Sharif Digital Repository

In order to be more precise to find primary cosmic particles directions, nowadays detectors and data analysis for studying secondary particles in extensive air showers have an ongoing progress and water Cherenkov detector is considered as a secondary particle detector. Our aim in this paper is to optimize the size and the inner surface characteristic of a cylindrical water Cherenkov tank with one PMT. By comparing simulation outputs with experiments results, we show that the diffusing inner surface is more practical than the reflective inner surface and we conclude that the optimum height for a diffusing tank with a diameter of 45cm is 60cm  

Herein, a solution-processed, bottom-up-fabricated, nanowire network electrode is developed. This electrode features a ZnO template which is converted into locally connected, infiltratable, TiO2 nanowires. This new electrode is used to build a depleted bulk heterojunction solar cell employing hybrid-passivated colloidal quantum dots. The new electrode allows the application of a thicker, and thus more light-absorbing, colloidal quantum dot active layer, from which charge extraction of an efficiency comparable to that obtained from a thinner, planar device could be obtained  

Continuity of service of wind energy conversion systems as well as their reliability and performances are some of the major concerns in this power generation area. Six-legs AC/DC/AC converters are normally used in modern wind energy systems like as in the system with a doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG). A sudden failure of the converter can lead to the total or partial loss of the control of the phase currents and can cause serious system malfunction or shutdown. Therefore, to prevent the spread of the fault to the other system components and to ensure continuity of service, fault tolerant converter topologies associated to quick and effective fault detection and compensation methods... 

This article build upon fairness in pricing -i.e. a perceived fairness judgment by a buyer of a seller's prices (Haws and Bearden, 2006) - and dynamic pricing - a strategy in which prices vary over time, consumers, and/or circumstances (Haws and Bearden, 2006) - an analysis of the importance of the factors influencing consumers' perception of fairness. Specifically, it uses fuzzy cognitive maps on the model proposed by Haws and Bearden (2006) to find the most important path leading to consumer satisfaction with the price. The FCM analyzes the responses of a group of 30 experts from 4 leading companies in medical equipment importing to find the most important paths  

We have recently developed an extended rank reducing process for rank reduction of a matrix leading to various matrix decompositions containing the Abaffy-Broyden-Spedicato (ABS) and Wedderburn processes. Notably, the extended process contains both the Wedderburn biconjugation process and the scaled extended ABS class of algorithms. The process provides a general finite iterative approach for constructing factorizations of a matrix and its transpose under a common framework of a general decomposition having various useful structures such as triangular, orthogonal, diagonal, banded and Hessenberg and many others. One main new result is the derivation of an extended rank reducing process for... 

Performance-based design (PBD) has become increasingly important in recent years, especially for the design of foundations rested on sub-soils that are susceptible to liquefaction at seismically active areas. Shallow foundations may fail due to excessive settlement because of liquefaction of the underlying loose saturated cohesion-less sands. Building codes usually do not address the issue of liquefaction-induced settlement of shallow foundations. In this paper, a framework is proposed for calculating the liquefaction-induced settlement of shallow foundations resting on heterogeneous two-layered liquefiable soil by conducting a series of 3D. hydro-mechanical dynamic analyses in a fully... 

With over 8 million inhabitants and 4 million motor vehicles on the streets, Tehran is one of the most crowded and polluted cities in the Middle East. Frequent exceedances of national daily PM2.5 limit have been reported in this city during the last decade, yet, the chemical composition and sources of fine particles are poorly determined. In the present study, 24-hour PM2.5 samples were collected at two urban sites during two separate campaigns, a one-year period from 2014 to 2015 and another three-month period at the beginning of 2017. Concentrations of organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), inorganic ions, trace metals and specific organic molecular markers were measured by chemical... 

In this paper application of Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC) as actuator in a deformable ring capable of locomotion is studied. Such a deformable ring moves as a result of gravitational force acting on its body when its shape changes. It can be used in exploration, search and rescue missions in future, where using conventional robots with rigid bodies and actuators is impossible. Large deformation induced by small stimulating voltage, low stiffness the sensing characteristics that in future work can be used in feedback control make IPMC a good choice for such an application. In this work first a model for IPMC is introduce that can be used in simulating deformation of IPMC in different... 

