Sharif Digital Repository

The paper presents an inventory, perhaps the most comprehensive till date, of the major process-industry accidents involving 'domino effect'. The inventory includes, among other relevant information, the sequence of accidents that had occurred in each domino episode. The information has been analyzed to identify several patterns which may be useful in further work on understanding domino effect and reducing the probability of its occurrence in future. A concept of 'local domino effect' has been introduced  

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... 

Scrum is currently the most widely used agile methodology. However, it is regarded as a framework rather than a concrete process. Unfortunately, the resources available on Scrum do not explicitly define its variable parts and do not offer proper guidance on how to resolve those variabilities. Process (re)configuration is thus left to Scrum Retrospective sessions; this can delay the vital decisions that can significantly improve the process before problems arise. This paper aims to address the problems associated with configuring/reconfiguring Scrum by identifying all the variabilities (variation points) in the Scrum framework, along with the situations where a variation point can be resolved... 

Scrum is currently the most widely used agile methodology. However, it is regarded as a framework rather than a concrete process. Unfortunately, the resources available on Scrum do not explicitly define its variable parts and do not offer proper guidance on how to resolve those variabilities. Process (re)configuration is thus left to Scrum Retrospective sessions; this can delay the vital decisions that can significantly improve the process before problems arise. This paper aims to address the problems associated with configuring/reconfiguring Scrum by identifying all the variabilities (variation points) in the Scrum framework, along with the situations where a variation point can be resolved... 

A new methodology is presented with which the likely impact of accident in one process unit of an industry on other process units can be forecast and assessed. The methodology is based on Monte Carlo Simulation and overcomes the limitations of analytical methods, used hitherto, which were inherently limited in their ability to handle the uncertainty and the complexity associated with domino effect phenomena. The methodology has been validated and its applicability has been demonstrated with two case studies  

Today, managing an organization is concerned with many problems. Adopting proper strategies can promote an organization's survival. This study aimed at developing an appropriate HSSE Strategy for regional operation associated companies of Iran National Gas Company (INGS) using SWOT analysis. The analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of HSSE was carried out and according to the results suitable strategies were recommended. In this regard, senior and junior managers, supervisors, and experts active in regional operation associated companies of Iran National Gas Company participated in SWOT analysis from HSSE angle. Then, they selected the most applicable SWOT... 

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  

Decentralized controllers with integral action represent a large portion of multivariable controllers currently employed in the process industry. The integrity of these systems with respect to loop failures has been relatively well researched. In particular, important results have been found with respect to the relative gain array (RGA). However, less has been done on the treatment of the integrity of uncertain systems. This paper considers the integrity conditions of uncertain systems with norm-bounded uncertainties, and extends four existing integrity conditions to these uncertain systems. These are: integral stabilizable (IS), integral controllable (IC), integral controllable with... 

Thermomechnical processing and controlled rolling of microalloyed steel sheets are affected by several factors according to the final properties of product. To create the high mechanical properties, a uniform and fine-grain structure is necessary in hot rolled final products. To produce such microstructures, every stage of the thermomechanical processing of the steel rolling has to be carefully controlled. Hence, first step is grain coarsening control that it usually occurs during reheating for slab. For this purpose, seven different reheating temperatures between 1000 to 1300 °C with 50 °C increments were chosen in this investigation for soaking treatment. By soaking the specimens in... 

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,... 

High water consumption and water scarcity make industrial wastewater reuse necessary, especially in those industries characterized by polluted effluents such as welding electrode manufacturing industries. The present paper investigates the coupling of coagulation-flocculation with nanofiltration (NF) to recycle water and reuse it in the process. First, the effect of different concentrations of a mixture of alum (Al2(SO4) 3.18H2O) and ferric chloride (FeCl3) on the pretreatment process was closely studied. Then the NF process was applied for complementary treatment. The NF results show that, by increasing both flow rate and transmembrane pressure (TMP), permeate flux is increased. The NF... 

