-size distribution.

In this paper, an approach to weighting features for classification based on the nearest-neighbour rules is proposed. The weights are adaptive in the sense that the weight values are different in various regions of the feature space. The values of the weights are found by performing a random search in the weight space. A correct classification rate is the criterion maximised during the search. Experimentally, we have shown that the proposed approach is useful for classification. The weight values obtained during the experiments show that the importance of features may be different in different regions of the feature space

In this paper, we present an approach to neural modelling and control of the offset lithographic printing process. A committee of neural networks is trained to measure the printing process output - the observable variables. From only one measurement the trained committee is capable of estimating the actual relative amount of each cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks dispersed on paper in the measuring area. The obtained measurements are then further used by a neural model predictive control unit for generating control signals to compensate for colour deviation in offset newspaper printing. The experimental investigations performed have shown that the system developed achieves a higher printing process control accuracy than that usually obtained by the press operator.

We present a neural network based approach for identifying salient features for classification in neural network committees. Our approach involves neural network training with an augmented cross-entropy error function. The augmented error function forces the neural network to keep low derivatives of the transfer functions of neurons of the network when learning a classification task. Feature selection is based on two criteria, namely the reaction of the cross-validation data set classification error due to the removal of the individual features and the diversity of neural networks comprising the committee. The algorithm developed removed a large number of features from the original data sets without reducing the classification accuracy of the committees. By contrast, the accuracy of the committees utilizing the reduced feature sets was higher than those exploiting all the original features. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.

We present a neural network based approach for identifying salient features for classification in neural network committees. Our approach involves neural network training with an augmented cross-entropy error function. The augmented error function forces the neural network to keep low derivatives of the transfer functions of neurons of the network when learning a classification task. Such an approach reduces output sensitivity to the input changes. Feature selection is based on the reaction of the cross-validation data set classification error due to the removal of the individual features. We compared the approach with two other neural network based feature selection methods. The algorithm developed outperformed the methods by achieving a higher classification accuracy on three real world problems tested. ©2002 IEEE

To improve recognition results, decisions of multiple neural networks can be aggregated into a committee decision. In contrast to the ordinary approach of utilizing all neural networks available to make a committee decision, we propose creating adaptive committees, which are specific for each input data point. A prediction network is used to identify classification neural networks to be fused for making a committee decision about a given input data point. The jth output value of the prediction network expresses the expectation level that the jth classification neural network will make a correct decision about the class label of a given input data point. The proposed technique is tested in three aggregation schemes, namely majority vote, averaging, and aggregation by the median rule and compared with the ordinary neural networks fusion approach. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated on two artificial and three real data sets.