Sharif Digital Repository

Selenium, in the form of selenoproteins present in the human body is an important micronutrient in human health. It is involved in immunity, oxidative defense, redox signaling and functioning of thyroid hormones. The narrow line existing between the essential dose satisfying the body needs and its toxic dose raises the question of how selenium cycles in nature. What plants can provide edible selenium? Which soils can provide this element for the plants? How can the presence of selenium in the life cycle be preserved? And what is the role of other biological molecules such as methionine in this cycle? On the other hand, selenium can be toxic in high doses hence, it is important to isolate... 

In the present study, a new approach was introduced regarding the extracellular synthesis of selenium sulfide micro/nano-particles using Saccharomyces cerevisiae in different ammonium sulfate supplementation and in the presence of sodium selenosulfate precursors (S1) and a blend of selenous acid and sodium sulfite (S2). In S1, only cell supernatant exposed to ammonium sulfate was able to reduce sodium selenosulfate. Whereas, in S2, cell supernatant in both pre-conditions of with or without ammonium sulfate (S2 + or S2−) were able to reduce selenous acid and sodium sulfite. Electron microscopy, also indicated that selenium sulfide NPs were successfully synthesized with average size of 288 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... 

Laparoscopic surgery is a Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) procedure which is performed in the abdominal cavity. In this paper, the spleen tissue and a laparoscopic surgical grasper were modeled using ABAQUS software to investigate the tool-tissue interaction, considering large deformations for the spleen tissue. The spleen tissue was modeled as a hyper-elastic material. The laparoscopic grasper includes three gripping jaws that always remain parallel. The sliding can occur between the gripping jaws and the spleen tissue. It was found that the relationship between the pinch forces and push forces keeps its linearity in different values of friction coefficient (0-0.3). The pushing force... 

N-1-naphthylphtalamic acid (naptalam) and its degradation products, 1-naphthylamine and N-(1-naphthyl) phthalimide were simultaneously determined in river water by two independent mass spectrometric (MS) methods. These were negative ion MS (NIMS) and programmable temperature vaporizer gas chromatography mass spectrometry (PTV-GC MS) with electron impact ionization (positive ions). Prior to the NIMS analysis, the samples were preconcentrated by solid phase extraction (SPE) of C18 membrane discs. The PTV-GC MS studies were performed without any preconcentration procedure. Selected ion monitoring (SIM) and internal standardization with naphthalene were applied in both methods. The limits of... 

The couple stress theory is a non-classical continuum theory which is capable to capture size effects in small-scale structures. This property makes it appropriate for modeling the structures in micron and sub-micron scales. The purpose of this paper is the derivation of the governing motion equations and boundary conditions for the geometrically nonlinear micro-plates with arbitrary shapes based on the modified version of the couple stress theory. The consistent boundary conditions are provided at smooth parts of the plate periphery and also at the sharp corners of the periphery using variational approach  

In this paper, some basis-free expressions for the material time derivative of Lagrangian stress tensors are presented which are generally valid in all cases of coalescent principal stretches. The material is assumed to be elastic and isotropic  

This paper describes Machine Learning (ML)-based framework to detect leaks in pipes using transient waves. The so-called Transient-Based Leak Detection (TBLD) technology is a non-convex multi-dimensional optimization problem, usually solved by inefficient Metaheuristic Optimization algorithms (MOAs). This paper proposes an efficient ML approach to address this drawback. At the core of this methodology, an ensemble of CatBoost models was trained on >3.8 million data records for classifying the leaky sections and predicting the leak sizes. Results showed that the ML models could detect leaks with 97% accuracy and an F1-score of 0.86, implying a significant superiority compared to the MOAs.... 

In industry, utilizing membrane separation technology to purify natural gas streams is of remarkable significance. Molecular Simulation was used in the current article to study the structural and gas separation properties of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/zeolite 4A Mixed Matrix Membranes (MMMs). To explore the optimal performance of MMMs, several structural analyses, namely Fractional Free Volume (FFV), Radial Distribution Function (RDF), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and also Glass Transition Temperature (Tg) as one of the most important properties of membranes have been evaluated. Also, the solubilities and diffusivities of periodic cells were respectively measured using MSD and adsorption... 

