Sharif Digital Repository

Traditionally, to handle security for stand-alone computers and small networks, user authentication and access control mechanisms would be almost enough. However, considering distributed networks such as the Internet and pervasive environments, these kinds of approaches are confronted with flexibility challenges and scalability problems. This is mainly because open environments lack a central control, and users in them are not predetermined. In such ubiquitous computing environments, issues concerning security and trust become crucial. Adding trust to the existing security infrastructures would enhance the security of these environments. Although many trust models are proposed to deal with... 

By the immense growth of the Web-Based Social Networks (WBSNs), the role of trust in connecting people together through WBSNs is getting more important than ever. In other words, since the probability of malicious behavior in WBSNs is increasing, it is necessary to evaluate the reliability of a person before trying to communicate with. Hence, it is desirable to find out how much a person should trust another one in a network. The approach to answer this question is usually called trust inference. In this paper, we propose a new trust inference algorithm (Called RN-Trust) based on the resistive networks concept. The algorithm, in addition to being simple, resolves some problems of previously... 

Traditionally, to handle security for stand-alone computers and small networks, user authentication and access control mechanisms would be almost enough. However, considering distributed networks such as the Internet and pervasive environments, these kinds of approaches confront with flexibility challenges and scalability problems. This is mainly because of that open environments lack a central control, and users in them are not predetermined, in such ubiquitous computing environments, issues concerning security and trust become crucial. Adding trust to the existing security infrastructures would enhance the security of these environments. Although many trust models have been proposed to... 

Background: Small scale robotics have attracted growing attention for the prospect of targeting and accessing cell-sized sites, necessary for high precision biomedical applications and drug/gene delivery. The loss of controlled gene therapy, inducing systemic side effects and reduced therapeutic efficiency, can be settled utilizing these intelligent carriers. Methods: Newly proposed solutions for the main challenges of control, power supplying, gene release and final carrier extraction/degradation have shifted these smart miniature robots to the point of being employed for practical applications of transferring oligonucleotides (pDNA, siRNA, mRNA, etc.) in near future. Conclusion: In this... 

We consider magnetic actuation and control of a spherical neutrally buoyant magnetic microrobot via magnetic coil setups and seek to design an optimal controller to reduce the required energy and coils’ currents. We showed that in currently employed setups, where the actuation frequency is few tens of Hertz, the nonlinear dynamics of the system can be well approximated by a set of linear constrained ones. The approximated model is obtained by consciously overlooking the rotational dynamics and the inertia terms in translational dynamics. We acquired the linear quadratic regulation (LQR) controller for the approximated model which is a constrained time-varying system. Finally, 3D manipulation... 

Despite many attempts to study the interaction of fluids in low-salinity flooding, they do not examine the principles of interphasic transition phenomena. This study aims to provide a new understanding of liquid–liquid interactions during the low-salinity water interaction through a series of experiments on the oil, emulsion, and aqueous phase. Three samples of crude oils with different asphaltene concentrations and structures with known physical properties are in contact with different solutions. The brine pH, conductivity, and crude oil viscosity experiments before and after contacting the oil with brine showed that the heteroatom concentration and compaction of crude oil asphaltene... 

This research aims to present asphaltene fraction of oil by FTIR spectrum technique. For this purpose, three different oil samples with various SARA contents and almost identical API degrees were utilized in this research. Two asphaltenic oil samples were referred to as ‘A’ and ‘B’, and the aliphatic oil sample was named as ‘C’. First of all, the asphaltene fraction was extracted through the IP-143 test. The possible chemical bonds and functional groups were identified through NMR tests. Then, the FTIR spectrums of the oil samples and the extracted corresponding asphaltene fractions were taken. The interpretations were used to find the functional groups in the FTIR of the oil samples that... 

