ALBERT

Description: Soft constraints are quite common in real-life applications. For example, in freight transportation, the fleet size can be enlarged by outsourcing part of the distribution service and some deliveries to customers can be postponed as well; in inventory management, it is possible to consider stock-outs generated by unexpected demands; and in manufacturing processes and project management, it is frequent that some deadlines cannot be met due to delays in critical steps of the supply chain. However, capacity-, size-, and time-related limitations are included in many optimization problems as hard constraints, while it would be usually more realistic to consider them as soft ones, i.e., they can be violated to some extent by incurring a penalty cost. Most of the times, this penalty cost will be nonlinear and even noncontinuous, which might transform the objective function into a non-smooth one. Despite its many practical applications, non-smooth optimization problems are quite challenging, especially when the underlying optimization problem is NP-hard in nature. In this paper, we propose the use of biased-randomized algorithms as an effective methodology to cope with NP-hard and non-smooth optimization problems in many practical applications. Biased-randomized algorithms extend constructive heuristics by introducing a nonuniform randomization pattern into them. Hence, they can be used to explore promising areas of the solution space without the limitations of gradient-based approaches, which assume the existence of smooth objective functions. Moreover, biased-randomized algorithms can be easily parallelized, thus employing short computing times while exploring a large number of promising regions. This paper discusses these concepts in detail, reviews existing work in different application areas, and highlights current trends and open research lines.

Description: The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) aims at finding the shortest trip for a salesman, who has to visit each of the locations from a given set exactly once, starting and ending at the same location. Here, we consider the Euclidean version of the problem, in which the locations are points in the two-dimensional Euclidean space and the distances are correspondingly Euclidean distances. We propose simple, fast, and easily implementable heuristics that work well, in practice, for large real-life problem instances. The algorithm works on three phases, the constructive, the insertion, and the improvement phases. The first two phases run in time O ( n 2 ) and the number of repetitions in the improvement phase, in practice, is bounded by a small constant. We have tested the practical behavior of our heuristics on the available benchmark problem instances. The approximation provided by our algorithm for the tested benchmark problem instances did not beat best known results. At the same time, comparing the CPU time used by our algorithm with that of the earlier known ones, in about 92% of the cases our algorithm has required less computational time. Our algorithm is also memory efficient: for the largest tested problem instance with 744,710 cities, it has used about 50 MiB, whereas the average memory usage for the remained 217 instances was 1.6 MiB.

Description: In this paper, we first propose a new TVL2 regularization model for image restoration, and then we propose two iterative methods, which are fixed-point and fixed-point-like methods, using CGLS (Conjugate Gradient Least Squares method) for solving the new proposed TVL2 problem. We also provide convergence analysis for the fixed-point method. Lastly, numerical experiments for several test problems are provided to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed two iterative methods. Numerical results show that the new proposed TVL2 model is preferred over an existing TVL2 model and the proposed fixed-point-like method is well suited for the new TVL2 model.

Description: We study two-machine shop-scheduling problems provided that lower and upper bounds on durations of n jobs are given before scheduling. An exact value of the job duration remains unknown until completing the job. The objective is to minimize the makespan (schedule length). We address the issue of how to best execute a schedule if the job duration may take any real value from the given segment. Scheduling decisions may consist of two phases: an off-line phase and an on-line phase. Using information on the lower and upper bounds for each job duration available at the off-line phase, a scheduler can determine a minimal dominant set of schedules (DS) based on sufficient conditions for schedule domination. The DS optimally covers all possible realizations (scenarios) of the uncertain job durations in the sense that, for each possible scenario, there exists at least one schedule in the DS which is optimal. The DS enables a scheduler to quickly make an on-line scheduling decision whenever additional information on completing jobs is available. A scheduler can choose a schedule which is optimal for the most possible scenarios. We developed algorithms for testing a set of conditions for a schedule dominance. These algorithms are polynomial in the number of jobs. Their time complexity does not exceed O ( n 2 ) . Computational experiments have shown the effectiveness of the developed algorithms. If there were no more than 600 jobs, then all 1000 instances in each tested series were solved in one second at most. An instance with 10,000 jobs was solved in 0.4 s on average. The most instances from nine tested classes were optimally solved. If the maximum relative error of the job duration was not greater than 20 % , then more than 80 % of the tested instances were optimally solved. If the maximum relative error was equal to 50 % , then 45 % of the tested instances from the nine classes were optimally solved.

Description: This paper studies the journey planning problem in the context of transit networks. Giventhe timetable of a schedule-based transportation system (consisting, e.g., of trains, buses, etc.),the problem seeks journeys optimizing some criteria. Specifically, it seeks to answer natural queriessuch as, for example, “find a journey starting from a source stop and arriving at a target stop as earlyas possible”. The fastest approach for answering to these queries, yielding the smallest average querytime even on very large networks, is the Public Transit Labeling framework, proposed for the firsttime in Delling et al., SEA 2015. This method combines three main ingredients: (i) a graph-basedrepresentation of the schedule of the transit network; (ii) a labeling of such graph encoding itstransitive closure (computed via a time-consuming pre-processing); (iii) an efficient query algorithmexploiting both (i) and (ii) to answer quickly to queries of interest at runtime. Unfortunately, whiletransit networks’ timetables are inherently dynamic (they are often subject to delays or disruptions),PTL is not natively designed to handle updates in the schedule—even after a single change,precomputed data may become outdated and queries can return incorrect results. This is a majorlimitation, especially when dealing with massively sized inputs (e.g., metropolitan or continentalsized networks), as recomputing the labeling from scratch, after each change, yields unsustainabletime overheads that are not compatible with interactive applications. In this work, we introduce a newframework that extends PTL to function in delay-prone transit networks. In particular, we providea new set of algorithms able to update both the graph and the precomputed labeling whenevera delay affects the network, without performing any recomputation from scratch. We demonstratethe effectiveness of our solution through an extensive experimental evaluation conducted onreal-world networks. Our experiments show that: (i) the update time required by the new algorithmsis, on average, orders of magnitude smaller than that required by the recomputation from scratch viaPTL; (ii) the updated graph and labeling induce both query time performance and space overhead thatare equivalent to those that are obtained by the recomputation from scratch via PTL. This suggests thatour new solution is an effective approach to handling the journey planning problem in delay-pronetransit networks.

Description: This paper deals with the active vibration control of a quarter-vehicle suspension system. Damping control methods investigated in this paper are: higher-order sliding mode control (HOSMC) based on super twisting algorithm (STA), first-order sliding mode control (FOSMC), integral sliding mode control (ISMC), proportional integral derivative (PID), linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and passive suspension system. Performance comparison of different active controllers are analyzed in terms of vertical displacement, suspension travel and wheel deflection. The theoretical, quantitative and qualitative analysis verify that the STA-based HOSMC exhibits better performance as well as negate the undesired disturbances with respect to FOSMC, ISMC, PID, LQR and passive suspension system. Furthermore, it is also robust to intrinsic bounded uncertain dynamics of the model.

Description: We present a detailed survey of results and two new results on graphical models of uncertainty and associated optimization problems. We focus on two well-studied models, namely, the Random Failure (RF) model and the Linear Reliability Ordering (LRO) model. We present an FPT algorithm parameterized by the product of treewidth and max-degree for maximizing expected coverage in an uncertain graph under the RF model. We then consider the problem of finding the maximal core in a graph, which is known to be polynomial time solvable. We show that the Probabilistic-Core problem is polynomial time solvable in uncertain graphs under the LRO model. On the other hand, under the RF model, we show that the Probabilistic-Core problem is W[1]-hard for the parameter d, where d is the minimum degree of the core. We then design an FPT algorithm for the parameter treewidth.

Description: Whether the source is autonomous car, robotic vacuum cleaner, or a quadcopter, signals from sensors tend to have some hidden patterns that repeat themselves. For example, typical GPS traces from a smartphone contain periodic trajectories such as “home, work, home, work, ⋯”. Our goal in this study was to automatically reverse engineer such signals, identify their periodicity, and then use it to compress and de-noise these signals. To do so, we present a novel method of using algorithms from the field of pattern matching and text compression to represent the “language” in such signals. Common text compression algorithms are less tailored to handle such strings. Moreover, they are lossless, and cannot be used to recover noisy signals. To this end, we define the recursive run-length encoding (RRLE) method, which is a generalization of the well known run-length encoding (RLE) method. Then, we suggest lossy and lossless algorithms to compress and de-noise such signals. Unlike previous results, running time and optimality guarantees are proved for each algorithm. Experimental results on synthetic and real data sets are provided. We demonstrate our system by showing how it can be used to turn commercial micro air-vehicles into autonomous robots. This is by reverse engineering their unpublished communication protocols and using a laptop or on-board micro-computer to control them. Our open source code may be useful for both the community of millions of toy robots users, as well as for researchers that may extend it for further protocols.

Description: The need to store massive volumes of spatio-temporal data has become a difficult task as GPS capabilities and wireless communication technologies have become prevalent to modern mobile devices. As a result, massive trajectory data are produced, incurring expensive costs for storage, transmission, as well as query processing. A number of algorithms for compressing trajectory data have been proposed in order to overcome these difficulties. These algorithms try to reduce the size of trajectory data, while preserving the quality of the information. In the context of this research work, we focus on both the privacy preservation and storage problem of spatio-temporal databases. To alleviate this issue, we propose an efficient framework for trajectories representation, entitled DUST (DUal-based Spatio-temporal Trajectory), by which a raw trajectory is split into a number of linear sub-trajectories which are subjected to dual transformation that formulates the representatives of each linear component of initial trajectory; thus, the compressed trajectory achieves compression ratio equal to M : 1 . To our knowledge, we are the first to study and address k-NN queries on nonlinear moving object trajectories that are represented in dual dimensional space. Additionally, the proposed approach is expected to reinforce the privacy protection of such data. Specifically, even in case that an intruder has access to the dual points of trajectory data and try to reproduce the native points that fit a specific component of the initial trajectory, the identity of the mobile object will remain secure with high probability. In this way, the privacy of the k-anonymity method is reinforced. Through experiments on real spatial datasets, we evaluate the robustness of the new approach and compare it with the one studied in our previous work.

Description: A probabilistic Boolean network (PBN) is well known as one of the mathematical models of gene regulatory networks. In a Boolean network, expression of a gene is approximated by a binary value, and its time evolution is expressed by Boolean functions. In a PBN, a Boolean function is probabilistically chosen from candidates of Boolean functions. One of the authors has proposed a method to construct a PBN from imperfect information. However, there is a weakness that the number of candidates of Boolean functions may be redundant. In this paper, this construction method is improved to efficiently utilize given information. To derive Boolean functions and those selection probabilities, the linear programming problem is solved. Here, we introduce the objective function to reduce the number of candidates. The proposed method is demonstrated by a numerical example.

