Sharif Digital Repository

Strontium hexaferrites with the composition of SrFe12−xTix/2Znx/2O19 (x = 0–2.5 in steps of 0.5) were synthesized using chlorides by means of co-precipitation route. The structural, magnetic and microwave absorption properties of the samples were surveyed. The results confirmed that the magnetoplumbite single phase was obtained for all samples and the hexagonal particles dispersed within size range of 1–2 µm. With increasing amount of dopant, coercivity decreased from 5640 to 1486 Oe while the maximum saturation magnetization was 63 emu/g and belonged to x = 0.5. The reflection loss results denoted that the prepared composites had excellent microwave absorption properties and the maximum... 

The vast nationwide COVID-19 vaccination programs are implemented in many countries worldwide. Mass vaccination is causing a rapid increase in infectious and non-infectious vaccine wastes, potentially posing a severe threat if there is no well-organized management plan. This paper develops a mixed-integer mathematical programming model to design a COVID-19 vaccine waste reverse supply chain (CVWRSC) for the first time. The presented problem is based on minimizing the system's total cost and carbon emission. The uncertainty in the tendency rate of vaccination is considered, and a robust optimization approach is used to deal with it, where an interactive fuzzy approach converts the model into... 

Fully supramolecular dendrosomes (FSD) as bi-phase drug delivery systems are reported in this work. For preparation of FSD, amphiphilic linear-dendritic supramolecular systems (ALDSS) have been synthesized by host-guest interactions between hyperbranched polyglycerol having β-cyclodextrin core and bi-chain polycaprolactone (BPCL) with a fluorescine focal point. Self-assembly of ALDSS in aqueous solutions led to FSD. They were able to encapsulate paclitaxel with a high loading capacity. The dendrosome-based drug delivery systems were highly sensitive to pH and temperature. They were stable at 20-37. °C and pH7-8, but dissociated and released drug at temperatures lower than 20. °C or higher... 

The purpose of this article is to investigate the shielding performance of the B2O3-Bi2O3-ZnO-Li2O glasses against the gamma-ray. To this end, the attenuation parameters of the gamma-ray inside the B2O3-Bi2O3-ZnO-Li2O glasses were evaluated in the energy range of 200–1500 keV. It was found that the mass attenuation coefficient of the composites increases with increasing the Li2O content. The relative percent deviation between the results of simulation using the MCNPX and XCOM database in most cases was less than 2%. Additionally, the Mean Free Path (MFP) and Half-Value Layer (HVL) parameters were evaluated, and the shielding efficiency of samples was compared with some conventional shielding... 

Underwater wireless optical communications are an emerging solution to the expanding demand for broadband links in oceans and seas. In this paper, a cellular underwater wireless optical code division multiple-access network is proposed to provide broadband links for commercial and military applications. The optical orthogonal codes are employed as signature codes of underwater mobile users. Fundamental key aspects of the network, such as its backhaul architecture, its potential applications, and its design challenges, are presented. In particular, a promising underwater localization and positioning scheme based on this cellular network is presented. Furthermore, the proposed network is used... 

This work presents a procedure for functionalization of graphene sheets from edges by polyglycerol. Hyperbranched polyglycerol with a bi-dentate aromatic segment in its focal point was synthesized and used to sandwich graphene sheets from the cut-edges. Due to the hydrophobicity of the flat surface of the edge-functionalized graphenes and hydrophilicity of their edges, they changed their conformation from the extended- to the closed-state and formed nanocapsules in aqueous solutions. Spectroscopy and microscopy evaluations showed that the average size for nanocapsules is 300 nm. They were able to encapsulate hydrophobic molecules such as doxorubicin in aqueous solutions with a high loading... 

[No abstract available]  

In analyzing the lifetime properties of a coherent system, the concept of "signature" is a useful tool. Let T be the lifetime of a coherent system having n iid components. The signature of the system is a probability vector s=(s1, s2,., sn), such that s i=P(T=Xi:n), where, Xi:n, i=1, 2,., n denote the ordered lifetimes of the components. In this note, we assume that the system is working at time t>0. We consider the conditional signature of the system as a vector in which the ith element is defined as pi(t)=P(T=Xi: n|T>t) and investigate its properties as a function of time  

Identifying and measuring the impact and value of scientific output plays an important role in today's world of information overload. On one side, governments are trying to distribute research funds in ways that support research in strategically important fields, on the other side, researchers and scientists are seeking to access only relevant and quality information that have mainly worthy of their attention. Nowadays, countries are evaluated not only by their national products, military power, geographical area, etc., but also by such factors as the production and consumption of scientific information. Scientometric approaches are used to provide appropriate tools for evaluating scientific... 

The purpose of this study is to analyze the nonlinear dynamic responses of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) beams exposed to axial supersonic airflow in thermal environments. The dynamic model of the FG-CNTRC beam is developed with regard to the first-order shear deformation theory incorporating the von Kármán geometrical nonlinearity. The thermomechanical properties of the constituents are assumed to be temperature dependent. The third-order piston theory is adopted to estimate the nonlinear aerodynamic pressure induced by the supersonic airflow. Harmonic differential quadrature method is implemented to discretize the equations of motion in the spatial... 

