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Machine learning classifiers are increasingly widely used. This research note explores how a particular widely used classifier, the Random Forest, performs when faced with samples which are imbalanced and noisy data. Both are known to affect accuracy, but if their effects are independent or not has not been explored. Based on an experiment using synthetic data generated for the study we find that the effects of noise and sample balance interact with each other; classification accuracy is worse when faced with both noisy data and sample imbalance. This has implications for the use of RF in market research, but also for how methods to address either sample imbalance or noise are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gun-related crime continues to be an urgent public health and safety problem in cities across the US. A key question is: how are firearms diverted from the legal retail market into the hands of gun offenders? With close to 8 million legal firearm transaction records in California (2010-2020) linked to over 380,000 records of recovered crime guns (2010-2021), we employ supervised machine learning to predict which firearms are used in crimes shortly after purchase. Specifically, using random forest (RF) with stratified under-sampling, we predict any crime gun recovery within a year (0.2% of transactions) and violent crime gun recovery within a year (0.03% of transactions). We also identify the purchaser, firearm, and dealer characteristics most predictive of this short time-to-crime gun recovery using SHapley Additive exPlanations and mean decrease in accuracy variable importance measures. Overall, our models show good discrimination, and we are able to identify firearms at extreme risk for diversion into criminal hands. The test set AUC is 0.85 for both models. For the model predicting any recovery, a default threshold of 0.50 results in a sensitivity of 0.63 and a specificity of 0.88. Among transactions identified as extremely risky, e.g., transactions with a score of 0.98 and above, 74% (35/47 in the test data) are recovered within a year. The most important predictive features include purchaser age and caliber size. This study suggests the potential utility of transaction records combined with machine learning to identify firearms at the highest risk for diversion and criminal use soon after purchase.

The competition among Food & Beverage companies has substantially increased in today's age of digitization. Sales forecasting is one of their main challenges. Due to space limitations, employee shortages, and rising online demand, retail sales forecasting became extremely important for Food and Beverage companies. This research analyzed the sales data of a multinational Food & Beverage Company. It proposed a framework using Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) clustering, Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering (HAC), and Random Forest algorithm for forecasting sales. This model analyzes the impact of the weekends, holidays, promotional activities, customer sentiments, festivals, and socio-economic situations in sales data and is able to forecast sales ranging from one to 15 months. An investigation of the suggested model's performance compared to numerous cutting-edge sales forecasting techniques is carried out to show its efficacy. Here, we demonstrate that the proposed hybrid model surpasses current predicting and computing efficiency methods. The results of this study can help retail managers to allocate resources and manage inventories in well-informed ways. The findings suggest that combining many strategies may produce the most precise forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is an important treatment option for patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. It is important to identify predictors of excellent outcomes (good clinical outcomes, more time spent at home) after TAVR that are potentially amenable to improvement. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the study was to use machine learning to identify potentially modifiable predictors of clinically relevant patient-centered outcomes after TAVR. METHODS: We used data from 8,332 TAVR cases (January 2016-December 2021) from 21 hospitals to train random forest models with 57 patient characteristics (demographics, comorbidities, surgical risk score, lab values, health status scores) and care process parameters to predict the end point, a composite of parameters that designated an excellent outcome and included no major complications (in-hospital or at 30 days), post-TAVR length of stay of 1 day or less, discharge to home, no readmission, and alive at 30 days. We used recursive feature elimination with cross-validation and Shapley Additive Explanation feature importance to identify parameters with the highest predictive values. RESULTS: The final random forest model retained 29 predictors (15 patient characteristics and 14 care process components); the area under the curve, sensitivity, and specificity were 0.77, 0.67, and 0.73, respectively. Four potentially modifiable predictors with relatively high Shapley Additive Explanation values were identified: type of anesthesia, direct movement to stepdown unit post-TAVR, time between catheterization and TAVR, and preprocedural length of stay. CONCLUSIONS: This study identified four potentially modifiable predictors of excellent outcome after TAVR, suggesting that machine learning combined with hospital-level data can inform modifiable components of care, which could support better delivery of care for patients undergoing TAVR.

UNLABELLED: Small sample sizes and loss of sequencing reads during the microbiome data preprocessing can limit the statistical power of differentiating fresh produce phenotypes and prevent the detection of important bacterial species associated with produce contamination or quality reduction. Here, we explored a machine learning-based k-mer hash analysis strategy to identify DNA signatures predictive of produce safety (PS) and produce quality (PQ) and compared it against the amplicon sequence variant (ASV) strategy that uses a typical denoising step and ASV-based taxonomy strategy. Random forest-based classifiers for PS and PQ using 7-mer hash data sets had significantly higher classification accuracy than those using the ASV data sets. We also demonstrated that the proposed combination of integrating multiple data sets and leveraging a 7-mer hash strategy leads to better classification performance for PS and PQ compared to the ASV method but presents lower PS classification accuracy compared to the feature-selected ASV-based taxonomy strategy. Due to the current limitation of generating taxonomy using the 7-mer hash strategy, the ASV-based taxonomy strategy with remarkably less computing time and memory usage is more efficient for PS and PQ classification and applicable for important taxa identification. Results generated from this study lay the foundation for future studies that wish and need to incorporate and/or compare different microbiome sequencing data sets for the application of machine learning in the area of microbial safety and quality of food. IMPORTANCE: Identification of generalizable indicators for produce safety (PS) and produce quality (PQ) improves the detection of produce contamination and quality decline. However, effective sequencing read loss during microbiome data preprocessing and the limited sample size of individual studies restrain statistical power to identify important features contributing to differentiating PS and PQ phenotypes. We applied machine learning-based models using individual and integrated k-mer hash and amplicon sequence variant (ASV) data sets for PS and PQ classification and evaluated their classification performance and found that random forest (RF)-based models using integrated 7-mer hash data sets achieved significantly higher PS and PQ classification accuracy. Due to the limitation of taxonomic analysis for the 7-mer hash, we also developed RF-based models using feature-selected ASV-based taxonomic data sets, which performed better PS classification than those using the integrated 7-mer hash data set. The RF feature selection method identified 480 PS indicators and 263 PQ indicators with a positive contribution to the PS and PQ classification.

Clustering and machine learning-based predictions are increasingly used for environmental data analysis and management. In fluvial geomorphology, examples include predicting channel types throughout a river network and segmenting river networks into a series of channel types, or groups of channel forms. However, when relevant information is unevenly distributed throughout a river network, the discrepancy between data-rich and data-poor locations creates an information gap. Combining clustering and predictions addresses this information gap, but challenges and limitations remain poorly documented. This is especially true when considering that predictions are often achieved with two approaches that are meaningfully different in terms of information processing: decision trees (e.g., RF: random forest) and deep learning (e.g., DNNs: deep neural networks). This presents challenges for downstream management decisions and when comparing clusters and predictions within or across study areas. To address this, we investigate the performance of RF and DNN with respect to the information gap between clustering data and prediction data. We use nine regional examples of clustering and predicting river channel types, stemming from a single clustering methodology applied in California, USA. Our results show that prediction performance decreases when the information gap between field-measured data and geospatial predictors increases. Furthermore, RF outperforms DNN, and their difference in performance decreases when the information gap between field-measured and geospatial data decreases. This suggests that mismatched scales between field-derived channel types and geospatial predictors hinder sequential information processing in DNN. Finally, our results highlight a sampling trade-off between uniformly capturing geomorphic variability and ensuring robust generalisation.