In this paper we analyses the energy consumption of well known family of asynchronous circuits and present a new methodology for energy estimation of these circuits at intermediate-level of abstraction. Energy estimation is performed by simulating the intermediate format of the design. The number of Read and Write accesses on the ports of the concurrent processes are counted by analyzing the conditional and computational portion during the simulation which is the base of our estimation methodology. Our proposed power estimation scheme is faster than usual post-synthesis power estimation by an order of 9, while the estimated power resides in a boundary of 11% total imprecision. © 2007 IEEE  

NoC is an efficient on-chip communication architecture for SoC architectures. It enables integration of a large number of computational and storage blocks on a single chip. NoCs have tackled the SoCs disadvantages and are scalable. In this paper, we compare two popular NoC topologies, i.e., mesh and torus, in terms of different figures of merit e.g., latency, power consumption, and power/throughput ratio under different routing algorithms and two common traffic models, uniform and hotspot. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first effort in comparing mesh and torus topologies under different routing algorithms and traffic models with respect to their performance and power consumption.... 

A number of HZSM-5 catalysts modified with 5 wt% Mg, Na, Zr, and Al as well as others modified with 5-60 wt% Zn prepared by wet impregnation. These materials were characterized by the NH3-TPD, XRF, and XRD analyses and tested in a slurry reactor to determine their activities in dehydration of methanol solution in kerosene. Reactions were carried out at 230°C and 19 bar for 4 h of residence time in the reactor. Results showed that in the first series, the catalyst modified with Zr and in the second series, the one modified with 10 wt% Zn led to the highest methanol conversion. It was deduced that elimination of strong acid sites and partial replacement of active cations in the HZSM-5 zeolite... 

Resection of the epilepsy foci is the best treatment for more than 15% of epileptic patients or 50% of patients who are refractory to all forms of medical treatment. Accurate mapping of the locations of epileptic neuronal networks can result in the complete resection of epileptic foci. Even though currently electroencephalography is the best technique for mapping the epileptic focus, it cannot define the boundary of epilepsy that accurately. Herein we put forward a new accurate brain mapping technique using superparamagnetic nanoparticles (SPMNs). The main hypothesis in this new approach is the creation of super-paramagnetic aggregates in the epileptic foci due to high electrical and... 

This paper scrutinizes the magnetic field effect to deliver the superparamagnetic nanoparticles (SPMNs) through the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). Herein we study the interaction between the nanoparticle (NP) and BBB membrane using Molecular Dynamic (MD) techniques. The MD model is used to enhance our understanding of the dynamic behavior of SPMNs crossing the endothelial cells in the presence of a gradient magnetic field. Actuation of NPs under weak magnetic field offers the great advantage of a non-invasive drug delivery without the risk of causing injury to the brain. Furthermore, a weak magnetic portable stimulator can be developed using low complexity prototyping techniques. Based on MD... 

Nowadays, nanoparticles (NPs) are used in a variety of biomedical applications including brain disease diagnostics and subsequent treatments. Among the various types of NPs, magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been implemented by many research groups for an array of life science applications. In this paper, we studied MNPs controlled delivery into the endothelial cells using a magnetic field. Dynamics equations of MNPs were defined in the continuous domain using control theory methods and were applied to crossing the cell membrane. This study, dedicated to clinical and biomedical research applications, offers a guideline for the generation of a magnetic field required for the delivery of... 

Multigeneration systems (MGSs) driven by renewable sources are proved as cutting-edge technologies for multiple productions purposes to curb greenhouse gas emissions. With this regard, a novel geothermal-based MGS is proposed to produce multiple commodities of cooling, heating, power, and hydrogen, simultaneously, using liquefied natural gas (LNG) as cold energy recovery. The system is composed of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC), an ejector refrigeration cycle (ERC), an LNG power generation system, and a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer system. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed MGS, energy, exergy, and exergoeconomic analysis are employed as the most effective tools... 

Asynchronous circuits have many advantages vs synchronous design styles like high performance and lower power consumption; however, there is a drawback of big overhead in handshake circuitry of these circuits. In this paper, we have reduced the amount of these extra circuits by take advantage of some compiler techniques. The compiler methods can be used innovatively to improve the synthesis results in terms of both power consumption and area, since these code motions lead to removing of completion detection and validity check parts of asynchronous designs. To the best of our knowledge this is the first effort in using the compiler pre-synthesis optimizations in asynchronous circuits to...