Sharif Digital Repository

Once the path of the vehicle and the desired task of the end-effector are predefined, in order to apply the optimal stability criterion, the manipulator should be redundant. In this paper, the goal is to find the position, angular velocity, and angular acceleration of the redundant link of the manipulator such that the entire system becomes optimally stable. By considering the full dynamic interaction between the manipulator and its vehicle, the stability issue becomes more complex. There are some measures of stability and one of them is the tire's upward force. This measure tries to equalize the upward forces of the tires that lead to optimal stability and better steer-ability. Optimizing... 

Cysts are one of the most common lesions in kidneys and can be diagnosed exploiting ultrasound images. In this paper, we develop an automatic approach for cyst segmentation in ultrasound images. The proposed approach comprises three steps: finding a seed point in the object exploiting the Gibbs random field, detecting the boundary based on multiresolution signal processing and edge refining, and finally shape model features extracting to verify whether the object is a cyst. The proposed approach is fast and less complex to suit ultrasound exploration applications. © 2004 IEEE  

It has been realized that the raft (mat) foundations are capable of bearing very large loads when they are assisted with a pile group. The contribution of both raft and piles to carry the surcharge loads is taken into account, considering the stiffness and strength of involved elements in the system, i.e. piles, raft and surrounding soil. The piles are usually required not to ensure the overall stability of the foundation but to act as settlement reducers. There is an alternative design in which, the piles are nonconnected from the raft to reduce the settlement, which are then known to be "settlement reducer non-connected piles" to increase the system stiffness. In this paper, two and three... 

A dynamic model of a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is developed. The hydrodynamic damping coefficients are estimated using a semi-predictive approach and computational fluid dynamic software ANSYS-CFX™ and WAMIT™. A sliding-mode controller (SMC) is then designed for the ROV model. The controller is subsequently robustified against modeling uncertainties, disturbances, and measurement errors. It is shown that when the system is subjected to bounded uncertainties, the SMC will preserve stability and tracking response. The paper ends with simulation results for a variety of conditions such as disturbances and parametric uncertainties. © 2018, Harbin Engineering University and Springer-Verlag... 

A dynamic model of a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is developed. The hydrodynamic damping coefficients are estimated using a semi-predictive approach and computational fluid dynamic software ANSYS-CFX™ and WAMIT™. A sliding-mode controller (SMC) is then designed for the ROV model. The controller is subsequently robustified against modeling uncertainties, disturbances, and measurement errors. It is shown that when the system is subjected to bounded uncertainties, the SMC will preserve stability and tracking response. The paper ends with simulation results for a variety of conditions such as disturbances and parametric uncertainties. © 2018, Harbin Engineering University and Springer-Verlag... 

In this paper, a general analysis of one-dimensional steady-state thermal stresses in a hollow thick cylinder made of functionally graded material is developed. The temperature distribution is assumed to be a function of radius, with general thermal and mechanical boundary conditions along the inside and outside surfaces. The material properties, except Poisson's ratio, are assumed to depend on variable the r and they are expressed as power functions of r. The direct method is used to solve the heat conduction and Navier equations. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved  

In this paper, the general theoretical analysis of two-dimensional steady-state thermal stresses for a hollow thick cylinder made of functionally graded material is developed. The temperature distribution is assumed to be a function of radial and circumferential directions with general thermal and mechanical boundary conditions on the inside and outside surfaces. The material properties, except Poisson's ratio, are assumed to depend on the variable r and they are expressed as power functions of r. The separation of variables and complex Fourier series are used to solve the heat conduction and Navier equations  

The diseases and disorders of the cornea may lead to blindness, and cornea transplantation has been an effective treatment in this regard. However, lack of cornea throughout the world makes this treatment difficult. Therefore, the first goal of the present study is to make a chitosan/gelatin hyaline film with NHS and EDC crosslinkers for transplanting the epithelial cells of the cornea. Two solutions of gelatin and chitosan were mixed homogeneously before crosslinking in ratios of 20/80, 30/70, 40/60, and 50/50 (Gel/Chi). After 24 hours, they were put in an oven to dry, then EDC and NHS were added to the mixture as crosslinker. Corneal epithelial cell morphology was assessed qualitatively... 

The stability issue of mobile manipulators, particularly when the end-effector and the vehicle have to follow a predefined trajectory (for some special duties like painting a plane or carrying a light load), is a crucial subject and needs special attention. In this paper, by utilizing the manipulator compensation motions, the instantaneous proper configuration for a redundant mobile robot is determined. A fast methodology taking into account the dynamic interaction between the manipulator and the vehicle is proposed for enhancing the tipover stability (i.e. stability against overturning) of the mobile manipulator by employing the soft computing approach including a genetic algorithm, neural... 

Nowadays the size and dimension of mobile manipulators have been decreased for being usable in various regions. This leads several problems such as danger of instability. Therefore, many researches have been done to overcome the problem of overturning of a mobile manipulator. In this paper, an algorithm for increasing the stability of a mobile manipulator is presented based on the optimization of a performance index. The path of vehicle and the desired task of the end-effector are predefined. In order to apply the optimal stability criterion, it is more convenient that the manipulator be of a redundant. Considering the interaction between the vehicle and the manipulator and using the genetic... 