This paper describes a vector quantization of a 600 bps speech coding parameters based on the Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction (MELP) model, which was accepted as a standard in communication on narrow-band HF channels. The MELP speech coders are robust in difficult background noise environments and intended mostly for military communications. To reduce the bit rate, a joint vector quantization of multi-frame is developed that takes advantage of inherent inter-frame redundancy of the MELP parameters. By grouping parameters of 4 frames into a multi-frame and using vector quantization, bit rate is decreased 4 times and output speech is still intelligible  

Computed tomography (CT) simulators are versatile tools for scanning protocol evaluation, optimization of geometrical design parameters, assessment of image reconstruction algorithms, and evaluation of the impact of future innovations attempting to improve the performance of CT scanners. Computational human phantoms (CHPs) play a key role in simulators for the radiation dosimetry and assessment of image quality tasks in the medical x-ray systems. Since the construction of patient-specific CHPs can be both difficult and time-consuming, nominal standard/reference CHPs have been established, yielding significant discrepancies in the special design and optimization demands of patient dose and... 

For all exoplanet candidates, the reliability of a claimed detection needs to be assessed through a careful study of systematic errors in the data to minimize the false positives rate. We present a method to investigate such systematics in microlensing data sets using the microlensing event OGLE-2013-BLG-0446 as a case study. The event was observed from multiple sites around the world and its high magnification (Amax ∼ 3000) allowed us to investigate the effects of terrestrial and annual parallax. Real-time modeling of the event while it was still ongoing suggested the presence of an extremely low-mass companion (∼3M) to the lensing star, leading to substantial follow-up coverage of the... 

This paper presents a simulation-based optimization approach for railway timetabling, which is made interesting by the need for trains to stop periodically to allow passengers to pray. The developed framework is based on integration of a simulation model and an evolutionary path re-linking algorithm with the capability of scheduling trains, subject to the capacity constraints in order to minimize the total waiting times. A customized deadlock avoidance method has been developed which is based on a conditional capacity allocation. The proposed look-ahead deadlock avoidance approach is effective and easy to implement in the simulation model. A case study of the Iranian Railway (RAI) is... 

Several investigators worked on various aspects of tensile behavior of concrete because of its wide usage in structural design. One of the observable phenomena during tensile failure of concrete is strain softening, i.e. a negative slope in the stress-deformation diagrams. There are many kinds of experiment-based softening curves for concrete. In current research, use of newly introduced concept of fractal geometry and a failure model yields to a new softening curve for concrete. This new curve is denominated "Quasi-fractal" softening curve, which is a theorybased softening model. Comparison of Quasi-fractal softening curve with a set of proposed experimental softening curves has been... 

To achieve an exact three-dimensional command to line of sight (CLOS) guidance law, a novel control scheme comprising feed-forward terms (to exactly compensate known kinematics) accompanied by an adaptive nested saturated feedback strategy is presented. A square-root cubature Kalman filter is designed as the CLOS non-linear guidance filter. Performance of the proposed guidance law is compared with the augmented proportional navigation (APN), at the absence and presence of target maneuvers, autopilot dynamics and non-ideal tracking filter. Simulation results demonstrate the satisfactory performance of proposed strategy. © 2018 Concern CSRI Elektropribor, JSC  

A finite element analysis of a double layered shell with a circular hole is carried out with the computer aided engineering software Abaqus (Dassault Systèmes, FR). The model proposed has been used to perform a stress analysis on three pipes with different sized hole. Moreover, thermal expansion has been implemented in the testing. For the purpose of the research, the elastic properties of the materials have been considered and the results compared with the ones previously published in literature. The outcome of the investigation will benefit towards the design of optimal and sustainable pipes with circular cut outs  

Background: As global rates of mortality decrease, rates of non-fatal injury have increased, particularly in low Socio-demographic Index (SDI) nations. We hypothesised this global pattern of non-fatal injury would be demonstrated in regard to bony hand and wrist trauma over the 27-year study period. Methods: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 was used to estimate prevalence, age-standardised incidence and years lived with disability for hand trauma in 195 countries from 1990 to 2017. Individual injuries included hand and wrist fractures, thumb amputations and non-thumb digit amputations. Results: The global incidence of hand trauma has only modestly... 

Context. Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and Centaurs are remnants of our planetary system formation, and their physical properties have invaluable information for evolutionary theories. Stellar occultation is a ground-based method for studying these distant small bodies and has presented exciting results. These observations can provide precise profiles of the involved body, allowing an accurate determination of its size and shape. Aims. The goal is to show that even single-chord detections of TNOs allow us to measure their milliarcsecond astrometric positions in the reference frame of the Gaia second data release (DR2). Accurate ephemerides can then be generated, allowing predictions of...