Instance reduction for one-class classification

Instance reduction techniques are data preprocessing methods originally developed to enhance the nearest neighbor rule for standard classification. They reduce the training data by selecting or generating representative examples of a given problem. These algorithms have been designed and widely analyzed in multi-class problems providing very competitive results. However, this issue was rarely addressed in the context of one-class classification. In this specific domain a reduction of the training set may not only decrease the classification time and classifier’s complexity, but also allows us to handle internal noisy data and simplify the data description boundary. We propose two methods for achieving this goal. The first one is a flexible framework that adjusts any instance reduction method to one-class scenario by introduction of meaningful artificial outliers. The second one is a novel modification of evolutionary instance reduction technique that is based on differential evolution and uses consistency measure for model evaluation in filter or wrapper modes. It is a powerful native one-class solution that does not require an access to counterexamples. Both of the proposed algorithms can be applied to any type of one-class classifier. On the basis of extensive computational experiments, we show that the proposed methods are highly efficient techniques to reduce the complexity and improve the classification performance in one-class scenarios

“Savages Who Speak French”: Folklore, Primitivism and Morals in Robert Hertz

Hertz's analysis of the Alpine cult of Saint Besse apparently marks a break from his studies of death, sin and the left to folkloric studies. This analysis helps one to understand the personality of Robert Hertz. His sociological curiosity about folklore reveals his ambiguous position in social sciences at the beginning of the twentieth century. His text appears to be a variation from the Durkheimian norm, but another reading could suggest that Hertz continued and went beyond Durkheimian thought to something between sociology of the modern world and engaged socialism. Through this study, Hertz linked his political ideals, his work in ethnology and his desire for social involvement. The cult of Saint Besse perpetuated as much religious tradition as local identity. The Alpine people were presented in the text as wilful perpetuators of an ideal social order, whose loss for his contemporary city dwellers Hertz feared. The alpine Other, marked by a material and moral backwardness, represented for activist and socialist Hertz one of the paths of balanced social organization that stabilized the identity of a group across time if it fit rather well into the folkloric stereotypes of the beginning of the twentieth century. Finally, by linking events in Herz's life (e.g., the accidental Alpine death of his father), this article suggests that the legend of Saint Besse embodied several recurring motifs in Hertz' career: the accidental deaths of saint and father by falls, the military role of the saint and of Hertz himself

Application of agent-based simulated annealing and tabu search procedures to solving the data reduction problem

The problem considered concerns data reduction for machine learning. Data reduction aims at deciding which features and instances from the training set should be retained for further use during the learning process. Data reduction results in increased capabilities and generalization properties of the learning model and a shorter time of the learning process. It can also help in scaling up to large data sources. The paper proposes an agent-based data reduction approach with the learning process executed by a team of agents (A-Team). Several A-Team architectures with agents executing the simulated annealing and tabu search procedures are proposed and investigated. The paper includes a detailed description of the proposed approach and discusses the results of a validating experiment

Review of Computer Programs Dedicated to the Design of Electronic Systems. Characteristics of the GeckoCIRCUITS Environment

Rozwój technologii wytwarzania układów elektronicznych, a także coraz szerszy zakres ich zastosowań, prowadzi do zapotrzebowania na rozwiązania wspomagające ich projektowanie. W artykule dokonano przeglądu wybranych rozwiązań dedykowanych projektowaniu układów elektronicznych. Skoncentrowano się na rozwiązaniach opartych na projektowaniu komputerowym, porównując wybrane środowiska programowe. W szczególności uwagę poświęcono środowisku GeckoCIRCUITS, które omówiono na przykładzie projektu układu przekształtnika podwyższającego napięcie (boost converter).The development of electronics manufacturing technologies, as well as increasingly broad range of their applications, leads to an increase in the demand for solutions that support their design process. The article reviews selected solutions dedicated to the design of electronic circuits and focuses on computed-based solutions, comparing the selected software environments. Particular attention has been paid to the GeckoCIRCUITS environment, which has been discussed basing on example of an electronic boost converter circuit design