In this study, we develop a machine-learning (ML)-enabled strategy for selecting hillslope-scale ecohydrological monitoring sites within snow-dominated mountainous watersheds, with a particular focus on snow-soil–plant interactions. Data layers rely on spatial data layers from both remote sensing and hydrological model simulations. Specifically, a Landsat-based foresummer drought sensitivity index is used to define the dependency of the annual peak plant productivity on the Palmer drought severity index in the early growing season. Hydrological simulations provide the spatiotemporal dynamics of near-surface soil moisture and snow depth. In this framework, a regression analysis identifies the key hydrological variables relevant to the spatial heterogeneity of drought sensitivity. We then apply unsupervised clustering to these key variables, using the Gaussian mixture model, to group hillslopes into several zones that have divergent relationships regarding soil moisture, snow dynamics, and drought sensitivity. Using the datasets collected in the East River Watershed (Crested Butte, Colorado, United States), results show that drought sensitivity is significantly correlated with model-derived soil moisture and snow-free timing over space and time. The relationship is, however, non-linear, such that the correlation decreases above a threshold elevation and in a heavy snow year due to large snowpacks, lateral flow, and soil storage limitations. Clustering is then able to define the zones that have high or low sensitivity to drought, as well as the mid-elevation regions where sensitivity is associated with the topographic aspect and net potential radiation. In addition, the algorithm identifies the most representative hillslopes with road/trail access within each zone for installing monitoring sites. Our method also aims to significantly increase the use of ML and model-simulation results to guide critical zone and watershed monitoring activities.

In the past few years, with the increase in population and health concerns, there has been a need for efficient health monitoring solutions that can help patients monitor their health consistently to be aware of any health risks at the initial stage. The advancement in sensing and smart technologies helps monitor human behaviors to predict health risks. In this work, a dynamic decision-based activity prediction system is proposed using Random Forest, SVM, Decision Trees, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) on an edge device. We train the models using features from the MHealth dataset, such as acceleration, rate of turn, and magnetic field, to predict activities such as standing, climbing, running, and jogging, collected from various sensors. Our framework dynamically selects between machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) algorithms based on real-time data size and edge device capabilities, ensuring optimal performance and resource utilization. The results for the proposed models are compared and analyzed. The experimental results indicate that among all machine learning methods, Random Forest achieves the highest overall accuracy at 98%, while in deep learning algorithms, both LSTM and GRU reach a maximum accuracy of 98%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain metastases (BMs) in extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC) are often associated with poor survival rates and quality of life, making the timely identification of high-risk patients for BMs in ES-SCLC crucial. Patients diagnosed with ES-SCLC between 2010 and 2018 were screened from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Four different machine learning (ML) algorithms were used to create prediction models for BMs in ES-SCLC patients. The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, AUROC, and AUPRC were compared among these models and traditional logistic regression (LR). The random forest (RF) model demonstrated the best performance and was chosen for further analysis. The AUROC and AUPRC were calculated and compared. The findings from the RF model were utilized to identify the risk factors linked to BMs in patients diagnosed with ES-SCLC. Examining 4,716 instances of ES-SCLC, the research conducted an analysis, with brain metastases arising in 1,900 cases. Through evaluation of the ROC curve and PRC concerning the RF Model, results depicted an AUROC of 0.896 (95% CI: 0.889–0.899) and AUPRC of 0.900 (95% CI: 0.895–0.904). Test accuracy measured at 0.810 (95% CI: 0.784–0.833), sensitivity at 0.797 (95% CI: 0.756–0.841), and specificity at 0.819 (95% CI: 0.754–0.879). Based on the SHAP analysis of the RF predictive model, the top 10 most relevant features were identified and ranked in order of relative importance: bone metastasis, liver metastasis, radiation, age, tumor size, primary tumor location, N-stage, race, T-stage, and chemotherapy. The research developed and validated a predictive RF model using clinical and pathological data to predict the risk of BMs in patients with ES-SCLC. This model may assist physicians in making clinical decisions that could delay the onset of BMs and improve patient survival rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to construct a prediction model for early diagnosis and classification of lung cancer based on multi-dimensional clinical data. Three advanced machine learning models — Random Forest, Decision Tree, and Support Vector Machine (SVM) — were employed to predict lung cancer using features such as age, chronic disease history, and clinical symptoms. The models were optimized through various strategies to improve predictive performance. The results demonstrated that all three models achieved high accuracy and sensitivity in lung cancer prediction. Furthermore, a detailed analysis of feature importance identified key factors such as age and chronic disease history that significantly influenced prediction outcomes. Among the models, the SVM exhibited particularly strong performance, providing robust support for accurate lung cancer prediction. Future work will focus on integrating multimodal data and optimizing model architecture and hyperparameters to further enhance the predictive accuracy and clinical utility of the model, thereby contributing to the early diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study delineates landslide susceptibility zones in the Kalimpong district by integrating multi‐sensor datasets and assessing the effectiveness of statistical and machine learning models for precision mapping. The analysis utilises a comprehensive geospatial dataset, including remote sensing imagery, topographical, geological, and climatic factors. Four models were employed to generate landslide susceptibility maps (LSMs) using 16 influencing factors: two bivariate statistical models, frequency ratio (FR) and evidence belief function (EBF) and two machine learning models, random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM). Out of 1244 recorded landslide events, 871 events (70%) were used for training the models, and 373 events (30%) for validation. The distribution of susceptibility classes predicted by The RF and SVM models produced similar susceptibility distributions, predicting 13.30% and 14.30% of the area as highly susceptible, and 2.42% and 2.82% as very highly susceptible, respectively. In contrast, the FR model estimated 20.98% of the area as highly susceptible and 4.30% as very highly susceptible, whereas the EBF model predicted 17.42% and 5.89% for these categories, respectively. Model validation using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves revealed that the machine learning models (RF and SVM) had superior prediction accuracy with AUC values of 95.90% and 86.60%, respectively, compared to the statistical models (FR and EBF), which achieved AUC values of 74.30% and 76.80%. The findings indicate that Kalimpong‐I is most vulnerable, with 6.76% of its area categorised as very high susceptibility and 24.80% as high susceptibility. Conversely, the Gorubathan block exhibited the least susceptible, with 0.95% and 6.48% of its area classified as very high and high susceptibility, respectively. This research provides essential insights for decision‐makers and policy planners in landslide‐prone regions and can be instrumental in developing early warning systems, which are vital for enhancing community safety through timely evacuations and preparedness measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investment in cryptocurrencies has garnered substantial attention in the recent past as the prices for these digital currencies started recording all-time highs. While there are numerous contenders in the cryptocurrency market, bitcoin has emerged to be the most popular and sought after digital currency. Despite its popularity, the theoretical understanding of the value of this cryptocurrency is still limited. Hence this study aims to find out the significant predictors of the bitcoin price and build a machine-learning based model to evaluate and predict the complex phenomenon of bitcoin price. Here we contribute to the extant literature by searching for the potential contributors of bitcoin prices ranging from fundamental, macroeconomic, financial, speculative, and technical sources to the most marked event of 2020 i.e., Covid19 pandemic. For this purpose, we have used state-of-the-art machine learning, deep learning, and statistical time-series models (univariate and multivariate) to forecast bitcoin price. The study revealed that deep learning models performed almost at par with Random Forest model for both pre- and whilst-Covid19 era. Traditional time-series models, namely VAR and VECM gave the most consistent performance within acceptable margins for both pre- and whilst-Covid era. We have also found that macroeconomic factors play an important role in determining bitcoin price formulation process during both periods, while mining difficulty and market sentiment factors gain more importance during pre-Covid period. In addition, number of covid cases is also found to be a significant factor for the prediction of bitcoin price during whilst-Covid period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All the software products developed will need testing to ensure the quality and accuracy of the product. It makes the life of testers much easier when they can optimize on the effort spent and predict defects for the upcoming modules in the Agile era. The functionality being discussed in this paper is to predict the defects using Random Forest Algorithm. Predictive analytics draws on information from the past to create forecasts about the outcomes of future events. Product team always have the difficulty in delivering the product