Sharif Digital Repository

One of the variance reduction methods in simulation experiments is negative correlation induction, and in particular the use of the antithetic variates. The simultaneous use of antithetic variates and an acceptance–rejection method has been studied in some papers, where the inducted negative correlation has been calculated. In this study, the factors affecting the inducted negative correlation rate are addressed. To do this, the beta distribution is first selected to generate negatively correlated random variates using the acceptance–rejection method. The effects of both the efficiency of the acceptance–rejection method and the initial negative correlation rate on the inducted negative... 

In this article, the relation between meteorological parameters and dust activities in western Iran has been studied. Satellite-based data achieved from TOMS are used to investigate the dust activities within a time period of 30 years. In the first part of this study, we examine the statistical trend of Aerosol Index (AI) and local meteorological parameters in 15 different stations. The same patterns of AI variations in all stations indicate that this region has always been subjected to dust storms which originate from similar sources in the neighboring countries that could be known as a sole dust transfer system. In the second part, we investigate the spatial correlation between the... 

Efficient utilization of renewable generation inside microgrids remains challenging. In most existing studies, the goal is to optimize the energy cost of microgrids by working in synergy with the main grid. This work aimed at maximizing the self-consumption of on-site photovoltaic (PV) generation using an electrical storage, as well as demand response solutions, in a building that was also capable of interacting with the main grid. Ten-minute resolution data were used to capture the temporal behavior of the weather. Extensive mathematical models were employed to estimate the demand for hot-water consumption, space cooling, and heating loads. The proposed framework is cast as mixed-integer... 

This paper addresses scheduling problem of independent tasks in the market-based grid environment. In market-based grids, resource providers can charge users based on the amount of resource requested by them. In this case, scheduling algorithms should consider users' willingness to execute their applications in most economical manner. As a solution to this problem, a hybrid genetic algorithm and variable neighborhood search is presented to reduce overall cost of task executions without noticeable increment in system makespan. Simulation results show that our algorithm performs much better than other algorithms in terms of cost of task executions. Considering the negative correlation between...