Sharif Digital Repository

During the past years, various principal component analysis algorithms have been developed. In this paper, a new approach for local nonlinear principal component analysis is proposed which is applied to capture voice conversion (VC). A new structure of autoassociative neural network is designed which not only performs data partitioning but also extracts nonlinear principal components of the clusters. Performance of the proposed method is evaluated by means of two experiments that illustrate its efficiency; at first, performance of the network is described by means of an artificial dataset and then, the developed method is applied to perform VC  

Nowadays, cardiovascular diseases are very common and are one of the main causes of death worldwide. One major type of such diseases is the coronary artery disease (CAD). The best and most accurate method for the diagnosis of CAD is angiography, which has significant complications and costs. Researchers are, therefore, seeking novel modalities for CAD diagnosis via data mining methods. To that end, several algorithms and datasets have been developed. However, a few studies have considered the stenosis of each major coronary artery separately. We attempted to achieve a high rate of accuracy in the diagnosis of the stenosis of each major coronary artery. Analytical methods were used to... 

The ability of wearable cameras to continuously capture the first person viewpoint with minimal user interaction, has made them very attractive in many application domains. Wearable technology today is available and useful but not widely used and accepted due to various challenges mainly privacy concerns. In this paper, we introduce a novel efficient privacy-aware framework for wearable cameras that can protect all sensitive subjects such as people, objects (e.g, display screens, license plates and credit cards) and locations (e.g, bathrooms and bedrooms). It uses the contextual information obtained from the wearable's sensors and recorded images to identify the potential sensitive subjects... 

This paper investigates free torsional vibration behavior of a nonlinear nano-cone, based on the nonlocal strain gradient elasticity theory. The nano-cone is made of homogeneous and isotropic materials. Moreover, the cross-sectional area of the nano-cone varies in the longitudinal direction by a nonlinear function. Governing equation and boundary conditions are derived using Hamilton’s principle. These equations are solved by employing the generalized differential quadrature method (GDQM). The effects of some parameters, such as cross-sectional area change and small-scale parameter, are investigated. Results show that the cross-sectional area change has a significant effect on the torsional... 

Advances in the manufacturing of miniaturized low-power embedded systems are paving the way for ultra-lightweight wearable cameras that can visually log the minute details of people's daily lives. This survey highlights the possible applications of wearable cameras, from industrial to personal, and outlines the main challenges in realizing their full potential. © 2017 IEEE  

(Lanthanum, Cerium)(Iron, Manganese, Cobalt, Palladium)(Oxygen)3- Perovskite catalyst was prepared by the citrate route and deposited on ceramic monoliths via dip coating procedure. The catalyst was applied on a car with XU7 motors and the amount of emission was monitored with vehicle emission test systems in Sapco company. The results were compared with the imported catalyst with noble metals such as palladium, platinum and rhodium by Iran Khodro company based on the Euro III standards. The catalysts were characterized by specific surface area measurements, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, line scan and map. In the results, obtained in the home made sample, the amount of... 

The effect of substrate temperature on epitaxial growth of Y1Ba2Cu3O7−x film deposited on (100) crystalline lanthanum aluminate (LAO) substrates by RF Sputtering method has been investigated. The crystal mismatch between film and substrate is about 1.6%. The sputtering was carried out in vacuum with base pressure better than 10−5 Torr and 10/20 Pa oxygen/argon partial pressures. Substrate temperature at this condition is about 730 °C based on Bormann–Hammond diagram. As well known, because of the small lattice mismatch between YBCO and LAO, fabricated thin films are not perfectly c-axis and there is tendency to form a/b-axis regions in the film. Due to substantial effects of the density and... 

In this research, a series of numerical simulations were conducted utilizing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software in order to predict the heat transfer performance of queues nanofluids containing clove-treated graphene nanoplatelets (CGNPs) flowing in a horizontal stainless steel heated pipe. The GNPs were covalently functionalized with clove buds using free radical grafting reaction using an eco-friendly process. The advantage of this synthesis method was that it did not use hazardous acids, which are typically used in traditional treatment methods of carbon nanostructures. The thermo-physical properties of the aqueous nanofluids obtained experimentally were used as inputs for the... 

In this paper, pull-in behavior of cantilever micro/nano-beams made of functionally graded materials (FGM) with small-scale effects under electrostatic force is investigated. Consistent couple stress theory is employed to study the influence of small-scale on pull-in behavior. According to this theory, the couple tensor is skew-symmetric by adopting the skew-symmetric part of the rotation gradients. The material properties except Poisson’s ratio obey the power law distribution in the thickness direction. The approximate analytical solutions for the pull-in voltage and pull-in displacement of the microbeams are derived using the Rayleigh–Ritz method. Comparison between the results of the... 

TiO2 nanoparticles were prepared by the sol - gel process using 2-hydroxylethy- lammonium formate as an ionic liquid. Nanoparticles were crystallized at various temperatures (300-700°C). The products were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption - desorption isotherms and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. It was found that the resulting TiO2 nanoparticles had good thermal stability either to resist collapse or the anatase-to-rutile phase transformation during heat treatment. The photocatalytic activity of the nanocrystalline TiO2 was evaluated by the degradation of Acid Blue 92 (AB92) which is commonly used as a textile dye. The results showed that the... 

