The present work presents design and implementation of an automated two-axis solar tracking system using local materials with minimum cost, light weight and reliable structure. The tracking system consists of two parts, mechanical units (fixed and moving parts) and control units (four LDR sensors and Arduino UNO microcontroller to control two DC servomotors). The tracking system was fitted and assembled together with a parabolic trough solar concentrator (PTSC) system to move it according to information come from the sensors so as to keep the PTSC always perpendicular to sun rays. The experimental tests have been done on the PTSC system to investigate its thermal performance in two cases, with tracking system (case 1) and without tracking system (case 2). The experimental results showed that the average solar radiation falling on the PTSC prototype in the two cases during the same time was 854 and 701 watt/m2, respectively, which means an increase in the solar radiation about 21.8 % when using tracking system. It was found that the average useful heat gain output of solar collector was equal to (376.2, 252.6 watt) for the two cases, respectively, so there was an increase of about 48.9 % when using the tracking system. Also, the average thermal efficiency of the PTSC was found to be (20.7, 26.5 %) for the two cases, respectively, which means an increase in the average efficiency by 28% with use of tracking system compared to the fixed case.
Soil is the cardinal resource for agricultural crops. Healthy soil will produce healthy plants. Since healthy soil is the important goal for the farmers, they need to select the best tillage system to achieve that goal. There are two main types of tillage systems. Conservation tillage (no-tillage farming) uses agricultural machinery that performs a double function; tillage and seed farming simultaneously. In contrast, conventional tillage farming uses multiple agricultural machines to till and seed the soil. The farmers in the northern governorates of Iraq have used the conservation farming system for a long time. However, the farmers who live in the middle and southern governorates in Iraq use conventional tillage farming. Because most of
... Show MoreCrop production is reduced by insufficient and/or excess soil water, which can significantly decrease plant growth and development. Therefore, conservation management practices such as cover crops (CCs) are used to optimize soil water dynamics, since CCs can conserve soil water. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of CCs on soil water dynamics on a corn (
Public private partnership PPP is a method to procure public projects in order to achieve additional value for money in terms of efficiency and quality of services. This thesis studies the concepts of PPP, advantages and disadvantages of PPP. In addition, current Iraq infrastructure projects situations and needs, as well as, some aspects relating to the Iraq’s construction market, legal and contract systems were discussed. A financial model was carried out and applied to a real-life case study project. Finally, a survey targeted researchers; public and private- sectors were applied.
The water quality index is the most common mathematical way of monitoring water characteristics due to the reasons for the water parameters to identify the type of water and the validity of its use, whether for drinking, agricultural, or industrial purposes. The water arithmetic indicator method was used to evaluate the drinking water of the Al-Muthana project, where the design capacity was (40000) m3/day, and it consists of traditional units used to treat raw water. Based on the water parameters (Turb, TDS, TH, SO4, NO2, NO3, Cl, Mg, and Ca), the evaluation results were that the quality of drinking water is within the second category of the requirements of the WHO (86.658%) and the first category of the standard has not been met du
... Show MoreClassification of imbalanced data is an important issue. Many algorithms have been developed for classification, such as Back Propagation (BP) neural networks, decision tree, Bayesian networks etc., and have been used repeatedly in many fields. These algorithms speak of the problem of imbalanced data, where there are situations that belong to more classes than others. Imbalanced data result in poor performance and bias to a class without other classes. In this paper, we proposed three techniques based on the Over-Sampling (O.S.) technique for processing imbalanced dataset and redistributing it and converting it into balanced dataset. These techniques are (Improved Synthetic Minority Over-Sampling Technique (Improved SMOTE), Border
... Show MoreThe performance quality and searching speed of Block Matching (BM) algorithm are affected by shapes and sizes of the search patterns used in the algorithm. In this paper, Kite Cross Hexagonal Search (KCHS) is proposed. This algorithm uses different search patterns (kite, cross, and hexagonal) to search for the best Motion Vector (MV). In first step, KCHS uses cross search pattern. In second step, it uses one of kite search patterns (up, down, left, or right depending on the first step). In subsequent steps, it uses large/small Hexagonal Search (HS) patterns. This new algorithm is compared with several known fast block matching algorithms. Comparisons are based on search points and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR). According to resul
... Show MoreThe importance of regional development resides in the provision of aid and other assistance to regions that are less economically developed. The purpose of this research is to identify the development possibilities and resources at the regional level, which can be tapped for the development of secondary cities. This research aims to shed light on the importance of urban planning in creating regional balance and relieving population and service pressure on major cities. The research answers the question relative to how urban planners can work towards the idea of creating development corridors including the cities located within them, whilst focusing more on the regional dimension and the topic of sustainable urbanization. This research assum
... Show MoreWe define L-contraction mapping in the setting of D-metric spaces analogous to L-contraction mappings [1] in complete metric spaces. Also, give a definition for general D- matric spaces.And then prove the existence of fixed point for more general class of mappings in generalized D-metric spaces.