Energy efficiency of hollow fibre membrane module in the forward osmosis seawater desalination process

© 2019 This study provided new insights regarding the energy efficiency of hollow fibre forward osmosis modules for seawater desalination; and as a consequence an approach was developed to improve the process performance. Previous analysis overlooked the relationship between the energy efficiency and operating modes of the hollow fibre forward osmosis membrane when the process was scaled-up. In this study, the module length and operating parameters were incorporated in the design of an energy-efficient forward osmosis system. The minimum specific power consumption for seawater desalination was calculated at the thermodynamic limits. Two FO operating modes: (1) draw solution in the lumen and (2) feed solution in the lumen, were evaluated in terms of the desalination energy requirements at a minimum draw solution flow rate. The results revealed that the operating mode of the forward osmosis membrane was important in terms of reducing the desalination energy. In addition, the length of the forward osmosis module was also a significant factor and surprisingly increasing the length of the forward osmosis module was not always advantageous in improving the performance. The study outcomes also showed that seawater desalination by the forward osmosis process was less energy efficient at low and high osmotic draw solution concentration and performed better at 1.2–1.4 M sodium chloride draw solution concentrations. The findings of this study provided a platform to the manufacturers and operators of hollow fibre forward osmosis membrane to improve the energy efficiency of the desalination process

A cost-sensitive learning strategy for feature extraction from imbalanced data

© Springer International Publishing AG 2016. In this paper, novel cost-sensitive principal component analysis (CSPCA) and cost-sensitive non-negative matrix factorization (CSNMF) methods are proposed for handling the problem of feature extraction from imbalanced data. The presence of highly imbalanced data misleads existing feature extraction techniques to produce biased features, which results in poor classification performance especially for the minor class problem. To solve this problem, we propose a costsensitive learning strategy for feature extraction techniques that uses the imbalance ratio of classes to discount the majority samples. This strategy is adapted to the popular feature extraction methods such as PCA and NMF. The main advantage of the proposed methods is that they are able to lessen the inherent bias of the extracted features to the majority class in existing PCA and NMF algorithms. Experiments on twelve public datasets with different levels of imbalance ratios show that the proposed methods outperformed the state-of-the-art methods on multiple classifiers

ABC-sampling for balancing imbalanced datasets based on artificial bee colony algorithm

© 2015 IEEE. Class imbalanced data is a common problem for predictive modelling in domains such as bioinformatics. It occurs when the distribution of classes is not uniform among samples and results in a biased prediction of learning towards majority classes. In this study, we propose the ABC-Sampling algorithm based on a swarm optimization method called Artificial Bee Colony, which models the natural foraging behaviour of honeybees. Our algorithm lessens the effects of imbalanced classes by selecting the most informative majority samples using a forward search and storing them in a ranked subset. Then we construct a balanced dataset with a planned undersampling strategy to extract the most frequent majority samples from the top ranked subset and combine them with all minority samples. Our algorithm is superior to a state-of-the-art method on nine benchmark datasets with various levels of imbalance ratios

A Review and comparison of service E-Contract Architecture Metamodels

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015. An adaptive service e-contract is an electronic agreement which is required to enable adaptive or agile service sourcing and pro- visioning. There are a number of e-contract metamodels that can be used to create a context specific adaptive service e-contract. The chal- lenge is which one to choose and adopt for adaptive services. This paper presents a review and comparison of well-known e-contract metamod- els using the architecture theory. The architecture theory allows the analysis of the e-contract metamodels using a three-dimension analyt- ical lens: structure, behavior and technology. The results of this paper highlight the metamodels structural, behavioral and technological differ- ences and similarities. This paper will help researchers and practitioners to observe the existing e-contract metamodels are appropriate to the adaptive services or if thwhetherere is a need to merge and integrate the concepts of these metamodels to propose a new unifying adaptive service e-contract metamodel. This paper is limited to the number of compared metamodels

