Permanent deformation, fatigue and thermal cracking are the three typical distresses of flexible pavement. Using hydrated lime (HL) into the conventional limestone mineral additive has been widely practiced, including in Europe, to improve the mechanical properties of hot mix asphalt (HMA) concrete and as the result the durability of the constructed pavement. Large number of experimental studies have been reported to find the optimum addition of HL for the improvement on HMA concrete mechanical properties, moisture susceptibility and fatigue resistance. Pavement in service is under complex thermomechanical stress-strain conditions due to coupled atmospheric and surrounding environment temperature variation and the traffic loading. To predic

Credit risk assessment has become an important topic in financial risk administration. Fuzzy clustering analysis has been applied in credit scoring. Gustafson-Kessel (GK) algorithm has been utilised to cluster creditworthy customers as against non-creditworthy ones. A good clustering analysis implemented by good Initial Centres of clusters should be selected. To overcome this problem of Gustafson-Kessel (GK) algorithm, we proposed a modified version of Kohonen Network (KN) algorithm to select the initial centres. Utilising similar degree between points to get similarity density, and then by means of maximum density points selecting; the modified Kohonen Network method generate clustering initial centres to get more reasonable clustering res

Atmospheric residue fluid catalytic cracking was selected as a probe reaction to test the catalytic performance of modified NaY zeolites and prepared NaY zeolites. Modified NaY zeolites have been synthesized by simple ion exchange methods. Three samples of modified zeolite Y have been obtained by replacing the sodium ions in the original sample with lanthanum and the weight percent added are 0.28, 0.53, and 1.02 respectively. The effects of addition of lanthanum to zeolite Y in different weight percent on the cracking catalysts were investigated using an experimental laboratory plant scale of fluidized bed reactor.

The experiments have been performed with weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) range of 6 to 24 h

This project sought to fabricate a flexible gas sensor based on a short functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs) network for nitrogen dioxide gas detection. The network was prepared by filtration from the suspension (FFS) method and modified by coating with a layer of polypyrrole conductive polymer (PPy) prepared by the oxidative chemical polymerization to improve the properties of the network. The structural, optical, and morphological properties of the f-MWCNTs and f-MWCNTs/PPy network were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourie-transform infrared (FTIR), with an AFM (atomic force microscopy). XRD proved that the structure of f-MWCNTs is unaffected by the synthesis procedure. The FTIR spectra verified the existence o

Hydrated lime has been recognized as an effective additive used to improve asphalt concrete properties in pavement applications. However, further work is still needed to quantify the effect of hydrated lime on asphaltic concrete performance under varied weather, temperature, and environmental conditions and in the application of different pavement courses. A research project was conducted using hydrated lime to modify the asphalt concretes used for the applications of wearing (surface), leveling (binder), and base courses. A previous publication reported the experimental study on the resistance to Marshall stability and the volumetric properties, the resilient modulus, and permanent deformation at three different weather temperatures. This

Ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been found to be highly effective as electrolytes in TiO2 NTAs-graphite cells when combined with additives that enhance conductivity by reducing the viscosity of these liquids. The presence of CaCl2.6H2O: Acetamide DES with DI water as an additive resulted in a cell voltage of 1.31V and an internal resistance of 19 ohm. This can be attributed to the concentration and quality of the ionic species. The cells exhibited an interesting response to the AlCl3-chloroacetamide IL with dichloromethane DCM as an additive, with a cell voltage of 1.81V and an internal resistance of 5.0 ohm. Once again, this is influenced by the quality and concentration of the ionic species. Furthermore,

This paper describes a new proposed structure of the Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller based on modified Elman neural network for the DC-DC buck converter system which is used in battery operation of the portable devices. The Dolphin Echolocation Optimization (DEO) algorithm is considered as a perfect on-line tuning technique therefore, it was used for tuning and obtaining the parameters of the modified Elman neural-PID controller to avoid the local minimum problem during learning the proposed controller. Simulation results show that the best weight parameters of the proposed controller, which are taken from the DEO, lead to find the best action and unsaturated state that will stabilize the Buck converter system performan

This study was planned to evaluate the renal function tests and liver function tests and it carried out in Al-Yarmouk hospital,Baghdad –Iraqin patients withtype 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus by measuring(uric acid,urea and creatinine) ,Aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and Alanine aminotransferase (ALT). Seventy five individuals of Iraqi adults (male) were divided into three groups, 25 patients with type1 diabetes mellitus ,25 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and 25 normal individuals were taken as control group. The mean value of uric acid, urea and creatinine was higher significantly in patients thanin control group (P< 0.05),while the correlation(p< 0.01) between age ,creatinine in type 1 and between age and (Urea, Uric acid ,cr

Background: Automobile spray painting is considered an occupation with a high risk of respiratory impairment and asthma. Exposure to organic solvents used for spraying might be of high risk for development of dysfunction in other organs.
Objective: The study was designed to evaluate the pulmonary and hepatic toxicity due to exposure of automobile painters to organic solvents in work places within the Baghdad governorate area.
Methods: Thirty cross sectional selected male workers employed in automobile body paint shops in two industrial areas within Baghdad city (Al-Sheikh Omar and Al-Rasheed camp regions) were recruited to the study during the period from March to May 2012. Thirty non-exposed students and employees in the college o