Sharif Digital Repository

Solving the visual symbol grounding problem has long been a goal of modern aritificial intelligence. Due to recent breakthroughs in deep learning methods for natural language processing and visual interpretation tasks‚ the field now seems to be as near to achieving this goal as it ever was. Also recent progress in using recurrent neural netowrks (RNNs) for image description‚ has motivated the exploration of their application for video description tasks. However, while images remain static‚ interpreting videos require modeling complex dynamic temporal sturctures and then properly integrating that information into a natural language description. Recurrent neural networks can be both used to... 

In the era of the internet and with the emergence of online stores, the possibility of changing prices for these e-commerce platforms has become simple and virtually cost-free. This allows them to adjust prices optimally in response to environmental and surrounding factors, maximizing their revenue from product sales. This development has led to numerous applications of statistical learning methods, particularly online learning, in these markets. In this thesis, we explore the issue of online pricing from various perspectives. One aspect is that product pricing is based on their features, which can be numerous. This leads us to the use of online learning methods and statistical learning in... 

In this thesis, we consider the model of random interlacement on transient graghs, which was first introduced by Sznitman for the special case of Zd(d > 3) in 2010’s. in Sznitman’s case, it was shown that on Zd: for any intensity u > 0, the interlacement set is almost surely connected. The main result of this thesis says that for transient, transitive graphs, the above property holds if and only if the graph is amenable. In paticular, we show that in nonamenable transitive graphs, for small values of the intensity u the interlacement set has infinitely many infinite clusters. We also provide examples of nonamenable transitive graphs, for which the interlacement set becomes connected for... 

Cancer is an abnormal growth of cells which is one of the major cause of worldwide’s mortality. Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) are rare cancer cells released from the primary or metastatic tumors and transported though the peripheral circulatory system and spreads in body and seize healthy organs. Early detection of CTCs can help in overtaking the cancer, hence isolation of CTCs is an essential step for many therapeutics. In spite of its clinical potential, the isolation and detection of CTCs has been a challenging task due to its rare presence amongst other blood cells (as low as 1–10 CTCs per billions of blood cells), similarity to white blood cell in size and also variability in terms of... 

We intend to find conditions that lead to a posterior probability distribution becoming convex in terms of $-\log$. To achieve this, we will leverage modern optimal transport tools and their geometric results. Then, in relevant examples related to the theory of Bayesian mean field approximation, we aim to enhance convex models, enabling more precise and improved results. We do this task in the case of Gaussian mixture models. Also, we introduce a new definition of convexity on discrete spaces and strive to utilize this definition for the aforementioned estimation. Additionally, the presented definition can be studied independently  

Traditionally, Iran was looking for development and either in era of oil revenues or before that, it has always faced serious mismatches in realization of plans and indiscipline of definition, allocation of development budgets, and sometimes national and foreign borrowing and in spite of defining development plans from 1971s, today, rare plans have been achieved in an acceptable and defendable manner, meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolution adopted some fact changes in defining concepts like entrepreneurs, wealth, and the government’s share. However, many politicians and environmental activists are seeking sustainable development; environmental campaigners believe that this option is not... 

In restructured power system, the Independent System Operator (ISO) implements Security Constraint Unit Commitment (SCUC) for clearing of day-ahead market. In this project, SCUC is also uses for simultaneous clearing of energy and reserve market. Spinning reserve and of generating units and Interruptible Loads (IL) are considered as system operating reserves in the proposed model. Some of IL usage restrictions such as maximum load curtailed, maximum curtailment hour in a day, maximum length of each curtailment and etc is also considered. One of these constraints is interruption time (the time between ISO’s request and IL’s Answer) which is very difficult to formulate. Expected Energy Not... 

Analog to digital converters with different specifications are widely used in modern electronic circuits. The significant demand on pipeline converters in several low power applications is mainly due to their high speed and high resolution characteristics. Fast and simple design of analog circuits using CAD tools, is highly sought after by integrated circuit designers. In this thesis, pipeline analog to digital converters is studied and a CAD tool is proposed for transistor level design and optimizations. The main advantage of this design in comparison with the previous works is that the yield and power consumption are considered as optimization factors. The module operates in three parts:... 

Turbulence can distort and corrupt the image in quite a few ways when light from a distance star or another astronomical object enters the Earth's atmosphere. It is inevitable that all images produced by any telescope on ther Earth are blurred by these distortions. Adaptive Optics is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of wavefront distortions: it aims at correcting the deformations of an incoming wavefront by deforming a mirror in order to compensate for the distortion. The research work reported in this thesis presents a solution to the surface shape control problems in a Deformable Mirror system. Our first goal is to derive equations that... 

This study investigates consumers’ response to changing the household electricity meter from single stroke case to three stroke case. Existence of different prices in different hours during the day is the advantage of three stroke electricity meters compared to single stroke ones. Electricity bill data of 19,742 subscribers, in Tehran Interior Region 2, during the period 1387 to 1393, has been used to evaluate this policy. Subscribers who always use only single stroke electricity meters or three stroke ones are considered as the control group; and subscribers who have experienced electricity meter change during the period are considered as the experimental group. Changing electricity meters... 

