Sharif Digital Repository

It is now known that at least 10% of samples with pancreatic cancers (PC) contain a causative mutation in the known susceptibility genes, suggesting the importance of identifying cancer-associated genes that carry the causative mutations in high-risk individuals for early detection of PC. In this study, we develop a statistical pipeline using a new concept, called gene-motif, that utilizes both mutated genes and mutational processes to identify 4211 3-nucleotide PC-associated gene-motifs within 203 significantly mutated genes in PC. Using these gene-motifs as distinguishable features for pancreatic cancer subtyping results in identifying five PC subtypes with distinguishable phenotypes and... 

This paper has been prepared, based on reports regarding extraordinary induced ac voltage on buried gas pipelines in residential and industrial areas of the capital city of Tehran, especially in densely populated central areas. Also, some reports are considered on the existence of ac induced voltage in buried gas pipelines under the overhead transmission lines, for example, one case located 80 Km to the west of Tehran, in an agricultural region of the town of Abyek. In this paper, the results of an extensive theoretical, experimental and practical investigation and implementation of methods carried out during the last two years are introduced. Furthermore, this paper includes evaluation of... 

The axial turbine is one of the most challenging components of gas turbines for industrial and aerospace applications. With the ever-increasing requirement for high-aerodynamic performance blades, three-dimensional aerodynamic shape optimization is of great importance. In this research, the rear part of a gas turbine consisting of a one-stage axial turbine is optimized numerically. A useful optimization algorithm is presented to improve the efficiency and/or pressure ratio of the axial turbine with two different objective functions. The three-dimensional blade-shape optimization is employed to study the effects of the turbine stator and rotor lean and sweep angles on the turbine performance.... 

A high quality joint of zinc based pressure die cast alloys can be hardly achieved by conventional fusion welding. In this study, a novel technique to achieve the globular weld structure using stirring the localized semisolid zone during butt joining of Zamak-3 pressure die cast alloy is proposed and effect of welding parameters on mechanical and microstructural properties are investigated. A gas heating system was designed to heat up the nitrogen gas to desired temperature accurately to create a localized semisolid pool. At this stage a fine stirrer was introduced into the weld seam in order to mix the two sides into a single uniform joint. By presented process, globular microstructure of... 

The human protein disulfide isomerase (hPDI), is an essential four-domain multifunctional enzyme. As a result of disulfide shuffling in its terminal domains, hPDI exists in two oxidation states with different conformational preferences which are important for substrate binding and functional activities. Here, we address the redox-dependent conformational dynamics of hPDI through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Collective domain motions are identified by the principal component analysis of MD trajectories and redox-dependent opening-closing structure variations are highlighted on projected free energy landscapes. Then, important structural features that exhibit considerable differences... 

Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are frequently deregulated in various types of cancer. While antisense oligonucleotides are used to block oncomiRs, delivery of tumour-suppressive miRNAs holds great potential as a potent anti-cancer strategy. Here, we aim to determine, and functionally analyse, miRNAs that are lowly expressed in various types of tumour but abundantly expressed in multiple normal tissues. Methods The miRNA sequencing data of 14 cancer types were downloaded from the TCGA dataset. Significant differences in miRNA expression between tumor and normal samples were calculated using limma package (R programming). An adjusted p value < 0.05 was used to compare normal versus tumor miRNA... 

As noteworthy properties of amine aqueous solutions, the densities and viscosities of aqueous N-Methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) solutions and mixtures of MDEA with 2-Amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP), Diisopropanolamine (DIPA), Monoethanolamine (MEA), and Diethanolamine (DEA) were estimated under CO2 gas loading using Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS), Multi-Layer Perceptron Artificial Neural Network (MLPANN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Least Square Support Vector Machine (LSSVM). The density and viscosity were estimated as a function of temperature, CO2 loading, pressure, and molecular weight of mixtures. In this regard, the actual data points were collected from the... 

A technique to achieve the globular weld structure using stirring the localized semisolid zone during butt-joining of zinc AG40A (Zamak-3) die cast alloy is reported. Since the semisolid temperature range of this alloy is very narrow, the accurate controlling of weld pool temperature must be considered. By presented process, globular microstructure of the weld zone can be achieved. Moreover the near weld zone would have the globular structure due to semisolid holding. A gas heating system was designed to heat up the nitrogen gas to desired temperature accurately. A heating element was embedded in a castable ceramic block while a stream of gas could pass closely around the hot element length.... 

Mechanical looseness is one of the common faults in rotating machinery. Wearing in the inner surface of the housing and outer race of the rolling element bearing (REB) increases the clearance and mechanical looseness that may lead to abnormal vibration in the machine. Mechanical looseness reduces the equivalent stiffness of the bearings leading to a reduction in the system's natural frequencies. In this study, finite element analysis (FEA) is used for numerical modeling of the mechanical looseness effect on the vibration characteristics of an industrial electrofan. To this aim, the variation of the shaft center displacement resulting from a specific load is investigated in terms of the... 

Four 5-, 10-, 20- and 30-story moment frames, representing low-, mid-, and two high-rise structures, were subjected to a great number of idealized directivity pulses. The amplitudes and periods of pulses vary from 0.02 g to 1.0 g and 0.5 to 12 sec, respectively. Over 1400 nonlinear dynamic analyses of low- to high-rise moment frames were performed which were feasible through using modified fish-bone model. The distribution of interstory drift along the height was studied and two applied contours were proposed: (i) the maximum interstory drift contour, and (ii) the critical story contour. These contours were demonstrated versus the ratio of natural period of the structure to the pulse period... 