In industrial scale of Gas to Liquid (GTL) process in Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis, a part of reactor outlet gases such as CO2 and CH4 as side reaction products, is usually recycled. In this study, the influence of CO2 and CH4 on the performance and selectivity of Co-Ru/Al2O3 catalyst is investigated by injection of these gases (0-20 vol. % of feed) to the feed stream. The effect of temperature and feed flow rate, are also inspected. The results show that low amounts of CO2 in the feed stream, doesn't change the catalyst activity significantly but increasing the amount of CO2 (more than 10 vol. %) cause the CO conversion to decrease and the selectivity of heavy components to increase.... 

Quality and continuity of electrical power to sensitive loads especially in power plants and industrial sectors is of great importance. For this reason, bus transfer is used. During the bus transfer interval, sensitive loads especially motors will be interrupted, and may encounter difficulties. So, it is used reactive power compensator and custom power devices to mitigate stress in motors and improve power quality indices. This paper presents the effect of reactive power compensator and custom power devices paralleling with motor in process of bus transfer which is done in two methods: EMTS and STS. Also, it is investigated dynamic performance of induction motor and spin-down curves in... 

A mathematical model is developed for induration of the iron-ore pellets in an industrial-scale plant based on the laws of mass, heat and momentum transfer. Physicochemical processes occurring during the induration of pellets such as drying of moisture, calcination of limestone and coke-magnetite reaction are considered to evaluate the gradient of temperature within the pellets. Differential equations describing transport phenomena in a grate bed are simultaneously solved by dividing the space in both x- and z- directions and numerically solving the phenomenological equations. A kinetic model is used for estimation of the change of the strength of the pellets due to firing. The model... 

The abrupt development of technology has confronted different industries' managers with crucial decision points. The scope of their decisions' impact goes beyond their companies' borders. Sustainable assessment of technology investigates the economic, environmental, and social effects of technologies on firms and their environment. Nonetheless, the technology management process includes different steps (such as technology acquisition and exploitation) which need a comprehensive decision-making tool toward sustainable development targets. This paper aims to propose an integrated decision-making model to investigate the social sustainability of the technology management process. Considering... 

Various technological methods are available for industrial wastewater treatment (WWT), ranging from conventional to advanced treatment processes. It is therefore a complex exercise to select the most appropriate technology to treat the industrial wastewater in a particular situation. Many criteria can be considered in the decision-making process; therefore, multicriteria decision-making methods are especially appropriate for solving this problem. In this paper, we aim to select the most appropriate municipal WWT technology for agricultural usages. We propose a new hybrid methodology based on the best–worst method (BWM) and the behavioral technique for order of preference by similarity to the... 

Biosurfactant production through a fermentation process involving the biodegradation of soybean oil refining wastes was studied. Pseudomonas aeruginosa MR01 was able to produce extracellular biosurfactant when it was cultured in three soybean oil refinement wastes; acid oil, deodorizer distillate and soapstock, at different carbon to nitrogen ratios. Subsequent fermentation kinetics in the three types of waste culture were also investigated and compared with kinetic behavior in soybean oil medium. Biodegradation of wastes, biosurfactant production, biomass growth, nitrate consumption and the number of colony forming units were detected in four proposed media, at specified time intervals.... 

Rhamnolipids are the most common biosurfactants and P. aeruginosa strains are the most frequently studied microorganisms for the production of rhamnolipids. Eco-friendly advantages and promising applications of rhamnolipids in various industries are the major reasons for pursuing the economic production of these biosurfactants. This study shows that cultivation of P. aeruginosa MR01 in medium contained inexpensive soybean oil refinery wastes which exhibited similar levels and homologues of rhamnolipids. Mass spectrometry indicated that the Rha-C10-C10 and Rha-Rha-C10-C10 constitute the main rhamnolipids in different cultures of MR01 including one of oil carbon source analogues. Moreover,...