Sharif Digital Repository

In this study, the traffic parameters were collected from three work zones in Iran in order to evaluate the queue length in the work zones. The work zones were observed at peak and non-peak hours. The results showed that abrupt changes in Freeway Free Speed (FFS) and arrival flow rate caused shockwaves and created a bot-tleneck in that section of the freeway. In addition, accel-eration reduction, abrupt change in the shockwave speed, abrupt change in the arrival flow rate and increase in the percentage of heavy vehicles have led to extreme queue lengths and delay. It has been found that using daily traffic data for scheduling the maintenance and rehabilita-tion projects could diminish the... 

SUMMARY: In this paper, we study the effects of anomalies on the distribution of TCP flow interarrival time process. We show empirically that despite the variety of data networks in size, number of users, applications, and load, the interarrival times of normal flows comply with the Weibull distribution, whereas specific irregularities (anomalies) causes deviations from the distribution. We first estimate the scale and shape parameters and then check the discrepancy of the data from a Weibull distribution with the estimated parameters. We also utilize the Weibull counting model to recheck the conformance of small flow interarrival times with the distribution. We perform our experiments on a... 

In this work, two "classical" (UNIFAC-FV, Entropic-FV) and two "recent" free-volume (FV) models (Kannan-FV, Freed-FV) are comparatively evaluated for polymer-solvent vapor-liquid equilibria including both aqueous and non-aqueous solutions. Moreover, some further developments are presented here to improve the performance of a recent model, the so-called Freed-FV. First, we propose a modification of the Freed-FV model accounting for the anomalous free-volume behavior of aqueous systems (unlike the other solvents, water has a lower free-volume percentage than polymers). The results predicted by the modified Freed-FV model for athermal and non-athermal polymer systems are compared to other... 

In this paper, AC Optimal Power Flow combined with UPFC has been used to manage the congestion of transmission lines in a restructured power system with pool market model. The modeling of Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) has been adopted based on bipolar model and power injection method. To determine an appropriate location for UPFC as well as to set its parameters, an approach based on genetic algorithm has been suggested. The modified IEEE 14-bus system is used to determine the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method and results are discussed. ©2006 IEEE  

Kinetic modeling is an important issue, whose objective is the accurate determination of the rates of various reactions taking place in a reacting system. This issue is a pivotal element for the process design and development particularly for novel processes which are based on reactions taking place between various types of species. In this paper, the Genetic Algorithms have been used to develop a systematic computational framework for kinetic modeling of various reacting systems. This framework can be used to find the optimum values of various parameters that exist in the kinetic model of a reacting system. The Fischer-Tropsch (FT) reactions have been used as the kinetic modeling bench... 

Radial forging is an open die forging process used for reducing diameter of shafts, tubes, stepped shafts and axels, and creating the internal profiles for tubes such as rifling the gun barrels. In the present research, a new model based on calculating the deformation work was developed to find an upper bound limit for the deformation load in the case of radial forging of rods and tubes. Also, the model was used to assess the effects of the process parameters. The accuracy of the model was tested by comparing the predicted results with those achieved from the experiment at work of Uhlig [Investigation of the motions and the forces in radial swaging. Doctoral Dissertation, Technical... 

In this work, a modified free-volume (FV) model based on the UNIQUAC-Nonrandom factor (UNIQUAC-NRF) model developed by Haghtalab and Asadollahi was proposed. While the combinatorial part of the proposed model for activity coefficient takes the same form as that of the entropic free-volume (entropic-FV) model, the residual part is similar to that of the UNIQUAC-NRF model. The proposed model, i.e., the FV-UNIQUAC-NRF model overcomes the main shortcoming of the original UNIQUAC-NRF model in predicting the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) for polymer solutions. The appearance of the LCST is believed to be attributed to the existence of the free volume differences between polymer and... 

Information theory and, specifically, Shannon's measure of information is used to compare the interaction parameters (β) in regular solution theory (RST) and Ingram's model for the mixture of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and Triton X-100 (TX100). Results show that β values from regular solution theory are more accurate than those of Ingram's model. Additionally, the procedure applied in this paper for the calculation of uncertainties in the continuous case, prevents difficulties concerning differential entropy. © 2006 American Chemical Society  

In this paper, trace locality of reference (LoR) is identified as a mechanism to predict the behavior of a variety of systems. If two objects were accessed nearby in the past and the first one is accessed again, trace LoR predicts that the second one will be accessed in near future. To capture trace LoR, trace graph is introduced. Although trace LoR can be observed in a variety of systems, but the focus of this paper is to characterize it for data accesses in memory management systems. In this field, it is compared with recency-based prediction (LRU stack) and it is shown that not only the model is much simpler, but also it outperforms recency-based prediction in all cases. The paper... 

The effect of complexity level of a lumped kinetic model for heavy residue hydroconversion on estimated values of kinetic parameters was investigated in this work by imposing constraints for the parameter estimation algorithm of a complex six-lump kinetic model and deriving a simpler modified model from the complex model. Kinetic analysis was performed using available experimental data reported in the literature from a study on hydrocracking of Chinese Gudao vacuum residue in a bench-scale reactor using ammonium phosphomolybdate (APM) as a dispersed catalyst. The kinetic models also included coke formation reactions that had previously been ignored by most investigators due to the rather... 

