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Abstract This article presents a taxonomy and represents a repository of open problems in computing for numerically and logically intensive problems in a number of disciplines that have to synergize for the best performance of simulation-based feasibility studies on nature-oriented engineering in general and civil engineering in particular. Topics include but are not limited to: Nature-based construction, genomics supporting nature-based construction, earthquake engineering, and other types of geophysical disaster prevention activities, as well as the studies of processes and materials of interest for the above. In all these fields, problems are discussed that generate huge amounts of Big Data and are characterized with mathematically highly complex Iterative Algorithms. In the domain of applications, it has been stressed that problems could be made less computationally demanding if the number of computing iterations is made smaller (with the help of Artificial Intelligence or Conditional Algorithms), or if each computing iteration is made shorter in time (with the help of Data Filtration and Data Quantization). In the domain of computing, it has been stressed that computing could be made more powerful if the implementation technology is changed (Si, GaAs, etc.…), or if the computing paradigm is changed (Control Flow, Data Flow, etc.…).

Abstract This article describes a teaching strategy that synergizes computing and management, aimed at the running of complex projects in industry and academia, in the areas of civil engineering, physics, geosciences, and a number of other related fields. The course derived from this strategy includes four parts: (a) Computing with a selected set of modern paradigms—the stress is on Control Flow and Data Flow computing paradigms, but paradigms conditionally referred to as Energy Flow and Diffusion Flow are also covered; (b) Project management that is holistic—the stress is on the wide plethora of issues spanning from the preparation of project proposals, all the way to incorporation activities to follow after the completion of a successful project; (c) Examples from past research and development experiences—the stress is on experiences of leading experts from academia and industry; (d) Student projects that stimulate creativity—the stress is on methods that educators could use to induce and accelerate the creativity of students in general. Finally, the article ends with selected pearls of wisdom that could be treated as suggestions for further elaboration.

Choosing a comprehensive and cost-effective way of articulating and annotating the sentiment of a text is not a trivial task, particularly when dealing with short texts, in which sentiment can be expressed through a wide variety of linguistic and rhetorical phenomena. This problem is especially conspicuous in resource-limited settings and languages, where design options are restricted either in terms of manpower and financial means required to produce appropriate sentiment analysis resources, or in terms of available language tools, or both. In this paper, we present a versatile approach to addressing this issue, based on multiple interpretations of sentiment labels that encode information regarding the polarity, subjectivity, and ambiguity of a text, as well as the presence of sarcasm or a mixture of sentiments. We demonstrate its use on Serbian, a resource-limited language, via the creation of a main sentiment analysis dataset focused on movie comments, and two smaller datasets belonging to the movie and book domains. In addition to measuring the quality of the annotation process, we propose a novel metric to validate its cost-effectiveness. Finally, the practicality of our approach is further validated by training, evaluating, and determining the optimal configurations of several different kinds of machine-learning models on a range of sentiment classification tasks using the produced dataset.

Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder, caused by the death of dopaminergic neurons which can cause various movement disorders to appear, recognized as standard Parkinson’s motor symptoms. A drug to stop the progression of the disease is very difficult to find, so current treatment is based on alleviating the symptoms of the disease itself. As no direct treatment exists that would cure the condition, early detection and proper treatment are essential in maintaining the patient’s quality of life. This work explores the potential of merging artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms for Parkinson’s disease early detection from finger-tapping accelerometer tests. Time series classification is explored through the use of recurrent neural networks augmented with and without attention layers. Additionally, extreme gradient boosting in combination with statistical analysis is explored in order to differentiate Parkinson’s from other developing neurodegenerative disorders. As the performance of algorithms hinges on proper parameter selection, this work applies metaheuristics for performance optimization. A modified version of a recently introduced sinh cosh optimizer algorithm is also proposed. The approach is tested on a publicly available real-world clinical dataset consisting of patients and control group samples and a total of three separate experiments were conducted. The introduced optimizer demonstrated admirable performance in comparative analysis, with the best performing models exceeding 90% accuracy.

Wall segmentation is a special case of semantic segmentation, and the task is to classify each pixel into one of two classes: wall and no-wall. The segmentation model returns a mask showing where objects like windows and furniture are located, as well as walls. This article proposes the module’s structure for semantic segmentation of walls in 2D images, which can effectively address the problem of wall segmentation. The proposed model achieved higher accuracy and faster execution than other solutions. An encoder-decoder architecture of the segmentation module was used. Dilated ResNet50/101 network was used as an encoder, representing ResNet50/101 network in which dilated convolutional layers replaced the last convolutional layers. The ADE20K dataset subset containing only interior images, was used for model training, while only its subset was used for model evaluation. Three different approaches to model training were analyzed in the research. On the validation dataset, the best approach based on the proposed structure with the ResNet101 network resulted in an average accuracy at the pixel level of 92.13% and an intersection over union (IoU) of 72.58%. Moreover, all proposed approaches can be applied to recognize other objects in the image to solve specific tasks.

Machine learning (ML) has become an increasingly popular choice of scientific research for many students due to its application in various fields. However, students often have difficulty starting with machine learning concepts due to too much focus on programming. Therefore, they are deprived of a more profound knowledge of machine learning concepts. The purpose of this research study was the analysis of introductory courses in machine learning at some of the best-ranked universities in the world and existing software tools used in those courses and designed to assist in learning machine learning concepts. Most university courses are based on the Python programming language and tools realized in this language. Other tools with less focus on programming are quite difficult to master. The research further led to the proposal of a new practical tool that users can use to learn without needing to know any programming language or programming skills. The simulator includes three methods: linear regression, decision trees, and k-nearest neighbors. In the research, several case studies are presented with applications of all realized ML methods based on real problems.

In this research, a method of developing a machine model for sentiment processing in the Serbian language is presented. The Serbian language, unlike English and other popular languages, belongs to the group of languages with limited resources. Three different data sets were used as a data source: a balanced set of music album reviews, a balanced set of movie reviews, and a balanced set of music album reviews in English—MARD—which was translated into Serbian. The evaluation included applying developed models with three standard algorithms for classification problems (naive Bayes, logistic regression, and support vector machine) and applying a hybrid model, which produced the best results. The models were trained on each of the three data sets, while a set of music reviews originally written in Serbian was used for testing the model. By comparing the results of the developed model, the possibility of expanding the data set for the development of the machine model was also evaluated.

The continuing increase in data processing power in modern devices and the availability of a vast amount of data via the internet and the internet of things (sensors, monitoring systems, financial records, health records, social media, etc.) enabled the accelerated development of machine learning techniques. However, the collected data can be inconsistent, incomplete, and noisy, leading to a decreased confidence in data analysis. The paper proposes a novel “judgmental” approach to evaluating the measurement uncertainty of the machine learning model that implements the dropout additive regression trees algorithm. The considered method uses the procedure for expressing the type B measurement uncertainty and the maximal value of the empirical absolute loss function of the model. It is related to the testing and monitoring of power equipment and determining partial discharge location by the non-iterative, all-acoustic method. The example uses the dataset representing the correlation of the mean distance of partial discharge and acoustic sensors and the temperature coefficient of the sensitivity of the non-iterative algorithm. The dropout additive regression trees algorithm achieved the best performance based on the highest coefficient of determination value. Most of the model’s predictions (>97%) fell into the proposed standard measurement uncertainty interval for both “seen” and “unseen” data.