The electrospun nanofibers membranes (ENMs) have gained great attention due to their superior performance. However, the low mechanical strength of ENMs, such as the rigidity and low strength, limits their applications in many aspects which need adequate strength, such as water filtration. This work investigates the impact of electrospinning parameters on the properties of ENMs fabricated from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) solved in N, N-Dimethylformamide (DMF). The studied electrospinning parameters were polymer concentration, solution flow rate, collector rotating speed, and the distance between the needle and collector. The fabricated ENMs were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to understand the surface morphology and estimate the average fiber sizes. The membrane porosity percentage was measured using the dry-wet weight method. Also, a dynamic mechanical analyzer was used to determine the mechanical strength properties (tensile strength and Young's modulus) (DMA). The obtained results revealed that the polymer concentration and flow rate mainly affect the porosity and fiber size in ENMs. Increasing the polymer concentration improves the strength and flexibility, while the flow rate did not show a clear effect on the mechanical strength of ENMs. Both fibers collecting speed and spinning distance did not clearly impact the membrane morphology. ENMs flexibility significantly increased with increasing the collector speed and decreasing the spinning distance. Strong and flexible ENMs with small fibers can be fabricated using 10% PAN/DMF at a flow rate of 1 mL/h, collector speed of 140 rpm, and spinning distance of 13 cm.
This paper deals with modelling and control of Euler-Bernoulli smart beam interacting with a fluid medium. Several distributed piezo-patches (actuators and/or sensors) are bonded on the surface of the target beam. To model the vibrating beam properly, the effect of the piezo-patches and the hydrodynamic loads should be taken into account carefully. The partial differential equation PDE for the target oscillating beam is derived considering the piezo-actuators as input controls. Fluid forces are decomposed into two components: 1) hydrodynamic forces due to the beam oscillations, and 2) external (disturbance) hydrodynamic loads independent of beam motion. Then the PDE is discretized usi
In this paper, a description of a design for new DES block cipher, namely DES64X and DES128X. The goals of this design, a part of its security level, are large implementation flexibility on various operating systems as well as high performances. The high level structure is based on the principle of DES and Feistel schema, and proposes the design of an efficient key-schedule algorithm which will output pseudorandomsequences of subkeys. The main goal is to reach the highest possible flexibility, in terms of round numbers, key size, and block size. A comparison of the proposed systems on 32-bit, 64-bit operating system, using 32-bit and 64-bit Java Virtual Machine (JVM), showed that the latter has much better performance than the former.
... Show MoreThe detection of fungi contaminating maize grain and the effect of four plant extracts Azadirachta indica, Eucalyptus globulus Glycyrrhiza glabra and Zingiber officinale on the growth of A. flavus and its ability to produce AflatoxinB1. The results showed that the incidence of Aspergillus spp., was 52.75% of the isolated fungi, of which 29.50% was due to Aspergillus flavus, followed by Penicillium spp., with an incidence of 21.06%, and then Fusarium spp., with a rate of 18.13%. The percentage of toxin-producing A. flavus isolates reached 70.8% out of 24 isolates. The results showed the effect of alcoholic plant extracts at a concentration of 10 mg/ml on the fungal growth activity of A. flavus, the alcoholic extract of neem leaves was superi
... Show MoreCarbon dioxide (CO2) flooding is an EOR technique in which carbon dioxide is injected into the reservoir to improve the oil recovery. The reservoir oil and rock properties are altered when carbon dioxide interacts with the oil and rock present in the reservoir. Carbon dioxide injection alters the oil and rock properties by causing reduction in oil viscosity, oil swelling and wettability alteration of the rock. This paper will present a proposal to study the wettability alteration in carbonate formations during miscible carbon dioxide flooding. In miscible carbon dioxide flooding, the injection pressure of carbon dioxide would be kept above the minimum miscibility pressure. Thus carbon dioxide is miscible with the oil present in the reservoi
... Show MoreBackground: Whey protein is the green-yellow colored, liquid portion of the milk, and it is also called the cheese serum, it is obtained after the separation of curd, during the coagulation of the milk. It contains a considerable amount of α-helix pattern with an evenly distributed hydrophobic and hydrophilic as well as basic and acidic amino acids along with their polypeptide chain. The major whey protein constituents include β-lactoglobulin (β-LG),α-lactalbumin (α-LA), immunoglobulins (IG), bovine serum albumin (BSA), bovine lactoperoxidase (LP), bovine lactoferrin (BLF) and minor amounts of a glycol macro peptide (GMP). Osseointegration can be defined as a process that is immune driven which leads to the formatio
... Show MoreABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Estrogens has traditionally been known as the female hormone, but this idea has been challenged in early 1990’s and an essential physiological role for estrogen in male fertility was identified. Phytoestrogens are naturally occurring non-steroidal plant chemicals that can act like the female hormone estrogen. The herbs ( anise alfalfa and vervain ) chosen in this study contain phytoestrogens. OBJECTIVE: Previous studies demonstrated controversy of the effects of phytoestrogens on the rat testes .Hence, the present investigation was undertaken to investigate the influence of typical dose of herbs containing phytoestrogen on the rat testis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-four apparently normal mature male rats we
... Show MoreThis paper studies the behavior of axially loaded RC columns which are confined with carbon fiber reinforced polymers’ sheet (CFRP) and steel jackets (SJ). The study is based on twelve axially loaded RC columns tested up to failure. It is divided into three schemes based on its strengthening type; each scheme has four columns. The main parameters in this study were the compressive strength of the concrete and steel reinforcement ratio. Furthermore, the results of the experimental test showed a substantial enhancement in the column's load-carrying capacity. When compared to the original columns, the CFRP sheet had a significant effect on improving the ductility of the column by increasing the axial deformation by about 59.2 to 95.7
... Show MoreEnvironmental stress affects the yield of sorghum. This impact can be reduced by seed stimulation technique and determining the appropriate planting date. An experiment was conducted in the spring and fall seasons of 2022. Randomized complete block design with split-plot arrangement in four replications was used. Planting dates (spring season: February 15th, March 1st, 15th, April 1st, 15th; fall season: June 15th, July 1st, 15th, August 1st, 15th) were assigned to the main plots. Seed stimulation treatments (banana peel extract 35% + citric acid 100 mg L-1 and soaking in distilled water only) were applied to the subplots. The interaction treatment of soaking with banana peel extract + citric acid and the planting date of April 15th showed
... Show More<p>Currently, breast cancer is one of the most common cancers and a main reason of women death worldwide particularly in<strong> </strong>developing countries such as Iraq. our work aims to predict the type of tumor whether benign or malignant through models that were built using logistic regression and neural networks and we hope it will help doctors in detecting the type of breast tumor. Four models were set using binary logistic regression and two different types of artificial neural networks namely multilayer perceptron MLP and radial basis function RBF. Evaluation of validated and trained models was done using several performance metrics like accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and AUC (area under receiver ope
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