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Optimum-Path Forest
Theory, Algorithms, and Applications
FIRST EDITION
Alexandre Xavier Falcão
João Paulo Papa

Table of Contents
Cover image
Title page
Copyright
Dedication
List of contributors
Biography of the editors
João Paulo Papa
Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction
Abstract
References
Chapter 2: Theoretical background and related works
Abstract
Acknowledgements
2.1. Introduction
2.2. The optimum-path forest framework
2.3. Applications
2.4. Conclusions and future trends
References
Chapter 3: Real-time application of OPF-based classifier in Snort IDS
Abstract
Acknowledgements
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Intrusion detection systems
3.3. Machine learning
3.4. Methodology
3.5. Experiments and results
3.6. Final considerations
References
Chapter 4: Optimum-path forest and active learning approaches for
content-based medical image retrieval
Abstract
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Methodology
4.3. Experiments
4.4. Conclusion
4.5. Funding and acknowledgments
References
Chapter 5: Hybrid and modified OPFs for intrusion detection

systems and large-scale problems
Abstract
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Modified OPF-based IDS using unsupervised learning and

social network concept
5.3. Hybrid IDS using unsupervised OPF based on MapReduce

approach
5.4. Hybrid IDS using modified OPF and selected features
5.5. Modified OPF using Markov cluster process algorithm
5.6. Modified OPF based on coreset concept
5.7. Enhancement of MOPF using k-medoids algorithm

References
Chapter 6: Detecting atherosclerotic plaque calcifications of the

carotid artery through optimum-path forest
Abstract
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Theoretical background
6.3. Methodology
6.4. Experimental results
6.5. Conclusions and future works
References
Chapter 7: Learning to weight similarity measures with Siamese

networks: a case study on optimum-path forest
Abstract
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Theoretical background
7.3. Methodology
7.5. Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: An iterative optimum-path forest framework for
clustering
Abstract
Acknowledgements
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Related work
8.3. The iterative optimum-path forest framework
8.5. Conclusions and future work
References
Chapter 9: Future trends in optimum-path forest classification
Abstract
References
Index
Copyright
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Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing.
As new research and experience broaden our understanding,
changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical
treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own
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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-12-822688-9
For information on all Academic Press publications visit our

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Typeset by VTeX
Dedication
To God, my wife, Daiane, and my sons, Bento and Mateo (coming

soon). Last but not least, to my father, Mauro (In memoriam), to my
mother, Maria, to my sisters, and the whole family.
João Paulo Papa
I would like to dedicate this work to my mother, Darcy, wife Paula,

daughter, Clara, and son, Pedro.

List of contributors
Luis C.S. Afonso UNESP – São Paulo State University, School of
Sciences, Bauru, Brazil
David Aparco-Cardenas Institute of Computing, University of
Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
Hamid Bostani
Young Researchers and Elite Club, South Tehran Branch, Islamic
Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Digital Security Group, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The
Netherlands
Rafael S. Bressan Department of Computing, Federal University
of Technology – Parana, Cornelio Procopio, Brazil
Pedro H. Bugatti Department of Computing, Federal University of
Technology – Parana, Cornelio Procopio, Brazil
Kelton Costa São Paulo State University, Department of
Computing, Bauru, Brazil
Pedro Jussieu de Rezende Institute of Computing, University of
Gustavo H. de Rosa Department of Computing, São Paulo State
University, Bauru, Brazil
Luis A. de Souza Jr. Department of Computing, São Carlos
Federal University, São Carlos, Brazil
Alexandre Xavier Falcão Institute of Computing, University of
Danilo Samuel Jodas Department of Computing, São Paulo State
João Paulo Papa
UNESP – São Paulo State University, School of Sciences, Bauru,
Brazil
Department of Computing, São Paulo State University, Bauru, Brazil
Leandro Aparecido Passos Department of Computing, São Paulo
State University, Bauru, Brazil
Rafael Pires Department of Computing, São Paulo State
Mateus Roder Department of Computing, São Paulo State
Priscila T.M. Saito Department of Computing, Federal University
of Technology – Parana, Cornelio Procopio, Brazil
Rafał Scherer Czestochowa University of Technology, Department
of Computing, Częstochowa, Poland
Mansour Sheikhan Department of Electrical Engineering, South
Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Marcos Cleison Silva Santana Department of Computing, São
Paulo State University, Bauru, Brazil
Luan Utimura São Paulo State University, Department of
Computing, Bauru, Brazil
Biography of the editors

Alexandre Xavier Falcão (lids.ic.unicamp.br) is a full professor at the
Institute of Computing (IC), University of Campinas (Unicamp),
where he has worked since 1998.
He attended the Federal University of Pernambuco from 1984–
1988, where he received a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering. He then
attended Unicamp, where he got an M.Sc. (1993), and a Ph.D. (1996),
in Electrical Engineering, by working on volumetric data
visualization and medical image segmentation. During his Ph.D., he
worked with the Medical Image Processing Group at the University
of Pennsylvania from 1994–1996. In 1997, he developed video quality
assessment methods for Globo TV. In 2011–2012, he spent a one-year
sabbatical at the Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health
(USDA, Cornell University), working on image analysis applied to
plant biology.
He served as Associate Director of IC-Unicamp (2006–2007),
Coordinator of its Post-Graduation Program (2009–2011), and Senior
Area Editor of IEEE Signal Processing Letters (2016–2020). He is
currently a research fellow at the top level for the Brazilian National
Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq),
President of the Special Commission of Computer Graphics and
Image Processing (CEGRAPI) for the Brazilian Computer Society
(SBC), and Area Coordinator of Computer Science for the Sao Paulo
Research Foundation (FAPESP).
Among several awards, it is worth mentioning three Unicamp
inventor awards at the category ”License Technology” (2011, 2012,
and 2020), three awards of academic excellence (2006, 2011, 2016)
from IC-Unicamp, one award of academic recognition ”Zeferino
Vaz” from Unicamp (2014), and the best paper award in the year of
2012 from the journal “Pattern Recognition” (received at Stockholm,
Sweden, during the conference ICPR 2014).
His research work aims at computational models to learn and
interpret the semantic content of images in the domain of several
applications. The areas of interest include image and video
processing, data visualization, medical image analysis, remote
sensing, graph algorithms, image annotation, organization, and
retrieval, and (interactive) machine learning and pattern recognition
(https://scholar.google.com/citations?
user=HTFEUaUAAAAJ&hl=en).
João Paulo Papa

