Permanent deformation, fatigue and thermal cracking are the three typical distresses of flexible pavement. Using hydrated lime (HL) into the conventional limestone mineral additive has been widely practiced, including in Europe, to improve the mechanical properties of hot mix asphalt (HMA) concrete and as the result the durability of the constructed pavement. Large number of experimental studies have been reported to find the optimum addition of HL for the improvement on HMA concrete mechanical properties, moisture susceptibility and fatigue resistance. Pavement in service is under complex thermomechanical stress-strain conditions due to coupled atmospheric and surrounding environment temperature variation and the traffic loading. To predic

A simple and novel method was developed by combination of dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction with UV spectrophotometry for the preconcentartion and determination of trace amount of malathion. The presented method is based on using a small volume of ethylenechloride as the extraction solvent was dissolved in ethanol as the dispersive solvent, then the binary solution was rapidly injected by a syringe into the water sample containing malathion. The important parameters, such the type and volume of extraction solvent and disperser solvent, the effect of extraction time and rate, the effect of salt addition and reaction conditions were studied. At the optimum conditions, the calibration graph was linear in the range of 2-100 ng mL-1 of ma

Credit risk assessment has become an important topic in financial risk administration. Fuzzy clustering analysis has been applied in credit scoring. Gustafson-Kessel (GK) algorithm has been utilised to cluster creditworthy customers as against non-creditworthy ones. A good clustering analysis implemented by good Initial Centres of clusters should be selected. To overcome this problem of Gustafson-Kessel (GK) algorithm, we proposed a modified version of Kohonen Network (KN) algorithm to select the initial centres. Utilising similar degree between points to get similarity density, and then by means of maximum density points selecting; the modified Kohonen Network method generate clustering initial centres to get more reasonable clustering res

This work was conducted to study the ability of locally prepared Zeolite NaY for the reduction of sulfur compounds from Iraqi natural gas by a continuous mode adsorption unit. Zeolite Y was hydrothermally synthesized using abundant kaolin clay as aluminum precursor. Characterization was made using chemical analysis, XRD and BET surface area. Results of the adsorption experiments showed that zeolite Y is an active adsorbent for removal H2S from natural gas and other gas streams. The effect of temperature was found inversely related to the removal efficiency. Increasing bed height was found to increase the removal efficiency at constant flow rate of natural gas. The adsorption capacity was evaluated and its maximum uptake was 5.345 mg H2S/g z