as per schedule. As we are in the agile era, the requirement keeps changing and team is unsure on upcoming releases. Prediction helps the team to focus on the complex and error prone modules in upcoming releases. The Predictive analytics model designed, can predict defects with an accuracy rate of 88% with the help of historical data. By predicting, testers can focus on the module where there are a greater number of defects predicted by the model and left shift the delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agriculture industry is currently dealing with serious issues with rice plants as a result of illnesses that decrease the quantity and output of the harvest. Numerous fungi and bacteria diseases harm plants that affect the growth of yield. So identification of the detection of crop diseases is essential for enhancing the productivity of crops. Many techniques have been developed to improve disease detection in crops but there are still some issues such as noise, time consumption, delay, poor segmentation, and less accuracy. To overcome these issues, this paper, designed a Spider Monkey-based Random Forest (SMbRF) model for accurate detection and classification of rice leaf diseases and the designed model was implemented in the Python system. The main aim is to develop an optimization-based random forest technique for accurate prediction of rice leaf disease by exact segmentation. Initially, preprocessing is performed to enhance the data quality and remove errors. Furthermore, separate the lesions using mean shift image segmentation and extract the shape and color features to improve the detection results of the developed model. As well, spider monkey fitness is updated in the RF classification layer for accurate classification of diseases and improves accuracy with less execution time. The experiment results show the reliability and efficiency of the designed model, it attains better performance in accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and precision. The designed model attained 99.29% accuracy, 99.52% sensitivity, 98.76% precision, and 99% specificity proving the scalability of the designed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bio‐logging technologies allow scientists to remotely monitor animal behaviour and the environment. In this study, we used the combination of natural abilities of African white‐backed vultures Gyps africanus and state‐of‐the‐art bio‐logging technology for detecting and locating carcasses in a vast landscape. We used data from two captive and 27 wild vultures to create a reference data set for the training of a support vector machine to distinguish between six behaviour classes based on acceleration data. Next, we combined the classified behaviour of the initial 27 and 7 additional vultures with GPS data and used the ‘Density‐Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise’ algorithm to cluster all GPS data to get a position of potential feeding locations. Finally, we used the clustered data set to train a Random Forest algorithm to distinguish between clusters with and without a carcass. The behaviour classifier was trained on 14,682 samples for all behaviour classes, which were classified with a high performance (overall precision: 0.95, recall: 0.89). This enabled a ground team to examine 1900 clusters between May 2022 and March 2023 in the field, 580 linked to a carcass and 1320 without a carcass. The cluster classifier trained on this data set was able to correctly distinguish between carcass and no carcass clusters with high performance (overall precision: 0.92, recall: 0.89). Synthesis and applications. We showed that a carcass detection system using vultures, loggers and artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to monitor the mortality of numerous species in a vast landscape. This method has broad applications, such as studying the feeding ecology of vultures, detecting and monitoring of disease outbreaks, environmental poisoning or illegal killing of wildlife. Similar to vultures and carcasses, our methodological framework can be applied to other species to locate their respective food resources. It could also be applied to other types of resources like temporary water sources, roosting sites and to other behaviours such as marking to locate marking sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tidal flat ecosystems, are under steady decline due to anthropogenic pressures including sea level rise and climate change. Monitoring and managing these coastal systems requires accurate and up-to-date mapping. Sediment characteristics and macrozoobenthos are major indicators of the environmental status of tidal flats. Field monitoring of these indicators is often restricted by low accessibility and high costs. Despite limitations in spectral contrast, integrating remote sensing with deep learning proved efficient for deriving macrozoobenthos and sediment properties. In this study, we combined deep-learning features derived from Sentinel-2 images and Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) to explicitly include spatial aspects in the prediction of tsediment and macrozoobenthos properties of tidal flats , as well as the distribution of four benthic species. The deep-learning features extracted from a convolutional autoencoder model were analysed with OBIA to include spatial, textural, and contextual information. Object sets of varying sizes and shapes based on the spectral bands and/or the deep-learning features, served as the spatial units. These object sets and the field-collected points were used to train the Random Forest prediction model. Predictions were made for the tidal basins Pinkegat and Zoutkamperlaag in the Dutch Wadden Sea for 2018 to 2020. The overall prediction scores of the environmental variables ranged between 0.31 and 0.54. The species-distribution prediction model achieved accuracies ranging from 0.54 to 0.68 for the four benthic species). There was an average improvement of 21% points on predictions using objects with deep learning features compared to the pixel-based predictions with just the spectral bands. The mean spatial unit that captured the patterns best ranged between 0.3 ha and 13 ha for the different variables. Overall, using both OBIA and deep-learning features consistently improved the predictions, making it a valuable combination for monitoring these important environmental variables of coastal regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of land use and land cover (LULC) mapping using satellite data was conducted in the Congo Basin rainforest in the Sangha area of the northern Congo Republic, which is crucial for sustainable land management. However, the heterogeneous nature of LULC features makes data classification difficult in this area because persistent cloud cover is challenging for observing the land surface and tropical humid conditions characterizing the study area. This study compares and evaluates the potential of two of the most widely used and popular satellite image sources, the recently launched Landsat 9 and Sentinel-2, to generate land-use land cover (LULC) maps in the Sangha area using pixel-based supervised machine learning algorithms, Random Forest (RF), for classification. All procedures were performed using ArcGIS Pro. The potential to improve Landsat 9 performance was tested using the nearest resampling technique, and different bands were resampled from 30 × 30 to 10 × 10 m. Owing to the heterogeneous characteristics of the Sangha study area, six classes were defined: dense forest, open forest, wetland forest, water bodies, urban areas, and bare soils. To classify and compare Sentinel-2 and Landsat 9, the shortwave infrared (SWIR), Near Infrared (NIR), and Red, Green, Blue (RGB) bands were used. These two satellite images were compared to test the quality of their results, particularly for assessing the accuracy of the LULC classifications and identifying which dataset had the highest accuracy. Results show that overall accuracy was 93.80% for Sentinel-2 while it was 91.60% for Landsat 9, similarly, the Kappa coefficient was calculated 0.89 and 0.85 for Sentinel-2 and Landsat 9, respectively. Therefore, Sentinel-2 exhibits significant classification ability compared to the nearest resample technique Landsat 9, despite the improved resolution of the latter, which offers a scientific basis for choosing the appropriate satellite imagery to create accurate LULC maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wheat is a very vital cereal crop in the development of a nation's economy and agricultural sector. A crucial element that profoundly affects the growth and productivity of wheat is the soil temperature. As an insulating layer, straw mulch controls the soil temperature. Field measurement of the soil temperature is time-consuming and costly; therefore, the present study investigates the applicability of random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM) and generalized regression neural network (GRNN) models for estimating soil temperature in wheat fields covered with straw mulch using meteorological, soil cover and agronomical parameters. A field study was conducted on the wheat cultivar with two soil cover treatments for measuring the soil temperature at three depths (5, 50 and 80 cm). Soil plant analysis development value; soil cover and depth; daily meteorological data such as average air temperature, average relative humidity, sunshine hours and vapor pressure were used as inputs for machine learning models in training and testing. Statistical performance indicators showed applicability of three models with a root mean square error (RMSE) ranging from 0.245–0.595°C, 0.867–0.886°C and 0.557–0.812°C, Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) ranging from 0.917–0.987, 0.823–0.836 and 0.804–0.935 and Lin's concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) ranging from 0.949–0.991, 0.887–0.897 and 0.881–0.957 for the RF, SVM and GRNN, respectively. Results indicated better performance of the RF model for predicting the soil temperature at different depths in the case of both crop and soil cover conditions. Also, the uncertainty analysis indicated the better performance of RF with R-factor and P-factor value of 0.40 and 0.84, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In indoor environments, air quality significantly impacts human health and well-being, with carbon monoxide (CO) posing a particular hazard due to its colorless and odorless nature and potential to cause severe health issues. Integrating the Internet of Things and remote sensing technologies has revolutionized data monitoring, collection, and evaluation, especially within the context of 'smart' homes. This study