Sharif Digital Repository

Predicting freight transportation is crucial since it is often likened to the foundation of society and a pivotal component of its progress. When access to freight data is limited in underdeveloped nations, nighttime light data could serve as a reliable proxy for assessing freight activity. This research aims to assess the reliability of Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) nighttime light imagery data as an indicator of freight activity, utilizing Iran's county-level road freight transit database. The study incorporates Population (POP), Average Annual Household Income (AI), and Nighttime Light (NL) as independent variables, while the quantity of annual road freight attraction... 

Economic policies for managing agricultural water use are often complicated by the challenge of using water prices as an efficient economic tool when other non-economic concerns are involved in the decision-making process. This study aims to analyse the impact of water pricing policies on preserving agricultural water resources in Iran. This study applies a system dynamics approach to simulate the system performance and behaviour of stakeholders and the economic implications. Our finding shows that water pricing policies will likely fail due to low water price elasticity and if there are lack of institutional and physical infrastructure, alternative professions, manufacturing technology,... 

Pipelines are one of the most important and efficient ways for transporting energy like water, gas, oil and etc. between different places all across the world. As these pipelines are located in different conditions and situations, they are all sensitive to a wide variety of damages like vibration, so monitoring their structural behavior is an essential task. Monitoring pipeline vibration caused by cavitation through an orifice by a piezoelectric sensor is presented in this paper  

One of the new forming world discipline feature is knowledge based innovation. World new discipline, vitality condition is to establish new science and technology and suitable utility from that. Therefore, the new era witness those grand variations in university systems and for more utilization process in national, regional and international economical development. In this context, traditional university variation and conversion to Entrepreneurial University and holding and creating idea and supporting it to transform in final product or service is concerned, which means knowledge-based entrepreneurship. Thus, this university can develop knowledge-based staff and has nontraditional processes... 

In this study, the failure analysis of a shaft of a unit, which had been failed during the service, was studied. This shaft was welded to the blades, and their chemical compositions were determined by spectroscopy method. In order to determine the root cause of failure and contribution factors, different investigation methods including visual examination, optical microscopy and scanning electron microscope analysis, and hardness test were carried out. It was concluded that the shaft was failed due to fatigue. The failure was caused by improper welding of blades to the shaft. At the end, in order to prevent or decelerate such failure, some recommended remedies were suggested  

An efficient algorithm for the design optimization of the compressible fluid flow problem through a flexible structure is presented. The methodology has three essential parts: first the behavior of compressible flow in a supersonic diffuser was studied numerically in quasi-one-dimensional form using a flux splitting method. Second, a fully coupled sequential iterative procedure was used to solve the steady state aeroelastic problem of a flexible wall diffuser. Finally, a robust Genetic Algorithm was implemented and used to calculate the optimum shape of the flexible wall diffuser for a prescribed pressure distribution. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved  

This paper presents a method to determine material of an unknown sample object. The main objective of this study is to design a database for specifying material of an object. We produce the database for different materials which is subjected to different forces. For this purpose we use a Polyvinidilene Fluoride (PVDF) sensor which is a piezoelectric material. Also we study the effect of changing place of sensor on our study. The detailed design was performed using finite element method analysis. Furthermore, if we have an object which we do not know its material by use of this database we can find out what this object is and how much its Yanoung's modules is. This study will be suitable for... 

Vibration control is an essential problem in different structure. Smart material can make a structure smart, adaptive and self-controlling so they are effective in active vibration control. Piezoelectric elements can be used as sensors and actuators in flexible structures for sensing and actuating purposes. In this paper we use PZT elements as sensors and actuator to control the vibration of a cantilever beam. Also we study the effect of different types of controller on vibration. © 2009 IEEE  

This research presents a technique to recover the dispersion curves of guided-waves by utilizing the inherent sparsity of these signals in the frequency-wavenumber domain. The proposed methodology is a data-driven approach that combines physics-based knowledge with high-dimensional analysis to obtain the dispersion curves of the medium from experimental signals. Initially, a sparse two-dimensional dispersion matrix is constructed using sparse wavenumber analysis. Then, B-splines are fitted to non-zero elements of this matrix to establish an initial estimate of the dispersion curve parameters. These parameters are further optimized using the quasi-Newton algorithm to improve the accuracy of... 

With the spread of deadly diseases worldwide, the design of rapid tests to identify causative microorganisms is necessary. Due to the unique properties of gold nanoparticles, these nanoparticles are used in designing rapid diagnostic tests, such as strip tests. The current study aimed to investigate the ability of gold nanoparticles to bind to single-chain variable fragment antibodies. In this study, the biological and chemical methods included Escherichia coli TOP-10 and the Turkevich method to synthesize the gold nanoparticles, respectively. Then, the effect of synthetic nanoparticles on their capability of binding to recombinant antibodies was assessed by agarose gel and UV-vis... 

