Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

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Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engappai

Statistical inference in a redesigned Radial Basis Function neural network

Rolando J. Praga-Alejo a,n, David S. Gonzlez-Gonzlez a, Mario Cant-Sifuentes a,
Pedro Perez-Villanueva a, Luis M. Torres-Trevio b, Bernardo D. Flores-Hermosillo c
a

Corporacin Mexicana de Investigacin en Materiales (COMIMSA), Calle Ciencia y Tecnologa, # 790, Frac. Saltillo 400, Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico
Centro de Innovacin, Investigacin y Desarrollo en Ingeniera y Tecnologa (CIIDIT), Universidad Autnoma de Nuevo Len, Km. 10 de la nueva carretera al
Aeropuerto Internacional de Monterrey, CP 66600, PIIT Monterrey, Apodaca, Nuevo Len, Mexico
c
Facultad de Sistemas, Universidad Autnoma de Coahuila, Ciudad Universitaria, Carretera a Mxico Km 13, Arteaga, Coahuila, Mexico
b

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 24 May 2012
Received in revised form
5 April 2013
Accepted 3 June 2013
Available online 3 July 2013

A Hybrid Learning Process method was tted into a RBF. The resulting redesigned RBF intends to show
how to test if the statistical assumptions are fullled and to apply statistical inference to the redesigned
RBFNN bearing in mind that it allows to determine the relationship between a response (to a process)
and one or more independent variables, testing how much each factor contributes to the total variation
of the response is also feasible. The results show that statistical methods such as inference, Residual
Analysis, and statistical metrics are all good alternatives and excellent methods for validation of the
effectiveness of the Neural Network models. The foremost conclusion is that the resulting redesigned
Radial Basis Function improved the accuracy of the model after using a Hybrid Learning Process;
moreover, the new model also validates the statistical assumptions for using statistical inference and
statistical analysis, satisfying the assumptions required for ANOVA to determine the statistical
signicance and the relationship between variables.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Radial Basis Function
Statistical inference
ANOVA
Residual Analysis
Hybrid Learning Process

1. Introduction
Articial Intelligence or Intelligent Systems are derived from
different applications or techniques, such as: fuzzy logic, Neural
Networks, evolutionary algorithms and hybrid systems (Benyounis
and Olabi, 2008; Paliwal and Kumar, 2009). Intelligent systems
attempt to imitate human reasoning for problem-solving, performing tasks and decision-making (Arbib, 2003). There are different
types of intelligent systems for modeling and optimizing industrial
processes (Benyounis and Olabi, 2008), such as articial neural
network backpropagation, support vector machines, adaptive resonance theory networks and Radial Basis Function Neural Network
(RBFNN) (Martn del Bro and Sanz, 2007; Nelles, 2001). Neural
Networks are able to process large amounts of information using
mathematical models. A Neural Network (NN) is an interconnection
of simple processing elements that represents the function of a
single neuron. The interconnection is made by articial synapses
called weights. The adjustment of these weights modies the
performance of the neural network. The NN has the ability to

Corresponding author. Tel.: +52 01 844 411 3200x1217.

E-mail addresses: rolandopraga@comimsa.com, rolando_praga_alejo@uadec.
edu.mx (R.J. Praga-Alejo), davidgonzalez@comimsa.com (D.S. Gonzlez-Gonzlez),
mcantu@comimsa.com (M. Cant-Sifuentes), pperez@comimsa.com
(P. Perez-Villanueva), luis.torres.ciidit@gmail.com (L.M. Torres-Trevio),
bernardo.ores@uadec.edu.mx (B.D. Flores-Hermosillo).
0952-1976/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2013.06.001

approximate functions using a large amount of information from

historical or experimental sources (Haykin, 1999). The Radial Basis
Function (RBF) has been developed to accurately predict the
performance processes (Arbib, 2003). The RBF is a second order
or hyper-spherical type function in which the network value
represents the distance for a given reference pattern. The RBF is a
hybrid model because it uses both supervised and non-supervised
learning (For more details about RBFNN see (Arbib, 2003; Martn
del Bro and Sanz, 2007; Nelles, 2001; Haykin, 1999; Gregori and
Lightbody, 2008)). The work by Gregori and Lightbody (2008)
made a complete description of the development of the RBFNN;
they fully describe the structure and functioning of the network,
accounting for the Euclidean distances, election of the centers,
adjustment of weights, usage of Gaussians functions amongst
others. It is important to mention that this kind of model (RBFNN)
can be used in many complex processes and for multi-output.
Du et al. (2010) made a fast recursive algorithm to nd better
centers using an orthogonal least square; they found better centers
based on the reduction in the trace of the error covariance matrix.
On the other hand we see the application of the RBFNN in
different processes such as those illustrated by the following authors,
e.g. Abdalla and Hawileh (2011) who made a prediction applying the
RBFNN in a model for the low-cycle fatigue life of steel reinforcing
bars; they showed that RBF provides a good prediction tool. Another
example of the RBF application is found in Chiddarwar and Babu
(2010) in which they applied several ANN for kinematics relations to

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R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

