Biodiesel as an attractive energy source; a low-cost and green synthesis technique was utilized for biodiesel preparation via waste cooking oil methanolysis using waste snail shell derived catalyst. The present work aimed to investigate the production of biodiesel fuel from waste materials. The catalyst was greenly synthesized from waste snail shells throughout a calcination process at different calcination time of 2–4 h and temperature of 750–950 ◦C. The catalyst samples were characterized using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), and Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR). The reaction variables varying in the range of 10:1–30:1 M ratio of MeOH: oil, 3–11 wt% catalyst loading, 50–

This article aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of intellectual capital research published in the Scopus database from 1956 to 2020 to trace the development of scientific activities that can pave the way for future studies by shedding light on the gaps in the field. The analysis focuses on 638 intellectual capital-related papers published in the Scopus database over 60 years, drawing upon a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer. This paper highlights the mainstream of the current research in the intellectual capital field, based on the Scopus database, by presenting a detailed bibliometric analysis of the trend and development of intellectual capital research in the past six decades, including journals, authors, countries, inst

The electrocoagulation process became one of the most important technologies used for water treatment processes in the last few years. It’s the preferred method to remove suspended solids and heavy metals from water for treating drinking water and wastewater from textile, diary, and electroplating factories. This research aims to study the effect of using the electrocoagulation process with aluminum electrodes on the removal efficiency of suspended solids and turbidity presented in raw water and optimizing by the response surface methodology (RSM). The most important variables studied in this research included electrode spacing, the applied voltage, and the operating time of the electrocoagulation process. The samples

Production of fatty acid esters (biodiesel) from oleic acid and 2-ethylhexanol using sulfated zirconia as solid catalyst for the production of biodiesel was investigated in this work.

       The parameters studied were temperature of reaction (100 to 130°C), molar ratio of alcohol to free fatty acid (1:1 to 3:1), concentration of catalyst (0.5 to 3%wt), mixing speed (500 to 900 rpm) and types of sulfated zirconia (i.e modified, commercial, prepared  catalyst according to literature and reused catalyst). The results show the best conversion to biodiesel was 97.74% at conditions of 130°C, 3:1, 2wt% and 650 rpm using modified catalyst respectively. Also, modified c

The clayey soils have the capability to swell and shrink with the variation in moisture content. Soil stabilization is a well-known technique, which is implemented to improve the geotechnical properties of soils. The massive quantities of waste materials are resulting from modern industry methods create disposal hazards in addition to environmental problems. The steel industry has a waste that can be used with low strength and weak engineering properties soils. This study is carried out to evaluate the effect of steel slag (SS) as a by-product of the geotechnical properties of clayey soil. A series of laboratory tests were conducted on natural and stabilized soils. SS was added by 0, 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20% to the soil.

Offline handwritten signature is a type of behavioral biometric-based on an image. Its problem is the accuracy of the verification because once an individual signs, he/she seldom signs the same signature. This is referred to as intra-user variability. This research aims to improve the recognition accuracy of the offline signature. The proposed method is presented by using both signature length normalization and histogram orientation gradient (HOG) for the reason of accuracy improving. In terms of verification, a deep-learning technique using a convolution neural network (CNN) is exploited for building the reference model for a future prediction. Experiments are conducted by utilizing 4,000 genuine as well as 2,000 skilled forged signatu

Software testing is a vital part of the software development life cycle. In many cases, the system under test has more than one input making the testing efforts for every exhaustive combination impossible (i.e. the time of execution of the test case can be outrageously long). Combinatorial testing offers an alternative to exhaustive testing via considering the interaction of input values for every t-way combination between parameters. Combinatorial testing can be divided into three types which are uniform strength interaction, variable strength interaction and input-output based relation (IOR). IOR combinatorial testing only tests for the important combinations selected by the tester. Most of the researches in combinatorial testing appli

Forest fires continue to rise during the dry season and they are difficult to stop. In this case, high temperatures in the dry season can cause an increase in drought index that could potentially burn the forest every time. Thus, the government should conduct surveillance throughout the dry season. Continuous surveillance without the focus on a particular time becomes ineffective and inefficient because of preventive measures carried out without the knowledge of potential fire risk. Based on the Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI), formulation of Drought Factor is used just for calculating the drought today based on current weather conditions, and yesterday's drought index. However, to find out the factors of drought a day after, the data

This paper presents a fuzzy logic controller for a two-tank level control system, which is a process with a dead time. The fuzzy controller is a proportional-integral (PI-like) fuzzy controller which is suitable for steady state behavior of the system. Transient behavior of the system was improved without the need for a derivative action by suitable change in the rule base of the controller. Simulation results showed the step response of the two-tank level control system when this controller was used to control this plant and the effect of the dead time on the response of the system.