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An important task in the initial design stages of rapid-transit type systems or "metros" is the allocation of signals and control points. These are placed so as to achieve a specified minimum time-separation between trains (headway), whilst minimizing the amount of signaling equipment but maintaining the highest level of safety. Conventional signaling and control systems are based on the fixed-block principle, whereby the track (or guide way) is divided into sections of predetermined length. A train is only allowed to proceed into a block when that block and usually the next one is clear of traffic. With the moving-block concept, a train can follow a preceding train at a safe braking distance behind the tail of the train. In this paper, the transient performances of the two signaling systems are compared. A multi-train simulator which was originally developed at Birmingham University (U.K.) with a fixed-block algorithm, has been adopted and modified to accommodate the moving block algorithm. Both signaling systems were applied to Singapore Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and the results were compared in terms of train movement and transient performances including headway and station delay under safety and speed restrictions. Results have shown that with a pure moving-block system a considerable improvement in transient performance can be achieved.

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In this paper, behavior of teleoperation systems with modeling error and delay time error in Smith predictor is discussed. In teleoperation systems, modeling error is inevitable. This paper discusses stability of teleoperation systems with modeling error. First, error of delay time in teleoperation systems by using of Internet as communication channel is considered and the performance of Smith predictor in teleoperation systems with delay time error is discussed. Next, a new structure for teleoperation system is proposed. An adaptive filter is integrated into the new structure for determination of delay time in communication channel. The new structure augments wave variables and Smith predictor to provide an effective method for teleoperation systems. Along with the adaptive filter, this new structure is shown to overcome instability due to the variability of the delay times. Simulations results show significant improvements in the system performance.

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In this paper, we try to use modeling based on singular perturbation theory, in order to control satellite attitude during the wide rolling angle maneuvering through nonlinear H∞ control strategy. Differential equations describing dynamics of the satellite are presented first, and by choosing the appropriate dynamic model for actuators and based on the standard singular perturbation model, the closed-loop system is created. Next, this model is put into the appropriate form to solve H∞ problem. Then, after solving the HJI equation, the control law is determined. Simulation results for a nominal satellite control based on our approach are finally presented.

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One of the most important issues in the realm of education is assurance regarding the quality and effectiveness of teaching and teachers. In this regard, it is essential that models and instruments be developed in order to describe and assess them. It is one of the subjects creating a lot of interest in learners is English. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a model as well as a measuring instrument for describing quality of teachers and teaching in English. The present study was an attempt to develop such a model and instrument in a qualitative and a quantitative phase. In the qualitative phase, seven factors were identified as the underlying structure of teacher quality on which basis a 48-item questionnaire was developed. Then, in the quantitative phase, using Exploratory and Confirmatory factor Analyses, the reliability, and the validity of the model and the questionnaire were obtained. Based on the findings, both the model and the questionnaire are acceptable and valid and can be utilized.

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Little effort has been exerted in the domain of the study of the relation between age structure of population with macroeconomic variables and the study of its effects on the economy of Iran. According to Life Cycle Theory, middle-age groups are owners of savings and young and old-age groups are consumers (their consumption is more than their savings). Wicksell’s cumulative Inflation Process Theory, founded on the resolutions of saving and investment, also foresees that the surplus of the demand raised from the difference in interest rate would contribute to the surplus of consumption which would cause, in turn, demand pressure and finally would result to more inflation. The presernt study is a document-experiment research and combining the above mentioned two theories, tries to analyze the effects of the age distribution of the population on inflation in the Iran, using estimation in OLS method. The findings of the research showed that the consuming age groups i.e. the ages between 0 – 14 years, 15 - 19 years, and over 64 years have a meaningful positive effect on the inflation, while saving age groups i.e. ages between 30 - 44 and 45 - 64 years have a meaningful negative effect on the inflation. The population limiting policy which has been exerted since 1989 has also had a meaningful negative effect on the inflation in Iran.

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In this paper a novel process monitoring scheme for reducing the type І and type ІІ error rates in the monitoring phase is proposed. First, the proposed approach uses an augmented data matrix to implement the process dynamic. Then, we apply independent component analysis (ICA) transformation to the augmented data matrix, and eliminate the outliers using the local outlier factor (LOF) algorithm. Finally, the control limit based on the LOF value of the cleaned data are obtained. In the monitoring phase, if the LOF value of each sample exceeds the control limit, fault has occurred; otherwise, data is normal. The proposed method is applied to fault detection in both a simple multivariate dynamic process and the Tennessee Eastman process.  In both processes, type І and type ІІ error rates are witnessed to reduce by considering the process dynamic and performing the LOF algorithm. Results clearly indicate better performance of the proposed scheme compared to the alternative methods.

