Open Access journal ISSN (Print) 2410-9355 - ISSN (Online) 2307-549X This journal is no longer being updated because: the publisher no longer provides RSS feeds
Authors:Jihan M. Qasim Abstract: The overshot gate is a commonly used adjustable overflow weir for regulating the upstream water level in open channels. The amount of gate movement is proportional to the water level change. However, to effectively manage the water flow, it is also important for operators to accurately measure the flow rate in the channel. This study examines an overshot gate installed at the end of a laboratory flume to estimate the flow rate under various free flow conditions. This study investigates different gate angles ranging from 9.6° to 90° to evaluate their impact on the flow properties and the discharge coefficient. The analysis of the results indicates that the maximum flow rate values can be achieved with gate inclinations from 15.5° to 47.2° with relatively lower head; the inclined alignment of the gate decreases the effective gate height which consequently increases the gate efficiency. The use of the overshot gate is advantageous over the normal gate when channel depth is limited and higher discharge is required at relatively lower head. In this study, at the highest gate inclinations, the water surface is significantly stable having the lowest values of the approach Froude number. In addition, the head to gate height ratio decreases with raising the gate due to the reduced vertical contraction of the channel. Finally, this paper proposes an empirical equation for estimating the discharge coefficient based on the gate inclination, which demonstrates good accuracy in the specified range. PubDate: Sat, 17 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Pshtiwan T. Jaf; Jafar A. Ali, Ayad A. A. Razzaq Abstract: Corrosion is one of the disasters attacking the drilling tools, particularly the drill pipes. Drilling fluid is the corrosive that increase the rate of corrosion in the pipes. In this study, it is intended to reduce the corrosivity of drilling fluid using a Prosopis farcta powder material. A natural, biodegradable, and environmentally friendly additive is added to the fluid in different particle sizes and amounts to obtain the lowest corrosion rate. Experiments are conducted in a well-like environment (high pressure high temperature filter press) over a wide range of parameters including pressure, temperature, and properties of the drilling fluid under dynamic conditions. The aim is to eliminate or reduce the corrosivity of the mud as well as to control the losses. The results showed a lower corrosion rate, 0.0029 mm/year, using P. farcta material in comparison with those obtained by researchers in the previous studies. PubDate: Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Trifa S. Othman; Saman M. Abdullah Abstract: The usability and scalability of Internet of things (IoT) technology are expanding in such a way that they facilitate human living standards. However, they increase the vulnerabilities and attack vectors over IoT networks as well. Thus, more security challenges could be expected and encountered, and more security services and solutions should be provided. Although many security techniques propose and promise good solutions for that intrusion detection systems IDSs still considered the best. Many works proposed machine learning (ML)-based IDSs for IoT attack detection and classification. Nevertheless, they suffer from two main gaps. First, few of the works utilized or could analyze an up-to-date version of IoT-based attack behaviors. Second, few of the works can be considered as multi-class attack detection and classification. Therefore, this work proposes an intelligent IDS (IIDS) by exploiting the ability of ML algorithms to classify and identify malicious from benign behaviors among IoT network packets. Three ML classifier algorithms are investigated, which are K-Nearest Neighbor, support vector machine, and artificial neural network. The developed models have been trained and tested as binary and multi-class classifiers against 15 types of attacks and benign. This work employs an up-to-date dataset known as IoT23, which covers millions of malicious and benign behaviors of IoT-connected devices. The process of developing the proposed IIDSs goes under different preprocessing phases and methods, such as null value solving, SMOTE method for the imbalanced datasets, data normalization, and feature selections. The results present IIDSs as good binary and multi-class classifiers even for zero-day attacks. PubDate: Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Zakariya A. Hussein Abstract: This research examines the measurements of radiation detection and heavy metals in blood samples of leukemia and health groups using CR-39 nuclear track detectors and X-ray fluorescence. The results show that the minimum and maximum values of uranium contents found in leukemia blood samples of male (18 years) and female (55 years) patients, respectively. The concentration of heavy metals (Pb, Cd, and Ni) and radium contents is higher in leukemia blood samples, as compared with their concentration in healthy blood samples. PubDate: Thu, 18 May 2023 20:12:10 +000
