Machine Learning Methods for One-Session Ahead Prediction of Accesses to Page Categories

This paper presents a comparison among several well-known machine learning techniques when they are used to carry out a one-session ahead prediction of page categories. We use records belonging to 18 different categories accessed by users on the citizen web portal Infoville XXI. Our first approach is focused on predicting the frequency of accesses (normalized to the unity) corresponding to the user’s next session. We have utilized Associative Memories (AMs), Classification and Regression Trees (CARTs), Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs), and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). The Success Ratio (SR) averaged over all services is higher than 80% using any of these techniques. Nevertheless, given the …

Automatic mass spectra recognition for Ultra High Vacuum systems using multilabel classification

Abstract In Ultra High-Vacuum (UHV) systems it is common to find a mixture of many gases originating from surface outgassing, leaks and permeation that contaminate vacuum chambers and cause issues to reach ultimate pressures. The identification of these contaminants is, in general, done manually by trained technicians from the analysis of mass spectra. This task is time consuming and can lead to misinterpretation or partial understanding of issues. The challenge resides in the rapid identification of these contaminants by using some automatic gas identification technique. This paper explores the automatic and simultaneous identification of 80 molecules, including some of the most commonly p…

Detection of algorithmically generated malicious domain names using masked N-grams

Abstract Malware detection is a challenge that has increased in complexity in the last few years. A widely adopted strategy is to detect malware by means of analyzing network traffic, capturing the communications with their command and control (C&C) servers. However, some malware families have shifted to a stealthier communication strategy, since anti-malware companies maintain blacklists of known malicious locations. Instead of using static IP addresses or domain names, they algorithmically generate domain names that may host their C&C servers. Hence, blacklist approaches become ineffective since the number of domain names to block is large and varies from time to time. In this paper, we i…

Synchrony Analysis of Unipolar Cardiac Mapping during Ventricular Fibrillation

Ventricular Fibrillation (VF) is one of the main causes of death in developed countries. Recent studies have shown that fibrillation have a complex organization scheme. This work uses three measures of synchrony to characterize three groups of rabbit hearts. These groups consist of rabbits trained with physical exercise (N=7), untrained rabbits treated with a drug (N=13) and a control group of untrained rabbits (N=15). Cardiac mapping records were acquired using a 240-electrode array placed on left ventricle of isolated rabbit hearts, and VF was induced pacing at increasing rates. Two acquisitions were performed: maintained perfusion, and ischemic damage produced by an artery ligation. The …

Vibration Monitoring of the Mechanical Harvesting of Citrus to Improve Fruit Detachment Efficiency

The introduction of a mechanical harvesting process for oranges can contribute to enhancing farm profitability and reducing labour dependency. The objective of this work is to determine the spread of the vibration in citrus tree canopies to establish recommendations to reach high values of fruit detachment efficiency and eliminate the need for subsequent hand-harvesting processes. Field tests were carried out with a lateral tractor-drawn canopy shaker on four commercial plots of sweet oranges. Canopy vibration during the harvesting process was measured with a set of triaxial accelerometer sensors with a datalogger placed on 90 bearing branches. Monitoring of the vibration process, fruit pro…

Optimal implementation of neural activation functions in programmable logic using fuzzy logic

Abstract This work presents a methodology for implementing neural activation function in programmable logic using tools from fuzzy logic. This methodology will allow implementing these intrinsic non-linear functions using comparators and simple linear modellers, easily implemented in programmable logic. This work is particularized to the case of a hyperbolic tangent, the most common function in neural models, showing the excellent results yielded with the proposed approximation.

Validation of a Reinforcement Learning Policy for Dosage Optimization of Erythropoietin

This paper deals with the validation of a Reinforcement Learning (RL) policy for dosage optimization of Erythropoietin (EPO). This policy was obtained using data from patients in a haemodialysis program during the year 2005. The goal of this policy was to maintain patients' Haemoglobin (Hb) level between 11.5 g/dl and 12.5 g/dl. An individual management was needed, as each patient usually presents a different response to the treatment. RL provides an attractive and satisfactory solution, showing that a policy based on RL would be much more successful in achieving the goal of maintaining patients within the desired target of Hb than the policy followed by the hospital so far. In this work, t…

An AI Walk from Pharmacokinetics to Marketing

This work is intended for providing a review of reallife practical applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods. We focus on the use of Machine Learning (ML) methods applied to rather real problems than synthetic problems with standard and controlled environment. In particular, we will describe the following problems in next sections: • Optimization of Erythropoietin (EPO) dosages in anaemic patients undergoing Chronic Renal Failure (CRF). • Optimization of a recommender system for citizen web portal users. • Optimization of a marketing campaign. The choice of these problems is due to their relevance and their heterogeneity. This heterogeneity shows the capabilities and versatility …

Studying the feasibility of a recommender in a citizen web portal based on user modeling and clustering algorithms

This paper presents a methodology to estimate the future success of a collaborative recommender in a citizen web portal. This methodology consists of four stages, three of them are developed in this study. First of all, a user model, which takes into account some usual characteristics of web data, is developed to produce artificial data sets. These data sets are used to carry out a clustering algorithm comparison in the second stage of our approach. This comparison provides information about the suitability of each algorithm in different scenarios. The benchmarked clustering algorithms are the ones that are most commonly used in the literature: c-Means, Fuzzy c-Means, a set of hierarchical …

Decay Detection in Citrus Fruits Using Hyperspectral Computer Vision

The citrus industry is nowadays an important part of the Spanish agricultural sector. One of the main problems present in the citrus industry is decay caused by Penicillium digitatum and Penicillium italicum fungi. Early detection of decay produced by fungi in citrus is especially important for the citrus industry of distribution. This chapter presents a hyperspectral computer vision system and a set of machine learning techniques in order to detect decay caused by Penicillium digitatum and Penicillium italicum fungi that produce more economic losses to the sector. More specifically, the authors employ a hyperspectral system and artificial neural networks. Nowadays, inspection and removal o…

Non-linear RLS-based algorithm for pattern classification

A new non-linear recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm is presented in the context of pattern classification problems. The algorithm incorporates the non-linearity of the filter's output in the updating rules of the classical RLS algorithm. The proposed method yields lower stationary error levels when compared to the standard LMS and RLS algorithms in a classical application of pattern classification, such as the channel equalization problem.

