scholarly journals Local and Application-Specific Geodemographics for Data-Led Urban Decision Making

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4873
Author(s):  
Amanda Otley ◽  
Michelle Morris ◽  
Andy Newing ◽  
Mark Birkin

This work seeks to introduce improvements to the traditional variable selection procedures employed in the development of geodemographic classifications. It presents a proposal for shifting from a traditional approach for generating general-purpose one-size-fits-all geodemographic classifications to application-specific classifications. This proposal addresses the recent scepticism towards the utility of general-purpose applications by employing supervised machine learning techniques in order to identify contextually relevant input variables from which to develop geodemographic classifications with increased discriminatory power. A framework introducing such techniques in the variable selection phase of geodemographic classification development is presented via a practical use-case that is focused on generating a geodemographic classification with an increased capacity for discriminating the propensity for Library use in the UK city of Leeds. Two local classifications are generated for the city, one a general-purpose classification, and the other, an application-specific classification incorporating supervised Feature Selection methods in the selection of input variables. The discriminatory power of each classification is evaluated and compared, with the result successfully demonstrating the capacity for the application-specific approach to generate a more contextually relevant result, and thus underpins increasingly targeted public policy decision making, particularly in the context of urban planning.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ευτύχιος Πρωτοπαπαδάκης

Ο όρος μάθηση με μερική επίβλεψη αναφέρεται σε ένα ευρύ πεδίο τεχνικών μηχανικής μάθησης, οι οποίες χρησιμοποιούν τα μη τιτλοφορημένα δεδομένα για να εξάγουν επιπλέον ωφέλιμη πληροφορία. Η μερική επίβλεψη αντιμετωπίζει προβλήματα που σχετίζονται με την επεξεργασία και την αξιοποίηση μεγάλου όγκου δεδομένων και τα όποια κόστη σχετίζονται με αυτά (π.χ. χρόνος επεξεργασίας, ανθρώπινα λάθη). Απώτερος σκοπός είναι η ασφαλή εξαγωγή συμπερασμάτων, κανόνων ή προτάσεων. Τα μοντέλα λήψης απόφασης που χρησιμοποιούν τεχνικές μερικής μάθησης έχουν ποικίλα πλεονεκτήματα. Σε πρώτη φάση, χρειάζονται μικρό πλήθος τιτλοφορημένων δεδομένων για την αρχικοποίηση τους. Στη συνέχεια, τα νέα δεδομένα που θα εμφανιστούν αξιοποιούνται και τροποποιούν κατάλληλα το μοντέλο. Ως εκ τούτου, έχουμε ένα συνεχώς εξελισσόμενο μοντέλο λήψης αποφάσεων, με την ελάχιστη δυνατή προσπάθεια.Τεχνικές που προσαρμόζονται εύκολα και οικονομικά είναι οι κατεξοχήν κατάλληλες για τον έλεγχο συστημάτων, στα οποία παρατηρούνται συχνές αλλαγές στον τρόπο λειτουργίας. Ενδεικτικά πεδία εφαρμογής εφαρμογής ευέλικτων συστημάτων υποστήριξης λήψης αποφάσεων με μερική μάθηση είναι: η επίβλεψη γραμμών παραγωγής, η επιτήρηση θαλάσσιων συνόρων, η φροντίδα ηλικιωμένων, η εκτίμηση χρηματοπιστωτικού κινδύνου, ο έλεγχος για δομικές ατέλειες και η διαφύλαξη της πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Eduardo Nass ◽  
Agustín Alejandro Ortíz Díaz ◽  
Fabiano Baldo

The growing popularity of audio and video streaming, industry 4.0 and IoT (Internet of Things) technologies contribute to the fast augment of the generation of various types of data. Therefore, to analyze these data for decision-making, supervised machine learning techniques need to be fast while keeping a suitable predicting performance even in many real-life scenarios where labeled data are expensive and hard to be gotten. To overcome this problem, this work proposes an adaptation to the Very Fast C4.5 (VFC4.5) algorithm implementing on it a semi-supervised impurity metric presented in the literature. The results pointed out that this adaptation can slightly increase the accuracy of the VFC4.5 when the datasets have the presence of a very few amount of labeled instances, but it increases the training time, especially when the number of labeled instances in the datasets increase.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Bitencourt-Ferreira ◽  
Amauri Duarte da Silva ◽  
Walter Filgueira de Azevedo

Background: The elucidation of the structure of cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) made it possible to develop targeted scoring functions for virtual screening aimed to identify new inhibitors for this enzyme. CDK2 is a protein target for the development of drugs intended to modulate cellcycle progression and control. Such drugs have potential anticancer activities. Objective: Our goal here is to review recent applications of machine learning methods to predict ligand- binding affinity for protein targets. To assess the predictive performance of classical scoring functions and targeted scoring functions, we focused our analysis on CDK2 structures. Methods: We have experimental structural data for hundreds of binary complexes of CDK2 with different ligands, many of them with inhibition constant information. We investigate here computational methods to calculate the binding affinity of CDK2 through classical scoring functions and machine- learning models. Results: Analysis of the predictive performance of classical scoring functions available in docking programs such as Molegro Virtual Docker, AutoDock4, and Autodock Vina indicated that these methods failed to predict binding affinity with significant correlation with experimental data. Targeted scoring functions developed through supervised machine learning techniques showed a significant correlation with experimental data. Conclusion: Here, we described the application of supervised machine learning techniques to generate a scoring function to predict binding affinity. Machine learning models showed superior predictive performance when compared with classical scoring functions. Analysis of the computational models obtained through machine learning could capture essential structural features responsible for binding affinity against CDK2.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shikha N. Khera ◽  
Divya

