DIGITAL PATTERN RECOGNITION

ECE 6376

COURSE CONTENT: An introduction to digital pattern recognition, i.e., automatic classification

of objects, will be provided, with an emphasis on parametric (statistical) techniques. Each student
will develop a pattern recognition application to a real-world problem as a class project.
PREREQUISITE: ELEE 6337Stochastic Processes, or substantial familiarity with statistics and
random processes.
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Ben H. Jansen, Professor, W306-D3, 743-4431, 743-4444 (FAX), bjansen@uh.edu
(e-mail), office hours TTh after class or by appointment.
CLASS TIMES: 1:00-2:30 pm, Monday and Wednesday, E312-D3.
OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
Dates: The last day to drop a course without receiving a grade or without hours counting towards
the Enrollment Cap for Texas Residents is January 29. The last day to Withdraw with a
Pass or a Fail is March 26. The last day of classes is Monday, April 28. January 20 is Martin
Luther King Day, and Spring Break is March 10-15.
Academic Honesty Policy: Students in this course are expected to follow the Academic Honesty Policy of the University of Houston. It is your responsibility to know and follow
this policy. For more information, see the Student Handbook, which is available on-line:
http://www.uh.edu/dos/publications/handbook.php/.
Religious Holy Days: Students whose religious beliefs prohibit class attendance on designated
dates or attendance at scheduled exams may request an excused absence. To do this, you
are strongly encouraged to request the excused absence, in writing, by January 28. Please
submit this written request to your instructor to allow the instructor to make appropriate
arrangements. For more information, see the Student Handbook.
Students with Disabilities: Students with recognized disabilities will be provided reasonable accommodations, appropriate to the course, upon documentation of the disability with a Student Accommodation Form from the Center for Students with Disabilities. To receive these
accommodations, you must request the specific accommodations, by submitting them to the
instructor in writing, by January 28. Students who fail to submit a written request will not
be considered for accommodations. For more information, see the Student Handbook.
EXAMINATIONS and GRADING: There will be one midterm exam approximately on Wednesday, February 26 and a comprehensive final exam on Friday, May 2, from 2:00-5:00 pm. An
important part of the grade (50%) will be derived from your performance on a class project. An
oral project proposal presentation is scheduled for March 3 and 5, and the final project presentations will take place on April 21 and 23. Project reports are due the last day of the semester
(April 28).
TENTATIVE OUTLINE: The following topics will be discussed:
Introduction to digital pattern recognition

 Decision functions
Design of deterministic decision functions
Design of statistical decision functions
Unsupervised classification (clustering)
Feature extraction
Feature selection
Alternative approaches: Artificial neural networks and syntactic analysis
PROJECT: There will be lab work using pattern recognition software that will be made available to
you. Knowledge of Matlab is required.
BOOKS: A collection of notes and recent review articles will be made available. It is required,
however, to purchase Pattern Classification (second edition), R.O. Duda, P.E. Hart and D.G.
Stork, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000.
Other useful books include:
1. Pattern Recognition: Statistical, Structural and Neural Approaches, R. Schalkhof, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992.
2. Pattern Recognition, S. Theodoridis and K. Koutroumbas, Academic Press, 1999.