We study diversity in classifier ensembles from a broader perspectivethan the 0/1 loss function, the main reason being that the bias-variance decomposition of the 0/1 loss function is not unique, and therefore the relationship between ensemble accuracy and diversity is still unc…
We study the nature of filter methods for feature selection. In particular, we examine information theoretic approaches to this problem, looking at the literature over the past 20 years. We consider this literature from a different perspective, by viewing feature selection as a …
Like many terms that appear ubiquitously across both technical and popular discourses, style is an unstable concept. For students of music, the term is perhaps most unambiguous when it refers to the style periods broadly associated with different approaches to tonality: the Baro…
Uncovering the mechanisms by which nature exhibits emergent patterns and behaviors has been an intellectual ambition throughout history. A worthwhile approach is the design of systems whereby emergence and complexity occur organically and without a central controller—as to mimic…
This dissertation defends the so-called 'agency-approach' to causation, which attempts to ground the causal relation in the cause's role of being a means to bring about its effect. The defence is confined to a conceptual interpretation of this theory, pertaining to the concept o…
Landscapes and sedimentary records host important information about the evolutionary history of the Earth and other planetary bodies. The successful extraction of such information from the preserved record requires a comprehensive understanding of the encoding, propagation, and …
The overarching purpose of the studies presented in this report is the exploration of the uses of information theory and Bayesian inference applied to neural codes. Two approaches were taken: Starting from first principles, a coding mechanism is proposed, the results are compare…
Can the California grid support 100% renewables and 100% EVs? Rigorous analysis in this area says the answer is yes, but this would require large energy storage and charging EVs during the day. Doubling green energy imports, such as Canadian hydro, will be also required. This th…
From the airport security guard monitoring luggage to the rushed commuter looking for their car keys, visual search is one of the most common requirements of our visual system. Despite its ubiquity, many aspects of visual search remain unaccounted for by computational models. Di…