Sharif Digital Repository

Reliability is an essential factor in distribution networkt expansion planning. However, standard distribution reliability assessment techniques rely on quantifying the impact of a pre-specified set of events on service continuity through the simulation of component outages, one at a time. Due to such a simulation-based nature, the incorporation of reliability into distribution network expansion planning has customarily required the application of heuristic and metaheuristic approaches. Recently, alternative mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) models have been proposed for distribution network expansion planning considering reliability. Nonetheless, such models suffer from either low... 

The development of emerging smart grid technologies has led to more and more penetration of renewable energy resources and electric energy storage in the residential sectors. Besides, owing to the significant evolution of power electronic devices, there is a rapid growth in penetration of DC loads and generations, such as PV and electric vehicles (EVs), into the buildings and homes as a building block of the future smart cities. This is despite the fact that the electricity infrastructure of the conventional buildings is designed based on AC electricity and as a result, there would be a lot of losses due to the frequent power conversion from AC to DC and vice versa. Besides, according to a... 

Reliability of routing mechanisms in wireless networks is typically measured with Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR). Basically, PDR is reported with an optimistic assumption that the topology is fully constructed, and the nodes have started their packet transmission. This is despite the fact that prior to being able to transmit packets, nodes must first join the network, and then try to keep connected as much as possible. This is a key factor in the overall reliability provided by the routing protocols, especially in mobile IoT applications, where disconnections occur frequently. Nevertheless, there is a lack of appropriate metrics, which could evaluate the routing mechanisms from this... 

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-,... 

Rockfall is a significant hazard to sites that are located at the foot of rock slopes. In such sites, there is a notable need to evaluate the potential for rockfall, estimate the extent of areas at risk, and design retaining structures to reduce the risk of rockfall-induced. This paper presents a probabilistic framework for predicting the formation and progression of rockfalls and for evaluating the performance of retaining walls under rockfalls. To this end, first a probabilistic model for the rock projectile motion on a slope is presented. The model accounts for prevailing uncertainties, i.e., the trigger points, rock shape, projectile path, and slope material properties, which include... 

One of the most important goals of any organization for a product that goes into the design or manufacturing process is to improve its reliability. Reliability growth is defined as improving a product's criteria (input parameters) during operation using changes in design or production. This paper presents a hardware-centric approach for the reliability growth of systems following normal distribution based on the Non-Homogeneous Poisson Process (NHPP). To reach this goal, the reliability growth modeling equations for the NHPP with the assumption of the normal distribution for failure data are extracted and obtained. Then, the maximum likelihood estimation technique based on the... 

Emergence of reformation and privatization in energy systems has caused the development of multi-agent distribution systems. In this context, each agent as an independent entity aims to efficiently operate its respective resources; while, the distribution network operator (DNO) strives to control the grid in an efficient and reliable manner. Respectively, in case of failure incidences in the grid, DNO should address the economic losses as well as reliability concerns of the agents. Consequently, this paper intends to organize a framework that enables the DNO in order to incentivize the cooperation of agents to alleviate operational effects of the contingency condition. Accordingly, DNO... 

Low power consumption, real-time computing, and high reliability are three key requirements/design objectives of real-time embedded systems. The standby-sparing technique can improve system reliability while it might increase the temperature of the system beyond safe limits. In this paper, we propose a thermal-aware standby-sparing (TASS) technique that aims at maximizing the Quality of Service (QoS) of soft real-time tasks, which is defined as a function of the finishing time of running tasks. The proposed technique tolerates permanent and transient faults for multicore real-time embedded systems while meeting the Thermal Safe Power (TSP) as the core-level power constraint, which avoids... 

In the reliability analysis of systems, all system components are often assumed independent and failure of any component does not depend on any other component. One of the reasons for doing so is that considerations of calculation and elegance typically pull in simplicity. But in real-world applications, there are very complex systems with lots of subsystems and a choice of multiple components that may interact with each other. Therefore, components of the system can be affected by the occurrence of a failure in any of the components. The purpose of this paper is to give an explicit formula for the computation of the reliability of a system with two parallel active components and one spare... 

This paper presents an original approach for the evaluation of reliability of active distribution networks with unknown topology. Built upon novel reformulations of conventional definitions for distribution reliability indices, the dependence of system-oriented reliability metrics on network topology is explicitly formulated using a set of mixed-integer linear expressions. Unlike previously reported works also modeling mathematically the relationship between reliability assessment and network topology, the proposed approach allows considering the impact of distributed generation (DG) while accounting for switching interruptions. Moreover, for the first time in the emerging closely related... 

