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Synergy of econometric approach and use of neural networks to determine factors of provision of transport and logistics infrastructure in regions of Russia

The article justifies actuality of application of neural network methods for identification of significant predictors of the transport and logistics infrastructure of regions of the Russian Federation. The condition of the logistics industry of the Russian Federation in comparison with foreign countries has been analyzed. It was concluded that it is necessary to increase the accuracy of estimation of indicators of transport and logistics infrastructure of regions in order to identify their impact on the development of logistics. The problem of the traditional methodology of building a model of transport and logistics infrastructure of regions based on the application of mathematical and econometric analysis lies in the inability of the latter to find and accurately describe the non-obvious dependencies in the data. The expediency of sequential coupling of econometric and neural network research tools has been determined. The two-step procedure of identification of factors influencing the logistics development of the Russian Federation has been tested. As a result, it was possible to select the most significant socio-economic (average per capita income of the population, retail trade turnover, imports of the subjects of the Russian Federation) and infrastructure factors (the share of paved roads, the shipment of goods by public rail, the departure of passengers by public rail, the density of public railway) logistics infrastructure on the basis of an econometric approach. In the second step of the study, a neural network model of the remaining factors was developed based on the development of classification trees and a neural network, acting as a kind of computational filter, which allowed solving the problem of attribution of macroeconomic data and achieving a high level of significance of forecasts. The proposed approach of sequential coupling of econometric methods and neural network modelling has universality and practical importance, therefore it is applicable to the study of a wide range of macroeconomic processes. Read more...

The method of preprocessing machine learning data for solving computer vision problems

In the field of machine learning, there is no single methodology for data preprocessing, since all stages of this process are unique for a specific task. However, a specific data type is used in each direction. The research hypothesis assumes that it is possible to clearly structure the sequences and phases of data preparation for text recognition tasks. The article discusses the basic principles of data preprocessing and the allocation of successive stages as a specific technique for the task of recognizing ABC characters. ETL set images were selected as the source data. Preprocessing included the stages of working with images, at each of which changes were made to the source data. The first step was cropping, which allowed to get rid of unnecessary information in the image. Next, the approach of converting the image to the original aspect ratio was considered and the method of converting from shades of gray to black and white format was determined. At the next stage, the character lines were artificially expanded for better recognition of printed alphabets. At the last stage of data preprocessing, augmentation was performed, which made it possible to better recognize ABC characters regardless of their position in space. As a result, the general structure of the data preprocessing methodology for text recognition tasks was built. Read more...