Previous experimental studies have suggested that hot mixed asphalt (HMA) concrete using hydrated lime (HL) to partially replace the conventional limestone dust filler at 2.5% by the total weight of all aggregates showed an optimum improvement on several key mechanical properties, fatigue life span and moisture susceptibility. However, so far, the knowledge of the thermal response of the modified asphalt concrete and thermal influence on the durability of the pavement constructed are still relatively limited but important to inform pavement design. This paper, at first, reports an experimental study of the tensile fatigue life of HMA concrete mixes designed for wearing layer application. Tests were conducted under three different temperatur

A comparative investigation of the anatomical characters through a microscopical examination of the prepared transverse sections of the stem was carried out. Six plates with 32 photomicrographs were provided to convincingly show the considerable variations of anatomical characters within the nine examined species. The matrix of 18 anatomical characters which included nine quantitative and nine qualitative was applied for the clustering analysis (CA) followed by the principal component analysis (PCA) using the Multivariate Analysis of Ecological Data, PC-ORD.
The results exhibited significant variations among the species resulting in the construction of an artificial key; this key accurately represents a sufficient tool to display the

To obtain the approximate solution to Riccati matrix differential equations, a new variational iteration approach was ‎proposed, which is suggested to improve the accuracy and increase the convergence rate of the approximate solutons to the ‎exact solution. This technique was found to give very accurate results in a few number of iterations. In this paper, the ‎modified approaches were derived to give modified solutions of proposed and used and the convergence analysis to the exact ‎solution of the derived sequence of approximate solutions is also stated and proved. Two examples were also solved, which ‎shows the reliability and applicability of the proposed approach. ‎

The current study is a taxonomic account of three gastrotrich species that belong to Chaetonotidae (Phylum Gastrotricha) namely Ichthydium auritum Brunson, 1950 Lepidodermella squamata (Dujardin, 1841) and Chaetonotus anomalus Brunson, 1950. These species are registered as a new record from Iraq and were collected from several locations along the main outfall drain (MOD) in south of Baghdad, from January to December 2020. The species described in this article were found to be related to Hydrilla and Ceratophyllum and prefer environments rich in detritus and decomposing organic matter. The worms preferred water that is salty, hard, alkaline, and had good oxygen content.

The genus Larra Fabricius, 1793 (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) is recorded for the first time from Vietnam. Three species and two subspecies belonging to this genus as follows: L. amplipennis (F. Smith, 1873); L. carbonaria (F. Smith, 1858); L. fenchihuensis Tsuneki, 1967; L. polita polita (F. Smith, 1858) and L. polita luzonensis Rohwer, 1919 are presented. Keys to both sexes of the three species and two subspecies reported here are provided.