Prof. Dr. Hakan Altınçay

Biography

I graduated from the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department of Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey in 1993 and started to work as an engineer in Aselsan. After one year, I quitted that job and started my post-graduate study in METU and served as a research assistant in the same department. I completed my PhD study in June, 2000 and joined EMU in September as an Assistant Professor. Since 2012, I am working as a Full Professor in the Computer Engineering Department. I served as a reviewer for more than 20 journals and I am currently editorial board member of Applied Intelligence Journal. I am mainly interested in designing algorithms to solve machine learning problems such as document representation, imbalance learning, feature selection and ensemble learning. In my research, I find creation of new knowledge mode exciting than the analysis of existing methodologies.

Contact Information

Department of Computer Engineering

Eastern Mediterranean University

Famagusta, Northern Cyprus (via Mersin 10 Turkey)

e-mail: hakan.altincay [at] emu.edu.tr

Tel:  +90 392 6302842


Work Experience

Professor 
[February 2012 - present]

Associate Professor 
[December 2005 - January 2012]

Assistant Professor 
[ September 2000 - November 2005]

Research Assistant, Electrical Engineering Dept., METU 
[February 1996 - February 2000]

Research Assistant, Industrial Engineering Dept., METU 
[September 1994 - January 1996]

Electrical and Electronics Engineer, Aselsan, Turkey 
[August 1993 - August 1994]

Teaching

  • Procedural and OOP in C++ and JAVA
  • Operating Systems Concepts
  • Data Science using R and Python programming
  • Pattern Recognition
  • Ensemble Learning
  • Deep Learning

Citations (h-index)

  • Google Scholar -19
  • Web of Science -13
 Publication profiles

Journal Publications

    1. Hossein Ghaderi Zefrehi and Hakan Altınçay, "MaMiPot: A Paradigm Shift for the Classification of Imbalanced Data ", Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, vol. 61, issue 1, pages 299-324, 2023.

