Sharif Digital Repository

As the increasing demands of military detection, wireless communication and remote sensing make the spectrum even more crowded, radar sequence design meeting spectral compatibility requirement is a challenging and urgent problem. This study is devoted to designing optimised phase-coded sequences which keep spectral-compatible with the overlaid electromagnetic radiators and at the same time optimise the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). First, an intelligent dynamic spectrum information around the radar system is achieved by a radio environmental map. The information is introduced to form a constrained optimisation process aimed at improving the spectral compatibility and the... 

Chalcostibite copper antimony sulfide (CuSbS2) is a promising candidate for application in solar cells. The functionality of CuSbS2 particles depends on particle size and morphology and controlling these two parameters during synthesis is of utmost importance. In this study, CuSbS2 particles were prepared by a facile heat-up synthesis method utilizing sulfur powder (Su) and thiourea (Tu) to investigate the effect of the sulfur source on the structural and physical properties of CuSbS2 particles. Different morphologies were observed when Su and Tu were employed. The results demonstrated that the shape uniformity can be improved by applying a coordinating sulfur precursor (Tu). Moreover,... 

In the previous years, a few types of nanocars have been built with the promising potential to transport other molecules, to provide bottom-up assembly, or to perform other mechanical tasks. In this study, we propose a method to convert the diffusive displacement of nanocars to a guided motion in a desired path by adding some impurity atoms in the substrate. We investigated the motion of C60 as well as the nanotruck and the nanocar on a flat gold substrate containing silver contamination and conversely a silver substrate containing gold contamination at the different temperatures. The results showed that silver impurity on the gold substrate act as a repellent obstacle in the path of C60... 

Molecular machines and surface rolling molecules show great potential to accomplish different tasks in several fields, such as bottom-up assembly and nanomanipulation. Many researchers have investigated molecular machines, most of which was on a flat single-crystal substrate. In this paper, we studied the influence of vacancies in different sizes on the motion of a nanocar, a nanotruck, and C60 on a gold substrate at different temperatures by employing classical all-atom molecular dynamics. At the temperature of 200 K, a hole or vacancy appears as a repellent obstacle in the path of C60, and at higher temperatures, C60 can enter this hole. Although C60 has enough energy to escape single-atom... 

Molecular machines, such as nanocars, have shown promising potential for various tasks, including manipulation at the nanoscale. In this paper, we examined the influence of temperature gradients on nanocar and nanotruck motion as well as C60 - as their wheel - on a flat gold surface under various conditions. We also compared the accuracy and computational cost of two different approaches for generating the temperature gradient. The results show that severe vibrations and frequent impacts of gold atoms at high temperatures increase the average distance of C60 from the substrate, reducing its binding energy. Moreover, the temperature field drives C60 to move along the temperature variation;... 

Apnea bradycardia (AB) is an outcome of apnea occurrence in preterm infants and is an observable phenomenon in cardiovascular signals. Early detection of apnea in infants under monitoring is a critical challenge for the early intervention of nurses. In this paper, we introduce two switching Kalman filter (SKF) based methods for AB detection using electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. The first SKF model uses McSharry's ECG dynamical model integrated in two Kalman filter (KF) models trained for normal and AB intervals. Whereas the second SKF model is established by using only the RR sequence extracted from ECG and two AR models to be fitted in normal and AB intervals. In both SKF approaches, a... 

In this research, we developed a cost-effective automated guided vehicle for small clothing production workshops that ordinary workers in such workplaces can operate. We acquired workers’ opinions in multiple workshops about using the robots (with some social capabilities) and working alongside them. We performed the tests in China and Iran to investigate and compare different preferences and priorities in two countries with different cultural backgrounds. We used the UTAUT questionnaire and conducted two-way ANOVA tests considering two independent factors: Nationality and Gender. The results showed that workers in Iran and China have relatively similar expectations from a social AGV, with... 

Robotic blimps have a wide range of applications, such as monitoring activities in their surroundings, advertising, and performing on stages. They also have remarkable capacities to be used as a social robot. In this research, a manually operated social robotic blimp has been developed intending to interact with children as a social agent and attract adults’ attention as an entertainer in indoor public environments. Since the appearance of a social robot has a significant impact on its acceptance, first, we acquired opinions of several participants on the shape of a desired floating robot. The results revealed that a simple spherical structure adequately draws people’s attention. After... 

Chalcostibite copper antimony sulfide (CuSbS2) micro- and nanoparticles with a different shape and size have been prepared by a new approach to hot injection route. In this method, sulfur in oleylamine (OLA) is employed as a sulfonating agent providing a simple route to control the shape and size of the particles, which enables the optimization of CuSbS2 for a variety of applications. The sulfur to metallic precursor ratio appears to be one of the most effective parameters along with the temperature and time for controlling the size and morphology of the particles. The growth mechanism study shows in addition to the CuSbS2 phase the presence of not previously observed intermediate phases... 

In this paper, a method for apnea bradycardia detection in preterm infants is presented based on coupled hidden semi Markov model (CHSMM). CHSMM is a generalization of hidden Markov models (HMM) used for modeling mutual interactions among different observations of a stochastic process through using finite number of hidden states with corresponding resting time. We introduce a new set of equations for CHSMM to be integrated in a detection algorithm. The detection algorithm was evaluated on a simulated data to detect a specific dynamic and on a clinical dataset of electrocardiogram signals collected from preterm infants for early detection of apnea bradycardia episodes. For simulated data, the... 

