Sharif Digital Repository

"Manual Welding" is normally a major part of activities which constitutes to the expansion and productivity of construction industry. This research aims to identify and evaluate the factors impacting welder efficiency enhancement and can lead to construction productivity improvement. The "tool time" has been used as a yard stick to assess welder productive time and welding efficiency. A total of 162 samples in three working categories of piping, vessels and steel structures were chosen for study and evaluation. A series of work sampling studies by direct observation as well as continuous monitoring indicate that almost 35.5% of a typical welding day is taken away by non productive times.... 

In this research, a manufacturing facility with independent workstations to remanufacture nonconforming products is investigated. Each workstation is first modeled as an M/M/m queuing system with m being a decision variable. Then, a tri-objective integer nonlinear programming models is developed to formulate the problem. The first objective tries to minimize the waiting times of products, while the second one tries to maximize the minimum reliability of machines at the workstations. Since minimization of the waiting times results in using a large number of machines with higher idle times, the third objective is considered to minimize the mean idle time of the machines. The aim is to... 

Management Technologies Strategy formulation (MTS formulation) in holding companies is carried out with the aim of achieving competitive advantages in the market and fulfilment of strategic goals of the corporation. This paper presents a modified technology strategy formulation model for MTS in holding companies. Prior to present an integrated model of MTS formulation, a number of technology strategy formulation models are analysed and their suitability for the headquarter of a holding company is discussed. Through a case study research method, the paper documents how MTS formulation was implemented in an Iranian conglomerate tasked with managing diversified subsidiaries. We concluded that... 

Although Face detection is not a recent activity in the field of image processing, it is still an open area for research. The greatest step in this field is the work reported by Viola and the recent analogous one is proposed by Huang et al. Both of them use similar features and also similar training process. The former is just for detecting upright faces, but the latter can detect multi-view faces in still grayscale images using new features called 'sparse feature'. Finding these features is very time consuming and inefficient by proposed methods. Here, we propose a new approach for finding sparse features using a genetic algorithm system. This method requires less computational cost and... 

Because of their various desirable properties, OTIS networks are subject to active research in the field of parallel processing. In this paper, the OTIS network architecture is presented, emphasizing two important varieties, the OTIS-mesh and the OTIS-hypercube. Next, a randomized sorting algorithm presented in the literature for OTIS-mesh structures will be reviewed. Finally, a discussion of sorting on OTIS-hypercubes will be offered, and a suggested algorithm for sorting on these networks, with an MPI implementation will be introduced. © 2008 Springer-Verlag  

This paper summarizes a research project in the field of design and manufacturing of a water brake dynamometer for power testing facilities. In the current study, the design process of a water brake with drilled rotor disks is presented. This process is examined against the development of a water brake for a 4MW gas turbine power measurement at 15,000 RPM speed. The proposed algorithm is based on vital assumptions such as; applying product designing issues and limited modular analysis that urges the disciplinary attitude and leads to the possibility of rapid development, easy maintenance and ease of access. The final scheme is divided into six disciplines with functional classification.... 

The aim of the present research is to simulate dynamic behavior of the human auditoria peripherals during sound transmission using the equivalent six-degrees-of-freedom lumped parameter mathematical model. Transmissibility analysis was employed to get a better insight into the sound transmission from tympanic membrane to malleus, incus, stapes, and cochlea. Furthermore, transmissibility from each member to corresponding adjacent member was carried out to functional analysis of the human ear. Simulation study illustrated that the results are in agreement with the experimental results published in the literature, and the proposed model provides more information in the dynamic analysis of... 

In order to improve the performance of feature-based template matching techniques, several research papers have been published. Real-time applications require the computational complexity of keypoint matching algorithms to be as low as possible. In this paper, we propose a method to improve the keypoint detection stage of feature-based template matching algorithms. Our experiment results show that the proposed method outperforms keypoint matching techniques in terms of speed, keypoint stability and repeatability  

Medical applications of rapid prototyping have an increasing trend, making the future of RP more and more promising. These applications may include design, development, and manufacture of medical devices and instrumentation, as well as implant design, anatomical modeling, surgical planning, surgical implants, and prosthesis fabrication. This paper provides a new methodology for customized hip prosthesis that could provide high accuracy of femoral canal reconstruction via 3D modeling of prosthesis stem, 3D modeling of prosthesis neck, and facilitating the communication between the designer and surgeon. Combining RP technologies and rapid tooling with this novel custom-made hip prosthesis,... 

Today, public awareness about the benefits of using ontologies in information processing and the semantic web has increased. Since ontologies are useful in various applications, many large ontologies have been developed so far. But various areas like publication, maintenance, validation, processing, and security policies need further research. One way to better tackle these areas is to partition large ontologies into sub partitions. In this paper, we present a new method to partition large ontologies. For the proposed method, three steps are required: (1) transforming an ontology to a weighted graph, (2) partitioning the graph with an algorithm which recognizes the most important concepts,... 

