Sharif Digital Repository

This paper presents an experimental research for studying the relative and interactive effects of three physicochemical fluid characteristics (viscosity, pH, and ionic strength) on the incipient motion of a granular particle under laminar flow condition. Critical flow velocity for particle's incipient motion, an important factor for evaluating flow-induced soil erosion, was used to quantify the relative erosive capacity of the test fluids. Response surface methodology (RSM), a statistical design of experiments, was used to design and implement 20 test fluids with various levels of the three fluid characteristics. Incipient motion of a highly spherical glass bead positioned atop a specially... 

The relative vulnerability of spinal motion segments to different loading combinations remains unknown. The meta-analysis described here using the results of a validated L2-L3 nonlinear viscoelastic finite element model was designed to investigate the critical loading and its effect on the internal mechanics of the human lumbar spine. A Box-Behnken experimental design was used to design the magnitude of seven independent variables associated with loads, rotations and velocity of motion. Subsequently, an optimization method was used to find the primary and secondary variables that influence spine mechanical output related to facet forces, disc pressure, ligament forces, annulus matrix... 

In order to implement a damage detection strategy and assess the condition of a structure, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) as a process plays a key role in structural reliability. This paper aims to present a methodology for online detection of damages that may occur during a strong ground excitation. In this regard, Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) is superseded by Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) in the Hilbert Huang Transformation (HHT). Although analogous with EMD, EEMD brings about more appropriate Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs). IMFs are employed to assess the first-mode frequency and mode shape. Afterwards, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is applied to predict story... 

In order to implement a damage detection strategy and assess the condition of a structure, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) as a process plays a key role in structural reliability. This paper aims to present a methodology for online detection of damages that may occur during a strong ground excitation. In this regard, Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) is superseded by Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) in the Hilbert Huang Transformation (HHT). Although analogous with EMD, EEMD brings about more appropriate Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs). IMFs are employed to assess the first-mode frequency and mode shape. Afterwards, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is applied to predict story... 

Data quality (DQ) has been defined as ‘fitness for use’. In order to measure and improve DQ, various methodologies have been defined. A DQ methodology is a set of guidelines and techniques that define a rational process to measure and improve the quality of data. In order to make DQ measurement and improvement more organised, DQ dimensions have been defined. A dimension is a single aspect of DQ, such as accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and relevancy. In order to measure dimensions, special tools have been developed. These are called metrics. In most organisations, some data are more significant than others. In other words, some data carry more ‘weight’. Hence, they must play a more... 

Data quality (DQ) has been defined as ‘fitness for use’. In order to measure and improve DQ, various methodologies have been defined. A DQ methodology is a set of guidelines and techniques that define a rational process to measure and improve the quality of data. In order to make DQ measurement and improvement more organised, DQ dimensions have been defined. A dimension is a single aspect of DQ, such as accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and relevancy. In order to measure dimensions, special tools have been developed. These are called metrics. In most organisations, some data are more significant than others. In other words, some data carry more ‘weight’. Hence, they must play a more... 

In this study, a three-factor, three-level Box-Behnken design with response surface methodology were used to maximize the TOC removal and minimize the H2O2 residual in the effluent of the combined UV-C/H2O2-VUV system for the treatment of an actual slaughterhouse wastewater (SWW) collected from one of the meat processing plants in Ontario, Canada. The irradiation time and the initial concentrations of total organic carbon (TOCo) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2o) were the three predictors, as independent variables, studied in the design of experiments. The multiple response approach was used to obtain desirability response surfaces at the optimum factor settings. Subsequently, the optimum... 

Shot peening (SP) and also severe shot peening (SSP) provide high level compressive residual stress on a certain thickness just beneath the surface. By exposing severe plastic deformation (SPD) via SSP, the nanocrystallization is formed without any chemical alteration and the structure is to be hardened by fully mechanized process. The difference among SP, SSP and repeening (RP) is only related with the selection of the input parameters. Most of the input parameters combination constructs the Almen intensity which is the most powerful condition to be made the decision on the final shot peening of real parts. AISI 1045 medium carbon steel is selected for the optimization of input parameters... 

The main goal of this research is to use the biomass productivity, carbohydrate content, and carbohydrate productivity as useful responses for optimization of macronutrients concentrations (K2HPO4, NaHCO3, and NaNO3) in cultivation of Spirulina microalgae as a feedstock for bioethanol production. In this study, individual and synergistic effects of medium components on the mentioned responses were investigated. The culture medium was optimized using central composite design for achieving the maximize biomass productivity (165 mg L−1 day−1 at K2HPO4: 438 mg L−1, NaHCO3: 15.92 g L−1, and NaNO3: 0.5 g L−1), carbohydrate content (42.0% of dry mass at K2HPO4: 192 mg L−1, NaHCO3: 5.71 g L−1, and... 

The aim of this study was to develop a more sophisticated model of the spleen tissue and investigate its interactions with a three-fingered laparoscopic grasper. The spleen tissue, modeled as a hyper viscoelastic material, was subjected to external loadings, imposed by rigid grasping jaws. The tissue deformation as well as the sliding occurrence between tissue and jaws was investigated using nonlinear finite element method. Results indicated that a grasping configuration which aimed a sufficiently large piece of spleen with small radius of curvature was more successful for effective grasping. The trends and magnitudes of the tooltissue interaction forces obtained during effective and... 

