Sol-Gel Preparation of Highly Active Sulfated Zirconia Supported by Alumina Catalysts

A series of sulfated mixed oxides of alumina and zirconia having a relative composition of 5% and 10% of ZrO₂ was prepared by means of sol-gel methods using zirconium propoxide or zirconium acetylacetone as precursor. The characterization of the physicochemical properties was carried out using ²⁷Al NMR, XRD, N₂ adsorption at 77 K, thermogravimetry, FTIR analysis of adsorbed pyridine, ²⁷Al NMR-MAS and XPS. The catalytic properties were studied by means of isomerization of n-hexane at 250°C. Results obtained allowed to propose that the use of Zr(acac)₄ as a zirconium precursor leads to a better retention of sulfate species which seems to form polymeric superficial sites. The symmetry of aluminium undergo an increase from tetrahedral to octahedral coordination and Zirconium atoms seems to be located in the second coordination sphere of Al. XRD analysis indicated an amorphous structure of obtained solids calcined at 650°C. The sulfated solids presented both Lewis and Brönsted acidic sites. Catalytic results showed that both activity and selectivity towards isomerization products were better using Zr (acac)₄ as precursor. Furthermore, the increase of the Zr loading affected considerably the catalytic properties of sulfated zirconia supported by alumina.     

Analysis of functionally graded rotating disks with variable thickness

Elastic solutions for axisymmetric rotating disks made of functionally graded material with variable thickness are presented. The material properties and disk thickness profile are assumed to be represented by two power-law distributions. In the case of hollow disk, based on the form of the power-law distribution for the mechanical properties of the constituent components and the thickness profile function, both analytical and semi-analytical solutions are given under free–free and fixed-free boundary conditions. For the solid disk, only semi-analytical solution is presented. The effects of the material grading index and the geometry of the disk on the stresses and displacements are investigated. It is found that a functionally graded rotating disk with parabolic or hyperbolic convergent thickness profile has smaller stresses and displacements compared with that of uniform thickness. It is seen that the maximum radial stress for the solid functionally graded disk with parabolic thickness profile is not at the centre like uniform thickness disk. Results of this paper suggest that a rotating functionally graded disk with parabolic concave or hyperbolic convergent thickness profile can be more efficient than the one with uniform thickness.     

Electrochemical,morphological, and spectroscopic study of poly(aniline-co-<Emphasis Type="Italic">o</Emphasis>-bromoaniline) (PA-co-<Emphasis Type="Italic">o</Emphasis>-BrA) conducting copolymer

A series of moderately conducting and soluble copolymers of poly(aniline-co-o-bromoaniline) (PA-co-o-BrA) having different compositions was obtained by in the situ copolymerization method using different concentrations of monomer units of aniline and o-bromoaniline in the feed. The physio-chemical properties of the copolymers have been studied with sophisticated instrumental techniques. The electrochemical study of the copolymers was conducted by cyclic voltammetry. The band gap of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of the copolymers was evaluated by UV-vis spectroscopy. The morphological study was conducted by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy at high magnification which shows non-uniform tubular to globular morphology of the copolymers. Surface profiles of the polymers were studied by AFM analyses, and it has confirmed the smooth surface of the copolymers while the homopolymers possesses non-uniform surfaces. The particle size distribution curve indicates that the particle sizes vary in the range of 5 to 9000 nm, and a small fraction of particles possess a size in the range of 5–10 nm.     

Blow‐up for wave equation with the scale‐invariant damping and combined nonlinearities

In this article, we study the blow‐up of the damped wave equation in the scale‐invariant case and in the presence of two nonlinearities. More precisely, we consider the following equation: $$u_{tt}?\mathrm{\Delta }u+\frac{\mu }{1+t}{u}_t=|u_t{|}^p+|u{|}^q,\text{in}{?}^N\times [0,\infty ),$$ with small initial data. For $\mu <\frac{N(q?1)}{2}$ and μ ∈ (0, μ_?) , where μ_? > 0 is depending on the nonlinearties' powers and the space dimension (μ_? satisfies $(q?1)\left((N+2{\mu }_{?}?1)p?2\right)=4$), we prove that the wave equation, in this case, behaves like the one without dissipation (μ = 0 ). Our result completes the previous studies in the case where the dissipation is given by $\frac{\mu }{{(1+t)}^{\beta }}{u}_t;\beta >1$, where, contrary to what we obtain in the present work, the effect of the damping is not significant in the dynamics. Interestingly, in our case, the influence of the damping term $\frac{\mu }{1+t}{u}_t$ is important.     

