The consumption of fresh fruits has increased nowadays due to the lifestyle of the consumers. Maintaining the quality and nutritional value of cut fruits during storage is difficult compared to whole fruits. Deterioration of internal and external quality usually occurs in freshly harvested fruits. It is necessary to use different techniques to maintain the quality and increase the shelf life of the freshly cut product. This research studied the effect of treating apple slices with cold plasma once and with filtered water again on quality characteristics (hardness, moisture content, sugar content, carbohydrate content, and color) after being stored for five days. The best treatment was determined using two different pressures of the plasma jet (1 and 5 atm) and two different immersion times (3 and 6 minutes). It was verified the superiority of cold plasma treatment at 5 atm and 3 minutes immersion time in all studied traits, while treatment with filtered water and 6 minutes immersion time was superior concerning the moisture content of apple slices. There is an inverse relationship between L* and a direct relationship between the a* and b* values with the storage time. Therefore, the use of cold plasma treatment is promising in storing cut fruits, extending their shelf life, and improving their quality and safety, which provides fresh fruits.
This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From
... Show MoreIn the present study, magnet silica-coated Ag2WO4/Ag2S nanocomposites (FOSOAWAS) were fabricated via a multistep method to address the drawbacks related to single photocatalysts (pure Ag2WO4 and pure Ag2S) and to clarify the significant influence of semiconductor heterojunction on the enhancement of visible-light-driven organic degradation. Different techniques were performed to investigate the elemental composition, morphology, magnetic and photoelectrochemical properties of the fabricated FOSOAWAS photocatalyst. The FOSOAWAS photocatalyst (1 g/L) exhibited excellent photodegradation efficiency (99.5%) against Congo red dye (CR = 20 ppm) after 140 min of visible-light illumination. This result confirmed the ability of the heterojunction be
... Show MoreOptimum allocation of water for restoration of Iraqi marshes is essential for different related authorities. Abo-Ziriq marsh area about 120 km2 is situated 40 km east of Al-Nassryia city. After comparing the measured annual water qualities with the Iraqi standards for surface water quality evaluation, Abo-Ziriq marsh water quality was in acceptable limit. Hydro balance computation were done for each month by using interface among the HEC-RAS, HEC-GeoRAS and ArcView GIS software and built a number of eco-hydro relationships to simulate the marsh ecosystem by using HEC-EFM program to estimate water allocation adequate for ecosystem requirement and constructs a GIS hydraulic reference map to show inundation area, depth grid and velocity dis
... Show MoreDiabetes mellitus is a metabolic chronic disease, with global estimation increase in patient (around 100 million in 2030).The aim of the current study is to investigate vitamin D, C-reactive protein and estradiol levels in pre and postmenopausal Iraqi women with type 2 diabetes (T2MD).A total of 176 female distributed into two groups: the first included 90 women withT2MD (43 pre and 47 post-menopausal); the second group included 86 healthy subjects (41 pre and 45 postmenopausal) considered as control. This study has shown that women in premenopausal (20-40 years) had highly significant difference in the estradiol and vitamin D levels in diabetes subjects (62.192 ± 17.643pg/ml, 10.522 ± 1.958ng/ml) compared with healthy (131.793 ± 1
... Show MoreThe study involved preparing a new compound by combining between 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde and (Z)-3-hydrazineylideneindolin-2-one resulting in Schiff bases and metal ions: Mn(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), and Zn(II) forming stable minerals-based-Schiff complexes. The formation of resulting Schiff bases is detected spectrally using LC-Mss which gave corresponding results with theoretical results, 1H-NMR proves the founding of N=CH signal, FT-IR indicates the occurrence of imine band and UV-VIs mean is proved the ligand formation. On the other hand, minerals-based-Schiff was characterized using the same spectral means that relied with ligand (Schiff bases). Those means gave satisfactory results and proved the suggested distinguishable geometries.
... Show MoreThe ligand 2-[1-(1H-indol-3-yl)ethylimino) methyl]naphthalene-1-ol, derived from 1-hydroxy-2-naphthaldehyde and 2-(1H-indol-3-yl)ethylamine, was used to produce a new sequence of metal ions complexes. Thus ligand reactions with NiCl2.6H2O, PdCl2, FeCl3.6H2O and H2PtCl6.6H2O were sequentially made to collect mono-nuclear Ni(II), Pd(II), Fe (III), and Pt(IV). (IR or FTIR), Ultraviolet Reflective (UV–visible), Mass Spectra analysis, Bohr-magnetic (B.M.), metal content, chloride content and molar conductivity have been the defining features of the composites. The Fe(III) and Pt(IV) complexes have octahedral geometries, while the Ni(II) complex has tetra
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