Knowledge Discovery for Query Formulation for Validation of a Bayesian Belief Network

This paper proposes machine learning techniques to discover knowledge in a dataset in the form of if-then rules for the purpose of formulating queries for validation of a Bayesian belief network model of the same data. Although do-main expertise is often available, the query formulation task is tedious and laborious, and hence automation of query formulation is desirable. In an effort to automate the query formulation process, a machine learning algorithm is lev-eraged to discover knowledge in the form of if-then rules in the data from which the Bayesian belief network model under validation was also induced. The set of if-then rules are processed and filtered through domain expertise to identify a subset that consists of “interesting” and “significant” rules. The subset of interesting and significant rules is formulated into corresponding queries to be posed, for validation purposes, to the Bayesian belief network induced from the same dataset. The promise of the proposed methodology was assessed through an empirical study performed on a real-life dataset, the National Crime Victimization Survey, which has over 250 attributes and well over 200,000 data points. The study demonstrated that the proposed approach is feasible and provides automation, in part, of the query formulation process for validation of a complex probabilistic model, which culminates in substantial savings for the need for human expert involvement and investment.

Design and performance evaluation of a parking management system for automated, multi-story and robotic parking structure

Purpose–The purpose of this paper is to present design and performance evaluation through simulation of a parking management system(PMS)for a fully automated,multi-story,puzzle-type and robotic parking structure with the overall objective of minimizing customer wait times while maximizing the space utilization.Design/methodology/approach–The presentation entails development and integration of a complete suite of path planning,elevator scheduling and resource allocation algorithms.The PMS aims to manage multiple concurrent requests,in real time and in a dynamic context,for storage and retrieval of vehicles loaded onto robotic carts for a fully automated,multi-story and driving-free parking structure.The algorithm suite employs the incremental informed search algorithm D*Lite with domain-specific heuristics and the uninformed search algorithm Uniform Cost Search for path search and planning.An optimization methodology based on nested partitions and Genetic algorithm is adapted for scheduling of a group of elevators.The study considered a typical business day scenario in the center of a metropolis.Findings–The simulation study indicates that the proposed design for the PMS is able to serve concurrent storage-retrieval requests representing a wide range of Poisson distributed customer arrival rates in real time while requiring reasonable computing resources under realistic scenarios.The customer waiting times for both storage andretrievalrequestsare withinacceptable bounds,whichare set as nomore than 5min,evenin the presence of up to 100 concurrent storage and retrieval requests.The design is able to accommodate a variety of customer arrival rates and presence of immobilized vehicles which are assumed to be scattered across the floors of the structure to make it possible for deployment in real-time environments.Originality/value–The intelligent system design is novel as the fully automated robotic parking structures are just in the process of being matured from a technology standpoint.