address the inverse kinematics problem of robots and determined

that a model with RBF can be used for prediction. Garg et al. (2010)
applied a Genetic Algorithm for optimizing the structure of RBFNN,
this method was applied in the tool condition monitoring which is
used to characterize and model the drilling process. Park et al. (2011)
determined the best parameters to model the power supply for higheld magnet applying techniques of clustering and evolutionary
computing with RBFNN. Those techniques were applied for modeling
the charging characteristic of linear-type superconducting power
supply and were realized by Park et al. (2012). Wang et al. (2010)
applied two methods, RBF and Genetic Algorithm, to optimize a ball
mill pulverizing system performance in power plants; optimal
operating conditions were determined using the RBF and Genetic
Algorithm as complements. Another application of RBF was implemented by Liu et al. (2010) where two models were used (Heuristic
Method and RBFNN) to determine the half-wave potential of organic,
inorganic and organometallic compounds. This study was done using
a quantitative structure-activity/property relationship. In this case
the authors concluded that RBF found better predictions than the
Heuristic Method model.
Praga-Alejo et al. (2012) proposed the redesigned RBF neural
network, which can be properly tted to models because its hybrid
learning method is constructed by means of a Genetic Algorithm that
calculates the matrix of centers and the Mahalanobis distance,
maximizing the coefcient of determination R2 . This statistic
becomes the evaluation function in the Genetic Algorithm, improving
the accuracy of the RBF.
It should be noted that the architecture of the redesigned RBF
neural network allows: performing statistical inference for validating the tted model, assessing how well the neural network
explains the variability related to the process, testing the signicance of the variables included in the model, and handling
inadequacies in the Neural Networks models. The key for its
success is laid in satisfying distributional assumptions related to
the residuals, namely: errors must follow a normal distribution,
errors should not be auto correlated and the variance has to be
homogeneous. If these assumptions are fullled, it is possible to
perform statistical inference over the model, such as the Analysis
of Variance, the T-test of signicance variables and some condence intervals for the predicted values among other test.
Hence the main objectives of this work are: (1) to show how to test
if the mentioned assumptions are fullled and to apply statistical
inference to the redesigned RBFNN; considering that it allows to
determine the relationship between a response y (related to a process)
and one or more independent variables x and (2) to test how much
each factor contributes to the total variation of the response. Moreover,
this statistical inference could be extended to some other Neural
Networks as long as they comply with the assumptions.
The statistical inference mentioned above could not be applied
for dynamical models; for this purpose McGoff et al. (2012)
developed theoretical aspects focus on the problem of parameter
estimation for nonlinear dynamical systems, statistical inference
methods and provided a powerful method for obtaining nite
sample error bounds for a wide class of dynamical systems.
The proposed method was applied to different process as
machining, laser welding and gas arc metal welding process, in
order to show the advantages of making statistical inference in a
neural network model, in this particular case to a redesigned RBFNN.

2. Methods
2.1. Radial basis function neural network
The structure in a RBF, in its basic form, includes three totally
different layers: input, hidden and output layers. The output layer

neurons are linear. The hidden layer neurons calculate the difference between the vector of inputs and the centroids (Haykin,
1999). This difference applies a radial function with a Gaussian
shape mainly (Gregori and Lightbody, 2008), but it has the
advantage of being able to use other radial functions. The function
of transfer radial in Gaussian type adopts the following form:
Gjjxt i jj expjjxt i jj2 :

It is simplied by the following equation:

i x Gjjxt i jj:

The relationship between inputs and outputs from neural

network is given by the following equation where yxj dj :
m

yx wGjjxt i jj b

i1

where are the residual

following equation:
2
Gx1 t 1 Gx1 t 2
6
6 Gx2 t 1 Gx2 t 2
G6
6

4
GxN t 1 GxN t 2

or error. The matrix G is giving by the

3
Gx1 t m
7
Gx2 t m 7
7:
7

5
GxN t m

The Eq. (3) is written in matrix form as Gw d, where the

variable dj is the output or response, the weights are determined
by the following equation by Ordinary Least Square:
w GG1 Gd:

There are different types of functions of radial basis, but in this

work the function used is given by the following equation (Martn
del Bro and Sanz, 2007; Arbib, 2003):.
i x r 2 lnr

where r is given by the distance between the input variable x and

the centroid t i .
2.2. Hybrid Learning Process
A hybrid intelligent system plus a statistical method was
employed; applying Genetic Algorithm and Mahalanobis distance
(Praga-Alejo et al., 2012). In this paper, authors showed some
statistics to measure the variability of the modeled process, they
proposed to use theR2 , R2adj and R2Prediction . As it is well known, the
difference between R2 and R2adj should not be greater than
5 perceptual units which suggests that there are some variables
included in the RBNN model that should not be. In order to
determine how many and which variables have to be included
in the model it is necessary to make statistical inference. Hence, in
this paper we developed the way of making statistical inference in
a RBNN model; it represents the main difference with regard to
Praga-Alejo et al. (2012). In Section 2.2.1 some additional differences are shown.
2.2.1. Radial Basis Function redesigned
Use the redesigned RBF for building empirical models to data.
Understand how the method is used to estimate the parameters in the RBF model.
Analyze residuals to determine if the RBF model is an adequate
t to the data or to see if any underlying assumptions are
violated.
Test statistical hypotheses and construct condence intervals
on RBF redesigned parameters.
Use the RBF redesigned to make a prediction of a future
observation and construct an appropriate prediction interval
on the future observation.

R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

The following steps are involved in the generation of the

Hybrid Learning Process, in the RBFNN:

Step
Step
Step
Step
Step
Step
Step

1: Generate centroids with GA.

2: Calculate the Mahalanobis distance.
3: Apply the Radial Basis Function.
4: Generate the weights and predictions.
5: Evaluate the tness function in GA.
6: Go back to Step 1 until an end condition is satised.
7: Apply statistical inference.

2.2.2. Fitness function

The function evaluation considers the coefcient of determination R2 . The objective was maximizing such metric. The metric R2
is given by the Eq. (7); the R2 is a global metric evaluation
(Montgomery et al., 2006). Where yi represents the experimental
response, w is given by (5), and G is given by (4).
R2 1

yywGy

2 :
yy ni 1 yi =n

2.3. Statistical inference

A neural network attempts to create a prediction about a
modeled process behavior. However, there are some questions
that are of interest. E.g. how could we know if the factors or
variables included in the network actually have signicant inuence over the response of interest? How well the neural network
explains the variability related to the process? Because of the
characteristics of the resultant Radial Basis Function redesigned by
the neural network, all these questions and others of the kind
could be answered.
As previously mentioned, the estimated weights are important
component of this network. Therefore by using these estimated
weights, it is possible to make statistical inference in order to
answer the related questions. By taking the estimated weights and
creating some hypothesis tests, valuable decision making information about the modeled process was obtained. Moreover, it is even
possible to produce a selection model based not only in tting
terms, but also in terms of the components or variables included;
that is to say, the number of weights included in the model.
Statistical inference requires assessing some assumptions related
to the residual values; listed below are the assumptions matched
to a test to prove compliance.
2.3.1. The distribution of the residuals should be normal N0; s2 .
2.3.1.1. AndersonDarling. The AndersonDarling test is a modication of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and gives more weight to
queues than the Kolmogorov-Smirnov the later. The Anderson
Darling test makes use of the specic distribution in calculating
critical values. This has the advantage of allowing more sensitive testing, but the disadvantage that critical values must be
calculated for each distribution.
The AndersonDarling test measures the area between the
tted line (based on the chosen distribution, which in this case
is the normal distribution) and a nonparametric step function.
Statistics is a square of the distance is greater weight in the queues
of the distribution. The lowest values of AndersonDarling
indicated that the distribution ts the data better. The proof of
AndersonDarling normality is dened as
Ho: The data follow a normal distribution.
Ha: The data do not follow a normal distribution.

