Sharif Digital Repository

In this study, reinforcement of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) was investigated using the sol-gel surface modified diamond nanoparticles (NDs). Nanocomposite samples were synthesized via in-situ polymerization using bi-supported Ziegler-Natta catalyst. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and contact angle measurements proved the proper silanization (∼1.9%) of NDs. Characterization of the catalysts revealed decrease in the activity of catalysts in presence of NDs which were responsible for the lower average molecular weight of the samples. Field emission scanning electron microscopy revealed an improved dispersion of the modified NDs in... 

The aim of the present research is to simulate dynamic behavior of the human auditoria peripherals during sound transmission using the equivalent six-degrees-of-freedom lumped parameter mathematical model. Transmissibility analysis was employed to get a better insight into the sound transmission from tympanic membrane to malleus, incus, stapes, and cochlea. Furthermore, transmissibility from each member to corresponding adjacent member was carried out to functional analysis of the human ear. Simulation study illustrated that the results are in agreement with the experimental results published in the literature, and the proposed model provides more information in the dynamic analysis of... 

The assessment of forest sustainability in the Asian and Pacific Region was carried out. It was stated that 61 countries are members of the largest United Nations regional commission, the Economic Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP). The study showed that for about one third of these countries, the national forest and woodland coverage has steadily diminished and for more than 50 percent of the remaining countries the coverage has not improved significantly. The results confirmed the significance of the region 's forest sustainability problem and its forthcoming challenges for the 21st century  

Having studied the intergranular crack nucleation in bicrystalline materials under fatigue [1], the concepts are extended to innovative treatise of crack initiation in thin-film metallizations under coupled interaction of thermomechanical fatigue (IMF) and corrosion. The pile-up of dislocations under thermal cycling and diffusion of corrosive agents have interacting effects in accelerating crack nucleation. It is shown that the corresponding evolutionary partial differential equation (PDE), which governs diffusion of the corrosive agent, contains two terms that involve the first and second spatial derivatives of hydrostatic pressure. Through dependence of the hydrostatic pressure on normal... 

In this paper we try to alleviate the problem of scares resources for developing Farsi-English Statistical Machine Translation system (SMT). It is done by applying Active Learning (AL) idea to choose more informative sentences to be translated by a human and then be added to the base-line corpus. While using the human translations is worthless in compare to the other approaches of corpus gathering (like automatic approaches), it is more costly too. So, in this way we can improve the translation system with less cost. This is done in intricate to human translator. Applying Active learning idea to a SMT system, changes it to a system which can improve its based-line corpus by asking for the... 

Semiconductor photoelectrodes for water oxidation that absorb visible light usually have poor electronic transport properties and small optical absorption coefficients near their absorption edge. Therefore, innovative designs that lead to significant optical absorption in relatively thin layers of these compounds are highly desirable. Here, using full-field electromagnetic optical simulations, we demonstrate that a monolayer of resonant-size BiVO4 spheres can provide enhancement up to a factor of two in solar light absorption relative to dense planar layers. In this monolayer, BiVO4 spheres do not need to be interconnected; therefore, such monolayers are flexible and their fabrication... 

A new computational algorithm is introduced in the present study to solve multimaterial topology optimization problems. It is based on the penalization of the objective functional by the multiphase volume constrained Ginzburg-Landau energy functional. The update procedure is based on the gradient flow of the objective functional by a fractional step projected steepest descent method. In the first step, the new design is found based on the projected steepest descent method to ensure the reduction in the objective functional, simultaneously satisfying the control constraints. In the second step, regularization step, an H1 regularity of the solution is ensured while keeping the feasibility of... 

A new method for the evaluation of separation quality in hyphenated chromatographic measurements based on the information-theoretic concept of mutual information (MI) is developed. The MI values for the purest spectra selected using the simple-to-use interactive self-modeling mixture analysis (SIMPLISMA) and orthogonal projection approach (OPA) methods are calculated according to the differential information entropy (Shannon entropy). To calculate the MI values for more than two variables, the Kozachenko-Leonenko (KL) estimation of the Shannon entropy is used. The MI values of the purest spectra can reliably reflect the degree of peak overlap in the chromatographic direction. Herein, the... 

Knowledge of process parameters during and after hot rolling is a significant requirement in order to produce a material with the desired microstructures and mechanical properties. In continuous hot rolling mills, different stages may exist, including water descaling, rolling stands, interstand sections, and run-out table. In each of these sections, various thermal and/or mechanical conditions are applied on the rolling metal that would affect material response in successive stages. In other words, an integrated model should be employed in hot rolling operations to evaluate metal behavior and microstructural events at the same time. Therefore, the thermal-mechanical response as well as... 

Power system operation from an operator's perspective. Power systems are operated with the primary objectives of safety, reliability, and efficiency. Practical Power System Operation is the first book to provide a comprehensive picture of power system operation for both professional engineers and students alike. The book systematically describes the operator's functions, the processes required to operate the system, and the enabling technology solutions deployed to facilitate the processes. In his book, Dr. Ebrahim Vaahedi, an expert practitioner in the field, presents a holistic review of: The current state and workings of power system operation; Problems encountered by operators and... 

