Sharif Digital Repository

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are characterized by short-range wireless communication between inherently resource-limited sensors that operate in the vicinity of the human body for recording certain physiological signals. One of the main limitations of WBANs is in terms of their available power. Since the nodes are typically battery-driven, an efficient power transmission is essential to guarantee long-lasting communications among nodes without the need for frequent battery replacement or charging. In this study, aiming to improve the WBAN performance, we first investigate the power allocation problem by choosing the ergodic capacity and the outage probability as the desired metrics.... 

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are one of the emerging technological trends that have gained a lot of attention both from academic and industrial domains. WBAN, as standardized by IEEE 802.15.6, is a network composed of intelligent, miniaturized, low power nodes that are implanted in, placed on or in close proximity of human body for certain healthcare applications. Sensors send their acquired data to a central hub wirelessly for further processing. In this paper, based on a publicly available channel data set, we investigate the applicable channel models in a typical WBAN. Considering various scenarios with different carrier frequencies, bandwidths, body movements, and transceiver... 

Wireless communication networks may be categorized based on the extent of the geographical area that they cover. The latest trend in this assortment is wireless body area network (WBAN), which is standardized by IEEE 802.15.6 and is defined as a network composed of intelligent, miniaturized, low-power nodes that are implanted in, placed on, or in close proximity to the human body for certain healthcare applications. In this paper, we will start with some assessments on applicable channel models for a typical WBAN. Considering various scenarios with different carrier frequencies, bandwidths, body movements, and transceiver locations, the well-known Bayesian Information Criterion is used to... 

Wireless body area network (WBAN) is composed of miniaturised sensors that operate in the vicinity of the human body for recording the vital physiological signals and wirelessly transmitting them to a central hub for further processing. In this study, a statistical approach is applied to an experimental channel data set to extract the models for the squared channel gain that best describe the characteristics of the transmission medium between the sensors and the central hub. The derived models are then utilised to investigate the error rate performance of WBAN sensors. On the basis thereof, an optimisation problem is formed for which the cost function is the symbol error rate (SER) metric.... 

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are characterized by short-range wireless communication between inherently resource-limited sensors that operate in the vicinity of the human body for recording certain physiological signals. One of the main limitations of WBANs is in terms of their available power. Since the nodes are typically battery-driven, an efficient power transmission is essential to guarantee long-lasting communications among nodes without the need for frequent battery replacement or charging. In this study, aiming to improve the WBAN performance, we first investigate the power allocation problem by choosing the ergodic capacity and the outage probability as the desired metrics.... 

In this paper we study the statistical properties of the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the dual-hop relaying link in a cooperative wireless communication system in the presence of channel estimation errors for Decode and Forward (DF) relaying protocol. Then for assessment of the system performance the Symbol Error Rate (SER) is considered. Two approaches are introduced for SER calculation from which the second one results in a closed form solution. Finally the second approach is used to find an optimum power allocation scheme for transmission of pilot and data symbols at the source and the relay terminals that results in minimizing the SER and considerable amount of power saving. Also Monte... 

We define a new feature called Teager Energy to Energy and mathematically show that it provides distinguished values for pure tone and white noise signals. We then employ the Teager Energy to Energy feature to propose an efficient procedure for voice activity detection and use simulation results to evaluate its performance in different noisy environments. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate the performance of the proposed voice activity detection technique in a real-time voice processing embedded system. Experimental and simulation results show that the introduced procedure provides more reliable results with a reasonable amount of computational complexity in comparison with its... 

A heat transfer rate was determined for polypropylene tubes in solar water heaters for the Reynolds number range 800-5600. Experiments were conducted in ambient temperatures of 34 to 37°C. Data were correlated in the form of Nusselt numbers as: Nu=0.0015 Re0.75 Pr1/3 with correlation coefficient of 0.95. Such data can be used to predict heat transfer rates in a polypropylene solar heater in Tehran where the experiments were performed. An application of the results is shown in an example. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved  

In this paper, an introduction of the finite element approach to microstructure based modelling is provided, and the primary and secondary dendrite arm spacings of A356 alloy in the solidification process are simulated. The simulated results of dendrite morphology and the experimental measurements are presented and compared with the investigations of other researchers, which confirmed the accuracy of this model in its ability to predict the dendrite arm spacing. Each of the length scales, including silicon rod diameter and spacing, is discussed in detail. Analytical equations are generated for the length scales and incorporated in the Sharif University Technology academic software for the... 

Poly(lactic acid) (PLA)/poly(vinyl acetate-. co-vinyl alcohol) [P(VAc-. co-VA)] blends as new transparent film packaging materials were prepared at various blend compositions and different vinyl alcohol contents. The blends and pure PLA were irradiated by gamma rays to investigate the extent of changes in the packaging material during gamma ray sterilization process. The miscibility of the blends was dependent on the blend composition and vinyl alcohol content; gamma irradiation had little effect on the extent of miscibility. The glass transition temperature of pure PLA and PLA/P(VAc-. co-VA) miscible blends reduced after irradiation. On the other hand in PLA/P(VAc-. co-VA) immiscible... 