Description: Aiming at the current problem that it is difficult to deal with an unknown radar emitter in the radar emitter identification process, we propose an unknown radar emitter identification method based on semi-supervised and transfer learning. Firstly, we construct the support vector machine (SVM) model based on transfer learning, using the information of labeled samples in the source domain to train in the target domain, which can solve the problem that the training data and the testing data do not satisfy the same-distribution hypothesis. Then, we design a semi-supervised co-training algorithm using the information of unlabeled samples to enhance the training effect, which can solve the problem that insufficient labeled data results in inadequate training of the classifier. Finally, we combine the transfer learning method with the semi-supervised learning method for the unknown radar emitter identification task. Simulation experiments show that the proposed method can effectively identify an unknown radar emitter and still maintain high identification accuracy within a certain measurement error range.

Description: Nowadays, transport is the basis for the functioning of national, continental, and global economies. Thus, many governments recognize it as a critical element in ensuring the daily existence of societies in their countries. Those responsible for the proper operation of the transport sector must have the right tools to model, analyze, and optimize its elements. One of the most critical problems is the need to prevent bottlenecks in transport networks. Thus, the main aim of the article was to define the parameters characterizing the transportation network vulnerability and select algorithms to support their search. The parameters proposed are based on characteristics related to domination in graph theory. The domination, edge-domination concepts, and related topics, such as bondage-connected and weighted bondage-connected numbers, were applied as the tools for searching and identifying the bottlenecks in transportation networks. Furthermore, the algorithms for finding the minimal dominating set and minimal (maximal) weighted dominating sets are proposed. This way, the exemplary academic transportation network was analyzed in two cases: stationary and dynamic. Some conclusions are presented. The main one is the fact that the methods given in this article are universal and applicable to both small and large-scale networks. Moreover, the approach can support the dynamic analysis of bottlenecks in transport networks.

Description: Surrogate models are increasingly required for applications in which first-principles simulation models are prohibitively expensive to employ for uncertainty analysis, design, or control. They can also be used to approximate models whose discontinuous derivatives preclude the use of gradient-based optimization or data assimilation algorithms. We consider the problem of inferring the 2D location and intensity of a radiation source in an urban environment using a ray-tracing model based on Boltzmann transport theory. Whereas the code implementing this model is relatively efficient, extension to 3D Monte Carlo transport simulations precludes subsequent Bayesian inference to infer source locations, which typically requires thousands to millions of simulations. Additionally, the resulting likelihood exhibits discontinuous derivatives due to the presence of buildings. To address these issues, we discuss the construction of surrogate models for optimization, Bayesian inference, and uncertainty propagation. Specifically, we consider surrogate models based on Legendre polynomials, multivariate adaptive regression splines, radial basis functions, Gaussian processes, and neural networks. We detail strategies for computing training points and discuss the merits and deficits of each method.

Description: Suicide ideation expressed in social media has an impact on language usage. Many at-risk individuals use social forum platforms to discuss their problems or get access to information on similar tasks. The key objective of our study is to present ongoing work on automatic recognition of suicidal posts. We address the early detection of suicide ideation through deep learning and machine learning-based classification approaches applied to Reddit social media. For such purpose, we employ an LSTM-CNN combined model to evaluate and compare to other classification models. Our experiment shows the combined neural network architecture with word embedding techniques can achieve the best relevance classification results. Additionally, our results support the strength and ability of deep learning architectures to build an effective model for a suicide risk assessment in various text classification tasks.

Description: This special issue of Algorithms is a follow-up issue of an earlier one, entitled ‘Algorithms for Scheduling Problems’. In particular, the new issue is devoted to the development of exact and heuristic scheduling algorithms. Submissions were welcome both for traditional scheduling problems as well as for new practical applications. In the Call for Papers, we mentioned topics such as single-criterion and multi-criteria scheduling problems with additional constraints including setup times (costs), precedence constraints, batching (lot sizing), resource constraints as well as scheduling problems arising in emerging applications.

Description: We study a resource leveling problem with variable job duration. The considered problem includes both scheduling and resource management decisions. The planning horizon is fixed and separated into a set of time periods of equal length. There are several types of resources and their amount varies from one period to another. There is a set of jobs. For each job, a fixed volume of work has to be completed without any preemption while using different resources. If necessary, extra resources can be used at additional costs during each time period. The optimization goal is to minimize the total overload costs required for the execution of all jobs by the given deadline. The decision variables specify the starting time of each job, the duration of the job and the resource amount assigned to the job during each period (it may vary over periods). We propose a new generalized mathematical formulation for this optimization problem. The formulation is compared with existing approaches from the literature. Theoretical study and computational experiments show that our approach provides more flexible resource allocation resulting in better final solutions.

Description: Combining first order logic rules with a Knowledge Graph (KG) embedding model has recently gained increasing attention, as rules introduce rich background information. Among such studies, models equipped with soft rules, which are extracted with certain confidences, achieve state-of-the-art performance. However, the existing methods either cannot support the transitivity and composition rules or take soft rules as regularization terms to constrain derived facts, which is incapable of encoding the logical background knowledge about facts contained in soft rules. In addition, previous works performed one time logical inference over rules to generate valid groundings for modeling rules, ignoring forward chaining inference, which can further generate more valid groundings to better model rules. To these ends, this paper proposes Soft Logical rules enhanced Embedding (SoLE), a novel KG embedding model equipped with a joint training algorithm over soft rules and KG facts to inject the logical background knowledge of rules into embeddings, as well as forward chaining inference over rules. Evaluations on Freebase and DBpedia show that SoLE not only achieves improvements of 11.6%/5.9% in Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR) and 18.4%/15.9% in HITS@1 compared to the model on which SoLE is based, but also significantly and consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines in the link prediction task.

Description: In this work, we study the d-Hitting Set and Feedback Vertex Set problems through the paradigm of finding diverse collections of r solutions of size at most k each, which has recently been introduced to the field of parameterized complexity. This paradigm is aimed at addressing the loss of important side information which typically occurs during the abstraction process that models real-world problems as computational problems. We use two measures for the diversity of such a collection: the sum of all pairwise Hamming distances, and the minimum pairwise Hamming distance. We show that both problems are fixed-parameter tractable in k + r for both diversity measures. A key ingredient in our algorithms is a (problem independent) network flow formulation that, given a set of `base’ solutions, computes a maximally diverse collection of solutions. We believe that this could be of independent interest.

Description: Image compression is one of the most important fields of image processing. Because of the rapid development of image acquisition which will increase the image size, and in turn requires bigger storage space. JPEG has been considered as the most famous and applicable algorithm for image compression; however, it has shortfalls for some image types. Hence, new techniques are required to improve the quality of reconstructed images as well as to increase the compression ratio. The work in this paper introduces a scheme to enhance the JPEG algorithm. The proposed scheme is a new method which shrinks and stretches images using a smooth filter. In order to remove the blurring artifact which would be developed from shrinking and stretching the image, a hyperbolic function (tanh) is used to enhance the quality of the reconstructed image. Furthermore, the new approach achieves higher compression ratio for the same image quality, and/or better image quality for the same compression ratio than ordinary JPEG with respect to large size and more complex content images. However, it is an application for optimization to enhance the quality (PSNR and SSIM), of the reconstructed image and to reduce the size of the compressed image, especially for large size images.

Description: Interest in machine learning with tensor networks has been growing rapidly in recent years. We show that tensor-based methods developed for learning the governing equations of dynamical systems from data can, in the same way, be used for supervised learning problems and propose two novel approaches for image classification. One is a kernel-based reformulation of the previously introduced multidimensional approximation of nonlinear dynamics (MANDy), the other an alternating ridge regression in the tensor train format. We apply both methods to the MNIST and fashion MNIST data set and show that the approaches are competitive with state-of-the-art neural network-based classifiers.

Description: Image deblurring under the background of impulse noise is a typically ill-posed inverse problem which attracted great attention in the fields of image processing and computer vision. The fast total variation deconvolution (FTVd) algorithm proved to be an effective way to solve this problem. However, it only considers sparsity of the first-order total variation, resulting in staircase artefacts. The L1 norm is adopted in the FTVd model to depict the sparsity of the impulse noise, while the L1 norm has limited capacity of depicting it. To overcome this limitation, we present a new algorithm based on the Lp-pseudo-norm and total generalized variation (TGV) regularization. The TGV regularization puts sparse constraints on both the first-order and second-order gradients of the image, effectively preserving the image edge while relieving undesirable artefacts. The Lp-pseudo-norm constraint is employed to replace the L1 norm constraint to depict the sparsity of the impulse noise more precisely. The alternating direction method of multipliers is adopted to solve the proposed model. In the numerical experiments, the proposed algorithm is compared with some state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity (SSIM), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), operation time, and visual effects to verify its superiority.

Description: The Poset Cover Problem is an optimization problem where the goal is to determine a minimum set of posets that covers a given set of linear orders. This problem is relevant in the field of data mining, specifically in determining directed networks or models that explain the ordering of objects in a large sequential dataset. It is already known that the decision version of the problem is NP-Hard while its variation where the goal is to determine only a single poset that covers the input is in P. In this study, we investigate the variation, which we call the 2-Poset Cover Problem, where the goal is to determine two posets, if they exist, that cover the given linear orders. We derive properties on posets, which leads to an exact solution for the 2-Poset Cover Problem. Although the algorithm runs in exponential-time, it is still significantly faster than a brute-force solution. Moreover, we show that when the posets being considered are tree-posets, the running-time of the algorithm becomes polynomial, which proves that the more restricted variation, which we called the 2-Tree-Poset Cover Problem, is also in P.

Description: To address the problem of unclear images affected by occlusion from fog, we propose an improved Retinex image enhancement algorithm based on the Gaussian pyramid transformation. Our algorithm features bilateral filtering as a replacement for the Gaussian function used in the original Retinex algorithm. Operation of the technique is as follows. To begin, we deduced the mathematical model for an improved bilateral filtering function based on the spatial domain kernel function and the pixel difference parameter. The input RGB image was subsequently converted into the Hue Saturation Intensity (HSI) color space, where the reflection component of the intensity channel was extracted to obtain an image whose edges were retained and are not affected by changes in brightness. Following reconversion to the RGB color space, color images of this reflection component were obtained at different resolutions using Gaussian pyramid down-sampling. Each of these images was then processed using the improved Retinex algorithm to improve the contrast of the final image, which was reconstructed using the Laplace algorithm. Results from experiments show that the proposed algorithm can enhance image contrast effectively, and the color of the processed image is in line with what would be perceived by a human observer.

