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Machine learning is a popular tool for solving problems, however, incorporating it into a use case with additional business logic poses many challenges. Training, managing and storing many different models is not an easy task, requiring the use of multiple frameworks and languages. To take full advantage of existing frameworks it is necessary to facilitate communication between different programming languages. This paper presents an approach to integrating machine learning in a real-world use case which involves predicting demand for a diverse set of products and combining it with business rules and other components to establish a system that improves and automates the ordering process. Machine learning models are trained on real-world data from a retailer in Austria and the predictions are incorporated into a heuristic that controls and manages stock levels. This work focuses on the challenges that emerge from the integration of machine learning and presents a message bus based architecture to address them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Routing is one of the most important and time-consuming stages of physical design. As the process node of semiconductors keeps scaling down, the routing process faces increasing challenges, and the traditional solutions are not sufficiently efficient. In recent years, machine learning has aroused much interest in this context, and an increasing number of algorithms have introduced advanced machine learning techniques to help solve the routing problem. In this paper, we survey the recent development of machine learning-based routing algorithms. • This paper provides an overview of recent published machine learning-based routing algorithms. • Some trends on the development of machine learning-based routing algorithms are revealed. • The possible advantages and disadvantages on machine learning-based routing methods are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the offline assignment of fixed priorities in partitioned preemptive real-time systems where tasks have precedence constraints. This problem is crucial in this type of systems, as having a good fixed priority assignment allows for an efficient use of the processing resources while meeting all the deadlines. In the literature, we can find several proposals to solve this problem, which offer varying trade-offs between the quality of their results and their computational complexities. In this paper , we propose a new approach, leveraging existing algorithms that are widely exploited in the field of Machine Learning: Gradient Descent, the Adam Optimizer, and Gradient Noise. We show how to adapt these algorithms to the problem of fixed priority assignment in conjunction with existing worst-case response time analyses. We demonstrate the performance of our proposal on synthetic task-sets with different sizes. This evaluation shows that our proposal is able to find more schedulable solutions than previous heuristics, approximating optimal but intractable algorithms such as MILP or brute-force, while requiring reasonable execution times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domain adaptation is a practicable tool in real world application where there exists data scarcity. Multi-source domain adaptation attracts increasing attention due to its ability to enrich transfer knowledge by combining information from multiple domains. However, knowledge transfer can trigger privacy concerns by accessing source data. In addition, multiple domains can have label heterogeneity problem. In this paper, to solve the mentioned problems, we conduct an incomplete multi-source domain adaptation (IMSDA) method which can address transfer learning with and without the access to source data. As far as we are aware, this is the first work handling source-free incomplete domain adaptation. To take the benefits of multiple sources, multi-task learning is adopted to learn a general source model which can perform on multiple domains. A data matching strategy with and without source data forcing target sample to source latent feature space is developed to combine with self-supervision to adapt source model to the target domain. Experiments on real-world datasets indicate the superiority of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students face problems that might hinder their academic pursuit toward success, problems ranging from trivial matters such as class condition, feeling of the student to severe matters such as family breakdown, economic reasons, and many more. This is a major problem because students shape the future of a nation – which will affect many things in the future. Teachers are looking for an effective way to find what might generally be the best solution for solving certain problems, as each student may face different problems, solving one at a time is not possible with the number of students each year. In this paper, we will try to find factors that might hinder or improve student performance using Pearson correlation between each feature toward the student G3 result. Based on the result, past failures will negatively impact student grades with -0.360415 correlation, and then Mother's Education will positively impact student grades with 0.217147. After finding out which factor affects student grade, we try to predict student grade using ML models to prove whether that factor actually affects student grade. Our MLP 12-Neuron model performs the best with RMSE value of 4.32, followed by Random Forest with RMSE value of 4.52, and finally Decision Tree with RMSE value of 5.69. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In real-world scenarios, new audio classes with insufficient samples usually emerge continually, which motivates the study of few-shot class-incremental audio classification (FCAC) in this paper. FCAC aims to enable the model to recognize new audio classes while remembering the base ones continually. To solve the FCAC problem, the discriminability of the prototypes is vital to the model's classification performance. Thus, we proposed a method to learn the discriminative prototypes from two aspects. First, since the generalization ability of the embedding module (EM) significantly affects the discriminability of the prototypes, the proposed method employs a scheme of pseudo-episodic incremental training to train the EM by simulating the test scenario. Second, to enable the model to achieve a balanced classification performance on both base and new audio classes, the proposed method employs a selective-attention module to adjust different prototypes to enhance their discriminability. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves state-of-the-art performance in solving the FCAC problem. Notably, the proposed method achieves a comprehensive performance score (CPS) of 87.82% and 59.25% on the Neural Synthesis musical notes of 100 classes (NSynth-100) and Free sound clips of 89 classes (FSC-89) datasets, respectively, which outperforms the comparison methods. Our code is available at https://github.com/chester-w-xie/DPL_FCAC. • The few-shot class-incremental audio classification problem is studied in this paper. • The proposed method expands the model with discriminative prototypes. • A scheme is proposed to enhance the generalization ability of the embedding module. • A selective-attention-based module is proposed for prototype adjustment. • The proposed method achieves state-of-the-art performance in solving the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Open world" environments are those in which novel objects, agents, events, and more can appear and contradict previous understandings of the environment. This runs counter to the "closed world" assumption used in most AI research, where the environment is assumed to be fully understood and unchanging. The types of environments AI agents can be deployed in are limited by the inability to handle the novelties that occur in open world environments. This paper presents a novel cognitive architecture framework to handle open-world novelties. This framework combines symbolic planning, counterfactual reasoning, reinforcement learning, and deep computer vision to detect and accommodate novelties. We introduce general algorithms for exploring open worlds using inference and machine learning methodologies to facilitate novelty accommodation. The ability to detect and accommodate novelties allows agents built on this framework to successfully complete tasks despite a variety of novel changes to the world. Both the framework components and the entire system are evaluated in Minecraft-like simulated environments. Our results indicate that agents are able to efficiently complete tasks while accommodating "concealed novelties" not shared with the architecture development team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a frontier analysis procedure for evaluating the relative performance of decision making units (DMUs) with multiple inputs and multiple outputs. To improve its discrimination power, an important extension is proposed as cross-efficiency, which uses peer DMUs’ optimal relative weights to evaluate the relative performance. However, the existing cross-efficiency methods show an inconsistent and unbalanced evaluation standard, since each DMU might determine a different total (or mean) efficiency value across all DMUs. The different values imply that the DMUs that have assigned larger cross-efficiency scores will have a larger effect in aggregating the ultimate cross-efficiency scores and different DMUs’ effects are unbalanced in cross-efficiency methods. In this paper, we will deal with this unbalanced cross-efficiency evaluation problem. To this end, we first suggest a practical adjustment measure to rectify the traditional cross-efficiency, which will provide a common evaluation standard for all DMUs and make each DMU dispatch an identical total efficiency score across all DMUs. Further, we propose a game-like iterative procedure to obtain the optimal balanced cross-efficiency. Finally, we present both a numerical example and an empirical study derived from the literature and a real-world problem to demonstrate the usefulness and efficacy of the new balanced cross-efficiency evaluation approach. The work presented in this paper can extend the traditional cross-efficiency approaches to situations involving unbalanced evaluation standards, and make the evaluation results more practical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We studied a set of two-agent scheduling problem with a single machine. • The paper proposes two heuristics and one metaheuristic to solve the problem. • Lower bound has been developed for checking the effectiveness of the heuristics. • The efficiency of the heuristic is tested through randomly generated instances. Abstract This paper considers two-agent scheduling problem with a single machine which is responsible for processing jobs from two agents. The objective is to minimize the objective function of one agent, subject to an upper bound on the objective function of the other agent. The objectives considered in this paper are, (1) the minimization of total completion time and (2) the minimization of total weighted completion time. To solve these problems, one heuristic and an Ant Colony Optimization algorithm are proposed. The heuristic suggested in the paper are motivated by the Weighted Shortest Processing Time first (WSPT) rule. A numerical experiment is performed on randomly generated problem instances. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated by comparing it with the lower bound value of all three problems considered in the present paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been remarkably successful, even outperforming human performance at certain tasks. There is no doubt that AI is important to improve human health in many ways and will disrupt various medical workflows in the future. Using AI to solve problems in medicine beyond the lab, in routine environments, we need to do more than to just improve the performance of existing AI methods. Robust AI solutions must be able to cope with imprecision, missing and incorrect information, and explain both the result and the process of how it was obtained to a medical expert. Using conceptual knowledge as a guiding model of reality can help to develop more robust, explainable, and less biased machine learning models that can ideally learn from less data. Achieving these goals will require an orchestrated effort that combines three complementary Frontier Research Areas: (1) Complex Networks and their Inference, (2) Graph causal models and counterfactuals, and (3) Verification and Explainability methods. The goal of this paper is to describe these three areas from a unified view and to motivate how information fusion in a comprehensive and integrative manner can not only help bring these three areas together, but also have a transformative role by bridging the gap between research and practical applications in the context of future trustworthy medical AI. This makes it imperative to include ethical and legal aspects as a cross-cutting discipline, because all future solutions must not only be ethically responsible, but also legally compliant. • 3 frontier research areas facilitating ethical responsible and legally compliant AI. • Networks & their inference, graph causal models, verification/explainability methods. • Unified view of information fusion enabling integrative multi-modal machine learning. • Counterfactual paths to support explainability, interpretability and causability. • Fostering cross domain research to solve challenges within multi-science problems. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a novel methodology based on Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) for solving systems of partial differential equations admitting discontinuous solutions. Our method, called Gradient-Annihilated PINNs (GA-PINNs), introduces a modified loss function that forces the model to partially ignore high-gradients in the physical variables, achieved by introducing a suitable weighting function. The method relies on a set of hyperparameters that control how gradients are treated in the physical loss. The performance of our methodology is demonstrated by solving Riemann problems in special relativistic hydrodynamics, extending earlier studies with PINNs in the context of the classical Euler equations. The solutions obtained with the GA-PINN model correctly describe the propagation speeds of discontinuities and sharply capture the associated jumps. We use the relative l 2 error to compare our results with the exact solution of special relativistic Riemann problems, used as the reference "ground truth", and with the corresponding error obtained with a second-order, central, shock-capturing scheme. In all problems investigated, the accuracy reached by the GA-PINN model is comparable to that obtained with a shock-capturing scheme, achieving a performance superior to that of the baseline PINN algorithm in general. An additional benefit worth stressing is that our PINN-based approach sidesteps the costly recovery of the primitive variables from the state vector of conserved variables, a well-known drawback of grid-based solutions of the relativistic hydrodynamics equations. Due to its inherent generality and its ability to handle steep gradients, the GA-PINN methodology discussed in this paper could be a valuable tool to model relativistic flows in astrophysics and particle physics, characterized by the prevalence of discontinuous solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has long been attracting wide attention from researchers in the community. How to deal with the weak exploration ability and premature convergence of PSO remains an open question. In this paper, we modify the memory structure of canonical PSO and introduce the multi-leader mechanism to alleviate these problems. The proposed PSO variant in this paper is termed as multi-leader PSO (MLPSO) within which the modified memory structure provided more valuable information for particles to escape from the local optimum and multi-leader mechanism enhances diversity of particles' search pattern. Under the multi-leader mechanism, particles choose their leaders based on the game theory instead of a random selection. Besides, the best leader refers to other leaders' information to improve its quality in every generation based on a self-learning process. To make a comprehensive analysis, we test MLPSO against the benchmark functions in CEC 2013 and further applied MLPSO to a practical case: the reconstruction of gene regulatory networks based on fuzzy cognitive maps. The experimental results confirm that MLPSO enhances the efficiency of the canonical PSO and performs well in the realistic optimization problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a comprehensive and exhaustive overview of the cuckoo search algorithm (CSA). CSA is a metaheuristic swarm-based approach established by Yang and Deb [10] to emulate the cuckoo breeding behavior. Owing to the successful application of CSA for a wide variety of optimization problems, since then, researchers have developed several new algorithms in this field. This article displays a comprehensive review of all conducting intensive research survey into the pros and cons, main architecture, and extended versions of this algorithm. It is worth mentioning that the materials of this survey paper are categorized in accordance with the structure of the CSA in which the materials are divided into the CSA versions and modification, publication years, the CSA applications areas, and the hybridization of CSA. The survey paper ends with solid conclusions about the current research on CSA and the possible future directions for the relevant audience and readers. The researchers and practitioners on CSA belong to a wide range of audiences from the domains of optimization, engineering, medical, data mining, clustering, etc., who will benefit from this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The representation of consistent mixed reality (XR) environments requires adequate real and virtual illumination composition in real-time. Estimating the lighting of a real scenario is still a challenge. Due to the ill-posed nature of the problem, classical inverse-rendering techniques tackle the problem for simple lighting setups. However, those assumptions do not satisfy the current state-of-art in computer graphics and XR applications. While many recent works solve the problem using machine learning techniques to estimate the environment light and scene's materials, most of them are limited to geometry or previous knowledge. This paper presents a CNN-based model to estimate complex lighting for mixed reality environments with no previous information about the scene. We model the environment illumination using a set of spherical harmonics (SH) environment lighting, capable of efficiently represent area lighting. We propose a new CNN architecture that inputs an RGB image and recognizes, in real-time, the environment lighting. Unlike previous CNN-based lighting estimation methods, we propose using a highly optimized deep neural network architecture, with a reduced number of parameters, that can learn high complex lighting scenarios from real-world high-dynamic-range (HDR) environment images. We show in the experiments that the CNN architecture can predict the environment lighting with an average mean squared error (MSE) of 7.85 × 10−4 when comparing SH lighting coefficients. We validate our model in a variety of mixed reality scenarios. Furthermore, we present qualitative results comparing relights of real-world scenes. [Display omitted] • Automatic end-to-end method to estimate the environment lighting in XR applications. • A CNN architecture that learns a latent-space of the environment lighting. • A methodology to generate egocentric mixed-reality-views from HDR panoramas. • Real-time lighting estimation that does not make assumptions about the XR scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convex optimization is explored in this paper to maximize the security against power analysis attacks while minimizing the power and performance overheads for a cryptographic circuit employs a random dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (RDVFS) technique. To realize this optimization goal, firstly, non-convex functions are used for modeling all the critical parameters related to the RDVFS technique to create a