Sharif Digital Repository

Pulsating heat pipe (PHP) is a two-phase device for the means of transferring high heat fluxes and is used extensively for the electronic cooling. In this study the different flow regimes in PHP with different fluids have been investigated. In this research, 3 different fluids including: Pure fluids, Ferro-fluid and surfactant solution with %50 filling ratio have been used. For ferro-fluid, 5 different concentrations and 3 type of magnetic fields have been operated in 2 different heat pipes. Results show that ferrofluid is more stable in Pyrex made-heat pipe for long period of time and no magnet mode has the best thermal performance due to high conductivity of fluid. In copper made-heat pipe... 

The use of IoT-based technologies is expanding in many areas today. The use of audio and video processing in IoT systems has been used as an alternative to human operators by increasing power and reducing processing costs. Due to the large volume of audio and video data and bandwidth limitations, complete data transfer to cloud processing servers is not cost-effective in terms of efficiency and energy consumption. As a result, the solution that has provided good results is to discharge these device tasks to the available clouds. In other words, the capacity of resources in the environment can be used to optimize the total latency of the system and energy consumption. In this dissertation, we... 

One major problem in sport match analysis and interpretation is that there are restricted viewpoints of the game. 3D reconstruction allows us to have virtual replay from any viewpoint so that the events such as penalties can be detected easily. For achieving this purpose, we use many cameras with overlapped views that cover almost all parts of the field. After some preprocessing, 3D reconstruction and texture mapping, we can enhance the viewer experience by having arbitrary viewpoint of the match. In this research, we use two different visual hull methods for 3D reconstruction. In the first method, the visual hull of an object is computed efficiently and robustly from image contours. This... 

Due to the recent advances in the learning of multimodal data, humans tend to use computer systems in order to solve more complex problems. One of them is Visual Question Answering (VQA), where the goal is finding the answer of a question asked about the visual contents of a given image. This is an interdisciplinary problem between the areas of Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing and Reasoning. Because of recent achievements of Deep Neural Networks in these areas, recent works used them to address the VQA task. In this thesis, three different methods have been proposed which adding each of them to existing solutions to the VQA problem can improve their results. First method tries to... 

Talking face synthesis is a process in which is made using audio-visual data or its features. Because the face is the first output, face animation plays a crucial role in this process. A high-quality face, a balance between different facial regions, natural movements of facial organs, and the like are basic requirements to synthesize a relatively realistic talking face. There are a wide variety of applications for the photo-realistic talking face. For instance, as a teaching assistant, or reading emails and e-books are only two simple ones to mention. To reach a realistic talking face with mentioned necessary requirements, we set a goal to consider all face regions and their movements. To... 

Encompassing an interaction between the phase change material (PCM) and the droplets of a heat transfer fluid, the direct contact (DC) method provides a state-of-the-art solution for the meager melting and solidification rates of PCMs. In the DC procedure, when impinging on the molten PCM pool, droplets evaporate, solidifying the portion of the PCM. For the first time, the impact of single and simultaneous double ethanol droplets, having an average diameter of 2.68 mm, on the molten paraffin wax has been scrutinized exhaustively. Experiments have been carried out through high-speed imaging for various Weber numbers ranging from 179 to 464, pool temperatures from 70 to 95°C, and horizontal... 

In this thesis, a method is presented for improving the observability of the heading angle in a UAV when using the Visual-Inertial navigation algorithm MSCKF by adding a magnetometer sensor. The proposed algorithm serves as a complementary extension to the primary algorithm, and efforts have been made to seamlessly integrate the magnetometer sensor into the primary algorithm to allow for easy modifications to the sensor's characteristics and to observe the resulting output in system simulations. Improving the observability of the heading angle will lead to an enhancement in the overall system state estimation. To achieve this, a new update stage is added to the existing algorithm.... 

Attention is a cognitive process in which the mind reacts to certain stimuli or stimuli of the environment while other environmental stimuli are ignored. Attention might be an overt or covert process. Overt attention is a process in which based on the purpose, we selectively choose an object or place among other objects and places to focus on and we are aware of it. However, the covert attention originates from hidden source, and we are not aware of it. In fact, the covert attention causes a clear and rapid movement of the eye toward the stimulus or space to be taken into consideration and the time when the movement of the eye it means overt attention has occurred. Visual attention is given... 

Simulation of biophysical neural networks enables the interpretation and integration of fast-growing and different experimental datasets. The widely used NEURON simulator allows molecular-to-network simulation. However, it is still a very hard challenge to create large-scale models and operate parallel simulations applying NEURON. SUNY Downstate developed the NetPyNE means networks using Python and NEURON, which was funded by the New York State Department of Health and some other institutions. NetPyNE is a Python-based tool that enables the development of data-driven multi-scale network models in NEURON through both programmatic and graphical interfaces. It is a powerful tool for parallel... 