Information technology (IT) industry in India has been facing a systemic issue of high attrition in the past few years, resulting in monetary and knowledge-based loses to the companies. The aim of this research is to develop a model to predict employee attrition and provide the organizations opportunities to address any issue and improve retention. Predictive model was developed based on supervised machine learning algorithm, support vector machine (SVM). Archival employee data (consisting of 22 input features) were collected from Human Resource databases of three IT companies in India, including their employment status (response variable) at the time of collection. Accuracy results from the confusion matrix for the SVM model showed that the model has an accuracy of 85 per cent. Also, results show that the model performs better in predicting who will leave the firm as compared to predicting who will not leave the company.


Author(s):  
Augusto Cerqua ◽  
Roberta Di Stefano ◽  
Marco Letta ◽  
Sara Miccoli

AbstractEstimates of the real death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic have proven to be problematic in many countries, Italy being no exception. Mortality estimates at the local level are even more uncertain as they require stringent conditions, such as granularity and accuracy of the data at hand, which are rarely met. The “official” approach adopted by public institutions to estimate the “excess mortality” during the pandemic draws on a comparison between observed all-cause mortality data for 2020 and averages of mortality figures in the past years for the same period. In this paper, we apply the recently developed machine learning control method to build a more realistic counterfactual scenario of mortality in the absence of COVID-19. We demonstrate that supervised machine learning techniques outperform the official method by substantially improving the prediction accuracy of the local mortality in “ordinary” years, especially in small- and medium-sized municipalities. We then apply the best-performing algorithms to derive estimates of local excess mortality for the period between February and September 2020. Such estimates allow us to provide insights about the demographic evolution of the first wave of the pandemic throughout the country. To help improve diagnostic and monitoring efforts, our dataset is freely available to the research community.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 338
Author(s):  
Peter Balsarini ◽  
Claire Lambert ◽  
Maria M. Ryan ◽  
Martin MacCarthy

Franchising has long been a method by which organizations seek to expand and facilitate local market development. However, franchising as a growth strategy can often be hampered by lack of suitable franchisees. To mitigate this shortage, some franchisors have engaged in recruiting franchisees internally from the ranks of their employees in addition to the traditional approach of recruiting franchisees externally. Predominantly franchisees are individuals rather than corporations and thus purchasing a franchise should most commonly be characterized as a consumer acquisition. To explore the relationship between subjective knowledge, perceived risk, and information search behaviors when purchasing a franchise qualitative interviews were conducted with franchisees from the restaurant industry. Half of these respondents were externally recruited having never worked for the franchisor and half were internally recruited having previously been employees of the franchisor. The external recruits expressed a strong desire to own their own business and engaged in extensive decision-making processes with significant information search when purchasing their franchises. Contrastingly, the internal recruits expressed a strong desire to be their own boss and engaged in limited, bordering on habitual decision-making processes with negligible information search when acquiring their franchises. The results reveal that differences in subjective knowledge and perceived risk appear to significantly impact the extent of information search between these two groups. A model of the relationship between subjective knowledge, perceived risk and information search in the purchasing of a franchise is developed that reconciles these findings. The findings also have practical implications for franchisors’ franchisee recruiting efforts which are integral to their capacity to develop local markets.


Computation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Evangelos Maltezos ◽  
Athanasios Douklias ◽  
Aris Dadoukis ◽  
Fay Misichroni ◽  
Lazaros Karagiannidis ◽  
...  

Situational awareness is a critical aspect of the decision-making process in emergency response and civil protection and requires the availability of up-to-date information on the current situation. In this context, the related research should not only encompass developing innovative single solutions for (real-time) data collection, but also on the aspect of transforming data into information so that the latter can be considered as a basis for action and decision making. Unmanned systems (UxV) as data acquisition platforms and autonomous or semi-autonomous measurement instruments have become attractive for many applications in emergency operations. This paper proposes a multipurpose situational awareness platform by exploiting advanced on-board processing capabilities and efficient computer vision, image processing, and machine learning techniques. The main pillars of the proposed platform are: (1) a modular architecture that exploits unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and terrestrial assets; (2) deployment of on-board data capturing and processing; (3) provision of geolocalized object detection and tracking events; and (4) a user-friendly operational interface for standalone deployment and seamless integration with external systems. Experimental results are provided using RGB and thermal video datasets and applying novel object detection and tracking algorithms. The results show the utility and the potential of the proposed platform, and future directions for extension and optimization are presented.


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