Sharif Digital Repository

Spherical nano-microcarriers generally perform targeted delivery of drugs to blood vessels with lesions. Recently, some studies have shown the importance of the non-spherical nature of nano-microcarriers in their movement toward the target wall inside blood arteries. Non-spherical particles tend to collide and adhere to the target wall due to their high interaction level with the artery wall. However, detailed kinematic studies have yet to be carried out to optimize nano-microcarriers’ shape based on their delivery rate to the target wall inside the artery. In addition, it is important to note that the flow of fluid in vessels can have diverse patterns that may affect the movement of drug... 

Purpose: The primary aim of this study is to provide actionable guidance for augmenting profitability in photovoltaic power plant investments within Iran’s solar energy sector. By emphasizing prudent capital management and strategic investment decisions, our research seeks to assist emerging businesses in attaining sustained success in this domain. Design/methodology/approach: This study presents a comprehensive approach to refined decision-making in Iran’s solar energy sector. Our methodology integrates the best-worst method, ArcGIS software for site selection, and the TOPSIS method for decision-making, aiming to enhance precision and reliability. Findings: Our research has identified ten... 

This study investigates nanocarriers (NCs) for drug delivery targeting carotid artery atherosclerosis. This targeted drug delivery mechanism is based on ligand–receptor bindings facilitated by coating NCs with P-selectin aptamers, which exhibit high affinities for P-selectin plaque receptors. Recognizing the significant advantages of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), such as their high drug-loading percentages, we chose them as nanocarriers for this research. Our evaluation considers critical factors: NC surface density (the number of attached nanocarriers per unit of plaque area), toxicity (percentage of NCs missing the target), and efficient drug transfer to plaque tissue. Employing... 

Background: Current development of sequencing technologies is towards generating longer and noisier reads. Evidently, accurate alignment of these reads play an important role in any downstream analysis. Similarly, reducing the overall cost of sequencing is related to the time consumption of the aligner. The tradeoff between accuracy and speed is the main challenge in designing long read aligners. Results: We propose Meta-aligner which aligns long and very long reads to the reference genome very efficiently and accurately. Meta-aligner incorporates available short/long aligners as subcomponents and uses statistics from the reference genome to increase the performance. Meta-aligner estimates... 

This paper studies the problem of secure and resilient distributed cooperative control for autonomous vehicles under false data injection attacks on the vehicular communication net-work. We propose a model-based scheme to detect unknown data falsification attacks using the predicted traj ectory in a distributed nonlinear model predictive control problem. First, as a local agent, each autonomous vehicle stores the information received from its neighboring vehicles to clarify anomalies. The recorded data is investigated over a temporal moving observation window which contains different prediction sequences of the distributed nonlinear model predictive control problem in the previous times. In... 

Three preconditioners proposed by Eriksson, Choi and Merkel, and Turkel are implemented in a 2D upwind Euler flow solver on unstructured meshes. The mathematical formulations of these preconditioning schemes for different sets of primitive variables are drawn, and their eigenvalues and eigenvectors are compared with each other. For this purpose, these preconditioning schemes are expressed in a unified formulation. A cell-centered finite volume Roe's method is used for the discretization of the preconditioned Euler equations. The accuracy and performance of these preconditioning schemes are examined by computing steady low Mach number flows over a NACA0012 airfoil and a two-element... 

A novel molecularly imprinted xerogel (MIX) based on organically modified silica (ORMOSIL) was successfully prepared for on-line capillary microextraction (CME) coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The sol-gel-based xerogel was prepared using only one precursor and exhibited extensive selectivity towards triazines along with significant thermal and chemical stability. Atrazine was selected as a model template molecule and 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propylmethacrylate (TMSPMA) as a precursor in which the propylmethacrylate moiety was responsible for van der Waals, dipole-dipole, and hydrogen-bond interactions with the template. This moiety plays a key role in creation of... 

Preconditioned characteristic boundary conditions (BCs) are implemented at artificial boundaries for the solution of the two- and three-dimensional preconditioned Euler equations at low Mach number flows. The preconditioned compatibility equations and the corresponding characteristic variables (or the Riemann invariants) based on the characteristic forms of preconditioned Euler equations are mathematically derived for three preconditioners proposed by Eriksson, Choi and Merkle, and Turkel. A cell-centered finite volume Roe's method is used for the discretization of the preconditioned system of equations on unstructured meshes. The accuracy and performance of the preconditioned characteristic... 

This review is mostly focused on the recently emerged methodologies for preparing the appropriate extracting media with enhanced capacity, stability and selectivity, which could be used in capillary microextraction (CME). We particularly consider conductive polymers, sol-gel-based materials, monolithic coatings, molecularly-imprinted polymers and xerogels. Moreover, we discuss recent advances in configuration of CME, array capillaries and unbreakable substrates  

Recently, Ghanbari and Mahdavi-Amiri (Appl Math Model 34:3363–3375, 2010) gave the general compromised solution of an LR fuzzy linear system using ABS algorithm. Here, using this general solution, we solve quadratic programming problems with fuzzy LR variables. We convert fuzzy quadratic programming problem to a crisp quadratic problem by using general solution of fuzzy linear system. By using this method, the crisp optimization problem has fewer variables in comparison with other methods, specially when rank of the coefficient matrix is full. Thus, solving the fuzzy quadratic programming problem by using our proposed method is computationally easier than the solving fuzzy quadratic... 

In this work, flow stress behavior, softening mechanisms and processing maps during deformation of aluminum-magnesium alloy i.e. AA5052, were investigated. Firstly, tensile tests were carried out in the range of room temperature up to 450 °C under different strain rates between 0.001 s-1 to 0.05 s-1. Then, neural network algorithms together with dynamic materials modeling were employed for determination of stain rate sensitivity parameter and processing maps under different working conditions. Moreover, the governing constitutive equations as well as the activation energies of dynamic strain aging and hot deformation were defined. Accordingly, the processing maps were developed for different... 

Ciprofloxacin is a widely used antibiotic that is also a persistent contamination that causes major health and environmental risks. This study investigated the electrochemical removal of ciprofloxacin using a boron-doped diamond anode and a non-supportive electrode to get an accurate understanding of the anode's performance. The effects of current density, initial ciprofloxacin concentration, time, pH, and electrolyte concentration on the removal efficiency of ciprofloxacin were investigated. Additionally, ANN and LSSVM models were used to predict ciprofloxacin removal. The results showed that the BDD anode was effective in removing ciprofloxacin from water, with complete removal of 10 mg... 

In this paper, a cooperative approach for control heterogeneous connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) platoon considering lane-change maneuvers is proposed. In complex dynamic traffic environment, the speed of the surrounding vehicles of CAVs changes dynamically. Thus, the lane changing vehicle requires considering velocity fluctuations to achieve safe driving. The aim of this study is to combine dynamic path planning based on a cubic curve and model predictive control (MPC) with collision avoidance constraint to track an optimally generated path. The proposed control performs as a maneuver switching model including the vehicle's continuous states and discrete maneuver transition rule for...