Fault diagnosis of rotary kiln using SVM and binary ACO

This paper proposes a novel hybrid algorithm for fault diagnosis of rotary kiln based on a binary ant colony (BACO) and support vector machine (SVM). The algorithm can find a subset selection which is attained through the elimination of the features that produce noise or are strictly correlated with other already selected features. The BACO algorithm can improve classification accuracy with an appropriate feature subset and optimal parameters of SVM. The proposed algorithm is easily implemented and because of use of a simple filter in that, its computational complexity is very low. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated through two real Rotary Cement kiln datasets. The results show that our algorithm outperforms existing algorithms.     

Miniaturized six-ring elliptical monopole-based MIMO antenna for ultrawideband applications

This paper proposes a miniature two-element Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna dedicated to UWB applications. The proposed MIMO design has a very low profile of 30 × 20 × 1.6 mm³. The proposed antenna is carefully designed and optimized using HFSS simulation software. As a proof of concept, the proposed design is realized and experimentally tested for MIMO applications. The proposed structure, printed on an FR4 substrate, comprises two symmetrical elliptical conductive patches on the upper side and a modified ground plane on the lower one. Each radiating element includes six elliptical rings. The modified ground plane consists of a T-shaped strip and two semielliptical slots etched opposite the feed line. All the parameters of the design are carefully optimized to achieve an ultrawide bandwidth antenna spanning from (136.08%) 3.1 to 16.3 GHz. The results are discussed and analyzed in terms of bandwidth, gain, efficiency, radiation pattern, diversity gain, envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), total active reflection coefficient (TARC), and mean effective gain (MEG). All simulated results are found to be in good accordance with experiments. The design reveals attractive features for UWB applications. A good isolation (17 dB) between the two radiators is achieved despite the close proximity using the suggested ground plane geometry.     

Chitosan nanoparticles with controlled size and zeta potential

Optimization of chitosan nanoparticles (ChNs) production process employing a 2^(5–2) fractional factorial design was performed to analyze the influence of viscosity average molecular weight (40–120 kDa), the initial concentration of chitosan (2–5 g/L), the initial tripolyphosphate (TPP) concentration (0.8–1.2 g/L), the ratio chitosan/TPP (4/1–10/1) (V/V), and the stirring speed (300–700 rpm), on final nanoparticles size and zeta potential. The measured responses of average particle size and surface charge were determined on Zetasizer Nano ZS. ChNs were prepared using ionotropic cross-linking of chitosan and TPP and were characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The experiments showed that the size of synthesized nanoparticles depended on initial concentration and molecular weight of chitosan, TPP concentration and stirring speed within the chosen levels. However, the zeta potential was significantly influenced by chitosan molecular weight, chitosan concentration and stirring speed. The FTIR analysis confirmed the interaction between negative charge of TPP with positive charge of chitosan through the appearance of new peaks at 1222 and 895 cm⁻¹ in produced ChNs. XRD and DSC analysis were used to evaluate the effect of crosslinking of chitosan on crystal structure of ChNs.