The polysaccharide, kappa-carrageenan (κC) was chemically modified to achieve a novel superabsorbent hydrogel via graft copolymerization of methacrylamide (MAM) onto the substrate followed by alkaline hydrolysis. Ammonium persulfate (APS) and N,N′-methylene bisacrylamide (MBA) were used as a free-radical initiator and a crosslinker, respectively. The saponification reaction was carried out using sodium hydroxide aqueous solution. Either κC-g-PMAM or hydrolyzed κC-g-PMAM (PMAM: polymethacrylamide) was characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy. The effect of grafting variables (i.e. concentration of MBA, MAM, and APS) and alkaline hydrolysis conditions (i.e. NaOH concentration, hydrolysis time and... 

To synthesize a novel biopolymer-based superabsorbent hydrogel, 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid (AMPS) was grafted onto kappa-carrageenan (KC) backbones. The graft copolymerization reaction was carried out in a homogeneous medium and in the presence of ammonium persulfate (APS) as an initiator, N,N,N',N'-tetramethyl ethylenediamine (TMEDA) as an accelerator, and N,N'-methylene bisacrylamide (MBA) as a crosslinker. A proposed mechanism for KC-g-AMPS formation was suggested and the hydrogel structure was confirmed using FTIR spectroscopy. The affecting variables on swelling capacity, i.e., the initiator, the crosslinker, and the monomer concentration, as well as reaction temperature,... 

In this article, the state estimation for Automotive Slip Angle considering the measurement noise in sensor is addressed. Realtime measurement of the slip angle is applicable to many active vehicle safety applications, such as rollover prevention and yaw stability control. As the sensors that measure slip angle directly are expensive, the method to extract slip angle from other available sensors in vehicle is considered. First from the simplified nonlinear dynamic system of vehicle, a Piecewise Affine (PWA) model with calculated uncertainties is obtained. The uncertainties are the result of nonlinear system deviation from PWA model. Then using the PWA model, a Stochastic Robust Hybrid... 

Solid-state joining of powder-metallurgy processed (P/M) Al-2vol% Al2O3 (15nm) nanocomposite by friction stir welding (FSW) was studied. The nanocomposite was prepared via high-energy mechanical milling followed by hot consolidation processes. The microstructure, mechanical properties and fracture behavior of the welds were evaluated and compared with FSWed wrought 1050 aluminum sheets (WAS). We have found that unlike WAS that can processed at various FSW conditions, the working window for the solid-state joining of P/M nanocomposite is narrow and only feasible at relatively high heating inputs. Microstructural studies showed the formation of melted zones with high hardness at the advancing... 

Molybdenum disilicide (ModSi 2) is an attractive structural material due to its unique combination of properties, namely excellent oxidation resistance, high melting point (2030°C) and relatively low density (6.3g.cm -3). The present work investigates joining of two MoSi 2 parts through Cusil/Zr/Cusil interlayer with Cusil being a commercial eutectic of Cu-Ag alloy. The joining operation was implemented in an inert gas tube furnace by brazing. The brazing temperature ranged at 830-930°C while the operation lasted for 1hr. Interfacial microstructure was studied by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) techniques. Applying the... 

Because of technological restrictions, it is actually impossible to fabricate smooth microchannels. Therefore, exploring the roughness effects on the flow characteristics at microscale is of great importance for scientific communities. The present investigation deals with the effects of corrugated roughness on the fully developed slip flow forced convection in micropipes. The governing equations subject to first-order slip boundary conditions are solved by means of the straightforward perturbation method. Closed-form expressions are obtained for the dimensionless velocity and temperature distributions, for the friction coefficient and pressure drop, and finally for the Nusselt number. The... 

Isothermal solidification is a key feature of transient liquid phase bonding which prevents the formation of deleterious intermetallic phases in the joint centerline and results in bonds with improved mechanical performance. This paper discusses the metallurgical characteristics and mechanical properties of an as-cast IN718 superalloy bonded by diffusion-induced isothermal solidification of Ni-7Cr-4.5Si-3.2B-3Fe (wt%) filler metal. After transient liquid phase bonding of as-cast IN718 at 1000 C for 60 min, a bond exhibiting a solid solution microstructure with joint efficiency of 72% in terms of shear strength was obtained. The joining process was effectively able to prevent the formation of... 

Dynamic modeling of piezo-driven compliant mechanisms is necessary to predict dynamic behavior of nanopositioning systems, and also to optimize their controlling methods. Dynamic tests on a real system or dynamic analyses on a FEM model is very time consuming when they must be carried out iteratively. According to previous works, obtaining static specifications of model is possible within a reasonable error margin. But all geometric dimensions and mass distribution details of the whole moving parts should be considered to calculate dynamic specifications of the model. In this paper, a functional method is described to obtain dynamic specifications of an planar compliant mechanism, by means... 

An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model has been designed for predicting the effects of alloying elements (Fe, Si, Al, Mn) on the recrystallization behavior and microstructural changes of 70/30 brass. The model introduced here considers the content of alloying elements, temperature, and time of recrystallization as inputs while percent of recrystallization is presented as output. It is shown that the designed model is able to predict the effect of alloying elements well. It is also shown that all alloying elements strongly affect the recrytallization kinetics, and all slow down the recrystallization process. The effect of alloying elements on the activation energy for recrystallization has... 

Surfaces of cast 1100 aluminum were treated by multi-pass friction stir processing (MP-FSP), which is a solid-state microstructural modification technique using frictional heat and stirring action. An improvement in the mechanical properties was accomplished due to the microstructural modification and reduction of porosities. The yield strengths of the MP-FSPed specimens were significantly increased to about 1.4 times versus that of the base metal. The elongation of MP-FSP sample is about 30% higher than that of the base metal. Also the ultimate tensile strength and hardness of MP-FSPed specimens are improved. Moreover the effect of tool rotation rate and tool travel speed on the mechanical...