Sharif Digital Repository

Using mixed method research the current study has analyzed Iranian researchers' information searching behavior on the Web. Based on extracted concepts, the model of their information searching behavior was revealed. Forty-four participants, including academic staff from universities and research centers were recruited for this study selected by purposive sampling. Data were gathered from questionnaires including ten questions and semi-structured interview. Each participant's memos were analyzed using grounded theory methods adapted from Strauss & Corbin (1998). Results showed that the main objectives of subjects were doing a research, writing a paper, studying, doing assignments, downloading... 

Evaluation of workers’ body posture in workstations is a prerequisite to estimate spinal loads and assess risk of injury for the subsequent design of preventive interventions. The Microsoft Kinect™ sensor is, in this regard, advantageous over the traditional skin-marker-based optical motion capture systems for being marker-less, portable, cost-effective, and easy-to-use in real workplaces. While several studies have demonstrated the validity/reliability of the Kinect for posture measurements especially during gait trials, its capability to adequately drive a detailed spine musculoskeletal model for injury risk assessments remains to be investigated. Lumbosacral (L5-S1) load predictions of a... 

Asphalt binders are known to exhibit an inherent ability to repair damage. Such self-healing potentially affects the fatigue damage performance of bituminous materials. There are contradicting findings about the effects of aging and polymer modification on healing. The effectiveness of rejuvenating agents also has not been sufficiently addressed. In the present study, three healing indices have been defined to provide a more complete representation with which to quantify the healing potential of binders. These indices have been defined using damage characteristic curves derived from interrupted linear amplitude sweep tests. Initial healing (IH) describes the immediate reduction in the damage... 

Asphalt binders are known to exhibit an inherent ability to repair damage. Such self-healing potentially affects the fatigue damage performance of bituminous materials. There are contradicting findings about the effects of aging and polymer modification on healing. The effectiveness of rejuvenating agents also has not been sufficiently addressed. In the present study, three healing indices have been defined to provide a more complete representation with which to quantify the healing potential of binders. These indices have been defined using damage characteristic curves derived from interrupted linear amplitude sweep tests. Initial healing (IH) describes the immediate reduction in the damage... 

Information systems are expected to satisfy increasingly ambitious requirements, while reducing time-to-market has become a primary objective. This trend has necessitated the advent of development approaches that are better equipped and flexible enough to cope with modern challenges. Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) and Situational Method Engineering (SME) are approaches addressing this requirement: MDA provides promising means for automating the software process, and revitalizes the role of modeling in software development; SME focuses on project-specific methodology construction, mainly through assembling reusable method fragments (process patterns) retrieved from a method base. We provide... 

This investigation employed an interrupted torsion fatigue test using the linear amplitude sweep procedure to assess the intrinsic self-healing potential of unaged, aged, rejuvenated, and re-aged asphalt binders. Continuous oscillatory shear strain loading at different damage levels were interrupted with a single rest period of different durations. An index based on the decrease in crack length following the rest period (Ha) has been defined to accurately reflect the occurrence of healing. The results indicate that Ha is higher at lower damage levels and for longer rest-period durations. The amount of irreversible crack growth increased with an increase in crack propagation and aging level.... 

A procedure based on the linear amplitude sweep (LAS) test has been developed to determine the optimum rejuvenator content for restoring the properties of aged asphalt binders. The LAS test was employed to assess the damage tolerance, fatigue resistance, and fracture behavior of rejuvenated aged binders. In case of fracture analysis, a crack-based indicator to govern the stable crack propagation was defined to characterize fracture resistance of asphalt binders. While rejuvenators improved all of these properties, higher contents were required to restore the cracking behavior of the original binder. The linear relationship between the integrated damage-fatigue-fracture indicator and... 

Situational Method Engineering (SME) addresses the need for custom-built software development methodologies that are tailored to fit specific project situations. A process pattern is a description of a recurring development process fragment that can be used as a generic model or a building block for engineering development processes. Software development process patterns are extensively used in SME, mainly as process components assembled to form bespoke methodologies; however, the SME field itself has not been scrutinized as to the methodology development process fragments frequently encountered. Situational method engineering knowledge captured in the form of SME process patterns is not... 

Autonomous robotic grasping has emerged as a valuable capability for automating everyday household tasks like table setting (bossing), cleaning, and meal preparation. Still, accurately detecting and manipulating diverse everyday objects in unstructured home environments remains a significant challenge. In this study, an integrated robotic system combining YOLOv8s-seg deep learning for object detection and segmentation with computer vision techniques to determine optimal grasping points is proposed. The accuracy of this model has also been compared with other models through their mAP0.5, mAP.05-.95, precision and recall. A custom dataset of over 1000 images containing common household objects... 

We present a feasible full step interior-point algorithm to solve the (Formula presented.) horizontal linear complementarity problem defined on a Cartesian product of symmetric cones, which is not based on a usual barrier function. The full steps are scaled utilizing the Nesterov-Todd (NT) scaling point. Our approach generates the search directions leading to the full-NT steps by algebraically transforming the centring equation of the system which defines the central trajectory using the induced barrier of a so-called positive-asymptotic kernel function. We establish the global convergence as well as a local quadratic rate of convergence of our proposed method. Finally, we demonstrate that... 

