Soft clays are generally sediments deposited by rivers, seas, or lakes. These soils are fine-grained plastic soils with appreciable clay content and are characterized by high compressibility and low shear strength. To deal with soft soil problems there is more than one method that can be used such as soil replacement, preloading, stone column, sand drains, lime stabilization and Prefabricated Vertical Drains, PVDs. A numerical modeling of PVD with vacuum pressure was analyzed to investigate the effect of this technique on the consolidation behavior of fully and different depths of partially saturated soft soils. Laboratory experiments were also conducted by using a specially-designed large consolidmeter cell. Five tests were conducted with a vacuum pressure of about 40 kPa applied for a period of 30 days where the degree of consolidation reached 75% based on pore-water pressure distribution. The results showed that using vacuum pressure with vertical drains reduces the consolidation time by about 68%. Existence of an unsaturated soil layer decreases settlement of soil by about 22%, 32%, 425, 54% as the unsaturated depth increases by 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2L respectively and causes a rapid increase in soil pore-water pressure.
Adversity and psychosocial stress are involved in aging through the following pathways. psychological stress enhances the nerve system to secrete endocrine mediators (hormones). Mitochondrial respiration mediates energy production stimulated by binding to these hormones to their receptors. Energy produced by mitochondria accelerates metabolism and, in its turn, leads to increases in reactive oxygen species (ROS) of free radicals. Cellular stress and accumulation of damage can result from an excess of ROS. Accumulation of damage comprises damages in telomeric and nontelomeric DNA, in addition to mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA damage plays an important role in increasing the pathway of p53/p21. The expression of the PGC-1α gene
... Show MoreLeishmaniasis is a widespread parasitic disease caused by Leishmania parasite, this disease considers a major health problem among worldwide. Treatments available are expensive or with cytotoxic side effect. This study was aimed to investigate the effect of an herbal new compound, called artemisinin, derived from a Chinese plant called Artemisia annua. Various concentrations were studied in vitro against L. tropica amastigotes by chamber counting to investigate its effect on the proliferation of promastigotes. Three incubation periods were adopted (24, 48, 72) hours. The results showed a significant decrease in surviving promastigotes, in parallel with the normal parasite count of untreated promastigotes, along the periods studied. Th
... Show MoreThe aim of this paper is to determine the effect of nostalgia marketing on consumers’ purchase intention and demographic factors. Nostalgia marketing is one of the marketing ideas that some organizations use it to attract customers by evoking memories or heritage in their minds. This method would affect the emotions and feelings of people, which may raise their desire to buy. The questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection, and it was distributed to a random sample of 512 individuals. A sample is a group of individuals who have seen small sculptures displayed in shops inside Babylon Mall in Baghdad. The small sculptures show the life of Baghdadis in the fifties and sixties of the last century. Statistical software was used for
... Show MoreChronic renal failure (CRF) affects thyroid function in multiple ways, including low circulating thyroid hormone concentration, altered peripheral hormone metabolism, disturbed binding to carrier proteins, possible reduction in tissue thyroid hormone content, and increased iodine store in thyroid glands.The target of study is to find a relationship between chronic renal failure and thyroid function.In addition, we tried to study the effect of CRF on serum creatinine dependent on the level of thyroid hormones (T3 and T4) and thyroid stimulating hormones(TSH). Forty patients with chronic renal failure (20 male, 20 female) were enrolled in this study in addition to forty healthy individual as control gro
... Show MoreSolar module operating temperature is the second major factor affects the performance of solar photovoltaic panels after the amount of solar radiation. This paper presents a performance comparison of mono-crystalline Silicon (mc-Si), poly-crystalline Silicon (pc-Si), amorphous Silicon (a-Si) and Cupper Indium Gallium di-selenide (CIGS) photovoltaic technologies under Climate Conditions of Baghdad city. Temperature influence on the solar modules electric output parameters was investigated experimentally and their temperature coefficients was calculated. These temperature coefficients are important for all systems design and sizing. The experimental results revealed that the pc-Si module showed a decrease in open circuit v
... Show MoreObjective: To evaluate the antibacterial effect of mastic gum against the most common aerobic oral bacteria and
emphasized on oral streptococci.
Methodology: In this study 10 persons (males and females of 18-60 years old) were randomly assigned to chew
mastic gum (1.5 gm for 45 minutes). Mouth washes were collected before and after gum chewing .The two mouth
washes were diluted (10-1 – 10-6) and cultivated aerobically for 24 hours at 37C0 on BHI agar for total bacterial
count and on MSF agar for counting the oral streptococci.
Results: The results showed that the total bacterial count for staphylococci, Neisseria and oral streptococci on BHI
agar and MSF agar for oral streptococci after mastic chewing were highly r