Sharif Digital Repository

This paper is concerned with the tele-operation of autonomous vehicles over analog Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel, which is subject to transmission noise and power constraint. The nonlinear dynamic of autonomous vehicles is described by the unicycle model and is cascaded with a bandpass filter acting as encoder. Using the describing function method, the nonlinear dynamic of autonomous vehicles is represented by an approximate linear system. Then, the available results for linear control over analog AWGN channel are extended to account for linear continuous time systems with non-real valued and multiple real valued eigenvalues and for tracking a non-zero reference signal.... 

Acidizing is widely used to remove near-wellbore damage and enhance the inflow performance of the reservoir to boost the well oil production rate. However, when the injected acid exposes to reservoir oil, either asphaltic sludge or emulsion forms as acid-induced damages. Therefore, laboratory compatibility tests are required before every acidizing job to determine both the acid sensitivity of oil samples and the optimal dosage of chemical inhibitors that should be used to prevent sludge and emulsion formation. The lack of knowledge to predict the risk of asphaltic sludge and emulsion damages for different oil and acid systems necessitates expensive and time-consuming compatibility tests... 

An attempt was made to produce an iron bearing and a titanium bearing product, using solid state reduction of Fanouj mine titanomagnetite concentrate. For this purpose, the concentrate was mixed with pulverised coal and sodium carbonate and was reduced in a muffle furnace. The product was then subjected to magnetic separation. In this work, the effect of temperature, time, added coal and additive amount on reduction was studied. The Separation Efficiency (SE) index was used for optimisation of the process. Using SE is more appropriate than degree of metallization, which is usually used, for optimising reduction processes. The results show that the optimal conditions are 1325°C, 2.5 h, 25... 

Multistimuli-responsive hyperbranched polymers were synthesized in one-step polymerization using reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer self-condensing vinyl polymerization (RAFT-SCVP). These hyperbranched polymers responded to UV-vis or sunlight, pH changes, and temperature changes. 2-(dodecylthiocarbonothioylthio)-2-methylpropionic acid known as DDMAT participated in esterification with 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate to obtain a chain transfer monomer in the name of 2-((2-(((dodecylthio)carbonothioyl)thio)-2-methylpropanoyl)oxy)ethylmethacrylate (MACDT). For the first time, smart hyperbranched polymers were produced with the RAFT-SCVP method in one step by using... 

Additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence and cloud manufacturing are three pillars of the emerging digitized industrial revolution, considered in industry 4.0. The literature shows that in industry 4.0, intelligent cloud based additive manufacturing plays a crucial role. Considering this, few studies have accomplished an integration of the intelligent additive manufacturing and the service oriented manufacturing paradigms. This is due to the lack of prerequisite frameworks to enable this integration. These frameworks should create an autonomous platform for cloud based service composition for additive manufacturing based on customer demands. One of the most important requirements of... 

Ti64/CaP nanocomposite powder was fabricated and characterized for use in powder-bed 3D printing. The microstructure and phase composition, morphology, particle size distribution, sphericity, flow behavior and dispersion of the as-fabricated particles on the building plate of the 3D printer were investigated. The results confirmed a uniform distribution of nanostructured calcium phosphate particles on the surface of primary Ti64 ones. Calcium phosphate appears as an octa-calcium phosphate phase. The morphology of the particles was shown as spherical, and their sphericity was better than the as-received Ti64 particles. The particle size distribution of nanocomposite powder indicated a smaller... 

Ethylenediamine-functionalized Zr-based metal-organic framework (MOF, UiO-66-EDA) was prepared via Michael addition reaction to investigate its potential for adsorption of heavy metal ions from water. Specifically, the influence of agitation time, solution pH, the dosage of the adsorbent, initial metal ion concentration, temperature, and coexistence of other metal ions was investigated on the removal efficiency of UiO-66-EDA towards Pb(II), Cd(II), and Cu(II) metal ions. The pseudo-second-order kinetic model governed the adsorption of these ions onto the UiO-66-EDA. Langmuir isotherm model matched the experimental isotherm of adsorption with a maximum adsorption capacity of 243.90, 217.39,... 

A coding scheme for transmission of a bit maps a given bit to a sequence of channel inputs (called the codeword associated with the transmitted bit). In this paper, we study the problem of designing the best code for a discrete Poisson channel with memory (under peak-power and total-power constraints). The outputs of a discrete Poisson channel with memory are Poisson distributed random variables with a mean comprising of a fixed additive noise and a linear combination of past input symbols. Assuming a maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, we search for a codebook that has the smallest possible error probability. This problem is challenging because error probability of a code does not have a... 

A coding scheme for transmission of a bit maps a given bit to a sequence of channel inputs (called the codeword associated to the transmitted bit). In this paper, we study the problem of designing the best code for a discrete Poisson channel with memory (under peak-power and total-power constraints). The outputs of a discrete Poisson channel with memory are Poisson distributed random variables with a mean comprising a fixed additive noise and a linear combination of past input symbols. Assuming a maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, we find the best codebook design by minimizing the error probability of the decoder over all codebooks. For the case of having only a total-power constraint, the... 

Ethylenediamine-functionalized Zr-based metal-organic framework (MOF, UiO-66-EDA) was prepared via Michael addition reaction to investigate its potential for adsorption of heavy metal ions from water. Specifically, the influence of agitation time, solution pH, the dosage of the adsorbent, initial metal ion concentration, temperature, and coexistence of other metal ions was investigated on the removal efficiency of UiO-66-EDA towards Pb(II), Cd(II), and Cu(II) metal ions. The pseudo-second-order kinetic model governed the adsorption of these ions onto the UiO-66-EDA. Langmuir isotherm model matched the experimental isotherm of adsorption with a maximum adsorption capacity of 243.90, 217.39,... 

