Sharif Digital Repository

Accurate mapping of flood risk areas is the basis for providing basic information on flood hazard reduction strategies and facilitates the relocation process. This study compared statistical approaches and multi-criteria-decision-making (MCDM) in flood hazard susceptibility mapping (FHSM). The performance of two statistical methods, the Evidential Belief Function (EBF) and Weight of Evidence (WOE), was compared with the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) as an MCDM technique. Mohammad-Abad catchment, known as one of the flood susceptible areas in northern Iran, was selected as a case study. A 100-year flood event with a peak flow of 85 m3/s, known as... 

Conventional wastewater treatment processes are not completely effective in removing vancomycin. In this study, affecting parameters on vancomycin degradation, such as pH, catalyst, initial vancomycin concentration, temperature, and reaction time were investigated simultaneously during a removal process based on titanium dioxide with ultraviolet irradiation in an aqueous solution. Titanium dioxide was synthesized and characterized using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The average size of the synthesized crystals was 4.7 (± 0.2) nm. Design of experiments was done by a central composite design based on the response surface methodology and multiple linear regression was... 

In this work, deformation behavior as well as creep and cavitation of AA7075-T76 were studied. The as-received plate was first stabilized utilizing solution treatment followed by two-stage artificial aging at 120 and 180 °C. Then, tensile tests were carried out on the aged-alloy in the temperature range between 120 and 250 °C under strain rates of 0.0005 and 0.005 s−1. Furthermore, stress-controlled creep tests were performed at temperatures varying between 120 and 210 °C at stresses ranging from 130 to 250 MPa. Microstructural evolution was then conducted to assess the microstructural changes and growth of cavities during creep employing optical metallography and scanning electron... 

In the present contribution, a new approach based on mutual information (MI) is proposed for exploring the independence of feasible solutions in two component systems. Investigating how independent are different feasible solutions can be a way to bridge the gap between independent component analysis (ICA) and multivariate curve resolution (MCR) approaches and, to the best of our knowledge, has not been investigated before. For this purpose, different chromatographic and hyperspectral imaging (HSI) datasets were simulated, considering different noise levels and different degrees of overlap for two-component systems. Feasible solutions were then calculated by both grid search (GS) and... 

The high aspect ratio and unique thermal and electrical characteristics of carbon nanofiber (CNF) made it an ideal physical barrier against the penetration of corrosive ions. However, the poor compatibility of the CNF with the polymer matrix and the lack of active corrosion inhibitors are the key limitations of this nanomaterial, resulting in short-term anti-corrosion resistance. An intelligent self-healing epoxy (EP) coating, including CNF modified with a polydopamine (PDA)-La3+ complex, was successfully fabricated to overcome these issues. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) evaluation implied that mild steel (MS) submerged in a 3.5 wt % NaCl solution containing the CNF-PDA-La... 

Proteins possess a variety of nucleophiles, which can carry out different reactions in the functioning cells. Proteins endogenously and synthetically can be modified through their nucleophilic sites. The roles of these chemical modifications have not been completely revealed. These modifications can alter the protein folding process. Protein folding directly affects the function of proteins. If an error in protein folding occurs, it may cause protein malfunction leading to several neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. In this study, Hen Egg White Lysozyme (HEWL) and bovine insulin, as model proteins for studying the amyloid formation, were covalently attached with... 

The COVID-19 outbreak has triggered a massive research, but still urgent detection and treatment of this virus seems a public concern. The spread of viruses in aqueous environments underlined efficient virus treatment processes as a hot challenge. This review critically and comprehensively enables identifying and classifying advanced biochemical, membrane-based and disinfection processes for effective treatment of virus-contaminated water and wastewater. Understanding the functions of individual and combined/multi-stage processes in terms of manufacturing and economical parameters makes this contribution a different story from available review papers. Moreover, this review discusses... 

This paper addresses a bi-level mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model for the competitive facility location problem in a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC), in which a firm (i.e., leader) aims at entering a market by locating new distribution and collection facilities, where a competitor (i.e., follower) already exists. The goal is to find the location and attractiveness of each facility going to be established by the leader who seeks to maximize its profit while also taking the follower's response into account. The attractiveness of each facility is a function of integer variables related to the facility's characteristics. Customer behavior is considered to be probabilistic based... 

Electrical energy is very necessary for human life in the modern era. The rising energy prices, depletion of fossil fuels, and instability of the grid are alarming situations. So, it needs a smart solution to ensure the balance between pricing and saving natural resources. Some other issues like environmental change, limitations on installation of new transmission lines, reliability concerns, and considering the expansion in distributed energy generation technologies promise the implementation of distributed generation extensively. The integration of two or more energy supplies in a power system is known as distributed energy resource system. In this study, a university campus is taken as a... 

The effects of zinc content (2 and 4 wt%), heat treatment (solution-Treated and T6), as well as hot deformation (extrusion and multi-directional forging (MDF)) on the microstructure, mechanical and degradation behavior of Mg-Zn alloys were studied. As the result of microstructure refinement, solid solution and precipitate strengthening (formation of MgZn second phases), the strength of pure Mg was increased after Zn addition. Solution treatment of the Mg-4Zn alloy resulted in 16% softening due to the dissolution of the MgZn second phases and also grain growth, while aging treatment increased the strength value by 8% in comparison to the as-cast material because of the formation of the fine... 

