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An automated methodology is proposed to identify anomalies in buildings’ HVAC systems, through Local Correlation Integral (LOCI) algorithm, improved by Bootstrap to obtain a rule from its score distribution. It has been performed to solve the case study of anomaly detection for HVAC facilities maintenance in a clothing store in Panama. It is defined by a dataset composed of 24 daily readings recorded during 434 days. In each reading, 15 critical quality variables for thermal comfort and energy efficiency were monitored. For algorithm training, anomalous events recorded by HVAC system operators are considered. In this stage, the LOCI parameters that best fit the data are estimated, to obtain a score for each of the observations and then study their distribution by applying Bootstrap techniques to improve the classification performance. For the algorithm performance evaluation, cross-validation is used and from these results, it is compared with two benchmark supervised classification methods such as Logistic Regression and Support Vector Machines with polynomial kernel. The LOCI method has been improved by the application of bootstrap resampling, providing estimates of the LOCI score distribution and a critical value from which we define an anomalous observation. It provides the best balance between real anomaly detection and prevention of false alarm identification than current proposals for LOCI.

This work is a case study whose objective is prediction of irrigation needs of corn crops in different regions of Ecuador; being this a fundamental basic food for the country's economy, as in the remaining countries of the Andean area. The proposed methodology seeks to help improving the quality of corn crop. Specifically, we propose the application of regression models, within the framework of Functional Data Analysis (FDA), to predict the amount of rainfall (scalar response variable) in the places with the highest production of corn in Ecuador, as a function of functional covariates such as temperature and wind speed. From the estimation of the amount of rainfall, effective precipitation is calculated. This is the fraction of water used by the crops, from which the value of real evapotranspiration or ETc is obtained and, more importantly, the irrigation requirements at each stage of the corn crop, for its adequate physiological development. Application of regression models based on functional basis, Functional Principal Components (FPC) or Functional Partial Least Squares (FPLS) for scalar response variable, allows us to use the information of variables such as wind speed and temperature (of functional nature) in a better way than using multivariate models, for predicting the amount of rainfall, obtaining, as a result, very explicative models, defined by a high goodness of fit (R2=0.97, with 6 significant parameters and an error of 0.14) and practical utility. The model has been also applied to North Peru regions, obtaining rainfall prediction errors between 9% and 22%. Thus, the geographical limitations of the model could be the Andean regions with similar climate. In addition, this study proposes the application of FDA exploratory analysis and FDA outlier detection techniques as a common and useful practice in the specific domain of rainfall prediction studies, prior to applying the regression models.

The TTS package has been developed in R software to predict the mechanical properties of viscoelastic materials, at short and long observation times/frequencies by applying the Time Temperature Superposition (TTS) principle. TTS is a physical principle used in material science to estimate mechanical properties beyond the experimental range of observed times/frequencies by shifting data curves obtained at other temperatures relative to a reference temperature in the dataset. It is a methodology related to accelerated life-tests and reliability, whereas the TTS library is one of the first open source computational tool to apply the TTS principle. This R package provides free computational tools to obtain master curves that characterize materials from a thermal-mechanical approach. The TTS package also proposes, implements and explains our own method to obtain the shift factors and the master curve in a TTS analysis, based on horizontal shifting of the first derivative function of viscoelastic properties. This procedure provides shift factors estimates and smooth master curve estimates using B-spline fitting, in a fully automatic way, without assuming any parametric expression. Williams-Landel-Ferry (WLF) and Arrhenius TTS parametric models are also implemented in the TTS package. They can be fitted from shifts obtained by the our first derivative based method.

The IV Iberoamerican Congress of Naval Engineering was held in Seville (3–5 October) and Ferrol (6–7 October) [...]

The present work develops a methodology for the detection of outliers in functional data, taking into account both their shape and magnitude. Specifically, the multivariate method of anomaly detection called Local Correlation Integral (LOCI) has been extended and adapted to be applied to the particular case of functional data, using the calculation of distances in Hilbert spaces. This methodology has been validated with a simulation study and its application to real data. The simulation study has taken into account scenarios with functional data or curves with different degrees of dependence, as is usual in cases of continuously monitored data versus time. The results of the simulation study show that the functional approach of the LOCI method performs well in scenarios with inter-curve dependence, especially when the outliers are due to the magnitude of the curves. These results are supported by applying the present procedure to the meteorological database of the Alternative Energy and Environment Group in Ecuador, specifically to the humidity curves, presenting better performance than other competitive methods.

