Sharif Digital Repository

Bathymetric mapping for an accurate estimation of stored water volume in drying lakes is a key information for an effective monitoring of their recession or restoration status. Extraction of bathymetry in shallow saline lakes using remote sensing techniques has always been challenging due to the complex influences imposed by the physical properties of substrate and the spatial variability of salinity. In this study, we developed a machine learning-based model to quantify the implicit, non-linear relationship between water depth and surface reflectance by leveraging extensive in-situ data and high-resolution satellite imagery. We trained and tested the learning model in the hyper-saline Lake... 

In the eld of supply chain, selecting a suitable green supplier could signi cantly help us decrease the cost and risks of the operations and increase the quality of green supply. This paper develops an integrated two-stage approach based on Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming to select suppliers and allocate order in the green supply chain. In the rst stage, suppliers are evaluated using FAHP method and in the second stage, a multi-product multi-period supply chain is developed considering green location-routing problem, discounting, and time window under uncertainty. Then, a fuzzy solution approach is applied to solve the proposed... 

In this study, an integrated 2D numerical model is applied to investigate the mechanical effects of the vegetation and soil type on slope stability. The developed model can assess the mechanical aspects of vegetation in slope stabilization. For this purpose, a case study of the Kheyrud forest located in northern Iran is considered as a real case site. Different scenarios including; three soil types (fine grain with low-, medium-, and high-strength) and two vegetation types (Maple and Common-ash) are assessed in the stability analysis (based on safety factor). The results confirm that the considered vegetation can prevent shallow landslide occasions, but has a limited impact on deep landslide... 

Purpose: Healthcare failure mode and effect analysis (HFMEA) identifies potential risks and defines preventive actions to reduce the effects of risks. In addition, a discrete event simulation (DES) could evaluate the effects of every improvement scenario. Consequently, a proposed integrated HFMEA-DES model is presented for quality improvement in a general hospital. Design/methodology/approach: In the proposed model, HFMEA is implemented first. As any risk in the hospital is important and that there are many departments and different related risks, all defined risk factors are evaluated using the risk priority number (RPN) for which related corrective actions are defined based on experts'... 

The paper studies the optimum panel horizontal orientation angle toward the Sun and the optimum time interval of the panel’s movement. The optimum time intervals or panel movement can change the rate of input energy to the panel surface in Iran. For this purpose, a neural network has been trained to estimate the intensity of solar radiation in Iran. After model validation, the intensity of solar radiation has been estimated by selecting adequate geographical regions. Based on the intensity of sunlight, Iran has been divided into ten regions. In these regions, 40 cities have been randomly selected to study the effect of the panel’s angle variations within appropriate time inter-vals, as well... 

The stability of unsaturated slopes under seismic loading has become an important issue over the past few years which is the indication of its practical significance in geoengineering. This study aims at exploring the seismic stability of unsaturated sandy clay and silty clayey sand slopes using 2D limit equilibrium analysis for different slope geometries and ground water levels. To this end, the pseudo-static and the displacement-based sliding block Newmark’s approaches are employed for parametric studies by considering the records of the 2003 earthquake that devastated the city of Bam, in the southeast of Iran. In all analyses, the unsaturated state of the soil materials is taken into... 

In this study, the traffic parameters were collected from three work zones in Iran in order to evaluate the queue length in the work zones. The work zones were observed at peak and non-peak hours. The results showed that abrupt changes in Freeway Free Speed (FFS) and arrival flow rate caused shockwaves and created a bot-tleneck in that section of the freeway. In addition, accel-eration reduction, abrupt change in the shockwave speed, abrupt change in the arrival flow rate and increase in the percentage of heavy vehicles have led to extreme queue lengths and delay. It has been found that using daily traffic data for scheduling the maintenance and rehabilita-tion projects could diminish the... 

In United States (U.S.), government-funded organizations, such as NLDAC, reimburse travel and subsistence expenses incurred during living-organ donation process. However, in Iran, there is a non-governmental organization called Iranian Kidney Foundation (IKF) that funds the direct and indirect costs of donors through charitable donations and contributions from participants in the exchange program. In this article, for countries outside the U.S. that currently use an equality approach, we propose a potential new compensation-apportionment approach (equitable approach) for kidney-exchange chains and compare it with the currently available system (equality approach) in terms of the... 

Estimating precipitation at high spatial-temporal resolution is vital in manifold hydrological, meteorological and water management applications, especially over areas with un-gauged networks and regions where water resources are on the wane. This study aims to evaluate five downscaling methods to determine the accuracy and efficiency of which on generating high-resolution precipitation data at annual and monthly scales. To establish precipitation-Land surface characteristics relationship, environmental factors, including Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Digital Elevation Model (DEM), were considered as proxies in the spatial downscaling... 

Over the past few decades, industrial development has caused a dramatic increment in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as a leading cause of climate change. Modifying the industrial plants' environmental performance is the main pillar of improving efficiency that can reduce the waste of resources and make achieving lower-cost global emission reduction targets of the Kyoto protocol's clean development mechanism (CDM) possible. Considering the essentiality of knowledge-based research in increasing the awareness of policymakers by providing better access to accurate and reliable information, an analytical survey on efficiency in oil, gas, and petrochemical industries has been conducted by... 

