Sharif Digital Repository

This paper presents a scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) rhythmic pattern detection scheme based on neural networks. Rhythmic discharges detection is applicable to the majority of seizures seen in newborns, and is listed as detecting 90% of all the seizures. In this approach some features based on various methods are extracted and compared by a modified multilayer neural network in order to find rhythmic discharges. Statistical performance comparison with seizure detection schemes of Gotman et al. and Liu et al. is performed. © 2006 IEEE  

Conductive self -electrical stimuli bioactive scaffolds could be used the potential for peripheral nerve regeneration with the maximum efficiency. To produce such conductive self-electrical stimuli bioactive scaffolds, chopped spun piezoelectric nanofibers of polyvinylidene fluoride/mesoporous silica nanoparticle (PVDF/MCM41) are prepared and incorporated in gellan/polyaniline/graphene (gellan/PAG) nanocomposites which have been previously prepared by incorporation of polyaniline/graphene (PAG) nanoparticles in gellan gel at 80 °C. Highly conductive binary doped polyaniline/graphene nanoparticles are prepared by chemical oxidative polymerization of aniline monomer using in-suite... 

In this paper a new approach to accurately classify ECG arrhythmias through a combination of the wavelet transform and artificial neural network is presented. Three kinds of features in a very computationally efficient manner are computed as follows: 1-Joint time-frequency features (discrete wavelet transform coefficients). 2-Time domain features (R-R intervals). 3-Statistical feature (form factor). Using these features, the limitations of other methods in classifying multiple kinds of arrhythmia with high accuracy for all of them at once are overcome. Finally, a cascade classifier including two ANNs has been designed. Considering the whole MIT-BIH arrhythmia database, 10 kinds of arrhythmia... 

In the image segmentation field, traditional techniques do not completely meet the segmentation challenges mostly posed by inherently fuzzy images. Fuzzy connectedness and fuzzy clustering are considered as two well-known techniques for introducing fuzzy concepts to the problem of image segmentation. Fuzzy connectedness-based Segmentation methods consider spatial relation of image pixels by "hanging togetherness" a notion based on intensity homogeneity. But, they do not inherently utilize feature information of image pixels. On the other hand, as the segmentation domain of fuzzy clustering-based methods is the feature space they do not consider spatial relations among image pixels. Recently,... 

With increasing concern of environmental protection and economic considerations, Wind energy has drawn much attention recently due to its high benefits to the reduction of emissions and reduction of dependency on fossil fuels. In this paper, a load dispatch model is developed for the system consisting of both thermal generators and wind turbine by GAMS Software and the recently introduced optimization strategy, Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA). In addition, transmission loss is considered which approximate the system losses as a quadratic function of the real power generation with B-losses coefficients. To better represent the conditions in real power systems, the cost of modern... 

This paper proposes a deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) based nonlinear integral backstepping (NIB) in combination with model free control (MFC) for pitch angle control of variable speed wind turbine. In particular, the controller has been presented as a digital twin (DT) concept, which is an increasingly growing method in a variety of applications. In DDPG-NIB-MFC, the pitch angle is considered as the control input that depends on the optimal rotor speed, which is usually derived from effective wind speed. The system stability according to the Lyapunov theory can be achieved by the recursive nature of the backstepping theory and the integral action has been used to compensate for... 

As wind energy is becoming one of the fastest-growing renewable energy resources, controlling large-scale wind turbines remains a challenging task due to its system model nonlinearities and high external uncertainties. The main goal of the current work is to propose an intelligent control of the wind turbine system without the need for model identification. For this purpose, a novel model-independent nonsingular terminal sliding-mode control (MINTSMC) using the basic principles of the ultra-local model (ULM) and combined with the single input interval type-2 fuzzy logic control (SIT2-FLC) is developed for non-linear wind turbine pitch angle control. In the suggested control framework, the... 

As wind energy is becoming one of the fastest-growing renewable energy resources, controlling large-scale wind turbines remains a challenging task due to its system model nonlinearities and high external uncertainties. The main goal of the current work is to propose an intelligent control of the wind turbine system without the need for model identification. For this purpose, a novel model-independent nonsingular terminal sliding-mode control (MINTSMC) using the basic principles of the ultra-local model (ULM) and combined with the single input interval type-2 fuzzy logic control (SIT2-FLC) is developed for non-linear wind turbine pitch angle control. In the suggested control framework, the... 

This study aimed to investigate the influence of processing parameters on the mechanical properties of auxetic polyurethane foams including Poisson’s ratio and Young’s modulus. 12 different processing scenarios were considered using the method of Plackett–Burman in the design of experiments with three replicates for each one. Eventually, 36 foams were prepared with different densities and initial thicknesses, heating temperatures and times, applied compression ratios, and the rest times between two heating steps. The microstructures of the conventional and auxetic samples were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). All samples were subjected to tensile loading in one direction with... 

In this paper, the performance of traditional variance-based method for detection of epileptic seizures in EEG signals are compared with various methods based on nonlinear time series analysis, entropies, logistic regression, discrete wavelet transform and time frequency distributions. We noted that variance-based method in compare to the mentioned methods had the best result (100%) applied on the same database. © 2006 IEEE  

This paper proposes a robust investment and operation model to attend the power and heat needs of a microgrid (MG) connected to the distribution system. The optimization algorithm decides on the best investment and operation of combined heat and power (CHP), boilers, PV power generation and battery energy storage systems (BESS). For the BESS, the algorithm estimates the optimal energy storage capacity (MWh) as well as the maximum hourly delivery capacity (MW). The non-linear and non-concave heat rate chart is recast by a mix-integer linear model to have a tractable and precise model. The model considers the uncertain in some parameters using probability density function (pdf) to portrait its... 

