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

Water pollution is one of the global challenges that the society must address in the 21^st century aiming to improve the water quality, reduce human pollutants and ecosystem health impacts. In phytotoxicity test, the plant of Iresine herbstii was exposed to remove nickel from simulated wastewater using two different ratios (mass of plant to the mass of nickel) (,R_p/Ni) for 21 days with sub-surface batch system. During the exposure period, the removal of Ni concentrations (2, 5 and 10 mg/L) for two mass ratio (2,800 and 34,000) were (83.6%, 77.2%, 78.0%) and (86.8%, 97% and 95.6%), respectively. final result of the rate was found that the highest removal occurred, 97%, at a mass ratio of 34,000 and

Although its wide utilization in microbial cultures, the one factor-at-a-time method, failed to find the true optimum, this is due to the interaction between optimized parameters which is not taken into account. Therefore, in order to find the true optimum conditions, it is necessary to repeat the one factor-at-a-time method in many sequential experimental runs, which is extremely time-consuming and expensive for many variables. This work is an attempt to enhance bioactive yellow pigment production by Streptomyces thinghirensis based on a statistical design. The yellow pigment demonstrated inhibitory effects against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and was characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy which showed lambda maximum of

Light soaking (LS) is widely employed to optimize CdTe-based solar cells, yet its microscopic origin remains controversial due to the entangled roles of illumination and thermal activation. Here, we establish a decoupled experimental strategy that independently disentangles light exposure and heating, revealing their fundamentally distinct and competing effects on defect dynamics in CdSeTe solar cells. Illumination alone induces a backward drift of acceptors under the light-enhanced built-in field, reducing apparent hole density and suppressing open-circuit voltage. In contrast, thermal activation promotes Cu redistribution toward the front junction and eliminates deep recombination centers, partially restoring device performance. Remarka

Water has been acknowledged as one of the key issues of humanity in modern society and worldwide economic advancements, especially with the continuing reductions in fresh-water supply. Solar energy, which is abundant as well as widely available in various fields, has the potential to solve the global challenges of long-term freshwater and energy reduction. Researchers are attempting to address the problem in a variety of methods. Due to the fact that solar energy is the foundation for freshwater, several researches have applied it for improving the effectiveness of solar desalination, evaporation, and wastewater treatment. One of the novel methods used for achieving this is known as “hydrogel,” which comes in a variety of forms. As a un

Background: White spot lesions (WSLs) are subsurface enamel demineralization manifested as white opacities which had an esthetic problem. The purpose of this in-vitro study was to evaluate the lesion depth improvement of WSLs following application of fluoride varnish, tooth mousse and resin infiltration (ICON). Materials and methods: Artificial WSLs were created on 120 premolar teeth using demineralization solution with pH (4-4.5). Samples randomly allocated into four groups; fluoride varnish, tooth mousse, ICON and untreated group. Groups were discolored in Cola and orange juice for 24 hours. Teeth were ground sectioned by longitudinal cutting then these sections examined and photographed under stereomicroscope at 12X magnification then an

Objectives: The purpose of this in vitro study was to compare the effect of adding poloxamer surfactant to irrigant solutions on the penetration de..

Phoenix dactylifera l. pinnae (the green leaves of dates palm) were used as natural reinforcing (strengthening) fibers to improve the mechanical properties of polyester as a matrix material, the fibers of the green leaves of dates palm were used in two lengths, 10 and 20mm with five rates of 0, 2.5, 5, 10, and 20% , where the reinforcing with the leaves fibers increases the hardness strength from 76.5 to be about 86.55 , the Impact value raised from about 0.313 to 0.461 , in addition to that the flexural strength from 2.66 to be about 55 , and the thermal conductivity increases from 2.54 𝑤∕𝑚.℃ to 5.41 𝑤∕𝑚.℃. The results of the present search explains that the composite samples reinforced at rate 20% and 10mm fiber length

The effect of short range correlations on the inelastic Coulomb form factors for excited +2 states (1.982, 3.919, 5.250 and 8.210MeV) and +4 states (3.553, 7.114, 8.960 and 10.310 MeV) in O18 is analyzed. This effect (which depends on the correlation parameterβ) is inserted into the ground state charge density distribution through the Jastrow type correlation function. The single particle harmonic oscillator wave function is used with an oscillator size parameter .b The parameters β and b are adjusted for each excited state separately so as to reproduce the experimental root mean square charge radius of .18O The nucleusO18 is considered as an inert core of C12 with two protons and four neutrons distributed over 212521211sdp−− activ