Classification of the cardiotocogram data for anticipation of fetal risks using machine learning techniques

The aim of the research is evaluating the classification performances of eight different machine-learning methods on the antepartum cardiotocography (CTG) data. The classification is necessary to predict newborn health, especially for the critical cases. Cardiotocography is used for assisting the obstetricians’ to obtain detailed information during the pregnancy as a technique of measuring fetal well-being, essentially in pregnant women having potential complications. The obstetricians describe CTG shortly as a continuous electronic record of the baby's heart rate took from the mother's abdomen. The acquired information is necessary to visualize unhealthiness of the embryo and gives an opportunity for early intervention prior to happening a permanent impairment to the embryo. The aim of the machine learning methods is by using attributes of data obtained from the uterine contraction (UC) and fetal heart rate (FHR) signals to classify as pathological or normal. The dataset contains 1831 instances with 21 attributes, examined by applying the methods. In the paper, the highest accuracy displayed as 99.2%.     

A new decomposition based evolutionary algorithm with uniform designs for many-objective optimization

For many-objective optimization problems, how to get a set of solutions with good convergence and diversity is a difficult and challenging work. In this paper, a new decomposition based evolutionary algorithm with uniform designs is proposed to achieve the goal. The proposed algorithm adopts the uniform design method to set the weight vectors which are uniformly distributed over the design space, and the size of the weight vectors neither increases nonlinearly with the number of objectives nor considers a formulaic setting. A crossover operator based on the uniform design method is constructed to enhance the search capacity of the proposed algorithm. Moreover, in order to improve the convergence performance of the algorithm, a sub-population strategy is used to optimize each sub-problem. Comparing with some efficient state-of-the-art algorithms, e.g., NSGAII-CE, MOEA/D and HypE, on six benchmark functions, the proposed algorithm is able to find a set of solutions with better diversity and convergence.     

Improving the prediction of petroleum reservoir characterization with a stacked generalization ensemble model of support vector machines

The ensemble learning paradigm has proved to be relevant to solving most challenging industrial problems. Despite its successful application especially in the Bioinformatics, the petroleum industry has not benefited enough from the promises of this machine learning technology. The petroleum industry, with its persistent quest for high-performance predictive models, is in great need of this new learning methodology. A marginal improvement in the prediction indices of petroleum reservoir properties could have huge positive impact on the success of exploration, drilling and the overall reservoir management portfolio. Support vector machines (SVM) is one of the promising machine learning tools that have performed excellently well in most prediction problems. However, its performance is a function of the prudent choice of its tuning parameters most especially the regularization parameter, C. Reports have shown that this parameter has significant impact on the performance of SVM. Understandably, no specific value has been recommended for it. This paper proposes a stacked generalization ensemble model of SVM that incorporates different expert opinions on the optimal values of this parameter in the prediction of porosity and permeability of petroleum reservoirs using datasets from diverse geological formations. The performance of the proposed SVM ensemble was compared to that of conventional SVM technique, another SVM implemented with the bagging method, and Random Forest technique. The results showed that the proposed ensemble model, in most cases, outperformed the others with the highest correlation coefficient, and the lowest mean and absolute errors. The study indicated that there is a great potential for ensemble learning in petroleum reservoir characterization to improve the accuracy of reservoir properties predictions for more successful explorations and increased production of petroleum resources. The results also confirmed that ensemble models perform better than the conventional SVM implementation.     

Benchmark value determination of energy efficiency indexes for coal-fired power units based on data mining methods

The operational optimisation of coal-fired power units is important for saving energy and reducing losses in the electric power industry. One of the key issues is how to determine the benchmark values of the energy efficiency indexes of the units. Therefore, a new framework for determining these benchmark values is proposed, based on data mining methods. First, the energy efficiency key performance indicators (KPIs) associated with the net coal consumption rate (NCCR) were selected based on the domain knowledge. Second, the decision-making samples with minimal NCCR were acquired with the fuzzy C-means (FCM) clustering algorithm, and the corresponding clustering centres were employed as the benchmark values. Finally, based on the support vector regression (SVR) algorithm, the target values of the NCCR were obtained with the KPIs as input, and the energy saving potential was evaluated by comparing the target values with the historical values of the NCCR. An actual on-duty 1000 MW unit was taken as study unit, and the results show that the energy saving potential is remarkable when the operators adjust the KPIs based on the calculated benchmark values.     

