Sharif Digital Repository

Human face detection is an important research area with several applications such as human computer interface (HCI), face recognition, surveillance systems, security systems, and content-based image retrieval (CBIR). Face detection problem can be stated as “determining whether there are human faces in the image” and if there are “returning the location of each human face in the image” regardless of its position, size, scale, orientation, and lighting condition. In this thesis, we have proposed a new face detection method which combines the AdaBoost algorithm with skin color information and support vector machine (SVM). First, a cascade classifier based on AdaBoost is used to detect faces in... 

As technology scales down Integrated Circuits operates at higher frequency and lower dimensions. Interconnects inside these chips operate at gigahertz frequencies and manometer range. As mean free path of electrons become comparable with wire dimensions and skin depth, first one will result in Size Effect and second one will result in Anomalous Skin Effect. In this thesis we are trying to characterize these effects. The MFP of electron for copper at room temperature is about 38nm and therefore neither Size effect nor ASE are measurable at room temperature with our available equipment. Hence, the idea is to measure ASE for copper wires at liquid nitrogen temperature (77K). We showed that ASE... 

Although a lot of research has been done on Carbon-based interconnect, there are many important questions unanswered. For example, there is no compact model for the resistance of bundle of CNTs at high frequencies, at which interconnects will be operating due to the scaling. Also there are many studies comparing CNT, GNR, and Cu wires but there is no study to show how much this will impact the design of a chip at today’s Giga Scale Integration. This comprehensive study should include chip performance, power dissipation and total number of metal levels. These two big questions are investigated in this dissertation. In the first part, high frequency behavior of CNT bundles is studied. A... 

Transdermal drug delivery systems are products which are known to have ability to pass drugs through the skin and into the blood, so medicine effects appear as a result. During the past two decades, many scientists interested in drug delivery through the skin. Constant blood plasma level and avoiding first-pass metabolism are advantages of this system compared to oral and intravenous systems. The biggest problem in the development of these systems, is impermeability of Stratum corneum, the outermost layer of the epidermis. In this study, design and evaluation of in vitro transdermal drug delivery system for granisetron serve as treatment of nausea and vomiting was performed. For this... 

Biocompatible porous polymeric scaffolds provide a suitable 3-D environment for proliferation of stem cells in human body. For instance, growth and proliferation concurrent with differentiation of stem cells in such scaffolds can regenerate the tissues or organs. In this attitude we fabricated a porous Gelatin-based scaffold using both of freeze-drying and freeze-extraction methods.Also, effect fo gamma irradiation on microstructure of scaffolds was investigated. In addition, poly(ethylene glycol) was employed to make the scaffold softer. Moreover, effects of various parameters including freezing temperature, cross-linking agent concentration, gelatin and PEG concentrations and their... 

The main goal of this project is to fabricate the scaffolds including Polycaprolactone and Polyvinyle alcohol nanofibers in order to use as artificial skin. For this purpose, electrospinning parameters have been optimized for various injection rates and the scaffolds containing different percent of PCL and PVA have been made. By investigating the cell growth on these scaffolds, the one made up PVA/PCL (30% ) has been introduced as the best scaffold. To improve biological properties of chosen scaffold, a layer of collagen was coated. The angiogenesis capacity has been improved by adding Heparin to PVA nanofibers. Based on assay of heparin release, it was shown that Heparin is released within... 

In this work, wool keratin/polyethylene oxide (PEO) nanofibrous scaffolds were fabricated by electrospinning method. Bacterial cellulose nanofibrils (BCNFs) were embedded in the electrospun keratin/PEO nanofibers. Incorporation of BCNFs into the nanofibers enhances their hydrophilicity, mechanical properties and cell viability, adhesion and proliferation. Water contact angle of the nanofibers decreased from 126˚ to 83˚by addition of 1 wt % BCNFs. A thermogelling hydrogel based on carboxylated pluronic (Pl-COOH) and gum tragacanth (GT) was fabricated and polymer conjugation was confirmed by FTIR and H-NMR spectroscopy. Morphological and viscoelastic properties of GT-grafted Pl-COOH hydrogels... 

Wound healing by engineered scaffolds is a new step in bio-technology and medical studies in recent years. The goal of the current study is to propose a novel structure for a tissue-engineered scaffold to be used in wound healing. Influenced from the multi-layered structure of natural human skin, the fabricated scaffold consists of two layers to maximize similarity with natural skin. This product is comprised of an electrospun layer made of polycaprolactone and polyvinyl alcohol and a hydrogel layer made of chitosan and gelatin. In order to form a porous medium in the hydrogel layer, freeze-gelation was used instead of freeze drying. The evaluation of fabricated scaffolds was performed by... 

Fired heaters are large and complex items used in process plants. Tubular furnaces used mainly in chemical, petrochemical, and refinery process plants. For many process plants, the fired heater performance will determine process unit run-length. High tube metal temperature and coking in the process-fired heaters is one of the serious problems of process plants. Coke forms because the oil in tubes is no longer thermally stable at the operating conditions. Oil film temperature in the inside wall of tube somewhere that, process fluid has highest temperature and lowest velocity. Therefore, process fluid peak film temperature will determined rate of coke formation. This temperature is dependent... 

Melanoma is a malignant skin cancer which is caused by cancerous growth of melanocytes. If not treated at its early development stages, melanoma is the deadliest form of cancer. The best way to cure melanoma is to treat it in its earliest stage of development. Since a melanoma leasion is similar to benign moles (regaring its shape and appearance) at its early stages of development, it is often mistaken for moles and left untreated. Therefore, automatic melanoma detection can increase the survival rate of patients by detecting melanoma in its early stages. In this thesis, a new method for automatic diagnosis of melanoma using segmented dermoscopic images is provided. Almost all related... 

