This thesis focuses on the algorithm selection problem, in which the goal is to recommend machine learning algorithms to a new dataset. The idea behind solving this issue is that algorithm performs similarly on similar datasets. The usual approach is to base the similarity measure on the fixed vector of metafeatures extracted out of each dataset. However, as the number of attributes among datasets varies, we may be loosing important information. Herein, we propose a family of algorithms able to handle even the non-propositional representations of datasets. Our methods use the idea of attribute assignment that builds the distance measure between datasets as a sum of distance given by the optimal assignment and an attribute distance measure. Furthermore, we prove that under certain conditions, we can guarantee the resulting dataset distance to be a metric. We carry out a series of metalearning experiments on the data extracted from the OpenML repository. We build up attribute distance using Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming and several regularization techniques such as multi-objectivization, coevolution, and bootstrapping. The experiment indicates that the resulting dataset distance can be successfully applied on the algorithm selection problem. Although we use the proposed distance measures exclusively...

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is one of the main approaches for protein struc- ture determination. The biggest advantage of this approach is that it can determine the three-dimensional structure of the protein in the solution phase. Thus, the natural dynamics of the protein can be studied. However, NMR protein structure determina- tion is an expertise intensive and time-consuming process. If the structure determi- nation process can be accelerated or even automated by computational methods, that will significantly advance the structural biology field. Our goal in this dissertation is to propose highly efficient and error tolerant methods that can work well on real and noisy data sets of NMR. Our first contribution in this dissertation is the development of a novel peak pick- ing method (WaVPeak). First, WaVPeak denoises the NMR spectra using wavelet smoothing. A brute force method is then used to identify all the candidate peaks. Af- ter that, the volume of each candidate peak is estimated. Finally, the peaks are sorted according to their volumes. WaVPeak is tested on the same benchmark data set that was used to test the state-of-the-art method, PICKY. WaVPeak shows significantly better performance than PICKY in terms of recall and precision. Our second contribution is to propose an automatic method to select peaks pro- duced by peak picking methods. This automatic method is used to overcome the limitations of fixed number-based methods. Our method is based on the Benjamini- Hochberg (B-H) algorithm. The method is used with both WaVPeak and PICKY to automatically select the number of peaks to return from out of hundreds of candidate peaks. The volume (in WaVPeak) and the intensity (in PICKY) are converted into p-values. Peaks that have p-values below some certain threshold are selected. Ex- perimental results show that the new method is better than the fixed number-based method in terms of recall. To improve precision, we tried to eliminate false peaks using consensus of the B-H selected peaks from both PICKY and WaVPeak. On average, the consensus method is able to identify more than 88% of the expected true peaks, whereas less than 17% of the selected peaks are false ones. Our third contribution is to propose for the first time, the 3D extension of the Median-Modified-Wiener-Filter (MMWF), and its novel variation named MMWF*. These spatial filters have only one parameter to tune: the window-size. Unlike wavelet denoising, the higher dimensional extension of the newly proposed filters is relatively easy. Thus, they can be applied to denoise multi-dimensional NMR-spectra. We tested the proposed filters and the Wiener-filter, an adaptive variant of the mean-filter, on a benchmark set that contains 16 two-dimensional and three-dimensional NMR- spectra extracted from eight proteins. Our results demonstrate that the adaptive spatial filters significantly outperform their non-adaptive versions. The performance of the new MMWF* on 2D/3D-spectra is even better than wavelet-denoising. Finally, we propose a novel framework that simultaneously conducts slice picking and spin system forming, an essential step in resonance assignment. Our framework then employs a genetic algorithm, directed by both connectivity information and amino acid typing information from the spin systems to assign the spin systems to residues. The inputs to our framework can be as few as two commonly used spectra, i.e., CBCA(CO)NH and HNCACB. Different from existing peak picking and resonance assignment methods that treat peaks as the units, our method is based on slices, which are one-dimensional vectors in three-dimensional spectra that correspond to certain (N, H) values. Experimental results on both benchmark simulated data sets and four real protein data sets demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art methods especially on the more challenging real protein data sets, while using a less number of spectra than those methods. Furthermore, we show that using the chemical shift assignments predicted by our method for the four real proteins can lead to accurate calculation of their final three-dimensional structures by using CS-ROSETTA server.

