Comparison between artificial neural networks and mathematical models for estimating equilibrium moisture content in raisin

Empirical models and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) were utilized for the prediction of Equilibrium Moisture Content (EMC) in raisin.  Six empirical models including GAB, Smith, Henderson, Oswin, Halsey and D’Arsy-watt were applied for this estimation.  Two types of Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) neural networks entitled Feed Forward Back Propagation (FFBP) and Cascade Forward Back Propagation (CFBP) were used.  In order to train the input patterns, two training algorithms consist of Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) and Bayesian regularization (BR) were used.  Thermal and relative humidity limits were 30-80℃ and 10.51%-83.62%, respectively.  The best result for mathematical models belonged to D’Arsy-Watt with R2 and the mean relative error of 0.9943% and 10.84%, respectively.  The best outcome for the use of ANN also appertained to FFBP network with LM training algorithm, topology of 2-3-3-1 and threshold function order of TANSIG-TANSIG-PURELIN.  With this optimized network, R2 and the mean relative error was 0.9969% and 8.32%, respectively.  These results show the supremacy of ANN, in comparison with empirical models.  In order to predict the EMC in raisins, empirical models can therefore be replaced with the ANN.Keywords: ANN, back propagation, sorption isotherm, EMC, Iran Citation: Chayjan R. Amiri, and M. Esna-Ashari.  Comparison between artificial neural networks and mathematical models for estimating equilibrium moisture content in raisin.  Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal, 2010, 12(1): 158-166

Comparison of Soil Classification Methods Using CPT Results

A series of cone penetration test were conducted in the southeast of Tehran to assess the liquefaction potential in this area. At the same time, after sounding of each cone penetration test, soil samples were also taken from different depths of boreholes to visually verify the soil classification. Seventy four samples from twenty boreholes were taken and their soil characteristics were obtained. To classify the soil layers, using recorded data, two various soil behaviour classification charts proposed by Robertson and Wride (1988), and Marr (1981) were examined which for some cases different results were obtained. In this paper validity of these procedures are investigated and discussed in details. These soil classification methods in some cases give a good results but there is a different between those charts and observed soil classification, particularly when the soil contain fines and therefore some modification must be applied

Effect of pre- and post-harvest salicylic acid treatments on quality and antioxidant Properties of 'Red Delicious' apples during cold storage

Salicylic acid is a natural phenolic compound known as a plant hormone having positive effect on storage life and quality of fruits. This study aimed to investigate the effects of pre- and post-harvest application of salicylic acid on antioxidant properties and quality of ‘Red Delicious’ apples during 193 days cold (0±0.5°C) storage. Both pre- and post-harvest salicylic acid treatments did not affect soluble solid content, titratable acidity and fruit firmness, with the exception of 1 mM at pre-harvest application for titratable acidity. Fruit juice pH was reduced in all fruits at the end of storage, while it was not quite uniform during storage. Although there was no significant difference between the concentrations of salicylic acid in terms of fruit weight loss, but the highest amount of weight loss was observed in post-harvest treatments. Salicylic acid application increased total phenolics and antioxidant activity at the earlier stages of storage showing the highest capacity with 2 mM followed by 1 and 4 mM salicylic acid concentrations, while 1 mM concentration belonged to the highest antioxidant capacity at the end of storage. Anthocyanin content showed a gradual increase during storage until day 60, then decreased right afterwards. The highest amounts of anthocyanin were obtained from the concentrations of 1 and 2 mM salicylic acid in pre-harvest treatments, while 4 mM treatment was not encouraging. Overall, salicylic acid treatments could increase apple storage life and quality for a short period of time only

Evaluation of Hungarian Wines for Resveratrol by Overpressured Layer Chromatography

A method, including solid phase extraction sample preparation, overpressured layer chromatographic separation and subsequent densitometric evaluation, was developed for measurement of total resveratrol (cis- and trans-isomers) content of wine. The amount of resveratrol was determined in wine samples from different winemaking regions of Hungary. The total resveratrol was high in Hungarian red wines (3.6–11 mg/L), and much lower in white ones (0.04–1.5 mg/L)

Fault diagnosis for uncertain networked systems

Fault diagnosis has been at the forefront of technological developments for several decades. Recent advances in many engineering fields have led to the networked interconnection of various systems. The increased complexity of modern systems leads to a larger number of sources of uncertainty which must be taken into consideration and addressed properly in the design of monitoring and fault diagnosis architectures. This chapter reviews a model-based distributed fault diagnosis approach for uncertain nonlinear large-scale networked systems to specifically address: (a) the presence of measurement noise by devising a filtering scheme for dampening the effect of noise; (b) the modeling of uncertainty by developing an adaptive learning scheme; (c) the uncertainty issues emerging when considering networked systems such as the presence of delays and packet dropouts in the communication networks. The proposed architecture considers in an integrated way the various components of complex distributed systems such as the physical environment, the sensor level, the fault diagnosers, and the communication networks. Finally, some actions taken after the detection of a fault, such as the identification of the fault location and its magnitude or the learning of the fault function, are illustrated

In vitro culture and frost tolerance studies in Solanum

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