3D face modeling is currently a popular area in Computer Graphics and Computer Vision. Many techniques have been introduced for this purpose, such as using one or more cameras, 3D scanners, and many other systems of sophisticated hardware with related software. But the main goal is to find a good balance between visual reality and the cost of the system. In this thesis, reconstruction of a 3D human face from a pair of orthogonal views, front face and side face is studied. Unlike many other systems, facial feature points are obtained automatically from two photographs with the help of an Active shape model algorithm for the frontal face and an edge detection algorithm for side view of the... 

Progress aerodynamic and structural applications has lead to solid-fluid interaction (SFI) engineering. One major application of SFI is to improve of aerodynamic characteristics of airplanes. One option is to use elastic shells.this field of study is so novel and a challenge for future researches. This what current thesis is focused on We use numerical simulation in both fluid and solid parts.In other word, we employ the finite –element method to solve the solid mechanics governing equation and the finite volume element method to treat the fluid dynamics governing equations. The fluid governing equations are 2D navier- stokes equations and the solid part is the 1D Euler – Bernoulli equations... 

As the first barrier in front of external damages, skin is prone to the largest number of damages applied to one’s body. Acute wounds are considerably prevalent world-widely, imposing very high costs to governments. The purpose of the current project, is to propose a novel skin scaffold capable of growth factor delivery for enhancing the wound healing process in acute wounds. Such a scaffold should be able to decrease the required time for healing process, also to improve the quality of the regenerated skin compared to available commercial products. Furthermore, it should be highly biocompatible, biodegradable, and non-toxic. In this project, to manufacture the artificial skin scaffold, a... 

Skin tissue as the first protective barrier to the body is always exposed to the most injuries. The purpose of this project is to design an optimum skin scaffold capable of drug delivery for skin wounds healing. To this end, the skin scaffold has been considered as a combination of a hydrogel structure containing polymer microspheres carrying growth factor. Polyvinyl alcohol and sodium alginate polymers were utilized to make the hydrogel substrate. The hydrogel structure was optimized from the viewpoint of the percentage of gelation, water absorption, porosity, mechanical properties, biodegradability, biocompatibility and considering the volume percent of utilized polymers and the... 

Morphing concepts can potentially improve the performance and fuel consumption of modern aircrafts. Smart materials can reduce the weight and complexity, and also are of the best choices to improve efficiency and reliability for realizing morphing wings. Developing of a simple model and optimization of smart piezocomposite actuators position of a thin wing with variable camber is considered. The goal is to gain desired properties in incompressible subsonic regime. Lifting surfaces of a composite wing are simplified using shell model. Keeping the problem simple, a piezocomposite patch is used to change the shell curvature. Basic modes are extracted from FEM software and behavior of bimorph... 

When classical Fourier law of heat conduction is not applicable due to finite speed of heat propagation in a medium, non-Fourier heat conduction is used. In non-Fourier heat conduction, heat transfer is studied considering finite speed of heat flux (thermal wave) or temperature gradient or both (dual phase lag). Biological tissues like skin are one of the materials which show non-Fourier behavior during usual heating processes. In this research heat transfer in human skin is modeled by Fourier, thermal wave and dual phase lag (DPL) models. The equations are solved using the finite difference method and the temperature distribution across the tissue is calculated. In thermal wave model,... 

The goal of the research presented in this thesis is assessment of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) reflectometry as a potential method for non-invasive detection of skin cancers. The reasons for choosing mm-waves are lower penetration, higher resolution and technology maturity. The main work of this research is numerical simulation of reflection from skin and other media as well as reflection measurement of some skin-equivalent phantoms at mm-wave frequencies. By exposing the skin to mm-waves and studying the characteristics of the reflected wave malignant lesions are differentiated from benign and normal skin tissues. Since Oxygen molecules have strong attenuation peaks around 60 GHz band, this... 

Innovations in laser, microwaves, and similar technologies have significantly advanced thermal treatments for diseases or even injuries concerning skin tissue. For a thorough understanding in the underlying mechanisms of bioheat transfer behavior of skin,a1D unsteady non-dimensional hyperbolic model of heat transfer through this tissue with metabolic heat generation which is subject to specific boundary conditions, is solved numerically using the finite difference method. A thermal shock is generated at the base of the tissue, which moves forward with a finite speed. A Numerical solution for a simple one-layer skin tissue is obtained. Then, the effects of various parameters, time step,... 

Drag reduction is one of the most important topics in aerodynamics. Several techniques have been represented to reduce this force, such as surface roughness reduction, blowing, suction, cooling the fluid, etc. Blowing and creating a film of a secondary lower viscosity fluid is the technique used here. In our computations, we used large eddy simulation approach considering viscosity ratio variations effects. Investigations were performed for multiple squared cross sectional jets inclined normally into a turbulent cross flow. Each jet generates a pair of counter rotating vortex pair (CRVP) at its downstream while entering the cross flow. Two horseshoe vortices and a couple of wake vortices... 

In recent years, there has been a growing research interest in segmenting skin regions in color images. Skin segmentation aims at locating skin regions in an unconstrained input image. Skin detection is considered as an important preprocess in many applications such as face detection, face tracking, and filtering of objectionable web images. The most attractive properties of skin detection include low computational cost, increase of the total processing speed, and being invariance against rotation, scale, partial occlusion, and pose change. Because of the diversity of various image processing tasks, there exists no optimum method that can perform properly for all applications. Most of the...