Sharif Digital Repository

Impedance characteristics of the negative electrode of lead-acid battery were derived on the basis of fundamental interfacial processes occurring at the electrode. The solution of the governing equations was presented in terms of a simple equivalent circuit consisting of resistive and capacitive loops in which charge transfer and sulfate layer formation and also mass transfer (Warburg) elements are considered. The kinetic parameters were deduced by fitting the theoretically derived impedance to the experimental data. Impedance at various States of Charge (SoC) was also examined  

Modeling passengers' itinerary choice behavior helps in understanding the increasingly competitive airline market and in predicting air travel demand. Recently, investigation of the variation in passengers' preferences with regard to factors influencing their choice through estimation of the mixed multinomial logit model has received attention. An extended form of the model identifies sources of heterogeneity and consequently makes the choice models less restrictive in considering both systematic and random preference variation across individuals. This research investigates the existence of significant interactions between passengers' preference heterogeneity around the mean of random... 

Oscillatory behavior and transfer properties of relay feedback systems with a linear plant including a fractional-order integrator are studied in this paper. An expression for system response in the time domain is obtained by means of short memory principle, Poincare return map, and Mittag-Leffler functions. On the basis of this expression, the frequency of self-excited oscillations is approximated. In addition, the locus of perturbed relay system (LPRS) is derived to analyze the input-output properties of the relay system. The presented analysis is supported by a numerical example. Copyright © 2017 by ASME  

In this paper, an oscillatory condition is obtained for fractional order relay feedback systems. This condition is derived by time domain representation of the response of the fractional order relay feedback system on the basis of the Mittag-Leffler functions. Also, using an inequality, which has been recently proved for fractional derivative of convex Lyapunov functions, an invariant set is found for the under-study fractional order relay feedback system. The obtained results are validated by numerical examples  

The present study is a nationwide survey of language identity among English language learners in Iran. The participants who completed the survey in this research included 1851 English language learners from different parts of the country who belonged to different genders, age groups and English language proficiency levels. The main instrument was a validated questionnaire which included 19 items and was administered online and by hand. The results of this survey revealed that Iranian English language learners had a moderate level of language identity and there was no significant difference between the language identity of male and female participants. In addition, the results indicated that... 

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical analysis of the fracture behavior of multiple axisymmetric interface cracks between a homogeneous isotropic layer and its functionally graded material (FGM) coating under torsional loading. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, the authors employ the distributed dislocation technique to the stress analysis, an FGM coating-substrate system under torsional loading with multiple axisymmetric cracks consist of annular and penny-shaped cracks. First, with the aid of the Hankel transform, the stress fields in the homogeneous layer and its FGM coating are obtained. The problem is then reduced to a set of singular integral equations... 

This review investigated the efficiency and mechanism of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) removal using advanced oxidation processes. Boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrodes in the electrochemical oxidation process are considered one of the ideal anode materials for the oxidation of PFAS compounds due to their high oxidation power with weak electrode-hydroxyl radical interactions. The degradation of PFAS by the combined process of foam fractionation combined with BDD electrochemical oxidation treatment showed that the overall degradation of long-chain PFAS was 77% against 22% of short-chain PFAS in the leachate water treatment plant. The experimental data revealed that photochemical... 

The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak spread rapidly worldwide. Yet, there is no identifiable antiviral treatment, so an effective drug is urgently needed. Preventive strategies and oxygen therapy are the main practical approaches to prevent and treat COVID-19. Clinical trials are in progress for the antiviral and immunomodulation agents that eventually are being developed for COVID-19 treatment. Pharmacological, immunotherapies, natural-based supplements, biologics, and combination therapies interventions have been established. The concept of drug repurposing was re-visited, and many conventional antivirals or immunosuppresses were evaluated for Efficacy against COVID-19... 

Research in the choice behavior of air travelers has evolved to include an analytical focus on variation in the sensitivities of travelers to factors influencing itinerary choice. Some choice studies have moved beyond a focus on assumed representative, mean-level sensitivities toward a goal of representing the distribution of preferences across a sample. The mixed multinomial logit model has served as a valuable means of estimating such distributions of air travel preferences, including studies of business travelers, impacts of airport level-of-service attributes, distributions of willingness-to-pay (WTP), and information-processing strategies. Does the insight gained in previous studies,... 

The present study was an attempt to explore international English-medium publication in humanities and social sciences in Iran. In so doing, 50 PhD students from 8 humanities and social sciences disciplines, who had already published or attempted to publish in English-medium journals, were requested to write reflection guide accounts and to take part in follow-up semi-structured interviews. The reflection guide and interview data were analyzed based on the principles of grounded theory research yielding the four major themes of motivations, hurdles, strategies, and call for support. The results indicated that the Iranian PhD students in the fields of humanities and social sciences are... 