João Paulo Papa received his B.Sc. in Information Systems from the
São Paulo State University, SP, Brazil. In 2005, he received his M.Sc.
in Computer Science from the Federal University of São Carlos, SP,
Brazil. In 2008, he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the
University of Campinas, SP, Brazil. During 2008–2009, he had
worked as a post-doctorate researcher at the same institute, and
during 2014–2015 he worked as a visiting scholar at Harvard
University. He has been an Associate Professor at the Computer
Science Department, São Paulo, State University, since 2016, and his
research interests include machine learning, pattern recognition, and
image processing. He is also the recipient of the Alexander von
Humboldt fellowship and an IEEE Senior Member.
Among several awards, it is worth mentioning the best paper
award in the year of 2012 from the journal “Pattern Recognition”
(received at Stockholm, Sweden, during the conference ICPR 2014,
and the Unicamp inventor award at the category ”License
Technology” in 2019.
He is currently a research fellow for the Brazilian National Council
for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Senior Area
Editor of IEEE Signal Processing Letters, Brazilian representative at
the International Association for Pattern Recognition, and Associate
Editor for the following journals: Computers in Biology and
Medicine, SN Computer Science. He is also member of the advisory
board of the Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering.
Preface
The Optimum-Path Forest (OPF) story dates back to 2004 with a
paper called “The image foresting transform: Theory, algorithms,
and applications” published on the well-known IEEE Transactions
on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IEEE PAMI for short.
The Image Foresting Transform (IFT) came up to deal with image
analysis based on the comprehensive framework provided by Graph
Theory. By modeling pixels as graph nodes and establishing a
proper adjacency relation, IFT became a powerful tool for multiscale
skeletonization, distance transforms, morphological reconstructions,
and image segmentation.
A mindful reader may be aware that a fine line separates image
segmentation from image classification. Pixels become feature
vectors and segmenting an object turns out to be classifying
(labeling) its pixels accordingly. Half a decade later, in 2009, one of
the most prominent papers concerning the OPF was published.
What followed then was many papers that either tried to apply OPF
on a different application or to improve its learning procedure.
Remote sensing, medicine, speech recognition, and engineering are
just a few applications that benefited from the OPF framework.
Now the family has grown. The reader can find supervised,
semisupervised, and unsupervised variants of the OPF classifier. For
sure, deep learning has not been forgotten. Papers have shown how
to replace softmax layers with an OPF classifier with considerably
higher accuracies. We tried, in this book, to provide a complete
workflow of OPF history, i.e., we refreshed our minds with an
exciting survey of works and a brief theoretical background to open
the reader's mind to the OPF world. We hope this book will serve as
introductory and advanced material so that newcomers and
experienced researchers can take advantage of the OPF capabilities.
As we usually say, OPF is not a classifier but a framework for
designing classifiers based on optimum-path forest. By just changing
some pieces, you can design your own OPF classifier and enjoy it!
Which one are you going to pick?
The authors
Chapter 1: Introduction
Alexandre Xavier Falcãoa; João Paulo Papab aInstitute of Computing,
University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
b
UNESP – São Paulo State University, School of Sciences, Bauru, Brazil
Abstract
Pattern recognition techniques have been consistently applied in
various domains, ranging from remote sensing and medicine to
engineering, among others. The literature is vast and dominated
mainly by Neural Networks in the past, followed by Support
Vector Machines, and recently by the so-called “Deep Learning”
approaches. However, there is always room for improvements
and novel techniques, for there is no approach that can lead to
the best results in all situations. This chapter introduces this
book, which concerns the Optimum-Path Forest, a framework
for designing graph-based classifiers based on optimum
connectivity among samples. We highlight new ideas and
applications throughout the book, and future trends will foster
the related literature in the following years.
Keywords
Optimum-path forest; machine learning; pattern recognition;
clustering; computer vision
Pattern recognition techniques have been consistently applied in a
broad range of domains, varying from remote sensing and medicine
to engineering, among others. The literature is vast and dominated
mainly by Neural Networks [1] in the past, followed by Support
Vector Machines [2], and recently by the so-called “Deep Learning”
approaches [3]. These latter techniques shifted the way we think
about problem engineering. Instead of handcrafting features, we can
use raw data to feed models that learn the best information that the
data describes. On the other hand, we need considerably large data
sets to train the models, which are not always available.
According to the well-known “No Free Lunch Paradigm,” there is
no single technique that shall fit better in all situations and data sets.
Motivated by such assumption, Papa et al. [4] presented the first
version of the supervised Optimum-Path Forest (OPF) classifier,
which models data classification as a graph partition problem. The
nodes denote samples (i.e., feature vectors) while edges encode the
strength of connectivity among them. The idea is to partition the
graph into optimum-path trees (OPTs) such that examples from the
same class belong to the same tree. Representative samples called
“prototypes” are the roots of such OPTs, and they rule the
competition process that ends up partitioning the data set. The
approach proposed in 2017 showed to be robust and fast for training,
besides being parameterless.1
We prefer to understand OPF as a framework for designing
classifiers based on optimum-path forests rather than a sole
classifier. The rationale behind that concerns the fact that OPF is
customizable and, therefore, different versions are obtained by
choosing a few hyperparameters. The first one is related to the
adjacency relation, which is usually set to a complete graph or a k-nn
model. Usually, the latter approach provides an intrinsic
representation of the data set as a whole, but it comes with the price
of computing the k-nearest neighbors for each example. In 2008,
Papa and Falcão [5] proposed the first supervised OPF based on such
neighborhood formulation, with results that outperformed standard
OPF in some situations. The second hyperparameter stands for the
methodology to estimate prototypes. A simple and not effective
approach is to pick some at random, but initial experiments have
shown us that it may lead to poor generalization over unseen
examples. Throughout the book, the reader can observe that
different approaches can be used to find prototypes, each depending
on the preliminary information we have from the data set. Last but
not least, the competition process is, essentially, an optimization
problem. Therefore, a path-cost function must be adopted to guide
the OPF training algorithm into finding a suitable partition of the
feature space.
New problems require adaptations. In 2009, Rocha et al. [6]
proposed the unsupervised OPF. In the absence of labels, the
approach proposed by Papa et al. [7] in the very same year is no
longer possible since it requires information form labels beforehand.
On the contrary, unsupervised OPF aims at finding regions with the
highest density such that prototypes are then picked from these
places. In this version, both nodes and arcs are weighted, and a k-
neighborhood relation is used to compute a probability density
function over each training sample. Semisupervised learning has
also been addressed in work by Amorim et al. [8], in which
unlabeled training samples are employed to improve classification.
After a considerable number of publications since its first
publication, we observed that supervised OPF with a complete
graph could improve during training. In 2012, Papa et al. [9]
published such an improvement that sorts training samples
according to their costs, i.e., examples with the lowest costs are
placed on the first positions of the list. When a test sample appears
to be classified, we start evaluating the training samples placed in
the first positions first.2 From beyond this point, we could observe
OPF has gained popularity around the globe.
The k-neighborhood adjacency relation was further explored by
Papa et al. [10]. Inspired by the unsupervised OPF [6], this version
also weights nodes and arcs, and prototypes placed at the top of
regions with maximum density begin the competition process. This
approach's restriction is to estimate the value of k, which is usually
accomplished over a validating set [11]. Besides, we observed that
ensembles of OPF classifiers composed of versions with different
modelings for the adjacency relation could improve effectiveness
[12].
Speaking about ensembles, we can refer to some interesting
works. Ponti and Papa [13] showed that both OPF training time and
accuracy could be enhanced when trained over disjoint training sets.
Later on, Ponti and Rossi [14] demonstrated that one could reduce
training sets using ensembles of OPF-based classifiers. The subject of
reducing training sets has been of considerable importance. In 2010,
Papa et al. [15] proposed an approach aiming to obtain reduced but
relevant training sets. The idea is to use a validation set to mark
training samples that did not participate in any classification
process. These samples are thought to be irrelevant, and thus they
can be discarded from the learning step. Years later, Fernandes and
Papa [16] proposed a similar approach, but to deal with tie zones,
i.e., regions in the feature space that contain test samples that have
been offered equal costs from training samples during the
competition process. Let and be the cost that training
samples A and B offered to a given test sample x, respectively, such
that . We addressed the following question in this work:
if , is there any way to measure both samples'
confidence A and B such that B is preferable to A when conquering
x? In other words, we aim to learn a confidence measure for each
training sample such that the most reliable samples are prone to
conquer others, not only the ones that offer the best (i.e., minimum)
cost.
There are many other interesting works related to OPF-based
classifiers we can refer to. Obviously, there are quite a few
shortcomings that are not yet addressed, such as dealing with sparse
and high-dimensional feature spaces, among others. On the other
hand, OPF has shown to guide Convolutional Neural Networks into
better results using semisupervised learning in work by Amorim et
al. [17], which aimed at coping with the problem of soybean leaf and
herbivorous pest identification.
The main idea of this book is to shed light on recent advances in
the context of optimum-path forest-based classification and to
provide a concise review of the literature from the past years. We
p p y
hope this book can also serve as a document to undergraduate and
graduate levels, as well as senior researchers. The book comprises
applications on several domains, such as intrusion detection in
computer networks, active and metric learning, and medicine-driven
problems.
References
[1] S. Haykin, Neural Networks: A Comprehensive Foundation. 3rd
edition Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc.;
2007.
[2] C. Cortes, V. Vapnik, Support vector networks, Machine
Learning 1995;20:273–297.
[3] Y. LeCun, Y. Bengio, G.E. Hinton, Deep learning, Nature
2015;521(7553):436–444.
[4] J. Papa, A. Falcão, P. Miranda, C. Suzuki, N. Mascarenhas,
Design of robust pattern classifiers based on optimum-path
forests, Mathematical Morphology and Its Applications to Signal
and Image Processing (ISMM). MCT/INPE; 2007:337–348.
[5] J.P. Papa, A.X. Falcão, A new variant of the optimum-path
forest classifier, G. Bebis, R. Boyle, B. Parvin, D. Koracin, P.
Remagnino, F. Porikli, J. Peters, J. Klosowski, L. Arns, Y.
Chun, T.-M. Rhyne, L. Monroe, eds. Advances in Visual
Computing. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer Berlin
Heidelberg; 2008;vol. 5358:935–944.
[6] L.M. Rocha, F.A.M. Cappabianco, A.X. Falcão, Data
clustering as an optimum-path forest problem with
applications in image analysis, International Journal of Imaging
Systems and Technology 2009;19(2):50–68.
[7] J.P. Papa, A.X. Falcão, C.T.N. Suzuki, Supervised pattern
classification based on optimum-path forest, International
Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology 2009;19(2):120–131.
[8] W.P. Amorim, A.X. Falcão, J.P. Papa, M.H. Carvalho,
Improving semi-supervised learning through optimum
connectivity, Pattern Recognition 2016;60:72–85.
[9] J.P. Papa, A.X. Falcão, V.H.C. Albuquerque, J.M.R.S.
Tavares, Efficient supervised optimum-path forest
classification for large datasets, Pattern Recognition
2012;45(1):512–520.
[10] J.P. Papa, S.E.N. Fernandes, A.X. Falcão, Optimum-path
forest based on k-connectivity: theory and applications,
Pattern Recognition Letters 2017;87:117–126.
[11] J.P. Papa, A.X. Falcão, A learning algorithm for the
optimum-path forest classifier, A. Torsello, F. Escolano, L.
Brun, eds. Graph-Based Representations in Pattern Recognition.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer Berlin Heidelberg;
2009;vol. 5534:195–204.
[12] P.B. Ribeiro, J.P. Papa, R.A.F. Romero, An ensemble-based
approach for breast mass classification in mammography
images, SPIE Medical Imaging. 2017:101342N-1–101342N-8.
[13] M.P. Ponti, J.P. Papa, Improving accuracy and speed of
optimum-path forest classifier using combination of disjoint
training subsets, C. Sansone, J. Kittler, F. Roli, eds. Multiple
Classifier Systems. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin
Heidelberg; 2011:237–248.
[14] M.P. Ponti, I. Rossi, Ensembles of optimum-path forest
classifiers using input data manipulation and
undersampling, Z.-H. Zhou, F. Roli, J. Kittler, eds. Multiple
Classifier Systems. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin
Heidelberg; 2013:236–246.
[15] J. Papa, A. Falcão, G. de Freitas, A. Avila, Robust pruning of
training patterns for optimum-path forest classification
applied to satellite-based rainfall occurrence estimation,
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters 2010;7(2):396–400.
[16] S.E.N. Fernandes, J.P. Papa, Improving optimum-path forest
learning using bag-of-classifiers and confidence measures,
Pattern Analysis & Applications 2019;22:703–716.
[17] W. Amorim, E. Tetila, H. Pistori, J. Papa, Semi-supervised
learning with convolutional neural networks for uav images
automatic recognition, Computers and Electronics in
Agriculture 2019;164, 104932.
g
1
“The authors are grateful to Celso Tetsuo Nagase Suzuki for his
former implementation of the OPF classifier.”
2
“The authors are grateful to Thiago Spina for his ideas and
insightful comments on this work.”
Chapter 2: Theoretical
background and related works
Luis C.S. Afonsoa; Alexandre Xavier Falcãob; João Paulo Papaa aUNESP –
São Paulo State University, School of Sciences, Bauru, Brazil
b
Institute of Computing, University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas,
São Paulo, Brazil
Abstract
The Optimum-Path Forest (OPF) is a framework for the design
of graph-based classifiers, which covers supervised,
semisupervised, and unsupervised applications. The OPF is
mainly characterized by its low training and classification times
as well as competitive results against well-established machine
learning techniques, such as Support Vector Machine and
Artificial Neural Networks. Besides, the framework allows the
design of different approaches based on the problem itself,
which means a specific OPF-based classifier can be built for a
given particular task. This paper surveyed several works
published in the past years concerning OPF-based classifiers
and sheds light on future trends concerning such a framework
in the context of the deep learning era.
Keywords
Optimum-path forest; image-forest transform; pattern recognition;
machine learning
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to FAPESP grants #2013/07375-0,
#2014/12236-1, #2017/ 25908-6, #2018/21934-5, and #2019/07665-4,
CNPq grants #307066/2017-7 and #427968/2018-6. This study was
financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal
de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001.
2.1 Introduction
Pattern recognition (PR) techniques have been widely employed to
solve different and complex problems in many research fields. The
motivation in the development of such techniques is to perform
recognition tasks more accurately, faster, or just to aid in the
mechanical and repetitive ones [142]. The basic idea behind PR
techniques is to compute a model capable of classifying unknown
samples by a learning data distribution over the feature space. The
learning process requires a training set that might carry information
(i.e., label) that helps to minimize the classification error in the
training set. Therefore, the existence or not of such labeled training
data creates three fundamental problems in pattern recognition: (i)
supervised, (ii) unsupervised, and more recently the (iii)
semisupervised learning [102].
Supervised learning-based algorithms take advantage of a fully
labeled data set, which enables to build more robust models.
Artificial Neural Networks using Multi-Layer Perceptrons (ANN-
MLP) [87], Support Vector Machines (SVM) [26], and Bayesian
classifier (BC) [96] figure among the most popular ones. Although
well-established in the literature, the mentioned classifiers have their
drawbacks, such as to find an optimum set of parameters for better
accuracy rates, computational cost, and especially the difficult to
handle nonseparable classes in the feature space. For instance, ANN-
MLP could have its performance improved if more layers are added,
but that comes with the increase of computational cost. Nonlinear
problems require SVM to map data into higher-dimensional spaces,
which also makes the method costly, and BC makes a decision based
on the probability density of each class. If such information is not
available, one must be estimated, besides assuming independence
among features.
In the opposite way, unsupervised problems do not have any
labeled information regarding the training samples at their disposal,
which makes the learning task more difficult. Hence, the
fundamental problem in unsupervised learning is to identify clusters
in an unlabeled data set, such that samples from the same cluster
should share some level of similarity. Many methods were proposed
where the learning problem is addressed with different perspectives,
such as data clustering and density estimation, just to mention a few
[231]. Self-Organizing Maps and k-means figure among the most
common unsupervised algorithms. Self-Organizing Maps (SOM)
[101] is a very popular unsupervised neural-network model for the
analysis of high-dimensional input data. Difficulties in using SOM
comprise to define the map size, which is related to the number of
input data, and hierarchical representations are hard to be identified
[205]. The k-means [95] is one of the simplest clustering algorithms
that partitions data in an iterative fashion using k-centroids. The
parameter k is defined a priori, which is not a straightforward task.
Also, its random initialization has a considerable impact on the final
result, besides assuming the clusters have a spherical shape.
Semisupervised learning is a more recent problem in pattern
recognition [88]. Many of the real-world problems have an
incredibly high amount of data and label it completely is very much
costly. Therefore, the training set is comprised of labeled and
unlabeled samples, which requires a three-step training process: (i)
training using the labeled data, (ii) propagating the labels to the
unlabeled training data, and (iii) training using the fully labeled
training set. Generative models are referred to as the oldest
semisupervised learning technique. The technique builds a model
based on the input data distribution and may fail if the model is
computed incorrectly or the input data is not correlated with the
classification task. Approaches such as transductive or
semisupervised SVMs may fail when the classes are strongly
overlapped since they assume a high density within a class and low
density among classes [189].
Graph-based machine learning techniques have their appeal as
well. Basically, such methods model the machine learning task as a
problem formulated in the Graph Theory: the data set samples,
which are represented by their corresponding feature vectors, are
encoded by the graph nodes, that are further connected by an
adjacency relation. Without loss of generality, a graph-based method
aims at removing or adding edges using some heuristic to create
connected components, which stand for a group of samples that
share similar characteristics [29].
The Optimum-Path Forest (OPF) is a framework for the design of
graph-based classifiers, and comprises three models: (i) supervised
[146,150,153,155], (ii) semisupervised [19,20], and (iii) unsupervised
[212]. The traditional OPF algorithm models samples as the nodes of
a graph, which are connected to each other based on some
predefined adjacency relation. Learning and classification phases are
carried out by a competition-based process ruled by a few “key”
samples called prototypes, which are responsible for conquering the
remaining samples by offering them optimum-path costs. The
outcome of such a process is a set of optimum-path trees (forest),
each rooted at a different prototype. As to be further discussed, the
set of prototypes are defined based on the model employed.
Although being a recent approach, OPF has been applied in
numerous applications, such as network security, image and video
analysis, and disease identification, just to mention a few. Moreover,
it has shown competitive accuracy rates, outperforming some well-
known and state-of-art classifiers (e.g., SVM, k-NN, and BC). OPF-
based classifiers are quite fast in both training and classification
process since it does not interpret pattern recognition problems as a
separating hyperplanes task [148]. However, to the best of our
knowledge, we have not observed any survey concerning OPF-based
classifiers up-to-date. Therefore, the main contributions of this paper
are two-fold:
• To provide a survey concerning OPF-based classifiers and a
wide spectrum of the problems that applied them;
• To shed a light over OPF-based classifiers by compiling the
theory behind them.
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2.2 provides details