    2. Hossein Ghaderi Zefrehi, Ghazaal Sheikhi and Hakan Altınçay, "Threshold prediction for detecting rare positive samples using a meta-learner", Pattern Analysis and Applications, Springer, vol. 26, pages 289-306, 2023.
    3. Ghazaal Sheikhi and Hakan Altınçay, "A novel dissimilarity metric based on feature-to-feature scatter frequencies for clustering-based feature selection in biomedical data", Computational Intelligence, vol. 37, no. 4, pages 1865-1889, November 2021.
    4. Ghazaal Sheikhi and Hakan Altınçay, "Maximum-relevance and maximum diversity of positive ranks: A novel feature selection method", Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 158, 113499, 2020.
    5. Hossein Ghaderi Zefrehi and Hakan Altınçay, Imbalance learning using heterogeneous ensembles, Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 142, 113005, 2020.
    6. Dima Badawi and Hakan Altınçay, Effective use of 2-termsets by discarding redundant member terms in bag-of-words representation, Neural Computing and Applications, vol. 31, pp. 5401-5418, 2019.
    7. Dima Badawi and Hakan Altınçay, "Termset Weighting by Adapting Term weighting Schemes to Utilize Cardinality Statistics for Binary Text Categorization", Applied Intelligence, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 456-472, 2017.
    8. Kamran Kamaei and Hakan Altınçay, "Editing the Nearest Feature Line Classifier", vol. 19, pp. 563-580,    Intelligent Data Analysis, IOS press, 2015. 
    9. Dima Badawi and Hakan Altınçay, "A Novel Framework for Termset Selection and Weighting in Binary Text Classification", Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, vol. 35, pp. 38-53, 2014. 
    10. Hakan Altınçay and Zafer Erenel, "Ternary Encoding Based Feature Extraction for Binary Text Classification", Applied Intelligence, vol. 41, pp. 310-326, 2014. 
    11. Hakan Altınçay and Zafer Erenel, "Avoiding the interpolation inaccuracy in nearest feature line classifier by spectral feature analysis", Pattern Recognition Letters, vol. 34, issue. 12, pp. 1372-1380, 2013.  
    12. Zafer Erenel and Hakan Altınçay, "Improving the Precision-Recall Tradeoff in Undersampling based Binary     Text Categorization Using Unanimity Rule", Neural Computing and Applications, vol. 22, issue. 1 Suppl,     pp 83-100, 2013. 
    13. Zafer Erenel and Hakan Altınçay, "Nonlinear Transformation of Term Frequencies for Term Weighting in Text Categorization", Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, vol. 25, pp. 1505-1514, 2012. 
    14. Hakan Altınçay, Zafer Erenel, "Using the Absolute Difference of Term Occurrence Probabilities in Binary Text    Categorization", Applied Intelligence, vol. 36, pp. 148-160, 2012. 
    15. Önsen Toygar, Hakan Altınçay, "Preserving Spatial Information and Overcoming Variations in Appearance for     Face Recognition", Pattern Analysis and Applications, vol. 14, pp. 67-75, 2011. 
    16. Hakan Altınçay, "Improving k-Nearest Neighbor Rule: Using Geometrical Neighborhoods and Manifold-based    Metrics", Expert Systems, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 391-406, 2011. 
    17. Zafer Erenel, Hakan Altınçay, Ekrem Varoglu, "Explicit Use of Term Occurrence Probabilities for Term Weighting     in Text Categorization", Journal of Information Science And Engineering, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 819-834, 2011.
    18. Hakan Altınçay, Zafer Erenel, "Analytical Evaluation of Term Weighting Schemes for Text Categorization", Pattern    Recognition Letters, vol. 31, pp. 1310-1323, 2010.
    19. Nazife Dimililer, Ekrem Varoğlu and Hakan Altınçay, "Classifier Subset Selection for Biomedical Named Entity Recognition", Applied Intelligence, vol. 31, pp. 267-282, 2009. 
    20. Hakan Altınçay, “Decision Trees using Model Ensemble-based Nodes", Pattern Recognition, vol. 40, pp. 3540-3551, 2007. 
    21. Hakan Altınçay, “Ensembling Evidential k-Nearest Neighbor Classifiers through Multi-modal Perturbation", Applied Soft Computing Journal, vol. 7, pp. 1072-1083, 2007. 
    22. Hakan Altınçay, “On the Independence Requirement In Dempster-Shafer Theory for Combining Classifiers Providing Statistical Evidence", Applied Intelligence Journal, vol. 25, pp. 73-90, 2006. 
    23. Hakan Altınçay, “On Naive Bayesian Fusion of Dependent Classifiers", Pattern Recognition Letters, vol. 26, pp. 2463-2473, 2005.
    24. Hakan Altınçay and Ali Tüzel, "Combination of Boosted Classifiers using Bounded Weights", in S. Singh, M. Singh, C. Apte and P. Perner (editors), Pattern Recognition and Data Mining, Lecture Notes In Computer Science, LNCS 3686, Springer-Verlag, pp. 146-153, August 2005.
    25. Hakan Altınçay, “Optimal Resampling and Classifier Prototype Selection in Classifier Ensembles Using Genetic Algorithms", Pattern Analysis and Applications Journal, Vol. 7, pp. 285-295, 2004.
    26. Hakan Altınçay, Cem Ergün, “Clustering based undersampling for improving speaker verification decisions using AdaBoost", Lecture Notes In Computer Science, LNCS 3138, Springer-Verlag, September 2004.
    27. Hakan Altınçay, Mübeccel Demirekler, “Speaker Identification by Combining Multiple Classifiers Using Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence", Speech Communication journal, Vol. 41, pp. 531-547, 2003.
    28. Hakan Altınçay, Cem Ergün and Wasim Ahmad, “Robust speaker verification in low bit rate channels" Electronics Letters, Vol. 39, No:6,  pp. 576-578, March 2003.
    29. Hakan Altınçay and Mübeccel Demirekler, “Undesirable effects of output normalization in multiple classifier systems"Pattern Recognition Letters, Vol. 24, pp. 1163-1170, 2003. 
    30. Mübeccel Demirekler and Hakan Altınçay, “Plurality Voting Based Multiple Classifier Systems: Statistically Independent with Respect to Dependent Classifier Sets" Pattern Recognition, Vol. 35, pp. 2365-2379, 2002.
    31. Hakan Altınçay and Buket Çizili, “Classifier combination through clustering in the output spaces", in N. Petkov and M. A. Westenberg (editors): Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns, Springer Verlag, pp. 487-493, August 2003.
    32. Hakan Altınçay and Mübeccel Demirekler, “Post-processing of Classifier Outputs in Multiple Classifier Systems", in F. Roli and J. Kittler (editors): Multiple Classifier Systems, Springer Verlag, pp. 159-168, June 2002.
    33. Hakan Altınçay and Mübeccel Demirekler, "An Information Theoretic Framework for Weight Estimation in the Combination of Probabilistic Classifiers for Speaker Identification", Speech Communication Journal, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 255-272, April 2000.

