The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is commonly used as a measure of land surface greenness based on the assumption that NDVI value is positively proportional to the amount of green vegetation in an image pixel area. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data set of Landsat based on the remote sensing information is used to estimate the area of plant cover in region west of Baghdad during 1990-2001. The results show that in the period of 1990 and 2001 the plant area in region of Baghdad increased from (44760.25) hectare to (75410.67) hectare. The vegetation area increased during the period 1990-2001, and decreases the exposed area.

In the present study, the effect of new cross-section fin geometries on overall thermal/fluid performance had been investigated. The cross-section included the base original geometry of (triangular, square, circular, and elliptical pin fins) by adding exterior extra fins along the sides of the origin fins. The present extra fins include rectangular extra fin of 2 mm (height) and 4 mm (width) and triangular extra fin of 2 mm (base) 4 mm (height). The use of entropy generation minimization method (EGM) allows the combined effect of thermal resistance and pressure drop to be assessed through the simultaneous interaction with the heat sink. A general dimensionless expression for the entropy generation rate is obtained by con

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor that regulates T cell function. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of AhR ligands, 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), and 6-Formylindolo[3,2-b]carbazole (FICZ), on gut-associated microbiota and T cell responses during delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) reaction induced by methylated bovine serum albumin (mBSA) in a mouse model. Mice with DTH showed significant changes in gut microbiota including an increased abundance of Bacteroidetes and decreased Firmicutes at the phylum level. Also, there was a decrease in Clostridium cluster XIV and IV, which promo

 Finding a path solution in a dynamic environment represents a challenge for the robotics researchers, furthermore, it is the main issue for autonomous robots and manipulators since nowadays the world is looking forward to this challenge. The collision free path for robot in an environment with moving obstacles such as different objects, humans, animals or other robots is considered as an actual problem that needs to be solved.  In addition, the local minima and sharp edges are the most common problems in all path planning algorithms. The main objective of this work is to overcome these problems by demonstrating the robot path planning and obstacle avoidance using D star (D*) algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)

The current study aims to develop a teaching design in accordance with cluster thinking strategies and explore the effect of this teaching design on students’ achievement in science. To this end, the null hypothesis was adopted: there is no statistically significant difference at the level of (0, 05) between experimental group who adopted the teaching design in learning science and control group who follow the traditional method in learning the same subject. To test the null hypothesis, total of (74) students from Al-Alaama Hussain Mahfooth intermediate school were selected intentionally for the academic year 2016-2017. The sample divided into two equal groups when all the variables (age, prior achievement of science,

Flexible molecular docking is a computational method of structure-based drug design to evaluate binding interactions between receptor and ligand and identify the ligand conformation within the receptor pocket. Currently, various molecular docking programs are extensively applied; therefore, realizing accuracy and performance of the various docking programs could have a significant value. In this comparative study, the performance and accuracy of three widely used non-commercial docking software (AutoDock Vina, 1-Click Docking, and UCSF DOCK) was evaluated through investigations of the predicted binding affinity and binding conformation of the same set of small molecules (HIV-1 protease inhibitors) and a protein target HIV-1 protease enzy

Composite materials are widely used in the engineered assets as aerospace structures, marine and air navigation owing to their high strength/weight ratios. Detection and identification of damage in the composite structures are considered as an important part of monitoring and repairing of structural systems during the service to avoid instantaneous failure. Effective cost and reliability are essential during the process of detecting. The Lamb wave method is an effective and sensitive technique to tiny damage and can be applied for structural health monitoring using low energy sensors; it can provide good information about the condition of the structure during its operation by analyzing the propagation of the wave in the