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With the birth of the IoT era, it is evident that the existing number of devices is going to rise exponentially. Any two devices will communicate with each other using the same frequency band with limited availability. Therefore, it is of vital importance that this frequency band used for communication be used efficiently to accommodate the maximum number of devices with the available radio resources. Cognitive radio (CR) technology serves this exact purpose. The stated one is an intelligent radio that is made to automatically identify the optimal wireless channel in the available wireless spectrum at a given instant. An important functionality of CR is spectrum sensing. Energy detection is a very popular algorithm used for spectrum sensing in CR technology for efficient allocation of radio resources to the devices intended to communicate with each other. Energy detection detects the presence of a primary user (PU) signal by continuously monitoring a selected frequency bandwidth. The conventional energy detection technique is known to perform poorly in lower SNR ranges. This paper works towards the improvement of the energy detection algorithm with the help of machine learning (ML). The ML model uses the general properties of the signal as training data and classifies between a PU signal and noise at very low SNR ranges (− 25 to − 10 dB). In this research, a K-nearest neighbours (KNN) model is selected for its versatility and simplicity. Upon testing the model with an out-of-sample dataset, the KNN model produced a detection accuracy of 94.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collecting and analyzing data from all devices to improve the efficiency of business processes is an important task of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). In the age of data explosion, extensive text data generated by the IIoT have given birth to a variety of text representation methods. The task of text representation is to convert the natural language to a form that computer can understand with retaining the original semantics. However, these methods are difficult to effectively extract the semantic features among words and distinguish polysemy in natural language. Combining the advantages of convolutional neural network (CNN) and variational autoencoder (VAE), this paper proposes an intelligent CNN-VAE text representation algorithm as an advanced learning method for social big data within next-generation IIoT, which help users identify the information collected by sensors and perform further processing. This method employs the convolution layer to capture the local features of the context and uses the variational technique to reconstruct feature space to make it conform to the normal distribution. In addition, the improved word2vec model based on topical word embedding (TWE) is utilized to add topical information to word vectors to distinguish polysemy. This paper takes the social big data as an example to illustrate the way of the proposed algorithm applied in the next-generation IIoT and utilizes Cnews dataset to verify the performance of proposed method with four evaluating metrics (i.e., recall, accuracy, precision, and F1-score). Experimental results indicate that the proposed method outperforms word2vec-avg and CNN-AE in K-nearest neighbor (KNN), random forest (RF), and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers and distinguishes polysemy effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing implementation of and reliance on machine-learning (ML) algorithms to perform tasks, deliver services and make decisions in health and healthcare have made the need for fairness in ML, and more specifically in healthcare ML algorithms (HMLA), a very important and urgent task. However, while the debate on fairness in the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) and in HMLA has grown significantly over the last decade, the very concept of fairness as an ethical value has not yet been sufficiently explored. Our paper aims to fill this gap and address the AI ethics principle of fairness from a conceptual standpoint, drawing insights from accounts of fairness elaborated in moral philosophy and using them to conceptualise fairness as an ethical value and to redefine fairness in HMLA accordingly. To achieve our goal, following a first section aimed at clarifying the background, methodology and structure of the paper, in the second section, we provide an overview of the discussion of the AI ethics principle of fairness in HMLA and show that the concept of fairness underlying this debate is framed in purely distributive terms and overlaps with non-discrimination, which is defined in turn as the absence of biases. After showing that this framing is inadequate, in the third section, we pursue an ethical inquiry into the concept of fairness and argue that fairness ought to be conceived of as an ethical value. Following a clarification of the relationship between fairness and non-discrimination, we show that the two do not overlap and that fairness requires much more than just non-discrimination. Moreover, we highlight that fairness not only has a distributive but also a socio-relational dimension. Finally, we pinpoint the constitutive components of fairness. In doing so, we base our arguments on a renewed reflection on the concept of respect, which goes beyond the idea of equal respect to include respect for individual persons. In the fourth section, we analyse the implications of our conceptual redefinition of fairness as an ethical value in the discussion of fairness in HMLA. Here, we claim that fairness requires more than non-discrimination and the absence of biases as well as more than just distribution; it needs to ensure that HMLA respects persons both as persons and as particular individuals. Finally, in the fifth section, we sketch some broader implications and show how our inquiry can contribute to making HMLA and, more generally, AI promote the social good and a fairer society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem that I present in this paper concerns the issue of ethical evaluation of algorithms, especially those used in social media and which create profiles of users of these media and new technologies that have recently emerged and are intended to change the functioning of technologies used in data management. Systems such as Overton, SambaNova or Snorkel were created to help engineers create data management models, but they are based on different assumptions than the previous approach in machine learning and deep learning. There is a need to analyze both deep learning algorithms and new technologies in database management in terms of their actions towards a person who leaves their digital footprints, on which these technologies work. Then, the possibilities of applying the existing deep learning technology and new Big Data systems in the economy will be shown. The opportunities offered by the systems mentioned above seem to be promising for many companies and—if implemented on a larger scale—they will affect the functioning of the free market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The salp swarm algorithm (SSA) is a well-known optimization algorithm that is increasingly being utilized to solve many sorts of optimization problems. However, SSA may converge to sub-optimal solutions when it is applied to discrete problems such as the feature selection (FS) problem. This paper presents the enhanced opposition-based learning salp swarm algorithm (EOSSA), which is an improved SSA algorithm for solving the FS problem in intrusion detection systems (IDS). EOSSA incorporates four improvements into the original SSA algorithm. Firstly, the opposition-based learning (OBL) method is used in the initialization step of SSA to boost its population diversity. Secondly, the Elite opposition-based learning (EOBL) is used in the improvement loop of SSA to improve its exploration ability. Third, a variable neighborhood search (VNS) method is used in the improvement loop of SSA to improve its exploration mechanism to improve the local search space. Lastly, the Sigmoid binary transform function is used to convert the continuous candidate solutions produced by SSA into discrete binary solutions. EOSSA was evaluated against eighteen popular optimization algorithms (e.g., improved salp swarm algorithm based on opposition-based learning (ISSA), SSA, particle swarm algorithm (PSO), cuckoo search (CS), bat algorithm (BA), and Harris Hawk Optimization (HHO)) using eleven popular intrusion detection datasets (CICIDS2017, CSE-CIC-IDS2018, CICDDOS2019, CIRA-CIC-DoH, Intrusion