Sharif Digital Repository

Polymer composite films based on chitosan (CS) and nanodimaond (ND) were prepared using solution casting method. ND with variable contents of carboxylic functional group was prepared using thermal oxidation at temperature of 420 °C under air atmosphere at various durations of 1.5 and 4.5 h. The interfacial interaction between NDs and CS and morphological evolution of CS in presence of NDs were investigated by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses. A significant improvement in tensile strength (∼85%) and tensile modulus (∼125%) of CS was achieved by oxidized ND (OND) obtained at higher oxidation time of 4.5 at low... 

Spreading Covid19 has significantly impacted humans' affairs worldwide, either economically or in a sanitary manner. Besides social distance and hospitalization, making and introducing different vaccines help us ameliorate infection and mortality rates. In this research, we use a nonlinear dynamic model for Covid19, with eight states named susceptible, exposed, infected, quarantined, hospitalized, recovered, deceased, and insusceptible populations. Also, we use social distancing, hospitalization, and vaccination rate as three control inputs. This research aims to stop the Covid-19 from spreading worldwide and minimize exposed, infected and deceased populations using model predictive control.... 

Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) are powerful security primitives that provide cheap and secure solutions for security-related applications. Strong PUFs provide a large set of challenge-response pairs (CRPs) and are suitable for device authentication. Weak PUFs produce a small number of CRPs and can be used for key extraction. In this paper, we propose a novel method to enhance the CRP set of traditional ring oscillator-based PUFs (RO-PUFs). RO-PUFs are one of the most reliable types of PUFs and the best fit to implement on the field-programmable gate arrays. To the best of our knowledge, our method provides the maximum number of CRPs compared with the state of the art. In addition, the... 

In this paper with studying of all parameters in grid environment a new scheduling algorithm for independent task is introduced according to Genetic Algorithm. This algorithm can be more efficient and more dependable than similar previous algorithms. The simulated results and reasons for reaching to better makes pan and more efficiency in the grid environment. In the grids with high fault with high fault rate for fault tolerant is used from check point method that has more efficiency that other methods such as retry, migration and replication. This method maintains effective efficiency in these situations. So the servicing quality increases in various grid environments and also the average... 

Recently, the topic of bioresorbable metals, with much focus on magnesium for bone implant applications, has been an area of considerable investigation. Indeed, it could be argued that magnesium is the most promising biodegradable material currently being studied for use as an orthopedic skeletal fixation and joint replacement hardware. However, the fast degradation rate of magnesium-based materials in the physiological environment negatively affects their mechanical integrity and hence limits their biomedical use. The most critical conditions may occur when the implant is subjected to a corrosive physiological environment and a fluctuating load during daily activities. Hence, numerous... 

Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) provides 2-way communications between the utility and the smart meters. Developing authenticated key exchange (AKE) and broadcast authentication (BA) protocols is essential to provide secure communications in AMI. The security of all existing cryptographic protocols is based on the assumption that secret information is stored in the nonvolatile memories. In the AMI, the attackers can obtain some or all of the stored secret information from memories by a great variety of inexpensive and fast side-channel attacks. Thus, all existing AKE and BA protocols are no longer secure. In this paper, we investigate how to develop secure AKE and BA protocols in the... 

Broadcast encryption is a novel concept for sending a special message to a subset of users. In broadcast encryption schemes, the distribution center broadcasts the message in encrypted form and expect that only the intended users be able to decrypt the message. This concept has several applications such as pay-per-service TVs. In this paper, we investigate one of the most recent broadcast encryption schemes and show that the introduced scheme does not provide the main requirement of broadcast encryption schemes. For this purpose, we demonstrate that all of the users, including authorized and unauthorized users, can decrypt the broadcasted encrypted message. © 2016 IEEE  

Aside from the many services that soil provides, it also stores water and makes it available to crops, which is critical for food security. However, the necessity of further studies for overcoming the existing gap in relation to the role of soil in the water, energy, and food nexus system has been preoccupying the experts and specialists around the world for some time. In this sense, the balance between many key ecosystem components based on the Soil, water, energy, and food (SWEF) nexus framework is one of the key characteristics of holistic and accommodative watershed management systems. To the best of our knowledge, the watershed scale is used as a planning unit for the first time in the... 

Nowadays, the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) tomography (TomoSAR) technique plays a notable role in the 3D reconstruction of urban buildings through several SAR acquisitions with slightly different positions. Nonparametric-based TomoSAR spectral estimation algorithms usually work well when a large number of SAR observations. In this study, with a limited number of SAR images, we have assessed the efficiency of the nonparametric spectral estimation methods, including maximum entropy (ME), singular value decomposition (SVD), linear prediction (LP), Capon, minimum norm (MN), and beamforming (BF) in the reconstruction of the third dimension of urban buildings. The experiments are conducted on... 