Description: We address some special cases of job shop and flow shop scheduling problems with s-precedence constraints. Unlike the classical setting, in which precedence constraints among the tasks of a job are finish–start, here the task of a job cannot start before the task preceding it has started. We give polynomial exact algorithms for the following problems: a two-machine job shop with two jobs when recirculation is allowed (i.e., jobs can visit the same machine many times), a two-machine flow shop, and an m-machine flow shop with two jobs. We also point out some special cases whose complexity status is open.

Description: A multiple instance learning problem consists of categorizing objects, each represented as a set (bag) of points. Unlike the supervised classification paradigm, where each point of the training set is labeled, the labels are only associated with bags, while the labels of the points inside the bags are unknown. We focus on the binary classification case, where the objective is to discriminate between positive and negative bags using a separating surface. Adopting a support vector machine setting at the training level, the problem of minimizing the classification-error function can be formulated as a nonconvex nonsmooth unconstrained program. We propose a difference-of-convex (DC) decomposition of the nonconvex function, which we face using an appropriate nonsmooth DC algorithm. Some of the numerical results on benchmark data sets are reported.

Description: A complex neutrosophic set is a useful model to handle indeterminate situations with a periodic nature. This is characterized by truth, indeterminacy, and falsity degrees which are the combination of real-valued amplitude terms and complex-valued phase terms. Hypergraphs are objects that enable us to dig out invisible connections between the underlying structures of complex systems such as those leading to sustainable development. In this paper, we apply the most fruitful concept of complex neutrosophic sets to theory of hypergraphs. We define complex neutrosophic hypergraphs and discuss their certain properties including lower truncation, upper truncation, and transition levels. Furthermore, we define T-related complex neutrosophic hypergraphs and properties of minimal transversals of complex neutrosophic hypergraphs. Finally, we represent the modeling of certain social networks with intersecting communities through the score functions and choice values of complex neutrosophic hypergraphs. We also give a brief comparison of our proposed model with other existing models.

Description: It is well known that scalar iterative methods with derivatives are highly more stable than their derivative-free partners, understanding the term stability as a measure of the wideness of the set of converging initial estimations. In multivariate case, multidimensional dynamical analysis allows us to afford this task and it is made on different Jacobian-free variants of Newton’s method, whose estimations of the Jacobian matrix have increasing order. The respective basins of attraction and the number of fixed and critical points give us valuable information in this sense.

Description: The purpose of this special issue of Algorithms was to attract papers presenting original research in the area of algorithm engineering. In particular, submissions concerning the design, analysis, implementation, tuning, and experimental evaluation of discrete algorithms and data structures, and/or addressing methodological issues and standards in algorithmic experimentation were encouraged. Papers dealing with advanced models of computing, including memory hierarchies, cloud architectures, and parallel processing were also welcome. In this regard, we solicited contributions from all most prominent areas of applied algorithmic research, which include but are not limited to graphs, databases, computational geometry, big data, networking, combinatorial aspects of scientific computing, and computational problems in the natural sciences or engineering.

Description: The development of robotic applications for agricultural environments has several problems which are not present in the robotic systems used for indoor environments. Some of these problems can be solved with an efficient navigation system. In this paper, a new system is introduced to improve the navigation tasks for those robots which operate in agricultural environments. Concretely, the paper focuses on the problem related to the autonomous mapping of agricultural parcels (i.e., an orange grove). The map created by the system will be used to help the robots navigate into the parcel to perform maintenance tasks such as weed removal, harvest, or pest inspection. The proposed system connects to a satellite positioning service to obtain the real coordinates where the robotic system is placed. With these coordinates, the parcel information is downloaded from an online map service in order to autonomously obtain a map of the parcel in a readable format for the robot. Finally, path planning is performed by means of Fast Marching techniques using the robot or a team of two robots. This paper introduces the proof-of-concept and describes all the necessary steps and algorithms to obtain the path planning just from the initial coordinates of the robot.

Description: The information bottleneck method is a generic clustering framework from the fieldof machine learning which allows compressing an observed quantity while retaining as much ofthe mutual information it shares with the quantity of primary relevance as possible. The frameworkwas recently used to design message-passing decoders for low-density parity-check codes in whichall the arithmetic operations on log-likelihood ratios are replaced by table lookups of unsignedintegers. This paper presents, in detail, the application of the information bottleneck method to polarcodes, where the framework is used to compress the virtual bit channels defined in the code structureand show that the benefits are twofold. On the one hand, the compression restricts the outputalphabet of the bit channels to a manageable size. This facilitates computing the capacities of the bitchannels in order to identify the ones with larger capacities. On the other hand, the intermediatesteps of the compression process can be used to replace the log-likelihood ratio computations inthe decoder with table lookups of unsigned integers. Hence, a single procedure produces a polarencoder as well as its tailored, quantized decoder. Moreover, we also use a technique called messagealignment to reduce the space complexity of the quantized decoder obtained using the informationbottleneck framework.

Description: The scheduling problems in mass production, manufacturing, assembly, synthesis, and transportation, as well as internet services, can partly be attributed to a hybrid flow-shop scheduling problem (HFSP). To solve the problem, a reinforcement learning (RL) method for HFSP is studied for the first time in this paper. HFSP is described and attributed to the Markov Decision Processes (MDP), for which the special states, actions, and reward function are designed. On this basis, the MDP framework is established. The Boltzmann exploration policy is adopted to trade-off the exploration and exploitation during choosing action in RL. Compared with the first-come-first-serve strategy that is frequently adopted when coding in most of the traditional intelligent algorithms, the rule in the RL method is first-come-first-choice, which is more conducive to achieving the global optimal solution. For validation, the RL method is utilized for scheduling in a metal processing workshop of an automobile engine factory. Then, the method is applied to the sortie scheduling of carrier aircraft in continuous dispatch. The results demonstrate that the machining and support scheduling obtained by this RL method are reasonable in result quality, real-time performance and complexity, indicating that this RL method is practical for HFSP.

Description: The objective of the cell suppression problem (CSP) is to protect sensitive cell values in tabular data under the presence of linear relations concerning marginal sums. Previous algorithms for solving CSPs ensure that every sensitive cell has enough uncertainty on its values based on the interval width of all possible values. However, we find that every deterministic CSP algorithm is vulnerable to an adversary who possesses the knowledge of that algorithm. We devise a matching attack scheme that narrows down the ranges of sensitive cell values by matching the suppression pattern of an original table with that of each candidate table. Our experiments show that actual ranges of sensitive cell values are significantly narrower than those assumed by the previous CSP algorithms.

Description: To overcome the shortcomings of the lightning attachment procedure optimization (LAPO) algorithm, such as premature convergence and slow convergence speed, an enhanced lightning attachment procedure optimization (ELAPO) algorithm was proposed in this paper. In the downward leader movement, the idea of differential evolution was introduced to speed up population convergence; in the upward leader movement, by superimposing vectors pointing to the average individual, the individual updating mode was modified to change the direction of individual evolution, avoid falling into local optimum, and carry out a more fine local information search; in the performance enhancement stage, opposition-based learning (OBL) was used to replace the worst individuals, improve the convergence rate of population, and increase the global exploration capability. Finally, 16 typical benchmark functions in CEC2005 are used to carry out simulation experiments with LAPO algorithm, four improved algorithms, and ELAPO. Experimental results showed that ELAPO obtained the better convergence velocity and optimization accuracy.

Description: This paper presents a quantum-behaved neurodynamic swarm optimization approach to solve the nonconvex optimization problems with inequality constraints. Firstly, the general constrained optimization problem is addressed and a high-performance feedback neural network for solving convex nonlinear programming problems is introduced. The convergence of the proposed neural network is also proved. Then, combined with the quantum-behaved particle swarm method, a quantum-behaved neurodynamic swarm optimization (QNSO) approach is presented. Finally, the performance of the proposed QNSO algorithm is evaluated through two function tests and three applications including the hollow transmission shaft, heat exchangers and crank–rocker mechanism. Numerical simulations are also provided to verify the advantages of our method.

Description: Recent work showed that there is a significant difference between the statistics of amino acid triplets and quadruplets in sequences of folded proteins and randomly generated sequences. These statistics were used to assign a score to each sequence and make a prediction whether a sequence is likely to fold. The present paper extends the statistics to higher multiplets and suggests a way to handle the treatment of multiplets that were not found in the set of folded proteins. In particular, foldability predictions were done along the line of the previous work using pentuplet statistics and a way was found to combine the quadruplet and pentuplets statistics to improve the foldability predictions. A different, simpler, score was defined for hextuplets and heptuplets and were used to predict the direction of stability change of a protein upon mutation. With the best score combination the accuracy of the prediction was 73.4%.

Description: The characteristic of the satellite repeat shift time can reflect the status of the satellite operation, and is also one of the key factors of the sidereal filtering multipath correction. Although some methods have been developed to calculate the repeat shift time, few efforts have been made to analyze and compare the performance of this feature for the GPS (Global Positioning System), BDS (BeiDou System), and Galileo in depth. Hence, three methods used for calculating the repeat shift time are presented, and used to compare and analyze the three global systems in depth, named the broadcast ephemeris method (BEM), correlation coefficient method (CCM), and aspect repeat time method (ARTM). The experiment results show that the repeat shift time of each satellite is different. Also, the difference between the maximum and minimum varies from different systems. The maximum difference is about 25 s for the BDS IGSO (Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit) and the minimum is merely 10 s for the GPS system. Furthermore, for the same satellite, the shift time calculated by the three methods is almost identical, and the maximum difference is only about 7 s between the CCM and the ARTM method for the BDS MEO (Medium Earth Orbit) satellite. Although the repeat shift time is different daily for the same satellite and the same method, the changes are very small. Moreover, in terms of the STD (Standard Deviation) of the BS (between satellites) and MS (mean shift for the same satellite), the GPS system is the best, the performance of the BDS system is medium, and the Galileo performs slightly worse than the GPS and BDS.

Description: In the vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and delivery (VRPSPD), customers demanding both delivery and pickup operations have to be visited once by a single vehicle. In this work, we propose a fast randomized algorithm using a nearest neighbor strategy to tackle an extension of the VRPSPD in which the fleet of vehicles is heterogeneous. This variant is an NP-hard problem, which in practice makes it impossible to be solved to proven optimality for large instances. To evaluate the proposal, we use benchmark instances from the literature and compare our results to those obtained by a state-of-the-art algorithm. Our approach presents very competitive results, not only improving several of the known solutions, but also running in a shorter time.

