Concrete structures are exposed to aggressive environmental conditions that lead to corrosion of the embedded reinforcement and pre-stressing steel. Consequently, the safety of concrete structures may be compromised, and this requires a significant budgets to repair and maintain critical infrastructure. Prediction of structural safety can lead to significant reductions in maintenance costs by maximizing the impact of investments. The aim of this paper is to establish a framework to assess the reliability of existing post-tensioned concrete bridges. A time-dependent reliability analysis of an existing post-tensioned involving the assessment of Ynys-y-Gwas bridge has been presented in this study. The main cause of failure of this bridge was c

Background: Waterpipe and cigarette are two products of tobacco consumption, tobacco use has detrimental effects on the oral cavity, numerous studies around the world have reported a significant relationship between smoking and increase dental caries and viable count of cariogenic bacteria, Materials and Methods: unstimulated saliva was collected from 84 subjects and divided equally into three groups waterpipe smokers, cigarette smokers, and non-smokers all of the participants are adult male aged between 25-60 years, dental caries was measured by use DMFT index, while S.mutans and S.sobrinus were isolated by using a selective medium SB 20M (Sugar bacitracin-20 modified) agar Results: this present study showed a significant (p≤0.01)

Freshwater mussels are a guild of stationary, suspended-feeding species; they perform significant ecological functions like nitrogen cycling, bioturbation that gives oxygen and habitat that other creatures need to survive, and increasing water clearance by filtration. Knowledge of the freshwater mussel Unio tigridis Bourguignat, 1852, distribution, and molecular study in Iraq was inadequate. In the current study, this species of freshwater Mussels belonging to the family Unionidae was collected from different locations in the Greater Zab River, from April 2022 to November 2022. The average water temperature of the site was arranged between (17.8 to 36.1 C°). All previous studies in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq were based on morphologic

Uropathogenic specific protein is a genotoxic protein targeting the DNA, leading to mutations and modifications in the normal cell's DNA and subsequently, cancer development. This study aims to determine the prevalence of the usp gene in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli isolated from females with urinary tract infections and study its correlation with biofilm formation. One hundred and five urine specimens were collected from female patients (20 to 55 years old) with urinary tract infections attending hospitals. Traditional laboratory methods using selective and differential culture media were used for initial bacterial isolation and identification, and molecular techniques that targeted a segment of the 16SrRNA gene with a specific primer pa

  Anthropogenic activities cause soil pollution with different serious pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) compounds. This study assessed the contamination of PAHs in soil samples collected from 30 sites divided into eight groups (residential areas, oil areas, agricultural areas, roads, petrol stations, power plants, public parks and electrical generators) in Basrah city-Iraq during 2019-2020. The soil characteristics including (moisture, pH, EC and TOC) were measured. Results showed the following ranges (soil moisture (0.03-0.18%),pH (6.90-8.16), EC (2.48-104.80) mS/cm and TOC (9.90-20.50%)). Gas Chromatography (GC) was used to measure PAHs in extracted soil samples. The total PAH range (499.96 - 5864.86) ng/g dr

ان الحرب الاوكرانية والتصعيد الروسي ضد اوكرانيا يرتبط بصراع جيوسياسي واسع على مناطق القوة والنفوذ والمجالات الحيوية، وتنافس تجاري دولي محتدم على النفط والغاز ومسارات خطوط التجارة الدولية بين اقطاب استراتيجية دولية تتجاوز اوكرانيا، إذ يأتي الصراع ضمن اطار التحولات الدولية الراهنة والصراعات على مناطق القوة والنفوذ الجيوستراتيجي والمكانة الدولية بين القوى الدولية المؤثرة في القضايا والشؤون الدولية، ويبق

The fingerprints are the more utilized biometric feature for person identification and verification. The fingerprint is easy to understand compare to another existing biometric type such as voice, face. It is capable to create a very high recognition rate for human recognition. In this paper the geometric rotation transform is applied on fingerprint image to obtain a new level of features to represent the finger characteristics and to use for personal identification; the local features are used for their ability to reflect the statistical behavior of fingerprint variation at fingerprint image. The proposed fingerprint system contains three main stages, they are: (i) preprocessing, (ii) feature extraction, and (iii) matching. The preprocessi

The levels of circulating angiogenic and anti-angiogenic factors, namely vascular endothelial growth factor–A (VEGF-A) and soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-1 (sVEGFR-1), have been linked to the development of renal dysfunction due to the proliferation of microvasculature within the kidneys of type 2 diabetic (T2DM) patients. The study aims to scrutinize serum levels of VEGF and sVEGFR-1 in a sample of Iraqi diabetic nephropathy patients to support their reliability as markers for the prediction of nephropathy in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients as well as to assess the ACE inhibitor’s effect on the levels of these two markers. Method: The ninety participants of this case-control study were split into three gr