Many real-world data-mining applications involve obtaining predictive models using datasets with strongly imbalanced distributions of the target variable. Frequently, the least-common values of this target variable are associated with events that are highly relevant for end users (e.g., fraud detection, unusual returns on stock markets, anticipation of catastrophes, etc.). Moreover, the events may have different costs and benefits, which, when associated with the rarity of some of them on the available training data, creates serious problems to predictive modeling techniques. This article presents a survey of existing techniques for handling these important applications of predictive analytics. Although most of the existing work addresses classification tasks (nominal target variables), we also describe methods designed to handle similar problems within regression tasks (numeric target variables). In this survey, we discuss the main challenges raised by imbalanced domains, propose a definition of the problem, describe the main approaches to these tasks, propose a taxonomy of the methods, summarize the conclusions of existing comparative studies as well as some theoretical analyses of some methods, and refer to some related problems within predictive modeling.

In the last few years, many works have addressed Predictive Maintenance (PdM) by the use of Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) solutions, especially the latter. The monitoring and logging of industrial equipment events, like temporal behavior and fault events—anomaly detection in time-series—can be obtained from records generated by sensors installed in different parts of an industrial plant. However, such progress is incipient because we still have many challenges, and the performance of applications depends on the appropriate choice of the method. This article presents a survey of existing ML and DL techniques for handling PdM in the railway industry. This survey discusses the main approaches for this specific application within a taxonomy defined by the type of task, employed methods, metrics of evaluation, the specific equipment or process, and datasets. Lastly, we conclude and outline some suggestions for future research.