In this work Halloysite nanotubes were used to synthesis a series of modified acrylamide/Quince seeds-based hydrogels (Poly (AAm-co-QS)/Haln). The as-prepared Poly (AAm-co-QS)/Haln hydrogels displayed improved performance as adsorbent in elimination of methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution. The structures of the prepared Poly (AAm-co-QS)/Haln hydrogels were identified by XRD, FT-IR, FE-SEM, BET, TGA and EDX. Effect of pH value on the swelling behavior and dye adsorption performance of as-prepared hydrogels was explored. The adsorption MB results suggested that the adsorption kinetics fitted the pseudo-second-order model. The adsorption experiments at various pH condition indicated that... 

Supersonic turbulent high-pressure jet flows, which are discharging in low-pressure quiescent ambient, are recognized as imperfectly expanded turbulent jet. Steady-state imperfectly expanded jet flow has been already studied analytically; however, the transient flow has not been thoroughly studied. In the present study, the transient imperfectly expanded jet flow with focus on fuel spray in combustion is investigated analytically employing two-step separation of variables method and Fourier-Bessel expansion. The results are validated using available experimental data. The effects of different parameters such as eddy viscosity and pressure ratio on the behavior of the jet are studied. Results... 

Previous empirical research about the functions of innovative systems has been less enabled to present practical strategies for managers’ decisions. This paper aims to determine the boundaries of the innovation system in the oil industry by prioritizing strategic innovative upstream technologies for policy-making and commercializing within the framework of energy technological innovation systems. This paper proposes a novel fuzzy approach based on distance from ideals to scrutinize the effects of effective criteria on the policy-making process and rank new and essential technologies in various fields. The developed fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution... 

In the current research, a comprehensive analytical technique is presented to evaluate the non-Fourier thermal behavior of a 3-D hollow sphere subjected to arbitrarily-chosen space and time dependent boundary conditions. The transient hyperbolic thermal diffusion equation is driven based upon the Cattaneo-Vernotte (C-V) model and nondimensionalized using proper dimensionless parameters. The conventional procedure of separation of variables is applied for solving the 3-D hyperbolic heat conduction equation with general boundary conditions. In order to handle the time dependency of the boundary conditions, Duhamel's theorem is employed. Furthermore, for the purpose of demonstrating the... 

A high sensitive upper critical solution temperature (UCST) copolymer was synthesized through free radical copolymerization with acrylamide (AAm) and vinyl acetate (VA). The UCST behavior is due to a combination of hydrogen bonds and electrostatic potentials between copolymer chains. Turbidimetry, dynamic light scattering, and rheology studies were used to determine the phase transition and aggregation behavior. It is indicated that copolymer with 80% AAm has a phase transition temperature between 38 and 38.2 °C, which is suitable for releasing fever medicine. Also, the temperature gradient for the complete dissolution of the copolymer is 2 °C. The molecular dynamics simulations at a... 

This research focused on the corrosion resistance and microstructure of hybrid additively manufactured (HAM) samples of AISI 420/CX (420/CX SS) stainless steels. Potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and Mott–Schottky analyses as well as the electrochemical noise (EN) technique were used to evaluate the electrochemical behavior of the as-built and heat-treated HAM parts in NaCl solution. The results showed a more protective passive layer formed on the CX SS side. The distribution of Cr-rich M23C6 carbides in matrix of 420 SS side resulted in a lower corrosion resistance compared to the CX SS side. The noise data analysis confirmed an increase in the... 

Increasing the intermittent outputs of renewable energy sources (RESs) has forced planners to define a new concept named flexibility. In this regard, some short- and long-term solutions, such as transmission expansion planning (TEP) and energy storage systems (ESSs) have been suggested to improve the flexibility amount. A proper optimization procedure is required to choose an optimal solution to improve flexibility. Therefore, a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) direct-optimization TEP versus ESSs co-planning model is presented in this paper to enhance power system flexibility. In doing so, a novel RES-BESS-based grid-scale system flexibility metric is proposed to investigate the... 

With thousands of new questions posted every day on popular Q&A websites, there is a need for automated and accurate software solutions to replace manual moderation. In this paper, we address the critical drawbacks of crowdsourcing moderation actions in Q&A communities and demonstrate the ability to automate moderation using the latest machine learning models. From a technical point, we propose a multi-view approach that generates three distinct feature groups that examine a question from three different perspectives: 1) question-related features extracted using a BERT-based regression model; 2) context-related features extracted using a named-entity-recognition model; and 3) general lexical... 

Water allocation is a process of identifying the stakeholders, assessing the amount of water they need, and estimating the volume of renewable water resources. This study investigates the coalition possibilities among the riparian in the Aras River as a transboundary basin over-allocating the environmental flow share. To this end, first, the environmental flow is estimated downstream of the basin based on the annual potential runoff. Then, to estimate the agricultural production function in each country, the relationship between the agriculture value-added and the variables like annual potential runoff and capital in the agricultural sector is derived using the seemingly unrelated regression... 

Hydrogen generation from renewable energy resources is considered as a suitable solution to solve the problems related to the energy sector and the reduction of greenhouse gases. The aim of this study is to provide an integrated framework for identifying suitable areas for the construction of wind farms to produce hydrogen. For this purpose, a combined method of Geographic Information System (GIS) and multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) has been used to locate the power plant in Yazd province. The GIS method in the present study consisted of two parts: constraints and criteria. The constraint section included areas that were unsuitable for the construction of wind farms to produce power...