In this paper, a size-dependent formulation is presented for mechanical analyses of inhomogeneous micro-plates based on the modified couple stress theory. The plate properties can arbitrarily vary through the thickness. The governing differential equations of motion are derived for functionally graded (FG) plates with arbitrary shapes utilizing a variational approach. Moreover, the boundary conditions are provided at smooth parts of the plate periphery and also at the sharp corners of the periphery. Utilizing the derived formulation, the free-vibration behavior as well as the static response of a rectangular FG micro-plate is investigated  

The nonlocal continuum theories are capable to reflect the small length characteristic of nanostructures. In this work, variational principles are presented for the stability analysis of multi-walled carbon nanotubes under various mechanical loadings based on the nonlocal elastic Donnell's shell by the semi-inverse method. In this manner, a set of proper essential and natural boundary conditions for each layer of the multi-walled nanotube is derived  

In this paper, the coupled three-dimensional flexural vibration of micro-rotors is investigated by taking into account the small-scale effects utilizing the strain gradient theory, which is a powerful nonclassical continuum theory in capturing small-scale effects. A micro-rotor consists mainly of a flexible micro-rotating shaft and a disk. With the aid of Hamilton's principle, governing equations of motion are derived and then transformed to the complex form. By implementing the Galerkin's method, a coupled ordinary differential equation is attained for the system. Expressions for the first two natural frequencies of the spinning micro-rotors are obtained with truncated two-term equation.... 

A semi-analytical three-dimensional elasticity solution for rotating functionally graded disks for both of hollow and solid disks is presented. The aim is to generalize an available two-dimensional plane-stress solution to a three-dimensional one. Although for the thin disks problems the two-dimensional solution provides appropriate results, for the thick disks, a three-dimensional elasticity solution should be considered to avoid poor results. It is shown that although the plane-stress solution satisfies all the governing three-dimensional equations of motion and boundary conditions, it fails to give a compatible three-dimensional strain field. A valid three-dimensional solution has been... 

The nonlinear coupled three-dimensional vibrations of microspinning Rayleigh beams are analytically studied utilizing the modified couple stress theory to take into account the small-scale effects. The considered nonlinearity is of geometrical type due to the mid-plane stretching. The rotary inertia and gyroscopic effects are both included in the formulation. Governing equations of motion are derived with the aid of the Hamilton Principle and then transformed into complex form. Then, the Galerkin and multiple scales methods are utilized to solve the nonlinear partial differential equation. Approximate analytical expressions for nonlinear natural frequencies of the spinning beams in forward... 

In the present paper, some new basis-free expressions for an arbitrary objective corotational rate of the general Eulerian strain measures are provided which are in compact form. Moreover, a complete discussion on the requirements for the continuity of the objective corotational rates are presented. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V  

The concept of energy conjugacy for stress and strain measures states that a stress tensor T is conjugate to a strain measure E if T: Ė provides the rate of change of the internal energy per unit reference volume of the body in an adiabatic process. The applications of the conjugate stress and strain measures are in the development of the basic relations in nonlinear analysis of solids. In this paper using eigenprojection method, unified explicit basis-free relation between two arbitrary stress tensors T(f) and T (g), respectively conjugate to two measures of Hill's strains is determined. The result is valid for arbitrary dimension of the Euclidean inner product space and for all cases of... 

In this paper some expressions for stresses conjugate to two-point deformation tensors are derived. These expressions are offered in both the component and basis-free forms. Although, the material time rate of a two-point deformation tensor is not an objective quantity, the stress tensor conjugate to it may be determined. The component-form expressions are obtained by using the notion of conjugacy together with the objectivity of the stress power. The component-form expressions are then extended to a unified basis-free form, using a theorem established for this purpose. The specific results are provided for all different cases of distinct and coalescent principal stretches in a...