The global rise in temperature and the desert climatic conditions prevalent in Middle Eastern countries have exacerbated rutting distress in heavily trafficked highways. Conventional asphalt binders with a high-temperature performance grade (PG 70) have proven inadequate under such extreme conditions, necessitating the development of modified binders with enhanced high-temperature performance. While polymer modification using styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS), an elastomeric polymer, and ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), a plastomeric polymer, has been widely studied, limited research provides a direct comparison of their effectiveness at both the binder and mixture levels under extremely high-temperature conditions. This study addresses this gap

Background: A global health concern is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The use of bacteriophages is one of the many novel control strategies against MRSA that are frequently sought. However, it is quite challenging to isolate enough lytic anti-MRSA phages. In order to extract, optimize, and remodel anti-MRSA phages, this study sought novel approaches.

Methods: Two ATCC MRSA strains and nine clinical MRSA isolates were used to isolate wild anti-MRSA phages from hospital settings, dirt, and sewage. The wild phages were optimized using plaque-based biokinetic techniques. Usi

Prodigiosin is a ‘natural red pigment produced by Serratia marcescens which exhibits immunosuppressive and anticancer properties in addition to antimicrobial activities. This work presents an attempt to maximize the production of prodigiosin by two different strategies: one factor at time (OFAT) and statistical optimization. The result of OFAT revealed that sucrose and peptone were the best carbon and nitrogen sources for pigment production with concentration of prodigiosin of about 135 mg/ L. This value was increased to 331.6mg/ L with an optimized ratio of C/N (60:40) and reached 356.8 with pH 6 and 2% inoculum size at end of classical optimization. Statistical experimental design based on Response surface methodology was co

Previously, many empirical models have been used to predict corrosion rates under different CO₂ corrosion parameters conditions. Most of these models did not predict the corrosion rate exactly, besides it determined effects of variables by holding some variables constant and changing the values of other variables to obtain the regression model. As a result the experiments will be large and cost too much. In this paper response surface methodology (RSM) was proposed to optimize the experiments and reduce the experimental running. The experiments studied effects of temperature (40 – 60 °C), pH (3-5), acetic acid (HAc) concentration (1000-3000 ppm) and rotation speed (1000-1500 rpm) on CO₂ corrosion performance of t

Summary The aim of this study is the evaluation the resistance of S. marcescence obtained from soil and water to metals chlorides (Zn+2, Hg+2, Fe+2, Al+3, and Pb+2). Four isolates, identified as Serratia marcescence and S. marcescena (S4) were selected for this study according to their resistance to five heavy metals. The ability of S. marcescena (S4) to grow in different concentrations of metals chloride (200-1200 µg/ml) was tested, the highest concentration that S. marcescence (S4) tolerate was 1000 µg/ml for Zn+2, Hg+2, Fe+2, AL+3, pb+2 and 300 µg/ml for Hg+2 through 24 hrs incubation at 37 Co. The effects of temperature and pH on bacteria growth during 72 hrs were also studied. S. marcescence (S4) was affected by ZnCl2, PbCl2, FeC12

Brainstorming has been a common approach in many industries where the result is not always accurate, especially when procuring automobile spare parts. This approach was replaced with a scientific and optimized method that is highly reliable, hence the decision to optimize the inventory inflation budget based on spare parts and miscellaneous costs of the typical automobile industry. Some factors required to achieve this goal were investigated. Through this investigation, spare parts (consumables and non-consumables) were found to be mostly used in Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing (IVM), Nigeria but incorporated miscellaneous costs to augment the cost of spare parts. The inflation rate was considered first due to the market's

This paper studies the effect of mean wind velocity on tall building. Wind velocity, wind profile and wind pressure have been considered as a deterministic phenomenon. Wind velocity has been modelled as a half-sinusoidal wave. Three exposures have been studied B, C, and D. Wind pressure was evaluated by equation that joined wind pressure with mean wind velocity, air density, and drag coefficient.

Variations of dynamic load factor for building tip displacement and building base shear were studied for different building heights, different mode shapes, different terrain exposures, and different aspect ratios of building plan. SAP software, has been used in modelling and dynamic analysis for all case studies.

In this work the production of activated carbon (AC) from Imperata is done by microwave assisted Potassium hydroxide (KOH) activation and using this activated carbon for the purpose of the uptake of amoxicillin (AMX) by adsorption process from aqueous solution. The effects for irradiation power (450-800W), irradiation time (6-12min) as well as impregnation ratio (0.5-1 g/g) on the AMX uptake and yield AMX uptake at an initial concentration of AMX (150 mg/g). The optimum conditions were 700 W irradiation power, 10 min time of irradiation, as well as 0.8 g/g impregnation ratio with 14.821% yield and 12.456 mg/g AMX uptake. Total volume of hole and the area of the surface (BET) are 0.3027 m³/g, and 552.7638 m²/g respectively. The properti