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Arguments for the recognition of cultural diversity have led to a fundamental question in political theory: On what basis the process of political decision making should be formed to accommodate cultural diversity as a permanent feature of contemporary societies? The aim of this paper is to examine whether 'dialogue' can be employed as a means in such a process. The first section of this paper is concerned with the nature and sources of cultural diversity. It is also important to see in what way cultural diversity implies problems which concern political theory. This is the concern of the second section. Next, I shall examine ways in which dialogue can be employed to aid the formation of political decision making process to accommodate cultural differences. In particular, I shall suggest that interpretations of dialogue such as Brenda Dervin's and David J. Schaefer's interesting discussion, which aims to transfer the burden of dialogue as a discipline from participants to procedures, may be useful so far as dialogue among cultures and civilizations is concerned.

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Wheat flour has many proteins in which gluten is an important protein in it and this protein has important role in dough formation and bread making.Thus, Uses of different materials must be considered to improve gluten quality as well as wheat flour enrichment. In this study the effects of adding chickpea protein isolate in range of 3 to 7 g and ascorbic acid in  ‎range of 0.05 to 0.15 % in wheat flour formulation on gluten stability and extensibility were investigated by response surface methodology. Therefore, The results showed that  increasing of chickpea protein and ascorbic acid concentration had significant effect (p<0.01) on farinograph parameters texture analyzes (dough extensibility) . The results of optimization in the case of 3 gr of chick pea protein isolate and 0.15% of ascorbic acid were as follows; water absorption 57.7%, dough development time 2.8 minute, dough stability 6 minute, mixing tolerance index 58 FU, farinograph quality number 91.3, toughness (area under curve) 3.3 N/mm, maximum resistance 0.02 N and dough extensibility 22.9 mm. Therefore, chickpea protein weakens strong flours gluten and it can be uses for making biscuit .   

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Pistachio plays an important role as exportation of Iran. The method of drying process has a remarkable influence on the quality of dried products. There are various methods for drying pistachio; however, choosing a suitable method of drying depends on  reliability, healthiness and rapids. In current research, the effect of temperature in three levels of 40, 50 and 60°C and rotational speed of the dryer agitator in three levels of 5, 10 and 15rpm on reduction rate of drying period and drying kinetics of a common Iranian pistachio (Kalleh Ghoochi v.), in a new intelligent- vacuum rotary dryer, was investigated. This dryer  was consisted of a cylindrical chamber and a twin electrical heater which dried products in a vacuum medium. The experimental data was analyzed in a statistical software "SPSS 10 "  In accordance with the results, temperature and rotational speed of the agitator had a significant effect on drying period. When temperature and speed were 60°C and 15rpm respectively, drying period was short and equaled  185 min, but in temperature of  40°C and speed of 5rpm, drying period was long and equaled 325 min.  Increasing the temperature also increased the rate of drying  significantly. Results indicated that increasing  temperature from 40°C to 50°C caused 25% decrease in the drying period and increasing temperature from 40°C to 60°C caused 39% decrease in drying period. 

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The diversity and abundance of quality characteristics of agricultural products, has been the main reason for the development of non-destructive methods. Machine vision and artificial intelligence are powerful techniques for diagnosing most physical, mechanical and chemical properties of agricultural products. Before export fruits are classified by shape, volume and weight. Ranking fruit through taste (sweet or tart) non-destructively plays an important role in marketing, choice power and its application. In this research, it was detect the taste of Thompson orange while combining artificial intelligence (AI) and visual machine technique. A closed circuit digital installed in special frame, under specific height and light was used to take picture from samples vertically. Also, an algorithm (program) based on AI was developed to diagnose the variety and taste of Thompson orange through apparent characteristics in Matlab software. The results showed that the success rate of taste determination for Thompson orange using ANFIS and ANN-GA (Artificial Neural Network-Genetic Algorithm) was 96.67 and 90.0% respectively.  

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The problem of "alienation" and the "alienated man" is one of the most attractive features of the critique of modernity. Ali Shariati, the contemporary Iranian theorist who was highly concerned with the critique of both tradition and modernity, introduced the idea of a "third way". As the main cause for decadence, defining and defying alienation was at the core of Shariati's intellectual agenda. In this paper, we will explain his view on alienation and his recommended solution which invites peoples of the third world to return to their very identity. Then, some critical arguments raised by his critics will be explored and assessed.

