Sharif Digital Repository

This study proposes a new method for the detection of a weak scatterer among strong scatterers using prior-information ultrasound (US) imaging. A perfect application of this approach is in vivo cell detection in the bloodstream, where red blood cells (RBCs) serve as identifiable strong scatterers. In vivo cell detection can help diagnose cancer at its earliest stages, increasing the chances of survival for patients. This work combines time-domain US with frequency-domain compressive US imaging to detect a 20-μ MCF-7 circulating tumor cell (CTC) among a number of RBCs within a simulated venule inside the mouth. The 2D image reconstructed from the time-domain US is employed to simulate the... 

Concrete-filled polyethylene (PE) tubes (CFPT) are composite systems using the polyethylene tubes as confinement for the marine structures in the splash zone to extend the service life of structures subjected to harsh environments. However, thermal cycles in marine environments can affect the behavior of such composite systems. This paper evaluates the effect of concrete infill strength (30 MPa and 60 MPa), the number of thermal cycles (50, 100, and 150 cycles) ranging from 25 °C to 60 °C, and thermal cycle type (type A and B) on the compressive and bond response of CFPTs. Characteristics of control and conditioned concrete infill, PE tubes, and CFPTs were obtained by means of compression... 

Three-dimensional biocompatible porous structures can be fabricated using different methods. However, the biological and mechanical behaviors of scaffolds are the center of focus in bone tissue engineering. In this study, tricalcium phosphate scaffolds with similar porosity contents but different pore morphologies were fabricated using two different techniques, namely, the replica method and the pore-forming agent method. The samples fabricated using the pore-forming agent showed more than two times higher compressive and bending strengths and more than three times higher compressive moduli. Furthermore, a thin layer of agarose coating improved the compressive and bending strength of both... 

The notion of compressibility of a random measure is a rather general concept which find applications in many contexts from data compression, to signal quantization, and parameter estimation. While compressibility for discrete and continuous measures is generally well understood, the case of discrete-continuous measures is quite subtle. In this paper, we focus on a class of multi-dimensional random measures that have singularities on affine lower-dimensional subsets. We refer to this class of random variables as affinely singular. Affinely singular random vectors naturally arises when considering linear transformation of component-wise independent discrete-continuous random variables. To... 

The spatial sparsity of targets in the radar scene is widely used in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar signal processing, either to improve the detection/estimation performance of the radar or to reduce the cost of the conventional MIMO radars (e.g., by reducing the number of antennas). While sparse target estimation is the main challenge in such an approach, here, we address the design of a compressive-sensing-based MIMO radar, which facilitates such estimations. In particular, we propose an efficient solution for the problem of joint power allocation and antenna placement based on minimizing the number of transmit antennas while constraining the coherence of the sensing matrix.... 

A nonlinear fluid–structure interaction (FSI) model is presented for nonlinear vibration analysis of sandwich cylindrical shells subjected to an external compressible flow by considering the curvature nonlinearity in impermeability condition and bending. The sandwich shells are made of two face sheets and a central core of advanced materials including functionally graded (FG), metal foam, and anisogrid lattice composite. Based on the Kirchhoff–love hypotheses with the geometric nonlinearities in the normal strain and curvature of mid-surface, one decoupled nonlinear integral–differential equation is obtained for axisymmetric bending vibration of sandwich cylindrical shells. For the first... 

This paper presents an evaluation of two distinct techniques to improve energy absorption capability of an accordion cellular structure with close-to-zero Poisson's ratio. For this purpose, fiber-reinforcement and foam-filling methods were employed to address the material enhancement and to obtain light and tough structures with high specific energy absorption. Employing an innovated additive manufacturing based on material extrusion process, specimens of glass fiber-reinforced PLA were produced in both in-plane directions to compare with the un-reinforced counterpart. In continue, some of the 3D printed samples were strengthened by means of polyurethane foam in their hollow structure. The... 

This paper is devoted to mathematical modeling of anisotropic hyperelastic thick cylindrical shells like arteries by taking into account the volume compressibility and through-the-thickness deformation. To describe the hyperelastic behavior of this kind of shells and extract their constitutive relations, the modified anisotropic (MA) model is employed, which is able to characterize compressible behavior of hyperelastic materials like soft tissues. By considering the arterial segment as a thick cylindrical shell, the higher order thickness deformation shell theory together with nonlinear Green's strains are exploited to express its deformations and capture the thickness stretching effect. The... 

In recent years, pozzolana are being increasingly used in different types of concretes and mortars. This investigation aims to evaluate the effect of replacing 7, 14, 21, and 28% cement (by weight) with silica fume (SF), granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS), zeolite, and fly ash (FA) under elevated temperatures. Forty mix designs were built with various water-to-cement ratios and plasticizers. Three hundred and six specimens were prepared, and the flexural, uniaxial compression and tensile tests were performed on specimens after exposure to elevated temperatures between 25°C and 900°C. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) test was then performed on the two series of specimens. Accordingly, the... 

Studying the mechanical performance of concrete after being exposed to high temperatures is an important step in the damage assessment of buildings and fire safety applications. However, predicting the compressive strength of GPC accurately after exposure to high temperatures is a challenging task. In this paper, artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector regression (SVR) models were developed to predict the compressive strength of geopolymer concrete (GPC) at high temperatures ranging from 100 °C to 1000 °C. A series of experiments consisting of different mix designs were conducted at elevated temperatures to prepare a dataset. Besides experiments' results, the data of previously... 

