To investigate the efficacy of polyether‐ether‐ketone (PEEK) wire as a fixed orthodontic retainer, by comparing its performance to other retainer wires and optimizing its adhesion to composite bonding materials.

Smear zone is usually formed around the prefabricated vertical drains (PVD’s) due to mandrel driving. The geotechnical properties of the soil in this zone exhibit significant changes that affect the performance of the PVD’s. The most relevant property in this respect is the coefficient of permeability. So far, no serious attention is paid to investigate the effects of shearing under large shear strains on the geotechnical properties of the soft soil in Fao region. In this study, an extensive laboratory testing program was conducted to assess the characteristics of the smear zone with an emphasis on the permeability coefficient of Fao soft soil. The results show that the permeability of the smear zone is about 70% of

Endophytic fungi live inside plants or any part of them without creating any visible pathogenic signs. Endophytic fungi are found within medicinal plants and have shown strong biologic activity, such as anticancer and antioxidant activities, as well as producing extracellular enzymes. In this study, different fungal strains were isolated from the leaves of the medicinal plant Ziziphus spina, including Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, Cladosporium sp., Rhizopus sp., and Mucor sp. Extracellular enzymes have been quantified using agar plate-based methods in which fungi were grown in specified growth media to detect the enzymes produced. The results showed that A. niger has the highest ability to produce amy

This research presents the possibility of using banana peel (arising from agricultural production waste) as biosorbent for removal of copper from simulated aqueous solution. Batch sorption experiments were performed as a function of pH, sorbent dose, and contact time. The optimal pH value of Copper (II) removal by banana peel was 6. The amount of sorbed metal ions was calculated as 52.632 mg/g. Sorption kinetic data were tested using pseudo-first order, and pseudo-second order models. Kinetic studies showed that the sorption followed a pseudo second order reaction due to the high correlation coefficient and the agreement between the experimental and calculated values of q_e. Thermodynamic parameters such as enthalpy change (ΔH

Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC) is a well known device for effectively regulating the active power flow in a power system. In this paper, the SSSC linearized power flow equations are incorporated into Newton-Raphson algorithm in a MATLAB written program to investigate the control of active poweer flow and the transient stability of a five bus and a thirty bus IEEE test systems, during abnormal conduction (three phase fault near buses). A comparison of the results obtained for the base case without SSSC and with it to investigate the effectiveness of the device on both of the active power flow and the transient stability.

Due to increasing cost of asphalt binder, significant economic savings can be realized by using the amount from reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in the production of new hot mix asphalt (HMA). Moreover, this is an environmentally friendly option as it reduces the demand for virgin materials. It has to be remarked that in Iraq RAP is not used in the production of HMA and this valuable material is mostly degraded for use in lower value applications. Four mixtures were designed, which contains three different percent RAP, it is (0%, 5%, 15%) with asphalt grade (40-50) and (25%) with asphalt grade (60-70), it has been changed the grade of asphalt when adding RAP (25%) to compensate for the aged binder in the RAP when adding to mixture. All type

The main purpose of this paper, is to characterize new admissible classes of linear operator in terms of seven-parameter Mittag-Leffler function, and discuss sufficient conditions in order to achieve certain third-order differential subordination and superordination results. In addition, some linked sandwich theorems involving these classes had been obtained.  

Understanding, promoting, and teaching media literacy is an important societal challenge. STEM educators are increasingly looking to incorporate 21st century skills such as media literacy into core subject education. In this paper we investigate how undergraduate Computer Science (CS) students can learn media literacy as a by-product of collaborative video tutorial production. The paper presents a study of 34 third-year CS undergraduates who, as part of their learning, were each asked to produce three video tutorials on Raspberry Pi programming, using a collaborative video production tool for mobile phones (Bootlegger). We provide results of both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the production process and resulting video tutorials,

Thermal management has become a major issue in the latest high performance computing machines because high CPU temperatures result in inefficient performance and decreased hardware life span. In this work, the cooling performance of a finned metal foam heat sink (FMFHS) was examined. The pore density values of tested copper metal foam (CMF) samples with different values of PPI 5, 10 and 20, with a constant porosity of 90%. For reference, these samples were measured by a conventional Aluminum plate-fin heat sink (CHS). The work was performed under experimental conditions in which air directed over the heat sink surface at air velocities (2.5, 3.0 and 3.5 m/s). The environmental temperature was fixed at 27 °C. Findings