Kamel, S.H., R.F. Al-Jassani and H.A. Al-Shammari. 2022. Effects of Pseudomonas fluorescens, Bacillus thuringiensis tenebrionis Isolates and Biologically Synthesized Silver Nanoparticles on Cellulase Enzyme Activity in Workers' Digestive System of the Termite Microcerotermes diversus Silv. Arab Journal of Plant Protection, 40(4): 315-324. https://doi.org/10.22268/AJPP-40.4.315324 The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of different bacterial isolates of P. fluorescens and B. t. tenebrionis and silver nanoparticles on the activity of the cellulase enzyme in termites' middle digestive system and its role in glucose release by treating cellulose media with bacterial strains and nanoparticles. Ultraviolet spectroscopy results revealed that silver nanoparticles synthesized by P. fluorescens isolated from termites, commercial P. fluorescens, and local B.t. tenrbrionis had the highest absorption at 385, 324, and 324 nm wave length, respectively. Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed that ketons, amines, alkanes, and alcohols were among the groups that contributed to silver ions reduction, capping and stabilizing nanoparticles. The particle diameters were measured using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and found to be on average 32.43, 63.19, and 57.62 nm. The highest concentration of liberated glucose was recorded after 24 hours, which ranged between 0.453 and 1.285 mg/ml when treated with silver nanoparticles prepared from a commercial isolate of P. fluorescens bacteria and when treated with a bacterial isolate P. fluorescens, respectively. Only when treated with synthesized silver nanoparticles and when treated with commercial P. fluorescens isolates did the lowest concentrations of liberated sugar reached between 0.037 and 0.730 mg/ml after 72 hours, respectively. The high quantity of liberated sugar in the control treatment was constant, reaching 1.70 and 2.33 mg/ml after 24 and 72 hours, respectively. In addition to the variation in cellulase enzyme inhibition rates in termite digestive systems due to the effect of different treatments, it was discovered that the local isolate of B. t. tenrbrionis was better than the rest of the isolates in affecting the enzyme, causing inhibition rates of 71.42%. Furthermore, silver nanoparticles synthesized from a commercial isolate of P. fluorescens outperformed other treatments in inhibiting enzyme activity, with an inhibition rate of 78.57% . Keywords: Pseudomonas fluorescens, Bacillus thuringiensis tenebrionis, silver nanoparticles, Microcerotermes diversus
The electrospun nanofibers membranes have gained considerable interest in water filtration applications. In this work, the fabrication and characterization of the electrospun polyacrylonitrile-based nonwoven nanofibers membrane are reported. Then, the membrane's performance and antifouling properties were evaluated in removing emulsified oil using a cross flow filtration system. The membranes were fabricated with different polyacrylonitrile (PAN) concentrations (8, 11, and 14 wt. %) in N, N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) solvent resulted in various average fiber sizes, porosity, contact angle, permeability, oil rejection, and antifouling properties. Analyses of surface morphology of the fabricated membranes before and after oil removal revealed
... Show MoreFire is one of the most critical risks devastating to human life and property. Therefore, humans make different efforts to deal with fire hazards. Many techniques have been developed to assess fire safety risks. One of these methods is to predict the outbreak of a fire in buildings, and although it is hard to predict when a fire will start, it is critical to do so to safeguard human life and property. This research deals with evaluating the safety risks of the existing building in the city of Samawah/Iraq and determining the appropriateness of these buildings in terms of safety from fire hazards. Twelve parameters are certified based on the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA20
Micro-perforated panel (MPP) absorber is increasingly gaining popularity as an alternative sound absorber in buildings compared to the well-known synthetic porous materials. A single MPP has a typical feature of a Helmholtz resonator with a high amplitude of absorption but a narrow absorption frequency bandwidth. To improve the bandwidth, a single MPP can be cascaded with another single MPP to form a double-layer MPP. This paper proposes the introduction of inhomogeneous perforation in the double-layer MPP system (DL-iMPP) to enhance the absorption bandwidth of a double-layer MPP. Mathematical models are proposed using the equivalent electrical circuit model and are validated with experiments with good agreement. It is revealed that the DL-
... Show MoreAggregate production planning (APP) is one of the most significant and complicated problems in production planning and aim to set overall production levels for each product category to meet fluctuating or uncertain demand in future. and to set decision concerning hiring, firing, overtime, subcontract, carrying inventory level. In this paper, we present a simulated annealing (SA) for multi-objective linear programming to solve APP. SA is considered to be a good tool for imprecise optimization problems. The proposed model minimizes total production and workforce costs. In this study, the proposed SA is compared with particle swarm optimization (PSO). The results show that the proposed SA is effective in reducing total production costs and req
... Show MoreThe ability of using aluminum filings which is locally solid waste was tested as a mono media in gravity rapid filter. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of variation of influent water turbidity (10, 20and 30 NTU); flow rate(30, 40, and 60 l/hr) and bed height (30and60)cm on the performance of aluminum filings filter media for 5 hours run time and compare it with the conventional sand filter. The results indicated that aluminum filings filter showed better performance than sand filter in the removal of turbidity and in the reduction of head loss. Results showed that the statistical model developed by the multiple linear regression was proved to be
valid, and it could be used to predict head loss in aluminum filings
A simple, rapid spectrophotometric method has been established for the determination of chlorpromazine hydrochloride (CPZ) in its pure form and in a tablet formulations. The suggested method is based on the oxidative coupling reaction with4-nitroainlline using KIO3 in acidic solution to produce a violet colored product with maximum absorption at λ=526 nm.The analytical data obtained throughout this study could be summarid as follows: 1ml of 1M HCl (pH=2.2), 1 ml of 4-nitroanilline (1x10-2M), and 1.5ml of (1x10-2)KIO3 per 25 ml reaction medium. The order of a
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