Effect of zinc oxid on the bentonite ability for removing Methylene blue from solution

A batch adsorption system was applied to study the adsorption of methylene blue from aqueous solution by Iraqi bentonite and treated bentonite with different amount of zinc oxide (ZnO). The adsorption capacities of methylene blue onto bentonite were evaluated. The equilibrium between liquid and solid phase was described by Langmuir model better than the Freundlich model. Langmuir and Freundlich constants have been determined. The separation factor or equilibrium parameter, RL which is used to predict if an adsorption system is favourable or unfavourable was calculated for all cases

Power Electronics Design and Simulation of a Solar House

The increasing trend of Earth’s temperature in the past century has made the world search for solutions to preserve our planet in a livable condition and prevent the climate from exacerbating. Becoming net-zero energy can pave the way to achieving the global goal of reducing gas emissions and saving the planet. This can be done by practicing various approaches. Switching to renewable energy sources in the residential sector, which accounts for a considerable portion of global energy consumption, is one of the most effective ways. This study aims to design and simulate the power electronics of a research solar house located at the Loyola Campus of Concordia University, Montréal, Canada. This research facility is built to investigate numerous renewable energy systems that can help achieve the net-zero energy goal for a typical detached single-family dwelling in Québec. This building, known as Future Buildings Laboratory (FBL), has integrated renewable energy sources such as solar, solar-thermal, and wind which allow the opportunity of testing different scenarios. In this research, the power electronic system of the solar power system of the FBL is simulated in PSIM software considering the rated load of the house and the ratings of the real-life system. other. The simulations are straightforward models of the actual system in three modes of operation: 1) grid feeds the load, 2) grid charges the battery, and 3) battery feeds the load. Each mode of operation is modeled as a unique circuit. Frequency-domain modeling of the system is also carried out in order to design the controllers. The system’s transfer function is estimated considering the system as a black box and is compared with an analytically derived transfer function to check the accuracy of the estimation. The last step is to validate the simulation results. For this, the third mode of operation is performed experimentally at the PEER group laboratory, Concordia University, using available converters, devices, and the real-time simulator (OPAL-RT). Various experiments are conducted to observe the performance of the simulated model in real conditions. The time-domain and frequency-domain experimental results closely match those acquired via simulation

A Unified Framework for Evaluating Algebraic Queries over Annotated Relations

We study concepts and techniques for modeling and processing uncertain relations. Intuitively a piece of data is uncertain if its truth is not established definitely. Similarly, a relation is uncertain when its true state is not ascertained. A major source of difficulties is the semantics of uncertain relations defined based on the notion of possible worlds, which is a set of standard relations one of which represents the true state of the real world data but we don't know which one. This has posed serious challenges for over two decades in database and AI research, however, the topic has gained revived attention in database community again due to some emerging applications such as sensor networks, surveys and imputation techniques, and privacy-preserving data mining applications that require storing and processing such data effectively. Our work is motivated by and concerned with practical issues affected by the exponential number of the possible worlds. We study existing models and techniques and consider the semiring model, a representation model of annotated relations, to represent uncertain relations in our work. Our choice of model is justified for being equipped with an algebra for evaluating queries over annotated relations. We illustrate how the model lends itself to a framework to study models and algorithms for both uncertain relations and probabilistic relations in a unified manner. The ideas and solutions provide a basis for development of a system for annotated data management

In vitro study of antimicrobial effects of Rosmarinus officinalis and Glycyrrhiza glabra extracts against some pathogens

