Sharif Digital Repository

Conventional wastewater treatment processes are not completely effective in removing vancomycin. In this study, affecting parameters on vancomycin degradation, such as pH, catalyst, initial vancomycin concentration, temperature, and reaction time were investigated simultaneously during a removal process based on titanium dioxide with ultraviolet irradiation in an aqueous solution. Titanium dioxide was synthesized and characterized using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The average size of the synthesized crystals was 4.7 (± 0.2) nm. Design of experiments was done by a central composite design based on the response surface methodology and multiple linear regression was... 

Investigations have shown the traces of antibiotics in surface water, groundwater, wastewater treatment plants, and drinking water. However, conventional wastewater treatment is not entirely effective for vancomycin degradation. Advanced oxidation is one of the most widespread methods of antibiotic degradation in aqueous media. Vancomycin was quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography. The Response Surface Methodology (RSM) based on Central Composite Design (CCD) was used to explore and optimise the effect of the independent variables on vancomycin degradation. Independent variables were as follows: pH (3–11), vancomycin concentration (15–75 mg/L), TiO2–clinoptilolite (25–125 mg in... 

In the present study a new, fast, precise algorithm for studying hydroelastic stability of a typical section with two degrees of freedom (2DOF) is proposed based on the finite element method (FEM), while the partial sheet cavitation effects are considered. For this means, the steady cavity boundary is calculated by some conventional iterative procedures, developed based on the potential flow simulation. Thereafter, assuming that the amplitude and the frequency of the body oscillations are altered so that the cavity length in unsteady flow remains unchanged, the simulation of the unsteady hydrodynamic flow is performed by imposing some velocity fluctuations over the rigid cavity boundary. For... 

Purpose – This paper aims to provide a criteria-based evaluation framework for assessing knowledgemanagement system (KMS) development methodologies. Design/methodology/approach – The evaluation criteria have been elicited based on the features expected from a successful KMS. Furthermore, a number of prominent KMS development methodologies have been scrutinized based on the proposed evaluation framework. Findings – It was demonstrated that the proposed evaluation framework is detailed and comprehensive enough to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of KMS development methodologies. It was also revealed that even though the evaluated methodologies possess certain strong features, they suffer... 

In this work, we use 13 microlensing candidates with dark lenses from OGLE III catalogue [L. Wyrzykowski et al., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 458 (2016) 3012.] and cross-match them with the GAIA catalogue. We identify the microlensing source stars in the GAIA catalogue by comparing the coordinate and the magnitude of stars and using the proper motion and the parallax parameters of the source stars. Combining with the microlensing light curves as well as the microlensing parallax effect, we determine the mass and the distance of lenses from Earth. We conclude that the lens for this set of microlensing events for the massive lenses are black hole and for the small lenses are neutron/white dwarf... 

The solution for bulk fluid motion of a bidirectional coaxial vortex for application in vortex engine has been derived. The vortex engine is a novel combustion chamber in which swirl motion of reactants are used to maintain the chamber walls cool. The flow field has been considered both analytically and numerically. The model is based on incompressible, steady, axisymmetric, and non-reactive flow conditions. The governing PDEs are reduced to a system of nonlinear ODEs and then, by a coordinate transformation, their singularity has been relaxed. Solution domain has been decomposed into the inner viscous and outer inviscid regions, then, the velocity and pressure fields are obtained... 

In this paper, the main discharge region and the plasma on the pre-ionization section in a TEA-CO2 laser are simulated by a distributed RLC electric circuit. The transmission line method is applied to the nonlinear distributed circuit, and it is approximated by a lumped nonlinear RLC circuit. By this method the governing partial differential equations are reduced to a system of ordinary differential equations. The parameters of the plasma in this laser are obtained by using this model. The possible photoionization instability is presented. To discuss the instability of the plasma, the current density perpendicular to the applied electric field is obtained. Furthermore, the electron... 

An analytic method for prediction of oscillation amplitude and supply current of differential CMOS oscillators is presented. The validity of this method has been verified by designing an LC CMOS oscillator in a 0.24 μm CMOS technology. The predictions are in good agreement with simulation results over a wide range of supply voltage  

A novel, precision current reference with low temperature and supply sensitivity and without any external component has been designed in a 0.18μm CMOS mixed-mode process. The circuit is based on a bandgap reference (BGR) voltage and a CMOS circuit like a beta multiplier. The simulation results show max-to-min fluctuation of about 1% over a temperature range of -20°C to +100°C and supply voltage range of 1.1V to 2V with ±30% tolerance for all of the used on-chip resistors. The maximum nominal current variation in process corners is less than 3.5%. © 2003 IEEE  

A novel current reference with low temperature and supply sensitivity and without any external component has been developed in a 0.25 μm mixed-mode process. The circuit is based on a bandgap reference (BGR) voltage and a CMOS circuit similar to a beta multiplier. An NMOS transistor in triode region has been used in place of a resistor in conventional beta multiplier to achieve a current which has a negative temperature coefficient and only oxide thickness dependent. The BGR voltage has a positive temperature coefficient to cancel the negative temperature coefficient of the beta multiplier. The simulation results using Bsim3v3 model show max-to-min fluctuation of less than 1 % over a... 

