Sharif Digital Repository

Understanding the adsorption dynamics of nanoparticles at solid-liquid interfaces is of paramount importance to engineer nanoparticles for a variety of applications. The nanoparticle surface chemistry is significant for controlling the adsorption dynamics. This study aimed to experimentally examine the adsorption of surface-modified round-shaped silica nanoparticles (with an average diameter of 12 nm), grafted with hydrophobic (propyl chains) and/or hydrophilic (polyethylene glycol chains) agents, at an aqueous solution-silica interface with spherical soda-lime glass beads (diameter of 3 mm) being used as adsorbents. While no measurable adsorption was observed for solely hydrophobic or... 

We investigate the dynamic localization of light in the sinusoidal bent squeezed-like photonic lattices, a class of inhomogeneous semi-infinite waveguide arrays. Our findings show that, dynamic localization takes place for the normalized amplitude of sinusoidal profile (α) above a critical value α c. In this regime, for any normalized amplitude α>αc, there is a specific spatial period (ℓ) of waveguides, in which the dynamical oscillation, with the same spatial period occurs. Moreover, the specific spatial period is a decreasing function of the normalized amplitude α. Accordingly, the dynamical oscillation and self-imaging is realized, in spite of the existence of inhomogeneous coupling... 

A genetic programming technique was employed to develop empirical models for predicting specific wear rate and coefficient of friction on brake friction materials. The models consist of independent variables representing the volume fraction of the ingredients. The average absolute relative error for specific wear rate and coefficient of friction were found to be 1.93% and 1.92%, respectively. The models were also verified by the experimental data used for further control of the formulation. Utilizing Tornado plots, the models were found to be able to properly demonstrate the role of the ingredients on overall tribological performance of the brake friction materials. Moreover, a non-dominated... 

Removal of aromatic compounds from fuel is an essential requirement in new environmental policies. In the present study, poly(vinyl alcohol)/graphene oxide (GO) mixed matrix membranes were prepared and applied to the separation of toluene from iso-octane by pervaporation, considering the similarity and interaction between graphene and aromatics. The effects of crosslinking and GO content on separation efficiency have been investigated in detail. Owing to the high affinity of GO with toluene through s and π bonds, the selectivity of the membranes was increased by incorporating a low amount of GO. The results also indicated that noncrosslinked membranes have higher selectivity and permeation... 

In this paper, the effects of the long-range correlated diagonal disordered optical waveguide arrays in the presence and absence of the positive Kerr nonlinearity are analyzed numerically. The calculated inverse localization length shows that the long-range correlation in a disordered system causes a decrease in the transverse localization in linear optical waveguide arrays. In the presence of positive Kerr nonlinearity, the inverse localization length is increased by increasing the nonlinear parameters in long-range correlated disordered systems in comparison with the uniform distribution disordered systems. This means that the long range correlation causes an enhancement of transverse... 

In this paper a simulation of the transverse localization of light in 1D array of optical waveguides in the presence of off-diagonal disorder is presented. Effects of self-focusing and self-defocusing Kerr nonlinearity on the transverse localization of surface and bulk modes of the disordered waveguides array are taken into consideration. The simulation shows that in the off-diagonal disordered array at low nonlinear parameters, the transverse localization of light becomes more than that of the corresponding diagonal disordered array. However by increasing the nonlinear parameters the diagonal disordered array is localized more than the associated off-diagonal disordered array for both... 

The Gaussian mixture probability hypothesis density (GM-PHD) filter is a closed form approximation of the multi-target Bayes filter which can overcome most multitarget tracking problems. Limited field of view, decreasing cost of cameras, and advances of using multi-camera induce us to use large-scale camera networks. In this paper, a multihuman tracking framework using the PHD filter in a distributed camera network is proposed. Each camera tracks objects locally with PHD filter and a track-after-detect scheme and its estimates of targets are sent to neighboring nodes. Then each camera fuses its local estimates with it's neighbors. The proposed method is evaluated on the public PETS2009... 

An adjustable join (AdjoinAdjoin) scheme [4] is a symmetric-key primitive that enables a user to securely outsource his database to a server, and later to issue join queries for a pair of columns. When queries are extended to a list of columns, the 3Partition3Partition security of Adjoin schemes [8] does not capture the expected security. To address this deficiency, we introduce the syntax and security notion of multi-adjustable join (M-AdjoinM-Adjoin) schemes. We propose a new security notion for this purpose, which we refer to as M3PartitionM3Partition. The 3Partition3Partition security of AdjoinAdjoin extends to the M3PartitionM3Partition security of M-AdjoinM-Adjoin in a straightforward... 

Karyotype is a genetic test that is used for detection of chromosomal defects. In a karyotype test, an image is captured from chromosomes during the cell division. The captured images are then analyzed by cytogeneticists in order to detect possible chromosomal defects. In this paper, we have proposed an automated pipeline for analysis of karyotype images. There are three main steps for karyotype image analysis: image enhancement, image segmentation and chromosome classification. In this paper, we have proposed a novel chromosome segmentation algorithm to decompose overlapped chromosomes. We have also proposed a CNN-based classifier which outperforms all the existing classifiers. Our... 

