2013-05-21 Literature review and Rainy day

The day was a rainy day. It is always a hassle to bring an umbrella to UBC and to step in ponds of water. 

In this gloomy day, I felt extra productive and I started on reading journal article that Google Scholar feed to me and writing down points that are of interest to me. Below is two article that I found interesting and I wish to share with anyone that is reading my blog.

Wolff, D., Walsh, E., & McDonnell, K. (2013). Practical experience with woody biomass in a down-draft gasifier. Journal of Technology Innovations in Renewable Energy. 2. 47-52.
This article compares the gasification products of Argentinian and German wood pellets. It concluded that German wood pellets are better than Argentinian one because:
(1) The German pellets have higher methane content (4.4%volume versus 2.8%volume).
(2) The German pellets have lower CO and H2 content. 
(3) Argentinian pellets harden on the gasifier wall after gasification while German pellets do not.

I agree with points (1) and (3) but I do not agree with (2). Higher CO and H2 should be made the syngas better to be burned in internal combustion engine.

Gillespie, G. D., Everard, C. D., Fagan, C. C., & McDonnell, K. P.Prediction of quality parameters of biomass pellets from proximate and ultimate analysis. Fuel, (0) doi: 10.1016/j.fuel.2013.05.002

I like how this article describes High Heating Value (HHV). "HHV is a measure of chemical energy bound in a feedstock; this energy is released during combustion. HHV is considered the single most important property of solid biofuels; it is necessary for the design and operation of both small- and large-scale boiler to ensure biomass optimization in energy production, as well as the storage facility design."
The article have done an impressive work on statistically analysis. I should write my manuscript based on the article.

I continue on learning R and writing up. I am getting the hang of R and started writing some basic functions. These functions are awesome! For the example that I am showing, If I need to calculate a regressed response variable NCV ratio, y_r at storage time, D = 100, temperature, T = 100C, moisture content, MC = 10%, sealed C=0, white wood pellet P=1, I simply call pelletsensitivity(D=100, T=100, MC=10%, C=0, P=1), and bamp! I got my NCV ratio. (It is called pelletsensitivity because it is used for my sensitivity analysis!)

I have been focusing only on working on my R codes for a while.  But it is only 3 weeks before the BioFuelNet Conference!!! My task is to create a poster. I should do it as soon as possible.

2013-05-15 Meeting day, and new regression equation

Today morning at 8:30am, there should have been an individual meeting for me with Dr. S. He had mentioned in an email to me, he was busy with a phone call and was not able to come to the department on time. But I decided to wait for him with a hope that he might come. After 45 minutes of waiting while reading for the book I will mention in the following paragraph, I decided to return to my office.

I was reading a small book called "Statistics: A Very Short Introduction" by David J. Hand.
Its preface, saying that "The modern discipline (statistics) is all about the use of advanced software tools to aid perception and provide ways to shed light, routes to understanding, instruments for monitoring and guiding, and systems to assist decision-making",  is very encouraging for students to learn and use statistics.

The author says, "the misconception of statistics lies with those who do not understand what the numbers are saying, or who wilfully misuse the results. We do not blame a gun for murdering someone: rather it is the person firing the gun who is blamed." Personally, I think that is very true.

A news article from domain.b.com reported a finding from a journal article in Nature Chemistry "The hydrodeoxygenation of bioderived furans into alkanes", saying that the furans generated from hemi-cellulose and cellulose of non-food biomass can be converted to medium-chain alkanes, which are essentially the gasoline that we use in our cars!! One of my colleagues, Dr. Kumar is working on optimizing the enzymatic  conversion of cellulose to glucose for the purpose of ethanol production. He had published a number of journal articles related to that. He might be interested to know about this new process.

In the remaining of the day, I continue working on my linear regression with the help from David. He told me an important point about linear regression: "If you cannot explain the interaction terms, then leave them. They will ask you what do you mean by the product of temperature and moisture content. Stick with only the main effects (storage time X1,  moisture content X2, temperature X3, storage configuration X4 and pellet type X5)." Really, what does the product of temperature and moisture content tell you....?

So, without the interaction, I only have this not-so-sophisticated equation, with a lower R-squared value than before:

  But I'm happy with it because it is way easier to explain, for example, +0.01163X2 means that the ratio of NCVi/NCVf increases as moisture content X2 increases. To validate my regression modal, a cross validation with R function cv.glm was performed. The average residual that I got is 0.009, which is bigger than I expected. I expected somewhere around 0.005 or less.

Next step is to perform probit regression on the same data to see whether the method helps.

2013-05-11 Deep Cove Hiking Trip and R Gui

I went to Deep Cove today with my girlfriend for a hiking trip which was organized by UBC Graduate Student Society. The trip was a great chance for me to socialize with fellow graduate students and  It was a cloudy day and enjoy the greenery scenery of Deep Cove, North Vancouver. From the picture below, you can see that today was a cloudy day, with chances of rain.

 

But the trip turned out fantastic! The sun came out in the late morning. When we successfully reached the Quarry Rock after a 1 hour hike, the breathtaking view simply took my breath away!!

We had a brunch at the famous Honey Doughnuts & Goodies, and had a specialty doughnut. The food was good, but I had better doughnut (shown below).

