Sharif Digital Repository

Many websites on the Internet offer services to people. They usually ask the users to fill the registration forms for using their services. Unfortunately, some vandalistic persons write programs which make automatic fake registration. For solving this problem, CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Human Apart) systems are invented. These systems distinguish human users from computer programs. One of the CAPTCHA methods which is designed for Persian and Arabic users is Nastaliq CAPTCHA. In this method, the image of a Persian or Arabic word which is written in Nastaliq font is chosen from a dictionary, and it is shown to the users, then they are asked to type... 

Active Queue Management (AQM) policies provide an early indication of incipient congestion to the source. In this paper, we propose a new AQM policy that predicts the instantaneous queue length at the next time instant using adaptive filtering technique. To use this algorithm in fast routers, we have reduced its computational complexity. The proposed method uses a simple linear function as adaptive rule. We show that this adaptive congestion control method is able to control the oscillations in the instantaneous queue length. We compare the performance of our method with the other well-known AQM methods such as RED and PI which are also simulated by MATLAB. We also compare the computational... 

Nowadays, computer is being used in many aspects of human life. A consequence of computer is electronic documents. Computers cannot understand written documents. So, we need to convert written documents to electronic documents in order to be able to process them with computers. One of the common methods for converting written texts to electronic text is Optical Character Recognition (OCR). A lot of work has been done on English OCR, but Persian/Arabic OCR is still under development. One of the major problems in Persian/Arabic OCR is noise removal. Because dots are very important in Persian and Arabic languages and they are very similar to noises, so noise removal from Persian/Arabic... 

In some websites it is necessary to tell apart human users from computer programs which is known as CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Human Apart). CAPTCHA methods are mainly based on the weak points of OCR systems while using them are undesirable to human users. In this paper a method has been presented for telling the human users and computer softwares apart on the basis of choice of an object shown on the screen. In this method some objects are chosen randomly and the pictures about these topics are downloaded from Internet. Then after effecting some changes such as rotating, all of the pictures are shown on the screen. Then we ask the user to choose a... 

In this work, a finite-volume-based finite-element method is suitably developed for solving incompressible flow and heat transfer on collocated hybrid grid topologies. The method is generally applicable to arbitrarily shaped elements and orientations and, thus, challenges the potential to unify many of the different grid topologies into a single formulation. The key point in this formulation is the correct estimation of the convective and diffusive fluxes at the cell faces using a novel physical influence scheme. This scheme remarkably enhances the achieved solution accuracy. It is shown that the extended formulation is robust enough to treat any combination of multiblock meshes with dual... 

A new expression for the shear capacity of reinforced concrete beams without stirrups was derived by calculating the aggregate interlock capacity across the major diagonal crack of the beam, a procedure somewhat similar to those based on the modified compression field theory. Two formulas were obtained from the simplification of this expression. All three relations capture the dependence of shear strength on the size of the beam, the ratio of shear span to beam depth, longitudinal reinforcement ratio, maximum aggregate size, and concrete strength. The limits of these formulas agree well with the limit solutions of shear failure load for very small and very large beams based on plastic and... 

For the reason that flow expansion model (developed in our previous work) for evaluating mass transfer during droplet formation involves with manifest hydrodynamic aspects, in this research computational simulation of this phenomenon was done for characterization of hydrodynamics effects on the mass transfer during droplet formation. For this purpose, an Eulerian volume tracking computational code based on volume of fluid (VOF) method was developed to solve the transient Navier-Stokes equations for the axisymmetric free-boundary problem of a Newtonian liquid that is dripping vertically and breaking as drops into another immiscible Newtonian fluid. The effects of hydrodynamics effects on the... 

As computer simulation increasingly supports engineering design, the requirement for a computer software environment providing an integration platform for computational engineering software increases. A key component of an integrated environment is the use of computational engineering to assist and support solutions for complex design. In the present paper, an integrated software environment is demonstrated for multi-disciplinary computational modeling of structural and geotechnical problems. The SUT-DAM is designed in both popularity and functionality with the development of user-friendly pre- and post-processing software. Pre-processing software is used to create the model, generate an... 

Delaminated composite beam under general edge loading conditions is studied. Based on a technical engineering theory an analytical procedure for calculation of strain energy release rate and its separation into modes I and II of delamination is presented. By choosing a suitable displacement field based on second-order shear-thickness deformation theory and using the principle of minimum total potential energy, the equations of equilibrium are obtained along with the appropriate boundary conditions. The J integral and its definition for different modes of fracture is used for calculation of strain energy release rate and its separation into different modes. Double cantilever beam (DCB)... 

Making proper decisions in today's complex world is a challenging task for decision makers. A promising approach that can support decision makers to have a better understanding of complex systems is agent-based modeling (ABM). ABM has been developing during the last few decades as a methodology with many different applications and has enabled a better description of the dynamics of complex systems. However, the prescriptive facet of these applications is rarely portrayed. Adding a prescriptive decision-making (DM) aspect to ABM can support the decision makers in making better or, in some cases, optimized decisions for the complex problems as well as explaining the investigated phenomena. In... 

