To achieve sustainability in the field of civil engineering, there has become a great interest in developing reactive powder concrete RPC through the use of environmentally friendly materials to reduce the release of CO₂ gas produced from cement factories as well as contribute to the recycling of industrial wastes that have a great impact on environmental pollution.

In this study, reactive powder concrete was prepared using total binder content of 800 kg/m³, water to binder ratio (0.275), and micro steel fibers  1% by volume of concrete. The experimental program included replacing fly ash with (8, 12, 16) % by cement weight to find the optimal ratio, which achieved the best mechanical proper

Abstract

The present investigation aimed to formulate a liquid self-microemulsifying drug delivery system (SMEDDS) of tacrolimus to enhance its oral bioavailability by improving its dispersibility and dissolution rate. Four liquid SMEDDS were prepared using maisine CC as oil phase, labrasol ALF as surfactant and transcutol HP as co-surfactant based on the solubility studies of tacrolimus in these components. The phase behavior of the components and the area of microemulsion were evaluated using pseudoternary phase diagrams. The formulations were also assessed for thermodynamic stability, robustness to dilution, self-emulsification time, drug content, globule size and polydispersity index. The prepared SMEDDS formulations exhibi

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (m-MIMO) is considered as an essential technique to meet the high data rate requirements of future sixth generation (6G) wireless communications networks. The vast majority of m-MIMO research has assumed that the channels are uncorrelated. However, this assumption seems highly idealistic. Therefore, this study investigates the m-MIMO performance when the channels are correlated and the base station employs different antenna array topologies, namely the uniform linear array (ULA) and uniform rectangular array (URA). In addition, this study develops analyses of the mean square error (MSE) and the regularized zero-forcing (RZF) precoder under imperfect channel state information (CSI) and a realist

This study aims to formulate azithromycin oleogel to locally treat skin infections such as acne vulgaris and skin wound infection. Providing a form of azithromycin that can be administered topically is highly desired to prevent unwanted systemic complications including diarrhea, nausea, and abdominal pain. Additionally, it will avoid first pass metabolism, improves patient acceptance, provides an alternative in nauseated patients, decreases the dose by direct contact with the pathological site, and provides a noninvasive and convenient mode of administration. Furthermore, for treating wound infections, the gel will act as a scaffold biomaterial for wound closure besides its antibacterial effect. Herein, we propose the use of grapeseed oil-b

In this study, the effect of the annealing temperature on the material properties and the structural properties of cuprous oxide was studied in order to investigate how the annealing temperature affects the material properties, and the temperature varied between 200℃, 300℃, 400℃ and 500 ℃ and was unannealed. The physical properties of the cuprous oxide were measured by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The XRD patterns showed that the Cu₂O nanoparticles were highly pure, crystalline, and nano-sized. From the XRD results, we found the pure cuprite (Cu₂O) phase. The values of crystal size were discovered and calculated by the Halder-Wagner and Size-Strain Plot (SSP) methods, respectively. The crystallite size increased

priorities of materials research due to their promising properties, especially in the field of thermoelectricity. The efficiency or performance of thermoelectric devices is expressed in terms of the thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) – a standard indicator of a material’s thermoelectric properties for use in cooling systems. The evaluation of ZT is principally determined by the thermoelectric characteristics of the nanomaterials. In this paper, a set of investigative computations was performed to study the thermoelectric properties of monolayer TMDCs according to the semiclassical treatment of the Boltzmann transport equation. It was confirmed that the thermoelectric properties of 2D materials can be greatly improved compared with thei

Glucoamylase from black Aspergillus niger isolate was purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation and sephadex G 200 filtration. A trial for the purification of glucoamylase resulted in an enzyme with a specific activity of 6472 unit/mg protein with 10 times fold. The main goal of the present work was to test this enzyme in hydrolyzing the raw starch. Two substrates were used: corn starch and potato starch 2% (w/v). The effect of enzyme dosage and thermal processing of substrate on kinetics and efficiency of hydrolysis were studied. The results suggested that the glucoamylase activity is increased as the increase of enzyme concentration and the enzyme was sufficiently effective in hydrolyzing tested raw starch, and thermal modification of

      Concentrations  of  four  heavy  metals, Zinc , Copper , Lead  and  Cadimium  were  determed  in  water  and  sediment  samples   collected bi-weekly  from  six  sampling sites  on  the  lower  part  of  River  Diyala    during  low  flow  period  (August  to  October)  and   high  flow  period  (April  to  June). A  reference  point site (1)  was  situated   upstream the  effects  of  the  effluent. Present  work  describes  the  e