leverages these technologies to enhance indoor air quality monitoring. By collecting data on key indoor atmospheric quality indicators—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), alcohol, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), particulate matter (PM1 and PM2.5), humidity, and temperature—the study aims to predict indoor carbon monoxide levels. A custom dataset was compiled from August to October, consisting of 61,710 observations recorded at one-minute intervals. The methodology employs a stacking ensemble approach, integrating multiple machine learning models to boost prediction accuracy and reliability. In the stacking ensemble, six distinct models are employed: Random Forest, Multi-Layer Perceptron, Lasso, Elastic Net, XGBoost, and Support Vector Regression. Each model is individually trained and fine-tuned using the Grid Search method to optimize parameter combinations. These optimized models are then combined in the stacking ensemble, which achieves a Mean Squared Error (MSE) of 0.0140, a Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of 0.1185, and a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.0291. The results demonstrate that the proposed system significantly enhances the precision of CO prediction, underscoring its critical role in air quality surveillance within smart environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing urban traffic and congestion have led to significant issues such as rising air pollution and wasted time, highlighting the need for an intelligent traffic light control (TLC) system to minimize vehicle waiting times. This paper presents a novel TLC system that leverages the Internet of Things (IoT) for data collection and employs the random forest algorithm for preprocessing and feature extraction. A deep belief network predicts future traffic conditions, and a support vector regression network is integrated to enhance prediction accuracy. Additionally, the traffic light control strategy is optimized using reinforcement learning. The proposed method is evaluated through two different scenarios. The first scenario is compared with fixed-time control and the double dueling deep neural network (3DQN) methods. The second scenario compares it with the SVM, KNN, and MAADAC approaches. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms these alternative approaches, showing substantial improvements in average vehicle waiting times by more than 20%, 32%, and 45%, respectively. Using a deep belief network, supplemented by support vector regression, ensures high precision in forecasting traffic patterns. Furthermore, the reinforcement learning-based optimization of the traffic light control strategy effectively adapts to changing traffic conditions, providing superior traffic flow management. The results indicate that the proposed system can substantially reduce traffic congestion and improve urban traffic flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperspectral data and machine learning offer great potential for identifying valuable open ecosystems. Due to the large volume of data, preprocessing of hyperspectral images must involve dimensionality reduction. The main goal of this study was to test the effectiveness of various types of feature reduction (feature selection and feature extraction) when performing classification using the Random Forest algorithm. A comparison was conducted between two ecosystems - heathlands and mires protected as Natura 2000 habitats. Two transformations of feature extraction were chosen, namely Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA), while Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) was used as a feature selection method. It was proven that irrespective of the class type, accuracy is higher with the feature extraction method (mean F1 accuracy of 0.922) than with feature selection (mean F1 accuracy of 0.787). At the same time, no significant differences in accuracies were found between the MNF and PCA methods. Although LDA resulted in lower accuracies (0.816 for heathland and 0.750 for mires), the method could also be used due to relatively high F1 values. The effectiveness of the LDA method for feature reduction in open ecosystem identification was confirmed for the first time for open natural vegetation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims Cardiogenic shock (CS) remains the primary cause of in-hospital death after acute coronary syndromes (ACS), with its plateauing mortality rates approaching 50%. To test novel interventions, personalized risk prediction is essential. The ORBI (Observatoire Régional Breton sur l'Infarctus) score represents the first-of-its-kind risk score to predict in-hospital CS in ACS patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). However, its sex-specific performance remains unknown, and refined risk prediction strategies are warranted. Methods This multinational study included a total of 53 537 ACS patients without CS on admission undergoing PCI. Following sex-specific evaluation of ORBI, regression and machine-learning models were used for variable selection and risk prediction. By combining best-performing models with highest-ranked predictors, SEX-SHOCK was developed, and internally and externally validated. Results The ORBI score showed lower discriminative performance for the prediction of CS in females than males in Swiss (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [95% confidence interval]: 0.78 [0.76–0.81] vs. 0.81 [0.79–0.83]; P =.048) and French ACS patients (0.77 [0.74–0.81] vs. 0.84 [0.81–0.86]; P =.002). The newly developed SEX-SHOCK score, now incorporating ST-segment elevation, creatinine, C-reactive protein, and left ventricular ejection fraction, outperformed ORBI in both sexes (females: 0.81 [0.78–0.83]; males: 0.83 [0.82–0.85]; P <.001), which prevailed following internal and external validation in RICO (females: 0.82 [0.79–0.85]; males: 0.88 [0.86–0.89]; P <.001) and SPUM-ACS (females: 0.83 [0.77–0.90], P =.004; males: 0.83 [0.80–0.87], P =.001). Conclusions The ORBI score showed modest sex-specific performance. The novel SEX-SHOCK score provides superior performance in females and males across the entire spectrum of ACS, thus providing a basis for future interventional trials and contemporary ACS management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is a significant poultry pathogen, causing ongoing economic losses in China's poultry industry. To understand its circulation and risk factors associated with farm infection, we carried out an epidemiological study on 1,065 farms across 18 provinces from 2019 and 2022. We collected a total of 43,696 swabs and tested them for NDV using an RT-PCR that targets the partial F gene. The overall bird-level NDV prevalence in the 4 years (2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022) were 1.49% (95%CI: 1.27, 1.71%), 1.24% (95%CI: 1.04, 1.44%), 0.59% (95%CI: 0.45, 0.74%), and 0.44% (95%CI: 0.31, 0.58%) respectively, while the farm-level prevalence of the 4 years were 11.27% (95%CI: 7.93, 14.60%), 13.85% (95%CI: 10.10, 17.61%), 12.63% (95%CI: 8.00, 17.26%), and 10.71% (95%CI: 6.38, 15.04%), respectively. The result also showed a high degree of variation in farm-level prevalence (ranging from 0 to 90%) across the provinces. A multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that four factors, namely layer farm (OR = 2.282, 95% CI: 1.211, 4.298), broiler farm (OR = 2.339, 95% CI: 1.206, 4.534), using mixed feed (OR = 2.973, 95% CI: 1.962, 4.505), and indoor housing with some free-range access (OR = 1.788, 95%CI: 1.096, 2.917), increased the risk of NDV infection on farms. We isolated 104 NDVs, which were all classified into Class II by the phylogenetic analysis, but from two genotypes: four belonged to genotype I, while the remaining 100 mainly belonged to genotype II, indicating that the circulating NDVs were primarily LaSota-like low pathogenic viruses. We used random forest algorithm to established an occurrence risk model, The accuracy of the model was 90.81%. This large-scale investigation revealed NDV prevalence at bird, farm, and province levels over the 4 years. It also identified risk factors associated with farm NDV infections. The findings provide new insights into the epidemiology of NDV in China and offer references for global NDV control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Lakes are essential to global freshwater systems, supporting ecosystem services and ecological processes, but they are increasingly impacted by climate change and human activities. This study examined the long-term dynamics of Lakes Abaya and Chamo in the Ethiopian Rift Valley using Landsat images, altimetry-derived lake level data, and a machine learning method within Google Earth Engine, specifically a Multi-Index-based Random Forest (MIRF) classifier. The MIRF classifier achieved high accuracy, ranging from 97.58% to 99.13%, in extracting lake surface water. Substantial fluctuations in lake areas and lake levels were observed: Lake Abaya's area decreased from 2000 to 2005 at a rate of 6.67 km²/year, then expanded until 2022 at the same increasing rate; Lake Chamo's area decreased from 2000 to 2010 at a rate of 1.62 km²/year, then expanded until 2022 at a rate of 2.88 km²/year. The correlation analysis between lake areas and environmental factors such as Rainfall (RF), Temperature (TEMP), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Groundwater Storage (GWS), Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS), and Soil Moisture (SM) revealed important associations. For Lake Abaya, strong correlations were identified with NDVI and TWS, suggesting that vegetation cover and terrestrial water significantly influence its area changes. In contrast, for Lake Chamo, NDVI emerged as the key driver, indicating that vegetation dynamics play a crucial role in the lake's fluctuations. Furthermore, higher-order polynomial regression models were developed to better capture the complex relationships between lake area and water levels for both lakes. In general, this study integrates remote sensing, machine learning, and cloud computing, offering valuable insights into the lakes' long-term characteristic and providing critical information for future water resource management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The type of algorithm employed to predict drug release from liposomes plays an important role in affecting the accuracy. In recent years, Machine Learning (ML) has shown potential for modeling complex drug delivery systems and predicting drug release dynamics with a greater degree of precision. In this regard, Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) are two ML algorithms that have been extensively