Sharif Digital Repository

Here, SnO2 nanoribbons (NRs) synthetized on the catalyst-free stainless steel (SS) substrate as a possible anode for Li-ion batteries (LIBs) have been reported. SnO2 NRs were synthesized on catalyst-free SS substrate via vapor-solid (VS) growth approach. Morphological and structural characterizations of the SnO2 NRs were confirmed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) microscopes and x-ray diffraction (XRD) respectively. The prepared binder-free electrode demonstrated high initial discharge/charge capacities of 1818/929 mAh g-1 at current density of 300 mA g-1. A reversible capacity of 676 mAh g-1 with a coulombic efficiency of 98.5% has been... 

This book provides a comprehensive presentation of issues and challenges faced by researchers and practicing engineers in motion planning and hybrid control of dynamical legged locomotion. The major features range from offline and online motion planning algorithms to generate desired feasible periodic walking and running motions and tow-level control schemes, including within-stride feedback laws, continuous time update laws and event-based update laws, to asymptotically stabilize the generated desired periodic orbits. This book describes the current state of the art and future directions across all domains of dynamical legged locomotion so that readers can extend proposed motion planning... 

In this paper, a new fuzzy coordination method based on Interaction Prediction Principle (IPP) is presented for the optimal control of robot manipulators. For this purpose, the robot manipulator is considered as a two-level large-scale system where in the first level, the overall system is decomposed into several subsystems. Each subsystem can include one or more consecutive links and joints. In the second level, a fuzzy interaction prediction system is introduced for coordination of the overall system where a critic vector is also used for evaluation of its performance. The simulation results of using the proposed novel approach ,for optimal control of robot manipulators, show its... 

Functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) is performed to treat sinusitis when treatment with medication fails. In the present study, three different virtual maxillary sinus endoscopic surgeries were performed on a realistic 3-D computational model of the nasal cavity of an adult male under the supervision of a specialist. They included only uncinectomy, uncinectomy + 8mm Middle Meatal Antrostomy (MMA) and uncinectomy + 18 mm MMA. Simulations were performed for two human activity respiratory rates, including rest and moderate activities, and effects of different surgeries and respiratory rates on maxillary sinus were investigated. It was found that after endoscopic sinus surgery, the volume... 

Although there are many works in which path planning of robots is studied, but path planning of the bevel-tip needles with highly flexible body is different and difficult due to unique properties of soft tissues. Real soft tissues are nonhomogeneously elastic and uncertainly deformable and hence, during needle motions the planned path changes unknowingly. In this paper, a novel adaptive path planning of bevel-tip needles inside the uncertain brain tissue is presented. The proposed approach is based on minimization of a Lyapanov energy function used as the cost function which consists of 6 partial costs: path length, number of changes in bevel direction, tissue deformation, horizontal and... 

Finding an optimal control strategy for a nonlinear uncertain system is a challenging problem in the area of nonlinear controller design. In this paper, a two-level control algorithm is developed for robust optimal control of large-scale nonlinear systems. For this purpose, using a decomposition/coordination framework, the large-scale nonlinear system is first decomposed into several smaller subsystems, at the first level, where a closed-form solution as a feedback of states and interactions is obtained to optimize each subsystem. At the second level, a substitution-type prediction method, as a coordination strategy, is used to compensate the nonlinear terms of the system and to predict the... 

In this paper, a new approach based on hybrid Particle Swarm-Based- Simulated Annealing Optimization (PSO-B-SA) for solving thermal unit commitment (UC) problems is proposed. The PSO-B-SA presented in this paper solves the two sub-problems simultaneously and independently; unit-scheduled problem that determines on/off status of units and the economic dispatch problem for production amount of generating units. Problem formulation of UC is defined as minimization of total objective function while satisfying all the associated constraints such as minimum up and down time, production limits and the required demand and spinning reserve. Simulation results show that the proposed approach can... 

In this paper, a new interaction prediction approach for hierarchical control of non-linear large-scale systems is presented. The proposed approach uses a new gradient-type coordination scheme which is robust with respect to the parameters' variation, and also has a good convergence rate. In classical coordination strategies, which can be divided into the gradient-type and substitution-type approaches, it is not possible to improve the robustness and the convergence rate at the same time, since by increasing one the other decreases. The proposed approach has the main advantages of the gradient-type algorithms in being independent of the parameter's variation and also the initial guess of the... 

In this paper, a new decomposition-coordination framework is presented for two-level optimal control of large-scale nonlinear systems. In the proposed approach, decomposition is performed by defining an interaction vector, while coordination is based on a new interaction prediction approach. In the first level, sub-problems are solved for nonlinear dynamics using a gradient method, while in the second level, the coordination is done using the gradient of coordination errors. This is in contrast to the conventional gradient-type coordination schemes, where they use the gradient of Lagrangian function. It is shown that the proposed decomposition-coordination framework considerably reduces the... 