Description: Fractional differential problems are widely used in applied sciences. For this reason, there is a great interest in the construction of efficient numerical methods to approximate their solution. The aim of this paper is to describe in detail a collocation method suitable to approximate the solution of dynamical systems with time derivative of fractional order. We will highlight all the steps necessary to implement the corresponding algorithm and we will use it to solve some test problems. Two Mathematica Notebooks that can be used to solve these test problems are provided.

Description: In the multi-variety and small-quantity manufacturing environment, changeover operation occurs frequently, and cooperative changeover method is often used as a way to shorten the changeover time and balance the workload. However, more workers and tasks will be affected by cooperative changeover. As such, the effectiveness of the cooperative changeover is dependent on other factors, such as the scope of cooperation and the proportion of newly introduced products. For this reason, this paper proposes a hybrid modeling method to support the simulation study of the production team's cooperative changeover strategies under various environments. Firstly, a hybrid simulation modeling method consisting of multi-agent systems and discrete events is introduced. Secondly, according to the scope of cooperation, this paper puts forward four kinds of cooperative changeover strategies. This paper also describes the cooperative line-changing behavior of operators. Finally, based on the changeover strategies, the proposed simulation method is applied to a production cell. Four production scenarios are considered according to the proportion of newly introduced part. The performance of various cooperative strategies in different production scenarios is simulated, and the statistical test results show that the optimal or satisfactory strategy can be determined in each production scenario. Additionally, the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed modeling method are verified.

Description: We present a mapping between rooted tree decompositions and node separator based multilevel graph partitions. Significant research into both tree decompositions and graph partitions exists. We hope that our result allows for an easier knowledge transfer between the two research avenues.

Description: Generated and collected data have been rising with the popularization of technologies such as Internet of Things, social media, and smartphone, leading big data term creation. One class of big data hidden information is causality. Among the tools to infer causal relationships, there is Delay Transfer Entropy (DTE); however, it has a high demanding processing power. Many approaches were proposed to overcome DTE performance issues such as GPU and FPGA implementations. Our study compared different parallel strategies to calculate DTE from big data series using a heterogeneous Beowulf cluster. Task Parallelism was significantly faster in comparison to Data Parallelism. With big data trend in sight, these results may enable bigger datasets analysis or better statistical evidence.

Description: Adaptive algorithms with differential step-sizes (related to the filter coefficients) are well known in the literature, most frequently as “proportionate” algorithms. Usually, they are derived on a heuristic basis. In this paper, we introduce an algorithm resulting from an optimization criterion. Thereby, we obtain a benchmark algorithm and also another version with lower computational complexity, which is rigorously valid for less correlated input signals. Simulation results confirm the theory and outline the performance of the algorithms. Unfortunately, the good performance is obtained by an important increase in computational complexity. Nevertheless, the proposed algorithms could represent useful benchmarks in the field.

Description: The dense optical flow estimation under occlusion is a challenging task. Occlusion may result in ambiguity in optical flow estimation, while accurate occlusion detection can reduce the error. In this paper, we propose a robust optical flow estimation algorithm with reliable occlusion detection. Firstly, the occlusion areas in successive video frames are detected by integrating various information from multiple sources including feature matching, motion edges, warped images and occlusion consistency. Then optimization function with occlusion coefficient and selective region smoothing are used to obtain the optical flow estimation of the non-occlusion areas and occlusion areas respectively. Experimental results show that the algorithm proposed in this paper is an effective algorithm for dense optical flow estimation.

Description: Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) has been a hot topic among researchers for the last 30 years. It is a new imaging method and has evolved over the last few decades. By injecting a small amount of current, the electrical properties of tissues are determined and measurements of the resulting voltages are taken. By using a reconstructing algorithm these voltages then transformed into a tomographic image. EIT contains no identified threats and as compared to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scans (imaging techniques), it is cheaper in cost as well. In this paper, a comprehensive review of efforts and advancements undertaken and achieved in recent work to improve this technology and the role of artificial intelligence to solve this non-linear, ill-posed problem are presented. In addition, a review of EIT clinical based applications has also been presented.

Description: Epilepsy is one of the three most prevalent neurological disorders. A significant proportion of patients suffering from epilepsy can be effectively treated if their seizures are detected in a timely manner. However, detection of most seizures requires the attention of trained neurologists—a scarce resource. Therefore, there is a need for an automatic seizure detection capability. A tunable non-patient-specific, non-seizure-specific method is proposed to detect the presence and locality of a seizure using electroencephalography (EEG) signals. This multifaceted computational approach is based on a network model of the brain and a distance metric based on the spectral profiles of EEG signals. This computationally time-efficient and cost-effective automated epileptic seizure detection algorithm has a median latency of 8 s, a median sensitivity of 83%, and a median false alarm rate of 2.9%. Hence, it is capable of being used in portable EEG devices to aid in the process of detecting and monitoring epileptic patients.

Description: Finding the size of the dictionary is an open issue in dictionary learning (DL). We propose an algorithm that adapts the size during the learning process by using Information Theoretic Criteria (ITC) specialized to the DL problem. The algorithm is built on top of Approximate K-SVD (AK-SVD) and periodically removes the less used atoms or adds new random atoms, based on ITC evaluations for a small number of candidate sub-dictionaries. Numerical experiments on synthetic data show that our algorithm not only finds the true size with very good accuracy, but is also able to improve the representation error in comparison with AK-SVD knowing the true size.

Description: With the rapid expansion of applied 3D computational vision, shape descriptors have become increasingly important for a wide variety of applications and objects from molecules to planets. Appropriate shape descriptors are critical for accurate (and efficient) shape retrieval and 3D model classification. Several spectral-based shape descriptors have been introduced by solving various physical equations over a 3D surface model. In this paper, for the first time, we incorporate a specific manifold learning technique, introduced in statistics and machine learning, to develop a global, spectral-based shape descriptor in the computer graphics domain. The proposed descriptor utilizes the Laplacian Eigenmap technique in which the Laplacian eigenvalue problem is discretized using an exponential weighting scheme. As a result, our descriptor eliminates the limitations tied to the existing spectral descriptors, namely dependency on triangular mesh representation and high intra-class quality of 3D models. We also present a straightforward normalization method to obtain a scale-invariant and noise-resistant descriptor. The extensive experiments performed in this study using two standard 3D shape benchmarks—high-resolution TOSCA and McGill datasets—demonstrate that the present contribution provides a highly discriminative and robust shape descriptor under the presence of a high level of noise, random scale variations, and low sampling rate, in addition to the known isometric-invariance property of the Laplace–Beltrami operator. The proposed method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art spectral descriptors in shape retrieval and classification. The proposed descriptor is limited to closed manifolds due to its inherited inability to accurately handle manifolds with boundaries.

Description: A simple and fast k-medoids algorithm that updates medoids by minimizing the total distance within clusters has been developed. Although it is simple and fast, as its name suggests, it nonetheless has neglected local optima and empty clusters that may arise. With the distance as an input to the algorithm, a generalized distance function is developed to increase the variation of the distances, especially for a mixed variable dataset. The variation of the distances is a crucial part of a partitioning algorithm due to different distances producing different outcomes. The experimental results of the simple k-medoids algorithm produce consistently good performances in various settings of mixed variable data. It also has a high cluster accuracy compared to other distance-based partitioning algorithms for mixed variable data.

Description: In the current paper, an iterative algorithm is developed to simulate the problem of two-phase flow with heat transfer in porous media. The convective body force caused by heat transfer is described by Boussinesq approximation throughout with the governing equations, namely, pressure, saturation, and energy. The two coupled equations of pressure and saturation are solved using the implicit pressure-explicit saturation (IMPES) scheme, while the energy equation is treated implicitly, and the scheme is called iterative implicit pressure, explicit saturation, implicit temperature (I-IMPES-IMT). In order to calculate the pressure implicitly, the equations of pressure and saturation are coupled by linearizing the capillary pressure which is a function of saturation. After that, the equation of saturation is solved explicitly. Then, the velocity is computed which is used in the energy equation to calculate the temperature implicitly. The cell-centered finite difference (CCFD) method is utilized for spatial discretization. Furthermore, a relaxation factor along is used with the Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy (CFL) condition. Finally, in order to illustrate the efficiency of the developed algorithm, error estimates for saturation and temperature for different values of time steps and number of iterations are presented. Moreover, numerical examples of different physical scenarios of heterogamous media are presented.

Description: The widely known generators of Poisson random variables are associated with different modifications of the algorithm based on the convergence in probability of a sequence of uniform random variables to the created stochastic number. However, in some situations, this approach yields different discrete Poisson probability distributions and skipping in the generated numbers. This article offers a new approach for creating Poisson random variables based on the complete twister generator of uniform random variables, using cumulative frequency technology. The simulation results confirm that probabilistic and frequency distributions of the obtained stochastic numbers completely coincide with the theoretical Poisson distribution. Moreover, combining this new approach with the tuning algorithm of basic twister generation allows for a significant increase in length of the created sequences without using additional RAM of the computer.

Description: The interpretation of Myocardial Infarction (MI) via electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is a challenging task. ECG signals’ morphological view show significant variation in different patients under different physical conditions. Several learning algorithms have been studied to interpret MI. However, the drawback of machine learning is the use of heuristic features with shallow feature learning architectures. To overcome this problem, a deep learning approach is used for learning features automatically, without conventional handcrafted features. This paper presents sequence modeling based on deep learning with recurrent network for ECG-rhythm signal classification. The recurrent network architecture such as a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) is proposed to automatically interpret MI via ECG signal. The performance of the proposed method is compared to the other recurrent network classifiers such as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU). The objective is to obtain the best sequence model for ECG signal processing. This paper also aims to study a proper data partitioning ratio for the training and testing sets of imbalanced data. The large imbalanced data are obtained from MI and healthy control of PhysioNet: The PTB Diagnostic ECG Database 15-lead ECG signals. According to the comparison result, the LSTM architecture shows better performance than standard RNN and GRU architecture with identical hyper-parameters. The LSTM architecture also shows better classification compared to standard recurrent networks and GRU with sensitivity, specificity, precision, F1-score, BACC, and MCC is 98.49%, 97.97%, 95.67%, 96.32%, 97.56%, and 95.32%, respectively. Apparently, deep learning with the LSTM technique is a potential method for classifying sequential data that implements time steps in the ECG signal.

