Measurement Uncertainty Assessment for Determination of Allura Red in Puffed Food by HPLC

This study aimed to assess the measurement uncertainty of a new method for determination of allura redin food by high performance liquid chromatography （HPLC）. The uncertainty of mathematical model of allura red is based on Europe for Analytical Chemistry（EURACHEM） guidelines. The sources and components of uncertainty were calculated, including recovery, working solution, sample mass, final volume, response of standard solution, response of sample solution. The expanded uncertainty was 0.0024 （k=2）. Uncertainty of working solution was the most significant factor contributing to the total uncertainty, accounting for 86.2%. The uncertainty of volume accounted for the minimum at 0.025%. The developed method is simple and accurate, which can be used for the determination of allura redin puffed samples.

Assessment of first-order-moment-based sample reconstruction method for design flood estimation in changing environment

Estimating the design flood under nonstationary conditions is challenging. In this study, a sample reconstruction approach was developed to transform a nonstationary series into a stationary one in a future time window (FTW). In this approach, the first-order moment (EFTW) of an extreme flood series in the FTW was used, and two possible methods of estimating EFTW values in terms of point values and confidence intervals were developed. Three schemes were proposed to analyze the uncertainty of design flood estimation in terms of sample representativeness, uncertainty from EFTW estimation, and both factors, respectively. To investigate the performance of the sample reconstruction approach, synthesis experiments were designed based on the annual peak series of the Little Sugar Creek in the United States. The results showed that the sample reconstruction approach performed well when the high-order moment of the series did not change significantly in the specified FTW. Otherwise, its performance deteriorated. In addition, the uncertainty of design flood estimation caused by sample representativeness was greater than that caused by EFTW estimation.

Uncertainty of Wind Power Usage in Complex Terrain—A Case Study

This study investigated the uncertainty assessing wind-power production in valleys of complex terrain using Juneau, Alaska as the testbed. The wind-speed data stem from evaluated WRF/Chem simulations for seven tourist seasons (May 15 to September 15). The percentage of wind speeds between cut-in and cutout speed differed up to about 11% among tourist seasons and up to 15% among the examined wind-turbine types. The wind-speed probability density varied the strongest among tourist seasons for wind speeds less than 3 m&#183s&#451 (6 m&#183s&#451) for wind turbines with hub heights of about 80 m (30 m). At these heights, the interannual differences in the probability density of wind speeds at the rated or higher power were about half or less than those at wind speeds below 3 m&#183s&#451 (6 m&#183s&#451). The predicted average power output notably differed among tourist seasons. The tall (small) turbines had their highest predicted average production in 2006 (2012). The ranking among wind turbines regarding the predicted average power production was independent of the interannual variability in average power production. Capacity factors differed about 8% (6%) for the tall (small) tubines among tourist seasons. Within the same tourist season, capacity factors differed about 8% (5%) among turbine types. Estimates of capacity and potential power derived from 10 m wind-speed observations by an empirical formula commonly used to estimate wind speeds at hub height, differed up to 40% for 80 m height for some turbine types. Determinating the exponent of the empirical equation by means of WRF/Chem data showed that the traditional empirical approach failed in complex terrain.

Data processing of small samples based on grey distance information approach

Data processing of small samples is an important and valuable research problem in the electronic equipment test. Because it is difficult and complex to determine the probability distribution of small samples, it is difficult to use the traditional probability theory to process the samples and assess the degree of uncertainty. Using the grey relational theory and the norm theory, the grey distance information approach, which is based on the grey distance information quantity of a sample and the average grey distance information quantity of the samples, is proposed in this article. The definitions of the grey distance information quantity of a sample and the average grey distance information quantity of the samples, with their characteristics and algorithms, are introduced. The correlative problems, including the algorithm of estimated value, the standard deviation, and the acceptance and rejection criteria of the samples and estimated results, are also proposed. Moreover, the information whitening ratio is introduced to select the weight algorithm and to compare the different samples. Several examples are given to demonstrate the application of the proposed approach. The examples show that the proposed approach, which has no demand for the probability distribution of small samples, is feasible and effective.

