Sharif Digital Repository

In multi-state systems (MSS) reliability problems, it is assumed that the components of each subsystem have different performance rates with certain probabilities. This leads into extensive computational efforts involved in using the commonly employed universal generation function (UGF) and the recursive algorithm to obtain reliability of systems consisting of a large number of components. This research deals with evaluating non-repairable three-state systems reliability and proposes a novel method based on a Markov process for which an appropriate state definition is provided. It is shown that solving the derived differential equations significantly reduces the computational time compared... 

Estimating efficiency of an operating column has to be distinguished from that of a column being designed. This crucial point has been totally overlooked in the literature. All the methods and models available for predicting the Murphree efficiencies of tray columns have been developed for the design case. They generate their own mass and heat transfer rates and empirical parameters rather than produce true transfer rates by using operating column (realistic) data, especially the specifications of outlet streams. In addition, most of these methods are limited in application and insufficient in accuracy, especially if applied outside the range of conditions under which they were formulated.... 

In this paper, a mathematical formulation is first derived for a homogenous fuzzy series–parallel redundancy allocation problem, where both the system and its subsystems can only take two states of complete perfect and complete failure. Identical redundant components are included in order to achieve desirable system reliability. The components of each subsystem characterized by their cost, weight, and reliability, are purchased from the market under all-unit discount and incremental quantity discount strategies. The goal is to find the optimum combination of the number of components for each subsystem that maximizes the system reliability under total fuzzy cost and weight constraints. An... 

In this extended summary, our aim is analyzing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data by independent component analysis (ICA) in order to find regions of brain which were activated by neural activity in human brain. We employ the minimum description length (MDL) criterion to reduce the dimension of the data and estimate the number of components, which makes ICA work more efficiently. We also use a simple oscillating index method to select automatically the components of interest. MDL and oscillating index criteria have not already been used in applying ICA for analyzing fMRI data. In order to investigate the advantage of using MDL and oscillating index, we perform some experiments... 

Availability of a system is a crucial factor for planning and optimization. The concept is more challenging for modern systems such as robots and autonomous systems consisting of a complex configuration of components. In this paper, a reliability evaluation framework is developed for a system of binary state autonomous robots in an automated manufacturing environment. In this framework, the concepts in functional block diagram, table of truth, and sum of state are employed simultaneously to develop a binary state reliability model. Due to inefficacy of the method for larger number of components involved in complex systems, an extension of the Bernoulli trials is proposed. In an... 

A conventional wireless sensor network node consists of a number of components: microprocessor, memory, sensor, and radio. Advances in nanotechnology have enabled the miniaturization of these components, thus enabling wireless nanoscale sensor networks (WNSN). Due to their small size, WNSN nodes are expected to be powered by harvesting energy from the environment. Unfortunately, there is a mismatch in the energy that can be harvested and the energy required to power all the aforementioned components in a WNSN node. In this article, we propose a simplified sensor node architecture for event detection. We call our architecture Sensorless Event MONitoring in self-powered WNSNs (SEMON). A SEMON... 

Feed-forward is one of the best methods for linearizing microwave power amplifiers, but due to device tolerance in implementation of the system components, the practical Inter-Modulation Rejection (IMR) value may differ quite much from the theoretical IMR value. One of the methods to improve the practical performance of the system is using the multi-loop configuration. Here we have introduced the multi-loop feedforward systems and we have estimated the practical IMR values of the system using Monte-Carlo analysis. As the analysis shows, although the number of components in a multi-loop system is increased with respect to a simple feed-forward system, but the difference between the practical...