Sharif Digital Repository

Interfacial tension is one of the very important parameters in pharmacology science, chemical engineering and petroleum engineering. The interfacial tension between pure hydrocarbons and water is widely used in chemical and petroleum engineering and so that it is highly desirable to find its accurate values. In this study a new unique correlation has been developed based on a comprehensive database of pure hydrocarbons-water interfacial tension values which contained both aliphatic and aromatic compounds (32 different hydrocarbons) with pressure ranges of 0.1-300 MPa and temperature ranges of 252.44-550 K. The proposed correlation uses the density difference between pure hydrocarbon and... 

In this paper, a two-dimensional, two-phase, non-isothermal model is presented to predict the electrochemical, mass transfer and heat transfer behaviors in a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). Governing equations including the momentum, continuity, heat transfer, proton and electron transport, species transport for water, methanol, and all the gas species (carbon dioxide, methanol vapor, water vapor, oxygen, and nitrogen) and the auxiliary equations are coupled to studying the various phenomena in DMFC. The modeling results agree well with the four different experimental data in an extensive range of operation conditions. A parametric study is also performed to examine the effects of the cell... 

In this paper, a two-dimensional, two-phase, isothermal model is presented to investigate the water transport characteristic and water distribution in a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) with emphasis on exploring the water distribution in different layers of DMFC. The liquid-gas two-phase mass transport in the porous anode and cathode is formulated based on multi-fluid model in porous media and water and methanol crossover through the membrane are considered with the effect of diffusion, electro-osmotic drag, and convection. The modeling results agree well with the three different experimental data in an extensive range of operation conditions. A parametric study is also performed to examine... 

Clustering has become an increasingly important and highly complicated research area for targeting useful and relevant information in modern application domains such as the World Wide Web. Recent studies have shown that the most commonly used partitioning-based clustering algorithm, the K-means algorithm, is more suitable for large datasets. However, the K-means algorithm may generate a local optimal clustering. In this paper, we present novel document clustering algorithms based on the Harmony Search (HS) optimization method. By modeling clustering as an optimization problem, we first propose a pure HS based clustering algorithm that finds near-optimal clusters within a reasonable time.... 

Network throughput and energy conservation are two conflicting important performance metrics for wireless sensor networks. Since these two objectives are in conflict with each other, it is difficult to achieve them simultaneously. In this paper, a joint duty cycle scheduling and energy aware routing approach is proposed based on evolutionary game theory which is called DREG. Making a trade-off cand network throughput, the proposed approach prolongs the network lifetime. The paper is divided into the following sections: Initially, the discussion is presented on how the sensor nodes can be scheduled to sleep or wake up in order to reduce energy consumption in idle listening. The sensor... 

Nonlinearity characteristics, such as backlash, in various mechanisms, limit the performance of feedback systems by causing delays, undesired oscillations and inaccuracy. Backlash influence analysis and modeling is necessary to design a precision controller for this nonlinearity. Backlash between meshing gears in an electromechanical system is modeled by the use of differential equations and a nonlinear spring-damper. According to this model, the paper shows that oscillations and delays cannot be compensated by a state feedback controller. Therefore, an adaptive algorithm is designed, based on different regions of the system angular position error. Since this controller needs an estimation... 

Nonporous and mesoporous silica-coated magnetite cluster nanocomposites particles were fabricated with various silica structures in order to develop a desired carrier for the lipase immobilization and subsequent biodiesel production. Lipase from Pseudomonas cepacia was covalently bound to the amino-functionalized particles using glutaraldehyde as a coupling agent. The hybrid systems that were obtained exhibited high stability and easy recovery regardless of the silica structure, following the application of an external magnetic field. The immobilized lipases were then used as the recoverable biocatalyst in a transesterification reaction to convert the soybean oil to biodiesel with methanol.... 

We developed a modified straightforward method for the fabrication of uniformly sized silica-coated magnetite clusters core/shell type nanocomposite particles. Proposed simple one-step processing method permits quick production of materials in high yield. The structural, surface, and magnetic characteristics of the nanocomposite particles were investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR). The sphere-shaped particles almost have the average diameter of 120 nm, with a magnetic cluster core of 80 ± 15 nm, and a silica shell of 25 ± 10 nm... 

Design techniques to enhance bandwidth and linearity of broadband multistage low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) are presented. A feedback amplifier circuit is proposed to compensate for transistor gain roll-off with frequency in other amplifier stages and extend overall bandwidth. Moreover, a transistor width tapering in a multistage LNA is applied to improve linearity. These techniques are adopted in a three-stage monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) LNA implemented in a 0.1-μm GaAs pHEMT process. The LNA features 18-43 GHz bandwidth, 21.6 dB average gain, and 1.8-2.7 noise figure (NF). It exhibits output 1-dB compression point of 11.5 dBm at 30 GHz and consumes 70 mA bias current from a... 

A High Tc RF-SQUID Based magnetocardiography system is developed for operating in a passively unshielded environment, in which active shielding is implemented to compensate field noises for the low to midrange frequency range. The main part of the implemented active shield configuration is a feedback control system designed for environmental noise cancelation in particular that of the power lines. This control system includes two layers of inner and outer compensation coils with respect to the liquid Nitrogen Dewar as parts of the designed active shield. The inner coils are surrounding the HTS SQUIDs which are placed in axial gradiometric configuration inside the dewar. The outer coils are... 

