Time-domain spectral matching commonly used to define seismic inputs to dynamic analysis in terms of acceleration time history compatible with a specific target response spectrum is used in this study to investigate the second-order geometric effect of P-delta on the seismic response of base-isolated high-rise buildings. A synthetic time series is generated by adjusting reference time series that consist of available readings from a past earthquake of the 1940 El Centro earthquake adopted as an initial time series. The superstructure of a 20-story base isolated building is represented by a 3-D finite element model using ETABS software. The results of the base isolated building show that base isolation technique significantly reduces inter-s

Abiotic stress-induced genes may lead to understand the response of plants and adaptability to salinity and drought stresses. Differential display reverse transcriptase – polymerase chain reaction (DDRT-PCR) was used to investigate the differences in gene expression between drought- and salinity-stressed plantlets of Ruta graveolens. Direct and stepwise exposures to drought- or salt-responsive genes were screened in R. graveolens plantlets using the DDRT technique. Gene expression was investigated both in the control and in the salt or drought-stressed plantlets and differential banding patterns with different molecular sizes were observed using the primers OPA-01 (646,770 and 983 pb), OPA-08 (593 and 988 pb), OPA-11 (674 and 831 pb

An efficient modification and a novel technique combining the homotopy concept with  Adomian decomposition method (ADM) to obtain an accurate analytical solution for Riccati matrix delay differential equation (RMDDE) is introduced  in this paper  . Both methods are very efficient and effective. The whole integral part of ADM is used instead of the integral part of homotopy technique. The major feature in current technique gives us a large convergence region of iterative approximate solutions .The results acquired by this technique give better approximations for a larger region as well as previously. Finally, the results conducted via suggesting an efficient and easy technique, and may be addressed to other non-linear problems.

The current study examined the effect of different sample sizes to detect the Item differential functioning (DIF). The study has used three different sizes of the samples (300, 500, 1000), as well as to test a component of twenty polytomous items, where each item has five categories. They were used Graded Response Model as a single polytomous item response theory model to estimate items and individuals’ parameters. The study has used the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) way to detect (DIF) through each case for the different samples. The results of the study showed the inverse relationship between the sample size and the number of items, which showed a differential performer.

In this research, A thin film of Rhodamine B dye and TiO2 Nanoparticles doped in PMMA Polymer has been prepared by a casting method. The sample was spectrum absorption by UV-Vis. The nonlinear optical properties were measured by Z- scan technique using Nd:YAG laser with (1064 nm) wavelength. The nonlinear refractive index (n2) and nonlinear absorption coefficient (β) were estimated for the thin film for different energies of the laser, n2 and β were decreased with increasing intensity of incident laser beam. Also, the type of β was two-photon absorption and n2 negative nonlinear reflective.

           In this paper, the homotopy perturbation method (HPM) is presented for treating a linear system of second-kind mixed Volterra-Fredholm integral equations. The method is based on constructing the series whose summation is the solution of the considered system. Convergence of constructed series is discussed and its proof is given; also, the error estimation is obtained. Algorithm is suggested and applied on several examples and the results are computed by using MATLAB (R2015a). To show the accuracy of the results and the effectiveness of the method, the approximate solutions of some examples are compared with the exact solution by computing the absolute errors.

Studies were conducted to screen eight sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) genotypes for their allelopathic potential against weeds and wheat crop, which customarily follows sunflower in Iraq. All sunflower genotypes significantly inhibited the total number and biomass of companion weeds and the magnitude of inhibition was genotype dependent. Among the eight genotypes tested, Sin-Altheeb and Coupon were the most weed-suppressing cultivars, and Euroflor and Shumoos were the least. A subsequent field experiment indicated that sunflower residues incorporated into the field soil significantly inhibited the total number and biomass of weeds growing in the wheat field. Sunflower genotypes Sin-Altheeb and Coupon appeared to inhibit total weed number