In order to reduce the environmental pollution associated with the conventional energy sources and to achieve the increased global energy demand, alterative and renewable sustainable energy sources need to be developed. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) represent a bio-electrochemical innovative technology for pollution control and a simultaneous sustainable energy production from biodegradable, reduced compounds. This study mainly considers the performance of continuous up flow dual-chambers MFC
fueled with actual domestic wastewater and bio-catalyzed with anaerobic aged sludge obtained from an aged septic tank. The performance of MFCs was mainly evaluated in terms of COD reductions and electrical power output. Results revealed that the C

Ab – initio restricted Hartree - Fock method within the framework of large unit cell (LUC) formalism is used to investigate the electronic structure of Si and Ge nanocrystals. The surface and core properties are investigated. A large unit cell of 8 atoms is used in the present analysis. Cohesive energy, energy gap, conduction and valence band widths are obtained from the electronic structure calculations. The results are compared with available experimental data and theoretical results of other investigators. The calculated lattice constant is found to be slightly larger than the corresponding experimental value because we use only 8 atoms and we compared the results with that of the bulk crystals, nanoclusters are expected to have str

This study aimed to identify the changes in total protein in saliva and sera samples of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma in comparison to those of healthy controls. These changes were followed using electrophoresis (PAGE). Meanwhile, determinations of albumin, globulin and albumin to globulin ratio were carried out on sera samples only.Two groups were the participants in the present study, 18 patients with Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC), and 20 ages and gender matched healthy controls.

The aim of study To purify GPCR from a local strain of S. cerevisiae using Ion exchange and gel filtration chromatography techniques , by packing materials for columns which will be chosen of low cost comparing to the already used in published researches, which depend on the costly affinity chromatography and other expensive methods of purification. Local strain of S. cerevisiae chosen for extraction and purification of G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) .The strains were obtained from biology department in Al- Mosul University, Iraq. The isolated colony was activated on Yeast Extract Pepton Dextrose Broth (YEPDB) and incubated at 30 C˚ for 24 h .Loop fully of the yeast culture was transferred to (10ml) of yeast extract peptone glucose

In this work, thermodynamic efficiency of individual cell and stack of cells (two cells) has been computed by studying the variation of voltage produced during an operation time of 30 min as a result of the affected parameters:- stoichiometric feed ratio, flow field design on single cell and feed distribution on stack of cells. The experiments were carried out by using two cells, one with serpentine flow field and the other with spiral flow field. These cells were fed with hydrogen and oxygen at low volumetric flow rates from 1 to 2 ml/sec and stoichiometric ratios of fuel (H₂) to oxidant (O₂) as 1:2, 1:1 and 2:1 respectively. The results showed that

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) play a vital role in ocean monitoring and exploration. However, harsh underwater conditions and frequent topology changes caused by node and sink mobility pose significant challenges for reliable routing. Conventional routing protocols that depend on global route reconstruction and static paths generate excessive control overhead and degrade performance in large-scale underwater environments. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient virtual cell-based mobile-sink adaptive routing (VC-MAR) protocol for UWSNs. The sensing field is logically partitioned into a three-dimensional grid of virtual cells, where a cell-gateway is elected in each cell to construct a low-overhead routing backbon

Permanent deformation, fatigue and thermal cracking are the three typical distresses of flexible pavement. Using hydrated lime (HL) into the conventional limestone mineral additive has been widely practiced, including in Europe, to improve the mechanical properties of hot mix asphalt (HMA) concrete and as the result the durability of the constructed pavement. Large number of experimental studies have been reported to find the optimum addition of HL for the improvement on HMA concrete mechanical properties, moisture susceptibility and fatigue resistance. Pavement in service is under complex thermomechanical stress-strain conditions due to coupled atmospheric and surrounding environment temperature variation and the traffic loading. To predic

Credit risk assessment has become an important topic in financial risk administration. Fuzzy clustering analysis has been applied in credit scoring. Gustafson-Kessel (GK) algorithm has been utilised to cluster creditworthy customers as against non-creditworthy ones. A good clustering analysis implemented by good Initial Centres of clusters should be selected. To overcome this problem of Gustafson-Kessel (GK) algorithm, we proposed a modified version of Kohonen Network (KN) algorithm to select the initial centres. Utilising similar degree between points to get similarity density, and then by means of maximum density points selecting; the modified Kohonen Network method generate clustering initial centres to get more reasonable clustering res

Atmospheric residue fluid catalytic cracking was selected as a probe reaction to test the catalytic performance of modified NaY zeolites and prepared NaY zeolites. Modified NaY zeolites have been synthesized by simple ion exchange methods. Three samples of modified zeolite Y have been obtained by replacing the sodium ions in the original sample with lanthanum and the weight percent added are 0.28, 0.53, and 1.02 respectively. The effects of addition of lanthanum to zeolite Y in different weight percent on the cracking catalysts were investigated using an experimental laboratory plant scale of fluidized bed reactor.

The experiments have been performed with weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) range of 6 to 24 h