Sharif Digital Repository

Rapid and selective detection of biomarkers at trace levels is a highly coveted objective in the early diagnosis of cancer. Herein, we disclose the design and synthesis of a polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) substituted perylene diimide. This compound is fully characterized in solution by multi nuclear NMR, as well as in gas state by ESI-MS. Surprisingly, solid-state characterization revealed an unusual cubic morphology with particle dimensions of 80–160 nm. Fluorescence studies indicate that the bulky POSS units effectively prevent perylene's aggregation caused quenching, yielding quantum yields as high as 92%. Exposing the sensor droplet-cast on quartz to anline and o-toluidine,... 

Biodegradable thermoplastic films suitable for use in food packaging were produced. These films were mainly based on thermoplastic starch. The major task included research into thermal conversion of starch in a compression molding process and also under high shear conditions in an extruder in the presence of suitable plasticizers. The destruction of crystalline structure resulted in amorphous structure with thermoplastic properties. Films were rather transparent but slightly brown in color and had a specific smell. The films showed sufficient plasticity and acceptable tensile strength and elongation. The effect of plasticizer content on the final properties of the film was investigated. The... 

In carbonate reservoirs, matrix acidizing is used to improve well performance by creating conductive channels called wormholes. Predicting wormhole propagation rate in radial acid flow geometry up to the real wellbore scale is the main problem regarding designing field operations in previous studies which are still challenging. In this study, a new mechanistic approach is presented to predict the radial flow acidizing up to near wellbore scale by considering the vital effects of porous media size and geometrical parameters of wormhole patterns. Accordingly, wormhole tip velocity and wormhole wall fluid loss rate will be introduced as the scale transferring parameters between different porous... 

Carbonate acidizing is a common practice for production/injection enhancement in damaged oil/gas wells by creating conductive flow tunnels called wormholes. Previous linear acid flood studies are mostly performed on core plugs limited to the Darcy scale with a strong dependency on lab results for upscaling techniques. In this study, a novel scale-free approach of wormhole propagation inside linear porous media for small to very large core diameters is introduced. The model associates the wormhole tip velocity and wall fluid loss to the injection rate using novel flow correlations in terms of core diameter and wormhole geometries (wormhole density, length and diameter). These correlations are... 

Motion planning and trajectory control are two basic challenges of unmanned vehicles. In motion planning problem, feasible trajectories are developed while nonlinear dynamic model and performance constraints of the vehicle under utility are considered. In this study, motion planning is performed via an enhanced particle swarm optimization algorithm. The resulting offline generated trajectories are tracked using a nonlinear trajectory control system methodology. The Lyapunov-based constrained backstepping approach and command filters are utilized in designing the trajectory control system. Command filters smoothen the input signals and provide their derivatives. Evaluation of the proposed... 

We analyze the interaction of a propagating guided electromagnetic wave with a quantum well embedded in a dielectric slab waveguide. First, we design a quantum well based on InAlGaAs compounds with the transition energy of 0.8 eV corresponding to a wavelength of 1.55 μm. By exploiting the envelope function approximation, we derive the eigenstates of electrons and holes and the transition dipole moments. Next, we calculate the electrical susceptibility of a three-level quantum system (as a model for the 2-D electron gas trapped in the waveguide), by using phenomenological optical Bloch equations. We show that the 2-D electron gas behaves as a conducting interface, whose conductivity can be... 

Motion planning is a key factor in enhancing the autonomy level of unmanned flying vehicles. A new dynamic hybrid algorithm is developed to solve the motion planning problem in real-time using a heuristic optimization approach. The proposed algorithm effectively combines desired features such as rapid convergence to an optimal path with reduced computational effort. In addition to the terrain obstacles, the proposed algorithm is able to avoid random threats that may arise sporadically in the terrain. Using the maneuver automaton concept, nonlinear dynamic model and performance constraints are also considered in the process of motion planning to further ensure feasible trajectories.... 

The heterobinuclear cyclometalated PtII-AuI complexes of the type [MePt(bhq)(μ-dppy)AuL]PF6, in which, bhq = benzo{h}quinoline, dppy = 2-diphenylphosphinopyridine, L = PPh3, 5; PPh2Me, 6; PPhMe2, 7; have been prepared by reaction of the mononuclear platinum(II) complex [MePt(bhq)(dppy)], 1, with 1 equiv. [AuL]+. Also, the reaction of complex 1 with 1 equiv AuCl(SMe2) at -60 °C gave the neutral heterobinuclear complex [MePt(bhq)(μ-dppy)AuCl], 8. All of the complexes were characterized using NMR spectroscopy and elemental microanalysis and complexes 5 and 8 were further identified by single crystal X-ray structure determination. Time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) is used to... 

A major issue required to enhance the autonomy level of unmanned vehicles is real-time motion planning. In this context, optimal trajectories need to be generated online considering the vehicle's dynamic potentials and constraints. However, autonomous air vehicles often need to plan and execute their missions with varying objectives that may even be dictated in flight. Therefore, the current study introduces and focuses on the new concept of variable-objective motion planning. In this regard, a new dynamic multi-objective heuristic optimization algorithm is developed for path and motion planning of autonomous air vehicles in presence of deterministic terrain obstacles as well as random... 

In this paper, a novel method for capturing the information of a powerful and trained deep convolutional neural network and distilling it into a training smaller network is proposed. This is the first time that a saliency map method is employed to extract useful knowledge from a convolutional neural network for distillation. This method, despite of many others which work on final layers, can successfully extract suitable information for distillation from intermediate layers of a network by making class specific attention maps and then forcing the student network to mimic producing those attentions. This novel knowledge distillation training is implemented using state-of-the-art DeepLab and... 

