Sharif Digital Repository

Conventional features for speech recognition have not been evaluated in terms of importance in human speech recognition. In this paper a method for extracting important features in an interactive process has been introduced. This method can be used as an aid for experts in an ASR expert system. It has also been shown, as an application of our method, how an expert might find out the distinguishing features between "m" and "n". As another use, it has been illustrated that how our method could be used to check the sufficiency of information in the quantized filter-bank for speech recognition  

This article presents a novel identification approach which can deal with nonlinear and time-varying characteristics of complex dynamic systems, especially an aerial vehicle in the entire flight envelope. A set of local sub-models are first developed at different operating points of the system, and subsequently a self-organizing multi-model ensemble is introduced to aggregate the outputs of the local models as a single model. The number of employed local models in the proposed multi-model ensemble is optimized using a novel self-organizing approach. Also, wavelet neural networks, which combine both the universal approximation property of neural networks and the wavelet decomposition... 

The granular activated carbon (GAC) was used as an adsorbent for its ability to remove haloacetic acids (HAAs) from drinking water by batch and column experiments. Various thermodynamic parameters, such as ΔG°, ΔH° and ΔS° have been calculated. The thermodynamics of HAAs onto GAC system indicates spontaneous and exothermic nature of the process. The ability of GAC to adsorb HAAs in a fixed bed column was investigated as well. The effect of operating parameters such as flow rate and inlet HAAs concentration on the sorption characteristics of GAC was investigated. The total adsorbed quantities, equilibrium uptakes and total removal percents of HAAs related to the effluent volumes were... 

Nickel titanium shape memory alloys (NiTi-SMAs) were successfully produced from elemental Ni/Ti powders by powder metallurgical method and then subjected to age treatment. Microstructure was examined by SEM and XRD and phase transformation temperatures were measured by dilatometric method. The phase transformation temperatures increased with both duration and temperature of the age treatment. The porous product exhibited desirable shape memory effect. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved  

We produced bifurcated bone-like shape memory implant (BL-SMI) with desirable tooth-root fixation capability by compact-sintering of TiH2–Ni-urea mixture. The primary constituents of the porous product were Ni and Ti. We could adjust the pores' shape, size, and interconnectivity for favorite bone ingrowth by using urea as a space holder. Without urea, we obtained an average porosity of 0.30, and a mean void size of 100 μm. With 70 vol % urea, we got 62% interconnected pores of 400 μm average size. Aging allowed us to tune the austenite-martensite transformation temperatures towards the needed body tissue arouse. Differential scanning calorimetry measured the transformation temperatures.... 

PID Neural Network controller design for Sharif University of Technology (SUT) Building Energy Management System (BEMS) is addressed in this paper. The most important characteristics of process systems are time delay with model uncertainties. Artificial neural networks can perform adaptive controller properties through learning processes. FID neural network has the advantages of both conventional PID controllers and the neural structure. Simulation results using Modified Hooke-Jeeves Optimization Method show that this controller has short convergence time and quick learning speed and the performance of the closed loop system is very good. © 2005 IEEE  

Ultrasonic waves have been extensively used in many industrial applications including clean devices, pipes and vessels. A clear extension of this usage is the removal of wellbore contaminants by exposing it to high-power ultrasonic waves. In this paper, a mathematical model for ultrasonic propagation through the porous medium around the wellbore is presented. The equations of wave propagation are written in a cylindrical coordinate according to Biot theory and the induced stress in the rock are calculated at each point using finite difference approach Comparison of imposed local stresses with adhesion forces between scales and rock, the properties of ultrasonic transducer, such as frequency... 

An API standard drilling fluid was investigated from laminar to turbulent flow conditions using an in-house-built viscometer at speeds from 200 to 1600 RPM. A power-based method was applied to obtain the apparent viscosity and the shear stress of the water-based drilling mud (WBM) in the annulus of the viscometer. Then, a MATLAB optimization program was developed to obtain model parameters for five rheology models integrated in a generalized Herschel-Bulkley-Extended (HBE) model and two widely used 4-parameter models in drilling industry. It is found that the Bingham, Cross, and HBE rheology models have precisely matched the WBM measurements in the viscometer. A generalized Reynolds number... 

Power consumption of wellbore drilling in oil and gas exploitations count for 40% of total costs, hence power saving of WBM (water-based mud) by adding different concentrations of Al2O3, TiO2 and SiO2 nanoparticles is investigated here. A high-speed Taylor–Couette system (TCS) was devised to operate at speeds 0–1600 RPM to simulate power consumption of wellbore drilling using nanofluids in laminar to turbulent flow conditions. The TCS control unit uses several sensors to record current, voltage and rotational speed and Arduino microprocessors to process outputs including rheological properties and power consumption. Total power consumption of the TCS was correlated with a second-order... 

