Sharif Digital Repository

Permutation and scaling ambiguities are relevant issues in tensor decomposition and source separation algorithms. Although these ambiguities are inevitable when working on real data sets, it is preferred to eliminate these uncertainties for evaluating algorithms on synthetic data sets. As shown in the paper, the existing performance indices for this purpose are either greedy and unreliable or computationally costly. In this paper, we propose a new performance index, called CorrIndex, whose reliability can be proved theoretically. Moreover, compared to previous performance indices, it has a low computational cost. Theoretical results and computer experiments demonstrate these advantages of... 

Partial discharge (PD) activity can be destructive to the transformer insulation, and ultimately may result in total breakdown of the insulation. Partial discharge sources identification in a power transformer enables the operator to evaluate the transformer insulation condition during its lifetime. In order to identify the PD source; in the case of presence of multiple sources; the first step is to capture the PD signals and to extract their specific features. In this contribution, the frequency domain analysis, the time domain analysis and the wavelet transform are employed for feature extraction purpose. In practice, there might be plenty of features, and in each scenario, only some of... 

Microfluidic experiments have found wide applications in medical sciences and engineering, such as cell separation and focusing. In the present study, focusing and separation of particles with different sizes and densities were investigated by designing inertial microfluidic devices. The microfluidic channel is designed by analyzing the induced forces on the particles. In the designing process, the objective was to focus and separate the particles in the shortest length of the channel with the lowest possible cycles and high efficiency. The simulation is then used for analyzing the two proposed geometries to evaluate their particle separation and focusing ability, named convergent and... 

This study investigated the mode I fracture behavior of double cantilever beam (DCB) epoxy adhesive joints with similar adherends on the both sides (i.e., aluminum-aluminum or copper-copper) at different strain rates; i.e., quasi-static (∼10−3 s−1), low (∼7 s−1) and intermediate (∼14 s−1) rates. The fracture energy of the DCB joint in Al-adhesive-Al specimens decreased (i.e., by ∼62%, p = 0.0013) with an increase in the applied strain rate from quasi-static to low values, while it remained almost unchanged with further increase of stain rate to intermediate range (p > 0.05). For Cu-adhesive-Cu cases, however, the fracture energy was found to be almost insensitive to the applied strain rate... 

Recently, decellularized amniotic membrane-derived hydrogels (DAMHs) have received significant attention for wound care, ocular surface reconstruction, and chondral healing. Despite the advantages of DAMHs for tissue engineering (TE), the loss of structural components during the decellularization process mitigates their mechanical strength and thus limits their practical application. Herein, we present a method for the surface modification of two-dimensional nanosilicates (laponite) as a rheological modifier to tailor the properties of DAMHs. Results show that after introducing nanosilicates, severe aggregation of the nanoparticles occurs, owing to the shielding effect of ions on the surface... 

Lithium ions play a crucial role in the energy storage industry. Finding suitable lithium-ion-conductive membranes is one of the important issues of energy storage studies. Hence, a perovskite-based membrane, Lithium Lanthanum Titanate (LLTO), was innovatively implemented in the presence and absence of solvents to precisely understand the mechanism of lithium ion separation. The ion-selective membrane’s mechanism and the perovskite-based membrane’s efficiency were investigated using Molecular Dynamic (MD) simulation. The results specified that the change in the ambient condition, pH, and temperature led to a shift in LLTO pore sizes. Based on the results, pH plays an undeniable role in... 

Separation and isolation of suspended submicron particles is fundamental to a wide range of applications, including desalination, chemical processing, and medical diagnostics. Ion concentration polarization (ICP), an electrokinetic phenomenon in micro-nano interfaces, has gained attention due to its unique ability to manipulate molecules or particles in suspension and solution. Less well understood, though, is the ability of this phenomenon to generate circulatory fluid flow, and how this enables and enhances continuous particle capture. Here, we perform a comprehensive study of a low-voltage ICP, demonstrating a new electrokinetic method for extracting submicron particles via flow-enhanced... 

The simultaneous control of the molecular weight, separation, and purification of polyvinyl acetate was achieved using a cobalt-mediated radical polymerization (CMRP) in a packed column with silica gel particles (PC-CMRP). The controlled radical polymerization of VAc in the packed columns was evaluated from the linear time dependence of Ln[M]0/[M], linear increase of molecular weight with the increase in conversion, and narrow molecular weight distribution. PC-CMRP method was used to produce high-purity polymers with controlled molecular weight and narrow molecular weight distribution without requiring additional purification steps. The high ability of silica gel particles to adsorb free... 

The smoothness of the graph signals on predefined/constructed graphs appears in many natural applications of processing unstructured (i.e., graph-based) data. In the case of latent sources being smooth graph signals, blind source separation (BSS) quality can be significantly improved by exploiting graph signal smoothness along with the classic measures of statistical independence. In this paper, we propose a BSS method benefiting from the minimization of mutual information as a well-known independence criterion and also graph signal smoothness term of the estimated latent sources, and show that its performance is superior and fairly robust to the state-of-the-art classic and Graph Signal... 

Blind source separation (BSS) methods have received a great deal of attention in electroencephalogram (EEG) artifact elimination as they are routine and standard signal processing tools to remove artifacts and reserve desired neural information. On the other hand, a classifier should follow BSS methods to automatically identify artifactual sources and remove them in the following steps. In addition, removing all detected artifactual components leads to loss of information since some desired information related to neural activity leaks to these sources. So, an approach should be employed to detect and suppress the artifacts and reserve neural activity. This study introduces a novel method... 

