Understanding the compatibility between spider silk and conducting materials is essential to advance the use of spider silk in electronic applications. Spider silk is tough, but becomes soft when exposed to water. Here we report a strong affinity of amine-functionalised multi-walled carbon nanotubes for spider silk, with coating assisted by a water and mechanical shear method. The nanotubes adhere uniformly and bond to the silk fibre surface to produce tough, custom-shaped, flexible and electrically conducting fibres after drying and contraction. The conductivity of coated silk fibres is reversibly sensitive to strain and humidity, leading to proof-of-concept sensor and actuator demonstrations.
At the heart of every robust economy is a vital banking system. The functional banking system can effectively perform several functions such as mobilizing savings, allocating credit, monitoring managers, transforming risks, and facilitating the financial transactions. This paper aims to measure the impact of banking system development on economic growth in Iraq. Credit to private sector divided by GDP used as a proxy of banking development. Real per capita GDP used as a proxy of economic growth. By using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, the paper finds that the undeveloped Iraqi banking system could not promote economic growth in the country. Therefore, a variety of policies need to be taken to spur the role of bankin
... Show MoreThe present study involves experimental analysis of the modified Closed Wet Cooling Tower (CWCT) based on first and second law of thermodynamics, to gain a deeper knowledge in this important field of engineering in Iraq. For this purpose, a prototype of CWCT optimized by added packing under a heat exchanger was designed, manufactured and tested for cooling capacity of 9 kW. Experiments are conducted to explore the effects of various operational and conformational parameters on the towers thermal performance. In the test section, spray water temperature and both dry bulb temperature and relative humidity of air measured at intermediate points of the heat exchanger and packing. Exergy of water and air were calculated by applying the exergy
... Show MoreFinding a new source of resistance is important to reduce the use of synthetic pesticides, which can meet the global need of suppressing pollution. In this study, the resistance of eight eggplant cultivars to Aphis gossypii was evaluated. Results of the current study highlighted that the cultivar Long-Green has a very strong resistance after 14 days post infestation whereas Pearl-Round and White-Casper cultivars were susceptible. The rest of the tested cultivars (Green-oblong, Purple-panter, Paris, Ashbilia, and Barcelona) had mild resistance. Also, the study found significant differences between the infested and non-infested plants among the tested cultivars in the plant’s height, fresh-, and dry-weight. The susceptible cultivars
... Show MoreThe article considers the language of the mass media as a synthesis of the language means of all other styles of language. It is alleged that the newspaper and journalistic language actively uses foreign words and elements of words, replenishing the vocabulary of the language. It is noted that the lexical-semantic system of language is sensitive to socio-economic, political, cultural and scientific-technical changes. Attention is focused on the fact that one of the reasons that affect the change in the lexical composition of the language are the mass media. Thus, the language of the media is characterized by the use of a variety of neutral vocabulary, which, in conjunction with other words in atypical combinations for it, can acquire additi
... Show MoreObjectives. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of nonnutritive sucking habits on the presence of oral Escherichia coli. Methods. One hundred and twenty children aged 3–5 years old were enrolled in the present case-control study, as follows: 60 children with continuous pacifier and thumb sucking habits (study group) and 60 children without any sucking habits (control group). The children in the two groups were matched in terms of age and gender. Information was gathered from the parents concerning their children using a special sheet. Sterile swabs were taken from both groups and cultured on agar plates. Then, they were subjected to further biochemical tests to identify E. coli species. The mean of the E. coli count was determ
... Show MoreThis paper proposes a completion that can allow fracturing four zones in a single trip in the well called “Y” (for confidential reasons) of the field named “X” (for confidential reasons). The steps to design a well completion for multiple fracturing are first to select the best completion method then the required equipment and the materials that it is made of. After that, the completion schematic must be drawn by using Power Draw in this case, and the summary installation procedures explained. The data used to design the completion are the well trajectory, the reservoir data (including temperature, pressure and fluid properties), the production and injection strategy. The results suggest that multi-stage hydraulic fracturing can
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Students’ feedback is crucial for educational institutions to assess the performance of their teachers, most opinions are expressed in their native language, especially for people in south Asian regions. In Pakistan, people use Roman Urdu to express their reviews, and this applied in the education domain where students used Roman Urdu to express their feedback. It is very time-consuming and labor-intensive process to handle qualitative opinions manually. Additionally, it can be difficult to determine sentence semantics in a text that is written in a colloquial style like Roman Urdu. This study proposes an enhanced word embedding technique and investigates the neural word Embedding (Word2Vec and Glove) to determine which perfo
... Show MoreA new pavement technology has been developed in Highway engineering: asphalt pavement production is less susceptible to oxidation and the consequent damages. The warm mix asphalt (WMA) is produced at a temperature of about (10-40) oC lower than the hot asphalt paving. This is done using one of the methods of producing a WMA. Although WMA's performance is rather good, according to previous studies, as it is less susceptible to oxidation, it is possible to modify some of its properties using different materials, including polymers. Waste tires of vehicles are one of the types of polymers because of their flexible properties. The production of HMA, WMA, and WMA modified with proportions of (1, 1.5, and 2%) of rub
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