Concrete structures are exposed to aggressive environmental conditions that lead to corrosion of the embedded reinforcement and pre-stressing steel. Consequently, the safety of concrete structures may be compromised, and this requires a significant budgets to repair and maintain critical infrastructure. Prediction of structural safety can lead to significant reductions in maintenance costs by maximizing the impact of investments. The aim of this paper is to establish a framework to assess the reliability of existing post-tensioned concrete bridges. A time-dependent reliability analysis of an existing post-tensioned involving the assessment of Ynys-y-Gwas bridge has been presented in this study. The main cause of failure of this bridge was c

This research aims to assess the adoption of TQM in the Middle East Bank for Investment, and diagnosis means and techniques of technological innovation that applied in, as well as to determine the nature of the relationship between total quality management practices (operations management, employment relations, customer relations) and technological innovation (the incremental innovation  of the service, incremental innovation process, a radical innovation of the service, a radical innovation of the operation), through use  the checklists, derived from a study (Kim et al, 2012) the many styles of mathematical and statistical tools was adopted like the percentage, mean, duplicates, as well as the adoption of the Z test th

Total dissolved solids are at the top of the parameters list of water quality that requires investigations for planning and management, especially for irrigation and drinking purposes. If the quality of water is sufficiently predictable, then appropriate management is possible. In the current study, Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models were used as indicators of water quality and for the prediction of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) along the Tigris River, in Baghdad city. To build these models five water parameters were selected from the intakes of four water treatment plants on the Tigris River, for the period between 2013 and 2017. The selected water parameters were Total Dissolved Solids (TDS

Aquatic Oligochaeta is an important group of Macroinvertebrates that has been very remarkable as bioindicators for assessing water pollution and determining its degree in water bodies. Hence, the idea of the current study aims at studying the impact of Baghdad effluents on the Tigris River by using oligochaetes community as bioindicators . For this purpose, four sites along the inside of Baghdad has been chosen. Site S1 has been located upstream, site S2 and S3 has been at midstream and site S4 at the downstream of the River.This investigation has used different types of biological indicators, including the  percentage of oligochaeta  within benthic invertebrates, which ranged from 49.2-51.28%. The highest percentage of the tubificid w

The research aims to identify the tax policy strategy adopted in Iraq after the change of the tax system in 2003 and beyond, and then make a comparison of the two strategies on corporate data whether they are charged with progressive tax rates and after the change of the system as the tax rates became fixed, and then indicate the changes In the tax proceeds, and knowing the imensions of the approved tax policy, is it a tax reform strategy or a strategy to attract investments.The research started from the problem of exposure of the Iraqi tax system to several changes, as this led to a reflection on the technical organization of taxes, in terms of the tax rate.The descriptive analytical approach was chosen to study the actual reality of th

Background: Behçet’s disease (BD) is a disorder of systemic inflammatory condition. Its important features are represented by recurrent oral, genital ulcerations and eye lesions. Aims. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate and compare cytological changes using morphometric analysis of the exfoliated buccal mucosal cells in Behçet’s disease patients and healthy controls, and to evaluate the clinical characteristics of Behçet’s disease. Methods. Twenty five Behçet’s disease patients have been compared to 25 healthy volunteers as a control group. Papanicolaou stain was used for staining the smears taken from buccal epithelial cells to be analyzed cytomorphometrically. The image analysis sof

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. The aims of the study: were to determine the prevalence of oral manifestation among patients with major depressive disorder receiving antidepressant drugs, and detect alkaline phosphatase (ALP), Total Salivary proteins (TSP), and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) in relation to MDD patients under treatment and to compare with healthy controls. Materials and method: (50) MDD patients; between the ages of 20 years and 60 years.The depression patients are divided into (25) patients under treatment with fluoxetine (Prozac), and (25) patients under tr

Carbonate-clastic succession which includes the Shu'aiba, Nahr Umr and Mauddud formations are representing a part of the Barremian-Aptian Sequence (Wasi'a Group). The present study includes three boreholes (Ba-1, 4 and 8) within the Balad Oil Field. The study area is located in central Iraq. This field represents a subsurface anticline with a northwest to southeast direction axis within the Mesopotamian Zone. Eight types of microfacies were recognized in the succession of the Mauddud and Shu’aiba formations. These microfacies represent shallow open marine, restricted and semi-restricted, reef - back reef, deep open marine and basinal depositional environments. While Nahr Umr Formation includes two successions, the first is the upp

Survival analysis is widely applied to data that described by the length of time until the occurrence of an event under interest such as death or other important events. The purpose of this paper is to use the dynamic methodology which provides a flexible method, especially in the analysis of discrete survival time, to estimate the effect of covariate variables through time in the survival analysis on dialysis patients with kidney failure until death occurs. Where the estimations process is completely based on the Bayes approach by using two estimation methods: the maximum A Posterior (MAP) involved with Iteratively Weighted Kalman Filter Smoothing (IWKFS) and in combination with the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. While the other