Astragalus mesogitanus is a new recorded species for Iraqi flora, from Onobrychium genus section, was collected from Erbil district, all morphological features were described in details as well as some micromorphological character as the trichomes and were provided with dimensions and plates, section key was also updated which illustrated the importance of standard (corolla) trichomes in species identification. Keywords: Astragalus, Fabaceae, Iraq, New record, Onobrychium, Trichomes.

Metaheuristics under the swarm intelligence (SI) class have proven to be efficient and have become popular methods for solving different optimization problems. Based on the usage of memory, metaheuristics can be classified into algorithms with memory and without memory (memory-less). The absence of memory in some metaheuristics will lead to the loss of the information gained in previous iterations. The metaheuristics tend to divert from promising areas of solutions search spaces which will lead to non-optimal solutions. This paper aims to review memory usage and its effect on the performance of the main SI-based metaheuristics. Investigation has been performed on SI metaheuristics, memory usage and memory-less metaheuristics, memory char

Studying extreme precipitation is very important in Iraq. In particular, the last decade witnessed an increasing trend in extreme precipitation as the climate change. Some of which caused a disastrous consequences on social and economic environment in many parts of the country. In this paper a statistical analysis of rainfall data is performed. Annual maximum rainfall data obtained from monthly records for a period of 127 years (1887-2013 inclusive) at Baghdad metrology station have been analyzed. The three distributions chosen to fit the data were Gumbel, Fréchet and the generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution. Using the maximum likelihood method, results showed that the GEV distribution was the best followed by Fréchet distribut

     Education and lifelong learning are necessary components of daily city life for urban communities to encourage sustainable and positive communities. The study attempts to analyze the actual school distribution patterns and densities in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. The significance of this study is that it is associated with one of the essential aspects of humanity: the improvement and affluence of schooling; it impacts school attendance limitations and educational evolution. The education process has been inextricably tied to students' timely and orderly entrance to their schools. Hence the decision maker and planner are concerned by this. The statistics examined elementary and high schools, and the investigated

The communication inspiration formed an essential foundations for contribute the influence individuals and recipients, whether negatively or positively, through the messages that were published and presented in them with multiple themes and viewpoints that covered all parts of the world and all age groups; it is directed to children addressing the various stages of childhood, as it simulates many goals, including what is directed through the digital use of educational data in television production, as it is considered an intellectual and mental bag to deliver ideas and expressive and aesthetic connotations to children, where the songs and cartoons carrying data on education; within adjacent relations and in a mutual direction, both of th

Purpose: The aim of this study was to gain insight into causes of time delays and cost overruns in a selection of thirty case projects in Iraq. Delay factors have been studied in many countries/contexts, but not much data exists from countries under the conditions characterizing Iraq during the last 10-15 years.Design/methodology/approach: A case study approach was adopted, with thirty construction projects selected from the Baghdad region, of different types and sizes. For the case of the study, the participants in the projects provided data about the projects through the data collection tool distributed through the questionnaire directed to them. Statistical data analysis was used to build statistical relationships between time and cost d

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