Description: This paper assumes that multiple device-to-device (D2D) users can reuse the same uplink channel and base station (BS) supplies power to D2D transmitters by means of wireless energy transmission; the optimization problem aims at maximizing the total capacity of D2D users, and proposes a power control and channel allocation algorithm for the energy harvesting D2D communications underlaying the cellular network. This algorithm firstly uses a heuristic dynamic clustering method to cluster D2D users and those in the same cluster can share the same channel. Then, D2D users in the same cluster are modeled as a non-cooperative game, the expressions of D2D users’ transmission power and energy harvesting time are derived by using the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) condition, and the optimal transmission power and energy harvesting time are allocated to D2D users by the joint iteration optimization method. Finally, we use the Kuhn–Munkres (KM) algorithm to achieve the optimal matching between D2D clusters and cellular channel to maximize the total capacity of D2D users. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively improve the system performance.

Description: During the last few decades, machine learning has constituted a significant tool in extracting useful knowledge from economic data for assisting decision-making. In this work, we evaluate the performance of weight-constrained recurrent neural networks in forecasting economic classification problems. These networks are efficiently trained with a recently-proposed training algorithm, which has two major advantages. Firstly, it exploits the numerical efficiency and very low memory requirements of the limited memory BFGS matrices; secondly, it utilizes a gradient-projection strategy for handling the bounds on the weights. The reported numerical experiments present the classification accuracy of the proposed model, providing empirical evidence that the application of the bounds on the weights of the recurrent neural network provides more stable and reliable learning.

Description: Advancing the background-subtraction method in dynamic scenes is an ongoing timely goal for many researchers. Recently, background subtraction methods have been developed with deep convolutional features, which have improved their performance. However, most of these deep methods are supervised, only available for a certain scene, and have high computational cost. In contrast, the traditional background subtraction methods have low computational costs and can be applied to general scenes. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an unsupervised and concise method based on the features learned from a deep convolutional neural network to refine the traditional background subtraction methods. For the proposed method, the low-level features of an input image are extracted from the lower layer of a pretrained convolutional neural network, and the main features are retained to further establish the dynamic background model. The evaluation of the experiments on dynamic scenes demonstrates that the proposed method significantly improves the performance of traditional background subtraction methods.

Description: The issue of whether or not money affects real economic activity (money neutrality) has attracted significant empirical attention over the last five decades. If money is neutral even in the short-run, then monetary policy is ineffective and its role limited. If money matters, it will be able to forecast real economic activity. In this study, we test the traditional simple sum monetary aggregates that are commonly used by central banks all over the world and also the theoretically correct Divisia monetary aggregates proposed by the Barnett Critique (Chrystal and MacDonald, 1994; Belongia and Ireland, 2014), both in three levels of aggregation: M1, M2, and M3. We use them to directionally forecast the Eurocoin index: A monthly index that measures the growth rate of the euro area GDP. The data span from January 2001 to June 2018. The forecasting methodology we employ is support vector machines (SVM) from the area of machine learning. The empirical results show that: (a) The Divisia monetary aggregates outperform the simple sum ones and (b) both monetary aggregates can directionally forecast the Eurocoin index reaching the highest accuracy of 82.05% providing evidence against money neutrality even in the short term.

Description: Drum water level systems show strong disturbance, big inertia, large time delay, and non-linearity characteristics. In order to improve the antidisturbance performance and robustness of the traditional active disturbance rejection controller (ADRC), an improved linear active disturbance rejection controller (ILADRC) for drum water level is designed. On the basis of the linear active disturbance rejection controller (LADRC) structure, an identical linear extended state observer (ESO) is added with the same parameters as that of the original one. The estimation error value of the total disturbance is introduced, and the estimation error of the total disturbance is compensated, which can improve the control system’s ability to suppress unknown disturbances, so as to improve the antidisturbance performance and robustness. The antijamming performance and robustness of LADRC and ILADRC for drum water level are simulated and analyzed under the influence of external disturbance and model parameter variation. Results show that the proposed control system ILADRC has shorter settling time, smaller overshot, and strong anti-interference ability and robustness. It has better performance than the LADRC and has certain application value in engineering.

Description: The ℓ 1 relaxations of the sparse and cosparse representation problems which appear in the dictionary learning procedure are usually solved repeatedly (varying only the parameter vector), thus making them well-suited to a multi-parametric interpretation. The associated constrained optimization problems differ only through an affine term from one iteration to the next (i.e., the problem’s structure remains the same while only the current vector, which is to be (co)sparsely represented, changes). We exploit this fact by providing an explicit, piecewise affine with a polyhedral support, representation of the solution. Consequently, at runtime, the optimal solution (the (co)sparse representation) is obtained through a simple enumeration throughout the non-overlapping regions of the polyhedral partition and the application of an affine law. We show that, for a suitably large number of parameter instances, the explicit approach outperforms the classical implementation.

Description: Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved great success in image processing. However, the heavy computational burden it imposes makes it difficult for use in embedded applications that have limited power consumption and performance. Although there are many fast convolution algorithms that can reduce the computational complexity, they increase the difficulty of practical implementation. To overcome these difficulties, this paper proposes several convolution accelerator designs using fast algorithms. The designs are based on the field programmable gate array (FPGA) and display a better balance between the digital signal processor (DSP) and the logic resource, while also requiring lower power consumption. The implementation results show that the power consumption of the accelerator design based on the Strassen–Winograd algorithm is 21.3% less than that of conventional accelerators.

Description: This paper investigates a real-world distribution problem arising in the vehicle production industry, particularly in a logistics company, in which cars and vans must be loaded on auto-carriers and then delivered to dealerships. A solution to the problem involves the loading and optimal routing, without violating the capacity and time window constraints for each auto-carrier. A two-phase heuristic algorithm was implemented to solve the problem. In the first phase the heuristic builds a route with an optimal insertion procedure, and in the second phase the determination of a feasible loading. The experimental results show that the purposed algorithm can be used to tackle the transportation problem in terms of minimizing total traveling distance, loading/unloading operations and transportation costs, facilitating a decision-making process for the logistics company.

Description: The authors wish to make the following corrections to their paper. [...]

Description: Copper wire is a major conduction material that carries a variety of signals in industry. Presently, automatic wire elongating machines to produce very thin wiresare available for manufacturing. However, the original wires for the elongating process to thin sizes need heating, drawing and then threadingthrough the die molds by the manpower before the machine starts to work. This procedure repeatsuntil the wire threads through all various die molds. To replace the manpower, this paper aims to develop an automatic wire die molds threading system for the wire elongation process. Three pneumatic grippers are designed in the proposed system. The first gripper is used to clamp the wire. The second gripper fixed in the rotating mechanism is to draw the heated wire. The third gripper is used to move the wire for threading through the dies mold. The force designed for drawing the wire can be adjusted via the gear ratio. The experimental results confirm that the proposed system can accomplish the wiredies mold threading processin term of robustness, rapidness and accuracy.

Description: This paper presents a new algorithm based on the theory of mutual information and information geometry. This algorithm places emphasis on adaptive mutual information estimation and maximum likelihood estimation. With the theory of information geometry, we adjust the mutual information along the geodesic line. Finally, we evaluate our proposal using empirical datasets that are dedicated for classification and regression. The results show that our algorithm contributes to a significant improvement over existing methods.

Description: This paper deals with an approximation of a first derivative of a signal using a dynamic system of the first order. After formulating the problem, a proposition and a theorem are proven for a possible approximation structure, which consists of a dynamic system. In particular, a proposition based on a Lyapunov approach is proven to show the convergence of the approximation. The proven theorem is a constructive one and shows directly the suboptimality condition in the presence of noise. Based on these two results, an adaptive algorithm is conceived to calculate the derivative of a signal with convergence in infinite time. Results are compared with an approximation of the derivative using an adaptive Kalman filter (KF).

Description: In this paper, we propose a variable block insertion heuristic (VBIH) algorithm to solve the permutation flow shop scheduling problem (PFSP). The VBIH algorithm removes a block of jobs from the current solution. It applies an insertion local search to the partial solution. Then, it inserts the block into all possible positions in the partial solution sequentially. It chooses the best one amongst those solutions from block insertion moves. Finally, again an insertion local search is applied to the complete solution. If the new solution obtained is better than the current solution, it replaces the current solution with the new one. As long as it improves, it retains the same block size. Otherwise, the block size is incremented by one and a simulated annealing-based acceptance criterion is employed to accept the new solution in order to escape from local minima. This process is repeated until the block size reaches its maximum size. To verify the computational results, mixed integer programming (MIP) and constraint programming (CP) models are developed and solved using very recent small VRF benchmark suite. Optimal solutions are found for 108 out of 240 instances. Extensive computational results on the VRF large benchmark suite show that the proposed algorithm outperforms two variants of the iterated greedy algorithm. 236 out of 240 instances of large VRF benchmark suite are further improved for the first time in this paper. Ultimately, we run Taillard’s benchmark suite and compare the algorithms. In addition to the above, three instances of Taillard’s benchmark suite are also further improved for the first time in this paper since 1993.

Description: Domain adaptation is a sub-field of transfer learning that aims at bridging the dissimilarity gap between different domains by transferring and re-using the knowledge obtained in the source domain to the target domain. Many methods have been proposed to resolve this problem, using techniques such as generative adversarial networks (GAN), but the complexity of such methods makes it hard to use them in different problems, as fine-tuning such networks is usually a time-consuming task. In this paper, we propose a method for unsupervised domain adaptation that is both simple and effective. Our model (referred to as TripNet) harnesses the idea of a discriminator and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) to push the encoder to generate domain-invariant features that are category-informative. At the same time, pseudo-labelling is used for the target data to train the classifier and to bring the same classes from both domains together. We evaluate TripNet against several existing, state-of-the-art methods on three image classification tasks: Digit classification (MNIST, SVHN, and USPC datasets), object recognition (Office31 dataset), and traffic sign recognition (GTSRB and Synthetic Signs datasets). Our experimental results demonstrate that (i) TripNet beats almost all existing methods (having a similar simple model like it) on all of these tasks; and (ii) for models that are significantly more complex (or hard to train) than TripNet, it even beats their performance in some cases. Hence, the results confirm the effectiveness of using TripNet for unsupervised domain adaptation in image classification.

