Sharif Digital Repository

The emergence of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology revolutionizes supply chains. In addition, blockchain technology can result in novel models ensuring supply chain transparency, originality, and traceability. This research is aimed to develop a blockchain-based system ascertaining supply chain transparency and originality. To this aim, a joint pricing and sustainable network design model is developed for a closed-loop supply chain. Labeling products with internet-of-thing (IoT) and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology strengthens originality and traceability in this supply chain. Afterward, smart contracts deal with transparency concerns while pricing the used products in... 

Supply chain management (SCM) deals with various strategic, tactical, and operational level decisions in which pricing is of utmost importance to decision makers. Most of the real-life supply chain pricing problems consider competition as a crucial factor in order to expand the market share and tackle emerging competitors. Accordingly, competitive pricing in SCM has attracted great attention by practitioners and academicians in the last four decades. Now after 40 years, it seems necessary to systematically review and classify the previous studies and present the most appealing future research directions. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art published papers in... 

In directional drilling, the most important thing that leads to pulling out the drill string is end of mud motor working life. Considering the working conditions of down hole mud motors; increasing the mechanical properties of their stator’s elastomer is crucial. Some attempts were done to increase the motor performance through geometrical changes but lack of material improvement is significant in previous studies. In this study, NBR/nanoclay composite samples were prepared through melt intercalation in an internal mixer and tested with regard to the temperature and drilling mud of down hole. Hardness, tear, fatigue and tensile test results of neat NBR elastomer and nanocomposite of NBR and... 

Ultra-high-energy ( E ≥ TeV) Extensive Air Showers (EASs) have been monitored for a period of five years (1997-2003 ), using a small array of scintillator detectors in Tehran, Iran. The data have been analyzed to take in to account of the dependence of source counts on zenith angle. During a calendar year different sources come in the field of view of the detector at varying zenith angles. Because of varying thickness of the overlaying atmosphere, the shower count rate is extremely dependent on zenith angle which have been carefully analyzed over time. High energy gamma-ray sources from the EGRET third catalogue where observed and the data were analyzed using an excess method. Upper limits... 

Ultra-high-energy (E > 100 TeV) Extensive Air Showers (EASs) have been monitored for a period of five years (1997-2003), using a small array of scintillator detectors in Tehran, Iran. The data have been analyzed taking into account the dependence of source counts on zenith angle. During a calendar year different sources come into the field of view of the detector at varying zenith angles. Because of varying thickness of the overlaying atmosphere, the shower count rate is extremely dependent on zenith angle, which has been carefully analyzed over time (Bahmanabadi et al. 2002, Exp. Astron., 13, 39). High energy gamma-ray sources from the EGRET third catalogue where observed and the data were... 

An experiment has been developed for the measurement of the muon charge ratio (ratio of positive to negative muons) in the cosmic ray flux in energy range 0.236-0.242 GeV. The muon charge ratio is found to be 1.35 ± 0.10 with a mean zenith angle of 32° ± 5°. Meanwhile, the distributions of muons in zenith (θ) and azimuth angles have been studied. A cosnθ distribution with n = 1.95 ± 0.13 has been obtained. An asymmetry has been observed in East-West directions because of geomagnetic field. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved  

We have simulated more than 105 extensive air showers (EAS) by CORSIKA code, with a proton as the primary particle. The range of energy for primary particles was selected from 50 TeV to 5 PeV, with differential flux given by dN/dE E-2.7. Using the secondary charged particles produced of these EASs, we obtained the function dNsp(θ,X)/dθ, where Nsp(θ,X) is the number of secondary charged particles in EASs as a function of atmosphere depth, X, and zenith angle, θ. A sin θcos n(X)θ distribution was obtained for zenith angle distribution of the number of secondary charged particles, where power index, n(X), is a function of atmosphere depth, X. We obtained n(X)=3.02+0.003Xln X-8.28×10-9X3-1.35ln... 

In this paper, we develop an approach to optimally allocate a limited nonrenewable resource among the activities of a project, represented by a PERT-Type Network (PTN). The project needs to be completed within some specified due date. The objective is to maximize the probability of project completion on time. The duration of each activity is an arbitrary discrete random variable and also depends on the amount of consumable resource allocated to it. On the basis of the structure of networks, they are categorized as either reducible or irreducible. For each network structure, an analytical algorithm is presented. Through some examples, the algorithms are illustrated  

We have monitored multi-TeV cosmic rays by a small air shower array in Tehran (35°43′ N, 51°20′ E, 1200 m ≤ 890 g cm -2). More than 1.1 × 106 extensive air shower events were recorded. These observations enabled us to analyse sidereal variation of the galactic cosmic ray intensity. The observed sidereal daily variation is compared to the expected variation which includes the Compton-Getting effect due to the motion of the earth in the Galaxy. In addition to the Compton-Getting effect, an anisotropy has been observed which is due to a unidirectional anisotropy of cosmic ray flow along the Galactic arms  

From the nature of the muon production processes, it can be seen that the ratio of positive to negative cosmic muons has important information in both "the atmospheric neutrino problem," and "the hadronic interactions." We have carried out an experiment for the measurement of the muon charge ratio in the cosmic ray flux in momentum range 0.112-0.178GeV/c. The muon charge ratio is found to be 1.21±0.01 with a mean zenith angle of 32°±5°. From the measurements it has been obtained a zenithal angle distribution of muons as I(θ)=I(0)cos nθ with n=1.95±0.13. An asymmetry has been observed in East-West directions because of the geomagnetic field. Meanwhile, in about the same momentum range,... 