Cooperative amplify‐and‐forward partial relay selection with outdated channel information in spectrum‐sharing systems

Recently, cooperative relaying techniques have been integrated into spectrum‐sharing systems in an effort to yield higher spectral efficiency. Many investigations on such systems have assumed that the channel state information between the secondary transmitter and primary receiver used to calculate the maximum allowable transmit secondary user transmit power to limit the interference is known to be perfect. However, because of feedback delay from the primary receiver or the time‐varying properties of the channel, the channel information may be outdated, which is an important scenario to cognitive radio systems. In this paper, we investigate the impact of outdated channel state information for relay selection on the performance of partial relay selection with amplify and forward in underlay spectrum‐sharing systems. We begin by deriving a closed‐form expression for the outage probability of the secondary network in a Rayleigh fading channel along with peak received interference power constraint and maximum allowable secondary user transmit power. We also provide a closed‐form expression for the average bit‐error rate of the underlying system. Moreover, we present asymptotic expressions for both the outage probability and average bit‐error rate in the high signal‐to‐noise ratio regime that reveal practical insights on the achievable diversity gain. Finally, we confirm our results through comparisons with computer simulations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gold nanoparticles by soft UV nanoimprint lithography coupled to a lift-off process for plasmonic sensing of antibodies

In this paper, we present the results of gold nanoparticles fabrication on large area by soft UV nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) and lift-off process for antibodies sensing. For this fabrication, the hard polydimethylsiloxane (H-PDMS) is used as flexible mold material. A simple AMONIL/PMMA bilayer is used to transfer patterns by etching the substrate with a suitable RIE process. The UV-NIL process has enabled to obtain gold nanoparticles with a diameter about 160 nm on a zone of 1 mm². For bioplasmonic applications, the sensing of Anti-Biotin was studied.     

Performance analysis of space-time MMSE multiuser detection for coded DS-CDMA systems in multipath fading channels

This paper investigates the use of convolutional coding in space-time minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) multiuser-based receivers over asynchronous multipath Rayleigh fading channels. We focus on the performance gain attained through error control coding when used with binary-phase-shift-keyed modulation (BPSK) and multiuser access based on direct sequence-code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA). In our analysis, we derive an approximation for the uncoded probability of bit-error in multipath fading channels. This bit-error rate (BER) approximation is shown to be very accurate when compared to the exact performance. For a convolutionally coded system, we obtain a closed form expression for the bit-error rate upper bound. This error bound is noted to be tight as the number of quantization levels increased beyond eight. Using our theoretical results, we obtain an estimate for the achieved user-capacity that accrues due to error control coding. It is found that using convolutional coding with 3-bit soft-decision decoding, a user-capacity gain as much as 300% can easily be achieved when complete fading state information plus ideal channel interleaving are assumed.     

New coalition formation game for spectrum sharing in cognitive radio networks

In cognitive radio networks, Secondary Users (SUs) can access the spectrum simultaneously with the Primary Users (PUs) in underlay mode. In this case, interference caused to the licensed users has to be effectively controlled. The SUs have to make spectrum access decisions in order to enhance their quality of service, but without causing harmful interference to the coexisting PUs. In this paper, we propose a cooperative spectrum decision, which enables the SUs to share the spectrum with the PUs more efficiently. Our approach is based on a new coalitional game in which the coalition value is a function of the SUs' spectral efficiencies, the inter‐SUs interference, and the interference caused to the PUs. By applying new Enter and Leave rules, we obtain a stable coalition structure. Simulation results show that the SUs' spectral efficiencies are considerably increased and that the interference caused to the coexisting PU is reduced by about 7.5% as compared to an opportunistic spectrum access scheme. Moreover, the proposed coalitional game results in a more balanced spectrum sharing in the network. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance of MIMO cross‐layer MAC protocol based on antenna selection in ad hoc networks

In this paper, we investigate the performance of a cross‐layer (physical and MAC) design for multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) system that aims at maximizing the throughput of ad hoc networks by selecting the optimum antenna combination. Employing this cross‐layer design is shown to improve the overall network performance relative to the case where no antenna selection (AS) is used. To solve the node blocking problem associated with the IEEE 802.11 medium‐access control (MAC) protocol, the proposed protocol leverage the available degrees of freedom offered by the MIMO system to allow neighboring nodes to simultaneously communicate using the zero‐forcing (ZF) Bell‐labs layered space‐time (BLAST) architecture. Using the cross‐layer design, neighboring nodes share their optimum antenna selection (AS) information through control messages. Given this shared information, nodes set their decisions on the number of selected antennas based on the available spatial channels that guarantees collision‐free transmissions. At the destination node, the ZF receiver is employed to extract the desired user data while treating the data from neighboring users as interference. The performance of the proposed cross‐layer design is examined through simulations, where we show that the network throughput is significantly improved compared to conventional MAC protocols. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.