A piezoelectric cantilever beam with a tip mass at its free end is a common energy harvester configuration. This article introduces a new principle of designing such a harvester that increases the generated power without changing the resonance frequency of the harvester: the attraction force between two permanent magnets is used to add stiffness to the system. This magnetic stiffening counters the effect of the tip mass on the efficient operation frequency. Five set-ups incorporating piezoelectric bimorph cantilevers of the same type in different mechanical configurations are compared theoretically and experimentally to investigate the feasibility of this principle: theoretical and experimental results show that magnetically stiffened harve

Writing plays an effective role in developing one's thinking and
enhancing Learning. It is, in fact, a means of widening one's own views about
the world for the numerous uses that it can serve (Samuel, 1988:28).
In regard to the unquestionable significance of writing in the teaching –
Learning process, the traditional approach seems to be far from being able to
put such significance into practice. Traditionalists give priority to formulating
students' ideas before using prescribed rhetorical framework and then
submitting the written product for grading. Emphasis is, therefore, limited to the
prewriting stage where a certain topic is explored, and the role of the teacher is
confined to assigning the topic and

This paper presents a complete design and implementation of a monitoring system for the operation of the three-phase induction motors. This system is built using a personal computer and  two types of sensors (current, vibration) to detect some of the mechanical faults that may occur in the motor. The study and examination of several types of faults including (ball bearing and shaft misalignment faults) have been done through the extraction of fault data by using fast Fourier transform (FFT) technique. Results showed that the motor current signature analysis (MCSA) technique, and measurement of vibration technique have high possibility in the detection and diagnosis of most mechanical faults with high accuracy. Subsequently, diagnosi

A total of 37 Staphylococcus epidermidis isolates, isolated from corneal scraping of patients with bacterial keratitis and 20 isolates from healthy eyes (as control) (all isolates, isolated from, Ibn Al- Haietham eye hospital / Baghdad), were tested for slime production, 52.63% of all isolates were positive-slime production (23 isolates from patients and 7 isolates from controls). It was found that positive-slime producing S. epidermidis were exhibited a high resistance to antibiotics as compared to negative-slime producing isolates.

The purpose of this preliminary study is to verify the possibility of using Iraqi Zahdi date palm biomass as a resource for biogas production, methane in particular using thermophilic anaerobic digestion with waste water treatment activated sludge. Moreover, is to investigate the influence of extra nutrients addition to the digestion mixture. Biogas was captured in sealed jars with remote sensing modules connected to computer with integrated program to record the gas pressure continuously. A total gas pressure with 67% Methane was produced from date pulp waste fermentation with a yield of 0.57 Lit for each gram volatile solid of substrate. Addition of 1% yeast extract solution as nutrient increased Methane yield in liters by 5.9%. This i

The solar photocatalytic degradation of diuron, which is one of the herbicides, has been studied by a solar pilot plant in heterogeneous solar photocatalysis with titanium dioxide. The pilot plant was made up of compound parabolic collectors specially designed for solar photocatalytic applications. The influence of different variables such as, H2O2 initial concentration, TiO2 initial concentration, and diuron initial concentration with their relationship to the degradation efficiency were studied. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) found to increase the rate of diuron degradation. The best removal efficiency of heterogeneous solar photocatalytic TiO2 system was found to be 46.65 % and for heterogeneous solar photocatalytic TiO2/ H2O2 system was fo

  The electrical properties of Poly (ethylene oxide)-MnCl2 Composites were studied by using the impedance technique. The study was carried out as a function of frequency in the range from 10 Hz to 13 MHz and MnCl2 salt concentration ranged from 0% to 20% by weight. It was found that the dielectric constants and the dielectric loss of the prepared films increase with the increase of the MnCl2 concentration; The A.C. conductivity increases with the increase of the applied frequency, and the MnCl2 content in the composite membrane. Relaxation processes were observed to take place for composites which have a high salt concentration. The observed relaxation and polarization effects of the composite are mainly attributed to the dielectric