Short-term interaction between heart rate (HR) and physiological measures like blood pressure and respiration reveals relevant information about autonomic nervous system (ANS) function. Complex mathematical models for describing their couplings have been proposed in the literature. However, an accurate estimation of their parameters in an inverse modeling problem is crucial to extract reliable ANS related indices. This study considers a physiologically-based model of the cardiovascular-respiratory system and ANS control that presents the neural and mechanical effects of respiration separately. The estimation method is evaluated on synthetic signals. An accurate estimation of the... 

The flight of unmanned aerial vehicles is often associated with model uncertainties, measurement noises, and environmental disturbances such as wind gust. To mitigate these challenges, the accurate estimation of states is vital. Moreover, the wind model and its parameters should also be estimated and compensated during the flight. In this paper, a multiple model filter is implemented for this purpose. To investigate the performance of the multiple model filter, three different models including constant wind, '1-cosine' model and wind shear model are considered. The multiple model filter utilizes three extended Kalman filter to simultaneously estimate the model of wind, the parameters of the... 

Bayesian inference has traditionally been conceived as the proper framework for the formal incorporation of expert knowledge in parameter estimation of groundwater models. However, conventional Bayesian inference is incapable of taking into account the imprecision essentially embedded in expert provided information. In order to solve this problem, a number of extensions to conventional Bayesian inference have been introduced in recent years. One of these extensions is 'fuzzy Bayesian inference' which is the result of integrating fuzzy techniques into Bayesian statistics. Fuzzy Bayesian inference has a number of desirable features which makes it an attractive approach for incorporating expert... 

Flow-mediated dilation measurement in the brachial artery using ultrasound imaging (FMD-US) is a common noninvasive procedure for endothelial function evaluation in the peripheral arteries. As FMD-US is operator-dependent and involves onerous equipment, its use has been mostly confined to research settings. In this paper, we propose to use the more accessible finger photoplethysmogram signal in conjunction with the FMD test (FMD-PPG) as a surrogate method. To this end, a tube-load physiological model of the upper arterial path in the arm is developed. Signals acquired from young and elderly subjects (N=20) are then investigated using model parameter estimation by the genetic algorithm. Our... 

Commute mode choice and number of non-work stops during the commute are joint decisions interacting with each other. If an individual chooses a vehicle for the commute, regarding vehicle's restrictions, there could be some stops. On the other hand, if an individual needs to have some stops, a vehicle can be selected for the commute regarding the number of stops. In this study, to consider the interaction between these decisions, we employed a copula-based joint modeling framework. The data used in this study are drawn from origin-destination travels data of Shiraz-Iran conducted in 1997. The commuting mode choice modeling is undertaken using a multinomial logit model, and the number of... 

Despite advancements in developing physics-based formulations to estimate the sheet-flow travel time (tSHF), the quantification of the relative impacts of influential parameters on tSHF has not previously been considered. In this study, a brief review of the physics-based formulations to estimate tSHF including kinematic wave (K-W) theory in combination with Manning's roughness (K-M) and with Darcy-Weisbach friction formula (K-D) over single and multiple planes is provided. Then, the relative significance of input parameters to the developed approaches is quantified by a density-based global sensitivity analysis (GSA). The performance of K-M considering zero-upstream and uniform flow depth... 

Train scheduling has been one of the significant issues in the railway industry in recent years since it has an important role in efficacy of railway infrastructure. In this paper, the timetabling problem of a multiple-tracked railway network is discussed. More specifically, a general model is presented here in which a set of operational and safety requirements is considered. The model handles the trains overtaking in stations and considers the stations' capacity. The objective function is to minimize the total travel time. Unfortunately, the problem is NP-hard, and real-sized problems cannot be solved in an acceptable amount of time. In order to reduce the processing time, we presented some... 

The aim of this study is to develop a new fuzzy optimization model to find the optimal factor weights of modified DRASTIC index for groundwater vulnerability mapping an urban aquifer to nitrate contamination. Eight factors including water table depth, recharge, aquifer media, soil media, topography, impact of vadose zone, hydraulic conductivity, and land use are considered and rated. A fuzzy linear regression is formulated between the values of eight factors and corresponding nitrate concentration in groundwater. An optimization model based on real code genetic algorithm with objective of minimizing the sum of the fuzzy spread of the regression coefficients is implemented. Aquifer of Mashhad... 

Due to flexibility of thin plates, high-amplitude vibrations are observed when they are subjected to severe dynamic loads. Because of the extensive application of circular plates in industry, attenuating the undesired vibrations is of foremost importance. In this paper, Adaptable Vibration Suppressors (AVSs) as a semi-active control approach were utilized to suppress the vibrations in a free circular plate under the concentrative harmonic excitation. Using mode summation method, the mathematical model of the hybrid system including the plate and an arbitrary number of vibration suppressors was analyzed. By developing a complex multiple-loop algorithm, optimum values for the parameters of... 

Due to flexibility of thin plates, high-amplitude vibrations are observed when they are subjected to severe dynamic loads. Because of the extensive application of circular plates in industry, attenuating the undesired vibrations is of foremost importance. In this paper, Adaptable Vibration Suppressors (AVSs) as a semi-active control approach were utilized to suppress the vibrations in a free circular plate under the concentrative harmonic excitation. Using mode summation method, the mathematical model of the hybrid system including the plate and an arbitrary number of vibration suppressors was analyzed. By developing a complex multiple-loop algorithm, optimum values for the parameters of...