In this research, an organobentonite (HDTMA-BT) was prepared by modifying a jordanian bentonite (BT) with hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide. By means of in situ free radical polymerization in THF with AIBN as the initiator, this organobentonite is used to prepare the polymethylmethacrylate-bentonite (PMA-HDTMA-BT) nanocomposite. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were used to characterize both HDTMA-BT and PMA-HDTMA-BT. Those adsorbents were used in a batch process to remove Pb(II), Cr(III) ions, and p-chlorophenol (PCP) from aqueous solution. Investigated factors included adsorbent dosage, initial pH solution, contact time, an

KE Sharquie, AA Noaimi, AM Oweid, JSSDDS, 2009 - Cited by 2

The heavy metal cadmium is extremely harmful to both humans and animals. Zinc supplementation protects the biological system and reduces cadmium-induced toxicity. This study aimed to determine whether zinc chloride (ZnCl2) could protect male mice with the damaged liver induced by cadmium chloride (CdCl2). The protective role of zinc chloride and expression of the metallothionein (MT), Ki-67, and Bcl-2 apoptotic proteins in hepatocytes were studied after subchronic exposure of mice to cadmium chloride for 21 days. Thirty male mice were randomly categorized into 6 groups (5 mice/group) as follows: a control group that did not receive any treatment, a group given ZnCl2 at 10 mg/kg alone, and two groups received ZnCl2 (10 mg/kg) i

Steganography is a technique of concealing secret data within other quotidian files of the same or different types. Hiding data has been essential to digital information security. This work aims to design a stego method that can effectively hide a message inside the images of the video file.  In this work, a video steganography model has been proposed through training a model to hiding video (or images) within another video using convolutional neural networks (CNN). By using a CNN in this approach, two main goals can be achieved for any steganographic methods which are, increasing security (hardness to observed and broken by used steganalysis program), this was achieved in this work as the weights and architecture are randomized. Thus,

When optimizing the performance of neural network-based chatbots, determining the optimizer is one of the most important aspects. Optimizers primarily control the adjustment of model parameters such as weight and bias to minimize a loss function during training. Adaptive optimizers such as ADAM have become a standard choice and are widely used for their invariant parameter updates' magnitudes concerning gradient scale variations, but often pose generalization problems. Alternatively, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) with Momentum and the extension of ADAM, the ADAMW, offers several advantages. This study aims to compare and examine the effects of these optimizers on the chatbot CST dataset. The effectiveness of each optimizer is evaluat

The esterification reaction of ethyl alcohol and acetic acid catalyzed by the ion exchange resin, Amberlyst 15, was investigated. The experimental study was implemented in an isothermal batch reactor. Catalyst loading, initial molar ratio, mixing time and temperature as being the most effective parameters, were extensively studied and discussed. A maximum final conversion of 75% was obtained at 70°C, acid to ethyl alcohol mole ratio of 1/2 and 10 g catalyst loading. Kinetic of the reaction was correlated with Langmuir-Hanshelwood model (LHM). The total rate constant and the adsorption equilibrium of water as a function of the temperature was calculated. The activation energies were found to be as 113876.9 and -49474.95 KJ per Kmol of ac

Groundwater modelling is particularly challenging in arid regions where limited water recharge is available. A fault zone will add a significant challenge to the modelling process. The Western Desert in Iraq has been chosen to implement the modelling concept and calculate the model sensitivity to the changes in aquifer hydraulic properties and calibration by researching 102 observations and irrigation wells. MODFLOW-NWT, which is a Newtonian formulation for MODFLOW-2005 approaches, have been used in this study. Further, the simulation run has been implemented using the Upstream-Weighting package (UPW) to treat the dry cells. The results show sensitivity to the change of the Kx value for the major groundwater discharge flow. Only abo