This research is carried out to investigate the behavior of self-compacting concrete (SCC) two-way slabs with central square opening under uniformly distributed loads. The experimental part of this research is based on casting and testing six SCC simply supported square slabs having the same dimentions and reinforcement. One of these slabs was cast without opening as a control slab. While, the other five slabs having opening ratios (O_R) of 2.78%, 6.25%, 11.11%, 17.36% and 25.00%. From the experimental results it is found that the maximum percentage decrease in cracking and ultimate uniform loads were 31.82% and 12.17% compared to control slab for opening ratios (O_R

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and remains one of the main reasons of cancer-related mortality in women worldwide. KRAS variant rs61764370 (T>G) is associated with an increased risk of occurrence of many cancers, Here The case-control study was accomplished on 135 women including 45 women with breast cancer patients, 45 women with benign breast lesions and 45 healthy women to analyze the association of KRAS variant rs (61764370 T>G) with breast cancer. LCS 6 variant in KRAS gene was amplified by using specific primers, then genotype was detected after sequencing the PCR products. The results showed that the genotype and allele frequency of TT and GT allele of  KRAS

Background: Beta-thalassemia major is the most common monogenic known disorder in the Middle East, characterized by anomalies in the synthesis of the beta chains of hemoglobin resulting in variable phenotypes ranging from severe anemia to clinically asymptomatic Individuals. This study aimed to evaluate salivary flow rate and salivary IgA in β-thalassemia major patients. Since many oral and systemic conditions manifest themselves as changes in the flow and composition of saliva the dental practitioner is advised to remain up-to-date with this issue. Materials and methods: The study samples consist of (60) subjects, patients group composed of (30) patients with β –thalassemia major, age rang (5-23) years and (30) healthy locking

    The personality characteristics of the Leader are considered one of the main elements to reach into business organizations entrepreneurship; and because of the development of the organizations of the continuous transformations as result of huge Competition in private High Education sector, there is a great need for Leaders characterized of certain personality capable of managing their organizations and can positively effect on them. Also these organizations' success to reach into entrepreneurship requires a main significant element that is (strategic flexibility) which is considered one of the important elements for success.

    Accordingly, this research is trying to fin

Background and aim: Pomegranate is a medicinal herb that can promote healing of periodontal tissue through differentiation of mesenchymal cells both in vivo and in vitro. Therefore, this study is to investigate the effect of oral supplementation of Punicagranatum L. peel extract on bone defect in rabbit. Methods: Forty five male rabbits were divided into 3 groups; group 1; baseline group(5 rabbits) left without bone defect. Group 2; study group (20 rabbits) with bone defect model that received daily 1ml of oral supplementation of pomegranate peel extract (PoPx). Group 3; control group (20 rabbits) with bone defect model that received distilled water. Bone defect was done into facial plate of lower right central incisor. Blood biopsies by

A three-stage learning algorithm for deep multilayer perceptron (DMLP) with effective weight initialisation based on sparse auto-encoder is proposed in this paper, which aims to overcome difficulties in training deep neural networks with limited training data in high-dimensional feature space. At the first stage, unsupervised learning is adopted using sparse auto-encoder to obtain the initial weights of the feature extraction layers of the DMLP. At the second stage, error back-propagation is used to train the DMLP by fixing the weights obtained at the first stage for its feature extraction layers. At the third stage, all the weights of the DMLP obtained at the second stage are refined by error back-propagation. Network structures an

In Australia, most of the existing buildings were designed before the release of the Australian standard for earthquake actions in 2007. Therefore, many existing buildings in Australia lack adequate seismic design, and their seismic performance must be assessed. The recent earthquake that struck Mansfield, Victoria near Melbourne elevated the need to produce fragility curves for existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in Australia. Fragility curves are frequently utilized to assess buildings’ seismic performance and it is defined as the demand probability surpassing capacity at a given intensity level. Numerous factors can influence the results of the fragility assessment of RC buildings. Among the most important factors that can affe

Background: Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of mortality among women in Iraq forming 23% of cancer related deaths. The low survival from the disease is a direct consequence to the advanced stages at diagnoses. Aim: To document the composite stage of breast cancer among Iraqi patients at the time of diagnosis; correlating the observed findings with other clinical and pathological parameters at presentation. Patients and Methods: A retrospective study enrolling the clinical and pathological characteristics of 603 Iraqi female patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The composite stage of breast cancer was determined according to UICC TNM Classification System of Breast Cancer and the Ameri

Background: Hypothyroidism is the most abundant thyroid disorder worldwide. For decades, levothyroxine was the main effective pharmacological treatment for hypothyroidism. A variety of factors can influence levothyroxine dose, such as genetic variations. Studying the impact of genetic polymorphisms on the administration of medications was risen remarkably. Different genetic variations were investigated that might affect levothyroxine dose requirements, especially the deiodinase enzymes.  Deiodinase type 2 genetic polymorphisms’ impact on levothyroxine dose was studied in different populations.

Objective: To examine the association of the two single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)s of deiodinase t