Sharif Digital Repository

In the present research, human errors existed in tasks of operators working in two control rooms (Northern and Southern control rooms) in the Tehran oil refinery are identified and evaluated. Then, corrective strategies and actions are advised to decrease errors. At first, using hierarchical task analysis (HTA) method, four positions including shift controller, head operators, control room's operators, and outside operators are analyzed. Afterwards, human errors in the considered positions are identified and assessed using technique for retrospective and predictive analysis of cognitive errors (TRACEr). Results present 670 internal errors and 738 external errors in the Northern sector while... 

The use of Computer Science in order to categorize and store information, improve diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, patient education and the training of a skilled labor force, has taken important steps and there are constantly new developments in this area  

Due to great commercial application of protease, it is necessary to study kinetic characterization of this enzyme in order to improve design of enzymatic reactors. In this study, mathematical modeling of protease enzyme production kinetics which is derived from Bacillus licheniformis BBRC 100053 was studied (at 37°C, pH 10 after 73 h in stationary phase, and 150 rpm). The aim of the present paper was to determine the best kinetic model and kinetic parameters for production of protease and calculating K i (inhibition constant) of different inhibitors to find the most effective one. The kinetic parameters K m (Michaelis-Menten constant) and V m (maximum rate) were calculated 0.626 mM and... 

Simulation is the gold standard for training in aviation and trauma medicine. Now it is available for diseases diagnosis and treatment. With simulation, clinicians can practice their art in a realistic, consequence free environment, combining both theory and practice in a comprehensive program. Method and materials - In the virtual clinical environment of "VPsoft mentor" software, the practitioner reviews a patient's history, orders laboratory tests and procedures, interprets findings, renders diagnoses, and prescribes medication. Every diagnostic or treatment decision the clinician makes for the patient is analyzed by E-mentor, providing instant feedback.Results - This software have been... 

Stimuli responsive hydrogels (SRHs) are smart materials with reversible changes in their properties through the environmental stimulus variations. Although SRHs have been used in various medical applications such as sensors, drug release systems and, etc., they are still being actively researched on other sectors such as functional textiles and smart clothing. One of the best methods to produce textiles with more functionality is smart finishing of textile by surface modifying stimuli responsive hydrogels. In this paper, literatures on SRHs applications, methods and application of some SRHs on textile have been thoroughly discussed  

Cotton fabrics have been prepared with smart properties by functional finishing with stimuli-responsive nano gel. A biopolymer (chitosan) and a synthetic polymer (poly-NiPAAm) have been used for the synthesis of nano gel through semi-batch surfactant-free dispersion polymerization (SB-SFDP) method. The incorporation of nano gel to textile fabrics is achieved by pad-dry-cure procedure, using an aqueous nano gel dispersion and 1,2,3,4-butantetracarboxylic acid as a crosslinking agent. With this cross linking method, it is possible to integrate the nano gel into the cotton fabric’s structure with good resistance to washing. The changes in physiological comfort parameters of cotton fabric such... 

Using survey data, public awareness of and attitudes toward nanotechnology are examined in Iran (N ≥ 759). Iran is a developing country with a national nanotechnology action plan for a ten year period starting from 2003 and has been active in the field of research and development of nanotechnology meanwhile. First, the results show that majority of people are still not familiar with nanotechnology and perceived risks posed by this technology are not considered to be a lot and most people feel its benefits outweigh the risks. The emotions toward this technology are of a hopeful and positive nature and this technology is looked upon favorably in Iran. In particular, our results reveals that... 

Design and implementation of Architecture is a knowledge-driven process. Evaluation and verification the knowledge, in order to ensure its quality, have important role in improving overall design process. Furthermore, Architectural decision making is a complex and multi-criteria decision making problem in which multiple stakeholders make decisions from their perspectives causing overlaps and conflicts in the adopted decisions. Therefore, the requirement for strategies to manage these issues and also to improve coordination and cooperation among the various stakeholders to improve the overall process design is necessary. In this regard, there have been several activities that focus on... 

We investigate the relation between fundamental idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns idiosyncratic volatility using data from 56 countries. We find a strong positive relation between fundamental idiosyncratic volatility and idiosyncratic volatility of returns. This association, however, seems to be entirely concentrated in the developed economies, and we find no effect in the emerging markets. Specifically, fundamental idiosyncratic volatility does not lead to more idiosyncratic return volatility in countries with poor legal institutions and weak shareholder protection laws. © 2021 Elsevier Inc  

The supernatant obtained from the extracellular laccase produced by Phanerochaete chrysosporium was used as the enzyme source to conduct a partial purification, characterization and dye decolorization study. The partially purified enzyme was stable in the pH range of 3–5 and showed an optimum activity at pH 4.0, using guaiacol as a substrate. Laccase stability of pH was determined and discovered to retain 100% of its activity at a pH of 4.0 after 2 h. The maximum enzyme activity was obtained between 30 and 50 °C. The maximum velocity and Michaelis constant were calculated as 3.171 µM−1·min and 1628.23 µM, respectively. The enzyme was activated by Fe2+, Zn2+, Ca2+ and Cu2+, while Hg2+, Mn2+,... 

