Sharif Digital Repository

In recent years some approaches for robust control of plants with uncertainty in their poles have been suggested. Recently a new approach for tuning controllers has been introduced that can preserve phase margin in desirable value despite large variations in location of one of the poles and also it is able to provide required gain crossover frequency in the nominal case. In this paper by benefiting from this approach, a fractional order proportional derivative controller is introduced to control the plants with fractional order transfer function with uncertainty in their poles with order in the range (1, 2). Also, sufficient conditions on design specifications and plant parameters for... 

Existence of uncertainties in the model of real-world plants can trouble the control system designer in achievement of control objectives in control of such plants. In modeling of these plants by benefiting from fractional order models, one of the most commonplace types of uncertainties is the order uncertainty. This paper deals with presenting a method for tuning fractional order PI (FOPI) controllers to be used in control of plants, modeled by fractional order transfer functions consisting of a fractional order pole in addition to a time delay, such that the control system is robust against order variations. By the proposed tuning method, values of phase margin and gain crossover frequency... 

Mechanical alloying and hot extrusion techniques were employed to produce in-situ fully dens Al-Ti composites without applying any heat treatment. The focus of this study is the investigation of fracture toughness in produced composites in order to improve it and to explain the mechanisms responsible for the fracture. The morphology of milled powders was studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The microstructure of the extruded composites was examined by Optical Microscopy (OM) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM). Moreover, the density and hardness of samples were investigated. Three point bending test of the single edge notched beam (SENB) samples was applied to... 

High energy vibratiory mill was used to produce Nanocrystalline Al-20 wt% Ti powders by mechanical alloying. The milled powders were then consolidated by hot extrusion at 530°C. Produced bulk nanocomposite samples were studied by XRD analysis, optical microscopy (OM), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), EDS spectroscopy, densitometry and hardness tests. Three point bending on SENB specimens was applied under quasi static condition to determine the fracture toughness and also investigate the fracture surface using SEM. The results indicated that after extrusion a fully dense Al-Al3Ti nanocomposite with the crystallite size of 200-400 nm is produced in which the Al3Ti... 

A high-throughput micro-solid-phase extraction device based on a 96-well plate was constructed and applied to the determination of pesticide residues in various apple samples. Butyl methacrylate and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate were copolymerized as a monolithic polymer and placed in the cylindrically shaped stainless-steel meshes of 96-micro-solid-phase extraction device and used as an extracting unit. Before the micro-solid-phase extraction, microwave-assisted extraction was employed to facilitate the transfer of the pesticide residues from the apple matrix to liquid media. Then, 1 mL of the aquatic samples was transferred into the 96-well plate and the 96-micro-solid-phase extraction... 

Social robots may soon be able to play an important role in expanding communication with the deaf. Based on the literature, adaptive user interfaces lead to greater user acceptance and increased teaching efficiency compared to non-adaptive ones. In this paper, we build a robotic architecture able to simultaneously adjust a robot’s teaching parameters according to both the user’s past and present performance, adapt the content of the training, and then implement it on the RASA robot to teach sign language based on these parameters in a manner similar to a human teacher. To do this, a word to teach in sign language, repetition, speed, and emotional valence were chosen to be adaptive using a... 

Sign language is a non-verbal communication tool used by the deaf. A robust sign language recognition framework is needed to develop Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) platforms that are able to interact with humans via sign language. Iranian sign language (ISL) is composed of both static postures and dynamic gestures of the hand and fingers. In this paper, we present a robust framework using a Deep Neural Network (DNN) to recognize dynamic ISL gestures captured by motion capture gloves in Real-Time. To this end, first, a dataset of fifteen ISL classes was collected in time series; then, this dataset was virtually augmented and pre-processed using the “state-image” method to produce a unique... 

Minimizing energy consumption is the most important concern in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). To achieve this, clustering and prediction methods can enjoy the inherent redundancy of raw data and reduce transmissions more effectively. In this paper, we focus on designing a prediction-based approach, named PDC, to mainly contribute in data-aware clustering. It exploits both spatial and temporal correlations to form highly stable clusters of nodes sensing similar values. Here, the sink node uses only the local prediction models of cluster heads to forecast all readings in the network without direct communication. To the best of our knowledge, PDC is a novel energy efficient approach which... 

Autistic children are often impaired in initiating and responding to Joint Attention. In recent years, there has been an increase in the application of robots in diagnosis and treatment of autism. The purpose of the current research has been primarily to originate the proper therapeutic scenarios and to implement two interactive humanoid robots as therapy assistants in autism treatment in Iran. To this end, the humanoid robots were programmed and teleoperated via Microsoft Kinect Sensor and PhantomOmni Haptic Robot to elicit reactions consisting of imitation of humans by the humanoid robots and vice versa. In this paper, we elaborate on the therapeutic items that we have designed to improve... 

Single electron wavefunction of a vacancy in diamond lattice has been calculated in different symmetric configurations of the nearest neighbor (NN) atoms. We used ab initio density functional theory (DFT) and unrestricted Hartree-Fock (UHF) cluster methods. The variation of electron or spin localization on NN atoms have been investigated with respect to the lattice relaxation in the ground state of the neutral and negatively charged vacancy. Calculated variations are not symmetric with respect to the sign of the lattice relaxation. We obtain about 90% localization for electronic charge and spin density for the neutral and negatively charged vacancy, respectively. This is in good agreement... 

Introduction: B lymphocyte-induced maturation protein 1 (BLIMP1) encoded by the positive regulatory domain 1 gene (PRDM1), is a key regulator in T cell differentiation in mouse models. BLIMP1-deficiency results in a lower effector phenotype and a higher memory phenotype. Methods: In this study, we aimed to determine the role of transcription factor BLIMP1 in human T cell differentiation. Specifically, we investigated the role of BLIMP1 in memory differentiation and exhaustion of human T cells. We used CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) to knock-down BLIMP1 and investigated the differential expressions of T cell memory and exhaustion markers in BLIMP1-deficient T cells in comparison with...