Background: low back pain is one of the most common public health problems and of the most common musculoskeletal complaint. Many risk factors have been considered for developing low back pain include smoking, obesity and sedentary lifestyle.

Aim of study: To evaluate smoking, obesity, and sedentary lifestyle associations with low back pain in young adults aged (18 – 39 years).

Methods: a comparative cross sectional study for young adults aged 18 – 39 years, participants with low back pain as a symptom constitutes the first group, others free of this symptom considered as the control group. Age and gender matched in both groups. Smoking, obesity and sedentary life sty

         The duration of sunshine is one of the important indicators and one of the variables for measuring the amount of solar radiation collected in a particular area. Duration of solar brightness has been used to study atmospheric energy balance, sustainable development, ecosystem evolution and climate change. Predicting the average values of sunshine duration (SD) for Duhok city, Iraq on a daily basis using the approach of artificial neural network (ANN) is the focus of this paper. Many different ANN models with different input variables were used in the prediction processes. The daily average of the month, average temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, relative humidity, wind direction, cloud level and atmosp

The convergence speed is the most important feature of Back-Propagation (BP) algorithm. A lot of improvements were proposed to this algorithm since its presentation, in order to speed up the convergence phase. In this paper, a new modified BP algorithm called Speeding up Back-Propagation Learning (SUBPL) algorithm is proposed and compared to the standard BP. Different data sets were implemented and experimented to verify the improvement in SUBPL.

Finite element modeling of transient temperature distribution is used to understand physical phenomena occurring during the dwell (penetration) phase and moving of welding tool in friction stir welding (FSW) of 5mm plate made of 7020-T53 aluminum alloy at 1400rpm and 40mm/min.
Thermocouples are used in locations near to the pin and under shoulder surface to study the welding tool penetration in the workpiece in advance and retreate sides along welding line in three positions (penetrate (start welding) , mid, pullout (end welding)).
Numerical results of ANSYS 12.0 package are compared to experimental data including axial load measurements at different tool rotational speeds (710rpm.900rpm.1120rpm and 1400rpm) Based on the experiment

 This research was to determine the effect of rare earth metal (REM) on the as-cast microstructure of Mg-4Al alloy. The rare earth metal used here is Lanthanum to produce Mg-4Al-1.5La alloy. The microstructure was characterized by optical microscopy. The phases of this alloy were identified by X-ray diffraction. The microstructure of Mg-4Al consists of α-Mg and grain boundaries with precipitated phase particles. With the addition of Lanthanum, three distinct phases were identified in the X-ray diffraction patterns of the as cast Mg-4Al-1.5La:  Mg, Al₁₁La₃, Al₄La. The Mg₁₇Al₁₂ phase was not detected. The addition of Lanthanium increases the hardness and dec

An experimental investigation has been carried out for zinc-nickel (Zn-Ni) electro-deposition using the constant applied current technique. Weight difference approach method was used to determine the cathode current efficiency and deposit thickness. Also, the influence effect of current density on the deposition process, solderability, and porosity of the plating layer in microelectronic applications were examined. The bath temperature effect on nickel composition and the form of the contract was studied using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Moreover, elemental nature of the deposition was analyzed by Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX).     

It has been found that the best bath temperature

The present research had dealt with preparing  bars  with the length of about  (13 cm) and  adiametar  of  (1.5 cm) of composite materials with metal  matrix  represented by (Al-Cu-Mg) alloy cast enforced by (ZrO₂) particles with chosen weight  percentages (1.5, 2.5 ,3.5, 5.5 %). The base  cast and the composite  materials were prepared by casting method by uses vortex  Technique inorder to  fix up (ZrO₂) particles in homogeneous way on  the  base cast. In addition to  that, two main groups of composite materials were prepared depending on the particles size of (ZrO₂) , respectively.       &n

Background Alloys with the addition of zirconium and niobium eliminate the adverse effects of aluminum and vanadium on the nervous system, the possibility of metallosis and the initiation of diseases (including cancers or Alzheimer›s disease). In addition, they have better corrosion resistance, and a Young›s modulus value similar to longitudinal bone tissue. Therefore, only choosing appropriate materials does not guarantee proper functioning of the implants, the surfaces of the implants also have to be suitable to meet the requirements. The laser surface hardening process modifies the surface properties by imparting microstructural changes, whereas surface remelting induces changes in the surface topography, roughness, wettability and w