Classification of Systematic Measurement Errors within the Framework of Robust Data Reconciliation

A robust data reconciliation strategy provides unbiased variable estimates in the presence of a moderate quantity of atypical measurements. However, estimates get worse if systematic measurement errors that persist in time (e.g., biases and drifts) are undetected and the breakdown point of the robust strategy is surpassed. The detection and classification of those errors allow taking corrective actions on the inputs of the robust data reconciliation that preserve the instrumentation system redundancy while the faulty sensor is repaired. In this work, a new methodology for variable estimation and systematic error classification, which is based on the concepts of robust statistics, is presented. It has been devised to be part of the real-time optimization loop of an industrial plant; therefore, it runs for processes operating under steady-state conditions. The robust measurement test is proposed in this article and used to detect the presence of sporadic and continuous systematic errors. Also, the robust linear regression of the data contained in a moving window is applied to classify the continuous errors as biases or drifts. Results highlight the performance of the proposed methodology to detect and classify outliers, biases, and drifts for linear and nonlinear benchmarks.Fil: Llanos, Claudia Elizabeth. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química; ArgentinaFil: Sanchez, Mabel Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Planta Piloto de Ingeniería Química; ArgentinaFil: Maronna, Ricardo Antonio. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Matemáticas; Argentin

Cophylogenetic analysis of dated trees

Parasites and the associations they form with their hosts is an important area of research due to the associated health risks which parasites pose to the human population. The associations parasites form with their hosts are responsible for a number of the worst emerging diseases impacting global health today, including Ebola, HIV, and malaria. Macro-scale coevolutionary research aims to analyse these associations to provide further insights into these deadly diseases. This approach, first considered by Fahrenholz in 1913, has been applied to hundreds of coevolutionary systems and remains the most robust means to infer the underlying relationships which form between coevolving species. While reconciling the coevolutionary relationships between a pair of evolutionary systems is NP-Hard, it has been shown that if dating information exists there is a polynomial solution. These solutions however are computationally expensive, and are quickly becoming infeasible due to the rapid growth of phylogenetic data. If the rate of growth continues in line with the last three decades, the current means for analysing dated systems will become computationally infeasible. Within this thesis a collection of algorithms are introduced which aim to address this problem. This includes the introduction of the most efficient solution for analysing dated coevolutionary systems optimally, along with two linear time heuristics which may be applied where traditional algorithms are no longer feasible, while still offering a high degree of accuracy 91%. Finally, this work integrates these incremental results into a single model which is able to handle widespread parasitism, the case where parasites infect multiple hosts. This proposed model reconciles two competing theories of widespread parasitism, while also providing an accuracy improvement of 21%, one of the largest single improvements provided in this field to date. As such, the set of algorithms introduced within this thesis offers another step toward a unified coevolutionary analysis framework, consistent with Fahrenholz original coevolutionary analysis model

Swiftmend: Data Synchronization in Open mHealth Applications with Restricted Connectivity

Open mHealth applications often include mobile devices and cloud services with replicated data between components. These replicas need periodical synchronization to remain consistent. However, there are no guarantee of connectivity to networks which do not bill users on the quantity of data usage. This thesis propose Swiftmend, a system with synchronization that minimize the quantity of I/O used on the network. Swiftmend includes two reconciliation algorithms; Rejuvenation and Regrowth. The latter utilizes the efficiency of the Merkle tree data structure to reduce the I/O. Merkle trees can sum up the consistency of replicas into compact fingerprints. While the first reconciliation algorithm, Rejuvenation simply inspects the entire replica to identify consistency. Regrowth is shown to produce less quantity of I/O than Rejuvenation when synchronizing replicas. This is due to the compact fingerprints

A reconstructive critique of IPE and GPE from a critical scientific realist perspective: An alternative Keynesian-Kaleckian approach

This paper offers, first, a critique of the relative lack of economic theory in ‘British’ Global Political Economy and then use of neoclassical rational choice theory in American mainstream IPE from the perspective of critical scientific realism. Keynesian economic theories provide perhaps the most obvious alternative. Keynes’ General Theory has been followed by many, forming also the basis of Minsky’s long ignored but now, after the 2008-9 crisis, all of a sudden famous explorations on the mechanisms of financial markets. While a major leap forward, we argue that these theories are historically and conceptually limited. Keynes’ critique of neoclassical economic theory and his alternative theories of particularly the effective demand and of money and credit can be strengthened by following also a neo-Kaleckian approach which avoids some of the inconsistencies of neo-Keynesianism. We indicate where further conceptual work is required and provide several illustrations from the neo-Kaleckian and neo-Keynesian theory to suggest a partial agenda of further scientific work including the explanation of unnecessary and undesired global fluctuations, tendencies and crises and possible collective responses to them. We also suggest the possibility of going beyond Keynes and Kalecki in terms of a general field theory of global political economy that can accommodate the deep normative and institutional underpinnings of the historically evolving planetary political economy

Canal de Provence

Presented at the 2002 USCID/EWRI conference, Energy, climate, environment and water - issues and opportunities for irrigation and drainage on July 9-12 in San Luis Obispo, California.Includes bibliographical references.Measurement network on hydraulic system includes many sensors subject to failure or deviation, and spread over a huge area. In addition discharge and volume measurements in open channel hydraulic networks are characterized by large uncertainties. To overcome this kind of problem, in process control industrial applications, data reconciliation is more and more used. The objective of the data reconciliation is to take advantage of information redundancy on a system to make a cross-checking of real-time measurements. Using this information redundancy, a data reconciliation module allows to detect inconsistent measurements, measurement deviations and provides corrected values whether the initial measurements are valid, biased or invalid. A derived consequence is to better schedule the maintenance of sensors. A data reconciliation module, based on the measurements from the hydraulic network, has been recently developed and implemented in the SCP's supervisory system. The software has initially been used on a daily basis to check the measured flow on the main canal. It has then been adapted in order to run every 15 minutes on a distribution network including pipes, canals, and tanks. The paper presents first the theory of the Canal de Provence data reconciliation application. The basic model is an hydraulic network with a series of nodes corresponding to balance equations (inflows, outflows, and storage). Constrained data reconciliation is used in order to satisfy the non-negativity of the hydraulic variables and the mass balance relations. The results are corrected values for measured variables and proposed values for non-measured quantities. A statistical analysis of the results is performed. This analysis allows to evaluate the uncertainties attached to the estimated flows and volume values. It allows also to detect invalid measurements, drift of sensors and to decide which maintenance operations to perform. Secondly, field examples are presented: measured and re-estimated flow values with their standard deviations, detection of invalid sensors, performed maintenance operation. The data reconciliation is situated just after the measurement process and takes place in the decision process for diagnosis, identification and control

Reality, measurement and locality in Quantum Field Theory

It is currently believed that the local causality of Quantum Field Theory (QFT) is destroyed by the measurement process. This belief is also based on the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox and on the so-called Bell's theorem, that are thought to prove the existence of a mysterious, instantaneous action between distant measurements. However, I have shown recently that the EPR argument is removed, in an interpretation-independent way, by taking into account the fact that the Standard Model of Particle Physics prevents the production of entangled states with a definite number of particles. This result is used here to argue in favor of a statistical interpretation of QFT and to show that it allows for a full reconciliation with locality and causality. Within such an interpretation, as Ballentine and Jarret pointed out long ago, Bell's theorem does not demonstrate any nonlocality.Comment: 15 pages. Published versio