Fabrication of porous clay refractory insulating specimens from Iraqi kaolin with different percentage of Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) waste crumbs additions were investigated. After mixing and forming by hand molding, the specimens was dried and fired at 1300 oC. The structural, physical, mechanical and thermal properties of the refractory insulating products were measured. Maximum addition of EPS (1.25 wt%) lead to reduce the linear shrinkage to less than 1.7% and increased apparent porosity up to 50 %. As well as, the density, Modulus of rupture and thermal conductivity were reduced to 1.39 g/cm3, 4.1 MPa and 0.21 W/m.K, respectively. The final outcome, addition of EPS showed good results in the formation of pores without distorting the

Furfural is a toxic aromatic aldehyde that can cause a severe environmental problem especially the wastewater drown from petroleum refinery units. In the present work, a useless by-product from local furniture manufacturing industry; sawdust was used as raw material for the preparation of activated carbon which is chemically activated with phosphoric acid. The effect of adsorption variables which include initial pH of solution (2-9), agitation speed (50-250) rpm, agitation time (15-120) min, initial concentration of furfural (50-250) ppm, and amount of adsorbent material (0.5-2.5) g for the three adsorbents used (prepared activated carbon, commercial activated carbon and raw sawdust) were investigated in a batch process

The main aim of this paper is studied the punching shear and behavior of reinforced concrete slabs exposed to fires, the possibility of punching shear failure occurred as a result of the fires and their inability to withstand the loads. Simulation by finite element analysis is made to predict the type of failure, distribution temperature through the thickness of the slabs, deformation and punching strength. Nonlinear finite element transient thermal-structural analysis at fire conditions are analyzed by ANSYS package. The validity of the modeling is performed for the mechanical and thermal properties of materials from earlier works from literature to decrea

Background/Objectives: The purpose of this study was to classify Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients from Normal Control (NC) patients using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Methods/Statistical analysis: The performance evolution is carried out for 346 MR images from Alzheimer's Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) dataset. The classifier Deep Belief Network (DBN) is used for the function of classification. The network is trained using a sample training set, and the weights produced are then used to check the system's recognition capability. Findings: As a result, this paper presented a novel method of automated classification system for AD determination. The suggested method offers good performance of the experiments carried out show that the

         Sera samples were collected from 60 children aged 4-60 months, all were clinically and serologically proven cases of visceral leishmaniasis, as well as  from 10 healthy children, all were seronegative with no history of parasitic infection who serve as a control during the study. Serum total protein and albumin were measured and compared between the control and visceral leishmaniasis patients. Serum protein profiles have been investigated using the conventional sodium dodecyl sulphate – polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE).  Serum of control group showed the specific protein pattern with five protein bands, while serum protein profile in visceral leishmaniasis pat

The present study experimentally and numerically investigated the impact behavior of composite reinforced concrete (RC) beams with the pultruded I-GFRP and I-steel beams. Eight specimens of two groups were cast in different configurations. The first group consisted of four specimens and was tested under static load to provide reference results for the second group. The four specimens in the second group were tested first under impact loading and then static loading to determine the residual static strengths of the impacted specimens. The test variables considered the type of encased I-section (steel and GFRP), presence of shear connectors, and drop height during impact tests. A mass of 42.5 kg was dropped on the top surface at the m

The aim of this paper is to present a method for solving high order ordinary differential equations with two point's boundary condition, we propose semi-analytic technique using two-point oscillatory interpolation to construct polynomial solution. The original problem is concerned using two-point oscillatory interpolation with the fit equal numbers of derivatives at the end points of an interval [0 , 1] . Also, many examples are presented to demonstrate the applicability, accuracy and efficiency of the method by comparing with conventional methods.