Rapid worldwide urbanization and drastic population growth have increased the demand for new road construction, which will cause a substantial amount of natural resources such as aggregates to be consumed. The use of recycled concrete aggregate could be one of the possible ways to offset the aggregate shortage problem and reduce environmental pollution. This paper reports an experimental study of unbound granular material using recycled concrete aggregate for pavement subbase construction. Five percentages of recycled concrete aggregate obtained from two different sources with an originally designed compressive strength of 20–30 MPa as well as 31–40 MPa at three particle size levels, i.e., coarse, fine, and extra fine, were test

Background: It's believed that HBD-3 is involved in the tissue remodeling process of articular cartilage. Also, HBD-3 has anti-inflammatory properties. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assay human beta-defensine-3 (HBD-3) in serum from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and investigate its correlation with proinflammatory cytokines. Methods: In this case-control study, fifty-eight RA patients were aged 20–65 years, and 29 age-matched healthy subjects (HS) had no inflammatory rheumatic diseases. The disease activity score-28 joint erythrocyte sedimentation rate (DAS28-ESR) was used to measure RA activity. CRP, ACPA, HBD-3, TNF-α, and IL-1β were assessed using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technique (ELISA). Res

The filler in the asphalt mixture is essential since it plays a significant role in toughening and stiffening the asphalt. Changes in filler type can lead the asphalt mixtures to perform satisfactorily during their design life or degrade rapidly when traffic and environmental effects are considered. This study aims to assess the impact of filler types such as limestone dust (LS) and hydrated lime (HL) on Marshall characteristics and moisture damage in asphalt mixtures. Three different percentages of HL were employed in this study to partially replace the LS mineral filler: 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5% by aggregate weight. Furthermore, a control mixture was created with 7% LS by overall aggregate weight for the wearing course layer. The Marsha

This experiment was performed to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with linseed on egg quality of laying quail. A total of 320 9-week-old Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) 9-wk old were allocated to 4 treatment groups with 4 replicates containing 20 quail each. Birds were fed a commercial diet containing 0% (C), 2% (T1), 4% (T2), or 6% (T3) linseed. Birds received water and diet ad libitum during the total period of the experiment. Egg quality characteristics were monitored over 3 consecutive 21-d periods. Egg quality criteria involved in this experiment were egg weight, yolk diameter, yolk height, yolk weight, albumen height, albumen weight, shell weight, shell thickness, Haugh unit, albumen percentage, yolk perce

Porous silicon (P-Si) has been produced in this work by photoelectrochemical (PEC) etching process. The irradiation has been achieved using diode laser of (2 W) power and 810 nm wavelength. The influence of various irradiation times on the properties of P-Si material such as P-Si layer thickness, surface aspect, pore diameter and the thickness of walls between pores as well as porosity and etching rate was investigated by depending on the scanning electron micrograph (SEM) technique and gravimetric measurements.

This study investigates the ionic conduction dependence on the size of alkaline cations in gel polymer electrolytes based on double iodide can enhance by incorporating a salt having a bulky cation.

Moisture induced damage can cause a progressive deterioration in the performance of asphalt pavement by the loss of adhesion between asphalt binder and aggregate surface and/or loss of cohesion within the binder in the presence of water. The objective of this paper is to improve the asphalt mixtures resistance to moisture by using hydrated lime as an anti-stripping additive. For this purpose, two types of asphalt binder were utilized; asphalt grades (40-50) and (60-70) with one type of aggregate of 19.0 mm aggregate nominal maximum size, and limestone dust as a mineral filler. Marshall method was adopted to find the optimum asphalt content. Essentially, two parameters were determined to evaluate the moisture susceptibili

This study was conducted according to contract with the North Refineries Company-Baiji and deals with the hydrodesulphurization of vacuum gas oil of Kirkuk crude oil, boiling range 611-833 K. A trickle bed reactor packed with a commercial cobalt-molybdenum on alumina catalyst was used. The operating conditions were: temperature range 583-643 K, liquid hourly space velocity range 1.50-3.75 1/h, hydrogen to oil ratio about 250 l/l and pressure kept constant at 3.5MPa.
The results showed that the aromatic content decreased and sulfur removal increased with increasing temperature and decreasing space velocity. The properties (viscosity, density, flash point and carbon residue) of the products decrease with temperature increasing, but the

Asphalt binder is a thermoplastic material that conducts as an elastic solid at lower service temperatures or throughout fast loading rate. At a high temperature or slow rate of loading, asphalt binder conducts as a different liquid. The classical duplication generates a required to assess the mechanical properties of asphalt concrete at the anticipated service temperature to reduce the stress cracking, which happens at lower temperatures, fatigue, and the plastic deformation at higher temperatures (rutting). In this study, an achievement was made to assess the effect of temperature on the mechanical characteristics of asphalt concrete mixes. A total of 132 asphalt concrete samples were attended utilizing two asphalt cement grades (40-50) a

In this work, HgBa2CaCu2-xSbxO8+δ compounds with (x = 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8) have been prepared by the solid-state reaction method. Structural, morphological, and electrical properties were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques. Using the 4-probe technique to study the effect of antimony-substitution for Copper on the electrical properties of HgBa2CaCu2-xSbxO8+δ (Hg-1212) phase was investigated by measuring the resistivity as a function of temperature. Results indicate that the addition of antimony (Sb) increases the volume fraction of the phase and changes the superconducting transition temperature Tc of the superconductor to a normal state. The dielectric loss factor and ac