Endophytic fungi live inside plants or any part of them without creating any visible pathogenic signs. Endophytic fungi are found within medicinal plants and have shown strong biologic activity, such as anticancer and antioxidant activities, as well as producing extracellular enzymes. In this study, different fungal strains were isolated from the leaves of the medicinal plant Ziziphus spina, including Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, Cladosporium sp., Rhizopus sp., and Mucor sp. Extracellular enzymes have been quantified using agar plate-based methods in which fungi were grown in specified growth media to detect the enzymes produced. The results showed that A. niger has the highest ability to produce amylase, Cladosporium sp. has the highest ability to produce protease and pectinase, Rhizopus and Mucor sp. have the highest ability to produce cellulase, and A. niger and Cladosporium sp. have the same ability to produce lipase and laccase. The ability of medicinal plant endophytic fungi to produce extracellular enzymes has great therapeutic potential in clinical microbiology. Some of the isolates showed great activity in secreting particular enzymes, indicating that the enzymes of these fungi could be used in a variety of applications.
The majority of Arab EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners struggle with speaking English fluency. Iraqi students struggle to speak English confidently due to mispronunciation, grammatical errors, short and long pauses while speaking or feeling confused in normal conversations. Collaborative learning is crucial to enhance student’s speaking skills in the long run. This study aims to state the importance of collaborative learning as a teaching method to EFL learners in the meantime. In this quantitative and qualitative study, specific focus is taken on some of Barros’s views of collaborative learning as a teamwork and some of Pattanpichet’s speaking achievements under four categories: academic benefits, social benefits,
... Show MoreIn this paper, the packing problem for complete ( 4)-arcs in is partially solved. The minimum and the maximum sizes of complete ( 4)-arcs in are obtained. The idea that has been used to do this classification is based on using the algorithm introduced in Section 3 in this paper. Also, this paper establishes the connection between the projective geometry in terms of a complete ( , 4)-arc in and the algebraic characteristics of a plane quartic curve over the field represented by the number of its rational points and inflexion points. In addition, some sizes of complete ( 6)-arcs in the projective plane of order thirteen are established, namely for = 53, 54, 55, 56.
Background: zirconium (Zr) implants are known for having an aesthetically pleasing tooth-like colour Unlike the grey cervical collar that develops over time when titanium (Ti) implants are used in thin gingival biotypes. However, the surface qualities of Zr implants can be further improved. This present study examined using thermal vapour deposition (TVD) to coat Zr implants with germanium (Ge) to improve its physical and chemical characteristics and enhance soft and hard tissue responses. Materials and methods: Zr discs were divided into two groups; the uncoated (control) group was only grit-blasted with alumina particles while the coated (experimental) group was grit-blasted then coated with Ge via TVD. Field emission scanning ele
... Show MorePoly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA)/poly(caprolactone) (PCL) and two types of organoclay (OMMT) including a fatty amide and ocatdecylamine montmorillonite (FA-MMT and ODA-MMT) were employed to produce polymer nanocomposites by melt blending. Materials were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), elemental analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Mechanical properties were also investigated for these nanocomposites. The nanocomposites showed increasing mechanical properties and thermal stability. XRD results indicated that the materials formed nanocomposites. SEM morphology showed that increasing content of OMMT reduc
... Show MoreIn this work, pure and copper mixed oxide PAni nanofiber thin films are successfully synthesized on silicon substrates by hydrothermal method and spin coating technique at room temperature with thickness of about 325 nm. The structural, surface morphological, optical and photoconductivity properties have been investigated. The XRD results showed that PAni films have crystalline nature, CuO and PAni/CuO nanostructure composites are monoclinic polycrystalline structure. The FESEM images of PAni clearly indicate that it has nanofiber-like structure, whereas the CuO film has spongelike shape. The surface morphology analysis of PAni/CuO composite shows that nanofiber caped with inorganic material which is CuO is a core-shell structure. Op
... Show More