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
This paper investigated the fatigue life behavior of two composite materials subjected to different times of shot peening (2, 4 and 6 min).The first material prepared from unsaturated polyester with E-glass reinforcement by 33% volume fraction. While, the second one was prepared from unsaturated polyester with aluminum powder by2.5% volume fraction. The experimental results showed that the improvement in endurance limit was obtained (for the first material) at 2, 4 and 6 min shot peening times where the percentage of maximum improvement was 25% at shot peening time of 6 min. While, the endurance limit of the second material decreased at shot peening times of 2, 4 and 6 min where the percentage of maximum reduction was 29 % at shot peenin
... Show MoreThis paper presents an experimental study for strengthening existing columns against axial compressive loads. The objective of this work is to study the behavior of concrete square columns strengthening with circulation technique. In Iraq, there are significantly more reinforced rectangular and square columns than reinforced circular columns in reinforced concrete buildings. Moreover, early research studies indicated that strengthening of rectangular or square columns using wraps of CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) provided rather little enhancement to their load-carrying capacity. In this paper, shape modification technique was performed to modify the shape (cross section) of the columns from square columns into circular colu
... Show MoreThe esterification of oleic acid with 2-ethylhexanol in presence of sulfuric acid as homogeneous catalyst was investigated in this work to produce 2-ethylhexyl oleate (biodiesel) by using semi batch reactive distillation. The effect of reaction temperature (100 to 130°C), 2-ethylhexanol:oleic acid molar ratio (1:1 to 1:3) and catalysts concentration (0.2 to 1wt%) were studied. Higher conversion of 97% was achieved with operating conditions of reaction temperature of 130°C, molar ratio of free fatty acid to alcohol of 1:2 and catalyst concentration of 1wt%. A simulation was adopted from basic principles of the reactive distillation using MATLAB to describe the process. Good agreement was achieved.
The aim of this paper is to present the first record of ctenophore species Pleurobrachia pileus (O. F. Müller, 1776) in the coral reef as was recently found in Iraqi marine waters. The specimens were collected from two sites, the first was in Khor Abdullah during May 2015, and the second site was located in the pelagic water of the coral reef area, near the Al-Basrah deep sea crude oil marine loading terminal. Three samples were collected at this site during May 2015, February and March 2018 which showed that P. pileus were present at a densities of 3.0, 2.2 and 0.55 ind./ m3 respectively. The species can affect on the abundance of other zooplankton community through predation.
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Numerical study has been conducted to investigate the thermal performance enhancement of flat plate solar water collector by integrating the solar collector with metal foam blocks.The flow is assumed to be steady, incompressible and two dimensional in an inclined channel. The channel is provided with eight foam blocks manufactured form copper. The Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model is utilized to simulate the flow in the porous medium and the Navier-Stokes equation in the fluid region. The energy equation is used with local thermal equilibrium (LTE) assumption to simulate the thermofield inside the porous medium. The current investigation covers a range of solar radiation intensity at 09:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 04:00
... Show MoreThe Asymmetrical Castellated concavely – curved soffit Steel Beams with RPC and Lacing Reinforcement improves compactness and local buckling (web and flange local buckling), vertical shear strength at gross section (web crippling and web yielding at the fillet), and net section ( net vertical shear strength proportioned between the top and bottom tees relative to their areas (Yielding)), horizontal shear strength in web post (Yielding), web post-buckling strength, overall beam flexure strength, tee Vierendeel bending moment and lateral-torsional buckling, as a result of steel section encasement. This study presents two concentrated loads test results for seven specimens Asymmetrical Castellated concavely – curved soffit Steel Be
... Show MoreIn the present work, the efficiency of Tri-octyl Methyl Ammonium Chloride (TOMAC) ionic liquid was investigated as new and green demulsifier for three types of Iraqi crude oil emulsions (Nafut Khana (NK), Kirkuk and Basrah). The separation efficiency was studied at room temperature and by using microwave heating technique. Several batch experiments were done to specify the suitable conditions for the emulsification and demulsification which were specified as 45 minutes and 3000 rpm for crude oil emulsification while the ionic liquid doses were (500,300,150,50) ppm and the conditions of microwave heating were 1000 watt and 50 second as irradiation time. The results were very encouraging especially for NK and Kirkuk crude oil emulsions whe
... Show MoreMassive multiple-input multiple-output (massive-MIMO) is considered as the key technology to meet the huge demands of data rates in the future wireless communications networks. However, for massive-MIMO systems to realize their maximum potential gain, sufficiently accurate downlink (DL) channel state information (CSI) with low overhead to meet the short coherence time (CT) is required. Therefore, this article aims to overcome the technical challenge of DL CSI estimation in a frequency-division-duplex (FDD) massive-MIMO with short CT considering five different physical correlation models. To this end, the statistical structure of the massive-MIMO channel, which is captured by the physical correlation is exploited to find sufficiently
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