Sharif Digital Repository

Apathy is a stressor and debilitating common condition for both stroke survivors and their caregivers. However, its effects on the postural control of these patients have not yet been investigated. Improved postural stability through withdrawing attention from postural control by concurrent cognitive task (i.e. dual-task condition) has been reported previously, but the effect of apathy, as a confounding factor, remains unknown. This study aimed to examine the effects of apathy and dual-task condition on postural control of chronic stroke survivors from biomechanical and neurophysiological perspectives. Twenty non-apathetic stroke survivors, 20 apathetic stroke survivors, and 20 sex-, age-,... 

Regression testing activities greatly reduce the risk of faulty software release. However, the size of the test suites grows throughout the development process, resulting in time-consuming execution of the test suite and delayed feedback to the software development team. This has urged the need for approaches such as test case prioritization (TCP) and test-suite reduction to reach better results in case of limited resources. In this regard, proposing approaches that use auxiliary sources of data such as bug history can be interesting. We aim to propose an approach for TCP that takes into account test case coverage data, bug history, and test case diversification. To evaluate this approach we... 

This paper presents a novel computer vision-based methodology for assessment of the seismic damage in reinforced concrete moment frames using visual characteristics of surface damage following an earthquake. An extensive collected database comprising 974 images associated with 256 cyclic-loaded damaged beam-column joints, providing a set of cracking and crushing progression with increasing the evolution of damage level, is collected and used for the development and validation of the methodology. Employing image processing techniques, the characteristics of the surface damage, including the cracking length and crushing areas, are measured and used in a scenario-based assessment for the... 

In this paper, an atomistic–continuum homogenization multiscale method is developed to study the nonlinear behavior of heterogeneous nanomaterials. The atomistic representative volume element (RVE) with vacancy and/or void defects are analyzed by employing the fully atomistic method, in which the nucleation, migration, and elimination of dislocation, as well as the dislocation-vacancy interaction, are captured. The coarse-scale material domain is modeled within the framework of the nonlinear finite element method, and the impression of nanoscale material defects is investigated by upscaling the stress tensor and tangent modulus from the atomistic RVE based on the Hill-Mandel principle. The... 

Copper anode (∼98%) is widely used to produce the cathode (99.995 wt%) in electrorefining process. These anodes sometimes become problematic from the production line due to the presence of bumps/holes on their surface. To find the reason of this defect, chemical composition of the three casted anodes was determined by the quantmeter analysis. Also, the microscopic and phase analysis were done by FESEM, EDS, XRD, and XRF for three types of anodes bump. The chemical analysis of anodes confirmed a high level of sulfur and oxygen, which have a key role in the formation of bumps. The results confirmed the presence of impurities including Cu2S, BaSO4, CaCO3 and MgCO3, which cause the formation of... 

Preparation of the defective TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) have been recently in particular interest for its outstanding applications in visible-light active photocatalysis. In order to make TiO2 visible-light absorber, optical band gap should be modified especially via introducing structural defects like oxygen vacancies as an effective pathway. In this research, we prepared defective rutile TiO2 NPs with highly efficient photocatalytic activity under visible light. The NPs were synthesized by electric arc discharge in water as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly method with capability of defect formation which followed by heat treatment. The photocatalytic activity improvement... 

Low-cost inorganic hole-transporting materials (HTMs) accompanied by a printable carbon electrode is an efficient approach to address the limitation of material cost of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) and get this technology closer to commercialization. The present work is focused on optimizing the Zn/Sn ratio of Cu2ZnSnS4/carbon hole collectors in n-i-p structured PSCs, where CuInS2/carbon is applied as the reference hole collector. This composition regulation is a solution to address the challenge of composition-related defects of the Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) material. The Zn/Sn ratio was tuned by the initial proportion of the zinc precursor during the nanoparticle (NP) synthesis using a heating-up... 

Slow-gamma (35-45 Hz) phase synchronization and the coupling between slow-gamma and low-frequency theta oscillations (4–8 Hz) are closely related to memory retrieval and cognitive functions. In this pilot study, we assess the Phase Amplitude Coupling (PAC) between theta and slow-gamma oscillatory bands and the quality of synchronization in slow-gamma oscillations using Phase Locking Value (PLV) on EEG data from healthy individuals and patients diagnosed with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) during an oddball olfactory task. Our study indicates noticeable differences between the PLV and PAC values corresponding to olfactory stimulation in the three groups... 

The current study investigated the effect of heat treatment parameters, including solution treatment temperature (STT), time, and quench rate, on the microstructure, defects, and hardness of an Al-16Si-6Cu Shift fork die-cast alloy. The changes in primary silicon particle (PSP) features were examined quantitatively by optical microscopy, coupled with image analysis and SEM equipped with EDS. The biggest PSPs (27 ± 8 µm) and the highest area fraction (23%) were found in the sample solution treated at 470°C and cooled in the furnace. The hardness value increased in heat-treated samples slightly (140–148 BHN). A lower STT (420°C) and a lower ageing time (1 h) are suitable conditions for the... 

Purpose: Alzheimer's disease (AD) starts years before its signs and symptoms including the dementia become apparent. Diagnosis of the AD in the early stages is important to reduce the speed of brain decline. Aim of the study: Identifying the alterations in the functional connectivity of the brain during the disease stages is among the main important issues in this regard. Therefore, in this study, the changes in the functional connectivity during the AD stages were analyzed. Materials and methods: By employing the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data and graph theory, weighted undirected graphs of the whole-brain and default mode network (DMN) network were investigated... 

