Improved churn prediction in telecommunication industry using data mining techniques

To survive in today's telecommunication business it is imperative to distinguish customers who are not reluctant to move toward a competitor. Therefore, customer churn prediction has become an essential issue in telecommunication business. In such competitive business a reliable customer predictor will be regarded priceless. This paper has employed data mining classification techniques including Decision Tree, Artificial Neural Networks, K-Nearest Neighbors, and Support Vector Machine so as to compare their performances. Using the data of an Iranian mobile company, not only were these techniques experienced and compared to one another, but also we have drawn a parallel between some different prominent data mining software. Analyzing the techniques’ behavior and coming to know their specialties, we proposed a hybrid methodology which made considerable improvements to the value of some of the evaluations metrics. The proposed methodology results showed that above 95% accuracy for Recall and Precision is easily achievable. Apart from that a new methodology for extracting influential features in dataset was introduced and experienced.     

An effective hybrid learning system for telecommunication churn prediction

Customer churn has emerged as a critical issue for Customer Relationship Management and customer retention in the telecommunications industry, thus churn prediction is necessary and valuable to retain the customers and reduce the losses. Moreover, high predictive accuracy and good interpretability of the results are two key measures of a classification model. More studies have shown that single model-based classification methods may not be good enough to achieve a satisfactory result. To obtain more accurate predictive results, we present a novel hybrid model-based learning system, which integrates the supervised and unsupervised techniques for predicting customer behaviour. The system combines a modified k-means clustering algorithm and a classic rule inductive technique (FOIL).Three sets of experiments were carried out on telecom datasets. One set of the experiments is for verifying that the weighted k-means clustering can lead to a better data partitioning results; the second set of experiments is for evaluating the classification results, and comparing it to other well-known modelling techniques; the last set of experiment compares the proposed hybrid-model system with several other recently proposed hybrid classification approaches. We also performed a comparative study on a set of benchmarks obtained from the UCI repository. All the results show that the hybrid model-based learning system is very promising and outperform the existing models.     

Customer churn prediction by hybrid neural networks

As churn management is a major task for companies to retain valuable customers, the ability to predict customer churn is necessary. In literature, neural networks have shown their applicability to churn prediction. On the other hand, hybrid data mining techniques by combining two or more techniques have been proved to provide better performances than many single techniques over a number of different domain problems. This paper considers two hybrid models by combining two different neural network techniques for churn prediction, which are back-propagation artificial neural networks (ANN) and self-organizing maps (SOM). The hybrid models are ANN combined with ANN (ANN + ANN) and SOM combined with ANN (SOM + ANN). In particular, the first technique of the two hybrid models performs the data reduction task by filtering out unrepresentative training data. Then, the outputs as representative data are used to create the prediction model based on the second technique. To evaluate the performance of these models, three different kinds of testing sets are considered. They are the general testing set and two fuzzy testing sets based on the filtered out data by the first technique of the two hybrid models, i.e. ANN and SOM, respectively. The experimental results show that the two hybrid models outperform the single neural network baseline model in terms of prediction accuracy and Types I and II errors over the three kinds of testing sets. In addition, the ANN + ANN hybrid model significantly performs better than the SOM + ANN hybrid model and the ANN baseline model.     

Integrating the voice of customers through call center emails into a decision support system for churn prediction

We studied the problem of optimizing the performance of a DSS for churn prediction. In particular, we investigated the beneficial effect of adding the voice of customers through call center emails – i.e. textual information – to a churn-prediction system that only uses traditional marketing information. We found that adding unstructured, textual information into a conventional churn-prediction model resulted in a significant increase in predictive performance. From a managerial point of view, this integrated framework helps marketing-decision makers to better identify customers most prone to switch. Consequently, their customer retention campaigns can be targeted more effectively because the prediction method is better at detecting those customers who are likely to leave.     

基于改进时空残差卷积神经网络的城市路网短时交通流预测

城市路网交通流预测受到历史交通流和相邻路口交通流的影响,具有复杂的时空关联性.针对传统时空残差模型缺乏对交通流数据进行相关性分析、捕获微小变化而容易忽略长期时间特征等问题,提出一种基于改进时空残差卷积神经网络(CNN)的城市路网短时交通流预测模型.该模型将原始交通流数据转化成交通栅格数据,利用皮尔逊相关系数(PCC)对...     

改进的数据驱动子空间算法求解钢铁企业能源预测问题

本文以钢铁企业生产与能源系统作为研究背景,设计一种数据驱动的子空间方法(data-driven subspace,DDS)预测各生产工序的能源消耗.针对钢铁生产中能源消耗和回收的特点进行了分析,以提取子空间方法的建模因素;为了设计有效的求解方法,对实际生产和数据的特征进行了分析.为了提高预测准确率,文中引入了反馈因子和遗忘因子来改进子空间方法,因子的取值采用粒子群算法(particle swarm optimization,PSO)来优化.对实际生产数据的测试验证了本文所提出的方法的有效性,该结果能够为钢铁企业的能源预测和管理提供有效的决策支持.     

大数据时代网络安全及预测技术研究

大数据时代信息技术的快速发展,依托于各类硬件防护设备的网络体系架构的异构数据量每天以指数级的量级递增,基于传统的网络安全防护技术无法有效的适用于具有海量数据的特征网络安全和分析预测等工作,因此海量数据的保存、使用、以及分析等信息挖掘和数据分析预测逐步成为社会各界重视和当前的研究趋势。本文以海量的异构数据为研究对象,识别网络安全大数据的典型特征,结合情报预测的主要方法,创新性的提出了大数据特征下的网络安全预测分析技术,提高网络安全风险识别和预测、俞静能力,有效的改善网络防护效果。     

分式过程神经元网络在网络流量预测中的应用

为更好解决网络流量预测问题,依据函数逼近论中分式的函数逼近性质和拟合能力要远远大于线性函数的性质,以及过程神经元网络对时变函数的非线性变换能力,提出一种分式过程神经元网络模型及其学习算法。实验结果证明,该网络模型对具有奇异值过程函数的柔韧逼近性质和在奇异值点附近区域反应的灵敏性优于一般过程神经元网络,以网络实测数据对模型进行训练和流量预测,取得了较好的应用效果。     

无线传感器网络中基于SVR的节点数据预测算法

线传感器网络主要用于收集环境的信息,但是由于能量的限制或者安全性等问题,存在无线传感器网络节点失效问题,一旦节点失效,将不能收集后续数据,如何预测节点将来的数据成为一个关键问题。提出一种基于支持向量回归（SVR）的节点数据预测算法,充分利用节点先前收集的数据,预测未来的数据。从仿真实验上,证明该算法的有效性和较小的预测误差率。     

Co-occurrence prediction in a large location-based social network

Location-based social network (LBSN) is at the forefront of emerging trends in social network services (SNS) since the users in LBSN are allowed to “check-in” the places (locations) when they visit them. The accurate geographical and temporal information of these check-in actions are provided by the end-user GPS-enabled mobile devices, and recorded by the LBSN system. In this paper, we analyze and mine a big LBSN data, Gowalla, collected by us. First, we investigate the relationship between the spatio-temporal co-occurrences and social ties, and the results show that the co-occurrences are strongly correlative with the social ties. Second, we present a study of predicting two users whether or not they will meet (co-occur) at a place in a given future time, by exploring their check-in habits. In particular, we first introduce two new concepts, bag-of-location and bag-of-time-lag, to characterize user’s check-in habits. Based on such bag representations, we define a similarity metric called habits similarity to measure the similarity between two users’ check-in habits. Then we propose a machine learning formula for predicting co-occurrence based on the social ties and habits similarities. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on our dataset, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Exploring network reliability by predicting link status based on simplex neural network

Complex networks are graph-based structures with non-trivial topological features that frequently occur in real systems. Link prediction plays an important role in various real-world networks application, such as recommendation systems, protein structure prediction, packet forwarding strategy optimization, etc. The existing link prediction approaches mainly focus on superficial heuristic features, while ignoring high-order structure information. In this paper, we propose a deep-learning based model, named Weisfeiler–Lehman Simplex Neural Network (WL-SNN), which can learn the high-order simplex information of the network. In particular, we design a third-order Laplace operator to extract the simplicial features and utilize the graph convolutional network to compensate for the possible deficiencies of the model resulting from the single-channel features. Furthermore, we use the Weisfeiler–Lehman algorithm to extract closed subgraphs of the target, which significantly enhances the adaptability of the model to large-scale networks. Experimental results on six real-world networks show that our approach achieves comparable performance in the link prediction task as well as in the stability analysis of the network.     

基于流量预测的Ad hoc网络入侵检测方案

Ad hoc网络具有无线传输的介质、动态改变的拓扑、缺乏监督等特点,为解决其安全防御问题,提出并实现了基于网络流量预测的Ad hoc入侵检测系统。该系统主要包括节点检测和响应系统两个部分,网络中的节点采用节点检测引擎对网络流量进行预测,根据原始流量与预测流量的差值来判断目标节点的恶意性,并据此做出路由调整。实验结果表明,该系统具有较高的检测率和较低的误警率。     

基于位置的社交网络中基于时空关系的超网络链接预测方法

针对基于位置的社交网络（LBSN）中因现有方法未能有效融合社会因素、位置因素以及时间因素的综合影响而导致链接预测准确度低的问题,提出了一种LBSN中基于时空关系的超网络链接预测方法。首先,针对LBSN中网络的异构性以及用户间的时空关系特性,将网络划分成"时空-用户-位置-类别"四层超网络,降低影响因素间的耦合性;其次,考虑到边权值对网络的影响,通过挖掘用户影响力、隐关联关系、用户偏好以及节点度信息,对子网的边权值进行定义和量化,构建四层加权超网络模型;最后,在加权超网络模型的基础上,定义超边及加权超边结构,挖掘用户之间的多元关联关系进行预测。实验结果表明,所提方法较基于同构和异构的链接预测方法在准确率、召回率、F1值以及AUC上具有一定的提升,其中AUC指标较基于异构的链接预测方法提升了4.69%。     

