Sharif Digital Repository

Gastpar and Vetterli named the ad hoc networks with one randomly selected source-destination pair as relay networks, and they suggested using arbitrary network coding in order to increase the overall efficiency. Here, the relay network is investigated with two relays, no interference and a new achievable rate is obtained using a new network coding (decode-and-broadcast). The obtained achievable rate (i) gives the lower bound for general relay channel, obtained by Cover and El Gamal, but with a slight difference owing to no interference assumption at the receiver, (ii) includes the one relay rates of a two-level relay channel studied by Gupta and Kumar using point-to-point coding, (iii)... 

The authors indicate the dependence between the inputs of the relay channel with one auxiliary random variable as Cover, El-Gamal and Salehi have done for the multiple access channel with arbitrarily correlated sources. Then, by considering broadcast and multiple access sub-channels in the relay channel, the authors describe the essential role of the relay with special Markovity conditions on the auxiliary random variable and channel input-outputs, and unify most of known capacity theorems into one capacity theorem. The capacity theorem potentially may be applicable to a more general class of relay channels including at least the relay channels with known capacity. © The Institution of... 

An achievable rate region for the genie-aided cognitive radio channel is obtained using the celebrated HanKobayashi jointly decoding strategy for the interference channel and the Gel'fand-Pinsker coding scheme for channels with side information known at the transmitter. The achievable rate region is then simplified by Fourier-Motzkin elimination. The obtained achievable rate region (i) extends the Chong-Motani-Garg region for the interference channel to the cognitive channel and (ii) is a simplified description of the Devroye-Mitran-Tarokh rate region for the genie-aided cognitive radio channel. © 2009 IEEE  

In this paper by solving Dirac equation, we present an analytical solution to calculate energy levels and wave functions of mono- and bilayer graphene quantum dots. By supposing circular quantum dots, we solve Dirac equation and obtain energy levels and band gap with relations in a new closed and practical form. The energy levels are correlated with a radial quantum number and radius of quantum dots. In addition to monolayer quantum dots, AA- and AB-stacked bilayer quantum dots are investigated and their energy levels and band gap are calculated as well. Also, we analyze the influence of the quantum dots size on their energy spectrum. It can be observed that the band gap decreases as quantum... 

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is a biocompatible polymer which can be physically crosslinked by Borax to form hydrogel. PVA-Borax (PB) hydrogel is a promising candidate for drug delivery system. Therefore, it is necessary to find the quantitative relationship between drug release rate and network structure of PB hydrogels to predict and control drug release rate. In this work, at first step the optimum ratio of Borax: PVA was determined by studying the interactions between PVA chains and Borax molecules by means of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, while viscoelastic properties of prepared PB hydrogels were measured in the oscillatory shear flow field. In the following, curcumin as a... 

Nowadays, environmental hazards caused by plastic wastes are a major concern in academia and industry. Utilization of biodegradable polymers derived from renewable sources for replacing common petroleum-based plastics is a potential solution for reducing the problem. In this regard, starch has become one of the most promising alternatives to non-biodegradable polymers for depleting plastic waste thanks to its low expense, abundance, renewability and biodegradability. However, the main drawbacks of starch are its poor processability, weak mechanical properties and severe hydrophilicity. In this work, thermoplastic starch (TPS) samples have been prepared using glycerol and sorbitol as... 

Sintering is a processing technique in which loose particles consolidate at elevated temperatures to form porous monoliths. Sintering is also a critical stage in recent additive manufacturing method like selective laser sintering. In this study, using an affordable alternative to X-ray tomography technique, we analyze the pore structure evolution in sintered parts made of nascent high-density polyethylene (HDPE) particles in terms of pore surface genus and pore surface curvature. Also, we investigate the underlying microstructural development and macroscopic properties of sintered parts. It is observed that pore structure and macroscopic permeability are strongly influenced by the... 

In this paper, by using first-principle density functional theory (DFT) combined with non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF), thermally induced spin current in zigzag and armchair Antimonene Nanoribbon (SbNR) is investigated. Also, we obtain higher spin current in Armchair nanoribbon (ANR) than zigzag nanoribbon (ZNR), because the start energy of transmission for ANR is closer to the Fermi level than ZNR. The results show that the device has a perfect spin Seebeck effect under temperature difference without gate voltage or bias voltage. For the ANR configuration, the competition between spin up holes and spin down electrons leads to negative differential behavior of charge current, which is... 

In this paper, the electrical characteristics of vertical tunneling bilayer graphene field effect transistor (VTBGFET) are theoretically investigated. We evaluate the device behavior using nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism combined with an atomistic tight binding model. By using this method, we extract the most significant figures of merit such as ON/OFF current ratio, subthreshold swing, and intrinsic gate-delay time. The results indicate that using a bilayer graphene instead of a monolayer graphene as the base material for the source and drain regions leads to a larger ON/OFF current ratio due to the presence of an energy bandgap in biased bilayer graphene. Also, the... 

Quadrotors have become very popular, both commercially and as research platforms. Numerous studies have been carried out on these aerial vehicles, covering different aspects of their dynamics and control. Many of the interesting applications of quadrotors arise when they are used as part of a cooperative robotic system, consisting of aerial and ground robots. Two essential steps toward realizing autonomous teams of aerial and ground robots are achieving position coordination between them, and autonomous landing of aerial robots on ground platforms. The goal of this paper is to tackle the problems of tracking and landing of an aerial robot on a mobile platform. Two approaches are presented... 