detection 2018, UNSW-NB15, NSL-KDD, Phishing Legitimate, Malmem2022, IoT, and LUFlow Network) to Detect IoT Botnet Attacks. Moreover, EOSSA was compared with four machine learning algorithms (Decision Tree (DT), logistic regression (LR), Naive Bayes (NB), and K-Nearest Neighborhood (KNN)). The overall simulation results suggested that the proposed method is superior to the other algorithms in terms of the accuracy and number of selected features. The statistical analysis of the simulation results using the Friedman and Wilcoxon signed-rank test confirms the superiority of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the first stage in manufacturing any electronic product. The reliability of the electronic product depends on the PCB. The presence of manufacturing defects in PCBs might affect the performance of the PCB and thereby the reliability of the electronic products. In this paper, the various challenges faced in identifying manufacturing defects along with a review of various learning methods employed for defect detection are presented. We compare the various techniques available in the literature for further understanding of the accuracy of these techniques in defect detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, interest has grown in alternative strategies for the search for New Physics beyond the Standard Model. One envisaged solution lies in the development of anomaly detection algorithms based on unsupervised machine learning techniques. In this paper, we propose a new Generative Adversarial Network-based auto-encoder model that allows both anomaly detection and model-independent background modeling. This algorithm can be integrated with other model-independent tools in a complete heavy resonance search strategy. The proposed strategy has been tested on the LHC Olympics 2020 dataset with promising results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimedia data is crucial in the military, medical, forensics, social, etc., to transmit a large amount of data. Security of this sensitive information is the primary issue. This paper uses Latin square and machine learning techniques such as neural networks and genetic algorithm to design an image encryption algorithm. A new neural network-based pseudorandom number generator is proposed to generate a chaotic sequence for various applications. Encryption key images are designed using Latin squares in the finite field. Further, the Latin squares are XOR with the input matrix to get the encrypted images. The proposed algorithm is iterated a finite number of times to generate a cipher image population. Randomly two parents are chosen from the generated population, and row and column arrangements produce offspring. A genetic algorithm is the optimization technique used for the best encrypted image search. The pixel correlation value serves as a fitness function. Finally, the least correlated cipher image is obtained from the genetic algorithm applied to the parent and offspring of the population generated from the encryption algorithm. The simulation results from the proposed image encryption model surpass many communication channel attacks and perform better when compared to existing image security algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilizes classification models to provide a robust algorithm for imbalanced data where the minority class is of the interest, that is, in the context of default payments. In developing an integrated predictive accuracy algorithm, this study proposes machine learning classifiers and applies DNN, SVM, KNN, and ANN. The proposed algorithm utilizes a 30,000 imbalanced dataset to improve the accuracy of the prediction of default payments by implementing oversampling and undersampling strategies, such as synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE), SVM SMOTE, random undersampling, and ALL-KNN. The results indicate that the SVM under the ALL-KNN sampling technique is able to achieve an accuracy of 98.6%, with the lowest cross entropy loss measurement of 0.028. Through the accurate implementation of the neural networks and neurons used in the proposed algorithm, this paper presents better insights into the functioning of the neural networks when used in conjunction with the resampling techniques. Using the methodology and algorithm presented in this study, credit risk assessments can be more accurately predicted in practical applications where most of the clients are categorized as non-default payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In popular discussions, the nuances of AI are often abridged as "the algorithm", as the specific arrangements of machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL) and automated decision-making on social media platforms are typically shrouded in proprietary secrecy punctuated by press releases and transparency initiatives. What is clear, however, is that AI embedded on social media functions to recommend content, personalize ads, aggregate news stories, and moderate problematic material. It is also increasingly apparent that individuals are concerned with the uses, implications, and fairness of algorithmic systems. Perhaps in response to concerns about "the algorithm" by individuals and governments, social media platforms utilize transparency initiatives and official statements, in part, to deflect official regulation. In the following paper, I draw from transparency initiatives and statements from representatives of Facebook and TikTok as case studies of how AI is embedded in these platforms, with attention to the promotion of AI content moderation as a solution to the circulation of problematic material and misinformation. This examination considers the complexity of embedded AI as a material-discursive apparatus, predicated on discursive techniques—what is seeable, sayable, knowable in a given time period—as well as the material arrangements—algorithms, datasets, users, platforms, infrastructures, moderators, etc. As such, the use of AI as part of the immensely popular platforms Facebook and TikTok demonstrates that AI does not exist in isolation, instead functioning as human–machine ensemble reliant on strategies of acceptance via discursive techniques and the changing material arrangements of everyday embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity of searching algorithms in classical computing is a classic problem and a research area. Quantum computers and quantum algorithms can efficiently compute some classically hard problems. In addition, quantum machine learning algorithms could be an important avenue to boost existing and new quantum-based technology, reducing the supercomputing requirements for executing such problems. This paper reviews and explores topics such as variational quantum algorithms, kernel methods, and Grover's algorithm (GA). GA is a quantum search algorithm that achieves a quadratic speed improvement as a quantum classifier. We exploit GA or amplitude amplification to simulate rudimentary classical logical gates into quantum circuits considering AND, XOR, and OR gates. Our experiments in our review suggest that the algorithms discussed can be implemented and verified with relative ease, suggesting that researchers can investigate problems in the areas discussed related to quantum machine learning and more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disease risk prediction is a rising challenge in the medical domain. Researchers have widely used machine learning algorithms to solve this challenge. The k-nearest neighbour (KNN) algorithm is the most frequently used among the wide range of machine learning algorithms. This paper presents a study on different KNN variants (Classic one, Adaptive, Locally adaptive, k-means clustering, Fuzzy, Mutual, Ensemble, Hassanat and Generalised mean distance) and their performance comparison for disease prediction. This study analysed these variants in-depth through implementations and experimentations using eight machine learning benchmark datasets obtained from Kaggle, UCI Machine learning repository and OpenML. The datasets were related to different disease contexts. We considered the performance measures of accuracy, precision and recall for comparative analysis. The average accuracy values of these variants ranged from 64.22% to 83.62%. The Hassanaat KNN showed the highest average accuracy (83.62%), followed by the ensemble approach KNN (82.34%). A relative performance index is also proposed based on each performance measure to assess each variant and compare the results. This study identified Hassanat KNN as the best performing variant based