Sharif Digital Repository

Bacillus sp. As-101 which produces flocculating substances was isolated from activated sludge, using a proteolytic enzyme. Bioflocculant As-101 was partially purified by cold ethanol and cetylpyridinium chloride. The partially purified flocculating substance was an acidic polysaccharide including uronic, pyruvic and acetic acids, respectively, in an approximate ratio of 11.4%, 6.1%, 0.4%. The biopolymer is also a sugar-protein derivative consisting of glucose, mannose and galactose. The protein, the sugar contents ratio is about 83-17%. Bioflocculant As-101 acted under acidic condition and the maximum activity was observed at optimum pH ˜ 3.7 and optimum concentration of 30 ppm in kaolin... 

A mini-column was made by packing α-diphenylglyoxime (DPG), a known ligand for complexation with nickel ions, loaded on activated charcoal (AC). Water samples were buffered at the pH range 8-9 and then passed through the column. After the preconcentration step, the column was eluted with 0.2 M nitric acid into the atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS). Mixed-level orthogonal array design (OAD) was used as a chemometric approach to study the effect of various factors on recovery of extraction. Factors such as pH, amount of sorbent, flow rate of sample, concentration and volume of the sample were investigated. Effects of interference ions, i.e., Co, Cu, Bi, Fe(I1), Pt and Pd was also studied.... 

This paper investigates resonance phenomenon in active filters. The paper studies the effect of system/filter parameters on resonance conditions. It also proposes an active technique for damping such resonances. The study is based on modal analysis in which unstable modes or modes with slow damping are first extracted. Then, using a new technique, such modes are considerably damped. PSCAD/EMTDC software is also employed to verify the performance of the proposed technique. © 2008 ACECR  

In recent years, the active learning algorithms have focused on combining correlation criterion and uncertainty criterion for evaluating instances. Although these criteria might be useful, applying these measures on whole input space globally may lead to inefficient selected instances for active learning. The proposed method takes advantage of clustering to partition input space to subspaces. Then it exploits both labeled and unlabeled data locally for selection of instances by using a graph-based active learning. We define a novel utility score for selecting clusters by combining uncertainty criterion, local entropy of clusters and the factor of contribution of each cluster in queries.... 

This study embarked upon the development of a nationwide freight activity microsimulation as an acceptable analysis tool for policy assessments. Mode choice component of a large-scale behavioral microsimulation framework, named Freight Activity Microsimulation Estimator (FAME) was developed and validated in this study. The results of a nationwide establishment survey, discussed in earlier studies, are used to develop the mode choice model for the entire US. Despite many previous freight mode choice models, the proposed model works at the disaggregate level of firm-to-firm. A new concept for firm-types is implemented in FAME to keep the computational burden at a reasonable level and to... 

In this study, the perturbed hard sphere chain equation of state is utilized to calculate the activity of water in binary and ternary solutions of polyethylene glycol (PEG), salt and water. The liquid density of the binary and ternary solutions is also predicted. To estimate the water activity in PEG-water binary systems, a linear correlation is obtained for the binary interaction parameter between water and PEG. Then, using this correlation and without introducing any additional binary parameters, the water activities are predicted in ternary solutions of water, salt and PEG with different molecular weights (MW). Our results show that the mean absolute average relative deviation (AARD %) of... 

Non-isothermal differential thermal analysis (DTA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to study the nucleation and crystallization behavior of mica glass-ceramics with LiF as nucleating agent. The models enabled establishing the kinetic parameters for crystal growth of individual phases. The activation energies for crystal growth were found to be in the range of 161-301 KJ/mol, 416-424 KJ/mol, and 583-1011 KJ/mol for base glasses, samples with substitution of Li2O for K2O and samples with addition of LiF, respectively. Formation of transparent glass-ceramics from studied glass-samples has been investigated. Transparency is assumed to occur in the... 

An enzymatic electrochemical biosensor was prepared based on glucose oxidase (GOD) immobilized on single-walled carbon nanotubes/Nile blue (Nb–SWCNTs) nanocomposite cross-linked with glutaraldehyde on graphite electrode. The function of glucose biosensor is based on the electrocatalytic reduction of H2O2 generated by the reaction of the enzyme with glucose molecules. The biosensor was characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, emission scanning (FESEM), UV–Vis spectrometry, and voltammetric and amperometric methods. Parameters influencing the performance of the biosensor, namely pH and applied potential, were optimized. Inhibition was carried out for the detection of... 

Transits in the planetary system WASP-4 were recently found to occur 80 s earlier than expected in observations from the TESS satellite. We present 22 new times of mid-transit that confirm the existence of transit timing variations, and are well fitted by a quadratic ephemeris with period decay dP/dt = −9.2 ± 1.1 ms yr−1. We rule out instrumental issues, stellar activity, and the Applegate mechanism as possible causes. The light-time effect is also not favoured due to the non-detection of changes in the systemic velocity. Orbital decay and apsidal precession are plausible but unproven. WASP-4 b is only the third hot Jupiter known to show transit timing variations to high confidence. We... 