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SH-SY5Y is a neuroblastoma cell line which used as a cancer and neurodegenerative disorders model and its neuro-experimental studies. The different diseases cause by a defect in apoptosis pathway. Disruption of apoptotic proteins has an effect on the treatment process and response to drugs. In nerve cells, due to the high expression of apoptosis inhibitory proteins, the efficacy of drugs is low. Combination therapy is one of the developing treatment methods. The aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of doxorubicin drug on apoptosis in SH-SY5Y cells under the conditions of high expression of caspase9. Caspase9 is a key enzyme in intrinsic apoptosis. First, cell viability was obtained through MTT assay under the different drug concentrations. Then, caspase9 gene was transfected in cells and affected by the concentration lower than IC50 of drug, and cell energy level and cell death were checked by different methods. ATP assay showed that the expression of caspase9 with drug lead to ATP decreases. Caspase3/7 activity indicated an increase in cell death by drug and caspase. Propidium staining to hoechst showed that the expression of caspase9 in combination with doxorubicin induce more death. To ensure the expression levels of protein that induces cell death, the amount of caspase3 protein was checked by western blotting, which showed a significant increase in combination of caspase9 and drug. Our findings showed that the induction of caspase9 expression intensifies the effect of drug and the combined treatment may be effective on the responsiveness of neuronal diseases.
 

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Objective: Leishmaniasis is one of the significant causes of morbidity and mortality in several countries. It is an important problem in endemic areas such as Iran. The goal in treatment of leishmaniasis is to reduce the disease period and leave no evidence of any remaining scars or lesions. A derivative of artemisinin is artemether. Scientists believe that the strong action of artemether against parasites is due to the presence of an endoperoxide bridge. Due to problems in the treatment of Leishmania major, in this research we have studied the effect of artemether on Leishmania major under in vitro conditions. Methods: Parasites were cultured in NNN and RPMI, after which artemether at concentrations of 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 μg/ml were used for the promastigote assay. Apoptosis was detected by flow cytometry and DNA ladder assay. Results: The inhibitory concentration (IC50) of artemether was determined to be 25 μg/ml. The percentage of apoptotic promastigotes at 25 μg/ml of artemether was 42.28. The results of DNA fragmentation show that exposure of Leishmania major promastigote cells to 25 μg/ml of artemether lead to DNA fragmentation. Conclusion: We have proven the effect of artemether on apoptosis of Leishmania major by flow cytometry and the DNA ladder assay.

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In this paper, an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and a model-dependent nonlinear controller over network using the separation principle for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite Attitude Determination and Control Subsystem (ADCS) have been designed. In this context, according to the satellites development trend, ADCS architecture for a broad class of LEO satellites is proposed to stabilize and achieve mission objectives such as precision attitude determination and pointing. This architecture is a Networked Control System (NCS) used to establish connection and communication among control components including sensors, actuators and onboard processors, as well as to share data with other subsystems. Then, by modeling all components of the system, and considering the network effects as a bounded disturbance, the control system is designed to compensate of these effects. For this purpose, estimation and control algorithms including EKF and a model-dependent nonlinear controller is designed such that in addition to achieve desired system performance, the stability of each of them is guaranteed. Afterwards, the nonlinear dynamics model of the satellite in terms of quaternion parameters and angular velocities is presented, and by expression of the separation principle for nonlinear observer and controller design, their convergence and exponential stability conditions based on linearized model of satellite are derived. Proof of theorem shows that the closed-loop system continuously maintained satellite attitude in the specified accuracy range. Finally, simulation results obtained from applying the designed observer and controller on the active satellite in orbit demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed design.