Identifying fractional systems and designing controllers for these systems is one of the leading challenges due to their limitations. Systems can have constraints on output, input, and states. These constraints make it difficult to design a controller. In this project, controller design methods for fractional-order systems with output constraints are investigated. A controller is designed for a strict feedback nonlinear system with unknown dynamics subject to asymmetric and variable output constraints, unknown direction of the controller, and unmeasurable states. To design the controller, the direct and backstepping technique is used and the Lyapunov barrier function is applied for the first... 

In small settling tanks, the sludges can be removed using perforated pipes. In this method the pipe is placed in the depth of a fluid and the lateral inflow through perforations lead to the outlet. Since there are few researches about hydraulic characteristic of perforated pipes, this research will investigate the hyadraulic characteristic of these pipes experimentally. One of the main objectives of these pipes is to use the entire lenghte of the pipe and also provide the uniform distribution of inflow. In the past studies, it was found out that inflow mostly comes through downstream perforations. The objective of this research is to find the distribution of discharge along the perporated... 

Textile industry is one of the biggest consumers of water in the world. Effluents of textile industry ordinarily have huge rate of dye compounds which are toxic and persistent in environment. In case which they did not treat and discharged in the environment, they can create cancer, poisoning and etc. Finding efficient, economic and fast method for treating of these effluents is an important factor on the management. Combination of ultrafiltration membrane and reverse osmosis processes, has taken into consideration as an efficient and fast method of treatment of textile effluents in recent years. One of the fundamental problems of this process is the high costs of operation and chemical... 

Performance of reinforced concrete frames is highly dependent on detailing of the joint connections between its members, such as beams and columns. To have a good structural behavior, joints must show ductile behavior and designed based on the philosophy of strong column-weak beam. In the case of sever lacking ductility, strength or even rigidity of the connections, or having a weak column-strong beam, in the existing structures, there is a need for seismic upgrading of the connection. There are several ways for seismic upgrading of this type of connections.In this research, using steel plates for seismic upgrading of Concrete Beam-Column connections subjected to axial and cyclic loads has... 

Modern sensors consist of arrays of detectors specially arranged to enhance precision, capabilities, and field of view (FOV). Sensor arrays can have multiple functionalities such as the simultaneous detection of position and motion. We use a linear sensor model and develop an optimization method to design an array of photodiodes. Our objective function minimizes bias and variance estimations. We introduce a maximum likelihood technique to approximate and determine the bias caused by measurement errors, and verify our theory by statistically complete simulations. We apply our theory to design an optimal sun sensor. The sensor has a predefined conical FOV, and its accuracy is controlled by a... 

In this dissertation, we investigate the problem of the existence of finite geodetic sequences from point to point (0, n). This has not been proven in the general case. In this dissertation, we present an article that illustrates this question in a particular case of z ^ 2 subspaces whose self and complement are infinite and connected (e.g., slit planes, half-planes, and sectors). Writing x_n for the sequence of boundary vertices, we show that the sequence of geodesics from any point to x_n has an almost sure limit assuming only existence of finite geodesics. For all passage-time configurations, we show existence of a limiting Busemann function. Specializing to the case of the half-plane, we... 

Networks and the epidemiology of directly transmitted infectious diseases are fun-damentally linked. The foundations of epidemiology and early epidemiological models were based on population wide random-mixing, but in practice each individual has a finite set of contacts to whom they can pass infection; the ensemble of all such contacts forms a network. Knowledge of the structure of the network allows models to compute the epidemic dynamics at the population scale from the individual-level behaviour of infections.Motivated by the analysis of social networks, we study a model of random net-works that has both a given degree distribution and a tunable clustering coefficient.We consider two... 

Due to the increasing development of digital systems based on limited energy sources (i.e. battery), energy efficiency has become one of the most important concerns in the design of these systems. The use of multi-core architecture is an effective solution for the problem of reducing energy consumption. Hence using it in digital systems has become more common. In addition, enabling methods for reducing energy consumption on processor, helps in making energy more efficient. DVFS and DPM are the two major methods used for reducing dynamic and static energy consumption of processors. The using of multi-core architecture due to the higher chip density, results the static and dynamic energy... 

In the study of heat transfer in micro-channels, free and force convections are two limit cases and these two methods of heat transfer are combined together generally, so to achieve the most accurate informations about the flow field they should be considered in combination. In the first part of the thesis the fully developed slip flow mixed convection in vertical micro-ducts of arbitrary shapes is investigated.Uniform axial heat flux and uniform peripheral wall temperature (H1) is considered. The method considered is analytical-numerical in which the governing equations and three of the boundary conditions are exactly satisfied but the remaining slip boundary condition on the duct wall... 

Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts commonly used in the construction of oil and gas production facilities in Iran. These projects are subjected to many uncertainties. Because in these projects contractor is responsible for most of the activities related to the Engineering, Construction and Procurement, EPC contractors often assume most of project risks. Therefore, project risk management is very essential for achieving project goals. Several studies have focused on the identification and analysis of EPC project risks. However, they fail to identify appropriate risk management strategies. The objective of this study is to identify fair and efficient risk allocation and...