Microstructural development and phase formation at the interface of yttria stabilized zirconia (3Y-TZP)/430L stainless steel composite layers produced by co-sintering method were studied by SEM, HRTEM, micro-focus XRD, and EPMA. Formation of a rich chromium boundary layer at the interface was noticed, which revealed Cr aggregation at the interface at the elevated temperatures. Misfit dislocations were also observed at the joint interface to tackle the mismatch crystallographic orientations between the ceramic and metal layer. The results of the micro-focus XRD showed formation of no new phases at the boundary zone. Microstructural studies also revealed a retarded grain growth in the... 

The mechanism of interface formation during sinter–joining of nanostructured yttria stabilized zirconia (27 nm) compacts with chromium powder was investigated. The effect of sintering atmosphere, i.e. argon or vacuum, was studied. Microstructural evaluation and phase formation was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electron probe micro-analysis (EPMA), and micro-focused X-ray diffraction (MFXRD) methods. It is shown that spreading and evaporation–condensation mechanisms are responsible for the interface formation. An improved joint shear-strength was obtained after sintering in vacuum (74 MPa) compared with argon (41 MPa). The result of MFXRD indicated formation of Cr-island at... 

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 study, hot rolling behavior of a low alloy steel in the dual-phase region is studied. The effects of various process parameters such as initial temperature, soaking time, rolling speed and the cooling conditions are investigated. Then, mechanical testing and microstructural studies are performed and the effects of process parameters are studied and finally the optimum rolling program is determined based on the achieved results. The results show that rolling speed significantly alters the final microstructures and mechanical properties. Higher rolling speed results higher volume fraction of ferrite phase. In addition, the optimum dual-phase microstructure for this steel can be... 

We consider the K-user Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Gaussian interference channel with M antennas at each transmitter and N antennas at each receiver. It is assumed that channel coefficients are constant real numbers and are available at all transmitters and at all receivers. The main objective of this paper is to characterize the number of Degrees of Freedom (DoF) of this channel. Using the real interference alignment technique introduced in Motahari et al., 2014, we show that MN M+N K degrees of freedom can be achieved for almost all channel realizations. Also, a new upper-bound on the DoF of this channel is provided. This upper-bound coincides with our achievable DoF for K K u... 

We analyze the impact of loss in lattices of coupled optical waveguides and find that, in such a case, the hopping between adjacent waveguides is necessarily complex. This results not only in a transition of the light spreading from ballistic to diffusive, but also in a new kind of diffraction that is caused by loss dispersion. We prove our theoretical results with experimental observations  

Hybrid nanoliquids comprise of better physical strength, mechanical resistance, thermal conductivity, and chemical stability as equated to individual nanoliquids. The present work investigates the MHD laminar flow, containing hybrid nanoparticles, with heat transfer phenomenon over a stretching sheet immersed in a porous medium. The effect of induced magnetic field has also been taken into account. The flow model PDEs are rehabilitated into ordinary ones using a persuasive tool of similarity variables. The analogous system of dimensionless equations alongside the boundary conditions is numerically treated with the Successive-Over-Relaxation (SOR) technique. Flow and heat transfer aspects of... 

Hybrid nanoliquids comprise of better physical strength, mechanical resistance, thermal conductivity, and chemical stability as equated to individual nanoliquids. The present work investigates the MHD laminar flow, containing hybrid nanoparticles, with heat transfer phenomenon over a stretching sheet immersed in a porous medium. The effect of induced magnetic field has also been taken into account. The flow model PDEs are rehabilitated into ordinary ones using a persuasive tool of similarity variables. The analogous system of dimensionless equations alongside the boundary conditions is numerically treated with the Successive-Over-Relaxation (SOR) technique. Flow and heat transfer aspects of... 

Employing an effective rheological model for the flow of drilling fluid that can accurately predict changing conditions is of significant importance in drilling fluid optimization. Traditional generalized Newtonian models cannot predict the time change condition, viscoelastic behavior, role of each component, or microstructural behaviors within the fluid. Consequently, the present research aims to develop constitutive equations in the framework of generalized bracket formalisms and the extra tensor concept that connect the microscopic and macroscopic properties and can overcome the aforementioned problems of traditional rheological models. The developed model is applicable for drilling fluid... 

This article presents, for the first time, a comparative analysis of two different solution methodologies for the numerical investigation of flow and thermal behavior of Casson fluid through a channel having linearly extending lower wall while the upper wall is kept at rest. MHD Casson fluid boundary layer flow is supposed to be steady, laminar, viscous, and incompressible. We have taken into account the mixed convection effects, whereas the usual no slip condition has been imposed on both walls. The Navier–Stokes equations for the proposed model have been converted into nonlinear and coupled system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) by employing similarity variables, which are then... 

In order to investigate the effect of bentonite binder on adsorption and cation exchange properties of granulated nano NaY zeolite, the adsorption of Xe and N 2 and removal of Sr 2+ ion from aqueous solution was studied. The results showed that increase in bentonite content of granules from 20 to 40 weight percent caused increase in the rupture load of granules by 232%, decrease in BET surface area by 66% and lower the Sr 2+ uptake percentage by 35%. The Henry's law constant, heat of adsorption, effective crystal diffusivity as well as activation energy of diffusion of Xe over granulated nano NaY with 25% bentonite was also measured by pulse chromatography method. Obtained results were...