Sharif Digital Repository

Appreciation of stochastic Loewner evolution (SLEκ), as a powerful tool to check for conformal invariant properties of geometrical features of critical systems has been rising. In this paper we use this method to check conformal invariance in sandpile models. Avalanche frontiers in Abelian sandpile model are numerically shown to be conformally invariant and can be described by SLE with diffusivity κ=2. This value is the same as value obtained for loop-erased random walks. The fractal dimension and Schramm's formula for left passage probability also suggest the same result. We also check the same properties for Zhang's sandpile model. © 2009 The American Physical Society  

It is now known that at least 10% of samples with pancreatic cancers (PC) contain a causative mutation in the known susceptibility genes, suggesting the importance of identifying cancer-associated genes that carry the causative mutations in high-risk individuals for early detection of PC. In this study, we develop a statistical pipeline using a new concept, called gene-motif, that utilizes both mutated genes and mutational processes to identify 4211 3-nucleotide PC-associated gene-motifs within 203 significantly mutated genes in PC. Using these gene-motifs as distinguishable features for pancreatic cancer subtyping results in identifying five PC subtypes with distinguishable phenotypes and... 

The condensation process is of great importance in many heat transfer devices in which a large amount of energy must be transferred. Furthermore, condensation is a crucial part of energy conversion and affects the energy efficiency of thermal desalination plants and solar stills. During the condensation process in solar stills, an essential part of the energy is transferred through the condensation surface to produce fresh water. Therefore, the condensation surface plays a significant role in the working efficiency of solar stills. The wettability of the condensation surface influences the condensation mechanism, which, in turn, affects the efficiency of solar stills. This study aims to... 

In the present contribution, the feasibility of portable Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) combined with multivariate classification techniques is assessed for classification of minced beef, lamb, chicken and pork samples. In this regard, both attenuated total reflectance-FTIR (ATR-FTIR) and diffuse reflectance-FTIR (DR-FTIR) methods are evaluated. First, principal component analysis (PCA) was used for exploring FT-IR spectra of four meat species to find similarities and dissimilarities among samples. Additionally, one-class classification (OCC) was utilized as a new approach for halal meat species certification. For OCC, two scenarios were defined: (i) 100% correct... 

The performance of visible-near infrared hyperspectral imaging (Vis-NIR-HSI) (400–1000 nm) and shortwave infrared hyperspectral imaging (SWIR-HSI) (1116–1670 nm) combined with different classification and regression (linear and non-linear) multivariate methods were assessed for meat authentication. In Vis-NIR-HSI, total accuracies in the prediction set for SVM and ANN-BPN (the best classification models) were 96 and 94 % surpassing the performance of SWIR-HSI with 88 and 89 % accuracy, respectively. In Vis-NIR-HSI, the best-obtained coefficient of determinations for the prediction set (R2p) were 0.99, 0.88, and 0.99 with root mean square error in prediction (RMSEP) of 9, 24 and 4 (%w/w) for... 

Carbon dioxide miscible flooding has become a popular method for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) because it not only efficiently enhances oil recovery but also considerably reduces green house gas emissions. However, it can significantly cause asphaltene deposition, which leads to serious production problems such as wettability alteration, plugging of the reservoir formation, blocking the transportation pipelines, etc. It is crucial to investigate the effects of different factors on asphaltene deposition. A novel experimental setup was prepared to employ a high-pressure visual cell for investigation of asphaltene deposition on a model rock under typical reservoir conditions. The evolution of... 

A new model based on a combination of the polymeric multigrain and multilayer models has been developed to predict the polymerization rate, particle growth, morphology, effective parameters on broadening of the molecular weight distribution, number and weight average of the molecular weight, isotacticity index and bulk density of polymer. Mathematical correlations and the kinetics used in this model are based on the polymeric multigrain and the multilayer models, respectively. In the modeling, multiplicity of active site using different kinetics parameters as well as Reactivation of catalyst during the polymerization have been considered,. Moreover, it considers mass transfer effects on... 

Background: The advent of high throughput sequencing has enabled researchers to systematically evaluate the genetic variations in cancer, identifying many cancer-associated genes. Although cancers in the same tissue are widely categorized in the same group, they demonstrate many differences concerning their mutational profiles. Hence, there is no definitive treatment for most cancer types. This reveals the importance of developing new pipelines to identify cancer-associated genes accurately and re-classify patients with similar mutational profiles. Classification of cancer patients with similar mutational profiles may help discover subtypes of cancer patients who might benefit from specific... 