applied in various biomedical and drug delivery contexts. Yet, direct comparisons of their predictive accuracy in modeling ultrasound-triggered drug release from liposomes remain limited. Existing studies predominantly focus on drug release under static conditions or with limited external stimuli rather than the dynamic, nonlinear responses observed under ultrasound exposure. Objective: This study presents a comparative analysis of RF and SVM for predicting calcein release from ultrasound-triggered, targeted liposomes under varied low-frequency ultrasound (LFUS) power densities (6.2, 9, and 10 mW/cm2). Methods: Liposomes loaded with calcein and targeted with seven different moieties (cRGD, estrone, folate, Herceptin, hyaluronic acid, lactobionic acid, and transferrin) were synthesized using the thin-film hydration method. The liposomes were characterized using Dynamic Light Scattering and Bicinchoninic Acid assays. Extensive data collection and preprocessing were performed. RF and SVM models were trained and evaluated using mean absolute error (MAE), mean squared error (MSE), coefficient of determination (R²), and the a20 index as performance metrics. Results: RF consistently outperformed SVM, achieving R2 scores above 0.96 across all power densities, particularly excelling at higher power densities and indicating a strong correlation with the actual data. Conclusion: RF outperforms SVM in drug release prediction, though both show strengths and apply based on specific prediction needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internal kink mode is one of the crucial factors affecting the stability of magnetically confined fusion devices. This paper explores the key features influencing the growth rate of internal kink modes using machine learning techniques such as Random Forest, Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGboost), Permutation, and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP). We conduct an in-depth analysis of the significant physical mechanisms by which these key features impact the growth rate of internal kink modes. Numerical simulation data were used to train high-precision machine learning models, namely Random Forest and XGBoost, which achieved coefficients of determination values of 95.07% and 94.57%, respectively, demonstrating their capability to accurately predict the growth rate of internal kink modes. Based on these models, key feature analysis was systematically performed with Permutation and SHAP methods. The results indicate that resistance, pressure at the magnetic axis, viscosity, and plasma rotation are the primary features influencing the growth rate of internal kink modes. Specifically, resistance affects the evolution of internal kink modes by altering current distribution and magnetic field structure; pressure at the magnetic axis impacts the driving force of internal kink modes through the pressure gradient directly related to plasma stability; viscosity modifies the dynamic behavior of internal kink modes by regulating plasma flow; and plasma rotation introduces additional shear forces, affecting the stability and growth rate of internal kink modes. This paper describes the mechanisms by which these four key features influence the growth rate of internal kink modes, providing essential theoretical insights into the behavior of internal kink modes in magnetically confined fusion devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To study and predict the risk of ovarian metastasis (OM) in patients with cervical adenocarcinoma (ADC). Methods: Patients with ADC who received surgical treatment from January 2015 to December 2022 in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University were included in the study. Patients were further divided into OP (ovaries were preserved in surgery) and BSO (bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy) groups. For the patients who accepted BSO, 60% of the patients were randomly grouped into a training cohort, and predictive prognostic models were constructed with 10-fold cross-validation through random forest, LASSO, stepwise, and optimum subset analysis. The model with the highest area under receiver operator curve (AUC) was screened out in the testing cohort. The nomogram and its calibration curve presented the possibility of OM in future patients. The prognoses between the different populations were compared using Kaplan–Meier analysis. All data processing was carried out in R 4.2.0 software. Results: A total of 934 patients were enrolled in our cohort; 266 patients had their ovaries preserved and 668 patients had BSO according to the previous criteria reported The clinical safety with these criteria was secured, while the 5-year overall survival had no significant difference between the BSO and OP groups (p = 0.069), which suggested that the current criteria could be extended and are more precise. Four predictive models for ovarian metastasis by machine learning were constructed in our study, and the random forest model that obtained the highest AUC in both training and testing sets (0.971 for training and 0.962 for testing set) was taken as the best model. The optimal cut-off point of the ROC curve (specificity 99.5% and 90% sensitivity) was utilized to stratify the patients into high- and low-risk OM. Further comparing the survival curves of the high and low-OM risk groups, it was found that both DFS and OS were significantly prolonged in the low-risk group (p < 0.01). On the basis of this random forest model, a nomogram was used to calculate the OM risk, and the results were validated with calibration. The predictive model was further applied to the whole cohort (934 patients), and we identified the OM low-risk population (n = 822) and the patients with high risk who should be recommended for BSO (n = 112). No significant difference was found in the 5-year survival between the low-risk group with our model and the patients who already had ovaries preserved according to the previous criteria (n = 266). Conclusion: The predictive model constructed in our study could identify the low-risk population of OM in patients with ADC, which remarkably extended the number with the previous criteria, for whom we could potentially preserve ovaries to help improve their life quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Invasive alien plants (IAPs) are nonnative species that pose significant threats to the environment by outcompeting native vegetation and disrupting ecosystem functions. Efforts to monitor and eradicate IAPs have been limited due to the challenges in accurately identifying these plants using traditional remote sensing (RS) methods. This paper reviews the literature to identify the most accurate and reliable plant detection methods for IAPs. Advanced searches were conducted on ScienceDirect, Scopus and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Xplore databases using keywords such as 'Remote Sensing (RS)', 'Machine Learning (ML)', 'Deep Learning (DL)', 'Invasive Alien Plant (IAP)' and 'detection'. The search yielded 1689 articles: 1129 focused on the RS methodologies, 303 on ML, 142 on DL and 115 combining all three approaches. The review found that the RF and support vector machine (SVM) algorithms are the most effective for detecting IAPs. This suggests that future research should prioritize the application of ML and DL techniques, particularly RF and SVM, due to their high potential for improving IAP identification and aiding in their eradication. These advancements align with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15, which emphasizes the protection, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, and SDG 8, which promotes sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Effective IAP management not only preserves biodiversity but also creates economic opportunities by improving land value and usability. This review underscores the importance of integrating advanced technological methods in environmental management to support both ecological and economic objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Viral oncoproteins play crucial roles in transforming normal cells into cancer cells, representing a significant factor in the etiology of various cancers. Traditionally, identifying these oncoproteins is both time-consuming and costly. With advancements in computational biology, bioinformatics tools based on machine learning have emerged as effective methods for predicting biological activities. Here, for the first time, we propose an innovative approach that combines Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) with supervised learning methods to enhance the accuracy and generalizability of viral oncoprotein prediction. Our methodology evaluated multiple machine learning models, including Random Forest, Multilayer Perceptron, Light Gradient Boosting Machine, eXtreme Gradient Boosting, and Support Vector Machine. In ten-fold cross-validation on our training dataset, the GAN-enhanced Random Forest model demonstrated superior performance metrics: 0.976 accuracy, 0.976 F1 score, 0.977 precision, 0.976 sensitivity, and 1.0 AUC. During independent testing, this model achieved 0.982 accuracy, 0.982 F1 score, 0.982 precision, 0.982 sensitivity, and 1.0 AUC. These results establish our new tool, VirOncoTarget, accessible via a web application. We anticipate that VirOncoTarget will be a valuable resource for researchers, enabling rapid and reliable viral oncoprotein prediction and advancing our understanding of their role in cancer biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The early prediction of cerebral edema changes in patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (SICH) may facilitate earlier interventions and result in improved outcomes. This study aimed to develop and validate machine learning models to predict cerebral edema changes within 72 h, using readily available clinical parameters, and to identify relevant influencing factors. Methods: An observational study was conducted between April 2021 and October 2023 at the Quzhou Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University. After preprocessing the data, the study population was randomly divided into training and internal validation cohorts in a 7:3 ratio (training: N = 150; validation: N = 65). The most relevant variables were selected using Support Vector Machine Recursive Feature Elimination (SVM-RFE) and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) algorithms. The predictive performance of random forest (RF), GDBT, linear regression (LR), and XGBoost models was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), precision–recall curve (AUPRC), accuracy, F1-score, precision, recall, sensitivity, and specificity. Feature