A coding scheme for transmission of a bit maps a given bit to a sequence of channel inputs (called the codeword associated with the transmitted bit). In this paper, we study the problem of designing the best code for a discrete Poisson channel with memory (under peak-power and total-power constraints). The outputs of a discrete Poisson channel with memory are Poisson distributed random variables with a mean comprising of a fixed additive noise and a linear combination of past input symbols. Assuming a maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, we search for a codebook that has the smallest possible error probability. This problem is challenging because error probability of a code does not have a... 

A coding scheme for transmission of a bit maps a given bit to a sequence of channel inputs (called the codeword associated to the transmitted bit). In this paper, we study the problem of designing the best code for a discrete Poisson channel with memory (under peak-power and total-power constraints). The outputs of a discrete Poisson channel with memory are Poisson distributed random variables with a mean comprising a fixed additive noise and a linear combination of past input symbols. Assuming a maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, we find the best codebook design by minimizing the error probability of the decoder over all codebooks. For the case of having only a total-power constraint, the... 

In this work, the potential of near-infrared (NIR) and mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy along with chemometrics was investigated for authentication and adulteration detection of Iranian saffron samples. First, authentication of one-hundred saffron samples was examined by principal component analysis (PCA). The results showed the NIR spectroscopy can better predict the origin of samples than the MIR. Next, partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was developed to detect four common plant-derived adulterants (i.e., saffron style, calendula, safflower, and rubia). In all cases, PLS-DA classification figures of merit in terms of sensitivity, specificity, error rate and accuracy were... 

In the present work, a new approach based on external parameter orthogonalization combined with support vector machine (EPO-SVM) is proposed for processing of attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform mid-infrared (ATR-FT-MIR) spectra with the goal of solving authentication problem in saffron, the most expensive spice in the world. First, one-hundred authentic saffron samples are clustered by principal component analysis (PCA) with EPO as the best preprocessing strategy. Then, EPO-SVM is used for the detection of four commonly used plant-derived adulterants (i.e. safflower, calendula, rubia, and style) in binary mixtures (saffron and each of plant adulterants) and its performance is... 

As a refractory ceramic, the thermal instability of aluminium titanate (AT or Al2TiO5) has been in the crosshairs of research works in recent years. The studies have indicated that different parameters such as atmosphere, grain size, additives, oxygen pressure, and synthesis method can bilaterally affect the thermal decomposition of AT ceramic and resultant physicomechanical properties. In the present study, the AT nanostructure was synthesized by a citrate sol-gel method and influence of nanostructuring nature on its thermal instability and reaction pathway was explored in some details. It was shown that the reduction of grain size down to 30 nm can destabilize AT, so that the reaction... 

We propose two nonlinear regression methods, namely, Adversarial Orthogonal Regression (AdOR) for additive noise models and Adversarial Orthogonal Structural Equation Model (AdOSE) for the general case of structural equation models. Both methods try to make the residual of regression independent from regressors, while putting no assumption on noise distribution. In both methods, two adversarial networks are trained simultaneously where a regression network outputs predictions and a loss network that estimates mutual information (in AdOR) and KL-divergence (in AdOSE). These methods can be formulated as a minimax two-player game; at equilibrium, AdOR finds a deterministic map between inputs... 

Corrosion of steel rebars in concrete can reduce the durability of concrete structures in coastal environments. The corrosion rate of these concrete structures can be reduced by using suitable concrete additives and coating on rebars. This paper investigates the corrosion resistance of steel rebars by the addition of pozzolanic materials including fly ash, silica fume, polypropylene fibers, and industrial 2-dimethylaminoethanol (FerroGard 901) inhibitors to the concrete mixture. Three different types of rebars including mild steel rebar st37, and two stainless steel reinforcements, AISI 304 and AISI 316, were used. Various types of primer and coating including alkyd based primer, hot-dip... 

Photovoltaic (PV) panels provide a suitable way for the direct conversion of solar energy into electricity. The electrical output and efficiency of PV modules are dependent on working temperature. The present study contributes to investigate the efficiency of utilizing a flat plate closed-loop pulsating heat pipe (CLPHP) to cool down a PV panel in both thermal and economic aspects. Accordingly, a numerical investigation is employed to obtain the surface temperature and electrical gain of the PV panel through four scenarios, including natural cooling without additional equipment, CLPHP-based passive cooling, CLPHP-based active cooling, and a conventional flat plate cooling methods. The... 

In this work, high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) coupled with multivariate image analysis (MIA) is proposed as a fast and reliable tool for authentication and adulteration detection of Iranian saffron samples based on their HPTLC fingerprints. At first, the secondary metabolites of saffron were extracted using ultrasonic-assisted solvent extraction (UASE) which was optimized using central composite design (CCD). Next, the RGB coordinates of HPTLC images were used for estimation of saffron origin based on principal component analysis (PCA). The PCA scores plot showed that saffron samples were clustered into two clear-cut groups which was 92% matched with the geographical... 

Abstract: The waste stream of electrical and electronic equipment is three times faster than other municipal waste streams. Recycling of electronic waste is necessary for both reducing environmental pollution and saving natural ores. Bioleaching is known as an efficient technology for metal leaching. In most of the previous studies on the bioleaching of electronic waste, the pH of the process was adjusted daily under the optimal pH of the bacterium growth. Using acid causes increasing process costs and unsustainability of the process. In this work, the effect of daily pH adjustment on the bioleaching efficiency of electronic waste using adapted Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans was studied....