Linear, Deterministic, and Order-Invariant Initialization Methods for the K-Means Clustering Algorithm

Over the past five decades, k-means has become the clustering algorithm of choice in many application domains primarily due to its simplicity, time/space efficiency, and invariance to the ordering of the data points. Unfortunately, the algorithm's sensitivity to the initial selection of the cluster centers remains to be its most serious drawback. Numerous initialization methods have been proposed to address this drawback. Many of these methods, however, have time complexity superlinear in the number of data points, which makes them impractical for large data sets. On the other hand, linear methods are often random and/or sensitive to the ordering of the data points. These methods are generally unreliable in that the quality of their results is unpredictable. Therefore, it is common practice to perform multiple runs of such methods and take the output of the run that produces the best results. Such a practice, however, greatly increases the computational requirements of the otherwise highly efficient k-means algorithm. In this chapter, we investigate the empirical performance of six linear, deterministic (non-random), and order-invariant k-means initialization methods on a large and diverse collection of data sets from the UCI Machine Learning Repository. The results demonstrate that two relatively unknown hierarchical initialization methods due to Su and Dy outperform the remaining four methods with respect to two objective effectiveness criteria. In addition, a recent method due to Erisoglu et al. performs surprisingly poorly.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, 5 tables, Partitional Clustering Algorithms (Springer, 2014). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1304.7465, arXiv:1209.196

An innovative metaheuristic strategy for solar energy management through a neural networks framework

Proper management of solar energy as an effective renewable source is of high importance toward sustainable energy harvesting. This paper offers a novel sophisticated method for predicting solar irradiance (SIr) from environmental conditions. To this end, an efficient metaheuristic technique, namely electromagnetic field optimization (EFO), is employed for optimizing a neural network. This algorithm quickly mines a publicly available dataset for nonlinearly tuning the network parameters. To suggest an optimal configuration, five influential parameters of the EFO are optimized by an extensive trial and error practice. Analyzing the results showed that the proposed model can learn the SIr pattern and predict it for unseen conditions with high accuracy. Furthermore, it provided about 10% and 16% higher accuracy compared to two benchmark optimizers, namely shuffled complex evolution and shuffled frog leaping algorithm. Hence, the EFO-supervised neural network can be a promising tool for the early prediction of SIr in practice. The findings of this research may shed light on the use of advanced intelligent models for efficient energy development

