Query: Decision trees for predicting the academic success of students

Relevant passages:
Improved Use of Continuous Attributes in C4.5 <=SEP=> A reported weakness of C4.5 in domains with continuous attributes is addressed by modifying the formation and evaluation of tests on continuous attributes. An MDL-inspired penalty is applied to such tests, eliminating some of them from consideration and altering the relative desirability of all tests. Empirical trials show that the modi cations lead to smaller decision trees with higher predictive accuracies. Results also con rm that a new version of C4.5 incorporating these changes is superior to recent approaches that use global discretization and that construct small trees with multi-interval splits.

Analysis of WEKA Data Mining Algorithm REPTree, Simple Cart and RandomTree for Classification of Indian News <=SEP=> The amount of data in the world and in our lives seems everincreasing and there’s no end to it. The Weka workbench is an organized collection of state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms and data pre-processing tools. The basic way of interacting with these methods is by invoking them from the command line. However, convenient interactive graphical user interfaces are provided for data exploration, for setting up largescale experiments on distributed computing platforms, and for designing configurations for streamed data processing. These interfaces constitute an advanced environment for experimental data mining. Classification is an important data mining technique with broad applications. It classifies data of various kinds. This paper has been carried out to make a performance evaluation of REPTree, Simple Cart and RandomTree classification algorithm. The paper sets out to make comparative evaluation of classifiers REPTree, Simple Cart and RandomTree in the context of dataset of Indian news to maximize true positive rate and minimize false positive rate. For processing Weka API were used. The results in the paper on dataset of Indian news also show that the efficiency and accuracy of RandomTree is good than REPTree, and Simple Cart. Keywords— Simple Cart, RandomTree, REPTree, Weka, WWW

Classification and Regression by randomForest <=SEP=> Recently there has been a lot of interest in “ensemble learning” — methods that generate many classifiers and aggregate their results. Two well-known methods are boosting (see, e.g., Shapire et al., 1998) and bagging Breiman (1996) of classification trees. In boosting, successive trees give extra weight to points incorrectly predicted by earlier predictors. In the end, a weighted vote is taken for prediction. In bagging, successive trees do not depend on earlier trees — each is independently constructed using a bootstrap sample of the data set. In the end, a simple majority vote is taken for prediction. Breiman (2001) proposed random forests, which add an additional layer of randomness to bagging. In addition to constructing each tree using a different bootstrap sample of the data, random forests change how the classification or regression trees are constructed. In standard trees, each node is split using the best split among all variables. In a random forest, each node is split using the best among a subset of predictors randomly chosen at that node. This somewhat counterintuitive strategy turns out to perform very well compared to many other classifiers, including discriminant analysis, support vector machines and neural networks, and is robust against overfitting (Breiman, 2001). In addition, it is very user-friendly in the sense that it has only two parameters (the number of variables in the random subset at each node and the number of trees in the forest), and is usually not very sensitive to their values. The randomForest package provides an R interface to the Fortran programs by Breiman and Cutler (available at http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/ users/breiman/). This article provides a brief introduction to the usage and features of the R functions.

FOR PREDICTING STUDENT PERFORMANCE <=SEP=> Although data mining has been successfully implemented in the business world for some time now, its use in higher education is still relatively new, i.e. its use is intended for identification and extraction of new and potentially valuable knowledge from the data. Using data mining the aim was to develop a model which can derive the conclusion on students' academic success. Different methods and techniques of data mining were compared during the prediction of students' success, applying the data collected from the surveys conducted during the summer semester at the University of Tuzla, the Faculty of Economics, academic year 2010-2011, among first year students and the data taken during the enrollment. The success was evaluated with the passing grade at the exam. The impact of students' socio-demographic variables, achieved results from high school and from the entrance exam, and attitudes towards studying which can have an affect on success, were all investigated. In future investigations, with identifying and evaulating variables associated with process of studying, and with the sample increase, it would be possible to produce a model which would stand as a foundation for the development of decision support system in higher education.