Accumulation of amyloid beta (Aβ) soluble forms in the cerebral parenchyma is the mainstream concept underlying memory deficit in the early phase of Alzheimer's disease (AD). PKMζ plays a critical role in the maintenance of long-term memory. Yet, the role of this brain-specific enzyme has not been addressed in AD. We examined the impact of hippocampal PKMζ overexpression on AD-related memory impairment in rats. Oligomeric form of Aβ (oAβ) or vehicle was bilaterally microinjected into the dorsal hippocampus of male Wistar rats under stereotaxic surgery. One week later, 2 μl of lentiviral vector (108 T.U. / ml.) encoding PKMζ genome was microinjected into the dorsal hippocampus. Seven days... 

According to Arthur (2006, p. 200), “Through the use of literature, a language learning experience might become at the same time a source of immediate pleasure and satisfaction for the student. This possibility makes literature an appealing teaching device for ESL teachers”. However, numerous factors may contribute to the teachers’ lack of interest in using literary texts as a teaching tool. This study was an attempt to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ attitude toward using literature in language classes and their perception toward the probable reasons of some teachers’ lack of interest in doing so. Altogether forty-four language teachers (19 females and 25 males, with a mean age of 26)... 

In this study, the inclusion of multi-walled carbon nanotubes as the second phase in the hydroxyapatite matrix, in order to improve the mechanical strength, has been performed via the sol-gel process. The stability of carbon nanotube sol with the changes of pH and dispersant values (sodium dodecyl sulfate) was evaluated by zeta potential analysis. The results indicated that synthesis of hydroxyapatite particles in the presence of the carbon nanotubes had the best result in homogenization of the carbon nanotube dispersion and faster crystallization of hydroxyapatite. The crystallization of hydroxyapatite phase was investigated with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction... 

The unwanted effects of diffraction and defocus aberration in three-dimensional integral imaging are taken into account by using the Fourier optics approach. The concepts of point spread function and optical transfer function widely in use for conventional two-dimensional imaging are generalized and applied to three-dimensional integral imaging systems. The effects of diffraction and defocus aberration are then studied and the performance of the conventional single lens imaging system is compared against that of the integral imaging  

High temperature shape memory NiTiHf thin films with varying hafnium contents up to 28.7 at.% were fabricated by DC magnetron sputtering using simultaneous sputter deposition from separate elemental targets. The required film composition was achieved by adjusting the power ratio to the targets. The as-deposited films were amorphous; a post deposition annealing was performed at 550 °C to crystallize the films. Two-micron thick films were characterized by energy dispersive spectroscopy in a scanning electron microscope, temperature controlled X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and atomic force microscopy. The results showed that above 10 at.% Hf additions the transformation... 

Consider Myerson's optimal auction with respect to an inaccurate prior, e.g., estimated from data, which is an underestimation of the true value distribution. Can the auctioneer expect getting at least the optimal revenue w.r.t. the inaccurate prior since the true value distribution is larger? This so-called strong revenue monotonicity is known to be true for single-parameter auctions when the feasible allocations form a matroid. We find that strong revenue monotonicity fails to generalize beyond the matroid setting, and further show that auctions in the matroid setting are the only downward-closed auctions that satisfy strong revenue monotonicity. On the flip side, we recover an approximate... 

In recent years, subsidy payment has been made a main challenge for governments due to growth of population and energy price in global markets. Targeted subsidy plan has been implemented in Iran since last year, and this article discusses its effects on costs and revenues of Tehran Electricity Company as one of the major subdivisions of Iran's electricity industry. In the new system, structural changes have been made in electricity tariffs, so it is not possible to predict the future trends in electricity consumption only based on the past consumptions. In order to model the decision making structure in the recent conditions, a system dynamics method is applied. In addition to modeling the... 

Understanding the nature of interaction between metal nanoparticles and biomolecules such as amino acids is important in the development and design of biosensors. In this paper, binding of M3 clusters (M = Au, Ag and Cu) with neutral and anionic forms of histidine amino acid was studied using density functional theory (DFT-B3LYP). It was found that the interaction of histidine with M3 clusters is governed by two major bonding factors: (a) the anchoring N-M and O-M bonds and (b) the nonconventional N-H⋯M and O-H⋯M hydrogen bonds. The nature of these chemical bonds has been investigated based on quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) and natural bond orbital (NBO) analyses. In the next...