Sharif Digital Repository

The existing continual learning methods are mainly focused on fully-supervised scenarios and are still not able to take advantage of unlabeled data available in the environment. Some recent works tried to investigate semi-supervised continual learning (SSCL) settings in which the unlabeled data are available, but it is only from the same distribution as the labeled data. This assumption is still not general enough for real-world applications and restricts the utilization of unsupervised data. In this work, we introduce Open-Set Semi-Supervised Continual Learning (OSSCL), a more realistic semi-supervised continual learning setting in which out-of-distribution (OoD) unlabeled samples in the... 

Selection of the most appropriate control configuration for two point control strategy in a distillation column is a challenging problem. In the present work, three control configurations namely , and , have been employed to control a high purity distillation column separating the binary mixture of Benzene-Toluene. A simple linear model for the process has been derived via a system identification technique. The uncertainty and performance weights have been defined and have been utilized to design a robust controller based on the μ-synthesis approach. The genetic algorithm is employed and the peak value of μ is minimized in order to obtain appropriate PI controller parameters for each... 

Nowadays sharing data between users and organizations can be difficult due to privacy and legal reasons. Therefore, real-world data is not fully exploited by machine learning methods. A novel model training method called Federated Learning was proposed to alleviate the aforementioned problem by enabling users to jointly train learning models without sharing data. Federated learning utilization faces many challenges among which high communication cost, statistical heterogeneity and system heterogeneity are most important. This research deals with these challenges by proposing two methods of Reduced Clustering Federated Learning (RCFL) and Weighted Federated Distillation (WFD). Moreover, we... 

Semantic segmentation is the tash of labeling each pixel of an input image. It is one of the main problems in computer vision and plays an important role in scene understanding. State of the art methods of solving it are based on Convolutional Neural Networhs (CNNs). While many real world tasks like autodriving cars and robot navigation require fast and lightweight models, CNNs inherently tend to give beter accuracy when they are deeper and bigger, and this has raised interest in designing compact networks. Knowledge distillation is one of the popular methods of training compact networhs and helps to transfer a big and powerful network’s knowledge to a small and compact one. In this research... 

The current work studies the economic investigation of reverse osmosis (RO) desalination unit and multi-effect distillation (MED) considering the average global and also Iran circumstances. Technical and operational parameters are taken into account for economic modeling of both methods to choose the proper and economic method for water desalination based on different operational conditions. The cost of the desalination plants is investigated in two different parts of capital cost and operating and maintenance cost. Capital cost is divided into direct and indirect cost subsections. Based on these calcifications, the effect of economic parameters on change of capital cost and operating and... 

Simulation and controlling nonlinear process is one of the challenging problems in academic and industrial research. Saving data for keeping history of process or arising number of calculation for optimization in control design, is forcing to decrease number of equation or order of system. One of the methods to decrease the order of distillation process is using the travelling wave theory. This solution shows god accuracy for simulation the behavior of distillation column. On the other hand finite difference method as a solver for distillation equation takes some time to converge to steady state condition and the numbers of calculation in this method are high. Finite difference method is... 

Water desalination is one of the most important issues for human being. Water desalination is the whole process of removing salts from water. This process is widely used in urban, industrial, and commercial applications and its efficiency has been improved with the development of desalination industry. One of the new methods of water desalination is membrane distillation, in which water desalination is performed using an appropriate membrane. In this research work, the membrane distillation process of saline water has been modeled and simulated using Comsol Multisphysics software through simultaneously solving the governing equations of momentum, thermal energy and mass transfer. The model... 

Distillation is the most applied unit in the separation processess of the oil and gas industries. Because the distillation process requires energy in the form of the utilities, integration of heat pump systems in the distillation process as an application of these systems is considered in this research. A new and effective methodology of proper integrating of heat pump and distillation columns has been proposed by collecting thermodynamic and thermoeconomic tools. Then, this procedure has been applied on the ethane recovery and NGL fractionation units of 4 & 5 phases of the south pars field. The exergy analysis of the distillation columns is the first step of this methodology as the... 

Cyclic distillation can bring new life in old distillation columns, by using a periodic operation mode that leads to significant benefits, such as increased column throughput, lower energy requirements and much higher separation performance. The design method for this type of column are reviewed. Among two design approaches, the Lagrangian one is selected, where equations are formulated as delay differential equations, moving from bottom to top of the column to determine feed tray location and total tray numbers. No rigorous design method is selected in order to calculate the column parameters.In this thesis, by defining an economic index that encompasses capital investment, operating costs... 

Fossil fuel usage caused global warming and other environmental problems. Recently, biofuels are considered as an important alternative. However, the efficient usage of water and energy in their production may accelerate their diffusion. ETBE is a kind of oxidizing fuel additive that can be biologically produced from the ethanol reaction. High water and energy consumption in the production and separation process is still a challenge. In this work, the ETBE production from lignocellulosic feed are considered. Then, the effect of different parameters are investigated by performing sensitivity analysis. In the next step, the optimal pathway of water and energy use in the production of ETBE are... 