non-convex objective function. Subsequently, the non-convex objective function is appropriately converted into a convex objective function in order to grab the global optimum value. By transforming the acquired convex objective function into the Lagrange dual function and using Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions to solve this optimization problem, the best RDVFS strategy can be uncovered. As shown in the result, after employing convex optimization for a cryptographic circuit with a RDVFS technique, the corresponding figure-of-merit (FOM) is enhanced by 43.4%. Moreover, in comparison with the conventional machine learning technique, the proposed convex optimization technique improves the overall FOM related with RDVFS technique by 17.6% while reducing 85.3% computational time. • Random dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (RDVFS) is beneficial for improving the robustness of cryptographic circuits. • RDVFS technique undermines the performance and power saving of cryptographic circuits. • Convex optimization can be utilized for improving the security of RDVFS technique without increasing the overall overhead significantly. • Convex optimization methodology has a better efficiency for optimizing RDVFS technique as compared to the training methodology related with MLP neural networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary learning models for computer vision are typically trained on very large (benchmark) datasets with millions of samples. These may, however, contain biases, artifacts, or errors that have gone unnoticed and are exploitable by the model. In the worst case, the trained model does not learn a valid and generalizable strategy to solve the problem it was trained for, and becomes a "Clever Hans" predictor that bases its decisions on spurious correlations in the training data, potentially yielding an unrepresentative or unfair, and possibly even hazardous predictor. In this paper, we contribute by providing a comprehensive analysis framework based on a scalable statistical analysis of attributions from explanation methods for large data corpora. Based on a recent technique — Spectral Relevance Analysis — we propose the following technical contributions and resulting findings: (a) a scalable quantification of artifactual and poisoned classes where the machine learning models under study exhibit Clever Hans behavior, (b) several approaches we collectively denote as Class Artifact Compensation, which are able to effectively and significantly reduce a model's Clever Hans behavior, i.e., we are able to un-Hans models trained on (poisoned) datasets, such as the popular ImageNet data corpus. We demonstrate that Class Artifact Compensation, defined in a simple theoretical framework, may be implemented as part of a neural network's training or fine-tuning process, or in a post-hoc manner by injecting additional layers, preventing any further propagation of undesired Clever Hans features, into the network architecture. Using our proposed methods, we provide qualitative and quantitative analyses of the biases and artifacts in, e.g., the ImageNet dataset, the Adience benchmark dataset of unfiltered faces, and the ISIC 2019 skin lesion analysis dataset. We demonstrate that these insights can give rise to improved, more representative, and fairer models operating on implicitly cleaned data corpora. [Display omitted] • We extend Spectral Relevance Analysis for large scale analyses of Clever Hans traits. • We introduce Class Artifact Compensation to unlearn or suppress confounders. • We show that Deep Neural Networks tend to overfit to Clever Hans artifacts in data. • Using both methods, we discover and unlearn Clever Hans artifacts on modern datasets. • We demonstrate that Class Artifact Compensation leads to more trustworthy models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data of the power Internet of Things (IOT) system is transferred from the IaaS layer to the SaaS layer. The general data preprocessing method mainly solves the problem of big data anomalies and missing at the PaaS layer, but it still lacks the ability to judge the high error data that meets the timing characteristics, making it difficult to deal with heterogeneous power inconsistent issues. This paper shows this phenomenon and its physical mechanism, showing the difficulty of building a quantitative model forward. A data-driven method is needed to form a hybrid model to correct the data. The research object is the electricity meter data on both sides of a commercial building transformer, which comes from different power IOT systems. The low-voltage side was revised based on the high-voltage side. Compared with the correction method based on purely using neural networks, the combined method, Linear Regression (LS) + Differential Evolution (DE) + Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), further reduces the deviation from approximately 4% to 1%. • The heterogeneous electrical data from complex IOT system is inconsistent. • The positive mechanism of inconsistency has been revealed, but not easy to correct. • Reverse data correction used a combination of simple methods and the effect is better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating sessions in scientific conferences consists in grouping papers with common topics taking into account the size restrictions imposed by the conference schedule. Therefore, this problem can be considered as semi-supervised clustering of documents based on their content. This paper aims to propose modifications in traditional clustering algorithms to incorporate size constraints in each cluster. Specifically, two new algorithms are proposed to semi-supervised clustering, based on: binary integer linear programming with cannot-link constraints and a variation of the K-Medoids algorithm, respectively. The applicability of the proposed semi-supervised clustering methods is illustrated by addressing the problem of automatic configuration of conference schedules by clustering articles by similarity. We include experiments, applying the new techniques, over real conferences datasets: ICMLA-2014, AAAI-2013 and AAAI-2014. The results of these experiments show that the new methods are able to solve practical and real problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the proposed algorithms to solve the dynamic clustering problem are based on nature inspired meta-heuristic algorithms. In this paper a different reinforcement based optimization approach called continuous action-set learning automata (CALA) is used and a novel dynamic clustering approach called ACCALA is proposed. CALA is an optimization tool interacting with a random environment and learn the optimal action from the environment feedbacks. In this paper the dynamic clustering problem considered as a noisy optimization problem and the team of CALAs