Sharif Digital Repository

Road traffic crashes have become an important public health problem. By studying the statistics of heavy vehicle crashes in the world, it becomes obvious that although heavy vehicle drivers experience fewer crashes than private car drivers, a large percentage of heavy vehicle crashes leads to death. So, it is important to identify the driving characteristics of heavy vehicle drivers. In this study, 474 Iranian truck drivers were interviewed face to face. Response rate of the survey was 80%, the participants who answered the questions on two behavioral questionnaires: Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ) and Attention-Related Driving Error Scale (ARDES). Also, two sleep assessing... 

In the framework of chiral kinetic theory (CKT), we consider a system of right-and left-handed Weyl fermions out of thermal equilibrium in a homogeneous weak magnetic field. We show that the Lorentz invariance implies a modification in the definition of the momentum current in the phase space, compared to the case in which the system is in global equilibrium. Using this modified momentum current, we derive the linearized conservation equations from the kinetic equation up to second order in the derivative expansion. It turns out that the eigenmodes of these equations, namely the hydrodynamic modes, differ from those obtained from the hydrodynamic in the Landau-Lifshitz (LL) frame at the same... 

Flexible and lightweight fiber-shaped micro-supercapacitors have attracted tremendous attention as next-generation portable electronic devices, due to their high flexibility, tiny volume, and wearability. Herein, we successfully fabricated a ternary binder-free nanocomposite of MnO2/PEDOT:PSS-rGO on a carbon fiber substrate for application in high performance fiber-shaped micro-supercapacitors. The synergistic effects of the different components in the fiber-shaped electrode help to deliver a high specific capacitance of 2.9 F cm-2 (194 F cm-3 and 550 mF cm-1) at a current density of 5 mA cm-2 and a long cycle life with 95% capacitance retention after 5000 cycles in 1 M Na2SO4 electrolyte. A... 

Convolution Neural Networks (CNNs), despite being one of the most successful image classification methods, are not robust to most geometric transformations (rotation, isotropic scaling) because of their structural constraints. Recently, scale steerable filters have been proposed to allow scale invariance in CNNs. Although these filters enhance the network performance in scaled image classification tasks, they cannot maintain the scale information across the network. In this paper, this problem is addressed. First, a CNN is built with the usage of scale steerable filters. Then, a scale equivariat network is acquired by adding a feature map to each layer so that the scale-related features are... 

Traffic collisions are one of the most important challenges threatening the general health of the world. Iran's crash statistics demonstrate that approximately 16,500 people lose their lives every year due to road collisions. According to the traffic police of Iran, heavy vehicles (including trailers, trucks, and panel trucks) contributed to 20.5% of the fatal road traffic collisions in the year 2013. This highlights the need for devoting special attention to heavy vehicle drivers to further explore their driving characteristics. In this research, the effect of heavy vehicle drivers' behavior on at-fault collisions over three years has been investigated with an innovative approach of... 

In this paper, the elastic contact problem of an asymmetrical shallow wedge with a half-plane is considered. The potential function of the contact problem has been obtained through a simple approach. This approach simplifies the routine method of determination of potential functions in elastic contact problems. Then this approach was utilized to solve the aforementioned geometry under frictionless and frictional condition. Utilization of the new relation not only simplifies the procedure of solving contact problems but also is very helpful for fretting fatigue studies. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved  

Deep neural networks have been shown to be vulnerable to adversarial examples deliberately constructed to misclassify victim models. As most adversarial examples have restricted their perturbations to the Lp-norm, existing defense methods have focused on these types of perturbations and less attention has been paid to unrestricted adversarial examples; which can create more realistic attacks, able to deceive models without affecting human predictions. To address this problem, the proposed adversarial attack method generates an unrestricted adversarial example with a limited number of parameters. The attack selects three points on the input image and based on their locations transforms the... 

This paper aims to examine the key factors influencing driving risk perception in Iran. We conducted separate surveys for two groups of Iranian drivers, namely passenger car drivers and truck drivers. In order to assess driving risk perception, respondents were asked what they think about their Probability of Having a Road Accident (PHRA) and if they eventually have an accident as a driver, what they think about the Probability of it being Fatal or causing Severe Injury (PFSI). A Bivariate Ordered Probit model, which considers the possible correlation between PHRA and PFSI, was developed to explain the observed driving risk perception using type of vehicle, driving experience,... 

