Sharif Digital Repository

This paper presents the effect of robotics assisted language learning (RALL) on the vocabulary learning and retention of Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) junior high school students in Tehran, Iran. After taking a vocabulary pre-test, 46 beginner level female students at the age of 12, studying in their first year of junior-high participated in two groups of RALL (30 students) and non-RALL (16 students) in this study. The textbook used was the English book (Prospect-1) devised by the Iranian Ministry of Education for 7th graders, and the vocabulary taught and tested (pre-test and post-test) were taken from this book. Moreover, the treatment given by a teacher accompanied by a... 

One way of more efficiently utilizing the existing gas and electrical infrastructures is to consider them as one integrated system in planning and operation of energy systems. The energy hub framework is adopted to determine a modeling procedure for such multi carrier energy systems. This paper presents a residential energy hub model for a smart home. A residential combined heat and power (CHP) as a cogeneration technology, and a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle are employed in the model. Operation of the hub is optimized through a proposed optimization-based formulation. The objective is to minimize customer payment cost. Solving the problem determines how much of each energy carrier the... 

The taping mode Atomic Force Microscopic (T-AFM) can be properly described by a sinusoidal excitation of its base and nonlinear potential interaction with sample. Thus the cantilever may cause chaotic behavior which decreases the performance of the sample topography. In this paper a nonlinear delayed feedback control.is proposed to control.chaos in a single mode approximation of a T-AFM system. Assuming model parameters uncertainties, the first order Unstable Periodic Orbits (UPOs) of the system is stabilized using the sliding nonlinear delayed feedback control. The effectiveness of the presented methods is numerically verified and the results show the high performance of the control.er  

Due to the growing demand for large memories, using emerging technologies such as Phase Change Memories (PCM) are inevitable. PCM with appropriate scalability, power consumption and multiple bits per cell storage capability is a probable candidate for substituting DRAM. Although storing multiple bits per cell seems to be a rational response to large memory demands, there is a significant problem to achieve this goal. Resistance drift problem is an important reliability concern that is coupled to a multi-level cell PCM (MLC PCM) memory system. In this paper, we propose a memory system architecture that, by exploiting the benefits of compression, converts resistance drift prone blocks to drift... 

Because of errors in the geometric parameters of parallel robots, it is necessary to calibrate them to improve the positioning accuracy for accurate task performance. Traditionally, to perform system calibration, one needs to measure a number of robot poses using an external measuring device. However, this process is often time-consuming, expensive and difficult for robot on-line calibration. In this paper, a methodical way of calibration of parallel robots is introduced. This method is performable only by measuring joint variable vector and positioning differences relative to a constant position in some sets of configurations that the desired positions in each set are fixed, but the moving... 

Optimization of any production operation is a tool for increasing production rates and reducing production costs. Water flooding is one of the techniques that frequently be used to increase oil recovery after primary depletion. A methodology for optimizing the production by using the net present value of a heterogeneous reservoir under water flooding has been presented, which is based on controlling the bottomhole pressures of the production wells, using smart well technology. For this purpose, a numerical flow simulator is coupled with an optimization program. The technique was implemented on a synthetic two dimensional oil reservoir with heterogeneous permeability. This optimization... 

One of the most important operating parameters which affects the performance and efficiency of active solar stills is brine depth. In all of the previous experimental or theoretical studies, effects of water depth were investigated during only the first 24-hour period (or even shorter periods) of the operation of active solar stills. In other words, only the first day was taken into account. However, the production of an active solar still depends on several parameters such as brine temperature at sunrise (initial temperature), which are all affected by the depth variation after the first day of operation. However, the present research experimentally investigates the long-term effects of... 

In order to simulate the performance of pure methane in chemical looping using iron-based oxygen carrier, simultaneously production of three pure streams of hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide has been investigated. For this purpose, proper operating conditions have been discussed for maximum production of hydrogen, complete consumption of oxygen of inlet air and complete combustion of methane. Professional software is used to simulate the chemical looping reactors and optimize their output streams. Results show that in this process each mole of methane fuel can produce 2.533, 2.65 and 0.99 mol of pure N 2, H2 and CO2, respectively which contributes 80.2% energy conversion of CH4 to H2.... 

A novel solid-phase microextraction(SPME) fiber was prepared using sol-gel technology with ethoxylated nonylphenol as a fiber coating material. The fiber was employed to develop a headspace SPME-GC-MS method suitable for quantification of 13 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water samples. Surface characteristics of the fibers were inspected by energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy as well as by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SEM measurements showed the presence of highly porous nano-sized particles in the coating. Important parameters affecting the extraction efficiency such as extraction temperature and time, desorption conditions as well as ionic strength have been... 

Roadmapping, a tool of strategic planning, visualize where and how an organization will be in the future. Visualization of strategic programs assists people in the organization to understand the strategy which is a key for implementing strategy successfully. A generic roadmap is included of three main layers such as; market, product and technology. Decision making in each layer are done separately because of the nature of each layer. Therefore, decisions in roadmapping can be done with different tools. Whiles, decisions in each layer of the roadmap cannot be done without considering the upper or lower layer decisions. In this study we propose Fuzzy PROMETHEE method for integrating decisions... 

