Sharif Digital Repository

The lazy bureaucrat scheduling is a new class of scheduling problems that was introduced in [1]. In these problems, there is one employee (or more) who should perform the assigned jobs. The objective of the employee is to minimize the amount of work he performs and to be as inefficient as possible. He is subject to a constraint, however, that he should be busy when there is some work to do. In this paper, we focus on the cases of this problem where all jobs have the same common deadline. We show that with this constraint, the problem is still NP-hard, and prove some hardness results. We then present a tight 2-approximation algorithm for this problem under one of the defined objective... 

γ-Alumina is used to catalyze the Cannizzaro reaction in the absence of any base under microwave irradiation in high yields. In the case of terephthalaldehyde the reaction is carried out with high selectivity  

Enolizable ketones have been reacted in a one-pot method with aromatic aldehydes, acetyl chloride and acetonitrile at room temperature in the presence of SnCl4/SiO2 to furnish the corresponding β-acetamidoketones in improved yields. Acetylation of an aromatic hydroxyl group was observed while using 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde or vanillin and the corresponding β-acetamidoketones were isolated in an excellent yield  

The boundary layer integral method is used to investigate the development of the turbulent swirling flow at the entrance region of a conical nozzle. The governing equations in the spherical coordinate system are simplified with the boundary layer assumptions and integrated through the boundary layer. The resulting sets of differential equations are then solved by the fourth-order Adams predictor-corrector method. The free vortex and uniform velocity profiles are applied for the tangential and axial velocities at the inlet region, respectively. Due to the lack of experimental data for swirling flows in converging nozzles, the developed model is validated against the numerical simulations. The... 

The governing equations of two-dimensional steady density currents are solved numerically using a finite volume method. The v2̄-f turbulence model, based on standard k - s model, is used for the turbulence closure. In this method, all Reynolds stress equations are replaced with both a transport equation for v2̄ and an elliptic relaxation equation for f, a parameter closely related to the pressure strain redistribution term. The Simple-C procedure is used for pressure-velocity coupling. In addition, Boussinesq's approximation is used to obtain the momentum equation. The computed height of the progressive density current is compared to the measured data in the literature, resulting in good... 

The deposition behavior of fine sediment is an important phenomenon, and yet unclear to engineers concerned about reservoir sedimentation. An elliptic relaxation turbulence model (v2̄ - f model) has been used to simulate the motion of turbid density currents laden whit fine solid particles. During the last few years, the v2̄ - f turbulence model has become increasingly popular due to its ability to account for near-wall damping without use of damping functions. In addition, it has been proved that the v2̄ - f model to be superior to other RANS methods in many fluid flows where complex flow features are present. Due to low Reynolds number turbulence of turbidity current,(its critical Reynolds... 

In this paper, an analytical solution for steady creeping motion of viscoelastic drop falling through a viscous Newtonian fluid is presented. The Oldroyd-B model is used as the constitutive equation. The analytical solutions for both interior and exterior flows are obtained using the perturbation method. Deborah number and capillary numbers are considered as the perturbation parameters. The effect of viscoelastic properties on drop shape and motion are studied in detail. The previous empirical studies indicated that unlike the Newtonian creeping drop in which the drop shape is exactly spherical, a dimpled shape appears in viscoelastic drops. It is shown that the results of the present... 

In this paper, creeping motion of a viscoelastic drop falling through a Newtonian fluid is investigated experimentally and analytically. A polymeric solution of 0.08 % xanthan gum in 80:20 glycerol/water and silicon oil is implemented as the viscoelastic drop and the bulk viscous fluids, respectively. The shape and motion of falling drops are visualized using a high speed camera. The perturbation technique is employed for both interior and exterior flows, and Deborah and capillary numbers are considered as perturbation parameters up to second order. The product of Deborah and capillary numbers is also used as a perturbation parameter to apply the boundary condition on the deformation on the... 

In this paper, we consider the problem of minimizing the uplink delays of users in a 5G cellular network. Such cellular network is based on a Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN) architecture with limited fronthaul capacity, where our goal is to minimize delays of all users through an optimal resource allocation. Earlier works minimize average delay of each user assuming same transmit power for all users. Combining Pareto optimization and Markov Decision Process (MDP), we show that every desired balance in the trade-off among infinite-horizon average-reward delays, is achievable by minimizing a properly weighted sum delays. In addition, we solve the problem in two realistic scenarios;... 