The present work was aimed to account a green and eco-friendly synthesis of palladium nanoparticles using Rosmarinus officinalis leaves extracts for the first time, therefore, that can be an acceptable replacement for chemical media to improve potential biological properties. The synthesized palladium nanoparticles were fully characterized using FT-IR, XRD, FESEM, TEM and UV/Vis spectroscopy techniques. Catalytic activity was investigated by Mizoroki-Heck reaction, and optimized based on solvent, temperature and time of the reaction, and the best results were found in water as a green media without any additional reagents. Biological activity of the synthesized nanoparticles were evaluated... 

Migraine is a complex disabling condition which is associated with dysregulation of several pathways particularly those being associated with immune responses. In order to assess contribution of protein inhibitor of activated STAT (PIAS) in the pathogenesis of migraine, we quantified expression levels of PIAS1–PIAS4 genes in the circulation of patients with migraine compared with controls. Expression of PIAS1 was substantially lower in total migraineurs compared with controls (ratio of mean expressions (RME) = 0.18, SE = 0.29, P value < 0.001) and in both male and female migraineurs compared with sex-matched controls. Expression of PIAS2 was lower in migraineurs without aura compared with... 

This article was originally published online on 25May 2021 with the third author listed at the wrong affiliation. The affiliations appear correct above. All online versions of the article were corrected on 28 May 2021; the article is correct as it appears in the printed version of the journal. © 2021 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved  

The power quality has become a major concern since late 1980's. There has been increasing interest in studying power quality problems, one of which is the existence of the current/voltage harmonics. In order to eliminate these harmonics, different methods have so far been proposed and developed. In this paper, line current harmonics reduction is achieved by using an active filter. More specifically, our aim is to introduce a proper control design method for the current control part of the active filter. To achieve the goal, two different predictive controllers are examined. Due to the existing physical constraints (switching frequency and computational limits) in real applications, a new... 

Treatment of wastewater containing carbohydrates by Pichia saitoi growing on beet molasses was investigated in a well-mixed continuous tank as an alternative to bulking control. The yeast strain that used in this work was isolated from non-alcoholic beverage industrial wastewater, with a view on TOC removal compared with other strains in previous study.In this research the isolated yeast showed high COD and TOC removal at three hydraulic retention times, HRT= 48, 24 and 18 hours.Maximum COD and TOC reductions were obtained at HRT=48 hours, which were 96% and 88%, respectively.The influent COD and TOC were 2500 and 148 mg/1, respectively.The pH maintained for synthetic wastewater was about... 

A new two-parameter model based on the perturbation of a hard-sphere reference has been developed to correlate the activity coefficients of several amino acids and simple peptides in aqueous solutions. The hard-sphere equation of state used as the reference in the model was proposed recently by Ghotbi and Vera. The perturbation terms coupled with the reference hard-sphere equation of state are attributed to the dispersion forces and the dipole-dipole interactions. The Lennard-Jones and Keesom potential functions are used to represent the dispersion and dipole-dipole interactions, respectively. The results of the new model are compared with those obtained by other models. It is shown that the... 

In this paper, a modified activated sludge process using a Fixed Film Aeration Tank (FFAT) was investigated as an improvement for the usual activated sludge or trickling filtration processes. The aeration tank of the system was arranged with fixed parallel saran nets, which were set vertically as supporting media for microbial growth. A carbonaceous solution was brought into contact with microorganisms in the media and was oxidized aerobically. Filamentous microorganisms predominantly grew on the films and the COD removal increased with the increase in accumulated biomass in the system. Simulation of treatment performance in the system was carried out using mathematical models. The... 

In this paper, exact analytical forms of the normal surface and eigenpolarizations in anisotropic media are obtained. Both the permittivity and permeability tensors are supposed to be anisotropic, becoming simultaneously diagonal in the principal system of coordinates. The equation of normal surface in various forms and exact relations for eigenpolarizations are presented and their properties are discussed. Orthogonality relationships between the eigenmodes are also introduced. Sufficient conditions for existence of two, one, or no optical axes are throughly established. The analysis is extended for the case of electrically or magnetically optically active materials, and exact form of... 

In this article it is shown that the plane wave propagation eigenpolarizations in a linear homogeneous time-independent anisotropic media without free sources, coincide with the extrema of the difference between stored electric and magnetic energies. It is demonstrated that at these stationary points the wave equation is satisfied, by showing that each of the Maxwell's curl equations may be obtained by inserting the other equation into the energy functional as a constraint. Furthermore, it is proved that the theorem holds for extrema of the stored electric energy independently, when the medium is magnetically isotropic. It is concluded that when at least one of the permittivity and... 

The paper addresses the problem of directly estimating the parameters of a reduced order digital controller using a closed loop type identification algorithm. The algorithm minimizes the closed loop plant input error between the nominal closed loop system and the closed loop system using the reduced order controller. It is assumed that a plant model (if necessary validated in closed loop with the nominal controller) is available. One of the original features of this approach is that it can use either simulated or real data. The frequency bias distribution of the parameter estimates shows that the reduced order controller maintains the critical performance of the nominal closed loop system. A... 

A new route to the soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) activator YC-1 and its N2 regioisomer has been established with a Mitsunobu mediated N-alkylation as the key step. The route is utilised in the synthesis of a potential photoaffinity label