An-Najah National University

About: An-Najah National University is a education organization based out in Nablus, Palestinian Territory. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Adsorption. The organization has 1857 authors who have published 2607 publications receiving 68226 citations. The organization is also known as: An Najah National University.

A combined experimental and density functional theory study of metformin oxy-cracking for pharmaceutical wastewater treatment

Abstract: Pharmaceutical compounds are emerging contaminants that have been detected in surface water across the world. Because conventional wastewater treatment plants are not designed to treat such pollutants, new technologies are needed to degrade and oxidize such contaminants. The newly developed oxy-cracking process was utilized to treat the antidiabetic drug, metformin. The process, which involved partial oxidation of metformin in alkaline aqueous medium, proved to decompose the drug into small organic molecules, with minimum emission of CO2, therefore, increasing its biodegradability and removal from industrial treatment plants. The reaction gaseous products were probed by online gas chromatography. The liquid phase before and after oxy-cracking was analyzed for total carbon content by TOC and gas chromatography mass spectrometry. The products formed from the nitrogen-rich drug included ammonia, amines, amidines, and urea derivatives. A reaction mechanism for the oxy-cracking process is proposed. Because the hydroxyl radical (˙OH) is believed to play a central role in the oxy-cracking process, the mechanism is initiated by ˙OH attacks on metformin, followed by single decomposition or isomerization steps into stable products. The reactions were investigated using density functional theory calculations and validated using high quality 2nd order Moller–Plesset perturbation theory energy calculations.

Closed-Form Solutions for Bimodal Axle Load Spectra and Relative Pavement Damage Estimation

Abstract: The mechanistic-empirical (ME) design procedures utilize axle load spectra to characterize the individual traffic loadings for a site. These loading characteristics are employed to calculate pavement response and for subsequent damage computations. Generally, these axle load distributions exhibit a bimodal shape and a combination of two continuous statistical distributions can be used to model them. In this paper, closed-form solutions are developed to estimate the parameters of the bimodal distribution from data. A combination of two normal distributions is shown to reasonably fit observed axle spectra. Since it is anticipated that the AASHTO equivalent single-axle load (ESAL) concept will continue to be used by pavement engineers even after the full adoption of ME design methods, a closed-form statistical relationship between ESALs and axle load spectra is proposed. Such a relationship will be useful in estimating a traffic level index from an axle distribution. In addition, the relationship can provide an estimate of the relative pavement damage caused by axle distributions, and be used to rank axle load spectra within a geographical region, or between regions in order to identify heavier traffic loading corridors.

Global output of research on epidermal parasitic skin diseases from 1967 to 2017

Abstract: Epidermal parasitic skin diseases (EPSD) occur in most countries and cause a considerable health and economic burden, particularly in the tropics and subtropics The aim of this study was to assess and analyse peer-reviewed literature on EPSD in humans The results of this study serve as an indicator of the extent the scientific community, health authorities, and international health agencies interact with EPSD as a health problem that is commonly associated with poverty and poor hygiene A bibliometric analysis methodology was used The Scopus database was used to retrieve documents about EPSD for the study period (1967–2017) The study focused on scabies, tungiasis, pediculosis, hookworm-related cutaneous larva migrans (HrCLM), myiasis, and cutaneous strongyloidiasis Documents that specifically and explicitly discuss EPSD in animals, aquatic organisms, and birds were excluded In total, 4186 documents were retrieved A fluctuated growth of publications on EPSD in the past five decades was found The retrieved documents received 43 301 citations, an average of 103 citations per article and an h-index of 74 The keywords “scabies” and was the most commonly encountered keyword followed by the keywords “head lice” and “pediculosis” The most active journal involved in publishing articles on EPSD was the International Journal of Dermatology (164; 39%) Researchers from 93 different countries published the retrieved articles The USA led with 735 (176%) documents, followed by the UK (274; 65%), and Germany (259; 62%) In terms of institutions, the Charite – Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany was the most active in this field with 78 (19%) publications, followed by the Universidade Federal do Ceara in Brazil with 52 (12%) publications Research on scabies and pediculosis dominated the field of EPSD research to the expense of tungiasis, HrCLM, myiasis, and cutaneous strongyloidiasis There was an underrepresentation of literature from the tropics and subtropics despite EPSD being common in these areas This could possibly be explained by the presence of limited number of non-English journals in the Scopus database International research collaborations and research networking should be strengthened to help advance and prioritize research on EPSD