A piezoelectric cantilever beam with a tip mass at its free end is a common energy harvester configuration. This article introduces a new principle of designing such a harvester that increases the generated power without changing the resonance frequency of the harvester: the attraction force between two permanent magnets is used to add stiffness to the system. This magnetic stiffening counters the effect of the tip mass on the efficient operation frequency. Five set-ups incorporating piezoelectric bimorph cantilevers of the same type in different mechanical configurations are compared theoretically and experimentally to investigate the feasibility of this principle: theoretical and experimental results show that magnetically stiffened harve

In the absence of environmental regulation, food stays to be contaminated with heavy metals, which is becoming a big worry for human health. The present research focusses on the environmental and health effects of irrigating a number of crops grown in the soils surrounding the Al-Rustamia old plant using treated wastewater generated by the plant. The physicochemical properties, alkalinity, and electrical conductivity of the samples were evaluated, and vegetable samples were tested for Cd, Pb, Ni, and Zn, levels, and even the transfer factor (TF) from soils to crops and crop and multi-targeted risk, daily intake (DIM) of metals, and health risk index (HRI) was calculated. The findings found that the average contents of Zn, Pb, Ni, an

In the absence of environmental regulation, food stays to be contaminated with heavy metals, which is becoming a big worry for human health. The present research focusses on the environmental and health effects of irrigating a number of crops grown in the soils surrounding the Al-Rustamia old plant using treated wastewater generated by the plant. The physicochemical properties, alkalinity, and electrical conductivity of the samples were evaluated, and vegetable samples were tested for Cd, Pb, Ni, and Zn, levels, and even the transfer factor (TF) from soils to crops and crop and multi-targeted risk, daily intake (DIM) of metals, and health risk index (HRI) was calculated. The findings found that the average contents of Zn, Pb, Ni, and Cd in

Cladosporium sp. plays an important role in human health, it is one of the pathogenic fungi which cause allergy and asthma and most frequently isolated from airborne spores.  In this study, a couple of universal PCR primers were designed to identify the pathogenic fungi Cladosporium sp. according to conserved region 5.8S, 18S and 28S subunit ribosomal RNA gene in Cladosporium species. In silico RFLP-PCR were used to identify twenty-four Cladosporium strains. The results showed that the universal primer has the specificity to amplify the conserved region in 24 species as a band in virtual agarose gel. They also showed that the RFLP method is able to identify three Cladosporium spe

Durability of hot mix asphalt (HMA) against moisture damage is mostly related to asphalt-aggregate adhesion. The objective of this work is to find the effect of nanoclay with montmorillonite (MMT) on Marshall properties and moisture susceptibility of asphalt mixture. Two types of asphalt cement, AC(40-50) and AC(60-70) were modified with 2%, 4% and 6% of Iraqi nanoclay with montmorillonite. The Marshall properties, Tensile strength ratio(TSR) and Index of retained strength(ISR) were determined in this work. The total number of specimens was 216 and the optimum asphalt content was 4.91% and 5% for asphalt cement (40-50) and (60-70) respectively. The results showed that the modification of asphalt cement with MMT led to increase Marsh

 Removal of direct blue dye by electrocoagulation method has been investigated using aluminum   electrode in a bench-scale electrochemical system. Current density, NaCl concentration,   electrocoagulation time, and dye concentration has been studied as effecting parameters in color   removal efficiency. Increasing of current density will increase the color removal efficiency and   energy consumption as well. While increasing NaCl concentration increase the color removal   efficiency but it decrease energy consumption. High dye concentration is needed for extra   electrocaogolation time to reach the same efficiency that obtained with low dye concentration .With   current applied 0.35 amps. and NaCl concentration of 2 g/l more

The solar photocatalytic degradation of diuron, which is one of the herbicides, has been studied by a solar pilot plant in heterogeneous solar photocatalysis with titanium dioxide. The pilot plant was made up of compound parabolic collectors specially designed for solar photocatalytic applications. The influence of different variables such as, H2O2 initial concentration, TiO2 initial concentration, and diuron initial concentration with their relationship to the degradation efficiency were studied. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) found to increase the rate of diuron degradation. The best removal efficiency of heterogeneous solar photocatalytic TiO2 system was found to be 46.65 % and for heterogeneous solar photocatalytic TiO2/ H2O2 system was fo