Sharif Digital Repository

This paper proposes a new control strategy for the islanded operation of a multi-bus medium voltage (MV) microgrid. The microgrid consists of several dispatchable electronically-coupled distributed generation (DG) units. Each DG unit supplies a local load which can be unbalanced due to the inclusion of single-phase loads. The proposed control strategy of each DG comprises a proportional resonance (PR) controller with an adjustable resonance frequency, a droop control strategy, and a negative-sequence impedance controller (NSIC). The PR and droop controllers are, respectively, used to regulate the load voltage and share the average power components among the DG units. The NSIC is used to... 

Brushless Doubly-Fed Machine (BDFM) is a machine which incorporates the robustness of the squirrel cage induction machine while having the speed and power factor control of a synchronous machine. A special kind of rotor called Nested-Loop rotor plays an important part in the BDFM, coupling the two stator fields. In future BDFM will share a large part in wind power market. This paper presents a mathematical model of Brushless Doubly-Fed Machine (BDFM) based on Stator Flux Orientation (SFO) in the positive and negative reference frames under unbalanced grid voltage conditions  

The first spoken dialogue system is developed for the Persian language is introduced. This is a ticket reservation system with Persian ASR and NLU modules. The focus of the paper is on learning the dialogue management module. In this work, real on-line training data are used during the learning process. For on-line learning, the effect of the variations of discount factor (γ) on the learning speed is investigated as the second contribution of the research. The optimal values for γ were found and the variation pattern of the action-value function (Q) in the learning process was obtained. A probabilistic policy for selecting actions is used in this work for the first time instead of greedy... 

An extension to conventional Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based speech enhancement method is developed. An algebraic method is proposed to estimate gain of speech and noise in order to improve the quality of the estimated speech. Different pronunciations and intonations may affect speech gain. Besides, gain of noise may vary remarkably from one environment to the other one. This may lead in a mismatch between energy contour of trained models and energy contour of noisy speech signal. In this work, speech gain and noise gain are estimated based on an algebraic method simultaneously in order to match gain of noisy speech and noisy model. To carry out this procedure an extension of least square... 

In the endurance time (ET) method, structures are subjected to a specially designed intensifying ground acceleration function and their performance is judged based on their response at various excitation levels. A range of equivalent intensities can be covered in a single numerical or experimental simulation, thus significantly reducing the computational demand as compared to full nonlinear response-history analyses. The applied excitation intensity at various times has been correlated with those of the scaled ground motions. Response spectra of seven ground motions on stiff soil were used to produce intensifying acceleration functions that at each time window produce a response spectrum... 

In the present work, the abilities of five different variable selection methods including recursive partial least squares (rPLS), variable importance in projection (VIP), selectivity ratio (SR), significance multivariate correlation (sMC), and PLS loading weights were evaluated on the supervised classification of gas chromatographic fingerprints of saffron using PLS-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). In this regard, eighty-three saffron samples analyzed by gas chromatography-flam ionization detector (GC-FID), were used as a case study. The GC-FID chromatograms of saffron samples were baseline corrected and aligned using asymmetric least squares (AsLS) and correlation optimized warping (COW)... 

In the present study, the profiling of 17 fatty acids (FAs) in avocado seed and pulp was investigated. The fatty acids were extracted with vortex-assisted extraction, methyl esterified and finally preconcentrated by dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction. The preconcentrated fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) were analyzed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) to obtain qualitative and quantitative information. The GC–MS data were analyzed using multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) method to overcome general chromatographic problems such as overlapped peaks, background interference and peak shifts. The calibration data were prepared using pure... 

The objective of the research done in this paper was to determine cost of the power and heat system with pressurized fluidized bed gasifier using exergoexonomic appraisal techniques. Exergetic efficiency maximization was approached with use of multi-objective evolutionary optimization methods which were designed such that the costs were minimized in line with the exergoeconomic plans. The results of this method were also compared to methods that employ iterative techniques. Results showed an almost 12.28% improvement in exergetic efficient that the system could reach through utilization of the multi-objective evolutionary algorithm  

In this article a new scheme is proposed to use mean supervector in text-prompted speaker verification system. In this scheme, for each month name a subsystem is constructed and a final score based on passphrase is computed by the combination of the scores of these subsystems. Results from the telephony dataset of Persian month names show that the proposed method significantly reduces EER in comparison with the-State-of-the-art State-GMM-MAP method. Furthermore, it is shown that based on training set and testing set we can use 12 models per speaker instead of 220. Therefore, this scheme reduces EER and computational burden. In addition, the use of HMM instead of GMM as words' model improves... 

In this paper, statistical speech enhancement using hidden Markov model (HMM) is studied and new techniques for applying non-Gaussian distributions are proposed. The superiority of using non-Gaussian distributions in online adaptive noise suppression algorithms has been proven; however, in this study, this approach is formulated in an HMM-based mean-square error estimator (MMSE) estimator in which a priori models are trained in an off-line manner. In addition, an analytical study of using different distributions other than autoregressive (AR) Gaussian distribution, such as Laplace, is presented in order to construct an accurate HMM as a priori model for discrete Fourier transform and... 

