Introduction: Micropropagation is important for both multiplication and preservation of a wide range of nursery plants, including many fruit crops. A number of studies exist on optimization of growth in in vitro condition for one or two cultivars, but often these results cannot be used for the other genotypes because individual cultivars may differ greatly in their requirements. Therefore, genotype-specific medium are usually empirically developed for many plants including pear. Pear cultivars and species are often recalcitrant to tissue culture manipulations and Murashige and Skoog (23) (MS) basal nutrient medium at full or half strength or with slight modifications is the most media were used. The QL, DKW, and WPM media are also used and they differ mostly in types or amounts of calcium and nitrogen in compared with MS. Developing growth media for specific and unique cultivars is complex and time-consuming. Currently, improved experimental design and using statistical softwares allow much more efficient approaches to be utilized for the improvement of micropropagation media and conditions. Improving of growth medium for in vitro propagation of plants depends on type and quantities of mineral nutrients and plant growth regulators as important ones. The existence of statistical softwares to manage effective factors is very needed to access an optimized growth medium for in vitro propagation of plants. Design Expert is used as auxiliary software to identify essential factors in in vitro culture. Since the in vitro proliferation parameters of Pyrus communis cv. ʽ Shekariʼ need to optimize for growth better, we were designed and performed a multifactor surface response experiment by Design Expert software to following two goals. First, to find optimized amount of some elements in medium and second, to show the response surface method can be useful for improving in vitro culture. Materials and Methods: One experiment was designed by Design Expert software and was performed to improve in vitro proliferated shoots of Pyrus communis cv. ʽ Shekariʼ . Shoots were grown in a modified MS medium (supplement with 1 mg l-1 of N6-benzyladenine) were used for this experiment. The experiment was included 20 model points randomly based on three nutritional factors: NH4NO3 (0. 5-1. 5×), Fe (0. 5-1. 5×) and micro nutrients (1-2×) in different concentration of their MS amounts. Media enriched with sucrose (30 g l-1) and agar (8 g l-1) after pH adjustment at 5. 7. Cultures were grown at 25° C under a 16-h photoperiod with 70– 90 μ M m-2 s-1 irradiance provided by a combination of cool-and warm-white fluorescent bulbs and were transferred to new medium every 3 weeks. Several responses were recorded after two months: Proliferated shoot number, proliferated shoot length (cm), total leaf number, leaf chlorophyll a (mg g-1), leaf carotenoids (mg g-1), and vegetative growth (cm). Responses for each point were the mean of 5 replicates. Experimental design, model evaluation, and analysis were done by Design-Expert® 8 (2010) software and the highest-order polynomial model that was significant for each response was used for ANOVA. Results and Discussion: Factors statistically were significant for responses according to ANOVA in linear, 2FI and quadratic models. Reduced NH4NO3 (×0. 5) and enhanced Fe (×1. 5) induced the higher number of proliferated shoots up to 4. 43 folds of control according a quadratic model. NH4NO3 and Fe×Micro had negative liner relationships with shoot length, while leaf number negatively was affected by micros. Fe and NH4NO3 were effective factors on leaf chlorophyll a and carotenoids contents. Increasing Fe (×1. 5) and decreasing NH4NO3 (×0. 5) led to 2 folds higher production of chlorophyll a and carotenoids. Vegetative growth of Pyrus communis cv. ʽ Shekariʼ in a quadratic-order method (negatively controlled by NH4NO3 and micros) increased by high values of proliferated shoot number and shoot length induced by reduced NH4NO3 (×0. 5). Optimized amount of three studied factors based on two important responses, maximum amount of proliferated shoot number and length, were 0. 9, 1 and 0. 5× for Fe, micro and NH4NO3 in MS medium, respectively. Conclusions: Design Expert software and response surface method were used successfully for in vitro optimizing of Pyrus communis cv. ʽ Shekariʼ regenerated shoots. Fe, Micro and NH4NO3, were the effective factors for shoot regeneration responses in linear, 2FI and quadratic models. The multifactor investigation in surface response design will enable us to predict an optimal medium for several effective factors and estimate suitable responses. Outputs of these types of experiments provide a suitable background to increase optimization accuracy for future experiments.