Optical networks-on-chip are introduced as an alternative for electrical interconnects in many-core systems, due to their low delay and power consumptions, as well as their high bandwidths. Despite these advantages, physical characteristics of the photonic components are highly sensitive to thermal variations, which results in optical data misrouting through the optical networks at the presence of temperature fluctuation. In this paper, we propose a thermally-resilient all-optical communication approach which improves reliability, as well as performance of the optical networks. For this purpose, we take advantages of auxiliary waveguides and a novel wavelength assignment approach to avoid... 

In this paper, the relation between gain and resolution of an ideal analog optical differentiator in two different cases and their fundamental limits are investigated. Based on this relation, a figure of merit for comparison of the designed differentiators in recent papers is proposed. The differentiators are optimized using this figure of merit, and they are compared with each other to determine the best one. Also, a new differentiator is presented based on the dielectric slab waveguide in which the trade-off between its gain and resolution is easily controllable, and its best operating point is determined. © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing... 

This paper presents an efficient High-Level Synthesis (HLS) approach to improve RT-Level concurrent testing. The proposed method used for both fault detection and fault location. At first the available resources are used in their dead intervals to test active resources for fault detection, and then some changes are applied to the RT-Level controller to locate the faults. The fault detection step is based on a genetic algorithm (GA) search technique. This genetic algorithm is applied to the design after high level synthesis process to explore the test map. The proposed method has been evaluated based on dependability enhancement and area/latency overhead imposed to different benchmarks after... 

The triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a promising technology for mechanical energy harvesting. TENG has proven to be an excellent option for power generation but typically TENGs output power drops significantly in humid environments. In this work, the effect of electrode’s material on power output, considering smooth and nanostructured porous structures with various surface hydrophobicity, is investigated under various humidity conditions. A vertical contact-separation mode TENG is experimentally and numerically studied for four surface morphologies of Ti foil, TiO2 thin film, TiO2 nanoparticulated film, and TiO2 nanotubular electrodes. The results show that the TENG electrical output in... 

Single lap-shear (SLS) specimens of 63Sn37Pb solder joints were prepared with three different adherend thicknesses at three varying joint lengths. The fracture force was measured at a shear strain rate of 0.01 s-1 for different geometries. The elastic-plastic fracture mechanics (EPFM) theory was used to find the energy dissipated in each case using a finite element model (FEM), and the fracture energy was obtained by cohesive zone modeling (CZM). Both 2-D and 3-D models were used to explain the variations in fracture energy by the level of constraint on the joint. Also, the plastic zone area and stress distribution along the solder layer were calculated at the moment of fracture. A phase... 

In this study, electrolytic plasma processing (EPP) was employed for surface nitrocarburizing of AISI 1020 steel in a urea electrolyte, where the substrate samples were connected cathodically to a high-voltage DC current power supply. The structural, mechanical, wear and corrosion properties of the samples treated for 3-5 min were investigated. The results show that the surface layers formed on the samples by this treatment at 220 V have a ferritic nitrocarburizing characteristic which consists of a compound layer and diffusion zone. The surface layers of the treated samples at 240 V consisted of a compound layer, martensitic layer and diffusion zone, respectively, which is a marker of... 

A large amount of the discovered oil reserves are reserved in carbonate formations, which are mostly naturally fractured oil-wet. Wettability alteration towards more water-wet state reduces the capillary barrier, hence improving the oil recovery efficiency in such reservoirs. In this study, wettability alteration towards favorable wetting state was investigated by combining modified low salinity brine with surfactant during water flooding. The diluted brine was modified by increasing the concentration of Mg2+ and SO4 2−, individually as well as both ions in combination. Different brine formulations were tested experimentally through the observations of contact angle measurements and... 

Over 60% of the world's discovered oil reserves are held in carbonate reservoirs, which are mostly naturally fractured. Conventional water flooding results in low oil recovery efficiency in these reservoirs as most of them are oil-wet. On account of negative capillary forces, injected brine cannot penetrate simply into an oil-wet matrix of fractured formations to force the oil out. Wettability alteration of the rock surface to preferentially more water-wet state has been extensively studied using both smart water and surfactants separately. This study aims to study the effects of Mg2+ as one of the most important wettability influencing ions on the wetting properties of oil-wet carbonate... 

The modification of the surface wetting characteristics in fractured oil-wet carbonate reservoirs, by reversing wettability from oil-wet to water-wet, leads to improved oil recovery. However, in order to obtain a successful oil recovery process, it is crucial to understand the active mechanisms of wettability alteration. This study looks at the effect of sulfate ions as one of the most promising wettability influencing ions on the wetting properties of oil-wet calcite; the effect is studied both with and without the presence of cationic surfactant and possible mechanisms of wettability alteration are explored. A number of analytical techniques were utilized to analyze the mineral surface... 

In the last two decades, quantum dots nanomaterials have garnered a great deal of scientific interest because of their unique properties. Quantum dots (QDs) are inorganic fluorescent nanocrystals in the size range between 1 and 20 nm. Due to their structural properties, they possess distinctive properties and behave in different way from crystals in macro scale, in many branches of human life. Cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe QDs) were labeled with 68Ga radio nuclide for fast in vivo targeting and coincidence imaging of tumors. Using instant paper chromatography, the physicochemical properties of the Cadmium telluride quantum dots labeled with 68Ga NPs (68Ga@ CdTe QDs) were found high...