Sharif Digital Repository

Accurate monthly electricity consumption forecasting (ECF) can help retailers enhance the profitability in deregulated electricity markets. Most current methods use monthly load data to perform monthly ECF, which usually produces large errors due to insufficient training samples. A few methods try to use fine-grained smart-meter data (e.g., hourly data) to increase training samples. However, such methods still exhibit low accuracy due to the increase in forecasting steps. © 1975-2012 IEEE  

It is very significant and practical to explore a triple hybrid nanofluid flow across the stuck zone of a stretching/ shrinking curved surface with impacts from stuck and Lorentz force factors. The combination (Ag-TiO2-Al2O3/blood) hybrid nanofluid is studied herein as it moves across a stagnation zone of a stretching/shrinking surface that curves under the impact of pressure and Lorentz force. Exact unsolvable nonlinear partial differential equations can be transformed into ordinary differential equations that can be solved numerically by similarity transformation. It was discovered that predominant heat transfers andmovement characteristics of quaternary hybrid nanofluids are dramatically... 

A mathematical model has been suggested for the numerical study of blood flow in a vessel due to the pumping action of the heart. Blood is assumed to contain some impurities in the form of chemically reactive species (undergoing a first-order irreversible reaction) and, being a hybrid nanofluid, also contains the nano-sized solid particles, thus forming a homogeneous mixture which is subjected to a pressure gradient (of trigonometric nature) in the horizontal direction. Human vessel is subjected to a transverse magnetic field and is presumed to be filled with plaque which is considered as a porous medium, and is mathematically modeled by applying the Darcy-Forchheimer theory. The nonlinear... 

The reliable transfer in Network on Chips (NoCs) can be threatened by crosstalk fault occurring in wires. Crossstalk fault is due to inter-wire coupling capacitance that based on the patterns of transitions appearing on the wires, significantly limits the reliability of NoCs. Among these transitions, 101 and 010 bit patterns impose the worst crosstalk effects to wires. This work intends to increase the reliability of NoCs against crosstalk faults by applying an improved Fibonacci-based numeral system, called Doubled-Penultimate Fibonacci (DP-Fibo). In the DP-Fibo coding algorithm, code words without ‘101’ and ‘010’ bit patterns are produced to reduce crosstalk faults. Experimental results... 

The above article from IET Communications, published online on 16 December 2022 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the Interim Editor-in-Chief, Jian Ren, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (the IET) and John Wiley and Sons Ltd. This article was published as part of a Guest Edited special issue. Following an investigation, the IET and the journal have determined that the article was not reviewed in line with the journal's peer review standards and there is evidence that the peer review process of the special issue underwent systematic manipulation. Accordingly, we cannot vouch for the integrity or reliability of the content. As... 

In this paper, the problem of content caching in 5G cellular networks relying on social-aware device-to-device (D2D) communications is investigated. Our focus is on how to efficiently select important users (IUs) and how to allocate content files to the storage of these selected IUs to form a distributed caching system. We aim at proposing a novel approach for minimizing the downloading latency and maximizing the social welfare simultaneously. In particular, we first model the problem of maximizing the social welfare as a many-to-one matching game based on the social property of mobile users. We study this game by exploiting users’ social properties to generate the utility functions of the... 

In this paper, the problem of content caching in 5G cellular networks relying on social-aware device-to-device communications (DTD) is investigated. Our focus is on how to efficiently select important users (IUs) and how to allocate content files to the storage of these selected IUs to form a distributed caching system. We aim at proposing a novel approach for minimizing the downloading latency and maximizing the social welfare simultaneously. In particular, we first model the problem of maximizing the social welfare as a many-to-one matching game based on the social property of mobile users. We study this game by exploiting users' social properties to generate the utility functions of the... 

The paper at hand intends to evaluate thermoelastic damping (TED) in circular plates by incorporating nonlocal effect within the constitutive and heat conduction frameworks. To attain this purpose, nonclassical coupled thermoelastic equations are established on the basis of nonlocal elasticity theory and Guyer–Krumhansl (GK) heat conduction model. By considering symmetric time–harmonic vibrations, the size-dependent thermoelastic frequency equation is derived. By solving this nonclassical eigenvalue problem, real and imaginary parts of damped natural frequency are separated. According to the definition of TED in the framework of complex frequency approach, a closed-form expression... 

Warm-up period is considered as the most critical phase in the operation of any device that converts the energy of a fuel into heat, electricity, and other products, including power generation units since the system efficiency and environmental pollution levels are much worse than the normal operation in that phase. Considering this point, in this study, applying the zero-flow coolant strategy to reduce the warm-up period is suggested for power generation units and it is investigated in details. An internal combustion engine is selected as the case-study and implementation of the method to enhance the performance of that from both energy and environmental aspects are studied comprehensively.... 

The pertinence and importance of Darcy-Forchheimer flows can be found in large spectrum of engineering, biological and technological mechanisms like solar absorption and filtration, drainage problems, solar cells, ground stream hydrology, solar panels, irrigation and so forth. The major concern of this study is to interpret that how much a Darcy-Forchheimer flow of a micro-structured fluid (e.g., micropolar fluid) within a channel is influenced by the combined effects of static and oscillatory pressure gradients. Numerical treatment is carried out via three steps explicit Runge-Kutta method. Impacts of the preeminent parameters on the flow, mass and heat transport features of the problem are... 

