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At least 253 records · Page 14

Characteristics and selection of near-fault simulated earthquake ground motions for nonlinear analysis of buildings

Earthquake-induced ground shaking near rupturing faults is highly sensitive to the rupture characteristics, seismic wave propagation patterns and site conditions, and field recordings of near-fault shaking are relatively sparse. These challenges complicate the assessment of the seismic performance of near-fault structures. A common approach to representing near-fault ground motion in engineering analysis is to explicitly consider and select records with strong directivity pulses (pulse records). We use three-dimensional high-resolution physics-based earthquake simulations to test this approach in the context of scenario-based ground motion record selection, and to study the important characteristics of near-fault ground shaking. We highlight the deficiencies associated with classifying near-fault simulated records as “pulse” or “non-pulse,” based on the presence of a single dominating pulse in the velocity time history. We show that this approach is inadequate for characterizing near-fault shaking on soft soils which can be dominated by both forward rupture directivity and basin amplification effects. We conduct ground motion selection experiments for the analysis of near-fault structures with and without explicit classification of the pulse features in the records, and evaluate the bias in the predicted structural demands. We find that the maximum interstory drift demands on building structures imposed by unscaled site-specific simulated ground motion records selected based on relevant spectral shape features are not sensitive to the classification of records as pulse/non-pulse. Therefore, with regard to predicting the maximum interstory drifts in near-fault buildings, we do not find justification for the binary pulse classification of near-fault records.

42 ENGINEERING↗

QUASI-STELLAR OBJECT SELECTION ALGORITHM USING TIME VARIABILITY AND MACHINE LEARNING: SELECTION OF 1620 QUASI-STELLAR OBJECT CANDIDATES FROM MACHO LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD DATABASE

We present a new quasi-stellar object (QSO) selection algorithm using a Support Vector Machine, a supervised classification method, on a set of extracted time series features including period, amplitude, color, and autocorrelation value. We train a model that separates QSOs from variable stars, non-variable stars, and microlensing events using 58 known QSOs, 1629 variable stars, and 4288 non-variables in the MAssive Compact Halo Object (MACHO) database as a training set. To estimate the efficiency and the accuracy of the model, we perform a cross-validation test using the training set. The test shows that the model correctly identifies {approx}80% of known QSOs with a 25% false-positive rate. The majority of the false positives are Be stars. We applied the trained model to the MACHO Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) data set, which consists of 40 million light curves, and found 1620 QSO candidates. During the selection none of the 33,242 known MACHO variables were misclassified as QSO candidates. In order to estimate the true false-positive rate, we crossmatched the candidates with astronomical catalogs including the Spitzer Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution LMC catalog and a few X-ray catalogs. The results further suggest that the majority of the candidates, more than 70%, are QSOs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A Bayesian approach to strong lens finding in the era of wide-area surveys

ABSTRACT The arrival of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), Euclid-Wide and Roman wide-area sensitive surveys will herald a new era in strong lens science in which the number of strong lenses known is expected to rise from $\mathcal {O}(10^3)$ to $\mathcal {O}(10^5)$. However, current lens-finding methods still require time-consuming follow-up visual inspection by strong lens experts to remove false positives which is only set to increase with these surveys. In this work, we demonstrate a range of methods to produce calibrated probabilities to help determine the veracity of any given lens candidate. To do this we use the classifications from citizen science and multiple neural networks for galaxies selected from the Hyper Suprime-Cam survey. Our methodology is not restricted to particular classifier types and could be applied to any strong lens classifier which produces quantitative scores. Using these calibrated probabilities, we generate an ensemble classifier, combining citizen science, and neural network lens finders. We find such an ensemble can provide improved classification over the individual classifiers. We find a false-positive rate of 10−3 can be achieved with a completeness of 46 per cent, compared to 34 per cent for the best individual classifier. Given the large number of galaxy–galaxy strong lenses anticipated in LSST, such improvement would still produce significant numbers of false positives, in which case using calibrated probabilities will be essential for population analysis of large populations of lenses and to help prioritize candidates for follow-up.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Computer-aided breast MR image feature analysis for prediction of tumor response to chemotherapy

