In Australia, most of the existing buildings were designed before the release of the Australian standard for earthquake actions in 2007. Therefore, many existing buildings in Australia lack adequate seismic design, and their seismic performance must be assessed. The recent earthquake that struck Mansfield, Victoria near Melbourne elevated the need to produce fragility curves for existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in Australia. Fragility curves are frequently utilized to assess buildings’ seismic performance and it is defined as the demand probability surpassing capacity at a given intensity level. Numerous factors can influence the results of the fragility assessment of RC buildings. Among the most important factors that can affe

Roller-Compacted Concrete is a no-slump concrete, with no reinforcing steel, no forms, no finishing and wet enough to support compaction by vibratory rollers. Due to the effect of curing on properties and durability of concrete, the main purpose of this research is to study the effect of various curing methods (air curing, 7 days water curing, and permanent water curing) and porcelanite (local material used as an Internal Curing agent) with different replacement percentages of fine aggregate (volumetric replacement) on some properties of Roller-Compacted Concrete and to explore the possibility of introducing practical Roller-Compacted Concrete for road pavement with minimum requirement of curing. Specimens were sawed fro

Background: Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of mortality among women in Iraq forming 23% of cancer related deaths. The low survival from the disease is a direct consequence to the advanced stages at diagnoses. Aim: To document the composite stage of breast cancer among Iraqi patients at the time of diagnosis; correlating the observed findings with other clinical and pathological parameters at presentation. Patients and Methods: A retrospective study enrolling the clinical and pathological characteristics of 603 Iraqi female patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The composite stage of breast cancer was determined according to UICC TNM Classification System of Breast Cancer and the Ameri

Contracting cancer typically induces a state of terror among the individuals who are affected. Exploring how chemotherapy and anxiety work together to affect the speed at which cancer cells multiply and the immune system’s response model is necessary to come up with ways to stop the spread of cancer. This paper proposes a mathematical model to investigate the impact of psychological scare and chemotherapy on the interaction of cancer and immunity. The proposed model is accurately described. The focus of the model’s dynamic analysis is to identify the potential equilibrium locations. According to the analysis, it is possible to establish three equilibrium positions. The stability analysis reveals that all equilibrium points consi

   The aim of this study is to investigate the kinetics of copper removal from aqueous solutions using an electromembrane extraction (EME) system. To achieve this, a unique electrochemical cell design was adopted comprising two glass chambers, a supported liquid membrane (SLM), a graphite anode, and a stainless-steel cathode. The SLM consisted of a polypropylene flat membrane infused with 1-octanol as a solvent and bis(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate (DEHP) as a carrier. The impact of various factors on the kinetics constant rate was outlined, including the applied voltage, initial pH of the donor phase solution, and initial copper concentration. The results demonstrated a significant influence of the applied voltage on enhancing the rate of c

Abstract Background: The human epidermal growth factor receptor 2(HER2) proto-oncogene is overexpressed or amplified in approximately 15%-25% of invasive breast cancers. Approximately 35% of HER2-amplified breast cancers have coamplification of the topoisomerase II-alpha (TOP2A) gene encoding an enzyme that is a major target of anthracyclines. Hence, the determination of genetic alteration (amplification or deletion) of both genes is considered as an important predictive factor that determines the response of breast cancer patients to treatment. The aims of this study are to determinate TOP2A status gene amplification in a set of Iraqi patients with breast cancer that have had an equivocal (2+) and positive HER2/neu by immunohistochemistry

Free vibration behavior was developed under the ratio of critical buckling temperature of laminated composite thin plates with the general elastic boundary condition. The equations of motion were found based on classical laminated plate theory (CLPT) while the solution functions consists of trigonometric function and a continuous function that is added to guarantee the sufficient smoother of the so-named remaining displacement function at the boundaries, in this research, a modified Fourier series were used, a generalized procedure solution was developed using Ritz method combined with the imaginary spring technique. The influences of many design parameters such as angles of layers, aspect ratio, thickness ratio, and ratio of initial in-