Low grade crude palm oil (LGCPO) presents as an attractive option as feedstock for biodiesel production due to its low cost and non-competition with food resources. Typically, LGCPO contains high contents of free fatty acids (FFA), rendering it impossible in direct trans-esterification processes due to the saponification reaction. Esterification is the typical pre-treatment process to reduce the FFA content and to produce fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). The pre-treatment of LGCPO using two different acid catalysts, such as titanium oxysulphate sulphuric acid complex hydrate (TiOSH) and 5-sulfosalicylic acid dihydrate (5-SOCAH) was investigated for the first time in this study. The optimum conditions for the homogenous catalyst (5-SOCAH) wer

In this study, a 3 mm thickness 7075-T6 aluminium alloy sheet was used in the friction stir welding process. Using the design of experiment to reduce the number of experiments and to obtain the optimum friction stir welding parameters by utilizing Taguchi technique based on the ultimate tensile test results. Orthogonal array of L9 (3³) was used based on three numbers of the parameters and three levels for each parameter, where shoulder-workpiece interference depth (0.20, 0.25, and 0.3) mm, pin geometry (cylindrical thread flat end, cylindrical thread with 3 flat round end, cylindrical thread round end), and thread pitch (0.8, 1, and 1.2) mm) this technique executed by Minitab 17 software. The results showed th

This study is concerned with the effect of Deep Cryogenic Treatment (DCT) at liquid nitrogen temperature (-196 o C) on the mechanical properties and performance of low carbon steel (A858). The tests specimens were divided in to two groups, the first group was subjected to the conventional heat treatment of normalizing, and the second group was also normalized then subjected to (DCT). The results have shown that after (DCT), the Hardness, Tensile properties and the impact energy absorbed were all slightly increased. However the fatigue test showed some positive improvement in fatigue limit by 20(N/mm2 ), and the volume wear rates at different loads were significantly decreased after (DCT). The changes in microstructure due to (DCT) were c

—Fundus images play an essential role in ophthalmic diagnostics for the detection of many eye illnesses. The experiment begins with a thorough image preprocessing. technique, which includes clipping the circular borders, scaling the image, enhancing the contrast, removing noise, and augmenting the data. The new combined block applies to extracting distinctive deep feature representations, which help to detect the first shape of the edges of each lesion. It is namely the Attention Block and the Conv-Deconv UNET model. The attention block is subsequently implemented in order to augment the robustness and quality of feature depictions derived from a pair of DR images. The Dual Attention Block for the backbone, which is supplement

Viscosity (η) of solutions of 1-butanol, sec-butanol, isobutanol and tert-butanol were investigated in aqueous solution structures of ranged composition from 0.55 to 1 mol.dm-3 at 298.15 K. The data of (η/η˳) were evaluated based on reduced Jone - Dole equation; η/η˳ =BC+1. In the term of B value, the consequences based on solute-solvent interaction in aqueous solutions of alcohols were deliberated. The outcomes of this paper discloses that alcohols act as structure producers in the water. Additionally, it has shown that solute-solvent with interacting activity of identical magnitude is in water-alcohol system

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an autosomal recessive multisystem disease that results from mutation(s) of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene. More than 2100 mutations and polymorphisms have been reported in this gene so far. Incidence and genotyping of CF are under-identified in Iraq. This study aims to determine the types and frequencies of certain CFTR mutations among a sample of Iraqi CF patients. Two groups of patients were included: 31 clinically confirmed CF patients in addition to 47 clinically suspected patients of CF. All confirmed pa