Essential Oils from Artemisia herba alba Asso., Maticaria Recutita L., and Dittrichia Viscosa L. (Asteraceae): A Promising Source of Eco-Friendly Agents to Control Callosobruchus maculatus Fab. Warehouse Pest

Callosobruchus maculatus (Fab.) (C. maculatus) is one of the major pests of legume seeds in storage causing significant damage, leading to food insecurity and low income for farmers. This work was planned to develop eco-friendly agents from essential oils of Artemisia herba alba Asso. (AEO), Maticaria Recutita L. (MEO), and Dittrichia Viscosa L. (DEO) to control C. maculatus. To achieve this goal, essential oils (EOs) were extracted by hydro-distillation using Clevenger apparatus before being characterized by GC-MS. EOs were used for testing purposes using three different tests, namely, inhalation toxicity, contact toxicity, and repellency tests. GC-MS analysis of EOs showed the presence of 16 potentially active compounds in AEO and 38 in MEO, whilst 15 compounds were identified in DEO. AEO was higher in thujone (57.6%) and chrysanthenone (11.8%). Santolina alcohol (40.7%) and germacrene D (8.9%) were the major compounds identified in MEO, whereas isocostic acid (72.3%) was the chief compound of DEO. The obtained findings showed that the studied EOs showed considerable insecticidal activity against C. maculatus with a lethal dose (LC50) of 3.78, 8.86, and 14.34 μL/1 liter of air by AEO, MEO, and DEO, respectively. At 1 μL/1 liter of air, the oviposition reduction rate was 90.02%, 70.65%, and 48.23% by AEO, MEO, and DEO, respectively, whereas the emergence reduction rate was 87.32%, 60.08%, and 32.24% by AEO, MEO, and DEO, respectively. With increasing doses up to 20 μL/L, the reduction of individual emergence reached 98.8% by AEO of 24 h after treatment. AEO, MEO, and DEO showed significant repellent effects against adults of C. maculatus with repulsion percentages of 60.83%, 50.83%, and 72.5%, respectively. The outcome of this work suggests that the essential oils of the studied plants, particularly Artemisia herba alba Asso. oils, can constitute a natural and environmentally friendly alternative to develop new bioinsecticides for the control of C. maculatus.</jats:p

Production of Hybrid Nanocomposites Based on Iron Waste Reinforced with Niobium Carbide/Granite Nanoparticles with Outstanding Strength and Wear Resistance for Use in Industrial Applications

The main objective of this work is to recycle unwanted industrial waste in order to produce innovative nanocomposites with improved mechanical, tribological, and thermal properties for use in various industrial purposes. In this context, powder metallurgy (PM) technique was used to fabricate iron (Fe)/copper (Cu)/niobium carbide (NbC)/granite nanocomposites having outstanding mechanical, wear and thermal properties. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) examinations were used to investigate the particle size, crystal size, and phase composition of the milled samples. Additionally, it was investigated how different volume percentages of the NbC and granite affected the sintered specimens in terms of density, microstructure, mechanical and wear properties, and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). According to the findings, the milled powders included particles that were around 55 nm in size and clearly contained agglomerates. The results showed that the addition of 4 vol.% NbC and 8 vol.% granite nanoparticles caused a reduction in the Fe–Cu alloy matrix particle sizes up to 47.8 nm and served as a barrier to the migration of dislocations. In addition, the successive increase in the hybrid concentrations led to a significant decrease in the crystal size of the samples prepared as follows: 29.73, 27.58, 22.69, 19.95 and 15.8 nm. Furthermore, compared with the base Fe–Cu alloy, the nanocomposite having 12 vol.% of hybrid reinforcement demonstrated a significant improvement in the microhardness, ultimate strength, Young’s modulus, longitudinal modulus, shear modulus, bulk modulus, CTE and wear rate by 94.3, 96.4, 61.1, 78.2, 57.1, 73.6, 25.6 and 61.9%, respectively. This indicates that both NbC and granite can actually act as excellent reinforcements in the Fe alloy. © 2023 by the authors.University of Tabuk: S-0010-1443The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at the University of Tabuk for funding this work through Research no. S-0010-1443

A study on fuzzy complex linear programming problems

Abstract. In this paper we consider a certain kind of linear programming problems. This kind, in which fuzzy complex number is the coefficient of the objective function, is called fuzzy complex linear programming problem. Solutions of this kind of problems will be characterized by deriving its fuzzy Kuhn-Tucker conditions. The results include a duality relation between α -cut programming and its dual are discussed. Also, we introduce the proof of Kuhn-Tucker stationarypoint necessary optimality theorem for our problem

Fuzzy Bi-Level Multi-Objective Fractional Integer Programming

We present an algorithm to solve a bi-level multi-objective fractional integer programming problem involving fuzzy numbers in the right-hand side of the constraints. The suggested algorithm combine the method of Taylor series together with the Kuhn Tucker conditions to solve fuzzy bi-level multi-objective fractional integer programming problem (FBLMOFIPP) then Gomory cuts are added till the integer solution is obtained. An illustrative example is discussed to demonstrate the correctness of the proposed solution method

Fuzzy Bi-Level Multi-Objective Fractional Integer Programming

We present an algorithm to solve a bi-level multi-objective fractional integer programming problem involving fuzzy numbers in the right-hand side of the constraints. The suggested algorithm combine the method of Taylor series together with the Kuhn Tucker conditions to solve fuzzy bi-level multi-objective fractional integer programming problem (FBLMOFIPP) then Gomory cuts are added till the integer solution is obtained. An illustrative example is discussed to demonstrate the correctness of the proposed solution method

Some Properties Of Semi E-B-Vex Functions

In this paper, we introduce E-b-vex functions by combining the definitions of E-convex functions and b-vex functions. We study some of its basic properties and discuss certain interrelations with other functions. Our results extend and unify several known results from the literature. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc