Sparse decision tree optimization has been one of the most fundamental problems in AI since its inception and is a challenge at the core of interpretable machine learning. Sparse decision tree optimization is computationally hard, and despite steady effort since the 1960's, breakthroughs have only been made on the problem within the past few years, primarily on the problem of finding optimal sparse decision trees. However, current state-of-the-art algorithms often require impractical amounts of computation time and memory to find optimal or near-optimal trees for some real-world datasets, particularly those having several continuous-valued features. Given that the search spaces of these decision tree optimization problems are massive, can we practically hope to find a sparse decision tree that competes in accuracy with a black box machine learning model? We address this problem via smart guessing strategies that can be applied to any optimal branch-and-bound-based decision tree algorithm. We show that by using these guesses, we can reduce the run time by multiple orders of magnitude, while providing bounds on how far the resulting trees can deviate from the black box's accuracy and expressive power. Our approach enables guesses about how to bin continuous features, the size of the tree, and lower bounds on the error for the optimal decision tree. Our experiments show that in many cases we can rapidly construct sparse decision trees that match the accuracy of black box models. To summarize: when you are having trouble optimizing, just guess.

When a bank considers whether it would offer a loan to someone or not, it considers a chronological list of questions to decide if it's safe to approve such a loan. The questions under consideration could begin with simple ones such as what's the individual's annual income. Based on the answers, the next set of questions could involve finding out if the person has any existing loans, has defaulted on credit card payments, etc. Assuming the person draws a salary of $30,000, has no existing loans or criminal record, and makes his credit card payments on time, the bank may offer him the loan. You can call this a basic form of a decision tree.

Many Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques exist for detecting "fake news". Multi-phase algorithms with Determined Decision Trees, Gradient Enlargement, and others have been used by various researchers and organizations with varying results. One study from researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute reported 83% accuracy in predicting whether a news article is from a reliable or unreliable source [1], while Facebook's 2019 attempt at developing an algorithm failed miserably, with some users experiencing a "maelstrom" of fake news [2]. A new study, published in the November 2021 issue of the Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research [3] performs an analysis of a wide range of AI models for efficacy, finding that models generally perform poorly, ranging from 60% to 77% accuracy. Separating fake news from real news is a challenge even for the most sophisticated AI. Simple content-related programs and shallow marking of the speech part (POS) fail to consider contextual information and are unable to accurately classify news stories as fact or fake unless combined with more sophisticated algorithms.

Rolling bearings are one of the most widely used bearings in industrial machines. Deterioration in the condition of rolling bearings can result in the total failure of rotating machinery. AI-based methods are widely applied in the diagnosis of rolling bearings. Hybrid NN-based methods have been shown to achieve the best diagnosis results. Typically, raw data is generated from accelerometers mounted on the machine housing. However, the diagnostic utility of each signal is highly dependent on the location of the corresponding accelerometer. This paper proposes a novel hybrid CNN-MLP model-based diagnostic method which combines mixed input to perform rolling bearing diagnostics. The method successfully detects and localizes bearing defects using acceleration data from a shaft-mounted wireless acceleration sensor. The experimental results show that the hybrid model is superior to the CNN and MLP models operating separately, and can deliver a high detection accuracy of 99,6% for the bearing faults compared to 98% for CNN and 81% for MLP models.

In the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, a key objective is to enhance equipment's ability to perceive its own health state and predict future behavior. The development of artificial intelligence, especially the progress made in deep learning, in the recent decade provides a promising tool in bolstering this enhancement. Such a tool can be a complement or alternative to conventional physics-based and signal-processing-based techniques in fault detection, diagnosis and prognosis applications. Researchers have started to build data-driven or hybrid models to further boost their prediction accuracy in the above applications, yet there are still some untouched or underexplored territories, such as causal inference, demystifying the black-box modelling, domain adaptation, automatic feature learning, etc. This special issue is to present current innovations and engineering achievements of scientists and industrial practitioners in the area of adopting artificial intelligence techniques in fault detection, diagnosis and prognosis.

In the process industry, condition monitoring systems with automated fault diagnosis methods assisthuman experts and thereby improve maintenance efficiency, process sustainability, and workplace safety.Improving the automated fault diagnosis methods using data and machine learning-based models is a centralaspect of intelligent fault diagnosis (IFD). A major challenge in IFD is to develop realistic datasets withaccurate labels needed to train and validate models, and to transfer models trained with labeled lab datato heterogeneous process industry environments. However, fault descriptions and work-orders written bydomain experts are increasingly digitized in modern condition monitoring systems, for example in the contextof rotating equipment monitoring. Thus, domain-specific knowledge about fault characteristics and severitiesexists as technical language annotations in industrial datasets. Furthermore, recent advances in naturallanguage processing enable weakly supervised model optimization using natural language annotations, mostnotably in the form ofnatural language supervision(NLS). This creates a timely opportunity to developtechnical language supervision(TLS) solutions for IFD systems grounded in industrial data, for exampleas a complement to pre-training with lab data to address problems like overfitting and inaccurate out-of-sample generalisation. We surveyed the literature and identify a considerable improvement in the maturityof NLS over the last two years, facilitating applications beyond natural language; a rapid development ofweak supervision methods; and transfer learning as a current trend in IFD which can benefit from thesedevelopments. Finally, we describe a framework for integration of TLS in IFD which is inspired by recentNLS innovations.

Considering the models that apply the contextual information of time-series data could improve the fault diagnosis performance, some neural network structures such as RNN, LSTM, and GRU were proposed to model the industrial process effectively. However, these models are restricted by their serial computation and hence cannot achieve high diagnostic efficiency. Also the parallel CNN is difficult to implement fault diagnosis in an efficient way because it requires larger convolution kernels or deep structure to achieve long-term feature extraction capabilities. Besides, BERT model applies absolute position embedding to introduce contextual information to the model, which would bring noise to the raw data and therefore cannot be applied to fault diagnosis directly. In order to address the above problems, a fault diagnosis model named deep parallel time-series relation network(\textit{DPTRN}) has been proposed in this paper. There are mainly three advantages for DPTRN: (1) Our proposed time relationship unit is based on full multilayer perceptron(\textit{MLP}) structure, therefore, DPTRN performs fault diagnosis in a parallel way and improves computing efficiency significantly. (2) By improving the absolute position embedding, our novel decoupling position embedding unit could be applied on the fault diagnosis directly and learn contextual information. (3) Our proposed DPTRN has obvious advantage in feature interpretability. Our model outperforms other methods on both TE and KDD-CUP99 datasets which confirms the effectiveness, efficiency and interpretability of the proposed DPTRN model.

This is how the decision tree algorithm works behind the scene:

Develop an FDD approach based on unsupervised learning methods for NPPs. A comparative study on the presented methods is conducted. PCTRAN simulation is used to test the efficiencies of the proposed approach. Nuclear power plants have proved their importance in the energy sector by generating clean and uninterrupted energy over decades. Moreover, nuclear power plants (NPPs) are large-scale and complex systems with potential radioactive release risks.

On a typical day, general practitioners (GPs) make multiple decisions when diagnosing and treating patients. They have limited access to immediate imaging diagnostics and tests and rely more on the patient's history and clinical examination than the second and tertiary stages of healthcare. To establish a diagnosis, a GP starts with the chief complaint, makes a hypothesis with a perceptual list of differential diagnoses, and asks the patient a series of targeted questions to include or exclude diagnoses. The GP then performs a clinical examination to confirm further or refute diagnoses while deciding if further diagnostic tests are needed. When the GP has reached a diagnostic conclusion, with a reasonable degree of certainty, he makes the diagnosis.