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Materials Today: Proceeddings 5 (2018) 122
233–12239 ww
ww.materialstoday.com/proceedings

Prredictionn of Weig
ght Perccentage Alumina
A a and Porre Volumme
Fracttion in Bio-Ceram
B mics Using Gau ussian Prrocess Reegressio
on and
M
Minimaxx Probabbility Maachine Regressioon
opinatha , Soumen Pallb**, Pankaaj Tambec
KGS Go
a,b,c
Department of Manufacturingg Engineering, Scchool of Mechaniical Engineering,,
VIT Univer
ersity, Vellore, 632014, India

Abstract

In Bio-cerramics, the alum

mina weight percentage and poore volume fraaction play a vittal role for its bbiocompatibility
y in human
body. Theere are many exxperimental meethods which arre employed fo or achieving thee required quallity in it. In this work, for
preparationn of Al2O3/SiCC ceramic cake, the amount of Silicon Caarbide (SiC) is taken as inpuut parameter. The T weight
percentagee Alumina andd pore volume fraction are ttaken as outpu ut parameters. Two machine learning modeels such as
Gaussian P Process Regresssion (GPR) an
nd Minimax Proobability Mach hine Regressionn (MPMR) are applied for preedicting the
above twoo output parameters. The perfformance of thee above two models
m are comp pared. The Gauussian Process Regression
outperform
ms the Minimaax Probability Machine
M Regreession marginaally and the ressult of the Gauussian is encou uraging for
predicting the above two outputs.

Keywords: Gaussian Processs Regression, Min

nimax Probabilityy Machine Regreession, Weight Percentage Aluminna, Pore Volume

fraction, Bio-ceramics

1. IIntroduction

In bio-cerramics, the fleexural strengtth is more impportant for its application in

n human bodyy for the reaso on that the
bio-ceram
mics is used for replacing or repairingg bone joints, teeth etc. The alumina aamount presen nt in bio-
ceramics plays a vital role in achiev ving required density, grain n size and flex mit values1.
xural limits off required lim
The porees in bio-ceram mics are obtained by burniing foreign co ombustible prroducts while sintering it. The pores
have diffe
ferent sizes andd pore volumee fraction is no T pore size variation did not
not distributed evenly in it. The

exhibit m
much differencce in mechan
nical propertiees of it, but pore
p volume fraction had much influen
nce on the
mechaniccal properties of it2.

The poroosity has muchh influence on n Poisson’s raatio of the alu

umina based ceramics,
c althhough Poisson n’s ratio is
generallyy considered as constant vallue, almost in all the Researrch works3. Many
M characterristics of alum
mina based
ceramics have been measured
m by many
m experimments. The Frracture Tough hness of alum mina based ceeramics is
indurate tto volume fraaction of alummina4. The expperiments hav ve shown that the porous hhydroxyapatitee ceramics
can be faabricated equivvalent to the quality
q of natuural bone by ascertained
a po
ores characteriristics such as pore size,
a pore structtures5.
pore voluume fraction and

* Correspoonding author. Teel.: 0416-22022699

*

E-mail aaddress: soumenppal@vit.ac.in

2214-7853 © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reeserved.

Selection annd/or Peer-review
w under responsib
bility of Internatioonal Conference on
o Materials Man
nufacturing and M
Modelling (ICMM
MM - 2017).
12234 KGS Gopinath et al. /Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 12233–12239

The pores in ceramics like Zirconia, have exhibited low thermal conductivity up to the low thermal
conductivity upto the lowest value of 0.1 Wm-1k-1 6. The above porosity and the pore size distribution can be
varied by the process parameters such as quantity of polymer and sintering temperature7. The porous
characteristics in the ceramics can be fabricated by the size amount and distribution of pore-forming agents8. The
large pores provided a high porosity whereas the small pores provided a large surface area9. Some scientists
made some research works to improve the surface lubrication of the ceramics. When the ceramics doped with
CuO (Copper Oxide) there was considerable reduction of friction10. A mechanism of lubrication of alumina was
determined so that lubricous hydroxide layer was formed and the friction was very much reduced11.
Generally the experimentations in ceramics consume much time and it is a tedious process. Research
scientists Altinkok and Koker have applied Artificial Neural Network for estimating the output parameters such
as weight percentage alumina (wa) and pore volume fraction (pv) using amount of Silicon Carbide (SiC) as input
parameter12. In this article, we use GPR and MPMR for estimating the performance on the data given by
Altinkok and Koker.