The economic viability of industrial processes strongly depends on their safe and reliable operation. The method of inherent safe process design enables systematic consideration of safety measures in order to ensure process safe operation at the early stages of process design. The challenge is that the economic measures that are often considered for the design of industrial processes are often incommensurable with the safety measures. In the present research, a novel framework is proposed in which the safety criteria are quantified based on consequence modeling and aggregated with the economic performance using multi-objective optimization programming. The developed methodology was applied... 

In recent years, processing the images that contain human faces has been a growing research interest because of establishment and development of automatic methods especially in security applications, compression, and perceptual user interface. In this paper, a new method has been proposed for multiple face detection and tracking in video frames. The proposed method uses skin color, edge and shape information, face detection, and dynamic movement analysis of faces for more accurate real-time multiple face detection and tracking purposes. One of the main advantages of the proposed method is its robustness against usual challenges in face tracking such as scaling, rotation, scene changes, fast... 

Cloud manufacturing is an emerging service-oriented manufacturing paradigm that integrates and manages distributed manufacturing resources through which complex manufacturing demands with a high degree of customization can be fulfilled. The process of service selection optimization and scheduling (SSOS) is an important issue for practical implementation of cloud manufacturing. In this paper, we propose new mixed-integer programming (MIP) models for solving the SSOS problem with basic composition structures (i.e., sequential, parallel, loop, and selective). Through incorporation of the proposed MIP models, the SSOS with a mixed composition structure can be tackled. As transportation is... 

The presence of impurities in the copper electrolyte increases the energy consumption of an electrorefining process and contaminates the deposited copper on cathode. The concentration of impurities increases over time making it necessary to remove them from the solution. This research introduces a fast, effective, and simple method to refine the industrial electrolyte from arsenic, iron and antimony by solvent displacement crystallisation technique. In this method, when alcohol is added to the electrolyte, the impurities precipitate from the solution as amorphous arsenato antimonite phase. Results show that Fe, Sb, and As are removed from the copper electrolyte by 75.2, 96.9 and 99.8%,... 

Cloud manufacturing is an emerging service-oriented manufacturing paradigm that integrates and manages distributed manufacturing resources through which complex manufacturing demands with a high degree of customization can be fulfilled. The process of service selection optimization and scheduling (SSOS) is an important issue for practical implementation of cloud manufacturing. In this paper, we propose new mixed-integer programming (MIP) models for solving the SSOS problem with basic composition structures (i.e., sequential, parallel, loop, and selective). Through incorporation of the proposed MIP models, the SSOS with a mixed composition structure can be tackled. As transportation is... 

The presence of impurities in the copper electrolyte increases the energy consumption of an electrorefining process and contaminates the deposited copper on cathode. The concentration of impurities increases over time making it necessary to remove them from the solution. This research introduces a fast, effective, and simple method to refine the industrial electrolyte from arsenic, iron and antimony by solvent displacement crystallisation technique. In this method, when alcohol is added to the electrolyte, the impurities precipitate from the solution as amorphous arsenato antimonite phase. Results show that Fe, Sb, and As are removed from the copper electrolyte by 75.2, 96.9 and 99.8%,... 

In recent years, economic globalisation and manufacturing resource globalisation as two key factors have driven enterprises to transform their business processes to survive in competitive environments. This transformation is challenging as manufacturing enterprises should maintain their support for their customers with high-quality products, lower cost, product customisation capabilities, and quick delivery. Moreover, globalisation has resulted in geographically distributed suppliers across the globe. This challenge will turn into a major research topic when paradigms like Cloud manufacturing are introduced. Cloud manufacturing is a new paradigm which provides ubiquitous, convenient,... 

Nowadays, superhydrophobic surfaces have attracted a lot of interest because of the wide range of applications in industries. These surfaces can significantly reduce the drag force due to the formation of air gaps between the substrate and liquid interface. The present review mainly focuses on the very recent progresses in the drag reduction studies using superhydrophobic surfaces. Also, a brief discussion about the mathematical modeling and the theories of superhydrophobic surfaces, natural water repellent surfaces, various fabrication techniques with advantages and disadvantages of each method and different properties of the fabricated surfaces in industrial applications is presented.... 

In aerospace applications, the weight of structures is considered as a major performance parameter. One of the most effective ways for weight reduction is superplastic forming. By this technique, not only the weight, but also the stress concentration, the cost, and the time of manufacturing are noticeably reduced. Additionally, the components with complicated shapes could be formed in a single manufacturing step. Due to the wide demand for whiskers reinforced metal matrix composites (MMC's) in aerospace applications, many research works have been designed to extend the boarders of superplastic forming of metals to the area of MMC manufacturing. In the present study, the FEM modeling of... 

Discharging unconventional water sources having a high content of inorganic compounds is extremely destructive to the environment. In this research, four novel semi-open-air and closed-air configurations of brine-recycle humidification-dehumidification (BRHDH) systems with zero liquid discharge (ZLD) approach are presented to treat unconventional waters cost-effectively. Bubble-column humidifiers and dehumidifiers are used to have a low initial expenditure, and system multi-staging is implemented to reduce the operating expense of the configurations. The configurations are evaluated for high saline brine treatment using comprehensive energy, exergy, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental...