The preparation of activated carbon (AC) from date stones by using microwave assisted K2CO3 activation was investigated in this paper. The influence of radiation time, radiation power, and impregnation ratio on the yield and methylene blue (MB) uptake of such carbon were studied. Based on Box-Wilson central composite design, two second order polynomial models were developed to correlate the process variables to the two responses. From the analysis of variance the significant variables on each response were identified. Optimum coditions of 8 min radiation time, 660 W radiation power and 1.5 g/g impregnation ratio gave 460.123 mg/g MB uptake and 19.99 % yield. The characteristics of the AC were examined by pore structure analysis, and scan

When the guard honey bees, Apis mellifera L., form a clump at the hive entrance or on the flight board, the oriental hornet, Vespa orientails L., either creeps toward the clump or hovers over it in order to take a bee. Once the hornet creeps, only few bees facing the hornet become alert, rock their heads and antennae, open their wings, and take a posture of defense. The rest of the clump stays listless without any signal of concern. However, the clump stays dense and the defending bees do not detach themselves neither from the rest of the clump nor from each other. For this reason, it is very difficult for the hornet to grab a bee unless the latter makes a “mistake” by detaching herself from other adjacent bees. If the hornet grabs s

Background: Prosthodontic services have changed markedly due to an introduction of new materials, techniques and treatment options. The aim of this study were to identify the type of materials and the methods used by dental practitioners in their clinics to construct conventional complete dentures and to specify the type and design for removable partial dentures (RPDs); and to then compare them with those taught in dental schools. Materials and methods: A total of 153 dental practitioners in Sulaimani city completed a written questionnaire. The questionnaire included 19 questions regarding complete and RPDs fabrication. Results: Most of the practitioners provide complete dentures (81.6%) and RPDs (95.3%) in their clinics. Polyvinyl silox

This study was set out to investigate factors affecting labor productivity on construction in the north of Iraq (Kurdistan) and to rank all the factors based on engineers, contractors, and designer’s opinions. 76 factors were analyzed based on previous literature and a pilot study. Next, by using online Google Form, a questionnaire form was created and sent to people who have experience in the construction industry. Afterward, the questionnaire form was sent to targeted people by email and social media apps. Factors were divided into nine groups “Management, Technical and Technology, Human and Workforce, Leadership, Motivation, Safety, Time, Material and Equipment, and External”. However, 202 respondents participated in this study,

A total of 47 species belonging to 46 genera, 34 subfamilies, 23 families and 7 orders of predator and parasitoid insects were collected and identified. The survey was conducted throughout the program held by the General Directorate of Agriculture-Duhok, in cooperating with the College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences in Duhok Province, Kurdistan Region, Iraq from May 2013 to April 2014.
The species hosts, collecting date, locality and distributions are given. The current checklist also included some species previously collected by other researchers in Duhok Province.

Palm vein recognition is a one of the most efficient biometric technologies, each individual can be identified through its veins unique characteristics, palm vein acquisition techniques is either contact based or contactless based, as the individual's hand contact or not the peg of the palm imaging device, the needs a contactless palm vein system in modern applications rise tow problems, the pose variations (rotation, scaling and translation transformations) since the imaging device cannot aligned correctly with the surface of the palm, and a delay of matching process especially for large systems, trying to solve these problems. This paper proposed a pose invariant identification system for contactless palm vein which include three main

Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering many fields of life nowadays. One of these fields is biometric authentication. Palm print recognition is considered a fundamental aspect of biometric identification systems due to the inherent stability, reliability, and uniqueness of palm print features, coupled with their non-invasive nature. In this paper, we develop an approach to identify individuals from palm print image recognition using Orange software in which a hybrid of AI methods: Deep Learning (DL) and traditional Machine Learning (ML) methods are used to enhance the overall performance metrics. The system comprises of three stages: pre-processing, feature extraction, and feature classification or matching. The SqueezeNet deep le

Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering many fields of life nowadays. One of these fields is biometric authentication. Palm print recognition is considered a fundamental aspect of biometric identification systems due to the inherent stability, reliability, and uniqueness of palm print features, coupled with their non-invasive nature. In this paper, we develop an approach to identify individuals from palm print image recognition using Orange software in which a hybrid of AI methods: Deep Learning (DL) and traditional Machine Learning (ML) methods are used to enhance the overall performance metrics. The system comprises of three stages: pre-processing, feature extraction, and feature classification or matching. The SqueezeNet deep le