The effect of metal nanoparticles on the anaerobic digestion of sludge and the sludge bacterial community are still not well-understood, and both improvements and inhibitions have been reported. This study investigated the impact of 2, 10, and 30 mg/g TS silver and copper oxide nanoparticles (AgNPs and CuONPs) on the mesophilic anaerobic digestion of sludge and the bacterial community structure. The reactors were monitored for changes in tCOD, sCOD, TS, VS, biogas generation, and cell viability. Also, the relative abundance and taxonomic distribution of the bacterial communities were analyzed at the phylum and genus levels, including the genera involved in anaerobic digestion. Both AgNPs and CuONPs exhibited some inhibition on anaer

The aim of this study to evaluate the effects of die holes diameter and speed of die on the performance of machine and feed pellet quality. Machine productivity (Kg.h-1), consumed power (kW), pellet durability (%) and pellet bulk density (g.cm-3) was studied. The study factors consisted of three diameter of die holes (3, 4, and 5 mm), and three speeds die (280, 300, and 320 rpm). Results showed with increasing of die holes diameter from 3 to 4 and to 5 mm give a significant increase in machine productivity, while consumed power, pellet durability and pellet bulk density a significant decreased. By increasing the die speed, from 280 to 300 then to 320 rpm, the machine productivity increased significantly, while consumed power, pellet durabil

    Soft clays are generally characterized by low shear strength, low permeability and high compressibility. An effective method to accelerate consolidation of such soils is to use vertical drains along with vacuum preloading to encourage radial flow of water.  In this research numerical modeling of prefabricated vertical drains with vacuum pressure was done to investigate the effect of using vertical drains together with vacuum pressure on the degree of saturation of fully and saturated-unsaturated soft soils.  Laboratory experiments were conducted by using a specially-designed large consolidometer cell where a central drain was installed and vacuum pressure was applied. All tests were conducted

In this work, a new development of predictive voltage-tracking control algorithm for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFCs) model, using a neural network technique based on-line auto-tuning intelligent algorithm was proposed. The aim of proposed robust feedback nonlinear neural predictive voltage controller is to find precisely and quickly the optimal hydrogen partial pressure action to control the stack terminal voltage of the (PEMFC) model for N-step ahead prediction. The Chaotic Particle Swarm Optimization (CPSO) implemented as a stable and robust on-line auto-tune algorithm to find the optimal weights for the proposed predictive neural network controller to improve system performance in terms of fast-tracking de

Proxy-based sliding mode control PSMC is an improved version of PID control that combines the features of PID and sliding mode control SMC with continuously dynamic behaviour. However, the stability of the control architecture maybe not well addressed. Consequently, this work is focused on modification of the original version of the proxy-based sliding mode control PSMC by adding an adaptive approximation compensator AAC term for vibration control of an Euler-Bernoulli beam. The role of the AAC term is to compensate for unmodelled dynamics and make the stability proof more easily. The stability of the proposed control algorithm is systematically proved using Lyapunov theory. Multi-modal equation of motion is derived using the Galerkin metho

Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR)-based plastic optical fiber sensor for estimating the concentration and refractive index of sugar in human blood serum. The sensor is fabricated by a small part (10mm) of optical fiber in the middle is embedded in a resin block and then the polishing process is done, after that it is deposited with about (40nm) thickness of gold metal. The blood serum is placed on gold coated core of an Optical grade plastic optical fiber of 980 µm core diameter.

The experiment was carried out in the green house of botanical garden belong to Department of Biology/College of Education for Pure Science Ibn AL-Haitham, University of Baghdad for growing season 2017-2018 to evaluate effect of lead stress with concentrations (0, 50, 100, 150) mg.L -1 and Selenium concentrations (0, 15, 30) mg.L-1 on growth of dill plant using pots. The experiment was designed according to completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications. Result indicated that dill plants subjected to lead stress with height concentrations caused decrease in plant parameters (plant height, no. of branches. plant-1, root length, shoot dry weight, the content of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, protein concentration, no. of umbe