Description: Background subtraction plays a fundamental role for anomaly detection in video surveillance, which is able to tell where moving objects are in the video scene. Regrettably, the regular rotating pumping unit is treated as an abnormal object by the background-subtraction method in pumping-unit surveillance. As an excellent classifier, a deep convolutional neural network is able to tell what those objects are. Therefore, we combined background subtraction and a convolutional neural network to perform anomaly detection for pumping-unit surveillance. In the proposed method, background subtraction was applied to first extract moving objects. Then, a clustering method was adopted for extracting different object types that had more movement-foreground objects but fewer typical targets. Finally, nonpumping unit objects were identified as abnormal objects by the trained classification network. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can detect abnormal objects in a pumping-unit scene with high accuracy.

Description: After the teaching–learning-based optimization (TLBO) algorithm was proposed, many improved algorithms have been presented in recent years, which simulate the teaching–learning phenomenon of a classroom to effectively solve global optimization problems. In this paper, a cyclical non-linear inertia-weighted teaching–learning-based optimization (CNIWTLBO) algorithm is presented. This algorithm introduces a cyclical non-linear inertia weighted factor into the basic TLBO to control the memory rate of learners, and uses a non-linear mutation factor to control the learner’s mutation randomly during the learning process. In order to prove the significant performance of the proposed algorithm, it is tested on some classical benchmark functions and the comparison results are provided against the basic TLBO, some variants of TLBO and some other well-known optimization algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has better global search ability and higher search accuracy than the basic TLBO, some variants of TLBO and some other algorithms as well, and can escape from the local minimum easily, while keeping a faster convergence rate.

Description: Transfer learning aims for high accuracy by applying knowledge of source domains for which data collection is easy in order to target domains where data collection is difficult, and has attracted attention in recent years because of its significant potential to enable the application of machine learning to a wide range of real-world problems. However, since the technique is user-dependent, with data prepared as a source domain which in turn becomes a knowledge source for transfer learning, it often involves the adoption of inappropriate data. In such cases, the accuracy may be reduced due to “negative transfer.” Thus, in this paper, we propose a novel transfer learning method that utilizes the flipping output technique to provide multiple labels in the source domain. The accuracy of the proposed method is statistically demonstrated to be significantly better than that of the conventional transfer learning method, and its effect size is as high as 0.9, showing high performance.

Description: Coloring is one of the most famous problems in graph theory. The coloring problem on undirected graphs has been well studied, whereas there are very few results for coloring problems on directed graphs. An oriented k-coloring of an oriented graph G = ( V , A ) is a partition of the vertex set V into k independent sets such that all the arcs linking two of these subsets have the same direction. The oriented chromatic number of an oriented graph G is the smallest k such that G allows an oriented k-coloring. Deciding whether an acyclic digraph allows an oriented 4-coloring is NP-hard. It follows that finding the chromatic number of an oriented graph is an NP-hard problem, too. This motivates to consider the problem on oriented co-graphs. After giving several characterizations for this graph class, we show a linear time algorithm which computes an optimal oriented coloring for an oriented co-graph. We further prove how the oriented chromatic number can be computed for the disjoint union and order composition from the oriented chromatic number of the involved oriented co-graphs. It turns out that within oriented co-graphs the oriented chromatic number is equal to the length of a longest oriented path plus one. We also show that the graph isomorphism problem on oriented co-graphs can be solved in linear time.

Description: The grounding grid of a substation is important for the safety of substation equipment. Especially to address the difficulty of parameter design in the auxiliary anode system of a grounding grid, an algorithm is proposed that is an optimization algorithm for the auxiliary anode system of a grounding grid based on improved simulated annealing. The mathematical model of the auxiliary anode system is inferred from the mathematical model of cathodic protection. On that basis, the parameters of the finite element model are optimized with the improved simulated annealing algorithm, thereby the auxiliary anode system of a grounding grid with optimized parameters is structured. Then the algorithm is proven as valid through experiments. The precision of the optimized parameters is improved by about 1.55% with respect to the Variable Metric Method and the Genetic Algorithm, so it can provide a basis for parameter design in the auxiliary anode system of a grounding grid.

Description: Current state-of-the-art medical deformable image registration (DIR) methods optimize a weighted sum of key objectives of interest. Having a pre-determined weight combination that leads to high-quality results for any instance of a specific DIR problem (i.e., a class solution) would facilitate clinical application of DIR. However, such a combination can vary widely for each instance and is currently often manually determined. A multi-objective optimization approach for DIR removes the need for manual tuning, providing a set of high-quality trade-off solutions. Here, we investigate machine learning for a multi-objective class solution, i.e., not a single weight combination, but a set thereof, that, when used on any instance of a specific DIR problem, approximates such a set of trade-off solutions. To this end, we employed a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to learn sets of weight combinations for three breast DIR problems of increasing difficulty: 10 prone-prone cases, 4 prone-supine cases with limited deformations and 6 prone-supine cases with larger deformations and image artefacts. Clinically-acceptable results were obtained for the first two problems. Therefore, for DIR problems with limited deformations, a multi-objective class solution can be machine learned and used to compute straightforwardly multiple high-quality DIR outcomes, potentially leading to more efficient use of DIR in clinical practice.

Description: Superbubbles are a class of induced subgraphs in digraphs that play an essential role in assembly algorithms for high-throughput sequencing data. They are connected with the remainder of the host digraph by a single entrance and a single exit vertex. Linear-time algorithms for the enumeration superbubbles recently have become available. Current approaches require the decomposition of the input digraph into strongly-connected components, which are then analyzed separately. In principle, a single depth-first search could be used, provided one can guarantee that the root of the depth-first search (DFS)-tree is not itself located in the interior or the exit point of a superbubble. Here, we describe a linear-time algorithm to determine suitable roots for a DFS-forest that is guaranteed to identify the superbubbles in a digraph correctly. In addition to the advantages of a more straightforward implementation, we observe a nearly three-fold gain in performance on real-world datasets. We present a reference implementation of the new algorithm that accepts many commonly-used input formats for digraphs. It is available as open source from github.

Description: This article describes an optimization methodology based on a model of competitiveness between different metaheuristic methods. The main contribution is a strategy to dynamically find the algorithm that obtains the best result based on the competitiveness of methods to solve a specific problem using different performance metrics depending on the problem. The algorithms used in the preliminary tests are: the firefly algorithm (FA), which is inspired by blinking fireflies; wind-driven optimization (WDO), which is inspired by the movement of the wind in the atmosphere, and in which the positions and velocities of the wind packages are updated; and finally, drone squadron optimization (DSO)—the inspiration for this method is new and interesting—based on artifacts, where drones have a command center that sends information to individual drones and updates their software to optimize the objective function. The proposed model helps discover the best method to solve a specific problem, and also reduces the time that it takes to search for methods before finding the one that obtains the most satisfactory results. The main idea is that with this competitiveness approach, methods are tested at the same time until the best one to solve the problem in question is found. As preliminary tests of the model, the optimization of the benchmark mathematical functions and membership functions of a fuzzy controller of an autonomous mobile robot was used.

Description: A multi-track string is a tuple of strings of the same length. Given the pattern and text of two multi-track strings, the permuted pattern matching problem is to find the occurrence positions of all permutations of the pattern in the text. In this paper, we propose several algorithms for permuted pattern matching. Our first algorithm, which is based on the Knuth–Morris–Pratt (KMP) algorithm, has a fast theoretical computing time with O ( m k ) as the preprocessing time and O ( n k log σ ) as the matching time, where n, m, k, σ , and denote the length of the text, the length of the pattern, the number of strings in the multi-track, the alphabet size, and the number of occurrences of the pattern, respectively. We then improve the KMP-based algorithm by using an automaton, which has a better experimental running time. The next proposed algorithms are based on the Boyer–Moore algorithm and the Horspool algorithm that try to perform pattern matching. These algorithms are the fastest experimental algorithms. Furthermore, we propose an extension of the AC-automaton algorithm that can solve dictionary matching on multi-tracks, which is a task to find multiple multi-track patterns in a multi-track text. Finally, we propose filtering algorithms that can perform permuted pattern matching quickly in practice.

Description: The differential evolution (DE) algorithm is a popular and efficient evolutionary algorithm that can be used for single objective real-parameter optimization. Its performance is greatly affected by its parameters. Generally, parameter control strategies involve determining the most suitable value for the current state; there is only a little research on parameter combination and parameter distribution which is also useful for improving algorithm performance. This paper proposes an idea to use parameter region division and parameter strategy combination to flexibly adjust the parameter distribution. Based on the idea, a group-based two-level parameter combination framework is designed to support various modes of parameter combination, and enrich the parameter distribution characteristics. Under this framework, two customized parameter combination strategies are given for a single-operation DE algorithm and a multi-operation DE algorithm. The experiments verify the effectiveness of the two strategies and it also illustrates the meaning of the framework.

Description: Non-uniquely-decodable (non-UD) codes can be defined as the codes that cannot be uniquely decoded without additional disambiguation information. These are mainly the class of non–prefix–free codes, where a code-word can be a prefix of other(s), and thus, the code-word boundary information is essential for correct decoding. Due to their inherent unique decodability problem, such non-UD codes have not received much attention except a few studies, in which using compressed data structures to represent the disambiguation information efficiently had been previously proposed. It had been shown before that the compression ratio can get quite close to Huffman/Arithmetic codes with an additional capability of providing direct access in compressed data, which is a missing feature in the regular Huffman codes. In this study we investigate non-UD codes in another dimension addressing the privacy of the high-entropy data. We particularly focus on such massive volumes, where typical examples are encoded video or similar multimedia files. Representation of such a volume with non–UD coding creates two elements as the disambiguation information and the payload, where decoding the original data from these elements becomes hard when one of them is missing. We make use of this observation for privacy concerns. and study the space consumption as well as the hardness of that decoding. We conclude that non-uniquely-decodable codes can be an alternative to selective encryption schemes that aim to secure only part of the data when data is huge. We provide a freely available software implementation of the proposed scheme as well.

Description: During the last decades, intensive efforts have been devoted to the extraction of useful knowledge from large volumes of medical data employing advanced machine learning and data mining techniques. Advances in digital chest radiography have enabled research and medical centers to accumulate large repositories of classified (labeled) images and mostly of unclassified (unlabeled) images from human experts. Machine learning methods such as semi-supervised learning algorithms have been proposed as a new direction to address the problem of shortage of available labeled data, by exploiting the explicit classification information of labeled data with the information hidden in the unlabeled data. In the present work, we propose a new ensemble semi-supervised learning algorithm for the classification of lung abnormalities from chest X-rays based on a new weighted voting scheme. The proposed algorithm assigns a vector of weights on each component classifier of the ensemble based on its accuracy on each class. Our numerical experiments illustrate the efficiency of the proposed ensemble methodology against other state-of-the-art classification methods.