Analysis of ventricular fibrillation signals using feature selection methods

Feature selection methods in machine learning models are a powerful tool to knowledge extraction. In this work they are used to analyse the intrinsic modifications of cardiac response during ventricular fibrillation due to physical exercise. The data used are two sets of registers from isolated rabbit hearts: control (G1: without physical training), and trained (G2). Four parameters were extracted (dominant frequency, normalized energy, regularity index and number of occurrences). From them, 18 features were extracted. This work analyses the relevance of each feature to classify the records in G1 and G2 using Logistic Regression, Multilayer Perceptron and Extreme Learning Machine. Three fea…

Prediction of the hemoglobin level in hemodialysis patients using machine learning techniques

HighlightsDifferent prediction algorithms were used to predict Hb levels in CRF patients.Prediction errors in the validation cohorts of patients were around 0.6g/dl.Difficulty to obtain lower errors due to the measuring machine precision (0.2g/dl).Relevance analysis of features have been applied for each predictor. Patients who suffer from chronic renal failure (CRF) tend to suffer from an associated anemia as well. Therefore, it is essential to know the hemoglobin (Hb) levels in these patients. The aim of this paper is to predict the hemoglobin (Hb) value using a database of European hemodialysis patients provided by Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) for improving the treatment of this kind of …

Application of machine learning techniques to analyse the effects of physical exercise in ventricular fibrillation

This work presents the application of machine learning techniques to analyse the influence of physical exercise in the physiological properties of the heart, during ventricular fibrillation. To this end, different kinds of classifiers (linear and neural models) are used to classify between trained and sedentary rabbit hearts. The use of those classifiers in combination with a wrapper feature selection algorithm allows to extract knowledge about the most relevant features in the problem. The obtained results show that neural models outperform linear classifiers (better performance indices and a better dimensionality reduction). The most relevant features to describe the benefits of physical …

Feature Selection Methods to Extract Knowledge and Enhance Analysis of Ventricular Fibrillation Signals

Foetal ECG recovery using dynamic neural networks

Non-invasive electrocardiography has proven to be a very interesting method for obtaining information about the foetus state and thus to assure its well-being during pregnancy. One of the main applications in this field is foetal electrocardiogram (ECG) recovery by means of automatic methods. Evident problems found in the literature are the limited number of available registers, the lack of performance indicators, and the limited use of non-linear adaptive methods. In order to circumvent these problems, we first introduce the generation of synthetic registers and discuss the influence of different kinds of noise to the modelling. Second, a method which is based on numerical (correlation coe…

Machine learning for mortality analysis in patients with COVID-19

This paper analyzes a sample of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the region of Madrid (Spain). Survival analysis, logistic regression, and machine learning techniques (both supervised and unsupervised) are applied to carry out the analysis where the endpoint variable is the reason for hospital discharge (home or deceased). The different methods applied show the importance of variables such as age, O2 saturation at Emergency Rooms (ER), and whether the patient comes from a nursing home. In addition, biclustering is used to globally analyze the patient-drug dataset, extracting segments of patients. We highlight the validity of the classifiers developed to predict the mortality, reaching…

Matlab-based interface for the simultaneous acquisition of force measures and Doppler ultrasound muscular images

This paper tackles the design of a graphical user interface (GUI) based on Matlab (MathWorks Inc., MA), a worldwide standard in the processing of biosignals, which allows the acquisition of muscular force signals and images from a ultrasound scanner simultaneously. Thus, it is possible to unify two key magnitudes for analyzing the evolution of muscular injuries: the force exerted by the muscle and section/length of the muscle when such force is exerted. This paper describes the modules developed to finally show its applicability with a case study to analyze the functioning capacity of the shoulder rotator cuff.

HemoKinect: A Microsoft Kinect V2 Based Exergaming Software to Supervise Physical Exercise of Patients with Hemophilia

Patients with hemophilia need to strictly follow exercise routines to minimize their risk of suffering bleeding in joints, known as hemarthrosis. This paper introduces and validates a new exergaming software tool called HemoKinect that intends to keep track of exercises using Microsoft Kinect V2&rsquo

Global and Local Clustering-Based Regression Models to Forecast Power Consumption in Buildings

The study of energy efficiency in buildings is an active field of research. Modeling and predicting energy related magnitudes leads to analyze electric power consumption and can achieve economical benefits. In this study, classical time series analysis and machine learning techniques, introducing clustering in some models, are applied to predict active power in buildings. The real data acquired corresponds to time, environmental and electrical data of 30 buildings belonging to the University of León (Spain). Firstly, we segmented buildings in terms of their energy consumption using principal component analysis. Afterwards, we applied state of the art machine learning methods and compare bet…

Approaching sales forecasting using recurrent neural networks and transformers

Accurate and fast demand forecast is one of the hot topics in supply chain for enabling the precise execution of the corresponding downstream processes (inbound and outbound planning, inventory placement, network planning, etc). We develop three alternatives to tackle the problem of forecasting the customer sales at day/store/item level using deep learning techniques and the Corporaci\'on Favorita data set, published as part of a Kaggle competition. Our empirical results show how good performance can be achieved by using a simple sequence to sequence architecture with minimal data preprocessing effort. Additionally, we describe a training trick for making the model more time independent and…