And the AndersonDarling test statistic is dened as:

  N
1
A2 N
2i1lnFY i ln1lnFY N1i
N i1

1883

where F is the cumulative distribution function of Normal distribution. And the data Y i are ordered observations.
2.3.2. The residual should be Equal Variances
Variances of the populations must be equal (or close) across all
residual values for a given factor, that is, they must have Homogeneity throughout the variances. Proving this assumption, statistical test as the BreuschPagan test and the White test are
employed (among others). These tests are used as evidence of
greater statistical power, the BreuschPagan test (1979) in particular due to its detachment from the functional form, and the
White test which is neither dependent of the functional form nor
the type of data distribution (Greene, 2003).
2.3.2.1. BreuschPagan. In the work of Breusch and Pagan (1979) a
test is designed that does not depend on the number of missing
observations or the identication of the variable that generates
heteroscedasticity for the order, or the functional form (Kennedy,
2008). This test covers a broad spectrum contrast, is simple and is
based on the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) residuals. It is assumed
for the model
Y X U

In this case is calculated by Eq. (5), X by (4) and U are the

residual or error . Where disturbances ui are distributed as
normal with constant variance.
s2i hzi :

10

where h is a functional form any unspecied is a vector of

coefcients p  1 not related to and z is a vector of variables
p  1 that cause heteroscedasticity in summary, where p is
regressors or the number of variables included in the auxiliary
model. Given the assumption that the rst element equals 1 and
therefore the null hypothesis of homoscedasticity is
H 0 2 3 4 p 0:

11

The variables zi can be one or all of the regression variables that

may affect structurally the variance of the model. If the calculated
statistic is greater than table value the null hypothesis is rejected.
2.3.2.2. White test. White (1980) derived the estimate of a covariance
matrix that provides consistent contrast test of the coefcients in the
presence of an unknown pattern of heteroscedasticity, the variance
covariance matrix of White is then given by
!
N
N
2
1
T
^
^
XX
12
W
ui xi xi XX1
Nk
i1
where N represents the number of observations, k the number of
2
regressors, and u^ i the squared residuals from the model estimated by
OLS. In this case X is calculated by Eq. (4). The conventional OLS
estimator of homoscedasticity is
V s2 XX1 :

13

X is calculated by Eq. (4) and the variance of the errors of the

OLS model s2 is given by
2

s2 u^ i =Nk:

14

If there is no heteroscedasticity Eq. (13) becomes a consistent

estimator of the variance and covariance matrix for the parameters

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R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

Varb. From this point, White built a contrast test to get through
the coefcient of determination R2 of an auxiliary model representing the errors against the original explanatory variables and
their squares and cross products. Next a statistic is built distributed as a Chi square with p1 degrees of freedom NR2 2p1 . Where
p is the number of regressors in the auxiliary model excluding the
constant. The statistic provides a test of hypothesis that all slopes
of the auxiliary model are zero, i.e.
H 0 2 3 4 p 0:

15

where yij is the ij observation, is a parameter common to all

known treatments global average, i is a single parameter for the
i-th treatment effect of treatment called i-th, and ij is the random
component of error.
The purpose is to test appropriate hypotheses concerning treatment effects and to estimate them. To test the hypothesis it must be
assumed that errors are independent variables with normal
distribution of mean equals to zero and of known variance s2 .
It is assumed that the latter is constant for all levels of factor.

 Decomposition of the total sum of squares:

White concludes this is a general test of model specication,
given that the null hypothesis is based on: errors' homoscedasticity and are independent of the regressors, and that the linear
specication is correct. If the null hypothesis is rejected, one or
more of these conditions lead to a test violated signicant.
Otherwise, the lack of statistical signicance of the test may entail
that one or more of the three conditions was violated (Wooldridge,
2006).
If the calculated Chi square is greater than the Chi square table,
given the level of Type I Error, rejecting the null hypothesis of
homoscedasticity.
2.3.3. The residual should not be correlated
In order to test if the errors are not autocorrelated, it is used
the DurbinWatson test, considering the assumption that residuals
corresponds to a rst-order autoregressive process.
2.3.3.1. DurbinWatson statistic. Test for the presence of autocorrelation in residuals by determining whether or not the correlation
between two adjacent error terms is zero. The test is based upon
an assumption that errors are generated by a rst-order
autoregressive process. The equation is
n

et et1

t2

16

e2t

t1

ANOVA is thus used to disassemble the total variability of the

data into its component parts. The total sum of squares corrected
by the following equation is used as a measure of the total
variability of the data:
a

SSTotal yij y:::2 y0 yni 1 yi 2 =n:

i1j1

18

Intuitively this seems reasonable, because if you divide SSTotal

between the appropriate number of degrees of freedom (in this
case between an1 N1) gives the sample variance of y. The
sample variance is a standard measure of variability.
The total sum of squares can be broken down into the sum of
squared differences between the averages of the treatments and
the overall average, and the sum of squared differences between
observations in treatment and the average thereof. The difference
between the averages of the treatments and the overall average is
a measure of the difference between the means of treatment,
while the cause of the differences of the observations within
treatments from the average of treatment may be only the random
error. Therefore, the given equation can be symbolically written as
SSTotal SSRBF
where SSRBF
given as
SSRBF

Model

Model

Model

SSError y0 yni 1 yi 2 =n

19

is called sum of squares due to treatments and is

wGyni 1 yi 2 =n

20

d is between two bounds, say that dL and dU such that if d out of

these limits can reach a conclusion of the hypothesis. If d o dL
reject H 0 , if d 4 dU not reject H 0 , if dL ddU test is inconclusive.

w is given by (5), and G is given by (4). The SSError sum of squares

due to error and is given by the following equation where e is the
residual error:

2.4. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

SSError yywGy ee:

