Sharif Digital Repository

The preparation of microcapsules containing perphenazine by solvent evaporation using ethyl cellulose is described. The microparticles are formed after solvent evaporation and polymer precipitation. The drug was dissolved in a polymer solution and emulsified into an aqueous phase to form microcapsules. To study the effects on particle size, encapsulation efficiency and morphology, three different molecular weights of ethyl cellulose (Mw=47000, 71000 and 99000) were used. Covalent bonding of drugs to polymers via hydrolytically or enzymatically cleavable covalent bond was achieved for sustained drug delivery. The release rate of perphenazine from these systems was investigated  

Alterations in the structure of a magnetron, e.g., the A6 relativistic magnetron, are proposed, which considerably increase the device's build-up speed. We cover the magnetron vane surfaces with semiconductor layers of nonzero electric conductivity, with an exact geometrical design. Semiconductor layers with considerable mechanical strength also provide excellent shielding for the vanes against the high-energy relativistic electrons' bombardment. The novel structure introduces several new free parameters to the magnetron design procedure and considerably increases the design flexibility. A multistage exact optimization procedure, performed by extensive computer simulations, shows that... 

The rapid growth in the supply chain of electronic devices has led companies to purchase Intellectual Property or Integrated Circuits from unreliable sources. This dispersion in the design to fabrication stages of IP/IC has led to new attacks called hardware Trojans. Hardware Trojans can bargain information, reduce performance, or cause failure. Various methods have been introduced to detect or prevent hardware Trojans. Machine learning methods are one of these. Selecting the type and number of input variables in the learning algorithm has an important role in the performance of the learning model. Some previous hardware Trojan detection studies have used structural gate-level features to... 

In this paper, Virtual Cathode Oscillator as a microwave generator is studied concentrating on the nonlinear behavior of the microwave-plasma interaction that introduces chaos to the output voltage and power of the generator. It is shown that periodic oscillations of the electron beam strictly depend on the two most critical characteristics of the VCO, the input maximum voltage and the cathode radius. The chaos caused by the critical values of these two parameters, could restrict the maximum possible values of the input parameters, reducing the overall maximum output values. The effects of these two parameters are studied trough PIC-code simulations. The simulation results were used to... 

In this research, cold compaction behavior and pressureless sinterability of WC, WC-10%wtCu and WC-30%wtCu powders were investigated. WC and WC/Cu powders were milled in a planetary ball mill for 20h. The milled powders were cold compacted at 100, 200, 300 and 400 MPa pressures. The compressibility behavior of the powders was evaluated using the Heckel, Panelli-Ambrosio and Ge models. The results showed that the PanelliAmbrosio was the preferred equation for description the cold compaction behavior of the milled WC and WC-30%wtCu powders. Also, the most accurate model for describing the compressibility of WC-10%wtCu powders was the Heckel equation. The cold compacts were sintered at 1400oC.... 

Kinetics of oxidation of MgO-C refractory bricks containing 14.3% graphite, 80.9% magnesia, and 4.8% phenolic resin is investigated comprehensively. Effect of temperature and grain size distribution on the rate of oxidation of graphite is evaluated by application of a mathematical model developed on the basis of shrinking core/progressive conversion regime to the gas-solid processes involved. Incorporation of the experimental data into the mathematical model indicates that a mixed controlling mechanism governs the oxidation rate. Three activation energies were recognized: (a) 68 kJ/mol for chemical adsorption of gas on the surface of the graphite flakes, (b) 22 kJ/mol for pore diffusion of... 

Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) refers to the process of using bacterial activities for more oil recovery from oil reservoirs mainly by interfacial tension reduction and wettability alteration mechanisms. Investigating the impact of these two mechanisms on enhanced oil recovery during MEOR process is the main objective of this work. Different analytical methods such as oil spreading and surface activity measurements were utilized to screen the biosurfactant-producing bacteria isolated from the brine of a specific oil reservoir located in the southwest of Iran. The isolates identified by 16S rDNA and biochemical analysis as Enterobacter cloacae (Persian Type Culture Collection (PTCC)... 

A depleted naturally fractured gas condensate reservoir with extremely tight matrix permeability in the center of Iran is used for gas storage. Due to the tightness of the matrix, simulation of this process may present a unique challenge in terms of the importance of diffusion process in flow behavior of the injected gas in matrix blocks. This article presents a multimechanistic (Darcian-type flow and Fickian-type flow) mathematical model to investigate the importance of diffusion process as a function of important rock and fluid parameters. The authors' approach consists of the following steps: (a) development of a 1-D governing equations for a single matrix block consists of a gas... 

In this article, a new method for solving multidimensional population balance (PB) equations for agglomeration is presented. First, discretized 2-dimensional PB (DPB) is derived and by applying probability approach, this method is extended to n-dimensional PB. The discretization of size intervals is in the form of v(j) = 2j-i v(i) and the volume based PB is used. Because of conservative nature of volume, all internal coordinates are converted to some independent volumes. A simple and clear procedure for solving multidimensional PB is proposed using probability concept. In addition, various types of birth and death mechanisms involved in PB are analyzed separately. Moreover, results of... 

In this article, the problem of combined forced and free convection in vertical porous and regular channels for both regular fluids and nanofluids has been solved using the CFD technique in the entrance regions of momentum and heat transfer taking into account the influences of viscous heating and inertial force. In this regard, various types of viscous dissipation models reported in the literature such as the Darcy model, the power of the drag force model, and the clear fluid-compatible model were applied. In the case of nanofluid flow, both the Brownian and thermophoresis molecular transfer mechanisms were considered. The dimensionless distributions of velocity, temperature, and the volume... 

