The photooxidative degradation process of plastics caused by ultraviolet irradiation leads to bond breaking, crosslinking, the elimination of volatiles, formation of free radicals, and decreases in weight and molecular weight. Photodegradation deteriorates both the mechanical and physical properties of plastics and affects their predicted life use, in particular for applications in harsh environments. Plastics have many benefits, while on the other hand, they have numerous disadvantages, such as photodegradation and photooxidation in harsh environments and the release of toxic substances due to the leaching of some components, which have a negative effect on living organisms. Therefore, attention is paid to the design and use of saf

Material obtained from the demolition of concrete structures and milling of flexible pavements has the highest potential for recyclability. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of hot mix asphalt with the concurrent use of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) and recycled concrete aggregate (RCA). Contents of RAP and RCA were varied from 0% to 50% by fixing the total recycling materials percentage to 50%. Penetration grade 40/50 virgin binder and waste engine oil (WEO) as rejuvenator were used in the present study. A series of tests, such as Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Marshall stability, indirect tensile strength test, IDEAL CT, uniaxial compression test, and resilient modulus test, were carried out to assess the performance of

Abstract: The international community now places significant emphasis on achieving zero carbon emissions, requiring both new researchers and experienced policymakers to prioritise this goal. This article examines the effects of carbon taxes, carbon cap and trade, renewable energy (RE) production and consumption, and economic growth (EG) on carbon emission reduction in the United States, Japan, Canada, and Australia. The study collected secondary data from the World Development Indicators (WDI) secondary source spanning the years 1991 to 2022. The study examines the relationship between variables using the cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) approach. The findings indicate that carbon taxes, carbon cap and tr

This study tries to examine a model involving human resources management practices, employees’ outcomes, governmental support, and organizational performance of small businesses in Malaysia. It was hypothesized that HRM practices will be positively related to the organizational performance (financial and operational), and that employees’ outcomes would serve as a mediator in the relationship between HRM practices and performance. Also it was hypothesized that the governmental support will be positively related to organizational performance. The statistical results on data gathered from a sample of 265 small manufacturing businesses will demonstrate the nature of relationships among the study variables. Theoretical and practical

The genus of Chrysobothris Eschscholtz, 1829 is one of the most diverse and widespread genera of the family Buprestidae of some 700 described species distributed throughout the world. In Iraq, particularly in the Kurdistan region, about 4 species had been recorded so far, many of these species are sympatric, share larval host plants, and are difficult to reliably separate morphologically. The current study investigates species limits and relationships among the recognized species occurring within the Erbil Province; mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase (COX I) molecular analysis confirmed the monophyly of two Chrysobothris species, Ch. affinis (Fabricius, 1794) and Ch. chrysostigma (Linnaeus, 1758). Implications of the resultant larval mor

       We have presented the distribution of the exponentiated expanded power function (EEPF) with four parameters, where this distribution was created by the exponentiated expanded method created by the scientist Gupta to expand the exponential distribution by adding a new shape parameter to the cumulative function of the distribution, resulting in a new distribution, and this method is characterized by obtaining a distribution that belongs for the exponential family. We also obtained a function of survival rate and failure rate for this distribution, where some mathematical properties were derived, then we used the method of maximum likelihood (ML) and method least squares developed  (LSD) to estimate the parameters an