Braces in straight bridge systems improve the lateral-torsional buckling resistance of the girders by reducing the unbraced length, while in horizontally curved and skew bridges, the braces are primary structural elements for controlling deformations by engaging adjacent girders to act as a system to resist the potentially large forces and torques caused by the curved or skewed geometry of the bridge. The cross-frames are usually designed as torsional braces, which increase the overall strength and stiffness of the individual girders by creating a girder system that translates and rotates as a unit along the bracing lines. However, when they transmit the truck’s live load forces, they can produce fatigue cracks at their connection

Spatial data analysis is performed in order to remove the skewness, a measure of the asymmetry of the probablitiy distribution. It also improve the normality, a key concept of statistics from the concept of normal distribution “bell shape”, of the properties like improving the normality porosity, permeability and saturation which can be are visualized by using histograms. Three steps of spatial analysis are involved here; exploratory data analysis, variogram analysis and finally distributing the properties by using geostatistical algorithms for the properties. Mishrif Formation (unit MB1) in Nasiriya Oil Field was chosen to analyze and model the data for the first eight wells. The field is an anticline structure with northwest- south

In this work, multilayer nanostructures were prepared from two metal oxide thin films by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. These metal oxide were nickel oxide (NiO) and titanium dioxide (TiO2). The prepared nanostructures showed high structural purity as confirmed by the spectroscopic and structural characterization tests, mainly FTIR, XRD and EDX. This feature may be attributed to the fine control of operation parameters of dc reactive magnetron sputtering system as well as the preparation conditions using the same system. The nanostructures prepared in this work can be successfully used for the fabrication of nanodevices for photonics and optoelectronics requiring highly-pure nanomaterials.

Background : Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common entrapment neuropathy of upper extremities and Open carpal tunnel release is the most frequent surgical procedure and the gold standard for cases that do not respond to conservative treatment. Aims :This study is used to evaluate the functional outcome of limited palmar mini-incision of carpal tunnel release. This study aims to determine the safety and symptomatic and functional efficacy of median nerve decompression with limited incision in carpal tunnel syndrome surgery. Patients and methods:Carpal tunnel release with a 1.5-2 cm limited palmar incision was performed on 20 patients. Patients were evaluated initially at one month after treatment according to symptom severity

In this work, enhancement to the fluorescence characteristics of laser dye solutions hosting highly-pure titanium dioxide nanoparticles as random gain media. This was achieved by coating two opposite sides of the cells containing these media with nanostructured thin films of highly-pure titanium dioxide. Two laser dyes; Rhodamine B and Coumarin 102, were used to prepare solutions in hexanol and methanol, respectively, as hosts for the nanoparticles. The nanoparticles and thin films were prepared by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The enhancement was observed by the narrowing of fluorescence linewidth as well as by increasing the fluorescence intensity. These parameters were compared to those of the dye only and the dye solution

The extraction of Eucalyptus oil from Iraqi Eucalyptus Camadulensis leaves was studded using water distillation methods. The amount of Eucalyptus oil has been determined in a variety of extraction temperature and agitation speed. The effect of water to Eucalyptus leaves (solvent to solid) ratio and particle size of Eucalyptus leaves has been studied in order to evaluate the amount of Eucalyptus oil. The optimum experimental condition for the Eucalyptus oil extraction was established as follows: 100˚C extraction temperature, 200 rpm agitation speed; 0.5 cm leave particle size and 6:1 ml: g amount of water to eucalyptus leaves Ratio.

  Cardiovascular diseases CVD are responsible for the majority of death in many countries, the term cardiovascular disease CVD includes several diseases such as: coronary artery diseases (angina, myocardial infaraction MI, atherosclerosis) and stroke. These diseases cause elevation of TC, TG, LDL, VLDL, and MDA levels in plasma and decrease of HDL levels and PON activity in plasma, because of elevation in lipid peroxidation (LPO) activity.  Catechins is a water extract of green tea composed of: (-)epicatchin EC, ECG, EGC, EGCG, (+) catechin C and GC, these compounds play great roles against chronic diseases such as CVD. The effect of catechins extract on the preceding biochemical parameters was investigated in 40 volunteer male

The paper uses the Direct Synthesis (DS) method for tuning the Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller for controlling the DC servo motor. Two algorithms are presented for enhancing the performance of the suggested PID controller. These algorithms are Back-Propagation Neural Network and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The performance and characteristics of DC servo motor are explained. The simulation results that obtained by using Matlab program show that the steady state error is eliminated with shorter adjusted time when using these algorithms with PID controller. A comparative between the two algorithms are described in this paper to show their effectiveness, which is found that the PSO algorithm gives be