Sharif Digital Repository

Functionally graded aluminum matrix composites (FGAMC) are new advanced materials with promising applications due to their unique characteristics in which composite nature is combined with graded structure. Different architectures of Al6061/SiCp composite laminates were fabricated by successive hot roll-bonding. For FGAMCs, two composite layers as outer strips and a layer of Al1050 as interlayer were applied. To investigate laminate toughness, the quasi-static three-point bending test was conducted in the crack divider orientation. Genetic programming as a soft computing technique was implemented to find mathematical correlations between architectural parameters and experimentally obtained... 

In deregulated power systems, distribution network operators (DNO) are responsible for maintaining the proper operation and efficiency of distribution networks. This is achieved traditionally through specific investments in network components. The event of distributed generation (DG) has introduced new challenges to these distribution networks. The role of DG units must be correctly assessed to optimise the overall operating and investment cost for the whole system. However, the distributed generation owners (DGOs) have different objective functions which might be contrary to the objectives of DNO. This study presents a long-term dynamic multi-objective model for planning of distribution... 

This paper uses a fourth-order compact finite-difference scheme for solving steady incompressible flows. The high-order compact method applied is an alternating direction implicit operator scheme, which has been used by Ekaterinaris for computing two-dimensional compressible flows. Herein, this numerical scheme is efficiently implemented to solve the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in the primitive variables formulation using the artificial compressibility method. For space discretizing the convective fluxes, fourth-order centered spatial accuracy of the implicit operators is efficiently obtained by performing compact space differentiation in which the method uses block-tridiagonal... 

We revisit the mathematical formulation of the famous Jaynes-Cummings-Paul Hamiltonian, which describes the interaction of a two-level atom with a single mode of an electromagnetic cavity reservoir. We rigorously show that under the condition of ultrastrong coupling between the atom and cavity in which the transition frequency is comparable to the coupling frequency, the bosonic field operators undergo non-sinusoidal time variations. As a result, the well-known solutions to the Jaynes-Cummings-Paul model are no longer valid, even when the rotating wave approximation is not used. We show how a correct mathematical solution could be found instead  

In this paper a new algorithm for allocating energy and determining the optimum amount of network active power reserve capacity and the share of generating units and demand side contribution in providing reserve capacity requirements for day-ahead market is presented. In the proposed method, the optimum amount of reserve requirement is determined based on network security set by operator. In this regard, Expected Load Not Supplied (ELNS) is used to evaluate system security in each hour. The proposed method has been implemented over the IEEE 24-bus test system and the results are compared with a deterministic security approach, which considers certain and fixed amount of reserve capacity in... 

This paper proposes a hybrid heuristic optimization method based on genetic algorithm and immune systems to maximize the benefits of Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) accrued due to sizing and placement of Distributed Generation (DG) units in distribution networks. The effects of DG units in reducing the reinforcement costs and active power losses of distribution network have been investigated. In the presented method, the integration of DG units in distribution network is done considering both technical and economical aspects. The strength of the proposed method is evaluated by applying it on a small and a realistic large scale distribution network and the results are compared with... 

To enable a relevance feedback paradigm to evolve itself by users' feedback, a reinforcement learning method is proposed. The feature space of the medical images is partitioned into positive and negative hypercubes by the system. Each hypercube constitutes an individual in a genetic algorithm infrastructure. The rules take recombination and mutation operators to make new rules for better exploring the feature space. The effectiveness of the rules is checked by a scoring method by which the ineffective rules will be omitted gradually and the effective ones survive. Our experiments on a set of 10,004 images from the IRMA database show that the proposed approach can better describe the semantic... 

It is well-known that the conventional reproducing kernel particle method (RKPM) is unfavorable when dealing with the derivative type essential boundary conditions [1-3]. To remedy this issue a group of meshless methods in which the derivatives of a function can be incorporated in the formulation of the corresponding interpolation operator will be discussed. Formulation of generalized moving least squares (GMLS) on a domain and GMLS on a finite set of points will be presented. The generalized RKPM will be introduced as the discretized form of GMLS on a domain. Another method that helps to deal with derivative type essential boundary conditions is the gradient RKPM which incorporates the... 

A high-order accurate implicit operator scheme is used to solve steady incompressible slip flow and heat transfer in 2D microchannels. The present methodology considers the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations using the artificial compressibility method with employing the Maxwell and Smoluchowski boundary conditions to model the slip flow and temperature jump on the walls in microchannels. Since the slip and temperature jump boundary conditions contain the derivatives of the velocity and temperature profiles, using the compact method the boundary conditions can be easily and accurately implemented. The computations are performed for a 2D microchannel and a 2D backward facing step in the... 

Bus terminal assignment with the objective of maximizing public transportation service is known as bus terminal location problem (BTLP). We formulate the BTLP, a problem of concern in transportation industry, as a p-uncapacitated facility location problem (p-UFLP) with distance constraint. The p-UFLP being NP-hard (Krarup and Pruzan, 1990), we propose evolutionary algorithms for its solution. According to the No Free Lunch theorem and the good efficiency of the distinctive preserve recombination (DPX) operator, we design a new recombination operator for solving a BTLP by new evolutionary and memetic algorithms namely, genetic local search algorithms (GLS). We also define the potential... 

