Sharif Digital Repository

Stop-skipping and timetable synchronization are two effective strategies to reduce total passengers’ travel time in a transit network for subway operation. However, the majority of studies conducted on the topic do not consider stop-skipping strategy and timetable synchronization simultaneously. Thus, this article proposes a mixed-integer programming model considering both strategies simultaneously. The model is based on passenger smart-card data concerning the trains’ capacity to minimize total passengers’ waiting time and in-vehicle time and maximize the number of passengers who successfully reach their destination in a specific study horizon. Since increasing the number of trains,... 

In this paper, heat and mass transportation flow of swimming gyrotactic microorganisms (microbes) and solid nanoparticles under the viscous dissipation effect is investigated. The flow model PDEs are renovated with ordinary ones using suitable boundary layer approximations. The system governing the flow model dimensionless equations as well as boundary conditions is numerically treated with the SOR (successive over relaxation) technique. The flow, heat, and mass transport characteristics are examined against the prime parameters. A comparison is examined to be in a good agreement with the earlier results. It is found here that flow and thermal characteristics of the problem are substantially... 

Supercoiled DNA, crumpled interphase chromosomes, and topologically constrained ring polymers often adopt treelike, double-folded, randomly branching configurations. Here we study an elastic lattice model for tightly double-folded ring polymers, which allows for the spontaneous creation and deletion of side branches coupled to a diffusive mass transport, which is local both in space and on the connectivity graph of the tree. We use Monte Carlo simulations to study systems falling into three different universality classes: ideal double-folded rings without excluded volume interactions, self-avoiding double-folded rings, and double-folded rings in the melt state. The observed static properties... 

Effective and rapid mixing is crucial for chemical and biological processes. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the effect of steady and varying magnetic field on the mixing of a water-based ferrofluid and two streams of deionized water inside a microchannel for Lab-on-Chip applications. To this end, the nonlinear governing equations, the momentum equation, the continuity equation, the mass transport equation and the Maxwell-Ampere equations are numerically solved. A commercial code based on the finite-element method is used and the numerical simulations are validated by the experimental results in the literature. To augment the mixing performance, the effects of influencing... 

The dispersion of a neutral solute band by electrokinetic flow in polyelectrolyte layer (PEL)-grafted rectangular/slit microchannels is theoretically studied. The flow is assumed to be both steady and fully developed and a first-order irreversible reaction is considered at the wall to account for probable surface adsorption of solutes. Considering low electric potentials, analytical solutions are obtained for electric potential, fluid velocity and solute concentration. Special solutions are also obtained for the case without wall adsorption. To track the dispersion properties of the solute band, the generalized dispersion model is adopted by considering the exchange, the convection and the... 

A point-shift F maps each point of a point process Φ to some point of Φ. For all translation invariant point-shifts F, the F-foliation of Φ is a partition of the support of Φ which is the discrete analogue of the stable manifold of F on Φ. It is first shown that foliations lead to a classification of the behavior of point-shifts on point processes. Both qualitative and quantitative properties of foliations are then established. It is shown that for all point-shifts F, there exists a point-shift F⊥, the orbits of which are the F-foils of Φ, and which is measure-preserving. The foils are not always stationary point processes. Nevertheless, they admit relative intensities with respect to one... 

The biofluids being manipulated in lab-on-a-chip devices usually contain elastic macromolecules. Accordingly, for an accurate modeling of the relevant flow physics one should invoke viscoelastic constitutive equations. In this paper, attention is paid toward the hydrodynamic dispersion by the fully developed electroosmotic flow of PTT viscoelastic fluids in slit microchannels of low zeta potential. Adopting the Taylor–Aris approach, analytical solutions are derived for late-time solute concentration and effective dispersion coefficient. Finite element-based numerical simulations are also conducted to monitor the broadening of an analyte band from the moment of injection. Both approaches are... 

A compatible point-shift F maps, in a translation invariant way, each point of a stationary point process Φ to some point of Φ. It is fully determined by its associated point-map, f, which gives the image of the origin by F. It was proved by J. Mecke that if F is bijective, then the Palm probability of Φ is left invariant by the translation of -f . The initial question motivating this paper is the following generalization of this invariance result: in the nonbijective case, what probability measures on the set of counting measures are left invariant by the translation of -f ? The point-map-probabilities of Φ are defined from the action of the semigroup of point-map translations on the space... 

This investigation is devoted to the influences of non-uniform wall characteristics on the surface adsorption-desorption rates in an electrokinetic microarray. Utilizing already explored electroosmotic and electrophoretic velocities, the species transport equations are solved by a finite-volume-based numerical approach. Uniform, sinusoidal, and pulse-like distributions of the zeta potential are considered in the analysis. The developed model is validated by comparing the results with those of two analytical solutions that are derived for limiting conditions. The results reveal that, in some cases, the surface charge heterogeneity can reduce the saturation time by more than 60%. The efficacy... 

Effective diffusion coefficient is an important parameter which needs to be determined in different fields of study, such as cathode catalyst layers of PEM fuel. For this purpose, a Loschmidt diffusion cell can be used. When a porous medium is placed in Loschmidt apparatus, the effective gas diffusion coefficient (EGDC) of this section must be correlated by diffusion coefficient in absence of a porous medium. In the previous researches studying the Loschmidt diffusion cell, a simplifying infinite-length assumption was used in the analytical solution. Therefore, the solution is only applicable for a short time range, and this can result in high error. In order to overcome this challenge, the... 