on the accuracy-based version of this index, followed by the ensemble approach KNN. This study also provided a relative comparison among KNN variants based on precision and recall measures. Finally, this paper summarises which KNN variant is the most promising candidate to follow under the consideration of three performance measures (accuracy, precision and recall) for disease prediction. Healthcare researchers and stakeholders could use the findings of this study to select the appropriate KNN variant for predictive disease risk analytics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compressive data gathering (CDG) is an adequate method to reduce the amount of data transmission, thereby decreasing energy expenditure for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Sleep scheduling integrated with CDG can further promote energy efficiency. Most of existing sleep scheduling methods for CDG were formulated as centralized optimization problems which introduced many extra control message exchanges. Meanwhile, a few distributed methods usually adopted stochastic decision which could not adapt to variance in residual energy of nodes. A part of nodes were prone to prematurely run out of energy. In this paper, a reinforcement learning-based sleep scheduling algorithm for CDG (RLSSA-CDG) is proposed. Active nodes selection is modeled as a finite Markov decision process. The mode-free Q learning algorithm is used to search optimal decision strategies. Residual energy of nodes and sampling uniformity are considered into the reward function of the Q learning algorithm for load balance of energy consumption and accurate data reconstruction. It is a distributed algorithm that avoids large amounts of control message exchanges. Each node takes part in one step of the decision process. Thus, computation overhead for sensor nodes is affordable. Simulation experiments are carried out on the MATLAB platform to validate the effectiveness of the proposed RLSSA-CDG against the distributed random sleep scheduling algorithm for CDG (DSSA-CDG) and the original sparse-CDG algorithm without sleep scheduling. The simulation results indicate that the proposed RLSSA-CDG outperforms the two contrast algorithms in terms of energy consumption, network lifetime, and data recovery accuracy. The proposed RLSSA-CDG reduces energy consumption by 4.64% and 42.42%, respectively, compared to the DSSA-CDG and the original sparse-CDG, prolongs life span by 57.3%, and promotes data recovery accuracy by 84.7% compared to the DSSA-CDG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recognition model named the SVM-NP is proposed in this paper to address the multi-attribute overlap in radar working recognition. The model is based on the K-NN boundary preselection algorithm and SVM-BP algorithm. Traditional classifiers tend to neglect the overlap of samples' attributes in classification, which leads to the low accuracy of classifiers. The K-NN boundary preselection can quickly select boundary samples from the total ones and reduce the whole samples' attribute overlap. The SVM-BP algorithm is improved based on the SVM-RFE algorithm, and the boundary samples with high attribute overlap are divided into many planes for training and testing. Compared with traditional methods, the overlap of sample attributes can be reduced twice in this model. Theoretical analysis and experimental results verify that the model proposed in this paper displays better performance in classification when appropriate parameters are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the Covid 19 disease profile in the Algerian territory since February 25, 2020 to February 13, 2021. The idea is to develop a decision support system allowing public health decision and policy-makers to have future statistics (the daily prediction of parameters) of the pandemic; and also encourage citizens for conducting health protocols. Many studies applied traditional epidemic models or machine learning models to forecast the evolution of coronavirus epidemic, but the use of such models alone to make the prediction will be less precise. For this purpose, we assume that the spread of the coronavirus is a moving target described by an epidemic model. On the basis of a SIRD model (Susceptible-Infection-Recovery- Death), we applied the EKF algorithm to predict daily all parameters. These predicted parameters will be much beneficial to hospital managers for updating the available means of hospitalization (beds, oxygen concentrator, etc.) in order to reduce the mortality rate and the infected. Simulations carried out reveal that the EKF seems to be more efficient according to the obtained results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of learning automata from example traces (but no equivalence or membership queries) is fundamental in automata learning theory and practice. In this paper, we study this problem for finite-state machines with inputs and outputs, and in particular for Moore machines. We develop three algorithms for solving this problem: (1) the PTAP algorithm, which transforms a set of input–output traces into an incomplete Moore machine and then completes the machine with self-loops; (2) the PRPNI algorithm, which uses the well-known RPNI algorithm for automata learning to learn a product of automata encoding a Moore machine; and (3) the MooreMI algorithm, which directly learns a Moore machine using PTAP extended with state merging. We prove that MooreMI has the fundamental identification in the limit property. We compare the algorithms experimentally in terms of the size of the learned machine and several notions of accuracy, introduced in this paper. We also carry out a performance comparison against two existing tools (LearnLib and flexfringe). Finally, we compare with OSTIA, an algorithm that learns a more general class of transducers and find that OSTIA generally does not learn a Moore machine, even when fed with a characteristic sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes the cognitive radio (CR) spectrum to the fullest extent for extended applications requiring discretion. The CR technology provides various supports for cognitive radio networks (CRNs). The latter has CR nodes that sense free channels. Then, the CRN allocates the unused channels to secondary users (SUs) or unlicensed users. This allocation is termed the spectrum handoff. In this paper, by considering the identical channels in CR networks, a novel machine learning algorithm (the support vector machine—SVM) is employed. In addition, the queuing model of the preemptive resume priority M/M/1 is used. The proposed spectrum handoff algorithm selects the best possible CR network channel. The spectrum handoff algorithm uses the stated SVM algorithm scheme, which covers the transmitted and received power, the minimum service time, the data rate and the maximum vacancy time for the SU, to attain the maximum throughput. However, in multi-user greedy channel selection (GCS), only two parameters are considered. The proposed spectrum handoff algorithm based on the SVM scheme enhances the performance, and the SU throughput is improved to 68.7%. This approach is better than the GCS channel selection scheme. Additionally, this approach decreases the number of spectrum handoffs. As a result, the training accuracy of the SVM method is 97.6%, and it outperforms conventional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of artificial intelligence, big data classification technology provides the advantageous help for the medicine auxiliary diagnosis research. While due to the different conditions in the different sample collection, the medical big data is often imbalanced. The class-imbalance problem has been reported as a serious obstacle to the classification performance of many standard learning algorithms. SMOTE algorithm could be used to generate sample points randomly to improve imbalance rate, but its application is affected by the marginalization generation and blindness of parameter selection. Focusing on this problem, an improved SMOTE algorithm based on Normal distribution is proposed in this paper, so that the new sample points are distributed closer to the center of the minority sample with a higher probability to avoid the marginalization of the expanded data. Experiments show that the classification effect is better when use proposed algorithm to expand the imbalanced dataset of Pima, WDBC, WPBC, Ionosphere and Breast-cancer-wisconsin than the original SMOTE algorithm. In addition, the parameter selection of the proposed algorithm is analyzed and it is found that the classification effect is the best when