Cathodic behaviour of p-toluenesulfonamides in organic solvents

Cathodic reduction of several secondary and tertiary p-toluenesulfonamides and gem-N-disulfonamides were investigated by cyclic voltammetry and controlled potential electrolysis at mercury electrode in aprotic and protic dmf. In the cleavage of tertiary p-toluenesulfonamides two Faradays per mole were consummed, resulting in the formation of amine and the sulfinate ion. In the case of secondary p-toluenesulfonamides, electrochemically inactive sulfonamide anions were formed at the electrode surface by acid–base reaction between acidic substrate and electrogenerated bases. Sulfonamides anions were obtained also in the solution bulk with adding strong base and by cathodic cleavage of gem-N-disulfonamides in aprotic media. General reduction mechanisms are postulated and structure effects on the scope of the reduction are discussed for more complex sulfonamides.     

Interference analysis for asynchrounous OFDM/FBMC based cognitive radio networks over Rayleigh fading channel

In the future fifth generation networked society, devices will suffer from the asynchronous multi-carrier effect which impacts the user’s quality of experience. This paper investigates the timing misalignment effect on interference level in the context of a cognitive radio (CR) network. Our study considers both multicarrier techniques orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and filter bank multicarrier (FBMC). The originality of our paper consists in proposing a simple but accurate analytical model to evaluate our system’s performance in terms of interference level, signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio and bit error rate. Specifically, two case studies are considered, a single-user case (one primary user and one secondary user) and a multi-user case with exact theoretical expressions of interference level. We had also made a comparison between OFDM and FBMC techniques. The most striking observation to emerge from our results is that the asynchronous interference is inversely propositional to timing offset even for the multi-user case, and that differences in the normalized interference level between the single/multi-user cases is barely perceived for the FBMC technique, proving its efficiency. Our simulations’ results had further strengthened our confidence in the suggested model. It shows that FBMC is best suited for CR networks since it provides BER improvements compared to OFDM.

     

A Novel Adaptive and Cooperative Scheme to Save Energy for Wireless Sensor Network

In this paper, we evaluate the performance of a novel cooperative adaptive relaying scheme called ISDF (Incremental Selective Decode and Forward). We compare the energy efficiency of this underlying scheme with direct transmission (DT), Fixed and adaptive relaying schemes in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The system is constrained by a minimum value of Signal-to- Noise Ratio (SNR) and the end-to-end throughput. We consider a three-node cooperative system. The relay is equidistant to the source and destination, and then we study different positions of the latter. The destination receives two copies of the message: one from the source and the other from the relay. Then it combines them by using maximal ratio combining (MRC). The proposed scheme differs from other schemes by the combination of the selective decode and forward scheme with the incremental scheme which requires the presence of a feed-back from the destination. The analysis reveals that the proposed ISDF provides good energy efficiency compared to DT and other cooperative schemes. It also shows that DF cooperative scheme (decode and forward , either with feedback or no, is outperformed by AF (amplify and forward) scheme especially when the relay is placed near the destination.

     

Metric anticipation to manage mobility in mobile mesh and ad hoc wireless networks

In mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), node mobility management is performed by the routing protocol. It may use metrics to reflect link state/quality. But, the delay between measures of the link quality and its integration in the route computation is very detrimental to the mobility management. Consequently, routing protocols may use lossy links for a few seconds leading to a significant performance deterioration. In this paper, we propose a new routing metric technique calculation which aims at anticipating link quality. Basically, the idea is to predict metric values a few seconds in advance, in order to compensate the delay involved by the link quality measurement and their dissemination by the routing protocol. Our technique is based on measurements of signal strength and is integrated in two classical routing metrics: ETX (expected transmission count) and ETT (expected transmission time). Validations are performed through both simulations and a testbed experimentation with OLSR as routing protocol. NS-3 simulations show that our metric may lead to a perfect mobility management with a packet delivery ratio of 100%. Experiments on a testbed prove the feasibility of our approach and show that this technique reduces the packet error rate by a factor of 3 in an indoor environment compared to the classical metrics calculation.     

Parameterisation of the MRP method: automatic identification and extraction of properties

The overall context of this paper is the parameterisation of the material requirement planning method. It is crucial to be able to evaluate the potential effects of the parameters on the production system’s performance indicators (PI). This evaluation is generally the result of the combination of an experimental design with a production system simulator. This paper proposes an approach facilitating the interpretation of the effects of the experimental design method. The specific feature of our approach is that it proposes the classification of the effects as a model for the automatic identification and extraction of the properties. These characterise the relations between the parameters and the PI.     

