Voice Activity Detection (VAD) is considered as an important pre-processing step in speech processing systems such as speech enhancement, speech recognition, gender and age identification. VAD helps in reducing the time required to process speech data and to improve final system accuracy by focusing the work on the voiced part of the speech. An automatic technique for VAD using Fuzzy-Neuro technique (FN-AVAD) is presented in this paper. The aim of this work is to alleviate the problem of choosing the best threshold value in traditional VAD methods and achieves automaticity by combining fuzzy clustering and machine learning techniques. Four features are extracted from each speech segment, which are short term energy, zero-crossing rate, auto

Pavement crack and pothole identification are important tasks in transportation maintenance and road safety. This study offers a novel technique for automatic asphalt pavement crack and pothole detection which is based on image processing. Different types of cracks (transverse, longitudinal, alligator-type, and potholes) can be identified with such techniques. The goal of this research is to evaluate road surface damage by extracting cracks and potholes, categorizing them from images and videos, and comparing the manual and the automated methods. The proposed method was tested on 50 images. The results obtained from image processing showed that the proposed method can detect cracks and potholes and identify their severity levels wit

Individuals across different industries, including but not limited to agriculture, drones, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing, are increasingly using thermal cameras to achieve various safety and security goals. This widespread adoption is made possible by advancements in thermal imaging sensor technology. The current literature provides an in-depth exploration of thermography camera applications for detecting faults in sectors such as fire protection, manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, non-destructive testing and structural material industries. The current discussion builds on previous studies, emphasising the effectiveness of thermography cameras in distinguishing undetectable defects by the human eye. Various methods for defect

Feature selection (FS) constitutes a series of processes used to decide which relevant features/attributes to include and which irrelevant features to exclude for predictive modeling. It is a crucial task that aids machine learning classifiers in reducing error rates, computation time, overfitting, and improving classification accuracy. It has demonstrated its efficacy in myriads of domains, ranging from its use for text classification (TC), text mining, and image recognition. While there are many traditional FS methods, recent research efforts have been devoted to applying metaheuristic algorithms as FS techniques for the TC task. However, there are few literature reviews concerning TC. Therefore, a comprehensive overview was systematicall

Background: Parvovirus B19 is a human pathogenic virus associated with a wide range of clinical conditions. During pregnancy congenital infection with parvovirus B19 can be associated with poor outcome, including miscarriage, fetal anemia and non-immune hydrops.  

Objective: The study aimed to determine the prevalenceof Parvovirus B19 DNA in pregnant women attending the Military hospital in Khartoum, demonstrating the association between the virus and poor pregnancy outcomes.

Subjects and methods: This study was a cross sectional study, testing pregnant Sudanese women whole blood samples (n= 97) for the presence of Parvovirus B1

In this paper, we build a fuzzy classification system for classifying the nutritional status of children under 5 years old in Iraq using the Mamdani method based on input variables such as weight and height to determine the nutritional status of the child. Also, Classifying the nutritional status faces a difficult challenge in the medical field due to uncertainty and ambiguity in the variables and attributes that determine the categories of nutritional status for children, which are relied upon in medical diagnosis to determine the types of malnutrition problems and identify the categories or groups suffering from malnutrition to determine the risks faced by each group or category of children. Malnutrition in children is one of the most

Soil compaction is one of the most harmful elements affecting soil structure, limiting plant growth and agricultural productivity. It is crucial to assess the degree of soil penetration resistance to discover solutions to the harmful consequences of compaction. In order to obtain the appropriate value, using soil cone penetration requires time and labor-intensive measurements. Currently, satellite technologies, electronic measurement control systems, and computer software help to measure soil penetration resistance quickly and easily within the precision agriculture applications approach. The quantitative relationships between soil properties and the factors affecting their diversity contribute to digital soil mapping. Digital soil maps use

n this study, 25 clinical isolates of Proteus spp. were collected from urine, wounds and burns specimens from different hospitals in Baghdad city, all isolates were identified by using different bacteriological media, biochemical assays and Vitek-2 system. It was found that 15 (60%) isolates were identifies as Proteus mirabilis and 10 (40 %) isolates were Proteus vulgaris. The susceptibility of P. mirabilis and P. vulgaris isolates towards cefotaxime was (66.6 %) and (44.4 %) respectively; while the susceptibility of P. mirabilis and P. vulgaris isolates towards ceftazidime was (20%). Extended spectrum β-lactamses producing Proteus was (30.7 %). DNA of 10 isolates of P. mirabilis and 4 isolates of P. vulgaris were extracted and de

Pseudomonas aeruginosa has variety of virulence factors that contribute to its pathogenicity. Therefore, rapid detection with high accuracy and specificity is very important in the control of this pathogenic bacterium. To evaluate the accuracy and specificity of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) assay, ETA and gyrB genes were targeted to detect pathogenic strains of P. aeruginosa. Seventy swab samples were taken from patients with infected wounds and burns in two hospitals in Erbil and Koya cities in Iraq. The isolates were traditionally identified using phenotypic methods, and DNA was extracted from the positive samples, to apply PCR using the species specific primers targeting ETA, the gene encoding for exotoxin A, and gyrB gene. The res

Plant regeneration protocols were developed for medicinally important anise (Pimpinella anisum L.) that successfully achieved from seeds. Seeds were sterilized and inoculated on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium with and without gibberellins (GA3) until full germination. The highest percentage of germination (100%) was recorded on MS medium treated with 2.0 mg/L GA3 after 7 days. For shoot proliferation, different concentrations of 6- benzyl adenine BA (1, 1.5, 2 mg/L) were used. To enhance shoot induction, 0.1 mg/L of naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and 0.01 mg/L of thidiazuron (TDZ) were tested along with BA. Direct regenerated shoots were obtained on MS medium supplemented with BA alone (2mg/L) which gave (7shoot/explant), while the presence