Pricing is seen as a viable alternative to manage the demand for transportation facilities. While supply increase might aggravate the problem, pricing is envisaged to relieve large cities from adverse traffic effects (congestion and pollution, among others). Nevertheless, pricing has its own drawbacks, often overlooked by the operators of the networks. It will cause changes in the travel behavior of the different groups and their demands (shoppers, retailers, and even basic businesses/ employees). This paper presents an extensive review of the subject, and an equilibrium model to estimate the long–run effects of a cordon pricing scheme. The problem of designing a price for a Central Business... 

In the present research, ultrasonic-assisted emulsification-microextraction (USAEME) coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) has been proposed for analysis of thirteen environmental protection agency (EPA) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in aqueous samples. Tetrachloroethylene was selected as extraction solvent. The main parameters of USAEME affecting the efficiency of the method were modeled and optimized using a central composite design (CCD). Under the optimum conditions (9 μL for extraction solvent, 1.15% (w/v) NaCl (salt concentration) and 10min for ultrasonication time), preconcentration factor (PF) of the PAHs was in the range of 500-950. In order to have a... 

Multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) as a second-order calibration algorithm was proposed for the simultaneous analysis of eighteen fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) in a standard mixture and pomegranate seed sample using vortex-assisted extraction-dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (VAE-DLLME), followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The chemometric resolution, identification and quantification of the target FAMEs in the standard mixture and real sample (i.e., the pomegranate seed) were carried out successfully in the presence of some uncalibrated interferences. The lack of fit (LOF) and reverse match factor (RMF) were used for the... 

Chromatographic fingerprinting is an effective methodology for authentication and quality control of herbal products. In the presented study, a chemometric strategy based on multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) and multivariate pattern recognition methods was used to establish a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) fingerprint of saffron. For this purpose, the volatile metabolites of 17 Iranian saffron samples, collected from different geographical regions, were determined using the combined method of ultrasound-assisted solvent extraction (UASE) and dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME), coupled with GC-MS. The resolved elution profiles and... 

This paper proposes a high performance voltage tracking and current sharing among parallel connected inverters by applying optimal control and minimizing the cost function. The control system forces the voltage of load to track the voltage reference, and the current of all inverters becomes equal. Therefore, both current sharing and voltage tracking are obtained. In addition, the smallest input energy and simplicity in control circuit are the other advantages of the suggested method. To show the performance of the proposed control scheme, the simulations with two-modular practical systems are performed and the results are provided. The results indicate that the control objectives are... 

In this paper, a novel spatial six-degree-of freedom parallel manipulator actuated by three base-mounted partial spherical actuators is studied. This new parallel manipulator consists of a base platform and a moving platform, which are connected by three legs. Each leg of the manipulator is composed of a spherical joint, prismatic joint and universal joint. The base-mounted partial spherical actuators can only specify the direction of their corresponding legs. In other words, the spin of each leg is a passive degree-of-freedom. The inverse pose and forward pose of the new mechanism are described. In the inverse pose kinematics, active joint variables are calculated with no need for... 

The duration of utterances is one of the effective factors on the performance of speaker verification systems. Text dependent speaker verification suffers from both short duration and unmatched content between enrollment and test segments. In this paper, we use Discriminative Gaussian Process Latent Variable Model (DGPLVM) to deal with the uncertainty caused by short duration. This is the first attempt to utilize Gaussian Process for speaker verification. Also, to manage the unmatched content between enrollment and test segments we proposed the localized-DGPLVM that trains DGPLVM for each phrase in dataset. Experiments show the relative improvement of 27.4% in EER on RSR2015  

Loss of lower extremities has been one of the main problems in human life. Although most of the available knee devices are aesthetically acceptable, there is a necessity for lighter and more compact mechanisms, especially for younger amputees. This problem can be solved by the combining compliant mechanism design with traditional mechanism design methods. In this study, one group of the prosthetics that is known as the compliant knee mechanisms" is evaluated. At first, the different knee mechanisms, such as fourand six-bar knee linkages are investigated to calculate the values of the control moments (actuator torque). Then, the suitable location (where the actuator torque is to be exerted)... 

Design and fabrication of solar collectors with high performance of energy efficiency to convert solar energy to utility energy is vitally important. This article reports the results obtained from design, construction and investigation of the performance of a Combined Multi-Purpose Vacuum Solar Collector (CMPVSC). This collector consists of three sections: the vacuum section, the liquid section and the air section. In the present collector, it is capable of transferring heat to two flows (liquid and air) simultaneously and separate with the possibility of multipurpose applications. The CMPVSC is compared with the existing individual collectors and the effects of different parameters on the... 

In the aftermath of earthquakes, hospitals serve the critical role of treating casualties. In many cases, the key components of a hospital (i.e., the building, staff, medicine inventory, technical systems, and medical equipment) are affected by an earthquake. To handle the demand surge, affected hospitals should recover in an effective manner. Hospital recovery is a complex and dynamic process because each component requires specific types and amount of resources to recover. Furthermore, the recovery of each component not only affects its performance but also plays a role in the overall hospital recovery. Hospital administrators need to model the complex recovery process after a future...