HAWKS: Evolving Challenging Benchmark Sets for Cluster Analysis

Comprehensive benchmarking of clustering algorithms is rendered difficult by two key factors: (i) the elusiveness of a unique mathematical definition of this unsupervised learning approach and (ii) dependencies between the generating models or clustering criteria adopted by some clustering algorithms and indices for internal cluster validation. Consequently, there is no consensus regarding the best practice for rigorous benchmarking, and whether this is possible at all outside the context of a given application. Here, we argue that synthetic datasets must continue to play an important role in the evaluation of clustering algorithms, but that this necessitates constructing benchmarks that appropriately cover the diverse set of properties that impact clustering algorithm performance. Through our framework, HAWKS, we demonstrate the important role evolutionary algorithms play to support flexible generation of such benchmarks, allowing simple modification and extension. We illustrate two possible uses of our framework: (i) the evolution of benchmark data consistent with a set of hand-derived properties and (ii) the generation of datasets that tease out performance differences between a given pair of algorithms. Our work has implications for the design of clustering benchmarks that sufficiently challenge a broad range of algorithms, and for furthering insight into the strengths and weaknesses of specific approaches

Exposing market mechanism design trade-offs via multi-objective evolutionary search

Market mechanisms are a means by which resources in contention can be allocated between contending parties, both in human economies and those populated by software agents. Designing such mechanisms has traditionally been carried out by hand, and more recently by automation. Assessing these mechanisms typically involves them being evaluated with respect to multiple conflicting objectives, which can often be nonlinear, noisy, and expensive to compute. For typical performance objectives, it is known that designed mechanisms often fall short on being optimal across all objectives simultaneously. However, in all previous automated approaches, either only a single objective is considered, or else the multiple performance objectives are combined into a single objective. In this paper we do not aggregate objectives, instead considering a direct, novel application of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) to the problem of automated mechanism design. This allows the automatic discovery of trade-offs that such objectives impose on mechanisms. We pose the problem of mechanism design, specifically for the class of linear redistribution mechanisms, as a naturally existing multi-objective optimisation problem. We apply a modified version of NSGA-II in order to design mechanisms within this class, given economically relevant objectives such as welfare and fairness. This application of NSGA-II exposes tradeoffs between objectives, revealing relationships between them that were otherwise unknown for this mechanism class. The understanding of the trade-off gained from the application of MOEAs can thus help practitioners with an insightful application of discovered mechanisms in their respective real/artificial markets

Observation of enhanced rate coefficients in the H2+_2^+ + H2_2 →\rightarrow H3+_3^+ + H reaction at low collision energies

The energy dependence of the rate coefficient of the H$_2^+\ + {\rm H}_2 \rightarrow {\rm H}_3^+ + {\rm H}$ reaction has been measured in the range of collision energies between $k_\mathrm{B}\cdot 10$ K and $k_\mathrm{B}\cdot 300$ mK. A clear deviation of the rate coefficient from the value expected on the basis of the classical Langevin-capture behavior has been observed at collision energies below $k_\mathrm{B}\cdot 1$ K, which is attributed to the joint effects of the ion-quadrupole and Coriolis interactions in collisions involving ortho-H$_2$ molecules in the $j = 1$ rotational level, which make up 75% of the population of the neutral H$_2$ molecules in the experiments. The experimental results are compared to very recent predictions by Dashevskaya, Litvin, Nikitin and Troe (J. Chem. Phys., in press), with which they are in agreement.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Leveraging data mining techniques to understand drivers of obesity

Abstract—Substantial research has been carried out to explain\ud the effects of economic variables on obesity, typically\ud considering only a few factors at a time, using parametric\ud linear regression models. Recent studies have made a significant\ud contribution by examining economic factors affecting body\ud weight using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System\ud data with 27 state-level variables for a period of 20 years (1990-\ud 2010). As elsewhere, the authors solely focus on individual\ud effects of potential drivers of obesity than critical interactions\ud among the drivers. We take some steps to extend the literature\ud and gain a deeper understanding of the drivers of obesity.\ud We employ state-of-the-art data mining techniques to uncover\ud critical interactions that may exist among drivers of obesity\ud in a data-driven manner. The state-of-the-art techniques reveal\ud several complex interactions among economic and behavioral\ud factors that contribute to the rise of obesity. Lower levels of\ud obesity, measured by a body mass index (BMI), belong to\ud female individuals who exercise outside work, enjoy higher\ud levels of education and drink less alcohol. The highest level of\ud obesity, in contrast, belongs to those who fail to exercise outside\ud work, smoke regularly, consume more alcohol and come from\ud lower income groups. These and other complementary results\ud suggest that it is the joint complex interactions among various\ud behavioral and economic factors that gives rise to obesity or\ud lowers it; it is not simply the presence or absence of individual\ud factor

Orogen-parallel deformation of the Himalayan mid-crust: Insights from structural and magnetic fabric analyses of the Greater Himalayan Sequence, Annapurna-Dhaulagiri Himalaya, central Nepal

