Abstract
Open set recognition is, more than an interesting research subject, a component of various machine learning applications which is sometimes neglected: it is not unusual the existence of learning systems developed on the top of closed-set assumptions, ignoring the error risk involved in a prediction. This risk is strictly related to the location in feature space where the prediction has to be made, compared to the location of the training data: the more distant the training observations are, less is known, higher is the risk. Proper handling of this risk can be necessary in various situation where classification and its variants are employed. This paper presents an approach to open set recognition based on an elaborate distance-like computation provided by a weightless neural network model. The results obtained in the proposed test scenarios are quite interesting, placing the proposed method among the current best ones.

Abstract
Telecommunications companies must process large-scale social networks that reveal the communication patterns among their customers. These networks are dynamic in nature as new customers appear, old customers leave, and the interaction among customers changes over time. One way to uncover the evolution patterns of such entities is by monitoring the evolution of the communities they belong to. Large-scale networks typically comprise thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of communities and not all of them are worth monitoring, or interesting from the business perspective. Several methods have been proposed for tracking the evolution of groups of entities in dynamic networks but these methods lack strategies to effectively extract knowledge and insight from the analysis. In this paper we tackle this problem by proposing an integrated business-oriented framework to track and interpret the evolution of communities in very large networks. The framework encompasses several steps such as network sampling, community detection, community selection, monitoring of dynamic communities and rule-based interpretation of community evolutionary profiles. The usefulness of the proposed framework is illustrated using a real-world large-scale social network from a major telecommunications company.

Abstract
Planning strategies play an important role in companies' management. In the decision-making process, one of the main important goals is sales forecasting. They are important for stocks planing, shop space maintenance, promotions, etc. Sales forecasting use historical data to make reliable projections for the future. In the retail sector, data has a hierarchical structure. Products are organized in hierarchical groups that reflect the business structure. In this work we present a case study, using real data, from a Portuguese leader retail company. We experimentally evaluate standard approaches for sales forecasting and compare against models that explore the hierarchical structure of the products. Moreover, we evaluate different methods to combine predictions for the different hierarchical levels. The results show that exploiting the hierarchical structure present in the data systematically reduces the error of the forecasts.

Abstract
Recent advances in telecommunications created new opportunities for monitoring public transport operations in real-time. This paper presents an automatic control framework to mitigate the Bus Bunching phenomenon in real-time. The framework depicts a powerful combination of distinct Machine Learning principles and methods to extract valuable information from raw location-based data. State-of-the-art tools and methodologies such as Regression Analysis, Probabilistic Reasoning and Perceptron's learning with Stochastic Gradient Descent constitute building blocks of this predictive methodology. The prediction's output is then used to select and deploy a corrective action to automatically prevent Bus Bunching. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated using data collected from 18 bus routes in Porto, Portugal over a period of one year. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can potentially reduce bunching by 68% and decrease average passenger waiting times by 4.5%, without prolonging in-vehicle times. The proposed system could be embedded in a decision support system to improve control room operations. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Abstract
Anurans (frogs or toads) are closely related to the ecosystem and they are commonly used by biologists as early indicators of ecological stress. Automatic classification of anurans, by processing their calls, helps biologists analyze the activity of anurans on larger scale. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) can be used for gathering data automatically over a large area. WSNs usually set restrictions on computing and transmission power for extending the network's lifetime. Deep Learning algorithms have gathered a lot of popularity in recent years, especially in the field of image recognition. Being an eager learner, a trained Deep Learning model does not need a lot of computing power and could be used in hardware with limited resources. This paper investigates the possibility of using Convolutional Neural Networks with Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) as input for the task of classifying anuran sounds. © 2016 ACM.

Abstract
Data mining and machine learning algorithms can be employed to perform a variety of tasks. However, since most of these problems may depend on environments that change over time, performing classification tasks in dynamic environments has been a challenge in data mining research domain in the last decades. Currently, in the literature, the most common strategies used to detect changes are based on accuracy monitoring, which relies on previous knowledge of the data in order to identify whether or not correct classifications are provided. However, such a feedback can be infeasible in practical problems. In this work, we present a comprehensive overview of current machine learning/data mining approaches proposed to deal with dynamic environments problems. The objective is to highlight the main drawbacks and open issues, as well as future directions and problems worthy of investigation. In addition, we provide the definitions of the main terms used to represent this problem in the literature, such as concept drift and novelty detection. WIREs Data Mining Knowl Discov 2016, 6:156-166. doi: 10.1002/widm.1184 For further resources related to this article, please visit the .