Millions of pilgrims and visitors from numerous parts of the world flock to Karbala (one of the most prominent ideological and religious places in central Iraq) each year to visit the holy shrines in Karbala due to their sanctity. Many improvements have been made to the Two Holy Shrines (THS), the Shrines of Imam Husayn and Imam Abbas, and the area between them (ATHS), due to the high temperatures in this region and to improve pedestrian thermal comfort. Studies on improving outdoor thermal comfort in Karbala are scarce. Hence, this research aims to look into historical and current architectural changes and how they affect thermal comfort. On the hottest summer day, the ENVI-met software program was used to simulate the building des

Historically, medicinal herbs have been utilized as an important origin of chemicals with particular therapeutic potentials, and they continue to be a great place to find new medication candidates. Parthenocissus quinquefolia L. is a member of the grape-growing family Vitaceae. It is indigenous to Central and North America. It is widely dispersed in Iraqi gardens and plant houses from north to south. Traditionally, it has many uses, like relieving constipation, treating jaundice, expectorant, emetic, and others. At the same time, its proven activities include antioxidant activity, antimicrobial, anti-diabetic, thrombin inhibitor effect, and medicine for treating eyelid eczema. Parthenocissus quinquefolia contains valuable phytochemicals lik

     In this study, cadmium oxide (CdO) was deposited on glass bases by thermal chemical spraying technique at three concentrations (0.05, 0.1, 0.15) M and then was irradiated by CO₂ laser with 10.6 μm wave length and 1W power. The results of the atomic force microscope AFM test showed that the surfaces of these CdO thin films were homogenous and that the laser irradiated effect resulted in decreasing the roughness of the surface as well as the heights of the granular peaks, indicating a greater uniformity and homogeneity of the surfaces. The optical properties were studied to determine laser effect. The results of optical tests of these thin films showed that the photoluminescence spectra and absorption s

Samples prepared by using carbon black as a filler material and phenolic resin as a binder. The samples were pressed in a (3) cm diameter cylindrical die to (250)MPa and treated thermally within temperature range of (600-1000)oC for two and three hours. Physical properties tests were performed, like density, porosity, and X-ray tests. Moreover vicker microhardness and electric resistivity tests were done. From the results, it can be concluded that density was increased while porosity was decreased gradually with increasing temperature and treating time. In microhardness test, it found that more temperature and treating time cause more hardness. Finally the resistivity was decreased in steps with temperature and treating time. It can be c

Ab – initio restricted Hartree - Fock method within the framework of large unit cell (LUC) formalism is used to investigate the electronic structure of Si and Ge nanocrystals. The surface and core properties are investigated. A large unit cell of 8 atoms is used in the present analysis. Cohesive energy, energy gap, conduction and valence band widths are obtained from the electronic structure calculations. The results are compared with available experimental data and theoretical results of other investigators. The calculated lattice constant is found to be slightly larger than the corresponding experimental value because we use only 8 atoms and we compared the results with that of the bulk crystals, nanoclusters are expected to have str

Effect of the thermal annealing at 400oC for 2 hours and Argon laser radiation for half hour on the optical properties of AgAlS2 thin films, prepared on glass slides by chemical spray pyrolysis at 360oC with (0.18±0.05) μm thickness .The optical characteristics of the prepared thin films have been investigated by UV/Vis spectrophotometer in the wavelength range (300 – 1100)nm .The films have a direct allow electronic transition with optical energy (Eg) values decreased from (2.25) eV for untreated thin films to (2.10) eV for the annealed films and to (2.00) eV for the radiated films. The maximum value of the refractive index (n) for all thin films are given about (2.6). Also the extinction coefficient (K) and the real and imaginary d

Conducting polyaniline / ZnO nano composites are synthesized
using a simplified cheap method with one step in –situ chemical
polymerization, and AC conductivity (σac) of the prepared samples is
studied in the range of frequency from 50 Hz to 15MHz.). The
presence of polarons in the conjugated polymer chain are responsible
for the ac conductivity is reliance on the frequency in these
composites. The effect of increasing the ZnO nano particle
concentration irradiation and gamma radiation on the electric
conductivity was analyzed. The result showed that the
nanocomposite prepared has the highest conductivity, from pure
polyaniline and the exponential factor S was found increasing with
ZnO content it was 0

     Heavy metal ion removal from industrial wastewater treatment systems is still difficult because it contains organic contaminants. In this study, functional composite hydrogels with photo Fenton reaction activity were used to decompose organic contaminants. Fe₃O₄ Nanoparticle, chitosan (CS), and other materials make up the hydrogel. There are different factors that affected Photo-Fenton activity including (pH, H₂O₂ conc., temp., and exposure period). Atomic force microscopy was used to examine the morphology of the composite and its average diameter (AFM). After 60 minutes of exposure to UV radiation, CS/ Fe₃O₄ hydrogel composite had degraded methylene blue (M.B.)

This study aims to investigate the effect of changing skins material on the strength of sandwich plates with circular hole when subjected to mechanical loads. Theoretical, numerical and experimental analyses are done for sandwich plates with hole and with two face sheet materials. Theoretical analysis is performed by using sandwich plate theory which depends on the first order shear deformation theory for plates subjected to tension and bending separately. Finite element method was used to analyse numerically all cases by ANSYS program.

The sandwich plates were investigated experimentally under bending and buckling load separately. The relationship between stresses and the ratio of hole diameter to plate width (d/b) are built, by