Microbiological contamination by fungi impacts the quality and safety of wheat grain storage. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of cold plasma in restricting the growth of the fungus, Aspergillus niger, which was isolated from wheat grains. A dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) operating at atmospheric pressure generated cold plasma that was used to treat the fungus, and the impact of this treatment was investigated at various periods 1, 2, 4, 6, and 15 minutes. The results revealed a highly significant decrease in the growth and number of spores of Aspergillus niger compared to the controls. This study revealed an efficient technique for enhancing wheat grain storage that could be a foundation for further large-scale studies.
The current study was designed to investigate the effect of Tilletia smut spores on histopathological changes in liver and kidney in mice. Twenty animals were divided into two equal groups, 10 mice each, control group fed on normal diet and the treated groups were fed on a mixture of 50% normal diet with 50% wheat infected with Tilletia for 30 days. Histopathological sections taken from liver and kidney treated with Tilletia revealed several alterations. The changes in liver included, multiple granulomatous lesions, area of coagulation necrosis, vacuolar degeneration in the cytoplasm of hepatocytes, proliferation of hepatocytes with formation of pseudolobull which initiates for procancer. Whereas in the kidney, the changes included
... Show MoreFeedback on students’ assignments can be done in many different ways. Nowadays, the growing number of students at universities has increased the burden on the instructors to give feedback on students’ writings quickly and efficiently. As such, new methods of modern online automated feedback tools, such as Hemingway app and ecree,are used to assist and help instructors. Hence, this research is an explanatory study to examine the effect of using the online automated feedback on some Iraqi EFL learners’ writings at the university level. The study comprised 60 students enrolled in an English language course at the University of Anbar. They were divided randomly into two groups, experi
... Show MoreNon thermal argon plasma needle at atmospheric pressure was generated. The experimental set up is based on very simple and low cost electric components that generate electrical field sufficiently high at the electrodes to ionize various gases, which flow at atmospheric pressure. The high d.c power supply is 7.5kV peak to peak, the frequency of the electrical field is 28kHz, and the plasma power less than 15W. The plasma is generated using only one electrode. In the present work the voltage and current discharge waveform are measured. Also the temperature of the working Ar gas at different gas flow and distances from the plasma electrode tip was recorded
The focus of this work is on systematically understanding the effects of packing density of the sand grains on both the internal and bulk mechanical properties for strip footing interacting with granular soil. The studies are based on particle image velocimetry (PIV) method, coupled with a high resolution imaging camera. This provides valuable new insights on the evolution of slip planes at grain-scale under different fractions of the ultimate load. Furthermore, the PIV based results are compared with finite element method simulations in which the experimentally characterised parameters and constitutive behaviour are fed as an input, and a good level of agreements are obtained. The reported results would serve to the practicing engineers, r
... Show MoreTo find out a simple and efficient equation to estimate maize ear grain weight on farm (in situ), twenty three maize crosses along with two synthetics were grown in the field. On the experimental farm of the Dept. of Field Crop Sci., College of Agric., Univ. of Baghdad, seeds of twenty five maize genotypes were grown in the fall season of 2013 with three replicates. At dough stage of the kernels, five naked ears of each experimental units were measured for length and maximum diameter. This will sum up 125 ears of the trial. The volumes of ears were calculated as cylinder (length× r2× 3.1416). Grain weight of all ears were determined after harvesting and drying to 15% grain moisture. A constant was calculated by dividing ear grain weight b
... Show MoreThis paper presents the electrical behavior of the top contact/ bottom gate of an organic field-effect transistor (OFET) utilizing Pentacene as a semiconductor layer with two distinctive gate dielectric materials Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and Zirconium oxide (ZrO2) were chosen. The influence of the monolayer and bilayer gates insulator on OFET performance was investigated. MATLAB software was used to simulate and determine the electrical characteristics of a device. The output and transfer characteristics were studied for ZrO2, PVP and ZrO2/PVP as an organic gate insulator layer. Both characteristics show a high drain current at the gate dielectric ZrO2/PVP equal to -0.0031A and -0.0015A for output and transfer characteristics respectively
... Show MoreEuphemisms are advantageous in people’s social life by turning sensitive into a more acceptable ones so that resentful feelings and embarrassment can be avoided. This study investigates the ability of Iraqi English learners in using euphemistic expressions, meanwhile, raising their awareness and the faculty members in English teaching faculties regarding the relevance of discussing the topics that demand euphemisation. This study comprised three stages: initial test, explicit instruction with activities, and a final test for the students’ development in this domain. A test has been distributed among 50 respondents, who are at the fourth year of their undergraduate study at the University of Babylon/ College of Basic Education. The lo
... Show MoreIn this work, two cone-inverted cylindrical and cross-hybrid dielectric resonator antennas are stacked and excited by the coaxial probe method with an operating standard resonant frequency of 5.438 GHz. A drawback of these standard Dielectric Resonator Antennas (DRAs) is their narrow bandwidth. For good antenna performance, a stacked DR geometry and a thick dielectric substrate having a low dielectric constant are desired since this provides large bandwidth, better radiation power, reduces conductor loss and nonappearance of surface waves. Many approaches, such as changing the shape of the dielectric resonator, have been used to enhance bandwidth. Using DRA, having the lowest dielectric constant, increases the bandwidth and the electroma
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