Fitting the RBF model requires several assumptions to apply the

ANOVA and inference statistical. Estimation of the model parameters must assume that errors are uncorrelated random variables
with mean equals to zero and of constant variance. Tests of
hypotheses and interval estimation require that the errors be
normally distributed. In addition, it is assumed that the order of
the model is correct.
2.4.1. Adequacy of the RBF model
The analyst should always consider the validity of any assumptions to be doubtful and conduct analyses to examine the adequacy of the model that has been to certain extent intuitively
produced.
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is a procedure for testing the
equality of several means to determine statistical signicance of
the relationships between a dependent variable Y, and one or
more independent variables X that have been organized into
discrete groups of 2 or more levels. The linear statistical model
represents the observations of the analysis

i 1; 2; ; a
yij i ij
17
j 1; 2; ; n

21

The SSTotal is N1 degrees of freedom because there are a total

of an N observations. There are a factor levels so that SSRBF Model
has a1 degrees of freedom. There are n replicates within each
treatment, which provide n1 degrees of freedom to estimate the
experimental error. As there are treatments, there are an1
ana Na degrees of freedom for error.
In the following equations the quantities MSRBF Model and MSError
are called mean squares of model and mean squares error. Where
w is given by Eq. (5), and G is given by (4).

2
wGy ni 1 yi =n
SS
:
22
MSRBF Model RBF Model
a1
a1
MSError

SSError
yywGy
:

Na
Na

23

A test for the hypothesis of equality in the middle of treatments

may be comparing MSRBF Model and MSError then can be shown as
comparison.
Since the sum of the degrees of freedom SSRBF Model and SSError
equals N1, i.e. the total degrees of freedom, this implies that
SSRBF Model =s2 and SSError =s2 are independent random variables
with distribution 2. Therefore, if the null hypothesis of equal
treatment means is true, the reason the given equation has a

R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

distribution F with a1 and Na degrees of freedom.

SS
=a1
MSRBF Model

:
F 0 RBF Model
SSError =Na
MSError

24

Eq. (24) is the statistic to test the hypothesis of equal treatment

means. The expected value of the numerator of the test statistic is
greater than the expected value of the denominator if the alternative hypothesis is true and therefore must be rejected H 0 if the
value of this statistic is too large. This implies an upper one-sided
critical region. In other words, rejecting H 0 if F 0 4 F a; a1; Na .
Moreover the degrees of freedom are all possible combinations
that can be made between the sources of variation. The sum of
squares is square units to the area under the curve representing
each source of variation. And the mean squares are the average
square units that correspond to each combination. Table 1 shows
an example of building a table of Analysis Of Variance (ANOVA).
The degrees of freedom are given by k or p r1 where r are
the coefcients, so p is the number of p independent variables, n is
the total number of observations, SSRBF Model is the sum of squares
of the model, SSError is the sum of squares of the residuals, SSTotal is
the sum of squares total, MSRBF Model are the mean squares of the
model and MSError are the mean squares the error or residual.
2.4.2. Statistical metric.
The estimate of s2 could be used from Eqs. (14) or (23) to
provide estimates of the variance of the weights of RBF model.
We call the square roots of the resulting variance estimators the
estimated standard errors of the weights.
The estimates of the variances of these RBF weights are
obtained by replacing s2 with an estimate. When s2 is replaced
by its estimate s2 , the square root of the estimated variance of the
jth RBF weight is called the estimated standard error of wj or
q
25
sewj s2 C jj :

1885

overall quality of the RBF model. If the error terms, i , in the RBF
model are normally and independently distributed, are distributed
as t random variables with n2 degrees of freedom. This leads to
the following denition of 100 1% condence intervals on
the weights.
q
q
wj t =2;np s2 C jj wj wj t =2;np s2 C jj :
27
An important application of model is predicting new or future
observations Y corresponding to a specied level of the variable
x. yx m
i 1 wGjjxt i jj b is the point estimator of the new
or future value of the response yxj dj .
Now consider obtaining an interval estimate for this future
observation yxj dj . This new observation is independent of the
observations used to develop the RBF model. The prediction in the
RBF model is given by y^ Gw then a point estimate of the future
observation y^ 0 under g 0 is y^ 0 g 0 w. A 100 1% prediction
interval on a future observation at the value g 0 is given by
q
y^ 0 t =2;np s2 1 g0 GG1 g 0 Y 0 y^ 0
q
t =2;np s2 1 g0 GG1 g 0 :
28
There are methods for the analysis and validation of experimental data using statistical techniques such as Residual Analysis,
including statistical metrics (listed below). For example, a metric
used for viewing the performance of the model or validating it is a
R2 given by Eq. (7), as used in the model of RBF. Another metric for
analyzing the model, is R2Adj , with the coefcient of determination
adjusted (Montgomery et al., 2006). The metric adjusted R2Adj
penalizes the addition of terms that are not useful. Cross evaluating with different models is rather encouraged. It is written as
follows:
R2Adj 1

SSError =np
:
SSRBF Model n1

29

These standard errors are a useful measure of the precision of

estimation for the regression coefcients; small standard errors
imply good precision. Where C GG1 and s2 MSError .
An important part of assessing the adequacy of model is testing
statistical hypotheses about the model parameters and constructing certain condence intervals. To test hypotheses about the
weights of the RBF model, we must make the additional assumption that the error component in the model, , is normally
distributed. Thus, the complete assumptions are that the errors
are normally and independently distributed with mean zero and
variance s2 , abbreviated NID 0; s2 . The statistic is

Where yi represents the experimental response, yywGy is

the SSError and y0 yni 1 yi 2 =n is the SSRBF Model . np and n1 are
degrees of freedom respectively, n being the total number of data
and p corresponding to the quantity of factors or terms included in
the model. Residual Analysis is performed mainly using the
following metrics: the Error Mean Square (MSError ) is used, where
MSError can be considered the average variance of the residuals of
the adjustment. The other metric is Prediction Error Mean Square
(PREMS), where Prediction Error Mean Square should be smaller
than MSError (Montgomery et al., 2006). The Error Mean Square
(MSError ) was written in (23) as follows:

wj
wj
:
T 0 q
sewj
s2 C jj

MSError

26

These hypotheses relate to the signicance of the RBF model.