Mobile manipulators are developed in order to execute separately in various regions where there is not possibility for human to appear there. Recently, the size of mobile manipulators has been decreased according to their given tasks. For such systems, the stability issue is very important. The robot system should be able to keep itself in an optimal situation. For reaching to this goal, one can use a redundant degree of freedom for the mobile manipulator such that this redundancy makes it possible to recover the system's stability by dynamic compensatory motion of manipulator when the system is unstable. In this paper, we present an algorithm which is fast enough to stabilize the mobile... 

Ground source heat pumps (GSHP) are one of the most efficient systems that offer a promising reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in buildings; however, the electrification of buildings’ heating and cooling using GSHP is facing two critical challenges: its high initial cost and potential adverse impact on the electrical grid. In this paper, to address these challenges, two novel systems are proposed in which a battery, a water thermal storage tank, and a phase change material (PCM) thermal storage tank are integrated, in different configurations, with a conventional GSHP system. In these systems, the grid electricity during off-peak periods is stored as heat or electricity in... 

The most common reasons for hard-tissue implant failure are structural loosening and prosthetic infections. Hence, in this study, to overcome the first problem, different bioinspired coatings, including dual acid-etched, anodic TiO2 nanotubes array, anodic hierarchical titanium oxide (HO), micro- and nanostructured hydroxyapatite (HA) layers, and HA/chitosan (HA/CS) nanocomposite, were applied to the titanium alloy surfaces. X-ray diffraction and FTIR analysis demonstrated that the in situ HA/CS nanocomposite formed successfully. The MTT assay showed that all samples had excellent cell viability, with cell proliferation rates ranging from 120% to 150% after 10 days. The HO coating... 

In this paper, a mechanism for fabrication of nanostructured hydroxyapatite coating on TiO2 nanotubes is presented. Also, the physical, biological, and nanomechanical properties of the anodized Ti6Al4V alloy consisting TiO2 nanotubes, electrodeposited hydroxyapatite, and the hydroxyapatite/TiO2 nanotubes double layer coating on Ti6Al4V alloy implants are compared. Mean cell viability of the samples being 84.63 % for uncoated plate, 91.53 % for electrodeposited hydroxyapatite, and 94.98 % for hydroxyapatite/TiO2 nanotubes coated sample were in the acceptable range. Merely anodized prototype had the highest biocompatibility of 110 % with respect to the control sample. Bonding strength of... 

The synthesis of cheap and environmental friendly adsorbent from residual sugarcane bagasse was done for the removal of naphthalene from aqueous solution. The activated carbon dot was obtained by KOH chemical activation of carbon dots. The characteristics of carbon dots and activated carbon dots were determined using field emission scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. A series of experiments were conducted in a batch system to assess the effect of the system variables, i.e., initial pH, initial naphthalene concentration, adsorbent dosage, and contact time. The kinetic data showed better fit to the... 

In this study, hybrid nano adsorbent supported carbon dots was prepared and used for removing Cr(VI) from aqueous solution. Carbon dots were synthesized from sugarcane molasses under microwave irradiation. Hybrid nano adsorbent was prepared by impregnating carbon dot with H3PO4 in a ratio of 2:1 and introducing 0.01 M FeCl3 into the slurry. The carbon dot hybrid was activated via a conventional thermal method under N2 flow. The physico-chemical properties of the synthesized material were investigated using X–ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), N2 adsorption/desorption, and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). Chromium adsorption was studied... 

In this work, the behavior of some internal microstructural models with different mobility tensors has been studied for polymer melts and solutions under steady and transient simple shear and elongational flows. The time evolution equations for conformation and stress tensors in the models reviewed have their root in the Generalized Poisson bracket formalism. Two different families of conformational models have been selected for this study. The first family is based on the Modified Finitely Extensible Nonlinear Elastic (FENE-P) energy while the second uses a Volume Preserving Conformational Rheological (VPCR) model based on the Hookean Helmholtz free energy function. Several expressions for... 

Kernel learning is one of the most important and recent approaches to constrained clustering. Until now many kernel learning methods have been introduced for clustering when side information in the form of pairwise constraints is available. However, almost all of the existing methods either learn a whole kernel matrix or learn a limited number of parameters. Although the non-parametric methods that learn whole kernel matrix can provide capability of finding clusters of arbitrary structures, they are very computationally expensive and these methods are feasible only on small data sets. In this paper, we propose a kernel learning method that shows flexibility in the number of variables between... 

Two atomic models are proposed for an Er 3+-doped YAG crystal with application to lasing with and without population inversion. It is shown how an incoherent pumping field and coherent control coupling field can produce a laser in the presence and absence of population inversion  

Background: The early repolarization pattern (ERP) has been considered a normal variant in electrocardiography (ECG) for a long time. Nevertheless, increasing evidence has demonstrated its association with adverse outcomes. Objectives: The present study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of ERP in the Iranian general population and demonstrate its clinical and ECG correlates. Methods: A cross sectional study, comprising 1424 consecutive healthy adult individuals, was conducted at two university based hospitals in Tehran, Iran in 2012-2013. The ERP prevalence, clinical characteristics and ECG morphology were investigated in volunteers. Results: ERP was present in 136 out of 1,424 people (9.6%)....