Sharif Digital Repository

Background: Pedicle screw (PS) placement has been widely used in fusion surgeries on the thoracic spine. Achieving cost-effective yet accurate placements through nonradiation techniques remains challenging. Questions/Purposes: Novel noncovering lock-mechanism bilateral vertebra-specific drill guides for PS placement were designed/fabricated, and their accuracy for both nondeformed and deformed thoracic spines was tested. Methods: One nondeformed and 1 severe scoliosis human thoracic spine underwent computed tomographic (CT) scanning, and 2 identical proportions of each were 3-dimensional (3D) printed. Pedicle-specific optimal (no perforation) drilling trajectories were determined on the CT... 

The thermal decomposition of manganese and cobalt-terephthalate Metal-Organic Framework precursors was utilized as a synthetic route for fabrication of Co3O4, Mn3O4 and Mn2O3 nanoparticles. The prepared metal oxide nanoparticles of Co3O4, Mn3O4 and Mn2O3 possess average size diameter of 40, 60 and 80 nm respectively. The findings demonstrate that spinel structure nanoparticles of Co3O4 and Mn3O4 exhibit efficient catalytic activity toward heterogeneous olefin epoxidation in the presence of tert-butyl hydroperoxide. In... 

Palladium nanoparticles (Pd-NPs) were supported on functional and nonfunctional Co-coordination polymers (Pd/CoBDCNH2 and Pd/CoBDC). Advanced analytical techniques revealed that Pd-NPs are supported on the external surface of the polymer framework and the functionalized framework possesses effective influence to prevent Pd-NP aggregation. Supported Pd-NPs were effectively applied as heterogeneous recyclable catalysts in the Mizoroki–Heck C–C cross coupling reactions of iodobenzene and either aromatic or aliphatic terminal alkenes. Catalytic results exhibited that highly dispersed Pd-NPs with low loading (1%) on the functional polymer (Pd/CoBDCNH2) are more effective than aggregated Pd-NPs... 

The magnetic convection heat transfer in an obstructed two-dimensional square cavity is investigated numerically. The walls of the cavity are heated with different constant temperatures at two sides, and isolated at two other sides. The cavity is filled with a high Prandtl number ferrofluid. The convective force is induced by a magnetic field gradient of a thermally insulated square permanent magnet located at the center of the cavity. The results are presented in the forms of streamlines, isotherms, and Nusselt number for various values of magnetic Rayleigh numbers and permanent magnet size. Two major circulations are generated in the cavity, clockwise flow in the upper half and... 

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of geometrical parameters, eccentricity and perforated fins on natural convection heat transfer in a finned horizontal annulus using three-dimensional lattice Boltzmann flux solver. Design/methodology/approach: Three-dimensional lattice Boltzmann flux solver is used in the present study for simulating conjugate heat transfer within an annulus. D3Q15 and D3Q7 models are used to solve the fluid flow and temperature field, respectively. The finite volume method is used to discretize mass, momentum and energy equations. The Chapman–Enskog expansion analysis is used to establish the connection between the lattice Boltzmann equation... 

Data aggregation is a key, yet time-consuming functionality introduced to conserve energy in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, to minimize time latency, we focus on aggregation scheduling problem and propose an efficient distributed algorithm that generates a collision-free schedule with the least number of time slots. In contrast to others, our approach named FAST mainly contributes to both tree construction, where the former studies employ Connected 2-hop Dominating Sets, and aggregation scheduling that was previously addressed through the Competitor Sets computation. We prove that the latency of FAST under the protocol interference model is upper-bounded by 12R+Δ-2, where R... 

Natural convection heat transfer in a concentric horizontal annulus with annular fins is numerically studied. Due to the low thermal conductivity of water, CuO-water and Al2O3-water nanofluids were used as heat transfer fluids. The effect of three different parameters, including fin spacing, fin eccentricity, and fin thickness at different fin diameters and Rayleigh number range of 104 to 9 (Formula presented.) 105, were studied. The obtained results revealed that Al2O3-water nanofluid has the highest heat transfer rate. The calculated heat transfer rates for Al2O3-water nanofluid for Rayleigh numbers of 9 (Formula presented.) 105, 105, and 104 were respectively up to 12.1%, 26.2%, and 31.6%... 

Natural convection heat transfer in a concentric horizontal annulus with annular fins is numerically studied. Due to the low thermal conductivity of water, CuO-water and Al2O3-water nanofluids were used as heat transfer fluids. The effect of three different parameters, including fin spacing, fin eccentricity, and fin thickness at different fin diameters and Rayleigh number range of 104 to 9 (Formula presented.) 105, were studied. The obtained results revealed that Al2O3-water nanofluid has the highest heat transfer rate. The calculated heat transfer rates for Al2O3-water nanofluid for Rayleigh numbers of 9 (Formula presented.) 105, 105, and 104 were respectively up to 12.1%, 26.2%, and 31.6%... 

This paper presents the prototype design and fabrication of a magnetically actuated miniature pump that utilizes self-sealing capability of ferrofluid-covered permanent magnets in both pumping and valving mechanisms. The valving action is performed by employing one active valve along with two nozzle/diffuser elements. Two cylindrical permanent magnets are placed inside the flat-wall channels: One magnet acts as the active valve and the other one serves as a reciprocating piston actuating the working fluid. In order to seal the gaps between the channel walls and the permanent magnet of the valve/piston, ferrofluid is used to cover the surfaces of both magnets. The valve and the piston are... 

