The world is confronted with the twin crisis of fossil fuel depletion and environmental degradation caused by fossil fuel usage. Biodiesel produced from renewable feedstocks such as Jatropha seed oil or animal fats by transesterification offers a solution. Although biodiesel has been produced from various vegetable oils such as Jatropha seed oil, the reaction kinetics studies are very few in literature, hence the need for this study. Jatropha curcas seed oil was extracted and analyzed to determine its free fatty acid and fatty acid composition. The oil was transesterified with methanol at a molar ratio of methanol to oil 8:1, using 1% sodium hydroxide catalyst, at different temperatures ranging from 32oC to 65oC, at atmospheric pressure. The order of the reactions with respect to the triglyceride's disappearance in the forward reaction at the chosen temperatures was found to be pseudo-first-order and found to be first-order for the reaction at 32oC. The rate constants of the three consecutive reaction steps at 65oC, namely, triglyceride to diglyceride, diglyceride to monoglyceride, and monoglyceride to glycerol, were found to be 0.422 min-1 0.117 min-1, and 0.037min-1, respectively. Their corresponding activation energies in J/mol were 22.165, 3.136, and 19.770, respectively.
Thyroid hormones, triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxin (T4) play an important role in growth, development, and physiology of the kidney. The kidney has a central role in metabolism and clearance of these hormones as well as thyroid – stimulating hormone (TSH). Chronic renal failure (CRF) is a state of irreversible deceleration in renal function results in alterations in internal milieu, which affects the synthesis and secretory rate of hormones. To evaluate the thyroid hormone levels in non-dialyzed patients with chronic renal failure (CRF); 24 patients with CRF aged 30-70 years, mean±S.d. (48.458 ± 13.569) and 48 healthy volunteers who served as controls aged 30-70 years (43.104 ± 12.387) were studied for their thyroid function status u
... Show MoreThis study, which is considered the first of its kind in the world and the Arab homeland, was carried out in the laboratory of mushroom production belonging to the Medicinal Plant Unit/ College Of Agricultural Engineering Sciences/ University of Baghdad during the period from July 21, 2016, to December 30, 2018, aiming to isolate and purify the mycelium of the wild isolation in addition to the genetic and morphological identification of the mushroom Agaricus bellaniae. The obtained pure isolation was tagged in the American National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) with symbol MF987843.1, thus Iraq would be the second country in the world in which the mushroom is grown following the United States of America. The
... Show MoreAccurate description of thermodynamic, structural, and electronic properties for bulk and surfaces of ceria (CeO2) necessitates the inclusion of the Hubbard parameter (U) in the density functional theory (DFT) calculations to precisely account for the strongly correlated 4f electrons. Such treatment is a daunting task when attempting to draw a potential energy surface for CeO2-catalyzed reaction. This is due to the inconsistent change in thermo-kinetics parameters of the reaction in reference to the variation in the U values. As an illustrative example, we investigate herein the discrepancy in activation and reaction energies for steps underlying the partial and full hydrogenation of acetylene over the CeO2(111) surface. Overall, we find th
... Show MoreBackground: This study was done to assist X-ray diffraction and biocompatability of glass ionomer cement reinforced by different ratios of Hydroxyapatite. Materials and Methods: The powder of glass ionomer cement reinforced by different ratios of Hydroxyapatite were used to get X-ray diffraction pattern by X-ray diffraction machine, While for biocompatibility test, A polyethylene tubes containing glass ionomer cement reinforced by different ratios of Hydroxyapatite were implanted on the dorsal submucosal site of Rabbit's tissues and histological slide were prepared for histopathological study. Results: X-ray diffraction test showed that all elements of glass ionomer cement reinforced by different ratios of Hydroxyapatite were react with eac
... Show MoreRecently, environmental noise has arisen from various sources, such as those from exhaust mufflers of combustion engines found in cars, trucks, or power generators, which produce significant noise during their operation. Controlling the radiated noise from these mufflers is a major factor in improving acoustic comfort and minimizing the impact on the surrounding communities. Numerous research has been presented for this reason by modification of the internal structure of the exhaust muffler. The main objective of this work is to reduce the noise level emitted from exhaust mufflers. This can be achieved by adjusting structure parameters to attenuate the surrounding environment's radiated noise. Analysis of pressure-wave propagation h
... Show MoreABSTRACT : A new ligand [ 2- (3-acetylthioureido)-3-phenylpropanoic acid (APA) is synthesized by reaction of acetyl isothiocyanate with phenylalanine (1:1). It is characterized by micro elemental analysis (C.H.N.S.), FT-IR, (UV-Vis) and 1H and 13CNMR spectra. Some metals ions complexes of this ligand were prepared and characterized by FT-IR, UV-Visible spectra, conductivity measurements, magnetic susceptibility and atomic absorption. From results obtained, the following formula [M(APA)2] where M2+ = Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd and Hg, the proposed molecular structure for these complexes as tetrahedral geometry, except copper complex is has square planer geometry.
Radiation treatment has long been the conventional approach for treating nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) tumors due to its anatomic features, biological characteristics, and radiosensitivity. The most common treatment for nasopharyngeal carcinoma is radiotherapy. This study aimed to assess the better quality of radiotherapy treatment techniques using intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT). The VMAT and IMRT are comparative techniques. Forty patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma and forwarded for radiotherapy were treated with both advanced techniques, IMRT and VMAT, using eclipse software from Varian. The x-ray energy was set at 6 MV. The total prescribed dose was 70 Gy. The results show that the
... Show MoreIn this paper, we establish the conditions of the occurrence of the local bifurcations, such as saddle node, transcritical and pitchfork, of all equilibrium points of an eco-epidemiological model consisting of a prey-predator model with SI (susceptible-infected) epidemic diseases in prey population only and a refuge-stage structure in the predators. It is observed that there is a transcritical bifurcation near the axial and free predator equilibrium points, near disease-free equilibrium point is a saddle-node bifurcation and near positive (coexistence) equilibrium point is a saddle-node bifurcation, a transcritical bifurcation and a pitchfork bifurcation. Further investigations for Hopf bifurcation near coexistence equilibrium point
... Show MoreThe aim of this study was to establish the existence and interaction of TMPRSS2 – ERG gene fusion status with clinicopathological features of prostate cancer patients. This research consisted of 123 embedded formalin-fixed tissues obtained from the prostate tumor patients. The above gene fusion is detected through the technique of fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) by means of a triple color probe. Seven samples have not been scored due to technical difficulties and 46 patients have fusion (39.6%), while the remaining (70) have not been seen with fusion. Of the 46 fusion-positive, 17 (36%) were caused by ERG-translocation, of the other 29 (63%) were caused by the interstitial segment deletion between the two genes due to the
... Show More