Researcher profile

Ralf Mikut

Ralf Mikut contributes to research discovery and scholarly infrastructure.

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Published work

8 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

Explainable Load Forecasting with Covariate-Informed Time Series Foundation Models

Time Series Foundation Models (TSFMs) have recently emerged as general-purpose forecasting models and show considerable potential for applications in energy systems. However, applications in critical infrastructure like power grids require transparency to ensure trust and reliability and cannot rely on pure black-box models. To enhance the transparency of TSFMs, we propose an efficient algorithm for computing Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) tailored to these models. The proposed approach leverages the flexibility of TSFMs with respect to input context length and provided covariates. This property enables efficient temporal and covariate masking (selectively withholding inputs), allowing for a scalable explanation of model predictions using SHAP. We evaluate two TSFMs - Chronos-2 and TabPFN-TS - on a day-ahead load forecasting task for a transmission system operator (TSO). In a zero-shot setting, both models achieve predictive performance competitive with a Transformer model trained specifically on multiple years of TSO data. The explanations obtained through our proposed approach align with established domain knowledge, particularly as the TSFMs appropriately use weather and calendar information for load prediction. Overall, we demonstrate that TSFMs can serve as transparent and reliable tools for operational energy forecasting.

preprint2022arXiv

ciscNet -- A Single-Branch Cell Instance Segmentation and Classification Network

Automated cell nucleus segmentation and classification are required to assist pathologists in their decision making. The Colon Nuclei Identification and Counting Challenge 2022 (CoNIC Challenge 2022) supports the development and comparability of segmentation and classification methods for histopathological images. In this contribution, we describe our CoNIC Challenge 2022 method ciscNet to segment, classify and count cell nuclei, and report preliminary evaluation results. Our code is available at https://git.scc.kit.edu/ciscnet/ciscnet-conic-2022.

preprint2022arXiv

Domain-Invariant Representation Learning from EEG with Private Encoders

Deep learning based electroencephalography (EEG) signal processing methods are known to suffer from poor test-time generalization due to the changes in data distribution. This becomes a more challenging problem when privacy-preserving representation learning is of interest such as in clinical settings. To that end, we propose a multi-source learning architecture where we extract domain-invariant representations from dataset-specific private encoders. Our model utilizes a maximum-mean-discrepancy (MMD) based domain alignment approach to impose domain-invariance for encoded representations, which outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in EEG-based emotion classification. Furthermore, representations learned in our pipeline preserve domain privacy as dataset-specific private encoding alleviates the need for conventional, centralized EEG-based deep neural network training approaches with shared parameters.

preprint2022arXiv

Evaluating Ensemble Post-Processing for Wind Power Forecasts

Capturing the uncertainty in probabilistic wind power forecasts is challenging, especially when uncertain input variables, such as the weather, play a role. Since ensemble weather predictions aim to capture the uncertainty in the weather system, they can be used to propagate this uncertainty through to subsequent wind power forecasting models. However, as weather ensemble systems are known to be biased and underdispersed, meteorologists post-process the ensembles. This post-processing can successfully correct the biases in the weather variables but has not been evaluated thoroughly in the context of subsequent forecasts, such as wind power generation forecasts. The present paper evaluates multiple strategies for applying ensemble post-processing to probabilistic wind power forecasts. We use Ensemble Model Output Statistics (EMOS) as the post-processing method and evaluate four possible strategies: only using the raw ensembles without post-processing, a one-step strategy where only the weather ensembles are post-processed, a one-step strategy where we only post-process the power ensembles, and a two-step strategy where we post-process both the weather and power ensembles. Results show that post-processing the final wind power ensemble improves forecast performance regarding both calibration and sharpness, whilst only post-processing the weather ensembles does not necessarily lead to increased forecast performance.

