The esterification of oleic acid with 2-ethylhexanol in presence of sulfuric acid  as homogeneous catalyst was investigated in this work to produce 2-ethylhexyl oleate (biodiesel) by using semi batch reactive distillation. The effect of reaction temperature (100 to 130°C), 2-ethylhexanol:oleic acid molar ratio (1:1 to 1:3) and catalysts concentration (0.2 to 1wt%) were studied. Higher conversion of 97% was achieved with operating conditions of reaction temperature of 130°C, molar ratio of free fatty acid to alcohol of 1:2 and catalyst concentration of 1wt%. A simulation was adopted from basic principles of the reactive distillation using MATLAB to describe the process. Good agreement was achieved.

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive-MIMO) is considered as the key technology to meet the huge demands of data rates in the future wireless communications networks. However, for massive-MIMO systems to realize their maximum potential gain, sufficiently accurate downlink (DL) channel state information (CSI) with low overhead to meet the short coherence time (CT) is required. Therefore, this article aims to overcome the technical challenge of DL CSI estimation in a frequency-division-duplex (FDD) massive-MIMO with short CT considering five different physical correlation models. To this end, the statistical structure of the massive-MIMO channel, which is captured by the physical correlation is exploited to find sufficiently

The present paper addresses cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris microalgae using airlift photobioreactor that sparged with 5% CO 2 /air. The experimental data were compared with that obtained from bioreactor aerated with air and unsparged bioreactor. The results showed that the concentration of biomass is 0.36 g l -1  in sparged bioreactor with CO2/air, while, the concentration of biomass reached to 0.069 g l -1  in the unsparged bioreactor. They showed also that aerated  ioreactor.with CO2/air gives more biomass production even the bioreactor was aerated with air. This study proved that application of sparging system for  ultivation of Chlorella vulgaris microalgae using either CO2/air mixture or air has a significant

In this study, the flexural performance of a new composite beam–slab system filled with concrete material was investigated, where this system was mainly prepared from lightweight cold-formed steel sections of a beam and a deck slab for carrying heavy floor loads as another concept of a conventional composite system with a lower cost impact. For this purpose, seven samples of a profile steel sheet–dry board deck slab (PSSDB/PDS) carried by a steel cold-formed C-purlins beam (CB) were prepared and named “composite CBPDS specimen”, which were tested under a static bending load. Specifically, the effects of the profile steel sheet (PSS) direction (parallel or perpendicular to the span of the specimen) using different C-purlins c

Introduction and Aim: Cancers are a complex group of genetic illnesses that develop through multistep, mutagenic processes which can invade or spread throughout the body. Recent advances in cancer treatment involve oncolytic viruses to infect and destroy cancer cells. The Newcastle disease virus (NDV), an oncolytic virus has shown to have anti-cancer effects either directly by lysing cancer cells or indirectly by activating the immune system. The green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been widely used in studying the anti-tumor activity of oncolytic viruses. This study aimed to study the anticancer effect of a recombinant rNDV-GFP clone on NCI-H727 lung carcinoma cell line in vitro.   Materials and Methods: The GFP gene was inserted t

As a result of rapid industrialization and population development, toxic chemicals have been introduced into water systems in recent decades. Because of its excellent efficiency and simple design, the three-dimensional (3D) electro-Fenton method has been used for the treatment of wastewater. The goal of the current study is to explore the efficiency of phenol removal by the 3D electro-Fenton process, which is one of the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). In the present work, the effect of the addition of granular activated carbon (GAC) particles to the electro-Fenton system as the third electrode would be investigated in the presence of graphite as the anode and nickel foam as the cathode, which is the source of electro-generated hydrogen

 A particle swarm optimization algorithm and neural network like self-tuning PID controller for CSTR system is presented. The scheme of the discrete-time PID control structure is based on neural network and tuned the parameters of the PID controller by using a particle swarm optimization PSO technique as a simple and fast training algorithm. The proposed method has advantage that it is not necessary to use a combined structure of identification and decision because it used PSO. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive PID neural control algorithm in terms of minimum tracking error and smoothness control signal obtained for non-linear dynamical CSTR system.

   The aim of this paper is to present the first record of ctenophore species Pleurobrachia pileus (O. F. Müller, 1776) in the coral reef as was recently found in Iraqi marine waters. The specimens were collected from two sites, the first was in Khor Abdullah during May 2015, and the second site was located in the pelagic water of the coral reef area, near the Al-Basrah deep sea crude oil marine loading terminal. Three samples were collected at this site during May 2015, February and March 2018 which showed that P. pileus were present at a densities of 3.0, 2.2 and 0.55 ind./ m³ respectively. The species can affect on the abundance of other zooplankton community through predation.

            Spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of copper(II) ion. Synthesized (2,2[O-Tolidine-4,4-bis azo]bis[4,5-diphenyl imidazole]) (MBBAI) was used as chromogenic reagent at pH=5. Various factors affecting complex formation, such as, pH effect, reagent concentration, time effect and temperature effect, have been considered and studied. Under optimum conditions concentration ranged from (5.00-80.00) µg/mL of copper(II) obeyed Beer`s Low. Maximum absorption of the complex was 409nm with molar absorpitivity 0.127x10⁴ L mol^-1 cm^-1. Limit of detection(LOD) and Limit of quantification were 1.924 and 6.42 μg/mL, respectively.