Machine Learning is the study of methods for programming computers to learn. Computers are applied to a wide range of tasks, and for most of these it is relatively easy for programmers to design and implement the necessary software. However, there are many tasks for which this is difficult or impossible. These can be divided into four general categories. First, there are problems for which there exist no human experts. For example, in modern automated manufacturing facilities, there is a need to predict machine failures before they occur by analyzing sensor readings. Because the machines are new, there are no human experts who can be interviewed by a programmer to provide the knowledge necessary to build a computer system. A machine learning system can study recorded data and subsequent machine failures and learn prediction rules. Second, there are problems where human experts exist, but where they are unable to explain their expertise. This is the case in many perceptual tasks, such as speech recognition, hand-writing recognition, and natural language understanding. Virtually all humans exhibit expert-level abilities on these tasks, but none of them can describe the detailed steps that they follow as they perform them. Fortunately, humans can provide machines with examples of the inputs and correct outputs for these tasks, so machine learning algorithms can learn to map the inputs to the outputs. Third, there are problems where phenomena are changing rapidly. In finance, for example, people would like to predict the future behavior of the stock market, of consumer purchases, or of exchange rates. These behaviors change frequently, so that even if a programmer could construct a good predictive computer program, it would need to be rewritten frequently. A learning program can relieve the programmer of this burden by constantly modifying and tuning a set of learned prediction rules. Fourth, there are applications that need to be customized for each computer user separately. Consider, for example, a program to filter unwanted electronic mail messages. Different users will need different filters. It is unreasonable to expect each user to program his or her own rules, and it is infeasible to provide every user with a software engineer to keep the rules up-to-date. A machine learning system can learn which mail messages the user rejects and maintain the filtering rules automatically. Machine learning addresses many of the same research questions as the fields of statistics, data mining, and psychology, but with differences of emphasis. Statistics focuses on understanding the phenomena that have generated the data, often with the goal of testing different hypotheses about those phenomena. Data mining seeks to find patterns in the data that are understandable by people. Psychological studies of human learning aspire to understand the mechanisms underlying the various learning behaviors exhibited by people (concept learning, skill acquisition, strategy change, etc.).

Machine learning

Probability Distributions.- Linear Models for Regression.- Linear Models for Classification.- Neural Networks.- Kernel Methods.- Sparse Kernel Machines.- Graphical Models.- Mixture Models and EM.- Approximate Inference.- Sampling Methods.- Continuous Latent Variables.- Sequential Data.- Combining Models.

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Offering a unifying theoretical perspective not readily available in any other text, this innovative guide to econometrics uses simple geometrical arguments to develop students' intuitive understanding of basic and advanced topics, emphasizing throughout the practical applications of modern theory and nonlinear techniques of estimation. One theme of the text is the use of artificial regressions for estimation, reference, and specification testing of nonlinear models, including diagnostic tests for parameter constancy, serial correlation, heteroscedasticity, and other types of mis-specification. Explaining how estimates can be obtained and tests can be carried out, the authors go beyond a mere algebraic description to one that can be easily translated into the commands of a standard econometric software package. Covering an unprecedented range of problems with a consistent emphasis on those that arise in applied work, this accessible and coherent guide to the most vital topics in econometrics today is indispensable for advanced students of econometrics and students of statistics interested in regression and related topics. It will also suit practising econometricians who want to update their skills. Flexibly designed to accommodate a variety of course levels, it offers both complete coverage of the basic material and separate chapters on areas of specialized interest.

Estimation and Inference in Econometrics

In this book, Andrew Harvey sets out to provide a unified and comprehensive theory of structural time series models. Unlike the traditional ARIMA models, structural time series models consist explicitly of unobserved components, such as trends and seasonals, which have a direct interpretation. As a result the model selection methodology associated with structural models is much closer to econometric methodology. The link with econometrics is made even closer by the natural way in which the models can be extended to include explanatory variables and to cope with multivariate time series. From the technical point of view, state space models and the Kalman filter play a key role in the statistical treatment of structural time series models. The book includes a detailed treatment of the Kalman filter. This technique was originally developed in control engineering, but is becoming increasingly important in fields such as economics and operations research. This book is concerned primarily with modelling economic and social time series, and with addressing the special problems which the treatment of such series poses. The properties of the models and the methodological techniques used to select them are illustrated with various applications. These range from the modellling of trends and cycles in US macroeconomic time series to to an evaluation of the effects of seat belt legislation in the UK.

Forecasting, Structural Time Series Models and the Kalman Filter

The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.

Economics of Information

We introduce the concept of an explicitly B-preinvex fuzzy mapping. Some properties of explicitly B-preinvex fuzzy mappings are also established. Further, various relationships between explicit B-preinvex fuzzy mappings and B-preinvex fuzzy mappings are established.

