Comments on the article ‘Comparison of calculations for interplanar distances in a crystal lattice’, by Ying Liu,Yue Liu & Michael G. B. Drew

Some statements in the review by Liu et al. [Liu Y, Liu Y, Drew GB. Comparison of calculations for interplanar distances in a crystal lattice. Cryst Rev. 2017] are corrected. The role of metric tensor to simplify calculations of interplanar spacings in crystal lattices is emphasized.     

A critical assessment of imbalanced class distribution problem: The case of predicting freshmen student attrition

Predicting student attrition is an intriguing yet challenging problem for any academic institution. Class-imbalanced data is a common in the field of student retention, mainly because a lot of students register but fewer students drop out. Classification techniques for imbalanced dataset can yield deceivingly high prediction accuracy where the overall predictive accuracy is usually driven by the majority class at the expense of having very poor performance on the crucial minority class. In this study, we compared different data balancing techniques to improve the predictive accuracy in minority class while maintaining satisfactory overall classification performance. Specifically, we tested three balancing techniques—over-sampling, under-sampling and synthetic minority over-sampling (SMOTE)—along with four popular classification methods—logistic regression, decision trees, neuron networks and support vector machines. We used a large and feature rich institutional student data (between the years 2005 and 2011) to assess the efficacy of both balancing techniques as well as prediction methods. The results indicated that the support vector machine combined with SMOTE data-balancing technique achieved the best classification performance with a 90.24% overall accuracy on the 10-fold holdout sample. All three data-balancing techniques improved the prediction accuracy for the minority class. Applying sensitivity analyses on developed models, we also identified the most important variables for accurate prediction of student attrition. Application of these models has the potential to accurately predict at-risk students and help reduce student dropout rates.     

New dynamic metric indices for secondary memory

Metric indices support efficient similarity searches in metric spaces. This problem is central to many applications, including multimedia databases and repositories handling complex objects. Most metric indices are designed for main memory, and also most of them are static, that is, do not support insertions and deletions of objects. In this paper we introduce new metric indices for secondary memory that support updates, that is, they are dynamic. First, we show how the dynamic and memory-based Dynamic Spatial Approximation Tree (DSAT) can be extended to operate on secondary memory. Second, we design a dynamic and secondary-memory-based version of the static List of Clusters (LC), which performs well on high-dimensional spaces. The new structure is called Dynamic LC (DLC). Finally, we combine the DLC with the in-memory version of DSAT to create a third structure, Dynamic Set of Clusters (DSC), which improves upon the other two in various cases. We compare the new structures with the state of the art, showing that they are competitive and outstand in several scenarios, especially on spaces of medium and high dimensionality.     

Modal-based damage identification for the nonlinear model of modern wind turbine blade

In this paper, the modal-based indices are used in damage identification of the wind turbine blade. In contrast of many of previous researches, the geometric nonlinearity due to the large structural deformation of the modern wind turbines blade is considered. In the first step, the finite element model (FEM) of the rotating blade is solved to obtain the modal features of the deformed structure under operational aerodynamic loading. Next, the accuracy and efficiency of the various modal-based damage indices including the frequency, mode shape, curvature of mode shape, modal assurance, modal strain energy (MSE) and the difference of indices (between the intact and damaged blades) are investigated. To adapt the MSE index calculation in nonlinear modeling, a new approach is introduced to include the effects of the structural nonlinearity. Furthermore, the effect of the damage length, its location and severity and also the effect of rotational speed and amplitude of loading are studied. The generic 5-MW NREL blade is used for the simulation study. The results show enough sensitivity of the mode shape curvature and MSE indices to the local damages. Moreover, the importance of geometric nonlinearity in the damage detection of the modern wind turbines is demonstrated.     

Investigating the Effects of Excipients on the Powder Flow Characteristics of Theophylline Anhydrous Powder Formulations

Abstract

Pharmaceutical excipients may have a great effect on properties affecting tablet production. To determine if formulations containing theophylline anhydrous would have properties allowing them to be easily tableted, functional parameters affecting powder flow were evaluated. The Carr Flowability Indices were used for this evaluation. Formulations to be studied include theophylline anhydrous as the active ingredient, hydrous lactose and dicalcium phosphate dihydrate as diluents, polyvinylpyrrolidone as a binder, and fumed silica as a flow promoter. The effect of each component on powder flow is discussed.     

