Sharif Digital Repository

The microstructure and wear performance of WC/Cu-Zn-Ni composite surface coating has been investigated using a combination of microscopy, hardness, and wear testing. The oxidation behavior of tungsten carbide hard metal in the temperature range between 600 and 900 ◦C was also researched. The oxidation mass gain of WC correlated almost directly with temperature as well as time. The particle of hard metal is surrounded by the α Cu+β Zn phase in the surface coating. The size of hard metal is almost unchanged from its original one. There exists an inter-diffusion zone at the interface of the hard metals and Cu-based matrix. The wear volume of the WC/Cu-Zn-Ni composite surface coatings increased... 

Supplier selection and order quantity allocation problem is one of the most complex making decision problems comes into account. In the past, supplier selection done based on criteria such as price, quality and delivery time. Today's supply chains with the aim of expanding business activities and improving their performances, Follow process such as outsourcing, product development, and selection of multi-supplier strategies. This conditions will bring opportunities and threats for supply chains. One of the possible risks to supply chains are disruption risks and disruption has been a great concern in the past decade and disruption of suppliers are one of the new topics that have recently... 

Sonoluminescence is a unique phenomenon in physics, which is known as the process of converting sound into light. By applying sound to a volume of liquid, with a specific geometrical shape (such as sphere) and forming standing waves around an existing bubble, the bubble first expands to a maximum radius and then gets extremely small leading to its supersonic collapse. During the collapse, the resulting shock wave approches the center of the bubble, causing extreme increase in the pressure and temperature at the center of the bubble. This causes flashing of light during small time scales (pico-seconds). This phenomenon is used in many fields, such as treatment of cancer. Also, the energy... 

Ship maneuverability is so important from different aspects. According to the regulations of International Maritime Organization (IMO), every vessel has to meet the minimum requirements of mentioned rules. Consequently, prediction of ship maneuverability in early stages of ship design has become to one of the most necessary steps for shipbuilding and design companies. There are a variety of options in order to prediction of maneuverability of vessels, for instance, one important way is Free running model tests which is capable of direct calculation of the required parameters, provided if some certain conditions are met. In this work, firstly, an introduction to the importance of vessel... 

One of the features of a project is its uniqueness, if two sets of activities are the same neither of them will longer be included in the project definition. A method in two projects with the same nature may yield inverse results of each other. Therefore, it is necessary to study the parameters affecting the project carefully before any action. So far, some research has been conducted in this area and it has been tried to perform case study on qualitative and quantitative parameters of the project. By investigating a number of common factors in most civil engineering projects, especially megaprojects, the present study attempts to identify and examine exquisite and effective parameters and... 

Heartbeat is the result of contractions of over 10 billion cardiac cells. These cells’ cytoplasms are connected to each other by gap junctions which are arrays of intercellular protein channels. Thus action potential can propagate from one cell to another and cause its contraction. In core-conductor model, one-dimensional microscopic representation of cardiac tissue, cells are attached to each other to form a ladder network. The parallel elements are connected to each other by series resistors which represent gap junctions. These resistors are nearly always considered as static elements. In this thesis I have investigated the effects of incorporating the dynamicity of gap junction resistors... 

Simulation of cardiovascular system functionality during various physiological conditions is essential at different diagnostic and clinical levels. A first step in studying the roots of cardiovascular diseases and abnormal activity is to study a practical yet complete model of the cardiovascular system. In this thesis we introduced a new approach for defining the distributed model of the cardiovascular system. Initially, we chose an appropriate subsystem, namely Arch of Aorta, and proposed a distributed model for it. The elements of the proposed model were nonlinear RLC elements that simulate resistance, blood viscosity and vessel elasticity respectively. To minimize the system complexity,... 

To actualize and making the outputs of a project effectual, it is necessary to conduct an effective management during a project. This case may not be possible without accurately planning for activities, management and controlling all phases of a project ignoring the risk management of that project. If risks of a project cannot be detected before conducting a project, it is possible to challenge the performance and even effectiveness of the project. In current conditions, the most important problem of managers and executives of construction projects through the country is risk management of projects, not acknowledging with definitions of risk, models of risk management and lack of a model for... 

