This research utilized natural asphalt (NA) deposits from sulfur springs in western Iraq. Laboratory tests were conducted to evaluate the performance of an asphalt mixture incorporating NA and verify its suitability for local pavement applications. To achieve this, a combination of two types of NA, namely soft SNA and hard HNA, was blended to create a binder known as Type HSNA. The resulting HSNA exhibited a penetration grade that adhered to Iraqi specifications. Various percentages of NA (20%, 40%, 60%, and 80%) were added to petroleum asphalt. The findings revealed enhanced physical properties of HSNA, which also satisfied the requirements outlined in the Iraqi specifications for asphalt cement. Consequently, HSNA can serve as an

Incremental sheet forming (ISF) is a metal forming technology in which small incremental deformations determine the final shape. The sheet is deformed by a hemispherical tool that follows the required shape contour to deform the sheet into the desired geometry. In this study, single point incremental sheet forming (SPIF) has been implemented in dentistry to manufacture a denture plate using two types of stainless steel, 304 and 316L, with an initial thickness of 0.5mm and 0.8mm, respectively. Stainless steel was selected due to its biocompatibility and reasonable cost. A three-dimensional (3D) analysis procedure was conducted to evaluate the manufactured part's geometrical accuracy and thickness distribution. The obtained results confirm

Highly Modified Asphalt (HiMA) binders have garnered significant attention due to their superior resistance to rutting, fatigue cracking, and thermal distress under heavy traffic loads and extreme environmental conditions. While elastomeric polymers such as Styrene- Butadiene-Styrene (SBS) have been extensively used in HiMA applications, the potential of plastomeric polymers, including Polyethylene (PE) and Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA), remains largely unexplored. This study aims to evaluate the performance of reference binder (RB) modified with plastomeric HiMA asphalt in comparison to SBS-modified binders and determine the optimal polymer dosage for achieving an optimal balance between rutting resistance and fatigue durability. The experi

This paper reports an experimental study of welding of dissimilar materials between transparent Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and stainless steel 304 sheets using a pulsed mode Nd:YAG laser. The process was carried out for two cases; laser transmission joining (LTJ) and conduction joining (CJ). The former is achieved when the joint is irradiated from the polymer side and the latter when the joint is irradiated from the opposite side (metal side). The light and process parameters represented by the peak power (Pp), pulse duration (τ), pulse repetition rate (PRR), scanning speed (ν) and pulse shape have a significant effect on the joint strength (Fb), joint bead width (b), joint quality and appearance. The optimum parameters were determined

Bootstrap is one of an important re-sampling technique which has given the attention of  researches recently. The presence of outliers in the original data set may cause serious problem to the classical bootstrap when the percentage of outliers are higher than the original one. Many methods are proposed to overcome this problem such  Dynamic Robust Bootstrap for LTS (DRBLTS) and Weighted Bootstrap with Probability (WBP). This paper try to show the accuracy of parameters estimation by comparison the results of both methods. The bias , MSE and RMSE are considered. The criterion of the accuracy is based on the RMSE value since the method that provide us RMSE value smaller than other is con

Feature selection (FS) constitutes a series of processes used to decide which relevant features/attributes to include and which irrelevant features to exclude for predictive modeling. It is a crucial task that aids machine learning classifiers in reducing error rates, computation time, overfitting, and improving classification accuracy. It has demonstrated its efficacy in myriads of domains, ranging from its use for text classification (TC), text mining, and image recognition. While there are many traditional FS methods, recent research efforts have been devoted to applying metaheuristic algorithms as FS techniques for the TC task. However, there are few literature reviews concerning TC. Therefore, a comprehensive overview was systematicall

Exchange of information through the channels of communication can be unsafe. Communication media are not safe to send sensitive information so it is necessary to provide the protection of information from disclosure to unauthorized persons. This research presented the method to information security is done through information hiding into the cover image using a least significant bit (LSB) technique, where a text file is encrypted using a secret sharing scheme. Then, generating positions to hiding information in a random manner of cover image, which is difficult to predict hiding in the image-by-image analysis or statistical analyzes. Where it provides two levels of information security through encryption of a text file using the secret sha

Abstract— The growing use of digital technologies across various sectors and daily activities has made handwriting recognition a popular research topic. Despite the continued relevance of handwriting, people still require the conversion of handwritten copies into digital versions that can be stored and shared digitally. Handwriting recognition involves the computer's strength to identify and understand legible handwriting input data from various sources, including document, photo-graphs and others. Handwriting recognition pose a complexity challenge due to the diversity in handwriting styles among different individuals especially in real time applications. In this paper, an automatic system was designed to handwriting recognition