scholarly journals Benefit segmentation of a summer destination in Uruguay: a clustering and classification approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-206
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Perera ◽  
Martin Sprechmann ◽  
Mathias Bourel

Purpose This study aims to perform a benefit segmentation and then a classification of visitors that travel to the Rocha Department in Uruguay from the capital city of Montevideo during the summer months. Design/methodology/approach A convenience sample was obtained with an online survey. A total of 290 cases were usable for subsequent data analysis. The following statistical techniques were used: hierarchical cluster analysis, K-means cluster analysis, machine learning, support vector machines, random forest and logistic regression. Findings Visitors that travel to the Rocha Department from Montevideo can be classified into four distinct clusters. Clusters are labelled as “entertainment seekers”, “Rocha followers”, “relax and activities seekers” and “active tourists”. The support vector machine model achieved the best classification results. Research limitations/implications Implications for destination marketers who cater to young visitors are discussed. Destination marketers should determine an optimal level of resource allocation and destination management activities that compare both present costs and discounted potential future income of the different target markets. Surveying non-residents was not possible. Future work should sample tourists from abroad. Originality/value The combination of market segmentation of Rocha Department’s visitors from the city of Montevideo and classification of sampled individuals training various machine learning classifiers would allow Rocha’s destination marketers determine the belonging of an unsampled individual into one of the already obtained four clusters, enhancing marketing promotion for targeted offers.

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 1393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanwei Yang ◽  
Xiaojian Hao ◽  
Lili Zhang ◽  
Long Ren

Due to the complexity of, and low accuracy in, iron ore classification, a method of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) combined with machine learning is proposed. In the research, we collected LIBS spectra of 10 iron ore samples. At the beginning, principal component analysis algorithm was employed to reduce the dimensionality of spectral data, then we applied k-nearest neighbor model, neural network model, and support vector machine model to the classification. The results showed that the accuracy of three models were 82.96%, 93.33%, and 94.07% respectively. The results also demonstrated that LIBS with machine learning model exhibits an excellent classification performance. Therefore, LIBS technique combined with machine learning can achieve a rapid, precise classification of iron ores, and can provide a completely new method for iron ores’ selection in the metallurgical industry.


2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Bo Liu ◽  
Breda McCarthy ◽  
Tingzhen Chen ◽  
Shu Guo ◽  
Xuguang Song

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Chinese wine market can be meaningfully segmented and to explore marketing implications for the Australian wine sector. Design/methodology/approach – The research is descriptive in nature, using an online survey to collect quantitative data on wine consumer behaviour. A total of 407 responses were obtained. Data analysis included descriptive analysis (frequency distributions) and cluster analysis. Findings – The research identifies three clusters of wine consumers: “the extrinsic attribute-seeking customers”, “the intrinsic attribute-seeking customers” and “the alcohol level attribute-seeking customers”. These groups of consumers were categorised using a behavioural (benefit) segmentation base. Research limitations/implications – The use of an internet survey and convenience sample limits generalisation of the findings. The adoption of a behavioural basis in conducting the segmentation is a limitation. The use of more complex segmentation bases, such as psychographics, may yield a richer understanding of the Chinese wine consumer in future studies. Practical implications – The customer profiles provide Australian wine marketers with an insight into Chinese wine consumer behaviour. Brand positioning can be improved by ensuring that the brand emphasises certain product attributes which the segments value when choosing wine. Originality/value – Little previous research on market segmentation has been conducted in mainland China. For Australian wine marketers, this study provides a baseline study into market segmentation and may assist with targeting and brand positioning decisions.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. e0262407
Author(s):  
Rui Fu ◽  
Robert Schwartz ◽  
Nicholas Mitsakakis ◽  
Lori M. Diemert ◽  
Shawn O’Connor ◽  
...  