the distribution characteristics of the original data was maintained best by selecting appropriate parameters in our designed experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algorithmic vision, the computational process of making meaning from digital images or visual information, has changed the relationship between the image and the human subject. In this paper, I explicate on the role of algorithmic vision as a technique of algorithmic governance, the organization of a population by algorithmic means. With its roots in the United States post-war cybernetic sciences, the ontological status of the computational image undergoes a shift, giving way to the hegemonic use of automated facial recognition technologies towards predatory policing and profiling practices. By way of example, I argue that algorithmic vision reconfigures the philosophical links between vision, image, and truth, paradigmatically changing the way a human subject is represented through imagistic data. With algorithmic vision, the relationship between subject and representation challenges the humanistic discourse around images, calling for a critical displacement of the human subject from the center of an analysis of how computational images make meaning. I will explore the relationship between the operative image, the image that acts but is not seen by human eyes, and what Louise Amoore calls an "emergent subject," a subject that is made visible through algorithmic techniques (2013). Algorithmic vision reveals subjects to power in a mode that requires a new approach towards analyzing the entanglement and invisiblization of the human in automated decision-making systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2018, as part of a research project funded by the Deviant Practice Grant, artist Bruno Moreschi and digital media researcher Gabriel Pereira worked with the Van Abbemuseum collection (Eindhoven, NL), reading their artworks through commercial image-recognition (computer vision) artificial intelligences from leading tech companies. The main takeaways were: somewhat as expected, AI is constructed through a capitalist and product-focused reading of the world (values that are embedded in this sociotechnical system); and that this process of using AI is an innovative way for doing institutional critique, as AI offers an untrained eye that reveals the inner workings of the art system through its glitches. This paper aims to regard these glitches as potentially revealing of the art system, and even poetic at times. We also look at them as a way of revealing the inherent fallibility of the commercial use of AI and machine learning to catalogue the world: it cannot comprehend other ways of knowing about the world, outside the logic of the algorithm. But, at the same time, due to their "glitchy" capacity to level and reimagine, these faulty readings can also serve as a new way of reading art; a new way for thinking critically about the art image in a moment when visual culture has changed form to hybrids of human–machine cognition and "machine-to-machine seeing". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Pain is the unpleasant sensation and emotional experience that leads to poor quality of life for millions of people worldwide. Considering the complexity in understanding the principles of pain and its significant impact on individuals and society, research focuses to deliver innovative pain relief methods and techniques. This review explores the clinical uses of machine learning (ML) for the diagnosis, classification, and management of pain. Methods: A systematic review of the current literature was conducted using the PubMed database library. Results: Twenty-six papers related to pain and ML research were included. Most of the studies used ML for effectively classifying the patients' level of pain, followed by use of ML for the prediction of manifestation of pain and for pain management. A less common reason for performing ML analysis was for the diagnosis of pain. The different approaches are thoroughly discussed. Conclusion: ML is increasingly used in pain medicine and appears to be more effective compared to traditional statistical approaches in the diagnosis, classification, and management of pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a recent growth of interest in software engineering community to use grammatical inference, aka automaton learning, in software engineering applications. This is primarily due to the reason that capacity of underlying hardware resources has improved significantly over the last years; which has enabled the use of this approach beyond the toy examples in a greater frequency. In this paper, we present a new grammatical inference algorithm, DKL, to learn deterministic Kripke structures. The DKL is only the second of its kind for incremental learning of deterministic Kripke structures. Earlier, IKL algorithm was introduced for learning deterministic Kripke structures but it often constructs a hypothesis much larger in state size than the target Kripke structure. This problem is known as state-space explosion and it primarily occurs due to the sub-direct product construction used in the IKL design, which in turn affects time efficiency of IKL; especially when it is used for practical applications of software engineering. The DKL algorithm is designed to resolve the problem of state-space explosion. We give a proof of correctness and termination of the DKL algorithm. We also compared the performance of DKL with IKL by implementing an evaluation framework. Our results show that DKL is more efficient in terms of time in reaching the target automaton than the IKL algorithm and is not prone to the problem of state-space explosion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prediction of rockburst in underground engineering is of significance as it is close to the safety of support structures, personnel, and working environments. To improve the accuracy of rockburst classification, this paper proposed an ensemble classifier RF-FA model in which the random forest classifier (RF) and firefly algorithm (FA) were combined to achieve the optimum performance on rockburst prediction. Five key parameters of surrounding rock, i.e., the depth H, the maximum tangential stress σθ, the uniaxial compressive strength σc, the tensile strength σt, and the elastic energy index Wet, are selected as input variables while the rockburst intensity including none, light, moderate, and strong classes was chosen as output. A total of 279 cases worldwide were collected and used for train and test the proposed RF-FA model. The results showed that the FA can optimize the hyperparameters of RF efficiently and the optimum model exhibited a high performance on rockburst data from the independent test set and new engineering projects. The feature importance obtained by the ensemble RF-FA model indicated that the elastic energy index plays the most important role in rockburst. Besides, the proposed model showed much better accuracy on rockburst classification compared with previously existing RF models and empirical criteria, which means it is a useful and robust tool for rockburst prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficient use of resources in wireless communications has always been a major issue. In the Internet of Things (IoT), the energy resource becomes more critical. The transmission policy with the aid of a coordinator is not a viable solution in an IoT network, since a node should report its state to the coordinator for scheduling and it causes serious signaling overhead. Machine learning algorithms can provide the optimal distributed transmission mechanism with little overhead. A node can learn by itself by utilizing the machine learning algorithm and make the optimal transmission decision on its own. In this paper, we propose a novel learning Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol with learning nodes. Nodes learn the optimal transmission policy, i.e., minimizing the data and energy queue levels, using the Q-learning algorithm. The performance evaluation shows that the proposed scheme enhances the queue states and throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although tendon-driven continuum manipulators have been extensively researched, how to realize tip contact force sensing in a more general and efficient way without increasing the diameter is still a challenge. Rather than use a complex modeling approach, this paper proposes a general tip contact force-sensing method based on a recurrent neural network that takes the tendons' position and tension as the input of a recurrent