Background: Spices and herbs have been used by many cultures to enhance the flavor and aroma of food and for their medicinal value. Black cardamom is one of these spices widely used in cooking because of its unique taste and powerful flavor. The aim of study was to test the effect of black cardamom on Mutans Streptococci in comparison to chlorhexidine gluconate (0.2%) and de-ionized water. Materials and methods: Dried fruits of black cardamom were extracted by using alcohol (70% ethanol). Saliva was collected from seven volunteers. Agar well technique with different concentrations of black cardamom extracts was used to test the sensitivities of Mutans Streptococci, as well black cardamom extracts effect on viable counts of Mutans Streptococci. Results: Mutans Streptococci was sensitive to different concentrations of alcohol extracts of black cardamom in vitro starting with (5%) to (40%) using agar well diffusion technique. Black cardamom was effective in inhibition of Mutans Streptococci but still weaker than chlorhexidine gluconate 0.2%. Highly significant reduction in the counts of bacteria was reported with cardamom extracts and CHX in comparison to neutral control after 2 hrs. Conclusions: Black cardamom showed an effect on Mutans Streptococci but still less than CHX.
Epoxy resin has many chemical features and mechanical properties, but it has a small elongation at break, low impact strength and crack propagation resistance, i.e. it exhibits a brittle behavior. In the current study, the influence of adding kaolin with variable particle size on the mechanical properties (flexural modulus E, toughness Gc, fracture toughness Kc, hardness HB, and Wear rate WR) of epoxy resin was evaluated. Composites of epoxy with varying concentrations (0, 10, 20, 30, 40 weights %) of kaolin were prepared by hand-out method. The composites showed improved (E, Gc, Kc, HB, and WR) properties with the addition of filler. Also, similar results were observed with the decrease in particle size. In addition, in this study, mult
... Show MoreA novel encapsulated deep eutectic solvent (DES) was introduced for biodiesel production via a two-step process. The DES was encapsulated in medical capsules and were used to reduce the free fatty acid (FFA) content of acidic crude palm oil (ACPO) to the minimum acceptable level (< 1%). The DES was synthesized from methyltriphenylphosphonium bromide (MTPB) and p-toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA). The effects pertaining to different operating conditions such as capsule dosage, reaction time, molar ratio, and reaction temperature were optimized. The FFA content of ACPO was reduced from existing 9.61% to less than 1% under optimum operating conditions. This indicated that encapsulated MTPB-DES performed high catalytic activity in FFA esterificatio
... Show MoreThis study investigated the treatment of dairy wastewater using the electrocoagulation method with iron filings as electrodes. The study dealt with real samples collected from local factory for dairy products in Baghdad. The Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to optimize five experimental variables at six levels for each variable, for estimating chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency. These variables were the distance between electrodes, detention time, dosage of NaCl as electrolyte, initial COD concentration, and current density. RSM was investigated the direct and complex interaction effects between parameters to estimate the optimum values. The respective optimum value was 1 cm for the distance between electrodes, (6
... Show MoreIn the current study, three types of algae namely Tetradesmus nygaardi (MZ801740), Scenedesmus quadricauda (MZ801741) and Coelastrella sp (MZ801742) were extracted by 95% ethanol and hexane against two types of gram positive and two types of gram negative bacteria by wells diffusion methods. Eleven concentrations from the extract of algae (2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50 mg/ml) were utilized. It was noticed that ethanolic extraction was more effective than hexane in Scenedesmus quadricauda than the two other mentioned algal species against all pathogenic bacteria, Acintobacter baumanii (ATCC: 19606), Klebsiella pneumonia (ATCC: 13883) Enterococcus faecalis (ATCC: 29212) and Staphylococc
... Show MoreThe AlAdhaim Dam is located 133 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. It is a multipurpose dam and joints the Iraqi dam system in 2000. It has a storage capacity of 1.5 billion m3. The dam has an ogee spillway with a length of 562 m, a crest level of 131.5 m.a.m.s.l. and a maximum discharge capacity of 1150 m3/s at its maximum storage height of 143 m.a.m.s.l. This research aimed to investigate the hydrodynamics performance of the spillway and the stilling basin of AlAdhiam Dam by using numerical simulation models under gated situations. It was suggested to modify the dam capacity by increasing the dam's storage capacity by installing gates on the crest of the dam spillway. The FLUENT program was used to
... Show MoreGas hydrate formation poses a significant threat to the production, processing, and transportation of natural gas. Accurate predictions of gas hydrate equilibrium conditions are essential for designing the gas production systems at safe operating conditions and mitigating the problems caused by hydrates formation. A new hydrate correlation for predicting gas hydrate equilibrium conditions was obtained for different gas mixtures containing methane, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The new correlation is proposed for a pressure range of 1.7-330 MPa, a temperature range of 273-320 K, and for gas mixtures with specific gravity range of 0.553 to 1. The nonlinear regression technique was applie
There are two main categories of force control schemes: hybrid position-force control and impedance control. However, the former does not take into account the dynamic interaction between the robot’s end effector and the environment. In contrast, impedance control includes regulation and stabilization of robot motion by creating a mathematical relationship between the interaction forces and the reference trajectories. It involves an energetic pair of a flow and an effort, instead of controlling a single position or a force. A mass-spring-damper impedance filter is generally used for safe interaction purposes. Tuning the parameters of the impedance filter is important and, if an unsuitable strategy is used, this can lead to unstabl
... Show MoreA large amount of thermal energy is generated from burning hazardous chemical wastes, and the temperature of the flue gases in hazardous waste incinerators reaches up to (1200 °C). The flue gases are cooled to (40°C) and are treated before emission. This thermal energy can be utilized to produce electrical power by designing a system suitable for dangerous flue gases in the future depending on the results of much research about using a proto-type small steam power plant that uses safe fuel to study and develop the electricity generation process with water tube boiler which is manufactured experimentally with theoretical development for some of its parts which are inefficient in experimental work. The studied system gen
... Show MoreChemical compounds, characteristics, and molecular structures are inevitably connected. Topological indices are numerical values connected with chemical molecular graphs that contribute to understanding a chemical compounds physical qualities, chemical reactivity, and biological activity. In this study, we have obtained some topological properties of the first dominating David derived (DDD) networks and computed several K-Banhatti polynomials of the first type of DDD.