A comparative analysis of techniques for predicting academic performance <=SEP=> This paper compares the accuracy of decision tree and Bayesian network algorithms for predicting the academic performance of undergraduate and postgraduate students at two very different academic institutes: Can Tho University (CTU), a large national university in Viet Nam; and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), a small international postgraduate institute in Thailand that draws students from 86 different countries. Although the diversity of these two student populations is very different, the data-mining tools were able to achieve similar levels of accuracy for predicting student performance: 73/71% for {fail, fair, good, very good} and 94/93% for {fail, pass} at the CTU/AIT respectively. These predictions are most useful for identifying and assisting failing students at CTU (64% accurate), and for selecting very good students for scholarships at the AIT (82% accurate). In this analysis, the decision tree was consistently 3-12% more accurate than the Bayesian network. The results of these case studies give insight into techniques for accurately predicting student performance, compare the accuracy of data mining algorithms, and demonstrate the maturity of open source tools.

Driver Identification: a Time Series Classification Approach <=SEP=> In the last years, researchers and auto vehicle developers are focusing their attention on the topic of driver identification encouraged by an increasing number of always more sophisticated vehicle sensors able to extract information about the driver. Indeed, driver identification can be very useful to customize and improve driver experience, increase the safety on the road and reduce the global environmental problems. In this work, we propose and explore a set of features (extracted from a car monitoring system) identifying the driver basing on his/her driving behavior. The proposed behavioral features are exploited using a time series classification approach and a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) network is used to evaluate the ability of the proposed features to identify the vehicle driver. The proposed features are tested on a real data set composed of totally 66 observations (each observation consists of a given person driving a given car on a predefined path). The obtained results show that the proposed features have effective driver identification ability.

Color exploitation in hog-based traffic sign detection <=SEP=> We study traffic sign detection on a challenging large-scale real-world dataset of panoramic images. The core processing is based on the Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) algorithm which is extended by incorporating color information in the feature vector. The choice of the color space has a large influence on the performance, where we have found that the CIELab and YCbCr color spaces give the best results. The use of color significantly improves the detection performance. We compare the performance of a specific and HOG algorithm, and show that HOG outperforms the specific algorithm by up to tens of percents in most cases. In addition, we propose a new iterative SVM training paradigm to deal with the large variation in background appearance. This reduces memory consumption and increases utilization of background information.

An Initial Investigation of Test Driven Development in Industry <=SEP=> Test Driven Development (TDD) is a software development practice in which unit test cases are incrementally written prior to code implementation. In our research, we ran a set of structured experiments with 24 professional pair programmers. One group developed code using TDD while the other a waterfall-like approach. Both groups developed a small Java program. We found that the TDD developers produced higher quality code, which passed 18% more functional black box test cases. However, TDD developer pairs took 16% more time for development. A moderate correlation between time spent and the resulting quality was established upon analysis. It is conjectured that the resulting high quality of code written using the TDD practice may be due to the granularity of TDD, which may encourage more frequent and tighter verification and validation. Lastly, the programmers which followed a waterfall-like process often did not write the required automated test cases after completing their code, which might be indicative of the tendency among practitioners toward inadequate testing. This observation supports that TDD has the potential of increasing the level of testing in the industry as testing as an integral part of code development.

Using Nonfinancial Measures to Assess Fraud Risk <=SEP=> This study examines whether auditors can effectively use nonfinancial measures (NFMs) to assess the reasonableness of financial performance and, thereby, help detect financial statement fraud (hereafter, fraud). If auditors or other interested parties (e.g., directors, lenders, investors, or regulators) can identify NFMs (e.g., facilities growth) that are correlated with financial measures (e.g., revenue growth), inconsistent patterns between the NFMs and financial measures can be used to detect firms with high fraud risk. We find that the difference between financial and nonfinancial performance is significantly greater for firms that committed fraud than for their nonfraud competitors. We also find that this difference is a significant fraud indicator when included in a model containing variables that have previously been linked to the likelihood of fraud. Overall, our results provide empirical evidence suggesting that NFMs can be effectively used to assess fraud risk. ∗North Carolina State University; †George Mason University; ‡Brigham Young University. We especially thank Abbie Smith (editor) and the referee for their invaluable guidance. We are grateful for helpful comments from Mark Beasley, Brian Cloyd, Andrew Felo, Glen Gray, Dana Hermanson, Diane Matson, Kevin Melendrez, Mitch Oler, Mark Peecher, and workshop participants at Indiana University, Virginia Tech University, Lehigh University, Utah State University, the 2005 Brigham Young University Research Symposium, the 2006 AAA Annual Meeting, the 2006 International Symposium on Audit Research, the 2007 Auditing Section Midyear Conference, the 2008 Conference on Corporate Governance and Fraud Prevention at George Mason University, the 2008 Corporate Governance and Ethics Symposium at George Mason University, the North Carolina Association of Government Accountants, the North Carolina Office of the State Controller, and First Citizens Bank. Finally, we appreciate the many students who gathered data for our sample of firms. This study was funded by research grants from the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation.