is used to solve this noisy optimization problem. To build such a team of CALAs this paper proposed a new representation of CALAs. Each automaton in this team uses its continuous action-set and defining a suitable action-set for each automaton has a great impact on the CALAs search behavior. In this paper we used the statistical property of data-sets and proposed a new method to automatically find an action-set for each automaton. The performance of ACCALA is evaluated and the results are compared with seven well-known automatic clustering techniques. Also ACCALA is used to perform automatic segmentation. The experimental results are promising and show that the proposed algorithm produced compact and well-separated clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a graph-based optimization problem related to epidemics control is studied. This multiobjective optimization problem requires determining which graph nodes to protect in order to limit the number of nodes affected by a threat spreading in the graph. In the paper, a classifier-based evolutionary algorithm is proposed in which population initialization, crossover, mutation and local search can use a previously trained classifier to decide which graph nodes to protect. The classifier is trained on a dataset collected by running an optimization algorithm on small problem instances and it is subsequently reused for solving multiple, larger instances of the same optimization problem. Selecting graph nodes to protect using a previously trained classifier allows the algorithm to find better solutions to the optimization problem compared to an algorithm not using a classifier. In the experiments, several machine learning models were evaluated and a multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network was selected as the best performing classifier. The proposed optimization method was tested and found to work effectively when the MLP classifier was trained on data collected when solving problem instances with 1000 graph nodes. In tests on problem instances with up to 20000 nodes the proposed method outperformed an evolutionary optimizer not using any classifier-based components thereby showing that knowledge can be transferred from smaller problem instances to larger ones. [Display omitted] • A graph-based optimization problem related to epidemics control is studied. • A classifier-based evolutionary multiobjective optimization algorithm is proposed. • A multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network is the best performing classifier. • The proposed method outperforms an evolutionary optimizer not using any classifier-based components. • Results show that knowledge can be transferred from smaller problem instances to larger ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Truecasing is the process of finding the proper capitalization of words in a text where the correct case information of the word is not given. The case of letters is often lost while performing language translation from non-capitalized languages (eg: Japanese, Arabic, Hindi) to capitalized languages (eg: Greek, Latin, English). In Optical Character Recognition (OCR) where the different cases for letters like 'p' and 'P' are similar, the case as well as the context and proper meaning of the text is lost. A similar situation is observed for text generated from Automatic Speech Recognition. This paper proposes to solve the problem of truecasing while focusing on three different architectures, all based on transformers. Transformers have generally proved to outperform recurrent and convolutional models. A proposal for a novel light-weight transformer architecture has been made which performs competitively with existing models that are computationally expensive. To provide a basis for comparison, two existing transformer architectures were fine-tuned for truecasing - BERT and GPT-2. These architectures are analyzed and compared on various metrics. The proposed architecture shows an accuracy of 98.25%, which is also an improvement of 0.41 against the current state-of-art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an approach to machine learning involving the use of a hybrid method in Neural ODE. The authors consider a way of the Neural ODE application with an embedded hybrid method for intelligent manipulator control in a non-deterministic environment. To reduce computational resources, the number of layers of the neural network using ODE is reduced, the solution of which is carried out by a hybrid transformation method. The hybrid method includes normalizing the system, linear transformation, and polynomial transformation. Using the hybrid method in Neural ODE can increase the learning and computation speed. The transformation method has high accuracy with low computational complexity of the algorithm. As a result of applying the hybrid method, the original nonlinear system is transformed to a simpler form. To solve the simplified transformed system, the scheme of the numerical Runge-Kutta method of the third order with an adaptive step is used. The results of the computational experiment show an increase in the speed and accuracy of the calculation. The presented approach to implementing the hybrid method in Neural ODE allows faster training of the neural network of the world model on limited data obtained from the real environment. After training on the data generated by the model of the world, a robotic arm always successfully reaches the object during subsequent interaction with the real environment. This solves the problem of the limited ability of the agent to interact when learning with the real environment in robotic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearest neighbor-based methods are classic techniques that, due to their efficiency, still are widely used today. However, they have not been broadly applied to solve the multi-instance multi-label (MIML) problem, a supervised learning paradigm that combines multi-instance (MI) and multi-label (ML) learning. This work presents new neighbor-based approaches for solving MIML problems. On the one hand, MIML data are transformed into ML data and ML nearest neighbor algorithms are used. On the other hand, algorithms that directly address MIML data and use a bag-based distance are proposed. A comprehensive study and an overall comparison have been conducted to study the performance of these methods using different configurations. Experiments included 16 datasets and 8 performance metrics. The results and statistical tests showed that the problem transformation applied and the distance function used impacted the performance and that the approaches that do not transform the problem obtained the best predictive results. Furthermore, most of the proposed algorithms outperformed the MIMLkNN algorithm, the state-of-art algorithm for MIML learning based on nearest-neighbor. Therefore, the relevance and capabilities of neighbor-based approaches to obtain competitive results in MIML learning are shown. Finally, all the algorithms developed in this paper have been included in the MIML library to facilitate the comparison with other future proposals. • New kNN methods for MIML based on logistic regression, gravitational model, and MAP. • Exhaustive study with 16 datasets and 8 evaluation measures to study the performance. • The transformation and the distance function influenced the predictive performance. • The gravitational model gets the best results with reasonable time complexity. • All the proposals outperform the state-of-art kNN-based algorithm in MIML. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The learning problem of continuous hidden Markov models (CHMMs) is the most critical and challenging one for the application of CHMMs. This paper aims to attack the learning problem of CHMMs by using the diversified gradient descent (DGD) algorithm. The novel learning formula of CHMM parameters, requiring no special form of the objective function and yielding various parameter estimates with different degree of diversity, is derived through dynamically adjusting the iterative procedure according to the gradient change of each parameter. It is the first work for standard CHMM attempting to obtain more local maxima so that the global maximum of the likelihood function of CHMM can be better approximated or even discovered. Hence this paper takes an important step forward in solving the learning problem of CHMM. Furthermore, a likelihood-based model averaging (LBMA) estimator is developed to achieve robust parameter estimation of CHMM based upon the diversiform models attained by the DGD algorithm. The proposed methods are tested on simulation and real-life bearing fault diagnosis problem. The results show that proposed methods perform better in parameter estimation and bearing fault diagnosis compared to the conventional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how institutional pressures affect the development of Circular Economy (CE) in firms. Using Institutional Entrepreneurship as a theoretical framework, this paper considers three different levels of institutional pressures (coercive, normative, and mimetic) to examine the effect of each pressure and their interactions on the development of CE. Seeking to clarify the debate on the effect of institutional pressures, this paper considers that the main limitation arises from the fact that previous research has analysed the relationship between institutional pressures without considering the interaction between them and the non-linearity of the processes. Deviating from previous papers, our analysis combines regression methods with Machine learning (i.e. Artificial Neural Networks), and employs data from the EU survey on Public Consultation on the Circular Economy. This research finds that while coercive pressures have a compulsory effect on the development of CE, mimetic and normative pressures do not have an effect by themselves, but only in interaction with coercive pressures. Moreover, this paper shows that the application of machine learning tools has an important contribution in solving interaction problems. From the perspective of environmental policy, this means that a comprehensive policy is required, which implies the coexistence or interaction of the three types of pressures. [Display omitted] • Discrepancies on the effect of institutional pressures are due to methodology. • Coercive pressure has a compulsory effect on the development of Circular Economy. • Mimetic & Normative pressures only have effect in interaction with coercive pressure. • Artificial Neural Networks contribute to solving interaction problems. • Comprehensive environmental policy that considers these interactions is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object detection in outdoor environments is a challenging task. One is not only confronted with the problem of acquiring a sufficient amount of training images, but also the issue of huge variation in the objects appearance due to changing weather and light conditions. When using appearance-based object detection algorithms, such as in this paper, dimensional reduction of input data is an integral component to reduce computational costs and improve reliability. Based on the probabilistic classification method of Gaussian classifiers this paper examines the effect different dimensional reduction approaches have on the classification performance of thermal infra-red object images with respect to incomplete training data. It is shown that in the detection task at hand, which is to find the rear end of a truck in a thermal infra-red image, a reduction approach that combines principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is less sensitive to missing data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of opposition-based learning ( OBL ) was first introduced as a scheme for machine intelligence. In a very short period of time, some other variants of opposite numbers were proposed and opposition was applied to various research areas. In metaheuristic optimization algorithms, the main idea behind applying opposite numbers is the simultaneous consideration of a candidate solution and its corresponding opposite candidate in order to achieve a better approximation for the current solution. This paper proposes an opposition-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm ( OBA ) and a new and efficient opposition named comprehensive opposition ( CO ) as its main operator. In this paper it is mathematically proven that CO not only increases the chance of achieving better approximations for the solution but also guarantees the global convergence of OBA . The efficiency of the proposed method has been compared with some well-known heuristic search methods. The obtained results confirm the high performance of the proposed method in solving various function optimizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph-based semi-supervised dimension reduction can use the inherent graph structure of samples to propagate label information, and has become a hot research field in machine learning. However, most current methods have strict linear constraints and cannot handle data sampled from nonlinear manifolds; and rely on predefined graphs, which cannot capture the local structure information of data and cannot handle complex non-Gaussian data. To address these issues, this paper proposes a new locality-preserved flexible dimension reduction framework, called Semi-supervised Flexible Adaptive Graph Embedding (SFAG), which learns the embedding space that can preserve the local neighborhood structure by constructing a k 1 -nearest neighbor graph over labeled samples. Then, another k 2 -nearest neighbor graph is