A compact microstrip six-port reflectometer (SPR) with extended bandwidth is proposed in this paper. The design is based on using 16-dB multi-section coupled line directional couplers and a multi-section 3-dB Wilkinson power divider operating from 1 to 6 GHz. The proposed SPR employs only two calibration standards: a matched load and an open load. As compared to other dielectric substrates, fabricating the proposed SPR involves using a low-cost (FR4) substrate. A novel algorithm is also proposed to estimate the complex reflection coefficient over the frequency ranges at which the standard performance of the circuit components is not fully satisfied. The new algorithm is based on the circles’ intersection points, which have been derived from basic SPR equations, to estimate the complex reflection coefficient. To validate the SPR performance, a multiband microstrip patch antenna has been measured and the resulted reflection coefficient is compared with those obtained using a vector network analyzer (VNA). Results show that the proposed SPR provides a good estimation of the complex reflection coefficient within the frequency range of 1 GHz to 8 GHz. Owing to its compact size and ease of fabrication, the proposed reflectometer is suitable for various microwave broadband applications.
Background: Secretory Immunoglobulin A (SIgA) is a subclass of Immunoglobulin A (IgA), It is an antibody that plays an important role in mucosal immunity. It is the main immunoglobulin found in mucous secretions from mammary glands, tear glands and salivary glands, every pathologic process in the body involves the immune system, and periodontal inflammation is one of them and is not an exception. Material and methods: this study was consisted of 60 healthy male participants of an age ranged between (35-50) years old ; 25 of them with generalized moderate chronic periodontists(Clinical Attachment Loss equal to 3-4mm at ≥ 30% of the sites; 20 participants with plaque induced gingivitis and 15 participants had clinically healthy pe
... Show MoreThere is a continuous and massive need for newer cephalosporins that should have resistance against β-lactamases and can be used orally. An approach of using cephalexin, as a well-studied and potent antibacterial compound is considered to prepare new designed derivatives. These derivatives include the incorporation of amino acid moiety linked through an amide bond with the α-amino group of cephalexin. Certain aliphatic amino acids were used, such as glycine, alanine, valine and proline. The chemical structures of these derivatives were confirmed by IR spectroscopy and elemental analyses. All the synthesized compounds were subjected for preliminary evaluation of antimicrobial activity using well diffusion method, against certa
... Show MoreSurface electromyography (sEMG) and accelerometer (Acc) signals play crucial roles in controlling prosthetic and upper limb orthotic devices, as well as in assessing electrical muscle activity for various biomedical engineering and rehabilitation applications. In this study, an advanced discrimination system is proposed for the identification of seven distinct shoulder girdle motions, aimed at improving prosthesis control. Feature extraction from Time-Dependent Power Spectrum Descriptors (TDPSD) is employed to enhance motion recognition. Subsequently, the Spectral Regression (SR) method is utilized to reduce the dimensionality of the extracted features. A comparative analysis is conducted between the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) class
... Show MoreA Mini-TEA CO2 laser system was designed and operated to obtain a pulse at 10.6 μm. Output energy of 30 mJ, with preionization pins, and pulse duration of 100ns were obtained. While an output energy of 6mJ and pulse duration of 100 ns in absence of pre-ionization were obtained. The system was operated with Ernest profile main-discharge electrodes. Dependencies of supply voltage and output laser energy on the pressure inside laser cavity were investigated as well as dependencies of supply voltage and output energy on the main capacitor(8CO2 : 8N2 : 82He :2CO). Efficiency of was calculated to be 4.4%.
Cloth simulation and animation has been the topic of research since the mid-80's in the field of computer graphics. Enforcing incompressible is very important in real time simulation. Although, there are great achievements in this regard, it still suffers from unnecessary time consumption in certain steps that is common in real time applications. This research develops a real-time cloth simulator for a virtual human character (VHC) with wearable clothing. This research achieves success in cloth simulation on the VHC through enhancing the position-based dynamics (PBD) framework by computing a series of positional constraints which implement constant densities. Also, the self-collision and collision wit
... Show MoreIn this study tungsten oxide and graphene oxide (GO-WO2.89) were successfully combined using the ultra-sonication method and embedded with polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) to prepare novel low-fouling membranes for ultrafiltration applications. The properties of the modified membranes and performance were investigated using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), contact angle (CA), water permeation flux, and bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection. It was found that the modified PPSU membrane fabricated from 0.1 wt.% of GO-WO2.89 possessed the best characteristics, with a 40.82° contact angle and 92.94% porosity. The permeation flux of the best membrane was the highest. The pure water permeation f
... Show MoreIn this study, iron was coupled with copper to form a bimetallic compound through a biosynthetic method, which was then used as a catalyst in the Fenton-like processes for removing direct Blue 15 dye (DB15) from aqueous solution. Characterization techniques were applied on the resultant nanoparticles such as SEM, BET, EDAX, FT-IR, XRD, and zeta potential. Specifically, the rounded and shaped as spherical nanoparticles were found for green synthesized iron/copper nanoparticles (G-Fe/Cu NPs) with the size ranging from 32-59 nm, and the surface area was 4.452 m2/g. The effect of different experimental factors was studied in both batch and continuous experiments. These factors were H2O2 concentration, G-Fe/CuNPs amount, pH, initial DB15
... Show MoreThe current study aims to develop a teaching design in accordance with cluster thinking strategies and explore the effect of this teaching design on students’ achievement in science. To this end, the null hypothesis was adopted: there is no statistically significant difference at the level of (0, 05) between experimental group who adopted the teaching design in learning science and control group who follow the traditional method in learning the same subject. To test the null hypothesis, total of (74) students from Al-Alaama Hussain Mahfooth intermediate school were selected intentionally for the academic year 2016-2017. The sample divided into two equal groups when all the variables (age, prior achievement of science,
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