Ensemble feature learning of genomic data using support vector machine

© 2016 Anaissi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The identification of a subset of genes having the ability to capture the necessary information to distinguish classes of patients is crucial in bioinformatics applications. Ensemble and bagging methods have been shown to work effectively in the process of gene selection and classification. Testament to that is random forest which combines random decision trees with bagging to improve overall feature selection and classification accuracy. Surprisingly, the adoption of these methods in support vector machines has only recently received attention but mostly on classification not gene selection. This paper introduces an ensemble SVM-Recursive Feature Elimination (ESVM-RFE) for gene selection that follows the concepts of ensemble and bagging used in random forest but adopts the backward elimination strategy which is the rationale of RFE algorithm. The rationale behind this is, building ensemble SVM models using randomly drawn bootstrap samples from the training set, will produce different feature rankings which will be subsequently aggregated as one feature ranking. As a result, the decision for elimination of features is based upon the ranking of multiple SVM models instead of choosing one particular model. Moreover, this approach will address the problem of imbalanced datasets by constructing a nearly balanced bootstrap sample. Our experiments show that ESVM-RFE for gene selection substantially increased the classification performance on five microarray datasets compared to state-of-the-art methods. Experiments on the childhood leukaemia dataset show that an average 9% better accuracy is achieved by ESVM-RFE over SVM-RFE, and 5% over random forest based approach. The selected genes by the ESVM-RFE algorithm were further explored with Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) which reveals significant clusters with the selected data

Case-based retrieval framework for gene expression data

© the authors, publisher and licensee Libertas academica Limited. Background: The process of retrieving similar cases in a case-based reasoning system is considered a big challenge for gene expression data sets. The huge number of gene expression values generated by microarray technology leads to complex data sets and similarity measures for high-dimensional data are problematic. Hence, gene expression similarity measurements require numerous machine-learning and data-mining techniques, such as feature selection and dimensionality reduction, to be incorporated into the retrieval process.Methods: This article proposes a case-based retrieval framework that uses a k-nearest-neighbor classifier with a weighted-feature-based similarity to retrieve previously treated patients based on their gene expression profiles. Results: The herein-proposed methodology is validated on several data sets: a childhood leukemia data set collected from The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, as well as the Colon cancer, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Prostate cancer data sets. Results obtained by the proposed framework in retrieving patients of the data sets who are similar to new patients are as follows: 96% accuracy on the childhood leukemia data set, 95% on the NCI data set, 93% on the Colon cancer data set, and 98% on the Prostate cancer data set. Conclusion: The designed case-based retrieval framework is an appropriate choice for retrieving previous patients who are similar to a new patient, on the basis of their gene expression data, for better diagnosis and treatment of childhood leukemia. Moreover, this framework can be applied to other gene expression data sets using some or all of its steps

Optimization of a Small Wind Turbine for a Rural Area: A Case Study of Deniliquin, New South Wales, Australia

The performance of a wind turbine is profoundly affected by wind conditions. Small wind turbines usually achieve the demand for electricity in rural areas. The shape of the blade greatly influences the performance of the wind turbine. The present study aims to optimize the performance of a 20 kW horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) under local wind conditions at Deniliquin, New South Wales, Australia. ANSYS Fluent was used to investigate the aerodynamic performance of the 20 KW HAWT. The effects of four Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) turbulence models on predicting the flow over the wind turbine under separation condition were examined. Transition SST model had the best agreement with NREL CER data, which was used to investigate the mechanical output at different rotational speeds and variable pitch angles. Then the aerodynamic shape of the rotor of the wind turbine was optimized to maximize the annual energy production (AEP) in the Deniliquin region. Statistical wind analysis was applied to define the Weibull function and scale parameters which were 2.096 and 5.042 m/s, respectively. HARP_Opt was enhanced with design variables concerning the shape of the blade, rated rotational speed, and pitch angle. Pitch angle remained at 0ᵒ while the rising wind speed improved rotor speed to 148.4482 rpm at rated speed. This optimization improved the AEP rate by 9.068% when compared to the original NREL design

Evaluation of machine learning algorithms to predict internal concentration polarization in forward osmosis

Internal concentration polarization (ICP) is currently a major bottleneck in the forward osmosis process. Proper modelling of the internal concentration polarization is therefore vital for improving the process performance and efficiency. This study assessed the feasibility of several machine learning methods for internal concentration polarization prediction, including artificial neural networks, extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), Categorical boosting (CatBoost), Random forest, and linear regression. Among the many algorithms evaluated, the CatBoost regression outperformed other methods in terms of coefficient of determination (R2) and the mean square error. The CatBoost algorithm's prediction power was then evaluated using non-training (user-provided) data and compared to solution diffusion models. The results indicated that the machine learning algorithms could predict ICP in the process with high accuracy for the provided dataset and excellent generalizability for future testing data. Furthermore, machine learning algorithms may offer insights into the input features that majorly affect ICP modelling in the forward osmosis process

