Experimental Investigation of Sandwich Panels with Different Types of Coarse Aggregate

تمثل الالواح الساندويجية الخرسانية شكل انشائي مبتكر يتكون من طبقتين او أكثر من الخرسانة مفصولة بطبقة خفيفة الوزن .في العمل الحالي , الالواح الساندويجية تتكون من طبقتين من الخرسانة الخفيفة الوزن بينهما طبقة من الفلين , تربط الطبقتين الخرسانية الخارجية بواسطة قضيب حديدي على شكل قفص .البرنامج العملي يتكون من اربعة سقوف , واحد منها يكون سقف صلد بينما السقوف الثلاث الأخرى هي سقوف ساندويجية. المتغير الرئيسي للدراسة الحالية كان نوع الركام الخشن المستخدم في طبقتا الخرسانة الخارجية . فحصت الالواح بوضعية بسيط الأسناد تحت تأثير خطين من الحمل المسلط . بينت النتائج العملية ان استخدام السقوف الساندويجية يحسن الكثير من الخواص مثل المتانة والليونة والقيمة العظمى للهطول.بالأضافة الى الفائدة الرئيسية وهي تقليل الوزن الأجمالي للألواح , وكذلك اختلاف انواع  الركام الخشن يؤثر بشكل كبير على التصرف الانشائي للألواح .Concrete sandwich panel [CSP] is an innovative structural construction system. It is two or more layers of concrete separate by lightweight layers. The present work, the one-way sandwich panels are comprised of two lightweight concrete layers, between them a layer of cork, the dimensions of the slabs were (1100mm total length × 400 mm width × 90mm thickness). The outer concrete layers were connected by steel bar in the shape of truss. An experimental program was carried out on four slabs, one of them was solid slab while the three other slabs were sandwich slabs. The main variable of this study was the type of course aggregate which used in the outer concrete layers. The slabs have been tested as a simply support span under two points load. Experimental results proved that the using of sandwich panels will have enhanced many properties such as toughness, ductility and maximum value of deflection, in addition to the main benefit is a total weight reduction. The differ in the type of coarse aggregate considerably influences the structural behavior of the panels

POLYMORPHISM OF CYTOCHROME P450, SUPERFAMILY19, POLYPEPTIDE 1 GENE AND RELATED TO AROMATASE ENZYME ACTIVITY IN ACROMEGALY IRAQI PATIENTS

Objective: The objective of the present work was to investigate the association between aromatase enzyme activity and polymorphisms, rs2236722, in exon 2 of cytochrome P450 (CYP), superfamily19, polypeptide 1 (CYP19A1gene) in patients with active acromegaly.Methods: A total of 120 males and females (age 20-60 years) were enrolled in this study, 60 patients with active acromegaly who have attended the National Diabetes Centre and and Specialist Center for endocrinology and diabetes, Baghdad, from December 2015 to June 2016 and 60 healthy individuals with matches as a control group. From the whole blood, genomic DNA was extracted to perform genotyping analysis and single-nucleotide polymorphism, rs2236722, in the CYP19A1 gene using multiplex polymerase chain reaction technique, and serum aromatase levels were determined using a solid-phase enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay based on sandwich method.Results: The results show that the aromatase activity levels of patients were a highly significant decrease when contrasted with healthy control groups in both sexes (p≤0.01), and there were summarized positive results of an allele in single-nucleotide polymorphism, rs2236722, were highly significant in TT allele when contrasted with healthy control groups. While revealed that there was non-significant difference in TC allele when contrasted with healthy control groups (p>0.01).Conclusion: we conclude that there was associated between CYP19A1 gene polymorphism (rs2236722) with aromatase activity and related to acromegaly patients

Synthesis and Evaluation of Antibacterial and Antifungal Activities of 1,3-Disubstituted-4-thioxoimidazolidin-2-one Derivatives

1,3-Disubstituted-4-thioxoimidazolidin-2-one derivatives with various substituents at N1 and N3 were synthesized with high yields and excellent purity by the reaction of various N-arylcyanothioformamide derivatives with isocyanate derivatives. The activity of these products as antibacterial and antifungal agents was studied to through some light on structural activity relationship. Some of synthesized compounds showed significant antibacterial and antifungal activities. Most of the imidazole derivatives possess significant antifungal activity aginst S. cerevisiae (MIC 1–10 µg mL–1). As comparision with ketoconazole, most of the imidazole derivatives showed activity ranging from 50 % less activity to fourfold activity. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Improving the carbon capture efficiency for gas power plants through amine-based absorbents

Environmental concern for our planet has changed significantly over time due to climate change, caused by an increasing population and the subsequent demand for electricity, and thus increased power generation. Considering that natural gas is regarded as a promising fuel for such a purpose, the need to integrate carbon capture technologies in such plants is becoming a necessity, if gas power plants are to be aligned with the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere, through understanding the capturing efficacy of different absorbents under different operating conditions. Therefore, this study provided for the first time the comparison of available absorbents in relation to amine solvents (MEA, DEA, and DEA) CO2 removal efficiency, cost, and recirculation rate to achieve Climate change action through caron capture without causing absorbent disintegration. The study analyzed Flue under different amine-based solvent solutions (monoethanolamine (MEA), diethanolamine (DEA), and methyldiethanolamine (MDEA)), in order to compare their potential for CO2 reduction under different operating conditions and costs. This was simulated using ProMax 5.0 software modeled as a simple absorber tower to absorb CO2 from flue gas. Furthermore, MEA, DEA, and MDEA adsorbents were used with a temperature of 38 °C and their concentration varied from 10 to 15%. Circulation rates of 200–300 m3/h were used for each concentration and solvent. The findings deduced that MEA is a promising solvent compared to DEA and MDEA in terms of the highest CO2 captured; however, it is limited at the top outlet for clean flue gas, which contained 3.6295% of CO2 and less than half a percent of DEA and MDEA, but this can be addressed either by increasing the concentration to 15% or increasing the MEA circulation rate to 300 m3/h

