Sharif Digital Repository

Energy use in buildings contributes a large part in global energy demand. To reduce energy use in this group of consumers, specially in cold seasons, an automatic control technique is proposed. In this paper, a model predictive controller (MPC) is employed to minimize the boiler activation time. The method uses the building model and incorporates the weather forecast data to act on the actuator in an optimal fashion while treating the user comfort constraints. This technique, as a part, can be embedded into the building energy management system. The building model parameters are obtained via an online identification process using unscented kalman filter (UKF). This identification is... 

This paper proposes a multi-unit building model, in which the parameters are obtained via an online identification process. The identification process is carried out on-the-fly so it can update the best model of the building units. A model predictive controller (MPC) is also employed that uses the prediction of the building model, as well as the weather forecast data and acts on the heating boiler in an optimal fashion. In addition, since the controller is designed for a multi-unit building, it is crucial to estimate the amount of the delay that takes the hot flow to reach the units. This paper presents a very simple method for the delay identification based on unscented kalman filter. For... 

A large portion of the railway bridge stock in many countries is comprised of masonry arch bridges. During recent years, more attention has been paid to the maintenance of such structures. Rehabilitation and retrofitting methods have been proposed to enhance the performance of masonry arch bridges and extend their service life. Because a large portion of forces exerted on such structures comes from the railway track and passing trains, structural elements are added to the track to reduce the forces transmitted to bridges. One such element is the ballast mat, which, according to suppliers, has a positive impact on the structural performance of the track. This paper tries to assess the effects... 

This study reports on the simulation of temperature distribution of human tooth under a laser beam based on non-Fourier models. The temperature in the tooth depth that directly results from the conduction heat transfer process is caused by the lengthy thermal relaxation time in the tooth layers. A detailed tooth composed of enamel, dentin, and pulp with unstructured shape, uneven boundaries, and realistic thicknesses was considered. A finite difference scheme was separately adopted to solve time-dependent equations in solid layers and soft tissue of the tooth. In this study, a dual-phase-lag non-Fourier heat conduction model was applied to evaluate temperature distribution induced by laser... 

In this study, a dental short pulse laser with a Gaussian beam profile was applied normally to the top surface of a mineral organ i.e. the human tooth for a root canal therapy. A numerical method of finite difference is adopted to solve the time-dependent heat transfer equation. The real boundary conditions of thermal insulation on the sharp segment of the root canal and periodic heat flux on the top boundary of the tooth were applied. The comparison of a three-phase-lag (TPL) bio-heat transfer model with other heat transfer studies has shown that this new bio-heat model (TPL) could accurately predict the thermal behaviour of a non-homogeneous structure such as the human tooth. It was... 

A family of dibenzodiaza-crown ether macrocyclic host molecules with naphthalene arms (Ln=L1-L4) were synthesized and characterized using IR, fluorescence (FL),1H, 13C NMR spectroscopy, elemental microanalysis, and mass spectrometry. The FL binding constant (KBH) measurements represented prominent selective supramolecular interactions for Ln (host) towards C60 (guest). The comparison of KBH values for (Ln=L1-L4) with C60 was executed, employing DFT calculations using the B97-D3 functional and 6-31G* basis set. These calculations unveiled excellent compatibility between the theoretical and experimental results of the binding constants, wherein the highest supramolecular interaction of L3 with... 

For the rapid detection of hyperglycemia in human blood, we adopted a facile and two-step electrochemical procedure to prepare nickel/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) hybrid electrodes in the framework of a three-dimensional (3D) nanostructure. High-density and vertically-aligned nickel submicrorods with an average diameter of 155 ± 15 nm and a length of 7 ± 1 μm (an aspect ratio of about 40-50) were prepared by template-mediated electrochemical deposition techniques. Networks of rGO nanosheets between the rod-shaped arrays were formed by the cathodic electrophoretic deposition method. The synergistic effect of nickel morphology (planar and high-density rod-shaped arrays) and graphene oxide... 