The aim of this work is to introduce a new method based on time frequency distribution for classifying the EEG signals. Some parameters are extracted using time-frequency distribution as inputs to a feed-forward backpropagation neural networks (FBNN). The proposed method had better results with 98.25% accuracy compared to previously studied methods such as wavelet transform, entropy, logistic regression and Lyapunov exponent  

Previous in-vivo investigations on the stabilizing efficacy of knee bracing for ACL reconstructed patients have been often limited to 20-30 degrees of knee flexion. In this study, the effectiveness of a uniaxial hinged functional brace to improve the knee stability was assessed at 30, 60 and 90 degrees of knee flexion. Arthrometry tests were conducted on 15 healthy subjects before and following wearing the brace and the tibial displacements were measured at up to 150 N anterior forces. Results indicated that functional bracing has a significant stabilizing effect throughout the range of knee flexion examined (p < 0.05). The rate of effectiveness, however, was not consistent across the... 

Font recognition is one of the pre-processing steps in optical character recognition (OCR) systems that affects on their performance. In this paper two methods are proposed for Persian font recognition. In the first method, Gabor filter is used for feature extraction from the images, then principle component analysis (PCA) applied to reduce feature dimensions and finally, a multi-layer Perceptron (MLP) neural network is used for the classification. In the second techniques, random forest is utilized for recognizing fonts. For evaluation, a dataset includes 10 popular Persian fonts is used. The proposed Gabor-PCA-MLP method has achieved 98.70% of F-measure, and random forest resulted in of... 

Quality of Experience (QoE) measures the overall quality of a service from users’ point of view by considering several system, human, and contextual factors. There exist various objective and subjective methods for QoE prediction. Although the subjective approach is more expensive and challenging than the objective approach, QoE’s level can be more accurately determined by a subjective test. This paper investigates various features affecting QoE by proposing a comprehensive subjective evaluation. First, we show that many unconsidered factors can significantly affect QoE. We have generated voice samples featuring different values for novel factors related to the speaker, signal, and network.... 

In the present paper, the use of a carbon paste electrode modified by 2,2′-[1,2 buthanediylbis (nitriloethylidyne)]-bis-hydroquinone (BH) and TiO2 nanoparticles prepared by a simple and rapid method was described. The modified electrode showed an excellent character for electrocatalytic oxidization of norepinephrine (NE), acetaminophene (AC) and folic acid (FA). Using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), a highly selective and simultaneous determination of NE, AC and FA has been explored at the modified electrode. Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) peak currents of NE, AC and FA increased linearly with their concentration at the ranges of 4.0-1100.0 μM, 12.5-500.0 μM and 200.0-3200.0 μM,... 

The main goal of this study is to investigate the effects of plaque structure on its stress distribution. Rupture of plaque causes cerebrovascular diseases which lead to high mortality rates all over the world. Computers are powerful tools to understand the mechanism of plaque rupture. In this study, 3D fluid structure interaction simulation is constructed in ABAQUS 6.13 to clarify the relation between stress distribution of plaque and its structure. A model of common carotid artery with distributed stenosis was chosen for the simulation. To investigate the effects of plaque structure on stress distribution, thickness of fibrous cap and lipid core size were varied in the stenosis.... 

Many patients all over the world suffer from acute wounds caused by traumas or burns. In most crucial cases, skin regeneration cannot be promoted spontaneously, and skin grafts are applied as the main treatment. However, this therapy has some drawbacks which motivate researchers to develop wound dressings. In this study, electrospun mats consisting of polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) incorporated with silver sulfadiazine (SSD) are proposed to be used as antimicrobial wound dressings with the capability of cell seeding. Various amounts of SSD were loaded into PVA nanofibers, and the effects of SSD particles on the morphological characteristics of nanofibers, mechanical... 

Most of the strategies yet implemented to optimal fuel loading pattern design in nuclear power reactors, are based on maximizing the core effective multiplication factor (Keff) to extract maximum energy and lowering the local power peaking factor (Pq) from a predetermined value. However, a new optimization criterion could be of interest, aiming at maximum burn-up of the plutonium content in fuel assemblies, i.e., minimization of remaining plutonium in spent fuel at the end of cycle (EOC). In this research, we developed a new strategy for optimal fuel core loading pattern of a VVER-1000 reactor, based on multi-objective optimization: lowering the Pq, maximization of the Keff and minimization... 

Most of the strategies yet implemented to optimize fuel loading pattern design in the nuclear power reactors, are based on maximizing the core effective multiplication factor (Keff) in order to extract maximum energy and to reduce the local power peaking factor (Pq) from a set value. However, a new optimization criterion would be of interest in order to maximize the burn-up of the plutonium content (Pu) in the fuel assemblies. In this research we have developed a new strategy based on multi objective optimization, to optimize fuel core loading pattern for a VVER-1000 reactor. In this approach we simultaneously have reduced the Pq, maximized Keff and also minimized the plutonium content in...