The present study is aimed at the development of a novel approach based on the magnetic improvement of DNA-directed antibody immobilization to prepare a highly efficient sensing platform. Magnetic nanoparticle substrates with high surface area capture the dual DNA-conjugated antibodies in a solution. This allows overcoming the typical mass transport limitation of the surface-based antibody immobilization. Antibody-magnetic nanoparticle conjugation is based on a robust hybridization between a DNA tether (attached to the antibody) and its complementary sequence (immobilized on the nanoparticle). Conventional antibody immobilization for the detection of proteins is often insignificant for the... 

We present the rarefaction effects on diffusive mass transport in micro- and nanoscales using the results of direct simulation Monte Carlo DSMC method. Unlike the previous investigations, the momentum and heat contributions are eliminated from the computations via uniform velocity, pressure, and temperature field considerations. The effects of global Knudsen number on the diffusion phenomenon are studied for the same Peclet number and a unique mixer shape. The results indicate that there is considerable weakening in diffusion mechanism for high Knudsen number cases. As a result, the non-dimensional diffusive mass fluxes would decrease and the non-dimensional mixing length would increase as... 

This investigation is devoted to the influences of non-uniform wall characteristics on the surface adsorption-desorption rates in an electrokinetic microarray. Utilizing already explored electroosmotic and electrophoretic velocities, the species transport equations are solved by a finite-volume-based numerical approach. Uniform, sinusoidal, and pulse-like distributions of the zeta potential are considered in the analysis. The developed model is validated by comparing the results with those of two analytical solutions that are derived for limiting conditions. The results reveal that, in some cases, the surface charge heterogeneity can reduce the saturation time by more than 60%. The efficacy... 

Consideration is given to shear-rate-dependent rheology effects on mass transport in a heterogeneous microreactor of rectangular cross section, utilizing both numerical and analytical approaches. The carrier liquid obeys the power-law viscosity model and is actuated primarily by an electrokinetic pumping mechanism. It is discovered that, considering the shear-thinning biofluids to be Newtonian fluids gives rise to an overestimation of the saturation time. The degree of overestimation is higher in the presence of large Damkohler numbers and electric double layer thicknesses. It is also increased by the application of a favorable pressure gradient, whereas the opposite is true when an opposed... 

In this study, a Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization (DPSO) algorithm is assimilated to solve the Transit Network Design Problem (TNDP). First, A Mixed Integer Model is developed for the TNDP. The solution methodology utilized here is made of two major elements. A route generation module is firstly developed to generate all the feasible transit lines. Through the second part, a DPSO algorithm is utilized to select the optimal set of lines from the constructed ones. The objective function is to maximize coverage index while satisfying the operator cost upper level constraints. The efficacy and accuracy of the implemented algorithms is compared with ones obtained by an enumeration process as... 

The bus network design problem is an important problem in transportation planning. It is the problem of determining a network of bus lines which best achieves a predetermined objective. This may be done with or without the presence of rapid transit lines. This study is devoted to solving this problem using genetic algorithm. The fitness function is defined as the benefit to the users of the bus network less the cost of the operator of the network, which is to be maximized subject to constraints that properly distribute bus routes over the study area. Objective function calculation depends on the basic data of the city and its bus lines and does not need traffic assignment results. So, it is... 

A vast amount of death in the world has been attributed to atherosclerosis. This disease causes plaque formation and finally lack of blood supply to an organ. The prominent aim of this study is proposing an accurate and simple model to investigate the process of arterial wall thickening. In order to investigate LDL (low density lipoprotein) accumulation in arterial wall which is considered the first stage of atherosclerosis, a four layer model for arterial wall consisting of endothelium, intima, IEL and media is presented. All layers are treated as homogenous porous media. The four-layer arterial wall model is the most powerful and reliable tool for modeling LDL transport within arterial... 

The efficiency of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell is straightly correlated to the bipolar plate design and fluid channel arrangements. Higher produced energy can be attained by optimal design of type, size, or patterns of the channels. Previous researches showed that the bipolar plate channel design has a considerable effect on reactant distribution uniformity as well as humidity control in PEM fuel cells. This paper concentrates on enhancements in the fuel cell performance by optimization of bipolar plate design and channels configurations. A numerical model of flow distribution based on Navier-Stokes equations using individual computer code is presented. The results gained from... 

Fluid particle diffusion through blood flow within a capillary tube is an important phenomenon to understand, especially for studies in mass transport in the microcirculation as well as in solving technical issues involved in mixing in biomedical microdevices. In this paper, the spreading of tracer particles through up to 20% hematocrit blood, flowing in a capillary tube, was studied using a confocal micro-PTV system. We tracked hundreds of particles in high-hematocrit blood and measured the radial dispersion coefficient. Results yielded significant enhancement of the particle diffusion, due to a micron-scale flow-field generated by red blood cell motions. By increasing the flow rate, the... 

This paper studies the transit network scheduling problem and aims to minimize the waiting time at transfer stations. First, the problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming model that gives the departure times of vehicles in lines so that passengers can transfer between lines at transfer stations with minimum waiting times. Then, the model is expanded to a second model by considering the extra stopping time of vehicles at transfer stations as a new variable set. By calculating the optimal values for these variables, transfers can be better performed. The sizes of the models, compared with the existing models, are small enough that the models can be solved for small- and medium-sized...