Sharif Digital Repository

In rail transportation, there have been several attempts to determine the best routes for shipments (a number of cars with the same origin-destination) through the network. Shipments enter into several intermediate yards on their routes to separate and regroup shipments into new trains. Most of time, every entering into a yard includes excessive delay for shipments; therefore it is an ideal plan that each shipment has been transported by an exclusive train service. Mainly because of restriction on a number of running trains, this plan cannot be adapted in most cases. Finding the optimal route over the rail network with above and other common constraints would be handled by railroad blocking... 

This letter deals with the problem of moving target localization in distributed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar systems using time delay (TD) and Doppler shift (DS) measurements. The proposed solution to this problem consists of two stages. In the first stage, an initial estimation of target location is obtained by solving the formulated maximum likelihood (ML) problem based on the TD measurements. In the second stage, by recognizing the obtained position estimate in the previous stage as a priori data and exploiting the DS measurements, another ML problem is formulated, which is efficiently solved via a tractable numerical method to produce a simultaneous estimation of target... 

In this article, an algebraic solution for localizing a moving target using a nonstationary multistatic radar system is proposed. By utilizing the quadruple hybrid measurement set, which consists of time delay, Doppler shift, angle of arrival, and angle rate measurements, the proposed method can estimate the target position and velocity vectors via a simple one-stage weighted least squares estimator without the need for introduction of the nuisance parameters, which enables us to locate the target with the minimum number of antennas. The proposed estimator takes the uncertainty concerned with the position and velocity of the antennas in its design. The proposed estimator is shown to be... 

In this letter, an efficient method for solving the multi-target localization problem in distributed MIMO radars is proposed. The proposed method attempts to simultaneously carry out the localization and data association tasks by formulating a mixed-integer optimization problem, which is approximated as a convex problem that can be efficiently solved with a polynomial complexity. Numerical simulations substantiate the efficacy of the proposed method. © 1997-2012 IEEE  

Cellular networks provide widespread and reliable voice communications among subscribers through mobile voice channels. These channels benefit from superior priority and higher availability compared with conventional cellular data communication services, such as General Packet Radio Service, Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution, and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access. These properties are of major interest to applications that require transmitting small volumes of data urgently and reliably, such as an emergency call in vehicular applications. This encourages excessive research to make digital communication through voice channels feasible, leading to the emergence of Data over Voice (DoV)... 

Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) is a widely spread, reliable and P2P channel through all over the world. These characteristics make GSM a channel suitable for a variety of applications in different domains especially security applications such as secure voice communication. Performance and usage of GSM applications extremely depends on the transmission data rate. Hence, transmitting data over GSM is still an attractive topic for research. This paper considers the problem of digital data transmission through the GSM voice channel. A lower capacity bound for data transmission through the GSM Adaptive Multi Rate (AMR) voice codec is presented. The GSM channel is modeled in a... 

This paper introduces an innovative frequency estimation approach that relies on a new and innovative structure for Kalman Filter (KF) in signal processing. Kalman Filtering, because of its state estimating nature, excels other methods in realtime processing. However, the main drawback of Kalman Filtering is that it involves time-consuming matrix operations which makes it inferior to faster methods like fast Fourier transform (FFT). The most evident privilege of the new structure is that it "synthesizes" the components rather than "extracts" them as standard Kalman Filter does. This parallel synthesis of signal components reduces the computational order of the Kalman Filter dramatically. In... 

In this paper, the mixed mode experimental results of 24 notched beams of concrete with various notch depths and locations are reported. The test results for conventional critical stress intensity factors and crack trajectories are demonstrated. It is noted that with the larger thickness, which results in conditions closer to plane strain, the crack path can be better predicted by linear elastic fracture mechanics criteria. The effects of applied load and specimen weight on the fracture are considered with the use of separate stress intensity factors. It is observed that the final failure angles, based on the crack path's intersection point with the beam's top side, are better predicted than... 

The swift growth of cellular mobile networks in recent years has made voice channels almost accessible everywhere. Besides, data hiding has recently attracted significant attention due to its ability to imperceptibly embed side information that can be used for signal enhancement, security improvement, and two-way authentication purposes. In this regard, we aim at proposing efficient schemes for hiding data in the widespread voice channel of cellular networks. To this aim, our first contribution is to model the channel accurately by considering a linear filter plus a nonlinear scaling function. This model is validated through experiments with true speech signals. Then we leverage on this... 

In this letter, an efficient estimator for 3-D target localization in distributed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radars using time delay (TD) and angle of arrival (AOA) measurements is proposed. First, an approximately equivalent maximum likelihood (ML) estimation problem is formulated. Then, the aforementioned ML problem is recast into a convex optimization problem for which we derive a semi closed-form solution that eventually boils down to finding the roots of certain polynomials. Using numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed estimator reaches the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) up to relatively high Gaussian measurement noise levels. Furthermore, the proposed method... 

