Sharif Digital Repository

Sol-gel based solid-phase microextraction fibers supported by a stainless steel wire were fabricated and employed for GC-MS determination of oxadiargyl in real samples. The fibers were based on four compounds with different polarity: polar and non-polar (end-capped) poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), polyethylene glycol (PEG), and poly(ethylene-propyleneglycol)-monobutyl ether (UCON). For this purpose, the surface of the stainless steel was initially modified by (3-mercaptopropyl) trimethoxysilane. The results of the modification procedure were evaluated by cyclic voltammetry and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. After the modification, four different sol-gel based SPME fibers with... 

A method based on solid-phase microextraction (SPME) followed by on-fiber derivatization and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry detection (GC-MS) for determination of phenol in air was developed. Three different types of SPME fibers, polar and non-polar poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) were synthesized using sol-gel technology and their feasibility to the sampling of phenol were investigated. Different derivatization reagents for post on-fiber derivatization of phenol were studied. Important parameters influencing the extraction and derivatization process such as type of fiber coating, type and volume of derivatizing reagent, derivatization time and temperature,... 

In this paper, a new zero-voltage-switching high power-factor (PF) rectifier with Line-Modulated Fixed-Off-Time current control is introduced, that off time is a function of the instantaneous line voltage. The auxiliary circuit provides soft switching for all semiconductor devices, without any extra current and voltage stress on the main switches. The proposed converter is bridgeless, and all semiconductor devices are soft switched. In addition, there is no extra stress on the switches. Thus, the conduction and switching losses are reduced and maximum efficiency is achieved. A 250W, with an input ac voltage of 90265 Vrms and an output voltage 400 Vdc, 100 kHz is designed and simulated to... 

In this paper, a new zero-voltage-switching, high power-factor, bridgeless rectifier is introduced. In this topology, an auxiliary circuit provides soft switching for all of the power semiconductor devices. Thus the switching losses are reduced and the highest efficiency can be achieved. The proposed converter has been analyzed and a design procedure has been introduced. The control circuit for the converter has also been developed. Based on the given approach, a 250 W, 400 Vdc prototype converters has been designed at 100 kHz for universal input voltage (90-264 Vrms) applications. A maximum efficiency of 94.6% and a power factor correction over 0.99 has been achieved. The simulation and... 

To date, many researchers have developed various types of macro models to simulate the general response of conventional steel plate and reinforced concrete shear walls. Although extensive numerical and experimental studies have been conducted to assess the seismic response of steel-plate concrete composite shear walls, a robust macro-model for simulation of the cyclic response of such systems has not been developed yet. Herein, a fiber-based model is proposed to simulate the nonlinear seismic response of SC walls using PERFORM-3D program. The details of the proposed model, including material properties, element type, and boundary condition, are presented. The proposed model is validated... 

In the past three decades, several experiments were conducted to investigate the seismic behavior of composite plate shear walls (C-PSW) because of their advantages to conventional reinforced concrete (RC) and steel plate shear walls (SPSW). Numerical studies, however, are limited due to the complexities for the finite element modeling of the steel and concrete material behaviors and their composite action. Herein, the cyclic behavior of various C-PSW with and without boundary elements (BE) is investigated numerically. The effects of design parameters such as aspect ratio, axial load ratio, and the length of the BE on the response of C-PSW are investigated. The advanced finite element... 

In this study, scaling effects on fiber metal laminates under tensile and three-point bending tests were investigated numerically and experimentally. The fiber metal laminate specimens were made of aluminum 1050 and unidirectional glass-epoxy. Two scaled sizes of specimens were prepared based on A1n, 0n=90n s. Some specified mechanical properties of these samples were investigated and results showed that fiber metal laminates obey scaling law under quasi-static loading. Explicit finite element code LS-DYNA was utilized for numerical simulation. After validating numerical simulation with experiments, scaling law was studied numerically for four different... 

In this paper, the Line-Modulated Fixed Off-Time method is used as the current control strategy for a Power Factor Corrector (PFC) pre-regulator. A zero voltage switching PWM (ZVS-PWM) auxiliary circuit is configured to perform ZVS in the switches. Soft commutation of the main switch is achieved without additional current stress. A significant reduction in the total conduction loss is achieved, since the circulating current for the soft switching flows only through the auxiliary circuit and a minimum number of switching devices are involved in the circulating current path .The proposed rectifier uses a single converter instead of the conventional configuration composed of a four-diode... 

An immersed single drop microextraction (SDME) method was successfully developed for the trace enrichment of formaldehyde from DTP and DT vaccines and diphtheria-tetanus antigen. The formaldehyde was derivatized by means of the Hantzsch reaction. The dehydropyridine derivative was extracted into a microdrop of chloroform that suspended in a 4 ml sample solution for a preset time. The microdrop was then retracted into the microsyringe and injected directly into a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) injection port. Effects of different parameters such as the type of solvent, extraction time, stirring rate, and temperature were studied and optimized. The limit of detection was 0.22... 

