Sharif Digital Repository

Distribution automation (DA) application for fault management in the electricity distribution networks is one of the main potential remedial actions to reduce customers' outage times and hence improve service reliability. As a result, various automation schemes have been developed and introduced in different countries and by different venders. The impacts of implementing a specific automation scheme on reliability indices of a given distribution system can be different from other available automation schemes. For this reason, when comparing the available automation schemes with each other or with the other reliability improvement measures, it is necessary to perform a course of reliability... 

Governments in developing countries have invested in institutions of higher learning in order to develop homegrown, high technology products. Among these, the National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia), recognized as a Research University, is actively involved in projects related to medical technology through its various faculties. The net result of these activities is impressing from the point of view of patents and publications, but unfortunately not yet in terms of commercialization. This paper starts by presenting the main obstacles towards the objective of bringing a laboratory prototype to the market in the context of Malaysia. Then, a framework is presented... 

This paper is devoted to the characterization of an extended family of continuous-time autoregressive moving average (CARMA) processes that are solutions of stochastic differential equations driven by white Lévy innovations. These are completely specified by: 1) a set of poles and zeros that fixes their correlation structure and 2) a canonical infinitely divisible probability distribution that controls their degree of sparsity (with the Gaussian model corresponding to the least sparse scenario). The generalized CARMA processes are either stationary or nonstationary, depending on the location of the poles in the complex plane. The most basic nonstationary representatives (with a single pole... 

We propose an innovative design for metallic slit-groove nanostructure to increase the propagation intensity of a unidirectional Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) light beam. Our idea is based on the combination of the concept of unidirectional plasmonic wave propagation in a metallic slit-groove nanostructure and the well-known hybrid modes of a hybrid metal-dielectric waveguide. Our results demonstrate that the hybrid structure results in up to 5 times enhancement in the SPP beam intensity relative to the conventional design of slit-groove nanostructure. This new design of SPP based nano source can be applied in many applications including nano photonic devices  

Renewable and nonrenewable resources are the most studied resource types in the field of resource-constrained project scheduling problems, however cumulative resources are another type of resources, widespread in practical cases that have been theoretically studied much less than the two aforementioned types. So in the current paper we study resource-constrained project scheduling problem subject to cumulative resources (RCPSP-Cu), focusing on development of exact algorithms for the problem. We customize three resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) branch and bound algorithms of extension alternatives, minimal delaying alternatives and minimal forbidden sets for RCPSP-Cu. We... 

In recent years, Wireless Ad-hoc networks have been considered as one of the most important technologies. The application domains of Wireless Ad-hoc Networks gain more and more importance in many areas. One of them is controlling and management the packet traffic. In this paper our goal is controlling the performance of every sections of pipeline of the factory by checking network periodically. Along the factory the traffic is modeled with a Poisson process. We present, with obtaining traffic packets at time (t) for each node in Wireless Ad-hoc Network, we can completely train a Neural Network and successfully predict the traffic at time (t+1) for each node. By this way we can recognize the... 

Distributed power generation and the ever-growing load demand have caused fault current levels to exceed the nominal rating of the power system devices, and fault current limiters are more needed. Superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) forms an important category of current limiters. In this paper, a novel flux-based model for the inductive shield-type high-temperature SFCL is developed based on the Bean model. This model is employed to simulate the SFCL performance in a sample circuit. Utilizing the model, the signal characterization of the limited current is determined. A prototype laboratory scale SFCL has been fabricated with superconducting rings. Yttrium barium copper oxide... 

This study pertains to the free vibration problem of beams on an elastic foundation of the Winkler type, which is distributed over a particular length of the beam. Closed form solutions are developed by solving the governing differential equations of beams. Moreover, an innovative mathematical approach is proposed to find the precise analytical solution of the free vibration of beams with mixed boundary conditions. Results are discussed in detail through verification studies. Ultimately, it was concluded that the proposed mathematical method could successfully obtain the exact solution to the free vibration problem of beams on partial elastic foundations under mixed boundary conditions  

Development of technology has made possible the invention of innovative and modern methods to partially solve the problems caused by traffic congestion through decreasing the need for physical transportation; one such method being telecommuting. Although, research has been conducted to model employees' and employers' attitude towards telecommuting at micro levels, few predictions have been reported regarding its aggregate demand at the macro level of a city, generally because of the complexity and multi-dimensionality of the subject. In this paper, an approach for the estimation of potential aggregate telecommuting demand is proposed to partly fill the gap in the literature; and applied for... 