importance was calculated, and the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) and Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME) methods were employed to explain the top-performing model. Results: A total of 84 (39.1%) patients developed cerebral edema changes. In the validation cohort, GDBT outperformed LR and RF, achieving an AUC of 0.654 (95% CI: 0.611–0.699) compared to LR of 0.578 (95% CI, 0.535–0.623, DeLong: p = 0.197) and RF of 0.624 (95% CI, 0.588–0.687, DeLong: p = 0.236). XGBoost also demonstrated similar performance with an AUC of 0.660 (95% CI, 0.611–0.711, DeLong: p = 0.963). However, in the training set, GDBT still outperformed XGBoost, with an AUC of 0.603 ± 0.100 compared to XGBoost of 0.575 ± 0.096. SHAP analysis revealed that serum sodium, HDL, subarachnoid hemorrhage volume, sex, and left basal ganglia hemorrhage volume were the top five most important features for predicting cerebral edema changes in the GDBT model. Conclusion: The GDBT model demonstrated the best performance in predicting 72-h changes in cerebral edema. It has the potential to assist clinicians in identifying high-risk patients and guiding clinical decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The use of single cell/nucleus RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technologies that quantitively describe cell transcriptional phenotypes is revolutionizing our understanding of cell biology, leading to new insights in cell type identification, disease mechanisms, and drug development. The tremendous growth in scRNA-seq data has posed new challenges in efficiently characterizing data-driven cell types and identifying quantifiable marker genes for cell type classification. The use of machine learning and explainable artificial intelligence has emerged as an effective approach to study large-scale scRNA-seq data. Methods: NS-Forest is a random forest machine learning-based algorithm that aims to provide a scalable data-driven solution to identify minimum combinations of necessary and sufficient marker genes that capture cell type identity with maximum classification accuracy. Here, we describe the latest version, NS-Forest version 4.0 and its companion Python package (https://github.com/JCVenterInstitute/NSForest), with several enhancements to select marker gene combinations that exhibit highly selective expression patterns among closely related cell types and more efficiently perform marker gene selection for large-scale scRNA-seq data atlases with millions of cells. Results: By modularizing the final decision tree step, NS-Forest v4.0 can be used to compare the performance of user-defined marker genes with the NS-Forest computationally-derived marker genes based on the decision tree classifiers. To quantify how well the identified markers exhibit the desired pattern of being exclusively expressed at high levels within their target cell types, we introduce the On-Target Fraction metric that ranges from 0 to 1, with a metric of 1 assigned to markers that are only expressed within their target cell types and not in cells of any other cell types. NS-Forest v4.0 outperforms previous versions in simulation studies and on its ability to identify markers with higher On-Target Fraction values for closely related cell types in real data, and outperforms other marker gene selection approaches for cell type classification with significantly higher F-beta scores when applied to datasets from three human organs—brain, kidney, and lung. Discussion: Finally, we discuss potential use cases of the NS-Forest marker genes, including for designing spatial transcriptomics gene panels and semantic representation of cell types in biomedical ontologies, for the broad user community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: A multimodal persistent topological feature extraction and classification method is proposed to enhance the recognition accuracy of first-episode schizophrenia patients. This approach addresses the limitations of traditional higher-order brain network analyses that rely on single persistent features (e.g., persistent images). Methods: The study utilized resting-state EEG data from 198 subjects recruited at Huilongguan Hospital in Beijing, comprising 102 males and 96 females, with a mean age of 30 years and mean education of 14 years. Persistent topological features were extracted using adaptive thresholding during persistent homology (PH) filtrations. The distribution of these features was visualized through heatmaps and persistence entropies, while the generation process was elucidated using Betti curves and persistence landscapes. Results: The classification performance of the multimodal persistent topological features was assessed using various machine learning classifiers. The classifier yielding the highest performance was selected for comparison with traditional brain network features derived from graph theory and single persistent topological features. The results revealed significant topological changes in first-episode schizophrenia patients throughout the persistent homology filtering compared to healthy subjects. The univariate feature selection algorithm achieved a classification accuracy of 94.6% with a combination of attributes meeting the criterion of AC ≥ 0.6. Discussion: The proposed method demonstrates clinical significance for the early identification and diagnosis of first-episode schizophrenia patients, offering a new research perspective for constructing higher-order functional connectivity networks and extracting topological structure features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skin cancer (SC) is one of the three most common cancers worldwide. Melanoma has the deadliest potential to spread to other parts of the body among all SCs. For SC treatments to be effective, early detection is essential. The high degree of similarity between tumor and non-tumors makes SC diagnosis difficult even for experienced doctors. To address this issue, authors have developed a novel Deep Learning (DL) system capable of automatically classifying skin lesions into seven groups: actinic keratosis (AKIEC), melanoma (MEL), benign keratosis (BKL), melanocytic Nevi (NV), basal cell carcinoma (BCC), dermatofibroma (DF), and vascular (VASC) skin lesions. Authors introduced the Multi-Grained Enhanced Deep Cascaded Forest (Mg-EDCF) as a novel DL model. In this model, first, researchers utilized subsampled multigrained scanning (Mg-sc) to acquire micro features. Second, authors employed two types of Random Forest (RF) to create input features. Finally, the Enhanced Deep Cascaded Forest (EDCF) was utilized for classification. The HAM10000 dataset was used for implementing, training, and evaluating the proposed and Transfer Learning (TL) models such as ResNet, AlexNet, and VGG16. During the validation and training stages, the performance of the four networks was evaluated by comparing their accuracy and loss. The proposed method outperformed the competing models with an average accuracy score of 98.19%. Our proposed methodology was validated against existing state-of-the-art algorithms from recent publications, resulting in consistently greater accuracies than those of the classifiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are addressing the problem of estimating conditional average treatment effects with a continuous treatment and a continuous response, using random forests. We explore two general approaches: building trees with a split rule that seeks to increase the heterogeneity of the treatment effect estimation and building trees to predict Y as a proxy target variable. We conduct a simulation study to investigate several aspects including the presence or absence of confounding and colliding effects and the merits of locally centering the treatment and/or the response. Our study incorporates both existing and new implementations of random forests. The results indicate that locally centering both the response and treatment variables is generally the best strategy, and both general approaches are viable. Additionally, we provide an illustration using data from the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrated how to apply Machine Learning (ML) techniques to analyze student interaction data collected in an online mathematics game. Using a data-driven approach, we examined 1) how different ML algorithms influenced the precision of middle-school students' (N = 359) performance (i.e. posttest math knowledge scores) prediction and 2) what types of in-game features (i.e. student in-game behaviors, math anxiety, mathematical strategies) were associated with student math knowledge scores. The results indicated that the Random Forest algorithm showed the best performance (i.e. the accuracy of models, error measures) in predicting posttest math knowledge scores among the seven algorithms employed. Out of 37 features included in the model, the validity of the students' first mathematical transformation was the most predictive of their posttest math knowledge scores. Implications for game learning analytics and supporting students' algebraic learning are discussed based on the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops random forest models to interrogate housing survival in the 2021 Marshall Fire, investigating the role of housing, parcel, and neighborhood characteristics. This grass fire affected suburban communities and destroyed more than 1,000 houses. The authors compiled a data set consisting of all the destroyed houses, along with damaged and standing neighboring houses. After removing houses with insufficient data, 1055 impacted houses were used to develop models for each of the three impacted jurisdictions and for the full data set of 1055 houses. In addition, model versions were developed that use only the subset of predictor characteristics available pre-fire. The pre-fire model results showed that the five housing characteristics that resulted in the largest increase in mean square error (MSE) when randomly permutated were predominantly neighborhood and parcel level characteristics. All predictors resulting in percent increases in MSE of 15% or greater were neighborhood level characteristics. Parcel and community characteristics encompass 78%, 86%, 100%, and 80% of predictors resulting in percent increase in MSE greater than 5% for the models developed for Louisville, Superior, Unincorporated Boulder County, and all data, respectively. Additionally, the identification of the most important parameters showed that the majority of the most impactful variables were not within the homeowner's control. This conclusion demonstrates the importance of neighborhood and community characteristics on housing survival that are controlled