In addition to point estimates of the slope and intercept, it is
possible to obtain condence interval estimates of these parameters. The width of these condence intervals is a measure of the

Table 1
Example of ANOVA table.
Analysis of Variance
Source of
variation

Degrees of
freedom

Sum of
squares

Mean
square

Model

SSRBF

MSRBF

MSRBF Model
MSError

Residual error
Total

nk1
n1

SSError
SSTotal

Model

Model

MSError

1 n
SSError
yywGy
y y^ 2
:

np i 1 i i
Na
Na

The Prediction Error Mean Square (PREMS) is given by the

following equation:
PREMS

1 n 2
e :
ni1 i

30

where ei are the residuals. The next metric that is used, it is the
PRESS (Prediction Error Sum Square), which is a measure of how
well a model works to predict new data and is dened in the given
equation.

2
n
ei
PRESS
31
i 1 1hii
where ei are the residuals and hii is the i-th diagonal element of
the hat matrix H, the hat matrix is given by H GGG1 G. The
other statistical information is the R2Prediction , which is the coefcient of determination of the prediction and is given by the

1886

R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

following equation:
PRESS
R2Prediction 1
SSTotal

Table 2
Central composite design in the machining process.

32

R2Prediction

consists of the PRESS statistic, which was dened in (31)

and yi that represents the experimental response and y is the
mean in the experimental response and SSTotal is y0 yni 1 yi 2 =n.

3. Application (statistical inference)

Three experimental designs were developed; to demonstrate
the possible application about the proposed RBF model in different
engineering problems.

Input variables and parameters

Output variable

X1

X2

X1  X1

X2  X2

X1  X2

Diameter (mm)

2500
2750
3000
2750
2750
2750
2396.45
2750
2750
2500
3103.55
3000
2750

300
275
250
275
275
239.645
275
310.355
275
250
275
300
275

6,250,000
7,562,500
9,000,000
7,562,500
7,562,500
7,562,500
5,742,972.6
7,562,500
7,562,500
6,250,000
9,632,022.6
9,000,000
7,562,500

90000
75625
62500
75625
75625
57429.726
75625
96,320.226
75,625
62,500
75,625
90,000
75,625

750000
756250
750000
756250
756250
659023.75
659023.75
853,476.25
756,250
625,000
853,476.25
900,000
756,250

4.16
4.15
4.07
4.18
4.09
3.81
4.12
4.02
4.06
4.15
4.1
3.89
4.04

3.1. Application in machining process

The rst experimental results are illustrated in Table 2 representing a Central Composite Design; an analysis of the second order
response surface model. These models are widely used in practice;
model tting and optimization are easy; plenty of empirical
evidence shows they work very well. The Central Composite Design
is the most widely used design for tting the second order model.
The second order model is composed by linear, quadratic and
interaction terms or variables.
For that purpose, a machining process with different diameters
was designed. There are two input variables: Spindle Speed (Rpm)
and Tool Feed (mm/ min). Then the central composite design
is a 2k series with central and axis points and it is used to
t a complete model, i.e.:X1 SpindleSpeed, X2 ToolFeed,
X1nX1 Spindle Speed2 , X2  X2 Tool Feed2 and X1  X2
SpindleSeedTool Feed . The output variable is a diameter (mm).
The machining process was realized in a Haas VM-2 central
machining with vertical mold making machine; 762  508 
508 mm, 40 taper, 30 hp (22.4 kW) vector drive, 12,000 rpm, inline
direct-drive, 24+1 side-mount tool changer, 710 ipm (18.0 m/min)
rapids, automatic chip auger, remote jog handle, automatic air gun,
high-speed machining, ethernet interface, macros, coordinate
rotation and scaling, programmable coolant nozzle, power failure
detection module and 55-gallon (208 l) ood coolant system.
In structural terms are:

3.1.1. The generalized RBFNN

It is given by the following structure:
Input layer x1 ; x2 ; ; xm1 ; xm , hidden layer of m1 RBF 1;
; ; ; ; , weights w0 b; w1 ; ; wj ; ; wm1 , output layer yx
and is similar to regularization RBFNN.

3.1.2. The regularization RBFNN

It has the following structure:
Input layer x1 ; x2 ; ; xm1 ; xm , hidden layer of N basis functions
(G) G; ; G; ; G, weights w1 ; ; wj ; ; wN , output layer Fx.
However:
1. The number of nodes in the hidden layer of the generalized
RBFNN of Section 3.1.1 is m1 , where m1 is ordinarily smaller
than the number N of examples available for training. On the
other hand, the number of hidden nodes in the regularization
RBFNN of Section 3.1.2 is exactly N;
2. In the generalized RBFNN (Section 3.1.1), the linear weights
associated with the output layer, and the positions of the

centers of the RBF and the distance weighting matrix associated with the hidden layer, are all unknown parameters that
have to be learned. However, the activation functions of the
hidden layer in the regularization RBFNN (Section 3.1.2) are
known, being dened by a set of basis functions centered at the
training data points; the linear weights of the output layer are
the only unknown parameters of the RBFNN.
Hence, in this application (machining process) the structure of
the RBF redesigned includes three layers: 5 inputs, 5 hidden and
1 output layers. Therefore the function used is given by Eq. (6),
therefore RBF does need to calculate and aggregate the widths
(Praga-Alejo et al., 2012).

3.1.3. Results in the machining process

The RBF redesigned with Evolutionary Algorithm and Mahalanobis distance applying Eqs. (1)(7) and using the data of the
Table 2 provided the following results:
The weights wj in the RBF redesigned model determined by
Eq. (5) are:
w 0:00003765; 0:00301372; 0:00000383; 0:00000166;
0:00000676; 5:27673166T
The distribution of the residuals should be normal N0; s2 :
Appling Eq. (8) A2 0:434 and p-value is 0:255 which means
that residuals follow a Normal distribution.
The residual should be Equal Variances:
In order to prove this assumption, it is used some statistical test
as the BreuschPagan and the White test. The result in Breusch
Pagan is p 0:20463 and the White test is p 0:61446 then
residuals have Equal Variances because the p-value in the tests
are greater than 0.05.
The residual should not be correlated:
Appling Eq. (16) the DurbinWatson statistic is d 1:7045 and
the p-value is p 0:30332 the p-value in the test is greater
than 0.05, then the residual are not correlated.
Then with these results it is possible to make statistical
inference, Analysis of Variance and statistical metrics. Analysis of
Variance (ANOVA) is a procedure for testing the equality of several
means to determine statistical signicance of the relationship
between a dependent variable and independent variables. The
results (Table 3) applying Eqs. (18)(24) are
For this analysis, when the p-value is smaller than 0.05 serves
as evidence to conclude that the adequacy of the model is good

