Sharif Digital Repository

In this study, a series of heteroatoms including nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur were added to different positions of the model asphaltene structure to study the effect of the heteroatom presence in the self-aggregation of the model asphaltenes. Molecular Dynamics was used to calculate Solubility Parameters, Radial Distribution Function, and Relative Solubility Parameters. Additionally, Reactivity Parameters, Electrostatic Potential, Reduced Density Gradient, and Independent Gradient Model were calculated using the Density Functional Theory to further investigate the Molecular Dynamics results. This study indicated that heteroatoms' diversity and their positions in the model asphaltene... 

Over the last decade, there has been an increase in air transportation, which has raised awareness to provide necessary procedures to respond to air transportation demands and reduce delay costs. One such procedure, 'performance-based navigation (PBN),' currently studied, is expected to increase the airspace capacity based on aircraft's individual performances. This research describes an efficient and expandable model for allocating standard terminal arrival route during continuous descent approach (CDA) that effectively uses PBN requirements. As a case study, we have considered the 'Atlanta International Airport' and verified the model's accuracy using real-time traffic data. The model is... 

The design of a novel Continuous Fractional-Order Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Mode controller is the focus of this study. Time Delay Estimation technique is incorporated into the controller. The proposed method is responsible for controlling the human knee joint neuromusculoskeletal model via Functional Electrical Stimulation. A second-order nonlinear model with time-varying coefficients is used for characterizing the FES-stimulated neuromusculoskeletal model. The presence of time-varying coefficients often complicates precise control of knee joint through FES and impairs the performance of conventional methods. To this end, the TDECFONTSM has been proposed consisting of three components, a... 

Appearances of specific transition patterns during data transfer in bus lines of modern high-performance computing systems, such as communicating structures of accelerators for deep convolutional neural networks, commercial Network on Chips, and memories, can lead to crosstalk faults. With the shrinkage of technology size, crosstalk faults occurrence boosts and leads to degradation of reliability and performance, as well as the increasing power consumption of lines. One effective way to alleviate crosstalk faults is to avoid the appearance of these specific transition patterns by using numerical-based crosstalk avoidance codes (CACs). However, a serious problem with numerical-based CACs is... 

As wind energy is becoming one of the fastest-growing renewable energy resources, controlling large-scale wind turbines remains a challenging task due to its system model nonlinearities and high external uncertainties. The main goal of the current work is to propose an intelligent control of the wind turbine system without the need for model identification. For this purpose, a novel model-independent nonsingular terminal sliding-mode control (MINTSMC) using the basic principles of the ultra-local model (ULM) and combined with the single input interval type-2 fuzzy logic control (SIT2-FLC) is developed for non-linear wind turbine pitch angle control. In the suggested control framework, the... 

As wind energy is becoming one of the fastest-growing renewable energy resources, controlling large-scale wind turbines remains a challenging task due to its system model nonlinearities and high external uncertainties. The main goal of the current work is to propose an intelligent control of the wind turbine system without the need for model identification. For this purpose, a novel model-independent nonsingular terminal sliding-mode control (MINTSMC) using the basic principles of the ultra-local model (ULM) and combined with the single input interval type-2 fuzzy logic control (SIT2-FLC) is developed for non-linear wind turbine pitch angle control. In the suggested control framework, the... 

A one-pot Cu-catalyzed synthesis of functionalized alkynyl imidamide by terminal alkynes, trichloroacetonitrile and aniline or benzyl amine is reported. The compounds were produced via coupling reaction of terminal alkynes with trichloroacetamidine. This method was performed under mild, ligand-free conditions and easy work-up method. © 2020, Bentham Science Publishers. All rights reserved  

We consider the problem of distributed multi-choice voting in a setting that each node can communicate with its neighbors merely by sending beep signals. Given its simplicity, the beep communication model is of practical importance in different applications such as system biology and wireless sensor networks. Yet, the distributed majority voting has not been resolved in this setting. In this paper, we propose two algorithms, named Distributed Voting with Beeps, to resolve this problem. In the first proposed algorithm, the adjacent nodes having the same value form a set called spot. Afterwards, the spots with majority value try to corrode the spots with non-majority values. The second... 

Formation of the amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide aggregations represents an indispensable role in appearing and progression of Alzheimer disease. β-sheet breaker peptides can be designed and modified with different amino acids in order to improve biological properties and binding affinity to the amyloid beta peptide. In the present study, three peptide sequences were designed based on the hopeful results of LIAIMA peptide and molecular docking studies were carried out onto the monomer and fibril structure of amyloid beta peptide using AutoDock Vina software. According to the obtained interactions and binding energy from docking, the best-designed peptide (D-GABA-FPLIAIMA) was chosen and... 

The present study aims to present a guidance algorithm based on the relative motion prediction for orbital rendezvous, in which a coast phase is allowed between two powered phases. In both powered phases, the solution of the Hill-Clohessy-Wiltshire equations is used to find the required state variables at each time instant. To track the required trajectory and compensate for any orbital perturbations and uncertainties, a non-singular terminal sliding mode method is utilized as the steering law. Then, the finite time convergence of the state variables is mathematically proved. In addition, the starting time of the second powered phase is adapted to perturbations and uncertainties by another... 