Este trabajo representa una nueva alternativa para el estudio, clasificación y comparación de la producción científica de centros de investigación, utilizando las funciones de tratamiento de datos del paquete Citan del software estadístico R. En particular, se muestra el análisis bibliométrico de las publicaciones de las universidades de A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela y Vigo, en el periodo 2000-2011, recopiladas por la base de datos Scopus. Entre las técnicas usadas se aplicaron modelos de Lotka y Price, modelización no paramétrica y paramétrica de los datos, así como el cálculo y análisis de indicadores de la cantidad y calidad de la producción científica, los índices h y g, y otros menosconocidos como los rp1, lp, Ge1, Ge5 y Slp1. Como novedad, se propone una variante del índice h (hh) que define el grupo de investigadores que forman la élite más productiva de cada universidad y estima su calidad investigadora.

This work proposes a method based on image analysis and machine and statistical learning to model and estimate osteocyte growth (in type I collagen scaffolds for bone regeneration systems) and the collagen degradation degree due to cellular growth. To achieve these aims, the mass of collagen -subjected to the action of osteocyte growth and differentiation from stem cells- was measured on 3 days during each of 2 months, under conditions simulating a tissue in the human body. In addition, optical microscopy was applied to obtain information about cellular growth, cellular differentiation, and collagen degradation. Our first contribution consists of the application of a supervised classification random forest algorithm to image texture features (the structure tensor and entropy) for estimating the different regions of interest in an image obtained by optical microscopy: the extracellular matrix, collagen, and image background, and nuclei. Then, extracellular-matrix and collagen regions of interest were determined by the extraction of features related to the progression of the cellular growth and collagen degradation (e.g., mean area of objects and the mode of an intensity histogram). Finally, these critical features were statistically modeled depending on time via nonparametric and parametric linear and nonlinear models such as those based on logistic functions. Namely, the parametric logistic mixture models provided a way to identify and model the degradation due to biological activity by estimating the corresponding proportion of mass loss. The relation between osteocyte growth and differentiation from stem cells, on the one hand, and collagen degradation, on the other hand, was determined too and modeled through analysis of image objects’ circularity and area, in addition to collagen mass loss. This set of imaging techniques, machine learning procedures, and statistical tools allowed us to characterize and parameterize type I collagen biodegradation when collagen acts as a scaffold in bone regeneration tasks. Namely, the parametric logistic mixture models provided a way to identify and model the degradation due to biological activity and thus to estimate the corresponding proportion of mass loss. Moreover, the proposed methodology can help to estimate the degradation degree of scaffolds from the information obtained by optical microscopy.

En este trabajo, se proponen dos nuevos índices de capacidad robustos para detectar la influencia de los factores que pueden causar grandes desviaciones de las especificaciones técnicas del proceso. El comportamiento de estos nuevos índices se analizó mediante la comparación de su rendimiento con respecto a otras medidas de capacidad ampliamente estudiados en la literatura. El trabajo tiene como objetivo investigar la robustez de estos nuevos índices de capacidad bajo la presencia de valores extremos y de falta de normalidad. Para este propósito, se aplicaron técnicas de remuestreo Bootstrap para detectar la verdadera capacidad potencial de un proceso a través de los métodos de inferencia estadística. La precisión de los índices propuestos es discutida por medio de resultados numéricos con un ejemplo de datos reales.

This methodology permits to simulate the performance of different Poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) copolymer formulations (PDLGA) in the human body, to identify the more influencing variables on hydrolytic degradation and, thus, to estimate biopolymer degradation level. The PDLGA characteristic degradation trends, caused by hydrolysis processes, have been studied to define their future biomedical applications as dental scaffolds. For this purpose, the mass loss, pH, glass transition temperature (Tg) and absorbed water mass of the different biopolymers have been obtained from samples into a phosphate-buffered saline solution (PBS) with initial pH of 7.4, at 37°C (human body conditions). The mass loss has been defined as the variable that characterize the biopolymer degradation level. Its dependence relationship with respect to time, pH and biopolymer formulation has been modelled using statistical learning tools. Namely, generalized additive models (GAM) and nonlinear mixed-effects regression with logistic and asymptotic functions have been applied. GAM model provides information about the relevant variables and the parametric functions that relate mass loss, pH and time. Mixed effects are introduced to model and estimate the degradation properties, and to compare the PDLGA biopolymer populations. The degradation path for each polymer formulation has been estimated and compared with respect to the others for helping to use the proper polymer for each specific medical application, performing selection criteria. It was found that the mass loss differences in PDLGA copolymers are strongly related with the way the pH decay versus time, due to carboxylic acid groups formation. This may occur in those environments in which the degradation products remain relatively confined with the non degraded mass. This is the case emulated with the present experimental procedure. The results show that PDLGA polymers degradation degree, in terms of half life and degradation rate, is increasing when acid termination is included, when DL-lactide molar ratio is reduced, decreasing the midpoint viscosity, or when glycolide is not included.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204004.].