The Brain Computer Interface (BCI) translates brain signals into a series of commands, enabling individuals to fulfill many of their basic needs without physical activity. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals are commonly used as input for BCI systems, because the recording of this signal is non-invasive, inexpensive, and also have an acceptable time resolution. One of the most prevalent methods in BCI systems is the brain-computer interface based on Steady State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEP). These systems provide high response speed and Information Transfer Rate (ITR) as well as a good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The main purpose of these systems is to detect the frequency of SSVEP in... 

Bag of words-based image classification systems have achieved state-of-the-art accuracies in the image classification task recently. These systems can be decomposed into four separate subsystems, each of which has its own objectives: Feature extraction, Feature learning and coding, Pooling, and classification. The effects of the feature learning stage, in which each extracted feature is represented as a linear combination of several visual words, can not be neglected in the success of the whole system. The importance of this part has attracted several researchers to develop different methods in order to alleviate the existing issues. Although several methods have been proposed so far, there... 

Nowadays, the use of MEMS sensors, due to their small size, lightweight and low cost, has been welcomed in systems such as autonomous vehicles. Although the precision of MEMS gyroscopes has been extremely improved, in some aspects, such as stability of bias, they still suffer from some big error sources, like run-to run bias, which determines the sensor price but is not negligible even inexpensive sensors. In addition to the bias, there are a lot of noises in the gyroscope outputs, where ARW is one of the most important ones, which causes failure in real-signals and produces an error in the position and attitude of mobile systems. Due to the fact that run-to-run bias and ARW are stochastic... 

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is a communication system between human brain’s activity and his environment such as prosthetic hand and wheelchair and other controlling devices.In this thesis we will introduce a new and easy spelling system by using Brain Computer Interface (BCI) based on Steady State Evoke Potential (SSVEP). This system is used for spelling the numbers of telephone keyboard by four flickers and clock shape. This system allows the user to spell numbers by gazing at one of four flickers (Clockwise rotation, Counter Clockwise rotation, Accept and Backspace), Clockwise is used to rotate clock hand toward right, Counter Clockwise to rotate clock hand toward left, Accept is used... 

The brain-computer interface is an advanced technology in human-machine interaction. The Speller system is a typical use of BCI, in which the target stimulation is detected by the induced signal in the brain. The most commonly speller system, the matrix Speller, has a major disadvantage, and it is Gaze-dependent. Research has proven that target-character selection in the matrix Speller is dependent on eye movement, or as referred to in technical terminology, it is gaze dependent. Therefore, the Speller matrix is not usable for users suffering from unimpaired oculomotor control. Many researchers attempted to overcome this issue, and their results led to two solutions; 1) changing the type of... 

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... 

Blindness is one of the destructive results of retinal diseases. Artificial retina is a device which can help blind people with AMD and RP diseases to restore their vision. Prevalent approaches to artificial retina use an external power supply and processor which the data and energy is transmitted to eye through an inductive link. Taking advantages of solar power, in this project we proposed a design which the required stimulation data and energy is produced internally so the patients don’t have to carry the processor and external power supply that is of major concern for them. This is the most important advantage of this device which doesn’t need any maintenance or battery either. In this... 

The importance of having a rich repertoire of vocabulary at one’s disposal is evidently an undeniable fact for a successful communication. However, the best way to improve the lexical knowledge of the students is an issue that is still open to dispute. Considering this issue the present study focused on vocabulary learning strategies in L2 teaching. Actually, this study aimed at investigating three different methods of teaching new words to Iranian students in order to determine which one of the methods is more effective in terms of immediate and delayed retention. So the researchers strived to examine the question of how two different mnemonic devices, i.e., the Keyword method and the... 

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the stiffness and strength of damaged rectangular reinforced concrete shear walls after an earthquake using surface crack patterns. Assessing the damage severity of buildings after an earthquake is an important part of the emergency inspection operation of buildings. Expert inspectors tag buildings into two categories of safe or unsafe that are usually affected by subjective decisions, which may result in catastrophic events reported in previous earthquakes. In this research, an extensive database on the images of damaged rectangular reinforced concrete shear walls (RCSWs) is collected and used to develop predictive equations for updated stiffness and... 

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is a communication system between human brain and a computer or a peripheral device which by recording brain signals directly would send messages and commands from the human brain to computer.According to brain activity patterns of EEG, BCIs are divided into different types. The most important of these patterns called ERP (Event Related Potentials) which appears after particular events in the EEG signal. A significant ERP pattern is P300 potential. It occurs when patient recognizes oddball stimuli. SSVEP (Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential) is another type of patterns and is response of the brain to optical stimulations with certain frequencies and a strong... 

Primary visual cortex plays a paramount role in processing visual information. Visual information after the primitive processing by LGN and Thalamus, will be sent to the primary visual cortex which is called V1 area. According to the fact that V1 neurons have the definitive sensitivity to the edge and contrast of visual stimuli so their behavior are very selective to the certain features, specially contrast, of visual stimuli. These neurons have different response behavior to contrast. In fact most of them have some nonlinear behavior to this feature. Normally we expect that response of them or spiking rate of them grow linearly by the contrast increases but in most many cases they have some...