Edge Detection in Digital Images Using Fuzzy Logic Technique <=SEP=> The fuzzy technique is an operator introduced in order to simulate at a mathematical level the compensatory behavior in process of decision making or subjective evaluation. The following paper introduces such operators on hand of computer vision application. In this paper a novel method based on fuzzy logic reasoning strategy is proposed for edge detection in digital images without determining the threshold value. The proposed approach begins by segmenting the images into regions using floating 3x3 binary matrix. The edge pixels are mapped to a range of values distinct from each other. The robustness of the proposed method results for different captured images are compared to those obtained with the linear Sobel operator. It is gave a permanent effect in the lines smoothness and straightness for the straight lines and good roundness for the curved lines. In the same time the corners get sharper and can be defined easily. Keywords—Fuzzy logic, Edge detection, Image processing, computer vision, Mechanical parts, Measurement.

Factors Affecting the Adoption of Electronic Word-of-Mouth in the Tourism Industry <=SEP=> This paper proposes a theoretical framework to explain the factors that influence consumer adoption of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in the decision to purchase travel-related services. Adoption of eWOM is posited to be influenced by the perceived usefulness of eWOM. The perceived usefulness of eWOM, in turn, is expected to be influenced by the nature of eWOM characterized by message basis, positivity, valence, elaborateness, and timeliness; eWOM quantity; source credibility in the form of message forum type, reviewer identity disclosure, expertise, and reputation; and consumers’ prior knowledge of the services being considered. Managerial implications of the framework are also discussed.

Are More Data Always Better for Factor Analysis ? <=SEP=> Factors estimated from large macroeconomic panels are being used in an increasing number of applications. However, little is known about how the size and composition of the data affect the factor estimates. In this paper, we question whether it is possible to use more series to extract the factors and that yet the resulting factors are less useful for forecasting, and the answer is yes. Such a problem tends to arise when the idiosyncratic errors are cross-correlated. It can also arise if forecasting power is provided by a factor that is dominant in a small dataset but is a dominated factor in a larger dataset. In a real time forecasting exercise, we find that factors extracted from as few as 40 pre-screened series often yield satisfactory or even better results than using all 147 series. Our simulation analysis is unique in that special attention is paid to cross-correlated idiosyncratic errors, and we also allow the factors to have weak loadings on groups of series. It thus allows us to better understand the properties of the principal components estimator in empirical applications. ∗Graduate School of Business, 719 Uris Hall, Columbia University, New York, NY. Email: jb903@columbia.edu †Corresponding author: Department of Economics, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Email: Serena.Ng@jhu.edu The authors would like to thank National Science Foundation for financial support. We thank Pritha Mitra for useful research assistance.

A Reorder Buffer Design for High Performance Processors <=SEP=> Modern reorder buffers (ROBs) were conceived to improve processor performance by allowing instruction execution out of the original program order and run ahead of sequential instruction code exploiting existing instruction level parallelism (ILP). The ROB is a functional structure of a processor execution engine that supports speculative execution, physical register recycling, and precise exception recovering. Traditionally, the ROB is considered as a monolithic circular buffer with incoming instructions at the tail pointer after the decoding stage and completing instructions at the head pointer after the commitment stage. The latter stage verifies instructions that have been dispatched, issued, executed, and are not completed speculatively. This paper presents a design of distributed reorder buffer microarchitecture by using small structures near building blocks which work together, using the same tail and head pointer values on all structures for synchronization. The reduction of area, and therefore, the reduction of power and delay make this design suitable for both embedded and high performance microprocessors.

Moodle's Ontology Development from UML for Social Learning Network Analysis <=SEP=> The online learning called e-learning is a new learning path that offers to learners to study at their own pace and at the moments that suit them. It is in this perspective that the semantic web has known its emergence in the field of e-learning to offer platforms content more personalized and more adapted to student's and teacher's needs. Since Moodle is the most popular e-learning platform, we propose in this paper to build its OWL ontology by exploring the representative data that we collected from its UML class diagram. The choice of UML class diagram as a basis for data collection for the development of the ontology is justified by the fact that the transition from UML to OWL ontology brings ontology development process closer to the wider software engineering population. The built ontology brings also great benefit in the field of the Social Learning Network Analysis. Because it gives the opportunity to study the behavior of the platform users by giving meaning to their relationships instead of modelling them only as knots and edges.

