Location optimization of biodiesel processing plant based on rough set and clustering algorithm - a case study in China

Biofuel has an important role in alleviating the environmental pollution problem. More attention has been paid to optimization of biofuel supply chain in recent years. In this paper, a scientific, rational and practical biodiesel processing plant location with waste oil as the raw material was proposed in order to provide a theoretical basis for guiding the planning and management of restaurants, waste oil collection points, and processing plants. Considering the merits and demerits of the subjective and objective weighting methods, this paper proposes a new weighting method which is namely the combination of rough set theory and clustering algorithm. It then verifies the location results with a plant carbon emission. At last, this paper analyzes the location of biodiesel processing plant in the Yangtze River Delta of China and finds that the precision has been greatly improved with the new method comparing the RMSE and the R2 of the Delphi method with the improved rough set theory. By using this method, the weights of the influencing factors of biodiesel processing plants are the following: Waste oil supply 0.143, Fixed construction cost factor 0.343, Biodiesel demand 0.143 and Location convenience 0.371. In the comparison between the robust optimization method and the improved rough set theory, it was found that the final location results are the same, all being Jiaxing City. However, the improved rough set theory is much simpler than the robust optimization algorithm in the calculation process

Assessing and predicting small industrial enterprises’ credit ratings:A fuzzy decision-making approach

Corporate credit-rating assessment plays a crucial role in helping financial institutions make their lending decisions and in reducing the financial constraints of small enterprises. This paper presents a new approach for small industrial enterprises’ credit-rating assessment using fuzzy decision-making methods, and tests it using real bank loan data from 1,820 small industrial enterprises in China. The procedure of the proposed rating approach includes (1) using triangular fuzzy numbers to quantify the qualitative evaluation indicators; (2) adopting a correlation analysis, univariate analysis and stepping backwards feature selection method to select the input features; (3) employing the best-worst method (BWM) combined with the entropy weight method (EWM), the fuzzy c-means algorithm and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to classify small enterprises into rating classes; and (4) applying the lattice degree of nearness to predict a new loan applicant’s rating. We also conduct a 10-fold cross-validation to evaluate the predictive performance of our proposed approach. The predictive results demonstrate that our proposed data-processing and feature selection approaches have better accuracy than the alternative approaches in predicting default, offering bankers a new valuable rating system to assist their decision making

catena-Poly[[[aqua­[2-(6-chloro­pyridin-3-yl)acetato-κO]sodium]-di-μ-aqua] monohydrate]

The crystal structure of the title compound, {[Na(C7H5ClNO2)(H2O)3]·H2O}n, features polymeric chains along [010]. The Na+ cation is octa­hedrally coordinated by four bridging water mol­ecules, a terminal water mol­ecule and an O atom derived from a monodentate carboxyl­ate ligand. Adjacent polyhedra share two O⋯O edges. The polymeric chains are linked into a three-dimensional network via O—H⋯O and O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds

De novo transcriptome sequencing and comprehensive analysis of the drought-responsive genes in the desert plant Cynanchum komarovii

The figure of an agarose gel with PCR products. (TIFF 11899 kb

A Coordinating Strategy for Biofuel Supply Chain under Disturbance Using Revenue Sharing Contract Approach

Biofuel is considered to be an important alternative energy in the future transportation. Its development is supported by the rest of the world. However, biofuel industry development is still very slow. From the previous research it is known that the supply chain coordination and other problems need to be solved to promote the supply chain ability. This paper studies biodiesel supply chain coordination problem from the view of disturbance management. It gives a disturbed coordination strategy which contains the optimal order quantity and the contract parameters. This paper has then verified the disturbed coordination strategy through using the actual data of Jiangsu Yueda Kate New Energy Co. Ltd. The result shows that when the market demand and the recovery cost are simultaneously disturbed, the coordination can make the biodiesel supply chain robust and the new strategy under the revenue sharing contract is better than the original one.</p

A Novel Model of Atherosclerosis in Rabbits Using Injury to Arterial Walls Induced by Ferric Chloride as Evaluated by Optical Coherence Tomography as well as Intravascular Ultrasound and Histology