Least-squares temporal difference learning based on an extreme learning machine

Abstract Reinforcement learning (RL) is a general class of algorithms for solving decision-making problems, which are usually modeled using the Markov decision process (MDP) framework. RL can find exact solutions only when the MDP state space is discrete and small enough. Due to the fact that many real-world problems are described by continuous variables, approximation is essential in practical applications of RL. This paper is focused on learning the value function of a fixed policy in continuous MPDs. This is an important subproblem of several RL algorithms. We propose a least-squares temporal difference (LSTD) algorithm based on the extreme learning machine. LSTD is typically combined wi…

Robust γ-filter using support vector machines

This Letter presents a new approach to time-series modelling using the support vector machines (SVM). Although the g-filter can provide stability in several time-series models, the SVM is proposed here to provide robustness in the estimation of the g-filter coefficients. Examples in chaotic time-series prediction and channel equalization show the advantages of the joint SVM g-filter. Teoría de la Señal y Comunicaciones

Visual data mining with self-organising maps for ventricular fibrillation analysis

Detection of ventricular fibrillation (VF) at an early stage is being deeply studied in order to lower the risk of sudden death and allows the specialist to have greater reaction time to give the patient a good recovering therapy. Some works are focusing on detecting VF based on numerical analysis of time-frequency distributions, but in general the methods used do not provide insight into the problem. However, this study proposes a new methodology in order to obtain information about this problem. This work uses a supervised self-organising map (SOM) to obtain visually information among four important groups of patients: VF (ventricular fibrillation), VT (ventricular tachycardia), HP (healt…

An approach based on the Adaptive Resonance Theory for analysing the viability of recommender systems in a citizen Web portal

This paper proposes a methodology to optimise the future accuracy of a collaborative recommender application in a citizen Web portal. There are four stages namely, user modelling, benchmarking of clustering algorithms, prediction analysis and recommendation. The first stage is to develop analytical models of common characteristics of Web-user data. These artificial data sets are then used to evaluate the performance of clustering algorithms, in particular benchmarking the ART2 neural network with K-means clustering. Afterwards, it is evaluated the predictive accuracy of the clusters applied to a real-world data set derived from access logs to the citizen Web portal Infoville XXI (http://www…

Statistical criteria for early-stopping of support vector machines

This paper proposes the use of statistical criteria for early-stopping support vector machines, both for regression and classification problems. The method basically stops the minimization of the primal functional when moments of the error signal (up to fourth order) become stationary, rather than according to a tolerance threshold of primal convergence itself. This simple strategy induces lower computational efforts and no significant differences are observed in terms of performance and sparsity.

Steady-state and tracking analysis of a robust adaptive filter with low computational cost

This paper analyses a new adaptive algorithm that is robust to impulse noise and has a low computational load [E. Soria, J.D. Martin, A.J. Serrano, J. Calpe, and J. Chambers, A new robust adaptive algorithm with low computacional cost, Electron. Lett. 42 (1) (2006) 60-62]. The algorithm is based on two premises: the use of the cost function often used in independent component analysis and a fuzzy modelling of the hyperbolic tangent function. The steady-state error and tracking capability of the algorithm are analysed using conservation methods [A. Sayed, Fundamentals of Adaptive Filtering, Wiley, New York, 2003], thus verifying the correspondence between theory and experimental results.

Visual Data Mining With Self-organizing Maps for “Self-monitoring” Data Analysis

Data collected in psychological studies are mainly characterized by containing a large number of variables (multidimensional data sets). Analyzing multidimensional data can be a difficult task, especially if only classical approaches are used (hypothesis tests, analyses of variance, linear models, etc.). Regarding multidimensional models, visual techniques play an important role because they can show the relationships among variables in a data set. Parallel coordinates and Chernoff faces are good examples of this. This article presents self-organizing maps (SOM), a multivariate visual data mining technique used to provide global visualizations of all the data. This technique is presented as…

Dosage individualization of erythropoietin using a profile-dependent support vector regression

The external administration of recombinant human erythropoietin is the chosen treatment for those patients with secondary anemia due to chronic renal failure in periodic hemodialysis. The objective of this paper is to carry out an individualized prediction of the EPO dosage to be administered to those patients. The high cost of this medication, its side-effects and the phenomenon of potential resistance which some individuals suffer all justify the need for a model which is capable of optimizing dosage individualization. A group of 110 patients and several patient factors were used to develop the models. The support vector regressor (SVR) is benchmarked with the classical multilayer percept…

Fuzzy sigmoid kernel for support vector classifiers

This Letter proposes the use of the fuzzy sigmoid function presented in (IEEE Trans. Neural Networks 14(6) (2003) 1576) as non-positive semi-definite kernel in the support vector machines framework. The fuzzy sigmoid kernel allows lower computational cost, and higher rate of positive eigenvalues of the kernel matrix, which alleviates current limitations of the sigmoid kernel.