Solid-state joining of powder-metallurgy processed (P/M) Al–2 vol% Al2O3 (15 nm) nanocomposite by friction stir welding (FSW) was studied. The nanocomposite was prepared via high-energy mechanical milling followed by hot consolidation processes. The microstructure, mechanical properties and fracture behavior of the welds were evaluated and compared with FSWed wrought 1050 aluminum sheets (WAS). We have found that unlike WAS that can processed at various FSW conditions, the working window for the solid-state joining of P/M nanocomposite is narrow and only feasible at relatively high heating inputs. Microstructural studies showed the formation of melted zones with high hardness at the... 

The goal of the present study is to predict the formation of solidification induced defects in castings by thermal criteria functions. In a criterion function method, the heat transfer equation is firstly solved, and then the susceptibility of defect formation at every point in the casting is predicted by computing a local function, criterion function, using results of the thermal analysis. In the first part of the paper, some famous criteria functions, in particular, the Pellini and Niyama criteria, are analyzed and their shortcomings are discussed in details. Then, a new criterion function is suggested to decrease the shape-dependency issue of the former criteria. The feasibility of the... 

Endurance Time (ET) method is a new dynamic procedure that has been recently developed for seismic safety evaluation of structures. This method is based on the comparison of seismic response of new-designed or existing structures under intensifying ET records with the pre-assigned damage index. Also this method can efficiently reproduce the seismic responses of the structures excited by scaled earthquakes that are required in time history analysis by the codes. In this paper, first general idea of this new method is described and then is applied to evaluate the seismic safety of a cylindrical steel storage tank under multidirectional excitations. It is shown that the ET method can predict... 

Inaccuracies in workpiece location lead to errors in position and orientation of machined features on the workpiece, and strongly affect the assemblability and the quality of the product. The accurate positioning of workpiece on a fixture is influenced by rigid body displacements and rotations of the workpiece due to several errors (e.g. geometric radial and position errors in locators and manufacturing tolerances of the workpiece). In this paper, an efficient approach is introduced for analysis and compensation errors in the workpiece-fixture-cutting tool system. A new mathematical formulation of workpiece-fixture modelling is proposed to establish the relationship between the locating... 

Using cluster-based density functional theory we investigate adsorption configurations of an acetophenone molecule on a Si(001) surface and their follow-up proton transfer processes. We examine two possible types of dative-adsorption configurations, up-right standing and flat, as well as compute their follow-up kinetically preferable on-dimer, interdimer, and inter-row proton transfers. Energetics of possible conversions between the achieved adsorption configurations are computed as well. Using all the data obtained, we theoretically illustrate reaction pathways leading to detached hydrogen positions captured in STM imaging of a Si(001) surface exposed to acetophenone vapor at room... 

In this study, the polarization and navigation of neuronal cells was studied in response to quantified gradients of nerve growth factor (NGF). To accomplish this, a microfluidic device was designed and fabricated to generate stable concentration gradients of biomolecules in a cell culture chamber within a 3D microenvironment. Numerical simulation was implemented to optimize the device geometry for generating a uniform concentration gradient of NGF which was found to remain stable for multiple hours. Neural Stem/ Progenitor Cell (NSCs) migration and differentiation was studied within this microfluidic device in response to NGF concentration and within a 3D environment of collagen matrix.... 

This study investigates the role of cell-cell and cell-ligand interactions in cytoskeleton organization of endothelial cells (ECs) and their directional migration within a microfluidic device. The migration of ECs in response to a biochemical factor was studied. Mathematical analysis of the cell migration pathways and cellular cytoskeleton revealed that directional migration, migration persistence length, migration speed, and cytoskeletal stress fiber alignment can be mediated by the level of cell contacts as well as the presence or absence of a biochemical polarizing factor. It was shown that in the presence of a biochemical polarizing factor, higher cell density and more frequent cell... 

Electroencephalography (EEG)-based functional brain networks have been investigated frequently in health and disease. It has been shown that a number of graph theory metrics are disrupted in brain disorders. EEG-based brain networks are often studied in the whole-brain framework, where all the nodes are grouped into a single network. In this study, we studied the brain networks in two hemispheres and assessed whether there are any hemispheric-specific patterns in the properties of the networks. To this end, resting state closed-eyes EEGs from 44 healthy individuals were processed and the network structures were extracted separately for each hemisphere. We examined neurophysiologically... 

Investigating the behavior of materials in plastic limit is very important in different fields of engineering. Due to the simplicity of implementation and numerical stability, implicit types of algorithms are conventionally used to deal with plasticity problems. The backward Euler method as a first order accurate algorithm has proven very efficient for integrating the rate form of differential equations governing the behavior of different plasticity models. However, it is desirable to have algorithms with superior performance and quadratic rate of convergence compared with backward Euler method. Many second order integration algorithms have been proposed in the literature which are majorly... 

This paper examines the relationship between human sin and divine hiddenness, drawing on views that are widely acknowledged within the Reformed tradition. It argues, f.irst, that according to these views there is no inculpable nonbelief, and thus, second, that a crucial premise in the atheistic argument from divine hiddenness is untenable. The overarching question here is: If there is a sensus divinitatis, is it possible to be an inculpable nonbeliever? To answer this question, the cognitive efffects of sin on our sensus divinitatis as a faculty of producing basic beliefs about God will be assessed. I conclude that the premise which many f.ind plausible-that there is inculpable nonbelief-is...