preprint2022arXiv

Exploiting Multiple EEG Data Domains with Adversarial Learning

Electroencephalography (EEG) is shown to be a valuable data source for evaluating subjects' mental states. However, the interpretation of multi-modal EEG signals is challenging, as they suffer from poor signal-to-noise-ratio, are highly subject-dependent, and are bound to the equipment and experimental setup used, (i.e. domain). This leads to machine learning models often suffer from poor generalization ability, where they perform significantly worse on real-world data than on the exploited training data. Recent research heavily focuses on cross-subject and cross-session transfer learning frameworks to reduce domain calibration efforts for EEG signals. We argue that multi-source learning via learning domain-invariant representations from multiple data-sources is a viable alternative, as the available data from different EEG data-source domains (e.g., subjects, sessions, experimental setups) grow massively. We propose an adversarial inference approach to learn data-source invariant representations in this context, enabling multi-source learning for EEG-based brain-computer interfaces. We unify EEG recordings from different source domains (i.e., emotion recognition datasets SEED, SEED-IV, DEAP, DREAMER), and demonstrate the feasibility of our invariant representation learning approach in suppressing data-source-relevant information leakage by 35% while still achieving stable EEG-based emotion classification performance.

preprint2022arXiv

Review of automated time series forecasting pipelines

Time series forecasting is fundamental for various use cases in different domains such as energy systems and economics. Creating a forecasting model for a specific use case requires an iterative and complex design process. The typical design process includes the five sections (1) data pre-processing, (2) feature engineering, (3) hyperparameter optimization, (4) forecasting method selection, and (5) forecast ensembling, which are commonly organized in a pipeline structure. One promising approach to handle the ever-growing demand for time series forecasts is automating this design process. The present paper, thus, analyzes the existing literature on automated time series forecasting pipelines to investigate how to automate the design process of forecasting models. Thereby, we consider both Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) and automated statistical forecasting methods in a single forecasting pipeline. For this purpose, we firstly present and compare the proposed automation methods for each pipeline section. Secondly, we analyze the automation methods regarding their interaction, combination, and coverage of the five pipeline sections. For both, we discuss the literature, identify problems, give recommendations, and suggest future research. This review reveals that the majority of papers only cover two or three of the five pipeline sections. We conclude that future research has to holistically consider the automation of the forecasting pipeline to enable the large-scale application of time series forecasting.

preprint2021arXiv

Probabilistic Solar Power Forecasting: Long Short-Term Memory Network vs Simpler Approaches

The high penetration of volatile renewable energy sources such as solar make methods for coping with the uncertainty associated with them of paramount importance. Probabilistic forecasts are an example of these methods, as they assist energy planners in their decision-making process by providing them with information about the uncertainty of future power generation. Currently, there is a trend towards the use of deep learning probabilistic forecasting methods. However, the point at which the more complex deep learning methods should be preferred over more simple approaches is not yet clear. Therefore, the current article presents a simple comparison between a long short-term memory neural network and other more simple approaches. The comparison consists of training and comparing models able to provide one-day-ahead probabilistic forecasts for a solar power system. Moreover, the current paper makes use of an open-source dataset provided during the Global Energy Forecasting Competition of 2014 (GEFCom14).

preprint2020arXiv

Semi-Automatic Generation of Tight Binary Masks and Non-Convex Isosurfaces for Quantitative Analysis of 3D Biological Samples

Current in vivo microscopy allows us detailed spatiotemporal imaging (3D+t) of complete organisms and offers insights into their development on the cellular level. Even though the imaging speed and quality is steadily improving, fully-automated segmentation and analysis methods are often not accurate enough. This is particularly true while imaging large samples (100um - 1mm) and deep inside the specimen. Drosophila embryogenesis, widely used as a developmental paradigm, presents an example for such a challenge, especially where cell outlines need to imaged - a general challenge in other systems as well. To deal with the current bottleneck in analyzing quantitatively the 3D+t light-sheet microscopy images of Drosophila embryos, we developed a collection of semi-automatic open-source tools. The presented methods include a semi-automatic masking procedure, automatic projection of non-convex 3D isosurfaces to 2D representations as well as cell segmentation and tracking.