Sharif Digital Repository

Lameness in dairy cattle is a crucial welfare issue in dairy industry, and over the years scientists are attempting to present a detection method. In recent years it is attracting more attention to make the identification and discrimination of sounds and lames systematic and automatic. Right now, the most hopeful results have been obtained through the measurement of Ground Reaction Forces (GRF) of hooves, and analysis of load distribution between four legs, which seems applicable for wide use in dairy industry. However, the accuracy, validity, and reliability of discrimination is still far from an acceptable point, that is because of a great lack in understanding quantitative effects of the... 

Although technological specialization has been recognized as a stimulating factor of international trade (Ricardian theory), new approaches emphasize the endogeneity of technological heterogeneity across countries. Following them, we proceed to examine the effect of free trade on technological differences among 20 OECD members during 1996-2008. We first use the model of Eaton and Kortum (2002) to obtain an annual estimate of technological heterogeneity within the OECD group. We then analyze the behavior of this index facing international trade statistics in the same period. The results show that the OECD countries have been experienced a technological convergence, thanks to a boost in the... 

Superalloys are widely used in aerospace and power industries due to the good performance at high temperatures for examples gas turbines, steam turbines and aircraft components. In addition to the turbines cobalt-base superalloys are used in medical implants such as knee and hip joints. The main strengths of the superalloys are heat-resistant, retaining their high mechanical and chemical properties at high temperatures, high melting temperatures, high corrosion resistance, resistance to thermal fatigue, thermal shock, creep, and erosion. Because of difficult to machine properties of superalloys, grinding is one of the effective methods for machining superalloys. The surface integrity of the... 

Drilling super alloys with a good hole quality and acceptable surface finish is a constant challenge in modern industries dealing with such materials. Ultrasonic assisted drilling is a modern and nonconventional method of drilling which has attracted many researchers attention recently. In this study deep drilling on Inconel 738 LC is done using ultrasonic assisted drilling technique and the results are compared with those of Electro Discharge Machininng or EDM method. The results show that Ultrasonic Assisted Drilling or UAD is an appropriate alternative for EDM of Inconel. The whole process time is decrease dimensional accuracy is improved and surface roughness is decreased significantly.... 

Due to popularity of mobile wireless devices, security of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) being more important than before. Traditional key management schemes based on symmetric key cryptography are became ineffective because of dynamic and infrastructureless nature of these networks.Recent studies are mainly based on traditional public key cryptography schemes and ID-based cryptography schemes. On the other hand, Contributory schemes seem suitable for MANETs because of their inherent self-organize property. Key update and Key revocation are the fundamental issues of key management schemes in mobile ad hoc networks. Certificateless public key cryptography, in addition to solve those issues,... 

International trade arrangements have been considerably developed in recent decadees. Especially, one can note the role of these factors in economic development and improvement of life standards in member countries. In the meantime, Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) was established in 1985, by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey and then extended by seven other countries: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Improving economic development and intra-group trade of member countries is one of the main objectives for the group. The purpose of this research is to estimate the ex-post effects of ECO on the intra-group trade of member countries.... 

In this piece of work, a gravity model is suggested as Iranian non-fuel export model to OIC countries. The most important results out of this model are the acquired coefficients of two variables, namely “ECO membership” and “Economic and Trade Freedom of Importer”. At first, we expected that for importer, being a member of ECO would increase the amount of trade with iran. Surprisingly, this is not what we see in a model. In fact, as ECO has not achieved any tangible success in increasing trade between its members, eastern Asian Muslim countries has become an important trade partner for iranians. This result is compatible with other pieces of researches about ECO. “Economic and Trade Freedom... 

The aim of this research was estimation of investment-specific technological change, using industrial database which is published annually by Bureau of Statistics of Iran. Investment-specific technological change is the quality improvement of investment in capital goods during the time. Before estimation of this rate, production function (regarding 130 industrial activities and during 14 years, 1994-2007) was estimated. All industries classified in 4 groups based on the level of technology used in them. Then factor’s production elasticities were compared between different groups of industries. The results showed that in high-tech industries the elasticities of skilled workers, import and... 

In Ultrasonic Assisted Machining (UAM) a mechanical vibration is added to the relative motion of the tool and workpiece. The frequency of vibration is typically from 20kHz to 100kHz and the amplitude is in the range of 10 to 20 microns. Experiments show that using this method improves the machining performance. Reduction in machining forces and tool wear and improving the cooling condition are some of the advantages of UAM. In this work, the forces of ultrasonic assisted milling are investigated. Applying thin shear plane theorem provides an acceptable theoretical base with minimum dependence on experimental data to analyze machining forces. To evaluate the model and find the effect of... 

Forging process is recognized as the high speed method, economical and with ability to produce high strength parts between metal forming processes. Preform design is the most important step in forging process. In the past this work was done based on experiences. In the complex parts because of error in design there was probability of diverse dies, so that method needed to spent so many times and costs. However recently with progress in computer programming we don’t need to produce diverse dies but spend many times. In this field many investigations are done to dispose designers skills, so forging preform design based on inverse finite elements method is denoted for this gold. In this thesis... 

