Earth dams are constructed mainly from soil. A homogenous earth dam is composed of only one material. The seepage through such dams is quite high. Upstream impervious blanket is one of the methods used to control seepage through the dam foundations. Bennet's method is one of the commonly used methods to design an impervious upstream blanket. Design charts are developed relating the length of blanket, total reservoir head, total base width of the dam (excluding downstream drainage), the coefficient of permeability of the blanket material, blanket thickness, foundation thickness, and coefficient of permeability of the foundation soil, based on the equations governing the Bennet's method for a homogenous earth dam with a blanket of uniform

Background: Neural tube defects (NTDs) are said to be inherited in a multifactorial fashion, i.e. genetic-environmental interaction. Maternal nutritional deficiencies had long been reported to cause NTDs, especially folate deficiency during early pregnancy. More attention had been paid to the exact mechanism by which this deficiency state causes these defects in the developing embryo. The most significant of all researches was that connecting reduced folate and increased homocysteine level in maternal serum on one hand and the risk of developing a NTD baby on the other hand. Objectives : to determine the significance of homocysteine level in Iraqi mothers who gave birth to babies with NTDs as compared to normal controls. Patients, Materials

Background: Diabetes is a metabolic disorder characterized by chronic hyperglycemia due to an inability to produce insulin. Uncontrolled or poorly controlled diabetes is clinically associated with increased susceptibility to delay healing. Many recent researches have shown that stem cell therapy can be the best choice for treatment of this disease. The aims of this research were investigating regeneration of pancreatic beta cells of diabetic induced rabbits after stem cell transplantation. Materials and Methods: 64 rabbits weighting an average of (2.5 - 3 kg) were used in this experimental study, and divided into 4 groups as follows; group A ( contains 16 healthy rabbits regarded as control group ) , Group B ( contains 16 diabetic rabbits

The acceptance sampling plans for generalized exponential distribution, when life time experiment is truncated at a pre-determined time are provided in this article. The two parameters (α, λ), (Scale parameters and Shape parameters) are estimated by LSE, WLSE and the Best Estimator’s for various samples sizes are used to find the ratio of true mean time to a pre-determined, and are used to find the smallest possible sample size required to ensure the producer’s risks, with a pre-fixed probability (1 - P^*). The result of estimations and of sampling plans is provided in tables.

Key words: Generalized Exponential Distribution, Acceptance Sampling Plan, and Consumer’s and Producer Risks

This paper describes a new proposed structure of the Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller based on modified Elman neural network for the DC-DC buck converter system which is used in battery operation of the portable devices. The Dolphin Echolocation Optimization (DEO) algorithm is considered as a perfect on-line tuning technique therefore, it was used for tuning and obtaining the parameters of the modified Elman neural-PID controller to avoid the local minimum problem during learning the proposed controller. Simulation results show that the best weight parameters of the proposed controller, which are taken from the DEO, lead to find the best action and unsaturated state that will stabilize the Buck converter system performan