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Abstract Modelling extreme values distributions, such as wave height time series where the higher waves are much less frequent than the lower ones, has been tackled from the point of view of the Peak-Over-Threshold (POT) methodologies, where modelling is based on those values higher than a threshold. This threshold is usually predefined by the user, while the rest of values are ignored. In this paper, we propose a new method to estimate the distribution of the complete time series, including both extreme and regular values. This methodology assumes that extreme values time series can be modelled by a normal distribution in a combination of a uniform one. The resulting theoretical distribution is then used to fix the threshold for the POT methodology. The methodology is tested in nine real-world time series collected in the Gulf of Alaska, Puerto Rico and Gibraltar (Spain), which are provided by the National Data Buoy Center (USA) and Puertos del Estado (Spain). By using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test, the results confirm that the time series can be modelled with this type of mixed distribution. Based on this, the return values and the confidence intervals for wave height in different periods of time are also calculated.

Recent advances in Deep Learning and aerial Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) have offered the possibility of refining the classification and segmentation of 3D point clouds to contribute to the monitoring of complex environments. In this context, the present study focuses on developing an ordinal classification model in forest areas where LiDAR point clouds can be classified into four distinct ordinal classes: ground, low vegetation, medium vegetation, and high vegetation. To do so, an effective soft labeling technique based on a novel proposed generalized exponential function (CE-GE) is applied to the PointNet network architecture. Statistical analyses based on Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Student’s t-test reveal that the CE-GE method achieves the best results for all the evaluation metrics compared to other methodologies. Regarding the confusion matrices of the best alternative conceived and the standard categorical cross-entropy method, the smoothed ordinal classification obtains a more consistent classification compared to the nominal approach. Thus, the proposed methodology significantly improves the point-by-point classification of PointNet, reducing the errors in distinguishing between the middle classes (low vegetation and medium vegetation).

Abstract Parkinson’s disease is characterised by a decrease in the density of presynaptic dopamine transporters in the striatum. Frequently, the corresponding diagnosis is performed using a qualitative analysis of the 3D-images obtained after the administration of $$^{123}$$ 123 I-ioflupane, considering a binary classification problem (absence or existence of Parkinson’s disease). In this work, we propose a new methodology for classifying this kind of images in three classes depending on the level of severity of the disease in the image. To tackle this problem, we use an ordinal classifier given the natural order of the class labels. A novel strategy to perform feature selection is developed because of the large number of voxels in the image, and a method for generating synthetic images is proposed to improve the quality of the classifier. The methodology is tested on 434 studies conducted between September 2015 and January 2019, divided into three groups: 271 without alteration of the presynaptic nigrostriatal pathway, 73 with a slight alteration and 90 with severe alteration. Results confirm that the methodology improves the state-of-the-art algorithms, and that it is able to find informative voxels outside the standard regions of interest used for this problem. The differences are assessed by statistical tests which show that the proposed image ordinal classification could be considered as a decision support system in medicine.

Donor-Recipient (D-R) matching is one of the main challenges to be fulfilled nowadays. Due to the increasing number of recipients and the small amount of donors in liver transplantation, the allocation method is crucial. In this paper, to establish a fair comparison, the United Network for Organ Sharing database was used with 4 different end-points (3 months, and 1, 2 and 5 years), with a total of 39, 189 D-R pairs and 28 donor and recipient variables. Modelling techniques were divided into two groups: 1) classical statistical methods, including Logistic Regression (LR) and Naïve Bayes (NB), and 2) standard machine learning techniques, including Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting (GB) or Support Vector Machines (SVM), among others. The methods were compared with standard scores, MELD, SOFT and BAR. For the 5-years end-point, LR (AUC = 0.654) outperformed several machine learning techniques, such as MLP (AUC = 0.599), GB (AUC = 0.600), SVM (AUC = 0.624) or RF (AUC = 0.644), among others. Moreover, LR also outperformed standard scores. The same pattern was reproduced for the others 3 end-points. Complex machine learning methods were not able to improve the performance of liver allocation, probably due to the implicit limitations associated to the collection process of the database.

Several European countries have established criteria for prioritising initiation of treatment in patients infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) by grouping patients according to clinical characteristics. Based on neural network techniques, our objective was to identify those factors for HIV/HCV co-infected patients (to which clinicians have given careful consideration before treatment uptake) that have not being included among the prioritisation criteria. This study was based on the Spanish HERACLES cohort (NCT02511496) (April-September 2015, 2940 patients) and involved application of different neural network models with different basis functions (product-unit, sigmoid unit and radial basis function neural networks) for automatic classification of patients for treatment. An evolutionary algorithm was used to determine the architecture and estimate the coefficients of the model. This machine learning methodology found that radial basis neural networks provided a very simple model in terms of the number of patient characteristics to be considered by the classifier (in this case, six), returning a good overall classification accuracy of 0.767 and a minimum sensitivity (for the classification of the minority class, untreated patients) of 0.550. Finally, the area under the ROC curve was 0.802, which proved to be exceptional. The parsimony of the model makes it especially attractive, using just eight connections. The independent variable "recent PWID" is compulsory due to its importance. The simplicity of the model means that it is possible to analyse the relationship between patient characteristics and the probability of belonging to the treated group.

Meteorological data are extensively used to perform environmental learning. Soft Computing (SC) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques represent a valuable support in many research areas, but require datasets containing information related to the topic under study. Such datasets are not always available in an appropriate format and its preparation and pre-processing implies a lot of time and effort by researchers. This paper presents a novel software tool with a user-friendly GUI to create datasets by means of management and data integration of meteorological observations from two data sources: the National Data Buoy Center and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and for Atmospheric Research Reanalysis Project. Such datasets can be created using buoys and reanalysis data through customisable procedures, in terms of temporal resolution, predictive and objective variables, and can be used by SC and ML methodologies for prediction tasks (classification or regression). The objective is providing the research community with an automated and versatile system for the casuistry that entails well-formed and quality data integration, potentially leading to better prediction models. The software tool can be used as a supporting tool for coastal and ocean engineering applications, sustainable energy production, or environmental modelling; as well as for decision-making in the design and building of coastal protection structures, marine transport, ocean energy converters, and well-planned running of offshore and coastal engineering activities. Finally, to illustrate the applicability of the proposed tool, a case study to classify waves depending on their significant height and to predict energy flux in the Gulf of Alaska is presented.