The Taguchi method is a useful technique to improve the performance of products or processes at a lower cost and in lesser time. This procedure can be categorized as the static and dynamic quality characteristics. The optimization of multiple responses has received increasing attention over the last few years in many manufacturing organizations.Several approaches dealing with multiple static quality characteristic problems have been reported in the literature. However, little attention has been made on optimizing the multiple dynamic quality characteristics.In this paper, we investigate multivariate signal response systems (Dynamic Taguchi) and propose a method based on multivariate process capability. Simulated data shows that the proposed method can increase robustness of dynamic Taguchi method. Furthermore, the proposed method is capable to find the optimal value of controllable factors in a continuous space.

The purpose of this research is to separate iron, arsenic and antimony impurities from zinc silicate ore leach solution using precipitation methods including hydroxide precipitation, by changing pH and reduction precipitation, by changing oxidation/reduction potential. The optimum condition to remove impurities with minimal zinc loss, achieved in the presence of Ca(OH)2, pH = 4.5, temperature of 70°C, in 40 minutes by hydroxide precipitation, and 0.5g/liter of zinc powder, 60°C and 60 minutes by reduction precipitation. In these conditions, most of the main impurities, including 98% iron and arsenic ions, more than 80% of antimony ions and approximately 60.5% of copper ions, were removed. Furthermore, in these conditions, only 5.63% of zinc ions were lost. Therefore, the most part of PLS impurities, were removed before solvent extraction, by performing a successive pre-purification. The results showed that the pH parameter and the precipitant agent had the greatest effect on the precipitation process.

Research has shown when a rectangular cylinder is located near a flat plate, the flat plate skin friction coefficient changes as a function of the rectangular aspect ratio, gap height between the rectangular and flat plate, distance of rectangular from the flat plate leading edge, and speed of free stream. However, there is no comprehensive experimental study on the comparison of the results of the flat plate skin friction coefficient for all the interactions between effective variables in the presence and absence of the obstacle. On the other hand, testing all possible combinations of effective variables will not be reasonable. In this paper, maximum and minimum ratios of the flat plate skin friction coefficients with and without the rectangular cylinder were determined using robust Taguchi design. Design of experiments method was applied for decreasing the number of experiments without losing the required information in the first step. Then, experimentation was done in a wind tunnel, the maximum speed of which was 13 m/s. Finally, the flat plate skin friction coefficient was optimized using Taguchi method and Minitab software. Results showed that presence of the rectangular cylinder near the flat plate decreased the average skin friction coefficient of the flat plate for all the possible combinations of the effective variables. Additionally, maximum value of the flat plate skin friction reduction was about 40%.

Suitable supplier selection is the most important factor in supplier chain management; so that correct decisions in this phase, caused to reduce costs, make permanent relationship with suppliers and strong competitive strategy in market. In this paper, by reviewing the past articles, important related criteria found and then weighting of criteria and evaluation of alternatives were done with fuzzy Delphi. By ranking the alternatives in fuzzy TOPSIS, five thresholds obtained for grouping in the future. The results that obtained from these computations, converted to knowledge base (KB) of Expert System for Supplier Evaluation (ESSE). The ESSE was designed in Java Expert System Shell (Jess), so that its KB could be updated in the future. To make a user friendly interface, java language was used. The proposed system and experts individually evaluated some sample alternatives and by compare the results, they were very close.

In this paper, four soft reinforced actuators are studied and their performance is compared. The soft actuators, because of their ability to match their shape with unknown environment, could be utilized in medical instruments such as rehabilitation devices, grippers, manipulators and bio-mimic hand. Here, the considered actuators are included a single elastomer channel wrapped with fiber reinforcements and an inextensible layer. Four actuators with half-circular and rectangular geometry are discussed. Two actuators have constant cross section and others have variable cross section. To study their performance they are modeled in Abaqus software. Also, a prototype of the soft actuator is manufactured and the numerical results are validated by the experiment results. Moreover, for studying the effect of each parameter and their interactions and finding the optimum design of the actuators the Taguchi method is used with a set of experiments. To this end, L27 array experiments are designed and each experiment is performed by finite element analysis in Abaqus. Then, the performance of each actuator is discussed and compared with each other and the optimum values of the parameters are determined. Results show the rectangular actuator has a more range of motion in comparison to half-circular one.

