Alarm systems play an important role in ensuring safe and efficient operations. Delay timer as a simple method has effective role in managing alarms and reducing nuisance alarms. In this paper, a new delay timer is introduced based on multi levels of thresholds. This scenario named as multi-levels delay timers. In this scenario, the regions of upper and lower areas of threshold are divided to some regions by considering new thresholds with various delays. In this paper, three performance indices named, False Alarm Rate (FAR), Missed Alarm Rate (MAR) and Average Alarm Delay (AAD) are derived for multi thresholds approaches using Markov models. Also, the new index named “ mean time to alarm (MTTA)” is introduced to analysis alarm system and computation of AAD in proposed scenario. The performance of the proposed method and other methods for designing of delay timers are compared and the effectiveness of proposed method is provided during some case studies.

Cross-Laminated-Timbers (CLT) absorb/desorb moisture from surrounding atmosphere when exposed to wet/dry conditions; such all engineering massive wood-based products. The moisture gradient occurs due to this process, which is responsible for moisture induced stresses. In the current research work, the moisture induced stresses due to the moisture gradient have been studied in the CLT. The sample panels were made with 5-plys. One and two plys of hydrothermally treated wood at 150°C were placed on both sides as surface layers. Afterwards, the sample panels were exposed to wet to dry cycles (RH of 88 to 32%) and dry to wet cycles (RH of 32 to 88%). Results revealed that the moisture gradient as well as the moisture induced stresses are reduced due to application of the hydrothermally treated laminations on both side of the panels in comparison with control samples.

In this paper, nurse scheduling problem (NSP) is studied by minimizing the total number of the required nurses as well as by maximizing the nurses’ preferences for working shifts. In this setting, hospital’s managers set the total number of the required nurses while nurse-chiefs select the required part-timers and then assign shifts to all nurses including the full-timers and the selected part-timers. Obviously, competition between the managers and nurse-chiefs to make decisions leads to a conflict between their objectives. In this point of view, a two-player game-theoretic framework can be established between them to set decisions. To our knowledge, this study is the first one that develops the game-theoretic approach to solve the NSP. In this setting, four game-theoretic models, including Managers-Stackelberg, Nurses-Stackelberg, Nash, and Centralized, are proposed based on the various competitive and cooperative interactions between the players. Moreover, a mathematical programming model is developed to obtain the equilibrium strategies. It is found that the managers and nurse-chiefs gain their best responses under the Managers-Stackelberg and Nurses-Stackelberg games, respectively. In the Nash game, they make decisions in order to meet their objectives, mostly. Moreover, the equilibrium strategies given by the Managers-Stackelberg and Centralized games are the same.

Side-channel attacks are a group of powerful attacks in hardware security that exploit the de ciencies in the implementation of systems. Timing side-channel attacks are one of the main side-channel attack categories that use the time di erence of running an operation in di erent states. Many powerful attacks can be classi ed into this type of attack, including cache attacks. The limitation of these attacks is the need to run the spy program on the victim's system. Various studies have tried to overcome this limitation by implementing these attacks remotely on JavaScript and WebAssembly. This paper provides the  rst comprehensive evaluation of timing side-channel attacks on JavaScript and investigates challenges and countermeasures to overcome these attacks. Moreover, by investigating the countermeasures and their strengths and weaknesses, we introduce a detection-based approach, called Lurking Eyes. Our approach has the least reduction in the performance of JavaScript and WebAssembly. The evaluation results show that the Lurking eyes have an accuracy of 0. 998, precision of 0. 983, and F-measure of 0. 983. Considering these values and no limitations, this method can be introduced as an e ective way to counter timing side-channel attacks on JavaScript and WebAssembly. Also, we provide a new accurate timer, named Eagle timer, based on WebAssembly memory for implementing these attacks.

Alarm systems play an important role in ensuring safety, and preventing event occurrence in industrial plants. One of the most important steps in alarm system designing is estimation of the proper probability density function (pdf). Conventional methods in alarm system designing like, dead-band and delay timers cannot be more effective in case of alarm variable with mixture pdf. This paper presents a new method to design an univariate alarm system with mixture pdf in alarm variables. In this paper three alarm performance indecis are derived for variables with gussian pdf. In proposed method, rasing and clearing alarms are based on the probability values corresponding to the instantaneous alarm variable values in the normal and abnormal pdfs (normal and abnormal reference models). The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown during some simulation and industrial case studies and its performance compared with Reset scenario in delay timers. In one of the case studies, the performance of the proposed method in the DAMADICS benchmark actuators has been investigated.

Today, knowledge-based firms play a significant role in the competitiveness of countries and, therefore, attract the attention of policy makers. One of the biggest challenges of survival and growth in these companies is the suitability of financing.  Although different financing instruments are defined for them and various studies have been conducted about these instruments, the major part of these researches are focused on the firm's life cycle. Hence, the variability of instruments on the one hand and differences in the characteristics and performance of the firms on the other hand rise a need to cluster them (firms), based on the factors affecting on the financing, and consequently suggesting the suitable instruments for each cluster. Therefore in this study, financial features have been identified with the help of a questionnaire and their financial statements, also, a cluster analysis has been done with a sample size of 253 Iranian knowledge-based firms. As a result, there is a taxonomy of four types of firms named: New-Comers, Small Manufacturers, Small Service focused firms and Old-timers and suitable financial instruments for each of them are determined. Accordingly, New-Comers have the least choices for financing and Old-timers are faced with a vast range of instruments.  Financing for Small Producers and Small Service Providers are different in some cases such as Warehouse Receipts.

An efficient and rapid affinity-based screening method for directly fishing out natural alpha-glucosidase inhibitors from Cyperus rotundus extract by using immobilized enzyme technology combined with UHPLC-QTOF MS analysis was established. As a result without time-consuming and laborious isolation workload and false positive interference, five natural alpha-glucosidase inhibitors were successfully recognized and identified from only 400 uL of C. rotundus extracts within only a couple of hours, which suggested that the screening method was rapid, economical, sensitive and feasible. In addition, the captured compounds were isolated and characterized as stilbenoids oligomers, and were proved to be strong alphaglucosidase inhibitors by inhibitory assay in-vitro. Among them, 3 stilbenoids trimers were reported to be potent α-glucosidase inhibitors for the first time. This method could be modified and have the potential for rapidly screening of active compounds extracts against some new targets by immobilizing some other biomacromolecules.

This research investigated the potential of acoustical Tomography and Imaging technology in the determination of the static strength of the urban standing trees to resist the forces exerted by heavy winds and tornados. First, locally made sensors and, micro-second timers and tomography images were compared with those of a certified European device in radial to tangential and longitudinal directions which showed good performance of Iranian made device. Having this technology available, the selected trees with the collar defect symptoms were initially inspected visually, then the visual accuracy was monitored by sonic tomography. While inspecting 103 trees, some were extremely defected internally, while the visual inspection showed their intactness (9 from 23). Afterward, some trees which showed having visually defect signs were proved to be intact after carrying the tomography images (up to 10 from 53). Therefore, it can be concluded that the visual tree defect inspection is not satisfactory for saving or eleminating the individual and these kinds of decision makings must be supported by the methods showing the hidden discontinuities or defects.