about the general OPF framework and its variations for supervised,
semisupervised, and unsupervised learning. Section 2.3 presents the
applications of the OPF in pattern recognition and general problems,
and Section 2.4 states the final remarks and future research
directions.
2.2 The optimum-path forest framework

This section introduces the general idea of the optimum-path forest,
which is a framework for the design of simple, fast, and native
multiclass graph-based classifiers.
2.2.1 Theoretical background

A weighted graph is formally defined as a triplet, in
which denotes the set of vertices (nodes) and stands for the set of
edges or arcs. Besides, stands for a function that weights
each arc of the graph. An edge defines a connection between any two
adjacent nodes and the connections are established according to an
adjacency relation (i.e., an irreflexive binary relation between
nodes). The edges allow to perform the so-called “walks on the
graph” and to find paths among nodes. A path is defined as a
sequence of adjacent nodes starting from any node and with
terminus at node , and it is called trivial when composed of a
single node s being represented as . An optimum-path is the one
with a value that satisfies , being any other path in
the graph with terminus at sample s, and f a real-valued path-cost
function. Fig. 2.1 depicts a few possible paths in a graph.1
FIGURE 2.1 The dashed lines represent four possible
paths to node s: π1 = {a,b,c,s}, π2 = {b,c,s}, π3 = {e,s}, and
π4 = {d,e,s}.
The main idea behind OPF is to partition a graph into a forest (i.e.,
set of trees), such that all trees are comprised of optimum paths, and
the nodes within a tree share similar properties. In such a way, OPF
can be understood as a generalization of Dijkstra's algorithm that
works with any smooth path-cost function and is capable of finding
optimum-paths from multiple sources [70]. Why does the OPF working
mechanism is restricted to smooth path-cost functions? The answer comes
from the work by Falcão et al. [70] that describes the generalization
of Dijkstra's algorithm works essentially with monotonic-
incremental cost functions (i.e., a function whose values always
increase within a certain interval). However, a few nonmonotonic-
incremental functions are also eligible as a path-cost function (e.g.,
the 4-connected adjacency and , which defines the Euclidean
distance between the endpoints of π). Hence, the authors defined
more general conditions to cover such cases, which where further
revisited by Ciesielski et al. [37].
The conditions capture the essential features of such functions and
the ones that satisfy them are called smooth. Moreover, the path-cost
functions are comprised of two terms: (i) the initialization term
that assigns an initial value to the trivial paths, usually according to
the type of node (i.e., prototype or nonprototype); and (ii) the
propagation term , which defines the path cost to be offered
to a node during the bidding process.
Let be a data set of samples such that . The
optimum-path forest encodes each sample as a node in the graph
, and the graph-partitioning task is performed in a bidding-
like process where the bid is the cost defined by a smooth-path cost
function. As aforementioned, the OPF is capable of computing
optimum-path trees from multiple sources, called prototypes, which
are a subset of samples . The heuristic implemented to select the
set of prototypes varies according to the application. For instance,
they can be selected at random, by computing minimum spanning
trees, or by some probability density function. For the sake of
explanation, let us consider the set is already defined. After
defining the path-cost function and the set of prototypes, the next
step concerns computing the optimum-path trees (OPTs).
The optimum-path trees are computed in a bidding-like process
where the prototypes play as bidders and the remaining samples
(i.e., the nonprototype samples) are the prize. In the first step, all
paths are trivial and initialized with a cost according to the type of
node they are associated (i.e., prototype or nonprototype).
In the OPF context, the bidding order is defined by a priority
queue whose ordering is defined by the trivial-path cost. The targets
(i.e., prize-nodes) of each node are its adjacent ones and the value to
be offered is a path cost. The winner is the one that offers the
optimum-path cost and the prize-node is added to its “collection”
(i.e., optimum-path tree). What if multiple prototypes offer the same
optimum-path cost? In this case, OPF applies the first-takes-the-prize
policy (i.e., first-in-first-out – FIFO), but any policy can be
implemented as well. Fig. 2.2 provides an overview of the process
for a given adjacency relation .
FIGURE 2.2 Overview of the OPF working mechanism: (a)
initial data set, (b) derived graph according to , (c)
computing the optimum-path trees, and (d) the resulting
optimum-path forest with the prototypes highlighted
(dashed circles).
Following, we present a toy example that computes optimum-