A fully integrated multi-CPU, GPU and memory controller 32nm processor <=SEP=> This paper describes the 32nm Sandy Bridge processor that integrates up to 4 high performance Intel Architecture (IA) cores, a power/performance optimized graphic processing unit (GPU) and memory and PCIe controllers in the same die. The Sandy Bridge architecture block diagram is shown in Fig. 15.1.1 and the floorplan of a four IA-core version is shown in Fig. 15.1.2. The Sandy Bridge IA core implements an improved branch prediction algorithm, a micro-operation (Uop) cache, a floating point Advanced Vector Extension (AVX), a second load port in the L1 cache and bigger register files in the out-of-order part of the machine; all these architecture improvements boost the IA core performance without increasing the thermal power dissipation envelope or the average power consumption (to preserve battery life in mobile systems). The CPUs and GPU share the same 8MB level-3 cache memory. The data flow is optimized by a high performance on die interconnect fabric (called “ring”) that connects between the CPUs, the GPU, the L3 cache and the system agent (SA) unit that houses a 1600MT/s, dual channel DDR3 memory controller, a 20-lane PCIe gen2 controller, a two parallel pipe display engine, the power management control unit and the testability logic. An on die EPROM is used for configurability and yield optimization.

Dynamic Modeling and Adaptive Control of a Cable-suspended Robot <=SEP=> The level adjustment of cable-driven parallel mechanism is challenging due to the difficulty in obtaining an accurate mathematical model and the fact that different sources of uncertainties exist in the adjustment process. This paper presents application of an adaptive control scheme for a cable suspended robot to handle uncertainties in mass and moments of inertia of end effecter. In section II dynamic equations of motion are derived and the constraints are utilized to obtain the complete required equations. In section III inverse dynamic controller and adaptive controller are presented. Simulations results presented in section IV show the effectiveness of the adaptive controller when there is no enough knowledge about system parameters.

E-Learning’s Impact on the Academic Performance of Student-Teachers: A Curriculum Lens <=SEP=> This study was planned to explore the impact of eLearning on the academic performance of student-teachers. The researchers' concern with e-Learning was sanctioned by the need for a teaching and learning strategy that can help institutions of learning address their problems and improve on their outcome. In this respect, the researchers conducted an experiment to find out whether student-teachers taught using the method of e-Learning (blended learning) perform better than studentteachers taught using the traditional method of teaching and learning. Findings offers new evidence that e-Learning has a significant influence on the performance of students as student-teachers taught using eLearning consistently performed better than student-teachers taught using the traditional method. Based on this result, recommendations are made to training institutions to embrace ICTs and become more flexible by adopting learning approaches that are dynamic and multidimensional as problems in education are becoming more complex.

The state of the art in semantic relatedness: a framework for comparison <=SEP=> Semantic relatedness (SR) is a form of measurement that quantitatively identifies the relationship between two words or concepts based on the similarity or closeness of their meaning. In the recent years, there have been noteworthy efforts to compute SR between pairs of words or concepts by exploiting various knowledge resources such as linguistically structured (e.g. WordNet) and collaboratively developed knowledge bases (e.g. Wikipedia), among others. The existing approaches rely on different methods for utilizing these knowledge resources, for instance, methods that depend on the path between two words, or a vector representation of the word descriptions. The purpose of this paper is to review and present the state of the art in SR research through a hierarchical framework. The dimensions of the proposed framework cover three main aspects of SR approaches including the resources they rely on, the computational methods applied on the resources for developing a relatedness metric, and the evaluation models that are used for measuring their effectiveness. We have selected 14 representative SR approaches to be analyzed using our framework. We compare and critically review each of them through the dimensions of our framework, thus, identifying strengths and weaknesses of each approach. In addition, we provide guidelines for researchers and practitioners on how to select the most relevant SR method for their purpose. Finally, based on the comparative analysis of the reviewed relatedness measures, we identify existing challenges and potentially valuable future research directions in this domain.

