Weighting Methods (weighting + methods)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Joint full-waveform analysis of off-ground zero-offset ground penetrating radar and electromagnetic induction synthetic data for estimating soil electrical properties

GEOPHYSICAL JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2010
D. Moghadas
SUMMARY A joint analysis of full-waveform information content in ground penetrating radar (GPR) and electromagnetic induction (EMI) synthetic data was investigated to reconstruct the electrical properties of multilayered media. The GPR and EMI systems operate in zero-offset, off-ground mode and are designed using vector network analyser technology. The inverse problem is formulated in the least-squares sense. We compared four approaches for GPR and EMI data fusion. The two first techniques consisted of defining a single objective function, applying different weighting methods. As a first approach, we weighted the EMI and GPR data using the inverse of the data variance. The ideal point method was also employed as a second weighting scenario. The third approach is the naive Bayesian method and the fourth technique corresponds to GPR,EMI and EMI,GPR sequential inversions. Synthetic GPR and EMI data were generated for the particular case of a two-layered medium. Analysis of the objective function response surfaces from the two first approaches demonstrated the benefit of combining the two sources of information. However, due to the variations of the GPR and EMI model sensitivities with respect to the medium electrical properties, the formulation of an optimal objective function based on the weighting methods is not straightforward. While the Bayesian method relies on assumptions with respect to the statistical distribution of the parameters, it may constitute a relevant alternative for GPR and EMI data fusion. Sequential inversions of different configurations for a two layered medium show that in the case of high conductivity or permittivity for the first layer, the inversion scheme can not fully retrieve the soil hydrogeophysical parameters. But in the case of low permittivity and conductivity for the first layer, GPR,EMI inversion provides proper estimation of values compared to the EMI,GPR inversion. [source]


Some remarks on the LSOWA approach for obtaining OWA operator weights

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, Issue 12 2009
Byeong Seok Ahn
One of the key issues in the theory of ordered-weighted averaging (OWA) operators is the determination of their associated weights. To this end, numerous weighting methods have appeared in the literature, with their main difference occurring in the objective function used to determine the weights. A minimax disparity approach for obtaining OWA operator weights is one particular case, which involves the formulation and solution of a linear programming model subject to a given value of orness and the adjacent weight constraints. It is clearly easier for obtaining the OWA operator weights than from previously reported OWA weighting methods. However, this approach still requires solving linear programs by a conventional linear program package. Here, we revisit the least-squared OWA method, which intends to produce spread-out weights as much as possible while strictly satisfying a predefined value of orness, and we show that it is an equivalent of the minimax disparity approach. The proposed solution takes a closed form and thus can be easily used for simple calculations. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


The influence of indexing practices and weighting algorithms on document spaces

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 1 2008
Dietmar Wolfram
Index modeling and computer simulation techniques are used to examine the influence of indexing frequency distributions, indexing exhaustivity distributions, and three weighting methods on hypothetical document spaces in a vector-based information retrieval (IR) system. The way documents are indexed plays an important role in retrieval. The authors demonstrate the influence of different indexing characteristics on document space density (DSD) changes and document space discriminative capacity for IR. Document environments that contain a relatively higher percentage of infrequently occurring terms provide lower density outcomes than do environments where a higher percentage of frequently occurring terms exists. Different indexing exhaustivity levels, however, have little influence on the document space densities. A weighting algorithm that favors higher weights for infrequently occurring terms results in the lowest overall document space densities, which allows documents to be more readily differentiated from one another. This in turn can positively influence IR. The authors also discuss the influence on outcomes using two methods of normalization of term weights (i.e., means and ranges) for the different weighting methods. [source]


Principal Stratification Designs to Estimate Input Data Missing Due to Death

BIOMETRICS, Issue 3 2007
Constantine E. Frangakis
Summary We consider studies of cohorts of individuals after a critical event, such as an injury, with the following characteristics. First, the studies are designed to measure "input" variables, which describe the period before the critical event, and to characterize the distribution of the input variables in the cohort. Second, the studies are designed to measure "output" variables, primarily mortality after the critical event, and to characterize the predictive (conditional) distribution of mortality given the input variables in the cohort. Such studies often possess the complication that the input data are missing for those who die shortly after the critical event because the data collection takes place after the event. Standard methods of dealing with the missing inputs, such as imputation or weighting methods based on an assumption of ignorable missingness, are known to be generally invalid when the missingness of inputs is nonignorable, that is, when the distribution of the inputs is different between those who die and those who live. To address this issue, we propose a novel design that obtains and uses information on an additional key variable,a treatment or externally controlled variable, which if set at its "effective" level, could have prevented the death of those who died. We show that the new design can be used to draw valid inferences for the marginal distribution of inputs in the entire cohort, and for the conditional distribution of mortality given the inputs, also in the entire cohort, even under nonignorable missingness. The crucial framework that we use is principal stratification based on the potential outcomes, here mortality under both levels of treatment. We also show using illustrative preliminary injury data that our approach can reveal results that are more reasonable than the results of standard methods, in relatively dramatic ways. Thus, our approach suggests that the routine collection of data on variables that could be used as possible treatments in such studies of inputs and mortality should become common. [source]