Active edge sites of MoS2 nanosheets exhibit promising futures for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), comparable with remarkable performances of highly cost platinum. However, 3D structures of MoS2 suffer from a lack of high mobility and unexposed active sites which lower the electrocatalytic activity. In this study, we show that there is a balance between increasing the active sites on the one hand and managing the charge transfer to facilitate the reaction on the other hand, and achieving this balance increases the efficiency of the electrocatalyst tremendously. For this purpose, we directly attached exfoliated MoS2 nanosheets onto carbon cloth (CC) substrate as a 3D network of conductive... 

Tunable microwave absorption characteristics are highly desirable for industrial applications such as antenna, absorber, and biomedical diagnostics. Here, we report BiNdxCrxFe1-2xO3 (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15) nanoparticles (NPs) with electromagnetic matching, which exhibit tunable magneto-optical and feasible microwave absorption characteristics for microwave absorber applications. The experimental results and theoretical calculations demonstrate the original bismuth ferrite (BFO) crystal structure, while Nd and Cr injection in the BFO structure may cause to minimize dielectric losses and enhance magnetization by producing interfacial defects in the spinel structure. Nd and Cr co-doping plays... 

Different polymers have been already introduced for passivating the interfacial defects at the interface of perovskite and the organic hole transport material, meanwhile as an environmental barrier in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, polyvinylcarbazole (PVK) compared to polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) at the interface of the perovskite (Cs0.05(MA0.83FA0.17)0.95Pb(Br0.17I0.83)3) layer and CuInS2/carbon as a low-cost inorganic hole-collecting electrode are investigated. By suppressing interfacial recombination using PMMA and PVK, saturation current density (in dark current) decreases one order of magnitude from 7.9 × 10−10 to 4.0 × 10−11 mA cm−2 by adding PMMA and two orders of magnitude... 

Surface crack patterns can easily show the behavior of concrete elements and structures. However, visual damage inspection performed by experts is a subjective approach and is prone to inaccuracies. The quantification makes this process objective and more reliable. In that regards, the maximum crack width is used as a practical measurement. It has been shown that the crack width is not a good indicator of damage due to its inherent uncertainties; In fact, it might bounce back after unloading. As such, a dimensionless parameter so-called Fractal Dimension has been introduced as a robust index that can quantify the complexity of crack distribution efficiently. The present study aims to... 

Melanoma is the deadliest type of human skin cancer. However, it is curable if diagnosed in an early stage. Recently, computer aided diagnosis (CAD) systems have drawn much interests. Segmentation is a crucial step of a CAD system. There are different types of skin lesions having high similarities in terms of color, shape, size and appearance. Most available works focus on a binary segmentation. Due to the huge variety of skin lesions and high similarities between different types of lesions, multi-class segmentation is still a challenging task. Here, we propose a method based on joint dictionary learning for multi-class segmentation of dermoscopic images. The key idea is based on combining... 

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising candidates for high-resolution mass nanosensors owing to their unique vibrational behavior. The structural characteristic (e.g. defect type and density) and working temperature have a significant effect on the natural frequency of CNT-based sensors. Herein, a stochastic approach based on novel finite element and molecular mechanics simulations is implemented to model the effect of temperature and structural characteristics of single-wall CNTs including defects (vacancy defect with different densities) and chirality (zigzag and armchair) on their vibrational behavior. The results show that the vacancy defects exert a significant deterioration of the... 

Wire-based friction stir processing is introduced as a solid-state surface alloying strategy for surface alloying of AZ31 magnesium alloy with aluminum, as a key alloying element in magnesium alloys. This technique enables the formation of a defect-free, grain refined and alloyed surface with the increased volume fraction of Mg-Al second phase, and thus, enhanced surface hardness. This simple technique provides a solid-state surface alloying pathway to improve the surface properties of the metallic materials. © 2021, The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and ASM International  

Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a chronic inflammatory disease frequently associated with a deficit in learning and memory. Working memory is an important system for decision making and guidance, which depends on interactions between the ventral hippocampus (vHipp) and the prelimbic prefrontal cortex (plPFC). It is still unclear whether AR influences the activity and coupling of these brain areas, which consequently may impair working memory. The current study aimed to examine alterations of the vHipp-plPFC circuit in a rat model of AR. Our results show decreased working memory performance in AR animals, accompanied by a reduction of theta and gamma oscillations in plPFC. Also, AR reduces... 

The detection and repair of the cracks in the road pavement is a very time consuming task which should be performed periodically in order to maintain the safety and quality of the road network. There are various types of road pavement cracks and each type requires different management and repair method and also each type indicates a different problem in that section of the road. In this paper, an autonomous machine learning based visual inspection system for detection and classification of the road pavement cracks is proposed. The proposed framework uses deep neural networks in order to detect and classify longitudinal, alligator and asphalt cracks. A dataset of images from different road... 

Active edge sites of MoS2 nanosheets exhibit promising futures for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), comparable with remarkable performances of highly cost platinum. However, 3D structures of MoS2 suffer from a lack of high mobility and unexposed active sites which lower the electrocatalytic activity. In this study, we show that there is a balance between increasing the active sites on the one hand and managing the charge transfer to facilitate the reaction on the other hand, and achieving this balance increases the efficiency of the electrocatalyst tremendously. For this purpose, we directly attached exfoliated MoS2 nanosheets onto carbon cloth (CC) substrate as a 3D network of conductive...