neural network and the tip contact force of the continuum manipulator as the output and fits this static model by means of machine learning so that it may be used as a real-time contact force estimator. We also designed and built a corresponding three-degree-of-freedom contact force data acquisition platform based on the structure of a continuum manipulator designed in our previous studies. After obtaining training data, we built and compared the performances of a multi-layer perceptron-based contact force estimator as a baseline and three typical recurrent neural network-based contact force estimators through TensorFlow framework to verify the feasibility of this method. We also proposed a manually decoupled sub-estimators algorithm and evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of those two methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature selection is one of the main steps in preprocessing data in machine learning, and its goal is to reduce features by removing additional and noisy features. Feature selection methods and feature reduction in a dataset must consider the accuracy of the classifying algorithms. Meta-heuristic algorithms serve as the most successful and promising methods to solve this problem. Symbiotic Organisms Search (SOS) is one of the most successful meta-heuristic algorithms inspired by organisms' interaction in nature called mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. In this paper, three SOS-based binary approaches are offered to solve the feature selection problem. In the first and second approaches, several S-shaped transfer functions and several Chaotic Tent Function-based V-shaped transfer functions called BSOSST and BSOSVT are used to make the binary SOS (BSOS). In the third approach, an advanced BSOS based on changing SOS and the chaotic Tent function operators called EBCSOS is provided. The EBCSOS algorithm uses the chaotic Tent function and the Gaussian mutation to increase usefulness and exploration. Moreover, two new operators, i.e., BMPT and BCPT, are suggested to make the commensalism and mutualism stage binary based on a chaotic function to solve the feature selection problem. Finally, the proposed BSOSST and BSOSVT methods and the advanced version of EBCSOS were implemented on 25 datasets than the basic algorithm's binary meta-heuristic algorithms. Various experiments demonstrated that the proposed EBCSOS algorithm outperformed other methods in terms of several features and accuracy. To further confirm the proposed EBCSOS algorithm, the problem of detecting spam E-mails was applied, with the results of this experiment indicating that the proposed EBCSOS algorithm significantly improved the accuracy and speed of all categories in detecting spam E-mails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore a new approach for training neural networks where all loss functions are replaced by hard constraints. The same approach is very successful in phase retrieval, where signals are reconstructed from magnitude constraints and general characteristics (sparsity, support, etc.). Instead of taking gradient steps, the optimizer in the constraint based approach, called relaxed–reflect–reflect (RRR), derives its steps from projections to local constraints. In neural networks one such projection makes the minimal modification to the inputs x, the associated weights w, and the pre-activation value y at each neuron, to satisfy the equation x ⋅ w = y . These projections, along with a host of other local projections (constraining pre- and post-activations, etc.) can be partitioned into two sets such that all the projections in each set can be applied concurrently—across the network and across all data in the training batch. This partitioning into two sets is analogous to the situation in phase retrieval and the setting for which the general purpose RRR optimizer was designed. Owing to the novelty of the method, this paper also serves as a self-contained tutorial. Starting with a single-layer network that performs nonnegative matrix factorization, and concluding with a generative model comprising an autoencoder and classifier, all applications and their implementations by projections are described in complete detail. Although the new approach has the potential to extend the scope of neural networks (e.g. by defining activation not through functions but constraint sets), most of the featured models are standard to allow comparison with stochastic gradient descent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the main drivers of what has been described as the "Fourth Industrial Revolution", as well as the most innovative technology developed to date. It is a pervasive transformative innovation, which needs a new approach. In 2017, the European Parliament introduced the notion of the "electronic person", which sparked huge debates in philosophical, legal, technological, and other academic settings. The issues related to AI should be examined from an interdisciplinary perspective. In this paper, we examine this legal innovation—that has been proposed by the European Parliament—from not only legal but also technological points of view. In the first section, we define AI and analyse its main characteristics. We argue that, from a technical perspective, it appears premature and probably inappropriate to introduce AI personhood now. In the second section, justifications for the European Parliament's proposals are explored in contrast with the opposing arguments that have been presented. As the existing mechanisms of liability could be insufficient in scenarios where AI systems cause harm, especially when algorithms of AI learn and evolve on their own, there is a need to depart from traditional liability theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to reduce the loss of information of the majority class samples in the resampling process, combining the distribution of class samples and the characteristics of ensemble learning algorithm, in this paper, a two-level selective ensemble learning algorithm for imbalanced datasets is proposed. Firstly, the algorithm under-samples the majority class samples and constructs multiple training subsets. The training process will generate multiple base classifiers using AdaBoost algorithm, then select some base classifiers according to maximum correlation and minimum redundancy criteria, and form sub-classifiers according to weighted integration. Then, generate multiple sub-classifiers for multiple training subsets, and then, select some sub-classifiers according to maximum correlation and minimum redundancy criteria. Then, the weights of the selected sub-classifiers are calculated by F-means or G-means, and the ensemble classifier is obtained by weighted voting. Finally, the improved algorithm for imbalanced dataset is applied to the network anomaly detection. The experimental results on UCI datasets show that this method can improve the classification performance to a certain extent, especially for imbalanced datasets. Finally, the algorithm is applied to network anomaly detection for Internet of Things. From the simulation data of KDDCUP99 dataset, we can see that TLSE-ID algorithm has a small missing report rate and high precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools play a significant role in the recent evolution of smart systems. AI solutions are pushing towards a significant shift in many fields such as healthcare, autonomous airplanes and vehicles, security, marketing customer profiling and other diverse areas. One of the main challenges hindering the AI potential is the demand for high-performance computation resources. Recently, hardware accelerators are developed in order to provide the needed computational power for the AI and ML tools. In the literature, hardware accelerators are built using FPGAs, GPUs and ASICs to accelerate computationally intensive tasks. These accelerators provide high-performance hardware while preserving the required accuracy. In this work, we present a systematic literature review that focuses on exploring the available hardware accelerators for the AI and ML tools. More than 169 different research papers published between the years 2009 and 2019 are studied and analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image registration is a fundamental task in image analysis in which the transform that moves the coordinate system of one image to another is calculated. Registration of multi-modal medical images has important implications for clinical diagnosis, treatment planning, and image-guided surgery as it provides the means of bringing together complimentary information obtained