paths from multiple sources considering the path-cost function:
(2.1)
Fig. 2.3 illustrates the entire process from the (a) initialization of the
graph to (l) its optimum-path forest. The values in red (dark gray in
print version) stand for the trivial-path cost of the nodes, in which
each node is initialized with a value according to its type and
stored in a priority queue .
FIGURE 2.3 General working mechanism of OPF from: (a)
initialization, (b)–(k) bidding process to (l) optimum-path
forest.
The values in green (gray in print version) stand for the weight of
the edges defined by , which can be any distance or similarity
metric computed over the arc . The prototypes are
represented as dashed-circled nodes (i.e., nodes a and j), and on the
right side of each graph is shown the current priority queue . The
node in yellow (light gray in print version) is the one that has been
removed from , and the pink (mid gray in print version) ones are
its adjacent that are still in . The priority queue stores the nodes in
increasing order of costs and the ones with minimum values are the
first to be popped out. Notice that is implemented using a binary
heap. For the sake of explanation, we have a min-heap since we are
trying to minimize the cost of each sample.
In the toy example, node a is the first to be removed and tries to
conquer its adjacent node b (Fig. 2.3b) by offering a cost
. Since , where stands for the current
cost of node b, node b is conquered by node a. Now, and b
points to a where is the predecessor map. The process is repeated
for the next adjacent node of a (i.e., node c). Similar to node b, the
node c is also conquered by a with a cost of 0.7. Notice the priority
queue is updated every time a node is conquered.
The next node in the queue is j, and its adjacency is analyzed in
the same way as it was done for a. The bidding is performed until
is empty. Notice the case of a tie in (j) where d tries to conquer g but
it does not due to the FIFO policy. Also, notice in (k) where the
conqueror of g changes to e. The entire process is implemented in
Algorithm 2.1, in which f sums up all arc-weights along a path.
ALGORITHM 2.1 Optimum-Path Forest Algorithm for
Shortest-Path Computation
One of the main applications of the optimum-path forest concerns

general pattern recognition problems, but it is not restricted to them.
By performing a few modifications in its general formulation, OPF
becomes a powerful classification algorithm capable of learning
under different assumptions (i.e., supervised, semi-supervised, and
unsupervised). OPF-based classifiers explore the connectivity
strength among samples to group the similar ones and their main
advantages are two-fold: (i) the native treatment for multiclass
problems, and (ii) the fact the attribute space geometry is not
considered, which provides better results for data sets comprised of
outliers or overlapping classes.
2.2.2 Supervised learning

This section introduces two strategies for supervised learning using
OPF. They differ from each other on the adjacency relation, path-cost
function, and the heuristic to select the prototypes.
2.2.2.1 OPF using complete graph

The strategy introduced by Papa et al. [146] implements the
complete graph as an adjacency relation, i.e., there is an arc
connecting any pair of nodes. Let be a λ-labeled data set, and ,
, and stand for the training, validation, and testing sets,
respectively, such that , and . The OPF with
complete graph (OPF ) builds by computing a minimum
spanning tree (MST) over the complete graph . The
outcome is an undirected acyclic graph where the edges are
weighted by the distance between the adjacent feature vectors. Such
spanning tree is optimum in the sense the sum of the weights of its
edges is minimum if compared to any other spanning tree of the
complete graph. The MST holds some theoretical properties, and it
guarantees no error during training under certain circumstances
[14].
Since training aims at minimizing the classification error, the
prototypes will be the samples in the resulting MST that are
connected and belong to distinct classes, i.e., samples located at the
decision boundaries. The option for such samples is based on the fact
they are more likely to be misclassified due to the proximity to the
influence region of other classes. By disconnecting such samples, we
obtain the set of prototypes and the bidding is performed through
Algorithm 2.2, which uses the as path-cost function:
(2.2)
ALGORITHM 2.2 Supervised training using complete graph
Lines 1–4 initialize the cost map by assigning cost 0 to the

prototypes and +∞ to the remaining samples. All samples have their
predecessors set as nil, and the prototypes are inserted into the
priority queue . The loop at Line 5 iterates over all samples
first to start the competition process: if the cost offered cst is lower
than the current cost of the prize-node t, the sample t is labeled with
the same label as sample s and added to its tree (Line 12). Notice the
classes can be represented by multiple optimum-path trees, and
there must be at least one per class.
The classification of a sample is performed by connecting it
to all samples and making t part of the graph. By considering
all possible paths between and t, we aim at finding the optimum-
path to t with the same class of its most strongly connected
prototype. Such path can be found by evaluating the optimum-path
cost as follows:
(2.3)
Let be the node that satisfies Eq. (2.3). The classification

assigns as the label of t. A misclassification happens when
. Fig. 2.4 depicts the training (a)–(c) and classification (d)–
(f) phases.
FIGURE 2.4 OPF : training and classification phases.
The OPF with complete graph works similar to the nearest-

neighbor (NN) classifier only when all training samples are
prototypes, which is very rare and indicates that the set of attributes
may not be the most appropriate to represent the samples.
Moreover, OPF-based classifiers differentiate from NN-based ones
on how decisions are made. The latter makes local-based decisions
whereas the former is capable of global solutions based on the
connectivity strength among samples.
2.2.2.2 OPF using k-nn graph

The second approach for supervised classification (OPF ) was
proposed by Papa et al. [147,148,155], whose primary motivation was
to explore different path-cost functions, adjacency relations, and
heuristics to select prototypes. Their approach also encodes samples
as nodes in a graph, but it employs a k-NN adjacency relation ( ).
Since a k-NN graph does not guarantee a connected graph,
computing the prototypes via MST is no longer an option. Hence,
OPF implements a strategy similar to selecting elements nearby
the centroids of clusters [223], where the nodes located in areas of
higher concentration of samples are chosen to build .
The density of each node is computed by a probability
density function (pdf) as follows:
(2.4)
where and . A coverage of 99.7% of

the nodes within can be guaranteed in the computation
of by applying a Gaussian function. Moreover, the pdf is a
Parzen-window estimation based on isotropic Gaussian kernel when
the arcs are defined by if , being .
Imagine that the plotting of the density values gives us a surface
where the variations of density create valleys and peaks, and the
regions with the same values define plateaus. In cases where the
plateau is a maximum of the pdf, it is urged to guarantee the
connectivity between any pair of nodes at that maximum, so that
any node can reach the remaining ones of the plateau and their
influence zone via an optimum path. This condition is essential to
avoid the segmentation of the plateau in too many OPTs (i.e., too
many prototypes), where there should be only a few or even a single
one. One can overcome this issue by modifying the adjacency
relation to a symmetric one of type :
(2.5)
In a theoretical situation where each maximum is
comprised of a single sample, the following path-cost function can
be applied:
(2.6)
Every sample defines a trivial path since it is not possible to

reach s from any other maximum of the pdf without going through
nodes of values lower than . Hence, any path originated in will
have a greater value since the remaining trivial paths are initialized
with a value −∞. Considering all possible paths from to all samples
, the optimum path will be the one whose lowest density
value is the maximum.
However, in a practical situation, a maximum may be represented
by a set of nodes leading us to change the connectivity function in
such way that an initial value h defines the relevant pdf maxima (i.e.,
a single node is selected per maximum). By applying
, , a few pdf maxima are preserved and others
are reached by paths from other maxima, whose values are greater
than their initial ones. Given that can be computed as follows:
(2.7)
all maxima of ρ are preserved and the regions with a value lower
than δ will not define influence zones. According to Rocha et al.
[213], the number of maxima can be reduced by:
• increasing the value of δ or by computing an antiextensive

morphological operation: the plateaus of height below δ are
removed;
• applying connected filters, such as area and volume
openings as antiextensive operators: the plateaus of area or
volume below δ are removed.
As aforementioned, it is desired to avoid any division of the

influence zone of a maximum into multiple influence zones each
rooted by one sample from that maximum. In this sense, is built by
adding to it a single node per maximum, which is the first one
detected by OPF in each maximum. The nodes in will have their
cost exchanged from to and they will be able to conquer the
remaining ones in their maximum zone as well. Thus the final
connectivity function is given by
(2.8)
and training can be performed.

