Sharif Digital Repository

By “Analysis of Epistemological Justification of Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE)” I mean to examine whether the IBE argument can increase the probability of the truth of belief to the outcome of the argument or not. According to the Strong Version of IBE, this increase shows that the best explanation is more likely to be true, whereas according to the Weak Version the best explanation is more probable than its available rivals. The most influential arguments against these positions are: (1) The bad lot objection (BLO) according to which the idea that the best available explanations will be more likely to be true, presupposes that the truth is already more likely to be found among... 

Recent studies on inelastic behavior of soil-structure systems indicate that seismic design codes provisions, which use the same response modification factor for fixed base structures and soil-structure systems, are not appropriate and could lead to an increase in ductility demand of structures (as a part of soil-structure system). As a result, to reduce design base shear and design forces with regards to collaboration of soil-structure interaction could be in non-conservative manner. In all of these studies, the ductility component of the response modification factor (i.e. Rµ ) has been the major concern and the overstrength component has been ignored. However, the existence of... 

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, international Campus universities around the world were emphasized on financial sources rather than public or government universities. Therefore, the competition for qualified students has increased contemporarily with the student awareness about the programs and services offered by international campus universities located in Iran. The purpose of this study is to discover the factors that influence students’ choice model and decision making process in an international campus .To achieve it, we first performed the exploratory research to extract the factors which influence the students’ choice model by reviewing literature review and we... 

The integration of radar and communication functionalities into a unified Joint Radar-Communication (JRC) system offers enhanced spectral efficiency and reduced hardware complexity. Recognized as a key enabler for next-generation wireless networks, JRC systems require a careful balance between radar and communication demands, where waveform design plays a pivotal role in achieving this equilibrium. Although waveform design has been extensively studied separately in radar and communication domains, the requirements of modern networks necessitate a unified approach that simultaneously addresses the needs of both systems. This thesis advances waveform design methodologies for JRC systems,... 

Electronic health record are records consisting of users' health history, doctor visits, patient treatment prescriptions, and medications taken by the patient. Various entities, including patients, doctors, validators, and service providers, are also present in the electronic health system. Consequently, we need to register and maintain all the activities of the various entities in the system. To record the activities of the entities, we need a data structure that makes the data accessible to everyone and allows all entities to verify the data. Additionally, the data must be immutable. To meet these requirements, we use the blockchain network in the proposed system. The designed system must... 

In this dissertation, the application of frequency and space diversities in radar target parameter estimation are investigated. On this basis, multi-frequency signal is used to improve the range resolution, array structure is used to increase the angle estimation accuracy and the merger of the multi-frequency signal and array structure are used to increase the maximum number of targets that can be uniquely identified.Considering the desirable properties of multi-frequency signals such as high bandwidth efficiency, high range resolution achievement without chip length decrease and …, there has been increased interest in the vast area of research on the design of such signals that has... 

Target recognition techniques based on micro Doppler phenomenon are popular because they are applicable even on low resolution radars, in contrast to other techniques such as High Resolution Range Profile (HRRP) which need high resolution in range or angle. Usually, main purpose of such techniques is generating robust features against target initial state, velocity, aspect angle, etc. rather than features which exactly identify a target. Main approaches in the literature are based on time-frequency transforms (TFT) such as spectrogram in order to generate features to classify targets, but in this thesis, we propose a totally different method using Recurrence Plot for generating features... 

In this research with Finite Element Methods in ABAQUS, numerical modeling has done in three-dimensions, which can be used to determine the effect of different factors on the surface settlement. Also, various factors such as geotechnical conditions, tunnel diameter,tunnel depth, the impact of the thickness of the segments and the amount of eccentricity of the structure relative to the longitudinal axis of the tunnel considered in this study. Face Pressure Supports, and Grout Injection Pressures are taken into account, too.Tunnel drilling causes a change in the displacement area and creates a changing zone around the tunnel. In this regard, not only adjacent buildings will be affected by... 

Proton precession magnetometers are one of the most sensitive scalar magnetic sensors. Their function is based on Zeeman effect and also nuclear magnetic resonance phenomena. In this project we have designed and implemented needed coils, swithching and signal detection circuits. Because of extremely high sensitivity of this sensor to induced noises and also gradient of earth’s magnetic fileld, detection of precession signal needs design of low noise electronic circuits with special EMC considerations. The implemented system in this project contains different blocks, such as switching circuit and its related control unit, amplifier, filter and frequency meter. Using this system, the obtained... 

Effective field theory is a practical method for model building and explaining experimental/observational data. These theories are constructed based on knowing low energy degrees of freedom and symmetries (accidental or fundamental). By construction, these theories are applicable up to a cut-off scale and their predictions beyond that are not reliable. For applications to higher energies a UV completion is needed through which modifications are applied or new heavy degrees of freedom are introduced. In order to complete a theory in a Wilsonian approach, scattering amplitudes must satisfy some constraints. These constraints are derived from basic assumptions like Lorentz invariance,... 