Educational Software Based on Matlab GUIs for Neural Networks Courses

Neural Networks (NN) are one of the most used machine learning techniques in different areas of knowledge. This has led to the emergence of a large number of courses of Neural Networks around the world and in areas where the users of this technique do not have a lot of programming skills. Current software that implements these elements, such as Matlab®, has a number of important limitations in teaching field. In some cases, the implementation of a MLP requires a thorough knowledge of the software and of the instructions that train and validate these systems. In other cases, the architecture of the model is fixed and they do not allow an automatic sweep of the parameters that determine the a…

Crane collision modelling using a neural network approach

Abstract The objective of the present work is to find a Collision Detection algorithm to be used in the Virtual Reality crane simulator (UVSim®), developed by the Robotics Institute of the University of Valencia for the Port of Valencia. The method is applicable to box-shaped objects and is based on the relationship between the colliding object positions and their impact points. The tool chosen to solve the problem is a neural network, the multilayer perceptron, which adapts to the characteristics of the problem, namely, non-linearity, a large amount of data, and no a priori knowledge. The results achieved by the neural network are very satisfactory for the case of box-shaped objects. Furth…

Hyperspectral LCTF-based system for classification of decay in mandarins caused by Penicillium digitatum and Penicillium italicum using the most relevant bands and non-linear classifiers

[EN] Green mold (Penicillium digitatum) and blue mold (Penicillium italicum) are important sources of postharvest decay affecting the commercialization of mandarins. These fungi infections produce enormous economic losses in mandarin production if early detection is not carried out. Nowadays, this detection is performed manually in dark chambers, where the fruit is illuminated by ultraviolet light to produce fluorescence, which is potentially dangerous for humans. This paper documents a new methodology based on hyperspectral imaging and advanced machine-learning techniques (artificial neural networks and classification and regression trees) for the segmentation and classification of images …

Sparse Manifold Clustering and Embedding to discriminate gene expression profiles of glioblastoma and meningioma tumors.

Sparse Manifold Clustering and Embedding (SMCE) algorithm has been recently proposed for simultaneous clustering and dimensionality reduction of data on nonlinear manifolds using sparse representation techniques. In this work, SMCE algorithm is applied to the differential discrimination of Glioblastoma and Meningioma Tumors by means of their Gene Expression Profiles. Our purpose was to evaluate the robustness of this nonlinear manifold to classify gene expression profiles, characterized by the high-dimensionality of their representations and the low discrimination power of most of the genes. For this objective, we used SMCE to reduce the dimensionality of a preprocessed dataset of 35 single…

Expert system for predicting unstable angina based on Bayesian networks

The use of computer-based clinical decision support (CDS) tools is growing significantly in recent years. These tools help reduce waiting lists, minimise patient risks and, at the same time, optimise the cost health resources. In this paper, we present a CDS application that predicts the probability of having unstable angina based on clinical data. Due to the characteristics of the variables (mostly binary) a Bayesian network model was chosen to support the system. Bayesian-network model was constructed using a population of 1164 patients, and subsequently was validated with a population of 103 patients. The validation results, with a negative predictive value (NPV) of 91%, demonstrate its …

Multi-dimensional Function Approximation and Regression Estimation

In this communication, we generalize the Support Vector Machines (SVM) for regression estimation and function approximation to multi-dimensional problems. We propose a multi-dimensional Support Vector Regressor (MSVR) that uses a cost function with a hyperspherical insensitive zone, capable of obtaining better predictions than using an SVM independently for each dimension. The resolution of the MSVR is achieved by an iterative procedure over the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions. The proposed algorithm is illustrated by computers experiments.

ELM Regularized Method for Classification Problems

Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) is a recently proposed algorithm, efficient and fast for learning the parameters of single layer neural structures. One of the main problems of this algorithm is to choose the optimal architecture for a given problem solution. To solve this limitation several solutions have been proposed in the literature, including the regularization of the structure. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no works where such adjustment is applied to classification problems in the presence of a non-linearity in the output; all published works tackle modelling or regression problems. Our proposal has been applied to a series of standard databases for the evaluation o…

Use of Reinforcement Learning in Two Real Applications

In this paper, we present two sucessful applications of Reinforcement Learning (RL) in real life. First, the optimization of anemia management in patients undergoing Chronic Renal Failure is presented. The aim is to individualize the treatment (Erythropoietin dosages) in order to stabilize patients within a targeted range of Hemoglobin (Hb). Results show that the use of RL increases the ratio of patients within the desired range of Hb. Thus, patients' quality of life is increased, and additionally, Health Care System reduces its expenses in anemia management. Second, RL is applied to modify a marketing campaign in order to maximize long-term profits. RL obtains an individualized policy depe…

Adaptive treatment of anemia on hemodialysis patients: A reinforcement learning approach

The aim of this work is to study the applicability of reinforcement learning methods to design adaptive treatment strategies that optimize, in the long-term, the dosage of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) in the management of anemia in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Adaptive treatment strategies are recently emerging as a new paradigm for the treatment and long-term management of the chronic disease. Reinforcement Learning (RL) can be useful to extract such strategies from clinical data, taking into account delayed effects and without requiring any mathematical model. In this work, we focus on the so-called Fitted Q Iteration algorithm, a RL approach that deals with the data very…

Support Vector Machines for Crop Classification Using Hyperspectral Data

In this communication, we propose the use of Support Vector Machines (SVM) for crop classification using hyperspectral images. SVM are benchmarked to well–known neural networks such as multilayer perceptrons (MLP), Radial Basis Functions (RBF) and Co-Active Neural Fuzzy Inference Systems (CANFIS). Models are analyzed in terms of efficiency and robustness, which is tested according to their suitability to real–time working conditions whenever a preprocessing stage is not possible. This can be simulated by considering models with and without a preprocessing stage. Four scenarios (128, 6, 3 and 2 bands) are thus evaluated. Several conclusions are drawn: (1) SVM yield better outcomes than neura…

Detecting rottenness caused by Penicillium genus fungi in citrus fruits using machine learning techniques

Penicillium fungi are among the main defects that may affect the commercialization of citrus fruits. Economic losses in fruit production may become enormous if an early detection of that kind of fungi is not carried out. That early detection is usually based either on UltraViolet light carried out manually. This work presents a new approach based on hyperspectral imagery for defect segmentation. Both the physical device and the data processing (geometric corrections and band selection) are presented. Achieved results using classifiers based on Artificial Neural Networks and Decision Trees show an accuracy around 98%; it shows up the suitability of the proposed approach.

