Proceedings of the twenty-first international conference on Machine learning

In the recent years, sports outcome prediction has gained popularity, as demonstrated by massive financial transactions in sports betting. One of the world’s popular sports that lures betting and attracts millions of fans worldwide is basketball, particularly the National Basketball Association (NBA) of the United States. This paper proposes a new intelligent machine learning framework for predicting the results of games played at the NBA by aiming to discover the influential features set that affects the outcomes of NBA games. We would like to identify whether machine learning methods are applicable to forecasting the outcome of an NBA game using historical data (previous games played), and what are the significant factors that affect the outcome of games. To achieve the objectives, several machine learning methods that utilise different learning schemes to derive the models, including Naive Bayes, artificial neural network, and Decision Tree, are selected. By comparing the performance and the models derived against different features sets related to basketball games, we can discover the key features that contribute to better performance such as accuracy and efficiency of the prediction model. Based on the results analysis, the DRB (defensive rebounds) feature was chosen and was deemed as the most significant factor influencing the results of an NBA game. Furthermore, others crucial factors such as TPP (three-point percentage), FT (free throws made), and TRB (total rebounds) were also selected, which subsequently increased the model’s prediction accuracy rate by 2–4%.

NBA Game Result Prediction Using Feature Analysis and Machine Learning

The increase in the volume of structured and unstructured data related to more than just sport events leads to the development and increased use of techniques that extract information and employ machine‐learning algorithms in predicting process outcomes based on input but not necessarily output data. Taking sports into consideration, predicting outcomes, and extracting valuable information has become appealing not only to sports workers but also to the wider audience, particularly in the areas of team management and sports betting. The aim of this article is to review the existing machine learning (ML) algorithms in predicting sport outcomes. Over 100 papers were analyzed and only some of these papers were taken into consideration. Almost all of the analyzed papers use some sort of feature selection and feature extraction, most often prior to using the machine‐learning algorithm. As an evaluation method of ML algorithms, researchers, in most cases, use data segmentation with data being chronologically distributed. In addition to data segmentation, researchers also use the k‐cross‐evaluation method. Sport predictions are usually treated as a classification problem with one class being predicted and rare cases being predicted as numerical values. Mostly used ML models are neural networks using data segmentation.

The use of machine learning in sport outcome prediction: A review

This work proposes a new edge about the Chaotic Genetic Algorithm (CGA) and the importance of the entropy in the initial population. Inspired by chaos theory, the CGA uses chaotic maps to modify the stochastic parameters of Genetic Algorithm. The algorithm modifies the parameters of the initial population using chaotic series and then analyzes the entropy of such population. This strategy exhibits the relationship between entropy and performance optimization in complex search spaces. Our study includes the optimization of nine benchmark functions using eight different chaotic maps for each of the benchmark functions. The numerical experiment demonstrates a direct relation between entropy and performance of the algorithm.

Chaotic genetic algorithm and the effects of entropy in performance optimization

This work proposes a new edge about the Chaotic Genetic Algorithm (CGA) and the importance of the entropy in the initial population. Inspired by chaos theory the CGA uses chaotic maps to modify the stochastic parameters of Genetic Algorithm (GA). The algorithm modifies the parameters of the initial population using chaotic series and then analyzes the entropy of such population. This strategy exhibits the relationship between entropy and performance optimization in complex search spaces. Our study includes the optimization of nine benchmark functions using eight different chaotic maps for each of the benchmark functions. The numerical experiment demonstrates a direct relation between entropy and performance of the algorithm.

Chaotic Genetic Algorithm and The Effects of Entropy in Performance Optimization

Predicting the outcome of National Basketball Association (NBA) matches poses a challenging problem of interest to the research community as well as the general public. In this article, we formalize the problem of predicting NBA game results as a classification problem and apply the principle of Maximum Entropy to construct an NBA Maximum Entropy (NBAME) model that fits to discrete statistics for NBA games, and then predict the outcomes of NBA playoffs using the model. Our results reveal that the model is able to predict the winning team with 74.4% accuracy, outperforming other classical machine learning algorithms that could only afford a maximum prediction accuracy of 70.6% in the experiments that we performed.

https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/18/12/450/pdf

Predicting the Outcome of NBA Playoffs Based on the Maximum Entropy Principle

The role of the Internet of Things (IoT) networks and systems in our daily life cannot be underestimated. IoT is among the fastest evolving innovative technologies that are digitizing and interconnecting many domains. Most life-critical and finance-critical systems are now IoT-based. It is, therefore, paramount that the Quality of Service (QoS) of IoTs is guaranteed. Traditionally, IoTs use heuristic, game theory approaches and optimization techniques for QoS guarantee. However, these methods and approaches have challenges whenever the number of users and devices increases or when multicellular situations are considered. Moreover, IoTs receive and generate huge amounts of data that cannot be effectively handled by the traditional methods for QoS assurance, especially in extracting useful features from this data. Deep Learning (DL) approaches have been suggested as a potential candidate in solving and handling the above-mentioned challenges in order to enhance and guarantee QoS in IoT. In this paper, we provide an extensive review of how DL techniques have been applied to enhance QoS in IoT. From the papers reviewed, we note that QoS in IoT-based systems is breached when the security and privacy of the systems are compromised or when the IoT resources are not properly managed. Therefore, this paper aims at finding out how Deep Learning has been applied to enhance QoS in IoT by preventing security and privacy breaches of the IoT-based systems and ensuring the proper and efficient allocation and management of IoT resources. We identify Deep Learning models and technologies described in state-of-the-art research and review papers and identify those that are most used in handling IoT QoS issues. We provide a detailed explanation of QoS in IoT and an overview of commonly used DL-based algorithms in enhancing QoS. Then, we provide a comprehensive discussion of how various DL techniques have been applied for enhancing QoS. We conclude the paper by highlighting the emerging areas of research around Deep Learning and its applicability in IoT QoS enhancement, future trends, and the associated challenges in the application of Deep Learning for QoS in IoT.

Application of Deep Learning for Quality of Service Enhancement in Internet of Things: A Review

Predicting the outcome of a future game between two National Basketball Association (NBA) teams poses a challenging problem of interest to statistical scientists as well as the general public. In this article, we formalize the problem of predicting the game results as a classification problem and apply the principle of maximum entropy to construct NBA maximum entropy (NBAME) model that fits to discrete statistics for NBA games, and then predict the outcomes of NBA playoffs by the NBAME model. The best NBAME model is able to correctly predict the winning team 74.4 percent of the time as compared to some other machine learning algorithms which is correct 69.3 percent of the time.

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201609.0103/v1/download

Nasser Kimbugwe

Papers

Predicting the Outcome of NBA Playoffs Based on the Maximum Entropy Principle

Application of Deep Learning for Quality of Service Enhancement in Internet of Things: A Review

Predicting the Outcome of NBA Playoffs Based on Maximum Entropy Principle