For over a century, the global consumption of asphalt binder in asphalt mixture production has been substantial. In the Heet region (west of Iraq), two distinct forms of natural asphalt (NA) deposits exist: rock asphalt and sulfur spring asphalt. This study focused on using NA sourced from sulfur springs. The aim was to investigate the potential of incorporating NA into local asphalt mixtures. To achieve this, NA was heated to 163°C for varying durations. After heat treatment, laboratory tests were conducted on NA. The findings suggest that by heating NA for 20 hours, it conforms to Iraqi specifications in terms of physical properties. Furthermore, compared to conventional petroleum asphalt, treated NA showed greater resistance to temperature fluctuations, making it ideal for hotter climates. The study also found that NA enhances mechanical properties significantly. Specifically, the NA mixture recorded the highest indirect tensile strength, with a tensile strength ratio of 81.2%, a slight increase of 0.37% over traditional mixes. In summary, NA mixtures exhibit commendable performance. Given its abundance and affordability in Iraq, after considering heat treatment costs and environmental impact, NA holds promise for the future of asphalt concrete production for the construction of flexible pavement.
ABSTRACT. A new three metal complexes of La(III), Ce(IV) and UO2(II) ions have been synthesized based on a Schiff base derived from the condensation of L-histidine and anisaldehyde. All prepared compounds were characterized by different spectroscopic techniques and Density-functional theory (DFT) calculations. The complexes were proposed to have an octahedral structure based on the investigated results. The optimized shape, numbering system, and dipole moment vector of Ligand and La, Ce, and UO2 (1:1) chelates were investigated. The Schiff base ligand and complexes exhibit moderate action against all of the bacteria tested, with P. aeruginosa, Klebsiella sp., and E. faecalis respectively being the order of inhibition.
... Show MoreThe study objective was to conduct Pharmacoeconomics study (cost-effective analysis) between infliximab reference (Remicade) and its biosimilar (Remsima) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Iraqi hospitals.
This is a retrospective multicenter pharmacoeconomic analysis conducted at two large teaching governmental hospitals in Baghdad, Iraq which provided infliximab to patients with RA. Data were collected from patient’s medical records and face-to-face interviews with the patients from December 2021 to April 2022.
The study included 57 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The patients were categorized into two groups according to the type of infliximab they received over 30 weeks: 27 patients received
... Show MoreObjective: Per-implantitis is one of the implant treatment complications. Dentists have failed to restore damaged periodontium by using conventional therapies. Tissue engineering (stem cells, scaffold and growth factors) aims to reconstruct natural tissues. The paper aimed to isolate both periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLSCs) and bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs) and use them in a co-culture method to create three-layered cell sheets for reconstructing natural periodontal ligament (PDL) tissue. Materials and methods: BMMSCs were isolated from rabbit tibia and femur, and PDLSC culture was established from the lower right incisor. The cells were co-cultured to induce BMMSC differentiation into PDL cells. Cell morphology, stem cel
... Show MorePromoting the production of industrially important aromatic chloroamines over transition-metal nitrides catalysts has emerged as a prominent theme in catalysis. This contribution provides an insight into the reduction mechanism of p-chloronitrobenzene (p-CNB) to p-chloroaniline (p-CAN) over the γ-Mo2N(111) surface by means of density functional theory calculations. The adsorption energies of various molecularly adsorbed modes of p-CNB were computed. Our findings display that, p-CNB prefers to be adsorbed over two distinct adsorption sites, namely, Mo-hollow face-centered cubic (fcc) and N-hollow hexagonal close-packed (hcp) sites with adsorption energies of −32.1 and −38.5 kcal/mol, respectively. We establish that the activation of nit
... Show MoreThis study shows that it is possible to fabricate and characterize green bimetallic nanoparticles using eco-friendly reduction and a capping agent, which is then used for removing the orange G dye (OG) from an aqueous solution. Characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDAX), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) were applied on the resultant bimetallic nanoparticles to ensure the size, and surface area of particles nanoparticles. The results found that the removal efficiency of OG depends on the G‑Fe/Cu‑NPs concentration (0.5-2.0 g.L-1), initial pH (2‑9), OG concentration (10-50 mg.L-1), and temperature (30-50 °C). The batch experiments showed
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Single-input Multiple-output Signals Third-order Active-R Filter for different Circuit Merit Factor Q Configuration is proposed. This paper discusses a new configuration to realize third-order low pass, band pass and high pass. The presented circuit uses Single-input Multiple-output signals, OP-AMP and passive components. This filter is useful for high frequency operation, monolithic IC implementation and it is easy to design .This circuit gives three filter functions low-pass, high-pass and band-pass. This filter circuit can be used for different merit factor (Q) with high pass band gain. This gives better stop-band attenuation and sharper cut-off at the edge of the pass-band. Thus the response shows wider pass-band. The Ideal value of thi
... Show MoreAssociation rules mining (ARM) is a fundamental and widely used data mining technique to achieve useful information about data. The traditional ARM algorithms are degrading computation efficiency by mining too many association rules which are not appropriate for a given user. Recent research in (ARM) is investigating the use of metaheuristic algorithms which are looking for only a subset of high-quality rules. In this paper, a modified discrete cuckoo search algorithm for association rules mining DCS-ARM is proposed for this purpose. The effectiveness of our algorithm is tested against a set of well-known transactional databases. Results indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing metaheuristic methods.
The convergence speed is the most important feature of Back-Propagation (BP) algorithm. A lot of improvements were proposed to this algorithm since its presentation, in order to speed up the convergence phase. In this paper, a new modified BP algorithm called Speeding up Back-Propagation Learning (SUBPL) algorithm is proposed and compared to the standard BP. Different data sets were implemented and experimented to verify the improvement in SUBPL.