Purpose: To identify a new clinical marker based on quantitative kinetic image features analysis and assess its feasibility to predict tumor response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Methods: The authors assembled a dataset involving breast MR images acquired from 68 cancer patients before undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Among them, 25 patients had complete response (CR) and 43 had partial and nonresponse (NR) to chemotherapy based on the response evaluation criteria in solid tumors. The authors developed a computer-aided detection scheme to segment breast areas and tumors depicted on the breast MR images and computed a total of 39 kinetic image features from both tumor and background parenchymal enhancement regions. The authors then applied and tested two approaches to classify between CR and NR cases. The first one analyzed each individual feature and applied a simple feature fusion method that combines classification results from multiple features. The second approach tested an attribute selected classifier that integrates an artificial neural network (ANN) with a wrapper subset evaluator, which was optimized using a leave-one-case-out validation method. Results: In the pool of 39 features, 10 yielded relatively higher classification performance with the areas under receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) ranging from 0.61 to 0.78 to classify between CR and NR cases. Using a feature fusion method, the maximum AUC = 0.85 ± 0.05. Using the ANN-based classifier, AUC value significantly increased to 0.96 ± 0.03 (p < 0.01). Conclusions: This study demonstrated that quantitative analysis of kinetic image features computed from breast MR images acquired prechemotherapy has potential to generate a useful clinical marker in predicting tumor response to chemotherapy.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Development of a computer-aided procedure for the national program of inspection of dams

An effort was undertaken to determine the utility of ERTS-1 MSS data, together with automatic data processing (ADP) techniques, to detect and locate surface water, and transfer the related technology to the Texas Water Rights Commission (TWRC). A test site was selected, ERTS-1 MSS and ancillary data obtained, and existent ADP classification programs applied. During the course of this effort a linear discriminant function was developed. The results were evaluated for potential candidates for a transferable procedure. A computer-aided technique using a linear discriminant function was selected and recommended, for inclusion in an operational system, which met detection and location criteria. Specifically, evaluation of the selected computer-aided procedure for the test site resulted in the detection of 100 percent of areas of surface water 10 acres or greater in areal extent and the geographic location of areas classified as water to a positional accuracy of 1000 feet or closer. The procedure was recommended for inclusion in an operational computer-aided procedure for transfer to TWRC.

Source record↗

SEPATH: benchmarking the search for pathogens in human tissue whole genome sequence data leads to template pipelines

Background: Human tissue is increasingly being whole genome sequenced as we transition into an era of genomic medicine. With this arises the potential to detect sequences originating from microorganisms, including pathogens amid the plethora of human sequencing reads. In cancer research, the tumorigenic ability of pathogens is being recognized, for example, Helicobacter pylori and human papillomavirus in the cases of gastric non-cardia and cervical carcinomas, respectively. As of yet, no benchmark has been carried out on the performance of computational approaches for bacterial and viral detection within host-dominated sequence data. Results: We present the results of benchmarking over 70 distinct combinations of tools and parameters on 100 simulated cancer datasets spiked with realistic proportions of bacteria. mOTUs2 and Kraken are the highest performing individual tools achieving median genus-level F1 scores of 0.90 and 0.91, respectively. mOTUs2 demonstrates a high performance in estimating bacterial proportions. Employing Kraken on unassembled sequencing reads produces a good but variable performance depending on post-classification filtering parameters. These approaches are investigated on a selection of cervical and gastric cancer whole genome sequences where Alphapapillomavirus and Helicobacter are detected in addition to a variety of other interesting genera. Conclusions: We provide the top-performing pipelines from this benchmark in a unifying tool called SEPATH, which is amenable to high throughput sequencing studies across a range of high-performance computing clusters. SEPATH provides a benchmarked and convenient approach to detect pathogens in tissue sequence data helping to determine the relationship between metagenomics and disease.

