On the capacity of the state‐dependent interference relay channel

This paper considers the state‐dependent interference relay channel (SIRC) in which one of the two users may operate as a secondary user and the relay has a noncausal access to the signals from both users. For discrete memoryless SIRC, we first establish the achievable rate region by carefully merging Han‐Kobayashi rate splitting encoding technique, superposition encoding, and Gelfand‐Pinsker encoding technique. Then, based on the achievable rate region that we derive, the capacity of the SIRC is established in many different scenarios including (a) the weak interference regime, (b) the strong interference regime, and (c) the very strong interference regime. This means that our capacity results contain all available known results in the literature. Next, the achievable rate region and the associated capacity results are also evaluated in the case of additive Gaussian noise. Additionally, many numerical examples are investigated to show the value of our theoretical derivations.     

Fatty acids,sterols, and tocopherols composition in seed oil extracts from four moroccan ecotypes of Ceratonia siliqua L.

Morphological characterization was investigated by agro-morphological criteria related to carob seed size in four different moroccan regions collected in 2018 and 2019. There was no significant difference (p ≤ 0.05) on the seeds lengths and widths. However, a significant difference between seeds thickness and total seeds weight per pod (p ≤ 0.05) were observed between these four populations. The fatty acid, sterol, tocopherol, hydrocarbon, and the unoxygenated composition of carob seed extracts (Ceratonia siliqua L.) were studied. The mean fat yield of the seeds obtained is 1.53%–2.17%, 2.14%–2.15%, 1.61%–1.62%, 1.71%–1.75% for, respectively, the P1 (Meknes), P2 (Fez), P3 (Khemisset), and P4 (Marrakech) in 2018 and 2019. The seed oil was extracted with hexane and the analysis of the fatty fraction was performed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Results show that the major fatty acids for 2018 and 2019 are linoleic acid (61.48%–61.52%, 52.12%–52.14%, 57.76%–58.15%, 61.33%–61.52%), palmitic acid (15.78%–15.81%, 16.44%–16.45%, 19.11%–18.37%, 20.24%–20.32%), oleic acid (11.03%–11.04%, 8.72%–8.82%, 8.51%–8.61%, 8.41%–8.53%), stearic acid (4.35%–3.14%, 5.40%–5.43%, 3.12%–3.13%, 0.96%–1.56%), and cerotic acid (0.62%–0.53%, 4.51%–4.52%, 4.03%–4.06%, 3.84%–3.87%). The unsaturated fatty acids (69.39% in 2018 and 69.68% in 2019) are the most dominant in the four seed extracts compared to the saturated fatty acids. In addition, the oil carob seeds analysis revealed the presence of γ-tocopherol, α-tocopherol and four sterols that included campesterol, stigmasterol, and β-sitosterol. Moreover, the determination of hydrocarbon and un-oxygenated compounds confirmed the existence of major compounds such as heptadecane, 2-methyltriacontane, 1-iodo hexadecane and 1-iodo octadecane. The hierarchical analysis based on the morphological and chromatographic characterization of the seeds allowed the identification of three groups. Consequently, the first group consisted of populations from Marrakesh (P4) and Khemisset (P3), the second group consisted of the P1 from Meknes, and the P2 from Fez constituted the third group.     

Random Crystal Field in a Mixed Spin <Emphasis Type="Italic">S</Emphasis> = 1/2 and <Emphasis Type="Italic">S</Emphasis> = 3/2 Ising Model by Renormalization Group Theory

In this work, we study the Ising model with mixed spins S = ?1/2 and S = ?3/2 on the hypercubic lattice and the random crystal field at the sublattice with S =?3/2 described by a two peaks law. To achieve this, we use an approximation of position space renormalization group (PSRG) namely Migdal-Kadanoff in which we use both the free energy derivative and the flow in the parameter space of the Hamiltonian. For all values of the random probability, the critical behavior is determined via the critical exponents at the second-order fixed points while at low temperatures; the discontinuities of the of the free energy derivative provide the positions of the first-order transitions. The introduction of a minimal amount of disorder causes a change in the phase diagram showing the relevance of disorder for d =?2 and d =?3. The second-order transition remains always with the same critical exponents as those of the pure model, and a new first-order transition appears at very low temperature. Also, a comparison with other similar works is given.     

Catalytic properties of cobalt-promoted Pd/HAP catalyst for CO-cleanup of H2-rich stream

The promoting effect of Co addition on the behaviour of the Pd/HAP system in WGS reaction has been investigated. Hydroxyapatite-supported bimetallic PdCo samples have been prepared by two consecutive impregnation steps with solutions of Co and Pd precursors, respectively. The resulting catalysts have been thoroughly characterised by BET, XRD, H₂-TPR, XPS, OSCC and OSC techniques.The progressive addition of cobalt drives to an abundance of the Pd species exhibiting an intimate contact with Co and an eminent enhancement of the redox properties of the Pd/Co(x)/HAP catalysts. This results in an improvement of their performance in WGS reaction. The Pd species presenting an intimate contact with cobalt seems to be the responsible of the improvement of the CO conversion. However, this PdCo interaction leads to an increase in the methanation activity at the expense of WGS activity. When small amounts of O₂ is added to the WGS mixture, the activity is exclusively enhanced in the presence of Co species exhibiting easier reducibility.