Most of the recent works related to the construction industry in Iraq are focused on investigating the validity of local raw materials as alternatives to the imported materials necessary for some practical applications, especially in thermal and sound insulation. This investigation includes the use of limestone dust as partial substitution of cement in combination with foam agent and silica fume to produce sustainable Lightweight Foam Concrete (LWFC). This study consists of two stages. In the first stage, trial mixes were performed to find the optimum dosage of foam agent. Limestone dust was used as a partial replacement for cement. Chemical analysis and fineness showed great similarity with cement. Many concrete mixes were prepared

There is substantial data supporting the importance of both endogenous and exogenous estrogen in maintaining reproductive health and preventing chronic disease, androgens in women's health are rarely discussed. This is one of the first researches to investigate correlates of blood testosterone concentrations in women with osteopenia, in anticipation of the growing interest in the role of androgens in women's health. A 65 volunteer women were enrolled in the current study, they were divided into two groups, 35 postmenopausal women with osteopenia were in the first group, and the second group contained 30 postmenopausal women without osteopenia as a control. Blood samples were collected from all participants and analyzed for testosterone l

In this paper, mesoscale modeling is performed to simulate and understand fracture behavior of two concrete composites: cement and asphalt concrete using disk-shaped compact tension (DCT) tests. Mesoscale models are used as alternative to macroscale models to obtain better realistic behavior of composite and heterogeneous materials such as cement and asphalt concrete. In mesoscale models, aggregate and matrix are represented as distinct materials and each material has its characteristic properties. Disk-shaped compact tension test is used to obtain tensile strength and fracture energy of materials. This test can be used as a better alternative to other tests such as three points bending tests because it is more convenient for both field and

Discrete Krawtchouk polynomials are widely utilized in different fields for their remarkable characteristics, specifically, the localization property. Discrete orthogonal moments are utilized as a feature descriptor for images and video frames in computer vision applications. In this paper, we present a new method for computing discrete Krawtchouk polynomial coefficients swiftly and efficiently. The presented method proposes a new initial value that does not tend to be zero as the polynomial size increases. In addition, a combination of the existing recurrence relations is presented which are in the n- and x-directions. The utilized recurrence relations are developed to reduce the computational cost. The proposed method computes app

This study was done to investigate the impact of different nanoparticles on diesel fuel characteristics, Iraqi diesel fuel was supplied from al-Dura refinery and was treated to enhance performance by improving its characteristics. Two types of nanoparticles were mixed with Iraqi diesel fuel at various weight fractions of 30, 60, 90, and 120 ppm. The diesel engine was tested and run at a constant speed of 1600 rpm to examine and evaluate the engine's performance and determine emissions. In general, ZnO additives' performance analysis showed they are more efficient for diesel fuel engines than CeO. The performance of engine diesel fuel tests showed that the weight fraction of nanoparticles at 90 and 120 ppm give a similar

Changing oil-wet surfaces toward higher water wettability is of key importance in subsurface engineering applications. This includes petroleum recovery from fractured limestone reservoirs, which are typically mixed or oil-wet, resulting in poor productivity as conventional waterflooding techniques are inefficient. A wettability change toward more water-wet would significantly improve oil displacement efficiency, and thus productivity. Another area where such a wettability shift would be highly beneficial is carbon geo-sequestration, where compressed CO2 is pumped underground for storage. It has recently been identified that more water-wet formations can store more CO2. We thus examined how silica based nanofluids can induce such a wettabil

The possible effects of COVID-19 vaccines on reproductive health and male fertility in particular have been discussed intensely by the scientific community and the public since their introduction during the pandemic. On news outlets and social media platforms, many claims have been raised regarding the deleterious effects of COVID-19 vaccines on sperm quality without scientific evidence. In response to this emerging conflict, we designed this study to evaluate and assess the effect of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine on male fertility represented by the semen analysis parameters.

The study of economic growth indicators is of fundamental importance in estimating the effectiveness of economic development plans, as well as the great role it plays in determining appropriate economic policies in order to optimally use the factors that lead to the dynamics of growth in Iraq, especially during a certain period of time. The gross domestic product (GDP) at current prices), which is considered a part of the national accounts, which is considered as an integrated dynamic of statistics that produces in front of policy makers the possibility of determining whether the economy is witnessing a state of expansion or evaluating economic activity and its efficiency in order to reach the size of the overall economy. The research aims