Nickel oxide (NiOx) is a promising hole transport material in inverted organic-inorganic metal halide perovskite solar cells. However, its low intrinsic conductivity hinders its further improvement in device performance. Here, we employ a trimercapto-s-triazine trisodium salt (TTTS) as a chelating agent of Ni2+ in the NiOx layer to improve its conductivity. Due to the electron-deficient triazine ring, the TTTS complexes with Ni2+ in NiOx via a strong Ni2+-N coordination bond and increases the ratio of Ni3+:Ni2+. The increased Ni3+ concentration adjusts the band structure of NiOx, thus enhancing hole density and mobility, eventually improving the intrinsic conductivity of NiOx. As a result,... 

There are very limited researches carried out to investigate the influence of saturation degrees, freezing-thawing, and curing times on geotechnical properties of lime concrete (LC) and lime-cement concrete (LCC) due to the capillary action and changes in groundwater table. Subsequently, the primary goal of this research is to investigate the influence of these parameters on mechanical properties of LC and LCC using unconfined compression tests, namely uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), stress-strain behavior, deformability index (I D ), secant modulus (E S ), failure strain, bulk modulus (K), resilient modulus (M R ), brittleness index (I B ), and shear modulus (G). At first, the... 

Titanium does not react well with the human tissues and due to its bio-inert nature the surface modification has yet to be well-studied. In this study, the sonoelectrochemical process has been carried out to generate TiO2 nanotube arrays on implantable Ti 6–4. All the prepared nanotubes fill with the vancomycin by immersion and electrophoresis method. Drug-releasing properties, antibacterial behavior, protein adsorption and cell attachment of drug-modified nanotubes are examined by UV–vis, flow cytometry, modified disc diffusion, BSA adsorption, and FESEM, respectively. The most uniform morphology, appropriate drug release, cell viability behavior and antibacterial properties can be achieved... 

A new resonance phenomenon is discussed and demonstrated by experiment in a dual-polarization cavity. The resonance is formed by waves bouncing between two anisotropic metasurfaces placed at the cavity ends. The simple metasurfaces are designed to preserve the handedness of circularly polarized waves upon reflection. The standing waves resulting from such reflections do not have nodes and antinodes. A theoretical solution to the resonance condition is discussed, both for plane-waves and equivalent guided waves. The concept is then experimentally applied to dual-mode guided waves, demonstrating a very short cavity at X-band. This brings new possibilities for resonator design and can... 

A new resonance phenomenon is demonstrated in waveguide cavities, which simultaneously uses two orthogonal modes (polarizations). This resonance is formed by bouncing waves with similar handedness, between two simple anisotropic metasurfaces having a relative rotation angle. The rotated anisotropic metasurfaces can cross couple the waves from one polarization to the other at the cavity end. The field profile of the resonant mode does not exhibit nodes and antinodes, thus the resonant frequency is not solely determined by the cavity length, unlike common resonators. The resonance condition is theoretically demonstrated from both field and transmission line perspectives, and is validated by... 

Contact wires are critical components of railway overhead infrastructure which provide power for trains. This paper proposes an innovative method to determine the service life of worn contact wires under three failure modes: tension, fatigue, and attrition. The tensile stress, fatigue damage, and cross-section loss of contact wire have been modelled as stochastic processes following lognormal distribution. The first-passage probability method is then used to determine the time-dependent failure probability for contact wires under each failure mode. The service life of the contact wire is determined through system reliability analysis. This method has then been applied to a case study to... 

Contact wires are critical components of railway overhead infrastructure which provide power for trains. This paper proposes an innovative method to determine the service life of worn contact wires under three failure modes: tension, fatigue, and attrition. The tensile stress, fatigue damage, and cross-section loss of contact wire have been modelled as stochastic processes following lognormal distribution. The first-passage probability method is then used to determine the time-dependent failure probability for contact wires under each failure mode. The service life of the contact wire is determined through system reliability analysis. This method has then been applied to a case study to... 

Perovskite solar cells are well known for being low cost, solution-based, and efficient solar cells; however, the high price of the conventional hole-collector electrode (Spiro-OMeTAD/Gold) and the high price and complexity of depositing gold on large scales are major barriers against commercializing them. Herein, an effective carbon composite electrode is introduced for a low-cost perovskite solar cell with CuIn0.75Ga0.25S2 hole transport material to solve this problem. The carbon electrode is deposited by the doctor blade method using a paste composed of flakes of graphite, carbon black, and a kind of hydrophobic polymer (polystyrene or poly-methyl methacrylate). It is investigated how the... 

TiO2 is a promising photoanode material for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, but its severe bulk recombination of photogenerated carriers, sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) kinetics and poor visible light response are the main bottleneck problems. Here, the carbon quantum dots (CQDs) modified anatase/rutile TiO2 photoanode (CQDs/A/R-TiO2) was designed by growth of anatase TiO2 nanothorns on rutile TiO2 nanorods and further surface modification of CQDs. The results revealed that the A/R-TiO2 heterojunction significantly suppressed the bulk recombination of photogenerated carriers. With further incorporation of CQDs into A/R-TiO2, dramatical improvement of OER kinetics and... 

In this paper, we study the resource allocation and scheduling problem for a downlink non- orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) network where the base station (BS) allocates the spectrum resources and power to the set of users. We aim to optimize the sub-channel assignment and power allocation to achieve a balance between the number of scheduled users and total sum-rate maximization. To solve the above problem, we propose a many-to-many two-sided user-subchannel matching algorithm in which the set of users and sub-channels are considered as two sets of players pursuing their own interests. The algorithm converges to a pair-wise stable matching after a limited number of iterations. Simulation...