Fabrication of porous clay refractory insulating specimens from Iraqi kaolin with different percentage of Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) waste crumbs additions were investigated. After mixing and forming by hand molding, the specimens was dried and fired at 1300 oC. The structural, physical, mechanical and thermal properties of the refractory insulating products were measured. Maximum addition of EPS (1.25 wt%) lead to reduce the linear shrinkage to less than 1.7% and increased apparent porosity up to 50 %. As well as, the density, Modulus of rupture and thermal conductivity were reduced to 1.39 g/cm3, 4.1 MPa and 0.21 W/m.K, respectively. The final outcome, addition of EPS showed good results in the formation of pores without distorting the

Furfural is a toxic aromatic aldehyde that can cause a severe environmental problem especially the wastewater drown from petroleum refinery units. In the present work, a useless by-product from local furniture manufacturing industry; sawdust was used as raw material for the preparation of activated carbon which is chemically activated with phosphoric acid. The effect of adsorption variables which include initial pH of solution (2-9), agitation speed (50-250) rpm, agitation time (15-120) min, initial concentration of furfural (50-250) ppm, and amount of adsorbent material (0.5-2.5) g for the three adsorbents used (prepared activated carbon, commercial activated carbon and raw sawdust) were investigated in a batch process

The effects of short-range correlation on elastic Coulomb (charge) form factors, charge density distributions as well as root mean square charge radii of various  nuclei (for instance, ^{46, 48, 50}Ti, ^{52, 54}Cr, ^{56, 58}Fe, and ^{72, 74, 76}Ge nuclei) are examined. The one- and two body terms of the cluster expansion together with the single-particle harmonic oscillator wave functions are utilized. For the purpose of embedding these effects into the formulae of charge density  and form factor  we employ the correlation function of Jastrow-type. These formulae depend upon the short-range correlation parameter  (which instigates from the Jastr

         Seventy five E. coli isolates were collected from urine of patients with urinary tract infections in AL-Kadhimia and AL-Yarmook teaching hospitals in Baghdad for a period between 22/11/2009 to 15/3/2010,  from these samples twenty five isolates were selected according to their pattern of the highest resistance as these showing multi-drug resistances and tested to specify their minimum inhibitory concentration for (meropenem, gentamicin and amikacin), meropenem was found having the lowest MIC comparing with others. This study also includes in vitro effects of various combinations of three types of antimicrobials (meropenem, gentamicin and amikacin) against twenty five E. c

Background: In recent years, the multidrug-resistant (MDR) Escherichia coli has increased in urinary tract infections (UTIs). One of the highly distributed chromosomally encoded traits of resistance is efflux pump. The current study aimed to investigate the most common members of 5 classes of efflux pumps among uropathogenic E. coil isolates.

Methodology: E. coli isolates were isolated using conventional bacteriology tests   and confirmed by the uidA gene. An antibiotic susceptibility test has been done against 25 antibiotics using disc diffusion method. Efflux pump genes have been examined via polymerase chain reaction. Biofilm formation was investigated by a

The complexation between folic acid and a typical polyaromatic hydrocarbon, fluorene, was investigated using FTIR and UV spectra. Appearance of a new IR band at 2401cm−1 demonstrates that NH2–C=N moiety on pterin ring in folic acid is protonated when fluorene is introduced. The emergence of two charge transfer bands at 217 nm and 278 nm in UV difference spectra shows the presence of π-π complexation between folic acid and fluorene. These experiments confirm that fluorene could combine with the pterin ring of folic acid through π-π donor–acceptor interaction and induce the protonation process in folic acid upon strengthening electron accepting ability of pterin ring. The results suggest that complexatio

This study investigated the potential of bacterial culture in bioremediation of gasoline pollutant soils. Klebsiella pneumoniae has shown a tremendous ability in bioremediation of gasoline. K.pneumoniae was isolated from three electrical generator pollutant soils with gasoline in different regions from Baghdad (Abu-Graib, Al-Khadra quarter and Al-Seleikh region. Bacteria was isolated and identified according to biochemical tests, with optimum temperature at 35°C and pH=5.
FTIR spectrum was tested the ability of the K.pneumoniae to biodegrade the gasoline according to the peak areas, which appeared and referred to degrade amino compounds at wave number 3000 cm-1 (2955.23, 2923.47) which refer to the C-H with amines compounds and decre