Sharif Digital Repository

Finding the optimal location for sensors is a key problem in flow estimation. There are several location models that have been developed recently for vehicle identification (ID) sensors. However, these location models cannot be applied to large networks because there are many constraints and integer variables. Based on a property of the location problem for vehicle ID sensors, given the initial vehicle ID sensors that are pre-installed and fixed on the network, this article presents a solution that greatly reduces the size of this location problem. An applied example demonstrates that when 8% of the arcs from a real network that are randomly selected have a vehicle ID sensor, the reductions... 

One of the significant challenges in urbanization is the air pollution. This highlights the need of the green city concept with reconsideration of houses, factories, and traffic in a green viewpoint. The literature review confirms that this reconsideration for green space has a positive effect on the air quality of large cities and to reduce the air pollution. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the annual vegetation changes in the green space of Mashhad, Iran as a very populated city in the middle east to study the air pollution. To investigate the relationship between the air pollution and vegetation, the Landsat 8 satellite images for summer seasons of 2013–2019 were used to extract... 

Prediction of accident frequency based on traffic and roadway characteristics has been a very significant tool in the field of traffic management. The accident frequencies on 185 roadway segments of the city of Mashhad, Iran, for the year 2007, were used to develop accident prediction models. Negative Binomial Regression, Zero Inated Negative Binomial Regression, Support Vector Machine and Back-Propagation Neural Network models were used to fit the accident data. Both fitting and predicting abilities of the models were evaluated through computing error values. Results show that the NBR model is the most effective model for predicting the number of accidents because of its low prediction and... 

This paper attempts to present a method for differentiating between multi-attribute decision procedures and to identify some competent procedures for major decision problems, where a matrix of alternative-measure of effectiveness and a vector of weights for the latter are available. In this respect, several known multi-attribute analysis procedures are chosen, and the same procedures are exploited to evaluate themselves, based on some evaluation criteria. This is done from an engineering viewpoint and in the context of a transportation problem, using a real case light rail transit network choice problem for the City of Mashhad, and the results are presented. Two concepts have been proposed... 

The traditional approach to origin-destination (OD) estimation based on data surveys is highly expensive. Therefore, researchers have attempted to develop reasonable low-cost approaches to estimating the OD vector, such as OD estimation based on traffic sensor data. In this estimation approach, the location problem for the sensors is critical. One type of sensor that can be used for this purpose, on which this paper focuses, is vehicle identification sensors. The information collected by these sensors that can be employed for OD estimation is discussed in this paper. We use data gathered by vehicle identification sensors that include an ID for each vehicle and the time at which the sensor... 

Groundwater vulnerability assessment of urban areas is a challenging task in the fast trend of urbanization around the globe. This study introduces a new approach for modifying well-known parameters of common vulnerability indexes to adjust them for urban areas. The approach is independent of a specific weighting system. The aquifer of Mashhad city, contaminated by domestic wastewater, is selected as a case in this study. In order to evaluate the aquifer vulnerability due to anthropogenic activities, at first, parameters of depth to groundwater, recharge, land use, and soil are modified based on their basic concepts and their influences on contamination attenuation. Then, the modified... 

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... 

Day-to-day variation in the travel times of congested urban transportation networks is a frustrating phenomenon to the users of these networks. These users look pessimistically at the path travel times, and learn to spend additional time to safeguard against serious penalties that await late arrivals at the destinations. These additional expenses are charges similar to the tolls in system equilibrium flow problem, but may not be collected. With this conjecture, the user equilibrium (UE) formulation of congested network flow problem would lack some necessary factors in addressing appropriate path choices. This study, following a previous work proposing pessimistic UE (PUE) flow, aims to show... 

In Iran, due to arid and semi-arid climate, groundwater resources play an essential role in food production, as well as domestic and industrial water supply. In recent years, increasing population, scarcity of surface water resources, and effects of worldwide and regional climate change have resulted in over-exploitation and unsustainability of these resources in the country. The present study aims to estimate groundwater sustainable yield, examine effects of spatial and temporal scale, and propose a plan for groundwater sustainable use in Nishapur Plain, in the north-east of Iran. In investigating the effects of spatial scale, the area of the plain is divided into several zones, with... 

Environmental pollutions with heavy metals pose serious health and ecological risks. Sabzevar in the northeast of Iran has natural chromic mines and then chromium-polluted soils and groundwater. In the present work, the metal-tolerant bacterial strain KR2 was identified as Shewanella sp. following 16S rDNA gene sequence analysis. Bioremediation ability of isolated bacterial from agricultural soils that irrigated by groundwater, Shewanella sp., was evaluated for uptaking of chromium with varying Cr(VI) concentrations from 50 to 500 ppm in aerobic conditions (pH 7.0, 37 °C). The Shewanella sp. strain KR2 showed an obvious heavy metal tolerant in the wide range of heavy metals including: Cr6+,... 

After several decades of work by several talented researchers, estimation of the origin–destination matrix using traffic data has remained very challenging. This paper presents a set of innovative methods for estimation of the origin–destination matrix of large-scale networks, using vehicle counts on links, partial path data obtained from an automated vehicle identification system, and combinations of both data. These innovative methods are used to solve three origin–destination matrix estimation models. The first model is an extension of Spiess’s model which uses vehicle count data while the second model is an extension of Jamali’s model and it uses partial path data. The third model is a... 

Municipal wastewater treatment facilities produce a lot of sludge which is concentrated with different pollutants. The sustainable design of the sludge disposal alternatives is of crucial importance for touristic cities like Mashhad in Iran. Increasing sludge generation and its accumulation in the city and more stringent legislations highlight the challenge of sludge disposal, recently. This study compares different alternatives to reach maximum possible environmental benefits as well as the most cost-effective technologies. In this study, life cycle analysis (LCA) assesses different scenarios for disposal of sewage sludge which is aerobically treated and dewatered for two real case studies....