Using electroencephalogram to continuously discriminate feelings of personal thermal comfort between uncomfortably hot and comfortable environments

Thermal comfort is an important factor for the design of buildings. Although it has been well recognized that many physiological parameters are linked to the state of thermal comfort or discomfort of humans, how to use physiological signal to judge the state of thermal comfort has not been well studied. In this paper, the feasibility of continuously determining feelings of personal thermal comfort was discussed by using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals in private space. In the study, 22 subjects were exposed to thermally comfortable and uncomfortably hot environments, and their EEG signals were recorded. Spectral power features of the EEG signals were extracted, and an ensemble learning method using linear discriminant analysis or support vector machine as a sub-classifier was used to build the discriminant model. The results show that an average discriminate accuracy of 87.9% can be obtained within a detection window of 60 seconds. This study indicates that it is feasible to distinguish whether a person feels comfortable or too hot in their private space by multi-channel EEG signals without interruption and suggests possibility for further applications in neuroergonomics.     

Stereo matching cost computation based on nonsubsampled contourlet transform

A new matching cost computation method based on nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) for stereo image matching is proposed in this paper. Firstly, stereo image is decomposed into high frequency sub-band images at different scales and along different directions by NSCT. Secondly, by utilizing coefficients in high frequency domain and grayscales in RGB color space, the computation model of weighted matching cost between two pixels is designed based on the gestalt laws. Lastly, two types of experiments are carried out with standard stereopairs in the Middlebury benchmark. One of the experiments is to confirm optimum values of NSCT scale and direction parameters, and the other is to compare proposed matching cost with nine known matching costs. Experimental results show that the optimum values of scale and direction parameters are respectively 2 and 3, and the matching accuracy of the proposed matching cost is twice higher than that of traditional NCC cost.     

基于矢量平均的信道估计算法

提出一种适用于DS-CDMA无线通信系统的低计算量而性能良好的信道估计算法。在DS-CDMA系统中，当接收信号经过解扩或多用户检测等时域预处理后，可以认为干扰大大减弱、期望信号在处理后的信号中占主要地位。这样，用预处理后信号相关阵的最大特征值对应的特征矢量可以很好地近似期望信号的信道矢量。但是，直接特征分解需要很大的计算量，特征跟踪计算量较低，但瞬态性能较差。本文提出一种基于相关矩阵列矢量平均的信道估计算法，该算法不需要特征分解或跟踪。仿真结果表明：新算法在降低计算量的情况下可以获得同直接特征分解方法几乎相同的性能。     

一个矢量形式的双圆弧插值算法

本文在分析数控插补最常用的双圆弧插值算法特点的基础上，将以局部坐标系中的三角运算为核心的传统双圆弧插值算法，改造成为以整体坐标系中的线性运算为核心的矢量形式的双圆弧插值算法，从而减少了计算的复杂性和程序的复杂性，提高了效率和可靠性。     

线性时变系统的区间稳定性与鲁棒稳定性

本文应用向量比较定理研究线性时变系统的区间稳定性和具非线性时变摄动的线性时变系统的鲁棒稳定性，所得的新结果包含文献的一些主要结果作为特例，本文的研究方法说明向量比较方法是分析区间稳定性和鲁棒稳定性的一种自然而有力的工具。     

Melt index prediction by weighted least squares support vector machines

Melt index is considered an important quality variable determining product specifications. Reliable prediction of melt index (MI) is crucial in quality control of practical propylene polymerization processes. In this paper a least squares support vector machines (LS‐SVM) soft‐sensor model of propylene polymerization process is developed to infer the MI of polypropylene from other process variables. Considering the use of a SSE cost function without regularization might lead to less robust estimates; the weighted least squares support vector machines (weighted LS‐SVM) approach of propylene polymerization process is further proposed to obtain a robust estimation of melt index. The performance of standard SVM model is taken as a basis of comparison. A detailed comparison research among the standard SVM, LS‐SVM, and weighted LS‐SVM models is carried out. The research results confirm the effectiveness of the presented methods. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 285–289, 2006