The OPF accuracy is influenced by the value k for . Papa et al.
[154] proposed an additional step prior the final training that
computes the best value that maximizes the accuracy Acc
over an evaluating set . The idea is to obtain more relevant
samples to the training by swapping samples from that were
incorrectly classified for any randomly selected samples from ,
except the prototypes, and minimize the misclassification rate. The
accuracy Acc takes into account unbalanced data sets (i.e., a data set
whose classes are comprised of a different amount of samples) and
defined as follows:
(2.9)
where i stands for the class, c is the number of classes, and the term
is given by
(2.10)
where and are the values of false positive and false
negative for class i, respectively, and stands for the number of
samples in class i. In summary, it is computed a classification model
for each with accuracy evaluated over . Then the model
that achieves the highest accuracy is used to classify .
The resulting optimum-path forest from must have each class
represented by at least one maximum of the pdf. However, such
condition may not be satisfied if Eq. (2.8) is applied. To ensure such
property, is computed using Eq. (2.8) and then the final training
using the best model is performed through the training Algorithm
2.3 applying :
(2.11)
By assigning −∞ to all edges where , we avoid such

arcs to be part of an optimum path.
ALGORITHM 2.3 Supervised training using k-nn graph
Concerning the training algorithm, the loop defined in Line 1

initializes the trivial paths and predecessor map, and add all nodes
to the priority queue . At first, the trivial paths have assigned a cost
, and none of them have a predecessor node.
Differently from OPF , the priority queue in OPF is in decreasing
order, being the nodes of higher cost the ones with higher priority.
The main loop that begins in Line 4 iterates over all nodes that will
try to conquer its adjacent ones (i.e., loop in Line 8). If the node t is
conquered by a node s, s becomes the predecessor of t, and s assigns
its label to node t. The cost and position of node t in are also
updated. Notice the maxima are defined in Line 6. The outcomes of
the algorithm are the optimum-path forest (i.e., predecessor map),
path cost map, and label map.
The classification of samples in is performed similar to the
conquering process (Fig. 2.5). The first step computes the k-nearest
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a girl in a pale blue dress stooping to pick grasses. She was hatless
and golden-haired, and in one hand she bore a bunch of something
purple, some kind of long grass whose name he did not know. He
watched her at first exactly as he might have watched some perfect
theatrical spectacle, with just that kind of detached admiration and
rich impersonal enchantment. The pose of her as she stooped, the
flaunt of the grasses in her hand, the movement of her head as she
tossed back her laughing hair, the winding yellow path she trampled
across the meadows: all these things he watched and strangely
admired.
He lay watching for a long while, still without guessing who she
was, till the sun went in behind a cloud and he felt drowsy. He closed
his eyes and leaned back cushioned amongst the turf.
He woke with a sensation of intense chilliness; the sun had gone

in and even its approximate position in the sky could not be
determined because of the heaviness of the clouds. He looked at his
watch; it was ten minutes past one; he must have slept for over an
hour.
The sky was almost the most sinister thing he ever saw. In the
east a faint deathly pallor hung over the horizon, but the piling clouds
from the west were pushing it over the edge of the world. That faint
pallor dissolved across the sky into the greyness deepening into a
western horizon of pitch black. Here and there this was shot through
with streaks of dull and sombre flame as if each of the hills in that
dark land was a sulky volcano. It was cold, and yet the wind that
blew in from the gloom was strangely oppressive; the grasses bent
low as if weighed down by its passing. Deep in the cleft by
Parminters the river gleamed like a writhing venomous snake, the
sky giving it the dull shimmer of pewter. To descend across those
dark meadows to the coils of the stream seemed somehow an
adventure of curious and inscrutable horror. Speed stood up and
looked far into the valley. The whole scene seemed to him unnatural;
the darkness was weird and baffling; the clouds were the grim
harbingers of a thunderstorm. And to him there seemed momentarily
a strangeness in the aspect of everything; something deep and
fearsome, imminent, perhaps, with tragedy. He felt within him a
sombre presaging excitement.
It began to rain, quietly at first, then faster, faster and at last
overwhelmingly. He had brought no mackintosh. He stuffed the
essays into his coat pocket, swung his bicycle off the turf where he
had laid it, and began to run down the hill with it. His aim was to get
to the village and shelter somewhere till the storm was over. Halfway
down he paused to put up his coat-collar, and there, looking across
the meadows, he saw again that girl in the pale-blue dress. He was
nearer to her now and recognised her immediately. She was dressed
in a loose-fitting and rather dilapidated frock which the downpour of
rain had already made to cling to the soft curves of her body; round
her throat, tightly twined, was a striped scarf which Speed, quick to
like or to dislike what he saw, decided was absolutely and garishly
ugly. And yet immediately he felt a swift tightening of his affection for
her, for Millstead was like that, full of stark uglinesses that were
beautiful by their intimacy.... She saw him and stopped. Details of
her at that moment encumbered his memory ever afterwards. She
was about twenty yards from him and he could see a most
tremendous wrist-watch that she wore—an ordinary pocket watch
clamped on to a strap. And from the outside pocket of her dress
there protruded the chromatic cover of a threepenny novelette. (Had
she read it? Was she going to read it? Did she like it? he wondered
swiftly.) She still carried that bunch of grasses, now rather soiled and
bedraggled, tightly in her hand. He imagined, in the curiously vivid
way that was so easy to him, the damp feel of her palm; the heat and
perspiration of it: somehow this again, a symbol of secret and bodily
intimacy, renewed in him that sudden kindling affection for her.
He called out to her: "Miss Ervine!"
She answered, a little shyly: "Oh, how are you, Mr. Speed?"
"Rather wet just at present," he replied, striding over the tufts of
thick grass towards her. "And you appear to be even wetter than I
am. I'm afraid we're in for a severe thunderstorm."
"Oh well, I don't mind thunderstorms."
"You ought to mind getting wet." He paused, uncertain what to say
next. Then instinct made him suddenly begin to talk to her as he
might have done to a small child. "My dear young lady, you don't
suppose I'm going to leave you here to get drenched to the skin, do
you?"
She shrugged her shoulders and said: "I don't know what you're
going to do."
"Have you had anything to eat?"
"I don't want anything."
"Well, I suggest that we get into the village as quick as we can
and stay there till the rain stops. I was also going to suggest that we
spent the time in having lunch, but as you don't want anything, we
needn't."
"But I don't want to wait in the village, Mr. Speed. I was just going
to start for home when it came on to rain."
Speed said: "Very well, if you want to get home you must let me
take you. You're not going to walk home through a thunderstorm.
We'll have a cab or something."
"And do you really think you'll get a cab in Parminters?"
He answered: "I always have a good try to get anything I want to."
For all her protests she came with him down the meadow and out
into the sodden lane. As they passed the gate the first flash of
lightning lit up the sky, followed five seconds after by a crash of
thunder.
"There!" he exclaimed triumphantly, as if the thunder and lightning
somehow strengthened his position with her: "You wouldn't like to
walk to Millstead through that, would you?"
She shrugged her shoulders and looked at him as if she hated his
interference yet found it irresistible.
VI
It was altogether by good luck that he did get a cab in the village;
a Millstead cab had brought some people into Parminters and was
just setting back empty on the return journey when Speed met it in
the narrow lane. Once again, this time as he opened the cab-door
and handed her inside, he gave her that look of triumph, though he
was well aware of the luck that he had had. Inside on the black
leather cushions he placed in a conspicuously central position his
hat and his bundle of essays, and, himself occupying one corner,
invited her to take the other. All the time the driver was bustling
round lifting the bicycle on to the roof and tying it securely down,
Speed sat in his corner, damp to the skin, watching her and
remembering that Miss Harrington had told him that she hated men.
All the way during that three-mile ride back to Millstead, with the
swishing of the rain and the occasional thunder and the steady jog-
trot of the horse's hoofs mingling together in a memorable medley of
sound, Speed sat snugly in his corner, watching and wondering.
Not much conversation passed between them. When they were
nearing Millstead, Speed said: "The other day as I passed near your
drawing-room window I heard somebody playing the Chopin waltzes.
Was it you?"
"It might have been."
He continued after a pause: "I see there's a Chopin recital
advertised in the town for next Monday week. Zobieski, the Polish
pianist, is coming up. Would you care to come with me to it?"
It was very daring of him to say that, and he knew it. She coloured
to the roots of her wet-gold hair, and replied, after a silence:
"Monday, though, isn't it?—I'm afraid I couldn't manage it. I always
see Clare on Mondays."
He answered instantly: "Bring Clare as well then."
"I—I don't think Clare would be interested," she replied, a little
confused. She added, as if trying to make up for having rejected his
offer rather rudely: "Clare and I don't get many chances of seeing
each other. Only Mondays and Wednesday afternoons."
"But I see you with her almost every day."
"Yes, but only for a few minutes. Mondays are the only evenings
that we have wholly to ourselves."
He thought, but did not dare to say: And is it absolutely necessary
that you must have those evenings wholly to yourselves?
He said thoughtfully: "I see."
He said nothing further until the cab drew up outside the main
gate of Millstead School. He was going to tell the driver to proceed
inside as far as the porch of the Head's house, but she said she
would prefer to get out there and walk across the lawns. He smiled
and helped her out. As he looked inside the cab again to see if he
had left any papers behind he saw that the gaudily-coloured
novelette had fallen out of her pocket and on to the floor. He picked it
up and handed it to her. "You dropped this," he said merely. She
stared at him for several seconds and then took it almost sulkily.
"I suppose I can read what I like, anyway," she exclaimed, in a
sudden hot torrent of indignation.
He smiled, completely astonished, yet managed to say, blandly:
"I'm sure I never dreamt of suggesting otherwise."
He could see then from her eyes, half-filling with tears of
humiliation, that she realised that she had needlessly made a fool of
herself.
"Please—please—don't come with me any further," she said,
awkwardly. "And thanks—thanks—very much—for—for bringing me
back."
He smiled again and raised his hat as she darted away across the
wet lawns. Then, after paying the driver, he walked straightway into
the school and down into the prefects' bathroom, where he turned on
the scalding hot water with jubilant anticipation.
VII
The immediate result of the incident was an invitation to dine at

