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1 – 10 of 228Shouhui Wang, Jianguo Dai, Qingzhan Zhao and Meina Cui
Many factors affect the emergence and development of crop diseases and insect pests. Traditional methods for investigating this subject are often difficult to employ and produce…
Abstract
Purpose
Many factors affect the emergence and development of crop diseases and insect pests. Traditional methods for investigating this subject are often difficult to employ and produce limited data with considerable uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to predict the annual degree of cotton spider mite infestations by employing grey theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors established a GM(1,1) model to forecast mite infestation degree based on the analysis of historical data. To improve the prediction accuracy, the authors modified the grey model using Markov chain and BP neural network analyses. The prediction accuracy of the GM(1,1), Grey-Markov chain, and Grey-BP neural network models was 84.31, 94.76, and 96.84 per cent, respectively.
Findings
Compared with the single grey forecast model, both the Grey-Markov chain model and the Grey-BP neural network model had higher forecast accuracy, and the accuracy of the latter was highest. The improved grey model can be used to predict the degree of cotton spider mite infestations with high accuracy and overcomes the shortcomings of traditional forecasting methods.
Practical implications
The two new models were used to estimate mite infestation degree in 2015 and 2016. The Grey-Markov chain model yielded respective values of 1.27 and 1.15, whereas the Grey-BP neural network model yielded values 1.4 and 1.68; the actual values were 1.5 and 1.8.
Originality/value
The improved grey model can be used for medium- and long-term predictions of the occurrence of cotton spider mites and overcomes problems caused by data singularity and fluctuation. This research method can provide a reference for the prediction of similar diseases.
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The purpose of this study to provide a reference basis for effectively managing the risk of agrometeorological disasters in Henan Province, speeding up the establishment of a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study to provide a reference basis for effectively managing the risk of agrometeorological disasters in Henan Province, speeding up the establishment of a scientific and reasonable system of agrometeorological disasters prevention and reduction and guaranteeing grain security.
Design/methodology/approach
Firstly, according to the statistical data of areas covered by natural disaster, areas affected by natural disaster, sown area of grain crops and output of grain crops from 1979 to 2018 in Henan Province, China. We have constructed an agrometeorological disaster risk assessment system for Henan province, China, which is composed of indicators such as rate covered by natural disaster, rate affected by natural disaster, disaster coefficient of variation and disaster vulnerability. The variation characteristics of agrometeorological disasters in Henan Province and their effects on agricultural production are analyzed. Secondly, the grey relational analysis method is used to analyze the relation degree between the main agrometeorological disaster factors and the output of grain crops of Henan Province. Based on the grey BP neural network, the rate covered by various natural disaster and the rate affected by various natural disaster are simulated and predicted.
Findings
The results show that: (1) the freeze injury in the study period has a greater contingency, the intensity of the disaster is also greater, followed by floods. Droughts, windstorm and hail are Henan Province normal disasters. (2) According to the degree of disaster vulnerability, the ability to resist agricultural disasters in Henan Province is weak. (3) During the study period, drought and flood are the key agrometeorological disasters affecting the grain output of Henan Province, China.
Practical implications
The systematic analysis and evaluation of agrometeorological disasters are conducive to the sustainable development of agriculture, and at the same time, it can provide appropriate and effective measures for the assessment and reduction of economic losses and risks.
Originality/value
By calculating and analyzing the rate covered by natural disaster, the rate affected by natural disaster, disaster coefficient of variation and disaster vulnerability of crops in Henan Province of China and using grey BP neural network simulation projections for the rate covered by various natural disaster and the rate affected by various natural disaster, the risk assessment system of agrometeorological disasters in Henan is constructed, which provides a scientific basis for systematic analysis and evaluation of agrometeorological disasters.
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To accurately forecast logistics freight volume plays a vital part in rational planning formulation for a country. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to developing a novel…
Abstract
Purpose
To accurately forecast logistics freight volume plays a vital part in rational planning formulation for a country. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to developing a novel combination forecasting model to predict China’s logistics freight volume, in which an improved PSO-BP neural network is proposed to determine the combination weights.
Design/methodology/approach
Since BP neural network has the ability of learning, storing, and recalling information that given by individual forecasting models, it is effective in determining the combination weights of combination forecasting model. First, an improved PSO based on simulated annealing method and space-time adjustment strategy (SAPSO) is proposed to solve out the connection weights of BP neural network, which overcomes the problems of local optimum traps, low precision and poor convergence during BP neural network training process. Then, a novel combination forecast model based on SAPSO-BP neural network is established.
Findings
Simulation tests prove that the proposed SAPSO has better convergence performance and more stability. At the same time, combination forecasting models based on three types of BP neural networks are developed, which rank as SAPSO-BP, PSO-BP and BP in accordance with mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and convergent speed. Also the proposed combination model based on SAPSO-BP shows its superiority, compared with some other combination weight assignment methods.
Originality/value
SAPSO-BP neural network is an original contribution to the combination weight assignment methods of combination forecasting model, which has better convergence performance and more stability.
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Iman Ghalehkhondabi, Ehsan Ardjmand, William A. Young and Gary R. Weckman
The purpose of this paper is to review the current literature in the field of tourism demand forecasting.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the current literature in the field of tourism demand forecasting.
Design/methodology/approach
Published papers in the high quality journals are studied and categorized based their used forecasting method.
Findings
There is no forecasting method which can develop the best forecasts for all of the problems. Combined forecasting methods are providing better forecasts in comparison to the traditional forecasting methods.
Originality/value
This paper reviews the available literature from 2007 to 2017. There is not such a review available in the literature.
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Sifeng Liu, Jeffrey Forrest and Robert Vallee
The purpose of this paper is to present the scientific background from which grey systems theory came into being, the astonishing progress that grey systems theory has made in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the scientific background from which grey systems theory came into being, the astonishing progress that grey systems theory has made in the world of learning and its wide‐ranging applications in the entire spectrum of science.
Design/methodology/approach
The grey uncertainty is compared with other kinds of uncertainty such as stochastic uncertainty, unascertainty, fuzzy and rough uncertainty.
Findings
The advances in grey systems theory and its various successful applications are introduced individually by algorithms of grey numbers and grey algebraic systems, grey dynamic models and grey predictions, grey optimization analysis for decision making, grey control models.
Research limitations/implications
Many scientific theories require the unremitting efforts of several generations of people and have gone through hundreds of years before reaching maturity and perfection. Grey systems theory is still in its growth period. So, it is unavoidable that there exist immature and imperfect parts in the theory.
Originality/value
Grey systems theory is a new method for studying problems of uncertainty with few data points and poor information. This new theory studies small samples and systems with poor information, which have partial information known, partial information unknown. It describes adequately and monitors effectively systems' operations and evolutions through extracting valuable information from the little known information. Grey systems theory comes into being along with the development of modern systems science and uncertainty systems theories and methods. It is also a result of deepened perceptivity about uncertain systems.
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The purpose of this paper is to propose novel civil aircraft cost parameters’ selection method and novel cost estimation approach for civil aircraft so as to effectively simulate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose novel civil aircraft cost parameters’ selection method and novel cost estimation approach for civil aircraft so as to effectively simulate or forecast civil aircraft cost under poor information and small sample.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on existent cost estimation indexes, this paper summarized civil aircraft research and manufacturing cost impact index system and adopted grey relational model to select most important impact factors. Consider civil aircrafts’ cost information could not be easily collected, the author must estimate their costs with limited sample and poor information. A combination model of GM (0, N) model and BP neural network algorithm is proposed. Both advantages of simulation of BP neural network algorithm and poor information generation of GM (0, N) were effectively combined. Then steps of combined model were given out. Finally, nine types of aircrafts were used to test the validity of proposed model. As comparing with the traditional multiple linear regression model and simple GM (0, N) model, results indicated that proposed model can do the work better.
Findings
Grey relational model can be applied for parameters’ selection and combined GM (0, N) model and BP neural network algorithm can estimate aircraft’s cost as well. Results show that novel combined model could get high forecasting accuracy.
Practical implications
Cost estimation is key problem in production management of civil aircraft. Effective cost management could promote competitiveness of aircraft manufacturing company. Proposed combined model can be applied for civil aircraft cost estimation. Similarly, it could be applied for other complex equipment cost estimation.
Originality/value
The paper succeeds in proposing grey relational model for cost parameters’ selection and constructing a combination model of GM (0, N) model and BP neural network algorithm. Algorithm of the proposed model was discussed and steps were given out.
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The purpose of this paper is to develop a system to analyse the characteristics of infrared objects.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a system to analyse the characteristics of infrared objects.
Design/methodology/approach
According to the gray scale of image pixel by the image entropy, gray scale estimating is carries on to construct the neural networks. And then the grey relational analysis and grey clustering methods are applied to filter the possible object. The target is predicted through image segmentation pretreatment based on the forecasting value by grey system and assigned corresponding mark. The forecasting precision is greatly elevated by GM (1, 1) model.
Findings
The paper illustrates that, based on the analysis and its experimental results, this system has a good recognition rate for infrared target.
Research limitations/implications
This paper provides a way to grasp the minutial feature of the image. The filtering operation based on pixel level provided auto‐adapted filtering with a new stage.
Practical implications
Applications of grey theory deepened the content of detecting infrared targets and enriched technology of image processing.
Originality/value
This system introduces an effective method for detecting infrared targets.
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Yuling Hong, Yingjie Yang and Qishan Zhang
The purpose of this paper is to solve the problems existing in topic popularity prediction in online social networks and advance a fine-grained and long-term prediction model for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to solve the problems existing in topic popularity prediction in online social networks and advance a fine-grained and long-term prediction model for lack of sufficient data.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on GM(1,1) and neural networks, a co-training model for topic tendency prediction is proposed in this paper. The interpolation based on GM(1,1) is employed to generate fine-grained prediction values of topic popularity time series and two neural network models are considered to achieve convergence by transmitting training parameters via their loss functions.
Findings
The experiment results indicate that the integrated model can effectively predict dense sequence with higher performance than other algorithms, such as NN and RBF_LSSVM. Furthermore, the Markov chain state transition probability matrix model is used to improve the prediction results.
Practical implications
Fine-grained and long-term topic popularity prediction, further improvement could be made by predicting any interpolation in the time interval of popularity data points.
Originality/value
The paper succeeds in constructing a co-training model with GM(1,1) and neural networks. Markov chain state transition probability matrix is deployed for further improvement of popularity tendency prediction.
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Nai-ming Xie, Song-Ming Yin and Chuan-Zhen Hu
The purpose of this paper is to study a new approach by combining a multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) algorithm with a GM(1, N) model in order to estimate the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study a new approach by combining a multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) algorithm with a GM(1, N) model in order to estimate the development cost of a new type of aircraft.
Design/methodology/approach
First, data about developing costs and their influencing factors were collected for several types of Boeing and Airbus aircraft. Second, a GM(1, N) model was constructed to simulate development costs for a civil aircraft. Then, an MLPNN algorithm was added to optimize and revise the simulative and forecasting values. Finally, a combined approach, using both a GM(1, N) model and an MLPNN algorithm was adopted to forecast development costs for new civil aircraft.
Findings
The results show that the proposed approach could do the work of cost estimation for new types of aircraft. Rather than using a single model, the combined approach could improve simulative and forecasting accuracy.
Practical implications
Scientific cost estimation could improve management efficiency and promote the success of a new type of civil aircraft development. Considering that China’s civil aircraft research and development is at its very beginning stages, only very limited data could be collected. The development costs for civil aircraft are affected by a series of factors. The approach outlined by this paper could be applied to development cost estimations in China’s civil aircraft industry.
Originality/value
The paper has succeeded by constructing a cost estimation index system and proposing a novel combined cost estimation approach comprised of a GM(1, N) model and an MLPNN. It has undoubtedly contributed to improving the accuracy of cost estimations.
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Jiaqi Jia and Haibin Duan
The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel target automatic recognition method for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which is based on backpropagation – artificial neural network…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel target automatic recognition method for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which is based on backpropagation – artificial neural network (BP-ANN) algorithm, with the objective of optimizing the structure of backpropagation network, to increase the efficiency and decrease the recognition time. A hardware-in-the-loop system for UAV target automatic recognition is also developed.
Design/methodology/approach
The hybrid model of BP-ANN structure is established for aircraft automatic target recognition. This proposed method identifies controller parameters and reduces the computational complexity. Approaching speed of the network is faster and recognition accuracy is higher. This kind of network combines or better fuses the advantages of backpropagation artificial neural algorithm and Hu moment. with advantages of two networks and improves the speed and accuracy of identification. Finally, a hardware-in-the-loop system for UAV target automatic recognition is also developed.
Findings
The double hidden level backpropagation artificial neural can easily increase the speed of recognition process and get a good performance for recognition accuracy.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed backpropagation artificial neural algorithm can be ANN easily applied to practice and can help the design of the aircraft automatic target recognition system. The standard backpropagation algorithm has some obvious drawbacks, namely, converging slowly and falling into the local minimum point easily. In this paper, an improved algorithm based on the standard backpropagation algorithm is constructed to make the aircraft target recognition more practicable.
Originality/value
A double hidden levels backpropagation artificial neural algorithm is presented for automatic target recognition system of UAV.
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