Analysis of an extensive air shower (EAS) detected by surface arrays highly depends on the determination of core locations. Here we present a new method to find the core location of an EAS that, unlike the common methods, does not depend on the lateral distribution function and uses arrival times of secondary particles. This method improves the accuracy of finding the core location of a low-energy EAS in the internal parts of an array, in comparison with common methods  

The most important goal of studying an extensive air shower is to find the energy, mass and arrival direction of its primary cosmic ray. In order to find these parameters, the core position and arrival direction of the shower should be determined. In this paper, a new method for finding core location has been introduced that utilizes trigger time information of particle detectors. We have also developed a simple technique to reconstruct the arrival direction. Our method is not based upon density-sensitive detectors which are sensitive to the number of crossing particles and is also independent of lateral distribution models. This model has been developed and examined by the analysis of... 

A flexible flow shop is a generalized flow shop with multiple machines in some stages. This system is fairly common in flexible manufacturing and in process industry. In most practical environments, scheduling is an ongoing reactive process where the presence of real time information continually forces reconsideration of pre-established schedules. This paper studies a flexible flow shop system considering non-deterministic and dynamic arrival of jobs and also sequence dependent setup times. The problem objective is to determine a schedule that minimizes average tardiness of jobs. Since the problem class is NP-hard, a novel dispatching rule and hybrid genetic algorithm have been developed to... 

This paper studies a simultaneous weekly assignment and scheduling decisionmaking problem in operating theaters with elective patients. Because of limited recourses in hospitals, considering assignment and scheduling decisions simultaneously can help mangers exploit the available resources more efficiently and make the work-load uniformly distributed during the planning horizon. This procedure can significantly reduce hospital costs and increase satisfaction of patients and personnel. This paper formulates the mentioned problem as a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP) considering applicable assumptions like finite recovery beds and limitation of equipment. Since the problem is NP-hard, in... 

We recorded 600,000 (EASs) from Dec. 2006 to Oct. 2007 with a small array of water Cherenkov detectors. We found zenith and azimuth distributions of these events that confirm previous distributions from array of scintillator detectors. The study on EGRET sources are under consideration, besides, we have improved the size of our detectors to yield the best efficiency. The best shape for each detector will be a tank with 40 cm in diameter and 60 cm in height with a PMT in the center of lid. © 2009 American Institute of Physics  

The study of the anisotropy of the arrival directions is an essential tool to investigate the origin and propagation of cosmic ray primaries. A simple way of recording many cosmic rays is to record coincidences between a number of detectors. We have monitored multi-TeV cosmic rays by a small array of water Cherenkov detectors in Tehran (35°43′N, 51°20′E, 1200 m above sea level). More than 1.1×106 extensive air shower events were recorded. In addition to the Compton-Getting effect due to the motion of the Earth in the Galaxy, an anisotropy has been observed which is due to a unidirectional anisotropy of cosmic ray flow along the Galactic arms. © 2007 The American Physical Society  

In this paper a novel fuzzy approach exploiting Active Learning Method is employed in order to estimate the immeasurable states required to control a non-observable double inverted pendulum. Active Learning Method (ALM) is a fuzzy modeling method which exploits Ink Drop Spread (IDS) as its main engine. IDS is a universal fuzzy modeling technique which is very similar to the way human brain processes different phenomena. The ALM system is trained by the data obtained from Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controller. LQR uses an optimal control approach which under certain conditions guarantees robustness. Instead of an expert's knowledge, the LQR controller output is used as a priori... 

We have studied Extensive Air Showers (EAS) with two small arrays of 1 m2 scintillation detectors in Tehran, 1200 m above sea level. The distribution of air showers in zenith and azimuth angles has been studied and a cosn θ distribution with n = 7.2×0.2 was obtained for zenith angle distribution. An asymmetry has been observed in the azimuthal distribution of EAS of cosmic rays because of magnetic field of the Earth. Amplitudes of the first and the second harmonics of observed distribution depend on zenith angle as AI≈(0.02 + 0.35 sin2 θ)×0.02, and AII(0.03 + 0.42 sin4 θ)×0.03. Meanwhile, the uncertainties arising from the instrument, transit location of shower particles in the scintillator...