Knowledge aquisition for expert systems: inducing modular rules from examples

Knowledge acquisition for expert systems is notoriously difficult, often demanding an enormous effort on the part of the domain expert, who is essentially expected to spell out everything he knows about the domain. The task is non-trivial and can be time-consuming and tedious. Machine learning research, particularly into automatic rule induction from examples, may provide a way of easing this burden. Arguably, the most popular and successful rule induction algorithm in general use today is Quinlan's ID3. ID3 induces rules in the form of decision trees. However, the research reported in this thesis identifies some major limitations of a decision tree representation. Decision trees can be incomprehensible, but more importantly, there are rules which cannot be represented by trees. Ideally, induced rules should be modular and should capture the essence of causality, avoiding irrelevance and redundancy. The information theoretic approach employed in ID3 is examined in detail and some of its weaknesses identified. A new algorithm is developed which, by avoiding these weaknesses, induces rules which are modular rather than decision trees. This algorithm forms the basis of a new rule induction program, PRISM. Given an ideal training set, PRISM induces a complete and correct set of maximally general rules. The program and its results are described using training sets from two domains, contact lens fitting and a chess endgame. Induction from incomplete training sets is discussed and the performance of PRISM is compared with that of ID3 with particular reference to predictive power. A series of experiments is described, in which PRISM and ID3 were applied to training sets of different sizes and predictive power calculated. The results show that PRISM generally performs better than ID3 in these two domains, inducing fewer, more general rules, which classify a similar number of instances correctly and significantly fewer incorrectly

Guidance in Mass Media – Analysis of the Selected Examples

Guidance in media is not a new phenomenon. Looking for the answers to more or less complex questions about human existence seems to be as old as human society. A great deal of books are guidance books. Guidance has always been present in the press. Guidance programmes are also found on television. The Internet is dominated by the communication guidance based on one to one or/and one to few principles. However, the popularity of some websites, portals and blogs makes this way of communication similar to the traditional, periodical mass media (one-to-many).Contemporary media, and to be more precise, media offer has become a commodity. In order to be sold, it undergoes the processes of tabloidisation. Due to this, the owners can count on higher profits as the product reaches a larger audience. Guidance in press and on television has become one of the ways to make money.The article is based on the offer addressed to the female mass audience and is an attempt to answer the questions: what are the characteristics of mass guidance, what subject matter dominates in the popular media offer addressed to the mass audience, and what benefits does the sender get from the message

Magazyny poradnikowe dla kobiet – kryzys, rozwój czy stagnacja

Female press is a broad segment of the press market. Some publications touch many topics, such as monthly Claudia, while others are dedicated to one specific field of everyday life, e.g., My cooking (Moje gotowanie) or I have a baby (Mam dziecko). Regardless of the release profile of the magazine, the press offer is addressed to women and based on the transmission of different types of advice adjusted to the prospective target group. Due to this offer, female readers can cope with all their problems and find answers to all the questions. The commercialization of the media is leading to the deepening of segmentation of female magazines, the goal of which is to reach the widest possible audience and achieve satisfactory results of the copy sales. This article attempts to answer the question what conditions the guidance bi-weekly and the guidance monthly magazines for women issued by companies with foreign capital, such as: Bauer Media Poland, Edipresse Poland, Burda Media Poland. The conclusions are drawn on the basis of data on the average copy sales published by the Association Press Distribution Control for the surveyed magazines.Prasa kobieca to szeroki segment rynku prasowego, który tworzą magazyny ogólnotematyczne, takie jak miesięcznik „Claudia” oraz te poświęcone jednej, konkretnej dziedzinie życia – Moje gotowanie czy Mam dziecko. Niezależnie od profilu czasopisma oferta prasowa adresowana do kobiet bazuje na przekazywaniu różnego typu porad dostosowanych do potencjalnej grupy docelowej. Dzięki nim czytelniczki mają sobie poradzić ze wszystkimi problemami i znaleźć odpowiedź na każde pytanie. Komercjalizacja mediów natomiast prowadzi do pogłębiającej się segmentacji w obrębie magazynów kobiecych, której celem jest dotarcie do jak najszerszego grona odbiorców i osiągnięcie zadawalających wyników ze sprzedaży egzemplarzowej. Celem artykułu jest próba odpowiedzi na pytanie, w jakiej kondycji znajdują się dwutygodniki i miesięczniki poradnikowe dla kobiet, wydawane przez koncerny z zagranicznym kapitałem, takie jak Bauer Media Polska, Edipresse i Burda Polska. Podstawą do wnioskowania są dane ze średniej sprzedaży egzemplarzowej, opublikowane przez Związek Kontroli Dystrybucji Prasy, dotyczące badanych magazynów