In this paper, a new three-dimensional path planning approach with obstacle avoidance for UAVs is proposed. The aim is to provide a computationally-fast on-board sub-optimal solution for collision-free path planning in static environments. The optimal 3D path is an NP (non-deterministic polynomial-time) hard problem which may be solved numerically by global optimization algorithms such as the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). Application of PSO to the 3D path planning class of problems faces typical challenges such slow convergence rate. It is shown that the performance may be improved markedly by implementing a novel parallel approach and incorporation of new termination conditions.... 

Zinc binding to β-amyloid structure could promote amyloid-β aggregation, as well as reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, as suggested in many experimental and theoretical studies. Therefore, the introduction of multifunctional drugs capable of chelating zinc metal ion and inhibiting Aβ aggregation is a promising strategy in the development of AD treatment. The present study has evaluated the efficacy of a new bifunctional peptide drug using molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. This drug comprises two different domains, an inhibitor domain, obtained from the C-terminal hydrophobic region of Aβ, and a Zn2+ chelating domain, derived from rapeseed meal, merge with a... 

In recent decades, multistate two-terminal reliability problem has attracted several researchers, and accordingly many exact and approximation approaches have been proposed in the literature in terms of minimal cuts (MCs) or minimal paths (MPs) to address this problem. Here, an MP-based approximation approach is developed based on exact algorithms. With all the MPs at hand, the approach rearranges the MPs ascendingly with respect to their lengths and then sets the flow on some MPs to be zero which turns to reduce the computing cost in solving the problem. We provide the complexity results, and by employing some benchmarks and one thousand randomly generated networks illustrate that not only... 

In this paper, terminal engagement of a maneuvering target and a pursuer is investigated. A heuristic nonlinear model predictive guidance algorithm is presented. Nonlinear kinematics of the pursuer and the target is utilized to formulate the guidance problem. Also, the target maneuver is assumed to be unknown. The proposed heuristic guidance algorithm uses an ant-based optimization algorithm to estimate simultaneously the states of the pursuer, the maneuver of the target, and the optimal guidance commands. Performance of the new guidance algorithm against maneuvering and non-maneuvering targets is evaluated using numerical simulations. Also, the results of the guidance algorithm are compared... 

The impact of modified magnetite nanoparticles (MMNPs)on hydrodynamics and mass transfer in liquid–liquid extraction process was assessed using a ternary chemical system of toluene-acetic acid–water. The organic phase which contained toluene and acetic acid was dispersed through water, and the mass transfer of acetic acid between two phases was investigated. The hydrophobic modified magnetite nanoparticles (MMNPs)prepared through an optimized in-situ method were added to the dispersed phase at different concentrations (0.001−0.005 wt%). Two separate conditions were provided in the experiments, i.e. stagnant and stirred continuous phase. The latter case was provided by a rotor at two... 

A gossip protocol is a procedure for spreading secrets among a group of agents, using a connection graph. The goal is for all agents to get to know all secrets, in which case we call the execution of the protocol successful. We consider distributed and dynamic gossip protocols. In distributed gossip, the agents themselves instead of a global scheduler determine whom to call. In dynamic gossip, not only secrets are exchanged but also telephone numbers (agent identities). This results in increased graph connectivity. We define six such distributed dynamic gossip protocols, and we characterize them in terms of the topology of the graphs on which they are successful, wherein we distinguish... 

Power Distribution Unit (PDU) is a power supply unit that supplies various DC voltage levels for electric equipment. Reliability of PDU is very important in electrical systems. Buck converter is frequently used in PDU to provide the lower voltage levels than the source voltage level. The output capacitor of the buck converter is the main factor of failure. In this paper, we present a method to design a buck converter with almost no inductor current ripple. If the inductor current ripple is eliminated, the output capacitor can be removed from the converter. By removing the capacitor, the reliability and transient response of the converter can be improved considerably. The proposed method is... 

A single cell downlink scenario is considered, where a multiple-antenna base station delivers contents to cache-enabled user terminals. Depending on the available degrees of freedom, several multicast messages are transmitted in parallel to distinct subsets of users. In the multicast beamformer design, we restrict ourselves to linear receiver implementation, which does not require successive interference cancellation unlike in the more optimal baseline scheme. With a small loss in performance, the complexity of both the receiver and transmitter implementation can be significantly reduced. © 2018 IEEE  

Information-centric network (ICN) has become a basic research topic with regard to the future architecture of the Internet. Storage and routing data is an important feature of ICN, as it improves network performance and content distribution. One of the challenges in this type of network is the routing problem. The objective of this paper is to propose a routing algorithm in the named data network. Owing to the impressive results presented by the enhanced heuristic methods, tabu search has been selected to develop the proposed algorithm. This work has been carried out in five major steps, Creating the initial solution, The mechanisms of generating a neighborhood, Evaluating the neighbor... 

The extended gate concept aims to reduce the pressure on international ports by postponing administrative processes from these border gates to inland terminals. At present, this approach is used mainly in the container transport industry in European and Asian ports. In this paper we study an extended gate concept, where inland customs services are made available from all entry points of a country. Our aim is to predict the portion of the current flow through border gates that is diverted to these inland customs zones. We propose a time-series gravity models to predict these changes and estimate the parameters of this model using publicly available data for different cargo groups. The focus...