Sharif Digital Repository

Relationship between respiratory sounds and flow has always been of interest for researchers and physicians. However, the flow-sound relationship at very low flow rate has been questionable because breath sounds must exceed a minimum flow in order to be audible and different from the background noise. This study aimed to find the minimum critical flow rates for respiratory sounds to be audible and different from background noise. Tracheal and lung sound signals of healthy subjects in two groups of adults (12 subjects) and children (9 subjects) were studied. The values of minimum critical flow were determined comparing the spectrogram of the respiratory sounds at very low flow with that of... 

Advent of passenger cars has caused people to use them for more efficiency in their performance and wasting less time. Problems, however, still exist in them. For instance, since people travel with cars, their human bodies undergo in fatigue, restlessness, and sometimes health problems. Human body reaction under external vibration depends on the amplitude, frequency, and acceleration of the applied external excitation. These limitations which are usually announced by the bureau of standards imply the necessity of control of amplitude, vibration, frequency, and acceleration received by human body due to cars passing humps and bumps. In this paper, a quarter car model with active suspension... 

The curve of exhaled inert gas concentration against exhaled volume is called gas washout curve. The slope at the end part of gas washout curve (Sn) is a measure of structural abnormalities. Sn depends on the spatial concentration distribution and dynamic of gas washout, which depends on several mechanisms including asymmetry of airways, nonhomogeneous ventilation, sequential emptying, and gas exchange with blood. Due to a large number of airways in human lungs, using simplified models is inevitable. On the other hand, these simplified models cannot capture some of the mentioned mechanisms and subsequently were not able to predict experimental trend of change in Sn with breath number in... 

The curve of exhaled inert gas concentration against exhaled volume is called gas washout curve. The slope at the end part of gas washout curve (Sn) is a measure of structural abnormalities. Sn depends on the spatial concentration distribution and dynamic of gas washout, which depends on several mechanisms including asymmetry of airways, nonhomogeneous ventilation, sequential emptying, and gas exchange with blood. Due to a large number of airways in human lungs, using simplified models is inevitable. On the other hand, these simplified models cannot capture some of the mentioned mechanisms and subsequently were not able to predict experimental trend of change in Sn with breath number in... 

During recording lung sounds over the chest, heart sounds (HS) are also recorded and interferes with the inteipretation of lung sounds especially at low frequencies. Hence, several methods have been proposed to remove or reduce HS from lung sounds. The first step in most of the methods developed for HS reduction is to localize the segments of lung sounds including HS. In this study a method based on multi-resolution product of lung sounds wavelet coefficients was implemented for HS localization and its performance was compared to that of three methods developed for HS localization. The methods were tested on data from 6 healthy subjects recorded at low (7.5ml/s/kg) and medium (15ml/s/kg)... 

Cysts are one of the most common lesions in kidneys and can be diagnosed exploiting ultrasound images. In this paper, we develop an automatic approach for cyst segmentation in ultrasound images. The proposed approach comprises three steps: finding a seed point in the object exploiting the Gibbs random field, detecting the boundary based on multiresolution signal processing and edge refining, and finally shape model features extracting to verify whether the object is a cyst. The proposed approach is fast and less complex to suit ultrasound exploration applications. © 2004 IEEE  

Three-dimensional free vibration analysis of functionally graded piezoelectric (FGPM) annular plates resting on Pasternak foundations with different boundary conditions is presented. The material properties are assumed to have an exponent-law variation along the thickness. A semi-Analytical approach which makes use of state-space method in thickness direction and one-dimensional differential quadrature method in radial direction is utilized to obtain the influences of the Winkler and shearing layer elastic coefficients of the foundations on the non-dimensional natural frequencies of functionally graded piezoelectric annular plates. The analytical solution in the thickness direction can be... 

This study pertains to the free vibration problem of beams on an elastic foundation of the Winkler type, which is distributed over a particular length of the beam. Closed form solutions are developed by solving the governing differential equations of beams. Moreover, an innovative mathematical approach is proposed to find the precise analytical solution of the free vibration of beams with mixed boundary conditions. Results are discussed in detail through verification studies. Ultimately, it was concluded that the proposed mathematical method could successfully obtain the exact solution to the free vibration problem of beams on partial elastic foundations under mixed boundary conditions  

Lung cancer is one of the most common diseases for human beings everywhere throughout the world. Early identification of this disease is the main conceivable approach to enhance the possibility of patients’ survival. In this paper, a k-Nearest-Neighbors technique, for which a genetic algorithm is applied for the efficient feature selection to reduce the dataset dimensions and enhance the classifier pace, is employed for diagnosing the stage of patients’ disease. To improve the accuracy of the proposed algorithm, the best value for k is determined using an experimental procedure. The implementation of the proposed approach on a lung cancer database reveals 100% accuracy. This implies that one... 