Modeling spatio-temporal distribution of soil moisture by deep learning-based cellular automata model

Soil moisture content （SMC） is a key hydrological parameter in agriculture,meteorology and climate change,and understanding of spatio-temporal distributions of SMC in farmlands is important to address the precise irrigation scheduling.However,the hybrid interaction of static and dynamic environmental parameters makes it particularly difficult to accurately and reliably model the distribution of SMC.At present,deep learning wins numerous contests in machine learning and hence deep belief network （DBN） ,a breakthrough in deep learning is trained to extract the transition functions for the simulation of the cell state changes.In this study,we used a novel macroscopic cellular automata （MCA） model by combining DBN to predict the SMC over an irrigated corn field （an area of 22 km^2） in the Zhangye oasis,Northwest China.Static and dynamic environmental variables were prepared with regard to the complex hydrological processes.The widely used neural network,multi-layer perceptron （MLP） ,was utilized for comparison to DBN.The hybrid models （MLP-MCA and DBN-MCA） were calibrated and validated on SMC data within four months,i.e.June to September 2012,which were automatically observed by a wireless sensor network （WSN） .Compared with MLP-MCA,the DBN-MCA model led to a decrease in root mean squared error （RMSE） by 18%.Thus,the differences of prediction errors increased due to the propagating errors of variables,difficulties of knowing soil properties and recording irrigation amount in practice.The sequential Gaussian simulation （s Gs） was performed to assess the uncertainty of soil moisture estimations.Calculated with a threshold of SMC for each grid cell,the local uncertainty of simulated results in the post processing suggested that the probability of SMC less than 25% will be difference in different areas at different time periods.The current results showed that the DBN-MCA model performs better than the MLP-MCA model,and the DBN-MCA model provides a powerful tool for predicting SMC in highly non-linear forms.Moreover,because modeling soil moisture by using environmental variables is gaining increasing popularity,DBN techniques could contribute a lot to enhancing the calibration of MCA-based SMC estimations and hence provide an alternative approach for SMC monitoring in irrigation systems on the basis of canals.

Multi-perspective analysis on rainfall-induced spatial response of soil suction in a vegetated soil

In this study, an intelligent monitoring platform is established for continuous quantification of soil,vegetation, and atmosphere parameters (e.g. soil suction, rainfall, tree canopy, air temperature, and windspeed) to provide an efficient dataset for modeling suction response through machine learning. Twocharacteristic parameters representing suction response during wetting processes, i.e. response time andmean reduction rate of suction, are formulated through multi-gene genetic programming (MGGP) usingeight selected influential parameters including depth, initial soil suction, vegetation- and atmosphererelated parameters. An error standardebased performance evaluation indicated that MGGP has appreciable potential for model development when working with even fewer than 100 data. Global sensitivityanalysis revealed the importance of tree canopy and mean wind speed to estimation of response timeand indicated that initial soil suction and rainfall amount have an important effect on the estimatedsuction reduction rate during a wetting process. Uncertainty assessment indicated that the two MGGPmodels describing suction response after rainfall are reliable and robust under uncertain conditions. Indepth analysis of spatial variations in suction response validated the robustness of two obtained MGGPmodels in prediction of suction variation characteristics under natural conditions.

Handling epistemic uncertainties in PRA using evidential networks

In order to overcome the limitations of traditional methods in uncertainty analysis, a modified Bayesian network(BN), which is called evidence network(EN), was proposed with evidence theory to handle epistemic uncertainty in probabilistic risk assessment(PRA). Fault trees(FTs) and event trees(ETs) were transformed into an EN which is used as a uniform framework to represent accident scenarios. Epistemic uncertainties of basic events in PRA were presented in evidence theory form and propagated through the network. A case study of a highway tunnel risk analysis was discussed to demonstrate the proposed approach. Frequencies of end states are obtained and expressed by belief and plausibility measures. The proposed approach addresses the uncertainties in experts' knowledge and can be easily applied to uncertainty analysis of FTs/ETs that have dependent events.

