Classification of fuzzy data based on the support vector machines

Data may be afflicted with uncertainty. Uncertain data may be shown by an interval value or in general by a fuzzy set. A number of classification methods have considered uncertainty in features of samples. Some of these classification methods are extended version of the support vector machines (SVMs), such as the Interval‐SVM (ISVM), Holder‐ISVM and Distance‐ISVM, which are used to obtain a classifier for separating samples whose features are interval values. In this paper, we extend the SVM for robust classification of linear/non‐linear separable data whose features are fuzzy numbers. The support of such training data is shown by a hypercube. Our proposed method tries to obtain a hyperplane (in the input space or in a high‐dimensional feature space) such that the nearest point of the hypercube of each training sample to the hyperplane is separated with the widest symmetric margin. This strategy can reduce the misclassification probability of our proposed method. Our experimental results on six real data sets show that the classification rate of our novel method is better than or equal to the classification rate of the well‐known SVM, ISVM, Holder‐ISVM and Distance‐ISVM for all of these data sets.     

The Effect of Temperature Adjustment on Reference Evapotranspiration and Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) in Iran

The reference evapotranspiration (ET₀) is necessary to calculate Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI). To estimate ET₀, FAO56 Penman-Monteith method which needs reference stations data is commonly used. Most of the meteorological stations in Iran are classified as non-reference satations and The use of their data in ET₀ calculation can affect the RDI. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the effect of temperature adjustment based on the reference condition on ET₀ and RDI values in non-reference stations of Iran. For this purpose, the meteorological data, recorded during 1960–2014 in 27 non-reference stations located in arid and semi-arid regions, were used. First, the values of ET₀ were determined using observed values of temperature. Using these values, RDI were computed by Log-Normal and Gamma distributions at annual and 6-month scales. Then the values of minimum, maximum and dew point temperatures were adjusted on the basis of the reference condition. The values of ET₀ and consequently RDI were calculated using adjusted data. On the basis of obtained results, at annual and 6-month scales, using observed values of temperature instead of adjusted values in non-reference stations cause to overestimate the value of ET₀. Also, using observed data with no adjustment can change the drought class which was determined on the basis of RDI. According to these results, temperature adjustment based on reference condition can change the values of ET₀ and RDI which was calculated by using Log-Normal or Gamma distributions at annual and 6-month scales.     

Measurement and Prediction of the Solubility of Stearic Acid Polymorphs by the UNIQUAC Equation

The solubility of stearic acid polymorphs B and C in methanol, 2‐butanone, decane and hexane was measured using a precise gravimetric method. Stearic acid is a molecule with 18 carbons that is highly nonideal in solutions and experimental data show strong deviations from the solubility prediction for ideal systems. It is soluble in both polar and nonpolar organic solvents. From experimental solubility, data the solvent mediated polymorphic transition temperature was found around 30°C. From thermal analysis, temperature and heat of transition from form B to form C and also heat of fusion of form C were found to be 49°C, 20 J/g and 240 J/g, respectively. From experimental solubility data the binary parameters of the universal quasi‐chemical (UNIQUAC) model, for stearic acid were calculated. The UNIQUAC solubility predictions compared very closely with the experimental data.     

Kinetics and thermodynamic studies of Cr(VI) adsorption using environmental friendly multifunctional zeolites synthesized from coal fly ash under mild conditions

Abstract

The Na-P1 zeolite was produced from coal fly ash and modified with different environmental friendly surfactants. The potential of these green modified zeolites was investigated as adsorbents for Cr(VI) ions in a batch system. XRD, SEM, XRF, and ICP-AES analyses were used for the characterization of raw materials and zeolite samples. The environmental friendly modified zeolites successfully immobilized different toxic elements in their framework inhibiting the transfer of these toxic elements to the surrounding liquid phase. The effects of various operational parameters on Cr(VI) removal were studied. The Hexamethylenediamine (HDTMA) and Ammonyx KP (KP) modified zeolites had larger chromium removal potential than the other samples at all temperatures. The effectiveness of Cr(VI) ions elimination became greater as the pH decreased and the adsorbent dose increased. The Freundlich, Langmuir, and Dubinin–Radushkevich isotherms were fitted to the equilibrium data. The Dubinin–Radushkevich and Langmuir models gave a better fitness to equilibrium data of HDTMA-Na-P1 and KP-Na-P1, respectively. The positive and high ΔH° values showed the endothermic nature of the total Cr(VI) sorption procedure and indicated that Cr(VI) adsorption onto HDTMA-Na-P1 and KP-Na-P1 is a chemisorption. The negative ΔS° values also showed that chromium ions were stable on the surface of adsorbents. The adsorption potential of the developed eco-friendly KP-Na-P1 was higher than those of other adsorbents reported in the literature.     

Self-Tuning control of fischer-tropsch synthesis in a tube-wall reactor

This paper describes the implementation of a self-tuning controller (STC) on a bench-scale tube-wall reactor for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis using a plasma-sprayed iron catalyst. The concentration of the hydrocarbons in the C₁₀ range in the reactor effluent was controlled by manipulating the H₂/CO ratio of the inlet synthesis gas. The output of the self-tuner was cascaded to two PI-controllers which maintained a constant total inlet gas flow rate as well as ensuring the desired H₂/CO ratio. The concentration measurement was performed by an on-line gas chromatograph with an analysis time of approximately 30 s. The performance of the STC in set-point tracking, rejection of randomly occurring deterministic disturbances, and estimation and adaptation to the unknown process dead time was investigated. The STC was able to reduce the variance of the process output and of the manipulated variable when compared to the variances obtained with a PI-controller.     