Authors:Mani D. Fadaee; Farzin Shama, Mohammad S. Feali, Maryam S. Gilan Abstract: A new structure of microstrip-based low-pass filter with wide stopband and sharp roll-off is introduced, in this paper. In the proposed topology, resonators with T and modified L Shapes have been used. To improve the suppression factor and relative stopband bandwidth, the second resonator has been added to the first resonator. The designed filter has been fabricated on a 20 mm thickness RO4003 substrate, which has a loss tangent of 0.0021 and a relative dielectric constant equal to 3.38. All parameters including roll of rate, stopband, bandwidth, return loss, insertion loss, and figure of merit have significant coefficients. Simulation has been ran using advanced design system software. The 3dB cutoff frequency is appropriate. The value of the insertion loss parameter is <0.1 dB and the S11 parameter is −22 dB at this point. The stopband is extended from 2.42 up to 24 GHz, which shows an ultra-stopband. The results of the simulation and experiment are almost similar, which indicates a proper performance of the designed structure. PubDate: Thu, 18 May 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Barham K. Rahim; Peshawa O. Amin, Fahmi F. Muhammadsharif, Salah R. Saeed , Kamal A. Ketuly Abstract: In this work, the optical properties and optoelectronics parameters of binary and ternary composite films made of two electron acceptors, poly(L-Tryptophane) and poly(5-hydroxy-L-Tryptophane), with an electron donor, P(TER-CO-TRI), doped with Sudan dyes, are comprehensively investigated. The films with different volumetric ratios of the components were deposited onto the glass substrates using spin coating technique. Results showed that with the help of dye doping into the binary systems of poly(L-Tryptophane):P(TRI-co-TER) (1:2) and poly(5-hydroxy-L-Tryptophane):P(TRI-co-TER)(1:2), the refractive index was increased from 2.01 to 2.32. The nature of the electronic transition in the studied films was found to be a direct allowed transition, which was derived from Tauc’s equation. The combination of Cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique and absorption spectroscopy was used to determine the molecular energy levels, HOMO and LUMO of the polymer samples. It was seen that the mixture of poly(L-Tryptophane):P(TRI-co-TER):Sudan dye (1:2:2) has led to increase the energy gap to 2.95 eV and the real optical conductivity ( ) to about 433.11 S.cm-1. According to the findings, the investigated polymers can have a great potential for semitransparent organic solar cells. PubDate: Mon, 17 Apr 2023 12:37:28 +000
Authors:Yasmin A. Hassan; Abdul Monem S. Rahmah Abstract: The progress of network and multimedia technologies has been phenomenal during the previous two decades. Unauthorized users will be able to copy, retransmit, modify reproduction, and upload the contents more easily as a result of this innovation. Malicious attackers are quite concerned about the development and widespread use of digital video. Digital watermarking technology gives solutions to the aforementioned problems. Watermarking methods can alleviate these issues by embedding a secret watermark in the original host data, allowing the genuine user or file owner to identify any manipulation. In this study, lots of papers have been analyzed and studied carefully, in the period 2011–2022. The historical basis of the subject should not be forgotten so studying old research will give a clear idea of the topic. To aid future researchers in this subject, we give a review of fragile watermarking approaches and some related papers presented in recent years. This paper presents a comparison of many relevant works in this field based on some of the outcomes and improvements gained in these studies, which focuses on the common characteristics that increase the effect of watermarking techniques such as invisibility, tamper detection, recovery, and security PubDate: Mon, 03 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Shavan K. Askar Abstract: Due to advancement in internet of medical things, the conventional health-care systems are transformed into smart health-care systems. The medical emergence services can be significantly enhanced by integration of IoMT and data analytic techniques. These technologies also examine the unexplored area of medical services that are still unseen and provide opportunity for investigation. Moreover, the concept of smart cities is not achievable without providing a smart connected healthcare scheme. Hence, the main purpose of this research is to come up with a smart healthcare system based on IoMT, Cloud and Fog computing and intelligent data analytic technique. The major objective of the proposed healthcare system is to develop a diagnostic model capable for earlier treatment of heart disease. The suggested scheme consists of distinct phases such as data acquisition, feature extraction, FogBus based edge/fog computing environment, classification, and evaluation. In data acquisition, different IoMT such as wearables and sensors devices are considered to acquire the data related to heart disease and the various features related to signal and data are extracted. Further, the deep forest technique is integrated into the proposed system for classification task and effective diagnosis capabilities of heart issues. The performance of the suggested scheme is evaluated through set of well-defined parameters. Comparison with other healthcare model was conducted for the purpose of performance evaluation. It is concluded that the proposed model has a superiority over other all other models in different aspects namely, the sensitivity measure, accuracy measure, and specificity. PubDate: Fri, 31 Mar 2023 08:12:30 +000