from different image modalities. However, since different image modalities have different properties due to their different acquisition methods, it remains a challenging task to find a fast and accurate match between multi-modal images. Furthermore, due to reasons such as ethical issues and need for human expert intervention, it is difficult to collect a large database of labelled multi-modal medical images. In addition, manual input is required to determine the fixed and moving images as input to registration algorithms. In this paper, we address these issues and introduce a registration framework that (1) creates synthetic data to augment existing datasets, (2) generates ground truth data to be used in the training and testing of algorithms, (3) registers (using a combination of deep learning and conventional machine learning methods) multi-modal images in an accurate and fast manner, and (4) automatically classifies the image modality so that the process of registration can be fully automated. We validate the performance of the proposed framework on CT and MRI images of the head obtained from a publicly available registration database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the huge amount of data being generating from different sources, the analyzing and extracting of useful information from these data becomes a very complex task. The difficulty of dealing with big data optimization problems comes from many factors such as the high number of features, and the existing of lost data. The feature selection process becomes an important step in many data mining and machine learning algorithms to reduce the dimensionality of the optimization problems and increase the performance of the classification or clustering algorithms. In this paper, a set of hybrid and efficient genetic algorithms are proposed to solve feature selection problem, when the handled data has a large feature size. The proposed algorithms use a new gene-weighted mechanism that can adaptively classify the features into strong relative features, weak or redundant features, and unstable features during the evolution of the algorithm. Based on this classification, the proposed algorithm gives the strong features high priority and the weak features less priority when generating new candidate solutions. In the same time, the proposed algorithm tries to more concentrate on unstable features that sometimes appear and sometimes disappear from the best solutions of the population. The performance of proposed algorithms is investigated by using different datasets and feature selection algorithms. The results show that our proposed algorithms can outperform the other feature selection algorithms and effectively enhance the classification performance over the tested datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence algorithms are booming in medicine, and the question of biases induced or perpetuated by these tools is a very important topic. There is a greater risk of these biases in radiology, which is now the primary diagnostic tool in modern treatment. Some authors have recently proposed an analysis framework for social inequalities and the biases at risk of being introduced into future algorithms. In our paper, we comment on the different strategies for resolving these biases. We warn that there is an even greater risk in mixing the notion of equity, the definition of which is socio-political, into the design stages of these algorithms. We believe that rather than being beneficial, this could in fact harm the main purpose of these artificial intelligence tools, which is the care of the patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The usefulness of machine learning algorithms has led to their widespread adoption prior to the development of a conceptual framework for making sense of them. One common response to this situation is to say that machine learning suffers from a "black box problem." That is, machine learning algorithms are "opaque" to human users, failing to be "interpretable" or "explicable" in terms that would render categorization procedures "understandable." The purpose of this paper is to challenge the widespread agreement about the existence and importance of a black box problem. The first section argues that "interpretability" and cognates lack precise meanings when applied to algorithms. This makes the concepts difficult to use when trying to solve the problems that have motivated the call for interpretability (etc.). Furthermore, since there is no adequate account of the concepts themselves, it is not possible to assess whether particular technical features supply formal definitions of those concepts. The second section argues that there are ways of being a responsible user of these algorithms that do not require interpretability (etc.). In many cases in which a black box problem is cited, interpretability is a means to a further end such as justification or non-discrimination. Since addressing these problems need not involve something that looks like an "interpretation" (etc.) of an algorithm, the focus on interpretability artificially constrains the solution space by characterizing one possible solution as the problem itself. Where possible, discussion should be reformulated in terms of the ends of interpretability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of computer experiments, metamodels are largely used to represent the output of computer codes. Among these models, Gaussian process regression (kriging) is very efficient see e.g Snelson (Flexible and efficient Gaussian process models for machine learning. ProQuest LLC, Ann Arbor, MI. Thesis (Ph.D.)–University of London, University College London, London, 2008). In high dimension that is with a large number of input variables, but with few observations, the estimation of the parameters with a classical anisotropic kriging can be completely inaccurate. Because there are equal numbers of ranges and input variables the optimization space becomes too large compared to available information. One way to overcome this drawback is to use an isotropic kernel that only depends on one parameter. However this model is too restrictive. The aim of this paper is twofold. Our first objective is to propose a smooth kernel with as few parameters as warranted. We introduce a kernel which is a tensor product of few isotropic kernels built on well-chosen subgroup of variables. The main difficulty is to find the number and the composition of the groups. Our second objective is to propose algorithmic strategies to overcome this difficulty. Four forward strategies are proposed. They all start with the simplest isotropic kernel and stop when the best model according to BIC criterion is found. They all show very good accuracy results on simulation test cases. But one of them is more efficient. Tested on a real data set, our kernel shows very good prediction results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In situ monitoring and accurate detecting of welding quality have been one of the common challenges of automatic welding process. This paper contributes an intelligent decision-making framework for the weld penetration prediction from the keyhole dynamic behavior under time-varying VPPAW pools. Initially, a series of dynamic experiments under different welding conditions were conducted to acquire the backside images of keyhole and corresponding backside bead width. Then, the geometry appearance of keyhole was described by the supervised descent method (SDM)–based image processing algorithm. Subsequently, the internal correlation between the keyhole characteristics and the backside width was further derived to help understand the nonlinear and time-varying VPPAW process. Finally, a novel dynamic model based on an online sequential extreme learning machine (OS-ELM) was designed to predict the weld penetration as measured by the backside bead width in real time. Extensive experiment results further verify and validate that the proposed dynamic OS-ELM model is significantly better than other state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of predicting accuracy, efficiency, and robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global k-means algorithm is an incremental approach to clustering that dynamically adds one cluster center at a time through a deterministic global search procedure from suitable initial positions, and employs k-means to minimize the sum of the intra-cluster variances. However the global k-means algorithm sometimes results singleton clusters and the initial positions sometimes are bad, after a bad initialization, poor local optimal can be