Human uncertainty in explicit user feedback and its impact on the comparative evaluations of accurate prediction and personalisation

ABSTRACT

In this article, we report on the lack of reliability of explicit user feedback and its interpretation in the light of system evaluation. It is known, that given feedback strongly depends on the situational context. But also when many contextual factors are held constant, user feedback still proves to be unreliable. This impacts the evaluation of predictive algorithms since it is not clear whether a deviation between a user response and its corresponding prediction can be seen as a flaw by the system or just as usual ‘human uncertainty’. As a result, the perspective on the evaluation of adaptive systems basically changes. The main goal of this article is to demonstrate that simply increasing the amount of explicit feedback is not the key to sustainable system design innovation, as long as that information is not appropriately evaluated. To this end, we will exploit a novel probabilistic approach of processing user feedback and identify biasing effects on accuracy metrics, error probabilities for system rankings as well as natural limitations of evaluation. Finally, we will discuss possible solution strategies and give advice for handling explicit user feedback that is associated with uncertainty.     

2.3–21 GHz broadband and high linearity distributed low noise amplifier

This paper focuses on the design of a 2.3–21 GHz Distributed Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with low noise figure (NF), high gain (S₂₁), and high linearity (IIP3) for broadband applications. This distributed amplifier (DA) includes S/C/X/Ku/K-band, which makes it very suitable for heterodyne receivers. The proposed DA uses a 0.18 μm GaAs pHEMT process (OMMIC ED02AH) in cascade architecture with lines adaptation and equalization of phase velocity techniques, to absorb their parasitic capacitances into the gate and drain transmission lines in order to achieve wide bandwidth and to enhance gain and linearity. The proposed broadband DA achieved an excellent gain in the flatness of 13.5 ± 0.2 dB, a low noise figure of 3.44 ± 1.12 dB, and a small group delay variation of ±19.721 ps over the range of 2.3–21 GHz. The input and output reflection coefficients S₁₁ and S₂₂ are less than −10 dB. The input compression point (P_1dB) and input third-order intercept point (IIP3) are −1.5 dBm and 11.5 dBm, respectively at 13 GHz. The dissipated power is 282 mW and the core layout size is 2.2 × 0.8 mm².     

Frequency domain analysis of the mirror-modified filtered-x least mean squares algorithm with low ambient noise

The mirror-modified filtered-x least mean squares (MMFxLMS ) algorithm is a variation of the FxLMS algorithm with online secondary path modeling that cannot diverge due to secondary path modeling errors. However, problems may occur when the ambient noise is not limited due to insufficient modeling power. This work shows that under a frequency domain analysis without ambient noise, the MMFxLMS algorithm is always stable, and expressions for the maximum residual noise level at any given time are obtained. It is also shown that, under the same context, convergence to the minimum residual noise is guaranteed. Still, convergence can be much slower for high secondary path modeling errors than that of the LMS or MFxLMS algorithms. Simulations confirm these results.     

定距螺旋桨对船用主机外特性的要求分析

为解决定距螺旋桨与船用主机在船舶运行工况的机桨匹配问题,结合船舶系泊和航行试验的相关标准,分析和归纳船舶运行数据,将实船测试与船机桨匹配理论计算相结合,得出运输船和拖轮在常用工况及特殊工况下定距螺旋桨对主机外特性的定量要求,为配套不同细分市场时船用主机的优化和开发提供参考依据。     

Proposed network structures and combined adaptive algorithms for electrocardiogram signal denoising

An electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is a record of the electrical activities of heart muscle and is used clinically to diagnose heart diseases. An ECG signal should be presented as clear as possible to support accurate decisions made by doctors. This article proposes different combinations of combined adaptive algorithms to derive different noise-cancelling structures to remove (denoise) different kinds of noise from ECG signals. The algorithms are applied to the following types of noise: power line interference, baseline wander, electrode motion artifact, and muscle artifacts. Moreover, the results of the suggested models and algorithms are compared with those of conventional denoising tools such as the discrete wavelet transform, an adaptive filter, and a multilayer neural network (NN) to ensure the superiority of the proposed combined structures and algorithms. Furthermore, the hybrid concept is based on dual, triple, and quadruple combinations of well-known algorithms that derive adaptive filters, such as the least mean squares, normalized least mean squares and recursive least squares algorithms. The combinations are formulated based on partial update, variable step-size (VSS), and second iterative VSS algorithms, which are considered in different combinations. In addition, biased NN and unbiased linear neural network (ULNN) structures are considered. The performance of the different structures and related algorithms are evaluated by measuring the post-signal-to-noise ratio, mean square error, and percentage root mean square difference.     