Leakproofing the Singularity Artificial Intelligence Confinement Problem <=SEP=> This paper attempts to formalize and to address the ‘leakproofing’ of the Singularity problem presented by David Chalmers. The paper begins with the definition of the Artificial Intelligence Confinement Problem. After analysis of existing solutions and their shortcomings, a protocol is proposed aimed at making a more secure confinement environment which might delay potential negative effect from the technological singularity while allowing humanity to benefit from the superintelligence.

Density Based Smart Traffic System with Real Time Data Analysis Using IoT <=SEP=> This paper aims to develop a convenient traffic system that allows a smooth movement of cars which will help build a smarter city. The traffic system currently implemented in many areas is not based on the density of traffic and every road is allotted a preset time. This results in traffic congestion due to large red-light delays and timings allotted for roads in a city that should vary during peak on-off hours, but in reality don't. These traditional systems are not adaptable and fail to support traffic during an unexpected situation or during an accident, and this makes them inefficient. In order to calculate the density of traffic various sensors can be used, each having their merits and demerits. In our proposed system Ultrasound Sensors are used along with Image Processing(using live feed from a camera) that works on a Raspberry Pi platform and calculates the vehicle density and dynamically allots time for different levels of traffic. This in turn allows better signal control and effective management of traffic thereby reducing the probability of a collision. By using Internet Of Things(IoT) real time data from the system can be collected, stored and managed on a cloud. This data can be used to interpret the signal duration in-case any of the sensing equipment fail, and also for future analysis.

Efficient iris segmentation method in unconstrained environments <=SEP=> 

Does the technology acceptance model predict actual use? A systematic literature review <=SEP=> 0950-5849/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. A doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2009.11.005 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0) 1782 734090; E-mail address: m.turner@cs.keele.ac.uk (M. Turne Context: The technology acceptance model (TAM) was proposed in 1989 as a means of predicting technology usage. However, it is usually validated by using a measure of behavioural intention to use (BI) rather than actual usage. Objective: This review examines the evidence that the TAM predicts actual usage using both subjective and objective measures of actual usage. Method: We performed a systematic literature review based on a search of six digital libraries, along with vote-counting meta-analysis to analyse the overall results. Results: The search identified 79 relevant empirical studies in 73 articles. The results show that BI is likely to be correlated with actual usage. However, the TAM variables perceived ease of use (PEU) and perceived usefulness (PU) are less likely to be correlated with actual usage. Conclusion: Care should be taken using the TAM outside the context in which it has been validated. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A tomographic formulation of spotlight-mode synthetic aperture radar <=SEP=> Spotlight-mode synthetic aperture radar (spotlight-mode SAR) synthesizes high-resolution terrain maps using data gathered from multiple observation angles. This paper shows that spotlight-mode SAR can be interpreted as a tomographic reeonstrution problem and analyzed using the projection-slice theorem from computer-aided tomograpy (CAT). The signal recorded at each SAR transmission point is modeled as a portion of the Fourier transform of a central projection of the imaged ground area. Reconstruction of a SAR image may then be accomplished using algorithms from CAT. This model permits a simple understanding of SAR imaging, not based on Doppler shifts. Resolution, sampling rates, waveform curvature, the Doppler effect, and other issues are also discussed within the context of this interpretation of SAR.

A sensor fusion approach for recognizing continuous human grasping sequences using hidden Markov models <=SEP=> The Programming by Demonstration (PbD) technique aims at teaching a robot to accomplish a task by learning from a human demonstration. In a manipulation context, recognizing the demonstrator's hand gestures, specifically when and how objects are grasped, plays a significant role. Here, a system is presented that uses both hand shape and contact-point information obtained from a data glove and tactile sensors to recognize continuous human-grasp sequences. The sensor fusion, grasp classification, and task segmentation are made by a hidden Markov model recognizer. Twelve different grasp types from a general, task-independent taxonomy are recognized. An accuracy of up to 95% could be achieved for a multiple-user system.

