RNN- and LSTM-Based Soft Sensors Transferability for an Industrial Process

The design and application of Soft Sensors (SSs) in the process industry is a growing research field, which needs to mediate problems of model accuracy with data availability and computational complexity. Black-box machine learning (ML) methods are often used as an efficient tool to implement SSs. Many efforts are, however, required to properly select input variables, model class, model order and the needed hyperparameters. The aim of this work was to investigate the possibility to transfer the knowledge acquired in the design of a SS for a given process to a similar one. This has been approached as a transfer learning problem from a source to a target domain. The implementation of a transf…

Soft Sensor Design, Transferability and Causality through Machine Learning Techniques

Criminal networks analysis in missing data scenarios through graph distances

Data collected in criminal investigations may suffer from issues like: (i) incompleteness, due to the covert nature of criminal organizations; (ii) incorrectness, caused by either unintentional data collection errors or intentional deception by criminals; (iii) inconsistency, when the same information is collected into law enforcement databases multiple times, or in different formats. In this paper we analyze nine real criminal networks of different nature (i.e., Mafia networks, criminal street gangs and terrorist organizations) in order to quantify the impact of incomplete data, and to determine which network type is most affected by it. The networks are firstly pruned using two specific m…

Social network analysis: the use of graph distances to compare artificial and criminal networks

Aim: Italian criminal groups become more and more dangerous spreading their activities into new sectors. A criminal group is made up of networks of hundreds of family gangs which extended their influence across the world, raking in billions from drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering. We focus in particular on the analysis of the social structure of two Sicilian crime families and we used a Social Network Analysis approach to study the social phenomena. Starting from a real criminal network extracted from meetings emerging from the police physical surveillance during 2000s, we here aim to create artificial models that present similar properties. Methods: We use specific tools of s…

Soft Sensor Transferability between Lines of a Sulfur Recovery Unit

Abstract Soft Sensors (SSs) are mathematical models that allow real-time estimation of hard-to-measure variables as a function of easy-to-measure ones in an industrial process, emulating the behavior of existing sensors when they are, for instance, taken off for maintenance. The Sulfur Recovery Unit (SRU) from a refinery is taken in exam. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) can capture the nonlinearity of such process but present a high complexity training and a very time-consuming structure optimization. For this reason, strategies to use pre-existing models are here examined by testing the transferability of the SSs between two parallel lines of the process.

Input Selection Methods for Soft Sensor Design: A Survey

Soft Sensors (SSs) are inferential models used in many industrial fields. They allow for real-time estimation of hard-to-measure variables as a function of available data obtained from online sensors. SSs are generally built using industries historical databases through data-driven approaches. A critical issue in SS design concerns the selection of input variables, among those available in a candidate dataset. In the case of industrial processes, candidate inputs can reach great numbers, making the design computationally demanding and leading to poorly performing models. An input selection procedure is then necessary. Most used input selection approaches for SS design are addressed in this …

Graph Comparison and Artificial Models for Simulating Real Criminal Networks

Network Science is an active research field, with numerous applications in areas like computer science, economics, or sociology. Criminal networks, in particular, possess specific topologies which allow them to exhibit strong resilience to disruption. Starting from a dataset related to meetings between members of a Mafia organization which operated in Sicily during 2000s, we here aim to create artificial models with similar properties. To this end, we use specific tools of Social Network Analysis, including network models (Barabási-Albert identified to be the most promising) and metrics which allow us to quantify the similarity between two networks. To the best of our knowledge, the DeltaCo…