Al-Qudis power plant was chosen, as one of the power stations of Baghdad, to investigate the effects of Cadmium that emitted from combustion of crude oil in that power plant on the workers' glutathione serum level. Air samples were taken seasonally during August 2011- July 2012 from four sites at Al- Qudis power plant which are oil treatment unit 1(site 1), oil treatment 2 (site2), pre –chimney 1(site 3) and pre-chimney 2 (site 4), to measure levels of heavy metal (cadmium) under study. Blood samples were collected from the workers to estimate the heavy metal Cadmium. Air cadmium levels during summer (August and September) were varied from 6.26 ± 0.6 μg/m3 at site 1 to 6.89 ± 0.67 μg/m3 at site 3, while in spring (end of March, and

Many researchers have tackled the shear behavior of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams by using different kinds of strengthening in the shear regions and steel fibers. In the current paper, the effect of multiple parameters, such as using one percentage of Steel Fibers (SF) with and without stirrups, without stirrups and steel fibers, on the shear behavior of RC beams, has been studied and compared by using Finite Element analysis (FE). Three-dimensional (3D) models of (RC) beams are developed and analyzed using ABAQUS commercial software. The models were validated by comparing their results with the experimental test. The total number of beams that were modeled for validation purposes was four. Extensive pa

High performance self-consolidating concrete HP-SCC is one of the most complex types of concrete which have the capacity to consolidated under its own weight, have excellent homogeneity and high durability. This study aims to focus on the possibility of using industrial by-products like Silica fumes SF in the preparation of HP-SCC enhanced with discrete steel fibers (DSF) and monofilament polypropylene fibers (PPF). From experimental results, it was found that using DSF with volume fraction of 0.50 %; a highly improvements were gained in the mechanical properties of HP-SCC. The compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength and elastic modulus improved about 65.7 %, 70.5 %, 41.7 % and 80.3 % at 28 days age, respectively

In this study, six square reinforced concrete flat plates with dimensions of (1500×1500×100) mm were tested under a concentrated load applied on a column located at the center of the slabs. One of these slabs was the control specimen, whereas, in the others, steel angles (steel collars) were used, fixed at the connection region between the slab and the column to investigate the effect of the presence of these collars on punching shear strength. Five thicknesses were used (4, 5, 6, 8, 10mm) with constant legs of angles (75×75) mm of the steel collars to investigate the effects on the punching shear resistance with respect to the control slab. The results of the experimental study show that the punching shear resistance increased b

The security environment for Northeast Asia is extremely important, as it includes most of the international actors (United States of America, China, Russian Federation and Japan), which gives the nature of the interactions of these forces a special importance for the region.

Because of the multiplicity of policies and interests of the active forces in the region, the result has been an unstable regional environment where the interests of the major powers often clash repeatedly on many related issues, which is coupled with the growing efforts of many powers to adopt policies that differ from what they did in the past This resulted in different patterns of relations, which were mainly characterized by competition over regional lea

Abstract: Under high-excitation irradiance conditions to induce fluorescence, the dependence of photobleaching of Coumarin 307 (C307) and acriflavine (ACF) laser dyes in liquid and solid phases have been studied. A cw LD laser source of 1 mW and 407 nm wavelength was used as an exciting source. For one hour exposure time, it was found that the solid dye samples suffer photobleaching more than the liquid dye samples. This is because in liquid solutions the dye molecules can circulate during the irradiation, while the photobleaching is a serious problem when the dye is incorporated into solid matrix and cannot circulate.

"This paper presents a study of inclined magnetic field on the unsteady rotating flow of a generalized Maxwell fluid with fractional derivative between two inclined infinite circular cylinders through a porous medium. The analytic solutions for velocity field and shear stress are derived by using the Laplace transform and finite Hankel transform in terms of the generalized G functions. The effect of the physical parameters of the problem on the velocity field is discussed and illustrated graphically.

The biological effects of pulsed N2-laser on the old world screw-worm fly, Chrysomya bezziana Villeneuve in the pupal stage were investigated. Different laser parameters were involved in this work. The old pupae of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 days were exposed to laser radiation during 10, 30 and 60 second with repetition rate 10, 20 and 30 pulse/second. The percent of normal adults emergence (female and male) was investigated. The results showed that the adults emergence was highly decreased as the repetition rate and exposure time increased when the pupae irradiated for 1, 2 and 3 days old as compared with 4 and 5 days. The results also indicated that the pupal period was significantly increased of irradiated pupae for 1, 2, 3 and 4 days old, whi

Background: Vitamin D improves innate immunity by enhancing the expression of antimicrobial peptides. The antimicrobial action of cathelicidin is widespread and effective against cariogenic bacteria. This research aimed to investigate the effect of vitamin D deficiency on the level of salivary cathelicidin concerning dental caries experience.

Subjects and Methods: A case-control study was carried out, and the sample was composed of 80 females; the study group involved 40 females with a serum vitamin D concentration of less than 10 ng/ml. In addition to the control group involving 40 females wh