A multi-tone central divided difference frequency tracker with adaptive process noise covariance tuning

The problem of real-time frequency estimation of nonstationary multi-harmonic signals is important in many applications. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-frequency tracker based on a state-space representation of the signal with Cartesian filters and the second-order central divided difference filter (CDDF), which improves the performance of the extended Kalman filter (EKF) by using Stirling's interpolation method to approximate the mean and covariance of the state vector. A crucial element of the method is the adaptive scaling of the process noise covariance matrix appearing in the filter equations, as a function of the innovation sequence, which tunes the accuracy-reactivity trade-off of the filter. The proposed solution is evaluated against two approaches from the literature, namely the factorized adaptive notch filter (FANF) and the extended Kalman filter frequency tracker (EKFFT). Several experiments emphasize the estimation accuracy of the proposed method as well as the improved robustness with respect to initial errors and input signal complexity. The presented method appears to be particularly efficient with rapidly varying frequencies, thanks to the update mechanism that adjusts the filter parameters based on the amplitude of the estimation error.     

Process noise covariance estimation via stochastic approximation

Kalman filtering for linear systems is known to provide the minimum variance estimation error, under the assumption that the model dynamics is known. While many system identification tools are available for computing the system matrices from experimental data, estimating the statistics of the output and process noises is still an open problem. Correlation-based approaches are very fast and sufficiently accurate, but there are typically restrictions on the number of noise covariance elements that can be estimated. On the other hand, maximum likelihood methods estimate all elements with high accuracy, but they are computationally expensive, and they require the use of external optimization solvers. In this paper, we propose an alternative solution, tailored for process noise covariance estimation and based on stochastic approximation and gradient-free optimization, that provides a good trade-off in terms of performance and computational load, and is also easy to implement. The effectiveness of the method as compared to the state of the art is shown on a number of recently proposed benchmark examples.     

车门内饰板优化分析及模具设计

利用CAE分析软件Moldex3D先找出整个设计是否存在缺陷,为了增加优化效率,采用田口实验设计法规划控制因子与配置。L9(34)直交表来求得成型条件的最佳化参数组别,观察结果并找出最佳成型条件,以降低成型后所发生的体积收缩率以及翘曲位移量。由S/N因子反应表可看出对于Z轴变形量在塑料温度209℃、保压时间11.025 s、冷却时间17.85 s时较优良。Z轴的翘曲从1.64 mm降低到1.04 mm,整体改善了36.5%,最终根据优化结果进行了模具设计。     

一款紧凑增强型可变阻抗电磁带隙结构

基于传统AI-EBG结构,提出了一种小尺寸的增强型电磁带隙结构,实现了从0.5~9.4 GHz的宽频带-40 dB噪声抑制深度,且下截止频率减少到数百MHz,可有效抑制多层PCB板间地弹噪声。文中同时研究了EBG结构在高速电路应用时的信号完整性问题,使用差分信号方案可改善信号完整性。     

Super-resolution spectral analysis and signal reconstruction of magnetic Barkhausen noise

An investigation was performed based on frequency domain analysis and reconstruction for the magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN). The power spectrum density (PSD) of MBN was analyzed based on autoregressive (AR) model. The relations between PSD peaks and mechanical properties of high strength steel sheet were studied. The energy of low frequency signal components decreases as hardness increases, and increases as tensile stress increases. The energy of high frequency signal components increases as hardness increases, and decreases as tensile stress increases. After identification, the MBN signal was reconstructed by discrete Gabor expansion which remains desired signal components and removes undesired ones.