Biotreatment using immobilized cells (IC) technology has proved to be the most promising and most economical approach for the removal of many toxic organic pollutants found in petroleum-refinery wastewater (PRW) such as phenol. This study was undertaken to evaluate the degradation of phenol by Pseudomonas cells individually immobilized in two different bio-carrier matrices including polyvinyl alcohol-guar gum (PVA-GG) and polyvinyl alcohol-agar agar (PVA-AA). Results of batch experiments revealed that complete removal of phenol was attained in the first cycle after 150 min using immobilized cells (IC) in both PVA-GG and PVA-AA. Additional cycles were confirmed to evaluate the validity of recycling beads of immob

In this work, multilayer nanostructures were prepared from two metal oxide thin films by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. These metal oxide were nickel oxide (NiO) and titanium dioxide (TiO2). The prepared nanostructures showed high structural purity as confirmed by the spectroscopic and structural characterization tests, mainly FTIR, XRD and EDX. This feature may be attributed to the fine control of operation parameters of dc reactive magnetron sputtering system as well as the preparation conditions using the same system. The nanostructures prepared in this work can be successfully used for the fabrication of nanodevices for photonics and optoelectronics requiring highly-pure nanomaterials.

Various theories have been proposed since in last century to predict the first sighting of a new crescent moon. None of them uses the concept of machine and deep learning to process, interpret and simulate patterns hidden in databases. Many of these theories use interpolation and extrapolation techniques to identify sighting regions through such data. In this study, a pattern recognizer artificial neural network was trained to distinguish between visibility regions. Essential parameters of crescent moon sighting were collected from moon sight datasets and used to build an intelligent system of pattern recognition to predict the crescent sight conditions. The proposed ANN learned the datasets with an accuracy of more than 72% in comp

This study investigates the implementation of Taguchi design in the estimation of minimum corrosion rate of mild-steel in cooling tower that uses saline solution of different concentration. The experiments were set on the basis of Taguchi’s L16 orthogonal array. The runs were carried out under different condition such as inlet concentration of saline solution, temperature, and flowrate. The Signal-to- Noise ratio and ANOVA analysis were used to define the impact of cooling tower working conditions on the corrosion rate. A regression had been modelled and optimized to identify the optimum level for the working parameters that had been founded to be 13%NaCl, 35ᴼC, and 1 l/min. Also a confirmation run to establish the p

Psoriasis is a chronic, inflammatory condition that primarily affects the skin, hair, and joints and is associated with significant humanistic and economic consequences. This work induced psoriasis in mice using an imiquimod 5% cream, an immune response modifier that can cause psoriasis-like skin inflammation when given orally. Paquinimod is prepared as an ointment and has been topically given to mice before imiquimod application. In this study, albino mice were allocated into five groups and treated as follows: the control group received only a daily application of cream based on shaved back (62.5mg/2cm) with a daily topical dose of ointment for 14 consecutive days with the oral vehicle. The Imiquimod group received a daily topical

Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) bars are anisotropic in nature and have high tensile strength in the fiber direction. The use of High-Strength Concrete (HSC) allows for better use of the high-strength properties of FRP bars. The mechanical properties of FRP bars can yield to large crack widths and deflections. As a result, the design of concrete elements reinforced with FRP materials is often governed by the Serviceability Limit States (SLS). This study investigates the short-term serviceability behavior of FRP RC I-beams. Eight RC I-beams reinforced with carbon-FRP (CFRP) and four steel RC I-beams, for comparison purposes, were tested under two-point loading.
Deformations on the concrete and crack widths and spacing are measured and