by the jurisdiction, especially in a home rule state where building codes and planning may differ across jurisdictional boundaries. We found little reduction in model accuracy (%-change in balanced accuracy under 12%), when only pre-fire variables were considered. Taken together, these results suggest a crucial role for jurisdiction or community mitigation of risk in WUI areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is estimated that approximately one in every 100 children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) around the globe. Currently, there are no curative pharmacological treatments for ASD. Discoveries on key molecular mechanisms of ASD are essential for precision medicine strategies. Considering that atypical brain connectivity patterns have been observed in individuals with ASD, this study examined the brain connectivity-associated genes and their putatively distinct expression patterns in brain samples from individuals diagnosed with ASD and using an iterative strategy based on random forest and support vector machine algorithms. We discovered a potential gene signature capable of differentiating ASD from control samples with a 92% accuracy. This gene signature comprised 14 brain connectivity-associated genes exhibiting enrichment in synapse-related terms. Of these genes, 11 were previously associated with ASD in varying degrees of evidence. Notably, NFKBIA, WNT10B, and IFT22 genes were identified as ASD-related for the first time in this study. Subsequent clustering analysis revealed the existence of two distinct ASD subtypes based on our gene signature. The expression levels of signature genes have the potential to influence brain connectivity patterns, potentially contributing to the manifestation of ASD. Further studies on the omics of ASD are called for so as to elucidate the molecular basis of ASD and for diagnostic and therapeutic innovations. Finally, we underscore that advances in ASD research can benefit from integrative bioinformatics and data science approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Machine learning offers new options for glucose prediction and real-time glucose management. The aim of this study was to develop a machine learning-based algorithm that takes into account glucose dynamics patterns for predicting nocturnal glucose in individuals with type 1 diabetes. Methods: To identify glucose patterns, we applied a hierarchical clustering algorithm to real-time continuous glucose monitoring data obtained from 570 adult patients. Machine learning algorithms with or without pre-clustering were used for modeling. Results: Eight clusters without nocturnal hypoglycemia and six clusters with at least one low-glucose episode were identified by the cluster analysis. When forecasting time series without hypoglycemia with a prediction horizon (PH) of 15 or 30 min, gradient boosting trees (GBTs) with pre-clustering and random forest (RF) with pre-clustering outperformed algorithms based on medoids of time series clusters, the Holt model, and GBTs without pre-clustering. When forecasting time series with low-glucose episodes, a model based on the pre-clustering and GBTs provided the highest predictive accuracy at PH = 15 min, and a model based on RF with pre-clustering was the best at PH = 30 min. Conclusions: The results indicate that the clustering of glucose dynamics can enhance the efficacy of machine learning algorithms used for glucose prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate burn severity mapping is essential for understanding the impacts of wildfires on vegetation dynamics in arid savannas. The frequent wildfires in these biomes often cause topkill, where the vegetation experiences above-ground combustion but the below-ground root structures survive, allowing for subsequent regrowth post-burn. Investigating post-fire regrowth is crucial for maintaining ecological balance, elucidating fire regimes, and enhancing the knowledge base of land managers regarding vegetation response. This study examined the relationship between bush burn severity and woody vegetation post-burn coppicing/regeneration events in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana. Utilizing UAV-derived RGB imagery combined with a Random Forest (RF) classification algorithm, we aimed to enhance the precision of burn severity mapping at a fine spatial resolution. Our research focused on a 1 km2 plot within the Modisa Wildlife Reserve, extensively burnt by the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Fire of 2021. The UAV imagery, captured at various intervals post-burn, provided detailed orthomosaics and canopy height models, facilitating precise land cover classification and burn severity assessment. The RF model achieved an overall accuracy of 79.71% and effectively identified key burn severity indicators, including green vegetation, charred grass, and ash deposits. Our analysis revealed a >50% probability of woody vegetation regrowth in high-severity burn areas six months post-burn, highlighting the resilience of these ecosystems. This study demonstrates the efficacy of low-cost UAV photogrammetry for fine-scale burn severity assessment and provides valuable insights into post-fire vegetation recovery, thereby aiding land management and conservation efforts in savannas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate high-resolution soil moisture maps are crucial for a better understanding of hydrological processes and energy cycles. Mapping strategies such as downscaling and interpolation have been developed to obtain high-resolution soil moisture maps from multi-source inputs. However, research on the optimization performance of integrating downscaling and interpolation, especially through the use of mutual covariates, remains unclear. In this study, we compared four methods—two standalone methods based on downscaling and interpolation strategies and two combined methods that utilize soil moisture maps as mutual covariates within each strategy—in a case study of daily soil moisture mapping at a 1 km resolution in the Tibetan Plateau. We assessed mapping performance in terms of prediction accuracy and differences in spatial coverage. The results indicated that introducing interpolated soil moisture maps into the downscaling strategy significantly improved prediction accuracy (RMSE: −5.94%, correlation coefficient: +14.02%) but was limited to localized spatial coverage (6.9% of grid cells) near in situ sites. Conversely, integrating downscaled soil moisture maps into the interpolation strategy resulted in only modest gains in prediction accuracy (RMSE: −1.07%, correlation coefficient: +1.04%), yet facilitated broader spatial coverage (40.4% of grid cells). This study highlights the critical differences between downscaling and interpolation strategies in terms of accuracy improvement and spatial coverage, providing a reference for optimizing soil moisture mapping over large areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanaged forest ecosystems play a critical role in addressing the ongoing climate and biodiversity crises. As there is no commercial interest in monitoring the health and development of such inaccessible habitats, low-cost assessment approaches are needed. We used a method combining RGB imagery acquired using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Sentinel-2 data, and field surveys to determine the carbon stock of an unmanaged forest in the UNESCO World Heritage Site wilderness area Dürrenstein-Lassingtal in Austria. The entry-level consumer drone (DJI Mavic Mini) and freely available Sentinel-2 multispectral datasets were used for the evaluation. We merged the Sentinel-2 derived vegetation index NDVI with aerial photogrammetry data and used an orthomosaic and a Digital Surface Model (DSM) to map the extent of woodland in the study area. The Random Forest (RF) machine learning (ML) algorithm was used to classify land cover. Based on the acquired field data, the average carbon stock per hectare of forest was determined to be 371.423 ± 51.106 t of CO2 and applied to the ML-generated class Forest. An overall accuracy of 80.8% with a Cohen's kappa value of 0.74 was achieved for the land cover classification, while the carbon stock of the living above-ground biomass (AGB) was estimated with an accuracy within 5.9% of field measurements. The proposed approach demonstrated that the combination of low-cost remote sensing data and field work can predict above-ground biomass with high accuracy. The results and the estimation error distribution highlight the importance of accurate field data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andean highland soils contain significant quantities of soil organic carbon (SOC); however, more efforts still need to be made to understand the processes behind the accumulation and persistence of SOC and its fractions. This study modeled SOC variables—SOC, refractory SOC (RSOC), and the 13C isotope composition of SOC (δ13CSOC)—using machine learning (ML) algorithms in the Central Andean Highlands of Peru, where grasslands and wetlands ("bofedales") dominate the landscape surrounded by Junin National Reserve. A total of 198 soil samples (0.3 m depth) were collected to assess SOC variables. Four ML algorithms—random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), artificial neural networks (ANNs), and eXtreme gradient boosting (XGB)—were used to model SOC variables using remote sensing data, land-use and land-cover (LULC, nine categories), climate topography, and sampled physical–chemical soil variables. RF was the best algorithm for SOC and δ13CSOC prediction, whereas ANN was the best to model RSOC. "Bofedales" showed 2–3 times greater SOC (11.2 ± 1.60%) and RSOC (1.10 ± 0.23%) and more depleted δ13CSOC (− 27.0 ± 0.44 ‰) than other LULC, which reflects high C persistent, turnover rates, and plant productivity. This highlights the importance of "bofedales" as SOC reservoirs. LULC and vegetation indices close to the near-infrared bands were the most critical environmental predictors to model C variables SOC and δ13CSOC. In contrast, climatic indices were more important environmental predictors for RSOC. This study's outcomes suggest the potential of ML methods, with a particular emphasis on RF, for mapping SOC and its fractions in the Andean highlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Exercise potentially improves gait, balance, and habitual physical activity in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, given the heterogeneous nature of the disease, it is likely that people respond differently to exercise interventions. Factors determining responsiveness to exercise interventions remain unclear. Objectives: To address this uncertainty, we