Braces in straight bridge systems improve the lateral-torsional buckling resistance of the girders by reducing the unbraced length, while in horizontally curved and skew bridges, the braces are primary structural elements for controlling deformations by engaging adjacent girders to act as a system to resist the potentially large forces and torques caused by the curved or skewed geometry of the bridge. The cross-frames are usually designed as torsional braces, which increase the overall strength and stiffness of the individual girders by creating a girder system that translates and rotates as a unit along the bracing lines. However, when they transmit the truck’s live load forces, they can produce fatigue cracks at their connection

In this research, the electrical characteristics of glow discharge plasma were studied. Glow discharge plasma generated in a home-made DC magnetron sputtering system, and a DC-power supply of high voltage as input to the discharge electrodes were both utilized. The distance between two electrodes is 4cm. The gas used to produce plasma is argon gas which flows inside the chamber at a rate of 40 sccm. The influence of work function for different target materials (gold, copper, and silver), - 5cm in diameter and around 1mm thickness - different working pressures, and different applied voltages on electrical characteristics (discharge current, discharge potential, and Paschen’s curve) were studied. The results showed that the discharge cur

The steady state performance of the counter rotating floating ring Journal bearing is analyzed with isothermal finite bearing theory. The effect of different parameters affecting the performance of the bearing (namely speed ratio, clearance ratio and radii ratio), have been investigated. The load carrying capacity of the bearing increasing with decreasing the radii ratio (R₂/R₁) of the ring and clearance ratio (c₁/c₂), in the other hand, the coefficient of friction increases with increasing the clearance and radii ratios, while decreases with incre4asing the bearing to journal speed ratio (γ). It is shown during this work that different operating conditions are greatly enhanced the performance

The Specific activity of extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD) was measured in healthy persons and in patients with benign and malignant brain tumors. The results show decrease of the EC-SOD specific activity in sera of patients with benign and malignant brain tumors in comparison to that of control group.This study concentrated on studying the changes that occur in sera EC-SOD activity of patients with benign and malignant brain tumors, in comparison to that of normal individuals. The result also revealed that this isoenzyme is present in many different molecular weights forms (as judged by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis), some of these with no enzymatic activity. Conversion among these forms occurs in the malignant sera

Health literacy is an important method used by the authorities to strengthen the health system. The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge of some basic health principles among women of different educational states. This is a crosssectional study, performed from December 2014 until January 2016, Baghdad. All candidates were: females > 18 years, neither medical staff nor students. They were divided into two groups: educated and uneducated. The sample included 213 women, there were 112 educated and 101 uneducated women. Regarding educated group, accurate answers regarding route of transmission of typhoid fever was 73.2% in educated subjects vs. 49.5% in uneducated subjects. Main source of information for both groups was p

Background: Metal ions can be released from metallic orthodontic appliances due to corrosion in the oral cavity; prophylactic mouthwashes may have an effect on ion release from orthodontic wires. Materials and Methods: Thirty six orthodontic sets of half maxillary fixed appliance with 2 types of arch wires SS and NiTi(Morelli) were constructed and immersed in 2 types of mouthwashes; Claradone (non-fluoridated) and Silver Care (fluoridated) for 28 days at 37°C, then the released Ni and Cr ionswere measured using atomic absorption spectrophotometer and compared statistically. Results: Ni ion release was higher from NiTi wire group than SS wire group for both mouthwashes and also was higher for Silver Care group than for Claradone group.

In this paper, a simulation of the electrical performance for Pentacene-based top-contact bottom-gate (TCBG) Organic Field-Effect Transistors (OFET) model with Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and silicon nitride (Si3N4) as gate dielectrics was studied. The effects of gate dielectrics thickness on the device performance were investigated. The thickness of the two gate dielectric materials was in the range of 100-200nm to maintain a large current density and stable performance. MATLAB simulation demonstrated for model simulation results in terms of output and transfer characteristics for drain current and the transconductance. The layer thickness of 200nm may result in gate leakage current points to the requirement of optimizing the t

Background: The discriminative power of the classical WHO parameters in relation to male fertility is quite low, because they only address few aspects of sperm quality and function. This has led investigators to focus their attention on the male gamete and in particular its genome.Objective: To explore which of the sperm DNA damage parameters measured by comet assay are more reliable, and their relations with the standard semen parameters.Methods: Study was done on 40 infertile men selected from couples attending the Institute of Embryo Reasearch and Infertility Treatment at Al-Kadhimiya City/ Baghdad in the period between February 2009 and May 2009, with a history of infertility of ≥1 years; and 15 healthy volunteers of proven fertili