In multi colony ant algorithms several colonies of ants cooperate in finding good solutions for an optimization problem. At certain time steps the colonies exchange information about good solutions. If the amount of exchanged information is not too large multi colony ant algorithms can be easily parallelized in a natural way by placing the colonies on different processors. In this paper we study the behaviour of multi colony ant algorithms with different kinds of information exchange between the colonies. Moreover we compare the behaviour of different numbers of colonies with a multi start single colony ant algorithm. As test problems we use the Traveling Salesperson problem and the Quadratic Assignment problem.

<p>New technologies such as electric vehicles, Autonomous vehicles and transportation platforms are changing the way humanity move in a dramatic way and cities around the world need to adjust to this rapid change brought by technology. One of the aspects more challenging for urban planners is the parking problem as the new increase or desire for these private technologies may increase traffic congestion and change the parking requirements across the city. For example, Electric vehicles will need parking places for both parking and charging and Autonomous vehicles could increase the congestion by making longer trips in order to search better parking alternatives. Thus, it becomes essential to have clear, precise and practical models for transportation engineers in order to better represent present and future scenarios including normal vehicles, autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles in the context of parking and traffic alike. Classical network model such as traffic assignment have been frequently used for this purpose although they do not take into account essential aspects of parking such as fixed capacities, variety of users and autonomous vehicles. In this work a new methodology for modelling parking for multi class traffic assignment is proposed including autonomous vehicles and hard capacity constraints. The proposed model is presented in the classical Cournot Game formulation based on path flows and in a new link-node formulation which states the traffic assignment problem in terms of link flows instead of path flows. This proposed model allows for the creation of a new algorithm which is more flexible to model requirements such as linear constrains among different players flows and take advantage of fast convergence of Linear programs in the literature and in practice. Also, this link node formulation is used to redefine the network capacity problem as a linear program making it more tractable and easier to calculate. Numerical examples are presented across this work to better exemplify its implications and characteristics. The present work will allow planners to have a clear methodology for modelling parking and traffic in the context of multiusers which can represent diverse characteristics as parking time or type of vehicles. This model will be modified to take into account AV and the necessary assumptions and discussion will be provided.</p>

Social media, movies and games all have something in common – they all have a tendency to foster slang. Adolescents of today consume these mediums virtually every day, and thus they easily adopt these slang terms faster than any other group. As they are influenced by the slang and informal style used in these mediums, this type of language use may become dominant and spill over on their academic English. The main objective of this study is to investigate the opinions of three Swedish upper-secondary EFL teachers through qualitative interviews. In the interviews, the teachers presented their opinions in relation to whether the usage of slang is evident in their students’ assignments as well as their opinions on the potential possibilities and challenges involved in working with slang in the classroom. The teachers noticed an emergence of informal language, and slang to a certain extent, in their students’ assignments. Profanities occurred as well, albeit more rarely and more so through speech. The teachers emphasized the importance of addressing slang by way of marking or discussion. They mostly saw the benefits of working with slang as a theme in the classroom due to it potentially being a fun learning experience and an opportunity to learn about cultural differences in the English-speaking world. However, the challenges were that it requires a certain amount interest from the teacher and it may take time that could be spent working on other goals.

No description available.

The steel production is a highly capital and energy intensive industry that due to recent raw materials’ price increase and lowered demand, it has been squeezed and forced to look more deeply on how to add value to the customer at lower operative costs. The project was carried out on site at the ArcelorMittal’s millin Esch-Belval, Luxembourg which comprises an integrated melt shop, continuous casting plant and the rolling mill with the objectives of proposing optimization rules for the cold sector of the rolling mill and to analyze the impact of the future truckbay shipment area. The course of action followed was to draw a Value Stream Map (VSM) in order to understand the plants’ current status and serve as a roadmap to build a discrete event simulation model that after its validation, served as a support tool to analyze what-if scenarios. Similarly, a current status analysis of the  shipment/stock area was conducted collecting statistics about potential truckshipments and finally proposing a series of recommendations for its operation. The main proposed solutions to optimize the rolling mill’s cold sector were:(a) Integer programming model to globally optimize the scrap level when cutting the mother beams to customer size beams. (b) Updating pacemaker parameters and (c) Local process time improvements. Concerning the future truck loading, the simulation model was used as a support tool to dimension the transition area between the cranes’ and forklift operations resulting in a 6-9 bundles buffer capacity. Additionally, the current length-based storage policy was found to have competitive objectives so a turnover class-based storage policy is proposed with A, B, C classes which should provide an improved organization of the stock and travel distance of the cranes. The evaluation of the cranes’ performance remains an issue since there are currently no objective measures like, for instance, travelled distance. Optical measuring devices are suggested as one option to have a performance indicator that would help further investigate root cause problems in the shipping/stock area.