The Solubility of Phenanthrene in Toluene: In‐situ ATR‐FTIR,Experimental Measurement,and Thermodynamic Modelling

A comprehensive study of the solubility of phenanthrene in toluene as a model system to investigate the supercritical gas anti‐solvent crystallization process is performed over a wide range of temperatures. The applicability of in‐situ ATR‐FTIR measurements for an improved understanding of the dynamics of the concentration profile of the dissolved compound in the liquid solvent is studied. Experimental determination of the solubility of phenanthrene in toluene was also achieved employing a gravimetric technique over the temperatures range 25 to 65°C. Excellent predictions of the solubility measurements were achieved using Regular Solution Theory and the Flory‐Huggins Correction. Furthermore, this work demonstrated that in‐situ ATR‐FTIR is a valuable technique for monitoring and control of crystallization processes.     

Novel MCM-41 based chromogenic probe: highly selective and sensitive upon cyanide ion over other interfering anions in water

Journal of Porous Materials - A new molecular anion receptor, HL, was synthesized via condensation reaction of 2-hydroxy-3-methoxy-5-((2,4-dichlorophenyl)diazenyl)benzaldehyde, L, with...     

Hybrid connectionist model determines CO2–oil swelling factor

In-depth understanding of interactions between crude oil and CO₂ provides insight into the CO₂-based enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process design and simulation. When CO₂ contacts crude oil, the dissolution process takes place. This phenomenon results in the oil swelling, which depends on the temperature, pressure, and composition of the oil. The residual oil saturation in a CO₂-based EOR process is inversely proportional to the oil swelling factor. Hence, it is important to estimate this influential parameter with high precision. The current study suggests the predictive model based on the least-squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) to calculate the CO₂–oil swelling factor. A genetic algorithm is used to optimize hyperparameters (γ and σr2) of the LS-SVM model. This model showed a high coefficient of determination (R² = 0.9953) and a low value for the mean-squared error (MSE = 0.0003) based on the available experimental data while estimating the CO₂–oil swelling factor. It was found that LS-SVM is a straightforward and accurate method to determine the CO₂–oil swelling factor with negligible uncertainty. This method can be incorporated in commercial reservoir simulators to include the effect of the CO₂–oil swelling factor when adequate experimental data are not available.     

Sunflower protein precipitation in a tubular precipitator

Isoelectric precipitation of sunflower protein was carried out in a 20 m long, 6 mm internal diameter glass tubular precipitator. Effects of feed flow rate, protein concentration in the feed stream, and mean residence time on particle size distribution (PSD) were studied. The population balance equation (PBE) for the tubular precipitator was solved using the orthogonal collocation multiple shooting method. A simulated annealing method was used to determine the precipitation kinetic parameters for the nucleation rate, growth rate, aggregation rate, and breakage rate from the experimental data. Due to the lack of experimental data on the kinetics of sunflower protein precipitation in the literature, the extracted kinetics from our experiments were used to evaluate the predictive capability of the present model for experiments whose results had not been used to derive the kinetics. The model predictions of the particle size distribution along the tubular precipitator showed better agreement with the experimental data for large particles in comparison to the small particles (< 10 μm).     

Efficient light harvesting by NiS/CdS/ZnS NPs incorporated in C,N-co-doped-TiO2 nanotube arrays as visible-light sensitive multilayer photoanode for solar applications

Here, we report a significant enhancement in photo-electrochemical activity of co-doped/modified TiO₂ nanotube arrays (TNAs). First, TiO₂ nanostructures were sensitized with nitrogen and carbon via a single step/low cost anodization process and then modified with Nis/CdS/ZnS nano particles (NPs) by the successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) method at room temperature. Photo-electrochemical properties and physical/chemical characteristics of the pure and sensitized/modified TNAs were investigated using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), XRD, XPS and EDX, comprehensively. Electrochemical measurements and UV–Vis DRS spectroscopy of the photo-electrodes showed that co-doping with anions and modification with different NPs result in the broadening of the absorption region of visible light and the reduction of band gap energy. The mechanism responsible for the enhanced photo-electrochemical activity of the C, N-co-doped/NiS, CdS, ZnS NPs modified TNAs for the water reduction reaction using aqueous solutions of Na₂S/Na₂SO₃ as sacrificial electrolyte under the whole spectrum of simulated solar light irradiation has been presented. The highest photocurrent in presence of sacrificial agent (Na₂S/Na₂SO₃) was obtained as 18.79 mA/cm², for the optimized SILAR loading cycles and dopants concentration. Furthermore, a high incident photon to current efficiency (IPCE) of about 82% for the optimum photo-anode had been achieved. These results confirm that the C, N-co-doped/NiS, CdS, ZnS NPs modified TNAs nanocomposite may offer a promising strategy to attain maximum efficiency in a variety of solar energy conversion systems, along with reduced photo-corrosion in the semiconductor-semiconductor heterojunction.