Viral↗

Discrimination of alkalinity in granitoid Rocks: A potential TIMS application

In mineral exploration, the ability to distinguish and map petrochemical variations of magmatic rocks can be a useful reconnaissance tool. Alkalinity is one such petrochemical parameter and is used in the characterization of granitoid rocks. In quartz normative plutonic rocks, alkalinity is related to the composition and abundance of feldspars. Together with quartz abundance, knowledge of feldspar modes allows the classification of these igneous rocks according to the Streckeisen diagram. Alternative classification schemes rely on whole rock geochemistry instead of mineral identifications. The relative ease of obtaining whole rock analyses means that geochemical classifications tend to be favored in exploration geology. But the technique of thermal infrared spectroscopy of rocks yields information on mineralogy and is one that can be applied remotely. The goal of the current work then is to establish whether data from TIMS can be used to distinguish the mineralogical variations that relate to alkalinity. An ideal opportunity to test this thesis arises from the work presented in a paper by Dewitt (1989). This paper contains the results of mapping and analysis of Proterozoic plutonic rocks in north-central Arizona. The map resulting from this work delineates plutons according to alkalinity in an effort to establish a trend or polarity in the regional magmatism. Also contained within this paper are brief descriptions of the mineralogy of half of the region's plutons. This combination of mineralogical and geochemical information was the rationale behind choosing this area as a site for TIMS over flights. A portion of the region centered on the northern Bradshaw Mountains was selected because it contains plutons of all three alkalinity classifications (alkali-calcic, calc-alkalic, and calic) present on DeWitt's map within a relatively small area. The site was flown in August of 1994 and the data received a few days before the writing of this manuscript. Most of this paper is devoted to the description of laboratory based spectroscopy and spectral simulations. These are required to gain insight into the correct procedures for enhancing the relatively small differences in the low spectral resolution TIMS data.

Ruff, Steven W.↗

Compact Polarimetry in a Low Frequency Spaceborne Context

Compact polarimetry has been shown to be an interesting alternative mode to full polarimetry when global coverage and revisit time are key issues. It consists on transmitting a single polarization, while receiving on two. Several critical points have been identified, one being the Faraday rotation (FR) correction and the other the calibration. When a low frequency electromagnetic wave travels through the ionosphere, it undergoes a rotation of the polarization plane about the radar line of sight for a linearly polarized wave, and a simple phase shift for a circularly polarized wave. In a low frequency radar, the only possible choice of the transmit polarization is the circular one, in order to guaranty that the scattering element on the ground is illuminated with a constant polarization independently of the ionosphere state. This will allow meaningful time series analysis, interferometry as long as the Faraday rotation effect is corrected for the return path. In full-polarimetric (FP) mode, two techniques allow to estimate the FR: Freeman method using linearly polarized data, and Bickel and Bates theory based on the transformation of the measured scattering matrix to a circular basis. In CP mode, an alternate procedure is presented which relies on the bare surface scattering properties. These bare surfaces are selected by the conformity coefficient, invariant with FR. This coefficient is compared to other published classifications to show its potential in distinguishing three different scattering types: surface, doublebounce and volume. The performances of the bare surfaces selection and FR estimation are evaluated on PALSAR and airborne data. Once the bare surfaces are selected and Faraday angle estimated over them, the correction can be applied over the whole scene. The algorithm is compared with both FP techniques. In the last part of the paper, the calibration of a CP system from the point of view of classical matrix transformation methods in polarimetry is proposed.

radar polarization diversity↗

A comparison of the usefulness of canonical analysis, principal components analysis, and band selection for extraction of features from TMS data for landcover analysis

Three feature extraction methods, canonical analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA), and band selection, have been applied to Thematic Mapper Simulator (TMS) data in order to evaluate the relative performance of the methods. The results obtained show that CA is capable of providing a transformation of TMS data which leads to better classification results than provided by all seven bands, by PCA, or by band selection. A second conclusion drawn from the study is that TMS bands 2, 3, 4, and 7 (thermal) are most important for landcover classification.

