Sharif Digital Repository

In this thesis, we studied the oscillation of neutrino flavors and the measurement of mixing parameters through the detection of cosmic neutrinos at neutrino telescopes. Most of the astrophysical explosions predict the emission of neutrino flux and kilometer-scale detectors are under construction for the observation of these neutrinos. Detection of astrophysical neutrinos opens a new window to understand the neutrino properties and also the properties of astrophysical sources.In this thesis first we review the phenomenology of neutrino flavor oscillation and characteristics of neutrino mass matrix. By introducing a new class of invariants (under general transformation of lepton fields bases)... 

Excitability is one of the most important characteristics of a neuron. In 1948, Hodgkin identified three different types of excitability of neurons. Excitability an all of its types can be observed in Hodgkin-Huxley model of neuronal dynamics (H-H model) as a four-dimensional system of differential equations and in at least two dimensional reductions of H-H type models. By applying the theory of dynamical systems (e.g. bifurcation theory), one can give a mathematical definition of excitability.Excitability of the neuron is equivalent to that the neuronal model is near a bifurcation through which the state of the system approaches to a stable limit cycle. In this thesis, a two-dimensional... 

Neutrino flavor oscillations are clear evidence of massive neutrinos. It has been for more than a decade that neutrino physics became one of active topics in the field of particle physics and various experiments started studying the flavor oscillation of neutrinos. Unfortunately, experiments studying the flavor oscillations are only sensitive to the mass square difference, and they are incapable of providing more information about the absolute mass scale of neutrinos. Additionally, sterile neutrinos having non-standard interactions are under vast investigations and studies. Determination of neutrino masses and their effective number is among the most challenging problems by which... 

International trade arrangements have been considerably developed in recent decadees. Especially, one can note the role of these factors in economic development and improvement of life standards in member countries. In the meantime, Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) was established in 1985, by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey and then extended by seven other countries: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Improving economic development and intra-group trade of member countries is one of the main objectives for the group. The purpose of this research is to estimate the ex-post effects of ECO on the intra-group trade of member countries.... 

Establishing an efficient free trade agreement (FTA) requires some conditions in both trading partners. The median voter approach insists on the direction of general interests (identified by the utility of a median voter) to explain how two countries may agree to sign an FTA. At the other side, lobbying approach emphasizes on the role of interest groups (groups with a large influence on the public decisions) in forming FTAs. Taking into account the theoretically based and empirically robust foundation of the median voter approach, we rely on it to investigate the major determinants of free trade agreements in the case of ECO countries besides all their main trade partners. The database... 

During the two last decades, Iranians have faced with a wide and substantial increase in housing prices, especially in great metropolitans such as Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan and Shiraz. This easily could be refered to a hyperinflation which significantly impeded the access of low and medium income families to housing. This study uses a structure model to recognize the responsible factors of such a rise in housing prices and to show whether there is any price bubble in market. The model consists of both supply and demand side determinants to explain the price changes across Iranian provinces over 1375-1390, in a panel data context. In particular, we use a longer and larger database which also... 

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has considerably increased in recent years and achieved two percent of the world GDP in 2009. The positive impact of FDI on many national economic variables such as export and employment has been a great motivation for countries to seek it. In spite of many promoting factors in Iran, the Iranian FDI inflow still remains small. Using a huge panel dataset including 2604 real observations, this study aims to recognize and evaluate the impact of main factors influencing FDI inwards across the world. Based on a theoretical approach, we develop an empirical gravity model which includes not only the traditional mass variables but also some specific factors to FDI... 

In last decades as the international volume of trade increased significantly, examination of the relationship between trade and economic growth is one of the interesting topics for economists and policymakers. Trade can affect performance of economics by many channels, such as trade specialization, human and physical capital accumulation, knowledge and technology transfer. In this regard the aim of this thesis is the examination of trade specialization in industries with high productivity (as one of the trade influences) effects on economic growth.In this research based on Hausmann et al. (2006), we use an economic model with two sectors: modern and traditional. This model gives a primary... 

Increasing popularity and use of smartphones has led to rapid growth in number of mobile applications. With the increasing number of available apps in app stores, some of them may have many similarities to each other in functional aspects. Detecting similar apps among a large number of different applications is an important and difficult problem which is useful in a variety of applications, such as app recommendation, comparing competitor apps, app search engines, etc. In order to investigate the functional similarities between applications, high-level and low-level characteristics can be used. With using the high-level characteristics, app functionality features can be extracted from...