The role of big data and machine learning methods in precision agriculture

Coastal aquifers are vital for sustaining ecosystems and providing freshwater for agriculture and domestic use. However, rising groundwater salinity in these regions demands innovative approaches for accurate modeling and prediction. In recent decades, machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) techniques have been extensively used across various water resource management fields, often yielding promising outcomes. This review examines the growing usage of ML and DL techniques in modeling groundwater salinity in coastal aquifers. The analysis is based on 104 peer-reviewed journal articles including the review articles indexed in PubMed, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Scopus, and SpringerLink using keywords like "saltwater intrusion", "machine learning", “deep learning”, and "groundwater salinity". The review discusses recent advancements, challenges, and future directions for improving ML model accuracy and applicability. Studies reveal an increasing reliance on ML techniques to predict groundwater salinity and manage seawater intrusion across various coastal geological settings. Researchers have employed a range of ML models, from traditional methods like Artificial Neural Networks and Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference Systems to advanced DL-based models like Convolutional Neural Networks and Long Short-Term Memory Networks, often using ensemble methods to enhance accuracy. Key findings include the top-tier output of ensemble and optimized models, including Random Forest and Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm-XGBoost. These studies highlight the importance of model selection, input variable ranking, and computational efficiency, demonstrating ML's global relevance in environmental management. The review highlights the prospects of ML, DL, and ensemble models to redefine groundwater management in coastal aquifers, offering more effective and sustainable solutions to the challenges posed by groundwater salinity and saltwater intrusion. Future advancements will focus on further integrating DL, explainable artificial intelligence, and ensemble approaches, along with other innovative techniques, to explore sparsely studied variables, model new or unique study areas, and apply ML methods for managing groundwater salinity.

Chemical heuristics have been fundamental to the advancement of chemistry and materials science. These heuristics are typically established by scientists using knowledge and creativity to extract patterns from limited datasets. Machine learning offers opportunities to perfect this approach using computers and larger datasets. Here, we discuss the relationships between traditional heuristics and machine learning approaches. We show how traditional rules can be challenged by large-scale statistical assessment and how traditional concepts commonly used as features are feeding the machine learning techniques. We stress the waste involved in relearning chemical rules and the challenges in terms of data size requirements for purely data-driven approaches. Our view is that heuristic and machine learning approaches are at their best when they work together.

P125. Development of a novel ensemble machine learning algorithm for prediction of complications and readmission after anterior cervical spinal fusion

Artificial intelligence has been applied in wildfire science and management since the 1990s, with early applications including neural networks and expert systems. Since then, the field has rapidly progressed congruently with the wide adoption of machine learning (ML) methods in the environmental sciences. Here, we present a scoping review of ML applications in wildfire science and management. Our overall objective is to improve awareness of ML methods among wildfire researchers and managers, as well as illustrate the diverse and challenging range of problems in wildfire science available to ML data scientists. To that end, we first present an overview of popular ML approaches used in wildfire science to date and then review the use of ML in wildfire science as broadly categorized into six problem domains, including (i) fuels characterization, fire detection, and mapping; (ii) fire weather and climate change; (iii) fire occurrence, susceptibility, and risk; (iv) fire behavior prediction; (v) fire effects; and (vi) fire management. Furthermore, we discuss the advantages and limitations of various ML approaches relating to data size, computational requirements, generalizability, and interpretability, as well as identify opportunities for future advances in the science and management of wildfires within a data science context. In total, to the end of 2019, we identified 300 relevant publications in which the most frequently used ML methods across problem domains included random forests, MaxEnt, artificial neural networks, decision trees, support vector machines, and genetic algorithms. As such, there exists opportunities to apply more current ML methods — including deep learning and agent-based learning — in the wildfire sciences, especially in instances involving very large multivariate datasets. We must recognize, however, that despite the ability of ML models to learn on their own, expertise in wildfire science is necessary to ensure realistic modelling of fire processes across multiple scales, while the complexity of some ML methods such as deep learning requires a dedicated and sophisticated knowledge of their application. Finally, we stress that the wildfire research and management communities play an active role in providing relevant, high-quality, and freely available wildfire data for use by practitioners of ML methods.

Efficient seismic fragility analysis method utilizing ground motion clustering and probabilistic machine learning

Using methods from machine learning to evaluate behavioral models of choice under risk and ambiguity

Systematic literature review of machine learning based software development effort estimation models

Typhoon‐induced storm surges have been the most destructive disasters in coastal regions. The nowcasting of storm surge, in which the prediction lead time is not greater than 3 hr, is critical to disaster emergency response and recovery, enabling governments to make decisions and take actions according to the latest situation and prediction. Machine learning (ML) methods have been increasingly applied to storm surge predictions, but few ML studies focused on short‐term nowcasts. Moreover, conflicting conclusions often arise regarding the superiority of ML methods and model input variables for storm surge predictions. This study highlights the significance of surge autocorrelation, that is, the correlation of surge height with its local historical values, in the design of ML models for storm surge nowcasts. It is shown in the comparative analyses of model input variables that, independent of the adopted ML methods, models relying solely on historical surge heights as inputs are sufficient to achieve reasonably accurate nowcasts of surge height. Conversely, models without historical surge heights in their inputs yield comparable prediction errors. Involving surge autocorrelation, simple multilayer perceptron models perform even better than sequential‐compatible recurrent neural network category of models. Moreover, it is illustrated that the surge autocorrelation inhibits the performance of Transformer and XGBoost models for storm surge nowcasts. This study shows the possibility to achieve efficient and accurate nowcasts (a lead time under 3 hr) of localized storm surge only based on limited observations by local tide gauge, supporting decision‐making in disaster emergency response and recovery within small‐scale coastal regions.