This study proposes a control chart based on functional data to detect anomalies and estimate the normal output of industrial processes and services such as those related to the energy efficiency domain. Companies providing statistical consultancy services in the fields of energy efficiency; heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC); installation and control; and big data for buildings, have been striving to solve the problem of automatic anomaly detection in buildings controlled by sensors. Given the functional nature of the critical to quality (CTQ) variables, this study proposed a new functional data analysis (FDA) control chart method based on the concept of data depth. Specifically, it developed a control methodology, including the Phase I and II control charts. It is based on the calculation of the depth of functional data, the identification of outliers by smooth bootstrap resampling and the customization of nonparametric rank control charts. A comprehensive simulation study, comprising scenarios defined with different degrees of dependence between curves, was conducted to evaluate the control procedure. The proposed statistical process control procedure was also applied to detect energy efficiency anomalies in the stores of a textile company in the Panama City. In this case, energy consumption has been defined as the CTQ variable of the HVAC system. Briefly, the proposed methodology, which combines FDA and multivariate techniques, adapts the concept of the control chart based on a specific case of functional data and thereby presents a novel alternative for controlling facilities in which the data are obtained by continuous monitoring, as is the case with a great deal of process in the framework of Industry 4.0.

La predicción del ahorro energético y la calidad del aire interior resultante de la aplicación de medidas de rehabilitación de la eficiencia energética en edificios residenciales es de importancia capital para poder invertir en la tecnología correcta y optimizar los recursos disponibles. En este trabajo se propone una nueva metodología, basada en la toma de datos reales, para estimar rápida y eficazmente la eficiencia energética y calidad del aire de las viviendas atendiendo a variables como las costumbres de los ocupantes, normativa y tipología constructiva. Se evalúa con éxito el efecto de las reformas efectuadas para la rehabilitación de la eficiencia energética de 4 viviendas construidas en diferentes épocas, bajo distinta normativa, con diferente nivel de ocupación y características de sus elementos constructivos.

This study investigated a methodology based on image processing and statistics to characterize and model the deformation upon controlled and uniform magnetic field and the relaxation under zero field of droplets observed in aqueous solutions of sodium alginate incorporating magnetic maghemite nanoparticles stabilized by adsorption of citrate ions. The changes of droplet geometry were statistically analyzed using a new approach based on the data obtained from optical microscopy, image processing, nonlinear regression, evolutionary optimization, analysis of variance and resampling. Image enhancement and then image segmentation (Gaussian mixture modeling) processes were applied to extract features with reliable information of droplets dimensions from optical micrographs. The droplets deformation and relaxation trends were accurately adjusted by the Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) function and a mean relaxation time was obtained by fitting the time evolution of geometry parameters. It was found to be proportional to the initial radius of the spherical droplets and was associated to interfacial tension.

El principal objeto de este trabajo ha sido el empleo de una nueva técnica que aúna el análisis funcional y el diseño de experimentos: ANOVA funcional para un factor tratamiento. Mediante esta herramienta se ha medido la influencia que tiene la adición de una mezcla de nano y micro partículas de humo de sílice, subproducto de la industria del silicio, en la degradación térmica de una resina epoxi. Para tal fin se ha realizado un diseño de experimentos con un factor tratamiento (cantidad de humo de sílice) a tres niveles diferentes. Los datos se han obtenido mediante el empleo del Análisis Termogravimétrico (TG), dando como resultado cinco curvas o trayectorias de degradación por nivel. El ANOVA funcional aprovecha toda la información de cada curva o dato funcional. El empleo del ANOVA funcional a partir de los datos TG ha dado como resultado que la cantidad de humo de sílice influye significativamente en la estabilidad térmica del compuesto y de la resina epoxi involucrada en cada muestra. Estos hechos pueden ser un indicio de la interacción entre la fase orgánica e inorgánica del material.