Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were functionalized by hexylamine (HA) in a promising, cost-effective, rapid and microwave-assisted approach. In order to decrease defects and remove acid-treatment stage, functionalization of MWCNTs with HA was carried out in the presence of diazonium reaction. Surface functionality groups and morphology of chemically-functionalized MWCNTS were characterized by FTIR, Raman spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (DTG), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). To reach a promising dispersibility in oil media, MWCNTs were functionalized with HA. While the cylindrical structures of MWCNTs were remained reasonably intact, characterization results consistently confirmed the sidewall-functionalization o

The inhibitory effect of acetone, ethanol, and aqueous extracts of ten medicinal plants on β-lactamase from Staphylococcus sciuri and Klebsiella pneumoniae was investigated in vitro by starch-iodine agar plate method. The results revealed the success of starch-iodine method for the detection of the inhibition of β-lactamase activity by the various extracts of each individual plant. The acetone extracts of Catharanthus roseus, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, and Schinus terebinthifolius induced an inhibitory effect on β-lactamase from Staphylococcus sciuri. On the other hand, acetone extracts from only Eucalyptus camaldulensis, and Schinus

Concrete filled steel tube (CFST) columns are being popular in civil engineering due to their superior structural characteristics. This paper investigates enhancement in axial behavior of CFST columns by adding steel fibers to plain concrete that infill steel tubes. Four specimens were prepared: two square columns (100*100 mm) and two circular columns (100 mm in diameter). All columns were 60 cm in length. Plain concrete mix and concrete reinforced with steel fibers were used to infill steel tube columns. Ultimate axial load capacity, ductility and failure mode are discussed in this study. The results showed that the ultimate axial load capacity of CFST columns reinforced with steel fibers increased by 28% and 20 % for circular and square c

 Inflammatory bowel disease includes both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is a chronic, progressive relapsing disease of gastrointestinal tract that require long-term treatment or maintenance therapy. Taking patient’s beliefs about the prescribed medication in consideration had been shown to be an important factor that affects compliance of the patient in whom having positive beliefs is a prerequisite for better compliance. The aim of the current study was to investigate and assess beliefs about medicines among a sample of Iraqi patients with inflammatory bowel disease and to determine possible association between these beliefs and some patient-specific factors.

This study is a cross-sectional study carried out o

Detection of early clinical keratoconus (KCN) is a challenging task, even for expert clinicians. In this study, we propose a deep learning (DL) model to address this challenge. We first used Xception and InceptionResNetV2 DL architectures to extract features from three different corneal maps collected from 1371 eyes examined in an eye clinic in Egypt. We then fused features using Xception and InceptionResNetV2 to detect subclinical forms of KCN more accurately and robustly. We obtained an area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) of 0.99 and an accuracy range of 97–100% to distinguish normal eyes from eyes with subclinical and established KCN. We further validated the model based on an independent dataset with

An encryption system needs unpredictability and randomness property to maintain information security during transmission and storage. Although chaotic maps have this property, they have limitations such as low Lyapunov exponents, low sensitivity and limited chaotic regions. The paper presents a new improved skewed tent map to address these problems. The improved skew tent map (ISTM) increases the sensitivity to initial conditions and control parameters. It has uniform distribution of output sequences. The programs for ISTM chaotic behavior were implemented in MATLAB R2023b. The novel ISTM produces a binary sequence, with high degree of complexity and good randomness properties. The performance of the ISTM generator shows effective s

Zeolite Y nanoparticles were synthesized by sol - gel method. Dffirent samples using two silica sources were prepared.
Sodium metasilicate (Na2SiO3) (48% silica) and silicic acid silica (H2SiO3) (75% silica) were employed as silica
source and aluminum nitrate (Al(NO3)3.9H2O) was the aluminum source with tetrapropylammonium hydroxide
(TPAOH) as templating agent.
The synihesized-samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, showed the requirement of diffirent aging time for
complete crystallization to be achieved. Transmission Electronic Microscope (TEM) images, showed the particles were
in the same range of 30 - 75 nm. FT-IR spectroscory, showed the synthesized samples having the zeolite Y crystal
properties. The i

The tetradentate N2O2 Schiff base ligand, which is produced via the condensation reaction of 2-hydroxynaphthaldehyde with phthalohydrazide, is prepared in this work with a fair yield. The prepared ligand was characterized using a microanalysis technique (C.H.N), UV-vis, FTIR, 1H-,13C-NMR, mass spectrometry, and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). New complexes were synthesized by a reaction between ligand (N'1E,N'2Z)-N'1,N'2-bis((1-hydroxynaphthalen-2yl)methylene)phthalohydrazide and metal chloride of Co+2, Ni+2, and Zn+2 ions in absolute ethanol. The present complexes are also characterized by techniques such as C.H.N, UV-vis, FTIR, TGA, molar conductivity, atomic absorption, and magnetic moment measurements. The in vitro antimicro

In this golden age of rapid development surgeons realized that AI could contribute to healthcare in all aspects, especially in surgery. The aim of the study will incorporate the use of Convolutional Neural Network and Constrained Local Models (CNN-CLM) which can make improvement for the assessment of Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy (LC) surgery not only bring opportunities for surgery but also bring challenges on the way forward by using the edge cutting technology. The problem with the current method of surgery is the lack of safety and specific complications and problems associated with safety in each laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedure. When CLM is utilize into CNN models, it is effective at predicting time series tasks like iden