The most universal and basic damages caused by an earthquakes are buildings damage and human casualties. A simplified method, the RADIUS 99 Tool is used to calculate seismic intensity (shaking) distribution, buildings damage, number of casualties and lifelines damage, due to assumed earthquake scenario. In this study, Al - Kadhmiya sector in Baghdad city was chosen for assessing seismic risk, for this purpose, this area was divided into mesh of 1*1 km2 cell size, and a scenario of (Manjil) earthquake (that struck Iran in 1990) was utilized with following earthquake magnitudes (5 and 7), with epicenter distance (3, 10 and 100 km), and depths (2 and 5 km). It was found that, the best soil types for constructions are those with medium and h

Ultrasound has been used as a diagnostic modality for many intraocular diseases, due its safety, low cost, real time and wide availability. Unfortunately, ultrasound images suffer from speckle artifact that are tissue dependent. In this work, we will offer a method to reduce speckle noise and improve ultrasound image to raise the human diagnostic performance. This method combined undecimated wavelet transform with a wavelet coefficient mapping function: where UDWT used to eliminate the noise and a wavelet coefficient mapping function used to enhance the contrast of denoised images obtained from the first component. This methods can be used not only as a means for improving visual quality of medical images but also as a preprocessing

Background: Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) is a promising implant material due to its superior biomechanical strength. However, due to its hydrophobic nature and lack of cellular adhesion properties, it has poor integration with bone tissue. Methods: A fractional CO2 laser was used with various parameters for surface texturing of PEEK substrate to enhance its surface properties. An optical microscope and field-emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) were used to examine the surface morphology of untextured and laser-textured samples. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) was performed to determine the effect of the laser on the microstructure of PEEK. Surface microroughness, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and wettability were invest

Furfural is one of the one of pollutants in refinery industrial wastewaters. In this study advanced oxidation process using UV/H₂O₂ was investigated for furfural degradation in synthetic wastewater. The results from the experimental work showed that the degradation of furfural decreases as its concentration increases, reaching 100% at 50mg/l furfural concentration and increasing the concentration of H₂O₂ from 250 to 500 mg/l increased furfural removal from 40 to 60%.The degradation of furfural reached 100% after 90 min exposure time using two UV lamps, where it reached 60% using one lamp after 240 min exposure time. The rate of furfural degradation k increased at the pH and initial concentratio

Alumina thin films have significant applications in the areas of optoelectronics, optics, electrical insulators, sensors and tribology. The novel aspect of this work is that the homogeneous alumina thin films were prepared in several stages to generate a plasma jet. In this paper, aluminium nanoparticles suspended in vinyl alcohol were prepared using exploding wire plasma. TEM analysis was used to determine the size and shape of particles in aluminium and vinyl alcohol suspensions; the TEM images showed that the particle size is 17.2 nm. Aluminium/poly vinyl alcohol (Al/PVA) thin films were prepared using this suspension on quartz substrate by plasma jet technique at room temperature with an argon gas flow rate of 1 L/min. The Al/PV

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a ubiquitous environmental organism, is a difficult-to-treat opportunistic pathogen due to its broad-spectrum antibiotic resistance and its ability to form biofilms. In this study, we investigate the link between resistance to a clinically important antibiotic, imipenem, and biofilm formation. First, we observed that the laboratory strain P. aeruginosa PAO1 carrying a mutation in the oprD gene, which confers resistance to imipenem, showed a modest reduction in biofilm formation.We also observed an inverse relationship between imipenem resistance and biofilm formation for imipenem-resistant strains selected in vitro, as well as for clinical isolates.We identified two clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa from the sputum