Sharif Digital Repository

The minimum number of complete bipartite subgraphs needed to partition the edges of a graph G is denoted by b (G). A known lower bound on b (G) states that b (G) ≥max {p (G), q (G)}, where p (G) and q (G) are the numbers of positive and negative eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of G, respectively. When equality is attained, G is said to be eigensharp and when b (G) = max {p (G), q (G)} + 1, G is called an almost eigensharp graph. In this paper, we investigate the eigensharpness of graphs with at most one cycle and products of some families of graphs. Among the other results, we show that Pm ∨ Pn, Cm ∨ Pn for m ≡ 2, 3 (mod 4) and Qn when n is odd are eigensharp. We obtain some results on... 

In this study, the performance of a proposed friction damper with two slip loads in controlling the seismic response of steel moment resisting buildings structures under moderate and intense earthquake excitations is investigated. The proposed friction damper initially operates with a smaller slip load and could shift to the higher slip load after a certain amount of slippage when subjected to intense ground motions. In this regard, the hysteresis behavior of the proposed double slip loads (DSL) friction damper is modeled and after necessary verifications is imported to the material library of OpenSees software to be used for parametric study. To evaluate the performance of the proposed DSL... 

Graph embedding is an important approach for graph analysis tasks such as node classification and link prediction. The goal of graph embedding is to find a low dimensional representation of graph nodes that preserves the graph information. Recent methods like Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) try to consider node attributes (if available) besides node relations and learn node embeddings for unsupervised and semi-supervised tasks on graphs. On the other hand, multi-layer graph analysis has been received attention recently. However, the existing methods for multi-layer graph embedding cannot incorporate all available information (like node attributes). Moreover, most of them consider either... 

Abstract H2-rich water as a green antioxidant was applied for deoxygenation of graphene oxide (GO) suspensions. The ability of H2-rich water for deoxygenation of GO sheets was found comparable to the ability of hydrazine (as a standard and powerful reductant), using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. In fact, the O/C ratio of GO sheets could be reduced from 0.51 to 0.21 and 0.16 by H2-rich water and hydrazine, respectively. More importantly, while C-N bond formation is one of the side effects of GO reduction by hydrazine, no chemical C-N bond was found on the H2-water-reduced GO (rGO) sheets. This also resulted in a better restoration of the graphitic structure of the H2-water-rGO, as... 

Fungal delignification can be considered as a feasible process to pre-treat lignocellulosic biomass in biofuel production, if its performance is improved in terms of efficiency thorough a few modifications. In this study, Trichoderma viride was utilized to investigate the effect of wet-milling, addition of surfactant (Tween 80) and optimization of operating factors such as temperature, biomass to liquid medium ratio and glucose concentration on biodelignification of rice straw. Next, the enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated biomass was studied at various pretreatment times. Results revealed that the wet milling and addition of surfactant increases the lignin removal about 15% and 11%,... 

A new heterogeneous copper catalyst was synthesized by immobilization of copper ions onto magnetic nanoparticles with a new ligand based on triazole. The catalyst was characterized using scanning and transmission electron microscopies, atomic absorption and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopies, and thermogravimetric, elemental and energy-dispersive X-ray analyses. The results confirmed that a good level of organic groups was immobilized on the magnetic nanoparticles. Huisgen cycloaddition reaction was chosen as a model reaction for the investigation of catalyst activity under green conditions. Phenylacetylene and benzyl bromide derivatives were used for the synthesis of triazoles. The... 

Although Multi-Walled Carbon NanoTubes (MWCNTs) are found to influence the rheological behavior of drilling fluids, there are yet some controversies regarding their performance towards reducing formation damage induced by the invasion of water-based drilling fluids (WBFs). To address this important question, we synthesized novel nanocomposite materials via modifying the MWCNT via varying the proportion of carboxylated MWCNTs to PolyVinyl Alcohol (PVA). These nanocomposites were then used to make nano-based drilling-fluids (NDFs). The performance of the NDFs was evaluated by a set of rheological behavior tests, filtration experiments, and core-scale mud flow tests. To distinguish between the... 

To achieve higher accuracy in the prediction of cutting forces in finish milling process of sculptured parts, the curvatures of in-process workpiece surface are necessary to be taken into consideration in the calculation of cutter-workpiece engagement boundaries. These curvatures, however, are not readily available in tool path data, as the main existing source of geometrical information of the process. In this paper, first, a new straightforward algorithm is proposed to extract the principal curvatures and principal directions of the in-process workpiece surface from ball-end finish milling tool path data. These quantities, then, are employed to calculate the boundaries of engagement... 

This paper presents a new analytical model for calculating the cutter-workpiece engagement (CWE) boundaries in the ball-end finish milling process of curved surfaces. To this end, first, a quadratic mathematical representation considering the principal curvatures of the surface is employed to locally describe the workpiece surface around the instantaneous cutting region. This description, then, is utilized to find the intersection curves of the tool rotary and workpiece surfaces in three ball-end milling modes including slotting, first cutting, and following cutting. Through comparison studies, the model predictions are verified by the corresponding results obtained via solid modeling in... 

