A total of (25) stool samples were collected from children and adults (2- 4) years old suffering from diarrhea to isolate E. coli strains that produce heat-stable enterotoxin a (STa), and after performing microscopic examination, cultural characterization and biochemical identification only (11) isolates showed positive E. coli. STa activity was estimated by using suckling mouse assay (SMA) and from these (11) isolates only (5) showed STa activity and the one with the highest STa activity was selected for large scale production of STa, which was followed by partial purification using ion-exchange chromatography (normal phase) using DEAE sephadex A-50 column. After purification and determination of protein concentration by using the standard

In earthquake engineering problems, uncertainty exists not only in the seismic excitations but also in the structure's parameters. This study investigates the influence of structural geometry, elastic modulus, mass density, and section dimension uncertainty on the stochastic earthquake response of a multi-story moment resisting frame subjected to random ground motion. The North-south component of the Ali Gharbi earthquake in 2012, Iraq, is selected as ground excitation. Using the power spectral density function (PSD), the two-dimensional finite element model of the moment resisting frame's base motion is modified to account for random ground motion. The probabilistic study of the moment resisting frame structure using stochastic fin

Inthisstudy,FourierTransformInfraredSpectrophotometry(FTIR),XRay Diffraction(XRD)andlossonignition(LOI),comparativelyemployedtoprovideaquick,relativelyinexpensiveandefficientmethodforidentifyingandquantifyingcalcitecontentofphosphateoresamplestakenfromAkashatsiteinIraq.Acomprehensivespectroscopicstudyofphosphate-calcitesystemwasreportedfirstintheMid-IRspectra(4004000cm-1)usingShimadzuIRAffinity-1,fordifferentcutsofphosphatefieldgradeswithsamplesbeneficiatedusingcalcinationandleachingwithorganicacidatdifferenttemperatures.Thenusingtheresultedspectratocreateacalibrationcurverelatesmaterialconcentrationstotheintensity(peaks)ofFTIRabsorbanceandappliesthiscalibrationtospecifyphosphate-calcitecontentinIraqicalcareousphosphateore.Theirpeakswereass

Heavy metal consider as major environmental pollutants. Many of industrial wastewater effluents contain a wide range of these heavy metals. The adsorption of Cd2+ and Pb2+ metal ions from aqueous solution by activated carbon was studied. The results showed that maximum adsorption capacity occurred at 486.9×10-3 mg/kg for Pb2+ ion and 548.8×10-3 mg/kg for Cd2+ ion. The adsorption in a mixture of the metal ions had a balancing effect on the adsorption capacity of the activated carbon. The adsorption capacity of each metal ion was affected by the presence of other metal ions rather than its presence individually. The study showed the presence of other heavy metals attribute to the reduction in the activated carbon capacity, and the adsorp

Copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles were synthesized through the thermal decomposition of a copper(II) Schiff-base complex. The complex was formed by reacting cupric acetate with a Schiff base in a 2:1 metal-to-ligand ratio. The Schiff base itself was synthesized via the condensation of benzidine and 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde in the presence of glacial acetic acid. This newly synthesized symmetric Schiff base served as the ligand for the Cu(II) metal ion complex. The ligand and its complex were characterized using several spectroscopic methods, including FTIR, UV-vis, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, CHNS, and AAS, along with TGA, molar conductivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements. The CuO nanoparticles were produced by thermally decomposing the

Abstract As a part of our ongoing project on the design and synthesis of new 4-thiazolidinone derivatives with antimicrobial activity, four new 4-thiazolidinone derivatives carrying bromo, nitro, methyl, and chloro groups on the benzene ring were synthesized by starting with the 7-amino-4-methylcoumarin moiety, linking coumarin with various phenyl isothiocynate to form the thiourea group, and then cyclizing the derivatives, characterized by IR and 1HNMR, and assayed in vitro for their antimicrobial activity against Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria and fungi. Overall, 2-(4-methyl-2-oxo-2H-chromen-3-yl)-3-(4-nitrophenyl) thiazolidin-4-one to be the most powerful individuals in the series. Based on the observed data, it can be sta

The presence of antibiotic residues such as ciprofloxacin (CIPR) in an aqueous environment is dangerous when their concentrations exceed the allowable. Therefore, eliminating these residues from the wastewater becomes an essential issue to prevent their harm. In this work, the potential of efficient adsorption of ciprofloxacin antibiotics was studied using eco-friendly ZSM-5 nanocrystals‑carbon composite (NZC). An inexpensive effective natural binder made of the sucrose-citric acid mixture was used for preparing NZC. The characterization methods revealed the successful preparation of NZC with a favorable surface area of 103.739 m2/g, and unique morphology and functional groups. Investigating the ability of NZC for adsorbing CIPR antibioti

The effluent quality improvement being discharged from wastewater treatment plants is essential to maintain an environment and healthy water resources. This study was carried out to evaluate the possibility of intermittent slow sand filtration as a promising tertiary treatment method for the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) effluent. Laboratory scale slow sand filter (SSF) of 1.5 UC and 0.1 m/h filtration rate, was used to study the process performance. It was found that SSF IS very efficient in oxidizing organic matter with COD removal efficiency up to 95%, also it is capable of removing considerable amounts of phosphate with 76% and turbidity with 87% removal efficiencies. Slow sand filter efficiently reduced the mass of suspended

    Nine fish specimens of Thryssa setirostris (Broussonet, 1782) were collected from the Arabian Gulf, during the period from July 2015 to April 2016. Because of the scarcity of this fish and overlapping and ambiguous of its taxonomic characters with other Thryssa spp., a detailed taxonomic study was conducted. The present study includes the most important meristic and morphometric characteristics.

    The mean of the total length of the specimens was 149.67 mm; dorsal fin consists of 12 rays, anal fin with 34-37 rays and pectoral fin with 12-13 rays; Gill rakers were 4 upper,1 medial an.10 lower. The most important character that isolates T. setiristis from

This paper proposes a neuro-fuzzy system to model β-glucosidase activity based on the reaction’s pH level and temperature. The developed fuzzy inference system includes two input variables (pH level and temperature) and one output (enzyme activity). The multi-input fuzzy inference system was developed in two stages: first, developing a single input-single output fuzzy inference system for each input variable (pH, temperature) separately, using the robust adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) approach. The neural network learning techniques were used to tune the membership functions based on previously published experimental data for β-glucosidase. Second, each input’s optimized membership functions from the ANF