Objectives: To assess the changes in blood vessel stiffness and digital pulse wave amplitude because of flowmediateddilatation, and to explore how these two variables change when endothelial dysfunction isexperimentally induced.Method: The experimental study was conducted at the departments of physiology at the College of Medicine,Mustansiriyah University, and the College of Medicine, Al-Iraqia University, Baghdad, Iraq, from October 14, 2021, toMay 31, 2022, and comprised healthy young males who were subjected to the flow-mediated dilatation techniqueon the left brachial artery. Pulse transit time and the amplitude of the digital pulse wave were measured duringreactive hyperaemia for 2.5 minutes from the left middle finger using a

Improving students’ use of argumentation is front and center in the increasing emphasis on scientific practice in K-12 Science and STEM programs. We explore the construct validity of scenario-based assessments of claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) and the structure of the CER construct with respect to a learning progression framework. We also seek to understand how middle school students progress. Establishing the purpose of an argument is a competency that a majority of middle school students meet, whereas quantitative reasoning is the most difficult, and the Rasch model indicates that the competencies form a unidimensional hierarchy of skills. We also find no evidence of differential item functioning between different scenarios, suggesting

In this study, the optimum conditions for COD removal from petroleum refinery wastewater by using a combined electrocoagulation- electro-oxidation system were attained by Taguchi method. An orthogonal array experimental design (L18) which is of four controllable parameters including NaCl concentration, C.D. (current density), PH, and time (time of electrolysis) was employed. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal percentage was considered as the quality characteristics to be enhanced. Also, the value of turbidity and TDS (total dissolved solid) were estimated. The optimum levels of the studied parameters were determined precisely by implementing S/N analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The optimum conditions were found to be NaCl = 2.5

Background: Large amounts of oily wastewater and its derivatives are discharged annually from several industries to the environment. Objective: The present study aims to investigate the ability to remove oil content and turbidity from real oily wastewater discharged from the wet oil's unit (West Qurna 1-Crude Oil Location/ Basra-Iraq) by using an innovated electrocoagulation reactor containing concentric aluminum tubes in a monopolar mode. Methods: The influences of the operational variables (current density (1.77-7.07 mA/cm2) and electrolysis time (10-40 min)) were studied using response surface methodology (RSM) and Minitab-17 statistical program. The agitation speed was taken as 200 rpm. Energy and electrodes consumption had been studi

Oily wastewater is one of the most challenging streams to deal with especially if the oil exists in emulsified form. In this study, electrospinning method was used to prepare nanofiberous polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes and study their performance in oil removal. Graphene particles were embedded in the electrospun PVDF membrane to enhance the efficiency of the membranes. The prepared membranes were characterized using a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to verify the graphene stabilization on the surface of the membrane homogeneously; while FTIR was used to detect the functional groups on the membrane surface. The membrane wettability was assessed by measuring the contact angle. The PVDF and PVDF / Graphene membranes efficiency

Contracting cancer typically induces a state of terror among the individuals who are affected. Exploring how glucose excess, estrogen excess, and anxiety work together to affect the speed at which breast cancer cells multiply and the immune system’s response model is necessary to conceive of ways to stop the spread of cancer. This paper proposes a mathematical model to investigate the impact of psychological panic, glucose excess, and estrogen excess on the interaction of cancer and immunity. The proposed model is precisely described. The focus of the model’s dynamic analysis is to identify the potential equilibrium locations. According to the analysis, it is possible to establish four equilibrium positions. The stability analys

This study focused on treatment of real wastewater rejected from leather industry in Al-Nahrawan city in Iraq by Electrocoagulation (EC) process followed by Reverse Osmosis (RO) process. The successive treatment was applied due to high concentration of Cr3+ ions (about 1600 ppm) rejected in wastewater of this industry and for applying EC with moderate power consumption and better results of produced water. In Electrocoagulation process (EC), the effect of NaCl concentration (1.5, 3 g/l), current density (C.D.) (15-25 mA/cm2), electrolysis time (1-2 h), and distance between electrodes (E.D.) (1-2 cm) were examined in a batch cell by implementing Taguchi experimental design. According to the results obtained from multiple regression and signa

Abstract. In this paper, a high order extended state observer (HOESO) based a sliding mode control (SMC) is proposed for a flexible joint robot (FJR) system in the presence of time varying external disturbance. A composite controller is integrated the merits of both HOESO and SMC to enhance the tracking performance of FJR system under the time varying and fast lumped disturbance. First, the HOESO estimator is constructed based on only one measured state to precisely estimate unknown system states and lumped disturbance with its high order derivatives in the FJR system. Second, the SMC scheme is designed based on such accurate estimations to govern the nominal FJR system by well compensating the estimation errors in the states and the lumped

      In this research, the nonparametric technique has been presented to estimate the time-varying coefficients functions for the longitudinal balanced data that characterized by observations obtained through (n) from the independent subjects, each one of them is measured repeatedly by group of  specific time points (m). Although the measurements are independent among the different subjects; they are mostly connected within each subject and the applied techniques is the Local Linear kernel LLPK technique. To avoid the problems of dimensionality, and thick computation, the two-steps method has been used to estimate the coefficients functions by using the two former technique. Since, the two-

The objective of this investigation was to study the effects of amixture of three arbuscular mycorrhizal species : Glomus etunicatum , G. leptotichum and Rhizophagus intraradices on the induced resistance of Lycopersicon esculentum roots infected with Fusarium oxysporum f.sp.lycopersici which is causal agent of wilt in the presence of organic matter peatmose (O). The work was achieved in aplastic house ( Shed) using pot culture planted for 10 weeks. Results indicated significant increase of all mycorrhizal colonization parameters ( F% , M% , m% , a% , A% ) . Highest percentage of mycorrhization was detected in roots infected with the pathogen 4 weeks after mycorrhizal colonization . On the other hand least colonization was shown in the dual