Trajectories of knowledge economy in SSA and MENA countries

In the first critical assessment of knowledge economy dynamic paths in Africa and the Middle East, but for a few exceptions, we find overwhelming support for diminishing cross-country disparities in knowledge-based economy dimensions. The paper employs all the four components of the World Bank's Knowledge Economy Index (KEI): economic incentives, innovation, education, and information infrastructure. The main finding suggests that sub-Saharan African (SSA) and the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries with low levels of KE dynamics and catching-up their counterparts of higher KE levels. We provide the speeds of integration and time necessary to achieve full (100%) integration. Policy implications are also discussed.     

State-space ARIMA for supply-chain forecasting

ARIMA is seldom used in supply chains in practice. There are several reasons, not the least of which is the small sample size of available data, which restricts the usage of the model. Keeping in mind this restriction, we discuss in this paper a state-space ARIMA model with a single source of error and show how it can be efficiently used in the supply-chain context, especially in cases when only two seasonal cycles of data are available. We propose a new order selection algorithm for the model and compare its performance with the conventional ARIMA on real data. We show that the proposed model performs well in terms of both accuracy and computational time in comparison with other ARIMA implementations, which makes it efficient in the supply-chain context.     

Application of higher order spectral features and support vector machines for bearing faults classification

Condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of rolling element bearings timely and accurately are very important to ensure the reliability of rotating machinery. This paper presents a novel pattern classification approach for bearings diagnostics, which combines the higher order spectra analysis features and support vector machine classifier. The use of non-linear features motivated by the higher order spectra has been reported to be a promising approach to analyze the non-linear and non-Gaussian characteristics of the mechanical vibration signals. The vibration bi-spectrum (third order spectrum) patterns are extracted as the feature vectors presenting different bearing faults. The extracted bi-spectrum features are subjected to principal component analysis for dimensionality reduction. These principal components were fed to support vector machine to distinguish four kinds of bearing faults covering different levels of severity for each fault type, which were measured in the experimental test bench running under different working conditions. In order to find the optimal parameters for the multi-class support vector machine model, a grid-search method in combination with 10-fold cross-validation has been used. Based on the correct classification of bearing patterns in the test set, in each fold the performance measures are computed. The average of these performance measures is computed to report the overall performance of the support vector machine classifier. In addition, in fault detection problems, the performance of a detection algorithm usually depends on the trade-off between robustness and sensitivity. The sensitivity and robustness of the proposed method are explored by running a series of experiments. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve made the results more convincing. The results indicated that the proposed method can reliably identify different fault patterns of rolling element bearings based on vibration signals.     

Operational time-series data modeling via LSTM network integrating principal component analysis based on human experience

Today’s information technologies involve increasingly intelligent systems, which come at the cost of increasingly complex equipment. Modern monitoring systems collect multi-measuring-point and long-term data which make equipment health prediction a “big data” problem. It is difficult to extract information from such condition monitoring data to accurately estimate or predict health statuses. Deep learning is a powerful tool for big data processing that is widely utilized in image and speech recognition applications, and can also provide effective predictions in industrial processes. This paper proposes the Long Short-term Memory Integrating Principal Component Analysis based on Human Experience (HEPCA-LSTM), which uses operational time-series data for equipment health prognostics. Principal component analysis based on human experience is first conducted to extract condition parameters from the condition monitoring system. The long short-term memory (LSTM) framework is then constructed to predict the target status. Finally, a dynamic update of the prediction model with incoming data is performed at a certain interval to prevent any model misalignment caused by the drifting of relevant variables. The proposed model is validated on a practical case and found to outperform other prediction methods. It utilizes a powerful deep learning analysis method, the LSTM, to fully process big condition monitoring series data; it effectively extracts the features involved with human experience and takes dynamic updates into consideration.     

Accuracy of wind energy forecasts in Great Britain and prospects for improvement

The metric representing the wind energy forecast error, when reported as a percent, is calculated quite differently than the error metrics for electricity transmission, electricity load, or in other industries such as manufacturing when they are also reported as a percent. The resulting calculated metric is quite different from what would be reported if the method utilized elsewhere was employed. This paper examines the possible forecast assessment and operational challenges associated with this finding. Concerning the prospects for improvement, the errors reported in MW of energy have a systematic component. With this insight, we developed a model to improve accuracy.     

射孔完井出砂预测新模型及其在射孔优化中的应用

分析了射孔完井的油层出砂机理，以线弹性理论为基础，考虑变温应力和流体渗流作用的拖曳力影响，建立了一种新的射孔完井出砂预测模型。应用该模型研究射孔方位、射孔参数对油井出砂的影响，结果表明，深穿透射孔弹比大孔半径射孔弹能更好地避免孔道出砂，采用定向射孔能有效地减少油井出砂问题。其结果对砂岩油藏射孔优化设计具有一定指导意义。     

等离子体刻蚀工艺控制模型分析

讨论了主因素分析法以及神经网络法在等离子体刻蚀工艺中的应用.结果表明主元素分析法可以实现对数据的压缩,而神经网络算法则显示出比传统的统计过程控制算法更好的准确性.     

一种变步长D-Rake多用户检测器

在时变多径衰落信道下,接收到的CDMA信号功率变化较大,此时D-Rake盲自适应多用户检测器性能显著下降,将变步长LMS算法与基于主分量的相干合并引入到D-Rake(DecorrelatingRake)检测器中,构成一种变步长D-Rake,称之为VD-Rake(Variablestep-sizeDecorrelatingRake)检测器。该检测器能克服原D-Rake检测器对信号功率变化较敏感等缺点,有效地改善了D-Rake检测器的性能。     

一种智能型的PCB产业需求预测方法

目前需求预测在整个印制电路板产业的生产活动控制中正扮演着越来越重要的角色。分析了影响印制电路板需求的因素和现有的预测方法,提出了一种适用于PCB产业需求预测的有效方法——遗传/BP—神经网络。实验表明该方法能够进一步改善印制电路板预测的准确度和减少生产成本的消耗。