In this study, three strengthening techniques, near-surface mounted NSM-CRFP, NSM-CFRP with externally bonding EB-CFRP, and hybrid CFRP with circularization were studied to increase the seismic performance of existing RC slender columns under lateral loads. Experimentally, 1:3 scale RC models were studied and subjected to both lateral static load and seismic excitation. In the dynamic test, a model was subjected to El Centro 1940 NS earthquake excitation by using a shaking table. According to the test results, the strengthening techniques showed a significant increase in load carrying capacity, of about 86.6%, and 46.6%, for circularization and NSM-CFRP respectively, of the reference unstrengthened columns. On the other hand, column

Osteoporosis (OP) is a systemic skeletal disease characterized by low bone mineral density and deterioration of bone architecture, resulting in bone strength reduction and increased fracture susceptibility. Estrogen deficiency in post-menopausal women is possibly responsible for the instability between bone formation and resorption, which is managed by specific osteoclastogenic cytokines that may be leading to resorption. This study aims to estimation of the concentrations of interleukins −8, −17, −22, beside to certain parameters in blood serum and explained their roles in the development of osteoporosis pathogenicity in postmenopausal women. Materials and Methods A case-control study included 108 Iraqi postmenopausal women participa

The issue of image captioning, which comprises automatic text generation to understand an image’s visual information, has become feasible with the developments in object recognition and image classification. Deep learning has received much interest from the scientific community and can be very useful in real-world applications. The proposed image captioning approach involves the use of Convolution Neural Network (CNN) pre-trained models combined with Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) to generate image captions. The process includes two stages. The first stage entails training the CNN-LSTM models using baseline hyper-parameters and the second stage encompasses training CNN-LSTM models by optimizing and adjusting the hyper-parameters of

The objective of this article is to delve into the intricate dynamics of marriage relationships, exploring the impact of emotions such as fear, love, financial considerations and likability. In our investigation, we adopt a perspective that acknowledges the nonlinear nature of interactions among individuals. Diverging from certain prior studies, we propose that the fear element within the context of marriage is not a singular, isolated factor but rather a manifestation resulting from the amalgamation of numerous social issues. This, in turn, contributes to the emergence of strained and unsuccessful relationships. Unlike conventional approaches, we extensively examine the conditions essential for the existence of all socially signifi

Background: Cigarette smoking (CS) is a periodontal disease risk factor, affecting clinical parameters such as bleeding on probing (BOP), plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI) and proinflammatory cytokines level. This study examines the impact electronic cigarette use on proinflammatory cytokines and periodontal parameters. Methods: In this non-randomized study, ninety participants diagnosed with gingivitis were assigned into three groups. examined the effect of oral hygiene instructions on periodontal parameters and inflammatory biomarkers. Thirty CS (n=30) vaping electronic-cigarettes (e-cig) (n=29), and non-smoker (NS) (n=31) was included. Clinical parameters including PI, BOP, and GI were recorded at baseline and after 3 weeks

The dramatic series on television have a great impact on people’sattitudes towards dialects of language varieties, by relating theconceptual pictures or prototypes presented by series’ characters tothose dialects. This study aims to show the influence of TV series onIraqi university learners’ gender and age in relating positive ornegative semantic qualities to their dialects. To this end, 150 Iraqi EFLlearners have participated in this study to examine their attitudestowards Baghdadi, Mousli and Nasiriya dialects. The data arecollected by Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner, Fillenbaum's (1960)matched guise technique and then labeled by Willmorth’s (1988)subjective reaction test. A structured interview is conducted to supportthe data

Background:Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a progressive, chronic inflammatory illness with an unclear etiology that explicitly targets the vertebral column, peripheral joints, and extraarticular tissues. The purpose of this research was to investigate if the existence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the promoter region of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) gene at positions -1031T/C (rs199964), -857C/T (rs1799724) and -806C/T (rs4248158) in a sample of Iraqi AS patients could influence the patients' outcomes with etanercept.

Methods:Sixty patients with established AS receiving only etanercept were selected to enroll in this study, with a mean age of 40.75±8.6

Background: With the increasing demands for adult orthodontics, a growing need arises to bond attachments to porcelain surfaces. Optimal adhesion to porcelain surface should allow orthodontic treatment without bond failure but not jeopardize porcelain integrity after debonding.The present study was carried out to compare the shear bond strength of metal bracket bonded to porcelain surface prepared by two mechanical treatments and by using different etching systems (Hydrofluoric acid 9% and acidulated phosphate fluoride 1.23%). Materials and Methods: The samples were comprised of 60 models (28mm *15mm*28mm) of metal fused to porcelain (feldspathic porcelain). They were divided as the following: group I (control): the porcelain surface left u