This study aim was to develop a new model of atherosclerosis by FeCl3-induced injury to right common carotid arteries (CCAs) of rabbits. Right CCAs were induced in male New Zealand White rabbits (n = 15) by combination of a cholesterol-rich diet and FeCl3-induced injury to arterial walls. The right and left CCAs were evaluated by histology and in vivo intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) examinations of 24 hours (n = 3), 8 weeks (n = 6), and 12 weeks (n = 6) after injury. Each right CCA of the rabbits showed extensive white-yellow plaques. At eight and 12 weeks after injury, IVUS, OCT, and histological findings demonstrated that the right CCAs had evident eccentric plaques. Six plaques (50%) with evident positive remodeling were observed. Marked progression was clearly observed in the same plaque at 12 weeks after injury when it underwent repeat OCT and IVUS. We demonstrated, for the first time, a novel model of atherosclerosis induced by FeCl3. The model is simple, fast, inexpensive, and reproducible and has a high success rate. The eccentric plaques and remodeling of plaques were common in this model. We successfully carried out IVUS and OCT examinations twice in the same lesion within a relatively long period of time

Study on construction quality Evaluation Index of prefabricated Buildings and Identification of Workers’ occupational literacy Evaluation Index

This study through reading to sort out quality management and quality inspection standards and specifications, identify five the prefabricated building quality specifications and workers professional quality of 16 factors, and then using the theory of quality management theory, labor productivity, literature research, identify quality evaluation specifications and general factors of professional workers, using the method of case analysis and expert interview to collect quality evaluation specification and workers professional quality characteristic factors, identify common workers professional quality influencing factors of 4 first-level indicators, 16 secondary indexes, prefabricated building quality five evaluation indexes, and further to a total of 21 indexes both generality and individual character classification, found 11, 10 personality. The extraction and analysis of the key factors affecting workers’ occupational literacy on the quality of assembly construction provide a research basis

Bidirectional Association Between Depression and Metabolic Syndrome

OBJECTIVE Epidemiological studies have repeatedly investigated the association between depression and metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, the results have been inconsistent. This meta-analysis aimed to summarize the current evidence from cross-sectional and prospective cohort studies that evaluated this association. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO databases were searched for articles published up to January 2012. Cross-sectional and cohort studies that reported an association between the two conditions in adults were included. Data on prevalence, incidence, unadjusted or adjusted odds ratio (OR), and 95% CI were extracted or provided by the authors. The pooled OR was calculated separately for cross-sectional and cohort studies using random-effects models. The I2 statistic was used to assess heterogeneity. RESULTS The search yielded 29 cross-sectional studies (n = 155,333): 27 studies reported unadjusted OR with a pooled estimate of 1.42 (95% CI 1.28–1.57; I2 = 55.1%); 11 studies reported adjusted OR with depression as the outcome (1.27 [1.07–1.57]; I2 = 60.9%), and 12 studies reported adjusted OR with MetS as the outcome (1.34 [1.18–1.51]; I2 = 0%). Eleven cohort studies were found (2 studies reported both directions): 9 studies (n = 26,936 with 2,316 new-onset depression case subjects) reported adjusted OR with depression as the outcome (1.49 [1.19–1.87]; I2 = 56.8%), 4 studies (n = 3,834 with 350 MetS case subjects) reported adjusted OR with MetS as the outcome (1.52 [1.20–1.91]; I2 = 0%). CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate a bidirectional association between depression and MetS. These results support early detection and management of depression among patients with MetS and vice versa

Analysis on the status quo of construction industry and workers’ professional literacy

Under the background of the new building industrialization in China, the traditional cast-in-place construction mode begins to change to assembly construction mode. Such subversive changes make all regions face various assembly construction quality problems caused by traditional workers’ lack of assembly construction knowledge, low awareness and unskilled operation. Therefore, improving workers’ professional quality is very important to improve the quality of assembly construction. Through the analysis of a large number of domestic and foreign literature, this paper found that when studying prefabricated buildings from different dimensions such as quality, cost, schedule and safety, Will involve the “operation proficiency", “education level”, “professional skills”, “vocational training”, “qualification”, “working years”, “professional experience”, “lack of knowledge”, “reputation”, “professional pride”, “mobile operation”, “work attitude” and other aspects of the workers, These factors focus on safety awareness, operation norms, vocational training, work experience, professional knowledge, cultural level, quality awareness, technical skill level. All these factors will affect the quality of assembly construction, and the quality of workers is one of the reasons for poor construction performance, frequent safety accidents and low construction quality