Electrospinning is a novel technique that can be used to produce highly porous fibers with highly tunable properties. In this research, this technique is adopted to prepare the electrospun nanofiber membrane for membrane distillation application. A custom-built electrospinning setup was made to prepare the nanofibers membrane. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer was used in the electrospinning process due to its high hydrophobicity. Electrospun (PVDF) nanofibers were tested in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) process using 0.6 M sodium chloride as a feed solution. The resulting nanofiber membrane exhibited high performance in DCMD (i.e. relatively high water flux and high salt rejection). It has been found that the prepared membrane has a uniform and fibrous structure as indicated by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Relatively thin fibers with a diameter of 250 nm were produced during the Electrospinning process.
Recently, a great rise in the population and fast manufacturing processes were noticed. These processes release significant magnitudes of waste. These wastes occupied a notable ground region, generating big issues for the earth and the environment. To enhance the geotechnical properties of fine-grained soil, a sequence of research projects in the lab were conducted to analyze the impacts of adding sludge waste (SW). The tests were done on both natural and mixed soil with SW at various proportions (2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10%) based on the dry mass of the soil used. The experiments conducted focused on consistency, compaction, and shear strength. With the addition of 10% of SW, the values of LL and PI decreased by 29.7% and 3
... Show MoreMutans streptococci (MS) are a group of oral bacteria considered as the main cariogenic organisms. MS consists of several species of genus Streptococcus which are sharing similar phenotypes and genotypes. The aim of this study is to determine the genetic diversity of the core species of clinical strains of Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus sobrinus and Streptococcus downei by using repitative extragenic palindromic (REP) primer. The DNA of the clinical strains of S. mutans (n=10), S. sobrinus (n=05) and S. downei (n=04) have been employed in the present study, which have been previously isolated from caries active subjects. The DNA of the clinical and reference strains was
... Show MoreThis paper addresses the new coloring in the concept of dystopian society as represented by the positive role of one of the characters vs. the passive role of the government and its mutual effect on the people of the society. In addition, it describes how all men in the dystopian society victimize and degrade the other through unlawful acts, like: stealing, rape, and fear, which are the lowest points in a moral decay. However, it offers hope by illustrating a positive sense, as exemplified by the doctor's wife out of Saramago's optimistic view that men may be descended from good women. Accordingly, the paper aims to examine the effect of the government’s role in the lives of the people who have later turned into blind in a dystopi
... Show MoreThis study aims to evaluate the biocompatibility of a novel filler material intended to improve the longevity of polymer systems used in prosthetics in respect of cytotoxicity and skin irritation. RTV50F silicone elastomer incorporated with various percentages of hexagonal boron nitride (H-BN) (0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 1 wt%) have been tested. Silicone without H-BN was utilized as the control for comparison. The in vitro cytotoxicity test includes specimens (n=18) with 10 mm in diameter and 2 mm in thickness applied directly to the normal human fibroblast cell line (NHF) and incubated for 72 hours, then 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay was used to determine the cell viability. The skin irritati
... Show MoreAlumina thin films have significant applications in the areas of optoelectronics, optics, electrical insulators, sensors and tribology. The novel aspect of this work is that the homogeneous alumina thin films were prepared in several stages to generate a plasma jet. In this paper, aluminium nanoparticles suspended in vinyl alcohol were prepared using exploding wire plasma. TEM analysis was used to determine the size and shape of particles in aluminium and vinyl alcohol suspensions; the TEM images showed that the particle size is 17.2 nm. Aluminium/poly vinyl alcohol (Al/PVA) thin films were prepared using this suspension on quartz substrate by plasma jet technique at room temperature with an argon gas flow rate of 1 L/min. The Al/PV
... Show MoreBACKGROUND: Burkholderia cepacia adhesion and biofilm formation onto abiotic surfaces is an important feature of clinically relevant isolates. The in vitro biofilm formation of B. cepacia onto coated indwelling urinary catheters (IDCs) with moxifloxacin has not been previously investigated. OBJECTIVES: To examine the ability of B. cepacia to form biofilms on IDCs and the effect of coating IDCs with moxifloxacin on biofilm formation by B. cepacia in vitro. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The adhesion of B. cepacia to coated and uncoated IDCs with moxifloxacin was evaluated. Pieces of IDCs were coated with moxifloxacin (adsorption method). The spectrophotometric method was used to check moxifloxacin leaching into tubes. Coated and uncoated tubes were i
... Show MoreIn the pandemic era of COVID19, software engineering and artificial intelligence tools played a major role in monitoring, managing, and predicting the spread of the virus. According to reports released by the World Health Organization, all attempts to prevent any form of infection are highly recommended among people. One side of avoiding infection is requiring people to wear face masks. The problem is that some people do not incline to wear a face mask, and guiding them manually by police is not easy especially in a large or public area to avoid this infection. The purpose of this paper is to construct a software tool called Face Mask Detection (FMD) to detect any face that does not wear a mask in a specific
... Show MoreBackground: Scientific education aims to be inclusive and to improve students learning achievements, through appropriate teaching and learning. Problem Based Learning (PBL) system, a student centered method, started in the second half of the previous century and is expanding progressively, organizes learning around problems and students learn about a subject through the experience of solving these problems.Objectives:To assess the opinions of undergraduate medical students regarding learning outcomes of PBL in small group teaching and to explore their views about the role of tutors and methods of evaluation. Type of the study: A cross-sectional study.Methods: This study was conducted in Kerbala Medical Colleges among second year students
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