Designing an efficient and secure electronic voting (e-voting) protocol without the presence of trusted authorities, known as decentralized voting protocols, is one of the most interesting and challenging problems in cryptography. In these protocols the outcome of the protocol is computed by voters collaborating with each other. We provide a rigorous proof of security of a decentralized e-voting protocol proposed by Khader et al. in the Universal Composability (UC) Framework. This protocol is the state-of-the-art decentralized e-voting protocol in terms of efficiency and security, whose security has only been justified against a set of desired properties required in e-voting protocols. For... 

Poly(vinyl alcohol)/graphene oxide mixed matrix membranes have been prepared and applied for the pervaporation of isooctane (aliphatic) and toluene (aromatic) mixtures. Characteristics of the membranes such as crystallinity, morphology, and swelling have been investigated, and the results have been used to describe pervaporation performance. Experimental tests evidenced that incorporation of low content of graphene oxide nanoplates (0.5 wt%) in poly(vinyl alcohol) increases affinity of the membrane to aromatics by S and π bonds and selectivity increase to about four times. Moreover, interaction of graphene oxide with toluene results in increasing of swelling and decreasing of permeation... 

Anthropometry is a Greek word that consists of the two words "Anthropo"meaning human species and "metery"meaning measurement. It is a science that deals with the size of the body including the dimensions of different parts, the field of motion and the strength of the muscles of the body. Specific individual dimensions such as heights, widths, depths, distances, environments and curvatures are usually measured. In this article, we investigate the anthropometric characteristics of patients with chronic diseases (diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and strokes) and find the factors affecting these diseases and the extent of the impact of each to make the necessary... 

Formation of the amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide aggregations represents an indispensable role in appearing and progression of Alzheimer disease. β-sheet breaker peptides can be designed and modified with different amino acids in order to improve biological properties and binding affinity to the amyloid beta peptide. In the present study, three peptide sequences were designed based on the hopeful results of LIAIMA peptide and molecular docking studies were carried out onto the monomer and fibril structure of amyloid beta peptide using AutoDock Vina software. According to the obtained interactions and binding energy from docking, the best-designed peptide (D-GABA-FPLIAIMA) was chosen and... 

A composite coating containing silver, fluoride and hydroxyapatite (Ag-FHA) was developed on titanium substrate by sol-gel method. Triethylphosphite, hydrated calcium nitrate, ammonium fluoride and silver nitrate were used respectively, as P, Ca, F and Ag precursors with a Ca:P ratio 1.67 and concentration of silver was 0.3 wt%. Coatings were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). Potentiodynamic polarization measurements in simulated body fluid proved corrosion protection caused by both Ag-FHA coatings. Antibacterial activity of coatings against... 

Format compliance, a desirable feature of multimedia security systems, means that the secured bitstream resembles the unprotected compressed bitstream. It is called full format compliance, if the scrambled stream can be decoded by a typical decoder. In this paper, we address the issues that are to be carefully taken into account to develop efficient fully format compliant scrambling methods for compressed video. We also propose new selective scrambling methods for securing compressed video streams. The security issues, in different parts of these scrambling methods, are analyzed and their impact on bit-rate and complexity is discussed. We show that our scrambling methods provide... 

Herein, we demonstrate an optimization of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) through the development of single-layer and double-layer configurations. Focusing on the incorporation of brookite and anatase phases in varying ratios, the study aims to determine the optimal composition for enhanced photovoltaic performance. The active layer, composed of anatase- and brookite-TiO2 nanoparticles, is further modified with a scattering layer comprising a mixture of anatase nanoparticles and brookite-TiO2 in the form of nanocube or rice-like particles. The synthesis of TiO2 nanostructures with various morphologies and phase compositions and their subsequent application in single-layer and double-layer... 

Identifying the factors affecting profitability is important from the perspective of market players. One of the most important benchmarks of firm performance is accounting profit and effective factors analysis so that users of accounting information analyse the factors affecting profit, firm performance and various aspects of its performance and according to estimates Done, make your own decision on how to allocate resources. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of some factors of competitiveness, entrepreneurship and business environment indicators on the profitability of the world’s top companies. For this purpose, 176 top companies in the world from 2013 to 2018... 

Identifying the factors affecting profitability is important from the perspective of market players. One of the most important benchmarks of firm performance is accounting profit and effective factors analysis so that users of accounting information analyse the factors affecting profit, firm performance and various aspects of its performance and according to estimates Done, make your own decision on how to allocate resources. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of some factors of competitiveness, entrepreneurship and business environment indicators on the profitability of the world’s top companies. For this purpose, 176 top companies in the world from 2013 to 2018... 

In 1992, Frankel and Desmedt introduced a technique that enables one to reduce the secret space of an ideal homomorphic secret sharing scheme (IHSSS) into any of its characteristic subgroups. In this paper, we propose a similar technique to reduce the secret space of IHSSSs called the quotient technique. By using the quotient technique, we show that it is possible to yield an ideal linear scheme from an IHSSS for the same access structure, providing an alternative proof of a recent result by Jafari and Khazaei. Moreover, we introduce the concept of decomposition of secret sharing schemes. We give a decomposition for IHSSSs, and as an application, we present a necessary and sufficient... 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, significant changes occurred in customer behavior, especially in traffic and urban transmission systems. In this context, there is a need for more scientific research and managerial approaches to develop behavior-based smart transportation solutions to deal with recent changes in customers, drivers, and traffic behaviors, including the volume of traffic and traffic routes. This research has tried to find a comprehensive view of novel travel behavior in different routes using a new social network analysis method. Our research is rooted in graph theory/network analysis and application of centrality concepts in social network analysis, particularly in the...