In this paper, a novel computational algorithm is proposed for hierarchical optimal control of nonlinear systems. The hierarchical control uses a new coordination strategy based on the gradient of the coordination errors. This type of coordination extremely reduces the number of iterations required for obtaining the overall optimal solution. The performance and the convergence rate of the proposed approach, in compare to the classical gradient-type interaction prediction approach, is shown through simulations of a benchmark continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) problem. ©2008 IEEE  

In this paper, a new interaction prediction approach is presented for optimal control of nonlinear large-scale systems. The proposed approach uses a new gradient-type coordination scheme which has a larger convergence region with respect to the parameters' variation, and also has a good convergence rate. In this approach, the coordination vector is updated using the gradient of coordination error. This type of coordination considerably reduces the number of iterations. The robustness and the convergence rate of the proposed approach against the best classical interaction prediction approaches are shown through simulations of a benchmark problem. © 2008 IEEE  

Recently, moment dual approach of sums of squares relaxations developed for polynomial optimization problems was successfully extended to optimization problems with polynomial matrix inequality constraints. In this paper, we first derive an efficient polynomial formulization for matrix rank minimization problem which does not add any slack variable or additional equality or inequality constraint. Using the aforementioned theory, then we propose a hierarchy of convex LMI relaxations to provide a sequence of increasingly tight lower bounds on the global minimum rank of an arbitrary matrix under linear and polynomial matrix inequality constraints. Surprisingly enough, these lower bounds are... 

We consider the problem of minimizing rank of a matrix under linear and nonlinear matrix inequality constraints. This problem arises in diverse applications such as estimation, control and signal processing and it is known to be computationally NP-hard even when constraints are linear. In this paper, we first formulize the RMP as an optimization problem with linear objective and simple nonlinear semialgebraic constraints. We then proceed to solve the problem with augmented Lagrangian method known in nonlinear optimization. Despite of other heuristic and approximate methods in the subject, this method guarantees to find the global optimum in the sense that it does not depends on the choice of... 

In this paper, the intra-cell link adaptation problem is formulated as a constrained nonconvex nondifferentiable optimization problem to maximize the average link throughput while guaranteeing the best possible coverage reliability. We proceed to solve the resulted nonsmooth optimization problem using proximal point bundle method known in nondifferentiable optimization context. For this purpose, we first exploit the problem structure and reduce the original large scale optimization problem to a sequence of one-dimensional problems coordinated by a master program using direct primal decomposition technique. Proximal bundle method with aggregation policy is then adopted in master program to... 

The ability of Paraconiothyrium variabile, a laccase producing ascomycete recently isolated from soil, was studied to eliminate chlorophenol derivatives in submerged culture medium. Among the tested compounds, ρ-chlorophenol (ρ-CP) and pentachlorophenol (PCP) were found to have minimum and maximum toxic effects, respectively, on the growth of the microorganism and at the same time high and low bioelimination percentages. The fungal strain was able to remove 86% of ρ-CP (with initial concentration of 40mgl -1) and 56% of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP; with same concentration as ρ-CP) after 9 days of incubation while no elimination was observed in the presence of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol... 

A repeated inflation-unemployment game within the linear-quadratic frame-work of Barro and Gordon is studied assuming that the government would like to cheat optimally and the finite heterogeneous population of private agents attempts to learn the government's targets using a reinforcement learning algorithm. Private agents are heterogeneous in their initial expectations of inflation rate but are assumed to utilize an identical anticipatory reinforcement learning process, namely Q-learning. In our heterogeneous setting, the only way for the private agents to achieve a zero value for their loss function, is for all of them to correctly anticipate the Nash equilibrium. It is of particular... 

A repeated inflation-unemployment game within the linear-quadratic framework of Barro and Gordon is studied assuming that the government would like to cheat optimally and the finite heterogeneous population of private agents attempts to learn the government's targets using a reinforcement learning algorithm. Private agents are heterogeneous in their initial expectations of inflation rate but are assumed to utilize an identical anticipatory reinforcement learning process, namely Q-learning. In our heterogeneous setting, the only way for the private agents to achieve a zero value for their loss function, is for all of them to correctly anticipate the Nash equilibrium. It is of particular... 

Cat free fall righting maneuverer has inspired many aerial, space and legged robotic research. Conservation of angular momentum principle is used to derive the inverse differential kinematic and TMT vector form dynamics of the motion for three robotic models: a two-link model, a three-link model with tail, and a comprehensive eight-link model with the addition of legs. The path planning problem in the presence of geometric and kinematic constraints is addressed using a novel singularity free single shooting optimization method. While a 2 DOF torso is sufficient to perform a full maneuver, the addition of the tail reduces the time and increases the maneuverability despite the leg motions that...