This paper presents a probabilistic approach to reveal the negative consequences of overlooking code calibration when adopting the provisions of nonindigenous building codes in design. A taxonomy of the national building codes of various countries whose provisions are adopted from one or more original standards is first presented. Next, the reliability-based approach to quantify the lack of safety that may arise due to the absence of code calibration is presented. This approach is then applied to the case study of the National Building Code of Iran, whose load and resistance factors are directly adopted from ASCE/SEI 7. To this end, seven steel building archetypes with various structural... 

Ethylene dichloride thermal cracking is one of the conventional methods for hydrogen chloride production. A critical issue concerned with this method is to provide thermal energy for cracking reaction, which is generally provided by the flammable gasses inside the furnace. Utilizing renewable energy sources can be an interesting topic in this case. Hence, in this paper, the thermal integration feasibility of an ethylene dichloride cracking unit with a hybrid renewable plant, based on geothermal and wind energies, is investigated, while the case study for wind turbines system (Alstom ECO 74/1670/ Class II model) is Meshkin Shahr, located in Iran. To utilize geothermal energy, a... 

Evaluation of the wind energy potential in different climates includes high level of uncertainties. To address the uncertainties, this study performs reliability analysis by defining a limit state function for the wind power density (WPD) to determine failure or success of the system in the probabilistic framework. The probability distributions of the variables including wind speed and air density simulated by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with 2 km resolution are used in the limit state function to form a nondeterministic model in southwest of Iran. Given significant correlation between air density and wind speed in most of the pixels, Nataf transformation is applied to... 

Background: There has been considerable interest in target immunotherapy in patients with diabetes. This study was designed to identify the effect of BCG vaccination in the treatment of Iranian patients with longstanding diabetes mellitus type 1. Methods: After approval of the cross-sectional study protocol by the ethics committee under number IRCT2017042919940N2, a total of 19 Iranian volunteers with diabetes mellitus type 1 completed this 48-month study. These patients received three 0.1 ml intradermal injections of BCG vaccination in weeks 0, 4 and 24. The serum level of glucose, HgbA1C and c-peptide was measured before and serially after the interventions. Insulin requirements were... 

The casing-collapse hazard is one that drilling engineers seek to mitigate with careful well design and operating procedures. However, certain rock formations and their fluid pressure and stress conditions are more prone to casing-collapse risks than others. The Gachsaran Formation in south west Iran, is one such formation, central to oil and gas resource exploration and development in the Zagros region and consisting of complex alternations of anhydrite, marl and salt. The casing-collapse incidents in this formation have resulted over decades in substantial lost production and remedial costs to mitigate the issues surrounding wells with failed casing string. High and vertically-varying... 

In recent years, researchers have paid particular attention to safety, air pollution, and energy consumption, which are all affected by vehicle type. The primary objective of this study is to achieve a thorough understanding of the relationships of transportation attitudes, safety attitudes, personality, and lifestyle with vehicle type for the first time in Iran, as a developing country. For this purpose, an interview questionnaire was designed, and 740 participants were interviewed in Tehran. Vehicle types are categorized into seven groups: mini, compact, medium, heavy, Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), pickup, and motorcycle. In the first stage, factor analysis was employed to identify the... 

There are uncertainties in both inherent geological properties and IOR/EOR performance parameters of low permeability greenfield reservoirs. Therefore, efforts to reduce uncertainties in the appraisal phase are necessary for the development and production phases. An adequate selection of the appraisal area in the hydrocarbon field is an imperative factor since the results of the appraisal well drilling and IOR/EOR pilot tests will be utilized for the development of the entire field. The major challenge in selecting an appraisal area is the lack of an integrated and systematic approach. In this study, we present a novel systematic and quantitative approach consisting of a better... 

This article analyzes various roles of development practitioners (called outsiders) in five different cases of community-based development (CBD) in rural Iran. It provides a review of the literature on CBD and identifies three main types of roles fulfilled by outsiders to support indigenous development processes. These include preparing the ground, activating community-based organizations as participatory institutions, and taking on the role of brokers who bridge the gap between the local community and outside institutions—especially the state and market. From the analysis of empirical qualitative data collected during fieldwork in Iran, the article concludes that while the roles played by... 

Lake Urmia is the second-largest hypersaline lake in the world. There has been a drastic water level drop of 7.2 m from 1995 to 2016. Beginning in October 2013, the Lake Urmia Restoration Plan (LURP) launched a 10-year program. An increase in water level and a relative improvement in Lake Urmia condition has been observed since 2017. It is an undecided and controversial issue whether the recent positive trend of Lake Urmia has been due to the LURP activities or it is a natural contribution of climate factors variations. To shed some light on this issue, we examine three other lakes, adjacent to the Lake Urmia basin, with similar rainfall variability to investigate their status during the... 

Nowadays, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are playing a tremendous role in all aspects of human life and they have the remarkable potential to solve many problems that classic sciences are unable to solve appropriately. Neuroscience and especially psychiatry is one of the most important fields that can use the potential of AI and ML. This study aims to develop an ML-based model to detect the relationship between resiliency and hope with the stress of COVID-19 by mediating the role of spiritual well-being. An online survey is conducted to assess the psychological responses of Iranian people during the Covid-19 outbreak in the period between March 15 and May 20, 2020, in...