Dynamic Analysis of Blast Furnace Sensor Data using Cross-recurrence Quantification Strategies

This paper investigates impact degree of blast furnace related elements towards blast furnace gas (BFG) production. BFG is a by-product in the steel industry, which is one of the enterprise’s most essential energy resources. While because multiple factors affect BFG production it has characteristics of large fluctuations. Most works focus on finding a satisfactory method or improving the accuracy of existing methods to predict BFG production. There are no special studies on the factors that affect the production of BFG. Finding the elements that affect BFG production is benefit to production of BFG, which has a significance in economy. We propose a novel framework, combining cross recurrence plot (CRP) and cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA). Moreover, it supplies a general method to convert time series of BFG related data into high-dimensional space. This is the first analytical framework that attempts to reveal the inherent dynamic similarities of blast furnace gas-related elements. The experimental results demonstrate that this framework can realize the visualization of the time series. In addition, the results also identify the factor that has the greatest impact on blast furnace gas production by quantitative analysis.

Physiological Measurements of Stress Preceding Incidents of Challenging Behavior in People With Severe to Profound Intellectual Disabilities: Longitudinal Study Protocol of Single-Case Studies

Background Clients with severe to profound intellectual disabilities (SPID) and challenging behavior (CB) and the professional caregivers that support them are vulnerable to high stress levels, which negatively impact their well-being and the quality of care. CB is thought to result from an increase in the intensity and frequency of clients’ stress experiences. In turn, staff members experience stress in dealing with this behavior, and stressed staff members might behave in ways that increase clients’ stress levels, contributing to the origin and maintenance of CB. Research into these dyadic interactions between clients and staff is scarce for people with SPID, especially in real-life situations. The barriers of studying stress in this population include clients’ difficulties in communicating stress experiences and the lack of an objective continuous measure of stress. Objective This paper presents a protocol for studying patterns of physiological stress in 15 client-caregiver dyads in the 30 minutes preceding incidents of CB compared to control periods without CB and the interplay between the stress levels of clients and professional caregivers. Methods We will conduct 15 single-case studies to assess patterns of physiological stress in dyads of clients with SPID and professional caregivers prior to CB in several Dutch residential institutes. Client-caregiver dyads will wear the Empatica E4 wristband for 20 sessions of 3 to 8 hours without interruptions of daily routines while caregivers report clients’ CB. The physiological measures obtained will be electrodermal activity (microsiemens) and heart rate (beats per minute). A multilevel model with repeated measures at the incident level nested within the person level will be applied, employing separate models for electrodermal activity and heart rate to compare stress levels in the 30 minutes prior to incidents with control epochs. Covariates in the models include movement, temperature, and gender. In addition, cross-recurrence quantification analyses will be performed to study the synchronization between the stress levels of clients and professional caregivers. Results The Ethics Committee of the Radboud University (NL-number: NL71683.091.19) approved the study on February 12, 2020. In total, 15 organizations have declared their commitment to participate in the study. The first result is expected in the spring of 2022. Conclusions Study results will demonstrate whether changes in patterns of electrodermal activity and heart rate are apparent in the 30 minutes preceding an incident of CB compared to baseline levels when the client does not engage in CB. The synchronization between caregivers’ and clients’ physiological stress levels will be explored with cross-recurrence quantification analyses. Insights into the physiological stress levels of clients and caregivers may contribute to a reduction of CB and an improvement of both clients’ and caregivers’ safety and well-being. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/24911

Online social cohesion reflects real-world group action in Syria during the Arab Spring

In recent years, political activists have taken to social media platforms to rapidly reach broad audiences. Despite the prevalence of micro-blogging in these sociopolitical movements, the degree to which virtual mobilization reflects or drives real-world movements is unclear. Here, we explore the dynamics of real-world events and Twitter social cohesion in Syria during the Arab Spring. Using the nonlinear methods cross-recurrence quantification analysis and windowed cross-recurrence quantification analysis, we investigate if frequency of events of different intensities are coupled with social cohesion found in Syrian tweets. Results indicate that online social cohesion is coupled with the counts of all, positive, and negative events each day but shows a decreased connection to negative events when outwardly directed events (i.e., source events) were considered. We conclude with a discussion of implications and applications of nonlinear methods in political science research.