the Head's a few days later. "It was very—um, yes—thoughtful and
considerate of you, Mr. Speed," said the Head, mumblingly. "My
daughter—a heedless child—just like her to omit the—um—
precaution of taking some—um, yes—protection against any
possible change in the weather."
"I was rather in the same boat myself, sir," said Speed, laughing.
"The thunderstorm was quite unexpected."
"Um yes, quite so. Quite so." The Head paused and added, with
apparent inconsequence: "My daughter is quite a child, Mr. Speed—
loves to gather flowers—um—botany, you know, and—um—so
forth."
Speed said: "Yes, I have noticed it."
Dinner at the Head's house was less formal than on the previous
occasion. It was a Monday evening and Clare Harrington was there.
Afterwards in the drawing-room Speed played a few Chopin studies
and Mazurkas. He did not attempt to get into separate conversation
with Miss Ervine; he chatted amiably with the Head while the two
girls gossiped by themselves. And at ten o'clock, pleading work to do
before bed, he arose to go, leaving the girls to make their own
arrangements. Miss Ervine said good-bye to him with a shyness in
which he thought he detected a touch of wistfulness.
When he got up to his own room he thought about her for a long
while. He tried to settle down to an hour or so of marking books, but
found it impossible. In the end he went downstairs and let himself
outside into the school grounds by his own private key. It was a
glorious night of starshine, and all the roofs were pale with the
brightness of it. Wafts of perfume from the flowers and shrubbery of
the Head's garden accosted him gently as he turned the corner by
the chapel and into the winding tree-hidden path that circumvented
the entire grounds of Millstead. It was on such a night that his heart's
core was always touched; for it seemed to him that then the strange
spirit of the place was most alive, and that it came everywhere to
meet him with open arms, drenching all his life in wild and
unspeakable loveliness. Oh, how happy he was, and how hard it was
to make others realise his happiness! In the Common-Room his
happiness had become proverbial, and even amongst the boys,
always quicker to notice unhappy than happy looks, his beaming
smile and firm, kindling enthusiasm had earned him the nickname of
"Smiler."
He sat down for a moment on the lowest tier of the pavilion seats,
those seats where generations of Millsteadians had hurriedly
prepared themselves for the fray of school and house matches. Now
the spot was splendidly silent, with the cricket-pitch looming away
mistily in front, and far behind, over the tips of the high trees, the
winking lights of the still noisy dormitories. He watched a bat flitting
haphazardly about the pillars of the pavilion stand. He could see,
very faintly in the paleness, the score of that afternoon's match
displayed on the indicator. Old Millstead parish bells, far away in the
town, commenced the chiming of eleven.
He felt then, as he had never felt before he came to Millstead, that
the world was full, brimming full, of wonderful majestic beauty, and
that now, as the scented air swirled round him in slow magnificent
eddies, it was searching for something, searching with passionate
and infinite desire for something that eluded it always. He could not
understand or analyse all that he felt, but sometimes lately a deep
shaft of ultimate feeling would seem to grip him round the body and
send the tears swimming into his eyes, as if for one glorious moment
he had seen and heard something of another world. It came
suddenly to him now, as he sat on the pavilion seats with the silver
starshine above him and the air full of the smells of earth and
flowers; it seemed to him that something mighty must be abroad in
the world, that all this tremulous loveliness could not live without a
meaning, that he was on the verge of some strange and magic
revelation.
Clear as bells on the silent air came the sound of girls' voices. He
heard a rich, tolling "Good night, Clare!" Then silence again, silence
in which he seemed to know more things than he had ever known
before.
CHAPTER THREE
One afternoon he called at Harrington's, in the High Street, to buy

