Sharif Digital Repository

Ultra-deep desulfurization for production of clean fuels is of great significance from environmental outlook. In this paper, adsorptive desulfurization (ADS) of wild naphtha was investigated in pilot scale using Mg(OH)2-impregnated aluminosilicate ceramic foam filters (ASCFs) as adsorbent. Effects of four operating parameters including temperature, pressure, adsorption bed length and initial sulfur concentration on sulfur removal efficiency of the process were studied via central composite design of experiment methodology. Sobol's sensitivity analysis was employed to quantitatively determine the impacts of the operating parameters on the removal performance of the separation system. The... 

This paper presents a new architecture for a DLL based frequency synthesizer for wireless transceivers. Owing to its DLL based nature, the synthesizer generates the target frequencies with minimum phase noise. The proposed architecture takes the advantage of a combination of a frequency divider and an edge combiner to create the desired frequencies. As an example, the synthesizer is adopted to create the channel frequencies of French DVB-H/T standard. The circuit level design guidelines and power consumption trade-offs are presented. It was shown that for the mentioned standard a mere 6 stage delay line is sufficient. Simulation results confirm the analytical predictions  

The S-shaped air intakes are very common shapes due to their ease in the engine-body integration or Radar Cross Section, RCS, specifications especially for fighter aircrafts. The numerical shape optimization of an S-shaped air intake using adjoint method is conducted. The flow of a specified air intake that uses S-duct M2129 is simulated using three dimensional (3D) numerical solution of Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equation along with k-ω SST turbulence model. The main purpose of this optimization scheme is to maximize the total pressure recovery (TPR). Further, the scheme is developed in such a way that would be applicable in industry thru satisfying specified constraint requirements.... 

In Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs), nodes depend on each other for routing and forwarding their packets. However, to save power and other resources, nodes belonging to independent authorities may behave selfishly, and not cooperate in network activities. Such selfish behaviour poses a real threat to the proper functioning of MANETs. To cope with this situation, a motivation stimulation mechanism is required to provide sufficient incentives for nodes to forward other nodes' packets. One appropriate approach is to have network nodes pay in order to motivate them to cooperate with the protocol. To achieve truthfulness, the payment should be based on the cost of transmission of packets. Since... 

Massively multi-user virtual environments (MMVE) incorporate computer graphics, sound and haptics to simulate the experience of real-time interaction among multiple users in a shared three-dimensional virtual world. Such applications therefore deal with the distribution of updates among their users to provide them with a common sense of time and place while interacting in the virtual environment. As MMVEs grow larger in terms of size and numbers of users, they tend to rely on P2P architecture as a scalable way of exchanging the huge bulk of updates among their users without the need for the exponential increase in their central servers. While much work has been done on P2P architectures for... 

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy is a well-known technique for treating cancer patients worldwide. A treatment plan in this technique requires decision-making for three main problems: selection of beam angles, intensity map calculation, and leaf sequencing. Previous works investigated these problems sequentially. We present a new integrated framework for simultaneous decision-making of directions, intensities, and aperture shape, called direct angle and aperture optimization, and develop a mixed-integer nonlinear mathematical model for the problem. Due to the nonlinearity and the dimension of the problem, three efficient metaheuristics based on differential evolution (DE) called classic... 

The high dependence of the atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions on fossil fuels has led it to increment. Process design along with the economic aspects, improves the technology diffusion of the carbon capturing. In the pressure swing adsorption as a promising carbon capturing technology, increasing the pressure leads to more adsorbed amount of carbon dioxide and energy consumption of compressor, which is a source for carbon dioxide emission. Experimental data shows that for pressures between 3 to 5bar, the avoided CO2 is in maximum rate. The economic analysis reveals that the pressure of 3bar is appropriate. Also, the utilization of CO2 in the aerogel production, as a nano-based thermal... 

The high dependence of the atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions on fossil fuels has led it to increment. Process design along with the economic aspects, improves the technology diffusion of the carbon capturing. In the pressure swing adsorption as a promising carbon capturing technology, increasing the pressure leads to more adsorbed amount of carbon dioxide and energy consumption of compressor, which is a source for carbon dioxide emission. Experimental data shows that for pressures between 3 to 5 bar, the avoided CO2 is in maximum rate. The economic analysis reveals that the pressure of 3 bar is appropriate. Also, the utilization of CO2 in the aerogel production, as a nano-based thermal... 

This paper presents the design procedure of monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) high-power amplifiers (HPAs) as well as implementation of high-efficiency and compact-size HPAs in a 0.25-μm AlGaAs-InGaAs pHEMT technology. Presented design techniques used to extend bandwidth, improve efficiency, and reduce chip area of the HPAs are described in detail. The first HPA delivers 5 W of output power with 40% power-added efficiency (PAE) in the frequency band of 8.5-12.5 GHz, while providing 20 dB of small-signal gain. The second HPA delivers 8 W of output power with 35% PAE in the frequency band of 7.5-12 GHz, while maintaining a small-signal gain of 17.5 dB. The 8-W HPA chip area is 8.8... 