Non-invasive testing for liver pathology in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency

BACKGROUND: Many patients with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (A1ATD) receive care in respiratory clinics without access to specialist hepatology expertise. Liver disease can develop asymptomatically, and non-invasive markers of fibrosis may help identify patients who require definitive assessment with liver biopsy. We evaluated the utility of non-invasive markers of liver fibrosis in A1ATD to guide testing in settings without ready access to hepatology expertise. METHODS: Patients attending the London A1ATD service undergo assessment using blood tests to calculate the 'APRI' and 'FIB-4' score, liver ultrasound and Fibroscan. Liver biopsy is offered to patients who have abnormal liver function tests with abnormal liver ultrasound and/or liver stiffness >6 kPa on Fibroscan. Liver biopsies were assessed for the presence of A1AT, steatosis, fibrosis and inflammation. RESULTS: 75 patients with A1ATD had results for analysis, 56% were female, age 16-82 years. 75% of patients had Fibroscan 8 kPa. There was a significant correlation between FIB-4 and Fibroscan (r=0.244, p=0.035). Fibroscan >6 kPa corresponded to a FIB-4 score of >1.26. However, FIB-4 >1.26 had poor sensitivity (47%), specificity (32%) and positive-predictive value (PPV; 36%) to identify Fibroscan >6 kPa. The negative-predictive value (NPV) was stronger at 81%. APRI data were similar. Twelve patients underwent liver biopsy, with 11 reports available for analysis. Six had FIB-4 scores<1.26 and five had Fibroscan of <6 kPa. A1AT was present in 64% of biopsies, steatosis in 82%, mild fibrosis in 36%, moderate fibrosis in 9% and severe fibrosis in 9%. CONCLUSION: A combination of liver ultrasound and non-invasive fibrosis tests can help identify patients with A1ATD liver injury. However, APRI and FIB-4 scores alone had poor sensitivity and specificity to justify use as an independent tool for liver pathology in A1ATD

Smart data packet ad hoc routing protocol

This paper introduces a smart data packet routing protocol (SMART) based on swarm technology for mobile ad hoc networks. The main challenge facing a routing protocol is to cope with the dynamic environment of mobile ad hoc networks. The problem of finding best route between communication end points in such networks is an NP problem. Swarm algorithm is one of the methods used solve such a problem. However, copping with the dynamic environment will demand the use of a lot of training iterations. We present a new infrastructure where data packets are smart enough to guide themselves through best available route in the network. This approach uses distributed swarm learning approach which will minimize convergence time by using smart data packets. This will decrease the number of control packets in the network as well as it provides continues learning which in turn provides better reaction to changes in the network environment. The learning information is distributed throughout the nodes of the network. This information can be used and updated by successive packets in order to maintain and find better routes. This protocol is a hybrid Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and river formation dynamics (RFD) swarm algorithms protocol. ACO is used to set up multi-path routes to destination at the initialization, while RFD mainly used as a base algorithm for the routing protocol. RFD offers many advantages toward implementing this approach. The main two reasons of using RFD are the small amount of information that required to be added to the packets (12 bytes in our approach) and the main idea of the RFD algorithm which is based on one kind of agent called drop that moves from source to destination only. This will eliminate the need of feedback packets to update the network and offers a suitable solution to change data packet into smart packets. Simulation results shows improvement in the throughput and reduction in end to end delay and jitter compared to AODV and AntHocNet protocols. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

First report of Gelis declivis (Hym.: Ichneumonidae, Cryptinae) from different regions of Iran

Gelis declivis (Hym.: Ichneumonidae, Cryptinae) is newly reported from three provinces of Iran (Guilan, Alborz and Fars). Diagnostic morphological characters and information of the known distribution of G. declivis are provided

Spice Foods effects on Body Weight Reductions between Obese Animal Models

The aim of this study was determination and identification of phenolic and flavonoids fraction in addition to the antioxidant activities of used herbals (curcumin, black pepper and cumin) by HPLC in addition to evaluating the effects of such different spicy food consumptions on body weight reduction between obese animal models. Rats were randomly divided to ten groups fed; Black Papers, Cumin and Curcumin either alone or in different mixtures additionally to groups fed Orlistat (control body weight loss), Non-obese negative control group (C-ve) and Obese control positive group (C+ve). Blood glucose and body weight levels were measured at the beginning and end of the experimental in addition to rats’ lipid profiles (total cholesterol; triglycerides;, high dense lipoprotein cholesterol; low dense lipoprotein cholesterol; and very low dense lipoprotein cholesterol). Results presented that obese models received (Cumin)&nbsp; Cu/( Curcumin ) Cur mixture have the biggest effective significant treatment (about -80% body weight reduction&nbsp; ) followed by both groups fed mixtures of (Curcumin ) Cur/( Black Papers ) Bp&nbsp; and (Curcumin) Cur/( Black Papers ) Bp/( Cumin ) Cu; decreased by -68.0 and -65.6g respectively. The study could be more valuable causing significant body weight reduction between obese models, however human studies are needed