Najważniejsze magazyny kobiece i ich wydawcy na polskim rynku prasowym w latach 1989–2018

In the years 1989–2018 the women’s press was an important element of the Polish media market which was dominated by the foreign publishers. The most important of these are Bauer Media, Edipresse Polska, Burda International. Each year the companies introduced new magazines to the market. Their total number was around 100. Most of them settled on the Polish press market and, due to a good position on the market of recipients and advertisers, generated revenue for their publishers. The author captured quantitative changes in the segment of the women’s press, analysed the involvement of the publishers in this part of the press market and highlighted the most important trends.W latach 1989–2018 prasa kobieca była ważnym elementem polskiego rynku mediów zdominowanym przez zagranicznych wydawców. Do najważniejszych z nich należą: Bauer Media, Edipresse Polska, Burda International. Każdego roku koncerny wprowadzały nowe czasopisma. Łącznie ich liczba oscylowała w okolicach 100. Większość z nich zadomowiała się na polskim rynku prasowym i, dzięki dobrej pozycji na rynku odbiorców i reklamy, generowała przychody swoim wydawcom. W artykule autorka uchwyciła ilościowe przeobrażenia w segmencie prasy kobiecej, przeanalizowała zaangażowanie wydawców w tę część rynku prasowego oraz uwypukliła najistotniejsze tendencje

The variability of the small cardiac vein in the adult human heart

Direct analyses were performed on 50 hearts submitted for post mortem examination. The remaining hearts were examined by the corrosion method. The aim of the work was to assess the morphology of the small cardiac vein. The small cardiac vein, which runs along the back surface of the coronary sulcus, would usually drain into the coronary sinus at its right side (86% of cases). Cases of the small cardiac vein draining into the middle cardiac vein were also noticed (12%) or directly into the right atrium (1%). In 1% of the preparations it ran along the right margin in the direction of the apex of the heart. In 30% of the corrosion preparations the small cardiac vein was not accessible with the help of corrosion. In 24% of the dissection preparations it was not possible to reach the small cardiac vein with the help of dissection. A statistically significant relationship was observed between the frequency of the presence or absence of the small cardiac vein and the sex of the donor (p > 0.001). In the group examined the percentage of men who did not have the small cardiac vein was 6 times higher than among the woman. There was no evidence for any statistically significant dependence between the frequency of occurrence or of absence of the small cardiac vein and the technique employed

Random Prism: a noise-tolerant alternative to Random Forests

Ensemble learning can be used to increase the overall classification accuracy of a classifier by generating multiple base classifiers and combining their classification results. A frequently used family of base classifiers for ensemble learning are decision trees. However, alternative approaches can potentially be used, such as the Prism family of algorithms that also induces classification rules. Compared with decision trees, Prism algorithms generate modular classification rules that cannot necessarily be represented in the form of a decision tree. Prism algorithms produce a similar classification accuracy compared with decision trees. However, in some cases, for example, if there is noise in the training and test data, Prism algorithms can outperform decision trees by achieving a higher classification accuracy. However, Prism still tends to overfit on noisy data; hence, ensemble learners have been adopted in this work to reduce the overfitting. This paper describes the development of an ensemble learner using a member of the Prism family as the base classifier to reduce the overfitting of Prism algorithms on noisy datasets. The developed ensemble classifier is compared with a stand-alone Prism classifier in terms of classification accuracy and resistance to noise

ASSESSMENT OF BIOTHERMAL CONDITIONS FOR URBAN TOURISM IN THE SELECTED EUROPEAN CITIES

Urban tourism has become very popular in the last years, so the crucial problem in bioclimatology is to elaborate proper methods for evaluation of climatic conditions in the cities, which are popular tourist destinations. This paper presents results of the assessment of biothermal conditions in Madrid, Stockholm and Warsaw. For this purpose biometeorological indices (PST and UTCI) based on human heat budget models as well as tourism climatic index TCI were used. The calendars of bioclimates’ suitability for urban tourism in these cities were designed using WSI index. Applied research tools were appraised and recommendations for future evaluations of climate in terms of urban tourism were given.

