A symmetrical (p/p) supercapacitor has been fabricated by making use of nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO)–activated carbon (AC) composite electrodes for the first time. The composites have been ...characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). Electrochemical properties of the prepared nanocomposite electrodes and the supercapacitor have been studied using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and AC impedance spectroscopy in 0.1
M Na
2SO
4 as electrolyte. The ZnO–AC nanocomposite electrode showed a specific capacitance of 160
F/g for 1:1 composition. The specific capacitance of the electrodes decreased with increase in zinc oxide content. Galvanostatic charge-discharge measurements have been done at various current densities, namely 2, 4, 6 and 7
mA/cm
2. It has been found that the cells have excellent electrochemical reversibility and capacitive characteristics in 0.1
M Na
2SO
4 electrolyte. It has also been observed that the specific capacitance is constant up to 500 cycles at all current densities.
In the real world, it is common to observe both randomness and fuzziness concurrently. Accordingly, an event/system/decision has multiple possibilities. Thus, in order to compare multiple uncertain ...options, a measure of overall uncertainty is often desired. This is the topic of this paper. A versatile and intuitive framework that could quantify concurrent probabilistic, fuzzy, and prob-fuzzy uncertainties is proposed. Based on the same, new entropy functions are developed to quantify the prob-fuzzy uncertainty. The proposed entropy functions are inspired from the popular entropy functions such as Shannon’s entropy. The properties of the entropy functions are rigorously analysed. A real case-study in the agriculture and environment domain is included to demonstrate the usefulness of the work.
•General entropy framework for probabilistic-fuzzy systems.•New entropy functions based on proposed framework.•Versatile, well-defined and interpretable.•Illustrative examples and real case-study in agriculture.•Rigorous analysis of properties.
Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial fine-needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) has replaced mediastinoscopy as the preferred investigation for evaluating mediastinum in staging lung cancer. There ...is little evidence of mediastinal staging by EBUS-TBNA from India.
To study endobronchial ultrasound's diagnostic accuracy in staging lung cancer.
We retrospectively analysed patients operated on for lung cancer where EBUS was performed preoperatively for mediastinal staging. We compared the histological findings obtained from different mediastinal lymph nodes (LNs) by EBUS-TBNA with the pathology of the same LNs obtained after surgical dissection as the reference standard.
Seventy-six patients underwent curative surgery for lung cancer. The diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of EBUS-TBNA in predicting mediastinal metastasis were 93.9%, 40%, 99%, 80% and 94.6%, respectively. Of the 115 LNs sampled, EBUS-TBNA was false negative in six nodes, resulting in an up-staging of six patients.
EBUS-TBNA has a high diagnostic accuracy for lung cancer staging.
•Ambiguity over membership grade as a natural uncertainty indicator.•Different fuzzy entropy functions with different range of values.•Fuzzy entropy and the difficulty to distinguish membership from ...non-membership.•Uniformity between the forms of fuzzy and probabilistic entropy functions.•Combination of fuzzy and probabilistic uncertainties.
A general entropy framework is proposed, which could lead to intuitive, interpretable and comparable entropy functions in both probabilistic or fuzzy domain, alike. Based on the proposed general entropy framework, the existing fuzzy entropy functions are redefined. The proposed entropy functions are also extended to the probabilistic-fuzzy domain. The usefulness of the work is shown in a real world case-study.
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented crisis, affecting every sphere of human life. A major challenge for health care workers (HCWs) is to care for patients with a highly ...contagious airborne disease, while making sure of their own safety. Interventional pulmonology (IP) procedures, like bronchoscopy, are particularly risky due to significant aerosol generation. Guidelines by several scientific bodies were framed on the precautions to be taken while performing IP procedures. We evaluated the IP procedures performed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether the precautions adopted proved adequate in preventing transmission amongst the HCWs involved in these procedures. Method: We performed a retrospective analysis of all patients who underwent IP procedures between March 2020 and November 2020, at a tertiary cancer hospital. We also evaluated the proportion of HCWs, who were involved in these procedures, and were affected by COVID-19, through their health care records. Results: We performed a total of 506 IP procedures. Two of the 18 HCWs, working in that unit, suffered from COVID-19 and recovered after a mild illness. Three HCWs were isolated with suspected infection but proved to be negative. The procedures in our IP unit were uninterrupted for the entire duration of the study period. Conclusion: IP procedures can be safely performed even in the presence of a highly contagious viral pandemic with adequate precautions.
The real-world decision making often involves a comparison of uncertain systems or alternatives based on fuzzy evaluations. The concept of fuzzy entropy is quite useful in such situations. However, ...fuzzy entropy and the conventional probabilistic entropy differ in their semantics. This article critically examines the existing fuzzy entropy functions and redefine them to bring them closer to the probabilistic entropy. More specifically, new variants of the extant Luca and Termini, and Pal and Pal fuzzy entropy functions are proposed. The proposed fuzzy entropy functions are extended for the probabilistic-fuzzy uncertainty, commonly observed in the real world. A real application is included to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed entropy functions in decision making applications.
•Entropy functions based on Perceived Uncertainty are introduced.•The extant entropy functions are special cases of the proposed functions.•Analysis of the special cases is performed.•Applicability ...in the real world decision-making is demonstrated.
In this paper, new entropy functions are formulated based on an agent’s perceived uncertainty that inevitably affects the agent’s choice. The role of the decision-maker’s (DM’s) attitude is emphasized as one of the key determinants of such an entropy function. More specifically, new attitude-based variants of Shannon’s, Pal & Pal, and Aggarwal’s probabilistic entropies are introduced. The extant fuzzy entropies are also extended to consider the agent’s specific attitude. The proposed entropy functions provide a wide range of entropy values with the conventional entropy functions as their special cases. The special cases of the proposed entropies are examined. The wide applicability of the proposed entropy functions in multi criteria decision making is highlighted. A case-study is included to showcase the usefulness of the proposed entropy functions in the real world.
Entropy-Based Subjective Choice Models Aggarwal, Manish
IEEE transactions on knowledge and data engineering,
05/2022, Letnik:
34, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
A method to mimic a decision-maker's (DM's) relativistic evaluation of subjective utility for an attribute value is presented. Based on such utility values, probabilistic models that can yield a DM's ...choice probabilities for different alternatives to be chosen are developed. The proposed choice models are further extended to consider the DM's attitudinal character. An illustrative case-study is included.
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