A numerical analysis has been performed to investigate the ground effects on the main parameters of a two-phase unconfined cloud of fuel and air to study its detonability. Equivalence ratio, turbulence intensity, cloud shape and volume, uniformity, temperature gradient and delay time distribution are the most important factors that affect the detonability of a vapor cloud. The effects of the altitude of the dispersing device from the ground on these significant factors have been demonstrated. A modified KIVA-based program has been employed to carry out the computations. A finite volume method is used to solve the equations describing the gas phase. A discrete particle technique is applied to... 

A generalized Hubbard model based on a molecular approach is used to calculate many electron wavefunctions of diamond vacancies. We have calculated the oscillator strength of the dipole transition rates from the ground states of the neutral and negatively charged vacancies. The ratio of the oscillator strengths is in very good quantitative agreement with the reported optical spectroscopic data. Electronic configurations in the ground and dipole allowed excited states are presented. With the proposed picture, the much larger oscillator strength of the negatively charged vacancy with respect to other experimentally investigated color centers N-V, H3, X3 and H4 is explained  

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a simple, economic and healthy technique to capture images from the internal area of the body. Although EIT is cheaper and smaller than other imaging systems and requires no ionizing radiation, the resolution associated with this technique is intrinsically limited and the image reconstruction algorithms proposed up to now are not efficient enough. In addition to low resolution EIT is an ill-posed inverse problem. Block method in EIT is based on electrical properties of materials and used to enhance image resolution and also to improve the reconstruction algorithm. Recently an inverse solution for EIT based on block method has been developed, however,... 

This review aims to propose the integrative implementation of microfluidic devices, biomaterials, and computational methods that can lead to a significant progress in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine researches. Simultaneous implementation of multiple techniques can be very helpful in addressing biological processes. Providing controllable biochemical and biomechanical cues within artificial extracellular matrix similar to in vivo conditions is crucial in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine researches. Microfluidic devices provide precise spatial and temporal control over cell microenvironment. Moreover, generation of accurate and controllable spatial and temporal... 

This paper presents the results of an analytical study on the dynamic characteristics of the Shaking Table facilities at Sharif University. This 3 degree of freedom shaking table is driven by 3 servo-control hydraulic actuators, and consists of a 12 ton, 4m×4m×0.6m steel deck. The main objective of this investigation is to identify the degree of flexibility of the deck, and its adverse effects in causing errors in the simulation of seismic effects on different structural specimens. Many frame specimens of different weights and configurations are subjected to seismic motions, and their responses are calculated using FE models. Some of these models were designed to account for eccentric... 

An important aspect of corrosion prediction for oil/gas wells and pipelines is to obtain a realistic estimate of the corrosion rate. Corrosion rate prediction involves developing a predictive model that utilizes commonly available operational parameters, existing lab/field data, and theoretical models to obtain realistic assessments of corrosion rates. This study presents a new model to predict corrosion rates by using artificial neural network (ANN) systems. The values of pH, velocity, temperature, and partial pressure of the CO2 are input variables of the network and the rate of corrosion has been set as the network output. Among the 718 data sets, 503 of the data were implemented to find... 

A general method for deriving electromagnetic particle in cell (EMPIC) algorithms has been given by Eastwood [Comput. Phys. Commun. 64, 252 (1991)]. This method devises variation of the action-integral to find discrete governing equations. The most important advantage of this method is automatic inclusion of the time coordinate via the action integral into the computational domain. This inclusion is inevitable because electromagnetic algorithms are based on time evolution of the system from its initial state. The drawback of this method is that it is rather abstract. This causes obscurity of particle-mesh interactions and makes it hard to analyze physical treatments of the computational... 

Sensor Localization is a crucial part of many location-dependent applications that is utilized in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Several approaches, including range-based and range-free, have been proposed to calculate the position of randomly deployed sensor nodes. With specific hardware, the range-based schemes typically achieve high accuracy based on either node-to-node distances or angles. On the other hand, the range-free mechanisms support less positioning accuracy with less expense. The proposed scheme is based on range-free localization, which utilizes the received signal strength (RSS) from the anchor nodes. In this work, genetic fuzzy and neuro-fuzzy methods are used to become... 

Background and objective There are many cells with various phenotypic behaviors in cancer interacting with each other. For example, an apoptotic cell may induce apoptosis in adjacent cells. A living cell can also protect cells from undergoing apoptosis and necrosis. These survival and death signals are propagated through interaction pathways between adjacent cells called gap junctions. The function of these signals depends on the cellular context of the cell receiving them. For instance, a receiver cell experiencing a low level of oxygen may interpret a received survival signal as an apoptosis signal. In this study, we examine the effect of these signals on tumor growth. Methods We make an...