Sharif Digital Repository

This paper proposes a novel multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework for performance measurement in higher education institutions (HEIs) using semi-structured interviews, expert panels, and questionnaires. The proposed method comprises the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) and Best-Worst Method (BWM). Fuzzy set theory is used to address the vagueness and uncertainty of experts’ judgments, and the group decision-making process is handled by the Delphi method. The FDM filters out the criteria extracted from the literature, and BWM finds the relative weight of the criteria and indicators. A real-world case from a public university is employed to illustrate the applicability and effectiveness... 

The preparation of microcapsules containing perphenazine by solvent evaporation using ethyl cellulose is described. The microparticles are formed after solvent evaporation and polymer precipitation. The drug was dissolved in a polymer solution and emulsified into an aqueous phase to form microcapsules. To study the effects on particle size, encapsulation efficiency and morphology, three different molecular weights of ethyl cellulose (Mw=47000, 71000 and 99000) were used. Covalent bonding of drugs to polymers via hydrolytically or enzymatically cleavable covalent bond was achieved for sustained drug delivery. The release rate of perphenazine from these systems was investigated  

This article is focused on a simple approach for determining the natural frequency and mode shape of laminated angle-ply plates with various shapes by rectangular orthotropy. Since the boundary of the domain for all shapes are not natural to the material coordinate axes it seems appropriate to express the plate displacement amplitude in terms of a polynomial and a general shape function multiplication in the x and y coordinates. The boundary conditions considered are clamped and simply supported edges. The effect of the fiber orientation, layer number, and lamination sequence on the natural frequencies of plates is also considered. The natural frequency determinant has been generated using... 

In this study, sandwich beam model (SM) is proposed for free vibration analysis of bilayer graphene nanoribbons (BLGNRs) with interlayer shear effect. This model also takes into account the intralayer (in-plane) stretch of graphene nanoribbons. The molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using the software LAMMPS and Adaptive Intermolecular Reactive Empirical Bond Order (AIREBO) potential are done to validate the accuracy of the sandwich model results. The MD simulation results include the two first frequencies of cantilever BLGNRs with different lengths and two interlayer shear moduli, i.e., 0.25 and 4.6GPa. These two interlayer shear moduli, 0.25 and 4.6GPa, can be obtained by sliding a small... 

We study the trade-off between throughput and memory footprint of embedded software that is synthesized from acyclic static dataflow (task graph) specifications targeting distributed memory multiprocessors. We identify iteration overlapping as a knob in the synthesis process by which one can trade application throughput for its memory requirement. Given an initial processor assignment and non-overlapped task schedule, we formally present underlying properties of the problem, such as constraints on a valid iteration overlapping, maximum possible throughput, and minimum memory footprint. Moreover, we develop an effective algorithm for generation of a rich set of design points that provide a... 

In the present contribution, visible and short wavelengths of near infrared hyperspectral imaging (Vis-SWNIR-HSI) combined with different chemometric techniques is proposed as a novel technique for turmeric authentication and multiple adulterants (corn flour, rice flour, starch, wheat flour, and zedoary) detection. In this regard, twenty-three samples of turmeric were collected as whole rhizomes or powdered from seven countries and then their VIS-SWNIR hyperspectral images were obtained in 400–1000 nm using SPECIM IQ HSI device. Two multivariate resolution techniques of multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) and mean-field independent component analysis (MF-ICA)... 

Many mobile applications running on smartphones and wear- able devices would potentially benefit from the accuracy and scalability of deep CNN-based machine learning algorithms. However, performance and energy consumption limitations make the execution of such computationally intensive algorithms on mobile devices prohibitive. We present a GPU- accelerated library, dubbed CNNdroid [1], for execution of trained deep CNNs on Android-based mobile devices. Empirical evaluations show that CNNdroid achieves up to 60X speedup and 130X energy saving on current mobile devices. The CNNdroid open source library is available for download at https://github.com/ENCP/CNNdroid  

Variants of dataflow specification models are widely used to synthesize streaming applications for distributed-memory parallel processors. We argue that current practice of specifying streaming applications using rigid dataflow models, implicitly prohibits a number of platform oriented optimizations and hence limits portability and scalability with respect to number of processors. We motivate Functionally-cOnsistent stRucturally-MalLEabe Streaming Specification, dubbed FORMLESS, which refers to raising the abstraction level beyond fixed-structure dataflow to address its portability and scalability limitations. To demonstrate the potential of the idea, we develop a design space exploration... 

Recently it was shown that the differential form of Eringen’s nonlocal elastic theory is unable to model, predict and track the mechanical behaviors of many nano-structures due to their boundary conditions. Therefore, having an accurate model for formulating such structures became an important issue. With respect to this concern, in this study, the influence of having an axially varying elastic environment on vibrational behavior of nanobeams is investigated for the first time. Size-dependent effects are modeled using Eringen’s two-phase local/nonlocal integral model which is well-posed with higher accuracy. The elastic environment is modeled using the Pasternak-Winkler method which could... 