Boyd, R. K.↗

Fast Solution in Sparse LDA for Binary Classification

An algorithm that performs sparse linear discriminant analysis (Sparse-LDA) finds near-optimal solutions in far less time than the prior art when specialized to binary classification (of 2 classes). Sparse-LDA is a type of feature- or variable- selection problem with numerous applications in statistics, machine learning, computer vision, computational finance, operations research, and bio-informatics. Because of its combinatorial nature, feature- or variable-selection problems are NP-hard or computationally intractable in cases involving more than 30 variables or features. Therefore, one typically seeks approximate solutions by means of greedy search algorithms. The prior Sparse-LDA algorithm was a greedy algorithm that considered the best variable or feature to add/ delete to/ from its subsets in order to maximally discriminate between multiple classes of data. The present algorithm is designed for the special but prevalent case of 2-class or binary classification (e.g. 1 vs. 0, functioning vs. malfunctioning, or change versus no change). The present algorithm provides near-optimal solutions on large real-world datasets having hundreds or even thousands of variables or features (e.g. selecting the fewest wavelength bands in a hyperspectral sensor to do terrain classification) and does so in typical computation times of minutes as compared to days or weeks as taken by the prior art. Sparse LDA requires solving generalized eigenvalue problems for a large number of variable subsets (represented by the submatrices of the input within-class and between-class covariance matrices). In the general (fullrank) case, the amount of computation scales at least cubically with the number of variables and thus the size of the problems that can be solved is limited accordingly. However, in binary classification, the principal eigenvalues can be found using a special analytic formula, without resorting to costly iterative techniques. The present algorithm exploits this analytic form along with the inherent sequential nature of greedy search itself. Together this enables the use of highly-efficient partitioned-matrix-inverse techniques that result in large speedups of computation in both the forward-selection and backward-elimination stages of greedy algorithms in general.

Moghaddam, Baback↗

Marker-Based Hierarchical Segmentation and Classification Approach for Hyperspectral Imagery

The Hierarchical SEGmentation (HSEG) algorithm, which is a combination of hierarchical step-wise optimization and spectral clustering, has given good performances for hyperspectral image analysis. This technique produces at its output a hierarchical set of image segmentations. The automated selection of a single segmentation level is often necessary. We propose and investigate the use of automatically selected markers for this purpose. In this paper, a novel Marker-based HSEG (M-HSEG) method for spectral-spatial classification of hyperspectral images is proposed. First, pixelwise classification is performed and the most reliably classified pixels are selected as markers, with the corresponding class labels. Then, a novel constrained marker-based HSEG algorithm is applied, resulting in a spectral-spatial classification map. The experimental results show that the proposed approach yields accurate segmentation and classification maps, and thus is attractive for hyperspectral image analysis.

Tarabalka, Yuliya↗

Analysis and Benchmarking of feature reduction for classification under computational constraints

Abstract Machine learning is most often expensive in terms of computational and memory costs due to training with large volumes of data. Current computational limitations of many computing systems motivate us to investigate practical approaches, such as feature selection and reduction, to reduce the time and memory costs while not sacrificing the accuracy of classification algorithms. In this work, we carefully review, analyze, and identify the feature reduction methods that have low costs/overheads in terms of time and memory. Then, we evaluate the identified reduction methods in terms of their impact on the accuracy, precision, time, and memory costs of traditional classification algorithms. Specifically, we focus on the least resource intensive feature reduction methods that are available in Scikit-Learn library. Since our goal is to identify the best performing low-cost reduction methods, we do not consider complex expensive reduction algorithms in this study. In our evaluation, we find that at quadratic-scale feature reduction, the classification algorithms achieve the best trade-off among competitive performance metrics. Results show that the overall training times are reduced 61%, the model sizes are reduced 6×, and accuracy scores increase 25% compared to the baselines on average with quadratic scale reduction.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A support vector machine (SVM) for predicting preferred treatment position in radiotherapy of patients with breast cancer

