Two novel demountable shear connectors for precast steel-concrete composite bridges are presented. The connectors use high-strength steel bolts, which are fastened to the steel beam with the aid of a special locking configuration that prevents slip of bolts within their holes. Moreover, the connectors promote accelerated construction and overcome typical construction tolerances issues of precast structures. Most importantly, the connectors allow bridge disassembly, and therefore, can address different bridge deterioration scenarios with minimum disturbance to traffic flow, i.e. (1) precast deck panels can be rapidly uplifted and replaced; (2) connectors can be rapidly removed and replaced; and (3) steel beams can be replaced, while precast

Abstract. Full-waveform airborne laser scanning data has shown its potential to enhance available segmentation and classification approaches through the additional information it can provide. However, this additional information is unable to directly provide a valid physical representation of surface features due to many variables affecting the backscattered energy during travel between the sensor and the target. Effectively, this delivers a mis-match between signals from overlapping flightlines. Therefore direct use of this information is not recommended without the adoption of a comprehensive radiometric calibration strategy that accounts for all these effects. This paper presents a practical and reliable radiometric calibration r

Lymphoma is a cancer arising from B or T lymphocytes that are central immune system ‎components. It is one of the three most common cancers encountered in the canine; ‎lymphoma affects middle-aged to older dogs and usually stems from lymphatic tissues, ‎such as lymph nodes, lymphoid tissue, or spleen. Despite the advance in the management of ‎canine lymphoma, a better understanding of the subtype and tumor aggressiveness is still ‎crucial for improved clinical diagnosis to differentiate malignancy from hyperplastic ‎conditions and to improve decision-making around treating and what treatment type to use. ‎This study aimed to evaluate a potential novel biomarker related to iron metabolism,

ABSTRACT Fifty extremely halophilic bacteria were isolated from local high salient soils named Al-Massab Al-Aam in south of iraq and were identified by using numerical taxonomy. Fourty strains were belong to the genus Halobacterium which included Hb. halobium (10%). Hb. salinarium (12.5%), Hb.cutirubrum (17.5%), Hb-saccharovorum (12.5%), Hb. valismortis (10%) and Hb. volcanii (37.5%). Growth curves were determined. Generation time (hr) in complex media and logarithmic phase were measured and found to be 10.37±0.59 for Hb. salinarium. 6.49 ± 0.24 for Hb.cutirubrum. 6.70±0.48 for Hb-valismonis, and 11.24 ± 0.96 for Hb. volcanii

1- The Granadian, Lisan Ad-Din Ibn ul Khateeb, was a brilliant thinker and a great writer who filled Andalus and Morocco with literature and poetry and his genius emerged in different knowledge fields.
2- He was one of Andalus famous people, as he was a first class physician and philosopher, a great historian, a farsighted politician and had a strong cognition.
3- Ibnul Khateeb proved that his age, that he lived in, was a sophisticated in which arts, literatures and sciences thrived.
4- Ibnul Khateeb dedicated his life for the service of Granada Kingdom and that was clear in his writings, both prose and poetry.
5- Ibnul Khateeb witnessed a group of great Andalus scientists and writers, firstly the thinker Ibn Khaldun who sing

In the present study, an attempt has been to develop a new water quality index (WQI) method that depends on the Iraqi specifications for drinking water (IQS 417, 2009) to assess the validity of the Euphrates River for drinking by classifying the quality of the river water at different stations along its entire reach inside the Iraqi lands. The proposed classifications by this method are: Excellent, Good, Acceptable, Poor, and Very poor. Eight water quality parameters have been selected to represent the quality of the river water these are: Ion Hydrogen Concentration (pH), Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Sodium (Na), Chloride (Cl), Sulphate (SO_4), Nitrate (NO_3), and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). The variation of the water quality parameters

Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) used for many applications especially in security applications, including border control. However, more accurate and language-independent techniques are still needed. This work provides a new approach to identifying Arabic license plates in different formats, colors, and even including English characters. Numbers, characters, and layouts with either 1-line or 2-line layouts are presented. For the test, we intend to use Iraqi license plates as there is a wide range of license plate styles written in Arabic, Kurdish, and English/Arabic languages, each different in style and color. This variety makes it difficult for recent traditional license plate recognition systems and algorithms to recogn