Handheld visible-near-infrared (Vis-NIR) and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy can be cost-effective, rapid, non-destructive and transportable techniques for identifying meat species and may be valuable for enforcement authorities, retail and consumers. In this study, a handheld Vis-NIR (400–1000 nm) and a handheld NIR (900–1700 nm) spectrometer were applied to discriminate halal meat species from pork (halal certification), as well as speciation of intact and ground lamb, beef, chicken and pork (160 meat samples). Several types of class modeling multivariate approaches were applied. The presented one-class classification (OCC) approach, especially with the Vis-NIR sensor (95–100% correct... 

Anisotropy and heterogeneity in reservoir properties introduce challenges during the development of hydrocarbon reservoirs in naturally fractured reservoirs. In reservoir simulations, grid-block properties are frequently assigned to obtain reasonable history matches. Even then, accuracy with regard to some aspects of the performance such as water or gas cuts, breakthrough times, and sweep efficiencies may be inadequate. In some cases, this could be caused by the presence of substantial flow through natural fractures. In this work the fracture characterization and modeling was performed in a highly fractured carbonate reservoir in SW Iran. It was observed that reservoir simulation based on... 

Using CNG as an additive for gasoline is a proper choice due to higher octane number of CNG enriched gasoline with respect to that of gasoline. As a result, it is possible to use gasoline with lower octane number in the engine. This would also mean the increase of compression ratio in SI engines resulting in higher performance and lower gasoline consumption. Over the years, the use of simulation codes to model the thermodynamic cycle of an internal combustion engine have developed tools for more efficient engine designs and fuel combustion. In this study, a thermodynamic cycle simulation of a conventional four-stroke spark-ignition engine has been developed. The model is used to study the... 

In this study, we have utilized 3-D micro-tomography images of real and synthetic rocks to introduce two mathematical correlations which estimate the distribution parameters of 3-D coordination number using a single 2-D cross-sectional image. By applying a watershed segmentation algorithm, it is found that the distribution of 3-D coordination number is acceptably predictable by statistical analysis of the network extracted from 2-D images. In this study, we have utilized 25 volumetric images of rocks in order to propose two mathematical formulas. These formulas aim to approximate the average and standard deviation of coordination number in 3-D pore networks. Then, the formulas are applied... 

With the declining energy resources and increase of pollutant emissions, a great deal of efforts has been focused on the development of alternatives for fossil fuels. One of the promising alternative fuels to gasoline in the internal combustion engine is natural gas [1-5]. The application of natural gas in current internal combustion engines is realistic due to its many benefits. The higher thermal efficiency due to the higher octane value and lower exhaust emissions including CO2 as a result of the lower carbon to hydrogen ratio of the fuel are the two important feature of using CNG as an alternative fuel. It is well known that computer simulation codes are valuable economically as a cost... 

We study (2+1)-dimensional single step model for crystal growth including both deposition and evaporation processes parametrized by a single control parameter p. Using extensive numerical simulations with a relatively high statistics, we estimate various interface exponents such as roughness, growth and dynamic exponents as well as various geometric and distribution exponents of height clusters and their boundaries (or iso-height lines) as function of p. We find that, in contrary to the general belief, there exists a critical value at which the model undergoes a roughening transition from a rough phase with in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality to a smooth phase with , asymptotically in... 

We study numerically the statistics of curves which form the boundaries of toppling wave clusters in the deterministic Bak, Tang and Wiesenfeld sandpile model and stochastic Manna model on a square lattice. We consider the Abelian version of each model. Multiple tests show that the boundary of toppling wave clusters in both deterministic and stochastic models can be described by SLE curves with diffusivity = 2  

A novel glucose biosensor based on chromophore (silver nanoparticles) decolorizing for the photometric determination of glucose was developed. Silver nanoparticles are directly synthesized in the sol-gel matrix by a one-step method based on the reduction of the inorganic precursor AgNO3 and were used for the preparation, characterization and calibration of a highly sensitive and cost-effective localized surface plasmon resonance-based glucose biosensor. In the presence of glucose oxidase (GOx) and due to the enzyme-substrate (glucose) reaction, H2O2 was produced and silver nanoparticles in the sol-gel glass have the ability for the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. Due to the degradation... 

A new sensor for simultaneous determination of peroxyacetic acid and hydrogen peroxide using silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) as a chromogenic reagent is introduced. The silver nanoparticles have the catalytic ability for the decomposition of peroxyacetic acid and hydrogen peroxide; then the decomposition of them induces the degradation of silver nanoparticles. Hence, a remarkable change in the localized surface plasmon resonance absorbance strength could be observed. Spectra-kinetic approach and artificial neural network was applied for the simultaneous determination of peroxyacetic acid and hydrogen peroxide. Linear calibration graphs were obtained in the concentration range of (8.20×10-5 to...