Application of Machine Learning Techniques in the Study of the Relevance of Environmental Factors in Prediction of Tropospheric Ozone

This work presents a new approach for one of the main problems in the analysis of atmospheric phenomena, the prediction of atmospheric concentrations of different elements. The proposed methodology is more efficient than other classical approaches and is used in this work to predict tropospheric ozone concentration. The relevance of this problem stems from the fact that excessive ozone concentrations may cause several problems related to public health. Previous research by the authors of this work has shown that the classical approach to this problem (linear models) does not achieve satisfactory results in tropospheric ozone concentration prediction. The authors’ approach is based on Machin…

Visual Data Mining in Physiotherapy Using Self-Organizing Maps

The basis of all clinical science developments is the analysis of the data obtained from a particular problem. In recent decades, however, the capacity of computers to process data has been increasing exponentially, which has created the possibility of applying more powerful methods of data analysis. Among these methods, the multidimensional visual data mining methods are outstanding. These methods show all the variables of one particular problem on the whole allowing to the clinical specialist to extract his own conclusions. In this chapter, a neural approximation to this kind of data mining is shown by means of the valuation analysis of the knee in athletes in the pre- and post-surgery of…

Self-Organising Maps: A new way to screen the level of satisfaction of dialysis patients

Highlights? FME as dialysis services global provider monitors patient satisfaction in its network. ? A specific questionnaire was developed and administered to the hemodialysis patients. ? To detect residual area of low satisfaction the Self-Organising Map was implemented. ? This method allows identifying niches of dissatisfaction for specific patient groups. Evaluation of patient satisfaction has become an important indicator for assessing health care quality. Fresenius Medical Care (FME) as a global provider of dialysis services through its NephroCare network has a strong interest in monitoring patient satisfaction.The aim of the paper is to test and validate a methodology for detecting a…

Sectors on sectors (SonS): A new hierarchical clustering visualization tool

Clustering techniques have been widely applied to extract information from high-dimensional data structures in the last few years. Graphs are especially relevant for clustering, but many graphs associated with hierarchical clustering do not give any information about the values of the centroids' attributes and the relationships among them. In this paper, we propose a new visualization approach for hierarchical cluster analysis in which the above-mentioned information is available. The method is based on pie charts. The pie charts are divided into several pie segments or sectors corresponding to each cluster. The radius of each pie segment is proportional to the number of patterns included i…

Ciberseguridad : el reto del siglo XXI

El siglo XXI es el siglo del dato, su análisis y de la conectividad; en definitiva, el siglo de la información en tiempo real y disponible para cualquiera en cualquier lugar del mundo. Dichos datos están impactando en todos los ámbitos de la sociedad y de la economía de tal forma que no se entiende ningún sector productivo ni ninguna relación social sin dato; todos tenemos algún lugar en las redes sociales desde donde intercambiamos experiencias personales o profesionales. Si a este hecho se le suma el auge de la Inteligencia Artificial, se tiene un siglo en el que los avances tecnológicos van a ser totalmente disruptivos para todos nosotros.

Lead Reconstruction Using Artificial Neural Networks for Ambulatory ECG Acquisition

One of the most powerful techniques to diagnose cardiovascular diseases is to analyze the electrocardiogram (ECG). To increase diagnostic sensitivity, the ECG might need to be acquired using an ambulatory system, as symptoms may occur during a patient’s daily life. In this paper, we propose using an ambulatory ECG (aECG) recording device with a low number of leads and then estimating the views that would have been obtained with a standard ECG location, reconstructing the complete Standard 12-Lead System, the most widely used system for diagnosis by cardiologists. Four approaches have been explored, including Linear Regression with ECG segmentation and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). The b…

Machine learning methods to forecast temperature in buildings

Efficient management of energy in buildings saves a very important amount of resources (both economic and technological). As a consequence, there is a very active research in this field. One of the keys of energy management is the prediction of the variables that directly affect building energy consumption and personal comfort. Among these variables, one can highlight the temperature in each room of a building. In this work we apply different machine learning techniques along with other classical ones for predicting the temperatures in different rooms. The obtained results demonstrate the validity of these techniques for predicting temperatures and, therefore, for the establishment of optim…

Somatometric and clinical cardiovascular risk factors in midlife and older women. A tale of four European countries

Similarity and Consistency in Hotel Online Ratings across Platforms

Online ratings are a major driver of hotel choice. There are many ratings platforms, and the number of evaluations is huge. This article analyzes if hotel ratings vary across platforms, vary over time, and if consistency in ratings can be observed. Longitudinal online ratings taken from 11 platforms over a two-year period were analyzed through Self-Organizing Maps. The findings suggest a similar pattern of online ratings across most of the platforms, except for Yelp and HolidayCheck. In addition, the evaluation patterns are stable over time, and the analyzed attributes do not contribute decisively to explain the overall evaluation of hotels, which implies that tourists use a noncompensator…

Support Vector Machines Framework for Linear Signal Processing

This paper presents a support vector machines (SVM) framework to deal with linear signal processing (LSP) problems. The approach relies on three basic steps for model building: (1) identifying the suitable base of the Hilbert signal space in the model, (2) using a robust cost function, and (3) minimizing a constrained, regularized functional by means of the method of Lagrange multipliers. Recently, autoregressive moving average (ARMA) system identification and non-parametric spectral analysis have been formulated under this framework. The generalized, yet simple, formulation of SVM LSP problems is particularized here for three different issues: parametric spectral estimation, stability of I…