2. Gaussian Process Regression (GPR)

GPR is a Bayesian process13 and it has been applied in many research works in many fields for prediction
and exhibited good results14-17.
GPR is a non-parametric model for prediction of a function for a given set of data. In GPR, we have to find
function ‘f’ with minimum errors from the data D = {x, y}. A Gaussian process defines a distribution over
function p(f) which can be used for Bayesian Regression

p( f ) p(d / f ) (1)
P( f / D) 
p( D)

Gaussian Process Covariance function (Kernels)

In the Gaussian process, it is always assumed that the mean value is always zero. In Gaussian process y or
f(x) is a dependent function of x, for which we are interested to learn in the form of supervised learning, where
the training data values are in control with fine distinctions. In Gaussian process, one function is considered as
main function, which relates the value of observed one to value of another is called ‘Covariance Function’,
generally denoted as k(x, x’). There are many choices available for above function, in which the best alternative
is as follows:

 2

 1  xi  x j  
K ( x, x' )   exp  
2   (2)
 2  l 
f 2
 

where σf2 is maximum allowable variance and l = length scale.

The value of σ2 should be high for a higher range of y-values. If the difference between x and x’ goes near to the
value zero, then calculated or trained function f(x) goes closer to the actual value function f’(x). If the noise
values are to be incorporated then the above equation becomes

  x x 
2

 1 i j  2
K(x, x' )   exp  2
2    n  (x, x' ) (3)
 2  l 
f
 

where σn2 is variance of ‘n’ observations and δ(x, x’) is Kronecker delta function.
The prediction function y = f(x) becomes

y  f ( x)  N (0,  n2 ) (4)

where N(0, σn2) is the normal distribution with mean zero and variance σn2 for n-observations. The first step in
GPR is to find the kernel or covariance function K(x, x’) given by
 KGS Gopinath et al. /Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 12233–12239 12235

 k ( x1 , x1 ) k ( x1 , x2 ) ... k ( x1 , xn ) 
k ( x , x ) k ( x , x ) ... k ( x2 , xn ) 
K  2 1 2 2 (5)
 : : ... : 
 
k ( xn , x1 ) k ( xn , x2 ) ... k ( xn , xn )

In the above equation the diagonal values of the matrix can be found to be the same constant values i.e. k(x1,
x1) = k(x2, x2) …=k(xn, xn) which represents the value σf2+ σn2. If we want to predict for a particular value x*,
then the next function will be k* = [k(x*, x1) k(x*, x2)…k(x*, xn)} and k** = k(x*, x*). To find the predicted
value y* for the given new input value x*, the Gaussian process formulation is given by

 y    k k *T   (6)
  ~ 0,  
 y *   k * k * * 

where k*T represents transposed matrix of k*.

There probability follows Gaussian distribution which is given by
y * / y ~ N (k * k 1 y, k * *  k * k 1k *T ) (7)

where k* k-1y represents mean of the distribution and k**-k*k-1k*T represents variance based on y*.

3. Minimax Probability Machine Regression (MPMR)

With respect to GPR, MPMR avoids assumptions based on the data distribution. The regression model
obtained by using MPMR has the error within the assigned error of true regression model. MPMR uses Mercer’s
Kernel for obtaining non-linear regression models. Many Research scientists have applied MPMR for prediction
in various fields18-20.
Let us assume that the unknown regression function f: Rd R, which has the form

y = f(x) + ρ (8)

where x  Rd and y  R are within the boundary distribution Λ.

In the above function y, ρ is noise or fitting error and has zero mean value i.e., E(ρ) = 0, variance Var(ρ) =

σ2 and finite σ  R.