Physiological Measurements of Stress Preceding Incidents of Challenging Behavior in People With Severe to Profound Intellectual Disabilities: Longitudinal Study Protocol of Single-Case Studies (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Clients with severe to profound intellectual disabilities (SPID) and challenging behavior (CB) and the professional caregivers that support them are vulnerable to high stress levels, which negatively impact their well-being and the quality of care. CB is thought to result from an increase in the intensity and frequency of clients’ stress experiences. In turn, staff members experience stress in dealing with this behavior, and stressed staff members might behave in ways that increase clients’ stress levels, contributing to the origin and maintenance of CB. Research into these dyadic interactions between clients and staff is scarce for people with SPID, especially in real-life situations. The barriers of studying stress in this population include clients’ difficulties in communicating stress experiences and the lack of an objective continuous measure of stress. OBJECTIVE This paper presents a protocol for studying patterns of physiological stress in 15 client-caregiver dyads in the 30 minutes preceding incidents of CB compared to control periods without CB and the interplay between the stress levels of clients and professional caregivers. METHODS We will conduct 15 single-case studies to assess patterns of physiological stress in dyads of clients with SPID and professional caregivers prior to CB in several Dutch residential institutes. Client-caregiver dyads will wear the Empatica E4 wristband for 20 sessions of 3 to 8 hours without interruptions of daily routines while caregivers report clients’ CB. The physiological measures obtained will be electrodermal activity (microsiemens) and heart rate (beats per minute). A multilevel model with repeated measures at the incident level nested within the person level will be applied, employing separate models for electrodermal activity and heart rate to compare stress levels in the 30 minutes prior to incidents with control epochs. Covariates in the models include movement, temperature, and gender. In addition, cross-recurrence quantification analyses will be performed to study the synchronization between the stress levels of clients and professional caregivers. RESULTS The Ethics Committee of the Radboud University (NL-number: NL71683.091.19) approved the study on February 12, 2020. In total, 15 organizations have declared their commitment to participate in the study. The first result is expected in the spring of 2022. CONCLUSIONS Study results will demonstrate whether changes in patterns of electrodermal activity and heart rate are apparent in the 30 minutes preceding an incident of CB compared to baseline levels when the client does not engage in CB. The synchronization between caregivers’ and clients’ physiological stress levels will be explored with cross-recurrence quantification analyses. Insights into the physiological stress levels of clients and caregivers may contribute to a reduction of CB and an improvement of both clients’ and caregivers’ safety and well-being. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/24911

A Strategy for the Use of the Cross Recurrence Quantification Analysis

In this work, our goal is to analyze the use of the Cross Recurrence Plot (CRP) and its quantification (CRQA) as tools to detect the possible existence of a relationship between two systems. To do that, we define three tests that are a bivariate extension of those proposed by Aparicio et al. (Aparicio, T., E. Pozo, and D. Saura. 2008. “Detecting Determinism Using Recurrence Quantification Analysis: Three Test Procedures.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 65: 768–787, Aparicio, T., E. F. Pozo, and D. Saura. 2011. “Detecting Determinism Using Recurrence Quantification Analysis: A Solution to the Problem of Embedding.” Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics 15: 1–10) within the context of the Recurrence Quantification Analysis. These tests, based on the diagonal lines of the CRP, are applied to a large number of simulated pairs of series. The results obtained are not always satisfactory, with problems being detected specifically when the series have a high degree of laminarity. We study the identified problems and we implement a strategy that we consider adequate for the use of these tools. Finally, as an example, we apply this strategy to several economic series.

Methodology Proposal of EMG Hand Movement Classification Based on Cross Recurrence Plots

Dealing with electromyography (EMG) signals is often not simple. The nature of these signals is nonstationary, noisy, and high dimensional. These EMG characteristics make their predictability even more challenging. Cross recurrence plots (CRPs) have demonstrated in many works their capability of detecting very subtle patterns in signals often buried in a noisy environment. In this contribution, fifty subjects performed ten different hand movements with each hand with the aid of electrodes placed in each arm. Furthermore, the nonlinear features of each subject’s signals using cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA) have been performed. Also, a novel methodology is proposed using CRQA as the mainstream technique to detect and classify each of the movements presented in this study. Additional tools were presented to determine to which extent this proposed methodology is able to avoid false classifications, thus demonstrating that this methodology is feasible to classify surface EMG (SEMG) signals with good accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. Lastly, the results were compared with traditional machine learning methods, and the advantages of using the proposed methodology above such methods are highlighted.

Gaze collaboration patterns of successful and unsuccessful programming pairs using cross-recurrence quantification analysis

A dual eye tracking experiment was performed on pairs of novice programmers as they traced and debugged fragments of code. These programming pairs were categorized into successful and unsuccessful pairs based on their debugging scores. Cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA), an analysis using cross-recurrence plots (CRP), was used to determine whether there are significant differences in the gaze collaboration patterns between these pair categories. Results showed that successful and unsuccessful pairs can be characterized distinctively based on their CRPs and CRQA metrics. This study also attempted to interpret the CRQA metrics in relation to how the pairs collaborated in order to provide a somewhat clear picture of their relevance and meaning. The analysis results could serve as a precursor in helping us understand what makes a programming pair more successful over other pairs and what behaviors exhibited by unsuccessful pairs that should be avoided.