Techno-economic analysis and modelling of a remote photovoltaic water pumping system in the desert of Tunisia

For estimating the performance of a photovoltaic (PV) water pumping system without battery storage, a simple algorithm has been developed. This simulation program uses the hourly global solar radiation, the hourly ambient temperature and the hourly wind speed as the input, moreover the characteristics of region (latitude, longitude, ground albedo) and characteristics of PV water pumping system (orientation, inclination, nominal PV module efficiency, NOCT, PV array area, PV temperature coefficient, miscellaneous power conditioning losses, miscellaneous PV array losses, temperature of reference, moto-pump efficiency and inverter efficiency). This work allows evaluating the economic interest of a remote PV water pumping systems in the desert of Southern Tunisia, which will have to satisfy an average daily volume of 45 m³ throughout the year compared to another very widespread energy system in the area, the diesel genset (DG), by using the method of the life-cycle cost (LCC). The cost per m³ of water was calculated for this system. It is found that the LCC for PV system is 0.500 TND/m³ and the LCC DG is 0.837 TND/m³. The present study indicates economic viability of PV water pumping systems in the desert of Tunisia.     

Impact of surface hardening treatment generated by shot peening on the fatigue life of brass alloy

Brass alloy is widely used because of some attractive properties such as high electrical and thermal conductivity. But its fatigue performance after surface treatment is not very well explored in literature. Thus, in the present work, particular emphasis was given to the influence of surface treatment by shot peening on the fatigue life of brass alloy, throughout surface roughness and microstructural evolution. Fatigue tests were performed on unpeened, peened and peened then polished specimens. Various times of surface hardening treatment as 30, 60 and 120 min were considered. Experimental results reveal that the fatigue life of peened brass alloy decrease for all studied hardening treatment conditions. Surface roughness and microstructural properties showed large sensitivity to the shot peening process of brass alloy.     

Analytical evaluation of two monovarietal virgin olive oils cultivated in the south of Tunisia: Jemri‐Bouchouka and Chemlali‐Tataouin cultivars

BACKGROUND: The characterisation of virgin olive oils from two Tunisian cultivars, growing in the Tataouin zone, namely Jemri‐Bouchouka, a rare olive cultivar, and Chemlali‐Tataouin, was carried out. Several analytical parameters were evaluated; these include quality index, fatty acids, phenolic, chlorophyll, carotenoid, squalene, α‐tocopherol compositions and oxidative stability. RESULTS: Jemri‐Bouchouka olive oil had the highest value of oleic acid (74.50%) while Chemlali‐Tataouin was characterised by a high percentage of palmitic acid (14.75%), which makes this oil freeze at a low temperature. On the other hand, Jemri‐Bouchouka oil was characterised by a low phenolic and α‐tocopherol content (267.72 mg GAE kg^?1 and 278.34 mg kg^?1, respectively). Ten phenolic compounds were identified. The main phenols found in the two olive oils were oleuropein aglycon and pinoresinol. All phenolic compounds showed significant correlations with oxidative stability. CONCLUSION: The analytical parameters of virgin olive oil that were determined in this study were greatly influenced by cultivar. © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry     

Blanking tool wear modeling using the finite element method

One of the main objectives of the numerical process design in metal forming is to develop adequate tool design and establish process parameter in order to increase tool life and to improve part quality and complexity while reducing manufacturing cost. The prediction of tool wear in sheet metal blanking/punching processes is investigated in this paper using the finite element method. A wear prediction model has been implemented in a finite element code in which the tool wear is a function of the normal pressure and some material parameters. A damage model is used in order to describe crack initiation and propagation into the sheet. The distribution of the tool wear on the tool profile is obtained and compared to industrial observations. Furthermore, a numerical investigation has been carried out to study the effect of tool wear on the burr formation.     

Predicting the Bubble-Point Pressure and Formation-Volume-Factor of Worldwide Crude Oil Systems

This paper presents models for predicting the bubble-point pressure (P_b) and oil formation-volume-factor at bubble-point (B_ob) for crude oil samples collected from several regions around the world. The regions include major producing oil fields in North and South America, North Sea, South East Asia, Middle East, and Africa. The model was developed using artificial neural networks with 5200 experimentally obtained PVT data sets. This represents the largest data set ever collected to be used in developing P_b and B_ob models. An additional 234 PVT data sets were used to investigate the effectiveness of the neural network models to predict outputs from inputs that were not used during the training process. The network model is able to predict the bubble-point pressure and the oil formation-volume-factor as a function of the solution gas-oil ratio, the gas relative density, the oil specific gravity, and the reservoir temperature. In order to obtain a generalized accurate model, back propagation with momentum for error minimization was used. The accuracy of the models developed in this study was compared in details with several published correlations. This study shows that if artificial neural networks are successfully trained, they can be excellent reliable predictive tools to estimate crude oil properties better than available correlations. The network models can be easily incorporated into any reservoir simulators and/or production optimization software.