Sharif Digital Repository

The synchronization phenomena are abundant is science, nature, engineering, and social life. Systems as diverse as clocks, singing crickets, cardiac pacemakers, firing neurons, and applauding audiences exhibit a tendency to operate in synchrony. These phenomena are universal and can be understood within a common framework based on modern nonlinear dynamics. First chapter of this thesis describes the basic ideas of the synchronization in an intuitive way. The main physical concepts are presented with experimental examples.
One of the main effects of synchronization is the ability to infer the directionality of coupling for two time series. Uncovering the directionality of coupling is a... 

Despite intensive scientific investigations, drug addiction treatment outcomes have not significantly improved in more than 30 years. The addicted human brain can be conceptualized as a set of networks that spatially and temporally interact with each other in an abnormal way. Over the past several decades, neuroimaging techniques have contributed important novel insights into the neuroplastic alterations that result from drug dependence. Also functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (fcMRI) has emerged as a powerful tool for mapping large-scale networks in the human brain. On the other hand, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been reintroduced as a noninvasive brain... 

Methamphetamine (meth) abuse and addiction (MA), with its serious medical, psychiatric and social complications, is a growing national disaster in Iran. Response control deficit during exposure to drug related cues is one of the main neurocognitive cores in MA and results in continued drug use and treatment failure. There have been many studies focused on cue exposure, but most of their paradigms required subjects to passively view the cues; this aspect of these paradigms cause a wide gap between reality and experimental studies. Developing a functional and structural neuroimaging protocol to map realistic brain circuits that are involved in craving among meth users is of importance.... 

Static and dynamic instability of truncated conical shells made up of functionally graded materials (FGMs) conveying hot fluid is presented in this paper. Temperature-dependent material properties are considered and Material properties of the truncated FGM conical shells are functionally graded in the thickness direction according to a volume fraction power-law distribution. Governing equation of FGM conical shells is written based on First-Order Shear Deformation Theory (FSDT). The treatment is developed within the theory of linear elasticity, when materials are assumed to be isotropic and inhomogeneous through the thickness direction. The two-constituent functionally graded shell consists... 

Permeability is an essential parameter used for reservoir evaluation, simulation and management to optimize oil recovery. The conventional approach to estimate reservoir connectivity, conductivity, sweep efficiency and other critical information for decision-making is to build detailed geological models, which are then upscaled to a coarser grid where flow simulations are run. However, this takes many hours to be carried out even for a single realization practically. In practice, a very small number of realizations are considered and consequently the true uncertainty in the results is very poorly estimated. In this study, a statistical model of isotropic overlying sandbodies is used to... 

Metabonomics is a quantitative measurement of time dependent metabolic interactions for living systems in response to the pathological or genetic variations. NMR spectroscopy has emerged as a key tool for understanding metabolic processes in living systems. In this project, the study of metabolomics was performed as classification and regression on samples of parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis disease, celiac disease and crohn’s disease. In classification part, various methods were applied using optimal parameters.classification methods in Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis disease, celiac disease and crohn’s disease were RF, CART, PLS-DA, RF and RF respectively. Based on the... 

Gravity dams are solid concrete structures that maintain their stability against design loads from the geometric shape and the mass and strength of the concrete. Because of their critical role in supplying portable and agricultural water and problems which would happen if they broke, it is required to consider their stability and keep them in safe conditions. They should be able to continue their function after a disaster such as earthquake. But most of them are aged dams with some have been built near faults. Indeed, there are some concerns regarding the performance of these dams under the effect of seismic loads. This research deals with performance evaluation of concerete gravity . The... 

Soil nailing is an in-situ technique of mechanically stabilizing soil masses which has been used in France, Germany, United states, and recently in Iran. A review of literature shows that Soil-Nailed walls have performed well during strong ground motions in comparison with the gravity retaining structures. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, minor signs of distress or corresponding deformation were found on the Soil-Nailed walls, indicating excellent performance of such structures during moderate and strong shakings. These observations indicate that Soil-Nailed walls have an inherent satisfactory seismic response. This has been attributed to the intrinsic flexibility of the Soil-Nailed... 

In nature, there are types of soils that when goinging under stress at constant moisture, or increase of moisture at constant stress, or change of both characters, they show a sudden and high level decrease in their volume. These type of soils are named as Collapsible soils. Iran is one of the countries that at some parts of its land collapsible soils are found. In this research by using of laboratory equipments, the volume change behavior of collapsible loess soils of Gorgan plain (North of Iran) is evaluated under increase of water content and inundation stress. In these experiments, the usual odeometer cell has been used for exploring the behaviour of collapsibility and volume change of... 

Collapsible soils such as loess, which are naturally found unsaturated, are kind of problematic soils that undergo sudden and noticeable decrease in volume under increasing stress at constant moisture, increasing moisture at constant stress, or increase in both of them. This kind of soil can be found in some parts of Iran such as plain of Gorgan. To fulfill the main purpose of this study, evaluating the effect of cementation on collapse behavior of loess of Gorgan, some oedometer tests under controlled matric suction were performed on reconstituted samples without and with lime. The lime was added for stabilizing of the collapsible materials and the amount was chosen to be %3 by weight of... 

Accurate prediction of relative permeability for various reservoir rocks at various saturation conditions has been of concern for a long time in petroleum industry. Relative permeability is known as one of the most significant parameters in simulation of actual multi-phase flow through porous media during life-time of a hydrocarbon reservoir. In addition, it plays important role in oil production and well completion. Direct experimental measurement in order to determine relative permeability of porous rock has long been recorded in petroleum related literature. However, empirical methods for determining relative permeability are becoming more widely used, particularly with the advent of... 

The concept of generalized strains is a well-established subject in the classical continuum mechanics. The characteristics and various applications of the generalized strains have been the point of interest of many researchers in the classical continuum mechanics. The aim of this thesis is the introduction of generalized strains in the micropolar theory, as a non-classical continuum theory. A set of generalized strains is suggested for the deformation of macro-elements. Moreover, a set of generalized strains is proposed for the micro-structures. Since the rate of strains possesses a significant importance in the constitutive equations of nonlinear analysis of solids, expressions for the rate... 

Collapsible soils are kinds of problematic soils which are susceptible to large and sudden reduction in volume upon wetting. A manifest kind of these soils is loess; catastrophic settlement of structures which are built upon it has been observed when the soil becomes wet. In this investigation the collapse potential of samples of loess taken from Gorgan, Golestan, Iran, has been studied by using unsaturated odometer tests under controlled matric suction. To this end, two modified odometer apparatus with the capability of controlling the matric suction, have been designed and developed. Undisturbed samples of soil have been tested under K0 condition, while the matric suction, volumetric... 

Concrete gravity dams are one of the most important infrastructures therefore their performance under seismic load is an important issue of concern for dam owners. It is necessary that these infrastructures to be able to continue their function after a disaster such as earthquake, as any damage can cause huge cost. For analysis of dams linear and nonlinear analyses are used. Because even operating loads will create cracks in the body of the dam, dam behavior can not always be considered linear. It is remarkable that these surface cracks can join together under seismic loads and this question the safety of dams. It is important to note that nonlinear analysis of concrete gravity dams is...