    Conference Publications

    1. Ghazaal Sheikhi and Hakan Altınçay, “Supervised feature embedding for classification by learning rank-based neighborhoods", 25th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, ICPR'2020, Milano, Italy, January 2021.
    2. Ghazaal Sheikhi and Hakan Altınçay, “Using the Distance in Logistic Regression Models for Predictor Ranking in Diabetes Detection", International Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering, Banja Luca, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2019.
    3. Dima Badawi and Hakan Altınçay, Compact representation of documents using terms and termsets, International Conference on Machine Learning and Data Mining, MLDM 2018: 77-84, New York.
    4. Noushin Hajarolasvadi, Ghazaal Sheikhi and Hakan Altınçay, "Employing Data from Diagnosed Patients for Undiagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Detection", 14th International Conference on Informatics, Management and Technology in Healthcare, Athens, Greece, 2016. 
    5.  Ghazaal Sheikhi and Hakan Altınçay, "The cost of Type II Diabetes Mellitus: A Machine Learning Perspective", XIV Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, Paphos, March 2016.
    6. Noushin Hajarolasvadi and Ghazaal Sheikhi and Hakan Altınçay, “Employing Data from Diagnosed Patients for Undiagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Detection", 14th International Conference on Informatics, Management and Technology in Healthcare, Athens, Greece, 2016.
    7. Dima Badawi and Hakan Altınçay, “A Novel Scheme for Weighting Bigrams", International Conference on Machine Vision and Machine Learning (MVML'2014), 14-15 August 2014, Prague. 
    8. Hakan Altınçay, “Feature Extraction using Single Variable Classifiers for Binary Text Classification", 26th International Conference on Industrial, Engineering and Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems (IEA/AEI), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 7906, pp. 332-340, 2013.
    9. Z.Erenel, H.Altınçay, E.Varoğlu, “A Symmetric Term Weighting Scheme for Text Categorization Based on Term Occurrence Probabilities", Fifth International Conference on Soft Computing, Computing with Words and Perceptions in System Analysis, Decision and Control (ICSCCW 2009), Famagusta, N. Cyprus, September 2-4, 2009
    10. Using Local Features Based Face Experts in Multimodal Biometrics Identification Systems", Fifth International Conference on Soft Computing, Computing with Words and Perceptions in System Analysis, Decision and Control (ICSCCW 2009), Famagusta, N. Cyprus, September 2-4, 2009
    11. Nazife Dimililer, Ekrem Varoğlu and Hakan Altınçay, "Vote-Based Classifier Selection for Biomedical NER using Genetic Algorithms", 3rd Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, IbPRAI'2007, June 6-8, Girona, Spain
    12. Hakan Altınçay, Cem Ergün and Tolga Çiloğlu, "Using MPEG-7 Audio Descriptors for Speaker Verification", 10th International Conference on Speech and Computer, Patras, Greece, October 2005.
    13. Hakan Altınçay, “An Evidence Theoretic Ensemble Design Technique", 7th International Conference on Adaptive and Natural Computing Algorithms, Portugal, March 2005 
    14. Hakan Altınçay, “Comparing Diversity and Training Accuracy in Classifier Selection for Plurality Voting Based Fusion", 7th International Conference on Adaptive and Natural Computing Algorithms, Portugal, March 2005 
    15. Hakan Altınçay, Cem Ergün, “Nonlinear decision function in speaker verification using a classifier ensemble", 12thEuropean signal processing conference, EUSIPCO'2004, September 6-10, Vienna, Austria.
    16. Adnan Acan, Hakan Altınçay, Yüce Tekol and Ahmet Ünveren, "A Genetic Algorithm with Multiple Crossover Operators for Optimal Frequency Assignment Problem", In Proceedings of IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, December 2003, Canberra, Australia. 
    17. Hakan Altınçay, Wasim Ahmad, Cem Ergün, “Speaker identification in a multi-coder environment", Joint 13th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks and 10th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICANN/ICONIP 2003, June 26-29, Istanbul, TURKEY. 
    18. Hakan Altınçay and Mübeccel Demirekler, “Why Does Output Normalization Create Problems in Multiple Classifier Systems?", In Proceedings of ICPR2002, 16th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, August 2002, Quebec, Canada. 
    19. Mübeccel Demirekler and Hakan Altınçay, “On the Classifier Independence Requirement in Multiple Classifier Systems", Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences, 5-7 November 2001, pp. 281- 288, Antalya, Turkey. 
    20. Hakan Altınçay and Mübeccel Demirekler, “Comparison of Different Objective Functions for Optimal Linear Combination of Classifiers For speaker Identification", In Proceedings of IEEE-International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing, ICASSP'2001, May 2001, Salt Lake City, USA. 
    21. Hakan Altınçay and Mübeccel Demirekler, “A Theoretical Investigation for Classifier Combination", In proceedings of BRAIN-MACHINE'2000 workshop, 20-22 December, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. 
    22. Hakan Altınçay and Mübeccel Demirekler, "A Novel Rank-Based Classifier Combination Scheme for Speaker Identification", In Proceedings of IEEE-International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing, ICASSP-2000, Vol. II, pp 1209-1212, June 2000, Istanbul, Turkey. (Also presented in First Balkan Conference on Signal Processing, Communications, Circuits and Systems, Işık University, June 2000, Istanbul, Turkey.) 
    23. Hakan Altınçay and Mübeccel Demirekler,, "On the Use of Supra Model Information from Multiple Classifiers for Robust Speaker Identification" In Proceedings of EUROSPEECH'99, pp. 971-974, September 1999, Budapest, Hungary. 
    24. Hakan Altınçay and Mübeccel Demirekler,, "Use of Model Confusion Information for Speaker Identification: A Rule-Based Approach" In Proceedings of IEEE-EURASIP Nonlinear Signal and Image Processing, pp. 321-325, June 1999, Antalya, Turkey.