In this paper, a multi-agent framework is proposed to address the expansion planning problem in a restructured active distribution network. In this framework, the objective and techno-economic constraints of participating agents are addressed in the expansion planning of power network and DER assets as well as the network and DERs optimal operation management. The agents include distributed generator owners and load aggregators which participate along with the distribution network operator (DNO) in the active distribution network planning. The proposed framework is formulated as a bi-level optimization problem with multi-lower levels in which the DNO optimizes the network expansion planning... 

The probability of failure estimation of composite structures under applied loads is an inevitable requirement given the uncertainties related to the material properties, loads, and boundary conditions. The properties of composite materials have more scatter due to non-homogeneity and anisotropic characteristics, and manufacturing defects. In this paper, the reliability of S2-Glass/Epoxy laminate composite materials containing a central circular hole under static tensile load is presented. Failure in fiber-reinforced plastic structures, since individual faults in each ply cannot be traced, is a random process due to the scatter caused by the behavior of the material. According to the... 

Accurate implementation of river interactions with subsurface water is critical in large-scale hydrologic models with a constant horizontal grid resolution when models apply kinematic wave approximation for both hillslope and river channel flow. The size of rivers can vary greatly in the model domain, and the implemented grid resolution is too coarse to accurately account for river interactions. Consequently, the flow velocity is underestimated when the width of the rivers is much narrower than the selected grid size. This leads to inaccuracy and uncertainties in calculations of water quantities. In addition, the rate of exfiltration and infiltration between the river and the subsurface may... 

Multicore platforms are becoming the dominant trend in designing Mixed-Criticality Systems (MCSs), which integrate applications of different levels of criticality into the same platform. A well-known MCS is the dual-criticality system that is composed of low-criticality and high-criticality tasks. The availability of multiple cores on a single chip provides opportunities to employ fault-Tolerant techniques, such as N-Modular Redundancy (NMR), to ensure the reliability of MCSs. However, applying fault-Tolerant techniques will increase the power consumption on the chip, and thereby on-chip temperatures might increase beyond safe limits. To prevent thermal emergencies, urgent countermeasures,... 

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... 

The energy system is one of the major sub-sectors of the economy in every society in which both supply with high reliability and compatibility of the energy sector with the environment is a necessity in the process of economic reconstruction and sustainable development. The energy system has been more susceptible to various disruptive events in recent years. Thus, designing a resilient energy system capable of resisting and recovering rapidly from high-impact low-probability (HILP) disruptive events is essential. This paper focuses on developing a two-stage long-term optimization framework for evaluating the energy system resilience as a crucial Critical Infrastructure (CI) system against... 

Technical virtual power plant (TVPP) aggregates distributed energy resources in order to trade in wholesale electricity market while taking operational constraints of network into account and offering services to distribution system operator. This article presents a new framework to incorporate the reliability of distribution network into designing the optimal bidding strategy of a TVPP in day-ahead energy market. In the proposed framework, the TVPP determines the multisteps biddings as pairs of power and price aiming at maximizing its profit in market while minimizing the outage costs due to contingency occurrences. The model is formulated as a bilevel optimization problem in which the... 

Polymeric microspheres which can load biomolecules, cells and active agents play an important role in tissue engineering and drug delivery systems. The conventional double emulsion method has been frequently used to fabricate polymeric microspheres. However, this method has two major shortcomings: the complicated fabrication process which makes it difficult to predict the characteristics of the final microspheres while the size distribution of the microspheres has a wide range. In this study, we eliminate the shortcomings of the conventional double emulsion method and increase its performance without decreasing its high production rate. This can make the proposed modified method a promising... 

Cardiac troponin-I (cTnI) is a well-known biomarker for the diagnosis and control of acute myocardial infarction in clinical practice. To improve the accuracy and reliability of cTnI electrochemical immunosensors, we propose a multilayer nanostructure consisting of Fe3O4-COOH labeled anti-cTnI monoclonal antibody (Fe3O4-COOH-Ab1 ) and anti-cTnI polyclonal antibody (Ab2 ) conjugated on Au-Ag nanoparticles (NPs) decorated on a metal–organic framework (Au-Ag@ZIF-67-Ab2 ). In this design, Fe3O4-COOH was used for separation of cTnI in specimens and signal amplification, hierarchical porous ZIF-67 extremely enhanced the specific surface area, and Au-Ag NPs synergically promoted the conductivity... 

The optimal energy consumption and production is one of main aims in the many countries to improve technical, economic and environmental issues by smart energy systems. This paper proposes a bi-stage multi-objectives optimization of the smart multi energy system with optimal coordination of active consumers than electrical and thermal prices in the day-ahead market. The optimization is implemented under uncertainty of demand and price for electrical and thermal energies. In the first stage, original electrical and thermal demand curves are optimized using demand shifting strategy based on energy prices. Then, optimized electrical and thermal demand curves are applied in the second stage for...