A terahertz modulator based on the Type-II superconductor flux flow oscillator has been proposed. Analytical calculations are presented and the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic parameters such as disorder strength of crystal, penetration depth, frequency, and amplitude of the modulated current on the radiation power spectrum have been studied. The proposed structure also exhibits a mixer-like behavior, in the sense that its output harmonics range from the washboard frequency up to the superconductor gap frequency, so the input signal is practically mixed with the washboard frequency and its harmonics. The modulation index for each harmonic of this modulator has also been investigated. This... 

Importance: Cancer and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are now widely recognized as a threat to global development. The latest United Nations high-level meeting on NCDs reaffirmed this observation and also highlighted the slow progress in meeting the 2011 Political Declaration on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases and the third Sustainable Development Goal. Lack of situational analyses, priority setting, and budgeting have been identified as major obstacles in achieving these goals. All of these have in common that they require information on the local cancer epidemiology. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study is uniquely poised to provide these crucial data.... 

Since 2000, many countries have achieved considerable success in improving child survival, but localized progress remains unclear. To inform efforts towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.2—to end preventable child deaths by 2030—we need consistently estimated data at the subnational level regarding child mortality rates and trends. Here we quantified, for the period 2000–2017, the subnational variation in mortality rates and number of deaths of neonates, infants and children under 5 years of age within 99 low- and middle-income countries using a geostatistical survival model. We estimated that 32% of children under 5 in these countries lived in districts that had attained... 

Oxidation of a variety of organic compounds, using Mn-porphyrin, mesotetrakis(4-hydroxyphenyl)porphyrinatomanganese(III), supported onto functionalized silica-coated magnetic nanoparticles via “Click” reaction has been investigated. The heterogeneous catalyst was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), FT-IR spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP/OES) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) demonstrated that the prepared catalyst was thermally stable to almost 300 °C, exhibiting high thermostability of the nanocatalyst over a broad range of temperatures. This... 

In this paper, pull-in behavior of cantilever micro/nano-beams made of functionally graded materials (FGM) with small-scale effects under electrostatic force is investigated. Consistent couple stress theory is employed to study the influence of small-scale on pull-in behavior. According to this theory, the couple tensor is skew-symmetric by adopting the skew-symmetric part of the rotation gradients. The material properties except Poisson’s ratio obey the power law distribution in the thickness direction. The approximate analytical solutions for the pull-in voltage and pull-in displacement of the microbeams are derived using the Rayleigh–Ritz method. Comparison between the results of the... 

The structural and computational studies of a new molybdenum tetracarbonyl complex of 5,14-dihydro-6,17-dimethyl-8,15-diphenyldibenzo[b,i]-[1,4,8,11]tetraazacyclotetradecine, a 14-membered tetraazaannulene macrocyclic ligand, Me2Ph2H2TAA, were carried out by X-ray crystallography and density functional and natural bond orbital (NBO) theories. The complex showed an interesting intermolecular C-H⋯O hydrogen bond which was supported by n → π∗ interaction, forming a one-dimensional extended chain along the b-axis. Interesting intramolecular C-H⋯π and very short σ → π∗ (C-H⋯CO) interactions stabilized the twisted geometry of the coordinated ligand. © 2019 The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019  

The structural and computational studies of a new molybdenum tetracarbonyl complex of 5,14-dihydro-6,17-dimethyl-8,15-diphenyldibenzo[b,i]-[1,4,8,11]tetraazacyclotetradecine, a 14-membered tetraazaannulene macrocyclic ligand, Me2Ph2H2TAA, were carried out by X-ray crystallography and density functional and natural bond orbital (NBO) theories. The complex showed an interesting intermolecular C-H⋯O hydrogen bond which was supported by n → π∗ interaction, forming a one-dimensional extended chain along the b-axis. Interesting intramolecular C-H⋯π and very short σ → π∗ (C-H⋯CO) interactions stabilized the twisted geometry of the coordinated ligand. © 2019 The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019  

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 provides a rules-based synthesis of the available evidence on levels and trends in health outcomes, a diverse set of risk factors, and health system responses. GBD 2019 covered 204 countries and territories, as well as first administrative level disaggregations for 22 countries, from 1990 to 2019. Because GBD is highly standardised and comprehensive, spanning both fatal and non-fatal outcomes, and uses a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of hierarchical disease and injury causes, the study provides a powerful basis for detailed and broad insights on global health trends and emerging challenges. GBD... 

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and... 

Background: Rigorous analysis of levels and trends in exposure to leading risk factors and quantification of their effect on human health are important to identify where public health is making progress and in which cases current efforts are inadequate. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 provides a standardised and comprehensive assessment of the magnitude of risk factor exposure, relative risk, and attributable burden of disease. Methods: GBD 2019 estimated attributable mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years of life lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 87 risk factors and combinations of risk factors, at...