Sharif Digital Repository

In this article, we study the formation of nanomeniscus around a nanoneedle using molecular dynamics simulation approach. The results reveal three distinct phases in the time-evolution of meniscus before equilibrium according to the contact angle, meniscus height, and potential energy. In addition, we investigated the correlation between the nanoneedle diameter and nanomeniscus characteristics. The results have applications in various fields such as scanning probe microscopy and rheological measurements  

Chip multiprocessors (CMPs) issue write invalidations (WIs) to assure program correctness. In conventional snoop-based protocols, writers broadcast invalidations to all nodes as soon as possible. In this work we show that this approach, while protecting correctness, is inefficient due to two reasons. First, many of the invalidated blocks are not accessed after invalidation making the invalidation unnecessary. Second, among the invalidated blocks many are not accessed anytime soon, making immediate invalidation unnecessary. While invalidating the first group could be avoided altogether, the second group's invalidation could be delayed without any performance or correctness cost. Accordingly,... 

In this report we outline the study of the development of calorimeter detectors using bright scintillating crystals. We discuss how timing information with a precision of a few tens of pico seconds and below can significantly improve the reconstruction of the physics events under challenging high pileup conditions to be faced at the High-Luminosity LHC or a future hadron collider. The particular challenge in measuring the time of arrival of a high energy photon lies in the stochastic component of the distance of initial conversion and the size of the electromagnetic shower. We present studies and measurements from test beams for calorimeter based timing measurements to explore the ultimate... 

As contemporary digital systems specifically embedded systems become more and more complex, taking advantage of system-level design is being more widespread. Many embedded systems must operate under strict timing constraints. One of the best methods for examining timing constraints in an embedded system can be done via the performance verification. In this paper an assertion-based verification methodology has been proposed for verifying system-level timing constraints in an embedded system. Performance assertions are specified by an assertion language at the transaction-level of abstraction. A Turing machine and a structure named performance evaluator have been coupled to provide a... 

We present a new configuration concept in which two similar Josephson junctions are coupled through a capacitor placed in parallel to a dc-superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) to improve the characteristics of phase qubits. In real coupled quantum systems, because of mutual effects such as crosstalk, entangled quantum states cannot be independently measured. The proposed two-qubit system is demonstrated to have a negligible crosstalk, obtained from the application of a single measurement pulse and an appropriate external flux to one of the junctions and the dc-SQUID, respectively. Surprisingly, the theoretically predicted fidelity for a single-qubit design increases to 99.99%... 

In this paper, a modified method based on the frequency discriminator technique for measuring phase noise of microwave oscillators is presented. In the proposed method, the phase shifter is omitted. In contrast, a 90° hybrid with one more channel containing a phase detector, and a low-noise amplifier is added to the measurement setup. It can be said that an in-phase/quadrature phase-noise detection has been developed. With the proposed method, tuning of the variable phase shifter is not needed anymore. Therefore, the measurement is done automatically, and as a result, the measurement time is decreased. Another considerable advantage of this method is that the method is theoretically... 

This paper presents an adaptive delay compensator (ADC) on the basis of the latest development in wide-area measurement system (WAMS) to cater to varying latencies. The proposed compensator can effectively reciprocate the phase deviation resulting from varying delays to improve the performance of central wide-area damping controller (WADC). The greatest challenge to continuous delay compensation is the uncertainty regarding the inherent robustness of the central controller. The proposed technique provides an opportunity to epitomize the uncertainty retrieved from phase compensated delay. Next, taking the uncertainty into consideration, the mixed H2H∞ synthesis technique is adopted for the... 

With the rapid advancement of phasor measurement units (PMUs) technology, system operators in different level of power systems have access to new and abundant measurements. Taking into account these measurements in active distribution systems (ADNs), a new algorithm for short-circuit fault detection and identification based on state estimation (SE) is introduced in this paper. In this regard, as the first step, traditional SE process is revised to be compatible with fault conditions. Then, a fault location algorithm (FLA) based on the revised SE (RDSSE) is presented which attends to detect the location of fault after diagnosing faulted zone. For this purpose, current and voltage... 

Bitcoin as the current leader in cryptocurrencies is a new asset class receiving significant attention in the financial and investment community and presents an interesting time series prediction problem. In this paper, some forecasting models based on classical like ARIMA and machine learning approaches including Kriging, Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Bayesian method, Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Random Forest (RF) are proposed and analyzed for modelling and forecasting the Bitcoin price. While some of the proposed models are univariate, the other models are multivariate and as a result, the maximum, minimum and the opening daily price of Bitcoin are also used in these models. The... 

This paper presents a technique for estimation of amplitude information from an interferometric time-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) signal. The conventional estimation scheme is based on the in-phase and quadrate (IQ) demodulation concept. A disadvantage of this method is that the IQ components include a ripple whose frequency is the double of the interferometric signal frequency. The improved method of demodulation, presented in this paper, yields a more precise estimation of the amplitude information by fundamentally removing the ripple. Theoretical and experimental OCT signals are applied to both demodulation systems and the amplitude is computed. The detected signals from both... 

Nowadays, distributed network systems are broadly using in embedded, real-time and networked control systems. Since they often operate under strict timing constraints, the timing verification is an important and critical phase during the design of them. On the other hand, as contemporary digital systems become more and more complex, taking advantage of the systemlevel design is gaining more widespread acceptance. Beginning from the transaction-level of abstraction is a common and effective method for deploying the system-level design. This paper presents a methodology for evaluation of timing constraints in a distributed network system specified at transactionlevel of abstraction. Timing... 

We have investigated various geometrical design dependencies for rapid single-flux-quantum (RSFQ) circuits in high- Tc superconductors (HTS) technology, including the characteristics of the intermediate inductances. Structural- and temporal-dependent combinations of Cn - Rn (capacitance and normal resistance of the Josephson junctions, JJs) in the HTS technology are also investigated. Relatively favorable combinations of normal resistance and low capacitance of the JJs needed in the HTS technology for RSFQ circuits have been made possible by recent fabrication methods of high-quality YBCO films. Obtaining these devices is made achievable by using the grain boundary structures and high... 

In this paper, we analyze and discuss the performance limits of optical clock recovery systems using a phase-locked loop (PLL) structure with nonlinear two-photon absorption (TPA) phase detection scheme. The motivation in analyzing the aforementioned optical PLL with TPA receiver structure is due to a recent successful experiment reported in [8]. We characterize the mathematical structure of PLLs with TPA, so as to evaluate the performance limits on optical clock recovery mechanism. More specifically, we identify two intrinsic sources of phase noise in the system namely, the ON-OFF nature of the incoming data pulses and the detector's shot noise that ultimately limit the performance of the...