Portland Cement is manufactured by adding 3% gypsum to clinker which is produced by grinding, pulverizing, mixing, and then burning a raw mix of silica, and calcium carbonate. Limestone is the main source of carbonates, while clay collected from arable land is the main source of silica. The marl in the Euphrates Formation was studied as an alternative to arable lands. Nine boreholes drilled and penetrated the marl layer in selected locations at the Kufa cement quarry. Forty-one samples of marl from boreholes and four samples of limestone from the closed area were collected. The chemical content of the major oxides and the hardness of the marl layer was very encouraging as a raw material for Portland Cement as they are SiO2 (17.60), CaO (37.89), MgO (1.94), Fe2O3 (2.47), Al2O3 (4.21), K2O (0.731), SO3 (0.35), and Na2O (0.062). The marl was used in designing a raw material mix suitable for rotary kiln feed and produced a clinker conforming to the approved specifications. The designing a raw mix consisting of 80.30% of marl with 19.70% of limestone. The investment of the marl layer can be used as an ideal alternative to the arable clay giving fit quality to the international specifications, reducing production costs during quarry operations, reducing the energy consumption and equipment wearing.
Flexible molecular docking is a computational method of structure-based drug design to evaluate binding interactions between receptor and ligand and identify the ligand conformation within the receptor pocket. Currently, various molecular docking programs are extensively applied; therefore, realizing accuracy and performance of the various docking programs could have a significant value. In this comparative study, the performance and accuracy of three widely used non-commercial docking software (AutoDock Vina, 1-Click Docking, and UCSF DOCK) was evaluated through investigations of the predicted binding affinity and binding conformation of the same set of small molecules (HIV-1 protease inhibitors) and a protein target HIV-1 protease enzy
... Show MoreThe intelligent buildings provided various incentives to get highly inefficient energy-saving caused by the non-stationary building environments. In the presence of such dynamic excitation with higher levels of nonlinearity and coupling effect of temperature and humidity, the HVAC system transitions from underdamped to overdamped indoor conditions. This led to the promotion of highly inefficient energy use and fluctuating indoor thermal comfort. To address these concerns, this study develops a novel framework based on deep clustering of lagrangian trajectories for multi-task learning (DCLTML) and adding a pre-cooling coil in the air handling unit (AHU) to alleviate a coupling issue. The proposed DCLTML exhibits great overall control and is
... Show MoreThis study presents, for the first time, an innovative Jet Plasma-assisted technique for the green synthesis of TiO₂@Ag core–shell nanoparticles using chard leaf extract as a natural reducing and stabilizing agent. The Jet Plasma provides a highly energetic environment that accelerates nucleation and core–shell formation at low temperatures without toxic precursors. The synthesized nanoparticles exhibited uniform and stable structures, as confirmed by comprehensive characterization techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and zeta potential analysis. XRD patterns confirmed the crystalline anatase
... Show MoreAcinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii ) is considered a critical healthcare problem for patients in intensive care units due to its high ability to be multidrug-resistant to most commercially available antibiotics. The aim of this study is to develop a colorimetric assay to quantitatively detect the target DNA of A. baumannii based on unmodified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) from different clinical samples (burns, surgical wounds, sputum, blood and urine). A total of thirty-six A. baumannii clinical isolates were collected from five Iraqi hospitals in Erbil and Mosul provinces within the period from September 2020 to January 2021. Bacterial isolation and biochemical identification of isolates
... Show MoreThe present study considers to confirming the applicability of flow with double-sided square lid driven cavity flow by using the lattice Boltzmann equation with moment-based boundary conditions for no slip boundaries. The boundary conditions are applied over the hydrodynamic moments of the lattice Boltzmann equations locally at each node. The investigation is carried out numerically for both single and multiple relaxation time models. To simulate two-sided lid driven-cavity flow, the top and bottom walls are moving with constant velocity while other walls are stationary. Various Reynolds numbers are used in a range of 100 and up to 5000. The present method shows the effect of the moving boundaries on the two symmetrical cavities t
... Show MoreMammals are under threat worldwide due to deforestation, hunting, and other human activities. In Iraq, a total of 93 species of wild mammals have been recorded including species with global conservation concern. Bamo Mountain is situated within the Zagros Mountains in northern Iraq which is a suitable habitat for wild mammals. Due to scarcity of the field survey efforts and cryptic behavior, monitoring of the wild mammals fauna in Zagros Mountain seems challenging. Therefore, we used a camera trap which seems to be an ideal way to determine species diversity of wild mammals in Bamo Mountain. Moreover, interviews with local villagers were performed. The mammalian diversity of Bamo Mountain is not fully explored but seemed threatened by lo
... Show MoreA cost-effective and efficient detector was created to conduct thorough turbidimetric measurements by reaction of Co (II) ion with calcium ferro cyanide to form bright green particulate, using the method of continuous flow injection analysis, the use of NAG-5SX1-1D-SSP Analyzer in determining cobalt (II) ion in a test for the validity of the new design. The NAG-5SX1-1D-SSP Analyzer is composed of five irradiation sources of white snow leds having the diameter of 10 mm with one solar cell of 55 mm length, 13.5 mm width. Using a selector switch to select the optimum voltage to be used which was 2.7 VDC. Under conditions of optimization, cobalt (II) ion was determined at 0.005–20 mmol. L–1(n = 23) while linearity dynamic range 0.005–7 mm
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