Sharif Digital Repository

A 60-feeding day was performed to explore the potential influence of dietary intervention with a mixture of oligosaccharides and β-glucan (OLG) on growth, feed utilization, body composition, biochemical parameters, growth-related genes, and resistance to Streptococcus iniae infection of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Fish (n = 360, average weight 24 ± 0.2 g) were allotted into four experimental groups. Fish were received basal diets and inclusion of a mixture of oligosaccharides and β-glucan (1:1) at various levels 0 (OLG0), 1 (OLG1), 1.5 (OLG1.5), and 2 (OLG2) g/kg feed for 60 days. Fish were erratically scattered into tanks at a density of 30 fish/tank and the experiment was... 

The current study focused on natural breeding techniques using locally available mud crab broods during breeding season. The breeding trial was tested in artificially created earthen pens that designed with mangrove plants and salt tolerance grass. Mature brood crabs were collected from local rivers and equally distributed in 20 L black color plastic containers in three different salinities (T1 = 24ppt, T2 = 26ppt, and T3 = 28ppt) and covered with black cloth. The river salinity was 26ppt during breeding season that is considered as control(T2), and treatment T1 and T3 were prepared artificially mixing with water and sea salt respectively. Broods are reared in containers until hatching and... 

Shrimp aquaculture is one of the fastest-growing food production sectors in the world, due to its economic importance and ability to meet the protein needs of a growing population. However, bacterial and fungal infection has caused significant problems in the shrimp sector which instigated enormous economic loss for the main producer countries. Probiotic feed additives can enhance the gut health benefits and immune status of shrimp, thus boosting the growth, production efficacy, and disease resistance. Thereafter, the effects of different levels of dietary probiotic, Pediococcus acidilactici (PA), on growth performance, feed consumption, immunological response, antioxidant activities, and... 

This research aimed to investigate how different doses of hatchery probiotic affected water quality, thermal shock, hyposalinity stress tolerance, growth, survival, and metamorphosis rate of kuruma shrimp (Penaeus japonicus) larvae. The probiotic was added to the water in three concentrations: 2 (T1), 3 (T2), and 4 (T3) gm/m3 respectively, as well as a control group (T0) (without probiotic); then the diets were fed to triplicate groups of shrimps. Obtained results pointed out that the probiotic treatments significantly improved growth, metamorphosis, and survival rate of the various shrimp larval stages. Furthermore, there was a favorable effect on shrimp larvae tolerance to temperature... 

Curcumin, a polyphenol, targets multiple signaling molecules and shows activity at the cellular level, supporting its various health benefits. Thereafter, the present study examines the effects of different doses of dietary curcumin on growth indices, feed efficiency, serum metabolites, redox (oxidation) status, immunity, histological assessment, and antioxidant-related genes in red tilapia (Oreochromis sp, Oreochromis aureus x O. mossambicus). A total of 1200 red tilapia with an average weight of 19.1±0.03 g were distributed in 12 cement ponds (3×3.5×1m). Each treatment was assigned three pounds (n=100 replicates). For 60 days, fish were fed baseline diets containing 0, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 g... 

The present study investigated the effect of Chlorella vulgaris on growth performance, feed consumption, body composition, and immune response of white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) against Vibrio parahaemolyticus infection. Shrimps (4.00 ± 0.04 g) were divided into five groups (3 replicates/20 each) in 15 hapa (1 m3) and cultured for 56 days with five C. vulgaris experimented diets at five different concentrations (0, 15, 20, 25, and 30 g/kg feed). Growth performance, feed utilization, biomass, and body composition (protein, lipid, and ash) were analyzed and revealed significant increase (P < 0.05) in shrimp fed the high C. vulgaris diet. Additionally, the survival rate of shrimp in all... 

Phytochemicals are used in fish farming to reduce stress and combat diseases during intensification. Recently, nanotechnology has represented a paradigm shift in the aquatic feed industry to improve the solubility, availability, and efficacy of phytochemicals. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with nano-curcumin (CUNE) on the growth, feed utilization, body composition, blood biochemistry, antioxidant status, disease resistance to Vibrio parahaemolyticus (V. parahaemolyticus), and the expression of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), growth hormone (GH), interleukin-10 (IL-10), and interlukin-1β (IL-1β) genes in European Seabass... 

This paper presents a two layer texture modeling method to recognize architectural distortion in mammograms. We propose a method that models a Gaussian mixture on the Curvelet coefficients and the outputs of Spiculated Lesion Filters. The Curvelet transform and the Spiculated Lesion Filters have been applied to extract textural features of mammograms in literature. However the key difference between this study and the previous ones is that in our approach, a Gaussian mixture models the textural features extracted by the Curvelet transform and the Spiculated Lesion Filters. The results of the current study are shown in the form of accuracy and the area under the receiver operating... 

In Endurance Time (ET) method gradually intensifying acceleration functions are created in a manner that the linear and nonlinear response spectra of them, while being proportional to average of real earthquakes spectra, intensifies in a uniform manner with time. These functions are used as input functions for nonlinear time history analysis of structures and performance of structures is assessed based on the maximum time duration that they can meet the specified performance objectives. In this paper, application of the ET method in nonlinear seismic analysis of structures has been investigated. Numerical procedures and optimization techniques that are used for the production of acceleration... 

In this paper, we investigate the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) for multi-relay channels in finite-SNR regime. In our analysis, we consider the decode and forward (DF) relaying strategy and a line of sight path from source to destination. First, we determine the outage probability in a multi-relay scenario and obtain its exact analytical expressions. Then, the outage probability of a multi-relay channel with relay selection is calculated and provided as a closed-form expression. Based on these results, we determine the DMT in finite-SNR regime. Finally, using simulation results, we show that our analysis has accurate results which coincides with that of obtained from Monte-Carlo... 

