In this study, four sampling stations were selected on the Tigris River (Baghdad region) in order to determine concentrations, seasonal variation and pollution intensity assessment of heavy metals (Cd, Zn and Mn) in water, sediments and Barbus xanthpterus fish in this river. The study results showed that the mean concentration of dissolved heavy metals (cadmium, zinc and manganese) were 0.004 ppm, 0.023 ppm and 0.007 ppm, respectively. Whereas, their concentrations in sediments were 1.38 ppm, 86 ppm and 231.4 ppm respectively. Irregular seasonal variation for concentrations of these metals in both sediments and water. The mean concentration of these metals in tissues of fish muscles were 0.0043 ppm, 0.0023 ppm and 0.03 ppm for cadmium, z

The dynamic thermomechanical properties, sealing ability, and voids formation of an experimental obturation hydroxyapatite-reinforced polyethylene (HA/PE) composite/carrier system were investigated and compared with those of a commercial system [GuttaCore (GC)]. The HA/PE system was specifically designed using a melt-extrusion process. The viscoelastic properties of HA/PE were determined using a dynamic thermomechanical analyser. Human single-rooted teeth were endodontically instrumented and obturated using HA/PE or GC systems, and then sealing ability was assessed using a fluid filtration system. In addition, micro-computed tomography (μCT) was used to quantify apparent voids within the root-canal space. The data were statistically analys

Technological development in recent years leads to increase the access speed in the networks that allow a huge number of users watching videos online. Video streaming is one of the most popular applications in networking systems. Quality of Experience (QoE) measurement for transmitted video streaming may deal with data transmission problems such as packet loss and delay. This may affect video quality and leads to time consuming. We have developed an objective video quality measurement algorithm that uses different features, which affect video quality. The proposed algorithm has been estimated the subjective video quality with suitable accuracy. In this work, a video QoE estimation metric for video strea

       The current research aims to build a training program for chemistry teachers based on the knowledge economy and its impact on the productive thinking of their students. To achieve the objectives of the research, the following hypothesis was formulated:

   There is no statistically significant difference at (0.05) level of significance between the average grades of the students participating in the training program according to the knowledge economy and the average grades of the students who did not participate in the training program in the test of productive thinking. The study sample consisted of (288) second intermediate grade students divided into (152) for the control group

      In this paper, the researcher suggested using the Genetic algorithm method to estimate the parameters of the Wiener degradation process,  where it is based on the Wiener process in order to estimate the reliability of high-efficiency products, due to the difficulty of estimating the reliability of them using traditional techniques that depend only on the failure times of products. Monte Carlo simulation has been applied for the purpose of proving the efficiency of the proposed method in estimating parameters; it was compared with the method of the maximum likelihood estimation. The results were that the Genetic algorithm method is the best based on the AMSE comparison criterion, then the reliab

A novel fractal design scheme has been introduced in this paper to generate microstrip bandpass filter designs with miniaturized sizes for wireless applications. The presented fractal scheme is based on Minkowski-like prefractal geometry. The space-filling property and self-similarity of this fractal geometry has found to produce reduced size symmetrical structures corresponding to the successive iteration levels. The resulting filter designs are with sizes suitable for use in modern wireless communication systems. The performance of each of the generated bandpass filter structures up to the 2^nd iteration has been analyzed using a method of moments (MoM) based software IE3D, which is widely adopted in microwave research and in

 Finding a path solution in a dynamic environment represents a challenge for the robotics researchers, furthermore, it is the main issue for autonomous robots and manipulators since nowadays the world is looking forward to this challenge. The collision free path for robot in an environment with moving obstacles such as different objects, humans, animals or other robots is considered as an actual problem that needs to be solved.  In addition, the local minima and sharp edges are the most common problems in all path planning algorithms. The main objective of this work is to overcome these problems by demonstrating the robot path planning and obstacle avoidance using D star (D*) algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)

The rapid development of telemedicine services and the requirements for exchanging medical information between physicians, consultants, and health institutions have made the protection of patients’ information an important priority for any future e-health system. The protection of medical information, including the cover (i.e. medical image), has a specificity that slightly differs from the requirements for protecting other information. It is necessary to preserve the cover greatly due to its importance on the reception side as medical staff use this information to provide a diagnosis to save a patient's life. If the cover is tampered with, this leads to failure in achieving the goal of telemedicine. Therefore, this work provides an in