We propose a design algorithm for VIPA-based OCOMA encoder used in WOM-compatible COMA networks based on the problem requirements. Analyzing this device by our previous formulation leads to some useful suggestions to improve the device  

Due to the enlargement and complexity of software systems and the need for maintenance and update, success of systems depends strongly on their architecture. Software architecture has been a key element in software development process in two past decades. Therefore, choosing the correct architecture is a critical issue in software engineering domain, with respect to the extremely extension of architecturedriven designs. Moreover, software architecture selection is a multi-criteria decision-making problem in which different goals and objectives should be considered. In this paper, a Decision Support System (DSS) has been designed which provides software architects with more precise and... 

Epistemic uncertainty in seismic hazard analysis is traditionally addressed by utilizing a logic-tree structure with subjective probabilities for branches. However, many studies have argued that probability is not a suitable choice for addressing epistemic uncertainties; in particular in addressing the background knowledge supporting the probabilities. In this regard, the application of imprecise probability (IP) is investigated. It is discussed that IP could provide a flexible tool for a more objective presentation of experts' knowledge. Moreover, the importance of addressing the strength of knowledge and surprises relative to knowledge in seismic hazard analysis along with methods to do... 

Epistemic uncertainty in seismic hazard analysis is traditionally addressed by utilizing a logic-tree structure with subjective probabilities for branches. However, many studies have argued that probability is not a suitable choice for addressing epistemic uncertainties; in particular in addressing the background knowledge supporting the probabilities. In this regard, the application of imprecise probability (IP) is investigated. It is discussed that IP could provide a flexible tool for a more objective presentation of experts' knowledge. Moreover, the importance of addressing the strength of knowledge and surprises relative to knowledge in seismic hazard analysis along with methods to do... 

The reliable transfer in Network on Chips (NoCs) can be threatened by crosstalk fault occurring in wires. Crossstalk fault is due to inter-wire coupling capacitance that based on the patterns of transitions appearing on the wires, significantly limits the reliability of NoCs. Among these transitions, 101 and 010 bit patterns impose the worst crosstalk effects to wires. This work intends to increase the reliability of NoCs against crosstalk faults by applying an improved Fibonacci-based numeral system, called Doubled-Penultimate Fibonacci (DP-Fibo). In the DP-Fibo coding algorithm, code words without ‘101’ and ‘010’ bit patterns are produced to reduce crosstalk faults. Experimental results... 

An accurate thermal model to predict the heat generation in rechargeable batteries is an essential tool for advanced thermal management in high power applications, such as electric vehicles. For such applications, the battery materials' details and cell design are normally not provided. In this work a simple, though accurate, thermal model for batteries has been developed, considering the temperature- and current-dependent overpotential heat generation and State-of-Charge dependent entropy contributions. High power rechargeable Li-ion (7.5 Ah) batteries have been experimentally investigated and the results are used for model verification. It is shown that the State-of-Charge dependent... 

A wide range of applications in engineering and scientific computing are based on the sparse matrix computation. There exist a variety of data representations to keep the non-zero elements in sparse matrices, and each representation favors some matrices while not working well for some others. The existing studies tend to process all types of applications, e.g., the most popular application which is matrix–vector multiplication, with different sparse matrix structures using a fixed representation. While Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have evolved into a very attractive platform for general purpose computations, most of the existing works on sparse matrix–vector multiplication (SpMV, for... 

A wide range of applications in engineering and scientific computing are based on the sparse matrix computation. There exist a variety of data representations to keep the non-zero elements in sparse matrices, and each representation favors some matrices while not working well for some others. The existing studies tend to process all types of applications, e.g., the most popular application which is matrix–vector multiplication, with different sparse matrix structures using a fixed representation. While Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have evolved into a very attractive platform for general purpose computations, most of the existing works on sparse matrix–vector multiplication (SpMV, for... 

In this paper, a robust control design strategy is introduced to synchronize two different chaotic systems. The controller is based on particle swarm optimization (PSO). Particle swarm optimization is a well-known evolutionary optimization algorithm inspired by organism behavior of birds flocking and fish schooling. Our control approach is based on defining a suitable cost function in such a way that minimizing it guarantees the control of system. Due to the nature of PSO algorithm, the designed controller is strongly robust. It is shown that the proposed controller can overcome the parameter uncertainty without any extra information about the system. Comparison of proposed method with... 

In this study; a Sugeno type ANFI model which describes the relationship between the bio surfactant concentration as a model output and the critical medium components as its inputs has been constructed. The critical medium components are glucose, urea,SrCl2 and MgSo4 .The experimental data for training and testing capability of the model obtained by a statistical experimental design which have been captured from literatures. Six generalized bell shaped membership function have been selected for each of input variables and based on the training data ANFI model has been trained using the hybrid learning algorithm. The yielded biosurfactant concentration values from the model prediction shows... 

Purpose: The paper aims to address the combined attitude control and Sun tracking problem in a flexible spacecraft in the presence of external and internal disturbances. The attitude stabilization of a flexible satellite is generally a challenging control problem, because of the facts that satellite kinematic and dynamic equations are inherently nonlinear, the rigid–flexible coupling dynamical effect, as well as the uncertainty that arises from the effect of actuator anomalies. Design/methodology/approach: To deal with these issues in the combined attitude and Sun tracking system, a novel control scheme is proposed based on the adaptive fuzzy Jacobian approach. The augmented spacecraft model...