PVA, Starch/PVA, and Starch/PVA/sugar samples of different
concentrations (10, 20, 30 and 40 % wt/wt) were prepared by casting
method. DSC analysis was carried; the results showed only one glass
transition temperature (Tg) for the samples involved, which suggest
that starch/PVA and starch/PVA/sugar blends are miscible. The
miscibility is attributed to the hydrogen bonds between PVA and
starch. This is in a good agreement with (FTIR) results. Tg and Tm
decrease with starch and sugar content compared with that for
(PVA). Systematic decrease in ultimate strength, due to starch and
sugar ratio increase, is attributed to (PVA), which has more hydroxyl
groups that made its ultimate strength higher than that for
starch/PVA, and starch/PVA/sugar blends. It is observed from water
uptake tests that the solubility time decreases with starch ratio; it is
attributed to decrease in hydroxyl groups caused by PVA ratio
decrease. The inter- and inter-molecular bonds of the hydroxyl
groups enhanced the solubility process of the starch/PVA blends in
water. The water immersion causes hydrogen bonds (inter and
intermolecular bonds) to decompose, that increases the film
solubility. Water absorption and capacity of degradability are most
important in biodegradable materials. The results suggest the samples
that have undergone investigation, can be used for shopping, and
food packaging.
The study of soil burial for the sample at (3cm) depth, and at (13cm)
depth has exhibited weight loss increase with soil burial time. The
biodegradability rapidly increases at the first (6-7) weeks; it is found
that the weight loss at (3cm) depth is greater than that at (13cm) that
was attributed to the differences in the availability of oxygen ratio. It
is found that PVA undergoes lowest weight loss, the weight loss
changes with starch, and sugar content. In dry soil, the weight loss is
lower. The results proved that the biodegradation decreases with soil
burial time after seven weeks of burial. It is concluded that the
samples involved are biodegradable material that can be used for
packaging applications and biologically friendly synthetic polymer
blends to solve the solid waste accumulation problem.
Heuristic approaches are traditionally applied to find the optimal size and optimal location of Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices in power systems. Genetic Algorithm (GA) technique has been applied to solve power engineering optimization problems giving better results than classical methods. This paper shows the application of GA for optimal sizing and allocation of a Static Compensator (STATCOM) in a power system. STATCOM devices used to increase transmission systems capacity and enhance voltage stability by regulate the voltages at its terminal by controlling the amount of reactive power injected into or absorbed from the power system. IEEE 5-bus standard system is used as an example to illustrate the te
... Show MoreThe effect of the magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) method on the temperature rise (TR), and material removal rate (MRR) has been investigated in this paper. Sixteen runs were to determine the optimum temperature in the contact area (between the abrasive powder and surface of workpiece) and the MRR according to Taguchi orthogonal array (OA). Four variable technological parameters (cutting speed, finishing time, working gap, and the current in the inductor) with four levels for each parameter were used, the matrix is known as a L16 (44) OA. The signal to noise ratio (S/N) ratio and analysis of the variance (ANOVA) were utilized to analyze the results using (MINITAB17) to find the optimum condition and identify the significant p
... Show MoreAbstract—The upper limb amputation exerts a significant burden on the amputee, limiting their ability to perform everyday activities, and degrading their quality of life. Amputee patients’ quality of life can be improved if they have natural control over their prosthetic hands. Among the biological signals, most commonly used to predict upper limb motor intentions, surface electromyography (sEMG), and axial acceleration sensor signals are essential components of shoulder-level upper limb prosthetic hand control systems. In this work, a pattern recognition system is proposed to create a plan for categorizing high-level upper limb prostheses in seven various types of shoulder girdle motions. Thus, combining seven feature groups, w
... Show MoreIn this work, an efficient energy management (EEM) approach is proposed to merge IoT technology to enhance electric smart meters by working together to satisfy the best result of the electricity customer's consumption. This proposed system is called an integrated Internet of things for electrical smart meter (2IOT-ESM) architecture. The electric smart meter (ESM) is the first and most important technique used to measure the active power, current, and energy consumption for the house’s loads. At the same time, the effectiveness of this work includes equipping ESM with an additional storage capacity that ensures that the measurements are not lost in the event of a failure or sudden outage in WiFi network. Then then these measurement
... Show MoreObjectives: The present study aims at detecting the depression among nurses who provide care for infected patients with corona virus phenomenon and to find out relationships between the depression and their demographic characteristics of age, gender, marital status, type of family, education, and years of experience of nurses in heath institutions, infection by corona virus, and their participation in training courses.
Methodology: A descriptive study is established for a period from October 10th, 2020 to April 15th, 2021. The study is conducted on a purposive (non-probability) sample of (100) nurse who are providing care for patients with COVID-19 and they are selected from the isolation wards. The instrument of the study is develope
Sewer sediment deposition is an important aspect as it relates to several operational and environmental problems. It concerns municipalities as it affects the sewer system and contributes to sewer failure which has a catastrophic effect if happened in trunks or interceptors. Sewer rehabilitation is a costly process and complex in terms of choosing the method of rehabilitation and individual sewers to be rehabilitated. For such a complex process, inspection techniques assist in the decision-making process; though, it may add to the total expenditure of the project as it requires special tools and trained personnel. For developing countries, Inspection could prohibit the rehabilitation proceeds. In this study, the researchers propos
... Show MoreEvaporation is one of the major components of the hydrological cycle in the nature, thus its accurate estimation is so important in the planning and management of the irrigation practices and to assess water availability and requirements. The aim of this study is to investigate the ability of fuzzy inference system for estimating monthly pan evaporation form meteorological data. The study has been carried out depending on 261 monthly measurements of each of temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), and wind speed (W) which have been available in Emara meteorological station, southern Iraq. Three different fuzzy models comprising various combinations of monthly climatic variables (temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity) were developed
... Show MoreObjectives: This study aimed to identify and study most properties of the specific and general health-related
quality-of-life (HRQoL) in prostate cancer patients, as well as creating a new measurement scale for assessing QoL
among prostate cancer patients.
Methodology: A cross sectional (descriptive) study was conducted to evaluate General Quality of life in patients
with prostate cancer. A sample of 100 prostate cancer patients from Al-Amal National hospital for cancer
management and Oncology Center in Baghdad Medical City. This study applied format of General World Health
Organization Quality of Life-BERF questionnaire. The methods used descriptive statistics to evaluate the General
QoL-Improvements, as well as inf