Public-private partnership (PPP) has been used over the past 20-30 years by governments in developed countries to meet the public demand for infrastructural services. In Iraq, the PPP concept is comparatively new to the Government of Iraq (GoI), where the government has historically taken most of the responsibility for providing public services. There are few PPP projects in Iraq. However, the number is increasing. Recently the Iraqi market has experienced a number of attempts of PPP in different sectors, especially after the new investment law in 2006. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the investment environment in Iraq and to indicate the main factors affecting PPP in particular for infrastructure projects. Some literature review and

Activity recognition (AR) is a new interesting and challenging research area with many applications (e.g. healthcare, security, and event detection). Basically, activity recognition (e.g. identifying user’s physical activity) is more likely to be considered as a classification problem. In this paper, a combination of 7 classification methods is employed and experimented on accelerometer data collected via smartphones, and compared for best performance. The dataset is collected from 59 individuals who performed 6 different activities (i.e. walk, jog, sit, stand, upstairs, and downstairs). The total number of dataset instances is 5418 with 46 labeled features. The results show that the proposed method of ensemble boost-based classif

Introduction: Carrier-based gutta-percha is an effective method of root canal obturation creating a 3-dimensional filling; however, retrieval of the plastic carrier is relatively difficult, particularly with smaller sizes. The purpose of this study was to develop composite carriers consisting of polyethylene (PE), hydroxyapatite (HA), and strontium oxide (SrO) for carrier-based root canal obturation. Methods: Composite fibers of HA, PE, and SrO were fabricated in the shape of a carrier for delivering gutta-percha (GP) using a melt-extrusion process. The fibers were characterized using infrared spectroscopy and the thermal properties determined using differential scanning calorimetry. The elastic modulus and tensile strength tests were dete

    Saccharin is firstly synthesized in 1879. It is a very well-known as an inexpensive substitute for sugar as it is a non-caloric sweetener. The article shows the properties, use, metabolism and various synthesis and reactions of saccharine. Moreover, the toxicological reports explain that saccharin is mostly responsible for the bladder tumors observed in the male rats, the relationship between the consumption of saccharin and bladder cancer is afforded by epidemiological studies.  The benefit-risk evaluation for saccharin is hardly to indicate. Saccharin is a sugar substitute, frequently used either in food industry, or in pharmaceutical formulations and even in tobacco products. The chemistry of saccharin is inter

The extracted oil from the Chia seeds white and black were used in the manufacture of certain foods such as mayonnaise. The results of the sensory evaluation showed that the product was acceptable except for the flavor of white chia seed oil. The seeds were fully used in the manufacture of the nutella. The results of the sensory evaluation were encouraging the use of the extracted oil from the black chia seeds in the production of the nutella except the spread property. Chia seeds were also used in the manufacture of pudding. The results of the sensory evaluation showed an excellent and acceptable product of black chia seeds oil can be obtained, while the white seeds did not receive the acceptance in terms of color and flavor.

In our work present, the application of strong-Lensing observations for some gravitational lenses have been adopted to study the geometry of the universe and to explain the physics and the size of the quasars. The first procedure was to study the geometrical of the Lensing system to determine the relation between the redshift of the gravitational observations with its distances. The second procedure was to compare between the angular diameter distances "DA" calculated from the Euclidean case with that from the Freedman models, then evaluating the diameter of the system lens. The results concluded that the phenomena are restricted to the ratio of distance between lens and source with the diameter of the lens noticing.