Form of investment in infrastructure important factor to drive economic growth in any country, with the dwindling ability of governments to provide the necessary funds for such investments, emerged as a rising trend for private sector involvement in public projects and infrastructure, and one of these trends is the build-operate-transfer system (BOT), which commonly used in various developed and developing countries as one of the tools used in the implementation of these investments, as the private sector under this system design, finance, build and operate the project, and are re-administration of the state after a certain period under a contractual agreement between the parties of the contract. As this system provides majo

Abstract Background: Multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDR) often contaminate hospital environment and cause serious illnesses. Quorum Sensing (QS) regulates a variety of downstream cellular processes, including antibiotics resistance mechanisms and biofilm formation, and causes harm to the host. This study investigates antibacterial susceptibility and biofilm formation of pathogenic bacteria in hospital environment. Methods: Hundred bacterial isolates were collected from various environments in the Medical City hospital. The antimicrobial susceptibility technique was evaluated through disk diffusion method. Next, biofilms formation was detected by the microliter plate assay. Finally, PCR was used to analyze the frequency of QS system gene

The Dynamic Load Factor (DLF) is defined as the ratio between the maximum dynamic and static responses in terms of stress, strain, deflection, reaction, etc. DLF adopted by different design codes is based on parameters such as bridge span length, traffic load models, and bridge natural frequency. During the last decades, a lot of researches have been made to study the DLF of simply supported bridges due to vehicle loading. On the other hand, fewer works have been reported on continuous bridges especially with skew supports. This paper focuses on the investigation of the DLF for a highly skewed steel I-girder bridge, namely the US13 Bridge in Delaware State, USA. Field testing under various load passes of a weighed load vehicle was u

Social factors may affect the available sources of toxic substances and causes of poisoning, and these factors may change over time. Additionally, understanding the characteristics of poisoning cases is important for treating such patients. Therefore, the present study investigated the characteristics of poisoning cases in Baghdad Poisoning Consultation Center (PCC) and Forensic Medicine Institute (FMI). Data on all poisoning cases reported in PCC and FMI during 2013 were retrospectively obtained from medical records. Total of 1131 reports of poisoning cases (1082 from PCC and 49 from FMI) were analyzed according to age, sex, geographical distribution and causes of poisoning according to the type and class of poisoning agent. The results

Epoxy resin has many chemical features and mechanical properties, but it has a small elongation at break, low impact strength and crack propagation resistance, i.e. it exhibits a brittle behavior. In the current study, the influence of adding kaolin with variable particle size on the mechanical properties (flexural modulus E, toughness Gc, fracture toughness Kc, hardness HB, and Wear rate WR) of epoxy resin was evaluated. Composites of epoxy with varying concentrations (0, 10, 20, 30, 40 weights %) of kaolin were prepared by hand-out method. The composites showed improved (E, Gc, Kc, HB, and WR) properties with the addition of filler. Also, similar results were observed with the decrease in particle size. In addition, in this study, mult

Stripping is one of the major distresses within asphalt concrete pavements caused due to penetration of water within the interface of asphalt-aggregate matrix. In this work, one grade of asphalt cement (40-50) was mixed with variable percentages of three types of additives (fly ash, fumed silica, and phosphogypsum) to obtained an modified asphalt cement to resist the effect of stripping phenomena .The specimens have been tested for physical properties according to AASHTO. The surface free energy has been measured by using two methods namely, the wilhelmy technique and the Sessile drop method according to NCHRP-104
procedures. Samples of asphalt concrete using different asphalt cement and modified asphalt cement percentages(4.1,4.6 an

 The aim of this research is to identify the extent to which the Conventional and Islamic banks are committed to implement the requirements of the corporate governance in its financial reports. In addition to its commitment to transparency and clarity in dealing with the shareholders and stockholders to protect their interests and to determine the impact of the commitment of the corporate governance on assessing the financial performance of the conventional and Islamic banks that participate in Bahrain Stock Exchange.