The electrochemical behavior of captopril at the surface of a carbon-paste electrode (CPE) modified with cobalt-5-nitrolsalophen (CoNSal) is described. The prepared electrode shows an excellent electrocatalytic activity toward the oxidation of captopril, which is leading to marked lowering in the anodic overpotential and considerable improvement of sensitivity (anodic current). Whereas at the surface of unmodified electrode an electrochemical activity for captopril cannot be observed, a very sharp anodic wave with an anodic peak potential about 650 mV (versus Ag/AgCl) is obtained using the prepared modified electrode. This catalytic wave is assigned to mediating of Co(III)/Co(II) redox... 

In this paper, particle deposition in the upper airways and five lobes of a human lung is simulated. The simulation is based on a stochastic lung model, derived from detailed morphometric measurements. Pathways are simulated using Monte Carlo methods consequently the whole structure changes both stochastically and statistically in each simulation. In this investigation the termination phenomena is a function of each daughter's diameter which best satisfies the lung's morphometry. Complementary to the previous available assumptions, i.e. flow divisions according to the ratio of daughter's cross sections or distal volumes, in this investigation flow rates are computed in an upward manner... 

Rectangular plates on distributed elastic foundations are widely employed in footings and raft foundations of variety of structures. In particular, mounted columns and single footings may partially occupy the rectangular plate of any kind. This study deals with free vibration problem of thin rectangular plates on Winkler and Pasternak elastic foundation model which is distributed over a particular arbitrary area of the plate. Closed form solutions are developed through solving the governing differential equations of plates. Moreover, a novel mathematical approach is proposed to find the exact analytical solution of free vibration of plates with mixed or fully-clamped boundary conditions.... 

Proper modeling of the human arm dynamic, as it interacts with telemanipulation and haptic systems, is important in enhancing the transparency of these systems. In this article, we introduced an adaptive identifier to estimate the impedance characteristic of a human operator as it interacts with a single translational degree of freedom mechanism. The five parameter model, including an extra spring and damper for a better approximation of the dynamic behavior of human arm, has been used. Since the impedance characteristic of human arm differs from one individual to another, it is important to estimate these parameters for each individual and update the controller to enhance the transparency... 

In order to perform the drug delivery via lung, tracking the trajectories of fine inhaled particles in the acinar airways is of high importance. The causes of irreversibility in the motion of fine particles (0.1 - 1 micron) and chaotic flow deep in the acinar region of lung has been always under investigation. In this study we demonstrate the importance of geometric hystersis and asynchrony of lung deformation on the issue. We adapted a 2D axisymmetric geometry of alveolated duct from recent relative works and deformed it in a way that some hystersis would appear in a respiration period. The overall deformation of duct was corresponding to the transpulmonary pressure of lung reported in... 

Background and objective: The human lungs exchange air with the external environment via the conducting airways. The application of an anatomically accurate model of the conducting airways can be helpful for simulating gas exchange and fluid distribution throughout the bronchial tree in the lung. Methods: In the current study, Lindenmayer system (L-system) has been formulated to generate the bronchial tree structure in a human lung. It has been considered that the structure of the bronchial tree is divided into two main segments: 1) The central airways (from the trachea to segmental bronchi) and 2) the dichotomous structure (from segmental bronchi to terminal bronchioles). Two sets of... 

With a mortality rate over 580,000 per year, cancer is still one of the leading causes of death worldwide. However, the emerging field of microfluidics can potentially shed light on this puzzling disease. Unique characteristics of microfluidic chips (also known as micro-total analysis system) make them excellent candidates for biological applications. The ex vivo approach of tumor-on-a-chip is becoming an indispensable part of personalized medicine and can replace in vivo animal testing as well as conventional in vitro methods. In tumor-on-a-chip, the complex three-dimensional (3D) nature of malignant tumor is co-cultured on a microfluidic chip and high throughput screening tools to evaluate... 

The present study aims at the investigation of free vibration analysis of thin cylindrical shells surrounded by an elastic medium, which is distributed over a particular length of the shell. The Love’s shell theory is utilized along with the Winkler foundation to obtain the governing equations of motion. An exact series expansion method of solution is employed for any arbitrary boundary conditions. The excellent accuracy of the obtained results is validated by comparing to the available literature. Moreover, several case studies are performed to provide an insight into the influence of some practically important parameters on free vibrations of circular cylindrical shells, including... 

Finding the optimal flow pattern in bipolar plates of a proton exchange membrane is a crucial step for enhancing the performance of the device. This design plays a critical role in fluid mass transport through microporous layers, charge transfer through conductive media, management of the liquid water produced in microchannels, and microporous layers and heat management in fuel cells. This article investigates different types of common flow patterns in bipolar plates while considering a uniform pressure and velocity distribution as well as a uniform distribution of reactants through all the surfaces of the catalyst layer as the design criteria so that there would be a consistent electron... 

Plates on elastic foundations have attracted the attention of many researchers. Some elementary models have been introduced to consider interactions between the plate and its foundation. Other improved models have been proposed to develop basic models. In this work, a model based on the Winkler-foundation theory is proposed, while the constant parameter of Winkler is assumed to be variable; such as non-uniform springs with the functionality of the domain position, along with the plate and beam span in order to consider the non-uniform behavior of the foundation. The governing equation on the system is solved by using the Galerkin method and effects such as the presence of rigid points in the...