constructed on all samples to adaptively construct the optimal graph, clustering labeled and unlabeled embedding sample points with neighborhood relations into the same sub-manifold sharing the same label information. Last but not least, the hard linear projection constraint is relaxed by adding residual terms to obtain not only the nonlinear embedding of the training samples, but also the linear projection matrix applied directly to the out-of-sample. In addition, two different semi-supervised dimension reduction methods for adaptive construction of optimal graphs are proposed based on the SFAG framework. Several evaluation experiments validate the effectiveness of our method in exploring manifold structures and classification tasks. • A novel semi-supervised adaptive flexible dimension reduction method is proposed. • The local and global structure of the data is explored by constructing kNN graphs. • The hard linear constraints on the projection are relaxed by adding a residual term. • An algorithm is designed to solve the norm-constrained problem of feature extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) has been successfully applied in many fields. In MARL, the policy evaluation problem is one of crucial problems. In order to solve this problem, distributed Temporal-Difference (TD) learning algorithm is one of the most popular methods in a cooperative manner. Despite its empirical success, however, the theory of the adaptive variant of distributed TD learning still remain limited. To fill this gap, we propose an adaptive distributed temporal-difference algorithm (referred to as MS - ADTD) under Markovian sampling over time-varying networks. Furthermore, we rigorously analyze the convergence of MS - ADTD , the theoretical results show that the local estimation can converge linearly to the optimal neighborhood. Meanwhile, the theoretical results are verified by simulation experiments. • This paper proposes a distributed adaptive TD learning algorithm under Markovian sampling. • It theoretically analyzes the non-asymptotic convergence performance of the proposed algorithm. • It verifies the performance of the proposed algorithm by experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IEEE 802.11ah, also known as Wi-Fi HaLow, improves the scalability of the Internet of Things (IoT) by connecting a large number of low-power devices. IEEE 802.11ah has developed a novel feature called Restricted Access Window (RAW) that aims to address one of the main problems of the IoT: excessive channel contention in large sensor networks. All stations can access the channel from the same group when using RAW, which allows the Access Point (AP) to split stations into different groups. Existing station grouping schemes support only the homogeneous traffic scenarios, having the same data transmission interval, packet size, and Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS). In this paper, we highlight two contributions to solving this problem. The first is a Machine Learning (ML) based model that predicts RAW configuration parameters and performance under specific network conditions. It predicts accurately and is very quick to train. Second, a technique for a channel access mechanism that uses an ML model to determine the optimal RAW station grouping configuration for dynamic traffic conditions and heterogeneous stations. We compare our ML-based model with the existing state-of-the-art solutions. We calculated the performance of our proposed model and compared it to traditional 802.11ah and the Traffic Adaptive RAW Optimization Algorithm (TAROA). The results show that our proposed model outperforms a significant improvement in terms of throughput, packet received ratio, delay, and execution time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Applying MSE to the field of lithology discrimination. • Designing a lithology recognition model based on SA optimized SVM algorithm. • Forming a set of lithology recognition methods based on machine learning. • Establishing a lithology intelligent recognition model. Lithology identification is an important part of petroleum drilling engineering. Accurate identification of lithology is the foundation to ensure the smooth operation of drilling engineering. Conventional lithology recognition mainly relies on human experience. The recognition accuracy depends on the level of technical personnel and the recognition response time is lagging. It is difficult to meet the demand. How to achieve rapid and intelligent recognition of lithology is one of the core technical problems faced by oil drilling. In order to solve this problem, this paper uses the mechanical specific energy and other ground parameters to establish a rapid and intelligent recognition method of lithology based on the simulated annealing optimization support vector machine model. In order to improve the accuracy of the model recognition, a large number of methods have been developed from two classes and multiple classes, simulation analysis results show that the lithology recognition model based on the principle of mechanical specific energy and the simulated annealing optimization support vector machine algorithm can predict a priori unknown data with a prediction accuracy of over 90%. Compared with the support vector machine model and the K-means model, simulated annealing optimization support vector machine is used for comparative analysis, the algorithm to establish a lithology recognition model has better performance and higher accuracy. The intelligent identification model of lithology based on the principle of mechanical specific energy and simulated annealing optimization support vector machine algorithm established in this paper can quickly and accurately identify lithology, and provide new technical support for oil drilling formation analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In a recent paper [M. Anthony, J. Ratsaby, Maximal width learning of binary functions, Theoretical Computer Science 411 (2010) 138–147] the notion of sample width for binary classifiers mapping from the real line was introduced, and it was shown that the performance of such classifiers could be quantified in terms of this quantity. This paper considers how to generalize the notion of sample width so that we can apply it where the classifiers map from some finite metric space. By relating the learning problem to one involving the domination numbers of certain graphs, we obtain generalization error bounds that depend on the sample width and on certain measures of ‘density’ of the underlying metric space. We also discuss how to employ a greedy set-covering heuristic to bound generalization error. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The current demographic development will lead to changing working conditions. The paper at hand presents methods for the investigation of expert knowledge within the company and how to document these information, widely independent from individuals, within a technology based learning environment, using virtual reality (VR) technologies and other media. Expert knowledge is often coded as tacit knowledge [1] and can be hardly verbalized by experts. The extraction of tacit knowledge requires methods that are based on stories. Beyond facts these stories also include tacit knowledge driven by emotions. One of the narrative methods presented in the paper will be the »triad interview« [2]. The documentation of these interviews within texts is not very sustainable and other methods for the documentation of expert knowledge are required. Especially in the field of maintenance that is focused in the paper, virtual reality is a suitable method for the documentation as technicians are familiar with drawings and visual content representations. Virtual reality learning environment can visualize working processes and keep the narrative structure that is required for transferring tacit knowledge. Besides, interactions as a typical characteristic of virtual reality applications allow the design of problem solving tasks. The paper presents the »triad interview« and the »working process analysis« [3] that are used for extracting the relevant information of a working process. For the didactical design of the learning tasks the method of the »complete action« [4] is applied. The paper will present the design of the several phases and their benefit for the learning process. Finally the results and experiences from an evaluation study within the organization will be presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper proposes an unsupervised deep learning model. • This paper proposes an optimized sparse representation method. • This paper proposes a new image fusion algorithm based on unsupervised deep learning-optimized sparse representation. The image fusion method based on deep learning has problems such as the supervised learning of the model, the edge and noise of the fused image, and the setting of the image fusion weight map. To solve these problems, this paper proposes an end-to-end unsupervised deep learning model that performs one-to-many focus image fusion. It solves the training problem encountered by supervised deep learning models while avoiding the unreasonable image fusion weight maps. In addition, this paper proposes an optimized sparse representation method that divides an image into a target area and a background area. Then, it uses super complete dictionary learning to obtain a sparse representation of the image background area. This approach makes the proposed unsupervised deep learning image fusion method robust to noise. Finally, using this method to carry out image fusion experiments, the results show that the quality evaluation indicators of the fused image obtained by this method substantially outperform those of both mainstream machine learning and deep learning image fusion methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an online rescue method based on offline learning of dynamics knowledge to solve the problem of the optimal rescue orbit and flight trajectory optimization (OROTO) of launch vehicles experiencing thrust-drop faults. Due to the unknown of the rescue orbit, solving the OROTO problem by the conventional aerospace orbit and trajectory optimization method is time-consuming. In this paper, benefiting from the decision-making of the optimal rescue orbit by the machine learning technology, the OROTO problem is decoupled into a decision-making of the optimal rescue orbit and a trajectory optimization problem with a known orbit. In the decision-making of the optimal rescue orbit, instead of the conventional iteration optimization process based on dynamics, the optimal rescue orbit is determined by the "fault-rescue" knowledge integration (FRKI) model which consists of probabilistic neural network (PNN) and radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) trained by "fault-rescue" knowledge. In the trajectory optimization part, the output of the FRKI model provides terminal constraints for the trajectory optimization problem to decrease the search scope for the optimal solution. Numerical simulation results show that the proposed method can solve the OROTO problem rapidly and accurately, and can potentially be implemented for online applications. • Proposing an accurate and rapid rescue method for launch vehicles experiencing thrust drop faults. • The "fault-rescue" knowledge integration model is used to replace the conventional iteration optimization process. • Decoupling the original rescue problem into a decision-making of the rescue orbit and an online trajectory optimization. • Overcoming the positive error of the decision-making by an online two-step trajectory optimization method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The undeniable success in enrollment for massive online courses sharply contrasts with the number of students that complete them. This paper argues that massive online education should radically change how content is presented and evaluated if it is to become a sustainable method at a worldwide scale. In particular, delivering online education to the rising billion, the population in the poorest developing nations, requires a different approach. This research proposes a novel, self-organizing tutorial framework that evolves along with a student's ability to solve problems. The framework incorporates elements from machine learning, education and digital entertainment to deliver a different educational experience. The dynamics of these elements are incorporated into the model to allow an evolving set of challenges that completely differ from today's views of online education. Furthermore, the paper also discusses implementation implications along with the framework's limitations and possible evaluation methodologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, a classification method named explicit Markov model is applied for text classification. Currently some machine learning technologies, such as support vector machine (SVM), have been discussed widely in text classification. However, these methods consider that any two features are independent and ignore the language structure information. Hidden Markov model is a powerful tool for sequence tagging problems. This paper presents a new method called explicit Markov model (EMM) which is based on HMM for text classification. EMM make better use of the context information between the observation symbols. Our experiments are conducted on three datasets: Reuter's 21578 R8 dataset, WebKB and Fudan University Chinese text classification corpus. Experimental results show that the performance of EMM is comparable to SVM for text classification. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]