Objective: This study goal was to screen participants from different settings in Baghdad for depression using Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scale and identify factors influencing the levels of depression. Methods: This cross-sectional study included a convenience sample of 313 people from four settings (teaching hospital, college of medicine, college of pharmacy, and high school) in Baghdad, Iraq. The participants were screened using paper survey relying on the BDI scale during spring 2018. Using multiple linear regression analysis, we measured the association between depression scores and six participant factors. Results: The overall prevalence of depression in our sample was 57.2%. Female participants had higher BDI scores (depression symptoms) than male participants. Among those with depression, the majority (73.7%) had mild or moderate degree of depression. In terms of the cut-off scores, 42.8 % scored in the normal range, 20.4 % in the mild range, 7.0 % in the borderline range, 14.7 % in the moderate range, 10.5 % in the severe range and 4.5 % in the very severe range depression. Approximately 63% of the participants had sort of suicidal thoughts. The regression analysis showed significant (P-value < 0.05) association between having higher scores of depression symptoms and the presence of chronic disease(s), recent family loss, young age and female gender. Conclusions: In our findings, depression was quite prevalent among people in Iraq. The study demonstrates the importance of broad screening and social/psychiatric counseling of young population. Iraqi healthcare professionals should structure specific actions for patients with chronic diseases to minimize their depression symptoms. Article Type: Orignal Research
This paper presents thermal characteristics analysis of a modified Closed Wet Cooling Tower (CWCT) based on heat and mass transfer principles to improve the performance of this tower in Iraq. A prototype of CWCT optimized by added packing was designed, manufactured and tested for cooling capacity of 9 kW. Experiments are conducted to explore the effects of various operational and conformational parameters on the thermal performance. In the test section, spray water temperature and both dry bulb temperature and relative humidity of the air measured at intermediate points of the heat exchanger and packing. Heat exchangers consist of four rows and eight columns for an inline tubes arrangement and six rows and five columns f
... Show MoreThis paper describes a newly modified wind turbine ventilator that can achieve highly efficient ventilation. The new modification on the conventional wind turbine ventilator system may be achieved by adding a Savonius wind turbine above the conventional turbine to make it work more efficiently and help spinning faster. Three models of the Savonius wind turbine with 2, 3, and 4 blades' semicircular arcs are proposed to be placed above the conventional turbine of wind ventilator to build a hybrid ventilation turbine. A prototype of room model has been constructed and the hybrid turbine is placed on the head of the room roof. Performance's tests for the hybrid turbine with a different number of blades and different values o
... Show MoreTo accommodate utilities in buildings, different sizes of openings are provided in the web of reinforced concrete deep beams, which cause reductions in the beam strength and stiffness. This paper aims to investigate experimentally and numerically the effectiveness of using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips, as a strengthening technique, to externally strengthen reinforced concrete continuous deep beams (RCCDBs) with large openings. The experimental work included testing three RCCDBs under five-point bending. A reference specimen was prepared without openings to explore the reductions in strength and stiffness after providing large openings. Openings were created symmetrically at the center of spans of the other specimens
... Show MoreThis study concerns the removal of a trihydrate antibiotic (Amoxicillin) from synthetically contaminated water by adsorption on modified bentonite. The bentonite was modified using hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (HTAB), which turned it from a hydrophilic to a hydrophobic material. The effects of different parameters were studied in batch experiments. These parameters were contact time, solution pH, agitation speed, initial concentration (C0) of the contaminant, and adsorbent dosage. Maximum removal of amoxicillin (93 %) was achieved at contact time = 240 min, pH = 10, agitation speed = 200 rpm, initial concentration = 30 ppm, and adsorbent dosage = 3 g bentonite per 1L of pollutant solution. The characterization of the adsorbent, modi
... Show MoreDevelopment and population expansion have the lion's share of driving up the fuel cost. Biodiesel has considerable attention as a renewable, ecologically friendly and alternative fuel source. In this study, CaO nanocatalyst is produced from mango leaves as a catalysis for the transesterification of waste cooking oil (WCO) to biodiesel. The mango tree is a perennial plant, and its fruit holds significant economic worth due to its abundance of vitamins and minerals. This plant has a wide geographical range and its leaves can be utilized without any negative impact on its growth and yield. An analysis was conducted to determine the calcium content in the fallen leaves, revealing a significant quantity of calcium that holds potential fo
... Show MoreA Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of mobile nodes, that forms on the fly a temporary wireless multi-hop network in a self-organizing way, without relying on any established infrastructure. In MANET, a pair of nodes exchange messages either over a direct wireless link, or over a sequence of wireless links including one or more intermediate nodes. For this purpose, an efficient routing protocol is required. This paper introduced performance study of three of MANET protocols (AODV, GRP and OSPFv3). This study was one of the newer studies because wireless communication played an important role in today’s application and the field of mobile ad hoc network becomes very popular for the researchers in the last years. This study w
... Show MoreTo damp the low-frequency oscillations which occurred due to the disturbances in the electrical power system, the generators are equipped with Power System Stabilizer (PSS) that provide supplementary feedback stabilizing signals. The low-frequency oscillations in power system are classified as local mode oscillations, intra-area mode oscillation, and interarea mode oscillations. Double input multiband Power system stabilizers (PSSs) were used to damp out low-frequency oscillations in power system. Among dual-input PSSs, PSS4B offers superior transient performance. Power system simulator for engineering (PSS/E) software was adopted to test and evaluate the dynamic performance of PSS4B model on Iraqi national grid. The res
... Show MoreThe subject of an valuation of quality of construction projects is one of the topics which it becomes necessary of the absence of the quantity standards in measuring the control works and the quality valuation standards in constructional projects. In the time being it depends on the experience of the workers which leads to an apparent differences in the valuation.
The idea of this research came to put the standards to evaluate the quality of the projects in a special system depending on quantity scale nor quality specifying in order to prepare an expert system “ Crystal “ to apply this special system to able the engineers to valuate the quality of their projects easily and in more accurate ways.
Roller-Compacted Concrete (RCC) is a zero-slump concrete, with no forms, no reinforcing steel, no finishing and is wet enough to support compaction by vibratory rollers. Because the effectiveness of curing on properties and durability, the primary scope of this research is to study the effect of various curing methods (air curing, emulsified asphalt(flan coat) curing, 7 days water curing and permanent water curing) and different porcelanite (local material used as an Internal Curing agent) replacement percentages (volumetric replacement) of fine aggregate on some properties of RCC and to explore the possibility of introducing more practical RCC for road pavement with minimum requirement of curing. Cubes specimens were sawed from the slab
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