This thesis proposes and presents several novel methods to address some of the real world stream data modelling issues through the use of global and local modelling approaches. A set of real world stream data modelling issues such as dealing with large size and, high dimensionality data, skewed class distribution, different formats of data and visualisation problem are reviewed and their impact on various models are analysed.

The thesis has made nine major contributions to information science, that include four evolving modelling methods, three real world application systems that apply these methods and two stream data visualisation software prototypes. Four novel methods have been developed and published in the course of this study. They are: (1) Online Core Vector Machines (OCVM); (2) Hierarchical CVMs (HCVM) - a local modelling system based on hierarchical labelling data; (3) Dynamic Evolving CVMs (DE-CVM) - a kernel based dynamic evolving learning system; (4) Meta-Learning String Kernel CVM.

OCVM addresses the issue of one-pass, large size, high dimensionality stream data through a kernel-based online learning process. OCVM is proposed for large-scale classification by leveraging connections between learning and computational geometry. It imposes the constraint that only a single pass over the data is allowed. Standard support vector machines (SVM) training has O(m3) time and O(m2) space complexities, where m is the training set size. It is thus computationally infeasible on very large data sets. Our proposed OCVM inherits the advantage of the Core Vector Machine (CVM) algorithm which can be used with non-linear kernels and has a time complexity that is linear in m and a space complexity that is independent of m.

HCVM solves the skewed-class distribution problem for hierarchical stream data by identifying them through the sub-classes clustering process, creating child CVMs based on the hierarchical labels and applies supervised learning to update the core vectors. This puts strong emphasis on the unique problem subspaces and allows easy to discriminate parent classes by local modelling on their child classes.

DE-CVM takes HCVM a step further by implementing an evolving clustering process. DE-CVM evolves through incremental, hybrid learning and accommodates new input stream data, including new features, new classes, etc. through local element tuning. New core vectors are created and updated while the system is operating. In contrast to HCVM, DE-CVM can work not only on hierarchical data but also on any numerical stream data.

Meta Learning String Kernel CVM is proposed to satisfy the string format stream data learning. Recently, string kernel based support vector machines have shown competitive performance in tasks such as text classification and protein homology detection. Meta Learning String Kernel CVM improves the effectiveness of traditional string kernels SVMs by learning the meta knowledge and adopting CVMs.

The novel stream learning methods outlined above have been applied to the following three real world data modelling problems:

1. Hierarchical network data intrusion detection;
2. Face Membership Authentication;
3. String data (i.e. Spam email, news and malicious software) classification.

These solutions constitute the main contribution of this research to the area of applied information science. In addition to the above contributions, two stream data visualisation systems were developed: the network intrusion detection visualisation system (NIDVS) and the HCVM prototype system. These systems overcome the difficulty of monitoring stream data learning progress and also provide a better understanding of local modelling.

In summary, real world problems consist of many smaller problems. It was found beneficial to acknowledge the existence of these sub-problems and address them through the use of local models. The core vectors extracted from the local models also brought about the availability of new knowledge for researchers and would allow more in-depth study of the sub-problems to be carried out in future research.