Sharif Digital Repository

A hybrid method is introduced for analysis of the H-plane waveguide discontinuities. It combines multimode contour integral and mode matching techniques. The process is based on dividing the circuit structure into key building blocks and finding the multimode scattering matrix of each block individually. The multimode scattering matrix of the whole structure can be found by cascading these blocks. Also contour integral method is developed for analysis of multi-media circuits. Therefore, it is possible to analyze H-plane waveguide filters with dielectric resonators using this method. The accuracy and run time of the purposed method is compared with those reported in literatures and/or Ansoft... 

Existing load balancing solutions rely on direct or indirect measurement of rates (or congestion) averaged over short periods of time. Sudden fluctuations in flow rates can lead to significant undershooting/overshooting of target link loads. In this paper, we make the case for taking variations and correlations of flows into account in load balancing. We propose correlation-aware flow consolidation, i.e. aggregating inversely correlated (or uncorrelated) flows into superflows and using them as building blocks for load balancing. Superflows are smoother than individual flows, and thus are easier to estimate with a higher confidence, and can reduce overshooting/undershooting of link... 

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the assembly of metallic nanoclusters using manipulation process. These particles are assumed as potential building blocks for bottom-up manufacturing of nanoscale structures. One of the key factors in the assembly of nanoclusters is their precise positioning by a manipulation system. Prediction of the corresponding behavior under the influence of working conditions is of crucial importance for planning of controlled positioning and assembly of nanoclusters. The focus of the present research is on ultra-fine metallic nanoclusters. The effects of material type and manipulation strategy on the success of the process are investigated by molecular... 

The utilization of the limited resources of a multiprocessor or multicomputer system is a primary performance issue which is crucial for the design of many scheduling algorithms. While many of the existing parallel machines benefit from a regular product network topology, almost none of the previous resource placement techniques have come to recognize and exploit this inherent regularity. This paper introduces several novel algorithms for deriving resource placement schemes in product networks based on the assumption of perfect resource placement in their underling basic graphs. Our techniques use known schemes for the basic networks as their building blocks for deploying the resource... 

A nanoscale logic NOR gate has been theoretically designed by magnetic flux inputs in a Z-shaped graphene nanoribbon composed of an armchair ribbon device sandwiched between two semi-infinite metallic zigzag ribbon leads. The calculations are based on the tight-binding model and iterative Green's function method, in which the conductance as well as current-voltage characteristics of the nanosystem are calculated, numerically. We show that the current and conductance are highly sensitive to both the magnetic fluxes subject to the device and the size of the system. Our results may have important applications for building blocks in the nanoelectronic devices based on graphene nanoribbons  

Recently, it has been proved in Babadi [B. Babadi, N. Kalouptsidis, and V. Tarokh, "Asymptotic achievability of the Cramér-Rao bound for noisy compressive sampling", IEEE Trans. Signal Process., vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 1233-1236, 2009] that in noisy compressed sensing, a joint typical estimator can asymptotically achieve the Cramér-Rao lower bound of the problem. To prove this result, Babadi used a lemma, which is provided in Akçakaya and Tarokh [M. Akçakaya and V. Trarokh, "Shannon theoretic limits on noisy compressive sampling", IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 492-504, 2010] that comprises the main building block of the proof. This lemma is based on the assumption of Gaussianity... 

On-chip accurate clock references are one of the essential building blocks in fully integrated Systems-On-Chips (SOC). In this paper, a low phase noise, temperature and supply voltage independent clock reference is presented. It provides the reference frequency for a biomedical implantable system. The simulated phase noise at 100 KHz offset from 2MHz carrier is 113dBc/Hz. Simulations show the frequency remains within 0.34% of the nominal oscillation frequency in the operating voltage range of 1.7 - 1.9 V without any calibration and its change in the temperature range of 20-to100C is 0.5%. The circuit consumes 77W and is designed in a 0.18m technology with 1.8V supply voltage  

The utilization of the limited resources of a multiprocessor or multicomputer system is a primary performance issue which is crucial for the design of many scheduling algorithms. While many of the existing parallel machines benefit from a regular product network topology, almost none of the previous resource placement techniques have come to recognize and exploit this inherent regularity. This paper introduces several novel algorithms for deriving resource placement schemes in product networks based on the assumption of perfect resource placement in their underling basic graphs. Our techniques use known schemes for the basic networks as their building blocks for deploying the resource... 

Time amplifiers (TA) are the key building blocks of the two-step time-to-digital converters. High resolution TAs suffer from inaccuracy the gain due to employing meta-stability behavior of the SR latches. In the proposed method, two offset NAND gates are placed in parallel with the NAND gates of the conventional SR latch to get a linear re-configurable gain. Gain of the TA is controlled only by the driving strength of the NAND gates. To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method, an 8-bit two step time to digital converter (TDC) was designed and laid-out in 0.18 μ m CMOS technology. Using a supply voltage of 1.2V, the proposed TDC consumes 1.1mW at 30MS/s throughput. IEEE  

Method Engineering (ME) is based on the notion that no two software development projects are identical, and hence, the same development process is never executed twice. The need therefore arises for custom-built software development methodologies that are tailored to fit the specific project situation at hand, thus giving rise to the various Situational Method Engineering (SME) approaches currently in use. A process pattern is a description of a recurring development process fragment that can be used as a building block for engineering development processes. Software development process patterns are extensively used in SME, mainly as process components assembled together to form bespoke... 