Toward Optimal LSTM Neural Networks for Detecting Algorithmically Generated Domain Names

Malware detection is a problem that has become particularly challenging over the last decade. A common strategy for detecting malware is to scan network traffic for malicious connections between infected devices and their command and control (C&C) servers. However, malware developers are aware of this detection method and begin to incorporate new strategies to go unnoticed. In particular, they generate domain names instead of using static Internet Protocol addresses or regular domain names pointing to their C&C servers. By using a domain generation algorithm, the effectiveness of the blacklisting of domains is reduced, as the large number of domain names that must be blocked g…

Regularized extreme learning machine for regression problems

Extreme learning machine (ELM) is a new learning algorithm for single-hidden layer feedforward networks (SLFNs) proposed by Huang et al. [1]. Its main advantage is the lower computational cost, which is especially relevant when dealing with many patterns defined in a high-dimensional space. This paper proposes an algorithm for pruning ELM networks by using regularized regression methods, thus obtaining a suitable number of the hidden nodes in the network architecture. Beginning from an initial large number of hidden nodes, irrelevant nodes are then pruned using ridge regression, elastic net and lasso methods; hence, the architectural design of ELM network can be automated. Empirical studies…

Neural networks for analysing the relevance of input variables in the prediction of tropospheric ozone concentration

Abstract This paper deals with tropospheric ozone modelling by using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). In this study, ambient ozone concentrations are estimated using surface meteorological variables and vehicle emission variables as predictors. The work is especially focused on analysing the importance of the input variables used by these models. This analysis is carried out in different time windows: all the time of study (April of 1997, 1999 and 2000), one month (April 1999), and finally, an hourly analysis. All the information extracted from these analyses can determine the most important factors in tropospheric ozone formation, thus achieving a qualitative model from the quantitative …

FPGA Implementation of an Adaptive Filter Robust to Impulsive Noise: Two Approaches

Adaptive filters are used in a wide range of applications such as echo cancellation, noise cancellation, system identification, and prediction. Its hardware implementation becomes essential in many cases where real-time execution is needed. However, impulsive noise affects the proper operation of the filter and the adaptation process. This noise is one of the most damaging types of signal distortion, not always considered when implementing algorithms, particularly in specific hardware platforms. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are used widely for real-time applications where timing requirements are strict. Nowadays, two main design processes can be followed for embedded system design…

La agenda building de los partidos políticos españoles en las redes sociales : Un análisis de Big data

Las redes sociales irradian un flujo de información de opinión horizontal y multimodal que ha abierto nuevos horizontes al análisis de los fenómenos políticos. La ac- ción agregada de los ciudadanos en este nuevo ámbito permite orientar la agenda política del país e influir en la toma de decisiones públicas. El conocimiento de lo que ocurre en las redes deviene, pues, un objeto de estudio de primer interés. En este trabajo se utilizan metodolo- gías sobre plataformas Big Data para analizar la evolución temporal de la agenda política marcada por los partidos políticos en las redes sociales, alguna de cuyas dimen- siones quedan descritas mediante técnicas apropiadas de visualización. En la co…

BELM: Bayesian Extreme Learning Machine

The theory of extreme learning machine (ELM) has become very popular on the last few years. ELM is a new approach for learning the parameters of the hidden layers of a multilayer neural network (as the multilayer perceptron or the radial basis function neural network). Its main advantage is the lower computational cost, which is especially relevant when dealing with many patterns defined in a high-dimensional space. This brief proposes a bayesian approach to ELM, which presents some advantages over other approaches: it allows the introduction of a priori knowledge; obtains the confidence intervals (CIs) without the need of applying methods that are computationally intensive, e.g., bootstrap…

Optimization of anemia treatment in hemodialysis patients via reinforcement learning

Objective: Anemia is a frequent comorbidity in hemodialysis patients that can be successfully treated by administering erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs). ESAs dosing is currently based on clinical protocols that often do not account for the high inter- and intra-individual variability in the patient's response. As a result, the hemoglobin level of some patients oscillates around the target range, which is associated with multiple risks and side-effects. This work proposes a methodology based on reinforcement learning (RL) to optimize ESA therapy. Methods: RL is a data-driven approach for solving sequential decision-making problems that are formulated as Markov decision processes (MDP…

Hardware implementation of a robust adaptive filter: Two approaches based in High-Level Synthesis design tools

Abstract Adaptive filters are used in a wide range of applications. Impulsive noise affects the proper operation of the filter and the adaptation process. This noise is one of the most damaging types of signal distortion, not always considered when implementing algorithms. Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) are widely used for applications where timing requirements are strict. Nowadays, two main design processes can be followed, namely, Hardware Description Language (HDL) and a High Level Synthesis (HLS) design tool for embedded system design. This paper describes the FPGA implementation of an adaptive filter robust to impulsive noise using two approaches based in HLS and the implementati…

A reinforcement learning approach for individualizing erythropoietin dosages in hemodialysis patients

This paper presents a reinforcement learning (RL) approach for anemia management in patients undergoing chronic renal failure. Erythropoietin (EPO) is the treatment of choice for this kind of anemia but it is an expensive drug and with some dangerous side-effects that should be considered especially for patients who do not respond to the treatment. Therefore, an individualized treatment appears to be necessary. RL is a suitable approach to tackle this problem. Moreover, resulting policies are similar to medical protocols, and hence, they can easily be transferred to daily practice. A cohort of 64 patients are included in the study. An implementation of the Q-learning algorithm based on a st…

Physical Activity Monitoring and Acceptance of a Commercial Activity Tracker in Adult Patients with Haemophilia.

