Sharif Digital Repository

The aim of this paper is the design and development of a novel user interface to interact with a meta system. Our focus is rather on interacting with Ambient Intelligence as a whole, which would for example enable users to influence the overall behaviors and attributes of dynamic device compositions. We call such interfaces Meta User Interfaces. The design details of a proposed user interface as well as a cognitive walkthrough evaluation are presented in this paper  

This paper presents a novel method for answering complex temporal ordering questions in the context of an event and query-based text summarization. This task is accomplished by precisely mapping the problem of "query-based summarization of temporal ordering questions" in the field of Natural Language Processing to "verifying a finite state model against a temporal formula" in the realm of Model Checking. This mapping requires specific definitions, structures, and procedures. The output of this new approach is promisingly a readable and informative summary satisfying the user's needs  

The aim of this paper is the design and development of a novel user interface to interact with a meta system. Our focus is rather on interacting with Ambient Intelligence as a whole, which would for example enable users to influence the overall behavior and attributes of dynamic device compositions. We call such interfaces Meta User Interfaces. The design details of a proposed user interface as well as a cognitive walkthrough evaluation are presented in this paper  

The aim of this article is the requirement analysis, design, proof-of-concept implementation and user evaluation of a novel user interface that is specifically developed to support interaction with ambient intelligence systems. The focus of the user interface is rather on interacting with ambient intelligence, a meta system that comes into existence as the result of the coherent behavior and collective intelligence of interconnected smart devices and systems of a domain such as meeting rooms or smart homes. To design the user interface, we conducted an empirical user and task analysis and elaborated requirements, defining the scope of human interaction with ambient intelligence. The captured... 

Municipal solid waste (MSW) directly impacts community health and environmental degradation; therefore, the management of MSW is crucial. Medical waste is a specific type of MSW which is generally divided into two categories: infectious and non-infectious. Wastes generated by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are classified among infectious medical wastes; moreover, these wastes are hazardous because they threaten the environment and living organisms if they are not appropriately managed. This paper develops a bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model for medical waste management during the COVID-19 outbreak. The proposed model minimizes the total costs and risks, simultaneously,... 

Today, research on automatic text summarization challenges on readability factor as one of the most important aspects of summarizers' performance. In this paper, we present Pazesh: a language-independent graph-based approach for increasing the readability of summaries while preserving the most important content. Pazesh accomplishes this task by constructing a special path of salient sentences which passes through topic centroid sentences. The results show that Pazesh compares approvingly with previously published results on benchmark datasets  

For the 4th IUPAP International Conference of Women in Physics, we report on activities in science and engineering in Iran, and conditions for women in physics, in the three years since the 3rd IUPAP International Conference of Women in Physics was held in 2008. Iran has made prominent advancements and astonishing progress in laser technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, genetics, computer software and hardware, and robotics. Iranian scientists have been very productive in several experimental fields, such as pharmaceutical, organic, and polymer chemistry. Conditions for women in physics have improved greatly in recent years. A project to improve the environment for learning physics, and... 

The lead is a heavy metal with hazardous impacts on environment and human life. Lead-free perovskite solar cells have attracted much attention in recent years, due to eco-friendly characteristics. Meanwhile, Pb-containing cells showed the highest efficiencies among the various types of cells. Hence, designing novel Pb-free solar cells with comparable or better performance than the Pb-containing ones is highly required. In this work, a lead-free methyl-ammonium-germanium-iodide (MAGeI3)-based perovskite solar cell with ITO/TiO2/MAGeI3/Spiro-OMeTAD/Ag multilayer nanostructure has been proposed and its main characteristics including open-circuit voltage (VOC) and power conversion efficiency (η)... 

Core/shell structure of ZnO nanowires coated with a monolayer of TiO 2 is investigated using Density Functional Theory (DFT). The electronic states of the semiconductor is calculated and compared before and after coating of the TiO2 monolayer on a ZnO [101 0] surface. The effect of TiO2 coating induce surface states changes and shifts the conduction and valence band edges to higher energies. Our results, in qualitative agreement with the experimental work of Matt Law et al. (J. Phys. Chem. B, 110, 22652), show an increase in open circuit voltage and a decrease in short circuit current in ZnO/TiO2 core shell dye sensitized solar cells. Regarding the semiconductor density of states (DOS), TiO2... 

Due to the important role of commitment and trust in the relationship marketing, the factors which can directly result in a committed relationship along with the factors which can influence the commitment through influencing trust, according to the model of commitment and trust by (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) have been introduced and their level of importance has been investigated here. The article uses fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs) in the proposed model to find the most important paths leading to relationship commitment. The FCM analyzes the responses of a group of 30 people including general practitioners in dentistry, managers of dental departments in some of the public clinics and hospitals who... 

Conventionally, a film of TiO2 particles of 300 nm size is employed in Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) as the back reflector film to enhance the light harvesting. Perfect reflectance of silver in visible and near infrared motivates to investigate its potential as the material for the light back reflector film in DSCs. In this study, light back reflector films consisting of 300 nm-sized silver particles, as well as vacuum evaporated silver flat film, were fabricated and compared to 300 nm-sized rutile-type TiO2 particulate reflector film to study their optical aspects. Conventional TiO2 rutile-type particulate film demonstrates slightly lower performance... 

Monolithic dye-sensitized solar cells are conventionally fabricated using carbon composite layer as the counter electrode. In the current research, the brittle carbon composite layer is replaced with a metal foil, aiming to decrease the device series resistance and using less catalyst material in counter electrode. This metallic structure has also an advantage of mechanical strength and decreases the fabrication complexity. The counter electrode is prepared by electrodepositing Cr film followed by electrodepositing Pt nanoparticles on a metal foil. As the porous spacer layer, different composite layers of SiO2, TiO2, and Al2O3 are investigated and the best results are obtained for TiO2... 

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been a potential green energy source for a long time but one of the problems is that either the technology must be used on a large scale or special equipment have been necessary to keep the fuel cells running such as syringe pumps. Paper-based microbial fuel cells do not need to have a syringe pump to run and can run entirely by themselves when placed in contact with the fluids that are necessary for it to run. Paper-based microbial fuel cells are also more compact than traditional MFCs since the device doesn't need any external equipment to run. The goal of this paper is to develop a microbial fuel cell that does not require a syringe pump to function. This... 

This paper proposes a novel decentralized control approach for islanded direct-current (DC) microgrids (MGs) based on model predictive control (MPC) to regulate the distributed generation unit (DGU) output voltages, i.e. the voltages of the point of common coupling (PCC). A local controller is designed for each DGU, in the presence of uncertainties, disturbances, and unmodeled dynamics. First, a discrete-time state-space model of an MG is derived. Afterward, an MPC algorithm is designed to perform the PCC voltage control. The proposed MPC scheme ensures that the PCC voltages remain within an acceptable range. Several simulation studies have been conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of... 

Sophisticated surgeons are widely indicating the use of surgical robots in order to reject human error, increase precision, and speed. Among well-known robotic mechanisms, parallel robots are broadly more investigated regarding their special characters as higher acceleration, speed, and accuracy, and less weight. Specific surgical procedures confine, and restrict their workspace, while controlling and validating the robots are complicated regarding to their complex dynamic. To this end, in this paper, a 6-DOF robot, with rotary manipulators, is designed and controlled. Addressing nonlinearity of parallel robots, an innovative methodology is formulated to robustly penalize the error of...