Sistemas granulares evolutivos

Orientador: Fernando Antonio Campos GomideTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: Recentemente tem-se observado um crescente interesse em abordagens de modelagem computacional para lidar com fluxos de dados do mundo real. Métodos e algoritmos têm sido propostos para obtenção de conhecimento a partir de conjuntos de dados muito grandes e, a princípio, sem valor aparente. Este trabalho apresenta uma plataforma computacional para modelagem granular evolutiva de fluxos de dados incertos. Sistemas granulares evolutivos abrangem uma variedade de abordagens para modelagem on-line inspiradas na forma com que os humanos lidam com a complexidade. Esses sistemas exploram o fluxo de informação em ambiente dinâmico e extrai disso modelos que podem ser linguisticamente entendidos. Particularmente, a granulação da informação é uma técnica natural para dispensar atenção a detalhes desnecessários e enfatizar transparência, interpretabilidade e escalabilidade de sistemas de informação. Dados incertos (granulares) surgem a partir de percepções ou descrições imprecisas do valor de uma variável. De maneira geral, vários fatores podem afetar a escolha da representação dos dados tal que o objeto representativo reflita o significado do conceito que ele está sendo usado para representar. Neste trabalho são considerados dados numéricos, intervalares e fuzzy; e modelos intervalares, fuzzy e neuro-fuzzy. A aprendizagem de sistemas granulares é baseada em algoritmos incrementais que constroem a estrutura do modelo sem conhecimento anterior sobre o processo e adapta os parâmetros do modelo sempre que necessário. Este paradigma de aprendizagem é particularmente importante uma vez que ele evita a reconstrução e o retreinamento do modelo quando o ambiente muda. Exemplos de aplicação em classificação, aproximação de função, predição de séries temporais e controle usando dados sintéticos e reais ilustram a utilidade das abordagens de modelagem granular propostas. O comportamento de fluxos de dados não-estacionários com mudanças graduais e abruptas de regime é também analisado dentro do paradigma de computação granular evolutiva. Realçamos o papel da computação intervalar, fuzzy e neuro-fuzzy em processar dados incertos e prover soluções aproximadas de alta qualidade e sumário de regras de conjuntos de dados de entrada e saída. As abordagens e o paradigma introduzidos constituem uma extensão natural de sistemas inteligentes evolutivos para processamento de dados numéricos a sistemas granulares evolutivos para processamento de dados granularesAbstract: In recent years there has been increasing interest in computational modeling approaches to deal with real-world data streams. Methods and algorithms have been proposed to uncover meaningful knowledge from very large (often unbounded) data sets in principle with no apparent value. This thesis introduces a framework for evolving granular modeling of uncertain data streams. Evolving granular systems comprise an array of online modeling approaches inspired by the way in which humans deal with complexity. These systems explore the information flow in dynamic environments and derive from it models that can be linguistically understood. Particularly, information granulation is a natural technique to dispense unnecessary details and emphasize transparency, interpretability and scalability of information systems. Uncertain (granular) data arise from imprecise perception or description of the value of a variable. Broadly stated, various factors can affect one's choice of data representation such that the representing object conveys the meaning of the concept it is being used to represent. Of particular concern to this work are numerical, interval, and fuzzy types of granular data; and interval, fuzzy, and neurofuzzy modeling frameworks. Learning in evolving granular systems is based on incremental algorithms that build model structure from scratch on a per-sample basis and adapt model parameters whenever necessary. This learning paradigm is meaningful once it avoids redesigning and retraining models all along if the system changes. Application examples in classification, function approximation, time-series prediction and control using real and synthetic data illustrate the usefulness of the granular approaches and framework proposed. The behavior of nonstationary data streams with gradual and abrupt regime shifts is also analyzed in the realm of evolving granular computing. We shed light upon the role of interval, fuzzy, and neurofuzzy computing in processing uncertain data and providing high-quality approximate solutions and rule summary of input-output data sets. The approaches and framework introduced constitute a natural extension of evolving intelligent systems over numeric data streams to evolving granular systems over granular data streamsDoutoradoAutomaçãoDoutor em Engenharia Elétric

Multiobjective global surrogate modeling, dealing with the 5-percent problem

When dealing with computationally expensive simulation codes or process measurement data, surrogate modeling methods are firmly established as facilitators for design space exploration, sensitivity analysis, visualization, prototyping and optimization. Typically the model parameter (=hyperparameter) optimization problem as part of global surrogate modeling is formulated in a single objective way. Models are generated according to a single objective (accuracy). However, this requires an engineer to determine a single accuracy target and measure upfront, which is hard to do if the behavior of the response is unknown. Likewise, the different outputs of a multi-output system are typically modeled separately by independent models. Again, a multiobjective approach would benefit the domain expert by giving information about output correlation and enabling automatic model type selection for each output dynamically. With this paper the authors attempt to increase awareness of the subtleties involved and discuss a number of solutions and applications. In particular, we present a multiobjective framework for global surrogate model generation to help tackle both problems and that is applicable in both the static and sequential design (adaptive sampling) case

Review of soft computing models in design and control of rotating electrical machines

Rotating electrical machines are electromechanical energy converters with a fundamental impact on the production and conversion of energy. Novelty and advancement in the control and high-performance design of these machines are of interest in energy management. Soft computing methods are known as the essential tools that significantly improve the performance of rotating electrical machines in both aspects of control and design. From this perspective, a wide range of energy conversion systems such as generators, high-performance electric engines, and electric vehicles, are highly reliant on the advancement of soft computing techniques used in rotating electrical machines. This article presents the-state-of-the-art of soft computing techniques and their applications, which have greatly influenced the progression of this significant realm of energy. Through a novel taxonomy of systems and applications, the most critical advancements in the field are reviewed for providing an insight into the future of control and design of rotating electrical machines