The oxygen-barrier properties of poly(lactic acid) (PLA)/poly(vinyl acetate-co-vinyl alcohol) [P(VAc-co-VA)] were investigated. P(VAc-co-VA)s with vinyl alcohol (VA) contents of 5, 10, and 15 mol % were prepared with the acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of poly(vinyl acetate). The obtained copolymers with various contents of VA were blended with PLA at 5/95, 10/90, and 15/85 compositions. Films of the blends were prepared by a solution-casting method with chloroform as the cosolvent. Although the blend with 5% VA in the copolymer appeared to be miscible, the blends with 10 and 15% VA content in the copolymer were immiscible, as verified by dynamic mechanical analysis. The oxygen-barrier properties... 

In this paper, an extensive experimental tests were performed to determine the aerodynamic characteristics of an airfoil undergoing static, dynamic pitch, dynamic plunge and dynamic combined pitch and plunge motions for various cases. This paper, however, focuses on the effects of reduced frequencies and mean angles of attack on the surface pressure distribution and on the corresponding lift of the airfoil oscillating in either pure pitch or in combined pitch–plunge motions. The angles of attack variations were set such that the model motion would be ceased lower than the static stall, near the static stall and beyond the static stall angles of attack. All tests were conducted at a constant... 

In this paper, extensive experimental tests were carried out for an aerodynamic characterization of the airfoil cross-section of a wind turbine blade. The wind turbine blade cross-sections are usually exposed to unsteady pitch and plunge oscillations. One way to increase the power of blade, is to improve it's aerodynamic performance, so it is necessary to study and compare the unsteady aerodynamic behavior of the airfoil. The aerodynamic behavior of turbine blades are dependent on several parameters including initial angle of attack, reduced frequency and oscillation amplitude. In this study, reduced frequency and oscillation amplitude assumed constant and the initial angle of attack of the... 

Machining of ceramics often involves many challenges due to their high hardness, brittleness, and low-thermal conductivity. Laser Assisted Machining (LAM) is a promising technology for improving the machinability of hard-to-cut materials. In this work, the effect of laser heating in the LAM process on Slip Cast Fused Silica (SCFS) ceramics is investigated by conducting a numerical thermal analysis of laser effects on material behavior. A transient three-dimensional heat transfer analysis for Laser Assisted Turning (LAT) of SCFS is performed using finite-element method. Temperature distributions in SCFS cylindrical specimens are obtained. Moreover, the influence of laser parameters, such as... 

Machining of ceramics often involves many challenges due to their high hardness, brittleness, and low-thermal conductivity. Laser Assisted Machining (LAM) is a promising technology for improving the machinability of hard-to-cut materials. In this work, the effect of laser heating in the LAM process on Slip Cast Fused Silica (SCFS) ceramics is investigated by conducting a numerical thermal analysis of laser effects on material behavior. A transient three-dimensional heat transfer analysis for Laser Assisted Turning (LAT) of SCFS is performed using finite-element method. Temperature distributions in SCFS cylindrical specimens are obtained. Moreover, the influence of laser parameters, such as... 

Nanostructured W-20 wt% Cu composite powder was synthesized by mechanical alloying (MA) in an Attritor ball mill. The morphological changes and structural evolution of the composite powder during MA was studied by employing scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), laser particle size analyzer (LPS), inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectrometry, atomic absorption spectrophotometery (AAS), and the bulk powder density measurement. The results were compared with those obtained from attrition milling of monolithic W and Cu powders processed at the same condition. Whereas the milling mechanism of the monolithic powders follow the ductile (for Cu)... 

Laser assisted machining (LAM) is a promising technology for machining hard to cut materials. In most experimental cases, LAM is undergone in two stages; first, the temperature at the material removal point (Tmr) is tuned by adjusting laser parameters and next, the cutting tool is engaged. Introduction of highly localized heat energy to the workpiece makes the modeling of this process very complicated. Hence, an analytical model for the first stage of the process - rather than multiple experiments or FE modelling - would be beneficial. This article presents an analytical solution to the transient, temperature field in a rotating cylinder subject to a localized laser heat source. The... 

Modeling of the laser-assisted machining (LAM) process requires an accurate estimate of the surface absorption coefficient. In addition to the laser type and material properties, this parameter is dependent on the state of the process in terms of surface quality, texture, oxidation state, and temperature change during the machining process. In this article, two methods are presented for calculating this coefficient based on the surface temperature obtained from measurement by a pyrometer and an analytical model of the process. In the first method, the pyrometer is fixed on a lathe bed while in the second method, a co-moving pyrometer is used. Temperature measurements in both methods are... 

A stable capillary liquid jet formed by an electric field is an important physical phenomenon for formation of controllable small droplets, power generation and chemical reactions, printing and patterning, and chemical-biological investigations. In electrohydrodynamics, the well-known Taylor cone-jet has a stability margin within a certain range of the liquid flow rate (Q) and the applied voltage (V). Here, we introduce a simple mechanism to greatly extend the Taylor cone-jet stability margin and produce a very high throughput. For an ethanol cone-jet emitting from a simple nozzle, the stability margin is obtained within 1 kV for low flow rates, decaying with flow rate up to 2 ml/h. By... 

Two-step sintering (TSS) was applied to suppress the accelerated grain growth of sub-micron (∼150 nm) alumina powder. The application of an optimum TSS regime led to a remarkable decrease of grain size down to ∼500 nm; while the grain size of the full-dense structures produced by conventional sintering ranged between 1 and 2 μm. To find how important the temperatures at sintering steps might be, several TSS regimes were conducted. The results showed that the temperatures at both sintering steps play vital roles in densification and grain growth of the alumina compacts. Based on the results, the optimum regime consisted of heating the green bodies up to 1250 °C (first step) and then holding...