Physical activity (PA) is highly beneficial for people with haemophilia (PWH), however, studies that objectively monitor the PA in this population are scarce. This study aimed to monitor the daily PA and analyse its evolution over time in a cohort of PWH using a commercial activity tracker. In addition, this work analyses the relationship between PA levels, demographics, and joint health status, as well as the acceptance and adherence to the activity tracker. Twenty-six PWH were asked to wear a Fitbit Charge HR for 13 weeks. According to the steps/day in the first week, data were divided into two groups: Active Group (AG

Online fitted policy iteration based on extreme learning machines

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a learning paradigm that can be useful in a wide variety of real-world applications. However, its applicability to complex problems remains problematic due to different causes. Particularly important among these are the high quantity of data required by the agent to learn useful policies and the poor scalability to high-dimensional problems due to the use of local approximators. This paper presents a novel RL algorithm, called online fitted policy iteration (OFPI), that steps forward in both directions. OFPI is based on a semi-batch scheme that increases the convergence speed by reusing data and enables the use of global approximators by reformulating the valu…

Comment on “Computer-Extracted Texture Features to Distinguish Cerebral Radionecrosis from Recurrent Brain Tumors on Multiparametric MRI: A Feasibility Study”

We have read with great interest the article published by Tiwari et al, “Computer-Extracted Texture Features to Distinguish Cerebral Radionecrosis from Recurrent Brain Tumors on Multiparametric MRI: A Feasibility Study.”[1][1] In their article, they refer to our work regarding brain metastasis

Analysis of the Pre and Post-COVID-19 Lockdown Use of Smartphone Apps in Spain

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has changed our daily habits and has undoubtedly affected our smartphone usage time. This paper attempts to characterize the changes in the time of use of smartphones and their applications between the pre-lockdown and post-lockdown periods in Spain, during the first COVID-19 confinement in 2020. This study analyzes data from 1940 participants, which was obtained both from a survey and from a tracking application installed on their smartphones. We propose manifold learning techniques such as clustering, to assess, both in a quantitative and in a qualitative way, the behavioral and social effects and implications of confinement in the Spanish population. We al…

AMCAS: Advanced Methods for the Co-Design of Complex Adaptive Systems

Abstract This work proposes a new approximation to design and program Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), these systems comprise neural network, intelligent agents, genetic algorithms, support vector machines and artificial intelligence systems in general. Due to the complexity of such systems, it is necessary to build a design environment able to ease the design work, allowing reusability and easy migration to hardware and/or software. Ptolemy II is used as the base system to simulate and evaluate the designs with different Models of Computation so that an optimum decision about the hardware or software implementation platform can be taken.

Comparing ELM Against MLP for Electrical Power Prediction in Buildings

The study of energy efficiency in buildings is an active field of research. Modelling and predicting energy related magnitudes leads to analyse electric power consumption and can achieve economical benefits. In this study, two machine learning techniques are applied to predict active power in buildings. The real data acquired corresponds to time, environmental and electrical data of 30 buildings belonging to the University of Leon (Spain). Firstly, we segmented buildings in terms of their energy consumption using principal component analysis. Afterwards we applied ELM and MLP methods to compare their performance. Models were studied for different variable selections. Our analysis shows that…

Web mining based on Growing Hierarchical Self-Organizing Maps: Analysis of a real citizen web portal☆

This work is focused on the usage analysis of a citizen web portal, Infoville XXI (http://www.infoville.es) by means of Self-Organizing Maps (SOM). In this paper, a variant of the classical SOM has been used, the so-called Growing Hierarchical SOM (GHSOM). The GHSOM is able to find an optimal architecture of the SOM in a few iterations. There are also other variants which allow to find an optimal architecture, but they tend to need a long time for training, especially in the case of complex data sets. Another relevant contribution of the paper is the new visualization of the patterns in the hierarchical structure. Results show that GHSOM is a powerful and versatile tool to extract relevant …

Implementation of a new adaptive algorithm using fuzzy cost function and robust to impulsive noise

Adaptive filters are used in a wide range of applications such as noise cancellation, system identification, and prediction. One of the main problems for theses filters is the impulsive noise as it generates algorithm unstability. This work shows the development, simulation and hardware implementation of a new algorithm robust to impulsive noise. Hardware implementation becomes essential in many cases where a real time execution, reduced size, or low power system is needed. An efficient hardware architecture is proposed and different optimizations for size and speed are developed: no need for control state machine, reduced computation requirements due to simplifications, etc. Furthermore, t…

Efficient pruning of multilayer perceptrons using a fuzzy sigmoid activation function

This Letter presents a simple and powerful pruning method for multilayer feed forward neural networks based on the fuzzy sigmoid activation function presented in [E. Soria, J. Martin, G. Camps, A. Serrano, J. Calpe, L. Gomez, A low-complexity fuzzy activation function for artificial neural networks, IEEE Trans. Neural Networks 14(6) (2003) 1576-1579]. Successful performance is obtained in standard function approximation and channel equalization problems. Pruning allows to reduce network complexity considerably, achieving a similar performance to that obtained by unpruned networks.