Let us consider the training set examples

Γ = {( x1, y1)….(xN, yN)}

where  i  {1, 2 …N}, xi = {xi1, xi2 …xid}  Rd and yi  R. We have two objectives one is to find the

approximation function yˆ  fˆ ( x) and the second objective is to find the error ε > 0 and fitting error (minimum

probability)

  inf Pr{| yˆ  y |  } (9)

The MPMR formulation for the above approximation is given by

N
yˆ  fˆ ( x )    i K (xi , x )  b (10)
i 1

where k(xi, x) = φ(xi).φ(x) is a Kernel which satisfies Mercer’s conditions xi  i  {1,2,….N} are obtained from

the learning data Γ . In the above formulation βi and b  R are the outputs of MPMR learning algorithm.
12236 KGS Gopinath et al. /Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 12233–12239

4. Results and Discussions

Generally in machine learning models, 70% of the data sets are considered training set and 30% meant for
test set. Using 70% of the original data, a prediction function is estimated and the same function is tested for
validity with the remaining 30% of the data set. Here, the co-efficient of correlation (R) is the measure of the
robustness of the machine learning model. The R value should be closer to ‘1’; the predicted function of the
machine learning theory model is more robust in nature.
In this work, 18 data sets are taken from the source data, in which 12 data sets are considered for training
data sets and the remaining 6 data sets are considered for testing sets.
In Fig.1, the GPR model is applied for prediction of weight percentage alumina. In training data sets, the R
value is found to be 0.999 and in testing data sets R value is found to be 0.998. In the above diagram, almost all
the training data sets lie on the line which shows actual value is equal to predicted value, but the 2 data values
test set lie slightly away from the line. This shows that R value of testing data set is slightly lower than R value
of the training data set.

Fig. 1 - Performance of GPR model on weight percentage alumina (wa).

In the Fig.2, the GPR model is applied for estimation of pv. The value of R of training data set (R=0.998) is
equal to the value of R of testing data, but comparing with previous fig. 1, the R value of GPR on training data of
pv (R=0.998) is slightly lesser than R value of GPR (R=0.999) on wa. In the fig.2 the training data set and
testing data set is not much closer to the actual-prediction line as in Fig.1.

Fig. 2 - Performance of GPR model on pore volume fraction (pv).

 KGS Gopinath et al. /Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 12233–12239 12237

In the Fig.3, the MPMR model is applied for estimation of wa. Comparing with the fig.1, the R values of
MPMR (R = 0.998 for training data and R = 0.996 for testing data) are lower than the R values of GPR (R =
0.999 for training and R = 0.998 for testing data sets). The R value of MPMR is marginally lesser than R value
of GPR on wa. This shows that GPR performs much better than MPMR in estimation of wa. Even though
MPMR is comparatively as good as GPR, but GPR outperforms MPMR in estimation of wa.

Fig. 3 - Performance of MPMR model on weight percentage alumina (wa).

In the Fig.4, the MPMR model is applied for estimation of pv. Comparing with fig.2, the MPMR
performance over GPR is comparatively low, i.e., marginally. Here, R values of MPMR on pv (R = 0.998 for
training data and R = 0.996 for testing data) are lesser than R values of GPR values on pv (R = 0.998 for both
training and testing data). Even though the robustness of GPR and MPMR on training data remains the same, the
robustness on testing data sets differs.

Fig. 4 - Performance of MPMR model on pore volume fraction (pv).

12238 KGS Gopinath et al. /Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 12233–12239

5. Conclusions

From the above results and discussions, it is clear that both the performance of GPR and MPMR models is

very much encouraging for prediction of wa and pv. The R values of training data set of both the GPR and

MPMR models are almost the same, but in testing data sets, the R values for both the models vary. When we

compare GPR and MPMR models, the GPR testing data set R value is very much closer to 1 and GPR

performance is much better than MPMR models. A non-parametric model GPR out-performances better than the

MPMR model which uses Mercer’s condition and GPR is much better and suitable model for prediction of wa

and pv in bio-ceramics than MPMR.

Further the prediction on experimental data is only done on alumina ceramics and it can be extended on

zirconia ceramics. Not only but also, other machine learning models can be applied for the above experimental

data sets, for predicting the robustness of the model and similarly the time consumption for the experiments can

be avoided by prediction using machine learning theory models.

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