Analysis of the course and the ostium of the oblique vein of the left atrium

Considerating the origin of the coronary sinus and the oblique vein of the left atrium, both are remnants of the left horn of the embryonal venous sinus. The studies were carried out on 100 human cadaver hearts. The causes of death were not cardiac reasons, no detectable changes in the coronary arteries. In the study, dissections and corrosion technique were used. Heart veins were filled by metacrylan through the coronary sinus. The beginning, the course, the tributaries and the ostium oblique vein of the left atrium to the coronary sinus were investigated. The variability of the length and the venous tributaries and the ostium of the oblique vein of the left atrium were noticed. The variability of the venous tributaries (the dendritic, forked and simple types of the tributaries) was noticed. Four groups of ostium were observed. The ostium oblique vein of the left atrium was situated at the level of: the posterior vein of the left ventricle and also the great cardiac vein, the posterior vein of the left ventricle, the great cardiac vein and the independence ostium

Foreign Capital in the Women's Press in Poland in 1989-2019 – Attempted Summary

Press companies with foreign capital have been functioning on the Polish media market since 1990. In the nineties, women’s press was dominated by four media giants with German capital: Bauer Media, Burda Poland, G+J Poland, and Axel Springer Poland (‘The Big German Four’), which were later joined by Edipresse Poland and Marquard Media. In the years between 2001 and 2016, mergers and acquisitions took place which led to a concentration of the press market. As a result, in 2019 Bauer Media became the definitive leader, systematically expanding its press range in the group of multi-thematic magazines. Despite taking action, neither Edipresse Polska nor Burda International was able to compete with the media giant.  The aim of this article is to analyze changes in the segment of women's multi-thematic magazines which took place between 1989 and 2019. The research used the method of system analysis, a research approach used in social sciences, which considers the notion of the system and its analysis as crucial for the understanding of social phenomena. It was assumed that the women's press published in Poland is a part of the Polish media system.  It is a closed sub-segment. Considering this multi-thematic magazine group as a whole without dividing it into subsegments, it is obvious that Bauer Media was the ultimate leader – owning 13 titles i.e. 56.5% of the available magazine range. The remaining 10 magazines (43.5%) were owned by Burda International (5), Marquard Media (2), Edipresse Polska (1), Agora S.A (1) and Wydawnictwo Zwierciadło (1). In the years 2018-2019, the media giant Bauer Media extended its magazine range and gained a monopoly in the advice and gossip magazine subsegment

COVID-19 w prasie kobiecej w Polsce. Wstęp do badań

Women’s press has been analysed as an element of the Polish media system by representatives of various fields of research. There have been studies of press content, formal features of individual magazines, ownership and definition issues, and internal segmentations, amongst others. This research attempts to fill a gap in the study of women’s press content; it aims to show how the COVID-19 was presented in women’s press. As an introduction to the main research, this article examines a carefully selected study sample with individual sub-segments of women’s press each represented by a leading magazine. Research objectives include determining the ways in which COVID-19 is presented in certain women’s press titles belonging to different sub-segments, analysing the selection and presentation of information to potential readers in regards to their needs, and establishing the functions of COVID-19 guidance in women’s press.Prasa kobieca, jako składnik polskiego systemu medialnego, była analizowana przez reprezentantów różnych dyscyplin naukowych. Badano między innymi: jej zawartość tematyczną, cechy formalne poszczególnych magazynów, kwestie własnościowe, problemy definicyjne, wewnętrzną subsegmentację itd. Przedstawione w artykule badania stanowią próbę uzupełnienia luki w analizach zawartości prasy kobiecej. Celem głównym jest próba odpowiedzi na pytanie, w jaki sposób COVID-19 prezentowano w prasie kobiecej. Artykuł stanowi wstęp do badań. Próbę dobrano celowo. Poszczególne subsegmenty prasy kobiecej reprezentuje jeden wiodący tytuł. Cele szczegółowe to: sposoby prezentowania COVID-19 w poszczególnych tytułach prasy kobiecej należących do różnych subsegentów; dobór i prezentacja informacji w odniesieniu do potrzeb potencjalnych odbiorców; funkcje poradnictwa o COVID-19 w prasie kobiecej