Historic cities such as Old Najaf are challenged with balancing the preservation of their cultural and architectural heritage against the pressures of modern urban development. Being one of the major religious centers for Shia Islam, Old Najaf receives annual millions of pilgrims and tourists, pressuring its infrastructure and threatening its historic façade. The aim of this study was to explore the viability of integrated approaches that balance heritage conservation with sustainable urban development, and lessons learned from international best practices, as well as stakeholder perspectives on this issue in the face of these challenges. This prompted the study to identify the challenges and opportunities for the heritage preservation and sustainable development in Old Najaf. It aims to comprehend the way residents and experts understand the dynamics of these layers through a mixed methods approach as well as derive actionable lessons learned after comparative analyses with case studies in Fes, Morocco and Kyoto, Japan. The study also explores the role that emerging technologies, regulation, and citizen engagement can play in addressing this trade-off education about Artificial Intelligence. The study shows that the major impediments for Old Najaf heritage are unplanned urban growth, inadequate infrastructure and mass tourism. Survey responses show that both residents and experts prioritize stricter zoning laws at the city's level, improved infrastructure for those corridors and sustainable tourism practices. In Fes, a city already leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as digital twins in urban planning, and building on advances made by Kyoto in GIS, comparative insights from both cities show the need to embed advanced technologies within strong policy frameworks supported by community-led initiatives. The findings underscore the need for holistic and context-sensitive strategies to protect the cultural heritage of Old Najaf, in line with sustainable development. ©2025 The authors.
Background: Tooth wear is one of the most common problems in the older dentate population which results from the interaction of three processes (attrition, abrasion and erosion) and it affects all societies, different age groups, and all cultures. This study was achieved to evaluate the prevalence and distribution of tooth wear among institutionalized residents in Baghdad city\ Iraq. Subjects and Methods: This survey was accomplished on four private and one governmental institution in Baghdad city. One-hundred twenty three (61 males, 62 females) aged 50-89 years were participated in this study. The diagnosis and recording of tooth wear were according to criteria of Smith and Knight. Results: The prevalence of tooth wear was 100% with a mean
... Show MoreThe permeability estimates for the uncored wells and a porosity function adopting a modified flow zone index-permeability crossplot are given in this work. The issues with implementing that approach were mostly crossplots, due to the influence of geological heterogeneity, did not show a clear connection (scatter data). Carbonate reservoir flow units may now be identified and characterized using a new approach, which has been formally confirmed. Due to the comparable distribution and flow of clastic and carbonate rock fluids, this zoning method is most effective for reservoirs with significant primary and secondary porosity. The equations and correlations here are more generalizable since they connect these variables by combining cor
... Show More The research addresses the most important elements of the ancient Iraqi heritage represented by architecture and plastic arts being the direct means that preserved the heritage due to the ease of preserving them and the speed of circulating them and diversity of their topics. Through the features of these elements, the research problem has been defined in the form of questions including: what are the most important elements of the ancient Iraqi heritage? What are the plastic arts? What are the most important topics adopted? What is the concept of palm in the ancient Iraqi heritage? What is the evidence for that?
Has it been employed in the Iraqi contemporary art? What is the evidence for that? How to employ it in the arts and t
The consumption of fresh fruits has increased nowadays due to the lifestyle of the consumers. Maintaining the quality and nutritional value of cut fruits during storage is difficult compared to whole fruits. Deterioration of internal and external quality usually occurs in freshly harvested fruits. It is necessary to use different techniques to maintain the quality and increase the shelf life of the freshly cut product. This research studied the effect of treating apple slices with cold plasma once and with filtered water again on quality characteristics (hardness, moisture content, sugar content, carbohydrate content, and color) after being stored for five days. The best treatment was determined using two different pressures of the plasma j
... Show MoreDoxycycline hyclate is an antibiotic drug with a broad‐spectrum activity against a variety of gram‐positive and gram‐negative bacteria and is frequently used as a pharmacological agent and as an effector molecule in an inducible gene expression system. A sensitive, reliable and fast spectrophotometric method for the determination of doxycycline hyclate in pure and pharmaceutical formulations has been developed using flow injection analysis (FIA) and batch procedures. The proposed method is based on the reaction between the chromogenic reagent (V4+) and doxycycline hyclate in a neutral medium, resulting in the formation of a yellow compound that shows maximum absorbance at 3
In this paper, the relationship between urban growth, land use, site availability, and impacts on the general appearance of the city generated by functional characteristics of port cities were analyzed. Various data were used to identify patterns of land use change and city growth and expansion. The research aims to analyze the impact of the port on the growth of the city, study the urban growth of the city of Umm Qasr and predicting the growth trends, and to identify the most influential factors in this growth. The study dealt with the concepts of urban growth and the factors that characterize the growth of port cities and the current situation of the city. The practical part included the mechanisms used by the researcher to analyze the
... Show MoreMaximizing the net present value (NPV) of oil field development is heavily dependent on optimizing well placement. The traditional approach entails the use of expert intuition to design well configurations and locations, followed by economic analysis and reservoir simulation to determine the most effective plan. However, this approach often proves inadequate due to the complexity and nonlinearity of reservoirs. In recent years, computational techniques have been developed to optimize well placement by defining decision variables (such as well coordinates), objective functions (such as NPV or cumulative oil production), and constraints. This paper presents a study on the use of genetic algorithms for well placement optimization, a ty
... Show More<p>Photovoltaic (PV) systems are becoming increasingly popular; however, arc faults on the direct current (DC) side are becoming more widespread as a result of the effects of aging as well as the trend toward higher DC voltage levels, posing severe risk to human safety and system stability. The parallel arc faults present higher level of current as compared with the series arc faults, making it more difficult to spot the series arc. In this paper and for the aim of condition monitoring, the features of a DC series arc fault are analyzed by analysing the arc features, performing model’s simulation in PSCAD, and carrying out experimental studies. Various arc models are simulated and investigated; for low current arcs, the heur
... Show MoreThis paper examines the change in planning pattern In Lebanon, which relies on vehicles as a semi-single mode of transport, and directing it towards re-shaping the city and introducing concepts of "smooth or flexible" mobility in its schemes; the concept of a "compact city" with an infrastructure based on a flexible mobility culture. Taking into consideration environmental, economical and health risks of the existing model, the paper focuses on the four foundations of the concepts of "city based on culture flexible mobility, "and provides a SWOT analysis to encourage for a shift in the planning methodology.