R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

and to determine the statistical signicance of the relationship

between variables; thus indicating good model tted by the
redesigned RBF, hence suitable for predicting, optimizing, and
so on. In this process the p-value is p 0:003 and it is smaller
than 0.05.
Statistical metric
The estimated standard error (Eq. (25)) of wj are mentioned in
Table 4.
To test hypotheses (Eq. (26)) about the weights wj of the RBF
model are mentioned in Table 5.
These hypotheses relate to the signicance of the RBF model.
The value of To it is the t student test, whether a p-value is smaller
than 0.05 this weight has signicance in the RBF model, therefore
every term has an effect in the model, is meaningful for the RBF
model, or are important to model adequacy. In this case (machining process) all the terms are important and have signicance in
the RBF model.
Table 3
ANOVA in RBF redesigned in the machining process.
Analysis of Variance
Source of
variation

Degrees of
freedom

Sum of
squares

Mean
square

Model
Residual error
Total

5
7
12

0.125033
0.01489
0.139923

0.025007
0.002127

11.76 0.003

Table 4
Standard error of weights and terms in the machining process.
Term

se (weights)

X1 SpindleSpeed
X2 ToolFeed
X1  X1
X2  X2
X1  X2
Bias

0.00000744
0.00055755
0.00000083
0.00000031
0.00000122
0.40136000

1887

The condence intervals (Eq. (27)) on the weights are mentioned in Table 6.
Parting from such analysis is possible to obtain condence
interval of these parameters wj and their signicant contribution.
Prediction condence interval at the value g 0 is given by (28):
The predictions in the RBF redesigned model are mentioned in
the Table 7:
Considering an interval estimate for future observations is of
critical relevance.
There are methods for the analysis and validation of experimental data using statistical techniques such as Residual Analysis,
including statistical metrics. For example, a metric used to view
the performance of the model or validate it is an R2 given by
Eq. (7), in the model of RBF R2 equal to 89.4%. The results show
that RBF redesigned with GA and Mahalanobis distance is over 89%
in R2 ; it refers to R2 as the amount of variability in the data
explained by the models, i.e. the RBF redesigned accounts for more
than 89% of the variability in the data. The metric is the quantity
used to express the proportion of total variability in the response
accounted for by the model, so that R2 indicates the proportion of
variability in y explained by the model. If the R2 value is very close
to 100% or above 70%, it means that the model will be a good
predictor (Montgomery et al., 2006).
The results resumed in the Table 8 indicates the statistics
metrics in the model that is adjusted by Radial Basis Function
redesigned, the metrics used are: the coefcient of determination
R2 , the coefcient of determination adjusted R2Adj , The Mean Square
Residuals MSRes , the Prediction Error Mean Square PREMS, the
Prediction Error Sum Square PRESS and the coefcient of determination of prediction R2Prediction .
The other statistical method used in the evaluation of the
model, is the PREMS, where the Mean Square Residuals (MSError )
should be greater than PREMS. If the PREMS is less than the MSError
the model is going to be a good predictor; in this case the
application complies with this premise, in which the model can
be used to predict and optimize. The results summarized in Table 8

Table 7
Condence intervals on the predictions in the machining process.

Table 5
Test hypotheses in the inputs in the machining process.
Term

To

To p-value

X1 SpindleSpeed
X2 ToolFeed
X1  X1
X2  X2
X1  X2
Bias

5.06080000
5.40530000
4.62970000
5.35970000
5.55520000
13.14700000

0.00146200
0.00100270
0.00239840
0.00105310
0.00085524
0.00000344

Table 6
Condence intervals on the weights in the machining process.

Lower limit

y^ 0

Upper limit

4.03
3.98
3.93
3.98
3.98
3.65
4.00
3.89
3.98
3.99
3.95
3.76
3.98

4.16
4.10
4.06
4.10
4.10
3.80
4.14
4.03
4.10
4.14
4.09
3.90
4.10

4.30
4.22
4.19
4.22
4.22
3.96
4.27
4.17
4.22
4.28
4.22
4.04
4.22

Table 8
Results in statistical metrics in the machining process.

Weights

Lower limit

wj

Upper limit

w1
w2
w3
w4
w5
w0

0.00002006
0.00433211
0.00000188
0.00000239
0.00000388
4.32766037

0.00003765
0.00301372
0.00000383
0.00000166
0.00000676
5.27673172

0.00005524
0.00169533
0.00000579
0.00000093
0.00000964
6.22580306

Radial Basis Function redesigned

Statistical
method

Results Statistical
method

Results Statistical
method

R2

89.4

MSError

0.0021

PRESS

R2Adj

81.8

PREMS

0.0011

R2Prediction

Results

0.033
76.2

1888

R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

indicate that the model that is adjusted by RBFNN has less

variance in its prediction.

Table 9
Experimental design in the GMAW process.
Input variables

3.2. Application in a GMAW process

The second experimental results are illustrated in Table 9; the
application was in a Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) process, this
kind of welding process, two metallic pieces are joined using heat,
pressure or a combination of both.
Sometimes it is required an external contribution metal. For
this process, two piece metals are joined applying heat with an arc
generated by an electrode ne wire and the metals. Inert gas like
Argon and Helium and different contributes of metal improve and
protect this welding process.
The parameters numbers of GMAW process are usually three,
the amperage, the voltage and the travel speed of the torch. These
parameters regulate the performance of the welded pieces as the
penetration.
In this real application were used ve input variables:
X1 Amperage, X2 Voltage, X3 SpeedFeed, X4 Electrode
Extension and X5 HeatInput.
So the objective is nd the levels of parameters that the process
must to be carry out in order to reach the best penetration (Output
variable).
3.2.1. The structure of the RBFNN in GMAW process
In this engineering real application (Gas Metal Arc Welding
process) includes three layers: 5 inputs, 5 hidden and 1 output
layers, the hidden layers are 5 because m1 5 and N 5 (see
Sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2 and the bullets 1 y 2).
3.2.2. Results in the GMAW process
The data of the Table 9 provided the following results:
The weights wj in the RBF redesigned model determined by
Eq. (5) are:
w 0:481407277; 0:0001038; 0:0068297; 0:0105504;
0:00356; 0:0000711T

Amperage Voltage Speed

Feed

Electrode
Extension

Heat
input

230
240
240
240
240
240
240
240
240
250
250
250
250
250
250
250
250
260
260
260
260
260
260
260
260
270

