A neural network based model to analyze rice parboiling process with small dataset.

In this study, milling recovery, head rice yield, degree of milling and whiteness were utilized to characterize the milling quality of Tarom parboiled rice variety. The parboiled rice was prepared with three soaking temperatures and steaming times. Then the samples were dried to three levels of final moisture contents [8, 10 and 12% (w.b)]. Modeling of process and validating of the results with small dataset are always challenging. So, the aim of this study was to develop models based on the milling quality data in parboiling process by means of multivariate regression and artificial neural network. In order to validate the neural network model with a little dataset, K-fold cross validation method was applied. The ANN structure with one hidden layer and Tansig transfer function by 18 neurons in the hidden layer was selected as the best model in this study. The results indicated that the neural network could model the parboiling process with higher degree of accuracy. This method was a promising procedure to create accuracy and can be used as a reliable model to select the best parameters for the parboiling process with little experiment dataset.