Zinc-rich ethyl silicate coatings are quite successful in protecting steel against corrosion under severe exposing conditions. In spite of providing excellent cathodic protection to steel structure after film curing, two-component zinc-rich ethyl silicate coatings have some limitations, one of which is inadequate shelf life as a result of in-can binder gelation. In this work, the preparation steps of ethyl silicate such as pre-hydrolysis, dehydration and organometallic reactions were surveyed and herein an approach towards understanding the cause and effect relationship of the use of ingredients is presented. The effects of water and catalytic acid dosages on gel time under accelerated... 

Changing the wettability of reservoir rock towards strongly water-wet state is effective way to enhance oil recovery from fractured carbonate reservoirs which are typically oil-wet. Regarding this fact, the injection of surfactant and the bacterial solution as EOR agents is proposed in the current work as a potential method to alter the wettability of rock surface reservoir. Nevertheless, there is a definite lack of experimental data regarding this method and the synergistic effect of both chemical and bacterial solutions on this process. In this study, the sole and combined effects of the bacterial solution using an Enterobacter cloacae strain as a biosurfactant-producer are compared with... 

Background: Impairments of upper limb (UL) sensory-motor functions are common in Parkinson's disease (PD). Virtual reality exercises may improve sensory-motor functions in a safe environment and can be used in tele-rehabilitation. This study aimed to investigate the effects of supervised and non-supervised UL virtual reality exercises (ULVRE) on UL sensory-motor functions in patients with idiopathic PD. Methods: In this clinical trial study, 45 patients with idiopathic PD (29 male) by mean ± SD age of 58.64 ± 8.69 years were randomly allocated to either the control group (conventional rehabilitation exercises), supervised ULVRE or non-supervised ULVRE. Interventions were 24 sessions, 3... 

Nanodiamond (ND)is an allotrope of carbon nanomaterials which exhibits many outstanding physical, mechanical, thermal, optical and biocompatibility characteristics. Meanwhile, ND particles possess unique spherical shape containing diamond-like structure at the core with graphitic carbon outer shell which intuitively contains many oxygen-containing functional groups at the outer surface. Such superior properties and unique structural morphology of NDs are essentially attractive to develop polymer composites with multifunctional properties. However, despite a long history from the discovery of NDs, which is dated back to the1960s, this nanoparticle has been less explored in the field of... 

Kinetics of air oxidation of MgO-C-Al refractory at 600°-1300°C were investigated using the software based on the modifled shrinking core model (KDA). Commercial bricks containing 88.5% MgO, 10% residual carbon, and 1.5% aluminum anti-oxidant were oxidized isothermally with air. Combination of experimental data with model calculations indicated gas diffusion through solid material and pores as a major controlling step. Previously observed chemisorption process was eliminated from the rate-controlling mechanism with addition of aluminum antioxidant. Comprehensive rate equations were devised for MgO-C-Al and MgO-C oxidation reactions. Overall activation energies of Q id (internal diffusion) =... 

Kinetics of oxidation of MgO-C refractories was investigated by shrinking core modeling of the gas-solid reactions taking place during heating the porous materials to the high temperatures. Samples containing 4.5-17 wt pct graphite were isothermally oxidized at 1000-1350°C. Weight loss data was compared with predictions of the model. A mixed 2-stage mechanism comprised of pore diffusion plus boundary layer gas transfer was shown to generally control the oxidation rate. Pore diffusion was however more effective, especially at graphite contents lower than 10 wt pct under forced convection blowing of the air. Model calculations showed that effective gas diffusion coefficients were in the range... 

In this research, the parameters affecting the Nusselt number of a generator rotor and stator under varying heat transfer rate are experimentally studied. In spite of the stator having no grooves, the rotor has four large triangular grooves. The temperature and then heat transfer rate of the rotor and stator are experimentally measured in three longitudinal and two angular positions. First, the effect of axial Reynolds number and rotor rotational speed on the rotor and stator Nusselt number with constant heat transfer rate ratio is studied. The range of the axial Reynolds number and rotational speed used is from 4000 to 30,000 and from 300 to 1500 rpm, respectively. Next, the effect of... 

It has been recently proposed that late time behavior of holographic complexity in a uncharged black brane solution of Einstein-Hilbert theory with boundary cut off is consistent with Lloyd's bound if we have a cut off behind the horizon. Interestingly, the value of this new cut off is fixed by the boundary cut off. In this paper, we extend this analysis to the charged black holes. Concretely, we find the value of this new cut off for charged small black hole solutions of Einstein-Hilbert-Maxwell theory, in which the proposed bound on the complexification is saturated. We also explore this new cut off in Gauss-Bonnet-Maxwell theory. © 2019 The Author(s)  

IC 1613 is a Local Group dwarf irregular galaxy at a distance of 750 kpc. In this work, we present an analysis of the star formation history (SFH) of a field of ~200 arcmin 2 in the central part of the galaxy. To this aim, we use a novel method based on the resolved population of more highly evolved stars. We identify 53 such stars, eight of which are supergiants and the remainder are long-period variables, large-amplitude variables, or extreme asymptotic giant branch (x-AGB) stars. Using stellar evolution models, we find the age and birth mass of these stars and thus reconstruct the SFH. The average rate of star formation during the last Gyr is ~3 × 10 -4 M ⊙ yr -1 kpc -2. The absence of a... 

Electro-reduction behavior of testosterone at reduced graphene oxide/glassy carbon electrode (rGO/GCE) was studied. Cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) enhanced the reduction peak of testosterone. In borate buffer (pH 5.4) CTAB-testosterone showed a reduction peak at - 1.1 V (versus, Ag/AgCl). The increment of peak current obtained by deducting the reduction peak current of the CTAB-testosterone was rectilinear with testosterone concentration in the range of 2.0 to 210.0 nM, with a detection limit of 0.1 nM. The sensor was used for quantification of testosterone in biological fluids and drug