Sharif Digital Repository

A novel biopolymer-based superabsorbent hydrogel was synthesized through chemical crosslinking by graft copolymerization of partially neutralized acrylic acid onto the hydrolyzed collagen, in the presence of a crosslinking agent and a free radical initiator. The Taguchi method, a robust experimental design, was employed for the optimization of the synthesis reaction based on the swelling capacity of the hydrogels. This method was applied for the experiments and standard L16 orthogonal array with three factors and four levels were chosen. The critical parameters that have been selected for this study are crosslinker (N,N′-methylene bisacrylamide), initiator (potassium persulfate), and monomer... 

Epoxides are important materials in the production of fine chemicals. Selective oxidation of alkenes to epoxides remains a challenge in synthetic chemistry. There has been considerable progress in tungsten-catalyzed epoxidation of alkenes in recent years. This review highlights the use of monomeric and dimeric oxido-peroxido tungsten(VI) complexes as catalysts or oxidants in homogeneous or heterogeneous catalytic systems for epoxidation of olefins  

This review mainly discusses the application of oxido-peroxido Molybdenum(VI) complexes as catalysts or mediators in homogeneous or heterogeneous catalytic systems for oxidations of olefins, sulfides, alcohols, alkanes, and amines toward the synthesis of a variety of organic compounds, such as epoxides, sulfoxides, aldehydes and ketones, carboxylic acids, alcohols and nitroso compounds  

We adopt an innovation-driven framework and investigate the sparse/compressible distributions obtained by linearly measuring or expanding continuous-domain stochastic models. Starting from the first principles, we show that all such distributions are necessarily infinitely divisible. This property is satisfied by many distributions used in statistical learning, such as Gaussian, Laplace, and a wide range of fat-tailed distributions, such as student's-t and α-stable laws. However, it excludes some popular distributions used in compressed sensing, such as the Bernoulli-Gaussian distribution and distributions, that decay like exp (-O(|x|p)) for 1 < p < 2. We further explore the implications of... 

A novel voltammetric sensor based on glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified with a thin film of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) coated with an electropolymerized layer of tiron-doped polypyrrole was developed and the resulting electrode was applied for the determination of acyclovir (ACV). The surface morphology and property of the modified electrode were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy techniques. The electrochemical performance of the modified electrode was investigated by means of linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). The effect of several experimental variables, such as pH of the supporting electrolyte, drop size of... 

Nanoparticles of manganese tungstate (MnWO4) were prepared via an impregnation method using Mn(NO3)2 4H2O and WO3 as a source of Mn and W, respectively. The morphology of the manganese tungstate nanoparticles was studied in detail by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). MnWO4 nanoparticles showed severe catalytic performances for the degradation of organic dye (methylene blue, MB) in the presence of tert-butyl hydrogen peroxide, TBHP, as the oxidant at room temperature in water  

A carbon-paste electrode (CPE) modified with iron(II) phthalocyanine was used for the sensitive voltammetric determination of epinephrine (EN). The electrochemical response characteristics of the modified electrode toward EN, ascorbic acid (AA) and uric acid (UA) were investigated by cyclic and differential pulse voltammetry (CV and DPV). The results show an efficient catalytic activity of the electrode for the electro-oxidation of EN, which leads to improvement of reversibility of the electrode response and lowering its overpotential by more than 100 mV. The effect of pH and potential sweep rate on the mechanism of the electrode process was investigated. The modified electrode exhibits an... 

Numerical simulations are performed to provide an in-depth insight into the effect of instabilities on liquid jets discharging from elliptical orifices. The axis-switching phenomenon and breakup are simulated and characterized under the effect of disturbances imposed at the nozzle exit. The simulations are based on the volume of fluid approach and an adaptive meshing. A range of orifice aspect ratios from 1 to 4 at the Rayleigh breakup regime is considered. The evolution of the jet cross section and axis switching under the influence of disturbances is compared with that of nonperturbed elliptical jets. It is found that the axis-switching repetition and breakup length exponentially decrease... 

The behavior of low-speed liquid jets emerging from rectangular orifices into a quiescent air is studied numerically. After ejection, the rectangular cross-section transforms into an elliptical form along the jet and while axis-switching includes elliptical cross-sections only, the rectangular shape never establishes again. The optimum wavenumber, corresponding to the most dominant wave, is found to be greater in orifices with higher aspect ratios and, as a result, breakup length of the jet will be shorter. The breakup length decreases exponentially with the initial amplitude of disturbances. Moreover, it is observed that the form of final breakup leads to elimination of the satellite... 

To study the impact of dam-reservoir-foundation interaction on nonlinear response of concrete gravity dams, a two-dimensional finite element model of a concrete gravity dam including the dam body, a part of its foundation and a part of the reservoir was made. In addition, the proper boundary conditions were used in both reservoir and foundation in order to absorb the energy of outgoing waves at the far end boundaries. Using the finite element method and smeared crack approach, some different seismic nonlinear analyses were done and finally, we came to a conclusion that the consideration of dam-reservoir-foundation interaction in nonlinear analysis of concrete dams is of great importance,... 