This paper presents the prototype design, fabrication, and characterization of a magnetically actuated micropump. The pump body consists of three nozzle/diffuser elements and two pumping chambers connected to the ends of a flat-wall pumping cylinder. A cylindrical permanent magnet placed inside the pumping cylinder acts as a piston which reciprocates by using an external magnetic actuator driven by a motor. The magnetic piston is covered by a ferrofluid to provide self-sealing capability. A prototype composed of three bonded layers of polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA) has been fabricated. Water has been successfully pumped at pressures of up to 750 Pa and flow rates of up to 700 μl min-1 while... 

In this paper, a large plasticity deformation finite element modeling is presented for three-dimensional dynamic analysis of unsaturated soils with special reference to the failure of lower San Fernando dam under the 1971 earthquake. The finite element method is applied to the governing equations for the spatial discretization, followed by a generalized Newmark scheme used for the time domain discretization. Time stepping scheme is used in the fully implicit coupled method and a direct solution procedure is used for the coupled equation system. The framework of generalized plasticity is presented and the numerical results of unsaturated soils are demonstrated based on the Pastor-Zienkiewicz... 

Oxoperoxo tungsten(VI) complex immobilized on Schiff base-modified Fe3O4 super paramagnetic nanoparticles were synthesized and appropriately characterized using FT-IR, XRD, SEM, TEM, EDX, BET, and VSM analysis. The synthesized nanoparticles efficiently catalyzed oxidation of benzylic alcohols with H2O2 as oxidant in high yields, with high to excellent selectivity. The catalyst can be recovered using an external magnetic field and recycled for subsequent oxidation reactions without any appreciable loss of efficiency. The simple preparation, high activity, excellent selectivity, and simple recoverability of the catalyst are advantageous. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis... 

This paper proposes a fuzzy-based speed controller for the doubly fed induction generator (DFIG)-based wind turbines with the rotor speed and wind speed inputs. The controller parameters are optimized using the particle swarm optimization algorithm. To accelerate tracking the maximum power point trajectory, the conventional controller is augmented with a feed-forward compensator, which uses the wind speed input and includes a high-pass filter. The proposed combined speed controller is robust against wind measurement errors and as the accuracy of anemometers increases the speed regulation tends toward the ideal controller. The cutoff frequency of the applied filter is determined considering a... 

In this paper, several new control strategies for employing the battery energy storage systems (BESSs) and demand response (DR) in the load frequency control (LFC) task are proposed. In this way, first, the unit commitment problem considering the BESSs’ constraints in presence of wind farms and responsive loads is solved and the best location and the optimal size of the BESSs as well as the regulation power of the responsive loads are obtained. A rule-based plan is then suggested to improve the frequency regulation considering participation of wind farms. This plan is takes into account different states associated with power system frequency response as well as BESSs’ state of charge (SOC).... 

This study developed and validated a lumped parameter model for the FLEXI-BAR, a popular training instrument that provides vibration stimulation. The model which can be used in conjunction with musculoskeletal-modeling software for quantitative biomechanical analyses, consists of 3 rigid segments, 2 torsional springs, and 2 torsional dashpots. Two different sets of experiments were conducted to determine the model's key parameters including the stiffness of the springs and the damping ratio of the dashpots. In the first set of experiments, the free vibration of the FLEXI-BAR with an initial displacement at its end was considered, while in the second set, forced oscillations of the bar were... 

In this paper, security constrained reserve management (SCRM) problem is formulated. In this trend, security constrained economic dispatch as well as operating reserve in both normal and {N-1} contingency condition are considered. To address the computational complexity associated with the SCRM problem, the distributed-SCRM (D-SCRM) is proposed. In the suggested method, the power system is decomposed to several subsystems called zone. These zones are interconnected via some tie-lines. By defining two virtual generation units at the middle of each tie-line, all neighbor zones become isolated. This causes the main SCRM problem to be converted to some subproblems. To solve these subproblems,... 

With the proliferation of intermittent renewable energy sources, power systems need to withstand an increasing number of disturbances that may affect system frequency. In this paper, we focus on the effects of high penetration level of wind turbine-generators (WTG) on the power system operational planning from the frequency point of view. Specifically, an exact formulation for the minimum frequency calculation is presented to increase accuracy and speed of analyses. Then, the effect of WTG's frequency response on the power system frequency stability is investigated to compute the maximum acceptable generation outage as a function of penetration level. Finally, as an application to power... 

Heterogeneous nanoscale catalyst was successfully synthesized via anchoring of oxoperoxo molybdenum(VI) complex on the chloro-functionalized SBA-15. The mesoporous nanomaterials, MoO3(sal-phz)/SBA-15 (where sal-phz is salicylidene 2-picoloyl hydrazine) were identified by several characterization techniques. MoO3(sal-phz)/SBA-15 and MoO3(sal-phz) were also treated as catalysts in the olefins epoxidation reactions. Both homogenous and heterogeneous catalysts exhibit outstanding activity and selectivity for epoxide with tert-BuOOH in decane as oxidant at 95 °C. In addition, the heterogeneous nanocatalyst was chemically stable and can be efficiently reused for at least six cycles without a... 

Magnetic convection heat transfer in a two-dimensional square cavity induced by magnetic field gradient is investigated numerically using a semi-implicit finite volume method. The side walls of the cavity are heated with different temperatures, the top and bottom walls are isolated, and a permanent magnet is located near the bottom wall. Thermal buoyancy-induced flow is neglected due to the nongravity condition on the plane of the cavity. Conditions for the different values of non-dimensional variables in a variety of ferrofluid properties and magnetic field parameters are studied. Based on this numerical analysis, a general correlation for the overall Nusselt number on the side walls is...