Shumblan (SH) is one of the most undesirable aquatic plants widespread in the irrigation channels and water bodies. This work focuses on boosting the biogas potential of shumblan by co-digesting it with other types of wastes without employing any chemical or thermal pretreatments as done in previous studies. A maximum biogas recovery of 378 ml/g VS was reached using shumblan with cow manure as inoculum in a ratio of 1:1. The methane content of the biogas was 55%. Based on volatile solid (VS) and C/N ratios, biogas productions of 518, 434, and 580 ml/g VS were obtained when the shumblan was co-digested with food wastes (SH:F), paper wastes (SH:P), and green wastes (SH:G) respectively. No significant changes of methane contents were observ

Background: Selenium-73 with half- life of 7.15 hour emits β+ in nature and has six stable isotopes which are ( 74Se,76Se,77Se,78Se,80Se and 82Se ). Selenium-73 has many applications in technology and radioselenium compounds of metallic have found various applications in medicine. Objective:  To make a comparison between different reactions that produced cross sections of Se-73 radioisotopes. Subjects and methods: The feasibility of the production of Selenium -73 via various nuclear reactions was investigated. Excitation functions of 73Se production by the reactions of 75As (p,3n), 169Tm( d,x), 74Se, natSe, natBr (p,x) , 75As (d,4n), natGe (3He,x), 70Ge (α, n), and 72Ge (α, 3n) and neutron capture were calculated using the avail

An integrated GIS-VBA (Geographical Information System – Visual Basic for Application), model is developed for selecting an optimum water harvesting dam location among an available locations in a watershed. The proposed model allows quick and precise estimation of an adopted weighted objective function for each selected location. In addition to that for each location, a different dam height is used as a nominee for optimum selection. The VBA model includes an optimization model with a weighted objective function that includes beneficiary items (positive) , such as the available storage , the dam height allowed by the site as an indicator for the potential of hydroelectric power generation , the rainfall rate as a source of water . In a

The influence of an aortic aneurysm on blood flow waveforms is well established, but how to exploit this link for diagnostic purposes still remains challenging. This work uses a combination of experimental and computational modelling to study how aneurysms of various size affect the waveforms. Experimental studies are carried out on fusiform-type aneurysm models, and a comparison of results with those from a one-dimensional fluid–structure interaction model shows close agreement. Further mathematical analysis of these results allows the definition of several indicators that characterize the impact of an aneurysm on waveforms. These indicators are then further studied in a computational model of a systemic blood flow network. This demonstr

Objective: To study the effect of epidural spinal injection over one year in case of spinal stenosis. Methodology: This prospective study included 566 patients with spinal stenosis seen at Al-Kindy Teaching and Al-Sader, Hospitals who were treated by local epidural steroid injection. They were followed up for at least five subsequent visits after seven days, one month, three months, six months, and one year to assess efficacy. Result: Mean age of patients was 49.5 years, with a predominance of females (65%). L4/L5 was the most involved level in the spinal stenosis (70%). Grade II stenosis accounted for (45.4%) of cases. The pairwise comparison revealed that there was significant decrease in proportions of patients with pain in day

This paper describes DC motor speed control based on optimal Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) technique. Controller's objective is to maintain the speed of rotation of the motor shaft with a particular step response.The controller is modeled in MATLAB environment, the simulation results show that the proposed controller gives better performance and less settling time when compared with the traditional PID controller.

This work presents the construction of a test apparatus for air-conditioning application that is flexible in changing a scaled down adsorbent bed modules. To improve the heat and mass transfer performance of the adsorbent bed, a finned-tube of the adsorbent bed heat exchanger was used. The results show that the specific cooling power (SCP) and the coefficient of performance (COP) are 163 W/kg and 0.16, respectively, when the cycle time is 40 min, the hot water temperature is 90^oC, the cooling water temperature is 30^oC and the evaporative water temperature is 11.4^oC.

This paper proposes a new approach to model and analyze erect posture, based on a spherical inverted pendulum which is used to mimic the body posture. The pendulum oscillates in two directions, [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], from which the mathematical model was derived and two torque components in oscillation directions were introduced. They are estimated using stabilometric data acquired by a foot pressure mapping system. The model was quantitatively investigated using data from 19 participants, who were first were classified into three groups, according to the foot arch-index. Stabilometric data were then collected and fed into the model to estimate the torque’s components. The components were statistically proce