An analytic method to predict the oscillation amplitude and supply current values of a differential CMOS oscillator is presented. A simplified model to predict the phase noise performance for this type of oscillator is developed. Using this method, it becomes possible to design an optimised oscillator in terms of a minimum phase noise and low power consumption. The validity of the method has been verified by designing a LC CMOS oscillator using 0.25 μm CMOS technology. The predictions are in good agreement with simulation results over a wide range of the supply voltage  

The optimum convolution of dual short pulse for producing the maximum wakefield and the highest dissociation probability of CH4 has been investigated. By using three fundamental shapes of pulses though four different arrangements, the generated wake are considered in plasma. It is found that when the first and second pulses were rectangular-triangular and sinusoidal pulse shapes, respectively, the resultant wakefield amplitude is the highest. This effect opens up a new novel way by pulse shaping mechanism in the photo dissociation dynamics of molecules and controlling of chemical reactions in the desired channels by short pulse intense lasers for reducing the computation time of genetic... 

Abstract: This study investigates the catalytic activity of mixed–metal oxide nanoparticles with different surface acidities on asphaltene adsorption followed by catalytic oxidation–decomposition. Three different types of mixed–metal oxide nanoparticles (CeNiO3, CeCaO3 and CeZrO4) were synthesized, and their size, structure, and acid properties were characterized by field–emission scanning electron microscopy (FE–SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), the high–resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area measurement and ammonia temperature-programmed desorption (NH3–TPD). Asphaltenes were extracted... 

This paper aims to revisit the effect of sloshing on the flutter characteristics of a partially liquid-filled cylinder. A computational fluid-structure interaction model within the framework of the finite element method is developed to capture fluid-structure interactions arising from the sloshing of the internal fluid and the flexibility of its containing structure exposed to an external supersonic airflow. The internal liquid sloshing is represented by a more sophisticated model, referred to as the liquid sloshing model, and the shell structure is modeled by Sanders' shell theory. The aerodynamic pressure loading is approximated by the first-order piston theory. The initial geometric... 

A reduced complexity third-order digital delta-sigma modulator for fractional-N frequency synthesis is presented. The high-performance modulator, which consists of two subblocks, has a single-bit output making it best for this sort of application. A good shaping of quantisation noise is achieved using a new architecture for a digital third-order delta-sigma modulator. The hardware required for this modulator is considerably less than that in previously reported leading to lower power and area consumption and a higher operating frequency. The field programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of the whole system shows an SNR of at least 94 dB and an operating input range of 0.7 of the full... 

Objective: Epileptic seizures are defined as manifest of excessive and hyper-synchronous activity of neurons in the cerebral cortex that cause frequent malfunction of the human central nervous system. Therefore, finding precursors and predictors of epileptic seizure is of utmost clinical relevance to reduce the epileptic seizure induced nervous system malfunction consequences. Researchers for this purpose may even guide us to a deep understanding of the seizure generating mechanisms. The goal of this paper is to predict epileptic seizures in epileptic rats. Methods: Seizures were induced in rats using pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) model. EEG signals in interictal, preictal, ictal and postictal... 

Objective: Epileptic seizure detection is a key step for epilepsy assessment. In this work, using the pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) model, seizures were induced in rats, and ECoG signals in interictal, preictal, ictal, and postictal periods were recorded. The recorded ECoG signals were then analyzed to detect epileptic seizures in the epileptic rats. Methods: Two different approaches were considered in this work: thresholding and classification. In the thresholding approach, a feature is calculated in consecutive windows, and the resulted index is tracked over time and compared with a threshold. The moment the index crosses the threshold is considered as the moment of seizure onset. In the... 

Non Line of Sight (NLOS) propagation is a challenging issue which the performance of network based wireless localization is limited by errors primarily caused by NLOS corruption. NLOS is inherently a dominant source of errors in metropolitan area wireless networks, like cellular one, so in this paper we discuss our proposed algorithm within cellular network terminology. This paper contributes two novel algorithms. The first one is to extract the NLOS state of base station (BS) and the second one is a correction algorithm to enhance the measurements accuracy. Our proposed algorithm discuses a novel localization technique to estimate true mobile terminal (MT) location from a set of possibly... 

Non Line of Sight (NLOS) propagation is a challenging issue which cause large errors in wireless localization systems. NLOS is especially a dominant source of errors in metropolitan area wireless networks like cellular ones. We discuss our algorithms within cellular network terminology. This paper contributes two novel algorithms. The first algorithm is to extract the NLOS state of base stations and the second one is a correction algorithm to enhance the measurements accuracy. Our introduced algorithms can easily operate with other wireless localization algorithms and reduced NLOS error. These algorithms are proposed for network-based localization because of the amount of calculation  

Passive cooling systems such as wind towers or wind catchers can create thermal comfort for building residents in hot and dry regions. This paper introduces an experimental study of a modular design of wind tower called the modular wind tower with wetted surfaces. Air temperature, relative humidity (RH) and airflow velocity parameters were measured at different times and at points when the velocity of the ambient air was zero. The results show that the modular wind tower can decrease the air temperature by an average of 10 °C and increase the relative humidity of airflow in a building by approximately 36% on average. Additionally, the wind tower can create the airflow velocity entering the...