Sharif Digital Repository

Inspired by Williamson’s knowledge-first epistemology, I propose a position on practical knowledge that can be called the ‘know-how-first view’; yet whereas Williamson is one of the pioneers of the new intellectualism about know-how, I employ the know-how-first view to argue against intellectualism and instead develop a know-how-first version of anti-intellectualism. Williamson argues that propositional knowledge is a sui generis unanalyzable mental state that comes first in the epistemic realm; in parallel, I propose that know-how is a sui generis unanalyzable power that comes first in the practical realm. To motivate this suggestion, I put forward two arguments: (1) drawing on... 

In the present study, bubble-driven magnesium-based micromotors were fabricated through a shading method, and the potential of magnetic guidance of magnesium-based Janus micro/nanomotors through functionalization with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) was investigated for the first time. SPIONs had physical electrostatic attraction with the positively charged magnesium spheres due to negative charges on their surfaces. It was also found that upon applying a field gradient, the micromotors’ velocity increased by 13% unlike other magnetically navigated spherical magnesium-based micromotors which only show a change in direction. In this work the cytotoxicity of the moving... 

As an alternative to conventional fertilizers, e.g. NPK (the Nitrogen-Phosphorous-Potassium-containing chemical fertilizers) which release their nutrients in a short time glass fertilizers are ideal as they release macro-and micronutrients for crops and plant nourishment more gradually. Also, despite conventional ones, they have no ground-water pollution. In the present study, glass fertilizers were synthesized via polymer-derived ceramics (PDC) method. Despite the melt-casting procedure, PDC needs lower temperatures in heat treatment. The precursors consist of poly-siloxane and active fillers. Thus, thanks to gaseous release during heat treatment of the present active fillers, i.e. Ca(OH)2,... 

Silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) materials derived from silicone attracted great attention for their superior high-temperature behavior. In the present study, Si (Ti)OC and Si (Ti,Al)OC nanocomposites, in which alkoxide precursors were used with the main silicone precursor, have been compared with SiOC material. Although in SiOC, C was bonded with Si in a carbon-rich SiOC phase, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) showed that TiC was the preferred state for C atoms upon adding Ti into the system. This claim was also substantiated by Raman spectroscopy, where adding Ti into the system lowered the intensity of the D band, indicating the high affinity of C to... 

Mesoporous silica particles (MSPs) are highly important in applications like H2 storage, catalysis/biocatalysis, adsorption, separation, and particularly in biomedical applications. The typical methods for producing MSPs are fast self-assembly, soft and hard templating, and the modified Stöber method. These approaches have drawbacks like high cost, being time-consuming, and low scale. Herein, as a novel strategy, a polymer-derived ceramic method for large-scale production of mesoporous and dense silica submicron particles with high yield and low cost is presented. This method requires commercial silicone resin, polydimethylsiloxane, as the main precursor of silica. However, this technique... 

In this paper we proposed a new real-time learning method. The engine of this method is a fuzzy-modeling technique which is called ink drop spread (IDS). IDS method has good convergence and is very simple and away from complex formula. The proposed method uses a reinforcement learning approach by an actor-critic system similar to Generalized Approximate Reasoning based Intelligent Control (GARIC) structure to adapt the IDS by delayed reinforcement signals. Our system uses Temporal Difference (TD) learning to model the behavior of useful actions of a control system. It is shown that the system can adapt itself, commencing with random actions. © 2008 IEEE  

In this paper, the problem of locating a target in a distributed multiple-input multiple-output radar system using bistatic range measurements is addressed. An algebraic closed-form two-stage weighted least squares solution for the considered problem is developed and analyzed. In the first stage, we establish a set of linear equations by eliminating the nuisance parameters first and then we apply a weighted least squares estimator to determine the target position estimate. In the second stage, in order to improve the localization performance and refine the solution of the first stage, an estimate of the target position estimation error is obtained. The final solution is obtained by...