15.9
12.7
19.1
12.7
19.1
12.7
19.1
12.7
19.1
15.9
15.9
9.5
15.9
15.9
22.2
15.9
15.9
12.7
19.1
12.7
19.1
12.7
19.1
12.7
19.1
15.9

6670
7566.7
7566.7
5346.3
5346.3
8730.8
8730.8
6168.8
6168.8
6000
10500
7000
7000
7000
7000
5250
8000
8197.3
8197.3
5791.8
5791.8
9458.4
9458.4
6682.9
6682.9
7560

28
26
26
26
26
30
30
30
30
24
28
28
28
28
28
28
32
26
26
26
26
30
30
30
30
28

60
49.5
49.5
70
70
49.5
49.5
70
70
60
40
60
60
60
60
80
60
49.5
49.5
70
70
49.5
49.5
70
70
60

Output
variable
Penetration

1.7
2.8
2
2.1
2.1
2.4
2.2
2.1
2.5
1.4
2.2
3.1
2.4
2.3
2.5
2.7
3
3.1
2.5
1.7
2.6
3.1
2.5
3.3
2.5
2.2

Variance (ANOVA) is a procedure for testing the equality of several

means to determine statistical signicance of the relationship
between a dependent variable and independent variables. The
results (Table 10) applying Eqs. (18)(24).
For this analysis, when the p-value is smaller than 0.05
(p 0:001) serves as evidence to conclude that the adequacy of
the model is good and to determine the statistical signicance of
the relationship between variables.

The distribution of the residuals should be normal N0; s2 :

In order to make this inference it is necessary to fulll the
assumptions about the errors, that is to say, it is necessary to
realize a Residual Analysis. To test the normality assumption, an
AndersonDarling test (for details DAgostino and Stephens,
1986) was used; the estimated statistic was A2 0:2554 with a
p-value is p 0:6994, so it was concluded that the residuals
were normally distributed.
The residual should be Equal Variances:
On the other hand, in order to test if the variance is homogeneous over the residuals, the White and the BreuschPagan
test were used (Breusch and Pagan, 1979); in this case, tests
suggest that the variance is homogeneous with probabilities
values p 0:6744 and p 0:2573. Then residuals have Equal
Variances because the p-value in the tests are greater than 0.05.
The residual should not be correlated:
Also, to test if the residuals are not autocorrelated the Durbin
Watson test (Durbin and Watson, 1950, 1951) was used; it
suggested that the residuals were not autocorrelated obtaining a probability valuep 0:2820. Appling Eq. (16) the Durbin
Watson statistic is d 1:7184, hence the residual are not
correlated.

3.2.3. Statistical metric

The estimated standard error (Eq. (25)) of wj are mentioned in
Table 11.
To test hypotheses (Eq. (26)) about the weights wj of the RBF
model are:
These hypotheses relate to the signicance of the RBF model. The
value of To (Table 12) it is the t student test, whether a p-value is
smaller than 0.05 this weight has signicance in the RBF model,
therefore every term has an effect in the model, is meaningful for the
RBF model, or are important to model adequacy. These tests indicate
that 2 input variables (X1 Amperageand X2 Voltage) are not
statistical signicant and must not be included in the RBF model for
new and future tting and predictions. The variable X3 SpeedFeedis
closer to 0.05 then it could be consider in the new model.

Then with these results it is possible to make statistical

inference, Analysis of Variance and statistical metrics. Analysis of

On the other hand, there are methods for the analysis and
validation of experimental data using statistical techniques such as

The condence intervals (Eq. (27)) on the weights are:

Parting from such analysis is possible to obtain condence
interval of these parameters wj and their signicant contribution (Table 13).
Prediction condence interval at the value g 0 is given by (28):
The predictions in the RBF redesigned model are mentioned in
the Table 14.

R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

Residual Analysis, including statistical metrics. For example, a

metric used to view the performance of the model or validate it
is an R2 given by Eq. (7), in the model of RBF R2 equal to 60.8%; it
refers to R2 as the amount of variability in the data explained by
the models, i.e. the RBF redesigned accounts for more than 60% of
the variability in the data.
The metric is the quantity used to express the proportion of
total variability in the response accounted for by the model, so that
R2 indicates the proportion of variability in y explained by the
model. If the R2 value is very close to 100% or above 70%, it means
that the model will be a good predictor (Montgomery et al., 2006).
The results resumed in the Table 15 indicates the statistics metrics
in the model that is adjusted by Radial Basis Function redesigned, the
metrics used are: the coefcient of determination R2 , the coefcient of
determination adjusted R2Adj , The Mean Square Residuals MSRes , the
Prediction Error Mean Square PREMS, the Prediction Error Sum Square
PRESS and the coefcient of determination of prediction R2Prediction .
The coefcient R2 60:8 suggest that only the 60% of the
variability is explained by the RBNN, so that, the tted model is not
acceptable. In addition, as it is well known, the difference between the
R2 and R2Adj should not be greater than 5 perceptual units; in this case
the R2Adj 51 represents about 10 units which suggest that there are
some variables included in the RBNN model that should not be.
The other statistical method used in the evaluation of the
model, is the PREMS, where the Mean Square Residuals (MSError )
should be greater than PREMS. If the PREMS is less than the MSError
the model is going to be a good predictor; in this case the
application complies with this premise, but for these cases with
R2 and R2Adj less than 70% also should consider other statistics to
give greater reliability to statistically model. As the main objective
of the RBNN is to predict the behavior of the welding process give
some process variables, the ability and accuracy of the RBNN to
make predictions has to be tested. For this purpose, it was used a
prediction statistic R2Prediction ; this index measures the ability of the
RBNN to make accurate predictions. In this case the statistic was
R2Prediction 39:04 which suggests that the model is not able to
realize accuracy predictions about the welding process.

1889

Considering only the information showed, it could be concluded that the RBFNN is a good option to realize predictions
about the process; nevertheless, the proposed statistical analysis
suggests the opposite (Fig. 2).
Table 12 shows the estimated weights as well as the p-values
for making the signicance proof.
Considering the It could be concluded from Table 12 that the
variables which correspond to w1 and w2 are not statistically
signicant and must not be included in the RBNN model. This
inference provides a great advantage when a RBNN is used for
modeling a real process, because it is possible to decide which
process variables should be monitored and controlled to keep the
process in control with a condence given (95% for this case).
Since the assumptions were assessed, the statistical inference
showed in Table 12 is reliable.
Hence, supported by the statistical analysis, it could be concluded that the tted RBNN is not suitable and it should not be
used to make predictions as well as optimize the process even if
the graphical representation suggest the opposite.

