The aim of this research was to estimate the production function to measure returns to scale and distribution efficiency of  resources used in the production of wheat. Cross sectional data used of a random sample of 130 farmers in Dhi Qar Province. The results of the quantitative analysis of estimating production function showed that the double logarithmic form was the best estimated model based on economic and statistical indicators. However, that form suffered from heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation, so the robust regression technique was chosen. Value of returns to scale was 0.89 and this indicates decreasing returns to scale. This means that production function is in the second stage of the function. The results of the dist

Microbiological contamination by fungi impacts the quality and safety of wheat grain storage. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of cold plasma in restricting the growth of the fungus, Aspergillus niger, which was isolated from wheat grains. A dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) operating at atmospheric pressure generated cold plasma that was used to treat the fungus, and the impact of this treatment was investigated at various periods  1, 2, 4, 6, and 15 minutes. The results revealed a highly significant decrease in the growth and number of spores of Aspergillus niger compared to the controls. This study revealed an efficient technique for enhancing wheat grain storage that could be a foundation for further large-scale studies.

Some of the main challenges in developing an effective network-based intrusion detection system (IDS) include analyzing large network traffic volumes and realizing the decision boundaries between normal and abnormal behaviors. Deploying feature selection together with efficient classifiers in the detection system can overcome these problems.  Feature selection finds the most relevant features, thus reduces the dimensionality and complexity to analyze the network traffic.  Moreover, using the most relevant features to build the predictive model, reduces the complexity of the developed model, thus reducing the building classifier model time and consequently improves the detection performance.  In this study, two different sets of select

Liposome-mediated transfection of cancer cells provide a valuable experimental technique to study cellular gene expression and may also be adapted for gene therapy studies. However, the widely recognized advantage of liposome-mediated transfection is high efficiency. Therefore, this study were performed to optimize transfection techniques in human larynx carcinoma cell line Hep-2 using the commercial synthetic lipid TransFast™ Reagent and monitoring the expression efficiency by using the pSV-?-galactosidase Control Vector which encoded ?-galactosidase, maximum transfection efficiency were achieved with TransFast™ Reagent used at the Charge ratios of 2:1 and 0.5 µg DNA/ml, this is indicate that TransFast™ Reagent can be used as an eff

A mathematical model has been formulated to predict the influence of high outdoor air temperature on the performance of small scale air - conditioning system using R22 and alternative refrigerants R290, R407C, R410A. All refrigerants were investigated in the cooling mode operation. The mathematical model results have been validated with experimental data extracted from split type air conditioner of 2 TR capacity. This entailed the construction of an experimental test rig which consists of four main parts. They are, the refrigeration system, psychrometric test facility, measuring instrumentation, and auxiliary systems. The conditioned air was maintained at 25 0C dry bulb and 19 0C wet bulb for all tests. The outdoor ambient air temperatur

This study aims to assess the accuracy of digital elevation model (DEM) created with utilization of handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) and comparing with Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM), version 2. It is known that the quality of the DEM is affected by both of accuracy of elevation at each pixel (absolute accuracy) and accuracy of presented morphology (relative accuracy). The University of Baghdad, Al Jadriya campus was selected as a study area to create and analysis the resulting DEM. Additionally, Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to visualize, analyses and interpolate GPS track points (elevation data) of the study area. In this

In any natural area or water body, evapotranspiration is one of the main outcomes in the water balance equation. It is also a crucial component of the hydrologic cycle and considers as the main requirement in the planning and designing of any irrigation project. The climatic parameters for the Ishaqi area are calculated from the available date of Samarra and Al-Khlais meteorological stations according to a method for the period (1982–2017) according to Fetter method. The results of the mean of rainfall, relative humidity temperature, evaporation, sunshine, and wind speed of the Ishaqi area are 171.96 mm, 49.67%, 24.86 C°, 1733.61 mm, 8.34 h/day, and 2.3 m/sec, respectively. Values of Potential Evapotranspiration are determined by

Many carbonate reservoirs in the world show a tilted in originally oil-water contact (OOWC) which requires a special consideration in the selection of the capillary pressure curves and an understanding of reservoir fluids distribution while initializing the reservoir simulation models.
An analytical model for predicting the capillary pressure across the interface that separates two immiscible fluids was derived from reservoir pressure transient analysis. The model reflected the entire interaction between the reservoir-aquifer fluids and rock properties measured under downhole reservoir conditions.
This model retained the natural coupling of oil reservoirs with the aquifer zone and treated them as an explicit-region composite system