Prospective Identification of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Patients Who Benefit from Gene-Expression Based Risk Stratification

Background: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a highly heterogeneous malignancy and risk stratification based on genetic and clinical variables is standard practice. However, current models incorporating these factors accurately predict clinical outcomes for only 64-80% of patients and fail to provide clear treatment guidelines for patients with intermediate genetic risk. A plethora of prognostic gene expression signatures (PGES) have been proposed to improve outcome predictions but none of these have entered routine clinical practice and their role remains uncertain. Methods: To clarify clinical utility, we performed a systematic evaluation of eight highly-cited PGES i.e. Marcucci-7, Ng-17, Li-24, Herold-29, Eppert-LSCR-48, Metzeler-86, Eppert-HSCR-105, and Bullinger-133. We investigated their constituent genes, methodological frameworks and prognostic performance in four cohorts of non-FAB M3 AML patients (n= 1175). All patients received intensive anthracycline and cytarabine based chemotherapy and were part of studies conducted in the United States of America (TCGA), the Netherlands (HOVON) and Germany (AMLCG). Results: There was a minimal overlap of individual genes and component pathways between different PGES and their performance was inconsistent when applied across different patient cohorts. Concerningly, different PGES often assigned the same patient into opposing adverse- or favorable- risk groups (Figure 1A: Rand index analysis; RI=1 if all patients were assigned to equal risk groups and RI =0 if all patients were assigned to different risk groups). Differences in the underlying methodological framework of different PGES and the molecular heterogeneity between AMLs contributed to these low-fidelity risk assignments. However, all PGES consistently assigned a significant subset of patients into the same adverse- or favorable-risk groups (40%-70%; Figure 1B: Principal component analysis of the gene components from the eight tested PGES). These patients shared intrinsic and measurable transcriptome characteristics (Figure 1C: Hierarchical cluster analysis of the differentially expressed genes) and could be prospectively identified using a high-fidelity prediction algorithm (FPA). In the training set (i.e. from the HOVON), the FPA achieved an accuracy of ~80% (10-fold cross-validation) and an AUC of 0.79 (receiver-operating characteristics). High-fidelity patients were dichotomized into adverse- or favorable- risk groups with significant differences in overall survival (OS) by all eight PGES (Figure 1D) and low-fidelity patients by two of the eight PGES (Figure 1E). In the three independent test sets (i.e. form the TCGA and AMLCG), patients with predicted high-fidelity were consistently dichotomized into the same adverse- or favorable- risk groups with significant differences in OS by all eight PGES. However, in-line with our previous analysis, patients with predicted low-fidelity were dichotomized into opposing adverse- or favorable- risk groups by the eight tested PGES. Conclusion: With appropriate patient selection, existing PGES improve outcome predictions and could guide treatment recommendations for patients without accurate genetic risk predictions (~18-25%) and for those with intermediate genetic risk (~32-35%). Figure 1 Disclosures Hiddemann: Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria; Roche: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Bayer: Research Funding; Vector Therapeutics: Consultancy, Honoraria; Gilead: Consultancy, Honoraria; Janssen: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding. Metzeler:Celgene: Honoraria, Research Funding; Otsuka: Honoraria; Daiichi Sankyo: Honoraria. Pimanda:Celgene: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding. Beck:Gilead: Research Funding. </jats:sec

Effect of Phase Change Material on Temperature in a Room Fitted With a Windcatcher

Abstract Global warming and climate change have been considered as major challenges over the past few decades. Sustainable and renewable energy sources are nowadays needed to overcome the undesirable consequences of rapid development in the world. Phase change materials (PCM) are substances with high latent heat storage capacity which absorb or release the heat from or to the surrounding environment. They change from solid to liquid and vice versa. PCMs could be used as a passive cooling method which enhances energy efficiency in buildings. Integrating PCM with natural ventilation is investigated in this study by exploring the effect of phase change material on the temperature in a room fitted with a windcatcher. A chamber made of acrylic sheets fitted with a windcatcher is used to monitor the temperature variations. The dimensions of the chamber are 1250 × 1000 × 750 mm3. Phase change material is integrated respectively at the walls of the room, its floor and ceiling and within the windcatchers inlet channel. Temperature is measured at different locations inside the chamber. Wind is blown through the room using a fan with heating elements.</jats:p