The emergence of machine learning (ML) techniques has significantly improved the accuracy and efficiency in materials characterization. This paper reviews the application of ML algorithms in microstructural analysis and defect detection processes of aluminum castings. By leveraging ML methods, multiple ML models were trained to automatically identify and classify different types of casting defects and microstructural features. Advanced image processing techniques, combined with convolutional neural networks (CNNs), enable the detection of casting defects such as shrinkage porosity, oxides and multiscale microstructure features (i.e., eutectic phases and secondary dendrite arm spacing of aluminum). This study highlights the advantages of the developed ML models in the accuracy and reduction of measurement time in the lab and reducing the reliance on manual analysis and subjective judgment. The findings emphasize the significant impact of ML techniques on metallurgical research and industrial applications, enhancing the reliability and performance of material analysis tools.

According to popular belief, big data and machine learning provide a wholly novel approach to science that has the potential to revolutionise scientific progress and will ultimately lead to the ‘end of theory’. Proponents of this view argue that advanced algorithms are able to mine vast amounts of data relating to a given problem without any prior knowledge and that we do not need to concern ourselves with causality, as correlation is sufficient for handling complex issues. Consequently, the human contribution to scientific progress is deemed to be non-essential and replaceable. We, however, following the position most commonly represented in the philosophy of science, argue that the need for human expertise remains. Based on an analysis of big data and machine learning methods in two case studies—skin cancer detection and protein folding—we show that expert knowledge is essential and inherent in the application of these methods. Drawing on this analysis, we establish a classification of the different kinds of expert knowledge that are involved in the application of big data and machine learning in scientific contexts. We address the ramifications of a human-driven expert knowledge approach to big data and machine learning for scientific practice and the discussion about the role of theory. Finally, we show that the ways in which big data and machine learning both influence and are influenced by scientific methodology involve continuous conceptual shifts rather than a rigid paradigm change.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) remain a leading cause of global mortality, underscoring the urgent need for early and accurate diagnosis. Electrocardiograms (ECGs) are a widely used, noninvasive tool for detecting cardiac abnormalities, but manual interpretation can be time- consuming and prone to error. This study explores advanced machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) methods to improve the detection of CVDs from ECG images, leveraging their ability to analyze complex patterns with high precision. Models such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Vision Transformers (ViTs), and ensemble frameworks are utilized, alongside traditional ML models like XGBoost, CatBoost, and LightGBM. The performance of these models is evaluated based on precision, recall, F1-score, and accuracy. Results show that DL models, particularly an ensemble of CNN and ViT, achieve superior accuracy , outperforming standalone ML methods. Furthermore, an ensemble of XGBoost, CatBoost, and LightGBM achieves competitive results, while Optuna-tuned XGBoost further enhances ML performance. The findings highlight the potential of combining ML and DL techniques for robust and reliable CVD detection in ECG images. This research demonstrates the promise of AI-driven solutions in advancing medical diagnostics and supports the integration of automated systems for early detection of cardiovascular diseases.

Recently, a number of state-of-the-art surrogate machine learning (ML) models have been designed for global weather and climate prediction, which have been trained using reanalysis data products. Reanalysis data products are constructed using numerical model simulations that combine numerical integration of partial differential equations and parameterization schemes. These products are typically only archived and made available using coarsened spatial and temporal resolutions. This study explores the impact of the numerical generation methods used to produce the training datasets and the temporal resolution of those datasets on machine learning surrogate models. Using the nonlinear vector autoregression (NVAR) machine as an explainable ML technique, simple dynamical systems are emulated with ML models trained on data produced by three classical numerical integration schemes. NVAR is validated as a skillful ML method, capable of producing accurate predictions and, more importantly, reconstructing both the underlying dynamics and the numerical integration scheme used to generate the training data. However, the machine fails to generalize predictions on unseen test data generated by different numerical integration schemes, despite the underlying dynamical system being the same. This result provides a word of caution for the growing field of machine learning emulation of weather and climate dynamics. Furthermore, we illustrate using NVAR that training on temporally coarsened data may increase the required complexity of ML models and potentially introduce new numerical challenges. Finally, we discover that empirical integration schemes with arbitrary time-stepping sizes can be constructed directly from the data, which implies a potential for the development of empirical numerical integration schemes.

Parameter importance assessment improves efficacy of machine learning methods for predicting snow avalanche sites in Leh-Manali Highway, India

Background Safety issues for fluoroquinolones have been provided by regulatory agencies. This study was conducted to identify signals of fluoroquinolones reported in the Korea Adverse Event Reporting System (KAERS) using tree-based machine learning (ML) methods. Research design and methods All adverse events (AEs) associated with the target drugs reported in the KAERS from 2013 to 2017 were matched with drug label information. A dataset containing label-positive and -negative AEs was arbitrarily divided into training and test sets. Decision tree, random forest (RF), bagging, and gradient boosting machine (GBM) were fitted on the training set with hyperparameters tuned using five-fold cross-validation and applied to the test set. The ML method with the highest area under the curve (AUC) scores was selected as the final ML model. Results Bagging was selected as the final ML model for gemifloxacin (AUC score: 1) and levofloxacin (AUC: 0.9987). RF was selected in ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin, and ofloxacin (AUC scores: 0.9859, 0.9974, and 0.9999 respectively). We found that the final ML methods detected additional signals that were not detected using the disproportionality analysis (DPA) methods. Conclusions The bagging-or-RF-based ML methods performed better than DPA and detected novel AE signals previously unidentified using the DPA methods.

Accurate leaf area index estimation in sorghum using high-resolution UAV data and machine learning models