Polypyrrole/silver (PPy/Ag) nanocomposites was synthesized via a chemical oxidative method. The AFM analysis is performed to study the surface roughness, morphology and size distribution of the PPy particles and PPy-ag nanocomposites. The results indicated that as the concentration of Ag in the nanocomposite increases, the roughness also increases. The size of nanoparticles was also evaluated and found in the range of 15 nm to 125 nm. The PPy/Ag nanocomposites exhibited an effectiveness against Gram-negative Escherichia coli showing an inhibition zone of 4mm and displayed poor efficacy against Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus. Based on given adequate antibacterial characteristics of PPy/Ag nanocomposites, it can be identified as a pro

In this study, a double frequency Q-switching Nd:YAG laser beam (1064 nm and λ= 532 nm, repetition rate 6 Hz and the pulse duration 10ns) have been used, to deposit TiO2 pure and nanocomposites thin films with noble metal (Ag) at various concentration ratios of (0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 wt.%) on glass and p-Si wafer (111) substrates using Pulse Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. Many growth parameters have been considered to specify the optimum condition, namely substrate temperature (300˚C), oxygen pressure (2.8×10-4 mbar), laser energy (700) mJ and the number of laser shots was 400 pulses with thickness of about 170 nm. The surface morphology of the thin films has been studied by using atomic force microscopes (AFM). The Root Mean Sq

This work revealed the spherical aromaticity of some inorganic E4 cages and their protonated E4H+ ions (E=N, P, As, Sb, and Bi). For this purpose, we employed several evaluations like (0D-1D) nucleus independent chemical shift (NICS), multidimensional (2D-3D) off-nucleus isotropic shielding σiso(r), and natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis. The magnetic calculations involved gauge-including atomic orbitals (GIAO) with two density functionals B3LYP and WB97XD, and basis sets of Jorge-ATZP, 6-311+G(d,p), and Lanl2DZp. The Jorge-ATZP basis set showed the best consistency. Our findings disclosed non-classical aromatic characters in the above molecules, which decreased from N to Bi cages. Also, the results showed more aromaticity in E4 than E4H+

A Wearable Robotic Knee (WRK) is a mobile device designed to assist disabled individuals in moving freely in undefined environments without external support. An advanced controller is required to track the output trajectory of a WRK device in order to resolve uncertainties that are caused by modeling errors and external disturbances. During the performance of a task, disturbances are caused by changes in the external load and dynamic work conditions, such as by holding weights while performing the task. The aim of this study is to address these issues and enhance the performance of the output trajectory tracking goal using an adaptive robust controller based on the Radial Basis Function (RBF) Neural Network (NN) system and Hamilton

The following dilution 5×10-1, 10-1, 10?2 , 10-3 gm/L for the indigenous isolate of Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria and the commercially isalate were used for experiments against the different stages of fig moth of E.cautella which exposed by filter paper method. The results showed that mortality of larval stages was increased with the increasing concentration of the biocide, in addition to increase in the mortality of the larval stages reached to the highest percentage in the third days of treatment of the larval stage in comparison with the first and second days of exposure. The results also showed that the sensitivity of larval stages was increased in first and second instars while reduced in the last instars .The high percentage

The quality of groundwater in the Al-Hawija area was assessed using a water quality index. Data of nine physico-chemical parameters of 28 groundwater wells were used to calculate the water quality index (WQI). A heterogeneous water quality was reported, where in close proximity to the Lesser Zab River (LZR), it has low WQI values and permissible for human consumptions due to the dilution processes by fresh water; whereas, it becomes deteriorated in areas located far away the river. The values of WQI ranges from 22 to 336, indicating a good to very poor groundwater quality.

         The issue of penalized regression model has received considerable critical attention to variable selection. It plays an essential role in dealing with high dimensional data. Arctangent denoted by the Atan penalty has been used in both estimation and variable selection as an efficient method recently. However, the Atan penalty is very sensitive to outliers in response to variables or heavy-tailed error distribution. While the least absolute deviation is a good method to get robustness in regression estimation. The specific objective of this research is to propose a robust Atan estimator from combining these two ideas at once. Simulation experiments and real data applications show that the p

Abstract

Semiconductor-based gas sensors were prepared, that use n-type tin oxide (SnO₂) and  tin oxide: zinc oxide composite (SnO₂)_1-x(ZnO)_x at different x ratios using pulse laser deposition at room temperature. The prepared thin films were examined to reach the optimum conditions for gas sensing applications, namely X-ray diffraction, Hall effect measurements, and direct current conductivity. It was found that the optimum crystallinity and maximum electron density, corresponding to the minimum charge carrier mobility, appeared at 10% ZnO ratio. This ratio appeared has the optimum NO₂ gas sensitivity for 5% gas concentration at 300 °C working temperat