Philip C. Treleaven

Genetic-algorithm programming environments

This review classifies genetic-algorithm environments into application-oriented systems, algorithm-oriented systems, and toolkits. It also presents detailed case studies of leading environments. Following Hollands (1975) original genetic algorithm proposal, many variations of the basic algorithm have been introduced. However. an important and distinctive feature of all GAs is the population-handling technique. The original GA adopted a generational replacement policy, according to which the whole population is replaced in each generation. Conversely, the steady-state policy used by many subsequent GAs selectively replaces the population. After we introduce GA models and their programming, we present a survey of GA programming environments. We have grouped them into three major classes according to their objectives: application-oriented systems hide the details of GAs and help users develop applications for specific domains; algorithm-oriented systems are based on specific GA models; and toolkits are flexible environments for programming a range of GAs and applications. We review the available environments and describe their common features and requirements. As case studies, we select some specific systems for more detailed examination. To conclude, we discuss likely future developments in GA programming environments.<<ETX>>

VLSI architectures for neural networks

An introduction to neural networks and neural information processing is provided. Neurocomputers are discussed, focusing on how their design exploits the architectural properties of VLSI circuits. General-purpose and special-purpose neurocomputer developments throughout the world are examined. As illustration, and to put European developments in perspective, some of the important projects in the United States and Japan are described. European research is then discussed in greater detail.<<ETX>>

3D Body Scanning and Healthcare Applications

Developed largely for the clothing industry, 3D body-surface scanners are transforming our ability to accurately measure and visualize a persons body size, shape, and skin-surface area. Advancements in 3D whole-body scanning seem to offer even greater potential for healthcare applications.

Social media analytics: a survey of techniques, tools and platforms

This paper is written for (social science) researchers seeking to analyze the wealth of social media now available. It presents a comprehensive review of software tools for social networking media, wikis, really simple syndication feeds, blogs, newsgroups, chat and news feeds. For completeness, it also includes introductions to social media scraping, storage, data cleaning and sentiment analysis. Although principally a review, the paper also provides a methodology and a critique of social media tools. Analyzing social media, in particular Twitter feeds for sentiment analysis, has become a major research and business activity due to the availability of web-based application programming interfaces (APIs) provided by Twitter, Facebook and News services. This has led to an ‘explosion’ of data services, software tools for scraping and analysis and social media analytics platforms. It is also a research area undergoing rapid change and evolution due to commercial pressures and the potential for using social media data for computational (social science) research. Using a simple taxonomy, this paper provides a review of leading software tools and how to use them to scrape, cleanse and analyze the spectrum of social media. In addition, it discussed the requirement of an experimental computational environment for social media research and presents as an illustration the system architecture of a social media (analytics) platform built by University College London. The principal contribution of this paper is to provide an overview (including code fragments) for scientists seeking to utilize social media scraping and analytics either in their research or business. The data retrieval techniques that are presented in this paper are valid at the time of writing this paper (June 2014), but they are subject to change since social media data scraping APIs are rapidly changing.

Algorithmic Trading

In electronic financial markets, algorithmic trading refers to the use of computer programs to automate one or more stages of the trading process: pretrade analysis (data analysis), trading signal generation (buy and sell recommendations), and trade execution. Trade execution is further divided into agency/broker execution (when a system optimizes the execution of a trade on behalf of a client) and principal/proprietary trading (where an institution trades on its own account). Each stage of this trading process can be conducted by humans, by humans and algorithms, or fully by algorithms.

Body shape in American and British adults: between-country and inter-ethnic comparisons

Background:Recent studies indicate differences between British and American white adults, and between income and ethnic groups within the United States, in the population distribution of lifestyle diseases. Differential prevalence of obesity has been suggested as a contributing factor; however, the conventional approach to categorizing obesity, body mass index, is confounded by ethnic variability in physique.Objective:To compare indices of shape between white British and American adults, and between white, African and Hispanic American adults.Design:Analysis of two large National Sizing Surveys, using identical study design and three-dimensional (3D) body-scanning instrumentation, on adults aged 17+ years from the UK (3907M and 4710F white), and from the USA (1744M and 3329F white, 709M and 1106F African and 639M and 839F Hispanic).Outcome measures:Weight, height, body circumferences.Results:In the United States, socio-economic status was associated with increasing height and decreasing waist girth in white and Hispanic, but not African Americans. Compared to white British, white Americans had larger weight and girths, especially waist girth in men. Relative to white Americans, African Americans had smaller relative waist girth, but larger thigh girth, whereas Hispanic Americans had larger relative waist girth.Conclusions:Body shape of white American adults differs from that of their UK counterparts. Within Americans, ethnic differences in body shape closely track reported differences in prevalence of the metabolic syndrome, implicating variability in central abdominal fat as a key contributing factor. 3D photonic scanning offers a novel approach for categorizing risk of the metabolic syndrome and monitoring treatment success.

Quantifying the digital traces of Hurricane Sandy on Flickr.

Society’s increasing interactions with technology are creating extensive “digital traces” of our collective human behavior. These new data sources are fuelling the rapid development of the new field of computational social science. To investigate user attention to the Hurricane Sandy disaster in 2012, we analyze data from Flickr, a popular website for sharing personal photographs. In this case study, we find that the number of photos taken and subsequently uploaded to Flickr with titles, descriptions or tags related to Hurricane Sandy bears a striking correlation to the atmospheric pressure in the US state New Jersey during this period. Appropriate leverage of such information could be useful to policy makers and others charged with emergency crisis management.

Age-variability in Body Shape Associated With Excess Weight: The UK National Sizing Survey

Background: The health risks of obesity are disproportionately due to central abdominal adiposity; however, the extent to which age is associated with the body shape of obese adults is not known.

Whole-body three-dimensional photonic scanning: a new technique for obesity research and clinical practice

Information on body shape has long been used in categorizing and monitoring obesity. Alongside abdominal circumferences, recent studies further emphasize the value of indices such as sagittal diameter adjusted for thigh girth in categorizing cardiovascular risk. Whole-body three-dimensional photonic scanning has rapidly emerged as a new technology for digital anthropometric measurement. Photonic scanners capture sophisticated raw data on body surface topography in a few seconds, from which extensive body shape information can be extracted using computer algorithms. Photonic scanning now has the potential to play a key role in (1) categorizing obesity (including childhood screening), (2) ranking abdominal size and shape in large-scale epidemiological studies, (3) monitoring individual patients to evaluate treatment efficacy and (4) estimating surface area for drug dosage calculations. New statistical modeling techniques offer the opportunity to develop novel parameters of body shape for linking with biological health outcomes. The low cost, accuracy, ease of use and high acceptability of the technique make it highly suitable for both research and clinical applications.

Sizing us up

Three-dimensional whole-body scanning will mean more comfortable clothes and safer cars.