High-performance supercapacitors that merit superior power and energy densities, as well as long-term cycle durability are always of great significance as a building block of energy storage devices. Herein, an innovative strategy is developed to design hierarchical and unique porous structures of ternary metal sulfide nano-flake decorated porous hydrothermal carbon microspheres. Hierarchical microspheres of ternary zinc-cobalt sulfide nanosheet (NS) decorated biomass derived hydrothermal carbon spheres (HTCSs) are directly employed as the positive supercapacitor electrodes. In addition, composites of pyrolyzed polyaniline nanotubes (PPNTs) and iron oxide, receiving advantages from highly... 

Wearable robots are becoming increasingly practical to use to rehabilitate wounded parts of the body as the number of injuries to the hand, particularly fingers, has increased. Wearable robots are designed to help people save time and money. This exoskeleton is intended to rehabilitate the thumb such that it may do an opposing movement with one Degree Of Freedom (DOF) and a cable system. Two drums, one on the thumb and the other on the tip of the assistive finger place the cables, which feature a cable adjusting screw that can be adjusted for fingers of various lengths. To choose the assistive finger from 4 intact fingers, the two perspectives of the cable length changes and finger forces... 

A framework for optimal seismic design of structures, considering maximum value as the design objective, is introduced. In this framework, the value parameter incorporates a comprehensive set of performance indicators. Decision indicators are mapped into equivalent economic values and are directly involved in the design process. This approach leads to optimal assignment of the available resources to meet infrastructure requirements. The construction cost and the risk of seismic consequences are considered as the value components. FEMA-P58 methodology is utilized in estimation of the seismic consequences including the repair cost, repair time, injuries and casualties. Endurance Time method is... 

Gold nanoparticles supported on poly ionic-liquid magnetic nanoparticles (MNP@PIL@Au) were synthesized by reduction of HAuCl4 with sodium borohydride. The synthesized catalyst was characterized using by AAS, TEM, FT-IR, EDS, TGA and XRD techniques. The performance of the synthesized catalyst was investigated in the reduction of nitroarenes with NaBH4. The reaction was carried out for various nitroarenes in water and mild conditions with high yields. The catalyst selectivity for the reduction of nitro group in the presences of other functional groups such as halides and alkynes was fairly well. The recycling of the catalyst was done 8 times without any significant loss of its catalytic... 

The aim of this study is to develop a new simulation procedure of endurance time excitations in which hysteretic energy compatibility is included. Existing methods for simulating excitations consider only amplitude and frequency content of motions and disregard parameters related to cumulative damage of structures. Hysteretic energy consistency, as a cumulative damage-related parameter, is included in the process. The proposed method is applied to generate new excitations. Efficiency of the proposed method is examined in two ways: (1) comparing damage spectra of simulated excitations with recorded ground motions; (2) applying simulated excitations in seismic assessment of three concrete... 

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is one of the widely used multiplexing techniques in wireless communications and especially cognitive radio networks. One of the key challenges of this technique is its high peak to average power ratio (PAPR) of the transmitted signal. This paper, introduces a new approach to PAPR reduction of OFDM signals using harmony search algorithm (HSA) based on the partial transmit sequence (PTS) method. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has better PAPR reduction performance as an accurate and low complexity approach for OFDM systems  

Providing more choices to customers for determining the cost of their required reliability levels is one of the most important targets of restructured power system. Centralized management of reliability in Vertically Integrated Utility (VIU) applying the same policies to different customers is replaced with decentralized management allowing customers to participate in reliability management based on their required reliability levels. Hence, the importance of implementing interruptible load contracts that specifies each customer's reliability level has been increased in power system studies. In this paper, stochastic programming based on Monte Carlo approach has been used to implement... 

Dominant Collapse Mechanisms (DCMs) have been reported to play an important role in collapse capacity of structural systems and the seismic losses consequent to it. Therefore, DCMs of Reinforced Concrete (RC) frames have been studied, in this article, considering Record-To-Record (RTR) and modeling uncertainties. Two sets of RC frames have been designed, in this regard, that share the design assumptions but contain different levels of over-strength. Each set contains 26, 4- to 20-story nonlinearly modeled frames. Initially, Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) was used to identify frames' DCMs. Then, the RTR variability reflected through IDA was combined with spectral shape and pulse effects... 

Probabilistic Seismic Loss Estimation is a methodology used as a quantitative and explicit expression of the performance of buildings using terms that address the interests of both owners and insurance companies. Applying the ATC 58 approach for seismic loss assessment of buildings requires using Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA), which needs hundreds of time-consuming analyses, which in turn hinders its wide application. The Endurance Time Method (ETM) is proposed herein as part of a demand propagation prediction procedure and is shown to be an economical alternative to IDA. Various scenarios were considered to achieve this purpose and their appropriateness has been evaluated using... 

We hereby demonstrate symmetric and asymmetric supercapacitors (SSCs and ASCs) based on core/shell-like Ni-Co oxide@cotton//Fe2O3-carbon nanotubes@cotton that are capable of storing a remarkable amount of energy, while retaining a high power density and long cycle life. Hierarchical, porous structures of Ni-Co-O nano-rod (NR) decorated Pd-activated cotton fibers (CFs) were fabricated using an eco-benign hydrothermal method and directly used as the cathode of the supercapacitors. Fe2O3-single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) decorated CFs were employed as anodes of the fabricated ASCs. The assembled Ni-Co-O@cotton//Fe2O3-SWCNTs@cotton based ASCs possessed the benefits of a relatively high energy...