Authors:Varoujan K. Sissakian; Lanja H. Abdullah, Balanbo N. Abdulkareem Abstract: Visual interpretation of satellite images is a very significant technique to recognize and interpret structural features, which indicate lateral growth of folds, the origin of folds, and dating of folds using the exposure dating method. In this study, Landsat 8 (ESSRI) and Google Earth images are used to recognize structural features at Pira Magroon, Surdash, and Azmar anticlines in the Sulaimaniyah vicinity, Kurdistan Region, north of Iraq. The mentioned anticlines are outstanding geomorphological and structural features in the Sulaimaniyah vicinity. The recognized and interpreted structural features include: en-echelon folding, domes, and Neotectonic indication. All these features are discussed in detail with many images to show the discussed cases, most of the interpreted data and presented figures are never mentioned previously. PubDate: Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Nabaz S. Hussein; Rahel Kh. Ibrahim Abstract: Oil-well cutting material (OWCM) is a waste generated during the process of oil-well drilling. Its disposal is costly and harmful to the environment. The chemical makeup for the material implies that it might be used as a partial cement replacement in concrete. It is high in calcium oxide, silica, and aluminum oxide, which are the main oxides found in raw materials used to produce cement. Replacing a part of cement by OWCM in concrete mixtures can directly reduce the quantity of the cement used which leads to decreasing the emission of carbon dioxide and solving the disposal problems for the OWCM as well. This process can be considered as a significant step in producing environmentally friendly concrete. This study focuses on investigating the fresh and mechanical properties of different concrete mixes that have different strength grades, containing different percentages of OWCM as a cement replacement. For this purpose, different concrete mixes containing 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%,30%, 35%, and 40% of OWCM as a cement replacement, besides the control Portland cement for the three different concrete strength grades, were prepared. After performing the slump and flow tests, cube specimens were cast and moist-cured for 3, 28, and 90 days and subjected to compression test, whereas 28-day moist-cured cylinder specimens were subjected to splitting tensile test. The test results have revealed that in spite of small reduction in strength with replacing cement by up to 20% of OWCM, the strength of the concrete remains within the designed strength grade ranges. PubDate: Sat, 25 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Twana N. Hassan; Saif T. Manji Abstract: Nowadays, clean and high-power generation is essential matters worldwide. To be improved and optimized, power plants require accurate models that can be introduced to process simulators. There is various commercial software for industrial simulation which is not accessible to everyone. The open-source DWSIM process simulator is the first chemical engineering code that offers many tools for the better study of industrial plants. In this paper, we employ DWSIM software to simulate a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant under design conditions for three cases. The generic models are predicted for multistage compressors and compressor maps. In the first case, two models developed in ASPEN HYSYS and GateCycle will be considered. The achieved results by DWSIM are acceptably comparable for thermal efficiency and power generation. The DWSIM result is 3.5% lower than the ASPEN HYSYS for thermal efficiency, and the power generation is completely the same. In the second case, rigorous simulation was carried out using actual field data from the local CCGT power plant. The DWSIM outcomes are very close to the practical data. The power generation of GT and CC is very close; the variety is nearly 0.45%. In the third case, the simulation of CCGT with a cogeneration system is precisely accomplished, and the outcomes of DWSIM are shown in excellent agreement. The DWSIM prediction shows lower values by 0.26%, 4.79%, and 0.72% for the HP turbine, LP turbine, and plant net power, respectively. PubDate: Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Sheelan A. Ahmed Abstract: In general, the physical and rheological properties of asphalt binder are directly affecting the resistance of asphalt mix to the permanent deformation (rutting), water damage, and thermal cracking. The degradation in these properties leads to severe distresses that appear in the pavement and, consequently, make the repair and maintenance very expensive. Since the modified-asphalt cement may help to minimize such aforementioned distresses, this research is established for this purpose. It aims to investigate the physical and rheological properties of modified-asphalt cement with silicone, dense silicone rubber, and ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber. Five contents for each type of hot glue are investigated; 