The Cubic Dynamic Uncertain Causality Graph: A Methodology for Temporal Process Modeling and Diagnostic Logic Inference

Temporal logic inference for interpretable fault diagnosis of bearings via sparse and structured neural attention

This paper addresses the critical challenge of interpretability in machine learning methods for machine fault diagnosis by introducing a novel ad hoc interpretable neural network structure called Sparse Temporal Logic Network (STLN). STLN conceptualizes network neurons as logical propositions and constructs formal connections between them using specified logical operators, which can be articulated and understood as a formal language called Weighted Signal Temporal Logic. The network includes a basic word network using wavelet kernels to extract intelligible features, a transformer encoder with sparse and structured neural attention to locate informative signal segments relevant to decision-making, and a logic network to synthesize a coherent language for fault explanation. STLN retains the advantageous properties of traditional neural networks while facilitating formal interpretation through temporal logic descriptions. Empirical validation on experimental datasets shows that STLN not only performs robustly in fault diagnosis tasks, but also provides interpretable explanations of the decision-making process, thus enabling interpretable fault diagnosis.

Diffusion Source Inference for Large-Scale Complex Networks Based on Network Percolation

This article studies the diffusion-source-inference (DSI) problem, whose solution plays an important role in real-world scenarios such as combating misinformation and controlling diffusions of information or disease. The main task of the DSI problem is to optimize an estimator, such that the real source can be more precisely targeted. In this article, we assume that the state of a number of nodes, called observer set, in a network could be investigated if necessary, and study what configuration of those nodes could facilitate a better solution for the DSI problem. In particular, we find that the conventional error distance metric cannot precisely evaluate the effectiveness of varied DSI approaches in heterogeneous networks, and thus propose a novel and more general measurement, the candidate set, that is formulated to contain the diffusion source for sure. We propose the percolation-based evolutionary framework (PrEF) to optimize the observer set such that the candidate set can be minimized. Hence, one could further conduct more intensive investigation or search on only a few nodes to target the source. To achieve that, we first theoretically show that the size of the candidate set is bounded by the size of the largest component cover, and demonstrate that there are some similarities between the DSI problem and the network immunization problem. We find that, given the associated direction information of the diffusion is known on observers, the minimization of the candidate set is equivalent to the minimization of the order parameter if we view the observer set as the removal node set. Hence, PrEF is developed based on the network percolation and evolutionary algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated on both synthetic and empirical networks in regard to varied circumstances. Our results show that the developed approach could achieve much smaller candidate sets compared to the state of the art in almost all cases, e.g., it is better in 26 out of 27 empirical networks and 155 out of 162 cases regarding the critical threshold. Meanwhile, our approach is also more stable, i.e., it works well irrespective of varied infection probabilities, diffusion models, and underlying networks. More importantly, we provide a framework for the analysis of the DSI problem in large-scale networks.

Towards knowledge-infused automated disease diagnosis assistant

With the advancement of internet communication and telemedicine, people are increasingly turning to the web for various healthcare activities. With an ever-increasing number of diseases and symptoms, diagnosing patients becomes challenging. In this work, we build a diagnosis assistant to assist doctors, which identifies diseases based on patient-doctor interaction. During diagnosis, doctors utilize both symptomatology knowledge and diagnostic experience to identify diseases accurately and efficiently. Inspired by this, we investigate the role of medical knowledge in disease diagnosis through doctor-patient interaction. We propose a two-channel, knowledge-infused, discourse-aware disease diagnosis model (KI-DDI), where the first channel encodes patient-doctor communication using a transformer-based encoder, while the other creates an embedding of symptom-disease using a graph attention network (GAT). In the next stage, the conversation and knowledge graph embeddings are infused together and fed to a deep neural network for disease identification. Furthermore, we first develop an empathetic conversational medical corpus comprising conversations between patients and doctors, annotated with intent and symptoms information. The proposed model demonstrates a significant improvement over the existing state-of-the-art models, establishing the crucial roles of (a) a doctor's effort for additional symptom extraction (in addition to patient self-report) and (b) infusing medical knowledge in identifying diseases effectively. Many times, patients also show their medical conditions, which acts as crucial evidence in diagnosis. Therefore, integrating visual sensory information would represent an effective avenue for enhancing the capabilities of diagnostic assistants.