Purpose: NYU 05-181 protocol compared the CT simulation in both supine and prone positions for 400 patients with breast cancer (200 left-breast and 200 right-breast) to identify which setup is better at sparing heart and lung involvement in the treatment process. The results demonstrated that all right-breast patients benefited from the prone treatment position, while for left-breast patients, 85% were better treated prone and 15% were better treated supine. Using the clinical data collected from this protocol, the authors aimed at developing an automated tool capable of identifying which of the left-breast cancer patients are better treated supine without obtaining a second CT scan in the supine position. Methods: Prone CT scans from 198 of the 200 left-breast cancer patients enrolled in NYU 05-181 protocol were deidentified and exported to a dedicated research planning workstation. Three-dimensional geometric features of the organs at risk and tumor bed were extracted. A two-stage classifier was used to classify patients into the prone class or the supine class. In the first stage, the authors use simple thresholding to divide the patients into two groups based on their in-field heart volume. For patients with in-field heart volume {<=}0.1 cc, the prone position was chosen as the preferred treatment position. Patients with in-field heart volume >0.1 cc will be further classified in the second stage by a weighted support vector machine (SVM). The weight parameters of the SVM were adjusted to maximize the specificity [true-supine/(true-supine+false-prone)] at the cost of lowering but still maintaining reasonable sensitivity [true-prone/(true-prone+false-supine)]. The authors used K-fold cross validations to test the performance of the SVM classifier. A feature selection algorithm was also used to identify features that give the best classification performance. Results: After the first stage, 49 of the 198 left-breast cancer patients were found to have >0.1 cc of in-field heart volume. The three geometric features of heart orientation, distance between heart and tumor, and in-field lung were selected by the feature selection algorithm in the second stage of the two-stage classifier to give the best predefined weighted accuracy. The overall sensitivity and specificity of the proposed method were found to be 90.4% and 99.3%, respectively. Using two-stage classification, the authors reduced the proportion of prone-treated patients that need a second supine CT scan down to 16.3/170 or 9.6%, as compared to 21/170 or 12.4% when the authors use only the first stage (thresholding) for classification. Conclusions: The authors' study showed that a feature-based classifier is feasible for predicting the preferred treatment position, based on features extracted from prone CT scans. The two-stage classifier achieved very high specificity at an acceptable expense of sensitivity.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Identifications of RR Lyrae Stars and Quasars from the Simulated Data of Mephisto-W Survey

We have investigated the feasibilities and accuracies of the identifications of RR Lyrae stars and quasars from the simulated data of the Multi-channel Photometric Survey Telescope (Mephisto) W Survey. Based on the variable sources light curve libraries from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 data and the observation history simulation from the Mephisto-W Survey Scheduler, we have simulated the uvgriz multi-band light curves of RR Lyrae stars, quasars and other variable sources for the first-year observation of Mephisto W Survey. We have applied the ensemble machine learning algorithm Random Forest Classifier (RFC) to identify RR Lyrae stars and quasars, respectively. We build training and test samples and extract ~150 features from the simulated light curves and train two RFCs respectively for the RR Lyrae star and quasar classification. We find that, our RFCs are able to select the RR Lyrae stars and quasars with remarkably high precision and completeness, with purity = 95.4% and completeness = 96.9% for the RR Lyrae RFC and purity = 91.4% and completeness = 90.2% for the quasar RFC. In conclusion, we have also derived relative importances of the extracted features utilized to classify RR Lyrae stars and quasars.