Description: The transportation of elderly and impaired people is commonly solved as a Dial-A-Ride Problem (DARP). The DARP aims to design pick-up and delivery vehicle routing schedules. Its main objective is to accommodate as many users as possible with a minimum operation cost. It adds realistic precedence and transit time constraints on the pairing of vehicles and customers. This paper tackles the DARP with time windows (DARPTW) from a new and innovative angle as it combines hybridization techniques with an adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic algorithm. The main objective is to improve the overall real-life performance of vehicle routing operations. Real-life data are refined and fed to a hybrid adaptive large neighborhood search (Hybrid-ALNS) algorithm which provides a near-optimal routing solution. The computational results on real-life instances, in the Canadian city of Vancouver and its region, and DARPTW benchmark instances show the potential improvements achieved by the proposed heuristic and its adaptability.

Description: Clustering is an important task in data mining that has become more challenging due to the ever-increasing size of available datasets. To cope with these big data scenarios, a high-performance clustering approach is required. Sparse grid clustering is a density-based clustering method that uses a sparse grid density estimation as its central building block. The underlying density estimation approach enables the detection of clusters with non-convex shapes and without a predetermined number of clusters. In this work, we introduce a new distributed and performance-portable variant of the sparse grid clustering algorithm that is suited for big data settings. Our computed kernels were implemented in OpenCL to enable portability across a wide range of architectures. For distributed environments, we added a manager–worker scheme that was implemented using MPI. In experiments on two supercomputers, Piz Daint and Hazel Hen, with up to 100 million data points in a ten-dimensional dataset, we show the performance and scalability of our approach. The dataset with 100 million data points was clustered in 1198 s using 128 nodes of Piz Daint. This translates to an overall performance of 352 TFLOPS . On the node-level, we provide results for two GPUs, Nvidia’s Tesla P100 and the AMD FirePro W8100, and one processor-based platform that uses Intel Xeon E5-2680v3 processors. In these experiments, we achieved between 43% and 66% of the peak performance across all computed kernels and devices, demonstrating the performance portability of our approach.

Description: Finetuning pre-trained deep neural networks (DNN) delicately designed for large-scale natural images may not be suitable for medical images due to the intrinsic difference between the datasets. We propose a strategy to modify DNNs, which improves their performance on retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) images. Deep features of pre-trained DNN are high-level features of natural images. These features harm the training of transfer learning. Our strategy is to remove some deep convolutional layers of the state-of-the-art pre-trained networks: GoogLeNet, ResNet and DenseNet. We try to find the optimized deep neural networks on small-scale and large-scale OCT datasets, respectively, in our experiments. Results show that optimized deep neural networks not only reduce computational burden, but also improve classification accuracy.

Description: This article focuses on the optimal gain selection for Proportional Integral (PI) controllers comprising a speed control scheme for the Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM). The gains calculation is performed by means of different algorithms inspired by nature, which allows improvement of the system performance in speed regulation tasks. For the tuning of the control parameters, five optimization algorithms are chosen: Bat Algorithm (BA), Biogeography-Based Optimization (BBO), Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CSA), Flower Pollination Algorithm (FPA) and Sine-Cosine Algorithm (SCA). Finally, for purposes of efficiency assessment, two reference speed profiles are introduced, where an acceptable PMSM performance is attained by using the proposed PI controllers tuned by nature inspired algorithms.

Description: Depth-first search (DFS) is a well-known graph traversal algorithm and can be performed in O ( n + m ) time for a graph with n vertices and m edges. We consider the dynamic DFS problem, that is, to maintain a DFS tree of an undirected graph G under the condition that edges and vertices are gradually inserted into or deleted from G. We present an algorithm for this problem, which takes worst-case O ( m n · polylog ( n ) ) time per update and requires only ( 3 m + o ( m ) ) log n bits of space. This algorithm reduces the space usage of dynamic DFS algorithm to only 1.5 times as much space as that of the adjacency list of the graph. We also show applications of our dynamic DFS algorithm to dynamic connectivity, biconnectivity, and 2-edge-connectivity problems under vertex insertions and deletions.

Description: A real-time conflict resolution algorithm based on model predictive control (MPC) is introduced to address the flight conflict resolution problem in multi-UAV scenarios. Using a low-level controller, the UAV dynamic equations are abstracted into simpler unicycle kinematic equations. The neighboring UAVs exchange their predicted trajectories at each sample time to predict the conflicts. Then, under the predesignated resolution rule and strategy, decentralized coordination and cooperation are performed to resolve the predicted conflicts. The controller structure of the distributed nonlinear model predictive control (DNMPC) is designed to predict potential conflicts and calculate control variables for each UAV. Numerical simulations of multi-UAV coordination are performed to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm. Results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can resolve the conflicts sufficiently in real time, while causing no further conflicts.

Description: Designing advanced health monitoring systems is still an active research topic. Wearable and remote monitoring devices enable monitoring of physiological and clinical parameters (heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, etc.) and analysis using cloud-centric machine-learning applications and decision-support systems to predict critical clinical states. This paper moves from a totally cloud-centric concept to a more distributed one, by transferring sensor data processing and analysis tasks to the edges of the network. The resulting solution enables the analysis and interpretation of sensor-data traces within the wearable device to provide actionable alerts without any dependence on cloud services. In this paper, we use a supervised-learning approach to detect heartbeats and classify arrhythmias. The system uses a window-based feature definition that is suitable for execution within an asymmetric multicore embedded processor that provides a dedicated core for hardware assisted pattern matching. We evaluate the performance of the system in comparison with various existing approaches, in terms of achieved accuracy in the detection of abnormal events. The results show that the proposed embedded system achieves a high detection rate that in some cases matches the accuracy of the state-of-the-art algorithms executed in standard processors.

Description: This paper presents the hardware implementation of a stand-alone Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) system employing a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The image reconstruction algorithms of the ECT system demand intensive computation and fast processing of large number of measurements. The inner product of large vectors is the core of the majority of these algorithms. Therefore, a reconfigurable segmented parallel inner product architecture for the parallel matrix multiplication is proposed. In addition, hardware-software codesign targeting FPGA System-On-Chip (SoC) is applied to achieve high performance. The development of the hardware-software codesign is carried out via commercial tools to adjust the software algorithms and parameters of the system. The ECT system is used in this work to monitor the characteristic of the molten metal in the Lost Foam Casting (LFC) process. The hardware system consists of capacitive sensors, wireless nodes and FPGA module. The experimental results reveal high stability and accuracy when building the ECT system based on the FPGA architecture. The proposed system achieves high performance in terms of speed and small design density.

Description: Most multi-target tracking filters assume that one target and its observation follow a Hidden Markov Chain (HMC) model, but the implicit independence assumption of the HMC model is invalid in many practical applications, and a Pairwise Markov Chain (PMC) model is more universally suitable than the traditional HMC model. A set of weighted particles is used to approximate the probability hypothesis density of multi-targets in the framework of the PMC model, and a particle probability hypothesis density filter based on the PMC model (PF-PMC-PHD) is proposed for the nonlinear multi-target tracking system. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the PF-PMC-PHD filter and that the tracking performance of the PF-PMC-PHD filter is superior to the particle PHD filter based on the HMC model in a scenario where we kept the local physical properties of nonlinear and Gaussian HMC models while relaxing their independence assumption.

Description: Marine transportation in Aegean Sea, a part of the Mediterranean Sea that serves as gateway between three continents has recently seen a significant increase. Despite the commercial benefits to the region, there are certain issues related to the preservation of the local ecosystem and safety. This danger is further deteriorated by the absence of regulations on allowed waterways. Marine accidents could cause a major ecological disaster in the area and pose big socio-economic impacts in Greece. Monitoring marine traffic data is of major importance and one of the primary goals of the current research. Real-time monitoring and alerting can be extremely useful to local authorities, companies, NGO’s and the public in general. Apart from real-time applications, the knowledge discovery from historical data is also significant. Towards this direction, a data analysis and simulation framework for maritime data has been designed and developed. The framework analyzes historical data about ships and area conditions, of varying time and space granularity, measures critical parameters that could influence the levels of hazard in certain regions and clusters such data according to their similarity. Upon this unsupervised step, the degree of hazard is estimated and along with other important parameters is fed into a special type of Bayesian network, in order to infer on future situations, thus, simulating future data based on past conditions. Another innovative aspect of this work is the modeling of shipping traffic as a social network, whose analysis could provide useful and informative visualizations. The use of such a system is particularly beneficial for multiple stakeholders, such as the port authorities, the ministry of Mercantile Marine, etc. mainly due to the fact that specific policy options can be evaluated and re-designed based on feedback from our framework.

Description: Machine translation is used in many applications in everyday life. Due to the increase of translated documents that need to be organized as useful or not (for building a translation model), the automated categorization of texts (classification), is a popular research field of machine learning. This kind of information can be quite helpful for machine translation. Our parallel corpora (English-Greek and English-Italian) are based on educational data, which are quite difficult to translate. We apply two state of the art architectures, Random Forest (RF) and Deeplearnig4j (DL4J), to our data (which constitute three translation outputs). To our knowledge, this is the first time that deep learning architectures are applied to the automatic selection of parallel data. We also propose new string-based features that seem to be effective for the classifier, and we investigate whether an attribute selection method could be used for better classification accuracy. Experimental results indicate an increase of up to 4% (compared to our previous work) using RF and rather satisfactory results using DL4J.

Description: Let k denote an integer greater than 2, let G denote a k-partite graph, and let S denote the set of all maximal k-partite cliques in G. Several open questions concerning the computation of S are resolved. A straightforward and highly-scalable modification to the classic recursive backtracking approach of Bron and Kerbosch is first described and shown to run in O(3n/3) time. A series of novel graph constructions is then used to prove that this bound is best possible in the sense that it matches an asymptotically tight upper limit on |S|. The task of identifying a vertex-maximum element of S is also considered and, in contrast with the k = 2 case, shown to be NP-hard for every k ≥ 3. A special class of k-partite graphs that arises in the context of functional genomics and other problem domains is studied as well and shown to be more readily solvable via a polynomial-time transformation to bipartite graphs. Applications, limitations, potentials for faster methods, heuristic approaches, and alternate formulations are also addressed.

