Air Quality Classification Using Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBOOST) Algorithm

Air pollution is a serious issue caused by vehicle exhaust, industrial factories, and piles of garbage. The impact is detrimental to human health and the environment. To quickly and accurately monitor classification, techniques are used. One efficient and accurate classification algorithm is XGBoost, a development of the Gradient Decision Tree (GDBT) with several advantages, such as high scalability and prevention of overfitting. The parameters used in the classification include (PM10), (PM2,5),(SO2),(CO),(O3) and (NO2). This study aims to classify air quality into three labels or categories: good, moderate, and unhealthy. In the dataset used to experience an imbalance class, to overcome the imbalance class, techniques will be carried out, namely SMOTE, Random UnderSampling, and Random OverSampling, by producing an accuracy of up to 98,61% with the SMOTE technique for class imbalance. Testing the level of accuracy is done by using the Confusion Matrix

Change detection in categorical evolving data streams

Detecting change in evolving data streams is a central issue for accurate adaptive learning. In real world applications, data streams have categorical features, and changes induced in the data distribution of these categorical features have not been considered extensively so far. Previous work on change detection focused on detecting changes in the accuracy of the learners, but without considering changes in the data distribution. To cope with these issues, we propose a new unsupervised change detection method, called CDCStream (Change Detection in Categorical Data Streams), well suited for categorical data streams. The proposed method is able to detect changes in a batch incremental scenario. It is based on the two following characteristics: (i) a summarization strategy is proposed to compress the actual batch by extracting a descriptive summary and (ii) a new segmentation algorithm is proposed to highlight changes and issue warnings for a data stream. To evaluate our proposal we employ it in a learning task over real world data and we compare its results with state of the art methods. We also report qualitative evaluation in order to show the behavior of CDCStream

The Drought Monitor

There is a need for improved drought monitoring and assessment methods in the United States. Drought is the most costly natural disaster [Federal Emergency Management Agancy (FEMA 1995; Wilhite 2000)], but it is often neglected by developers of assessment and forecast products. Drought is more nebulous than other disasters and does not lend itself to traditional assessments or forecast methods. Its relatively slow onset and the complexity of its impacts are reasons for the new assessment methodology. Improvements in drought monitoring and forecasting techniques will allow for better preparation, lead to better management practices, and reduce the vulnerability of society to drought and its subsequent impacts. The Drought Monitor (additional information available online at http://drought.unl/edu/dm) was created with the goal of tracking and displaying the magnitude and spatial extent of drought and its impacts across the United States. The Drought Monitor is produced weekly and classifies drought severity into four major categories, with a fifth category threshold assigned to locations on a map are determined from a number of indicators, or tools, blended with subjective interpretation

Chandra X-ray spectroscopy of the focused wind in the Cygnus X-1 system III. Dipping in the low/hard state

We present an analysis of three Chandra High Energy Transmission Gratings observations of the black hole binary Cyg X-1/HDE 226868 at different orbital phases. The stellar wind that is powering the accretion in this system is characterized by temperature and density inhomogeneities including structures, or "clumps", of colder, more dense material embedded in the photoionized gas. As these clumps pass our line of sight, absorption dips appear in the light curve. We characterize the properties of the clumps through spectral changes during various dip stages. Comparing the silicon and sulfur absorption line regions (1.6-2.7 keV $\equiv$ 7.7-4.6 {\AA}) in four levels of varying column depth reveals the presence of lower ionization stages, i.e., colder or denser material, in the deeper dip phases. The Doppler velocities of the lines are roughly consistent within each observation, varying with the respective orbital phase. This is consistent with the picture of a structure that consists of differently ionized material, in which shells of material facing the black hole shield the inner and back shells from the ionizing radiation. The variation of the Doppler velocities compared to a toy model of the stellar wind, however, does not allow us to pin down an exact location of the clump region in the system. This result, as well as the asymmetric shape of the observed lines, point at a picture of a complex wind structure.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Remote sensor digital image data analysis using the General Electric Image 100 analysis system (a study of analysis speed, cost, and performance)

The author has identified the following significant results. It was found that the high speed man machine interaction capability is a distinct advantage of the image 100; however, the small size of the digital computer in the system is a definite limitation. The system can be highly useful in an analysis mode in which it complements a large general purpose computer. The image 100 was found to be extremely valuable in the analysis of aircraft MSS data where the spatial resolution begins to approach photographic quality and the analyst can exercise interpretation judgements and readily interact with the machine

More Money or More Development: What Have the MDGs Achieved- Working Paper 278

What have the MDGs achieved? And what might their achievements mean for any second generation of MDGs or MDGs 2.0? We argue that the MDGs may have played a role in increasing aid and that development policies beyond aid quantity have seen some limited improvement in rich countries (the evidence on policy change in poor countries is weaker). Further, there is some evidence of faster-than-expected progress improving quality of life in developing countries since the Millennium Declaration, but the contribution of the MDGs themselves in speeding that progress is—of course—difficult to demonstrate even assuming the MDGs induced policy changes after 2002. The paper concludes with reflections on what the experience of MDGs in terms of global goal setting has taught us and how things might be done differently if there were to be a new set of MDGs after 2015. Any MDGs 2.0 need targets that are set realistically and directly link aid flows to social policy change and to results.

Towards a Wearable Wheelchair Monitor: Classification of push style based on inertial sensors at multiple upper limb locations

Measuring manual wheelchair activity by using wearable sensors is becoming increasingly common for rehabilitation and monitoring purposes. Until recently most research has focused on the identification of activities of daily living or on counting the number of strokes. However, how a person pushes their wheelchair - their stroke pattern - is an important descriptor of the wheelchair user's quality of movement. This paper evaluates the capability of inertial sensors located at different upper limb locations plus the wheel of the wheelchair, to classify two types of stroke pattern for manual wheelchairs: semicircle and arc. Data was collected using bespoke inertial sensors with a wheelchair fixed to a treadmill. Classification was completed with a linear SVM algorithm, and classification performance was computed for each sensor location in the upper limb, and then in combination with wheel sensor. For single sensors, forearm location had the highest accuracy (96%) followed by hand (93%) and arm (90%). For combined sensor location with wheel, best accuracy came in combination with forearm. These results set the direction towards a wearable wheelchair monitor that can measure the quality as well as the quantity of movement and which offers multiple on-body locations for increased usability