The k-level Uncapacitated Facility Location (UFL) problem is a generalization of the UFL and the k-median problems. A significant shortcoming of the classical UFL problem is that often a few very distant customers, known as outliers, can leave an undesirable effect on the final solution. This deficiency is considered in a new variant called UFL with outliers, in which, in contrast to the other problems that need all of the customers to be serviced, there is no need to service the entire set of customers. UFL with Penalties (UFLWP) is a variant of the UFL with outliers problem in which we will decide on whether to provide service for each customer and pay the connection cost, or to reject it... 

Styrene and acrylonitrile are produced in large quantities in the petrochemical industries and have been listed among the 189 hazardous and toxic atmospheric contaminants under United States Clean Air Act Amendments 1990 due to their adverse effects on human health. The experimental work was conducted to evaluate the inhibition effect of biofilter in the presence of co-substrate. Yard waste compost mixed with shredded hard plastics in a 25:75 v/v ratio of plastics:compost as the bed media was inoculated with thickened municipal activated sludge. Acclimation to styrene was achieved at 45 days, but there was a very short acclimation period for acrylonitrile. The results show that performance... 

The growing environmental concerns, governmental regulations, and significant cost savings are the primary motivations for companies to consider the reuse and recovery of products in their inventory system. The previous research ignored several realistic features of reusable items inventory systems, such as the presence of multiple products and operational constraints. For the first time, this paper presents a new multiproduct economic order quantity inventory model for an inventory system of reusable products. The goal of the model is to determine the optimal replenishment quantity and reuse quantity of each item so that the system's total cost is minimized. Several operational constraints... 

This paper introduces an alternative Fault-Tolerant Power-Aware Hybrid Adder (or simply FARHAD). FARHAD is a highly power efficient protection solution against errors in application with high number of additions. FARHAD, similar to earlier studies, relies on performing add operations twice to detect errors. Unlike previous studies, FARHAD uses an aggressive adder to produce the initial outcome and a low-power adder to generate the second outcome, referred to as the checker. FARHAD uses checkpointing, a feature already available to high-performance processors, to recover from errors. FARHAD achieves the high energy-efficiency of timeredundant solutions and the high performance of... 

We examine quantum normal typicality and ergodicity properties for quantum systems whose dynamics are generated by Hamiltonians which have residual degeneracy in their spectrum and resonance in their energy gaps. Such systems can be considered atypical in the sense that degeneracy, which is usually a sign of symmetry, is naturally broken in typical systems due to stochastic perturbations. In particular, we prove a version of von Neumann's quantum ergodic theorem, where a modified condition needs to hold in order to have normal typicality and ergodicity. As a result, we show that degeneracy of spectrum does not considerably modify the condition of the theorem, whereas the existence of... 

Groundwater vulnerability assessment of urban areas is a challenging task in the fast trend of urbanization around the globe. This study introduces a new approach for modifying well-known parameters of common vulnerability indexes to adjust them for urban areas. The approach is independent of a specific weighting system. The aquifer of Mashhad city, contaminated by domestic wastewater, is selected as a case in this study. In order to evaluate the aquifer vulnerability due to anthropogenic activities, at first, parameters of depth to groundwater, recharge, land use, and soil are modified based on their basic concepts and their influences on contamination attenuation. Then, the modified... 

In recent years, the security of integrated circuits (ICs) has received more attention as usage of ICs made by untrustworthy foundries has increased in safety-critical systems [1]. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach for fingerprinting the delay of functional paths in a sequential circuit that have millions of transistors, like processors. We present a method for inserting Ring Oscillators (ROs) into scan chain for measuring the delay of each functional path inside the chip. Using the proposed method, the payload part of Trojans will be detected according to their size and cell types. Our method can be used by power-based Trojan detection approaches for finding the trigger part of... 

This paper presents a method for functional verification of HDL models of digital circuits. The method is based on a co-operation between a simulator and an emulator and utilizes the advantages of both simulation-based and emulation-based verification to form a fast co-verification approach. This is done by verifying the intensive time-consuming part of the circuit in the emulator and the non-synthesizable part as well as the part of the circuit that needs intensive redesign process during the early steps of the design phase in the simulator. To demonstrate the co-verification approach, a tool was developed, which supports Verilog, VHDL, and mixed Verilog-VHDL models. Three benchmarks... 

Material properties and fracture characteristics are among the most prominent parameters that should be considered for a wide range of graphene applications. This article reviews recent advances in theoretical studies on the mechanical properties and fracture behaviors of graphene, focusing on the effect of various simulation models. Most studies investigated single-layer graphene sheets (SLGSs) under uniaxial tensile tests using different common interatomic potentials, particularly AIREBO. Although researchers have examined a similar problem, specifically for pristine graphene, the differences in the reported values are considerable. These discrepancies are most evident in fracture...