Recently, the internet has made the users able to transmit the digital media in the easiest manner. In spite of this facility of the internet, this may lead to several threats that are concerned with confidentiality of transferred media contents such as media authentication and integrity verification. For these reasons, data hiding methods and cryptography are used to protect the contents of digital media. In this paper, an enhanced method of image steganography combined with visual cryptography has been proposed. A secret logo (binary image) of size (128x128) is encrypted by applying (2 out 2 share) visual cryptography on it to generate two secret share. During the embedding process, a cover red, green, and blue (RGB) image of size (512

Background: Radiopacity is one of the prerequisites for dental materials, especially for composite restorations. It's essential for easy detection of secondary dental caries as well as observation of the radiographic interface between the materials and tooth structure. The aim of this study to assess the difference in radiopacity of different resin composites using a digital x-ray system. Materials and methods: Ten specimens (6mm diameter and 1mm thickness) of three types of composite resins (Evetric, Estelite Sigma Quick,and G-aenial) were fabricated using Teflon mold. The radiopacity was assessed using dental radiography equipment in combination with a phosphor plate digital system and a grey scale value aluminum step wedge with thickness

In this study, four different spectrophotometric methods were applied for determination of cimetidine and erythromycin ethylsuccinate drugs in pure form and in their pharmaceutical preparations. The suggested methods are simple, sensitive, accurate, not time consuming and inexpensive. The results showed the following: The first method: Based on the formation of ion pair complex of each drug with bromothymol blue (BTB) as a chromogenic reagent. The formed complexes were extracted with chloroform and their absorbance values were measured at 427.5 nm for cimetidine and 416.5nm for erythromycin ethylsuccinate; against their reagents blanks. Two different methods, univariate method and multivariate method, were used to obtain the optimum condit

This paper describes the problem of online autonomous mobile robot path planning, which is consisted of finding optimal paths or trajectories for an autonomous mobile robot from a starting point to a destination across a flat map of a terrain, represented by a 2-D workspace. An enhanced algorithm for solving the problem of path planning using Bacterial Foraging Optimization algorithm is presented. This nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm, which imitates the foraging behavior of E-coli bacteria, was used to find the optimal path from a starting point to a target point. The proposed algorithm was demonstrated by simulations in both static and dynamic different environments. A comparative study was evaluated between the developed algori

The aim of this research is to assess the validity of Detailed Micro-Modeling (DMM) as a numerical model for masonry analysis. To achieve this aim, a set of load-displacement curves obtained based on both numerical simulation and experimental results of clay masonry prisms loaded by a vertical load. The finite element method was implemented in DMM for analysis of the experimental clay masonry prism. The finite element software ABAQUS with implicit solver was used to model and analyze the clay masonry prism subjected to a vertical load. The load-displacement relationship of numerical model was found in good agreement with those drawn from experimental results. Evidence shows that load-displacement curvefound from the finite element m

Background: MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is a global health problem. Many people are looking for new ways to combat MRSA, for example by using bacteriophages (phages). It has been extremely challenging to isolate a sufficient quantity of lytic anti-MRSA phages. Therefore, new techniques for separating, refining, and reworking anti-MRSA phages were sought in this study.

Methods: Of 437 S. aureus isolates, nine clinical MRSA isolates were obtained from three hospitals in Baghdad, Iraq and two ATCC MRSA strains were used to separate wild anti-MRS

In this paper a new structure for the AVR of the power system exciter is proposed and designed using digital-based LQR. With two weighting matrices R and Q,  this method produces an optimal regulator that is used to generate the feedback control law. These matrices are called state and control weighting matrices and are used to balance between the relative importance of the input and the states in the cost function that is being optimized. A sample power system composed of single machine connected to an infinite- bus bar (SMIB) with both a conventional and a proposed Digital AVR (DAVR) is simulated. Evaluation results show that the DAVR damps well the oscillations of the terminal voltage and presents a faster respo

This paper presents thermal characteristics analysis of a modified Closed Wet Cooling Tower (CWCT) based on heat and mass transfer principles to improve the performance of this tower in Iraq. A prototype of CWCT optimized by added packing was designed, manufactured and tested for cooling capacity of 9 kW. Experiments are conducted to explore the effects of various operational and conformational parameters on the thermal performance. In the test section, spray water temperature and both dry bulb temperature and relative humidity of the air measured at intermediate points of the heat exchanger and packing. Heat exchangers consist of four rows and eight columns for an inline tubes arrangement and six rows and five columns f