It has been recently proposed that late time behavior of holographic complexity in a uncharged black brane solution of Einstein-Hilbert theory with boundary cut off is consistent with Lloyd's bound if we have a cut off behind the horizon. Interestingly, the value of this new cut off is fixed by the boundary cut off. In this paper, we extend this analysis to the charged black holes. Concretely, we find the value of this new cut off for charged small black hole solutions of Einstein-Hilbert-Maxwell theory, in which the proposed bound on the complexification is saturated. We also explore this new cut off in Gauss-Bonnet-Maxwell theory. © 2019 The Author(s)  

Thiomorpholine 1,1-dioxides were prepared with double Michael addition reaction of aromatic amines to divinyl sulfone catalyzed by boric acid/glycerol in water. This catalyst system was also used for the Michael addition reaction of aromatic amines to electron-deficient alkenes. The reaction is simple and green and gives good to excellent yields  

A passive image steganalysis method is proposed to universally detect spatial-domain steganography schemes. It is shown to have better performance than universal steganalyzers known to be powerful in spatial domain, including the WFLogSv and the WAM methods. This level of accuracy is the result of improving the WFLogSv steganalyzer by considering a more comprehensive relationship between the singular values of each image block and the linear correlation of the rows and the columns. That is, instead of the closeness of the lower singular values to zero, the energy distribution of the singular values is investigated. An innovative measure is proposed for this investigation, which is inspired... 

Surface settlement is considered as an adverse effect induced by tunneling in the civil projects. This paper proposes the use of the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) for predicting the maximum surface settlement (MMS) resulting from the tunneling. For this work, three forms of equations, i.e., linear, quadratic and power are developed and their weights are then optimized/updated with the ICA. The requirement datasets were collected from the line No. 2 of Karaj urban railway, in Iran. In the ICA models, vertical to horizontal stress ratio, cohesion and Young’s modulus, as the effective parameters on the MSS, are adopted as the inputs. The statistical performance parameters such as root... 

Surface settlement is considered as an adverse effect induced by tunneling in the civil projects. This paper proposes the use of the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) for predicting the maximum surface settlement (MMS) resulting from the tunneling. For this work, three forms of equations, i.e., linear, quadratic and power are developed and their weights are then optimized/updated with the ICA. The requirement datasets were collected from the line No. 2 of Karaj urban railway, in Iran. In the ICA models, vertical to horizontal stress ratio, cohesion and Young’s modulus, as the effective parameters on the MSS, are adopted as the inputs. The statistical performance parameters such as root... 

The depth of anaesthesia estimation has been of a great interest in recent decades. In this paper we present a new methodology to quantify the depth of anaesthesia by quantifying the power-law correlations of the EEG signal. Extraction of useful information about the nonlinear dynamics of the brain during anaesthesia has been proposed with the optimum fractal scaling exponent. This optimum solution is based on the best domain of box sizes in the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) algorithm which have meaningful changes at different depth of anaesthesia. The experimental results confirm that our new algorithm on the raw EEG data can clearly discriminate between aware to moderate and deep... 

A simple and mild procedure for the trimethylsilylation of a wide variety of phenols with hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) on the surface of silica gel dispersed with NaHSO4 at r.t. in a few minutes with excellent yields under neutral conditions is reported. This procedure also allows an excellent selectivity for the silylation of phenols in the presence of amine and CO 2H groups  

It is well known that wrought aluminium alloys have tensile properties superior to those of the cast products. Wrought grade alloys cannot usually be produced by conventional casting processes to attain the same level of tensile properties. However, progress in casting methods in recent years has made it possible to produce wrought alloys by means of squeeze casting techniques. In the present study an Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy as been produced by squeeze casting. Tensile properties close to those of wrought products have been achieved by controlling the microstructure, pressure, and other processing parameters. © 2001 IoM Communications Ltd  

The present paper addresses an analytical method to determine the overall behavior of piezocomposite materials containing body centered cubic (BCC) distribution of arbitrary oriented ellipsoidal heterogeneities. This approach is based on the extension of the electromechanical equivalent inclusion method (EMEIM) to interacting multi-inhomogeneities. In this treatment the short and long range interactions of the piezoelectric particles are appropriately incorporated through the homogenizing eigenstrainelectric field. The periodicity of the microstructure of the medium suggests representing the eigenfields in terms of Fourier series, accounting for the matrixparticle, interparticle and... 

Consider two piezoelectric ellipsoidal inhomogeneities of arbitrary size, orientation and material constants, which in turn are surrounded by an infinite isotropic medium. The system under consideration is subjected to far-field non-uniform electromechanical loadings. Based on the extension of the electromechanical equivalent inclusion method (EMEIM), the present paper develops a unified solution for determination of the associated electroelastic fields in the vicinity of interacting inhomogeneities. Accordingly, each of the piezoelectric inhomogeneities is broken down into two equivalent inclusions with proper polynomial eigenstrains and eigenelectric fields. The robustness and efficacy of... 

Cylindrical shells constitute the main structural component in pressure vessels and pipelines. Buckling is one of the main failure considerations when designing these cylindrical shells. Defects such as cracks may develop during manufacturing or service life of these structures. These defects can severely affect their buckling behavior due to high stress field generated around these defects. Finite Element Analyses are performed to study the buckling behavior of cylindrical shells with and without a crack, under various internal pressures. Effects of crack length and its orientation on the buckling loads of cylindrical shells having a through or a thumbnail crack are studied. The results...