0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, and 2% of the asphalt cement weight. Conventional asphalt cement tests such as penetration, softening point, dynamic viscosity, and ductility tests are conducted to evaluate the hot glue-modified asphalt cement properties. Moreover, the Marshall and indirect tensile strength tests are conducted to examine the effect of hot glue on the performance of the asphalt mixtures at concentrations of 0.8 and 1.6% of the asphalt cement weight. The results show that the hot glue-modified asphalt cement leads to an increase in the hardness and consistency, and a reduction in the temperature susceptibility of asphalt cement. These features lead to better Marshall stability and tensile strength ratio, as compared with the standard asphalt cement mixture. PubDate: Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Muzafar K. Omar; Hanaa A. Muhammad, Sawan M. Mirkhan Abstract: Tribolium confusum is one of the most common pests of many commodities, especially cereals and their products. These pests are known for being the most destructive insect pests attacking and infesting stored flour and grain in soil, warehouses, grocery stores, and homes. Therefore, this study aims to control these pests with an environmentally friendly, healthier, and cost-effective pesticide instead of the common artificial chemicals to practice the current management of cereal storage pest control in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. For this to be achieved, the toxicity effect of crude plant extracts from five different parts of Melia azedarach in tap water with concentrations of 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, and 90% at different times (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 h) against stored-product insect was tested. The toxicity effect of these extracts varied based on the crude plant part extracts, concentrations, and exposure period according to the SAS system investigation on the mortality rate of T. confusum adults (Duncan test). The extracts’ compatibility with treated adults of T. confusum in the clear petri dish was noted. Besides, the number of dead adults was measured by loss of motion. PubDate: Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Saman M. Omer; Kayhan Z. Ghafoor , Shavan K. Askar Abstract: Agriculture crops are highly significant for the sustenance of human life and act as an essential source for national income development worldwide. Plant diseases and pests are considered one of the most imperative factors influencing food production, quality, and minimize losses in production. Farmers are currently facing difficulty in identifying various plant diseases and pests, which are important to prevent plant diseases effectively in a complicated environment. The recent development of deep learning techniques has found use in the diagnosis of plant diseases and pests, providing a robust tool with highly accurate results. In this context, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the literature that aims to identify the state of the art of the use of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in the process of diagnosing and identification of plant pest and diseases. In addition, it presents some issues that are facing the models performance, and also indicates gaps that should be addressed in the future. In this regard, we review studies with various methods that addressed plant disease detection, dataset characteristics, the crops, and pathogens. Moreover, it discusses the commonly employed five-step methodology for plant disease recognition, involving data acquisition, preprocessing, segmentation, feature extraction, and classification. It discusses various deep learning architecture-based solutions that have a faster convergence rate of plant disease recognition. From this review, it is possible to understand the innovative trends regarding the use of CNN’s algorithms in the plant diseases diagnosis and to recognize the gaps that need the attention of the research community. PubDate: Thu, 02 Feb 2023 14:12:54 +000
Authors:Soran S. Badawi Abstract: Technology has dominated a huge part of human life. Furthermore, technology users use language continuously to express feelings and sentiments about things. The science behind identifying human attitudes toward a particular product, service,or topic is one of the most active fields of research, and it is called sentiment analysis. While the English language is making real progress in sentiment analysis daily, other less-resourced languages, such as Kurdish, still suffer from fundamental issues and challenges in Natural Language Processing (NLP). This paper experimentswith the recently published medical corpus using the classical machine learning method and the latest deep learning tool in NLP and Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT). We evaluated the findings of both machine learning and deep learning. The outcome indicates that BERT outperforms all the machine learning classifiers by scoring (92%) in accuracy, which is by two points higher than machine learning classifiers. PubDate: Sun, 15 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Subasini Uthirapathy Abstract: The goal of this paper is to assess the mutagenicand genotoxic potentials of avocado oil made from the fruit pulp of Persea Americana, a member