Quality loss function is common techniques in robust design terminology that consider the deviation of output from ideal point and variability as well. Mostly in practice, processes are affected by external uncontrollable factors that causes output of process to be far from ideal points with variability around its exact value. In this research, the common Taguchi quality loss function is applied to propose a new robust optimization model that able to choice optimal results of input variables. In this model, the quality loss function is expanded and a nonlinear optimization model is introduced in order to minimize the effect of environmental noise variables. At the end, a numerical example is presented to show the applicability of the proposed model for investigating the best levels of input variables in noisy process.

Lipase is one of the most important hydrolytic enzymes widely used in various commercial activities such as food, dairy, pharmaceutical and detergent inducteries. In this experiment, Taguchi method was attempted as a powerful method to optimize the factors affecting enzyme production and to investigate the interactions among these factors and their optimum combination in Salinivibrio sp. SA2. The optimum conditions for pH, temperature, shaker's rpm, olive oil concentration and salt type turned out to be 8, 35oC, 100 rpm, 2% and sodium chloride 1 M, respectively. Significant factors influencing on the lipase production proved to be pH, agitation and Salt type. The maximum lipase activity in optimum condition and at the 5% significance level (p<0.05) was 120.4 U/mg.

Optimization of medium components in in vitro cultures is very difficult because of having multifactor nature. To optimize the plant growth regulator concentrations (BA, IBA, GA3) for shoot proliferation of apple cv. 'Abbasi' a threefactor experiment was designed and performed in 20 points (20 treatments) using Design Expert software based on the response surface method. A completely randomized design using eight auxin combinations (IBA+NAA) was also carried out for in vitro rooting of microcuttings. Proliferated shoot number was linearly and positively affected by the BA factor, while the response of the leaf number was linearly and negatively affected by BA. The effect of GA3 on proliferated shoot length was negative and linear. The abnormal shoot percentage in a quadratic model was influenced by all three types of PGRs, i. e. BA, IBA and GA3; positively and linear by BA, positively and quadratic by IBA and negatively and quadratic by GA3. According to the results of this experiment, the optimum concentrations for BA, IBA and GA3 combination were 1. 5, 0. 1 and 0. 02 mg L-1, respectively, which resulted in the proliferated shoots with a rate of 2. 5 shoots per explant, with 0. 9 cm in length, 4. 3 leaves per shoot and 4% abnormal shoots. The percentage of shoot-tip necrosis was not affected by the evaluated factors. NAA was more effective than IBA for rooting microcutings. The medium supplemented by 1 mg L-1 IBA or 0. 5 mg L-1 NAA can be used successfully for rooting of apple cv. 'Abbasi' shoots in vitro.

Research subject: Because of the rising global demand for propylene, various extensive studies and research have been done in order to develop alternative ways that are both more energy-efficient and require less energy. In this research, CuBTC is used as a manganese catalyst base in the oxidative dehydrogenation of propane to produce propylene. The wet impregnation method is used to manufacture the catalysts. Research approach: Wet impregnation is used to prepare the catalysts, which is a step in the manufacturing process. Analyses such as FTIR, XRD, BET, SEM, and EDX are used to examine and describe catalysts that have been created. On the basis of the central composition method, we have investigated the impacts of reaction temperature, manganese loading percentage, oxygen-to-propylene ratio, and their interactions on the synthesis of propylene in this study. The central composite method's input parameters include manganese concentrations ranging from 1 to 5 percent, a propane-to-oxygen ratio ranging from 1 to 3 percent, and a temperature ranging from 140 to 280 degrees Celsius. Main results: After that, it is shown that the projected models for propane conversion, propylene selectivity, and oxidative dehydrogenation efficiency percentage are about 95 percent based on reactor testing and evaluation of the Design-Expert software results. It was possible to improve the efficiency of the oxidation dehydration process by 4.9 percent by using a conversion percentage of 28.38 percent, a selectivity of 18.14 percent at 278 degrees Celsius, a metal oxide loading of 3.74 percent, and propane to oxygen ratio of 1.5 percent. When laboratory data were compared to predicted data, the correlation coefficient was 93% in favor of the laboratory data.