Sharif Digital Repository

We study the expected value of stopping times in stochastic processes. Since there is no rigorous solution for computing stopping times in many processes, our approach is based on estimation using well-known methods in the Reinforcement Learning literature. The primary method in this research is the temporal difference algorithm. With some modifications, we can study the role of some state features in determining the stopping time. Moreover, without a complicated mathematical analysis, we can find functions closely enough to the goal function.Furthermore, we compare our proposed algorithm to the well-known regression methods and show our algorithm's advantages and disadvantages. The primary... 

As you know in lean supply chains, it is tried to: reduce the wastes of resources and achieve more production with lower consumption of resources. This system is very well suited for many supply chains in which the final determinant factors are price and quality. In contrast, recently, the concept of agile supply chain has been introduced, insisting on flexibility and high service level. Opposite to lean supply chain, agile supply chain needs safety stock to be able to respond to market’s changes.
Regarding the dissimilarities of these models –including the disagreement in the allocation of safety stock to nodes– In this thesis, in addition to studying and comparing these two approaches,... 

Recently, there has been much interest in sparse channel estimation, i.e. recovering a channel which has much less non zero tabs than its length. These channels have been observed in underwater and broadband wireless channels. In the last few years methods available to estimate these channels have used sparse structure information to improve the estimates. However, these methods are vulnerable to noise and interference. In other words, these methods do not use channel posterior information obtained from the received signal and this is detrimental to the estimator performance. In order to solve these problems in this thesis, motivated by CoSAMP algorithm which is a sparse signal processing... 

The standard ΛCDM model is built upon the cosmological principle, which states that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic on large scales (greater than 100 Mpc). A crucial test of this principle involves analyzing the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, which exhibits a dipole anisotropy on the order of ΔT/T∼10^−3. This dipole is commonly interpreted as owing to our motion with respect to the CMB rest frame. A model-independent approach to validate this kinematic hypothesis is to determine the dipole moment in the angular distribution of large-scale structures. According to the cosmological principle, the rest frame of the large-scale structure distribution should align with the... 

In this project a knee prostheses wear testing simulator based on a parallel mechanism for applying forces and torques, is designed. First according to ISO 14243 standard required degrees of freedom and design constraints are determined and also regarding simulator requirements some considerations in design are outlined. Considering all of these parameters, literature has been searched for proper parallel mechanism and because no suitable parallel mechanism, which is a 3 DoF 2T1R paralle mechanism with rotational degree about z axis, has been found; several new designs of proper mechanism have been presented. Scoring different mechanisms according to outcomed parameters from standard and... 

The main goal of this thesis is the design and development of a rehabilitation device for helping patients “to improve blood circulation” & retain and recover their abilities if possible that were lost during the stroke or a accident like that (my research in karaj/iran shows that it is possible by just movement of the specific body part). The focus is on hand in this thesis because Injuries to the hand are common and can be very debilitating since our hands are our primary means for interacting with our world. For rehabilitation in case of human hand there are several practices that should be done for patients either in home or in a rehabilitation center, time and money that is supposed to... 

In the past few decades, shaking tables are widely used to evaluate system response of structures under seismic excitations. These devices are used without any fundamental research performed on a shaking table system as an entity model. In most of these studies for simplicity, it is assumed that there exist no considerable vibration and displacement around the shaking tables, and no attention is paid to the peripheral substances such as soil settled under the foundation.
In this thesis, result of ambient vibration test on shaking table system (solid deck, concrete foundation and soil layer) has been presented. Precise sensors known as low frequency and high accuracy accelerometers have... 

Out of several ground improvement techniques available, stone columns have been widely used. This technique has been successfully applied to increase the bearing capacity and to reduce the settlement for foundation of structures like liquid storage tanks, earthen embankments, raft foundations, etc., where a relatively large settlement is permissible. This technique has, generally, been proven successful in increasing the stiffness of weak soils, upgrading their safe bearing capacity, and reducing their total and differential settlements, as well as speeding up their consolidation process. The beneficial effects of stone column installation in weak deposits is manifested in the form of... 

In the present study, a new version of haptic devices is presented in which user’s hand is in contact with the device just while collision with virtual surface. In this system, the position of user’s finger can be traced by using a camera and the haptic device follows user’s finger at the distance of about two centimeters. While the haptic device approaches to the virtual surface, gradually reduces its speed and stops about two centimeters distant of virtual plane. Then user’s hand collides with the haptic device which is static. Greater fidelity, transparency, more stability and also no need to large actuators are of the advantages of this system. In this project, first we present a new... 

Laminar forced convection flow through a channel partially filled with a porous material was numerically studied in this thesis. The Navier-Stokes and Brinkman-Forchheimer equations were used to model the fluid flow in the free and porous regions, respectively. Coupling of the pressure and velocity fields was resolved using the SIMPLEC algorithm. The local thermal equilibrium was adopted in the energy equation. The effects of the thermal conductivity ratio, Darcy number, porosity, Reynolds number and height of the porous insert on velocity and temperature field were investigated. The results show that the flow behavior and its associated heat transfer are susceptible to the variation of the...