孤立点检测改进径向基神经网络动态预测模型

提出一种基于凝聚层次聚类消除孤立点的新方法,借助聚类树识别孤立点。去除孤立点后,利用RBF网络建立动态预测模型,实验结果表明,网络的训练和泛化性能较消除孤立点前有明显提高。说明凝聚层次聚类方法用在孤立点检测方面是有效可行的,消除孤立点后建立的模型收敛速度快,泛化能力更优。     

炼焦生产过程综合生产指标的改进神经网络预测方法

针对炼焦生产过程综合生产指标 (焦炭质量、产量和焦炉能耗)检测的严重滞后问题,提出一种改进BP神经网络预测方法.首先基于相关过程参数的主元分析和灰色关联分析,确定出预测模型的输入输出变量;然后采用基于改进差分进化算法的BP神经网络建立预测模型,并与基本BP神经网络预测模型进行比较;最后,对改进BP神经网络预测模型进行了验证.实验结果表明,改进BP神经网络预测模型具有较快的收敛速度和较高的预测精度,模型的预测效果可以满足生产工艺要求.     

Mixing local and global information for community detection in large networks

Clustering networks play a key role in many scientific fields, from Biology to Sociology and Computer Science. Some clustering approaches are called global because they exploit knowledge about the whole network topology. Vice versa, so-called local methods require only a partial knowledge of the network topology. Global approaches yield accurate results but do not scale well on large networks; local approaches, vice versa, are less accurate but computationally fast. We propose CONCLUDE (COmplex Network CLUster DEtection), a new clustering method that couples the accuracy of global approaches with the scalability of local methods. CONCLUDE generates random, non-backtracking walks of finite length to compute the importance of each edge in keeping the network connected, i.e., its edge centrality. Edge centralities allow for mapping vertices onto points of a Euclidean space and compute all-pairs distances between vertices; those distances are then used to partition the network into clusters.     

用基于中值滤波的高斯过程预测3G网络性能

针对3G网络中主动监控和对性能指标数据进行预测的需要,提出了基于中值滤波的高斯回归模型的网络性能指标预测方法,将高斯回归模型与中值滤波法相融合,对样本空间中的性能指标数据先进行中值滤波预处理,再对处理过的数据进行高斯回归预测,预测结果作为主动告警机制的预测曲线。仿真实验结果表明,相对于其他预测方法,基于中值滤波的高斯过程预测结果更加有效,生成的预测曲线更精确,为3G及以上网络进行主动监控确定更有效的阈值提供理论依据。     

基于遗传算法选优的集成手段与时序卷积网络的涡扇发动机剩余寿命预测

涡扇发动机作为航空航天领域的核心设备之一,其健康状况决定了航空器能否稳定可靠地运行。而对涡扇发动机的剩余寿命（RUL）进行判断,是设备监测与维护的重要一环。针对涡扇发动机监测过程中存在的工况复杂、监测数据多样、时间跨度长等特点,提出了一种遗传算法优选时序卷积网络（TCN）基模型的集成方法（GASEN-TCN）的涡扇发动机剩余寿命预测模型。首先,利用TCN捕获长跨度下的数据内在关系,从而对RUL作出预测;然后,应用GASEN集成多个独立的TCN,以增强模型的泛化性能;最后,在通用的商用模块化航空推进系统模拟模型（C-MAPSS）数据集上,对所提模型与当下流行的机器学习方法和其他的深度神经网络进行了比较。实验结果表明,在多种不同的运行模式和故障条件下,与流行的双向长短期记忆（Bi-LSTM）网络相比,所提模型都有着更高的预测准确率与更低的预测误差。以FD001数据集为例,在该数据集上所提模型的均方根误差（RMSE）相较Bi-LSTM低17.08%,相对准确率（Accuracy）相较Bi-LSTM高12.16%。所提模型在设备的智能检修与维护方面有着较好的应用前景。     

Remaining useful life prediction of bearings by a new reinforced memory GRU network

The remaining useful life (RUL) prediction of bearings has great significance in the predictive maintenance of mechanical equipment. Owing to the difficulty of collecting abundant lifecycle datasets with correct labels, it is quite necessary to explore a prediction method with high precision and robustness in the case of small samples. It follows that a novel RUL prediction approach is put forward to overcome this problem. First, for reducing the man-made interference and the demand for expert knowledge, an unsupervised health indicator (HI) is constructed by Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD), which is named as KLD-based HI. Then because of the rapid forgetting of historical trend information in the current RNN-based prediction models, a novel reinforced memory gated recurrent unit (RMGRU) network is proposed by reusing the state information at the previous moment. According to the constructed KLD-based HI vector, the unknown HIs are successively predicted by RMGRU until the predicted HI value exceeds the failure threshold, and then RUL is calculated. The contrast experiment on IEEE 2012PHM bearing datasets shows the superiority of the bearing RUL prediction approach based on RMGRU over the classical time series forecasting methods. It can be concluded that this method has great application potential in bearing RUL prediction.