a book. It was a tiny low-roofed shop, the only one of its kind in
Millstead, and with the sale of books it combined that of newspapers,
stationery, pictures and fancy goods. It was always dark and
shadowy, yet, unlike the Head's study at the school, this gloom
possessed a cheerful soothing quality that made the shop a pleasant
haven of refuge when the pavements outside were dazzling and sun-
scorched. It was on such an afternoon that Speed visited the shop
for the first time. Usually he had no occasion to, for, though he dealt
with Harrington's, an errand-boy visited the school every morning to
take orders and saved him the trouble of a walk into the village. This
afternoon, however, he recollected a text-book that he wanted and
had forgotten to order; besides, the heat of the mid-afternoon
tempted him to seek shelter in one or other of the tranquil diamond-
windowed shops whose sun-blinds sprawled unevenly along the
street. It was the hottest day of the term, so far. A huge thermometer
outside Harrington's gave the shade temperature as a little over
seventy-nine; all the roadway was bubbling with little gouts of soft
tar. The innumerable dogs of Millstead, quarrelsome by nature, had
called an armistice on account of the heat, and lay languidly across
shady sections of the pavement. Speed, tanned by a week of
successive hot days, with a Panama pushed down over his forehead
to shield his eyes from dazzle, pushed open the small door and
entered the cool cavern of the shop.
His eyes, unaccustomed to the gloom, were blind for a moment,
but he heard movement of some kind behind the counter. "I want an
atlas of the British Isles," he said, feeling his way across the shop. "A
school atlas, I mean. Cheap, rather, you know—about a shilling or
one-and-sixpence."
He heard Clare's voice reply: "Yes, Mr. Speed, I know what you
want. Hot weather, isn't it?"
"Very."
She went on, searching meanwhile along some shelves: "Nice of
you not to bother about seeing me home the other night, Mr. Speed."
He said, with a touch of embarrassment: "Well, you see, you told
me. About—about Miss Ervine getting jealous, you know."
"It was nice of you to take my information without doubting it."
He said, rather to his own surprise: "As a matter of fact, I'm not
sure that I don't doubt it. Miss Ervine seems to me a perfectly
delightful and natural girl, far too unsophisticated to be jealous of
anybody. The more I see of her the more I like her."
After a pause she answered quietly: "Well, I'm not surprised at
that."
"I suppose," he went on, "with her it's rather the opposite. I mean,
the more she sees of me the less she likes me. Isn't that it?"
"I shouldn't think she likes you any less than she did at first....
Here's the atlas. It's one and three—I'd better put it on your account,
eh?"
"Yes, yes, of course.... So you think—"
She interrupted him quickly with: "Mr. Speed, you'd better not ask
me what I think. You're far more subtle in understanding people than
I am, and it won't take you long to discover what Helen thinks of you
if you set about with the intention.... Those sketch-blocks you
ordered haven't come in yet.... Well, good afternoon!"
Another customer had entered the shop, so that all he could do
was to return a rather dazed "Good afternoon" and emerge into the
blazing High Street. He walked back to the school in a state of not
unpleasant puzzlement.
II
The term progressed, and towards the end of May occurred the
death of Sir Huntly Polk, Bart., Chairman of the Governors of
Millstead School. This would not have in any way affected Speed
(who had never even met Sir Huntly) had not a Memorial Service
been arranged at which he was to play Chopin's Funeral March on
the chapel organ. It was a decent modern instrument, operated
usually by Raggs, the visiting organist, who combined a past
reputation of great splendour with a present passion for the vox
humana stop; but Speed sometimes took the place of Raggs when
Raggs wanted time off. And at the time fixed for the Sir Huntly Polk
Memorial Service Raggs was adjudicating with great solemnity at a
Northern musical festival.
Speed was not a particularly good organist, and it was only
reluctantly that he undertook Raggs' duty for him. For one thing, he
was always slightly nervous of doing things in public. And for another
thing, he would have to practice a great deal in order to prepare
himself for the occasion, and he had neither the time nor the
inclination for hours of practice. However, when the Head said: "I
know I can—um, yes—rely upon you, Mr. Speed," Speed knew that
there was no way out of it. Besides, he was feeling his way in the
school with marvellous ease and accuracy, and each new duty
undertaken by special request increased and improved his prestige.
After a few days' trial he found it was rather pleasant to climb the
ladder to the organ-loft amid the rich cool dusk of the chapel, switch
on the buzzing motor that operated the electric power, and play, not
only Chopin's Funeral March but anything else he liked. Often he
would merely improvise, beginning with a simple theme announced
on single notes, and broadening and loudening into climax. Always
as he played he could see the shafts of sunlight falling amidst the
dusty pews, the many-coloured glitter of the stained-glass in the oriel
window, and in an opaque haze in the distance the white cavern of
the chapel entrance beyond which all was light and sunshine. The
whole effect, serene and tranquillising, hardly stirred him to any
distinctly religious emotion, but it set up in him acutely that emotional
sensitiveness to things secret and unseen, that insurgent
consciousness, clear as the sky, yet impossible to translate into
words, of deep wells of meaning beneath all the froth and commotion
of his five passionate senses.
There was a mirror just above the level of his eyes as he sat at
the keyboard, a mirror by means of which he could keep a casual
eye on the pulpit and choir-stalls and the one or two front pews. And
one golden afternoon as he was playing the adagio movement out of
Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique," a stray side-glance into the mirror
showed him that he had an audience—of one. She was sitting at the
end of the front pew of all, nearest the lectern; she was listening,
very simply and unspectacularly. Speed's first impulse was to stop;
his second to switch off from the "Sonata Pathétique" into something
more blatantly dramatic. He had, with the first kindling warmth of the
sensation of seeing her, a passionate longing to touch somehow her
emotions, or, if he could not do that, to stir her sentimentality, at any
rate; he would have played the most saccharine picture-palace trash,
with vox humana and tremolo stops combined, if he had thought that
by doing so he could fill her eyes. Third thoughts, however, better
than either the second or first, told him that he had better finish the
adagio movement of the Sonata before betraying the fact that he
knew she was present. He did so accordingly, playing rather well;
then, when the last echoes had died away, he swung his legs over
the bench and addressed her. He said, in a conversational tone that
sounded rather incongruous in its surroundings: "Good afternoon,
Miss Ervine!"
She looked up, evidently startled, and answered, with a half-smile:
"Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Speed."
He went on: "I hope I haven't bored you. Is there anything in
particular you'd like me to play to you?"
She walked out of the pew and along the tiled arena between the
choir-stalls to a point where she stood gazing directly up at him. The
organ was on the south side of the choir, perched rather
precipitously in an overhead chamber that looked down on to the
rest of the chapel rather as a bay-window looks on to a street. To
Speed, as he saw her, the situation seemed somewhat like the
balcony scene with the positions of Romeo and Juliet reversed. And
never, he thought, had she looked so beautiful as she did then, with
her head poised at an upward angle as if in mute and delicate
appeal, and her arms limply at her side, motionless and
inconspicuous, as though all the meaning and significance of her
were flung upwards into the single soaring glance of her eyes. A
shaft of sunlight, filtered through the crimson of an apostle's robe,
struck her hair and kindled it at once into flame; her eyes, blue and
laughing, gazed heavenwards with a look of matchless tranquillity.
She might have been a saint, come to life out of the sun-drenched
stained-glass.
She cried out, like a happy child: "Oh, I have enjoyed it, Mr.
Speed! All of it. I do wish I could come up there and watch you play!"
With startled eagerness he answered: "Come up then—I should
be delighted! Go round into the vestry and I'll help you up the
ladder."
Instinct warned him that she was only a child, interested in the
merely mechanical tricks of how things were done; that she wanted
to see the working of the stops and pedals more than to hear the
music; that this impulse of hers did not betoken any particular
friendliness for him or admiration for his playing. Yet some secondary
instinct, some quick passionate enthusiasm, swept away the
calculating logic of that, and made him a prey to the wildest and
raptest of anticipations.
In the vestry she blushed violently as he met her; she seemed
more a child than ever before. And she scampered up the steep
ladder into the loft with an agility that bewildered him.
He never dreamt that she could so put away all fear and
embarrassment of his presence; as she clambered up on to the end
of the bench beside him (for there was no seating-room anywhere
else) he wondered if this were merely a mood of hers, or if some real
and deep change had come over her since their last meeting. She
was so delicately lovely; to see her there, with her eyes upon him, so
few inches from his, gave him a curious electrical pricking of the
skin. Sometimes, he noticed, her eyes watched his hands steadily;
sometimes, with a look half-bold, half-timid, they travelled for an
instant to his face. He even wondered, with an egotism that made
him smile inwardly, if she were thinking him good-looking.
"Now," he said, beginning to pull out the necessary stops, "what
shall we have?—'The Moonlight Sonata,' eh?"
"Yes," she assented, eagerly. "I've heard Clare talk about it."
He played it to her; then he played her a medley of Bach, Dvorak,
Mozart, Mendelssohn and Lemare. He was surprised and pleased to
discover that, on the whole, she preferred the good music to the not
so good, although, of course, her musical taste was completely
unsophisticated. Mainly, too, it was the music that kept her attention,
though she had a considerable childish interest in his manual
dexterity and in the mechanical arrangement of the stops and
couplings. She said once, in a pause between two pieces: "Aren't
they strange hands?" He replied, laughing away his embarrassment:
"I don't know. Are they?"
After he had played, rather badly but with great verve, the Ruy
Blas Overture of Mendelssohn, she exclaimed: "Oh, I wish I could
play like that!"
He said: "But you do play the piano, don't you? And I prefer the
piano to the organ: it's less mechanical."
She clapped her hands together in a captivatingly childish gesture
of excitement and said: "Oh yes, the piano's lovely, isn't it? But I
can't play well—oh, I wish I could!"
"You could if you practised hard enough," he answered, with
prosaic encouragement. "I can hear you sometimes, you know, when
I'm in my room at nights and the window's open. I think you could
become quite a good player."
She leaned her elbow on the keys and started in momentary fright
at the resulting jangle of sound. "I—I get so nervous," she said. "I
don't know why. I could never play except to myself—and Clare."
She added, slowly, and as if the revelation had only barely come to
her: "Do you know—it's strange, isn't it—I think—perhaps—I think I
might be able to play in front of you—now—without being nervous!"
He laughed boisterously and swung himself off the bench. "Very
well, then, that's fine news! You shall try. You shall play some of the
Chopin waltzes to me. Not very suitable for an organ, but that
doesn't matter. Sit further on this bench and play on the lower
keyboard. Never mind about the pedals. And I'll manage the stops
for you."
She wriggled excitedly into the position he had indicated and,
laughing softly, began one of the best-known of the waltzes. The
experiment was not entirely successful, for even an accomplished
pianist does not play well on an organ for the first time, nor do the
Chopin waltzes lend themselves aptly to such an instrument. But one
thing, and to Speed the main thing of all, was quite obvious: she
was, as she had said she would be, entirely free from nervousness
of him. After ploughing rather disastrously through a dozen or so
bars she stopped, turned to him with flushed cheeks and happy
eyes, and exclaimed: "There! That's enough! It's not easy to play, is
it?"
He said, smiling down at her: "No, it's rather hard, especially at
first.... But you weren't nervous then, were you?"
"Not a bit," she answered, proudly. She added, with a note of
warning: "Don't be surprised if I am when you come in to our house
to dinner. I'm always nervous when father's there."
Almost he added: "So am I." But the way in which she had
mentioned future invitations to dinner at the Head's house gave him
the instant feeling that henceforward the atmosphere on such
occasions would he subtly different from ever before. The Head's
drawing-room, with the baby grand piano and the curio-cabinets and
the faded cabbage-like design of the carpet, would never look quite
the same again; the Head's drawing-room would look, perhaps, less
like a cross between a lady's boudoir and the board-room of a City
company; even the Head's study might take on a kindlier, less
sinister hue.
He said, still with his eyes smiling upon her: "Who teaches you the
piano?"
"A Miss Peacham used to. I don't have a teacher now."
"I don't know," he said, beginning to flush with the consciousness
of his great daring, "if you would care to let me help you at all. I
should be delighted to do so, you know, at any time. Since—" he
laughed a little—"since you're no longer a scrap nervous of me, you
might find me useful in giving you a few odd hints."
He waited, anxious and perturbed, for her reply. After a sufficient
pause she answered slowly, as if thinking it out: "That would be—
rather—fine—I think."
Most inopportunely then the bell began to ring for afternoon-
school, and, most inopportunely also, he was due to take five beta in
drawing. They clambered down the ladder, chatting vivaciously the
while, and at the vestry door, when they separated she said eagerly:
"Oh, I've had such a good time, Mr. Speed. Haven't you?"
"Rather!" he answered, with boyish emphasis and enthusiasm.
That afternoon hour, spent bewilderingly with five beta in the art-
room that was full of plaster casts and free-hand models and framed
reproductions of famous pictures, went for Speed like the passage of
a moment. His heart and brain were tingling with excitement,
teeming with suppressed consciousness. The green of the lawns as
he looked out of the window seemed greener than ever before; the
particles of dust that shone in the shafts of sunlight seemed to him
each one mightily distinct; the glint of a boy's golden hair in the
sunshine was, to his eyes, like a patch of flame that momentarily put
all else in a haze. It seemed to him, passionately and tremendously,
that for the first time in his life he was alive; more than that even: it
seemed to him that for the first time since the beginning of all things
life had come shatteringly into the world.
III
"I should think, Mr. Speed, you have found out by now whether
Helen likes you or not."
Those words of Clare Harrington echoed in his ears as he walked
amidst the dappled sunlight on the Millstead road. They echoed first
of all in the quiet tones in which Clare had uttered them; next, they
took on a subtle, meaningful note of their own; finally, they
submerged all else in a crescendo of passionate triumph. Speed was
almost stupefied by their gradually self-revealing significance. He
strode on faster, dug his heels more decisively into the dust of the
roadside; he laughed aloud; his walking-stick pirouetted in a joyful
circle. To any passer-by he must have seemed a little mad. And all
because of a few words that Clare Harrington, riding along the lane
on her bicycle, had stopped to say to him.
June, lovely and serene, had spread itself out over Millstead like a
veil of purest magic; every day the sun climbed high and shone
fiercely; every night the world slept under the starshine; all the
passage of nights and days was one moving pageant of
wonderment. And Speed was happy, gloriously, overwhelmingly
happy. Never in all his life before had he been so happy; never had
he tasted, even to an infinitesimal extent, the kind of happiness that
bathed and drenched him now. Rapturously lovely were those long
June days, days that turned Millstead into a flaming paradise of
sights and sounds. In the mornings, he rose early, took a cold plunge
in the swimming-bath, and breakfasted with the school amidst the
cool morning freshness that, by its very quality of chill, seemed to
suggest bewitchingly the warmth that was to come. Chapel followed
breakfast, and after that, until noon, his time was spent in the Art and
Music Rooms and the various form-rooms in which he contrived to
satisfy parental avidity for that species of geography known as
commercial. From noon until midday dinner he either marked books
in his room or went shopping into the town. During that happy hour
the cricket was beginning, and the dining-hall at one o'clock was gay
with cream flannels and variously chromatic blazers. Speed loved
the midday meal with the school; he liked to chat with his neighbours
at table, to listen to the catalogue of triumphs, anxieties, and
anticipations that never failed to unfold itself to the sympathetic
hearer. Afterwards he was free to spend the afternoon as he liked.
He might cycle dreamily along the sleepy lanes and find himself at
tea-time in some wrinkled little sun-scorched inn, with nothing to do
but dream his own glorious dreams and play with the innkeeper's
languid dog and read local newspapers a fortnight old. Or he might
stay the whole afternoon at Millstead, lazily watching the cricket from
a deck-chair on the pavilion verandah and sipping the tuck-shop's
iced lemonade. Less often he would play cricket himself, never
scoring more than ten or a dozen runs, but fielding with a dogged
energy which occasionally only just missed deserving the epithet
brilliant. And sometimes, in the excess of his enthusiasm, he would
take selected parties of the boys to Pangbourne Cathedral, some
eighteen miles distant, and show them the immense nave and the
Lady Chapel with the decapitated statues and the marvellous
stained-glass of the Octagon.
Then dinner, conversational and sometimes boisterous, in the
Masters' Common-Room, and afterwards, unless it were his evening
for taking preparation, an hour at least of silence before the corridors
and dormitories became noisy. During this hour he would often sit by
the open window in his room and hear the rooks cawing in the high
trees and the clankety-clank of the roller on the cricket-pitch and all
the mingled sounds and commotions that seemed to him to make
the silence of the summer evenings more magical than ever. Often,
too, he would hear the sound of the Head's piano, a faint half-
pathetic tinkle from below.
Half-past eight let loose the glorious pandemonium; he could hear
from his room the chiming of the school-bell, and then, softly at first,
but soon rising to a tempestuous flood, the tide of invasion sweeping
down the steps of the Big Hall and pouring into the houses. Always it
thrilled him by its mere strength and volume of sound; thrilled him
with pride and passion to think that he belonged to this heart that
throbbed with such onrushing zest and vitality. Soon the first
adventurous lappings of the tide reached the corridor outside his
room; he loved the noise and commotion of it; he loved the shouting
and singing and yelling and the boisterous laughter; he loved the
faint murmur of conflicting gramophones and the smells of coffee
and cocoa that rose up from the downstairs studies; he loved the
sound of old Hartopp's voice as he stood at the foot of the stairs at
ten o'clock and shouted, in a key that sent up a melodious echoing
through all the passages and landings: "Time, gentlemen, time!"—
And when the lights in the dormitories had all been put out, and
Millstead at last was silent under the stars, he loved above all things
the strange magic of his own senses, that revealed him a Millstead
that nobody else had ever seen, a Millstead rapt and ethereal, one
with the haze of night and the summer starshine.
He told himself, in the moments when he reacted from the
abandonment of his soul to dreaming, that he was sentimental, that
he loved too readily, that beauty stirred him more than it ought, that
life was too vividly emotional, too mighty a conqueror of his senses.
But then, in the calm midst of reasoning, that same wild, tremulous
consciousness of wonder and romance would envelop him afresh
like a strong flood; it was a fierce, passionate ache in his bones, only
to be forgotten for unreal, unliving instants. And one moment, when
he sat by the window hearing the far-off murmur of Chopin on the
Head's piano, he knew most simply and perfectly why it was that all
this was so. It was because he was very deeply and passionately in
love. In his dreams, his wild and bewitching dreams, she was a fairy-
child, ethereal and half unreal, the rapt half-embodied spirit of
Millstead itself, luring him by her sweet and fragrant vitality. He saw
in the sunlight always the golden glint of her hair; in music no more
than subtle and exquisite reminders of her; in all the world of sights
and sounds and feelings a deep transfiguring passion that was his
own for her.
And in the flesh he met her often in the school grounds, where
she might say: "Oh, Mr. Speed, I'm so glad I've met you! I want you
to come in and hear me play something." They would stroll together
over the lawns into the Head's house and settle themselves in the
stuffy-smelling drawing-room. Doctor and Mrs. Ervine were
frequently out in the afternoons, and Potter, it was believed, dozed in
the butler's pantry. Speed would play the piano to the girl and then
she to him, and when they were both tired of playing they talked
awhile. Everything of her seemed to him most perfect and delicious.
Once he asked her tactfully about reading novelettes, and she said:
"I read them sometimes because there's nothing in father's library
that I care for. It's nearly all sermons and Latin grammars."
Immediately it appeared to him that all was satisfactory and
entrancingly explained; a vague unrestfulness in him was made
suddenly tranquil; her habit of reading novelettes made her more
dear and lovable than ever. He said: "I wonder if you'd like me to
lend you some books?—Interesting books, I promise you."—She
answered, with her child-like enthusiasm: "Oh, I'd love that, Mr.
Speed!"
He lent her Hans Andersen's fairy tales.
Once in chapel, as he declaimed the final verse of the eighty-
eighth Psalm, he looked for a fraction of a second at the Head's pew
and saw that she was watching him. "Lover and friend hast Thou put
far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness."—He saw a
blush kindle her cheeks like flame.
One week-day morning he met the Head in the middle of the
quadrangle. The Head beamed on him cordially and said: "I
understand, Mr. Speed, that you—um—give my daughter—
occasional—um, yes—assistance with her music. Very kind of you,
I'm sure—um, yes—extremely kind of you, Mr. Speed."
He added, dreamily: "My daughter—still—um, yes—still a child in
many ways—makes few friends—um, yes—very few. Seems to have
taken quite an—um, yes—quite a fancy to you, Mr. Speed."
And Speed answered, with an embarrassment that was
ridiculously schoolboyish: "Indeed, sir?—Indeed?"
IV
Speech Day at Millstead.