Food waste is a global concern due to its negative contribution to all aspects ofsustainability and organizations are looking for new ways to directly impact their own food waste and operate their business in a more sustainable way. Part ofthe food waste stems from warehouse activities where mishandling and poorly packed rolling storage containers (RSCs) lead to damaged items during transport. The storage assignment dictates how the items are ordered in awarehouse and is therefore responsible for how items are packed into RSCs. Due to the lack of previous research in this area, this thesis aims to investigate how the multi-criteria ABC-analysis can be used to optimize the storage assignment with the intent of minimizing food waste. A qualitative case study at Warehouse X was conducted where ten employees highlighted several criteria such as weight, volume, and similarity, that all need to be considered when optimizing the storage assignment. A total of nine criteria were used to generate eight classes that are used in the proposed multi-criteria ABC-analysis. The proposed model can be used by all actors in the Swedish food industry to improve their warehouse operations and operate them in a more sustainable way to reduce their food waste. It is also generalizable to warehouses outside the Swedish food industry

No description available.

La presente investigación modela el sistema BRT Metropolitano mediante el uso del software TransCAD. Para la adecuada construcción de la matriz origen destino se recopilan datos de embarque y desembarque en los diferentes paraderos del sistema. Es por ello, que se calcula la muestra de encuestas a través de datos proporcionados por Protransporte, la empresa que administra el Metropolitano. En la información proporcionada se excluyeron días atípicos donde se obtuvo 1032 encuestas con una confiabilidad de 95% y un error de 4.2%. Luego, se usa el factor de expansión para obtener la situación actual con un total de 53,776 usuarios que viajan en la hora más crítica de la tarde de 6 a 7pm. Así mismo, se inserta la matriz OD para la asignación de viajes mediante el método de equilibrio de usuarios estocástico (SUE); en el cual, se obtiene una primera calibración de la situación actual. Posteriormente, se propone el escenario más óptimo a partir del cálculo de las cargas máximas con el uso de hojas de cálculo. Además, se obtienen nuevos parámetros como frecuencias, cantidades de buses, tiempo de viaje total, etc. Finalmente, se realiza la comparación de los resultados del escenario propuesto y actual donde se observan beneficios para el operador y los usuarios. Debido a que, la propuesta cuenta con un ahorro de 7,154.26 minutos de tiempo de viaje total por hora, la operación del sistema con quince buses menos y un índice de pasajeros por kilómetro recorrido (IPK) de cinco puntos adicionales al actual. / The present investigation models the BRT Metropolitano system through the use of TransCAD software. For the proper construction of the destination origin matrix, embarkation and disembarkation data must be collected in the different stops of the system. That is why the sample of surveys is calculated through data provided by Protransporte, the company that manages the Metropolitano. In the information provided, atypical days were excluded where 1,032 surveys were obtained with a 95% reliability and an error of 4.2%. Then, the expansion factor is used to obtain the current situation with a total of 53,776 users traveling in the most critical time of the afternoon from 6 to 7pm. Likewise, the OD matrix is inserted as a previous step to the travel assignment using the stochastic user equilibrium method (SUE), in which a first calibration of the current situation will be obtained. Subsequently, the most optimal scenario is proposed based on the calculation of the maximum loads with the use of spreadsheets. In addition, new parameters such as frequencies, bus numbers, total travel time, and various others are obtained. Finally, the results of the proposed scenario and the current one were compared, where benefits for the operator and the users of the system are observed. Since the proposal has a saving of 7,154.26 minutes of total travel time per hour, the operation of the system with fifteen fewer buses and a passenger index per kilometer traveled (IPK) five points more than the current one. / Tesis