Machining chatter is unstable and destructive vibrations that leads to damages to the surface of workpiece and reduces the tool life. These damages have significant effects on surface quality and material removal rate. Many studies have been done on chatter modeling and control in various machining processes. On the other hand, recently, ultrasonic vibrations have been used in many manufacturing processes including cutting to enhance the quality of products. Therefore, it is important to investigate the effect of ultrasonic vibrations on the stability of cutting process. Although a number of advantages such as improved surface roughness of workpiece and reduced machining forces have been... 

I-131 isotope is one of the most significant radio medicines for treatments of the thyroid cancer and nuclear tomography of thyroid. As for purification of this radioisotope several methods have been developed among which adsorption-desorption on metallic copper is the most promising. The current study is aimed at elaboration of the kinetics behavior of the different types of metallic copper for adsorption of iodine vapor. The used copper samples included plain and silica-supported Cu nanoparticles as well as micronized copper. The silica-supported Cu nanoparticles were prepared by impregnation of highly porous silica (≈500 m2/g) in Cu(NO3)2 solution, heating of the solution to above... 

Tool Condition Monitoring (TCM) is a vital demand of advanced manufacturing in order to develop automated unmanned production. Tool condition has an essential influence on machined surface quality and dimension of manufactured parts. Continuing machining operation with a worn or damaged tool will result in damages to workpiece and even the machine tool itself. This problem becomes more important in supplementary machining processes like drilling in which the workpiece is usually at the final stages of production and any damage to workpiece at this stage is irreparable and results in high production losses. In this thesis, sound and vibrations signals are analyzed for drill wear detection.... 

Establishing an efficient free trade agreement (FTA) requires some conditions in both trading partners. The median voter approach insists on the direction of general interests (identified by the utility of a median voter) to explain how two countries may agree to sign an FTA. At the other side, lobbying approach emphasizes on the role of interest groups (groups with a large influence on the public decisions) in forming FTAs. Taking into account the theoretically based and empirically robust foundation of the median voter approach, we rely on it to investigate the major determinants of free trade agreements in the case of ECO countries besides all their main trade partners. The database... 

Due to environmental and economical impacts, recovery of the uranium from nuclear wastes is of continuing interest.This work reports the separation of uranyl ionusing transport technique through chloroform liquid membrane containing a mixture of DBDA15C4 and oleic acidas cooperative carrier.The pH of the feed phase (10-4 M of UO22+) was adjusted with nitric acid and acetic acid/NaOH for pHrange of 2-6.The receiving phase was hydrochloric acid 1M.The organic phase was chloroform which includesthe carrier DBDA15C4 (0.0001 M) and also the oleic acid (0.015M).The results showed that the transport increased with increasing pH and reached to maximumat pH of 5.Maximum cooperative effect of oleic... 

Financial structure of firm is a determinant of firm’s cost of capital. Cost of capital is a determinant of firm value, so studding of Factors affecting the financial structure has become one of the most important topics in the financial economics in recent decades. Theoretical studies relating to the financial structure of firm have generally been aimed to studying the determinants of optimal financial structure. Empirical studies have also focused to studying the relationship between observed financial leverage and a set of explanatory variables. This approach has two major shortcomings. First, the observed leverage deviates from the optimal leverage. Second, the empirical analyses are... 

Despite the relative weakness of exchange rate structural models in determination short term fluctuations, observations show that real exchange rate respond to some fundamental economic variables. Due to the growing foreign sector of national economies, recent studies pay special attention to the impact of terms of trade on currency exchange rate. In this study, a structural model of the real exchange rate between the 70 currencies and during the period 1980-2010 has been developed in the context of panel data. Empirical micro-founded model are based on theoretical general equilibrium. Important features of such study are stationary of variables and causality test. Determination the effect... 

In the presence project by using of hydrophilic polymer, Cellulose acetate (CA), we tried to modify the membrane made of Polyvinylidine fluoride (PVDF). The membranes were made by phase inversion method. In five levels, at least 10% and at most 30%, CA was added to casting solution. The hydrophilicity of membranes’ surface and pore size was increased. The permeation of the neat membrane of PVDF was less than 10 , on the other hand the permeation of the membranes, which were made by adding CA, was increased up to 500 . The increment of CA more than 20% reduced the porosity of membrane. In the next step to reduce the irreversibility fouling tried to reduce the pore size by adding some... 

In recent years membrane bioreactors (MBR) were widely used as an advanced process for industrial wastewater treatment. But fouling issue causes some restrictions in these systems. So for fouling reduction many researches were done.In this study for fouling improvement, blending of hydrophilic polymer (PAN) with main polymer PVDF was used. Blending membrane in phase inversion process with DMAC as solvent and water as non-solvent was made. For pore-forming in membranes, PVP as hydrophilic additive with three different composition was added and then for more enhancement of antifouling property of membrane, TiO2 nanoparticles with four different composition were added to polymeric... 

Ionizing radiation can modify physical, chemical and biological properties of the irradiated materials. At present, the principal industrial applications of radiation are sterilization of health care products including pharmaceuticals, irradiation of food and agriculture products and materials modification. In the above application the wide range of the required doses together with different product densities require spatial mechanical design of the irradiators to be able to properly handle the specified tasks. In the multipurpose irradiators the design of system and positioning of the source must be done in such a way that a nearly optimum dose distaition in the product boxes in...