Disability and motor disorders are some of the problems that people may face due to some factors such as accident, spinal cord injuries, brain damage, and the presence of a problem in neurological commands due to stroke. One of the proposed methods for solving the problems of these people is the use of exoskeletons to generate movement. The main goal of this paper is the control of Sharif Exoskeleton Robot and the reduction of interaction force between user and robot by using human intent detection. This goal is done by estimating the knee torque of one degree of freedom in a swing phase using Hill model based on the EMG data from the thigh muscles. Accordingly, the calibration algorithm is... 

In this paper, we introduce DiFF, a novel extension of the Fast Forward (FF) planning system. FF is a domain independent planner that employs a forward heuristic search. Its search strategy is an enforced form of hill climbing. In order to move to a more promising state, FF evaluates successor states without any particular order. In this paper, we introduce a new form of the enforced hill climbing, which we call directed enforced hill climbing, to enhance the efficiency of Fast Forward planning. This strategy evaluates successor states in the order recommended by an adaptive heuristic function. Our experimental results in several planning domains show a significant improvement in the... 

Most engineering components are subjected to multiaxial rather than uniaxial cyclic loading, which causes multiaxial fatigue. The pre-requisite to predict the fatigue life of such components is to determine the multiaxial stressstrain relationship. In this paper the multiaxial cyclic stress-strain model under proportional loading is derived using the modified power law stress-strain relationship. The equivalent strain amplitude consisted of the normal strain excursion and maximum shear strain amplitude is used in the proportional model to include the additional hardening effect due to nonproportional loading. Therefore a new multiaxial cyclic stress-strain relationship is devised for out of... 

Real-time linear robust control of a two phase hybrid stepper motor with Quantitative Feedback Theory method in micro-stepping operation is considered in this paper. Utilizing the phase currents as inputs, linear robust controller is derived for a Hybrid Stepper Motor that achieves robustness to parametric and dynamic uncertainties such as viscous friction, load torque, flux linkage and other uncertainties. Simulation and experimental studies are presented to show the efficiency of the control design approach  

Cupric oxide (CuO) nanostructures are grown on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) coated glass substrate using aqueous solution approach. The concentration of precursor's solution has significant impact on morphology of CuO nanostructure. By varying concentration of precursor, the growth of two different morphologies (oriented nanosheets and nanoleaves) is achieved. X-ray diffraction pattern and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy reveals formation of pure CuO crystalline phase. Mott-Schottky characteristic confirms the p-type semiconducting nature. Ultrathin structures of nanoleaves lead to higher light trapping and light absorption in visible-NIR region. The nanoleaves film has lower bandgap in... 

We have investigated the effect of bias voltage on sheet resistance, surface roughness and surface coverage of Co/NiO x magnetic bilayer. In addition, interface topography and corrosion resistance of the Ta/Co/Cu/Co/NiO x /Si(1 0 0) system have been studied for Co layers deposited at an optimum bias voltage. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and four point probe sheet resistance (Rs) measurement have been used to determine surface and electrical properties of the sputtered Co layer at different bias voltages ranging from 0 to -80 V. The Co/NiO x bilayer exhibits a minimum surface roughness and low sheet resistance value with a maximum surface coverage at Vb=-60 V resulted in a slight increase of... 

The main scope of this study is to analyse muscle-driven forward dynamics simulation of stair locomotion to understand the functional differences of individual muscles during the movement. A static optimization was employed to minimize a performance criterion based on the muscle energy consumption to resolve muscle redundancy during forward dynamics simulation. The proposed method was employed to simulate a musculoskeletal system with ten degrees of freedom in the sagittal plane and containing 18 Hill-type musculotendon actuators per leg. Simulation results illustrated that simulated joint kinematics closely tracked experimental quantities with root-mean-squared errors less than 1 degree. In... 

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) grafted chitosan was prepared by ceric-initiated graft polymerization of acrylonitrile onto chitosan in a homogenous medium. The copolymer chitosan-g-PAN product was then hydrolyzed to yield a novel smart hydrogel (H-chitoPAN) with superabsorbing properties. The influence of add-on values as well as temperature and time of hydrolysis of the initial chitosan-g-PAN on swelling behavior of the hydrogel was evaluated in water and various salt solutions. The swelling kinetics of the superabsorbing hydrogel was studied as well. The hydrogels exhibited ampholytic and pH-sensitivity characteristics. Several sharp swelling changes were observed in lieu of pH variations in a... 

Flocking through leader following structures in mobile networks raises attractive control problems. Due to limited sensing radii, leaders locally influence a network of agents. In this paper, we consider the problem of real-time maximization of flocking velocity. By using local information and a Particle-Swarm-Optimization (PSO) algorithm, a Leader Agent (LA) actively motivates flocking at high speed. The LA manages topology of the network in its neighborhood and increases flocking velocity. PSO output quality and calculation costs show that the proposed optimization algorithm is practically feasible. A case-study is also presented  

In this paper, we investigate the statistical and scaling properties of the California earthquakes' inter-events over a period of the recent 40 years. To detect long-term correlations behavior, we apply detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), which can systematically detect and overcome nonstationarities in the data set at all time scales. We calculate for various earthquakes with magnitudes larger than a given M. The results indicate that the Hurst exponent decreases with increasing M; characterized by a Hurst exponent, which is given by, H = 0:34 + 1:53/M, indicating that for events with very large magnitudes M, the Hurst exponent decreases to 0:50, which is for independent events. © Versita...