Sharif Digital Repository

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has considerably affected human beings most of whom are healthcare workers (HCWs) combating the disease in the front line. Methods: This cross-sectional study aims to explore the effects of stress and anxiety caused by COVID-19 on the quality of sleep and life in HCWs, including physicians, nurses, and other healthcare staff. In this global study, we asked 1,210 HCWs (620 and 590 volunteers from Iran and European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, respectively), who age 21–70, to participate in the test. Several measures of COVID-related stress, anxiety, sleep, and life quality, including the 12-item General Health Questionnaire... 

Background. Temporary artery clipping facilitates safe cerebral aneurysm management, besides a risk for cerebral ischemia. We developed an artificial neural network (ANN) to predict the safe clipping time of temporary artery occlusion (TAO) during intracranial aneurysm surgery. Method. We devised a three-layer model to predict the safe clipping time for TAO. We considered age, the diameter of the right and left middle cerebral arteries (MCAs), the diameter of the right and left A1 segment of anterior cerebral arteries (ACAs), the diameter of the anterior communicating artery, mean velocity of flow at the right and left MCAs, and the mean velocity of flow at the right and left ACAs, as well... 

A novel method based on EEG nonlinear analysis and analysis of steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) has been processed. The EEG phase space is reconstructed, and some new geometrical features are extracted. Statistical analysis is carried out based on ANOVA, and most significant features are selected and then fed into a multi-class support vector machine (MSVM). Both offline and online phases are considered to fully address SSVEP detection. In the offline mode, the whole design evaluation, feature selection, and classifier training are performed. In the online scenario, the proposed method is evaluated and the detection rate is reported for both phases. Subject-dependent and... 

Blind source separation (BSS) methods have received a great deal of attention in electroencephalogram (EEG) artifact elimination as they are routine and standard signal processing tools to remove artifacts and reserve desired neural information. On the other hand, a classifier should follow BSS methods to automatically identify artifactual sources and remove them in the following steps. In addition, removing all detected artifactual components leads to loss of information since some desired information related to neural activity leaks to these sources. So, an approach should be employed to detect and suppress the artifacts and reserve neural activity. This study introduces a novel method... 

Multi-sensor tracking is widely used for augmentation of tracking accuracy using data fusion. A basic requirement for such applications is the real time temporal synchronization and spatial registration of two sensory data. In this study a new method for time and space coordination of two tracking sensor measurements has been presented. For spatial registration we used a body coordinate system and then applied the effect of the level arm. The time synchronization was done based on least mean square (LMS) error method. This method was implemented to synchronize the position and orientation of an object using Inertial (1IMU) and Optical (Optotrak) tracking systems. The results of synchronized... 

Steady State Visual Evoked Potential (SSVEP) based Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) can be great assistance for people suffering from physical disabilities due to their high accuracy, high speed, an acceptable number of possible targets, etc. Many researchers have managed to design such systems. Most of these BCIs utilize methods for frequency detection which cause the system to need a training phase for each new user, making the system a user-based one. That is why our goal was to design a BCI that not only has accuracy and speed comparable to similar systems, but also does not need any training phase and thus can be used by new users right away. Our final design got a mean accuracy of... 

In recent years, development of the superelements has significantly influenced the analysis of structural dynamics. One of the common implementation of this element has been in the analysis of plates and shells. In this paper, application of superelements in the vibration analysis of orthotropic rectangular plates with different boundary conditions is considered, in which bending and in-plane displacements are also included. Results of this study indicate that there is a good agreement between single superelement and 625 elements using conventional methods © 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V  

In this paper, the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) symmetry transformation is presented for the noncommutative U(N) gauge theory. The nilpotency of the charge associated with this symmetry is then proved. As a consequence of the spacelike noncommutativity parameter, the Hubert space of physical states is determined by the cohomology space of the BRST operator as in the commutative case. Further, the unitarity of the S-matrix elements projected onto the subspace of the physical states is deduced. © 2003 The American Physical Society  

In this paper, the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) symmetry transformation is presented for the noncommutative [Formula Presented] gauge theory. The nilpotency of the charge associated with this symmetry is then proved. As a consequence of the spacelike noncommutativity parameter, the Hilbert space of physical states is determined by the cohomology space of the BRST operator as in the commutative case. Further, the unitarity of the S-matrix elements projected onto the subspace of the physical states is deduced. © 2003 The American Physical Society  

