To find out a simple and efficient equation to estimate maize ear grain weight on farm (in situ), twenty three maize crosses along with two synthetics were grown in the field. On the experimental farm of the Dept. of Field Crop Sci., College of Agric., Univ. of Baghdad, seeds of twenty five maize genotypes were grown in the fall season of 2013 with three replicates. At dough stage of the kernels, five naked ears of each experimental units were measured for length and maximum diameter. This will sum up 125 ears of the trial. The volumes of ears were calculated as cylinder (length× r2× 3.1416). Grain weight of all ears were determined after harvesting and drying to 15% grain moisture. A constant was calculated by dividing ear grain weight by each ear volume. Estimated ear grain weights were tested against observed by applying correlation coefficient and it was found to be positive and highly significant (r= 0.998**). The observed and estimated values of ear grain weights were tested by t-test. The two means of observed and estimated ear grain weights were fit to 0.89 probability of t-value. The final equation to estimate ear grain weight in situ is= r2× L× 0.94, where r is radius of ear and L is ear length. However, in case of super hybrids of high ear fertility and kernel filling, estimated ear grain weight will be= r2× L.
This work deals with kinetics and chemical equilibrium studies of esterification reaction of ethanol with acetic acid. The esterification reaction was catalyzed by an acidic ion exchange resin (Amberlyst- 15) using a batch stirred tank reactor. The pseudo-homogenous and Eley-Rideal models were successfully fitted with experimental data. At first, Eley-Rideal model was examined for heterogeneous esterification of acetic acid and ethanol. The pseudo-homogenous model was investigated with a power-law model. The apparent reaction order was determined to be (0.88) for Ethanol and (0.92) for acetic acid with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.981 and 0.988, respectively. The reaction order was determined to be 4.1087x10-3 L0.8/(mol0.8.min) with
... Show MoreMastitis is an udder tissue inflammation which has infected various species of animals. It happens through several types of pathogenic bacteria, particularly Streptococcus agalactiae. GBS is a leading cause of cow mastitis. In our sample, 9.52% of Streptococcus agalactiae were isolated which were collected from bovine mastic milk and identified by biochemical tests such as catalase, oxidase, Production of indole, fermentation of sugar, an examination of antibiotic sensitivity, CAMP test and group kits of Lancefield. The results showed that all Streptococcus agalactiae isolate was diagnosed by CAMP test by the appearance of the arrowhead in blood agar and by the appearance of visible agglutination on a card in the serological grouping kit of
... Show MoreAn electrocoagulation process has been used to eliminate the chemical oxygen demand (COD) from wastewaters discharged from the Al-Muthanna petroleum refinery plant. In this process, a circular aluminum bar was used as a sacrificial anode, and hallow cylinder made from stainless steel was used as a cathode in a tubular batch electrochemical Reactor. Impacts of the operating factors like current density (5-25mAcm-2), NaCl addition at concentrations (0-2g/l), and pH at values (3-11) on the COD removal efficiency were studied.
Results revealed that the increase in current density increases the COD removal efficiency, whereas an increase
The analysis of Iraqi light oil (light naphtha) by capillary gas chromatography- mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was performed by the injection of whole naphtha sample without use of solvents. Qualitative analysis and the identification of the hydrocarbon constituents of light naphtha was performed and comparison had been done with American light oil (light naphtha). The obtained results showed a major difference between the two-light naphtha.
In this work, multilayer nanostructures were prepared from two metal oxide thin films by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. These metal oxide were nickel oxide (NiO) and titanium dioxide (TiO2). The prepared nanostructures showed high structural purity as confirmed by the spectroscopic and structural characterization tests, mainly FTIR, XRD and EDX. This feature may be attributed to the fine control of operation parameters of dc reactive magnetron sputtering system as well as the preparation conditions using the same system. The nanostructures prepared in this work can be successfully used for the fabrication of nanodevices for photonics and optoelectronics requiring highly-pure nanomaterials.
Non-thermal or cold plasma create many reactive species and charged particles when brought into contact with plant extracts. The major constituents involve reactive oxygen species, reactive nitrogen species and plasma ultra-violets. These species can be used to synthesize biologically important nanoparticles. The current study addressed the effect of the green method-based preparation approach on the volumetric analysis of Zn nanoparticles. Under different operating conditions, the traditional thermal method and the microwave method as well as the plasma generation in dielectric barrier discharge reactor were adopted as a preparation approach in this study. The results generally show that the type of method used plays an important rol
... Show MoreThis paper experimentally investigates the heating process of a hot water supply using a neural network implementation of a self-tuning PID controller on a microcontroller system. The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm employed in system tuning proved very effective, as it is simple and fast optimization algorithm. The PSO method for the PID parameters is executed on the Matlab platform in order to put these parameters in the real-time digital PID controller, which was experimented with in a pilot study on a microcontroller platform. Instead of the traditional phase angle power control (PAPC) method, the Cycle by Cycle Power Control (CBCPC) method is implemented because it yields better power factor and eliminates harmonics
... Show MoreIn this study, the potential of adsorption of amoxicillin antibiotic (AMOX) from aqueous solutions using prepared activated carbon (AC) was studied. The used AC was prepared from an inexpensive and available precursor (sunflower seed hulls (SSH)) and activated by potassium hydroxide (KOH). The prepared AC was examined for its ability to remove AMOX from aqueous contaminated solutions and characterized with the aid of N2 -adsorption/desorption isotherm Brunauer–Emmett– Teller, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared. Zeta potential of the prepared activated carbon from sunflower seed hulls (SSHAC) were studied in relation to AMOX adsorption. The physical and chemical propert
... Show MoreDuring COVID-19, wearing a mask was globally mandated in various workplaces, departments, and offices. New deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN) based classifications were proposed to increase the validation accuracy of face mask detection. This work introduces a face mask model that is able to recognize whether a person is wearing mask or not. The proposed model has two stages to detect and recognize the face mask; at the first stage, the Haar cascade detector is used to detect the face, while at the second stage, the proposed CNN model is used as a classification model that is built from scratch. The experiment was applied on masked faces (MAFA) dataset with images of 160x160 pixels size and RGB color. The model achieve
... Show MoreThe microstructures of rapidly solidified laser clad layers of laser cladding of Inconel 617 with different nickel-aluminum premixed clad powders are discussed. The effect of different cladding speeds on the microstructures of rapidly solidified laser clad layers is discussed too. The detailed microstructural results showed that different growth mechanisms are produced during rapid solidification. These are planar, cellular, cellular/dendritic and dendritic.