Sharif Digital Repository

In the modern world, electronic communications play a significant role in areas of national and international law such as Internet jurisdiction. Private international law provides that the competent court is the court within which jurisdiction the contract is performed, so it is important to know the place of performance of the contract in the case of contracts for digital goods such as e-books or computer software delivered online. It is equally important in the case of electronic services such as e-teaching. Furthermore, as consumer protection in B2C contracts is important in developing global e-commerce, it is important to consider whether the consumer party is able to bring an action... 

In this paper, seller-buyer supply chain coordination with general side-payment contracts is introduced to gain the maximum possible chain profit. In our model, the logistics costs for both buyer and seller are considered and the final demand is also supposed to be a decreasing function of the retail price. Since parties aim to maximize their individual profits, the contractual parameters are set in a way that these decisions become aligned with system optimal decisions. Therefore, a side payment contract is suggested in our model to assign the chain surplus profit to the chain members such that they have no intention to leave the coalition. Then, we change the contract into a quantity... 

Standard-form contracts facilitate the sophisticated public-private partnership (PPP) procurement process. Special care should be taken during the preparation of these documents since any remaining flaws affect subsequent projects. Reviewing the standard-form contract capabilities after its application help to identify its major flaws and improve the contract clauses. This research proposed a novel structured method to address this need and verified its capability. In the proposed method, a comprehensive list of risks is first created for the PPP projects in the specified project environment. The identified risks are prioritised to highlight the priority of the required adjustments in the... 

At the present study, application of endurance time analysis (ETA) method in seismic evaluation of arch dams is investigated. ETA is a time-history based dynamic pushover procedure, which utilizes a set of predesigned intensifying acceleration functions to estimate the responses of the structural systems in various seismic excitation levels. Dez dam was chosen as the case study and all contraction and peripheral joints were modeled based on as-built drawings. The reservoir was modeled as a compressible medium and the foundation was assumed to be massless. Results show that ETA method is able to estimate dynamic responses of the dam with acceptable accuracy in comparison with time history... 

In the modern world, electronic communications play a significant role in national and international electronic transactions. This issue has forced all legal systems to face up to many emerging legal problems in the context of electronic communications, such as the legal status of electronic agents in contracting electronically. Regarding the legal validity of e-contracts made through interactive websites, the legal status of electronic agents which play an important role in this process is questionable to see whether they are akin to real agents in the physical world or they are only a mere tool of communication. The current article tries to analyse this question by criticising a number of... 

This chapter proposes a methodology for optimal dispatch of bilateral electricity contracts, which may endanger the system voltage stability in light of short-term operational planning of a deregulated power system. In this framework the value that each owner of a transaction is willing to pay reflects how much the electricity contract is important to be implemented physically. The proposed model dispatches optimally the bilateral transactions regarding the prices offered by owners of bilateral contracts for reactive power and transmission capacity utilization in one hand and, the total operational costs of reactive power resources in the other hand. The model also includes the limits... 

Objectives: To examine the changes in torque output resulting from fatigue, as well as changes in electromyographic measures of trunk muscles during isometric axial rotation and to compare these changes between directions of axial rotation. Design: Subjects performed fatiguing right and left isometric axial rotation of the trunk at 80% of maximum voluntary contraction while standing upright. Setting: A rehabilitation center. Participants: Twenty-three men with no history of back pain. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: Surface electromyographic signals were recorded from 6 trunk muscles bilaterally. The primary torque in the transverse plane and the coupling torques in... 

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate the between-days reliability of electromyographic (EMG) measurement of 6 bilateral trunk muscles and also the torque output in 3 planes during isometric right and left axial rotation at different exertion levels. Methods: Ten healthy subjects performed isometric right and left axial rotation at 100, 70, 50 and 30% maximum voluntary contractions in two testing sessions at least 7 days apart. EMG amplitude and frequency analyses of the recorded surface EMG signals were performed for rectus abdominis, external oblique, internal oblique, latissimus dorsi, iliocostalis lumborum and multifidus bilaterally. The primary torque in the... 

We consider coordination by contract in a divergent supply chain including one manufacturer and several retailers which produces fashion products with short sale seasons. The retailers cooperate with the manufacturer as sales agents; i.e., they work in the framework of revenue sharing contracts. Because of their proximity to the market, retailers can provide more accurate demand forecast for the manufacturer when he wants to decide on his capacity building (expansion), product assignment decision and market prices with regard to retailers stiff due date, different lead times and different price-dependent demand functions. To ensure abundant supply and increase their sales, the retailers have... 

This paper proposes a dynamic time simulation model for long-term generation capacity investment decisions in the presence of either perfect or imperfect electricity market. The model is based on system dynamics concept in which the dynamics of capacity construction is traced using the forecast of electricity price cleared in the short-term electricity market. Both the perfect and oligopolistic competitions are considered and a market power index is defined to evaluate the competition level of the electricity market. The short-term and long-term dynamic analysis are used to represent the generation firms' behavior in bidding strategy and capacity investment, respectively. Both possibilities... 

Active behavior in skeletal muscle soft tissue is affected by electrical, chemical and mechanical parameters. More realistic model of skeletal muscle demands detailed formulation which is able to involve other parameters in addition to mechanical ones. In this paper a new formulation for considering Ca2+ level (as the most important chemical factor) along with mechanical parameters in force producing process of skeletal muscle is introduced and validated comparing simulated results with some experimental data. Prepared skeletal muscle behavior is able to predict the maximum generated force in muscle according to the concentration of intracellular Ca2+ level and muscle contraction velocity... 

Background: The typical features of eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage are delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and prolonged loss of muscle strength. It has been shown that passive warmth is effective in reducing muscle injury. Due to the interaction of different systems in vivo, we used isolated perfused medial gastrocnemius skeletal muscle to study the direct effect of temperature on the eccentric contraction-induced force loss. Methods: After femoral artery cannulation of a rat, the left medial gastrocnemius muscle was separated and then the entire lower limb was transferred into a prewarmed (35oC) chamber. With the chamber temperature at 31, 35 and 39oC before and during eccentric... 

In this article, we design a revenue-sharing contract to coordinate inventory control decisions in a serial supply chain consisting of one supplier, one vendor, and one retailer. We assume that the retailer faces Poisson demand and his unsatisfied demands will be lost. The retailer applies one-for-one period policy in which he constantly places an order for one unit of product to the vendor in a predetermined time interval which results in a deterministic demand for the vendor. Vendor orders the required quantity from supplier which will be immediately received at the vendor’s warehouse. Solution procedures are developed to find the equilibrium in the vendor managed inventory program with a...