Bisphenol A (BPA), which is a major component in the production of various consumer products, is one of the most significant endocrine-disrupting chemicals. In this research, the biocatalytic elimination of Bisphenol A using laccase produced by Phanerochaete chrysosporium was examined and optimized. The response surface methodology was used to study the effect of independent variables such as pH, temperature, initial laccase activity, initial Bisphenol A concentration, and the interactive effects of each variable on the removal of Bisphenol A and residual enzyme activity. Based on response surface plots, the maximum Bisphenol A removal (93%) was detected at a pH value of 8, temperature... 

Bisphenol A (BPA), which is a major component in the production of various consumer products, is one of the most significant endocrine-disrupting chemicals. In this research, the biocatalytic elimination of Bisphenol A using laccase produced by Phanerochaete chrysosporium was examined and optimized. The response surface methodology was used to study the effect of independent variables such as pH, temperature, initial laccase activity, initial Bisphenol A concentration, and the interactive effects of each variable on the removal of Bisphenol A and residual enzyme activity. Based on response surface plots, the maximum Bisphenol A removal (93%) was detected at a pH value of 8, temperature 40... 

Studying the reliability of cracked structures under different types of failure modes such as a mixture of Mode I and Mode II loadings has been of great importance in many applications. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of different modes of loading, i.e. pure Mode I, pure Mode II and Mixed mode I/II loadings on the reliability of cracked structures via three typical case studies including 1st: through crack in a very wide plate, 2nd: cracked pressurized fuselage and 3rd: cracked fastener holes under actual geometries and loading conditions using the FORM, the fracture toughness and the equivalent SIF for Mixed mode I/II loading which is extracted by the Energy release... 

A genetic-based pore network extraction method from micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) images is proposed in this paper. Several variables such as the number, radius and location of pores, the coordination number, as well as the radius and length of the throats are used herein as the optimization parameters. Two approaches to generate the pore network structure are presented. Unlike previous algorithms, the presented approaches are directly based on minimizing the error between the extracted network and the real porous medium. This leads to the generation of more accurate results while reducing required computational memories. Two different objective functions are used in building the... 

In this study Fe3O4/CMC magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized through co-precipitation method. Afterward, laccase from Trametes hirsuta was immobilized onto Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)-coated magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles by covalent bonding between carboxyl groups of carboxymethyl cellulose and amine group of laccases. Also, the resulted magnetic nanoparticles and immobilized laccase were characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) analysis. Moreover, the vital factors in enzyme immobilization, such as contact time, amount of N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS), and the amount of nanoparticles were... 

It has been suggested that the central nervous system simplifies muscle control through basic units, called synergies. In this study, we have developed a novel target-matching protocol and used non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) technique to extract trunk muscle synergies and corresponding torque synergies. Isometric torque data at the L5/S1 level and electromyographic patterns of twelve abdominal and back muscles from twelve healthy participants (five females) were simultaneously recorded. Each participant performed a total number of 24 isometric target-matching tasks using 12 different angular directions and 2 levels of uniaxial and biaxial exertions. Within- and between-subject... 

Improving the service quality of public transport is necessary to maintain the loyalty of current users and attract new travelers. Past studies show that users’ preferences for transit service quality are heterogeneous, but recognizing the factors describing this heterogeneity has not been investigated in depth. This paper aims to evaluate the sources of heterogeneity in passengers’ preferences for service attributes of bus transit regarding the regular bus system in the city of Tehran. Four attributes of bus travel, including in-vehicle travel time, fare, vehicle crowding, and headway, were considered. Stated preference (SP) data of 360 commuters with work purpose was collected through... 

Noise reduction is a major concern in digital image processing systems, which have been investigated by several techniques. One kind of important noises in images is known as Salt & Pepper, which may have different causes. In this paper a new approach for eliminating this type of noise is presented. The approach is different from all previous works in this field, and is based on classification. More precisely, it tries to classify pixels of an image to one of two categories: noisy or not noisy. Afterward, it employs a median filter for pixels which have been classified as noisy, and remains others unchanged; hence, edges and other fine details are kept. Experimental results show this... 

Statistical and biochemical studies have revealed nonrandom patterns in codon assignments. The canonical genetic code is known to be highly efficient in minimizing the effects of mistranslational errors and point mutations, since it is known that, when an amino acid is converted to another due to error, the biochemical properties of the resulted amino acid are usually very similar to those of the original one. In this study, we have taken into consideration both relative frequencies of amino acids and relative gene copy frequencies of tRNAs in genomic sequences in order to introduce a fitness function which models the mistranslational probabilities more accurately in modern organisms. The...