Geotechnical engineers have always been concerned with the stabilization of slopes. For this purpose,
various methods such as retaining walls, piles, and geosynthetics may be used to increase the safety factor of slopes prone to failure. The application of stone columns may also be another potential alternative for slope stabilization. Such columns have normally been used for cohesive soil improvement. Most slope analysis and design is based on deterministic approach i.e a set of single valued design parameter are adopted and a set of single valued factor of safety (FOS) is determined. Usually the FOS is selected in view of the understanding and knowledge of the material parameters, the problem geometry, the method of analysis and the consequences of failure. This results in different FOS obtained by different designers. This inherent variability characteristic dictates that slope stability problem is a probabilistic problem rather than deterministic problem. Furthermore, the FOS approach cannot quantify the probability of failure or level of risk associated with a particular design situation. The objective of this study is to integrate probabilistic approach as a rational means to incorporate uncertainty in the slope stability analysis. The study was made through a hypothetical problem which includes a sensitivity analysis. The methodology is based on Monte Carlo simulation integrated in commercially available computer program SLOPE/W. The output of the analysis is presented as the probability of failure as a measure of the likelihood of the slope failure. Results of this study have verified that the probability of failure is a better measure of slope stability as compared to the factor of safety because it provides a range of value rather than a single value.
Breast cancer (BC) is one of the most frequently observed malignancy in females worldwide. Today, tamoxifen (TAM) is considered as the highly effective therapy for treatment of breast tumors. Oxidative stress has implicated strongly in the pathophysiology of malignancies. This study aimed to investigate the changes in the levels of oxidants and antioxidants in patients with newly diagnosed and TAM-treated BC. Sixty newly diagnosed and 60 TAM-treated women with BC and 50 healthy volunteers were included in this study. Parameters including total oxidant capacity (TOC), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and catalase (CAT) activity were determined before and after treatment with TAM. The serum levels of TOC and oxidative stress index (OSI) were
... Show MoreObjectives: With the advent of ongoing novel modalities toward the treatment of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)/NEU - positive malignancies, the serious side effects of chemoradiotherapy have been minimized. Hence, this study was conducted to identify the patterns of immunohistochemical expression of the promising therapeutic target (HER2/NEU) among Iraqi patients with medulloblastoma in an attempt to provide basic histological information’s that would help in future clinical researches.Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, 42 formalin - fixed paraffin - embedded tissue blocks represent cases of surgically removed medulloblastomas were retrieved from the archived materials in a specialized surgical ho
... Show MoreThe current study aims to develop a teaching design in accordance with cluster thinking strategies and explore the effect of this teaching design on students’ achievement in science. To this end, the null hypothesis was adopted: there is no statistically significant difference at the level of (0, 05) between experimental group who adopted the teaching design in learning science and control group who follow the traditional method in learning the same subject. To test the null hypothesis, total of (74) students from Al-Alaama Hussain Mahfooth intermediate school were selected intentionally for the academic year 2016-2017. The sample divided into two equal groups when all the variables (age, prior achievement of science,
... Show MoreIn this work, excess properties (eg excess molar volume (VE), excess viscosity (ȠE), excess Gibbs free energy of activation of viscos flow (ΔG* E) and molar refraction changes (ΔnD) of binary solvent mixtures of tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (THFA) with aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene and p-xylene) have been calculated. This was achieved by determining the physical properties including density ρ, viscosity Ƞ and refraction index nD of liquid mixtures at 298.15 K. Results of the excess parameters and deviation functions for the binary solvent mixtures at 298.15 K have been discussed by molecular interactions that occur in these mixtures. Generally, parameters showed negative values and have been found to fit well to Redlich-Kister
... Show MoreBackground: Prolonged infections caused by High-risk HPVs have the potential to cause cancer in the regions of the body where they infect cells, including the cervix or the oropharynx, which refers to the rear part of the throat. Aims: To detection of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) -IgM , IL-10 and TNF among Iraqi women Methods: A total of 89 blood sample were collected from females with various cervical lesions and 40 blood samples were collected from apparently healthy along with a control group of 40 healthy females. The presence of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) -IgM, IL-10 and TNF in the collected samples was assessed using the ELISA technique. Results: The positivity rate of HPV IgM was 13.5%. This positivity was higher among individuals age
... Show MoreBackground: Neural tube defects (NTDs) are said to be inherited in a multifactorial fashion, i.e. genetic-environmental interaction. Maternal nutritional deficiencies had long been reported to cause NTDs, especially folate deficiency during early pregnancy. More attention had been paid to the exact mechanism by which this deficiency state causes these defects in the developing embryo. The most significant of all researches was that connecting reduced folate and increased homocysteine level in maternal serum on one hand and the risk of developing a NTD baby on the other hand. Objectives : to determine the significance of homocysteine level in Iraqi mothers who gave birth to babies with NTDs as compared to normal controls. Patients, Materials
... Show MoreA faunistic review of the genus Chaitophorus Koch, 1854, including four species in Iraq is given; the distribution data of each species and their hosts have been recorded. In this investigation the poplar leaf aphid Ch. populialbae (Boyer de Fonscolombe, 1841) is recorded here for the first time in Iraq on popular trees Populus euphratica Oliv. during the period from November 2016 to April 2017 in Baghdad province.
A brief description for apterous viviparous female of this species is given; and a key to the species of the genus Chaitophorus is constricted.
The pretreatment process can be considered one of the important processes in wastewater treatment, especially coagulation process to decrease the strength of many pollutants. This paper focused on using powdered date seeds as natural coagulant in addition to chemical coagulants (alum and ferric chloride) to find the optimum dosage of each coagulant that makes efficient removal of turbidity and chemical oxygen demand (COD) from domestic wastewater as a pretreatment process, then finding the optimum combined dosages of date seeds with alum, date seeds with ferric chloride that make efficient removal for both pollutants. Concerning turbidity, the optimum dosage for date seeds, alum and ferric chloride were 40 mg/l (79%), 70
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