The global rise in temperature and the desert climatic conditions prevalent in Middle Eastern countries have exacerbated rutting distress in heavily trafficked highways. Conventional asphalt binders with a high-temperature performance grade (PG 70) have proven inadequate under such extreme conditions, necessitating the development of modified binders with enhanced high-temperature performance. While polymer modification using styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS), an elastomeric polymer, and ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), a plastomeric polymer, has been widely studied, limited research provides a direct comparison of their effectiveness at both the binder and mixture levels under extremely high-temperature conditions. This study addresses this gap

Upper limb amputation is a condition that severely limits the amputee’s movement. Patients who have lost the use of one or more of their upper extremities have difficulty performing activities of daily living. To help improve the control of upper limb prosthesis with pattern recognition, non-invasive approaches (EEG and EMG signals) is proposed in this paper and are integrated with machine learning techniques to recognize the upper-limb motions of subjects. EMG and EEG signals are combined, and five features are utilized to classify seven hand movements such as (wrist flexion (WF), outward part of the wrist (WE), hand open (HO), hand close (HC), pronation (PRO), supination (SUP), and rest (RST)). Experiments demonstrate that usin

The evolution of the Internet of things (IoT) led to connect billions of heterogeneous physical devices together to improve the quality of human life by collecting data from their environment. However, there is a need to store huge data in big storage and high computational capabilities.   Cloud computing can be used to store big data.  The data of IoT devices is transferred using two types of protocols: Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This paper aims to make a high performance and more reliable system through efficient use of resources. Thus, load balancing in cloud computing is used to dynamically distribute the workload across nodes to avoid overloading any individual r

Objective: Conventional approaches for disinfection, including spraying and immersion, resulted in only surface disinfection of impressions. As a result, self-disinfecting impression materials incorporated with antimicrobial compounds require more extensive studies. The incorporation of a disinfectant into irreversible hydrocolloid impression materials could eliminate the need for the disinfection step by conventional approaches, including spraying and immersion which only result in surface disinfection of impressions. The study was aimed to investigate the effect of incorporation of hypochlorous acid in irreversible hydrocolloid materials on antimicrobial efficiency, detail reproduction, and dimensional stability. Materials and

In this study, method for experimentally determining the electron density (ne) and the electron temperature (Te) in the atmospheric Argon plasma jet is used; it is based on optical emission spectroscopy (OES). Boltzmann plot method used to calculate these parameters measured for different values of gas flow rate. The results show that the electron temperature decreasing with the increase of gas flow rate also indicates an increasing in the electron density of plasma jet with increasing of gas flow rate.

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on emergencies and pain among orthodontic patients attending a teaching hospital. The study was conducted among orthodontic patients receiving active orthodontic treatment or in a retention period at the College of Dentistry, University of Baghdad, Iraq. Their participation was voluntary, and they filled out an Arabic-translated questionnaire. The survey included general information, orthodontic problems, and a numerical rating scale for pain assessment. We used descriptive and inferential statistics (frequencies and intersecting frequencies), chi-square test and linear regression. Out of 75 orthodontic patients, only 54 (15 males and 39 females) were included in the s

When the number of confirmed coronavirus disease cases rose in Iraq in the middle of February 2021, the Iraqi government performed a closure approach to constrain mobility and factory operations and enforce social distancing. In this research, the concentrations of air components (PM_2.5, PM₁₀, nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and ozone (O₃)), which represent herein the degree of air quality index, were recorded, drawn and evaluated over central (Baghdad, the capital), northern (Kirkuk Province) and southern (Basra Province) Iraq before and during the closure. The experimental duration of this research was 6 months (from 1 January 2021 to 30 June 2021), which