Speed sat shyly on his chair on the platform, wrapping his gown
round him nervously, and gazing, every now and then, at the
fashionably-dressed throng that crowded the Big Hall to its utmost
capacity. It was a day of ordeals, but his own chief ordeal was safely
past; the school-choir had grappled quite creditably with Stanford's
Te Deum at the chapel service that morning. He was feeling very
happy, even amidst his nervousness. His eyes wandered to the end
of the front row of the auditorium, where Helen Ervine and Clare
Harrington sat together. They were gossiping and laughing.
The Chairman, Sir Henry Briggs, rose to introduce the principal
guest, Lord Portway. Lord Portway, so said Sir Henry Briggs, needed
no introduction. Lord Portway....
Speed listened dreamfully.
Then Lord Portway. Lord Portway confessed himself to be a poor
speaker, but hoped that it would not always be those with a glib
tongue that got on in the world. (Laughter and cheers.) When he
(Lord Portway) was at school he was ashamed to say that he never
received a single prize. (More laughter.) He hoped that all the boys
of Millstead, whether they had prizes or not, would remember that it
wasn't always the prize-winners at school who did best in the battle
of life. (Hear, hear.) He would just like to give them all a word or two
of advice. Be thorough. (Cheers.) Brilliance wasn't everything. If he

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Introduction to Optimum Design, Fourth Edition Arora

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2.2. The optimum-path forest framework

2.4. Conclusions and future trends

Chapter 3: Real-time application of OPF-based classifier in Snort IDS

3.2. Intrusion detection systems

3.3. Machine learning

3.5. Experiments and results

3.6. Final considerations

4.5. Funding and acknowledgments

Chapter 5: Hybrid and modified OPFs for intrusion detection

5.2. Modified OPF-based IDS using unsupervised learning and

5.3. Hybrid IDS using unsupervised OPF based on MapReduce

5.4. Hybrid IDS using modified OPF and selected features

5.5. Modified OPF using Markov cluster process algorithm

5.6. Modified OPF based on coreset concept

5.7. Enhancement of MOPF using k-medoids algorithm

Chapter 6: Detecting atherosclerotic plaque calcifications of the

6.2. Theoretical background

6.4. Experimental results

6.5. Conclusions and future works

Chapter 7: Learning to weight similarity measures with Siamese

7.2. Theoretical background

7.4. Experimental results

8.2. Related work

8.3. The iterative optimum-path forest framework

8.4. Experimental results

8.5. Conclusions and future work

Chapter 9: Future trends in optimum-path forest classification

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Publisher: Mara Conner

To God, my wife, Daiane, and my sons, Bento and Mateo (coming

João Paulo Papa

I would like to dedicate this work to my mother, Darcy, wife Paula,

Alexandre Xavier Falcão

Alexandre Xavier Falcão

João Paulo Papa

The paper is organized as follows: Section 2.2 provides details

2.2 The optimum-path forest framework