We introduce the new concept of "metalines" for manipulating the amplitude and phase profile of an incident wave locally and independently. Thanks to the highly confined graphene plasmons, a transmit-array of graphene-based metalines is used to realize analog computing on an ultracompact, integrable, and planar platform. By employing the general concepts of spatial Fourier transformation, a well-designed structure of such meta-transmit-array, combined with graded index (GRIN) lenses, can perform two mathematical operations, i.e., differentiation and integration, with high efficiency. The presented configuration is about 60 times shorter than the recent structure proposed by Silva et al.... 

Human Brain is one of the most wonderful and complex systems which is designed for ever; A huge complex network composed of neurons as tiny biological and chemical processors which are distributed and work together as a super parallel system to do control and vital activities of human body. Brain learning simulation and hardware implementation is one of the most interesting research areas in order to make artificial brain. One of the researches in this area is Active Learning Method in brief ALM. ALM is an adaptive recursive fuzzy learning algorithm based on brain functionality and specification which models a complex Multi Input Multi Output System as a fuzzy combination of Single Input... 

Assistant robots are widely used in laparoscopic surgery to facilitate the camera holding and manipulation task. A variety of a hands-free operator interfaces have been implemented for user control of the robots, including voice commands, foot pedals, and eye and head motion tracking systems. This paper proposes a novel user control interface, based on processing of the laparoscopic images, that enables the robot to automatically adjust the view of the laparoscopic camera without disturbing the surgeon's concentration. An effective marker-free detection method was investigated to track the instrument position in the laparoscopic images in real time so that the robot could center the... 

With the significant role that warehouse plays in connection to suppliers, distributors, and clients, and considering the costliness of storage systems, efforts have focused on the reduction of procedural expenses. Among the most significant expenses, one involves the distance traveled by operators or S/R machinery for the selection of ordered items; the common solution to which has been through the classification of stored items. Previous articles have focused on linear solutions to the abovementioned problem, such as P-Median. This article shall focus on the problems arising from the said solution, and instead a non-linear method proposed. Further, a heuristic algorithm is produced for the... 

In this note, we show that under certain assumptions the scalar Riccati differential equation x′=a(t)x+b(t)x 2+c(t) with periodic coefficients admits at least one periodic solution. Also, we give two illustrative examples in order to indicate the validity of the assumptions  

This paper deals with the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with flexible work profiles. In this problem, a project contains activities interrelated by finish-start-type precedence constraints with a time lag of zero. In many real-life projects, however, it often occurs that only one renewable bottleneck resource is available and that activities do not have, a fixed prespecified duration and associated resource requirement, but a total work content, which essentially indicates how much work has to be performed on them. Based on this work content, all feasible work profiles have to be specified for the activities, each characterized by a, fixed duration and a resource... 

We introduce a universal and systematic way of defining a generalized B-spline based on a linear shift-invariant (LSI) operator L (a.k.a. Fourier multiplier). The generic form of the B-spline is . βL=LdL-1δ where . L-1δ is the Green's function of L and where . Ld is the discretized version of the operator that has the smallest-possible null space. The cornerstone of our approach is a main construction of . Ld in the form of an infinite product that is motivated by Weierstrass' factorization of entire functions. We show that the resulting Fourier-domain expression is compatible with the construction of all known B-splines. In the special case where L is the derivative operator (linked with... 

In this Letter, we realize the concept of analog computing using an engineered gradient dielectric meta-reflect-array. The proposed configuration consists of individual subwavelength silicon nanobricks, in combination with a fused silica spacer and silver ground plane, realizing a reflection beam with full phase coverage of 2π degrees, as well as an amplitude range of 0 to 1. Spectrally overlapping electric and magnetic dipole resonances, such high-index dielectric metasurfaces can locally and independently manipulate the amplitude and phase of the incident electromagnetic wave. This practically feasible structure overcomes substantial limitations imposed by plasmonic metasurfaces such as... 

Optical computing has emerged as a promising candidate for real-time and parallel continuous data processing. Motivated by recent progresses in metamaterial-based analog computing [Science 343, 160 (2014)], we theoretically investigate the realization of two-dimensional complex mathematical operations using rotated configurations, recently reported in [Opt. Lett. 39, 1278 (2014)]. Breaking the reflection symmetry, such configurations could realize both even and odd Green's functions associated with spatial operators. Based on such an appealing theory and by using the Brewster effect, we demonstrate realization of a firstorder differentiator. Such an efficient wave-based computation method... 

Different processes in chemical industries deal with particles and multiphase flow. In such processes, particle or bubble size distribution (PSD) influences the final product quality and also process design. On the other hand, solutions to the dominant hydrodynamic and thermo-kinetic equations ignoring these distributions will make it impossible to accurately simulate these processes. Solutions to population balance equations (PBE's) are needed to attain the PSD. One of the most common methods for the solution of a PBE is the classes method (CM). However, as this method requires a large number of classes to give a reasonable result, it needs a huge amount of calculations and time. To...