This paper presents a combination of enhancement techniques for fingerprint images affected by different type of noise. These techniques were applied to improve image quality and come up with an acceptable image contrast. The proposed method included five different enhancement techniques: Normalization, Histogram Equalization, Binarization, Skeletonization and Fusion. The Normalization process standardized the pixel intensity which facilitated the processing of subsequent image enhancement stages. Subsequently, the Histogram Equalization technique increased the contrast of the images. Furthermore, the Binarization and Skeletonization techniques were implemented to differentiate between the ridge and valley structures and to obtain one

In the present work, silver nanoparticles were prepared. Nonlinear optical properties and
optical limiting of silver nanoparticles were investigated.Standard chemical synthesis method was used at
diffrent weight ratio(0.038, 0.058 and 0.078) of silver nitrate. Several testing were done to obtain the
characteristics of the sample. Z-Scan experiments were performed using 30 ns Q-switched Nd:YAG
laser at 1064 nm and 532 nm at different intensities. The results showed that the nonlinear refractive
index is directly proportional to the input intensities, which caused by the self-focusing of the material.
In addition, the optical limiting behavior has been studied. The results showed that the sample could be
used as an opt

This paper analyzes a piled-raft foundation on non-homogeneous soils with variable layer depth percentages. The present work aims to perform a three-dimensional finite element analysis of a piled-raft foundation subjected to vertical load using the PLAXIS 3D software. Parametric analysis was carried out to determine the effect of soil type and initial layer thickness. The parametric study showed that increasing the relative density from 30 % to 80 % of the upper sand layer and the thickness of the first layer has led to an increase in the ultimate load and a decrease in the settlement of piled raft foundations for the cases of sand over weak soil.  In clay over weak soil, the ultimate load of the piled raft foundation w

Soil stabilization with liquid asphalt is considered as a sustainable step towards roadway construction on problematic subgrade soil, there are no requirements to import good quality materials or to implement energy consumption, but to mix the readily available soil with liquid asphalt through the cold mix technique. In this work, collapsible soil obtained from Nasiriya was mixed with asphalt emulsion, lime, and combinations of lime and asphalt emulsion (combined stabilization) and tested in the laboratory for California bearing ratio in dry and soaked conditions. Field trial sections have been prepared with the same combinations and subjected to plate bearing test. The influence of combined stabilization on the structural properties in ter

Abstract The main purpose of the research is to clarify and investigate in details about Susan Glaspell’s role in shedding light on the predicament of women in American society in the early twentieth century showing how sense of the place played an important role in limiting the opportunities of female protagonists who try to escape the roles imposed upon them by society. Glaspell lived in the early twentieth century in the Midwest and tackled the important issues like: women's suffrage, birth control, socialism, union organizing when women were not able to vote or sit as a member on juries. Her Feminist cause is quite obvious through her works from her first one act play Suppressed Desire to the final three act play, Alison’s House. Th

Polarization is an important property of light, which refers to the direction of electric field oscillations. Polarization modulation plays an essential role for polarization encoding quantum key distribution (QKD). Polarization is used to encode photons in the QKD systems. In this work, visible-range polarizers with optimal dimensions based on resonance grating waveguides have been numerically designed and investigated using the COMSOL Multiphysics Software. Two structures have been designed, namely a singlelayer metasurface grating (SLMG) polarizer and an interlayer metasurface grating (ILMG) polarizer. Both structures have demonstrated high extinction ratios, ~1.8·103 and 8.68·104 , and the bandwidths equal to 45 and 55 nm for th

In this work , the effect of chlorinated rubber (additive I), zeolite 3A with chlorinated rubber (additive II), zeolite 4A with chlorinated rubber (additiveIII), and zeolite 5A with chlorinated rubber (additive IV), on flammability for epoxy resin studied, in the weight ratios of (2, 4, 7,10 & 12%) by preparing films of (130x130x3) mm in diameters, three standard test methods used to measure the flame retardation which are ; ASTM : D-2863 , ASTM : D-635 & ASTM : D-3014. Results obtained from these tests indicated that all of them are effective and the additive IV has the highest efficiency as a flame retardant.

Abstract: The increased interest in developing new photonic devices that can support high data rates, high sensitivity and fast processing capabilities for all optical communications, motivates a pre stage pulse compressor research. The pre-stage research was based on cascading single mode fiber and polarization maintaining fiber to get pulse compression with compression factor of 1.105. The demand for obtaining more précised photonic devices; this work experimentally studied the behavior of Polarization maintaining fiber PMF that is sandwiched between two cascaded singe mode fiber SMF and fiber Bragg gratings FBG. Therefore; the introduced interferometer performed hybrid interference of both Mach-Zehnder