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Earthquake loads induce significant damages and cause widespread failures into buildings. Having appropriate system against seismic loads is a minimum necessary requirement for a structure. Moment Resisting Frame Systems (MRFS) are one of the common seismic resisting systems against lateral seismic loads. Ductility is the most important properties of these kinds of systems; but increase in ductility leads to decrease stiffness and increase lateral deflections and hence induces damages to nonstructural components. Although stiffness can be magnified through increasing section sizes of members, but it would not be economical. To compensate this deficiency, the combination of these systems with reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls may be useful. Although in general, this combination (RC shear walls and MRFS) decreases the section size and increase stiffness; but in low rise structures using this combined system cause decrease in ductility and dissipation of energy under moderate/strong earthquakes.This deficiency can be improved by using vertical slits in RC shear walls of low to moderate height. These slits invert shear behavior of RC shear wall into flexural behavior of several columns and are able to increase ductility. So, for the first time in this paper, a study was conducted on introducing behavior factor (R) for Steel Moment Frame (SMF) with reinforced concrete slit shear wall system at two levels of demand and supply.
In view of existing concerns about precise of behavior factors in seismic design codes, due to developing these factors based on engineering judgment from observing seismic performance of structures subjected to past earthquakes besides the lake of these information in current seismic design codes causes the seismic design of RC slit shear wall system needs more research works. The behavior factors are used to reduce the linear elastic design spectrum to account for the energy dissipation capacity, over-strength and redundancy of the structure. The most distinctive feature of this study respecting to similar studies is multi-level definition of behavior factors and their extraction with respect to seismic intensity, and accepted damage level as expected performance levels in designing RC slit shear wall structural system. Hence, the demand/supply behavior factors are determined with a more accurate attitude involving the effective parameters such as ductility, over-strength, redundancy, seismic hazard level, performance levels, etc.
In this study, to determine the appropriate behavior factor, static pushover analysis along with Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA), are used. The behavior factors in two levels of demand and supply are obtained with two procedures: At the first, the pushover analysis was applied on case study structures and then relationship for SDOF system of Newmark and Hall, Nassar and Krawinkler, and Miranda to evaluate behavior factor for MDOF structures were used. At the second stage both pushover and incremental dynamic analysis were used to achieve directly the behavior factor for MDOF structures.
In this paper, two 5 and 10-story steel moment resisting frame with RC slit and ordinary shear wall systems were designed by ETABS software. These structures were designed in which their behavior factors were the same values. Then the pushover and IDA were conducted on sample structures using nonlinear analysis software PERFORM. Results show that, although initial elastic stiffness has not been considerably changed in slit RC shear wall systems, but they show higher behavior factor relative to regular RC shear wall systems. Converting the shear behavior of RC ordinary shear wall to ductile flexural behavior of a series of wall pieces as columns by providing slits in shear wall may be considered as the reason for achieving more ductility and dissipating high seismic energy in this innovative systems.

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The tunnel-form falls under the category of industrial construction methods which is one of the modern construction methods for building houses. A current tendency in the building industry in many countries around the world with increasing city populations, is toward utilizing the modular construction system for development of multistory residential units. The tunnel-form system is an industrialized construction technique in which structural walls and slabs are cast in situ simultaneously using steel forms composed of vertical and horizontal panels set at right angles.The wall and slab frameworks consist of joining horizontal (table) and vertical parts that are reused on multiple stories of a building without being dismantled. The assembled sections are flown by crane from one story to the next. Once in position the gaps between the tables are filled with fillers. They vary in shape and size. The use of these systems can greatly reduce the time and manual labor involved in setting and striking the formwork. Their advantages are best utilized for mass building construction and also for simple designed structures. The main characteristic of a tunnel-form system are its relatively thinner components, i.e. walls and slabs compared to those of traditional reinforced concrete buildings.Through reduction of the construction time and proper performance during the past earthquakes, this type of building construction is recognized as a suitable method used in mass production projects. Despite its widespread use and different behavior in respect of other systems, in the current building design codes, this system has not been considered as an independent structural system. Unfortunately no special seismic code is published for reinforced concrete wall-slab system with tunnel-form and there is only little information about the seismic behavior of this structural system type in technical and research docs. Therefore based on reasonable numerical results, seismic behavior and performance of structures constructed with this technique considering the effective factors on response is highly noteworthy in a seismic code development process. Due to domination of the natural torsion mode respecting to the natural transverse mode based on eigen value analysis of their structural model, use of this system with an irregular plan by the authority building standards departments like the Building and Housing Research Center of Iran has been declared illegal. However, so far no information on their seismic behaviors and vulnerability reports subjected to past earthquakes are available. Necessitating regularity of tunnel-form constructions in the plan and elevation, despite superior advantages such as high-speed manufacturing process and high quality assurance, several limitations in terms of architectural design requirements are one of the basic problems of using this structural system in urban zones. In this paper, the seismic behavior of the two-tunnel-form structures of 5 and 10 stories with an irregular floor plan which were designed based on current building codes in range of nonlinear behavior, is studied. Indeed, performance levels under the design earthquake using the response history and pushover analysis are specified through excitation in two longitudinal and traversal plan directions simultaneously. The results showed the appropriate seismic performance despite the irregularities. Both structures subjected to the design earthquake are placed in the immediate occupancy performance level. It seems that the provision no. 5 of the regulations issued by the Building and Housing Research Center of Iran pertaining to tunnel form building design and construction that stipulate regularity requirement of the tunnel-form plan , at least, are strict and scrupulous for the studied structures.