of the Lauraceae family.Michigan Cancer Foundation-7 (MCF-7) cells are used in the 3-4,5 dimethylthiazol-2yl-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) test to examine the possible antiproliferative and cytostatic qualities of different doses of avocado oil, and MCF-7 cells are used in the comet assay to examine the potential cytostatic effects of avocado oil extracted from the avocado fruit. DNA in human breast cancer cells is partially damaged by avocado oil. However, DNA damage at low, medium, and high levels was discovered in the positive control. Without positive control, the DNA damage level falls in the low, middle, and high ranges. The MTT assay shows that avocado oil exerts a dose-dependent cytostatic impact on human breast cancer MCF-7 cells with an IC50 value of 379.2 μg/mL, which is the IC50 value that causes genotoxicity in the comet assay. PubDate: Sun, 15 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Niaz H. Hamad; Mohammad G. Faraj, Akram H. taha Abstract: This process of this paper is carried out using thechemical spraying method to produce homogeneous thin films ofpure cadmium sulfide-doped with silver at different percentagesof 1%, 3%, and 5% on glass and polyimide plastic substrates at300°C. The aim is to study the optical and structural properties of the samples and the effect of the silver doping rate on films producedwith these properties. Due to X-ray diffraction studies, all filmscreated had a hexagonal phase, and it was noticed that they had avery precise structure free of holes or cracks. The obtained crystalsize ranged between 22.74 nm and 55.05 nm for different substrates, and the prominent plane was (002). From the optical properties, all films exhibited transmission higher than 60%, thus showing a lowabsorption, which makes them be used as light-permeable layers in the Solar Cell system. In addition, emission peaks were revealed by photo luminescence spectra examination at wavelengths ranging between (542.94 nm) and (546.02 nm), which led to calculate the energy gap (Eg). of the produced films, ranged between (2.27 eV) and (2.28 eV) for the different substrates. PubDate: Sun, 15 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Sazan M. Talaat Abstract: Type II diabetes has been on the rise for the past few decades and the current management plan of diabetes is challenging to individuals in keeping their blood glucose levels within normal limits. There is a constant search of new ways to tackle these challenges. Cinnamon is suggested to have antihyperglycemic and lipid lowering effect and has been proposed to be utilized in type II diabetes. The aim behind this review is to explore the role of cinnamon in improving the glycemic status, lipid profile, and weight status of patients with type II diabetes. PubMed and ScienceDirect databases have been searched for eligible studies conducted until February 2022, the outcomes measured were glycemic markers as primary outcome and lipid profile and weight status as secondary outcomes. A total of ten trials involving 861 patients were included in the study. Five studies have demonstrated reductions in glycemic markers (ranging between −0.56 and −1.9 mmol/L for fasting blood sugar and between −0.21% and −0.93% for glycated hemoglobin) whereas the remaining four did not show any significant reduction. The most improvements in glycemic markers are seen in patients with poorly controlled diabetes and patients with higher body mass index (BMI) values. The majority of the studies did not record improvement in lipid profile. Changes in weight status are only observed in overweight patient category (BMI between 25 and 30). Overall, there is no coherent evidence to decide about antihyperglycemic, lipid lowering, and weight reducing effects of cinnamon in type II diabetes. PubDate: Sun, 15 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +000
Authors:Abbas Rezaei; Salah I. Yahya, Leila Nouri Abstract: In this work, several types of microstrip couplers are investigated in terms of structure, performance and design methods. These planar 4-ports passive devices transmit a signal through two different channels. Designers' competition has always been in miniaturizing and improving performance of couplers. Some couplers have been offered with a novel structure, which is a special feature. A high-performance coupler should have high isolation and low losses at both channels. The channels are usually overlapped so that the common port return loss in these channels should be low. Among the couplers, those with balanced amplitude and phase are more popular. The popular mathematical analysis methods are even/odd mode analysis, extracting the information from the ABCD matrix and analyzing the equivalent LC circuit of a simple resonator. According to the phase shift value, couplers are classified as 90º and correct multiples of 90º, where a microstrip 0º coupler can be used as a power divider. Some couplers have filtering and harmonic elimination features that are superior to other couplers. However, few designers paid attention to suppressing the harmonics. If the operating frequency is set in according to the type of application, the coupler becomes particularly valuable.ABCD Matrix PubDate: Sun, 15 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +000
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