Neisseria meningitides is one of the causative agents of the deadly bacterial meningitis disease, and its rapid diagnosis is highly required. In this study, at first, a specific single-chain variable fragment (scFv) antibody-conjugated Au NPs with average size of ~ 20 nm and surface plasmon resonance absorption peak at ~ 530 nm in wavelength were synthesized. Then, the NPs were loaded on nitrocellulose membrane pads for designing a selective lateral flow immunoassay test strip which is sensitive to the factor H protein of Neisseria meningitidis. The results showed a minimum detectable bacterial concentration of 0.5 μg/mL in only three minutes. The molecular structure of the scFv antibody-Au... 

Recent advances in the use of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs)/antibody conjugations in nanomedicine have increased the need to optimize the synthesis conditions and surface functionalization of Au NPs. In this study, a home-made Neisseria meningitidis recombinant antibody (scFv-Fc) was developed by connecting the fragment crystallizable (Fc) region of a human antibody with a mouse recombinant antibody (single-chain variable fragment antibody (scFv)) and characterized using the SOEing PCR technique. Then, an optimized gold coating agent for the scFv-Fc/Au NP conjugation (i.e., the citrate agent) was found among three common agents (citrate, allylamine hydrochloride, and polyvinyl alcohol) with... 

In this work a new method for analyzing nanostructured materials has been proposed to accelerate the simulations for solid crystalline materials. The proposed Structural Approximation Method (SAM) is based on Molecular Dynamics (MD) and the accuracy of the results can also be improved in a systematic manner by sacrificing the simulation speed. In this method a virtual material is used instead of the real one, which has less number of atoms and therefore fewer degrees of freedom, compared to the real material. The number of differential equations that must be integrated in order to specify the state of the system will decrease significantly, and the simulation speed increases. To generalize... 

Computer networks courses are hard to teach as there are many details in the protocols and techniques involved that are difficult to grasp. Employing programming assignments as part of the course helps students to obtain a better understanding and gain further insight into the theoretical lectures. In this paper, the Partov simulation engine and experience using this engine in a computer networks course are discussed. Since 2009, various programming assignments based on the Partov system have been set to help students in their learning process. Student feedback has been very good; this has been quantified in two surveys in which a majority of students expressed their satisfaction with this... 

Network protocol design and evaluation requires either full implementation of the considered protocol and evaluation in a real network, or a simulation based on a model. There is also a middle approach in which both simulation and emulation are used to evaluate a protocol. In this article the Partov engine, which provides both simulation and emulation capabilities simultaneously, is presented. Partov benefits from a layered and platform-independent architecture. As a pure simulator, it provides an extensible plugin-based platform that can be configured to perform both real-time and non-real-time discrete-event simulations. It also acts as an emulator, making interaction with real networks... 

In this work a new method for analyzing nanostructured materials has been proposed to accelerate the simulations for solid crystalline materials. The proposed Structural Approximation Method (SAM) is based on Molecular Dynamics (MD) and the accuracy of the results can also be improved in a systematic manner by sacrificing the simulation speed. In this method a virtual material is used instead of the real one, which has less number of atoms and therefore fewer degrees of freedom, compared to the real material. The number of differential equations that must be integrated in order to specify the state of the system will decrease significantly, and the simulation speed increases. To generalize... 

In this paper we present a new exact solution for scalar field with cosmological constant in cylindrical symmetry Associated cosmological models including a model that describes a cyclic universe are discussed  

Emergence of instrumentation frameworks has vastly contributed to the software engineering practices. As the instrumentation use cases become more complex, complexity of instrumenting programs also increases, leading to a higher risk of software defects, increased development time, and decreased maintainability. In security applications such as symbolic execution and taint analysis, which need to instrument a large number of instruction types, this complexity is prominent. This paper presents an architecture based on the Pin binary instrumentation framework to abstract the low-level OS and hardware-dependent implementation details, facilitate code reuse in heavyweight instrumentation use... 

Too much effort has been done for manipulating individual atoms, using nano-manipulators and Scanning Tunneling Microscopes (STM). On the other hand, characterization and manipulation of nano-flows is of great concern. In the current work a molecular valve has been considered, which is made up of six atoms placed on the circumstance of a circle. A fuzzy controller has been designed for controlling the diameter of this molecular valve. The designed fuzzy controller used singleton fuzzifier, Mamdani inference engine, center average defuzzifier and exponential membership functions. A model based on the classical Molecular Dynamics (MD) is used for modeling the nano-system and passing the states... 

The stress distribution on open-ended Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) embedded in a composite material is considered in this work and an analytical solution for the stress distribution has been obtained. The effects of CNT's thickness and CNT's length on the distribution of stress have been investigated. To find the governing relations, continuity equations of the axisymmetric problem in cylindrical coordinate (r,o,z) are used. Under some assumptions, the governing equations are solved and by using constitutive equations and applying the boundary conditions, an equation which relates the stress applied to the representative volume element with the stress distribution on the CNT, has been found. The...