Sharif Digital Repository

In the contemporary era, the world is confronting numerous challenges that should be dealt with in the near future like effective management of energy, necessity for economic development, reducing environmental challenges, quality and security of life of its inhabitants. The growing concentration of the global inhabitants into towns and cities puts the urban areas in the center of the concerns and make them vital stakeholders for the viable growth strategy of the world. Consequently, Cyber-physical systems (CPS) can play a significant role in their adaptation to smart cities applications and projects. This paper aims to give an overview of the smart city concept and emerging technologies in... 

Loss of lower extremities has been one of the main problems in human life. Although most of the available knee devices are aesthetically acceptable, there is a necessity for lighter and more compact mechanisms, especially for younger amputees. This problem can be solved by the combining compliant mechanism design with traditional mechanism design methods. In this study, one group of the prosthetics that is known as the compliant knee mechanisms" is evaluated. At first, the different knee mechanisms, such as fourand six-bar knee linkages are investigated to calculate the values of the control moments (actuator torque). Then, the suitable location (where the actuator torque is to be exerted)... 

Biological systems are highly nonlinear, and there is a significant amount of variability from one patient to another. A controller for drug infusion has to be able to achieve good performance for most of the potential patient population. These controllers are designed for the general population, as no knowledge is available before hand for each particular patient. This necessitates perforce an algorithm that will be able to compensate for the differences between individuals and external factors. Of the possibilities, fuzzy logic direct model reference adaptive control (DMRAC) is the choice for Insulin infusion control for diabetes type I as results presented herein. Safety and robustness... 

A numerical procedure is proposed for obtaining the static deflection, pull-in (PI) deflection and PI voltage of electrostatically excited capacitive microcantilever beams. The method is not time and memory consuming as Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Nonlinear ordinary differential equation of the static deflection of the beam is derived, w/wo considering the fringing field effects. The nondimensional parameters upon which PI voltage is dependent are then found. Thereafter, using the parameters and the numerical method, three closed form equations for pull-in voltage are developed. The results are in good agreement with others in literature. Copyright © 2006 by ASME  

According to recent studies, Cu–Zr and Ni–Zr binary alloying systems are very similar based on known glass-forming ability criteria, however, they exhibit significant difference in glass-forming ability in practice. In this work, local atomic structures of Cu–Zr and Ni–Zr metallic glasses are studied by molecular dynamics simulation to explain the source of mentioned difference. The total and partial distribution functions, coordination number and voronoi analysis are utilized to characterize the local atomic structures around Zr, Ni and Cu atoms. It was found that the local environment around Zr atoms is almost similar in both systems. The difference in the atomic structure in these systems... 

This paper describes a neural network controller for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The designed online multilayer perceptron neural network (OMLPNN) calculates forces and moments in earth fixed frame to eliminate the tracking errors of AUVs whose dynamics are highly nonlinear and time varying. Another OMLPNN has been designed to generate an inverse model of AUV, which determine the appropriate propeller's speed and control surfaces' angles receiving the forces and moments in the body fixed frame. The designed approximation based neural network controller with the use of the backpropagation learning algorithm has advantages and robustness to control the highly nonlinear dynamics of... 

In this paper obtaining the optimal configuration of the dual-arm cam-lock (DACL) robot at a specific point is addressed. The objective is to optimize the applicable task-space force in a desired direction. The DACL robot is a reconfigurable manipulator formed by two parallel cooperative arms. The arms normally operate redundantly but when needed, they can lock into each other in certain joints in order to achieve a higher stiffness, while losing some degrees of freedom. Furthermore, the dynamics of the DACL robot is discussed and parametrically formulated. Considering the geometrical constraints at a given point in the robot's workspace, the optimum configuration for maximizing the... 

The Dual-Arm Cam-Lock robot is a reconfigurable manipulator formed by two parallel cooperative arms. Based on the application, these arms may loose some degrees of freedom by locking into each other. However, they are considered as redundant arms when operating without any locked joints/links. In this paper, a method is introduced to find the optimal configuration of this manipulator. The objective is to find the configuration in which maximum cooperative force is exerted to an object in a specific direction. The dynamics of the robot is parametrically formulated for different configurations, and by considering the geometrical constraints optimization is performed using fine-mesh and genetic... 

A numerical method based on the transfer matrix method is developed to calculate the critical temperature of two-layer Ising ferromagnet with a weak inter-layer coupling. The reduced internal energy per site has been accurately calculated for symmetric ferromagnetic case, with the nearest neighbor coupling K1 = K2 = K (where K1 and K2 are the nearest neighbor interaction in the first and second layers, respectively) with inter-layer coupling J. The critical temperature as a function of the inter-layer coupling ξ = J/K, is obtained for very weak inter-layer interactions, ξ < 0.1. Also a different function is given for the case of the strong inter-layer interactions (ξ > 1). The importance of... 