Time amplifiers (TAs) are the key building blocks of the two-step time-to-digital converters. High resolution TAs suffer from inaccuracy the gain due to employing meta-stability behavior of the SR latches. In the proposed method, two offset NAND gates are placed in parallel with the NAND gates of the conventional SR latch to get a linear re-configurable gain. Gain of the TA is controlled only by the driving strength of the NAND gates. To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method, an 8-bit two step time to digital converter (TDC) was designed and laid-out in 0.18- μm CMOS technology. Using a supply voltage of 1.2 V, the proposed TDC consumes 1.1 mW at 30 MS/s throughput. © 2004-2012... 

With thc advent of Superconductivity, a new category of Integrated Circuits' Technology has been represented called RSFQ (Rapid Single Flux Quantum) Superconductor 'technology, RSFQ superconducting circuits use Josephson Junctions (JJ) as electronic switches. In RSFQ superconducting circuits information is represented as discrete voltage pulses equivalent to the magnetic flux quanta. In this paper, we first describe the Josephson effect and then explain the basic building blocks used in RSFQ circuits and performance of some asynchronous logic gates  

PIM-1 is a serine-threonine kinase mainly expressed in tissues like the Thymus, spleen, bone marrow, and liver. Overexpression of PIM kinases occurs in various types of human tumours, such as lymphomas, prostate cancer, and oral cancer. As a result, the design of drugs to inhibit PIM-1 in cancerous cells has attracted much attention in recent years. This study aimed to design the alternative inhibitors for PIM-1 kinase, which are based on carbohydrates and amino acids and are expected to be non-toxic with the same chemotherapeutic effects as the traditional known anticancer drugs. The combinatorial use of quantum mechanics (QM) and molecular dynamic simulation (MD) has enabled us to... 

Bayesian optimization algorithm (BOA) utilizes a Bayesian network to estimate the probability distribution of candidate solutions and creates the next generation by sampling the constructed Bayesian network. This paper proposes an improved real-coded BOA (IrBOA) for continuous global optimization. In order to create a set of Bayesian networks, the candidate solutions are partitioned by an adaptive clustering method. Each Bayesian network has its own structure and parameters, and the next generation is produced from this set of networks. The adaptive clustering method automatically determines the correct number of clusters so that the probabilistic building-block crossover (PBBC) is... 

We have developed an analytic approach to investigate the effect of group delay ripple of the dispersive devices on the performance of two major building blocks of microwave- photonic filters. Firstly, performance of PM-based block in the presence of an arbitrary group delay ripple (GDR) is analyzed and compared with the ripple-free case to reveal the destructive effects of added group delay ripple. In the next step, we repeat the proposed approach for the AM-based one; again, the performance is compared with the ripple-free case. Two distortion metrics are also introduced to quantify this distortion. Comparison of the performance of two building blocks in the presence of group delay ripple... 

For technological purposes and theoretical curiosity, it is very interesting to have a building block that produces a considerable amount of entanglement between on-demand sites through a simple control of a few sites. Here, we consider permanently- coupled spin networks and study entanglement generation between qubit pairs to find low-complexity structures capable of generating considerable entanglement between various qubit pairs.We find that in axially symmetric networks the generated entanglement between some qubit pairs is rather larger than generic networks. We show that in uniformly-coupled spin rings each pair can be considerably entangled through controlling suitable vertices. To... 

This paper proposes a novel all-optical router as a building block for a scalable wavelength-switched optical NoC. The proposed optical router, named as AOR, performs passive routing of optical data streams based on their wavelengths. Utilizing wavelength routing method, AOR eliminates the need for electrical resource reservation and the corresponding latency and area overheads. Taking advantage of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technique, the proposed architecture is capable of data multicasting, concurrent with unicast data transmission, with high bandwidth and low power dissipation, without imposing noticeable area and latency overheads. Comparing AOR against previously proposed... 

Service-Oriented Software Engineering is based on concepts and principles for constructing complex enterprise systems in which services as building block of the system, are distributed in large networks. The main goal of the service-oriented methodologies is to define a process for development and maintenance of service-based systems. Most of the Service-Oriented methodologies are not mature enough compared with traditional software development methodologies such as Object-Oriented or Component-Based. Hence, defining an evaluation framework will be useful for comparing methodologies for identifying their strengths and weaknesses, defining new methodologies or extending existing... 

The development of cheaper electrocatalysts for fuel cells is an important research area. This work proposes a new, simpler and low-cost approach to develop nanostructured silver electrocatalysts by using natural cellulose as a template. Silver was deposited by reduction of Ag complexes on the surface of cellulose fibers, followed by heat removal of the template to create self-standing nanostructured silver fibers (NSSFs). X-Ray diffraction (XRD) showed fcc silver phase and X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) demonstrated that the surface was partially oxidized. The morphology of the fibers consisted of 50 nm nanoparticles as the building blocks, and they possessed a specific surface area... 

Precise positioning of nanoclusters through manipulation in the presence of other clusters is one of the main challenging tasks in nanoclusters assembly. Currently, the size of clusters which are used as building blocks is decreasing to a few nanometers. As a result, the particle nature of the matter has a crucial role in manipulator/cluster/substrate interactions. In order to understand and predict the behavior of nanoclusters during the positioning process, it is, therefore, essential to have a deep insight into the aforementioned nanoscale interactions, in this research, 2-D molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate such behaviors. Performing the planar simulations can...