Sharif Digital Repository

Industrial wastewaters are different from sanitary wastewaters, and treatment complications due to their unique characteristics, so biological processes are typically disrupted. High chemical oxygen demand, dye, heavy metals, toxic organic and non-biodegradable compounds present in petroleum industry wastewater. This study intends to optimize the photocatalytic proxone process, utilizing a synthesized ZnO–Fe3O4 nanocatalyst, for petroleum wastewater treatment. The synthesis of ZnO–Fe3O4 was done by air oxidation and layer-by-layer self-assembly method and XRD, SEM, EDAX, FT-IR, BET, DRS, and VSM techniques were used to characterize the catalyst. Central composite design (CCD) method applied... 

Feed-in tariff (FiT) is one of the most efficient ways that many governments throughout the world use to stimulate investment in renewable energies (REs) technology. For governments, financial management of the policy could be challenging as it needs a considerable amount of budget to support RE producers during the long remuneration period. In this paper, it has been illuminated that the early growth of REs capacity could be a temporary boost. And the socio-economic structure of the system will backlash the policy if some social mechanisms are not considered. Social tolerance for paying REs tax and potential investors’ trust emanated from budget-related mechanisms -which have rarely been... 

Biomechanical modeling approaches require body posture to evaluate the risk of spine injury during manual material handling. The procedure to measure body posture via motion-analysis techniques as well as the subsequent calculations of lumbosacral moments and spine loads by, respectively, inverse-dynamic and musculoskeletal models are complex and time-consuming. We aim to develop easy-to-use yet accurate artificial neural networks (ANNs) that predict 3D whole-body posture (ANNposture), segmental orientations (ANNangle), and lumbosacral moments (ANNmoment) based on our measurements during load-handling activities. Fifteen individuals each performed 135 load-handling activities by reaching (0... 

Inrush current is high-magnitude current drawn by power transformers upon energization. The severity of inrush current depends on factors such as the transformer's residual flux and the voltage phase angle at the energization instant. This paper proposes a flux matching method for the energization of V/V traction transformers to mitigate inrush current. This is achieved by adjusting the residual flux of the core to an appropriate reference value and then obtaining the proper energization instant. To this end, the method only requires knowledge of nominal voltage and excitation current, eliminating the need to acquire transformer's parameters/design information. The railway power conditioner,... 

Inrush current refers to the high-magnitude current drawn by a power transformer upon energization. The severity of inrush current is a function of the instantaneous value of voltage at the energization instant and the transformer's residual flux density. This paper proposes an effective energization method for mitigating the inrush current of single-phase power transformers. The method does not rely on the knowledge of transformer design specifications, but the magnitude of the transformer's excitation current. The reference residual flux density is determined with respect to the limitations of the closing operation of the circuit breaker. The method then adjusts the residual flux density... 

The vision of advanced long-term evolution (LTE-A) project is set to ultimate increase of network capacity in heterogeneous networks (HetNets). In HetNets with small cell configuration, a considerable majority of user devices is eventually connected to the macrocell base station (MBS), while small base stations (BSs), such as femtocell access points (FAPs), are still without any user. This results in unbalanced load and reduces the data rate of macrocell user equipment (MUE). In this paper, a method is proposed for load balancing among FAPs, while desired throughput is achieved. The proposed method uses the estimated received signal strength from different BSs and adjusted pilot signals.... 

Long-term electricity load and price forecasts have become critical inputs to energy service provider (ESP) decision makings in restructured environments. This paper presents a three-stage hierarchical approach for long-term electricity load forecasting. These stages are called yearly trend model (YTM), weekly trend model (WTM), and daily trend model (DTM). The first stage fits an appropriate function to data and extracts its yearly trend. The weekly and daily trends are then extracted using the Box-Jenkins method in WTM and DTM, respectively. For doing so, candidate trends are identified using auto correlation function (ACF) and partial auto correlation function (PACF) plots. Then, Akaike... 

Background: Allergic contact dermatitis is a common disorder in adults and children alike and appears to be on the increase. The purpose of this study was to determine the sensitization trends in Iranian children with contact dermatitis. Methods: The result of 109 patch tests performed using the 24 allergens of the European Standard Series in patients below 18 years old from September 2007 to March 2009 were recorded and analyzed. The tests were evaluated at 48 and 72 h after performing. Results: The study population consisted of 72 (66.1 %) females and 37 (33.9 %) males. Hands were the most commonly affected anatomic site. In the final evaluation of the tests on day three, 51 (46.8 %)... 

Chinese hamster ovary cells are the main cellular factories for production of a wide range of recombinant proteins in biopharmaceutical industry. Recombinant human Interferon beta-1a (rh-IFN β-1a), as a cytokine is broadly used to treat multiple sclerosis. In this work, the cell line producing rh-IFN β-1a was studied to improve cell density along with the specific expression. For this reason different cell culture experiments were done using different commercial serum-free media to find the appropriate media providing higher cell density. It was shown DMEMF12, DMEM:ProCHO5, and CHO-S-SFM II led to higher cell density and shorter doubling time. Next, using these media, fed-batch, and... 

In this paper, an industrial ethylbenzene production unit has been simulated and the results are compared against five-day experimental data. According to prevailing unit condition, i.e. recycled ratio of benzene, benzene selectivity, and energy consumption, the unit is not working under its optimum conditions for minimum cost of ethylbenzene production. In the current design, high amount of benzene recycle (6:1) causes to have an additional cost due to fractionation of ethylbenzene from benzene. A new approach is proposed to modify the benzene alkylation process and reduce the unit's energy consumption. In the newly designed scheme, two double-bed alkylation reactors converted into four...