    Projects

     Text Categorization Using Statistical Learning Techniques 

     TRNC Ministry of Education, MEKB- 09-02 [June 2009 - December 2010] 

     Using MPEG-7 Audio Attributes for Speaker Verification 

     TÜBİTAK, EEEAG-104E142 [July 2005 – January 2007] 

     Improving the Performance of Medical Data Mining Systems using Intelligent Classification Techniques 

    TRNC Ministry of Education, MEKB-05-04 [September 2005 - January 2007] 

     Identity Verification by Combining Multiple Biometric Information 

    TRNC Ministry of Education, MEKB - 07-06 [November 2007 - May 2009]


    Thesis Supervision

    PhD. Theses

    Imbalance Learning Using Thresholding and Sample Repositioning   
    by Hossein Ghaderi Zefrehi, August 2023

    Feature Selection in High Dimensional Spaces

    by Ghazaal Sheikhi, September 2020

    Termset Selection and Weighting in Binary Text Classification 
    by Dima Badawi, June 2015

    Text Categorization Using Statistical Learning Techniques 
    by Zafer Erenel, August 2010

    Speech Codec Detector-Based Speaker Verification System in a Multi-Coder Environment
    July 2004.

    M.S. Theses

    Imbalance Learning Using Heterogeneous Ensembles 
    by Hossein Ghaderi Zefrehi, September 2018

    Computation of an Enriched Set of Predictors for Type 2 Diabetes Prediction 
    by Noushin Hajarolasvadi, June 2016

    Experimental Evaluation of Feature Extraction Schemes for Face Recognition 
    by Shaghayegh Parchami, February 2015

    Feature Selection using Co-occurrence of Terms for Binary Text Classification 
    by Marzieh Vahabi Mashak, February 2015

    Performances of Deferred and Forward Shading under Different Lighting Conditions 
    by Alexander Polisciuc, July 2013

    Functional Magnetic Resonance Image (FMRI) Based Brain Activity Classification 
    by Mehran Sahandi Far, July 2013

    Editing the Nearest Feature Line Classifier 
    by Kamran Kamaei, February 2013

    Optimal Estimation of Ensemble Member Weights using Bounded Neural Networks 
    by Ali Tüzel, February 2007

    A Multiple Classifier System Using Jointly Optimal Classifiers for Speaker Identification 
    by Buket Çizili, February 2003

    Speaker Identification in Multi-coder Environment 
    by Wasim Ahmad, February 2003

    Application of Classifier Combination Techniques for Speaker Identification
    by Awais Mahmood, June 2003


    Awards

    1. IEEE third best paper award in SIU'2003 conference, June 2003, Koç University 

    2. United Ph.D. Scholarship from TUBITAK, [1996 - 2000] 

    3. Successful student award in mathematics, Ministry of Education, [1989 - 1993]

    Committee Work

    Interuniversity Academic Coordination Council (ÜAKK) 
    May 2017 - April 2018 

    EMU Academic Assessment Committee (ADEK) 
    October 2013 - September 2016 

    Board member of Advanced Technology Research and Development Institute 
    2004-2005, April 2011-2012 

    Departmental Graduate Committee 
    Head, 2008-2012 

    Senate member, Assoc. Prof. Representative 
    2006-2007, 2009-2010 

    Faculty Board Member, Assoc. Prof. Representative 
    2006-2007, 2009-2010, 2010-2011, 2011-2012 

    Faculty Board Member, Prof. Representative 
    2012-2013, 2023-2024 

    EMU Research Advisory Board, Engineering Faculty Representative 
    April 2011-2013 

    Academic Disciplinary Committee, Engineering Faculty Representative 
    2012-2013













    Prof. Dr. Hakan Altınçay