This paper presents the kinematic and dynamic modeling of a two degrees of freedom manipulator attached to a vehicle with a two degrees of freedom suspension system. The vehicle is considered to move with a constant linear speed over an irregular ground-surface while the end-effector tracks a desired trajectory in a fixed reference frame. In addition, the effects of highly coupled dynamic interaction between the manipulator and vehicle (including the suspension system's effects) have been studied. Finally, simulation results for the end-effector's straight-line trajectory are presented to illustrate these effects  

A mini-column was made by packing α-diphenylglyoxime (DPG), a known ligand for complexation with nickel ions, loaded on activated charcoal (AC). Water samples were buffered at the pH range 8-9 and then passed through the column. After the preconcentration step, the column was eluted with 0.2 M nitric acid into the atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS). Mixed-level orthogonal array design (OAD) was used as a chemometric approach to study the effect of various factors on recovery of extraction. Factors such as pH, amount of sorbent, flow rate of sample, concentration and volume of the sample were investigated. Effects of interference ions, i.e., Co, Cu, Bi, Fe(I1), Pt and Pd was also studied.... 

A manipulator mounted on a moving vehicle is called a mobile manipulator. A mobile manipulator with an appropriate suspension system can pass over uneven surfaces, thus having an infinite workspace. If the manipulator could operate while the vehicle is traveling, the efficiency concerning with the time and energy used for stopping and starting will be increased. This paper presents the kinematic and dynamic modeling of a one degree of freedom manipulator attached to a vehicle with a two degrees of freedom suspension system. The vehicle is considered to move with a constant linear speed over an uneven surface while the end effector tracks a desired trajectory in a fixed reference frame. In... 

Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is a fast, solvent-free technique, which, since its introduction in the 1990s, has been increasingly applied to sample preparation in analytical chemistry. Conventional SPME fibers are fabricated by making a physical bond between the usual silica substrate and the polymeric coatings. However, some applications are limited, as the lifetime and the stability of conventional SPME fibers cannot meet the demands of analyzing relatively non-volatile compounds with more polar moieties. There have been attempts to analyze less volatile compounds by increasing the thermal, physical and chemical stability of the fibers. In this review, we present some new... 

In this study, an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) approach is incorporated with a mixed finite-volume-element (FVE) method to establish a novel moving boundary method for simulating unsteady incompressible flow on non-stationary meshes. The method collects the advantages of both finite-volume and finite-element (FE) methods as well as the ALE approach in a unified algorithm. In this regard, the convection terms are treated at the cell faces using a physical-influence upwinding scheme, while the diffusion terms are treated using bilinear FE shape functions. On the other hand, the performance of ALE approach is improved by using the Laplace method to improve the hybrid grids, involving... 

Asymmetric contact problem of an elastic wedge and an elastic half-plane has been considered. Contact pressure distributions as well as the lengths of the contact zones are extracted analytically. The results have been compared with the results of the symmetric problem and also the FE modelling of the problem which show excellent agreement. The method of approach is a completely analytical method based on the singular integral equations. In this method, the boundary conditions of the problem are stated as some singular integrals and distribution of the contact pressure is determined. Then, with the aid of the equilibrium equations and the consistency conditions of the singular integral... 

It is widely recognized that knowledge is an essential strategic resource for a firm to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and Knowledge Management (KM) is a fundamental concept for those interested in the ever changing business world. However, KM has received little attention in Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs). Unique characteristics of SMEs affect their approach in knowledge management, so different KM processes should be applied in these firms. SMEs have very simple structures, so they have less difficulty in managing their internal knowledge than large organizations. But this is not the case for external knowledge management, especially external knowledge acquisition... 

Purpose - One major challenge in turbulent flow applications is to control the recirculation zone behind the backward-facing step (BFS). One simple idea to do so is to modify the original BFS geometry, of course, without causing adverse or undesirable impacts on the original characteristics of the primary stream. The main objective of this work is to examine the solidity of the recirculation zone behind several different geometries which are slightly to moderately different from the original BFS geometry. Design/methodology/approach - The implemented modifications cause complicated irregularities at the boundaries of the domain. The experience shows that the mesh distribution around these... 

Knowledge of potential and field distribution in the insulation system of a transformer during transient excitation is vital to its construction [1]. This paper deals with insulation design improvements of power transformers using electric field analysis. The calculation methods for electric field analysis, inside a power transformer impressed with impulse and power frequency voltages, are presented. Initially, a lumped parameter equivalent model is constructed by dividing transformer windings into several blocks and computing the electric circuit parameters of this model. Next, the electric field is determined by employing the results of the transformer transient model circuit analysis as...