In this paper we have proposed an evolutionary algorithm to induct fuzzy classification rules. The algorithm uses an ant colony optimization based local searcher to improve the quality of final fuzzy classification system. The proposed algorithm is performed on Intrusion Detection as a high-dimensional classification problem. Results show that the implemented evolutionary ACO-Based algorithm is capable of producing a reliable fuzzy rule based classifier for intrusion detection. © 2007 IEEE  

The most prevalent musculoskeletal condition and one of the most disabilities are caused by low back pain. In the low back pain, a large variety of evaluation tools is presented to assess the results of the treatment; therefore, it is important to measure the trunk angle in order to determine the progress during patient's treatment. In this project, we developed a low cost prototype system for flexion-extension movement to measure the angle of the trunk in sagital plane. The system consists of clothing that is stretchable; a Rubbery Ruler sensor (RRs) attached on clothing, data acquisition system. Inertial Magnetic Unit (IMU) sensor installed on spine is used to calibrate the orientation for... 

Scheduling and Operation of Virtual Power Plants: Technical Challenges and Electricity Markets provides a multidisciplinary perspective on recent advances in VPPs, ranging from required infrastructures and planning to operation and control. The work details the required components in a virtual power plant, including smartness of power system, instrument and information and communication technologies (ICTs), measurement units, and distributed energy sources. Contributors assess the proposed benefits of virtual power plant in solving problems of distributed energy sources in integrating the small, distributed and intermittent output of these units. In addition, they investigate the likely... 

Since the beginning of industrial age the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases has been increased significantly due to excessive use of fossil fuels. An effective way for decreasing emission of greenhouse gases is injection of CO2 in geological formations. Moreover, from the reservoir engineering point of view, CO2 injection has been considered as a method of enhancing oil and gas recovery. While using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been the subject of several studies in the past decades, enhanced gas recovery (EGR) has not been fully studied in the gas reservoirs, mainly because of high recovery factor of gas reservoirs and mixing of the reservoir gas and CO2. In this... 

One of the most promising methods for transporting natural gas and overcoming its low energy density is adsorbed natural gas (ANG) technology. ANG technology is highly dependent on the perfect conception of adsorption isotherms in different operational conditions and on different adsorbents. In this study, the utilization of a novel mathematical model of least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) for accurate prediction of adsorption isotherm has been examined. The considered variables were temperature, pressure and type of adsorbents. A data set containing 670 experimental data points of methane adsorption on 10 different adsorbents in a broad range of temperature and pressure were used... 

Dual axis micromirrors are actuated using strongly nonlinear electrostatic actuation and their operating range suffers from the pull-in problem. So investigation of their dynamics and control issues has become a challenge for the researchers. The current paper makes use of fuzzy controllers for the purpose of stabilizing the dual axis micromirror at the desired tilt angles beyond pull-in. At first the dynamic model of the micromirror is presented. Then for the purpose of finding the linguistic laws governing the system behavior, several step voltages are introduced to the system. The proposed fuzzy controller consists of singleton fuzzifier, product inference engine and center average... 

one of the important issues of construction industry today, is providing a meaningful interconnectivity between Architecture and its technical and technological aspects. In construction projects aesthetic and form is habitually crucial for the architect while structural designers aim for efficiency and stability of the structure. This research is concerned with the design of an urban footbridge located in Tehran-Iran with social and cultural spaces in which the form of the bridge is obtained by the use of topology optimization process. The objective of this study is to investigate the utilization of topology optimization process in architecture in order to achieve a beneficial design... 

The aim of this study was to determine the workspace of surgeon's body for designing more efficient surgical robots in the operation rooms. Five wearable inertial sensors were placed near the wrist and elbow joints and also on the thorax of surgeons to track the orientation of upper limb. Assuming that the lengths of five segments of an upper limb were known, measurements of the inertial sensors were used to determine the position of the wrist and elbow joints via an established kinematic model. subsequently, to assess the workspace of surgeon upper body, raw data were collected in the arthroscopy and laparoscopy operations. Experimental results demonstrated that the workspaces of surgeon's... 

When properties of the displacing fluid are considered, the rising profile of the penetrating fluid in a capillary tube deviates from its classical Lucas-Washburn profile. Also, shape of capillary tube can affect the rising profile in different aspects. In this article, effect of capillary tube's shape on the vertical capillary motion in presence of gravity is investigated by considering the properties of the displacing fluid. According to the fact that the differential equation of the capillary rising for a non-simple wall type is very difficult to solve analytically, a finite element simulation model is used for this study. After validation of the simulation model with an experiment that...