Optimization of neural classifiers based on bayesian decision boundaries and idle neurons pruning

In this article we describe a feature extraction algorithm for pattern classification based on Bayesian Decision Boundaries and Pruning techniques. The proposed method is capable of optimizing MLP neural classifiers by retaining those neurons in the hidden layer that realy contribute to correct classification. Also in this article we proposed a method which defines a plausible number of neurons in the hidden layer based on the stem-and-leaf graphics of training samples. Experimental investigation reveals the efficiency of the proposed method. © 2002 IEEE.

Productivity of cherry tomatoes under protected cultivation carried out with different types of pruning and spacing

The aim of the study was to evaluate production and determine the level of total soluble solids for cherry tomatoes, under protected cultivation carried out with different types of spacing and pruning. The experiment was performed according to a randomized block design in a 2×2 factorial scheme, with two types of spacing between plants and two types of pruning, and with five repetitions. The cultivar 'Sindy' (De Ruiter) was utilized. Each experimental parcel contained seven plants, and fruits were collected from the five central plants. The seedlings were produced in Styrofoam trays of 128 cells and transplanted at 33 days after planting using two types of spacing between plants (0.3 and 0.5 m) and 1 m spacing between rows. The plants were grown as single-or double-stem form and staked individually. The parameters evaluated were the number of fruit per plant, fresh weight of fruit and the level of total soluble solids expressed in °Brix. There was no evidence of significant interaction between the treatments. For fresh weight of fruit per plant, there was a significant effect when the plants were grown with a spacing of 1 × 0.5 m, with 4.12 kg per plant, compared to a production of 3.00 kg per plant with a spacing of 1 × 0.3 m. With regard to the number of fruit per plant, a significant difference was seen between the two types of spacing, where a spacing of 1 × 0.3 m yielded a lower number of fruit per plant (188.8), compared to that observed with a spacing of 1 × 0.5 m (238.1). With regard to the two types of pruning, there was a significant effect for only the number of fruit per plant, where the mean number of fruit was 188.4 with one stem and 238.4 with two stems. No significant difference was observed between the treatments for the level of total soluble solids. It is concluded that for the cultivar 'Sindy', under protected cultivation, production is better with a spacing of 0.5 m between plants and the use of two stems per plant.

Optimum-Path Forest pruning parameter estimation through Harmony Search

Pattern recognition in large amount of data has been paramount in the last decade, since that is not straightforward to design interactive and real time classification systems. Very recently, the Optimum-Path Forest classifier was proposed to overcome such limitations, together with its training set pruning algorithm, which requires a parameter that has been empirically set up to date. In this paper, we propose a Harmony Search-based algorithm that can find near optimal values for that. The experimental results have showed that our algorithm is able to find proper values for the OPF pruning algorithm parameter. © 2011 IEEE.

Prospects for the use of municipal tree pruning wastes in particleboard production

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of particleboard made with pruning wastes from Ipê (Tabebuia serratifolia) and Chapéu-de-Sol (Terminalia catappa) trees. Particleboards were prepared with both wood species, using all the material produced by grinding the pruning wastes. The particleboards had dimensions of 45×45 cm, a thickness of approximately 11.5 mm and an average density of 664 kg/m3. A urea-formaldehyde adhesive was used in the proportion of 12% of the dry particle mass. The particleboards were pressed at a temperature of 130 C for 10 mins. The physical and mechanical properties analyzed were density, moisture content, thickness swelling, percentage of lignin and cellulose, modulus of resilience, modulus of elasticity and tensile strength parallel to the grain, accordingly to the standards NBR 14810 and CS 236-66 (1968). The particleboards were considered to be of medium density. The particle size significantly affected the static bending strength and tensile strength parallel to the grain. Ipê presented better results, demonstrating a potential for the production and use of particleboard made from this species. © The Author(s) 2013.

Influence of rootstocks and pruning times on yield and on nutrient content and extraction in 'Niagara Rosada' grapevine

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Pruning methods to MLP neural networks considering proportional apparent error rate for classification problems with unbalanced data

This article deals with classification problems involving unequal probabilities in each class and discusses metrics to systems that use multilayer perceptrons neural networks (MLP) for the task of classifying new patterns. In addition we propose three new pruning methods that were compared to other seven existing methods in the literature for MLP networks. All pruning algorithms presented in this paper have been modified by the authors to do pruning of neurons, in order to produce fully connected MLP networks but being small in its intermediary layer. Experiments were carried out involving the E. coli unbalanced classification problem and ten pruning methods. The proposed methods had obtained good results, actually, better results than another pruning methods previously defined at the MLP neural network area. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pruning management of cassava for animal feeding: parameters of the root

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Design and implementation of a fft pruning engine for DSA-enabled cognitive radios.

This research work presents the design and implementation of a FFT pruning block, which is an extension to the FFT core for OFDM demodulation, enabling run-time 8 pruning of the FFT algorithm, without any restrictions on the distribution pattern of the active/inactive sub-carriers. The design and implementation of FFT processor core is not the part of this work. The whole design was prototyped on an ALTERA STRATIX V FPGA to evaluate the performance of the pruning engine. Synthesis and simulation results showed that the logic overhead introduced by the pruning block is limited to a 10% of the total resources utilization. Moreover, in presence of a medium-high scattering of the sub-carriers, power and energy consumption of the FFT core were reduced by a 30% factor.