The incidence of apnea-bradycardia episodes in preterm infants may lead to neurological disorders. Prediction and detection of these episodes are an important task in healthcare systems. In this paper, a coupled hidden Markov model (CHMM) based method is applied to detect apnea-bradycardia episodes. This model is evaluated and compared with two other methods based on hidden Markov model (HMM) and hidden semi-Markov model (HSMM). Evaluation and comparison are performed on a dataset of 233 apnea-bradycardia episodes which have been manually annotated. Observations are composed of RR-interval time series and QRS duration time series. The performance of each method was evaluated in terms of... 

In this paper, we present a novel framework for the coupled hidden Markov model (CHMM), based on the forward and backward recursions and conditional probabilities, given a multidimensional observation. In the proposed framework, the interdependencies of states networks are modeled with Markovian-like transition laws that influence the evolution of hidden states in all channels. Moreover, an offline inference approach by maximum likelihood estimation is proposed for the learning procedure of model parameters. To evaluate its performance, we first apply the CHMM model to classify and detect disturbances using synthetic data generated by the FitzHugh-Nagumo model. The average sensitivity and... 

The global commitment towards reducing carbon emissions drives the implementation of sustainable carbon-fibre-reinforced-thermoplastic composites (CFRTPs). However, the machining of CFRTPs presents challenges due to the material's ductile–brittle composition and sensitivity to machining-induced high temperatures. For the first time, we conducted temperature-controlled orthogonal cutting of CFRTP (using CF/PEKK as a demonstrator) to unveil its temperature-dependent cutting physics. Three representative cutting temperatures, 23 ℃ (ambient temperature),100 ℃ (Tg) and four typical fibre cutting orientations (0°, 45°, 90°, and 135°) have been... 

Accurate prediction of electricity demand is essential for planning, policy making and resource allocation in national level. In this manuscript, we applied a number of artificial intelligence methods to predict macro-scale electricity consumption rates in Iran. To this end, three socio-economic and three environmental factors were considered as inputs to the prediction models. We used data for the period 1967-2013 in order to predict the power demand in the years 2014-2018. Experimental results showed that the path coefficient analysis model with linear coefficients had the best performance among the models considered in this study. The outcome of this research can help the policy makers to... 

This paper investigates the robustness of strong structural controllability for linear time-invariant directed networked systems with respect to structural perturbations, including edge additions and deletions. In this regard, an algorithm is presented that is initiated by endowing each node of a network with a successive set of integers. Using this algorithm, a new notion of perfect graphs associated with a network is introduced, and tight upper bounds on the number of edges that can be added to, or removed from a network, while ensuring strong structural controllability, are derived. Moreover, we obtain a characterization of critical edges with respect to edge additions and deletions;... 

Advances in biomanufacturing techniques have opened the doors to recapitulate human sensory organs such as the nose and ear in vitro with adequate levels of functionality. Such advancements have enabled simultaneous targeting of two challenges in engineered sensory organs, especially the nose: i) mechanically robust reconstruction of the nasal cartilage with high precision and ii) replication of the nose functionality: odor perception. Hybrid nasal organs can be equipped with remarkable capabilities such as augmented olfactory perception. Herein, a proof-of-concept for an odor-perceptive nose-like hybrid, which is composed of a mechanically robust cartilage-like construct and a biocompatible... 

Myocardial infarction (MI) is a significant cardiovascular disease that restricts blood flow, resulting in massive cell death and leading to stiff and noncontractile fibrotic scar tissue formation. Recently, sustained oxygen release in the MI area has shown regeneration ability; however, improving its therapeutic efficiency for regenerative medicine remains challenging. Here, a combinatorial strategy for cardiac repair by developing cardioprotective and oxygenating hybrid hydrogels that locally sustain the release of stromal cell-derived factor-1 alpha (SDF) and oxygen for simultaneous activation of neovascularization at the infarct area is presented. A sustained release of oxygen and SDF... 

Noninvasive monitoring of biofabricated tissues during the biomanufacturing process is needed to obtain reproducible, healthy, and functional tissues. Measuring the levels of biomarkers secreted from tissues is a promising strategy to understand the status of tissues during biofabrication. Continuous and real-time information from cultivated tissues enables users to achieve scalable manufacturing. Label-free biosensors are promising candidates for detecting cell secretomes since they can be noninvasive and do not require labor-intensive processes such as cell lysing. Moreover, most conventional monitoring techniques are single-use, conducted at the end of the fabrication process, and,... 

The insect circulatory system contains an open hemocoel, in which the mechanism of hemolymph flow control is ambiguous. As a continuous fluidic structure, this cavity should exhibit pressure changes that propagate quickly. Narrow-waisted insects create sustained pressure differences across segments, but their constricted waist provides an evident mechanism for compartmentalization. Insects with no obvious constrictions between segments may be capable of functionally compartmentalizing the body, which could explain complex hemolymph flows. Here, we test the hypothesis of functional compartmentalization by measuring pressures in a beetle and recording abdominal movements. We found that the... 

In [1], [2] it is shown that the minimum broadcast rate of a linear index code over a finite field Fq is equal to an algebraic invariant of the underlying digraph, called minrankq. In [3], it is proved that for F2 and any positive integer k, minrankq(G) ≤ k if and only if there exists a homomorphism from the complement of the graph G to the complement of a particular undirected graph family called 'graph family {Gk}'. As observed in [2], by combining these two results one can relate the linear index coding problem of undirected graphs to the graph homomorphism problem. In [4], a direct connection between linear index coding problem and graph homomorphism problem is introduced. In contrast to...