Inferring Effective Connectivity Networks From fMRI Time Series With a Temporal Entropy-Score

Inferring brain-effective connectivity networks from neuroimaging data has become a very hot topic in neuroinformatics and bioinformatics. In recent years, the search methods based on Bayesian network score have been greatly developed and become an emerging method for inferring effective connectivity. However, the previous score functions ignore the temporal information from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) series data and may not be able to determine all orientations in some cases. In this article, we propose a novel score function for inferring effective connectivity from fMRI data based on the conditional entropy and transfer entropy (TE) between brain regions. The new score employs the TE to capture the temporal information and can effectively infer connection directions between brain regions. Experimental results on both simulated and real-world data demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed score function.

An Industrial Fault Diagnostic System Based on a Cubic Dynamic Uncertain Causality Graph

This study presents an industrial fault diagnosis system based on the cubic dynamic uncertain causality graph (cubic DUCG) used to model and diagnose industrial systems without sufficient data for model training. The system is developed based on cloud native technology. It contains two main parts, the diagnostic knowledge base and the inference method. The knowledge base was built by domain experts modularly based on professional knowledge. It represented the causality between events in the target industrial system in a visual and graphical form. During the inference, the cubic DUCG algorithm could dynamically generate the cubic causal graph according to the real-time data and perform the logic and probability calculations based on the generated cubic DUCG models, visually displaying the dynamic causal evolution of faults. To verify the system’s feasibility, we rebuild a fault-diagnosis model of the secondary circuit system of No. 1 at the Ningde nuclear power plant based on the new system. Twenty-four fault cases were used to test the diagnostic accuracy of the system, and all faults were correctly diagnosed. The results showed that it was feasible to use the cubic DUCG platform for fault diagnosis.

Knowledge Representation and Reasoning with an Extended Dynamic Uncertain Causality Graph under the Pythagorean Uncertain Linguistic Environment

A dynamic uncertain causality graph (DUCG) is a probabilistic graphical model for knowledge representation and reasoning, which has been widely used in many areas, such as probabilistic safety assessment, medical diagnosis, and fault diagnosis. However, the convention DUCG model fails to model experts’ knowledge precisely because knowledge parameters were crisp numbers or fuzzy numbers. In reality, domain experts tend to use linguistic terms to express their judgements due to professional limitations and information deficiency. To overcome the shortcomings of DUCGs, this article proposes a new type of DUCG model by integrating Pythagorean uncertain linguistic sets (PULSs) and the evaluation based on the distance from average solution (EDAS) method. In particular, experts express knowledge parameters in the form of the PULSs, which can depict the uncertainty and vagueness of expert knowledge. Furthermore, this model gathers the evaluations of experts on knowledge parameters and handles conflicting opinions among them. Moreover, a reasoning algorithm based on the EDAS method is proposed to improve the reliability and intelligence of expert systems. Lastly, an industrial example concerning the root cause analysis of abnormal aluminum electrolysis cell condition is provided to demonstrate the proposed DUCG model.

A method for root cause diagnosis with picture fuzzy sets based dynamic uncertain causality graph

Root cause diagnosis is of great significance to make efficient decisions in industrial production processes. It is a procedure of fusing knowledge, such as empirical knowledge, process knowledge, and mechanism knowledge. However, it is insufficient and low reliability of cause analysis methods by using crisp values or fuzzy numbers to represent uncertain knowledge. Therefore, a dynamic uncertain causality graph model (DUCG) based on picture fuzzy set (PFS) is proposed to address the problem of uncertain knowledge representation and reasoning. It combines the PFS with DUCG model to express expert doubtful ideas in a complex system. Then, a new PFS operator is introduced to characterize the importance of factors and connections among various information. Moreover, an enhanced knowledge reasoning algorithm is developed based on the PFS operators to resolve causal inference problems. Finally, a numerical example illustrates the effectiveness of the method, and the results show that the proposed model is more reliable and flexible than the existing models.