Description: As an important angle sensor of the opto-electric platform, gyro output accuracy plays a vital role in the stabilization and track accuracy of the whole system. It is known that the generally used fixed-bandwidth filters, single neural network models, or linear models cannot compensate for gyro error well, and so they cannot meet engineering needs satisfactorily. In this paper, a novel hybrid ARIMA-Elman model is proposed. For the reason that it can fully combine the strong linear approximation capability of the ARIMA model and the superior nonlinear compensation capability of a neural network, the proposed model is suitable for handling gyro error, especially for its non-stationary random component. Then, to solve the problem that the parameters of ARIMA model and the initial weights of the Elman neural network are difficult to determine, a differential algorithm is initially utilized for parameter selection. Compared with other commonly used optimization algorithms (e.g., the traditional least-squares identification method and the genetic algorithm method), the intelligence differential algorithm can overcome the shortcomings of premature convergence and has higher optimization speed and accuracy. In addition, the drift error is obtained based on the technique of lift-wavelet separation and reconstruction, and, in order to weaken the randomness of the data sequence, an ashing operation and Jarque-Bear test have been added to the handle process. In this study, actual gyro data is collected and the experimental results show that the proposed method has higher compensation accuracy and faster network convergence, when compared with other commonly used error-compensation methods. Finally, the hybrid method is used to compensate for gyro error collected in other states. The test results illustrate that the proposed algorithm can effectively improve error compensation accuracy, and has good generalization performance.

Description: Rigorous peer-review is the corner-stone of high-quality academic publishing [...]

Description: This paper develops an automated algorithm to process input data for segmented string relative rankings (SSRRs). The purpose of the SSRR methodology is to create rankings of countries, companies, or any other units based on surveys of expert opinion. This is done without the use of grading systems, which can distort the results due to varying degrees of strictness among experts. However, the original SSRR approach relies on manual application, which is highly laborious and also carries a risk of human error. This paper seeks to solve this problem by further developing the SSRR approach by employing link analysis, which is based on network theory and is similar to the PageRank algorithm used by the Google search engine. The ranking data are treated as part of a linear, hierarchical network and each unit receives a score according to how many units are positioned below it in the network. This approach makes it possible to efficiently resolve contradictions among experts providing input for a ranking. A hypertext preprocessor (PHP) script for the algorithm is included in the article’s appendix. The proposed methodology is suitable for use across a range of social science disciplines, especially economics, sociology, and political science.

Description: Quality of service multicast routing is an important research topic in networks. Research has sought to obtain a multicast routing tree at the lowest cost that satisfies bandwidth, delay and delay jitter constraints. Due to its non-deterministic polynomial complete problem, many meta-heuristic algorithms have been adopted to solve this kind of problem. The paper presents a new hybrid algorithm, namely ACO&CM, to solve the problem. The primary innovative point is to combine the solution generation process of ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm with the Cloud model (CM). Moreover, within the framework structure of the ACO, we embed the cloud model in the ACO algorithm to enhance the performance of the ACO algorithm by adjusting the pheromone trail on the edges. Although a high pheromone trail intensity on some edges may trap into local optimum, the pheromone updating strategy based on the CM is used to search for high-quality areas. In order to avoid the possibility of loop formation, we devise a memory detection search (MDS) strategy, and integrate it into the path construction process. Finally, computational results demonstrate that the hybrid algorithm has advantages of an efficient and excellent performance for the solution quality.

Description: Nowadays, dynamic parameter adaptation has been shown to provide a significant improvement in several metaheuristic optimization methods, and one of the main ways to realize this dynamic adaptation is the implementation of Fuzzy Inference Systems. The main reason for this is because Fuzzy Inference Systems can be designed based on human knowledge, and this can provide an intelligent dynamic adaptation of parameters in metaheuristics. In addition, with the coming forth of Type-2 Fuzzy Logic, the capability of uncertainty handling offers an attractive improvement for dynamic parameter adaptation in metaheuristic methods, and, in fact, the use of Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Inference Systems (IT2 FIS) has been shown to provide better results with respect to Type-1 Fuzzy Inference Systems (T1 FIS) in recent works. Based on the performance improvement exhibited by IT2 FIS, the present paper aims to implement the Shadowed Type-2 Fuzzy Inference System (ST2 FIS) for further improvements in dynamic parameter adaptation in Harmony Search and Differential Evolution optimization methods. The ST2 FIS is an approximation of General Type-2 Fuzzy Inference Systems (GT2 FIS), and is based on the principles of Shadowed Fuzzy Sets. The main reason for using ST2 FIS and not GT2 FIS is because the computational cost of GT2 FIS represents a time limitation in this application. The paper presents a comparison of the conventional methods with static parameters and the dynamic parameter adaptation based on ST2 FIS, and the approaches are compared in solving mathematical functions and in controller optimization.

Description: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a complication of diabetes and is known as visual impairment, and is diagnosed in various ethnicities of the working-age population worldwide. Fundus angiography is a widely applicable modality used by ophthalmologists and computerized applications to detect DR-based clinical features such as microaneurysms (MAs), hemorrhages (HEMs), and exudates (EXs) for early screening of DR. Fundus images are usually acquired using funduscopic cameras in varied light conditions and angles. Therefore, these images are prone to non-uniform illumination, poor contrast, transmission error, low brightness, and noise problems. This paper presents a novel and real-time mechanism of fundus image enhancement used for early grading of diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, retinal neoplasms, and choroid disruptions. The proposed system is based on two folds: (i) An RGB fundus image is initially taken and converted into a color appearance module (called lightness and denoted as J) of the CIECAM02 color space model to obtain image information in grayscale with bright light. Afterwards, in step (ii), the achieved J component is processed using a nonlinear contrast enhancement approach to improve the textural and color features of the fundus image without any further extraction steps. To test and evaluate the strength of the proposed technique, several performance and quality parameters—namely peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), entropy (content information), histograms (intensity variation), and a structure similarity index measure (SSIM)—were applied to 1240 fundus images comprised of two publicly available datasets, DRIVE and MESSIDOR. It was determined from the experiments that the proposed enhancement procedure outperformed histogram-based approaches in terms of contrast, sharpness of fundus features, and brightness. This further revealed that it can be a suitable preprocessing tool for segmentation and classification of DR-related features algorithms.

Description: Software defect prediction is an important means to guarantee software quality. Because there are no sufficient historical data within a project to train the classifier, cross-project defect prediction (CPDP) has been recognized as a fundamental approach. However, traditional defect prediction methods use feature attributes to represent samples, which cannot avoid negative transferring, may result in poor performance model in CPDP. This paper proposes a multi-source cross-project defect prediction method based on dissimilarity space (DM-CPDP). This method not only retains the original information, but also obtains the relationship with other objects. So it can enhances the discriminant ability of the sample attributes to the class label. This method firstly uses the density-based clustering method to construct the prototype set with the cluster center of samples in the target set. Then, the arc-cosine kernel is used to calculate the sample dissimilarities between the prototype set and the source domain or the target set to form the dissimilarity space. In this space, the training set is obtained with the earth mover’s distance (EMD) method. For the unlabeled samples converted from the target set, the k-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) algorithm is used to label those samples. Finally, the model is learned from training data based on TrAdaBoost method and used to predict new potential defects. The experimental results show that this approach has better performance than other traditional CPDP methods.

Description: In this paper, a novel approach to facial expression recognition based on the discrete separable shearlet transform (DSST) and normalized mutual information feature selection is proposed. The approach can be divided into five steps. First, all test and training images are preprocessed. Second, DSST is applied to the preprocessed facial expression images, and all the transformation coefficients are obtained as the original feature set. Third, an improved normalized mutual information feature selection is proposed to find the optimal feature subset of the original feature set, thus we can retain the key classification information of the original data. Fourth, the feature extraction and selection of the feature space is reduced by employing linear discriminant analysis. Finally, a support vector machine is used to recognize the expressions. In this study, experimental verification was carried out on four open facial expression databases. The results show that this method can not only improve the recognition rate of facial expressions, but also significantly reduce the computational complexity and improve the system efficiency.

Description: This paper presents a comparison among the bee colony optimization (BCO), differential evolution (DE), and harmony search (HS) algorithms. In addition, for each algorithm, a type-1 fuzzy logic system (T1FLS) for the dynamic modification of the main parameters is presented. The dynamic adjustment in the main parameters for each algorithm with the implementation of fuzzy systems aims at enhancing the performance of the corresponding algorithms. Each algorithm (modified and original versions) is analyzed and compared based on the optimal design of fuzzy systems for benchmark control problems, especially in fuzzy controller design. Simulation results provide evidence that the FDE algorithm outperforms the results of the FBCO and FHS algorithms in the optimization of fuzzy controllers. Statistically is demonstrated that the better errors are found with the implementation of the fuzzy systems to enhance each proposed algorithm.

Description: This paper proposes total optimization of energy networks in a smart city by multi-population global-best modified brain storm optimization (MP-GMBSO). Efficient utilization of energy is necessary for reduction of CO2 emission, and smart city demonstration projects have been conducted around the world in order to reduce total energies and the amount of CO2 emission. The problem can be formulated as a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem and various evolutionary computation techniques such as particle swarm optimization (PSO), differential evolution (DE), Differential Evolutionary Particle Swarm Optimization (DEEPSO), Brain Storm Optimization (BSO), Modified BSO (MBSO), Global-best BSO (BSO), and Global-best Modified Brain Storm Optimization (GMBSO) have been applied to the problem. However, there is still room for improving solution quality. Multi-population based evolutionary computation methods have been verified to improve solution quality and the approach has a possibility for improving solution quality. The proposed MS-GMBSO utilizes only migration for multi-population models instead of abest, which is the best individual among all of sub-populations so far, and both migration and abest. Various multi-population models, migration topologies, migration policies, and the number of sub-populations are also investigated. It is verified that the proposed MP-GMBSO based method with ring topology, the W-B policy, and 320 individuals is the most effective among all of multi-population parameters.

Description: Pansharpening is a domain-specific task of satellite imagery processing, which aims at fusing a multispectral image with a corresponding panchromatic one to enhance the spatial resolution of multispectral image. Most existing traditional methods fuse multispectral and panchromatic images in linear manners, which greatly restrict the fusion accuracy. In this paper, we propose a highly efficient inference network to cope with pansharpening, which breaks the linear limitation of traditional methods. In the network, we adopt a dilated multilevel block coupled with a skip connection to perform local and overall compensation. By using dilated multilevel block, the proposed model can make full use of the extracted features and enlarge the receptive field without introducing extra computational burden. Experiment results reveal that our network tends to induce competitive even superior pansharpening performance compared with deeper models. As our network is shallow and trained with several techniques to prevent overfitting, our model is robust to the inconsistencies across different satellites.