Search

In semiarid areas, precipitations usually appear in the form of big and brief floods, which affect the aquifer through water infiltration, causing groundwater temperature changes. These changes may have an impact on the physical, chemical and biological processes of the aquifer and, thus, modeling the groundwater temperature variations associated with stormy precipitation episodes is essential, especially since this kind of precipitation is becoming increasingly frequent in semiarid regions. In this paper, we compare the predictive performance of two popular tools in statistics and machine learning, namely Bayesian networks (BNs) and artificial neural networks (ANNs), in modeling groundwater temperature variation associated with precipitation events. More specifically, we trained a total of 2145 ANNs with different node configurations, from one to five layers. On the other hand, we trained three different BNs using different structure learning algorithms. We conclude that, while both tools are equivalent in terms of accuracy for predicting groundwater temperature drops, the computational cost associated with the estimation of Bayesian networks is significantly lower, and the resulting BN models are more versatile and allow a more detailed analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching processes have been changing in the lasts few decades from a traditional lecture-example-homework format to more active strategies to engage the students in the learning process. One of the most popular methodologies is the flipped classroom, where traditional structure of the course is turned over by moving out of the classroom, most basic knowledge acquisition. However, due to the workload involved in this kind of methodology, an objective analysis of the results should be carried out to assess whether the lecturer's workload is worth the effort or not. In this paper, we compare the results obtained from two different methodologies: traditional lecturing and flipped classroom methodology, in terms of some performance indicators and an attitudinal survey, in an introductory statistics course for engineering students. Finally, we analysed the changes in the relationships among variables of interest when the traditional teaching was moved to a flipped classroom by using Bayesian networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural landscapes are regarded to be complex socioecological systems that originated as a result of the interaction between humanity and nature across time. Cultural landscapes present complex-system properties, including nonlinear dynamics among their components. There is a close relationship between socioeconomy and landscape in cultural landscapes, so that changes in the socioeconomic dynamic have an effect on the structure and functionality of the landscape. Several numerical analyses have been carried out to study this relationship, with linear regression models being widely used. However, cultural landscapes comprise a considerable amount of elements and processes, whose interactions might not be properly captured by a linear model. In recent years, machine-learning techniques have increasingly been applied to the field of ecology to solve regression tasks. These techniques provide sound methods and algorithms for dealing with complex systems under uncertainty. The term 'machine learning' includes a wide variety of methods to learn models from data. In this paper, we study the relationship between socioeconomy and cultural landscape (in Andalusia, Spain) at two different spatial scales aiming at comparing different regression models from a predictive-accuracy point of view, including model trees and neural or Bayesian networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]