easily obtained by k-means algorithm. In this paper, we modified the global k-means algorithm to eliminate the singleton clusters at first, and then we apply MinMax k-means clustering error method to global k-means algorithm to overcome the effect of bad initialization, proposed the global Minmax k-means algorithm. The proposed clustering method is tested on some popular data sets and compared to the k-means algorithm, the global k-means algorithm and the MinMax k-means algorithm. The experiment results show our proposed algorithm outperforms other algorithms mentioned in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the emergence of the innovative field of artificial intelligence (AI) in the 1960s, the late Hubert Dreyfus insisted on the ontological distinction between man and machine, human and artificial intelligence. In the different editions of his classic and influential book What computers can't do (1972), he posits that an algorithmic machine can never fully simulate the complex functioning of the human mind—not now, nor in the future. Dreyfus' categorical distinctions between man and machine are still relevant today, but their relation has become more complex in our increasingly data-driven society. We, humans, are continuously immersed within a technological universe, while at the same time ubiquitous computing, in the words of computer scientist Mark Weiser, "forces computers to live out here in the world with people" (De Souza e Silva in Interfaces of hybrid spaces. In: Kavoori AP, Arceneaux N (eds) The cell phone reader. Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2006, p 20). Dreyfus' ideas are therefore challenged by thinkers such as Weiser, Kevin Kelly, Bruno Latour, Philip Agre, and Peter Paul Verbeek, who all argue that humans are much more intrinsically linked to machines than the original dichotomy suggests—they have evolved in concert. Through a discussion of the classical concepts of individuum and 'authenticity' within Western civilization, this paper argues that within the ever-expanding data-sphere of the twenty-first century, a new concept of man as 'aggregate of data' has emerged, which further erodes and undermines the categorical distinction between man and machine. This raises political and ethical questions beyond the confines of technology and artificial intelligence. Moreover, this seemingly never-ending debate on what computers should (or should not) do provokes the philosophical necessity to once again define the concept of what it is to be 'human.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present some philosophical considerations about the supposed AI emergence in the future. However, the predicted timeline of this process is uncertain. To avoid any kind of speculations on the proposed analysis from a scientific point of view, a metaphysical approach is undertaken as a modal context of the discussion. I argue that modal claim about possible AI emergence at a certain point of time in the future is justified from a temporal perspective. Therefore, worldwide society must be prepared for possible AI emergence and the expected profound impact of such an event on the existential status of humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep neural network (DNN) architecture based models have high expressive power and learning capacity. However, they are essentially a black box method since it is not easy to mathematically formulate the functions that are learned within its many layers of representation. Realizing this, many researchers have started to design methods to exploit the drawbacks of deep learning based algorithms questioning their robustness and exposing their singularities. In this paper, we attempt to unravel three aspects related to the robustness of DNNs for face recognition: (i) assessing the impact of deep architectures for face recognition in terms of vulnerabilities to attacks, (ii) detecting the singularities by characterizing abnormal filter response behavior in the hidden layers of deep networks; and (iii) making corrections to the processing pipeline to alleviate the problem. Our experimental evaluation using multiple open-source DNN-based face recognition networks, and three publicly available face databases demonstrates that the performance of deep learning based face recognition algorithms can suffer greatly in the presence of such distortions. We also evaluate the proposed approaches on four existing quasi-imperceptible distortions: DeepFool, Universal adversarial perturbations, l 2 , and Elastic-Net (EAD). The proposed method is able to detect both types of attacks with very high accuracy by suitably designing a classifier using the response of the hidden layers in the network. Finally, we present effective countermeasures to mitigate the impact of adversarial attacks and improve the overall robustness of DNN-based face recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari argues that technological advances of the twenty-first century will usher in a significant shift in how humans make important life decisions. Instead of turning to the Bible or the Quran, to the heart or to our therapists, parents, and mentors, people will turn to Big Data recommendation algorithms to make these choices for them. Much as we rely on Spotify to recommend music to us, we will soon rely on algorithms to decide our careers, spouses, and commitments. Harari also predicts that next, the state will take away individuals’ rights to make their own choices about their lives. If Google knows where your children would flourish best in school, why should the state allow a fallible human parent to decide? Liberalism—which, as Harari uses this term, refers to a state of society in which human freedom to choose is respected and championed—will collapse. In this paper, I argue that Harari’s conception of the future implications of recommendation algorithms is deeply flawed, for two reasons. First, users will not rely on algorithms to make decisions for them because they have no reason to trust algorithms, which are developed by companies with their own incentives, such as profit. Second, for most of our life decisions, algorithms will not be able to be developed, because the factors relevant to the decisions we face are unique to our situation. I present an alternative depiction of the future: instead of relying on algorithms to make decisions for us, humans will use algorithms to enhance our decision-making by helping us consider the most relevant choices first and notice information we might not otherwise. Finally, I will also argue that even if computers could make many of our decisions for us, liberalism as a political system would emerge unscathed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning techniques are widely used for network intrusion detection (NID). However, it has to face the unbalance of training samples between classes as it is hard to collect samples of some intrusion classes. This would produce false positives for these intrusion classes. Meanwhile, since there are various types of intrusions, classification boundaries between different classes are seriously nonlinear. Due to the huge amount of training data, computational efficiency is also required. This paper therefore proposes an efficient cascaded classifier for NID. This classifier consists of a collection of binary base classifiers which are serially connected. Each base classifier corresponds to a type of intrusion. The order of these base classifiers is automatically determined based on the number of false positives to cope with the unbalance of training samples. Extreme learning machine algorithm, which has low computational cost, is used to train these base classifiers to delineate the nonlinear boundaries between classes. This proposed NID method is evaluated on the KDD99 data set. Experimental results have shown that this proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods including decision tree, back-propagation neural network and support vector machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep neural networks (DNNs) is one of the most popular machine learning methods and is widely used in many modern applications. The training process of DNNs is a time-consuming process. Accelerating the training of DNNs has been the focus of many research works. In this paper, we speed up the training of DNNs applied for automatic speech recognition and the target architecture is heterogeneous (CPU + MIC). We apply asynchronous methods for I/O and communication operations and propose an adaptive load balancing method. Besides, we also employ a momentum idea to speed up the convergence