Abstract:
A fundamental problem in limnology and oceanography is the inability to quickly
identify and map distributions of plankton. This thesis addresses the problem by
applying statistical machine learning to video images collected by an optical sampler,
the Video Plankton Recorder (VPR). The research is focused on development
of a real-time automatic plankton recognition system to estimate plankton abundance.
The system includes four major components: pattern representation/feature
measurement, feature extraction/selection, classification, and abundance estimation.
After an extensive study on a traditional learning vector quantization (LVQ)
neural network (NN) classifier built on shape-based features and different pattern
representation methods, I developed a classification system combined multi-scale cooccurrence matrices feature with support vector machine classifier. This new method
outperforms the traditional shape-based-NN classifier method by 12% in classification
accuracy. Subsequent plankton abundance estimates are improved in the regions of
low relative abundance by more than 50%.
Both the NN and SVM classifiers have no rejection metrics. In this thesis, two
rejection metrics were developed. One was based on the Euclidean distance in the
feature space for NN classifier. The other used dual classifier (NN and SVM) voting as
output. Using the dual-classification method alone yields almost as good abundance
estimation as human labeling on a test-bed of real world data. However, the distance
rejection metric for NN classifier might be more useful when the training samples are
not “good” ie, representative of the field data.
In summary, this thesis advances the current state-of-the-art plankton recognition
system by demonstrating multi-scale texture-based features are more suitable
for classifying field-collected images. The system was verified on a very large realworld
dataset in systematic way for the first time. The accomplishments include developing a multi-scale occurrence matrices and support vector machine system, a dual-classification system, automatic correction in abundance estimation, and ability to get accurate abundance estimation from real-time automatic classification. The methods developed are generic and are likely to work on range of other image classification applications.
