CO2 Laser (10600nm) is the recent method in the management of challenging skin scar resulting from trauma, burn and surgical wound. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy & safety of fractional CO2 laser (10600nm) in treatment of skin scar. Materials and Methods:Twenty patients with different types of scars treated with fractional CO2 (10600nm) laser, (10 patients) were given additional intralesional Triamcinolone. Results: All of the twenty patients included in this study showed some sort of improvements in scar texture, height and pliability and all of the ten patients who received intralesional Triamcinolone after laser show complete satisfaction. Conclusion:Fractional CO2 (10600nm) laser can be used as alternative, ef

This study presents an investigation about the effect of fire flame on the punching shear strength of hybrid fiber reinforced concrete flat plates. The main considered parameters are the fiber type (steel or glass) and the burning steady-state temperatures (500 and 600°C). A total of 9 half-scale flat plate specimens of dimensions 1500mm×1500mm×100mm and 1.5% fiber volume fraction were cast and divided into 3 groups. Each group consisted of 3 specimens that were identical to those in the other groups. The specimens of the second and the third groups were subjected to fire flame influence for 1 hour and steady-state temperature of 500 and 600°C respectively. Regarding the cooling process, water sprinkling was applied directly aft

Pultruded materials made of Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) come in a broad range of shapes, such as bars, I-sections, C-sections, etc. FRP materials are starting to compete with steel as structural materials owing to their great resistance, low self-weight, and cheap maintenance costs, especially in corrosive conditions. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a novel concrete Composite Column (CC) using Encased I-Section (EIS) as a reinforcement in contrast to traditional steel bars by using Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) as I-section (CC-EIS) to evaluate the effectiveness of the hybrid columns which have been built by combining GFRP profiles with concrete columns. To achieve the aims of this study, nine circular co

In this study, an improved process was proposed for the synthesis of structure-controlled Cu2O nanoparticles, using a simplified wet chemical method at room temperature. A chemical solution route was established to synthesize Cu2O crystals with various sizes and morphologies. The structure, morphology, and optical properties of Cu2O nanoparticles were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, SEM (scanning electron microscope), and UV-Vis spectroscopy. By adjusting the aqueous mixture solutions of NaOH and NH2OH•HCl, the synthesis of Cu2O crystals with different morphology and size could be realized. Strangely, it was found that the change in the ratio of de-ionized water and NaOH aqueous solution led to the synthesis of Cu2O crystals of differen

OBJECTIVE: To determine the preferred specialties of graduated medical doctors working in Basra, and determine the factors behind their preferences. METHODS: The study was conducted in 38 primary health care centres and seven hospitals in Basra from January-June 2014. A cross-sectional study was adopted with the use of a self-administered questionnaire form. Two hundred ninety six graduated doctors were agreed to participate. Chisquare test and logistic regression were used to test the association between deciding a future speciality and influencing factors. RESULTS: The most preferred specialties were radiology and ultrasound, gynaecology and obstetrics, surgery, internal medicine, dermatology and paediatrics. Clinical specialties were sta

This paper focuses on developing a self-starting numerical approach that can be used for direct integration of higher-order initial value problems of Ordinary Differential Equations. The method is derived from power series approximation with the resulting equations discretized at the selected grid and off-grid points. The method is applied in a block-by-block approach as a numerical integrator of higher-order initial value problems. The basic properties of the block method are investigated to authenticate its performance and then implemented with some tested experiments to validate the accuracy and convergence of the method.

Wind turbine (WT) is now a major renewable energy resource used in the modern world. One of the most significant technologies that use the wind speed (WS) to generate electric power is the horizontal-axis wind turbine. In order to enhance the output power over the rated WS, the blade pitch angle (BPA) is controlled and adjusted in WT. This paper proposes and compares three different controllers of BPA for a 500-kw WT. A PID controller (PIDC), a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) based on Mamdani and Sugeno fuzzy inference systems (FIS), and a hybrid fuzzy-PID controller (HFPIDC) have been applied and compared. Furthermore, Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle swarm optimization (PSO) have been applied and compared in order to identify the optimal

Until recently, researchers have utilized and applied various techniques for intrusion detection system (IDS), including DNA encoding and clustering that are widely used for this purpose. In addition to the other two major techniques for detection are anomaly and misuse detection, where anomaly detection is done based on user behavior, while misuse detection is done based on known attacks signatures. However, both techniques have some drawbacks, such as a high false alarm rate. Therefore, hybrid IDS takes advantage of combining the strength of both techniques to overcome their limitations. In this paper, a hybrid IDS is proposed based on the DNA encoding and clustering method. The proposed DNA encoding is done based on the UNSW-NB15