explored the responsiveness to our highly challenging balance and gait intervention (HiBalance) in people with PD. Methods: Thirty‐nine participants with mild–moderate PD who underwent the HiBalance intervention from our randomized controlled trial were included. We defined response in three domains: (1) balance based on Mini‐BESTest, (2) gait based on gait velocity, and (3) physical activity based on accelerometry‐derived steps per day. In each domain, we explored three responsiveness levels: high, low, or non‐responders according to the change from pre‐ to post‐intervention. Separate Random Forests for each responder domain classified these responsiveness levels and identified variable importance. Results: Only the Random Forest for the balance domain classified all responsiveness levels above the chance level indicated by a Cohen's kappa of "slight" agreement. Variable importance differed among the responsiveness levels. Slow gait velocity indicated high responders in the balance domain but showed low probabilities for low and non‐responders. For low and non‐responders, fall history or no falls, respectively, were more important. Conclusions: Among three responder domains and responsiveness levels, we could moderately classify responders in the balance domain, but not for the gait or physical activity domain. This can guide inclusion criteria for balance‐targeted, personalized intervention studies in people with PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to assess the relationships between SOC content and main soil-forming factors and identify key factors explaining the spatial distribution of SOC. The research was conducted in the Southern Ural Mountains throughout 420 km from north to south in the Republic of Bashkortostan. The predominant soil types are mountainous gray forest (Eutric Retisols (Loamic, Cutanic, Humic)), dark gray forest (Luvic Retic Greyzemic Someric Phaeozems (Loamic)) soils, and gray-humus lithozems (Eutric Leptosols (Loamic, Humic)). Forest stands are mainly composed of birch (Betula pendula), pine (Pinus sylvestris), spruce (Picea obovata Ledeb.), and fir (Abies sibirica Ledeb.). A data set of 306 soil samples taken from the top layer (0–20 cm) was studied using the "random forest" machine learning method. Ninety four spatial environmental covariates were used as explanatory variables, including remote sensing data, climate (temperature, precipitation, cloudiness, etc.), digital elevation model and its derivatives, land uses, bioclimatic zones, etc. The results showed that the SOC content varied widely from 0.8 to 32%. The random forest predictive model explained 55% of SOC variation (R2) with a root mean squared error (RMSE) of 1.35%. Key variables included surface temperature, absolute elevation, precipitation, and cloudiness, which together reflect the Dokuchaev vertical and horizontal zonality laws. The findings emphasize the importance of considering multiple environmental factors in subsequent research focused on assessing the spatial distribution of SOC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces AlphaVision, an innovative decision support model designed for stock price prediction by seamlessly integrating real-time news updates and Return on Investment (ROI) values, utilizing various machine learning and deep learning approaches. The research investigates the application of these techniques to enhance the effectiveness of stock trading and investment decisions by accurately anticipating stock prices and providing valuable insights to investors and businesses. The study begins by analyzing the complexities and challenges of stock market analysis, considering factors like political, macroeconomic, and legal issues that contribute to market volatility. To address these challenges, we proposed the methodology called AlphaVision, which incorporates various machine learning algorithms, including Decision Trees, Random Forest, Naïve Bayes, Boosting, K-Nearest Neighbors, and Support Vector Machine, alongside deep learning models such as Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP), Artificial Neural Networks, and Recurrent Neural Networks. The effectiveness of each model is evaluated based on their accuracy in predicting stock prices. Experimental results revealed that the MLP model achieved the highest accuracy of approximately 92%, outperforming other deep learning models. The Random Forest algorithm also demonstrated promising results with an accuracy of around 84.6%. These findings indicate the potential of machine learning and deep learning techniques in improving stock market analysis and prediction. The AlphaVision methodology presented in this research empowers investors and businesses with valuable tools to make informed investment decisions and navigate the complexities of the stock market. By accurately forecasting stock prices based on news updates and ROI values, the model contributes to better financial management and business sustainability. The integration of machine learning and deep learning approaches offers a promising solution for enhancing stock market analysis and prediction. Future research will focus on extracting more relevant financial features to further improve the model's accuracy. By advancing decision support models for stock price prediction, researchers and practitioners can foster better investment strategies and foster economic growth. The proposed model holds potential to revolutionize stock trading and investment practices, enabling more informed and profitable decision-making in the financial sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medicinal plants contain medicinal properties in their all-plant parts. There is human vision error for medicinalleaves with lookalike leaves, hence, computer vision is required. We examined the 9-medicinal plants leaves native to the Marunthuvalzh malai hills (Kanyakumari district) Western Ghats. for their medicinal value using image processing. For this we look two datasets, (i). dataset (1215 images) and (ii). Validation dataset (655 images). Various machine learning techniques used here produced very encouraging findings of this algorithm for use in medicinal plants system. A random forest algorithm, which is an ensemble feature extraction approach based on color, texture, and geometrical elements, was utilized in the research to develop a method for determining the correct species of medicinal plant. The proposed convolution neural network achieved a high-test accuracy 0.9975, precision 1.0, recall 0.9948 and F1score is 0.9974. In future, this study could be expanded to include large number of plant species with high level of precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid progress in fields such as data mining and machine learning, as well as the explosive growth of sports big data, have posed new challenges to the research of sports big data. Most of the available sports data mining techniques concentrates on extracting and constructing effective features for basic sports data, which cannot be achieved simply by using data statistics. Especially in the targeted mining of sports data, traditional mining techniques still have shortcomings such as low classification accuracy and insufficient refinement. In order to solve the problem of low accuracy in traditional mining methods, the study combines the random forest algorithm with the artificial raindrop algorithm, and adopts a sports data mining method based on feature selection to achieve effective analysis of sports big data. This study is based on the evaluation method of motion effects using random forests, and uses feature extraction algorithms to study the motion effect impacts. It uses the information gain index to rank the importance of features and accurately gain the degree of influence of exercise on various indicators of the human body. Through simulation verification, the algorithm proposed by the research institute performs the best in accuracy and FI scores on the training and testing sets, with accuracies of 0.849 ± 0.021 and 0.819 ± 0.022, respectively, and F1 scores of 0.837 ± 0.020 and 0.864 ± 0.021, respectively. This indicates that the algorithm proposed by the research institute has high classification accuracy and performance proves that the Random Forest-based feature selection algorithm established in this study is superior to the existing traditional feature extraction and extraction methods in terms of both performance and accuracy. The proposal of this data analysis method has achieved accurate and efficient utilization of sports big data, which is of great significance for the development of the sports education industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The study introduces a novel method for identifying DNA-binding sites using amino acid sequences. • DeepDBS uses deep learning techniques to generate representations which train a Random Forest classifier. • The study achieves high performance in accuracy (99%) in cross-validations and jackknife testing outperforming existing methods. Interactions of biological molecules in organisms are considered to be primary factors for the lifecycle of that organism. Various important biological functions are dependent on such interactions and among different kinds of interactions, the protein DNA interactions are very important for the processes of transcription, regulation of gene expression, DNA repairing and packaging. Thus, keeping the knowledge of such interactions and the sites of those interactions is necessary to study the mechanism of various biological processes. As experimental identification through biological assays is quite resource-demanding, costly and error-prone, scientists opt for the computational methods for efficient and accurate identification of such DNA-protein interaction sites. Thus, herein, we propose a novel and accurate method namely DeepDBS for the identification of DNA-binding sites in proteins, using primary amino acid sequences of proteins under study. From protein sequences, deep representations were computed through a one-dimensional convolution neural network (1D-CNN), recurrent neural network (RNN) and long short-term memory (LSTM) network and were further used to train a Random Forest classifier. Random Forest with LSTM-based features outperformed the other models, as well as the existing state-of-the-art methods with an accuracy score of 0.99 for self-consistency test, 10-fold cross-validation, 5-fold cross-validation, and jackknife validation while 0.92 for independent dataset testing. It is concluded based on results that the DeepDBS can help accurate and efficient identification of DNA binding sites (DBS) in proteins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]