Identifying people by their ear has recently received import attention in the literature. The accurate segmentation of the ear region is vital in order to make successful person identification decisions. This paper presents an effective approach for ear region segmentation from color ear images. Firstly, the RGB color model was converted to the HSV color model. Secondly, thresholding was utilized to segment the ear region. Finally, the morphological operations were applied to remove small islands and fill the gaps. The proposed method was tested on a database which consisted of 105 ear images taken from the right sides of 105 subjects. The experimental results of the proposed approach on a variety of ear images revealed that this approac

Background: One of the major health concerns and possible risk factors in open heart surgery is the increasing prevalence of obesity among patients.

Methodology: Over a period of sixteen months (February 2017 to June 2018), 246 patients underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) in Slemani Cardiac Hospital (SCH). The patients were divided according to the WHO classification into two groups: The obese (BMI ≥ 30) and the non-obese  (BMI < 30) and were compared in regard to the rate of occurrence of early postoperative complications.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of obesity [body mass i

Abstract Inflammation of periodontal tissues is the consequence of interaction between periodontal pathogens and immune system. This is associated with increased expression of inflammatory cytokines, which may exert destructive effect to the periodontal tissues when released over long period. The aim of this study was to chronologically track the homeostasis of oral keratinocytes following removal of periodontal pathogens. This was done by investigating expression of selected inflammatory markers and integrity of epithelial monolayers in vitro. Rat oral keratinocytes were stimulated with heat-killed Fusobacterium nucleatum and Porphyromonas gingivalis over 7-days then bacteria were washed away and epithelial cells re-cultured for 3-

One of the most important parameters determining structural members' durability and strength is the fire flame's influence and hazard. Some engineers have advocated using advanced analytical models to predict fire spread impact within a compartment and considering finite element models of structural components to estimate the temperatures within a component using heat transfer analysis. This paper presented a numerical simulation for a reinforced concrete beam’s structural response in a case containing Water Absorbing Polymer Spheres (WAPS) subjected to fire flame effect. The commercial finite element package ABAQUS was considered. The relevant geometrical and material parameters of the reinforced concrete beam model at elevated t

One of the most important parameters determining structural members' durability and strength is the fire flame's influence and hazard. Some engineers have advocated using advanced analytical models to predict fire spread impact within a compartment and considering finite element models of structural components to estimate the temperatures within a component using heat transfer analysis. This paper presented a numerical simulation for a reinforced concrete beam’s structural response in a case containing Water Absorbing Polymer Spheres (WAPS) subjected to fire flame effect. The commercial finite element package ABAQUS was considered. The relevant geometrical and material parameters of the reinforced concrete beam model at elevated t

The research is an attempt to investigate experimentally the influence of teacher’s errors correction and students’ errors correction on teaching English at the College of Physical Education for Women. Errors are seen as a natural way for developing any language but teachers are puzzled the way they can correct these errors. So, this research gives some idea of using two types of errors correction. The sample of the research is female students of the first year stage at the College of Physical Education for Women of the academic year 2009-2010. The whole population of the research is (94) students while the sample is (64). Thus, the sample represents 68% from the population of the research. The sample represents It is hypothesized th

In this work, (CdO)1-x (CoO)x thin films were prepared on glass slides by laser-induced plasma using Nd:YAG laser with (λ=1064 nm) and duration (9 ns) at different laser energies (200-500 mJ) with ratio (x=0.5), The influence of laser energy on structural and optical properties has been studied. XRD patterns show the films have a structure of polycrystalline wurtzite. As for AFM tests results for the topography of the surface of the film, where the results showed that the grain size and the average roughness increase with increasing laser energy. The optical properties of all films were also studied and the results showed that the absorption coefficient for within the wavelength range (280-1100 nm), The value of the optical power gap fo

The result revealed that the peak of population density of cabbage aphid Brevicoryne brassicae was 523.20 individuals/plant on 21 March in edges of rapeseed field and was 1141.67 individuals/plant in center of the field. Results revealed that population density of cabbage aphid in rapeseed fields surrounded by cover crops significantly were low compared with that of monoculture rapeseed. The location of rapeseed plants (in edges or in center) significantly affected (p<0.05) the tested pest density, e.g. optimum density was 146.69 individuals/plant in the center of the field. Whereas was 93.32 in the edges. Effect of the interaction between location and surrounding vegetation was significant on aphid density, which their population densit