A new approach to visualizing time-varying sensitivity indices for environmental model diagnostics across evaluation time-scales

Assessing the time-varying sensitivity of environmental models has become a common approach to understand both the value of different data periods for estimating specific parameters, and as part of a diagnostic analysis of the model structure itself (i.e. whether dominant processes are emerging in the model at the right times and over the appropriate time periods). It is not straightforward to visualize these results though, given that the window size over which the time-varying sensitivity is best integrated generally varies for different parameters. In this short communication we present a new approach to visualizing such time-varying sensitivity across time scales of integration. As a case study, we estimate first order sensitivity indices with the FAST (Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test) method for a typical conceptual rainfall–runoff model. The resulting plots can guide data selection for model calibration, support diagnostic model evaluation and help to define the timing and length of spot gauging campaigns in places where long-term calibration data are not yet available.     

Analysis of complexity indices for classification problems: Cancer gene expression data

Currently, cancer diagnosis at a molecular level has been made possible through the analysis of gene expression data. More specifically, one usually uses machine learning (ML) techniques to build, from cancer gene expression data, automatic diagnosis models (classifiers). Cancer gene expression data often present some characteristics that can have a negative impact in the generalization ability of the classifiers generated. Some of these properties are data sparsity and an unbalanced class distribution. We investigate the results of a set of indices able to extract the intrinsic complexity information from the data. Such measures can be used to analyze, among other things, which particular characteristics of cancer gene expression data mostly impact the prediction ability of support vector machine classifiers. In this context, we also show that, by applying a proper feature selection procedure to the data, one can reduce the influence of those characteristics in the error rates of the classifiers induced.     

A Bayesian Approach to Capability Testing Based on Cpk with Multiple Samples

Process capability indices provide numerical measures to compare the output of a process to client's expectations. However, most of the existing researches have used traditional distribution frequency method by using a single sample due to assess process capability. An alternative to this approach is to use the Bayesian method. In this paper, we utilize a Bayesian approach based on subsamples to check process capability via capability index C_pk. As a new suggestion, we used the informative normal prior distribution and the characteristics of sufficient statistic of the parameter to drive the posterior distribution. The capability test is done, and the posterior probability p, for which the process under investigation is capable, is derived both based on the most popular index C_pk. Finally, a numerical example is given to clarify the method. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive observers for a class of uniformly observable systems with nonlinear parametrization and sampled outputs

In this paper, we propose an adaptive observer for a class of uniformly observable nonlinear systems with nonlinear parametrization and sampled outputs. A high gain adaptive observer is first designed under the assumption that the output is continuously measured and its exponential convergence is investigated, thanks to a well defined persistent excitation condition. Then, we address the case where the output is available only at (non uniformly spaced) sampling instants. To this end, the continuous-time output observer is redesigned leading to an impulsive observer with a corrective term involving instantaneous state impulses corresponding to the measured samples and their estimates. Moreover, it is shown that the proposed impulsive observer can be put under the form of a hybrid system composed of a continuous-time observer coupled with an inter-sample output predictor. Two design features are worth to be emphasized. Firstly, the observer calibration is achieved through the tuning of a scalar design parameter. Secondly, the exponential convergence to zero of the observation and parameter estimation errors is established under a well defined condition on the maximum value of the sampling partition diameter. More specifically, the observer design is firstly carried out in the case of linear parametrization before being extended to the nonlinear one. The theoretical results are corroborated through simulation results involving a typical bioreactor.     

New Insights into the Decisional Use of Process Capability Indices via Hypothesis Testing

Process capability indices C_p, C_pk, and C_pm are still nowadays widely used in industry—thanks to their easy formulation and implementation. This paper aims to give new mathematical insights in order to support their use in decision‐making via hypothesis testing. The minimum sample size usually needed in the applications to achieve fixed significance level and power is reported in light of the new mathematical aspects for C_pk and C_pm, which avoid misleading conclusions and the use of extensive numerical experiments. In addition, power curves for C_pk and C_pm, which have not previously appeared in the literature before, are also presented. Lastly, easy‐to‐follow diagrams for hypothesis testing with C_pk and C_pm and two critical scenarios for C_pm are included in the paper to facilitate the applicative use and the comprehension of the novel inferential aspects. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.