The lethality of inorganic arsenic (As) and the threat it poses have made the development of efficient As detection systems a vital necessity. This research work demonstrates a sensing layer made of hydrous ferric oxide (Fe2H2O4) to detect As(III) and As(V) ions in a surface plasmon resonance system. The sensor conceptualizes on the strength of Fe2H2O4 to absorb As ions and the interaction of plasmon resonance towards the changes occurring on the sensing layer. Detection sensitivity values for As(III) and As(V) were 1.083 °·ppb−1 and 0.922 °·ppb−1, respectively, while the limit of detection for both ions was 0.6 ppb. These findings support the feasibility and potential of the sensor configuration towards paving future advancement in As detection systems.
This work studied the electrical and thermal surface conductivity enhancement of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) clouded by double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs) and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) by using pulsed Nd:YAG laser. Variable input factors are considered as the laser energy (or the relevant power), pulse duration and pulse repetition rate. Results indicated that the DWCNTs increased the PMMA’s surface electrical conductivity from 10-15 S/m to 0.813×103 S/m while the MWCNTs raised it to 0.14×103 S/m. Hence, the DWCNTs achieved an increase of almost 6 times than that for the MWCNTs. Moreover, the former increased the thermal conductivity of the surface by 8 times and the later by 5 times.
In this work, porous silicon gas sensor hs been fabricated on n-type crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafers of (100) orientation denoted by n-PS using electrochemical etching (ECE) process at etching time 10 min and etching current density 40 mA/cm2. Deposition of the catalyst (Cu) is done by immersing porous silicon (PS) layer in solution consists of 3ml from (Cu) chloride with 4ml (HF) and 12ml (ethanol) and 1 ml (H2O2). The structural, morphological and gas sensing behavior of porous silicon has been studied. The formation of nanostructured silicon is confirmed by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurement as well as it shows the formation of an oxide silicon layer due to chemical reaction. Atomic force microscope for PS illustrates that the p
... Show MoreBackground: Measuring the concentration of hepatitis B surface antigen (HbsAg) in HBV patients can be determined with immunoassay techniques. This study aimed to measure the HbsAg titers in chronic HBV patients and to assess its correlation with patients' ages, gender, and with the levels of liver enzymes and total serum bilirubin. Materials and Method: Fifty-eight chronic hepatitis B infected patients were enrolled in this study. Age and gender of the patients were recorded. HbsAg concentration was tested with automated Immunoanalyzer. The patients were also tested for ALT, AST, ALP, and TSB by automated chemistry analyzer. Results: All the chronic HBV patients have positive HBsAg titers above the negative cutoff (0.05U/L) with mea
... Show MoreAbstract: The use of indirect, all-ceramic restorations has grown in popularity among dentists. Studies have demonstrated that for indirect ceramic restorations to be effective over time, cement and ceramic must be bonded in a stable manner. Chemical, mechanical, and laser irradiation are among the methods used to precondition ceramic surfaces in order to increase bond strength.The objective of the study: This study was performed to investigate the roughness values and surface topography of lithium disilicate glass-ceramic treated with conventional methods and different Er,Cr:YSGG, and fractional CO2 laser conditioning parameters.Material and methods:<
... Show MoreBackground: The iron deficiency anemia along with hyperphosphatemia are the main complications of dialysis patients. Traditional iron supplement has been failed to correct iron deficiency anemia, therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the efficacy and tolerability of new phosphate binder, ferric citrate, in a sample of Iraqi patients with end stage renal disease on maintenance hemodialysis. Method: Prospective, randomized, open label, active controlled trial was conducted in one center for dialysis in Babylon governance. Patients were randomized to receive ferric citrate with dose of 6 g/d and calcium carbonate with dose of 3 g/d for eight weeks. Hemoglobin concentration, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration and count o
... Show MoreAzo dyes like methyl orange (MO) are very toxic components due to their recalcitrant properties which makes their removal from wastewater of textile industries a significant issue. The present study aimed to study their removal by utilizing aluminum and Ni foam (NiF) as anodes besides Fe foam electrodes as cathodes in an electrocoagulation (EC) system. Primary experiments were conducted using two Al anodes, two NiF anodes, or Al-NiF anodes to predict their advantages and drawbacks. It was concluded that the Al-NiF anodes were very effective in removing MO dye without long time of treatment or Ni leaching at in the case of adopting the Al-Al or NiF-NiF anodes, respectively. The structure and surface morphology of the NiF electrode were inves
... Show MoreDetection of early clinical keratoconus (KCN) is a challenging task, even for expert clinicians. In this study, we propose a deep learning (DL) model to address this challenge. We first used Xception and InceptionResNetV2 DL architectures to extract features from three different corneal maps collected from 1371 eyes examined in an eye clinic in Egypt. We then fused features using Xception and InceptionResNetV2 to detect subclinical forms of KCN more accurately and robustly. We obtained an area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) of 0.99 and an accuracy range of 97–100% to distinguish normal eyes from eyes with subclinical and established KCN. We further validated the model based on an independent dataset with
... Show MoreA total of 37 Staphylococcus epidermidis isolates, isolated from corneal scraping of patients with bacterial keratitis and 20 isolates from healthy eyes (as control) (all isolates, isolated from, Ibn Al- Haietham eye hospital / Baghdad), were tested for slime production, 52.63% of all isolates were positive-slime production (23 isolates from patients and 7 isolates from controls). It was found that positive-slime producing S. epidermidis were exhibited a high resistance to antibiotics as compared to negative-slime producing isolates.