Fusing Continuous-valued Medical Labels using a Bayesian Model

With the rapid increase in volume of time series medical data available through wearable devices, there is a need to employ automated algorithms to label data. Examples of labels include interventions, changes in activity (e.g. sleep) and changes in physiology (e.g. arrhythmias). However, automated algorithms tend to be unreliable resulting in lower quality care. Expert annotations are scarce, expensive, and prone to significant inter- and intra-observer variance. To address these problems, a Bayesian Continuous-valued Label Aggregator(BCLA) is proposed to provide a reliable estimation of label aggregation while accurately infer the precision and bias of each algorithm. The BCLA was applied to QT interval (pro-arrhythmic indicator) estimation from the electrocardiogram using labels from the 2006 PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge database. It was compared to the mean, median, and a previously proposed Expectation Maximization (EM) label aggregation approaches. While accurately predicting each labelling algorithm's bias and precision, the root-mean-square error of the BCLA was 11.78$\pm$0.63ms, significantly outperforming the best Challenge entry (15.37$\pm$2.13ms) as well as the EM, mean, and median voting strategies (14.76$\pm$0.52ms, 17.61$\pm$0.55ms, and 14.43$\pm$0.57ms respectively with $p<0.0001$)

Nearly Optimal Computations with Structured Matrices

We estimate the Boolean complexity of multiplication of structured matrices by a vector and the solution of nonsingular linear systems of equations with these matrices. We study four basic most popular classes, that is, Toeplitz, Hankel, Cauchy and Van-der-monde matrices, for which the cited computational problems are equivalent to the task of polynomial multiplication and division and polynomial and rational multipoint evaluation and interpolation. The Boolean cost estimates for the latter problems have been obtained by Kirrinnis in \cite{kirrinnis-joc-1998}, except for rational interpolation, which we supply now. All known Boolean cost estimates for these problems rely on using Kronecker product. This implies the $d$-fold precision increase for the $d$-th degree output, but we avoid such an increase by relying on distinct techniques based on employing FFT. Furthermore we simplify the analysis and make it more transparent by combining the representation of our tasks and algorithms in terms of both structured matrices and polynomials and rational functions. This also enables further extensions of our estimates to cover Trummer's important problem and computations with the popular classes of structured matrices that generalize the four cited basic matrix classes.Comment: (2014-04-10

On Sound Relative Error Bounds for Floating-Point Arithmetic

State-of-the-art static analysis tools for verifying finite-precision code compute worst-case absolute error bounds on numerical errors. These are, however, often not a good estimate of accuracy as they do not take into account the magnitude of the computed values. Relative errors, which compute errors relative to the value's magnitude, are thus preferable. While today's tools do report relative error bounds, these are merely computed via absolute errors and thus not necessarily tight or more informative. Furthermore, whenever the computed value is close to zero on part of the domain, the tools do not report any relative error estimate at all. Surprisingly, the quality of relative error bounds computed by today's tools has not been systematically studied or reported to date. In this paper, we investigate how state-of-the-art static techniques for computing sound absolute error bounds can be used, extended and combined for the computation of relative errors. Our experiments on a standard benchmark set show that computing relative errors directly, as opposed to via absolute errors, is often beneficial and can provide error estimates up to six orders of magnitude tighter, i.e. more accurate. We also show that interval subdivision, another commonly used technique to reduce over-approximations, has less benefit when computing relative errors directly, but it can help to alleviate the effects of the inherent issue of relative error estimates close to zero

Data Processing Protocol for Regression of Geothermal Times Series with Uneven Intervals

Regression of data generated in simulations or experiments has important implications in sensitivity studies, uncertainty analysis, and prediction accuracy. Depending on the nature of the physical model, data points may not be evenly distributed. It is not often practical to choose all points for regression of a model because it doesn't always guarantee a better fit. Fitness of the model is highly dependent on the number of data points and the distribution of the data along the curve. In this study, the effect of the number of points selected for regression is investigated and various schemes aimed to process regression data points are explored. Time series data i.e., output varying with time, is our prime interest mainly the temperature profile from enhanced geothermal system. The objective of the research is to find a better scheme for choosing a fraction of data points from the entire set to find a better fitness of the model without losing any features or trends in the data. A workflow is provided to summarize the entire protocol of data preprocessing, regression of mathematical model using training data, model testing, and error analysis. Six different schemes are developed to process data by setting criteria such as equal spacing along axes (X and Y), equal distance between two consecutive points on the curve, constraint in the angle of curvature, etc. As an example for the application of the proposed schemes, 1 to 20% of the data generated from the temperature change of a typical geothermal system is chosen from a total of 9939 points. It is shown that the number of data points, to a degree, has negligible effect on the fitted model depending on the scheme. The proposed data processing schemes are ranked in terms of R2 and NRMSE values