4. Discussion
Fig. 2. Predictions with RBFNN with the objective, 3 and 5 inputs.

The following analysis is for the GMAW process, as we can

observe in Fig. 1, the tted model makes good predictions about
the welding process; but, how accurate are those predictions?

Table 10
ANOVA in RBF redesigned in the GMAW process.
Analysis of Variance
Source of
variation

Degrees of
freedom

Sum of
squares

Mean
square

Model
Residual error
Total

5
20
25

3.3457
2.1604
5.5062

0.6691
0.1080

6.19 0.001

Table 11
Standard error of weights and terms in GMAW
process.

Fig. 1. Observed (real process) vs. tted.

Term

se (weights)

X1 Amperage
X2 Voltage
X3 SpeedFeed
X4 ElectrodeExtension
X5 HeatInput
Bias

1.2309
0.0002
0.0037
0.0026
0.0009
0.0000

1890

R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

Table 12
Test hypotheses in the inputs in GMAW process.

Table 16
Results in statistical metrics with 3 inputs.

Term

To

To p-value

Radial Basis Function redesigned

X1 Amperage
X2 Voltage
X3 SpeedFeed
X4 ElectrodeExtension
X5 HeatInput
Bias

0.3911
0.6861
1.8619
3.9932
3.8309
2.6278

0.6999
0.5005
0.0774
0.0007
0.0010
0.0161

Statistical
method

Results Statistical
method

R2

65.2

MSError

0.0872

PRESS

R2Adj

60.4

PREMS

0.0738

R2Prediction

Table 13
Condence intervals on the weights in GMAW process.
Weights

Lower limit

wj

Upper limit

w1
w2
w3
w4
w5
w0

2.0862
0.0002
0.0145
0.0050
0.0055
0.0000

0.4814
0.0001
0.0068
0.0106
0.0036
0.00007

3.0490
0.0004
0.0008
0.0161
0.0016
0.0001

Table 14
Condence intervals on the predictions in GMAW process.
Lower limit

y^ 0

Upper limit

1.1815
1.7893
1.1919
0.9812
1.349
2.1642
1.7742
1.7433
1.7597
0.9406
1.3011
2.3754
1.407
1.407
1.4979
1.7954
2.101
1.9733
1.5564
1.5223
1.736
1.9757
1.8558
2.003
2.0065
1.8762

1.916
2.5983
1.9413
1.7907
2.083
2.9044
2.474
2.4522
2.4957
1.7166
2.2368
3.1797
2.1518
2.1518
2.2525
2.6144
2.9051
2.7017
2.2642
2.2457
2.4735
2.748
2.577
2.7243
2.7613
2.6399

2.6505
3.4073
2.6907
2.6002
2.8171
3.6446
3.1738
3.1612
3.2317
2.4925
3.1726
3.984
2.8966
2.8966
3.007
3.4335
3.7093
3.4302
2.972
2.969
3.2109
3.5203
3.2982
3.4455
3.5161
3.4037

Table 15
Results in statistical metrics in the GMAW process.
Radial Basis Function redesigned
Statistical
method

Results Statistical
method

Results Statistical
method

R2

60.8

MSError

0.1080

PRESS

R2Adj

51.0

PREMS

0.0831

R2Prediction

Results

3.3563
39.04

Nevertheless now we create a new prediction with just the

three last inputs, to see the t in the RBNN and the statistical
analysis; the results are given in Table 16.

Results Statistical
method

Results

2.7381
50.27

Then with this adjusted the model is better, the R2 and R2Adj
should not be greater than 5 perceptual units and this case
whether complies the assumption. Graphically the three models
seem equals with the objective, the RBFNN with 3 inputs and
5 inputs. However, the statistic R2Prediction 50:27 represents about
11 units better than the model with 5 inputs (R2Prediction 39:04).
Then the new RBFNN prediction with 3 inputs is better than
5 inputs. Furthermore If the PREMS is less than the MSError the
model is going to be a good predictor; in this case the application
complies with this premise, in which the model can be used to
predict and optimize.
In addition to this, these statistics are better than the values
that the model provides us with 5 inputs; it means that there is a
better model with more variables statistically signicant, which in
this case were: X3 SpeedFeed, X4 ElectrodeExtension and
X5 HeatInput. The relationship between inputs and outputs
from RBFNN is given by yx m
i 1 wGjjxt i jj b and is written
in matrix form as Gw yx, then the new RBFNN model with
more variables statistically signicant to predict and optimize is
yx G3 0:000072 G4 0:0001 G5 0:000031 2:920717:

33

5. Conclusions
The method of Hybrid Learning Process presented in this work
successfully applies a Genetic Algorithm to calculate the matrix of
centers and the coefcient of determination R2 becomes the
statistical evaluation function of GA improving the accuracy of
the prediction and optimization of the model. With these modications, the original contribution is that our redesigned RBF
model fullls the assumptions to realize statistical inference.
A very important contribution, it is given to the application of
ANOVA to determine the statistical signicance and the relationship between variables. For our case studies, machining and
welding process, some terms are deemed signicant; have a
contribution in the process, and are important to t the model.
A statistical inference is therefore made to apply ANOVA, test
hypothesis, condence intervals in weights wj and y^ i , to apply
statistical metrics as R2 , R2Adj , PREMS, PRESS, R2Prediction , among
others. This method might identify which variable is most important and has the largest effects on the process, e.g. in the GMAW
application it could be concluded from Table 12 that the variables
which correspond to w1 and w2 are not statistically signicant and
must not be included in the RBNN model, in this case we conclude
that variables contributes to the total variation of the response and
there are the more important are: Speed Feed, Electrode Extension
and Heat Input.
Moreover, it shows that statistical methods are a good alternative for validating the efciency of Neural Networks models.
Hence, it can be concluded that the RBF model is a good tool for
prediction and optimization when complies all the statistical
assumptions.

R.J. Praga-Alejo et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 26 (2013) 18811891

Future work includes carrying out these methods for a multivariate

model, and performing a global and multi-objective optimization.
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