Production of fatty acid esters (biodiesel) from oleic acid and 2-ethylhexanol using sulfated zirconia as solid catalyst for the production of biodiesel was investigated in this work.

       The parameters studied were temperature of reaction (100 to 130°C), molar ratio of alcohol to free fatty acid (1:1 to 3:1), concentration of catalyst (0.5 to 3%wt), mixing speed (500 to 900 rpm) and types of sulfated zirconia (i.e modified, commercial, prepared  catalyst according to literature and reused catalyst). The results show the best conversion to biodiesel was 97.74% at conditions of 130°C, 3:1, 2wt% and 650 rpm using modified catalyst respectively. Also, modified c

In this study NiO - CoO bimetallic catalysts are prepared with two Ni/Co ratios (70:30 and 80: 20) using the precipitation method of nitrate salts. The effects of Ni /Co ratio and preparation methods on the catalyst are analyzed by using different characterization techniques, i.e. atomic absorption (AA) , XRD, surface area and pore volume measurements according to the BET method . The results indicate that the best catalyst is the one containing the percentage of Ni :Co ( 70 : 30 ). Experiments indicate that the optimal conditions to prepare catalyst are stirring for three hours at a temperature of 60oC of the preparation , pH= (8-9) , calcination temperature at 400oC for two hours

This paper presents a combination of enhancement techniques for fingerprint images affected by different type of noise. These techniques were applied to improve image quality and come up with an acceptable image contrast. The proposed method included five different enhancement techniques: Normalization, Histogram Equalization, Binarization, Skeletonization and Fusion. The Normalization process standardized the pixel intensity which facilitated the processing of subsequent image enhancement stages. Subsequently, the Histogram Equalization technique increased the contrast of the images. Furthermore, the Binarization and Skeletonization techniques were implemented to differentiate between the ridge and valley structures and to obtain one

The application of physiological oxygen (physoxia) concentrations is becoming increasingly commonplace within a mammalian stem cell culture. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) attract widespread interest for clinical application due to their unique immunomodulatory, multi-lineage potential, and regenerative capacities. Descriptions of the impact of physoxia on global DNA methylation patterns in hMSCs and the activity of enzymatic machinery responsible for its regulation remain limited. Human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-hMSCs, passage 1) isolated in reduced oxygen conditions displayed an upregulation of SOX2 in reduced oxygen conditions vs. air oxygen (21% O2, AO), while no change was noted for either OCT-4 or NA

The present paper deals with experimental investigation of the performance of air cooled split air conditioner, with evaporative water mist pre cooling to increase the cooling capacity and reduce the consumption power under hot and dry climate. This investigation considers how the performance can be enhanced by using water mist to pre-cool ambient air entering the condensers by adiabatic cooling process which depends on the ambient air wet bulb temperature; as well the condensing temperature and condensing pressure will be decreased accordingly. So the cooling capacity would be increased and consumption power would be decreased, consequently the energy ratio, EER would be improved. The performance of air cooled air conditioner with water

The aim of this work is to study the effect of diesel fuel percentage on the combustion processes in compression ignition engine using dual – fuel (diesel and LPG).

 The brake thermal efficiency increased with the increase of diesel fuel rate at low loads, and decreased when load increased. To get sufficient operation in engine fueled with dual fuel, it required sufficient flow rate of diesel fuel, if the engine fueled with insufficient diesel fuel erratic operation with miss fire cycles presented.

Dual-fuel operation at part load showed higher specific fuel consumption than straight diesl operation. At full loads, brake specific fuel consumption of duel fuel engine approaches that for diesel fuel values.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are defined as a population of cells present in tumours, which can undergo self-renewal and differentiation. Identification and isolation of these CSCs using putative surface markers have been a priority of research in cancer. With this background we selected pancreatic normal and tumor cells for this study and passaged them into animal tissue culture medium. Further staining was done using alkaline phosphatase and heamatoxilin staining. Blue to purple colored zones in undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells and clear coloration in the chromatin material indicated pancreatic cells. Further studies on the cell surface marker CD 44 were done using ELISA. For this, the protein was extracted from cultivated normal and t

Carnosol, a phenolic diterpene, is one of the effective anticancer agents naturally occurring in rosemary, sage, parsley, and oregano. The chemoresistance problem increased with the routinely used chemotherapy. Therefore, the efforts to find a substitute with safe and low cost have become crucial worldwide. The current study attempts to inspect the anticancer molecular mechanisms of Carnosol on modulating up- and down- regulation of multiple genetic carcinogenesis pathways. The cytotoxicity of Carnosol on Hela cells was evaluated by MTS assay. Flow cytometry was used to assess apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. The apoptotic morphological changes were obvious by dual apoptosis assay. The differential gene expression after treatment wi