Sharif Digital Repository

The main scope of this research is to develop an anthropometric lower extremity exoskeleal system in a virtual environment for augmentation purposes. The main challenge in the process of doing this research is to employ the biomechanical analysis of the human locomotion to provide the necessary background information for the design of devices that closely mimic the dynamics of the operator's motion. In this case, the appropriate degrees-of-freedom and associated range of motions for each joint should be determined. In addition, the kind of necessary actuators and measurement systems should be selected based on the muscle torque consumption analysis provided by a musculoskeletal model,... 

Frequency scarcity has emerged the necessity of opportunistic utilization of frequency bands, which can be realized through a cognitive radio system. During an agile communication between unlicensed users, a cognitive radio system must avoid collision with licensed users. Hence it should continuously observe the band of interest and report the presence of licensed user signals. This task is fulfilled by a vital part of a cognitive radio system, called the spectrum sensing core. Recently several techniques have been proposed for the spectrum sensing in literature. Some of them like matched filtering, cyclostationarity based detection are based on primary user signal features. However energy... 

Drop penetration into the capillary tube, as a classical problem, has been studied over 100 years. But there are a few studies that investigate forced impregnation of capillary tubes, which has major application in coating, inkjet printing and rain drop penetration into the soil, have been made. A comprehensive numerical investigation on millimeter droplet impact dynamics on a thick capillary tube with micrometer sized pore is conducted and validated against experimental data. This work is extended to oblique impact of drops into pores and normal impact on nanoscaled pores. We apply the finite volume numerical method to solve the time-dependent governing equations of continuity, momentum in... 

This study seeks to compare the effect of curing conditions in the sea, coast, and middle of the island environment on five mix designs of alkali-activated concrete (AAC) based on ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and fly ash (FA) and the effect of the ratio of sodium silicate (SS) to sodium hydroxide (SH) and alkali activated solutions (AAMS) to the binder on mechanical properties. The compressive strength and load-deflection test was conducted to obtain uniaxial compressive strengths (UCS), modulus of elasticity ("E" _"S" ), elastic and ultimate strain, and dissipated energy. The most significant decrease in strength was observed in the coastal area and the sea. Also, the... 

In this study we investigate the performance of amplify-and-forward (AF) and beamforming schemes in wireless networks. In our study we consider a general cooperative network consisting one transmit-receive pair and an arbitrary number of relays in which each relay has a separate power constraint. A two-step master-slave protocol is deployed in which at the first stage, relays listen to the transmitter and at the second stage, relays forward the recently received signal coherently. Main contributions of this dissertation are providing the exact closed-form of bit error rate analysis in the case of general AF networks, providing an integral-form upper bound of error probability of network... 

Michael Zimmerman in his book Living with Uncertainty has objected to two views of moral obligation, namely objective and subjective view. Two overcome these problems he suggests a third view which he calls prospective view and tells us that our moral obligation is determined by the prospection that each of our choices give us. In this thesis first I review Zimmerman’s objections to objective and subjective view. Then I try to suggest a solution for the objective view  

This dissertation consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, a description of formation of Darwin's theory of Evolution is expressed. After that, the process of formation of modern theory of Evolution, along with an explanation of the theory of evolution and the evidence for it was mentioned. In the second season, which is responsible for the scientific study of the theory, at some point the evidence of this theory has been reviewed. After that, some of the challenges raised against this theory have been studied. The major scientific challenges described in this chapter is based on recent advances made in biology, based on that, the mechanism of theory can’t explain the complex... 

In Naming and Necessity and Identity and Necessity, Kripke convinced many that there are necessary propositions which are knowable only a posteriori. Kripke’s examples of these propositions can be placed into three categories: 1) Some mathematical propositions like Goldbach’s conjecture (the conjecture that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes) 2) Scientific truths like “Water is H2O”, “Gold has the atomic number 79”, etc. 3) Identity statements flanked on both sides with proper names; like “Hesperus is Phosphorus”, “Cicero is Tully” and the like (in the rest of this article, these three categories will be called, respectively, the first, the second and... 