In a single chemical plant, the operation of each unit operation is not independent of each other. In the other hand, the main operations are performed in reactors following by several separation steps including distillation and purification units. The total energy requirements are sullied by the heat exchanger networks. The performance of these systems is improved by integration and intensification of the reactor and distillation column in a single unit. The main objective of the present work is to provide an effective design approach to intensify the reactor and distillation column. In a reactive distillation column, the reaction and separation is done in a single unit. Increasing... 

Given the environmental benefits of natural gas (NG) in comparison to other fossil fuels and its potential contribution to the shift towards renewable energy, there is an anticipated rise in the demand for NG as an energy source in the coming years. This surge in demand has sparked a growing interest in the exploration and development of unconventional gas fields with low hydrocarbon content, which were previously considered economically unviable. Among these fields, those rich in nitrogen have garnered significant attention. However, the presence of high nitrogen content in NG poses notable challenges, including a decrease in calorific value and increased costs associated with... 

Helium is known as a strategic material due to its unique properties and applications in the development of advanced industries. Currently, natural gas is the only source from which helium can be produced economically. The United States, Qatar, Algeria, and Russia have the largest share of helium production, respectively. In this research, the process of helium extraction from natural gas and its liquefaction, independent of LNG production based on helium in South Pars gas of Iran, which is the largest helium reservoir in the world, were designed and simulated.In the helium liquefaction section, the speed and accuracy of the process simulation were improved by developing a home code based on... 

Helium is a valuable substance that is widely used in industry and medicine because of its unique properties. Due to the increasing demand for helium in the global market, several helium extraction units have been launched in the world in recent years; Nevertheless, there is still a significant gap between projected global helium production capacity and demand. Today, natural gas is known as the main source of helium on the earth. The method of industrial extraction of helium from natural gas is cryogenic. Due to the low temperature of this process, relatively high power consumption is used to extract helium from natural gas. Therefore, the optimization of this process is of great... 

Due to its unique properties, helium has extensive applications in various fields such as medicine, life sciences, electronic industries, welding, meteorology, and the industries which require low-temperature cooling. Also, designing the cryogenic distillation columns is one of the complex aspects of these plants. In the present study, the distillation column of a helium extraction plant from natural gas has been simulated by means of theta method of convergence. The required thermodynamic properties were determined from the Enhanced Predictive Peng-Robinson (E-PPR 78) equation of state, which has high accuracy in predicting the thermodynamic properties of natural gas componens. The... 

There are different technologies for supplying water from alternative sources that meet different needs. In relation to thermal technologies such as multi-effect distillation, the highest water quality is obtained, there is no limit on the concentration of the incoming water, and there is the least need for maintenance. On the other hand, thermal technologies consume higher energy than membrane technologies. In this process, the better the heat transfer, the number of steps can be increased, and this means the production of more distilled water for the same amount of thermal energy. The distilled water layer on the surface of the heat exchanger has a high thermal resistance compared to the... 

In this study steady state and dynamic simulation of an NFM extractive distillation unit for seperation of aromatics and non-aromatic components has been carried out. Column output composition obtained with experimental binary coefficients is compared with those obtainded by UNIFAC equation. The results indicate that using UNIFAC for all binrary coefficients results in an unacceptable error in concentration of benzene. If the experimental binary coefficents of benzene with NFM are used and the rest are calculated by UNIFAC equation, the simulation results will be very close to those obtained via experimental binary coefficients. Also it is shown that considering a constant efficiency for all... 

In a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) plant, equal moles of methyl acetate are produced as byproduct for every mole of PVA. Since there is a little demand for impure methyl acetate, it is converted to methanol and acetic acid as raw materials of PVA plant via hydrolysis reaction. Duo to the small equilibrium constant of hydrolysis reaction of methyl acetate, the conventional process (including reaction and separation sections) suffers some problems such as large recycle flow and high energy consumption. Therefore, reactive distillation is introduced as an alternative for these processes. Since the reactive distillation integrates both reaction and separation in a single vessel, it has more complex... 

Due to the successful experience gained in the process intensification and implementation of Reactive Distillation and Divided Wall Column in industry, Reactive Divided Wall Column have also been considered as a further step in process intensification. One important research area in implementation of RDWCs is their control issue. In the present study, the dynamic simulation of reactive divided wall columns and their control were studied and the adaptive model predictive control was used for the control objectives. Aspen Dynamics software was used for simulation and MATLAB software was utilized for applying the control strategy. The advantage of the applied control method is the use of... 

The use of magnetic compounds for drug delivery and magnetic imaging has been studied in many studies. The easy use of magnetic particles makes them widespread. By applying a magnetic field, the particles reach the desired position and return to the original state by cutting off the field. The use of these magnetic materials in the nanoscale also adds other benefits, including: convenient and rapid transfer of nanoparticles, rapid repulsion of the kidneys, reducing the risk of overdose, etc. In recent years, the use of quantum dots for the diagnosis and treatment of tumors has attracted much attention. The use of hybrid quantum dots and magnetic nanoparticles can incorporate the desired...