The Per Tone equalization algorithm is a novel discrete multitone (DMT) equalization method with practical applications in subscriber digital loop systems. Unlike time domain DMT equalizers (TEQ), which equalize all DMT tones in a combined fashion, the Per Tone equalizer equalizes each tone separately. In this paper, the performance and complexity of this technique is investigated and compared with that of other TEQs. Furthermore, the behavior of this technique in different simulation conditions, such as over different standard CSA loops and in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise with variable power spectral density level and near end crosstalk (NEXT), is studied and compared with... 

Time domain equalizers are used in the receiver of a discrete multitone (DMT) receiver to compensate the channel effects on the received signal. There are a lot of DMT equalization algorithms presented in the literature, but recently a novel Per Tone equalizer structure was proposed which offers some advantages over the previous traditional ones. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the important concepts of this technique and evaluate its initialization complexity. The performance of this technique is also compared with typical time-domain equalization algorithms in different simulation environments. © 2004IEEE  

Thermal-sprayed MCrAlY coatings have become widespread in various industries such as power plants, aeronautics, and oil and gas firms. High-temperature oxidation behavior of these coatings is therefore of significance. Spraying of two prevalent MCrAlY powders (NiCoCrAlY and CoNiCrAlY) on Hastelloy substrate by high velocity oxygen and fuel method and exposing them to 1000 °C air for resolving of their cyclic oxidation behavior are presented in this paper. The coatings were characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. The obtained oxidation kinetic indicated that at 1000 °C, the thermally sprayed NiCoCrAlY coating has greater... 

This paper proposes a novel 3D action recognition technique that uses time-series information extracted from depth image sequences for use in systems of human daily activity monitoring. To this end, each action is represented as a multi-dimensional time series, where each dimension represents the position variation of one skeleton joint over time. The time series is then mapped onto a vector space using Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) distance. Furthermore, to employ the correlation-distinctiveness relationship of the sequences in recognition, this vector space is remapped onto a discriminative space using the regularized Fisher method, where final decisions about the actions are made. Unlike... 

In this work, the effect of brine salinity on water-in-oil emulsion flow performance in porous media is studied as it imposes a significant challenge to oil production in the petroleum industry. A crude oil sample from an Iranian oilfield and synthetic brine with different salinities (40-140 g/L salt) are used. The results show that the emulsion viscosity and interfacial tension increase slightly with salinity, while they do not considerably affect the flow behavior. The emulsion stability analysis shows that larger w/o emulsion droplets are formed for higher brine salinity, which potentially block more pore spaces through straining and interception mechanisms. This phenomenon resulted in... 

Piezoelectric actuators are widely used in micro manipulation applications. However, hysteresis nonlinearity limits the accuracy of these actuators. This paper presents a novel approach for utilizing a piezoelectric nano-stage as the slave manipulator of a teleoperation system based on a sliding mode controller. The Prandtl-Ishlinskii (PI) model is used to model actuator hysteresis in feedforward scheme to cancel out this nonlinearity. The presented approach requires full state and force measurements at both the master and slave sides. Such a system is costly and also difficult to implement. Therefore, sliding mode unknown input observer (UIO) is proposed for full state and force... 

Typical non-hydrocarbon gases, which have been utilized in miscible and immiscible processes, are carbon dioxide and nitrogen. These gases are usually injected separately and have been rarely utilized together as a tertiary recovery process. In this article, the authors have experimentally focused on sequential carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas injection as a new enhanced oil recovery method. The periodic injections of carbon dioxide and nitrogen have been repeated for six injection pore volumes. Sensitivity analysis of injection pressure, injection volume, and injection rate has also been investigated in core flood experiments. The experimental results have revealed that a sequential miscible... 

Soft errors caused by particles strike in combinational parts of digital circuits are a major concern in the design of reliable circuits. Several techniques have been presented to protect combinational logic and reduce the overall circuit Soft Error Rate (SER). Such techniques, however, typically come at the cost of significant area and performance overheads. This paper presents a low area and zero-delay overhead method to protect digital circuits' combinational parts against particles strike. This method is made up of a combination of two sub-methods: (1) a SER estimation method based on signal probability, called Estimation by Characterizing Input Patterns (ECIP) and (2) a protection... 

Supplier selection and order allocation are important keys for reverse logistics and closed-loop supply chain networks especially with the presence of demand–supply imbalance risks. If such uncertainties and risks are not foreseen in the chain, and corresponding appropriate measures are not taken to handle them, irreparable damages would be expected consequently. The importance of this issue in closed-loop supply chains is more appreciated due to the importance and the effect of this chain on the environment. In this research, the disruption risk and the uncertainties related to the demand, market price, and the number of returned products are simultaneously considered. Purchasing from the...