Linear sampling of sparse vectors via sensing matrices has been a much investigated problem in the past decade. The nonlinear sampling methods, such as quadratic forms are also studied marginally to include undesired effects in data acquisition devices (e.g., Taylor series expansion up to two terms). In this paper, we introduce customized nonlinear sampling techniques that provide possibility of sparse signal recovery. The main advantage of the nonlinear method over the conventional linear schemes is the reduction in the number of required samples to 2k for recovery of k-sparse signals. We also introduce a low-complexity reconstruction method similar to the annihilating filter in the... 

In this paper, some models have been introduced for dynamic thermal modeling of cast-resin transformers which are based on genetic algorithm. A typical 400kVA cast-resin transformer has been selected and the model parameters are estimated and validated with the help of experimental data extracted from different load cycles. The estimated models are used to generate a reliability model for cast-resin dry-type transformers and the effects of variation in load, ambient temperature and atmosphere conditions on the reliability of castresin transformer are illustrated. As it will be shown in this paper, the effects of working conditions on the life-time of insulation in dry-type transformers is... 

A novel closed form expression is derived for spatial Green's functions of microstrip structures by expanding the spectral Green's function into a Gaussian series. This innovative method is called the Gaussian Green's function (GGF) method due to the Gaussian form in the closed form Green's function representation. The main advantage of the GGF method lies in its precision as well as rapid convergence. To demonstrate the versatility of this method, the current distribution of a microstrip antenna is achieved via the combination of the method of moments (MoM) and GGF method. It is shown that this method can be computationally very efficient with less than 1% error compared to the numerical... 

In the last decade, technological innovations have resulted in considering distributed generation with heat recovery capability in addition to centralised generation. This work aims to develop a comprehensive model analysing techno-economic parameters of energy supply in an office building. The energy model is developed on the basis of the reference energy system with the linear programming technique. The objective function is the annual value of total costs of the energy supply system. The results of the model for the building of Sharif Energy Research Institute indicate that the most appropriate generation technology is an internal combustion engine of 461 kW and a water boiler of 152 kW.... 

Disease association study is of great importance among various fields of study in bioinformatics. Computational methods happen to be advantageous specifically when experimental approaches fail to obtain accurate results. Haplotypes are believed to be the most responsible biological data for genetic diseases. In this paper, the problem of reconstructing haplotypes from error-containing SNP fragments is discussed For this purpose, two new methods have been proposed by a combination of k-means clustering and particle swarm optimization algorithm. The methods and their implementation results on real biological and simulation datasets are represented which shows that they outperform the methods... 

The debate over innovativeness of large firms and SMEs, which was bolded by Schumpeter, still continues under mixed empirical evidences. There are several implications for this debate including policy orientation in support of large firms or SMEs. But there is a scarce of studies in developing countries and no such study in Iran yet. The present study has explored the proportionality of increase of innovation activity versus firm size within 522 Iranian knowledge-based firms categorized in 9 industries. Innovation activity was measured by R&D expenditure while firm size stood for number of employees. Using log–log regression in the first phase, it was found that R&D expenditure confirms a... 

This work presents an innovative design for a flow-through dielectrophoretic cell sorting based on silicon bulk microelectrodes featuring sidewall undercuts. The microelectrodes are configured into an interdigitated array with digits extending across the flow chamber at an oblique angle against the flow stream. Target cells under dielectrophoretic forces and hydrodynamic drag can slide along the digits to a dedicated outlet. The design has been showcased for continuous-flow sorting of viable and non-viable mammalian cells, achieving a throughput of 16,600 cells/min, an order of magnitude higher than those reported for existing continuous-flow cell sorting designs using thin-film or...