Disconnections in neural paths from the central nervous system to the muscles or vice versa cause different neuropathies, thus paralysis in different limbs may occur. As a result of the lack of muscular activity and the decrease in blood perfusion in paralyzed limbs, problems like osteoporosis, increase in the risk of breaking, decline in muscle size, cardiovascular diseases, renal dysfunction, bedsores, etc may happen. In order to induce movement in paralyzed limbs, thus preventingmentioned problems, rowing exercise through Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) may be utilized. In FES, electrical Stimulation using current stimulating pulses is applied to contracting and relaxing muscles,... 

A Balanced Scorecard (BSC) model is proposed to evaluate performance of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) management systems. This model includes key performance indicators at three integrated levels. It has been tested and verified in a project-based organization in Iran, active in the area of power and energy. Results show that the company has done well in implementing HSE management processes, but no so well in growth and learning. This model may be used as a basis for comparing different companies and various proposed programs in the field of HSE management systems. The model includes indicators and sub-indicators in each category particularly related to stakeholders, processes, and... 

World-wide, Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) takes hundreds of thousands of lives each year. This chronic heart disease causes poor performance of the heart and insufficient blood pumping to the organs. A significant percentage of patients with CHF require heart transplants for their survival. The high cost of heart transplant, shortage of donor hearts and possibility of its rejection by recipients are serious problems of this type of treatment. Therefore a large number of heart patients are potential beneficiaries of artificial blood pumps such as Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) and Total Artificial Heart (TAH). Performance of these systems must be compliant and complementary to the existing... 

In this study, factors which lead in failures in reengineering processes in project based companies have been investigated. The research used qualitative methods, and finally using theme analysis to identify the main factors.Consequently, the main causes of failure of re-engineering projects have been identified and classified in six basic categories including: organizational leadership, planning, human resources management, mental models causing resistance, culture and organizational climate and communication. That each of these themes includes some subset of the agents it represents. In this study, a suitable pattern for organizations which intend to perform reengineering has been... 

Supply chain management has been developed extensively in second half of last century and the development has been continued up to present century. Nowadays Development and conformity of production and inventory control methods with JIT philosophy in production line level is one of the topics that received much attention from researchers. An increasing interest in the scope of JIT philosophy is on the extension and adaptation of Pull policies such as Kanban and CONWIP for materials and production control. In a real-life environment, companies are subjected to various types of uncertainties such as stochastic processing times and variable demand. This uncertain environment could cause lots... 

In this study a variational framework for joint segmentation and motion estimation is provided for inspecting heart in Cine MRI sequences. In the first work, a functional including Mumford-Shah segmentation and optical flow based dense motion estimation is proposed. However, the motion estimation technique is replaced with warping estimation in the second work to reach in more regular and smooth motion field based on tracking of cardiac boundaries. Both of these functionals are then approximated by using the phase-field method to make them suitable for extracting Euler-Lagrange equations. Numerical solution to the optimization problem, when the time and image spaces are discretized by finite... 

In many modern medical procedures, needle insertion is an inevitable part of the diagnosis or treatment protocols. The accuracy of the needle insertion is adversely affected by a number of factors. A needle, frequently assumed to be flexible, is inserted into a soft tissue and induces complex mechanical interactions that may result in considerable uncertainties. Tissue intrinsic characteristics as well as its deformation and rotation may cause dramatic complexities. This work considers the needle movement inside the tissue from the dynamics and control point of view. The proposed approach can be regarded as an initial step towards automation of needle insertion procedures; it can also be... 

Medical needle interventions are a common technique for accessing tissue structures.In these procedures, needles are used, for example, to extract biopsy samples, brachytherapy, and to insert drugs. In TRUS guided prostate brachytherapy application, Physicians used ulterasound imaging to steer the needle and insert radioactive seeds into cancerous tumors to irradiate surrounding tissue over several months. Prostate rotation, deformation, and unavailability of imaging data during part of the insertion path result in misplaced seeds. To overcome these problems, in this research, we modeled the prostate, its membrane and the surrounding fatty tissue as linearly elastic homogenous material, and... 

Evolutions in the economy, society and politics has raised knowledge as a key element in the development and competitiveness and knowledge management is considered one of the essential elements in this field. By taking temporary nature of the project into account, dynamics and competition in the project-oriented organizations business world makes the preservation and management of knowledge in project-based organizations more important. Lesson learned system is one of the knowledge management tools that can propose strategic solutions which avoid wasting of time and money and make perfect use of knowledge management accomplishments.In this study, by using literature review, interview and...