Microwave induced Cannizzaro reaction, which was performed in presence of neutral γ-alumina as a polymeric catalyst, was discussed. Cannizzaro reaction was carried out on alumina surface and other unknown products were also obtained. Solvent extraction method was utilized to isolate mild and selective benzyl alcohol and carboxylic acids  

A well known method to reduce the intrinsic complexity of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems is to choose a subset of available antennas which have stronger links than the others, in order to perform the specified MIMO algorithm. The data resulted from the antenna selection process (at the receiver side) is sent back to the transmitter side via a feedback channel. There seems to be a need to reduce the number of feedack bits, specially when the number of antennas is not small. In this paper, we investigate the problem of reducing the number of feedback bits in antenna selection techniques. We've proposed two methods using vector quantization techniques to perform feedback bit... 

Nowadays, deployment of peer-to-peer video streaming systems over wireless mesh networks has attained raising popularity among large number of users around the world. In this paper, we present an efficient peer-to-peer live video streaming architecture over multi-hop wireless mesh networks. In our proposed architecture, we take the physical topology of network into account and based on a distributed distributed locality-aware neighbor selection algorithm in the overlay construction phase, we generate an efficient mesh-based overlay on top of wireless mesh networks. In locality-aware neighbor selection algorithm, instead of choosing randomly, peers find their best neighbors based on their... 

Standard sparse decomposition (with applications in many different areas including compressive sampling) amounts to finding the minimum ℓ 0-norm solution of an underdetermined system of linear equations. In this decomposition, all atoms are treated 'uniformly' for being included or not in the decomposition. However, one may wish to weigh more or less certain atoms, or, assign higher costs to some other atoms to be included in the decomposition. This can happen for example when there is prior information available on each atom. This motivates generalizing the notion of minimal ℓ 0-norm solution to that of minimal weighted ℓ 0-norm solution. On the other hand, relaxing weighted ℓ 0-norm via... 

Precipitation, aggregation, and breakup of asphaltene particles are studied under natural depletion and nitrogen injection processes by means of high pressure filtration and a photographic procedure coupled with image analysis. Filtration results show that nitrogen destabilizes asphaltenes extremely, and the problem is more severe for heavier crude samples. Bimodal histograms of particle size distribution show two agglomeration mechanisms: cluster aggregation dominant around bubble point pressure and diffusion limited far away. The fractal structure of aggregates is also altered by gas injection; it is observed that the flocculent masses grow in size and become more compact and organized... 

In this research, the developing turbulent swirling flow in the entrance region of a pipe is investigated analytically by using the boundary layer integral method. The governing equations are integrated through the boundary layer and obtained differential equations are solved with forth-order Adams predictor-corrector method. The general tangential velocity is applied at the inlet region to consider both free and forced vortex velocity profiles. The comparison between present model and available experimental data demonstrates the capability of the model in predicting boundary layer parameters (e.g. boundary layer growth, shear rate and swirl intensity decay rate). Analytical results showed... 

The capacity of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems in vehicular communication is investigated throughout this paper. The goal is to consider a link between a vehicle-side and a road-side unit in presence of line-of-sight in a way that the road-side end uses all available antennas but the vehicle-side end chooses a subset of available antennas such that the link capacity becomes maximized. In order to maximize the channel capacity a criterion is derived that forces some circumstances about the configuration of antenna array in vehicle-side. If such circumstances are satisfied the channel capacity will be at its maximum. By proposing an antenna selection algorithm, the conditions... 

A novel approach for phototherapy is proposed. The proposed method is based on cell apoptosis according to halting activation of cancer cell membrane receptor by exposure to UV light pulses without any side effect. In the proposed method, gold nanoparticles are directed to cancerous cells by conjugating their surface with specific ligands. UV light is created locally adjacent to cells around the gold nanoparticles. UV light is generated due to nonlinear interaction of visible light with gold nanoparticles because of enhancement in third order nonlinear effects. For example, by using 780 nm laser, 260 nm UV will be generated around the nanoparticle because of third harmonic generation... 

Hydrostatic pressure is one of the most fundamental and common mechanical stimuli in the body, playing a critical role in the homeostasis of all organ systems. Kidney function is affected by high blood pressure, namely hypertension, by the increased pressure acting on the glomerular capillary walls. This general effect of hypertension is diagnosed as a chronic disease, but underlying mechanistic causes are still not well understood. This paper reports a portable and adaptive device for studying the effects of hydrostatic pressure on a monolayer of cells. The fabricated device fits within a conventional incubation system and microscope. The effects of various pressures and durations were... 

One of the most important problems in teleoperation systems is time delay and packet loss in the communication channel, which can affect transparency and stability. One way to overcome the time delay effects in a teleoperation system is to predict the master-side motion. In this way, when data is received in the slave side, it will be considered as the current position of the master robot and, thus, complete transparency could be achieved. The majority of the previous works regarding operator position prediction have considered known and constant time delay in the system; however, in the real applications, time delay is unknown and variable. In this paper, an adaptive online prediction...