Intercomparison of multi-model ensemble-processing strategies within a consistent framework for climate projection in China

Climate change adaptation and relevant policy-making need reliable projections of future climate.Methods based on multi-model ensemble are generally considered as the most efficient way to achieve the goal.However,their efficiency varies and inter-comparison is a challenging task,as they use a variety of target variables,geographic regions,time periods,or model pools.Here,we construct and use a consistent framework to evaluate the performance of five ensemble-processing methods,i.e.,multimodel ensemble mean(MME),rank-based weighting(RANK),reliability ensemble averaging(REA),climate model weighting by independence and performance(ClimWIP),and Bayesian model averaging(BMA).We investigate the annual mean temperature(Tav)and total precipitation(Prcptot)changes(relative to 1995–2014)over China and its seven subregions at 1.5 and 2℃warming levels(relative to pre-industrial).All ensemble-processing methods perform better than MME,and achieve generally consistent results in terms of median values.But they show different results in terms of inter-model spread,served as a measure of uncertainty,and signal-to-noise ratio(SNR).ClimWIP is the most optimal method with its good performance in simulating current climate and in providing credible future projections.The uncertainty,measured by the range of 10th–90th percentiles,is reduced by about 30%for Tav,and 15%for Prcptot in China,with a certain variation among subregions.Based on ClimWIP,and averaged over whole China under 1.5/2℃global warming levels,Tav increases by about 1.1/1.8℃(relative to 1995–2014),while Prcptot increases by about 5.4%/11.2%,respectively.Reliability of projections is found dependent on investigated regions and indices.The projection for Tav is credible across all regions,as its SNR is generally larger than 2,while the SNR is lower than 1 for Prcptot over most regions under 1.5℃warming.The largest warming is found in northeastern China,with increase of 1.3(0.6–1.7)/2.0(1.4–2.6)℃(ensemble’s median and range of the 10th–90th percentiles)under 1.5/2℃warming,followed by northern and northwestern China.The smallest but the most robust warming is in southwestern China,with values exceeding 0.9(0.6–1.1)/1.5(1.1–1.7)℃.The most robust projection and largest increase is achieved in northwestern China for Prcptot,with increase of 9.1%(–1.6–24.7%)/17.9%(0.5–36.4%)under 1.5/2℃warming.Followed by northern China,where the increase is 6.0%(–2.6–17.8%)/11.8%(2.4–25.1%),respectively.The precipitation projection is of large uncertainty in southwestern China,even with uncertain sign of variation.For the additional half-degree warming,Tav increases more than 0.5℃throughout China.Almost all regions witness an increase of Prcptot,with the largest increase in northwestern China.

Accuracy characterization and measurement point planning for workpiece localization

This paper addresses the problem of accuracy characterization and measurement point planning for 3-D workpiece localization in the presence of part surface errors and measurement errors. Two frame-invariant functions of the infinitesimal rigid body displacement are defined to quantify the localization accuracy required by manufacturing processes. Then, two kinds of frame-invariant indices are derived to characterize the sensitivities of the accuracy measures to the sampling errors at the measurement points. With a dense set of discrete points on the workpiece datum surfaces pre-defined as candidates for measurement, planning of probing points for accurate recovery of part location is modeled as a combinatorial problem focusing on minimizing the accuracy sensitivity index. Based on an interchange rule, a greedy algorithm is developed to efficiently find a near-optimal solution. It is also shown that if the number of the measurement points is sufficiently large, there is no need to optimize their positions. Example confirms the validity of the presented indices and algorithm. Keywords localization - fixture - accuracy - uncertainty assessment - measurement planning - optimal design - heuristic algorithm