A family of Zn(II) complexes with naphthadiaza-crown macrocyclic host molecules (Ln = L1-L4) were prepared and characterized employing mass spectrometry, elemental microanalysis, 1H, 13C NMR, IR, UV–vis, fluorescence spectroscopy. The fluorescence study on [M(II)Ln]2+(M = Zn with n = 1–4, Hg with n = 5) complexes denoted on the presence of a notable selective supramolecular interaction with C60 in two different solvents, namely N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and chloroform for both [Zn(II)L4]2+ and [Hg(II)L5]2+. Employing both UV–vis and fluorescence spectroscopy, 1:1 mol ratio were determined for [M(II)Ln]2+/C60 by applying the Job's plots. Comparing with their free ligands Ln interactions,... 

In this work we used the vacuum distillation residue from an Iranian heavy crude oil refinery in a solvent deasphalting (SDA) process using different temperatures (60-120°C), pressures (5-9 bar), solvents (n-pentane and ethyl acetate), and solvent to feed ratios (3 to 1, 5 to 1, and 7 to 1). The resulting products included deasphalted oil (DAO) and residue (PITCH). The DAO yields in SDA when n-pentane was used as solvent were significantly higher than those when ethyl acetate was used as solvent. The DAO was subsequently processed by thermal cracking at 500°C and atmospheric pressure to investigate the effect of solvent deasphalting processing conditions on the yield of coke and liquid... 

Drop formation in cross-junction micro-channels is numerically studied using the lattice Boltzmann method with pseudo-potential model. To verify the simulation, the results are compared to previous numerical and experimental data. Furthermore, the effects of capillary number, flow rate ratio, contact angle, and viscosity ratio on the flow patterns, drop length, and interval between drops are investigated and highlighted. The results show that the drop forming process has different regimes, namely, jetting, drop, and squeezing regimes. Also, it is shown that increasing in the flow rate ratio in the squeezing regime causes increment in drop length and decrement in drops interval distance. On... 

Haplotype information has become increasingly important in analyzing fine-scale molecular genetics data, Due to the mutated form in human genome; SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) are responsible for some genetic diseases. As a consequence, obtaining all SNPs from human populations is one of the primary goals of studies in human genomics. In this paper, a data fusion method based on multiple parallel classifiers for reconstruction of haplotypes from a given sample Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) is proposed. First, we design a single greedy algorithm for solving haplotype reconstructions. [2] is used as an efficient approach to be combined with first classification method. The... 

Fog computing paradigm attempts to provide diverse processing at the edge of IoT networks. Energy usage being one of the important elements that may have a direct influence on the performance of fog environment. Effective scheduling systems, in which activities are mapped on the greatest feasible resources to meet various competing priorities, can reduce energy use. Consequently, a hybrid discrete optimization method called HDSOS-GOA, which uses the Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) approach, is proposed to handle scientific workflow scheduling challenges in the fog computing environment. HDSOS-GOA combines the search qualities of Symbiotic Organisms Search (SOS) and the... 

Recently, there has been great interest in Bio informatics among researches from various disciplines such as computer science, mathematics, statistics and artificial intelligence. Bioinformatics mainly deals with solving biological problems at molecular levels. One of the classic problems of bioinformatics which has gain a lot attention lately is Haplotyping, the goal of which is categorizing SNP-fragments into two clusters and deducing a haplotype for each. Since the problem is proved to be NP-hard, several computational and heuristic methods have addressed the problem seeking feasible answers. In this work it is shown that using PCM to solve Haplotyping problem in DALY dataset yields... 

In this paper, we present an MPEG-2 video decoder implemented in our ODYSSEY design methodology. We start with an ASIP tailored to the JPEG decompression algorithm. We extend that ASIP by required software routines such that the extended ASIP can now perform MPEG2 decoding while still benefiting from hardware units common between JPEG and MPEG2. This demonstrates the ability of our approach in extending an already manufactured ASIP, which was tailored to a given application, such that it implements new, yet related applications. The implementation platform is a VirtexII-Pro FPGA. The hardware part is implemented in VHDL, and the software runs on a PowerPC processor. Experimental results show...