Optimum highway alignment is among the most substantial, but large and complicated topics in transportation area. Infinite number of feasible solutions, numerous local optima and the constrained feature of the problem, associated with complex and mainly non-linear constraints, has put an extra effort into the problem solving process. This paper focuses on solving highway alignment optimization problem using an integrated model of parallel processing and particle swarm optimization algorithm. To achieve this goal, algorithm parallelization is done in synchronous and asynchronous manner. For assessing parallel performance, corresponding indexes are evaluated. SRTM3 databank is used for solving... 

In the special zones of frame elements, which are used for seismic energy dissipation, inelastic interaction among the internal forces needs to be considered more precisely. This paper describes a special element called a VM link element for modeling the shear-flexural interaction in the inelastic zones of beam elements. The element may be used in the any inelastic location of frames subjected to the monotonic or cyclic loadings. The inelastic shear and flexural deformations are considered by using the multi-surfaces plasticity concept with dissimilar yield surfaces. A new kinematic hardening and new non-associated flow rules are introduced for definition of the plastic deformations and... 

The present paper introduces a mixed shear-flexural (VM) link element that is capable of modelling shear yielding, flexural yielding, and their interaction under monotonic and cyclic loadings. The inelastic deformations are modelled using the multisurfaces approach with dissimilar yield surfaces and a stiffness matrix with nonzero off-diagonal components in shear-flexural space. A new kinematic hardening and new non-associated flow rules are employed. A special girder, which has an open web in the middle, is introduced and modelled using the developed VM link element. It is shown that the results of analyses using the VM link element are in good agreement with those from a finite element... 

In the present paper, a mixed, shear-flexural (VM) hinge element, with zero or nonzero length, for using in frames, has been introduced, where shear-flexural interaction has been considered. The element has the capability of modeling flexural yielding, shear yielding and their interaction in frames, subjected to all kinds of monotonic or cyclic loadings. The inelastic shear and flexural deformations and tangential stiffnesses are considered by using the multi-surfaces approach with dissimilar yield surfaces and by a stiffness matrix with nonzero off-diagonal components. A new kinematics hardening rule and, also, a new non-associated flow rule are introduced. The mixed hinge element can be... 

Defect engineering in metal–organic frameworks involves intentionally introducing defects to modify their properties. These defects create new active sites, increase surface area, and enhance overall performance in various applications. If properly designed, these intentional defects can create new active sites and increase the specific surface area and thus the overall performance in various applications. The defect engineering strategy in MOF-808 was evaluated using the second ligand agent in different ratios. The exceptional specific surface area obtained compared to the pristine MOF 808 indicates the realization of the improvement potential of MOFs and the increase of their performance... 

The present simulation aims to investigate adding NEPCM nanoparticles to water in the natural convection inside a cavity by using FVM method and SIMPLE algorithm. Nano-encapsulated phase change material (NEPCM) consists of a shell and core with phase change property. The NEPCM particles in base fluid have the ability to transfer heat by absorbing and dissipating heat in the liquid-solid phase change state. In this study, the energy wall phenomenon due to the phase change of NEPCM core has appeared that the whose energy transfer strength is proportional to the latent heat of NEPCM core and the thickness of the energy wall. Moreover, the relationship between the energy wall and the heat... 

An investigation into the mixed mode fracture of steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) beams with one percent volume fraction of steel fiber is presented. A series of notched beams with different notch depths and locations are tested under three-point bending. The test results for apparent fracture toughness, crack trajectories, and fracture energy are presented. The crack paths for SFRC and plain concrete beams are compared. The apparent fracture toughness values were more scattered for SFRC than for plain concrete. The load-deflection curves were used to obtain the fracture energy. To this end, two methods were utilized for center notched beams, and the results were comparable to each... 

Multiple Description Coding (MDC) is a technique where multiple streams from a source are generated, each individually decodable and mutually refinable. In this paper, a new Mixed Layer MDC (MLMDC) scheme is presented which achieves a higher side quality compared to conventional MDCs. The improved side performance leads to higher average video quality at the receiver in lossy networks. For each DCT coefficient, we generate two coefficients: Base Coefficient (BC) and Enhancement Coefficient (EC) which are combined together. When all descriptions are available, they are decomposed and decoded to achieve high quality video. When one description is not available, we use estimation to extract as... 

By the advancement in technology on one side, and governmental as well as social demands for lowest rate of driving accidents and reliable communication among vehicles on the other side, particularly in highways, vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) are of special interest as a reliable approach to this aim. VANET is typically defined as the communication network for wireless communicating between vehicles in a region. One of the most important challenges in such networks is reliable routing of data packages among the vehicle users. Several VANET routing topologies are published in the literature; however, there is still a lack of reliable scheme. This is due to the nature of users behaviour... 

Multiple Description Coding (MDC) is a technique for video transmission over error prone networks where the descriptions are routed over multiple paths. Intra coding like MDC provides error resiliency but coding in this mode must be decided with care since it degrades the compression ratio. In this paper, we present our investigation results for a new intra coding approach in MDC. We have found that, in MDC streams, the best policy is to encode selective frames as I-frame instead of coding some macroblocks of frames in intra mode. In order to find the most suitable I-frame positions within a given video stream, we developed a cost function based on which intra/inter frame type is decided....