After a good day of relaxation, the things that I am going to do are (1) to learn R, a statistical programming software from Youtube and (2) to talk to my parents.

 

Youtube is a great source of knowledge! A lot of times, simply reading doesn't allow deep understanding of a topic. An interactive video will usually offer a more comprehensive insight into the matter.

2013-05-09 Cooler sunny day, and linear regression

After a couple of days of sunny days, a thin blanket of haze has started to cover the sky of the city of Vancouver. Every time when this happens, it reminds me of what Dr. Lau taught me during my air pollution class: The haze in Vancouver is created from a chain of photochemical processes that creates nitrogen oxides from the emissions from cards under the condition of prolonged UV ray exposure. In other words, haze is inevitable in Vancouver during a week of sunny days. The beautiful North Shore mountains were covered by the haze.

Yesterday was my meeting day. I met my supervisor, Dr S, met with my workshop organizing commitee and met with my kind friend, David. Using a free statistical software, called R Gui, he helped me to generate a very very good multivariate (5 variables) linear regression from my net calorific value data with a R-squared value of 0.835!! He is the man of statistics!!

My previous attempts resulted in R-squared values that were only 0.700 or LOWER. Below is the resulted equation. It is pretty complicated eh? But only the highlighted terms are statistically significant, which means it can be simplified by omitting terms that are not highlighted.

However, I'm still figuring out how to present this to the VP of Pinnacle REG....
That is what I have spent my day reading and writing about.

Gym time! I shall stretch some of my muscles to release some stress.

2013-5-6 Nice weather continues

It was a gorgeous sunny day in Vancouver. I picked up a 24 hrs newspaper, and said a Malaysian election-related news!

In my office in UBC CHBE, I continued reading and writing notes on my "Experimental Design" book. It is very well-written and uses examples intensively. However, learning things by myself has been tiring, but I keep telling myself to keep going, only by pushing myself that I can learn. A friend of mine, David, who has a Master in Statistics, is willing to help me. He is working on his biomass logistics simulation project too. I wondered, was I a bit pushy..?

Yesterday, my supervisor, Dr. S sent me an email, saying: "it is a good time to start on writing my manuscript  for publication for my project on the effect of ageing on the net calorific values of wood pellet."
I searched up on how to write a journal article and found some articles in the UBC library, but yet to start digging in. This book caught my eye: "writing your journal article in 12 weeks: a guide to academic publishing success". A review here said that it is a good book that "offers sound advice, encouragement, and confidence building strategies that help novice writers create/recreate a written text that could be publishable". 

Later of the day, on the bus, I overheard a person, which is apparently a PhD student in UBC Electrical Engineering department  saying that if you want to go for graduate studies, make sure you are really serious about doing research. I know some people that just waste their time doing their graduate studies.

I asked myself, am I serious about doing research? The answer is a strong YES! What are the most urgent tasks that I have to do?
1. Complete my multiple variable regression for Pinnacle REG and contact them!
This is the reason that I am writing the "Experimental Design" book all day! Trying to get some ideas about the method to analyze my data.
2. Complete my description and explanation about calorific value and send to Ehsan and Dr. S.
3. Write a draft on the objectives of my project and send it to Dr S.
4. Start on creating a poster for my BioFuelNet AGM in Montreal!

Meanwhile, let me enjoy the good weather when it lasts!

2013-5-4 Good Friend, Great Weather, Continuing my reading

During this great day with great weather, I hang out with Julian in downtown Vancouver. We had lunch at VietSub Vietnamese Restaurant. Below is my food picture.

Julian is very brave to pick up a job at a house that rehabilitates pedophiles. Yesterday he worked in a graveyard shift from 12am to 8am. And had not sleep before meeting me in Vancouver downtown.

He told me that he got jobs at Wendy's and also at a Japanese Restaurant in Burnaby. Julian told me that "It is just by luck. Simply put in a couple resumes into different restaurant, then you can get a job." 

I think he meant that a job can only be obtained by approaching the employers and networking that you want to work for as shown in the wordle below by magma.ca/~raksim/jobsearch.htm. 

Being proactive, one of the most important characteristic of an effective person, is important in job search and everything else that involves social interaction.

After a long good hang-out, tonight I shall work on learning the research data analysis from the book "Experimental Design: with Application in Management, Engineering, and the Sciences". Data analysis has been long and tedious. Quoting a friend, "engineering is all about beautiful trends and patterns of data." As easy as it may sound like, creating such trends and patterns is another story. 

I shall sign off for today. Cheers!

2013-05-04 START OF MY BLOG!

It is this morning that I decided to start a blogspot to write down my thoughts and my experience during my graduate studies as a master student in chemical engineering.
It was a shock this morning that my brother sent me a message on facebook telling me that I am registered as voter. BN registered me without my consent.

Anyways, I decided that I have to write down the following EVERYDAY between 4 to 5pm!!
1. What, how did I do today. productive things or not-very-productive things
2. How did I feel today. Why did I feel this way.
2. What are the plans for tomorrow.
3. What are the interesting things that happens and the insights from it. Who did I talk to today.

As the poster here says, RESEARCH is ACTION! 
This blog is my small step to organize myself and to understand better my underlying beliefs that make me who I am.