When the depth of stressed soil is rather small, Plate Load Test (PLT) becomes the most efficient test to estimate the soil properties for design purposes. Among these properties, modulus of subgrade reaction is the most important one that usually employed in roads and concrete pavement design. Two methods are available to perform PLT: static and dynamic methods. Static PLT is usually adopted due to its simplicity and time saving to be performs in comparison with cyclic (dynamic) method. The two methods are described in ASTM standard.

In this paper the effect of the test method used in PLT in estimation of some mechanical soil properties was distinguished via a series of both test methods applied in a same site. The comparison of

The Leishmania donovani parasite causes visceral leishmaniasis (VL), an acute and fatal form of leishmaniasis. Because traditional therapy alternatives, such as glucantime and other pentavalent medicines, are toxic and have side effects, new treatments with fewer negative effects are needed. Only a handful of drugs are clinically beneficial to treatments of the disease, but considerable limitations threaten their very usage. Novel, safe, and efficient drugs, including those against antimalaria and leishmaniasis co-infections, are so essential. Artemether (ATM) is an Artemisinin derivative that has been demonstrated to be useful in the treatment of malaria and, more recently, leishmaniasis. The current research was carried out to evaluate th

In the present study rice microsatellite marker (RM 171) was used to evaluate the genetic diversity and determining cultivar identity among ten rice varieties (oryza sativa L.) (Seven local and three commercial varieties). PCR technique was performed using two specific primers. The result showed presence of a band (305bp) DNA sequencing was done to PCR product to detect sequence variation between the ten rice varieties. In order to detect the relationship among all varieties, alignment of RM171 marker sequence was carried out for each variety. Amber and Daawat varieties showed the highest similarity with 98% identity, while the difference (2%) consists of two gaps and two transition mutations (T/C) and (C/T). Furthermore, Amber was align

 Throughout the centuries, several incidents of mercury toxicity have been reported. Mercury is found in many industries such as battery, thermometer and barometer manufacturing, in the agricultural industry is used in fungicides and in medicine, mercury is used in dental amalgams. An important mechanism involved in cellular injury is induced by exposure to different forms of mercury involves in the induction of oxidative stress.      This study was conducted on non-smoker, male working in a chloroalkali plant for different periods, all workers were not suffering from chronic disease. Healthy non-smoker males that are not exposed, matched age were used as controls(C), workers aged (22-61) years, they were di

The class of quasi semi -convex functions and pseudo semi -convex functions are presented in this paper by combining the class of -convex functions with the class of quasi semi -convex functions and pseudo semi -convex functions, respectively. Various non-trivial examples are introduced to illustrate the new functions and show their relationships with -convex functions recently introduced in the literature. Different general properties and characteristics of this class of functions are established. In addition, some optimality properties of generalized non-linear optimization problems are discussed. In this generalized optimization problems, we used, as the objective function, quasi semi -convex (respectively, strictly quasi semi -convex

Incorporating waste byproducts into concrete is an innovative and promising way to minimize the environmental impact of waste material while maintaining and/or improving concrete’s mechanical characteristics and strength. The proper application of sawdust as a pozzolan in the building industry remains a significant challenge. Consequently, this study conducted an experimental evaluation of sawdust as a fill material. In particular, sawdust as a fine aggregate in concrete offers a realistic structural and economical possibility for the construction of lightweight structural systems. Failure under four-point loads was investigated for six concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) specimens. The results indicated that recycled lightweight co

The synthesis of gold nanoparticles AuNPs was achievedby the reduction of sodium tetrachloroaurate (III) (NaAuCl4) with ceftriaxone sodium (CR) in aqueous solutionswithout the use of other reducing agent. The effect of reactants concentration, temperature and pH on the sizes and morphology of AuNPs were also studied. The synthesized AuNPs were characterized by UV- visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and atomic force microscope (AFM) analysis. Conjugation of antibiotic with the nanoparticles was characterized by FTIR spectrophotometry.

Background: Oxidative stress is a deleterious process that can be an important mediator of damage to cell structures and consequently various disease states. Exposure to free radicals from a variety of sources has led organisms to produce a series of defense mechanisms. The antioxidant ceruloplasmin is a copper-containing ferroxidase that can oxidize ferrous iron (Fe2+) to its nontoxic ferric (Fe3+) form. Ferrous iron (Fe2+) is extremely damaging because of its ability to generate toxic free radicals. Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic inflammatory oral mucosal disease of unknown etiology. Previous studies reported that reactive oxygen species may be involved in the pathogenesis of lichen planus. The aim of this study was to estimate the