Background and aims: Disease causing bacteria have always been considered a major cause of morbidity and mortality in humans. The appearance of resistant microorganisms paved the way to the occurrence of infections that are only treated by a limited number of antimicrobial agents. The present study was, the antimicrobial effects of Rosmarinus officinalis and Glycyrrhiza glabra extract against some pathogens. Methods: In this study, the antibacterial activity using 9 Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains includes: Streptococcus pyogenes ATCC® 19615, Streptococcus pneumoniae ATCC 49619, S. saprophyticus ATCC®15305, Hafnia alvei ATCC 51873, Acinetobacter baumannii ATCC 19606, Enterococcus faecalis ATCC 29212, Proteus mirabilis ATCC 35659, Serratia marcescens ATCC 274 and Staphylococcus aureus ATCC® 25923 with micro dilution methods was studied. The MIC, MBC were studied also, resistance of these bacteria to standard antibiotics such as erythromycin, cefixime, ceftazidime, tetracycline, ampicillin and amikacin were compared. Results: In this study, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was used. The levels of MIC of R. officinalis were in ranges from 6.25 to 25 mg/ml. The highest MIC value was observed at 25 ppm against S. pyogenes, S. pneumoniae and P. mirabilis and the levels of MIC of G. glabra were in ranges from 6.25 to 12.5 ppm. The highest MIC value was observed at 12.5 ppm against S. pyogenes, S. pneumoniae, P. mirabilis and S. marcescens. Conclusion: In important human pathogens, drug resistance is increasing according to the results of this study, and may be proposed that this plant can be used as a drug. It can be a good way to replace herbs with chemical drugs

The effect of dietary virgin olive oil on brain lipid levels and brain edema in rat stroke models

Background and Objective: Stroke is the third most common cause of death in industrialized countries after cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Despite numerous defenses, the brain is vulnerable to oxidative stress resulting from ischemia and reperfusion. Due to the relationship between olive oil consumption and low cardiovascular mortality and morbidity, this study was accomplished to investigate the relationship between dietary virgin olive oil (VOO) on brain lipids and formation of brain edema in rat stroke models. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study 60 Wistar rats were divided into five groups. First and second groups (control and sham) received distilled water, while all three treatment groups received oral VOO for 30 days (0.25, 0.5 and 0.75 ml/kg/day respectively). Two hours after the last dose, each main group was subdivided into two additional groups of middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) for the assessment of neuropathology (brain edema) and intact group for brain lipid analysis. Data were analyzed using one way Anova LSD tests and Pearson correlation. Results: Pretreatment by VOO increased the brain cholesterol ester and cholesterol levels in doses of 0.5 and 0.75 ml/kg/day. VOO in all three doses increased the brain triglyceride levels (p<0.05). Oral administration of VOO in doses of 0.5 and 0.75 reduced brain edema in mice. Conclusion: Results suggest that VOO may be taken as a valuable alternative for the pretreatment of ischemia via inducing some changes in lipid profile and decreasing brain edema

Trends of particulate matter (PM10) concentration and related Air Quality Index (AQI) during 2005-2012 in Kermanshah, Iran

Background and Aims: Atmospheric dust, also known as a part of PM10, can cause some adverse effects on public health. The aim of this study was to investigate dust concentration trends in Kermanshah city and also to compare related Air Quality Index (AQI) in different years, seasons and months during 2005 to 2012.Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, totally 2589 samples were taken from air monitoring stations owned by the Environmental Protection Agency. The ghatered data were then analyzed using SPSS software V.16.Results: The frequency percentage of PM10 concentrations based on AQI descriptions (healthy, moderate, unhealthy for sensitive groups, unhealthy, very unhealthy and dangerous) were 12.16, 68.36, 12.82, 3.43, 0.77 and 2.43 percents, respectively. It is further interesting to note that in all monitored days during the present study, 19.43% of total days were in unhealthy conditions within AQI&gt; 100. So that, although the frequency of dusty days decreased from summer to fall, failure to meet air quality standard requirements increased from fall to winter and further to spring.Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the observed changes in PM10 concentration were significant in the course of seasons and months. The worst air quality condition occured in summer (specially July). It seems possible that these results are due to frequent dust enterance originating from neighboring countries, humidity reduction, drought and unsustainable use of water resources, temperature rising, as well as wind speed and direction. Because of adverse health effects of particulate matter, it is necessary to promote environmentally aware and responsible science of its trend, short-term and long-term and also international planning to reduce its detrimental impacts.Key words: Air pollution, AQI, Dust, Kermansha

Gaps in the provision of spiritual care for terminally ill patients in Islamic societies - a systematic review

