The typical test for diagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique, but the chest CT scan might play a complementary role at the first detection of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia. Objectives: To determine the sensitivity of CT scan on patients with COVID-19 in Al-Najaf, Iraq, and to compare the accuracy of CT scan with that of RT-PCR technique. Material and Method: This is a prospective study. The patients suspicious of having COVID-19 infection and respiratory symptoms were registered. All patients were diagnosed by RT-PCR and chest CT. Diagnostic performance of CT was intended using RT-PCR as the reference standard in the centre of coronavirus investigation in Al-Najaf city, Iraq from March 2020 to September 2020. Results: The study population included 125 consecutive participants (males and females; mean age = 53 ± 17 years). Of the 125 participants, fever was observed in 93 (74.4%), cough was observed in 81 (64.8%), dyspnoea was observed in 47 (33%), and lymphocytopenia was observed in 89 (71.2%) subjects. The sensitivity and specificity of chest CT scan was 94% (95% confidence interval). Conclusion: The typical diagnosis of Coronavirus Disease 2019 pneumonia is by RT-PCR at the first stage of infection which can then be confirmed by chest CT.
Anaerobic digestion is a technology widely used for treatment of organic waste for biogas production as a source for clean energy. In this study, poultry house wastes (PHW) material was examined as a source for biogas production. The effects of inoculum addition, pretreatment of the substrate, and temperature on the biogas production were taken into full consideration. Results revealed that the effect of inoculum addition was more significant than the alkaline pretreatment of raw waste materials. The biogas recovery from inoculated waste materials exceeds its production from wastes without inoculation by approximately 70% at mesophilic conditions. Whereby, the increase of biogas recovery from pretreated wastes was by 20% higher than its
... Show MoreIn this work, some mechanical properties of the polymer coating were improved by preparing a hybrid system containing Graphene (GR) of different weight percentages (0.25, 0.5, 1, and 2wt%) with 5wt% carbon fibres (CF) and added to a polymer coating by using casting method. The properties were improved as GR was added with further improvement on adding 5wt% of CF. The impact strength of acrylic polymer with GR increases with increasing weight ratio of GR; maximum value was obtained when the polymer coating was incorporated with 1wt% GR and 5wt% CF. The impact strength of acrylic polymer with GR and GR/CF composites incorporated with GR at 1wt% and CF at 5wt%. Hardness increase with increasing weight ratio of Gr and a significant imp
... Show MoreTraffic management at road intersections is a complex requirement that has been an important topic of research and discussion. Solutions have been primarily focused on using vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). Key issues in VANETs are high mobility, restriction of road setup, frequent topology variations, failed network links, and timely communication of data, which make the routing of packets to a particular destination problematic. To address these issues, a new dependable routing algorithm is proposed, which utilizes a wireless communication system between vehicles in urban vehicular networks. This routing is position-based, known as the maximum distance on-demand routing algorithm (MDORA). It aims to find an optimal route on a hop-by-ho
... Show MoreFluidization process is widely used by a great assortment of industries worldwide and represents a trillion dollar industry [6]. They are currently used in separation, classification, drying and mixing of particles, chemical reactions and regeneration processes; one of these processes is the mass transfer from an immersed surface to a gas fluidized bed
It is very difficult to obtain the value of a rock strength along the wellbore. The value of Rock strength utilizing to perform different analysis, for example, preventing failure of the wellbore, deciding a completion design and, control the production of sand. In this study, utilizing sonic log data from (Bu-50) and (BU-47) wells at Buzurgan oil field. Five formations have been studied (Mishrif, Sadia, Middle lower Kirkuk, Upper Kirkuk, and Jaddala) Firstly, calculated unconfined compressive strength (UCS) for each formation, using a sonic log method. Then, the derived confined compressive rock strengthens from (UCS) by entering the effect of bore and hydrostatic pressure for each formation. Evaluations th
... Show More<span lang="EN-US">Proper employment of Hybrid Wind/ PV system is often implemented near the load, and it is linked with the grid to study dynamic stability analysis. Generally, instability is because of sudden load demand variant and variant in renewable sources generation. As well as, weather variation creates several factors that affect the operation of the integrated hybrid system. So this paper introduces output result of a PV /wind via power electronic technique; DC chopper; that is linked to Iraqi power system to promote the facilitating achievement of Wind/ PV voltage. Moreover, PSS/E is used to study dynamic power stability for hybrid system which is attached to an effective region of Iraqi Network. The hybrid system
... Show MoreThe catalytic cracking of three feeds of extract lubricating oil, that produced as a by-product from the process of furfural extraction of lubricating oil base stock in AL-Dura refinery at different operating condition, were carried out at a fixed bed laboratory reactor. The initial boiling point for these feeds was 140 ºC for sample (1), 86 ºC for sample (2) and 80 ºC for sample (3). The catalytic cracking processes were carried out at temperature range 325-400 ºC and initially at atmospheric pressure after 30 minutes over 9.88 % HY-zeolite catalyst load. The comparison between the conversion at different operating conditions of catalytic cracking processes indicates that a high yield was obtained at 375°C, according to gasoline pr
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