Silica composite membranes and BaCe0.9Y0.1O3-δ (BCY) perovskite membranes were successfully synthesized to separate hydrogen in an equimolar mixture of H2, CH4, CO, and CO2 at temperature range of 500–900 °C and pressure difference of 1 bar. The phase structure of both membranes was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to evaluate phase stability of perovskite membrane. FESEM images confirmed graded structure of silica membrane and uniform, dense structure of perovskite membrane. H2 permeation in semi-dense silica layer deposited on alumina substrate indicated that permeation in top selective layer follows a diffusion mechanism which is based on... 

Hyperbranched polyethyleneimine functionalized silica (PEI-SiO2) nanoparticles with considerable hydrophilicity were synthesized and incorporated into a polysulfone (PSF)/dimethylacetamide (DMA)/polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) membrane casting solution in five different ratios to fabricate PEI-SiO2/PSF nanocomposite membranes using nonsolvent-induced phase separation. The hydrophilic PEI-SiO2 nanoparticles were characterized by TEM, FTIR, TGA, and XPS analyses. Morphology, water contact angles, mean pore sizes, overall porosity, tensile strengths, water flux, antifouling and the dye separation performances of the PEI-SiO2/PSF membranes were also studied. The PEI-SiO2 nanoparticles were uniformly... 

An efficient and selective drug delivery vehicle for cancer cells can remarkably improve therapeutic approaches. In this study, we focused on the synthesis and characterization of magnetic Ni1−x Cox Fe2 O4 nanoparticles (NPs) coated with two layers of methionine and polyethylene glycol to increase the loading capacity and lower toxicity to serve as an efficient drug car-rier. Ni1−x Cox Fe2 O4 @Methionine@PEG NPs were synthesized by a reflux method then charac-terized by FTIR, XRD, FESEM, TEM, and VSM. Naproxen was used as a model drug and its loading and release in the vehicles were evaluated. The results for loading efficiency showed 1 mg of Ni1−x Cox Fe2 O4 @Methionine@PEG NPs could load... 

Separation and lysis of RBCs play an important role in diagnosis of different diseases. Although they have been partially studied in several researches, a comprehensive study on integrating both separation and lysis units on a single chip has been seen rarely in the literature. Also, the factors related to the chemical lysis process have not been investigated in detail. In this study, we introduce a novel microfluidic channel design for sequential RBC's separation and lysis. For the separation part, an active method with an electric field was applied to the cells. Besides, a novel mixer was designed for mixing the cell solution and lysis reagent. In the lysis section, we used a mathematical... 

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have recently achieved much attention to eliminating toxic pollutants because of their attractive attributes, including large specific surface area, ultra-high porosity, abundant active adsorption sites, tunable surface chemistry, well-controlled pore size distribution, and strong host–guest interactions. Among the many developed MOFs, the Zr-based MOFs, particularly the UiO-66 family, are considered extremely attractive for wastewater treatment applications. The fascinating properties of UiO-66 such as high thermal stability, superior chemical resistance towards several solvents, including benzene, acetone, different alcohols, dimethylformamide, acidic and... 

BACKGROUND: The clay treatment widely utilized to reduce unsaturated components in aromatic stream has a detrimental effect on catalyst lifetime. Due to the short lifetime of commercial clay, a huge number of studies have been carried out to address this problem over the last decade. This study aims to optimize the temperature for longer serviceability of clay by removal of unsaturated aliphatic components from aromatic streams through the adsorption and catalytic properties of clay. A novel process arrangement is introduced by scheduling the reuse of deactivated clay that is discarded after deactivation. RESULTS: Results showed that the suitable range of temperature for olefin removal is... 

Understanding the motion characteristics of fullerene clusters on the graphene surface is critical for designing surface manipulation systems. Toward this purpose, using the molecular dynamics method, we evaluated six clusters of fullerenes including 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, and 25 molecules on the graphene surface, in the temperature range of 25 to 500 K. First, the surface motion of clusters is studied at 200 K and lower temperatures, in which fullerenes remain as a single group. The trajectories of the motion as well as the diffusion coefficients indicate the reduction of surface mobility as a response to the increase of the fullerene number. The clusters show normal diffusion at the temperature... 

The separation of cancer cells from a heterogeneous biological sample such as blood plays a vital role in cancer study and future treatments. In this paper, we designed and investigated two microfluidic devices for cancer cell separation, including a serpentine inertial device and an integrated inertial-magnetophoretic device. Firstly, numerical modeling was carried out to study the fluid flow, particles’ trajectories in the inertial device. Then the device was fabricated using soft photolithography and suspension of two types of microparticles with the size of 10 and 15 µm were injected into the microchannel separately to investigate the particles’ trajectories and focusing behavior at... 

Cell separation microfluidic devices have evolved into a multitude of biomedical and clinical research. Nonetheless, many critical issues remain in the way of achieving an excellent separation of target cells from a heterogeneous sample. Parallel to the abundant experimental studies related to the hybrid microfluidic methods, it is easy to perceive the lack of numerical investigations in order to optimize the separation process and its accuracy. In this study, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, a hybrid system by integrating acoustophoresis and pinched-flow fractionation (PFF) is proposed to achieve a viable system for a wide-range, precise separation. Employing the ultrasound... 

Simvastatin, a well-known antihyperlipidemic drug, has antibacterial activity against a broad range of bacteria, especially Staphylococcus aureus. In present study, a nanoemulsion gel-based formulation containing Simvastatin was developed for infected wound therapy. Therefore, different formulations of Simvastatin nanoemulsion were prepared. Based on droplet size, polydispersity index and zeta potential, the best nanoemulsion formulation containing Simvastatin was selected for development of nanoemulsion gel formulation of drug using carbomer 934 as gelling agent. Thermodynamic stability of Simvastatin nanoemulsion was assessed at different conditions. The in vitro antibacterial activity...