V2O5/SiO2 catalyst utilized to oxidize the SO2 to SO3 species in the presence of oxygen mainly for producing sulfuric acid. For this catalyst, the active phase was a mixture of vanadium pentoxide and basic sulfate/pyrosulfate material. This active phase at the reaction temperature behaved as a liquid filling up the pores of the silica support. On the other hand, amounts of the SO3 and V5+ species in the catalyst necessarily varied with the concentration of the feed material and temperature rendering complexity to the kinetics of the SO2 oxidation reaction. In the current research, the catalyst preparation with different amounts of such materials was undertaken. Purified Diatomaceous earth of... 

Presence of sulfur components in liquid fuels should be controlled due to environmental issues and process considerations. In order to decrease the level of sulfurous compounds in crude gas-oil with 5750 ppmw sulfur, electrochemical oxidative desulfurization has been investigated over electrodes of copper and stainless steel because of their easy operation and mild process conditions. In this research, the effects of stirring rate, temperature, applied potential, sodium hydroxide addition as electrolyte media and water volume have been examined on the sulfur removal efficiency. The results show that electrical conductivity of gas-oil sharply increases with addition of electrolyte up to 613... 

A multicomponent analysis method based on principal component analysis-artificial neural network model (PC-ANN) is proposed for the simultaneous determination of levodopa (LD) and benserazide hydrochloride (BH). The method is based on the reaction of levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride with silver nitrate as an oxidizing agent in the presence of PVP and formation of silver nanoparticles. The reaction monitored at analytical wavelength 440 nm related to surface plasmon resonance band of silver nanoparticles. Differences in the kinetic behavior of the levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride were exploited by using principal component analysis, an artificial neural network (PC-ANN) to resolve... 

The need for constructing software development methods that have been tailored to fit specific situations and requirements has given rise to the generation of general method fragments, or process patterns. Process patterns can be seen in some third-generation integrated methodologies (such as OPEN) and in Method Engineering approaches where they are used as process components. They have also been presented as components in generic software development lifecycles where they represent classes of common practices in a specific domain or paradigm; object-oriented process patterns are well-known examples. Agile methodologies, however, are yet to be thoroughly explored in this regard. We provide a... 

Agile Software Development is regarded as an effective and efficient approach, mainly due to its ability to accommodate rapidly changing requirements, and to cope with modern software development challenges. There is therefore a strong tendency to use agile software development methodologies where applicable; however, the sheer number of existing agile methodologies and their variants hinders the selection of an appropriate agile methodology or method chunk. Methodology evaluation tools address this problem through providing detailed evaluations, yet no comprehensive evaluation framework is available for agile methodologies. We introduce the Comprehensive Evaluation Framework for Agile... 

The emergence of agile software development methodologies, and the sheer number of the variants introduced, has raised the need for evaluation and comparison efforts, mostly in order to facilitate the selection or engineering of an agile methodology aimed at a specific software development situation. But existing evaluation frameworks and comparison tools do not satisfy all the needs of project managers and method engineers. The principal objectives of this paper are to introduce a fundamental basis for evaluation frameworks that target existing challenges, and also to evaluate existing evaluation frameworks in order to identify their shortcomings. To this aim, we have proposed an evaluation... 

Agile Software Development is regarded as an effective and efficient approach, mainly due to its ability to accommodate rapidly changing requirements, and to cope with modern software development challenges. There is therefore a strong tendency to use agile software development methodologies where applicable; however, the sheer number of existing agile methodologies and their variants hinders the selection of an appropriate agile methodology or method chunk. Methodology evaluation tools address this problem through providing detailed evaluations, yet no comprehensive evaluation framework is available for agile methodologies. We introduce the Comprehensive Evaluation Framework for Agile... 

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has been one of the most active areas of research. The retrieval principle of CBIR systems is based on visual features such as colour, texture and shape or the semantic meaning of the images. A CBIR system can be used to locate medical images in large databases. This paper presents a CBIR system for retrieving digital human brain magnetic resonance images (MRI) based on textural features and the support vector machine (SVM) learning method. This system can retrieve similar images from the database in two groups: normal and tumoural. This research uses the knowledge of the CBIR approach to the application of medical decision support and discrimination... 

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has turned into an important and active potential research field with the advance of multimedia and imaging technology. It makes use of image features, such as color, texture and shape, to index images with minimal human intervention. A CBIR system can be used to locate medical images in large databases. In this paper we propose a CBIR system which describes the methodology for retrieving digital human brain magnetic resonance images (MRI) based on textural features and the Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) learning to retrieve similar images from database in two categories: normal and tumoral. A fuzzy classifier has been used, because of the... 

Sophisticated surgeons are widely indicating the use of surgical robots in order to reject human error, increase precision, and speed. Among well-known robotic mechanisms, parallel robots are broadly more investigated regarding their special characters as higher acceleration, speed, and accuracy, and less weight. Specific surgical procedures confine, and restrict their workspace, while controlling and validating the robots are complicated regarding to their complex dynamic. To this end, in this paper, a 6-DOF robot, with rotary manipulators, is designed and controlled. Addressing nonlinearity of parallel robots, an innovative methodology is formulated to robustly penalize the error of...