(galaxies:) quasars: general↗

Development of Human Factors Guidance for Human-Sy

This report characterizes a range of advanced HSI technologies and relevant performance measures. It also describes plans for further research required to formalize the technology classification framework in preparation for its submission to a selected standards organization. A second priority is a formal, quantitative model of innovation that can be used by DOE and planners to anticipate the introduction of advanced HSI in nuclear power plant control rooms. Much of the prior human factors inspired research stops at the interface and fails to provide a definitive process and integration of I&C. The potential merger of two different approaches in this area is discussed and also why an integrated approach that ties I&C and human factors together is warranted. The conclusion is that there is an urgent need for requirements and guidelines for HSI implementation at nuclear facilities to be formalized and this research should lead to the potential adoption of a national or international standard or guidance on the best methods to select and implement advanced technologies to achieve safe and efficient human-system interactions.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Machine-learned Identification of RR Lyrae Stars from Sparse, Multi-band Data: The PS1 Sample

RR Lyrae stars may be the best practical tracers of Galactic halo (sub-)structure and kinematics. The PanSTARRS1 (PS1) 3π survey offers multi-band, multi-epoch, precise photometry across much of the sky, but a robust identification of RR Lyrae stars in this data set poses a challenge, given PS1's sparse, asynchronous multi-band light curves (≲12 epochs in each of five bands, taken over a 4.5 year period). We present a novel template fitting technique that uses well-defined and physically motivated multi-band light curves of RR Lyrae stars, and demonstrate that we get accurate period estimates, precise to 2 s in >80% of cases. We augment these light-curve fits with other features from photometric time-series and provide them to progressively more detailed machine-learned classification models. From these models, we are able to select the widest (three-fourths of the sky) and deepest (reaching 120 kpc) sample of RR Lyrae stars to date. The PS1 sample of ∼45,000 RRab stars is pure (90%) and complete (80% at 80 kpc) at high galactic latitudes. It also provides distances that are precise to 3%, measured with newly derived period–luminosity relations for optical/near-infrared PS1 bands. With the addition of proper motions from Gaia and radial velocity measurements from multi-object spectroscopic surveys, we expect the PS1 sample of RR Lyrae stars to become the premier source for studying the structure, kinematics, and the gravitational potential of the Galactic halo. The techniques presented in this study should translate well to other sparse, multi-band data sets, such as those produced by the Dark Energy Survey and the upcoming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Galactic plane sub-survey.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Optical Photometric Indicators of Galaxy Cluster Relaxation

Abstract The most dynamically relaxed clusters of galaxies play a special role in cosmological studies as well as astrophysical studies of the intracluster medium (ICM) and active galactic nucleus feedback. While high-spatial-resolution imaging of the morphology of the ICM has long been the gold standard for establishing a cluster’s dynamical state, such data are not available from current or planned surveys, and thus require separate, pointed follow-up observations. With optical and/or near-IR photometric imaging, and red-sequence cluster finding results from those data, expected to be ubiquitously available for clusters discovered in upcoming optical and millimeter-wavelength surveys, it is worth asking how effectively photometric data alone can identify relaxed cluster candidates, before investing in, e.g., high-resolution X-ray observations. Here we assess the ability of several simple photometric measurements, based on the redMaPPer cluster finder run on Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, to reproduce X-ray classifications of dynamical state for an X-ray selected sample of massive clusters. We find that two simple metrics contrasting the bright central galaxy (BCG) to other cluster members can identify a complete sample of relaxed clusters with a purity of ∼40% in our data set. Including minimal ICM information in the form of a center position increases the purity to ∼60%. However, all three metrics depend critically on correctly identifying the BCG, which is presently a challenge for optical red-sequence cluster finders.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Obscuration and the various kinds of Seyfert galaxies

Two samples of Seyfert galaxies are used to investigate the classification of these galaxies. A complete X-ray selected sample of 16 active spirals is defined and the luminosities and axial ratio of the parent galaxy are given. The data suggest strongly that obscuration occurs in the broad emission line region, which has a flattened configuration parallel to that of the parent galaxy, and that obscuration is more likely for low luminosity objects. A larger, heterogeneous sample of 69 active galaxies is also considered. As many values as possible were collected for the soft and hard X-ray luminosities (HX), the luminosities at four other wavelengths, and the IR spectral index alpha. It is found that HX is the key parameter. There is direct evidence that the covering factor is a function of HX. Various IR correlations further suggest that the fraction of the luminosity radiated by dust grains is a smooth function of HX.

Lawrence, A.↗