Purpose: To use the L25 Taguchi orthogonal array for optimizing the three main solvothermal parameters that affect the synthesis of metal-organic frameworks-5 (MOF-5). Methods: The L25 Taguchi methodology was used to study various parameters that affect the degree of crystallinity (DOC) of MOF-5. The parameters comprised temperature of synthesis, duration of synthesis, and ratio of the solvent, N,N-dimethyl formamide (DMF) to reactants. For each parameter, the volume of DMF was varied while keeping the weight of reactants constant. The weights of 1,4-benzodicarboxylate (BDC) and Zn(NO3)2.6H2O used were 0.390 g and 2.166 g, respectively. For each parameter investigated, five different levels were used. The MOF-5 samples were synthesized using the solvothermal reaction method, and successful synthesis was confirmed with x-ray diffraction (XRD), microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The DOC obtained via XRD served as a parameter of objective quality. Results: The optimum conditions that gave the highest DOC were synthesis temperature of 130 °C, duration of 60 h, and a vehicle volume of 50 mL, with optimum Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area (BET -SA) of 800 m2/g. All the three synthesis parameters significantly influenced the DOC of the synthesized MOF-5 (p < 0.05). Sub-optimal conditions resulted in distorted MOFs, products that deviated from MOF-5 specifications, or MOF-5 with low DOC. Conclusion: Based on DOC and BET-SA, the best conditions for synthesis of MOF-5 when using Taguchi OA, were temperature of 130 °C, duration of 60 h, and a DMF volume of 50 mL.
Polycystic ovary syndrome(PCOS) is a heterogeneous disorder of uncertain etiology , it is the most common endocrinopathy in women and most common cause of anovulatery infertility ,characterized by chronic anovulation and hyperandrogenemia .The present study was designed to investigate the effect of silymarin which is known to have antioxidant and insulin sensitivity effects on the levels of glucose, insulin ,testosterone ,leutinizing hormone(LH) and progesterone .Ovulation rate and Homeostasis Model Assessment of insulin Resistance (HOMA) ratio were determined .A 3-months of treatment were conducted in 60 PCOS patients in three well-matched groups .The first one (n=20),received silymarin(750mg/day) .The second group received
... Show MoreObjective: To identify barriers to healthcare access, to assess the health literacy levels of the foreign-born Arabic speaking population in Iowa, USA and to measure their prevalence of seeking preventive healthcare services. Methods: A cross-sectional study of native Arabic speaking adults involved a focus group and an anonymous paper-based survey. The focus group and the Andersen Model were used to develop the survey questionnaire. The survey participants were customers at Arabic grocery stores, worshippers at the city mosque and patients at free University Clinic. Chi-square test was used to measure the relationship between the characteristics of survey participants and preventive healthcare services. Thematic analysis was
... Show MoreRheumatoid arthritis is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease. Inflammation leads to joint damage and increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a measure of inflammation in many diseases. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the usefulness of NLR to detect inflammation in RA, and its correlation to RA disease activity indices and some hematological parameters. A cross-sectional study involving 24 patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who are using MTX participated in this study. All patients were clinically evaluated using disease activity score of 28 joints (DAS28) and simplified disease activity index (SDAI), whereas functional disability was assessed by health assessment questionnaire di
... Show MoreAn edge dominating set of a graph is said to be an odd (even) sum degree edge dominating set (osded (esded) - set) of G if the sum of the degree of all edges in X is an odd (even) number. The odd (even) sum degree edge domination number is the minimum cardinality taken over all odd (even) sum degree edge dominating sets of G and is defined as zero if no such odd (even) sum degree edge dominating set exists in G. In this paper, the odd (even) sum degree domination concept is extended on the co-dominating set E-T of a graph G, where T is an edge dominating set of G. The corresponding parameters co-odd (even) sum degree edge dominating set, co-odd (even) sum degree edge domination number and co-odd (even) sum degree edge domin
... Show MoreThe present investigation is concerned primarily with sorting and identification of subfamily Tubificinae from River Tigris and some water surface in Baghdad /Iraq . For this purpose six study sites were chosen, including a Al- Kadhemyia drainage canal, North Baghdad; three sites on the shore of River Tigris; in addition to site in Al-Jaish canal , East Baghdad, finally the sixth site was from pond in Al-Zawra'a park , within the center of Baghdad .These sites were characterized by sediment rang from clay, silty-clay to silty with a percentage of organic matter ranged between 0.7% - 9.9% . According to water temperature, salinity and pH values, they were nearly identical in all study sites, the water temperature was ranged through the study
... Show MoreNormal thyroid function is essential for neonatal growth and brain development. In a newborn infant with severe disease, endocrine regulation of hormones can be affected by abnormal metabolism. The assessment of thyroid parameters results in the recognition of a dysfunction and its association with disease severity
Background: Gastroesophageal reflux disease, is a quite prevalent gastrointestinal disease, among which gastric content (excluding the air) returns into the oral cavity. Many 0ral manifestations related t0 this disease include tooth wear, dental caries also changes in salivary flow rate and pH. This study was conducted among gastroesophageal reflux disease patients in order to assess tooth wear in relation to salivary flow rate and pH among these patients and the effect of gastroesophageal reflux disease duration on this relation. Materials and methods: One hundred patients participate in this cross-sectional study for both genders and having an age range of 20-40 years old, patients had been endoscopically identified as having gastroeso
... Show MoreBackground: The world health organization estimates that worldwide 2 billion people still have iodine deficiency Objectives: Is to make comparison between the effect of identification of recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) and non-identification of the nerve on incidence of recurrent laryngeal nerve injury (RLNI) in different thyroidectomy procedures.
Type of the study: cross –sectional study.
Methods: 132 patients with goiters underwent thyroidectomy .Identification of RLN visually by exposure were done for agroup of them and non-identification of the nerves for the other group. The outcomes of RLNI in the two groupsanalyzed statistically for the effect of
... Show MoreOrthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is one of recent years multicarrier modulation used in order to combat the Inter Symbol Interference (ISI) introduced by frequency selective mobile radio channel. The circular extension of the data symbol, commonly referred to as cyclic prefix is one of the key elements in an OFDM transmission scheme. This paper study The influence of the cyclic prefix duration on the BER performance of an OFDM-VCPL (Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing - Variable Cyclic Prefix Length) system and the conventional OFDM system with frame 64-QAM modulation is evaluated by means of computer simulation in a multipath fading channel. The adaptation of CP is done with respect to the delay spread estimation
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