Scour phenomenon around piles could endanger the stability of the structures placed on them. Therefore, an accurate estimation of the scour depth around piles is very important for engineers. Due to the complexity of the interaction between the current, seabed and pile group; prediction of the scour depth is a difficult task and the available empirical formulas have limited accuracy. Recently, soft computing methods such as artificial neural networks (ANN) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) have been used for the prediction of the scour depth. However, these methods do not give enough insight into the generated models and are not as easy to use as the empirical formulas. In... 

This paper will first describe predictor controllers when the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers are inactive for procedures that have large delay time (LDT) in transfer stage. Therefore in those states, the predictor controllers are better than the PID controllers, then compares three types of predictor controllers. The value of these controller's parameters are obtained by trial and error method, so here an effort has been made to obtain these parameters by Ziegler-Nichols method. Eventually in this paper Ziegler-Nichols method has been described and finally, a PIP controller has been designed for a thermal system, which circulates hot air to keep the temperature of a... 

Compared with conventional cancer treatments, the main advantage of oncolytic virotherapy is its tumor-selective replication followed by the destruction of malignant cells without damaging healthy cells. Accordingly, this kind of biological therapy can potentially be used as a promising approach in the field of cancer management. Given the failure of traditional monitoring strategies (such as immunohistochemical analysis (in providing sufficient safety and efficacy necessary for virotherapy and continual pharmacologic monitoring to track pharmacokinetics in real-time, the development of alternative strategies for ongoing monitoring of oncolytic treatment in a live animal model seems... 

Respiratory virus infections are among the most prevalent diseases in humans and contribute to morbidity and mortality in all age groups. Moreover, since they can evolve fast and cross the species barrier, some of these viruses, such as influenza A and coronaviruses, have sometimes caused epidemics or pandemics and were associated with more serious clinical diseases and even mortality. The recently identified Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a Public Health Emergency of International concern and has been associated with rapidly progressive pneumonia. To ensure protection against emerging respiratory tract... 

In this paper we have presented a new form of Kane's equations. This new form is expressed in the matrix form with the components of partial derivatives of linear and angular velocities relative to the generalized speeds and generalized coordinates. The number of obtained equations is equal to the number of degrees of freedom represented in a closed form. Also the equations can be rearranged to appear only one of the time derivatives of generalized speeds in each equation. This form is appropriate especially when one intends to derive equations recursively. Hence in addition to the simplicity, the amount of calculations is noticeably reduced and also can be used in a control unit. Copyright... 

In this paper, a novel microfabrication process of a six DOF thermal compliant nanopositioner is presented. The microfabrication process was based on bulk micromachining process. By using this process some important operational restrictions which are usually created by surface micromachining were removed. Moreover, this novel process does not need SOI wafers and needs only ordinary wafers. Therefore, it makes microfabrication process cheaper than surface micromachining processes where SOI wafer should be used. This method is completely appropriate for microactuators which have 120 degree misalignment. Finally, a primary test by using interferometer method was used to test connection of... 

In this paper, a novel microfabrication process of a six DOF thermal compliant nanopositioner is presented. The microfabrication process was based on bulk micromachining process. By using this process some important operational restrictions which are usually created by surface micromachining were removed. Moreover, this novel process does not need SOI wafers and needs only ordinary wafers. Therefore, it makes microfabrication process cheaper than surface micromachining processes where SOI wafer should be used. This method is completely appropriate for microactuators which have 120 degree misalignment. Finally, a primary test by using interferometer method was used to test connection of... 

After publication of this article [1], it was brought to our attention that there are some errors in the section of 'Authors' contributions'. The correct Authors' contributions should be: MK, FS, and AG collected literature, designed and wrote the manuscript. FS and MM edited and prepared the manuscript for submission. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. © 2019 The Author(s)  

Oncolytic virotherapy has currently emerged as a promising approach upon which scientists have been able to induce tumor-specific cell death in a broad spectrum of malignancies. Paramyxoviruses represent intrinsic oncolytic capability, which makes them excellent candidates to be widely used in oncolytic virotherapy. The mechanisms through which these viruses destroy the cancerous cells involve triggering the autophagic machinery and apoptosis in target cells. Interestingly, oncolytic paramyxoviruses have been found to induce autophagy and lead to tumor cells death rather than their survival. Indeed, the induction of autophagy has been revealed to enhance the immunogenicity of tumor cells via...