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Drying is one of the ways of storing of persimmon. In this study, to increasing shelf life of persimmon and producing high-quality products, infrared dryer was used and mass transfer kinetics, density, rehydration and color of samples were measured. The results showed that radiation lamp power and distance of lamp from sample had significant effect on the moisture loss kinetics and drying time (P<0.05). With increasing in radiation power, as well as reducing the distance of samples from the source of radiation, drying time decreased. The average density and rehydration for the dried samples in infrared were 639 kg /m³  and 270 %, respectively. The average calculated color changes (ΔE) for the power of 200, 300 and 400 w were 14.43, 10.09 and 20.04, respectively. The results of modeling by genetic algorithm-artificial neural network showed that artificial neural network combined with genetic algorithm provides better results and with combine them the speed of analysis and accuracy of modeling process increases. Using a network with 15 neurons in the hidden layer and using the hyperbolic tangent activation function and percentage data used to training/validation/testing equal 20/20/60 may be predicted drying kinetics of persimmon.
 

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The lap-splice length of reinforcing bars is one of the practical aspects of the bond between concrete and reinforcing bars. Providing the adequate bond between the reinforcing steel and concrete in splice length is essential in structural concrete design. The bond strength of spliced bars in concrete depends on several factors such as surface deformation of reinforcing bars, embedment length, concrete cover, bar diameter, confinement, concrete strength and environment conditions. One of the major degradation processes of bond strength in reinforced concrete is the corrosion of reinforcement. In addition, to reducing the bond strength, corrosion of reinforcement leads to reduced flexural capacity and serviceability of reinforced concrete structures and ultimately affecting the structural safety. There has been little discussion about the simultaneous effect of stirrup spacing and corrosion of reinforcements on bond strength and flexural strength of lap-spliced reinforced concrete beams. Therefore, in this research, the simultaneous effect of stirrups distance and corrosion level on the flexural strength and behavior of lap-spliced reinforced concrete beams with different stirrups spacing was experimentally investigated. A total of 12 reinforced concrete beams were constructed and tested. The test beams were 150 mm deep, 100 mm wide, and 1500 mm long. The beams were divided into three main groups according to the type of reinforcement corrosion, S: stirrup corrosion, T: tensile rebar corrosion, and W: stirrup and tensile rebar corrosion. Three different stirrup spacing (53mm, 80mm, and 160mm in splice length) were considered in each group. After constructing and curing the specimens for 28 days, we fully immersed them in ponds containing chloride sodium 5%, and accelerated corrosion procedure was simulated for them by applying an electrochemical method. The accelerated corrosion process was induced by impressing a constant direct current 150 µA/cm2, on average, on the tensile steel bars. The degree of corrosion in all of the beams was 10%. After the accelerated corrosion process was completed, the beams were subjected to four-point loading by a 100-ton universal testing machine with a speed of 2 mm/min. The results are discussed in terms of normalized bond strength and residual ultimate strength of corroded beams with different stirrups spacing in each group. The rust products of bar corrosion had greater volume than the steel which increases stress in the concrete and results in cracks in splice length in all beams. Due to these cracks, the bonding of bar and the concrete decreased. The use of stirrups with low spacing in splice length can increase the bond strength by controlling the crack widths and maintaining the bonding of concrete surrounding reinforcement. Of course it should be noted that in specimens in group S, the decrease of stirrup spacing led to decline the ultimate strength capacity. Corrosion cracks interaction was the cause of reducing the confinement of longitudinal reinforcements in Group S. At the same degree of corrosion, the average reduction of flexural strength in Groups S, T and W were 15.3%, 7.5% and 14.3%, respectively. The experimental results obtained in this study are close to the results of Esfahani and Orangan equations, and the amount of existing error can be corrected using the correction factor.

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Three electrode system simulates the human tongue taste system and can be used to assess the quality of food. The sense of taste is one of the five senses and tongue recognizes certain molecules. In recent years, three electrode system with an array of electrodes has been used to identify various molecules. In this research, a three electrode system is used based on voltammetric methods with three graphite electrodes (Pencil Graphite (PG)), Screen Printed (SP) and Glassy Carbon (GC) to identify heavy metals (cadmium , Lead, tin and nickel) in olive oil. Heavy metals are added to the edible oil in three concentrations of 0.05, 0.1 and 0.25 ppm and then the output of the device is classified by chemometric method. According to PCA results, the PG electrode contains 96% of the variance between the data in olive edible oils. Also, SP electrode contains 91% and GC contains 100% of the variance between the data in olive oil. The SVM method showed a high ability to classify heavy metals in edible oils. Also, The PLS method was also able to predict 99% of the data in olive oil for all electrodes. Finally, according to the results, it can be said that the built-in three electrode system has a high accuracy in identifying heavy metals in edible oils.