The metamorphic core of the Himalaya (Greater Himalayan Sequence, GHS), in the Annapurna-Dhaulagiri region, central Nepal, recorded orogen-parallel stretching during midcrustal evolution. Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility and field-based structural analyses suggest that midcrustal deformation of the amphibolite facies core of the GHS occurred under an oblate/suboblate strain regime with associated formation of low-angle northward dipping foliation. Magnetic and mineral stretching lineations lying within this foliation from the top of the GHS record right-lateral orogen-parallel stretching. We propose that oblate strain within a midcrustal flow accommodated oblique convergence between India and the arcuate orogenic front without the need for strain partitioning in the upper crust. Oblate flattening may have also promoted orogen-parallel melt migration and development of melt-depleted regions between km3 scale leucogranite culminations at ~50–100 km intervals along orogen strike. Following the cessation of flow, continued oblique convergence led to upper crustal strain partitioning between orogen-perpendicular convergence on thrust faults and orogen-parallel extension on normal and strike-slip faults. In the Annapurna-Dhaulagiri Himalaya, orogen-parallel stretching lineations are interpreted as a record of transition from midcrustal orogen-perpendicular extrusion to upper crustal orogen-parallel stretching. Our findings suggest that midcrustal flow and upper crustal extension could not be maintained simultaneously and support other studies from across the Himalaya, which propose an orogen-wide transition from midcrustal orogen-perpendicular extrusion to upper crustal orogen-parallel extension during the mid-Miocene. The 3-D nature of oblate strain and orogen-parallel stretching cannot be replicated by 2-D numerical simulations of the Himalayan orogen

Inversion tectonics and the evolution of the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco, based on a geological-geophysical transect

An edited version of this paper was published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Copyright 1998, AGU. See also: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1999/1998TC900015.shtml; http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/morocco/publications/beauchamp1999.htmThe High Atlas Mountains of North Africa were formed over a major intracontinental rift system that had extended from what is now the Atlantic margin of Morocco to the Mediterranean coast of Tunisia. The Atlas rift system began in the Triassic and was active through the Jurassic. The inversion phase of the Atlas rift system began in the Early Cretaceous and extended into the present. The major uplift phase occurred between 30 and 20 Ma (Oligocene-Miocene) and corresponds to the Alpine orogenic event. The uplift and inversion of the Atlas rift system resulted in a shortening of the rift basin by a minimum of 36 km. A restoration of the deformed cross section indicates the original Atlas rift basin was approximately 113 km wide, comparable to the width of the present-day Red Sea. Synrift and postrift sedimentary rocks were uplifted by the reactivation of synrift normal faults, with further shortening along newly formed thin-skinned thrust faults. Structures formed by the reactivation of synrift faults resulted in structures with different geometries than those created by newly formed fault-bend and fault-propagation faults. Shortening across the High Atlas Mountains involved a partitioning of strain, with the greatest magnitude of shortening occurring along the margins of the High Atlas Mountains

Asperities and barriers on the seismogenic zone in North Chile: state-of-the-art after the 2007 Mw 7.7 Tocopilla earthquake inferred by GPS and InSAR data

The Mw 7.7 2007 November 14 earthquake had an epicentre located close to the city of Tocopilla, at the southern end of a known seismic gap in North Chile. Through modelling of Global Positioning System (GPS) and radar interferometry (InSAR) data, we show that this event ruptured the deeper part of the seismogenic interface (30–50 km) and did not reach the surface. The earthquake initiated at the hypocentre and was arrested ~150 km south, beneath the Mejillones Peninsula, an area already identified as an important structural barrier between two segments of the Peru–Chile subduction zone. Our preferred models for the Tocopilla main shock show slip concentrated in two main asperities, consistent with previous inversions of seismological data. Slip appears to have propagated towards relatively shallow depths at its southern extremity, under the Mejillones Peninsula. Our analysis of post-seismic deformation suggests that small but still significant post-seismic slip occurred within the first 10 d after the main shock, and that it was mostly concentrated at the southern end of the rupture. The post-seismic deformation occurring in this period represents ~12–19 per cent of the coseismic deformation, of which ~30–55 per cent has been released aseismically. Post-seismic slip appears to concentrate within regions that exhibit low coseismic slip, suggesting that the afterslip distribution during the first month of the post-seismic interval complements the coseismic slip. The 2007 Tocopilla earthquake released only ~2.5 per cent of the moment deficit accumulated on the interface during the past 130 yr and may be regarded as a possible precursor of a larger subduction earthquake rupturing partially or completely the 500-km-long North Chile seismic gap

Measurement of the quasi-elastic axial vector mass in neutrino-oxygen interactions

The weak nucleon axial-vector form factor for quasi-elastic interactions is determined using neutrino interaction data from the K2K Scintillating Fiber detector in the neutrino beam at KEK. More than 12,000 events are analyzed, of which half are charged-current quasi-elastic interactions nu-mu n to mu- p occurring primarily in oxygen nuclei. We use a relativistic Fermi gas model for oxygen and assume the form factor is approximately a dipole with one parameter, the axial vector mass M_A, and fit to the shape of the distribution of the square of the momentum transfer from the nucleon to the nucleus. Our best fit result for M_A = 1.20 \pm 0.12 GeV. Furthermore, this analysis includes updated vector form factors from recent electron scattering experiments and a discussion of the effects of the nucleon momentum on the shape of the fitted distributions.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, 6 table

Study of e+e- --> pi+ pi- pi0 process using initial state radiation with BABAR

The process e+e- --> pi+ pi- pi0 gamma has been studied at a center-of-mass energy near the Y(4S) resonance using a 89.3 fb-1 data sample collected with the BaBar detector at the PEP-II collider. From the measured 3pi mass spectrum we have obtained the products of branching fractions for the omega and phi mesons, B(omega --> e+e-)B(omega --> 3pi)=(6.70 +/- 0.06 +/- 0.27)10-5 and B(phi --> e+e-)B(phi --> 3pi)=(4.30 +/- 0.08 +/- 0.21)10-5, and evaluated the e+e- --> pi+ pi- pi0 cross section for the e+e- center-of-mass energy range 1.05 to 3.00 GeV. About 900 e+e- --> J/psi gamma --> pi+ pi- pi0 gamma events have been selected and the branching fraction B(J/psi --> pi+ pi- pi0)=(2.18 +/- 0.19)% has been measured.Comment: 21 pages, 37 postscript figues, submitted to Phys. Rev.