Aim of study: Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is an aggressive brain cancer in adults that kills most patients in the first year due to ineffective treatment. Different clinical, biomedical, and image data features are needed to analyze GBM, increasing complexities. Besides, they lead to weak performances for machine learning models due to ignoring physicians' knowledge. Therefore, this paper proposes a hierarchical model based on Fuzzy C-mean (FCM) clustering, Wrapper feature selection, and twelve classifiers to analyze treatment plans. Methodology/Approach: The proposed method finds the effectiveness of previous and current treatment plans, hierarchically determining the best decision for... 

Evaluation of spinal loads in patients with low back pain (LBP) is essential to prevent further lumbar disorders. Many studies have investigated the relationship between lifting task variables and lumbar spine loads during manual lifting activities. The nature of the external load (stable versus unstable loads) is an important variable that has received less attention. Therefore, the present study aimed to measure trunk kinematics and estimate compressive-shear loads on the lumbar spine under lifting a 120 N stable load and 120 ± 13.63 N sensual unstable load in 16 healthy and 16 non-specific LBP individuals during lifting activities. The maximal lumbar loads were estimated using a... 

In this paper, the effects of the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and nanographene (GP) on the mechanical performance of the cementitious mortars were investigated in different environments. Six mix designs were fabricated by considering the previous studies and exposed to potable water, acidic, and alkaline environments. The GP and MWCNTs partially replaced the cement with 0.25 %, 0.5 %, and 1 % of its weight. The standard mechanical tests, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis were performed on the specimens. The results indicated that including the MWCNTs and GP increases the compressive strength by 10 % and 20 % and similarly improves the tensile... 

In the present research, results of buckling analysis of 384 finite element models, verified using three different test results obtained from three separate experimental investigations, were used to study the effects of five parameters such as D/t, L/D, imperfection, mesh size and mesh size ratio. Moreover, proposed equations by offshore structural standards concerning global and local buckling capacity of tubular members including former API RP 2A WSD and recent API RP 2A LRFD, ISO 19902, and NORSOK N-004 have been compared to FE and experimental results. One of the most crucial parts in the estimation of the capacity curve of offshore jacket structures is the correct modeling of... 

Stored solids loads on silo vertical walls are composed of two orthogonal components: the horizontal component that internally pressurizes the silo and the vertical wall frictional component that causes axial compression. For an imperfect cylinder, the elastic axial buckling resistance may be considerably raised by a uniform internal pressure as it alleviates the detrimental effect of the geometrical imperfections. However, at high internal pressures, the combination of axial compression and circumferential tension may result into a plastic instability that is commonly termed elephant's foot buckling. Both stabilizing and destabilizing effects of internal pressure are taken into account by... 

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is known as one of the most common workrelated musculoskeletal disorders. Spinal cumulative loads (CLs) during manual material handling (MMH) tasks are the main risk factors for LBP. However, there is no valid and reliable quantitative lifting analysis tool available for quantifying CLs among Iranian workers performing MMH tasks. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the validity and inter-rater reliability of a posture-matching load assessment tool (PLAT) for estimating the L5-S1 static cumulative compression (CC) and shear (CS) loads based on predictive regression equations. Material and Methods: This experimental study was conducted among six... 

Polylactic acid (PLA) scaffolds produced by the fused deposition modeling (FDM) method have biocompatibility, close Young's modulus to that of bone, and the ability to make complex shapes. However, PLA has some drawbacks like brittleness, inappropriate mechanical strength and hydrophobicity, and a low degradation rate. In this study, polyethylene glycol (PEG) (5 and 10 wt%) by solving method and titanium (Ti) particles (5 wt%) by two different methods were mixed with PLA to address the mentioned problems. Extruded filaments were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and fourier transform infrared (FTIR). Surface morphology of the produced filaments... 

Passive finite element (FE) models of the spine are commonly used to simulate intact and various pre- and postoperative pathological conditions. Being devoid of muscles, these traditional models are driven by simplistic loading scenarios, e.g., a constant moment and compressive follower load (FL) that do not properly mimic the complex in vivo loading condition under muscle exertions. We aim to develop novel passive FE models that are driven by more realistic yet simple loading scenarios, i.e., in vivo vertebral rotations and pathological-condition dependent FLs (estimated based on detailed musculoskeletal finite element (MS-FE) models). In these novel force–displacement control FE models,... 

A study has been made to determine the influence of the carbon content on the kinetics of dynamic and static recrystallization during and after hot deformation of carbon steels. For this purpose, single- and double-hit hot compression experiments at various strain rates and temperatures together with the Avrami-type kinetics equation and Bergstrom approach have been utilized to investigate recrystallization behavior. The results show that the apparent activation energy of hot deformation decreases with increasing carbon content and this phenomenon results in a faster dynamic recrystallization at high temperatures and/or low strain rates. Also, increasing carbon content leads to a higher rate... 

This article presented an efficient deep learning technique to predict the compressive strength of high-performance concrete (HPC). This technique combined the convolutional neural network (CNN) and genetic algorithm (GA). Six CNN architectures were considered with different hyper-parameters. GA was employed to determine the optimum number of filters in each convolutional layer of the CNN architectures. The resulted CNN architectures were then compared to each other to find the best architecture in terms of accuracy and capability of generalization. It was shown that all of the proposed CNN models are capable of predicting the HPC compressive strength with high accuracy. Finally, the best of...