An efficient synthesis of novel sulfonyl[3.3.3]heteropropellanes from sulfonylacetamidines and ninhydrin-malononitrile adduct

The synthesis in good yields of a novel class of sulfonyl[3.3.3]heteropropellanes via a one pot, five-component reaction between sodium arylsulfinates, trichloroacetonitrile, primary amines, and the malononitrile-ninhydrin adduct in H₂O at room temperature has been reported.     

Effects of drying methods on qualitative and quantitative properties of essential oil of two basil landraces

Sweet basil, a plant that is extensively cultivated in some countries, is used to enhance the flavour of salads, sauces, pasta and confectioneries as both a fresh and dried herb. To determine the effect of drying methods on qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the plant and essential oil of basil, two landraces, Purple and Green, were dried in sunlight, shade, mechanical ovens at 40 °C and 60 °C, a microwave oven at 500 W and by freeze-drying. For comparison, the essential oils of all samples were extracted by hydrodistillation and analyzed using GC and GC–MS. The highest essential oil yields (v/w on dry weight basis) were obtained from shade-dried tissue in both landraces followed by the freeze-dried sample of the purple landrace and the fresh sample of green landrace. Increasing the drying temperature significantly decreased the essential oil content of all samples. Significant changes in the chemical profile of the essential oils from each of the landrace were associated with the drying method, including the loss of most monoterpene hydrocarbons, as compared with fresh samples. No significant differences occurred among several constituents in the extracted essential oils, including methyl chavicol (estragole), the major compound in the oil of both landraces, whether the plants were dried in the shade or sun, oven at 40 °C or freeze-dried, as compared with a fresh sample. The percentage methyl chavicol in the oil, however, decreased significantly when the plant material was dried in the oven at 60 °C or microwaved. In addition, linalool, the second major compound in the purple landrace, and geranial and neral, major compounds in the green landrace, decreased significantly when the plant tissue was dried in the oven at 60 °C or microwaved.     

CogNS: A Simulation Framework for Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio technology has been used to efficiently utilize the spectrum in wireless networks. Although many research studies have been done recently in the area of cognitive radio networks (CRNs), little effort has been made to propose a simulation framework for CRNs. In this paper, a simulation framework based on NS2 (CogNS) for cognitive radio networks is proposed. This framework can be used to investigate and evaluate the impact of lower layers, i.e., MAC and physical layer, on the transport and network layers protocols. Due to the importance of packet drop probability, end-to-end delay and throughput as QoS requirements in real-time reliable applications, these metrics are evaluated over CRNs through CogNS framework. Our simulations demonstrate that the design of new network and transport layer protocols over CRNs should be considered based on CR-related parameters such as activity model of primary users, sensing time and frequency.     

Comparative electrooxidation of C1–C4 alcohols on Pd|CC nanoparticle anode catalyst in alkaline medium

The comparative studies of methanol, ethanol, 2-propanol and 2-butanol electrooxidation were carried out on carbon-ceramic electrode (CCE) potentiostatically modified with Pd nano-particles. The Characterization of catalytic layer by Scanning electron microscope (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicated that well-dispersed catalytic particles with high density have been formed on CC substrate. Voltammetry, Chronoamperometry (CA), Polarization study and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were used to investigate the alcohols oxidation reactions. The relevant parameters such as the Tafel slope and activation energy (E_a) were determined. This study upholds the fact that 2-propanol is a promising fuel candidate for a direct alkaline alcohol fuel cell.     

Hexadecylpyridinium surfactant modified zeolite A as an active component of a polymeric membrane sulfite selective electrode

Zeolite A was synthesized from waste porcelain and modified by hexadecylpyridinium surfactant to change the cation exchanger property of the raw zeolite to anion exchanger property in the obtained surfactant modified zeolite (SMZ). The SMZ was used as an active ingredient component of a membrane selective sulfite electrode. The electrode was fully characterized in terms of composition, response time, thermal stability and usable pH range. The sensor showed suitable response to sulfite in the concentration range of 8.0 × 10^? 7 to 1.0 × 10^? 1 mol L^? 1, with a detection limit of 5.0 × 10^? 7 mol L^? 1 and a slope of ? 29.5 ± 0.8 mV per decade of sulfite concentration.     

Practical frame synchronization for data with unknown distribution on AWGN channels

We study practical frame synchronization based on sequential search of sync markers: these synchronizers can be used for frames of both known or unknown lengths. First, according to the hypothesis testing theory, a new simple metric is derived for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, based on the generalized likelihood ratio test, thus without any assumption on the statistical distribution of the data symbols. An analytical performance evaluation is then given, with closed form expression for the characteristic function of the decision variable. It is shown that a remarkable gain is obtained with respect to correlation based tests.     

Bit error outage for diversity reception in shadowing environment

This letter addresses the problem of evaluating the bit error outage (BEO), i.e., the outage probability defined in terms of bit error probability, in a Rayleigh fading and shadowing environment. We consider coherent detection of binary phase-shift keying with maximal ratio combining (MRC). As an example application, the BEO in a log-normal shadowing environment is analyzed and the improvement in terms of BEO due to MRC is quantified in different shadowing environments.