Effect of training systems and pruning methods on fruit quality in apple

The introduction of dwarfed rootstocks in apple crop has led to a new concept of intensive planting systems with the aim of producing early high yield and with returns of the initial high investment. Although yield is an important aspect to the grower, the consumer has become demanding regards fruit quality and is generally attracted by appearance. To fulfil the consumer’s expectations the grower may need to choose a proper training system along with an ideal pruning technique, which ensure a good light distribution in different parts of the canopy and a marketable fruit quality in terms of size and skin colour. Although these aspects are important, these fruits might not reach the proper ripening stage within the canopy because they are often heterogeneous. To describe the variability present in a tree, a software (PlantToon®), was used to recreate the tree architecture in 3D in the two training systems. The ripening stage of each of the fruits was determined using a non-destructive device (DA-Meter), thus allowing to estimate the fruit ripening variability. This study deals with some of the main parameters that can influence fruit quality and ripening stage within the canopy and orchard management techniques that can ameliorate a ripening fruit homogeneity. Significant differences in fruit quality were found within the canopies due to their position, flowering time and bud wood age. Bi-axis appeared to be suitable for high density planting, even though the fruit quality traits resulted often similar to those obtained with a Slender Spindle, suggesting similar fruit light availability within the canopies. Crop load confirmed to be an important factor that influenced fruit quality as much as the interesting innovative pruning method “Click”, in intensive planting systems.

Decrease in VEGF expression induces intussusceptive vascular pruning

The concept of vascular pruning, the "cuting-off" of vessels, is gaining importance due to expansion of angio-modulating therapies. The proangiogenic effects of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) are broadly described, but the mechanisms of structural alterations by its downregulation are not known.

ESTIMATING TEMPORAL ASSOCIATIONS IN ELECTROCORTICOGRAPHIC (ECoG) TIME SERIES WITH FIRST ORDER PRUNING

Granger causality (GC) is a statistical technique used to estimate temporal associations in multivariate time series. Many applications and extensions of GC have been proposed since its formulation by Granger in 1969. Here we control for potentially mediating or confounding associations between time series in the context of event-related electrocorticographic (ECoG) time series. A pruning approach to remove spurious connections and simultaneously reduce the required number of estimations to fit the effective connectivity graph is proposed. Additionally, we consider the potential of adjusted GC applied to independent components as a method to explore temporal relationships between underlying source signals. Both approaches overcome limitations encountered when estimating many parameters in multivariate time-series data, an increasingly common predicament in today's brain mapping studies.

Supporting pruning in tabled LP

This paper analyzes issues which appear when supporting pruning operators in tabled LP. A version of the once/1 control predicate tailored for tabled predicates is presented, and an implementation analyzed and evaluated. Using once/1 with answer-on-demand strategies makes it possible to avoid computing unneeded solutions for problems which can benefit from tabled LP but in which only a single solution is needed, such as model checking and planning. The proposed version of once/1 is also directly applicable to the efficient implementation of other optimizations, such as early completion, cut-fail loops (to, e.g., prune at the top level), if-then-else, and constraint-based branch-and-bound optimization. Although once/1 still presents open issues such as dependencies of tabled solutions on program history, our experimental evaluation confirms that it provides an arbitrarily large efficiency improvement in several application areas.

An optimal yet fast pruning algorithm to reduce latency in multiview prediction structures

We propose a new algorithm for the design of prediction structures with low delay and limited penalty in the rate-distortion performance for multiview video coding schemes. This algorithm constitutes one of the elements of a framework for the analysis and optimization of delay in multiview coding schemes that is based in graph theory. The objective of the algorithm is to find the best combination of prediction dependencies to prune from a multiview prediction structure, given a number of cuts. Taking into account the properties of the graph-based analysis of the encoding delay, the algorithm is able to find the best prediction dependencies to eliminate from an original prediction structure, while limiting the number of cut combinations to evaluate. We show that this algorithm obtains optimum results in the reduction of the encoding latency with a lower computational complexity than exhaustive search alternatives.

Ephrin-dependent growth and pruning of hippocampal axons

Neuronal connections are arranged topographically such that the spatial organization of neurons is preserved by their termini in the targets. During the development of topographic projections, axons initially explore areas much wider than the final targets, and mistargeted axons are pruned later. The molecules regulating these processes are not known. We report here that the ligands of the Eph family tyrosine kinase receptors may regulate both the initial outgrowth and the subsequent pruning of axons. In the presence of ephrins, the outgrowth and branching of the receptor-positive hippocampal axons are enhanced. However, these axons are induced later to degenerate. These observations suggest that the ephrins and their receptors may regulate topographic map formation by stimulating axonal arborization and by pruning mistargeted axons.

Abnormal dendritic spines in fragile X knockout mice: Maturation and pruning���deficits

Fragile X syndrome arises from blocked expression of the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP). Golgi-impregnated mature cerebral cortex from fragile X patients exhibits long, thin, tortuous postsynaptic spines resembling spines observed during normal early neocortical development. Here we describe dendritic spines in Golgi-impregnated cerebral cortex of transgenic fragile X gene (Fmr1) knockout mice that lack expression of the protein. Dendritic spines on apical dendrites of layer V pyramidal cells in occipital cortex of fragile X knockout mice were longer than those in wild-type mice and were often thin and tortuous, paralleling the human syndrome and suggesting that FMRP expression is required for normal spine morphological development. Moreover, spine density along the apical dendrite was greater in the knockout mice, which may reflect impaired developmental organizational processes of synapse stabilization and elimination or pruning.