Disease prediction is a well-known classification problem in medical applications. Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) provide a powerful tool for analyzing the patients’ features relative to each other. This can be achieved by modeling the problem as a graph node classification task, where each node is a patient. Due to the nature of such medical datasets, class imbalance is a prevalent issue in the field of disease prediction, where the distribution of classes is skewed. When the class imbalance is present in the data, the existing graph-based classifiers tend to be biased towards the major class(es) and neglect the samples in the minor class(es). On the other hand, the correct diagnosis... 

In this paper, the problem of optimal tracking control for a container ship is addressed. The multi-input-multi-output nonlinear model of the S175 container ship is well established in the literature and represents a challenging problem for control design, where the design requirement is to follow a commanded maneuver at a desired speed. To satisfy the constraints on the states and the control inputs of the vessel nonlinear dynamics and minimize the heading error, a nonlinear optimal controller is formed. To solve the resulted nonlinear constrained optimal control problem, the Gauss Pseudospectral Method (GPM) is used to transcribe the optimal control problem into a Nonlinear Programming... 

This paper investigates the harmonic distortion and losses in power distribution systems due to the dramatic increase of nonlinear loads. This paper tries to determine the amount of the harmonics generated by nonlinear loads in residential, commercial and office loads in distribution feeders and estimates the energy losses due to these harmonics. Norton equivalent modeling technique has been used to model the nonlinear loads. The presented harmonic Norton equivalent models of the end user appliances are accurately obtained based on the experimental data taken from the laboratory measurements. A 20 kV/400V distribution feeder is simulated to analyze the impact of nonlinear loads on feeder... 

This article studies a multi-product and multi-period location-routing-inventory problem in which location-allocation, inventory and routing decisions are to be taken in a three-level supply chain including suppliers, depots and customers. Products are distributed from depots to customers by a homogeneous fleet of vehicles. Backlogging is allowable on condition that the backlog quantity of each customer does not exceed a predefined fraction of his demand. A mixed-integer programming formulation is presented to describe the problem then a new hybrid heuristic algorithm based on the simulated annealing and imperialist competitive algorithm is designed to solve the model. Comprehensive... 

The increased amount of multi-modal medical data has opened the opportunities to simultaneously process various modalities such as imaging and non-imaging data to gain a comprehensive insight into the disease prediction domain. Recent studies using Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) provide novel semi-supervised approaches for integrating heterogeneous modalities while investigating the patients’ associations for disease prediction. However, when the meta-data used for graph construction is not available at inference time (e.g., coming from a distinct population), the conventional methods exhibit poor performance. To address this issue, we propose a novel semi-supervised approach named GKD... 

We synthesize TiO2@SnO2 core-shell nanoparticles (NPs) by a facile two-step aqueous sol-gel method and their photocatalytic activity is compared with the pure TiO2 and SnO2 NPs for degradation of methylene blue under UV irradiation. The chemical property, crystal structure and morphology of the synthesized samples are studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) techniques. The mechanisms of electron–hole recombination and separation of charge carriers are studied by photoluminescence (PL) and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). Furthermore, the kinetics... 

Diffusion flame from electrospray of liquid ethanol and butanol was investigated experimentally. Stable flames were observed at two distinct modes recognized at different flow rates, applied voltages, and distances between the nozzle and counter electrode. The first mode occurred at minimum voltages in which individual larger droplets are dominantly generated. The second mode at higher voltages corresponds to multijets, which produce finer distribution of droplets. Using flame-imaging anal- ysis, flammability margins are introduced and flame lengths are measured versus nondimensional parameters for both fuels and modes of spraying. The fluctuation of the flames is characterized and the... 

This paper presents a high performance direct torque control (DTC) theme for the induction motor (IM). To solve those problems associated with conventional DTC, such as flux and torque ripple, variable switching frequency, inaccuracy in motor model and other parts of system. The Active Learning Method (ALM) is implemented on the DTC. In the Active Learning Method for information modeling, a method known as Ink Drop Spread (IDS) is used. The simulation results of DTC system based on ALM and the comparison of motor performance under the proposed control system with respect to those obtained under conventional DTC confirms its effectiveness and accuracy  

The conventional solar cell architectures include a p-n junction of c-Si sandwiched by rear and front contacts. The conventional approach features a complex as well as expensive procedure. Here, we propose a new architecture for p-n heterojunction solar cells prepared by a simple and cost-effective procedure. In this regard, (1) a silicon wafer underwent surface treatment through electrochemical anodization. To prepare a stick junction, (2) photoactive TiO2 nanoparticles were deposited over the porous layer by electrophoretic technique. Finally, (3) indium tin oxide (ITO) was sputtered. During the fabrication steps, we examined various anodization times ranging from 6 to 12 min to study the... 

We want to solve fuzzy linear programming problems with fuzzy coefficients in the objective function using a new variable neighborhood search algorithm. In our proposed algorithm, the local search is defined based on descent directions. We make use of our recently proposed modified Kerre's method for finding descent directions. The fuzzy optimization problem is solved directly, without changing it to a crisp program. We show the effectiveness of our proposed method in comparison with some available methods by using a non-parametric statistical sign test. The objective function values obtained by our proposed method turn to be more accurate the ones obtained by other methods. © 2018 IEEE