In this paper we propose a fast iterative reconstruction algorithm for microwave-induced thermoacoustic (TA) imaging. Instead of calculating the forward and back projections in real time, we construct a library of the impulse responses of individual pixels in advance. During reconstruction, only covariance calculations are performed to reconstruct the intensity of each pixel. In addition, we propose to use a Wiener filter based-deconvolution to accelerate convergence, enabling even single iteration construction in some scenarios. We validate the proposed method both with simulations as well as experiments. Compared to the time reversal method, the proposed fast iterative reconstruction... 

This paper investigates the capacity problem for some multiple-access scenarios with cooperative transmitters. First, a general Multiple-Access Channel (MAC) with common information, i.e., a scenario where p transmitters send private messages and also a common message to q receivers and each receiver decodes all of the messages, is considered. The capacity region of the discrete memoryless channel is characterized. Then, the general Gaussian fading MAC with common information wherein partial Channel State Information (CSI) is available at the transmitters (CSIT) and perfect CSI is available at the receivers (CSIR) is investigated. A coding theorem is proved for this model that yields an... 

In this study, organic aerogels were synthesized by the sol-gel polycondensation of mixed cresol with formaldehyde in a slightly basic aqueous solution. Carbon aerogels and xerogels are generated by pyrolysis of organic aerogels. The novel sol-gel-based micro-solid-phase extraction sorbent, resorcinol-formaldehyde xerogel, was employed for preconcentration of some selected herbicides. Three herbicides of the aryloxyphenoxypropionate group, clodinafop-propargyl, haloxyfop-etotyl, and fenoxaprop-P-ethyl, were extracted from aqueous samples by micro-solid-phase extraction and subsequently determined by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry. The effect of different parameters influencing the... 

An attempt was made to combine μ-solid phase extraction and headspace single drop microextraction techniques and use their advantages for trace determination of some volatile organic compounds in aqueous samples. After performing the two-step preconcentration approach, the desired analytes were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. A resorcinol-formaldehyde-based xerogel was used as the extraction medium in the μ-solid phase extraction (μ-SPE) method. Then, the extracted BTEX was eluted with a rather large amount of methanol. To remove the laborious process including solvent evaporation and further reconstitution, which is usually accompanied by loss of analytes and accuracy,... 

Comparative studies between response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN) methods to find the effects of electrospinning parameters on the porosity of nanofiber mats is described. The four important electrospinning parameters studied included solution concentration (wt.%), applied voltage (kV), spinning distance (cm) and volume flow rate (mL/h). It was found that the applied voltage and solution concentration are the two critical parameters affecting the porosity of the nanofiber mats. The two approaches were compared for their modeling and optimization capabilities with the modeling capability of RSM showing superiority over ANN, having comparatively lower values of... 

This paper studies a simultaneous weekly assignment and scheduling decisionmaking problem in operating theaters with elective patients. Because of limited recourses in hospitals, considering assignment and scheduling decisions simultaneously can help mangers exploit the available resources more efficiently and make the work-load uniformly distributed during the planning horizon. This procedure can significantly reduce hospital costs and increase satisfaction of patients and personnel. This paper formulates the mentioned problem as a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP) considering applicable assumptions like finite recovery beds and limitation of equipment. Since the problem is NP-hard, in... 

A head-space solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) method coupled to GC-MS was developed to extract fentanyl from human plasma. The protein binding was reduced by acidification and, eventually, the sample was deproteinized with trichloroacetic acid. The parameters influencing adsorption (extraction time, temperature, pH and salt addition) and desorption (desorption time and temperature) of the analyte on the fibre were investigated and validated for method development. The developed method proved to be rapid, simple, easy and inexpensive and offers high sensitivity and reproducibility. Linear range was obtained from 0.1 ng/ml to 2 μg/ml. The limit of detection was 0.03 ng/ml while an... 

In this article, the problem of simultaneous heat, mass, and momentum transfer in the developing region of tubular reactors with homogeneous chemical reaction and laminar power-law fluid flow under unsteady-state conditions has been solved. In this regard, the general governing equations were solved using finite-difference method and analyzed carefully. Moreover, the influences of various parameters and dimensionless numbers such as power-law index, heat of reaction, reaction order, and Damköhler number value on the numerical results were investigated. In addition, the numerical results obtained for the fully-developed velocity distribution of Newtonian fluid flow and Sherwood number value... 

Bubble splitting in 2D gas-solid freely bubbling fluidized beds is experimentally investigated using digital image analysis. The quantitative results can be applied for the development of a new breakage model for bubbly fluidized beds, especially discrete bubble models. The variation of splitting frequency with bubble diameter, new resulting bubble volumes, positions, and also the assumptions of mass and momentum conservation for bubbles after breakage are studied in detail. Small bubbles are found to be more stable than large ones and nearly all mother bubbles split into two almost equally sized daughter bubbles. The momentum of gas bubbles in the vertical direction remains approximately...