Numerous structures which are involved in seismic soil-pile-structure interaction have been destroyed. Considering complexities which exist in soil-pile interaction problems and lack of precise methods without imperfect bases, it is necessary to use numerical methods for analyzing soil-pile interaction problems. In this research, three-dimensional modeling and studying the effect of changing soil and pile parameters on the behavior of pile under earthquake loading is performed using finite difference software, FLAC3D. The soil in this model has a softening behavior. Real earthquake spectrum has been applied into the model as the acceleration time history at the bedrock level. The results of... 

Cartilage is a connective tissue, whose most important role in the body is to create a surface with a low friction coefficient in order to allow bones to slide on each other without direct contact to transfer loads. Articular cartilage is always under a harsh biomechanical environment and lacks blood, lymphatic and nerve vessels. As a result, it limits the capacity of this tissue to improve and restore itself. According to experimental efforts, cartilage cannot be regenerated spontaneously without the support of healthy subchondral bone. In recent years, the implantation of tissue engineering scaffolds has been considered as an effective strategy for the treatment of osteochondral damage.... 

The current global economy challenges and the importance of maintaining a sustainable development strategy has increasingly bolded the importance of construction productivity measures. This research describes the results of a running research that is to find the most critical factors affecting the productivity of high rise concrete building projects in developing countries. To achieve that, we have conducted Delphi method in two phases. In the first phase we had a brainstorming program with construction experts from owner organizations, construction contractors and designing engineers to identify factors that have influenced productivity in recent concrete building construction projects.50... 

Multi-period Value-at-Risk (VaR) forecasting is important for risk management. Financial institutions especially commercial banks according to Basel Committee regulations for capital adequacy in “Internal Approach”, should forecast their VaR for multi-period horizons (longer than one day). The most conventional approach for forecasting multi-period VaR is scaling one-day forecasted VaR that is called “square root of time rule”; therefore most works in this area have been focused on forecasting one-day VaR. In this study, we review performance of a wide range of different methods in forecasting multi-period VaR. The results of our study show that historical simulation performs weakly in... 

Modern communication and space systems such as satellite communication devices, radars, SAR and radio astronomy interferometers are realized with large antenna arrays since this kind of radiating systems are able to generate radiation patterns with high directivity and resolution. In such a framework, conventional arrays with uniform inter-element spacing could be not satisfactory in terms of costs and dimensions. An interesting alternative is to reduce the array elements obtaining the so called ‘ thinned arrays’. Large thinned arrays have been exploited because of their advantages in terms of weight,consumption, hardware complexity, and cost over the... 

A large number of structures subjected to the seismic loading have been damaged or have experienced failure in different parts such as the pile structure or even in the entire structure due to unanticipated effects of the soil-pile-structure interaction.The complexity of problems regarding the soil-pile-structure interaction is an influencing factor in prediction of the behavior of structure during the earthquakes. In this study, the effect of the interaction on the dynamic response of bridges was investigated using the finite element software ABAQUS. The primary purpose of this study, as previously described, is to study the effects of the soil-structure interaction on a bridge located on a... 

After being introduced in 2009, the first fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) scheme has created significant excitement in academia and industry. Despite rapid advances in the last 6 years, FHE schemes are still not ready for deployment due to an efficiency bottleneck. Here we introduce a hardware/software codesign, in fact a hardware accelerator optimized for a class of reconfigurable logic to bring homomorphic encryption schemes one step closer to deployment in real-life applications. The accelerator we present is connected via a fast PCIe interface to a CPU platform to provide homomorphic evaluation services to any application that needs to support blinde computations. Specifically we... 

In this project design of adaptive neural network controller for uncertain nonlinear systems in the presence of different restrictions has been investigated. After providing introduction and motivation, two general forms of nonlinear systems including strict- feedback and pure- feedback have been introduced. In order to solve the problem caused by each restriction, a solution has been proposed. For the strict- feedback nonlinear systems several restrictions are considered such as, unknown dynamic model, unmeasured state, input saturation, unknown control directions, time delays in states and input. Stability analysis based on the Lyapunov theorem has been established. In addition, two kinds... 

Train-induced vibrations can disturb the residential areas close to the rail as well as making ground-borne noises that can create problems for sensitive apparatus and devices. To reduce these problems, there need to be an evaluation of the amplitude of the ground-borne vibrations. The goal in this study is creating a suitable finite difference model in order to predict the intensity of train induced vibrations propagating inside or on the surface of the soil using FLAC (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua) software as well as assessing the effectiveness of recycled shredded tires in reducing the surface vibrations by using these material as the filler for vibration isolation trenches. The... 

Suction caisson is a relatively new technology which was introduced about 30 years ago for the first time and after several investigations, was found its position in the oil industry and construction of anchorages, during previous decade. So nowadays, it is the most effective and economical choice as the mooring of offshore structures in comparison with the other foundations. Suction caisson is a hollow cylinder with an open bottom and a closed top. After placement on the seafloor, the caisson first penetrates into the soil by its self weight and then inserts into the ground by pumping water out of it. Although many researchers have attempted to understand the behavior of suction caissons...