A Hierarchical Thread Scheduler and Register File for Energy-Efficient Throughput Processors <=SEP=> Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) employ a large number of hardware threads to hide both function unit and memory access latency. Extreme multithreading requires a complex thread scheduler as well as a large register file, which is expensive to access both in terms of energy and latency. We present two complementary techniques for reducing energy on massively-threaded processors such as GPUs. First, we investigate a two-level thread scheduler that maintains a small set of active threads to hide ALU and local memory access latency and a larger set of pending threads to hide main memory latency. Reducing the number of threads that the scheduler must consider each cycle improves the scheduler’s energy efficiency. Second, we propose replacing the monolithic register file found on modern designs with a hierarchical register file. We explore various trade-offs for the hierarchy including the number of levels in the hierarchy and the number of entries at each level. We consider both a hardware-managed caching scheme and a software-managed scheme, where the compiler is responsible for orchestrating all data movement within the register file hierarchy. Combined with a hierarchical register file, our two-level thread scheduler provides a further reduction in energy by only allocating entries in the upper levels of the register file hierarchy for active threads. Averaging across a variety of real world graphics and compute workloads, the active thread count can be reduced by a factor of 4 with minimal impact on performance and our most efficient three-level software-managed register file hierarchy reduces register file energy by 54%.

Real Time Video Data Mining for Surveillance Video Streams <=SEP=> We extend our previous work [1] of the general framework for video data mining to further address the issue such as how to mine video data. To extract motions, we use an accumulation of quantized pixel differences among all frames in a video segment. As a result, the accumulated motions of segment are represented as a two dimensional matrix. Further, we develop how to capture the location of motions occurring in a segment using the same matrix generated for the calculation of the amount. We study how to cluster those segmented pieces using the features (the amount and the location of motions) we extract by the matrix above. We investigate an algorithm to find whether a segment has normal or abnormal events by clustering and modeling normal events, which occur mostly. In addition to deciding normal or abnormal, the algorithm computes Degree of Abnormality of a segment, which represents to what extent a segment is distant to the existing segments in relation with normal events. Our experimental studies indicate that the proposed techniques are promising.

Using plane + parallax for calibrating dense camera arrays <=SEP=> A light field consists of images of a scene taken from different viewpoints. Light fields are used in computer graphics for image-based rendering and synthetic aperture photography, and in vision for recovering shape. In this paper, we describe a simple procedure to calibrate camera arrays used to capture light fields using a plane + parallax framework. Specifically, for the case when the cameras lie on a plane, we show (i) how to estimate camera positions up to an affine ambiguity, and (ii) how to reproject light field images onto a family of planes using only knowledge of planar parallax for one point in the scene. While planar parallax does not completely describe the geometry of the light field, it is adequate for the first two applications which, it turns out, do not depend on having a metric calibration of the light field. Experiments on acquired light fields indicate that our method yields better results than full metric calibration.

Low self-esteem during adolescence predicts poor health, criminal behavior, and limited economic prospects during adulthood. <=SEP=> Using prospective data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study birth cohort, the authors found that adolescents with low self-esteem had poorer mental and physical health, worse economic prospects, and higher levels of criminal behavior during adulthood, compared with adolescents with high self-esteem. The long-term consequences of self-esteem could not be explained by adolescent depression, gender, or socioeconomic status. Moreover, the findings held when the outcome variables were assessed using objective measures and informant reports; therefore, the findings cannot be explained by shared method variance in self-report data. The findings suggest that low self-esteem during adolescence predicts negative real-world consequences during adulthood.

Multi-patch deep features for power line insulator status classification from aerial images <=SEP=> The status of the insulators in power line can directly affect the reliability of the power transmission systems. Computer vision aided approaches have been widely applied in electric power systems. Inspecting the status of insulators from aerial images has been challenging due to the complex background and rapid view changing under different illumination conditions. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to inspect the insulators with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). A CNN model with multi-patch feature extraction method is applied to represent the status of insulators and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) is trained based on these features. A thorough evaluation is conducted on our insulator status dataset of six classes from real inspection videos. The experimental results show that a pre-trained model for classification is more accurate than the shallow features by hand-crafted. Our approach achieves 98.7095% mean Average Precision (mAP) in status classification. We also study the behavior of the neural activations of the convolutional layers. Different results vary with different fully connected layers, and interesting findings are discussed.

Traveling Salesman Problems with Profits <=SEP=> T salesman problems with profits (TSPs with profits) are a generalization of the traveling salesman problem (TSP), where it is not necessary to visit all vertices. A profit is associated with each vertex. The overall goal is the simultaneous optimization of the collected profit and the travel costs. These two optimization criteria appear either in the objective function or as a constraint. In this paper, a classification of TSPs with profits is proposed, and the existing literature is surveyed. Different classes of applications, modeling approaches, and exact or heuristic solution techniques are identified and compared. Conclusions emphasize the interest of this class of problems, with respect to applications as well as theoretical results.