Forecasting Techniques for Energy Optimization in Buildings

Artificial Neural Networks in Physical Therapy

Modelling net radiation at surface using “in situ” netpyrradiometer measurements with artificial neural networks

The knowledge of net radiation at the surface is of fundamental importance because it defines the total amount of energy available for the physical and biological processes such as evapotranspiration, air and soil warming. It is measured with net radiometers, but, the radiometers are expensive sensors, difficult to handle, that require constant care and also involve periodic calibration. This paper presents a methodology based on neural networks in order to replace the use of net radiometers (expensive tools) by modeling the relationships between the net radiation and meteorological variables measured in meteorological stations. Two different data sets (acquired at different locations) have…

Therapeutic Drug Monitoring of Kidney Transplant Recipients Using Profiled Support Vector Machines

This paper proposes a twofold approach for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of kidney recipients using support vector machines (SVMs), for both predicting and detecting Cyclosporine A (CyA) blood concentrations. The final goal is to build useful, robust, and ultimately understandable models for individualizing the dosage of CyA. We compare SVMs with several neural network models, such as the multilayer perceptron (MLP), the Elman recurrent network, finite/infinite impulse response networks, and neural network ARMAX approaches. In addition, we present a profile-dependent SVM (PD-SVM), which incorporates a priori knowledge in both tasks. Models are compared numerically, statistically, and in…

Assessment of Kinect V2 for elbow range of motion estimation in people with haemophilia using an angle correction model

Introduction The joint range of motion (ROM) is an important clinical parameter used to assess the loss of functionality resulting from joint bleedings in people with haemophilia. These episodes require a close follow-up and, to decrease patients' hospital dependence, telemedicine tools are needed. Therefore, this study is aimed to analyse the validity of the Microsoft Kinect V2 sensor with corrected angle measurement to be used in the monitoring of elbow ROM in people with haemophilia. Methods A convenience sample of 10 healthy controls (CG) and 10 patients with haemophilia with elbow arthropathy (HG) participated in this study. Full ROM of elbow joints was measured in the frontal view wit…

Unbiased sensitivity analysis and pruning techniques in neural networks for surface ozone modelling

Abstract This paper presents the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) for surface ozone modelling. Due to the usual non-linear nature of problems in ecology, the use of ANNs has proven to be a common practice in this field. Nevertheless, few efforts have been made to acquire knowledge about the problems by analysing the useful, but often complex, input–output mapping performed by these models. In fact, researchers are not only interested in accurate methods but also in understandable models. In the present paper, we propose a methodology to extract the governing rules of trained ANN which, in turn, yields simplified models by using unbiased sensitivity and pruning techniques. Our propos…

Description and evaluation of an introductory course to Matlab for a heterogeneous group of university students

This paper presents the experience of the authors in teaching the Matlab™ software to students with different levels of academic training, even though all of them belong to the field of Science. Matlab™ is a worldwide standard in technical programming and computing, and its use is still growing; therefore, it is taught in many different university degree programs (Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, etc.). The course analyzed in this paper contains examples of different fields of knowledge to show the students the versatility and power of this tool. At the end of each course, which consists of 30 h, the students expressed their opinions about the content in a private opinion poll (questionna…

Self-organising maps for the analysis of data from big cohorts. The case of the Spanish CARMEN cohort

Prediction of Temperature in Buildings Using Machine Learning Techniques

Energy efficiency is a trend due to ecological and economic benefits. Within this field, energy efficiency in buildings sector constitutes one of the main concerns due to the fact that approximately 40% of total world energy consumption corresponds to this sector. Climate control in buildings has the potential to increase its energy efficiency planning strategies for the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) machines. These planning strategies may include a stage for long term indoor temperature forecasting. This chapter entails the use of four prediction models (NAÏVE, MLR, MLP, FIS and ANFIS) to forecast temperature in an office building using a temporal horizon of several hour…

Support vector machine classification of brain metastasis and radiation necrosis based on texture analysis in MRI

Purpose To develop a classification model using texture features and support vector machine in contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images to differentiate between brain metastasis and radiation necrosis. Methods Texture features were extracted from 115 lesions: 32 of them previously diagnosed as radiation necrosis, 23 as radiation-treated metastasis and 60 untreated metastases; including a total of 179 features derived from six texture analysis methods. A feature selection technique based on support vector machine was used to obtain a subset of features that provide optimal performance. Results The highest classification accuracy evaluated over test sets was achieved with a subset of ten features…

Exploring the Heterogeneity and Trajectories of Positive Functioning Variables, Emotional Distress, and Post-traumatic Growth During Strict Confinement Due to COVID-19

Abstract  COVID-19 pandemic-related confinement may be a fruitful opportunity to use individual resources to deal with it or experience psychological functioning changes. This study aimed to analyze the evolution of different psychological variables during the first coronavirus wave to identify the different psychological response clusters, as well as to keep a follow-up on the changes among these clusters. The sample included 459 Spanish residents (77.8% female, Mage = 35.21 years, SDage = 13.00). Participants completed several online self-reported questionnaires to assess positive functioning variables (MLQ, Steger et al. in J Loss Trauma 13(6):511–527, 2006. 10.1080/15325020802173660; GQ…

Upport vector machines for nonlinear kernel ARMA system identification.

Nonlinear system identification based on support vector machines (SVM) has been usually addressed by means of the standard SVM regression (SVR), which can be seen as an implicit nonlinear autoregressive and moving average (ARMA) model in some reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). The proposal of this letter is twofold. First, the explicit consideration of an ARMA model in an RKHS (SVM-ARMA 2k) is proposed. We show that stating the ARMA equations in an RKHS leads to solving the regularized normal equations in that RKHS, in terms of the autocorrelation and cross correlation of the (nonlinearly) transformed input and output discrete time processes. Second, a general class of SVM-based syste…

Assigning discounts in a marketing campaign by using reinforcement learning and neural networks

In this work, RL is used to find an optimal policy for a marketing campaign. Data show a complex characterization of state and action spaces. Two approaches are proposed to circumvent this problem. The first approach is based on the self-organizing map (SOM), which is used to aggregate states. The second approach uses a multilayer perceptron (MLP) to carry out a regression of the action-value function. The results indicate that both approaches can improve a targeted marketing campaign. Moreover, the SOM approach allows an intuitive interpretation of the results, and the MLP approach yields robust results with generalization capabilities.