In the present study, oblique low-velocity impact (OLVI) on GLARE fiber-metal laminates (FMLs) has been modeled using finite element analysis (FEA) for the first time. Two types of boundary conditions (BCs) can be considered for impactor in the low-velocity impact: constrained (if the impact angle between the impactor and target remains constant during and after the contact) and free (if rotation of the impactor and change in angle with respect to the target is likely) BCs. The more details of these BCs are described in the paper. The OLVI is numerically modeled for four different impact angles. Effect of BC types and impact angle on energy absorption, as well as maximum contact force, is... 

In the present study, oblique low-velocity impact (OLVI) on GLARE fiber-metal laminates (FMLs) has been modeled using finite element analysis (FEA) for the first time. Two types of boundary conditions (BCs) can be considered for impactor in the low-velocity impact: constrained (if the impact angle between the impactor and target remains constant during and after the contact) and free (if rotation of the impactor and change in angle with respect to the target is likely) BCs. The more details of these BCs are described in the paper. The OLVI is numerically modeled for four different impact angles. Effect of BC types and impact angle on energy absorption, as well as maximum contact force, is... 

Despite the numerous experimental studies, there is a lack of fundamental understanding about how the local and global heterogeneity control the efficiency of polymer flooding. In this work a series of water and polymer injection processes are performed on five-spot glass micromodels which are initially saturated with the crude oil at varying conditions of flow rate, water salinity, polymer type and concentration. Three different pore structures in combine with different layer orientations are considered for designing of five different micromodel patterns. It has been observed that the oil recovery of water flooding is increasing with the salinity concentration, for the ranges studied here.... 

This paper presents a novel routing protocol based on the Learning Automata method for large scale Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) codenamed DRLR (distributed reinforcement learning routing). In this method, each node is equipped with learning automata so that it can learn the best path to transmit data toward the sink. The approach proved to be efficient, reliable, and scalable. It also prevents routing hole by considering network density and average of energy levels available. The approach also increases network lifetime by balancing energy consumption. We compared our approach to two other methods (MMSPEED and EESPEED) and the simulation results show our algorithm to better meet... 

Maximum independent set problem is an NP-Hard one with the aim of finding the set of independent vertices with maximum possible cardinality in a graph. In this paper, we investigate a learning automaton based algorithm that finds a maximum independent set in the graph. Initially, a learning automaton is assigned to each vertex of graph. In order to find candidate independent set, a set of distributed learning automata collaborate with each other. The proposed algorithm based on learning automata is guided iteratively to the maximum independent set by updating the action probability vector. In order to study the performance of the proposed algorithm, we conducted some experiments. The... 

In recent years, with the rapid development of online social networks, an enormous amount of information has been generated and diffused by human interactions through online social networks. The availability of information diffused by users of online social networks has facilitated the investigation of information diffusion and influence maximization. In this paper, we focus on the influence maximization problem in social networks, which refers to the identification of a small subset of target nodes for maximizing the spread of influence under a given diffusion model. We first propose a learning automaton-based algorithm for solving the minimum positive influence dominating set (MPIDS)... 

Due to great communication among users in social networks, a lot of attention is paid to the spreading of information. This issue is of a huge consideration in modern viral marketing either. So far, different models have been proposed in many of which active and inactive users are cooperating in the simple form. Since the influence of individuals in spreading of information happens differently in the real world, in this article we propose a multi-state model for information spread based on cellular automata. We used different states for the proposed model as well as various levels of influence from the beginning up to the end. As an evaluation, proposed model not only has been examined with... 

In recent years, with the rapid development of online social networks, an enormous amount of information has been generated and diffused by human interactions through online social networks. The availability of information diffused by users of online social networks has facilitated the investigation of information diffusion and influence maximization. In this paper, we focus on the influence maximization problem in social networks, which refers to the identification of a small subset of target nodes for maximizing the spread of influence under a given diffusion model. We first propose a learning automaton-based algorithm for solving the minimum positive influence dominating set (MPIDS)... 

An X-band core chip is designed and fabricated in 0.18-μm CMOS technology, which can significantly reduce the monolithic microwave integrated circuit count required for realizing an active beam-former T/R module. The core chip consists of two RX/TX paths, each of which includes a 6-b phase shifter, a 6-b attenuator, along with two input and output amplifiers. A new architecture for realizing such a core chip system and a low loss circuit for 5.625° phase shift block are proposed. The overall rms phase and gain errors are better than 2° and 0.25 dB, respectively, in both RX/TX paths. The gain of each path is around 12 dB, while the output 1-dB compression point is higher than 10 dBm over the... 

This paper presents a Multiplicative Patchwork Method (MPM) for audio watermarking. The watermark signal is embedded by selecting two subsets of the host signal features and modifying one subset multiplicatively regarding the watermark data, whereas another subset is left unchanged. The method is implemented in wavelet domain and approximation coefficients are used to embed data. In order to have an error-free detection, the watermark data is inserted only in the frames where the ratio of the energy of subsets is between two predefined values. Also in order to control the inaudibility of watermark insertion, we use an iterative algorithm to reach a desired quality for the watermarked audio...