Prior research has suggested that a set of unique characteristics may be associated with adult cigarette smokers who are able to quit smoking using e-cigarettes (vaping). In this cross-sectional study, we aimed to identify and rank the importance of these characteristics using machine learning. During July and August 2019, an online survey was administered to a convenience sample of 889 adult smokers (age ≥ 20) in Ontario, Canada who tried vaping to quit smoking in the past 12 months. Fifty-one person-level characteristics, including a Vaping Experiences Score, were assessed in a gradient boosting machine model to classify the status of perceived success in vaping-assisted smoking cessation. This model was trained using cross-validation and tested using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The top five most important predictors were identified using a score between 0% and 100% that represented the relative importance of each variable in model training. About 20% of participants (N = 174, 19.6%) reported success in vaping-assisted smoking cessation. The model achieved relatively high performance with an area under the ROC curve of 0.865 and classification accuracy of 0.831 (95% CI [confidence interval] 0.780 to 0.874). The top five most important predictors of perceived success in vaping-assisted smoking cessation were more positive experiences measured by the Vaping Experiences Score (100%), less previously failed quit attempts by vaping (39.0%), younger age (21.9%), having vaped 100 times (16.8%), and vaping shortly after waking up (15.8%). Our findings provide strong statistical evidence that shows better vaping experiences are associated with greater perceived success in smoking cessation by vaping. Furthermore, our study confirmed the strength of machine learning techniques in vaping-related outcomes research based on observational data.


Author(s):  
Hyeuk Kim

Unsupervised learning in machine learning divides data into several groups. The observations in the same group have similar characteristics and the observations in the different groups have the different characteristics. In the paper, we classify data by partitioning around medoids which have some advantages over the k-means clustering. We apply it to baseball players in Korea Baseball League. We also apply the principal component analysis to data and draw the graph using two components for axis. We interpret the meaning of the clustering graphically through the procedure. The combination of the partitioning around medoids and the principal component analysis can be used to any other data and the approach makes us to figure out the characteristics easily.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 2503
Author(s):  
Taro Suzuki ◽  
Yoshiharu Amano

This paper proposes a method for detecting non-line-of-sight (NLOS) multipath, which causes large positioning errors in a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). We use GNSS signal correlation output, which is the most primitive GNSS signal processing output, to detect NLOS multipath based on machine learning. The shape of the multi-correlator outputs is distorted due to the NLOS multipath. The features of the shape of the multi-correlator are used to discriminate the NLOS multipath. We implement two supervised learning methods, a support vector machine (SVM) and a neural network (NN), and compare their performance. In addition, we also propose an automated method of collecting training data for LOS and NLOS signals of machine learning. The evaluation of the proposed NLOS detection method in an urban environment confirmed that NN was better than SVM, and 97.7% of NLOS signals were correctly discriminated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4728
Author(s):  
Zinhle Mashaba-Munghemezulu ◽  
George Johannes Chirima ◽  
Cilence Munghemezulu

Rural communities rely on smallholder maize farms for subsistence agriculture, the main driver of local economic activity and food security. However, their planted area estimates are unknown in most developing countries. This study explores the use of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data to map smallholder maize farms. The random forest (RF), support vector (SVM) machine learning algorithms and model stacking (ST) were applied. Results show that the classification of combined Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data improved the RF, SVM and ST algorithms by 24.2%, 8.7%, and 9.1%, respectively, compared to the classification of Sentinel-1 data individually. Similarities in the estimated areas (7001.35 ± 1.2 ha for RF, 7926.03 ± 0.7 ha for SVM and 7099.59 ± 0.8 ha for ST) show that machine learning can estimate smallholder maize areas with high accuracies. The study concludes that the single-date Sentinel-1 data were insufficient to map smallholder maize farms. However, single-date Sentinel-1 combined with Sentinel-2 data were sufficient in mapping smallholder farms. These results can be used to support the generation and validation of national crop statistics, thus contributing to food security.


Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Raquel de Melo Barbosa ◽  
Fabio Fonseca de Oliveira ◽  
Gabriel Bezerra Motta Câmara ◽  
Tulio Flavio Accioly de Lima e Moura ◽  
Fernanda Nervo Raffin ◽  
...  

