Response surface methodology (RSM) has been widely recognized as an essential estimation tool in many robust design studies investigating the second-order polynomial functional relationship between the responses of interest and their associated input variables. However, there is scope for improvement in the flexibility of estimation models and the accuracy of their results. Although many NN-based estimations and optimization approaches have been reported in the literature, a closed functional form is not readily available. To address this limitation, a maximum-likelihood estimation approach for an NN-based response function estimation (NRFE) is used to obtain the functional forms of the process mean and standard deviation. While the estimation results of most existing NN-based approaches depend primarily on their transfer functions, this approach often requires a screening procedure for various transfer functions. In this study, the proposed NRFE identifies a new screening procedure to obtain the best transfer function in an NN structure using a desirability function family while determining its associated weight parameters. A statistical simulation was performed to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed NRFE method. In this particular simulation, the proposed NRFE method provided significantly better results than conventional RSM. Finally, a numerical example is used for validating the proposed method.

To provide a platform for evaluating significant interactions contributing to the enhanced physiological efficacy and reduced hepatotoxicity, we used a robust design to determine the optimal combination of six major green tea catechins, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin (EGC), epicatechin gallate (ECG), epicatechin (EC), gallocatechin, and catechin. Based on the mixture design, 28 experiments were performed to inhibit nitric oxide (NO) in RAW 264.7 cells and hepatotoxicity in Chang liver cells. Significant candidates, EGCG, EC, gallocatechin and catechin, were selected after optimization. The combination showing simultaneous enhancement of NO inhibition and reduction of hepatotoxicity was EGCG and gallocatechin at a ratio of 0.65 to 0.35 by surface response methodology and desirability function, through which their co-treatment was validated. Here, we describe a platform for simultaneously determining the optimized combination of natural components exerting enhanced efficacy and reduced toxicity.

A B S T R A C TGroundwater is one of the major sources of water supply for domestic, industrial, and agricultural purposes. Intensive water resources constructions in past decades have had huge impacts on hydrological systems. Recently, groundwater dams have received consistent attention as alternative water supply systems with minimal environmental destructions. Groundwater dams are usually of smaller capacity and costs much less compared with river dams. Therefore, it can be a very attractive solution especially for those small provincial cities suffering severe months-long drought every year. As an application of computer science technologies develops, a number of information systems are utilized for the sustainable development for water resources. Recently, groundwater dams have received consistent attention as alternative water supply systems with minimal environmental destruction. Since groundwater dams are constructed at the height close to sea level, optimal water-pumping strategy based on accurate forecasting of groundwater levels is critical to prevent seawater intrusion. However, there exist few methodologies that provide the operation guideline considering groundwater amount and quality. For this reason, the main objective of this paper is to develop a new integrated forecasting system to provide a guideline for sustainable groundwater management. To achieve this objective, the main purpose of this paper is fourfold: First, a new precipitation-based period-dividing algorithm is proposed. This algorithm can effectively apply to forecast the groundwater levels directly interacted to precipitations with high accuracy for a short-term period by using the concept of exponential smoothing and simulation. Second, an advanced estimation method for groundwater level forecasting by using response surface methodology is then proposed, which is a useful statistical tool for *Corresponding authors. modeling and analysis in situations where the groundwater levels are affected by several factors, such as precipitation, temperature, and altitude. Finally, a case study for Sangchun watershed in Eastern South Korea is conducted for verification purposes.

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