In engineering, accurately modeling nonlinear dynamic systems from data contaminated by noise is both essential and complex. Established Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods, used for the Bayesian identification of these systems, facilitate the quantification of uncertainty in the parameter identification process. A significant challenge in this context is the numerical integration of continuous-time ordinary differential equations (ODEs), crucial for aligning theoretical models with discretely sampled data. This integration introduces additional numerical uncertainty, a factor that is often over looked. To address this issue, the field of probabilistic numerics combines numerical methods, such as numerical integration, with probabilistic modeling to offer a more comprehensive analysis of total uncertainty. By retaining the accuracy of classical deterministic methods, these probabilistic approaches offer a deeper understanding of the uncertainty inherent in the inference process. This paper demonstrates the application of a probabilistic numerical method for solving ODEs in the joint parameter-state identification of nonlinear dynamic systems. The presented approach efficiently identifies latent states and system parameters from noisy measurements. Simultaneously incorporating probabilistic solutions to the ODE in the identification challenge. The methodology's primary advantage lies in its capability to produce posterior distributions over system parameters, thereby representing the inherent uncertainties in both the data and the identification process.

Optimizing building configurations for an efficient use of energy is increasingly receiving attention by current research and several methods have been developed to address this task. Selecting a suitable configuration based on multiple conflicting objectives, such as initial investment cost, recurring cost, robustness with respect to uncertainty of grid operation is, however, a difficult multi-criteria decision making problem. Concept identification can facilitate a decision maker by sorting configuration options into semantically meaningful groups (concepts), further introducing constraints to meet trade-off expectations for a selection of objectives. In this study, for a set of 20000 Pareto-optimal building energy management configurations, resulting from a many-objective evolutionary optimization, multiple concept identification iterations are conducted to provide a basis for making an informed investment decision. In a series of subsequent analysis steps, it is shown how the choice of description spaces, i.e., the partitioning of the features into sets for which consistent and non-overlapping concepts are required, impacts the type of information that can be extracted and that different setups of description spaces illuminate several different aspects of the configuration data - an important aspect that has not been addressed in previous work.

This is a guest post by Zia Hayat, founder and CEO of Callsign. Ever since Apple introduced the Touch ID fingerprint scanner to the iPhone 5S in September 2013, biometrics as a means of identifying consumers has swiftly moved from the realms of science fiction to science fact. Now, using a person's physiological attributes as a means of identification is moving beyond the fingerprint, as Samsung's Note 7 is capable of iris scanning and users of Apple's iPhone X are now able to open their phone with merely a glance. But following recent data breaches and a landmark court case in Illinois, physiological biometrics find themselves on the backfoot, with behavioral biometrics now offering a more robust and secure alternative. Traditional physiological biometrics aim to replace "things that you know" – passwords, PINs, memorable information, etc. – with "things that you are".

Food safety is vital to the well-being of society; therefore, it is important to inspect food products to ensure minimal health risks are present. The presence of certain species of insects, especially storage beetles, is a reliable indicator of possible contamination during storage and food processing. However, the current approach of identifying species by visual examination of insect fragments is rather subjective and time-consuming. To aid this inspection process, we have developed in collaboration with FDA food analysts some image analysis-based machine intelligence to achieve species identification with up to 90% accuracy. The current project is a continuation of this development effort. Here we present an image analysis environment that allows practical deployment of the machine intelligence on computers with limited processing power and memory. Using this environment, users can prepare input sets by selecting images for analysis, and inspect these images through the integrated panning and zooming capabilities. After species analysis, the results panel allows the user to compare the analyzed images with reference images of the proposed species. Further additions to this environment should include a log of previously analyzed images, and eventually extend to interaction with a central cloud repository of images through a web-based interface.