However, these models are typically difficult to train, require numerous parameters, and are difficult to scale.

Biomechanical features have become important indicators for evaluating athletes' techniques. Traditionally, experts propose significant features and evaluate them using physics equations. However, the complexity of the human body and its movements makes it challenging to explicitly analyze the relationships between some features and athletes' final performance. With advancements in modern machine learning and statistics, data analytics methods have gained increasing importance in sports analytics. In this study, we leverage machine learning models to analyze expert-proposed biomechanical features from the finals of long jump competitions in the World Championships. The objectives of the analysis include identifying the most important features contributing to top-performing jumps and exploring the combined effects of these key features. Using quantile regression, we model the relationship between the biomechanical feature set and the target variable (effective distance), with a particular focus on elite-level jumps. To interpret the model, we apply SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) alongside Partial Dependence Plots (PDPs) and Individual Conditional Expectation (ICE) plots. The findings reveal that, beyond the well-documented velocity-related features, specific technical aspects also play a pivotal role. For male athletes, the angle of the knee of the supporting leg before take-off is identified as a key factor for achieving top 10% performance in our dataset, with angles greater than 169°contributing significantly to jump performance. In contrast, for female athletes, the landing pose and approach step technique emerge as the most critical features influencing top 10% performances, alongside velocity. This study establishes a framework for analyzing the impact of various features on athletic performance, with a particular emphasis on top-performing events.

The Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) is a widely used performance metric for binary classifiers. However, as a global ranking statistic, the AUC aggregates model behavior over the entire dataset, masking localized weaknesses in specific subpopulations. In high-stakes applications such as credit approval and fraud detection, these weaknesses can lead to financial risk or operational failures. In this paper, we introduce a formal decomposition of global AUC into intra- and inter-cluster components. This allows practitioners to evaluate classifier performance within and across clusters of data, enabling granular diagnostics and subgroup analysis. We also compare the AUC with additive performance metrics such as the Brier score and log loss, which support decomposability and direct attribution. Our framework enhances model development and validation practice by providing additional insights to detect model weakness for model risk management.

Ensemble learning boosts performance by aggregating predictions from multiple base learners. A core challenge is balancing individual learner accuracy with diversity. Traditional methods like Bagging and Boosting promote diversity through randomness but lack precise control over the accuracy-diversity trade-off. Negative Correlation Learning (NCL) introduces a penalty to manage this trade-off but suffers from loose theoretical bounds and limited adjustment range. To overcome these limitations, we propose a novel framework called Self-Error Adjustment (SEA), which decomposes ensemble errors into two distinct components: individual performance terms, representing the self-error of each base learner, and diversity terms, reflecting interactions among learners. This decomposition allows us to introduce an adjustable parameter into the loss function, offering precise control over the contribution of each component, thus enabling finer regulation of ensemble performance. Compared to NCL and its variants, SEA provides a broader range of effective adjustments and more consistent changes in diversity. Furthermore, we establish tighter theoretical bounds for adjustable ensemble methods and validate them through empirical experiments. Experimental results on several public regression and classification datasets demonstrate that SEA consistently outperforms baseline methods across all tasks. Ablation studies confirm that SEA offers more flexible adjustment capabilities and superior performance in fine-tuning strategies.

Early and accurate detection of glaucoma is critical to prevent irreversible vision loss. However, existing methods often rely on unimodal data and lack interpretability, limiting their clinical utility. In this paper, we present GlaBoost, a multimodal gradient boosting framework that integrates structured clinical features, fundus image embeddings, and expert-curated textual descriptions for glaucoma risk prediction. GlaBoost extracts high-level visual representations from retinal fundus photographs using a pretrained convolutional encoder and encodes free-text neuroretinal rim assessments using a transformer-based language model. These heterogeneous signals, combined with manually assessed risk scores and quantitative ophthalmic indicators, are fused into a unified feature space for classification via an enhanced XGBoost model. Experiments conducted on a real-world annotated dataset demonstrate that GlaBoost significantly outperforms baseline models, achieving a validation accuracy of 98.71%. Feature importance analysis reveals clinically consistent patterns, with cup-to-disc ratio, rim pallor, and specific textual embeddings contributing most to model decisions. GlaBoost offers a transparent and scalable solution for interpretable glaucoma diagnosis and can be extended to other ophthalmic disorders.

The rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) has created a growing demand for accurate yield and performance forecasting to guide liquidity allocation strategies. In this study, we benchmark six models, XGBoost, Random Forest, LSTM, Transformer, quantum neural networks (QNN), and quantum support vector machines with quantum feature maps (QSVM-QNN), on one year of historical data from 28 Curve Finance pools. We evaluate model performance on test MAE, RMSE, and directional accuracy. Our results show that classical ensemble models, particularly XGBoost and Random Forest, consistently outperform both deep learning and quantum models. XGBoost achieves the highest directional accuracy (71.57%) with a test MAE of 1.80, while Random Forest attains the lowest test MAE of 1.77 and 71.36% accuracy. In contrast, quantum models underperform with directional accuracy below 50% and higher errors, highlighting current limitations in applying quantum machine learning to real-world DeFi time series data. This work offers a reproducible benchmark and practical insights into model suitability for DeFi applications, emphasizing the robustness of classical methods over emerging quantum approaches in this domain.

Over 22 million Americans participate in paddling-related activities annually, contributing to a global paddlesports market valued at 2.4 billion US dollars in 2020. Despite its popularity, the sport has seen limited integration of machine learning (ML) and remains hindered by the cost of coaching and specialized equipment. This study presents a novel AI-based coaching system that uses ML models trained on motion data and delivers stroke feedback via a large language model (LLM). Participants were recruited through a collaboration with the NYU Concrete Canoe Team. Motion data were collected across two sessions, one with suboptimal form and one with corrected technique, using Apple Watches and smartphones secured in sport straps. The data underwent stroke segmentation and feature extraction. ML models, including Support Vector Classifier, Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, and Extremely Randomized Trees, were trained on both raw and engineered features. A web based interface was developed to visualize stroke quality and deliver LLM-based feedback. Across four participants, eight trials yielded 66 stroke samples. The Extremely Randomized Tree model achieved the highest performance with an F score of 0.9496 under five fold cross validation. The web interface successfully provided both quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback. Sensor placement near the wrists improved data quality. Preliminary results indicate that smartwatches and smartphones can enable low cost, accessible alternatives to traditional paddling instruction. While limited by sample size, the study demonstrates the feasibility of using consumer devices and ML to support stroke refinement and technique improvement.

The increase of IoT devices, driven by advancements in hardware technologies, has led to widespread deployment in large-scale networks that process massive amounts of data daily. However, the reliance on Edge Computing to manage these devices has introduced significant security vulnerabilities, as attackers can compromise entire networks by targeting a single IoT device. In light of escalating cybersecurity threats, particularly botnet attacks, this paper investigates the application of machine learning techniques to enhance security in Edge-Computing-Assisted IoT environments. Specifically, it presents a comparative analysis of Random Forest, XGBoost, and LightGBM -- three advanced ensemble learning algorithms -- to address the dynamic and complex nature of botnet threats. Utilizing a widely recognized IoT network traffic dataset comprising benign and malicious instances, the models were trained, tested, and evaluated for their accuracy in detecting and classifying botnet activities. Furthermore, the study explores the feasibility of deploying these models in resource-constrained edge and IoT devices, demonstrating their practical applicability in real-world scenarios. The results highlight the potential of machine learning to fortify IoT networks against emerging cybersecurity challenges.

Student mental health is an increasing concern in academic institutions, where stress can severely impact well-being and academic performance. Traditional assessment methods rely on subjective surveys and periodic evaluations, offering limited value for timely intervention. This paper introduces a context-aware machine learning framework for classifying student stress using two complementary survey-based datasets covering psychological, academic, environmental, and social factors. The framework follows a six-stage pipeline involving preprocessing, feature selection (SelectKBest, RFECV), dimensionality reduction (PCA), and training with six base classifiers: SVM, Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, XGBoost, AdaBoost, and Bagging. To enhance performance, we implement ensemble strategies, including hard voting, soft voting, weighted voting, and stacking. Our best models achieve 93.09% accuracy with weighted hard voting on the Student Stress Factors dataset and 99.53% with stacking on the Stress and Well-being dataset, surpassing previous benchmarks. These results highlight the potential of context-integrated, data-driven systems for early stress detection and underscore their applicability in real-world academic settings to support student well-being.