The present research proposes an effective method to enhance the heat transport capability of conventional electronic coolers and improve their thermal management. Pulsating heat pipes (PHPs) are outstanding heat transfer devices in the field of electronic cooling. In the present study, two sets of open-loop pulsating heat pipes (OLPHPs) for two different magnetic nanofluids (with and without surfactant) were fabricated and their thermal performance was experimentally investigated. Effects of working fluid (water and two types of magnetic nanofluids), heating power, charging ratio, nanofluid concentration, inclination angle, application of a magnetic field, and magnet location are described.... 

In this study friction stir welding of Al-Cu laminated composites were carried out by two different tool geometries. Welding procedure was carried out from both sides of Al and Cu. Analyzing cross section of welds showed that different contact conditions between shoulder and material, offers different material flow behavior which is dependent on the tool geometry. SEM analyses showed that mixing of materials in nugget region is more pronounced in the advancing side. Also XRD results indicated that welding from Cu side, leads to intermetallic formation in mixed regions  

This article presents a method for optimizing and controlling an oil production system using a natural gas lift concept. Ever increasing development of Smart Well technology and various applications of down-hole monitoring and controlling instruments along with new methods of data acquisition/transmission make it possible for the natural gas lift system to be controlled and optimized more effectively and faster than before. With this technology it is possible to monitor the down-hole conditions of gas and oil zones and to control the inflow valves in gas and oil zones. In this work, a proportional integral differential feedback controller has been used to smartly control the entrance of gas... 

In recent years, growing interest in underbalanced drilling has resulted in the rapid development of its associated equipment technology, practices, and procedures. Underbalanced drilling is used to avoid lost circulation, formation damage, and decreasing weight on bit. However, the risk of wellbore collapse due to lake of hydrostatic mud pressure is high; therefore, using good geo-mechanical model may avoid wellbore instability problems. In order to evaluate the potential for wellbore instability, it is necessary to use an elastoplastic model to compute the stresses and strains around the bore hole. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that the laser drilling process depends extremely on the... 

Governments in developing countries have invested in institutions of higher learning in order to develop homegrown, high technology products. Among these, the National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia), recognized as a Research University, is actively involved in projects related to medical technology through its various faculties. The net result of these activities is impressing from the point of view of patents and publications, but unfortunately not yet in terms of commercialization. This paper starts by presenting the main obstacles towards the objective of bringing a laboratory prototype to the market in the context of Malaysia. Then, a framework is presented... 

Using gas-liquid lifting pumps is a quite different technology for pumping two or three phase flows rather than other types of pumping systems. Therefore, finding performance characteristic chart for this type of pumping system seems to be necessary. In this type of pumping system, the liquid phase is pushed upward by the compressed air which has been injected in the bottom of upriser pipe of the pump. Therefore, compressed air acts as the driving force in gas lifting pumps instead of moving parts in ordinary pumps. It can be concluded that the definition of characteristic curve used for ordinary pump is not very appropriate for this type of pumping system. In this study, it has been... 

The brushless dc limited angle torque motor (LATM) has been widely used in areas of aerospace equipments, robot drives, optical scanning systems and any drive systems that require limited motion, ranging from the simple ON-OFF servo valves to the accurate tracking of a reference signal. This paper presents the optimum design procedure of a brushless direct current LATM to satisfy the functional requirements (FRs) and constraints using Independence axiom in axiomatic design (AD) approach. Also, to select the best manufacturing process plan, we consider both cost and thermal performance as two effective criteria, and evaluate available alternatives by computing information content in... 

Intracellular production of recombinant proteins in prokaryotes necessitates subsequent disruption of cells for protein recovery. Since the cell disruption and subsequent purification steps largely contribute to the total production cost, scalable tools for protein release into the extracellular space is of utmost importance. Although there are several ways for enhancing protein release, changing culture conditions is rather a simple and scalable approach compared to, for example, molecular cell design. This contribution aimed at quantitatively studying process technological means to boost protein release of a periplasmatic recombinant protein (alkaline phosphatase) from E. coli.... 

We analyze von Weizsacker's view regarding the concept of information in physics. In his view, information arises from the reduction of properties of a physical object to their logical descriptive propositions. The smallest element of a lattice of propositions is an atom of information which is considered as the essence of every physical identity including position space. von Weizsäcker calls this element, "ur". Moreover, Biological evolution is described in terms of enhancement of the variety of forms. Form could be also reduced to descriptive logical propositions, thus to atoms of information. Therefore, information is the fundamental basis in von Weizsäcker's plan for unifying all... 

Non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies are promising alternatives to traditional CMOS memory technologies. While NVMs were primarily studied to be used in the memory hierarchy, they can also provide benefits in reconfigurable systems such as Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). In this paper, we investigate the applicability of different NVM technologies for the configuration bits of FPGAs and propose a power-efficient reconfigurable architecture based on Phase Change Memory (PCM). Quantitative analysis for various FPGA architectures using different memory technologies shows the benefits of the proposed scheme