Advanced wood species identification based on multiple anatomical sections and using deep feature transfer and fusion

In recent years, we have seen many advancements in wood species identification. Methods like DNA analysis, Near Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, and Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART) mass spectrometry complement the long-established wood anatomical assessment of cell and tissue morphology. However, most of these methods have some limitations such as high costs, the need for skilled experts for data interpretation, and the lack of good datasets for professional reference. Therefore, most of these methods, and certainly the wood anatomical assessment, may benefit from tools based on Artificial Intelligence. In this paper, we apply two transfer learning techniques with Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to a multi-view Congolese wood species dataset including sections from different orientations and viewed at different microscopic magnifications. We explore two feature extraction methods in detail, namely Global Average Pooling (GAP) and Random Encoding of Aggregated Deep Activation Maps (RADAM), for efficient and accurate wood species identification. Our results indicate superior accuracy on diverse datasets and anatomical sections, surpassing the results of other methods. Our proposal represents a significant advancement in wood species identification, offering a robust tool to support the conservation of forest ecosystems and promote sustainable forestry practices.

Prediction of Activated Sludge Settling Characteristics from Microscopy Images with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks and Transfer Learning

Microbial communities play a key role in biological wastewater treatment processes. Activated sludge settling characteristics, for example, are affected by microbial community composition, varying by changes in operating conditions and influent characteristics of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Timely assessment and prediction of changes in microbial composition leading to settling problems, such as filamentous bulking (FB), can prevent operational challenges, reductions in treatment efficiency, and adverse environmental impacts. This study presents an innovative computer vision-based approach to assess activated sludge-settling characteristics based on the morphological properties of flocs and filaments in microscopy images. Implementing the transfer learning of deep convolutional neural network (CNN) models, this approach aims to overcome the limitations of existing quantitative image analysis techniques. The offline microscopy image dataset was collected over two years, with weekly sampling at a full-scale industrial WWTP in Belgium. Multiple data augmentation techniques were employed to enhance the generalizability of the CNN models. Various CNN architectures, including Inception v3, ResNet18, ResNet152, ConvNeXt-nano, and ConvNeXt-S, were tested to evaluate their performance in predicting sludge settling characteristics. The sludge volume index was used as the final prediction variable, but the method can easily be adjusted to predict any other settling metric of choice. The results showed that the suggested CNN-based approach provides less labour-intensive, objective, and consistent assessments, while transfer learning notably minimises the training phase, resulting in a generalizable system that can be employed in real-time applications.

RADAM: Texture Recognition through Randomized Aggregated Encoding of Deep Activation Maps

Texture analysis is a classical yet challenging task in computer vision for which deep neural networks are actively being applied. Most approaches are based on building feature aggregation modules around a pre-trained backbone and then fine-tuning the new architecture on specific texture recognition tasks. Here we propose a new method named \textbf{R}andom encoding of \textbf{A}ggregated \textbf{D}eep \textbf{A}ctivation \textbf{M}aps (RADAM) which extracts rich texture representations without ever changing the backbone. The technique consists of encoding the output at different depths of a pre-trained deep convolutional network using a Randomized Autoencoder (RAE). The RAE is trained locally to each image using a closed-form solution, and its decoder weights are used to compose a 1-dimensional texture representation that is fed into a linear SVM. This means that no fine-tuning or backpropagation is needed. We explore RADAM on several texture benchmarks and achieve state-of-the-art results with different computational budgets. Our results suggest that pre-trained backbones may not require additional fine-tuning for texture recognition if their learned representations are better encoded.

Improving Deep Neural Network Random Initialization Through Neuronal Rewiring

The deep learning literature is continuously updated with new architectures and training techniques. However, weight initialization is overlooked by most recent research, despite some intriguing findings regarding random weights. On the other hand, recent works have been approaching Network Science to understand the structure and dynamics of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) after training. Therefore, in this work, we analyze the centrality of neurons in randomly initialized networks. We show that a higher neuronal strength variance may decrease performance, while a lower neuronal strength variance usually improves it. A new method is then proposed to rewire neuronal connections according to a preferential attachment (PA) rule based on their strength, which significantly reduces the strength variance of layers initialized by common methods. In this sense, PA rewiring only reorganizes connections, while preserving the magnitude and distribution of the weights. We show through an extensive statistical analysis in image classification that performance is improved in most cases, both during training and testing, when using both simple and complex architectures and learning schedules. Our results show that, aside from the magnitude, the organization of the weights is also relevant for better initialization of deep ANNs.