22,453 research outputs found
Another look at the regression discontinuity design
The attractiveness of the Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) in its sharp formulation rests on close similarities with a formal experimental design. On the other hand, it is of limited applicability since rarely individuals are assigned to the treatment group on the basis of a pre-program measure observable to the analyst. Besides, it only allows to identify the mean impact of the program for a very specific sub-population of individuals. In this paper we show that the sharp RDD straightforwardly generalizes to the instances in which the eligibility for the program is established with respect to an observable pre-program measure with eligible individuals self-selecting into the treatment group according to an unknown process. This set-up also turns out very convenient to define a specification test on conventional non-experimental estimators of the program effect needed to identify the mean impact away from the threshold for eligibility. Data requirements are made explicit.
Online Tool Condition Monitoring Based on Parsimonious Ensemble+
Accurate diagnosis of tool wear in metal turning process remains an open
challenge for both scientists and industrial practitioners because of
inhomogeneities in workpiece material, nonstationary machining settings to suit
production requirements, and nonlinear relations between measured variables and
tool wear. Common methodologies for tool condition monitoring still rely on
batch approaches which cannot cope with a fast sampling rate of metal cutting
process. Furthermore they require a retraining process to be completed from
scratch when dealing with a new set of machining parameters. This paper
presents an online tool condition monitoring approach based on Parsimonious
Ensemble+, pENsemble+. The unique feature of pENsemble+ lies in its highly
flexible principle where both ensemble structure and base-classifier structure
can automatically grow and shrink on the fly based on the characteristics of
data streams. Moreover, the online feature selection scenario is integrated to
actively sample relevant input attributes. The paper presents advancement of a
newly developed ensemble learning algorithm, pENsemble+, where online active
learning scenario is incorporated to reduce operator labelling effort. The
ensemble merging scenario is proposed which allows reduction of ensemble
complexity while retaining its diversity. Experimental studies utilising
real-world manufacturing data streams and comparisons with well known
algorithms were carried out. Furthermore, the efficacy of pENsemble was
examined using benchmark concept drift data streams. It has been found that
pENsemble+ incurs low structural complexity and results in a significant
reduction of operator labelling effort.Comment: this paper has been published by IEEE Transactions on Cybernetic
Energy performance forecasting of residential buildings using fuzzy approaches
The energy consumption used for domestic purposes in Europe is, to a considerable extent, due to heating and cooling. This energy is produced mostly by burning fossil fuels, which has a high negative environmental impact. The characteristics of a building are an important factor to determine the necessities of heating and cooling loads. Therefore, the study of the relevant characteristics of the buildings, regarding the heating and cooling needed to maintain comfortable indoor air conditions, could be very useful in order to design and construct energy-efficient buildings. In previous studies, different machine-learning approaches have been used to predict heating and cooling loads from the set of variables: relative compactness, surface area, wall area, roof area, overall height, orientation, glazing area and glazing area distribution. However, none of these methods are based on fuzzy logic. In this research, we study two fuzzy logic approaches, i.e., fuzzy inductive reasoning (FIR) and adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), to deal with the same problem. Fuzzy approaches obtain very good results, outperforming all the methods described in previous studies except one. In this work, we also study the feature selection process of FIR methodology as a pre-processing tool to select the more relevant variables before the use of any predictive modelling methodology. It is proven that FIR feature selection provides interesting insights into the main building variables causally related to heating and cooling loads. This allows better decision making and design strategies, since accurate cooling and heating load estimations and correct identification of parameters that affect building energy demands are of high importance to optimize building designs and equipment specifications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
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