27Al, 17O and 13C chemical shieldings of aluminum acetylacetonate complex, Al(acac)3, were calculated at some Density Functional Theory (DFT) levels of theory. In these calculations the X-ray structures of its different polymorphs were used. Using these calculated data observed discrepancies between the X-ray crystallography and solid state NMR experiment were explained in terms of the quality of the NMR data. In this survey we resorted to the simulated spectra using our calculated chemical shifts. Inorder toconfirm our conclusions, electric field gradient (EFG) tensors of the 27Al and 17O nuclei were calculated at the same levels of theory as used in the chemical shielding calculations. On... 

Interior point methods have shown their powers in solving linear optimization problems and large classes of other optimization problems. However, at present there is still a gap between the practical behavior of these algorithms and their theoretical worst case complexity. The so-called large update interior point methods perform in practice much better than the small update methods which have the best known theoretical complexity. Recently, this gap has been reduced by Peng, Roos and Terlaky by introducing new self regular kernel functions. In this paper, by focusing on linear optimization problem and motivated by the self regular family of kernel functions, we impose some mild condition on... 

Interior point methods are not only the most effective methods for solving optimisation problems in practice but they also have polynomial time complexity. However, there is still a gap between the practical behavior of the interior point method algorithms and their theoretical complexity results. In this paper, by focusing on linear programming problems, we introduce a new family of kernel functions that have some simple and easy to check properties. We present a simplified analysis to obtain the complexity of generic interior point methods based on the proximity functions induced by these kernel functions. Finally, we prove that this family of kernel functions leads to improved iteration... 

This research investigated the forced convection heat transfer by using the swirling impinging jets. This study focused on nozzles, which equipped with twisted tapes via a numerical approach. The computational domain created by utilizing the fully structured meshes, which had very high quality from the viewpoint of aspect ratio and skewness. The numerical simulations were performed at four different jet-to-plate distances (L/D) of 2, 4, 6 and 8, four Reynolds numbers of 4000, 8000, 12,000 and 16,000, and also four different twist ratios (y/w) of 3, 4, 5 and 6. The mesh-independent tests were conducted based upon the average Nusselt number. The obtained results revealed good agreement with... 

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were immobilised with cobalt nanoparticles and analyzed by transmission electron microscopy. This modification procedure substantially improved colloidal dispersion of the immobilised MWCNTs in water and organic solvents, yielding uniform and stable thin films for modification of the glassy carbon electrode surface. The modified electrode showed an efficient catalytic role for the electrochemical oxidation of thioridazine (TR), leading to remarkable decrease in its oxidation overpotential of approximately 100 mV and enhancement of the kinetics of the electrode reaction, which can be confirmed by increasing in the peak current and sharpness of the peak.... 

Synthesis of dextran-graft-poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate) gels as a new fluoride biosorbent was considered in this work. For this propose, the Taguchi experimental design method was used for optimizing the synthetic conditions of the gels to reach high level of fluoride absorbency. The effects of three main parameters including concentrations of monomer (hydroxyethyl methacrylate), crosslinking agent (ethylene glycol dimethacrylate), and initiator (ammonium persulfate) on the final properties of the prepared gels were investigated. The proposed mechanism for grafting and chemically crosslinking reactions was proved with equilibrium water absorption, Fourier-transformed infrared, scanning... 

In salting-out liquid-liquid extraction (SALLE) technique, water-miscible organic solvents are used for extraction of polar analytes from saline solutions. In this study, for the first time, a coupled 1-mL syringes system was utilized to perform a miniaturized SALLE method. Sulfanilamide antibiotic was extracted and determined via the developed method followed by high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV). The extraction process was carried out by rapid shooting of acetonitrile as extraction solvent (syringe B) into saline aqueous sample solution (syringe A), and then the shooting was repeated several times at a rate of 1 cycle s-1. Thereby, an extremely large... 

Air cavity ship concept has received some interest due to its potential on viscous resistance reduction for high speed craft. Air-cavity ships (ACS) are advanced marine vehicles that use air injection at the wetted hull surfaces to improve a vessel's hydrodynamic characteristics. Air is supplied through nozzles under a profiled bottom to generate an air cavity beneath such a ship, so that a steady air layer separates a part of the bottom from contact with water, consequently reducing hydrodynamic resistance. Resistance tests were conducted with two forms: first of which was planning catamaran hull form, and second one was an alternative form with an air cavity injection under its bottom... 

A novel biopolymer-based hydrogel composite was synthesized through chemical crosslinking by graft copolymerization of partially neutralized acrylic acid onto the hydrolyzed collagen. The Taguchi method, a robust experimental design, was employed for the optimization of the synthesis based on the swelling capacity of the hydrogels. This method was applied for the experiments and standard L16 orthogonal array with five factors and four levels. In the synthesis of the composite superabsorbent, N,N′-methylene bisacrylamide (MBA) as crosslinker, ammonium persulfate (APS) as initiator, acrylic acid (AA) as monomer, neutralization percent (NU), and collagen/kaolin weight ratio were used as... 

Deep learning architectures employ various regularization terms to handle different types of priors. Non-smooth regularization terms have shown promising performance in the deep learning architectures and a learning framework has recently been proposed to train autoencoders with such regularization terms. While this framework efficiently manages the non-smooth term during training through proximal operators, it is limited to autoencoders and suffers from low convergence speed due to several optimization sub-problems that must be solved in a row. In this paper, we address these issues by extending the framework to general feed-forward neural networks and introducing variable extrapolation...