Explicitly B-preinvex fuzzy mappings

As a versatile investment tool in energy markets for speculators and hedgers, the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI) futures are quite well known. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid model incorporating ARCH family models and ANN model to forecast GSCI futures price. Empirical results show that the hybrid ARCH(1)-M-ANN model is superior to ARIMA, ARCH(1), CGARCH(1,1), EGARCH(1,1) and ARIMA-ANN models on the RMSE, MAPE, Theil IC evaluation criteria.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-540-72588-6_147.pdf

A Hybrid ARCH-M and BP Neural Network Model For GSCI Futures Price Forecasting

In the context of frequent public emergencies, emergency logistics distribution is particularly critical, and because of the unique advantages of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the model of coordinated delivery of vehicles and UAVs is gradually becoming an essential form of emergency logistics distribution. However, the omission of start-up costs prevents the cost of UAV battery replacement and the sorting, assembly and verification of packages from being factored into the total cost. Furthermore, most existing models focus on route optimization and delivery cost, which cannot fully reflect the customer’s desire for service satisfaction under emergency conditions. It is necessary to convert the unsatisfactory degree of time window into a penalty cost rather than a model constraint. Additionally, there is a lack of analysis on the mutual waiting cost between vehicles and UAVs when one of them is performing delivery tasks. Considering the effects of the time window, customer demand, maximum load capacity, and duration of distribution benefits, we propose a collaborative delivery path optimization model for vehicles and UAVs to minimize the total distribution cost. A genetic algorithm is used to obtain the model solution under the constraints of distribution subloops, distribution order, and take-off and landing nodes. To assess the efficacy of the vehicle and UAV collaborative delivery path optimization model, this paper employs a county-level district in Xi’an city as a pilot area for an emergency delivery. Compared with the vehicle-alone delivery model, the UAV-alone delivery model and vehicle-UAV collaborative delivery model, this model can significantly reduce the utilization of distribution vehicles while also significantly lowering the start-up cost, waiting cost and penalty cost. Thus, the model can effectively improve delivery timeliness and customer satisfaction. The total cost of this model is 39.2% less than that of the vehicle-alone delivery model and 16.5% less than that of the UAV-alone delivery model. Although its delivery cost is slightly higher than the vehicle-UAV collaborative delivery model, the reduction in the start-up cost and penalty cost decrease the overall cost of distribution by 11.8%. This suggests that to cut costs of all sizes and conserve half of the resources used by vehicles, employing the vehicle-UAV collaborative delivery model for emergency distribution is preferable. Moreover, the model integrating the start-up cost, penalty cost, waiting cost, etc., can more effectively express the requirements of timeliness for UAV delivery under emergency conditions.

/pdf/vehicle-and-uav-collaborative-delivery-path-optimization-1c8lhy3p.pdf

Vehicle and UAV Collaborative Delivery Path Optimization Model

Current knowledge based forecasting models are suffering from weaknesses of subjective biases and inconsistence. In order to overcome this problem, this paper proposes a novel interval knowledge based forecasting paradigm. In the proposed forecast- ing paradigm, statistical projections of the target are first generated by statistical models. Next, a panel of experts are gathered to independently formulate their interval estimates, then this kind of interval knowledge is integrated into the statistical pro- jections. Subsequently, an expert performance validating algorithm is put forward to wipe off incompetent members from the expert system, and then a Delphi based expert system is constructed to regenerate interval judgments with less subjective biases and inconsistence. Meanwhile, the algorithm is able to determine the weight distribution, with which statistical projections and interval judgments are integrated into the united predicted values. For verification purpose, container throughput series of Qingdao Port are taken as sample data. Empirical results clearly show the superiority of the proposed interval knowledge based forecasting paradigm over its benchmark models, which indicates that the proposed forecasting paradigm is effective for container throughput prediction.

/pdf/an-interval-knowledge-based-forecasting-paradigm-for-4kvnaf9l7o.pdf

An Interval Knowledge Based Forecasting Paradigm for Container Throughput Prediction

We introduce an adaptive routing strategy (ARS) for transportation networks. In this strategy, the route choice is made adaptively based on the real-time information of the whole system. An efficient optimization-based heuristic is proposed to support such real-time decision-making process. Numerical results show that our ARS outperforms both the static routing method and the original dynamic routing method.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fjors.2010.7.pdf

Kin Keung Lai

Papers

Explicitly B-preinvex fuzzy mappings

A Hybrid ARCH-M and BP Neural Network Model For GSCI Futures Price Forecasting

Vehicle and UAV Collaborative Delivery Path Optimization Model

An Interval Knowledge Based Forecasting Paradigm for Container Throughput Prediction

An adaptive routing strategy for freight transportation networks