In his Mind, Brain and Free Will, Swinburne introduces a new argument for substance dualism based on the synchronic unity of humans’ conscious experiences. He argues that the human body cannot be the substance of such a synchronic unity, and that this coexperiencing property, which is a mental property, is the essential property of the human substance: hence our substance is a mental substance. After providing a careful explanation of Swinburne’s subtle argument, I first try to demonstrate that it is metaphysically possible that the brain itself could instantiate such a synchronic unity without the need to presume another substance. Then I shall argue that it is unclear how to infer the... 

Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (1912-1989) is an analytic philosopher whose philosophy is famous for being deep, systematic and extremely influential and notorious for being difficult to read. Although he has many original and interconnected ideas in different branches of philosophy- including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics, philosophy of language and meta-philosophy- the place of science in his system is completely indispensable. In his meta-philosophy, Sellars defines his philosophical project as an attempt to reconcile two distinct world-views of humanity in the modern word; scientific image and manifest image. Approaching Sellars’ philosophy by placing science at the... 

Semantic Holism is one of the most effective and wide spreading topics in philosophy of language. W.V.Quine with his “Two Dogmas” article has coined semantic holism with his name. After Quine, semantic holism absorbed many attentions in the philosophy of language and also other fields. Even, in neural networks and artificial intelligence, holistic presumptions about meaning are accepted. Nevertheless, arguments for meaning holism and their validation has not tended enough. Fodor and Lepore, in Semantic Holism; A Shopper’s Guide, are trying to reconstruct arguments for semantic holism that had been presented by philosophers like Quine, Davidson, Dennet, Lewis, and Churchland and then... 

The debate over the nature of perceptual states has been a significant part of the literature of philosophy of the mind during the past two decades. John Campbell's philosophical works on metaphysics and epistemology of sensory perception, according to many of his followers and critics, are among the most coherent contemporary philosophical works with recent advances in cognitive science. His research on the relationship between attention, reference, knowledge and spatial representations is to a large extent supported by scientific ideas in empirical psychology, and it can be said that most of his work is devoted to analyzing and solving the theoretical complexities deriving from empirical... 

This Thesis identifies the pattern of technological learning in developing complex products systems (CoPS). The experiences of Iran in missile development in the defense industry has been studied to explain the learning process in attaining indigenous technological capability. The case study of TOW missile development including international technology transfers has been explored to investigate the technological learning patterns. The role of policy initiatives had excessive importance through technological learning in the case study  

One of the important problems in the history of philosophy of Mind &Science is to respond this question: whether our observations which are the basics of our experiences are theory laden or not? theory-ladenness of observation thesis has been endorsed by Duhem and hansen and thomas kuhn,generally theory-ladensess of observation devide in two concepts, firstly it means the affection of on the observable terms secondly it relates to the affection of theories on our perception and phenomenology of experience. fodor claims that theories has nothing to do with our observation and churchland claims vice versa, both of these philosophers mention their own reasons and in this thesis we are looking... 

Technological capabilities as one of the growth’s aspects in developing countries have gained focus for research in last years. This study attempt to analyze the pattern of technological capabilities in four different sectors including Optic, Aerospace, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology. In each sectors four Iranian companies as the case studies are selected. After deep interviews with key people in each company, required data is gathered. Data in each company is analyzed. The results of analysis for companies in one sector are gathered for analyzing each sector. In order to evaluate technological capabilities, the time required to improve, lead-lag relationship for gaining higher levels of... 

The idea that the intentional states are essentially normative has been much discussed in the philosophies of mind and cognitive sciences in the past few decades. The main idea is that some norms are essentially engaged in constituting the nature of the intentional states. Reaching an accurate formulation of this thesis and arguing for and against it has sparked much disagreements among the proponents and the opponents alike. This dissertation makes the case for a particular version of this thesis, according to which the intentional states, particularly beliefs and intentions, are construed as theoretical and practical commitments. This is the view which has already been defended by several... 

Among fundamental metaphysical quests, one might wonder: Why is there anything at all rather than just nothing? Many contemporary thinkers reject that question because they think it is meaningless, trivial, or necessarily unanswerable. So, most of them view the world’s existence as a brute fact. But I provide reasons for thinking that the Why question could make sense and one might even expect an answer to it. I begin by showing that the Why question could meaningfully ask why the world is not empty of all concrete things. One might regard this question as important if one accepts that it is, in some sense, possible for all concrete things to vanish, one-by-one. Next, against the traditional...