Sharif Digital Repository

In this research, a scheduling problem, minimizing the sum of weighted earliness/tardiness in a flow shop sequence-dependent group scheduling (FSDGS) problem, is investigated. In this problem, every job has a distinct due date, early penalty rate, and tardy penalty rate. This problem is typically classified in the literature as F_m | fmls,S_plk,prmu | ∑(w_j^1 E_j+ w_j^2 T_j). A mixed integer linear programming model is developed for the proposed research problem. As the problem is proved to be strongly NP-hard, only small-size problems can be solved with the mathematical model. Thus, a metaheuristic algorithm based on the Particles Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is developed to solve... 

Industrial water systems often allow efficient water uses via water reuse and/or recirculation. The design of the network layout connecting water-using processes is a complex problem which involves several criteria to optimize. The general problem can be formulated as a non-convex nonlinear program (NLP), but due to the presence of bilinear terms, it may be difficult for local optimization solvers to attain global optimal solutions. To overcome this difficulty, this paper presents a hybrid approach combining the global optimization power of evolutionary algorithms and speed and accuracy of mathematical programming technics.By this strategy, local solutions can be avoided and the... 

Inherent safety means that the process is naturally safe and the conditions of occurrence of unsafe cases and situations are eliminated from the system so that unsafe conditions can be controlled and prevented from occurrence by means of layers of protection. In general, evaluation of inherent safety may be studied in two different conditions; the first one is associated with the units that are not completely designed and built yet. In the initial steps of developing a process, there is much freedom in the determination of materials, equipment, and designing variables. As soon as the process enters its life cycle, making changes in the process will be very difficult and expensive. Therefore,... 

Mixed-model production Lines manufacture or assemble more than one product with similar production characteristics or different models of a product on the same line. This level of flexibility in commodities is very important to face diverse customers' expectations. In this article, U-shaped, mixed-model, synchronous lines with stochastic task times are discussed in a cost-oriented perspective. In U-shaped, mixed-model, Simultaneous consideration of line balancing and model sequencing is essential because different models require different tasks with different task times and the sequence of models determine the models which is produced in each station in each cycle. This sequence affects the... 

Due to extension of wireless networks, indoor positioning service becomes more important in new generations of WLAN networks. Complicated nature of indoor propagation channel decreases the quality of localization service in urban area. To overcome this problem, we surveyed characteristics of indoor radio channels and proposed methods to specify channel parameters to reduce its effect on positioning error. For this purpose, we introduce some super resolution methods and compare their precision and ability to implement on hardware. Among all of them, Matrix Pencil is selected and its mathematical functions are analyzed and stated in numerical algorithms and basic units. In implementain phase,... 

The development of an oil field plays an important role in the optimum production. In the past, several wells have been used in a multi layer reservoir to produce oil from each layer. It costs oil industry billions of dollars and the problem would be more severe in the offshore. Nowadays, one well can produce oil from different pay zones in a reservoir. In this type of well called smart or intelligent well, production tubing is in common between pay zones and some chokes are installed on the tubing to produce oil from different layers. The size of choke usually varies and can be controlled by an electrical system installed in the well. As each pay interval has different capacity in terms of... 

Breast Cancer is considered one of the most common cancers among Iranian women. Every year, seven thousands women start suffering from this disease. Since 70 percent of this patients live over 5 years, after this disease starts, there are 70 thousands women who are suffering from the cancer. The average age of getting the disease in Iran is 5 years lower than that of the global level. Studies show that compound containing Chromene and Carboxamides are appropriate candidates for preventing breast cancer. One of the most important fields of researches in Chemistry and Bio-Chemistry is QSAR which is used to relate the structure of molecules to their activities. In this study, molecular... 

This thesis proposes a dynamic model for studding influences of suspension components behavior on rail vehicle dynamics. As the air springs are very important isolating component in rail vehicles, a new complete nonlinear air spring model, with taking into consideration of thermo–dynamical effects, is developed. The model coefficients are tuned based on the real test data and it can be easily used in dynamic modeling of air springs. The new proposed vehicle model is a complete track–vehicle model with 70 degree of freedoms which is addressed as a modular type. Experimental results from complete rail–vehicle field test, showed remarkable agreement between proposed model and test results.... 

In the pas few years, the use of web-based education systems have grown exponentially spurred by the fact that neither students nor teachers are bound to a specific location and that this form of computer-based education is virtually independent of any specific hardware platforms. These systems can offer a great variety of channels and workspaces to facilitate information sharing and communication between participants in a course, let educators distribute information to students, produce content material, prepare assignments and tests, engage in discussions, manage distance classes and enable collaborative learning with virtual classroom sessions, forums, chats, file storage areas, news... 

Online voltage stability assessment is essential for preventing the failure in power systems. Voltage instability in power systems usually occurs in consequence of contingency situations or continuous load increasing or both of them. A new method for online voltage stability assessment using the data acquired from phasor measurement units (PMUs) and offline trained decision trees is presented in this thesis. The index of voltage stability margin (VSM) is used for security assessment and considering WSCC criterion, different operation points are divided in two classes: safe and unsafe. In order to obtain the voltage stability margin and generate the database, a new method which has been named... 