of the gradient descent algorithm. Experimental results show that our optimized algorithm is able to acquire a 20-fold speedup on a CPU + MIC platform compared with the original sequential algorithm on a single-core CPU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clustering algorithms (i.e., Gaussian mixture models, k-means) tackle the problem of grouping a set of elements in such a way that elements from the same group (or cluster) have more similar properties to each other than to those elements in other clusters. This simple concept turns out to be the basis in complex algorithms from many application areas, including sequence analysis and genotyping in bioinformatics, medical imaging, antimicrobial activity, market research, social networking, etc. However, as the data volume continues to increase, the performance of clustering algorithms is heavily influenced by the memory subsystem. In this paper, we propose a novel and efficient implementation of Lloyd’s k-means clustering algorithm to substantially reduce data movement along the memory hierarchy. Our contributions are based on the fact that the vast majority of processors are equipped with powerful Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) instructions that are, in most cases, underused. SIMD improves the CPU computational power and, if used wisely, can be seen as an opportunity to improve on the application data transfers by compressing/decompressing the data, specially for memory-bound applications. Our contributions include a SIMD-friendly data layout organization, in-register implementation of key functions and SIMD-based compression. We demonstrate that using our optimized SIMD-based compression method, it is possible to improve the performance and energy of k-means by a factor of 4.5x and 8.7x, respectively, for a i7 Haswell machine, and 22x and 22.2x for Xeon Phi: KNL, running a single thread. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-tier storage systems are becoming more and more widespread in the industry. They have more tunable parameters and built-in policies than traditional storage systems, and an adequate configuration of these parameters and policies is crucial for achieving high performance. A very important performance indicator for such systems is the response time of the file I/O requests. The response time can be minimized if the most frequently accessed (“hot”) files are located in the fastest storage tiers. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know a priori which files are going to be hot, especially because the file access patterns change over time. This paper presents a policy-based framework for dynamically deciding which files need to be upgraded and which files need to be downgraded based on their recent access pattern and on the system’s current state. The paper also presents a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm for automatically tuning the file migration policies in order to minimize the average request response time. A multi-tier storage system simulator was used to evaluate the migration policies tuned by RL, and such policies were shown to achieve a significant performance improvement over the best hand-crafted policies found for this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an algorithm for integrated scheduling, dispatching, and conflict-free routing of jobs and AGVs in FMS environment using a hybrid genetic algorithm. The algorithm generates an integrated schedule and detail routing paths while optimizing makespan, AGV travel time, and penalty cost due to jobs tardiness and delay as a result of conflict avoidance. The multi-objective fitness function use adaptive weight approach to assign weights to each objective for every generation based on objective improvement performance. Fuzzy expert system is used to control genetic operators using the overall population performance improvements of the last two previous generations. Computational experiments was conducted on the developed algorithm coded in Matlab to test the effectiveness of the algorithm. Integrated scheduling of jobs in FMS which are in synchrony with AGV dispatching, scheduling, and routing proved to ensure the feasibility and effectiveness of all the solutions of the integrated constituent elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the RERS Challenge 2013 was to analyze program behavior with respect to given sets of LTL and reachability properties for a set of reactive programs. The programs in various sizes and complexities could be divided into three different categories, depending on the available information: from black-box (binary-only) to white-box (full source code) over a mixed form thereof (grey-box). In this paper we present our approach to tackling the challenge problems, which is based on active automata learning. This required extending automata learning algorithms to exploit the given information, and adapting them in order to overcome problem-specific obstacles. We describe general optimizations and discuss the achieved results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, activity recognition in the smart home has become an active research area due to the wide range of human centric-applications. With the development of machine learning algorithms for activity classification, dataset is significantly important for algorithms testing and validation. Collection of real data is a challenging process due to involved budget, human resources, and annotation cost that's why mostly researchers prefer to utilize existing datasets for evaluation purposes. However, openly available smart home datasets indicate variation in terms of performed activities, deployed sensors, and environment settings. Unfortunately, the analysis of existing datasets characteristic is a bottleneck for researchers while selecting datasets of their intent. In this paper, we develop a Framework for Smart Homes Dataset Analysis (FSHDA) to reflect their diverse dimensions in predefined format. It analyzes a list of data dimensions that covers the variations in time, activities, sensors, and inhabitants. For validation, we examine the effects of proposed data dimension on state-of-the-art activity recognition techniques. The results show that dataset dimensions highly affect the classifiers' individual activity label assignments and their overall performances. The outcome of our study is helpful for upcoming researchers to develop a better understanding about the smart home datasets characteristics with classifier's performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the batch mode reinforcement learning setting, where the central problem is to learn from a sample of trajectories a policy that satisfies or optimizes a performance criterion. We focus on the continuous state space case for which usual resolution schemes rely on function approximators either to represent the underlying control problem or to represent its value function. As an alternative to the use of function approximators, we rely on the synthesis of 'artificial trajectories' from the given sample of trajectories, and show that this idea opens new avenues for designing and analyzing algorithms for batch mode reinforcement learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many applications, there are a large number of predictors, designed manually or trained automatically, to predict the same outcome. Much research has been devoted to the design of algorithms that can effectively select/combine these predictors to generate a more accurate ensemble predictor. The collaborative training algorithms from attribute distributed learning provide batch-processing solutions for scenarios in which the individual predictors are heterogeneous, taking different inputs and employing different models. However, in some applications, for example financial market prediction, it is desirable to use an online approach. In this paper, an innovative online algorithm is proposed, stemming from the collaborative training algorithms developed for attribute distributed learning. It sequentially takes new observations, simultaneously adjusting the way that the individual predictors are combined, and provides feedback to the individual predictors for them to be retrained in order to achieve a better ensemble predictor in real time. The efficacy of this new algorithm is demonstrated by extensive simulations on both artificial and real data, and particularly for financial market data. A trading strategy constructed from the ensemble predictor shows strong performance when applied to financial market prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]