We present a feasible full step interior-point algorithm to solve the (Formula presented.) horizontal linear complementarity problem defined on a Cartesian product of symmetric cones, which is not based on a usual barrier function. The full steps are scaled utilizing the Nesterov-Todd (NT) scaling point. Our approach generates the search directions leading to the full-NT steps by algebraically transforming the centring equation of the system which defines the central trajectory using the induced barrier of a so-called positive-asymptotic kernel function. We establish the global convergence as well as a local quadratic rate of convergence of our proposed method. Finally, we demonstrate that... 

Objective: To develop and validate a versatile Monte Carlo (MC)-based dose calculation engine to support MC-based dose verification of treatment planning systems (TPSs) and quality assurance (QA) workflows in proton therapy. Methods: The GATE MC toolkit was used to simulate a fixed horizontal active scan-based proton beam delivery (SIEMENS IONTRIS). Within the nozzle, two primary and secondary dose monitors have been designed to enable the comparison of the accuracy of dose estimation from MC simulations with respect to physical QA measurements. The developed beam model was validated against a series of commissioning measurements using pinpoint chambers and 2D array ionization chambers (IC)... 

Scratchpad memory (SPM) is widely used in modern embedded processors to overcome the limitations of cache memory. The high vulnerability of SPM to soft errors, however, limits its usage in safety-critical applications. This paper proposes an efficient fault-tolerant scheme, called cache-assisted duplicated SPM (CADS), to protect SPM against soft errors. The main aim of CADS is to utilize cache memory to provide a replica for SPM lines. Using cache memory, CADS is able to guarantee a full duplication of all SPM lines. We also further enhance the proposed scheme by presenting buffered CADS (BCADS) that significantly improves the CADS energy efficiency. BCADS is compared with two well-known... 

We present an infeasible interior-point predictor–corrector algorithm, based on a large neighborhood of the central path, for horizontal linear complementarity problem over the Cartesian product of symmetric cones. Throughout the paper, we assume that a certain property holds for the above-mentioned problem. This condition is equivalent to the property of sufficiency for the particular case of horizontal linear complementarity problem. The polynomial convergence is shown for the commutative class of search directions. We specialize our algorithm further by prescribing some scaling elements and also consider the case of feasible starting points. We believe this to be the first interior-point... 

We present an infeasible interior-point predictor–corrector algorithm, based on a large neighborhood of the central path, for horizontal linear complementarity problem over the Cartesian product of symmetric cones. Throughout the paper, we assume that a certain property holds for the above-mentioned problem. This condition is equivalent to the property of sufficiency for the particular case of horizontal linear complementarity problem. The polynomial convergence is shown for the commutative class of search directions. We specialize our algorithm further by prescribing some scaling elements and also consider the case of feasible starting points. We believe this to be the first interior-point... 

In this paper, a full-Newton step Interior-Point Method for solving monotone Weighted Linear Complementarity Problem is designed and analyzed. This problem has been introduced recently as a generalization of the Linear Complementarity Problem with modified complementarity equation, where zero on the right-hand side is replaced with the nonnegative weight vector. With a zero weight vector, the problem reduces to a linear complementarity problem. The importance of Weighted Linear Complementarity Problem lies in the fact that it can be used for modelling a large class of problems from science, engineering and economics. Because the algorithm takes only full-Newton steps, the calculation of the... 

Background: in this study, two proton beam delivery designs, i.e. passive scattering proton therapy (PSPT) and pencil beam scanning (PBS), were quantitatively compared in terms of dosimetric indices. The GATE Monte Carlo (MC) particle transport code was used to simulate the proton beam system; and the developed simulation engines were benchmarked with respect to the experimental measurements. Method: A water phantom was used to simulate system energy parameters using a set of depth-dose data in the energy range of 120-235 MeV. To compare the performance of PSPT against PBS, multiple dosimetric parameters including Bragg peak width (BP W50), peak position, range, peak-To-entrance dose ratio,... 

In this paper, we present a very fast and accurate technique to estimate the soft error rate of digital circuits in the presence of Multiple Event Transients (METs). In the proposed technique, called Multiple Event Probability Propagation (MEPP), a four-value logic and probability set are used to accurately propagate the effects of multiple erroneous values (transients) due to METs to the outputs and obtain soft error rate. MEPP considers a unified treatment of all three masking mechanisms i.e., logical, electrical, and timing, while propagating the transient glitches. Experimental results through comparisons with statistical fault injection confirm accuracy (only 2.5% difference) and... 

Excessive energy consumption is one of the serious problems of large cities in Iran. In order to avoid unreasonable growth in energy use as well as conservation of natural resources, more attention should be paid to energy consumption patterns in metropolitan cities. Accordingly, the current study aims at analyzing energy demand and its related pollutants in the household sector in Tehran Metropolitan. The study includes a discussion of past trends and future scenarios to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this sector. Using LEAP software and according to Iran's long-term development policies, energy demand and its greenhouse gas emissions were evaluated based on a baseline scenario within a... 

Let G be a graph with v vertices. If there exists a collection of list of colors S1, S1,..., Sv on its vertices, each of size k, such that there exists a unique proper coloring for G from this list of colors, then G is called a uniquely k-list colorable graph. In this note we present a uniquely 3-list colorable, planar and K4-free Graph. It is a counterexample for a conjecture by Ch. Eslahchi, M. Ghebleh and H. Hajiabolhassan [3]