Minimizing completion time of tasks in a flowshops has always attracted attention of researchers since it was introduced by Johnson, 1954. If all jobs are processed in the same order, the sequence is called a permutation sequence. Tardiness factor is one of important factors in permutation flowshop sequencing problem. Minimizing this factor brings about increase in service level of the shop and is helpful in meeting customer’s needs. Since, minimizing tardiness in PFSP in among NP-hard problems, computational efforts in this area has focused on heuristic approaches. However, the researches has always considered due dates only on the last machine. It means, always it has been assumed that due... 

We explain new interval methods, recently introduced in the literature, for solving unconstrained and constrained global optimization problems. The strategy is characterized by a subdivision of the argument intervals of the expression and a recomputation of the expression with these new intervals. By varying the selection and termination criteria, we explain new variants. These methods are used to solve problems with an objective function that has possibly a large number of local minima and constraints that may be nonlinear or nonconvex. We describe algorithms that return global minima and points at which the objective function is within a defined distance from the global minima. Numerical... 

Image segmentation is a technique which divides an image into significant parts. The accuracy of this technique plays an important role when it applies on medical images. Among various image segmentation methods, clustering methods have been extensively investigated and used. Since it is an unsupervised method, the existence of a small amount of side-information which is extracted from a specific application (in this case, medical image) could improve its accuracy. Using this side-information in clustering methods introduces a new generation of clustering approaches called semi-supervised clustering. This information usually has a format of pair-wise constraints and can be prepared easily... 

In this thesis the simulation optimization problems are solved by using Artificial Bee Colony (ABC). The main objective is to improve and adapt the ABC algorithm for solving the optimization problems in deterministic and stochastic environments. For solving deterministic problems, directed search in neighborhood and Nelder-Mead algorithm are combined with ABC algorithm to improve the convergence rate and solutions. Moreover; in stochastic environment, hypothesis test and Kim-Nelson (KN) indifference zone ranking and selection procedure are helping bees to produce solutions with better confidence level on the quality of the solution. Results of optimizing an extensive complex benchmark... 

One of the most important parts of vehicles and most of mechanical machines is power transmission system, especially the Gearbox used in them.In order to optimize the use of energy, especially fossil fuel, researchers are looking for new mechanisms to refine the operation of vehicles and other machines.One of the mechanisms which absorbed researcher’s attention during recent years is the Continuously Variable Transmission. By using these gearboxes which are replaced with older samples, we can have the continuous range of aspect ratio between two constant values. This important property causes the decrease of the use of fuel.In recent decades many manufacturers have used different kinds of... 

We use an abstract model to perform hardware/software partitioning for embedded systems. The complexity of partitioning problem in the model is studied and we use a scheme to overcome its NP-Hardness. Partitioning problem can be considered as the main phase of high level synthesis. As it suffers from complexity, heuristic search methods are generally used to overcome its complexity. In this thesis we present a heuristic method (named Tendency algorithm) to increase the performance of heuristic searches, and use it in parallel with other tuning methods. We defind suitable initial point(s) for heuristic searches instead of tuning heuristic parameters. The thesis justifies the logic behind... 

Behavioral investigation and control of multi-agent systems was one of the most attractive problems in robotics which has been studied since the middle of 20th century. Tracking a target is shown by many organic mechanisms during hunting and etc. and is one of the important topics of researches. In this thesis tracking a target by a multi-agent system has been considered which the agents are wheeled mobile robots and have non-holonomic motion constraints. A sample dimensionless and continuous time synchronous dynamic is proposed for the motion of these agents and the goal is to track a moving target while the agents create and keep a desired formation during their tracking process.... 

The goal of this project is the development of a control algorithm for a flock of non-holonomic aerial agents. For this purpose,the swarm architecture having some unique features such as robustness, flexibility, and scalability is utilized. Swarm is defined as a group of simple agents having local interactions between themselves and the environmentwhich shows an unpredictable emergent behavior.Behavior based control which is inspired from the animal behaviors is employed to control the swarm of mobile agents. Accordingly, the necessary behaviors which are distance adjustment, velocity agreement, and virtual leader tracking together with a fuzzy coordinator are designed. In this study, in... 

Nowadays, the use of advanced composite materialsin different structureshas been increased and many industriesextend application of these high-tech materials because of their very high ratio of strength to weight and variation in ply configurationsuch asdifferent fiber angles which can control the response of these planes due to design requirements.One the most recent applications of such materials inreinforcing various structures are preventing crack propagation in aircraft structures and strengthening buildings against earthquakes which have been developed considerably. But, a lot of intact topics in this criterion are available which should be studied carefully. So, according to what was... 

Taking into consideration of optimization methods has been increased recently. Optimization methods in engineering that consumes a lot of time and cost have been developed. Optimal design of structures is a matter that grabbed the attention of civil engineers and due to the deficiency of classical methods the modern approaches are being developed. One of the most important structures that are constructed for industrial and transportation purposes are truss structures.Structural control under support excitation is constraining the structure to some structural limitations. The final target in this paper is to apply the modern methods to get the optimal weight of structure under seismic loads....