Background. Islam has a profound concept about death and aftermath. Believing in living after death and resurrection is one of the three main principles of Islam. Since the increasing incidence of people in need of palliative care in developing countries and the fact that Muslims, who dominantly live in developing world, are very dependent on spirituality, describing the ways that spiritual care is described and provided in the Islamic context is highly demanded. This paper aims at delineating original research in this subject in a systematic manner. Method. Several medical databases were reviewed in a systematic manner to investigate original quantitative or qualitative researches about providing spiritual care in Muslim societies. Results. Searching main databases lead to identifying 84 articles alongside with 18 papers from hand searching, which all were reviewed by two investigators. Of this collection, only five papers met the criteria as being original research either quantitative or qualitative, published during the last 10 years. Cultural background plays an important role. Our findings conceded that very few papers are available in Islamic context about spiritual care at the end of life, where only three were quantitative. Research in this field, however, is rapidly growing compared with the previous year. Conclusion. While cancer is rapidly increasing specially in developing world, the need of terminally ill patients with other conditions should be equally considered. Spirituality in Islamic societies does exist profoundly, which needs more research especially in terminal life and even bereavement.Background. Islam has a profound concept about death and aftermath. Believing in living after death and resurrection is one of the three main principles of Islam. Since the increasing incidence of people in need of palliative care in developing countries and the fact that Muslims, who dominantly live in developing world, are very dependent on spirituality, describing the ways that spiritual care is described and provided in the Islamic context is highly demanded. This paper aims at delineating original research in this subject in a systematic manner. Method. Several medical databases were reviewed in a systematic manner to investigate original quantitative or qualitative researches about providing spiritual care in Muslim societies. Results. Searching main databases lead to identifying 84 articles alongside with 18 papers from hand searching, which all were reviewed by two investigators. Of this collection, only five papers met the criteria as being original research either quantitative or qualitative, published during the last 10 years. Cultural background plays an important role. Our findings conceded that very few papers are available in Islamic context about spiritual care at the end of life, where only three were quantitative. Research in this field, however, is rapidly growing compared with the previous year. Conclusion. While cancer is rapidly increasing specially in developing world, the need of terminally ill patients with other conditions should be equally considered. Spirituality in Islamic societies does exist profoundly, which needs more research especially in terminal life and even bereavement

Effects of ligands on (de-)enhancement of plasmonic excitations of silver, gold and bimetallic nanoclusters: TD-DFT+TB calculations

Metal nanoclusters can be synthesized in various sizes and shapes and are typically protected with ligands to stabilize them. These ligands can also be used to tune the plasmonic properties of the clusters as the absorption spectrum of a protected cluster can be significantly altered compared to the bare cluster. In this paper, we computationally investigate the influence of thiolate ligands on the plasmonic intensity for silver, gold and alloy clusters. Using time-dependent density functional theory with tight-binding approximations, TD-DFT+TB, we show that this level of theory can reproduce the broad experimental spectra of Au144(SR)60 and Ag53Au91(SR)60 (R = CH3) compounds with satisfactory agreement. As TD-DFT+TB does not depend on atom-type parameters we were able to apply this approach on large ligand-protected clusters with various compositions. With these calculations we predict that the effect of ligands on the absorption can be a quenching as well as an enhancement. We furthermore show that it is possible to unambiguously identify the plasmonic peaks by the scaled Coulomb kernel technique and explain the influence of ligands on the intensity (de-)enhancement by analyzing the plasmonic excitations in terms of the dominant orbital contributions

Approximately orthogonality preserving mappings on Hilbert C_{0}(Z)-modules

In this paper, we will use the categorical approach to Hilbert (C^{ast})-modules over a commutative (C^{ast})-algebra to investigate the approximately orthogonality preserving mappings on Hilbert (C^{ast})-modules over a commutative (C^{ast})-algebra. Indeed, we show that if (Psi:Gamma rightarrow Gamma^{prime} ) is a nonzero ( C_{0}(Z) )-linear (( delta , varepsilon))-orthogonality preserving mapping between the continuous fields of Hilbert spaces on a locally compact Hausdorff space (Z), then (Psi) is injective, continuous and also for every ( x, y in Gamma ) and (z in Z), [ vert langle Psi(x),Psi(y) rangle(z) - varphi^2(z) langle x,y rangle(z) vert leq frac{4(varepsilon - delta)}{(1-delta)(1+varepsilon)} Vert Psi(x) Vert Vert Psi(y) Vert, ] where (varphi(z) = sup { Vert Psi(u)(z) Vert : u ~ text{is a unit vector in} ~ Gamma })