Nano-hybrid formulations combine organic and inorganic materials in self-assembled platforms for drug delivery. Laponite is a synthetic clay, biocompatible, and a guest of compounds. Poloxamines are amphiphilic four-armed compounds and have pH-sensitive and thermosensitive properties. The association of Laponite and Poloxamine can be used to improve attachment to drugs and to increase the solubility of β-Lapachone (β-Lap). β-Lap has antiviral, antiparasitic, antitumor, and anti-inflammatory properties. However, the low water solubility of β-Lap limits its clinical and medical applications. All samples were prepared by mixing Tetronic 1304 and LAP in a range of 1–20% (w/w) and 0–3% (w/w), respectively. The β-Lap solubility was analyzed by UV-vis spectrophotometry, and physical behavior was evaluated across a range of temperatures. The analysis of data consisted of response surface methodology (RMS), and two kinds of machine learning (ML): multilayer perceptron (MLP) and support vector machine (SVM). The ML techniques, generated from a training process based on experimental data, obtained the best correlation coefficient adjustment for drug solubility and adequate physical classifications of the systems. The SVM method presented the best fit results of β-Lap solubilization. In silico tools promoted fine-tuning, and near-experimental data show β-Lap solubility and classification of physical behavior to be an excellent strategy for use in developing new nano-hybrid platforms.


Nutrients ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1681 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramyaa Ramyaa ◽  
Omid Hosseini ◽  
Giri P. Krishnan ◽  
Sridevi Krishnan

Nutritional phenotyping can help achieve personalized nutrition, and machine learning tools may offer novel means to achieve phenotyping. The primary aim of this study was to use energy balance components, namely input (dietary energy intake and macronutrient composition) and output (physical activity) to predict energy stores (body weight) as a way to evaluate their ability to identify potential phenotypes based on these parameters. From the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study (WHI OS), carbohydrates, proteins, fats, fibers, sugars, and physical activity variables, namely energy expended from mild, moderate, and vigorous intensity activity, were used to predict current body weight (both as body weight in kilograms and as a body mass index (BMI) category). Several machine learning tools were used for this prediction. Finally, cluster analysis was used to identify putative phenotypes. For the numerical predictions, the support vector machine (SVM), neural network, and k-nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithms performed modestly, with mean approximate errors (MAEs) of 6.70 kg, 6.98 kg, and 6.90 kg, respectively. For categorical prediction, SVM performed the best (54.5% accuracy), followed closely by the bagged tree ensemble and kNN algorithms. K-means cluster analysis improved prediction using numerical data, identified 10 clusters suggestive of phenotypes, with a minimum MAE of ~1.1 kg. A classifier was used to phenotype subjects into the identified clusters, with MAEs <5 kg for 15% of the test set (n = ~2000). This study highlights the challenges, limitations, and successes in using machine learning tools on self-reported data to identify determinants of energy balance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Jiande Wu ◽  
Chindo Hicks

Background: Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease defined by molecular types and subtypes. Advances in genomic research have enabled use of precision medicine in clinical management of breast cancer. A critical unmet medical need is distinguishing triple negative breast cancer, the most aggressive and lethal form of breast cancer, from non-triple negative breast cancer. Here we propose use of a machine learning (ML) approach for classification of triple negative breast cancer and non-triple negative breast cancer patients using gene expression data. Methods: We performed analysis of RNA-Sequence data from 110 triple negative and 992 non-triple negative breast cancer tumor samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas to select the features (genes) used in the development and validation of the classification models. We evaluated four different classification models including Support Vector Machines, K-nearest neighbor, Naïve Bayes and Decision tree using features selected at different threshold levels to train the models for classifying the two types of breast cancer. For performance evaluation and validation, the proposed methods were applied to independent gene expression datasets. Results: Among the four ML algorithms evaluated, the Support Vector Machine algorithm was able to classify breast cancer more accurately into triple negative and non-triple negative breast cancer and had less misclassification errors than the other three algorithms evaluated. Conclusions: The prediction results show that ML algorithms are efficient and can be used for classification of breast cancer into triple negative and non-triple negative breast cancer types.


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