The aim of this paper is to design artificial neural network as an alternative accurate tool to estimate concentration of Cadmium in contaminated soils for any depth and time. First, fifty soil samples were harvested from a phytoremediated contaminated site located in Qanat Aljaeesh in Baghdad city in Iraq. Second, a series of measurements were performed on the soil samples. The inputs are the soil depth, the time, and the soil parameters but the output is the concentration of Cu in the soil for depth x and time t. Third, design an ANN and its performance was evaluated using a test data set and then applied to estimate the concentration of Cadmium. The performance of the ANN technique was compared with the traditional laboratory inspecting

The increase in the number of trucks and other heavy vehicles in Iraqi highways lead to cracking and deteriorations in the flexible highway. The use of polymermodified asphalt may solve this problem to match the required performance standards. This study investigates the effects of styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) polymer on the performance behaviour of Iraqi bitumen binder. The characteristics of bitumen binder were analysed to observe the compatibility of bitumen with SBS polymer. The bitumen binder was mixed with three different contents of SBS (4%, 4.5%, and 5%) by weight of asphalt cement. Viscosity tests were conducted on the SBS polymer-modified asphalt at 135 oC and 165 oC in addition to conventional binder tests. The prepar

Aeration system in the cultivation of Chlorella Sp. Microalgae using dairy wastewater as culture media was addressed in the current study. This research aimed to study the effect of aeration in the bubble column bioreactor on the biological synergy between microalgae and bacteria if they are present in the same place. The results show that the sterilization stage is not the dominant step in the success of microalgae cultivation in water-rich organic waste. There is a clear convergence between the growth rate of Chlorella microalgae in the sterilized and non-sterilized culture media, which gives realism if the proposal is applied industrially. Through the information obtained the aerobic bacteria in the non-sterilized me

Twenty five vaginal swabs from outpatients' healthy women were collected from Kamal Al-Samarai Hospital, Baghdad, to isolate and identify of Lactobacillus acidophilus. Three isolates were diagnosed as L. acidophilus which represents 15% of the total number of lactic acid bacterial (LAB) isolates; other LAB types represent 65% (20 isolates).The ability of L. acidophilus to produce surlactin was detected after measuring its biological activity to inhibit the adhesion of biofilm formed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa to surfaces using test tube method. It was found that all isolates were able to produce surlactin but the activity of surlactin was varying in each isolate. Surlactin produced by isolates 1 and 13 was the most effective. Biological appl

Current design codes and specifications allow for part of the bonded flexure tension reinforcement to be distributed over an effective flange width when the T-beams' flanges are in tension. This study presents an experimental and numerical investigation on the reinforced concrete flanged section's flexural behavior when reinforcement in the tension flange is laterally distributed. To achieve the goals of the study, numerical analysis using the finite element method was conducted on discretized flanged beam models validated via experimentally tested T-beam specimen. Parametric study was performed to investigate the effect of different parameters on the T-beams flexural behavior. The study revealed that a significant reduction in the

The study was conducted to measure diatom species diversity in the lotic ecosystem across the Wasit Province for 12 months. The quantitative study of diatoms (phytoplankton) was investigated in the Tigris river. The density of algae was ranged from 60989 cell×103/l to 112780.82 cell×103/l in the five sites. These algae were belonging to 39 genera. The richness index values ranged from 1.53 at site 5 in January 2016 to 6.34 at site 1 and June2015. Shannon-Weiner diversity index (H´) was 2.33 in February 2016 and 3.72 in June 2015 both values at site 3, whereas Evenness index was 0.54 at site 5 in March2016 and 0.98 at site 1 in both August2015 and May2016. The lack of homogeneity of the appearance of species indicates the dominance of a

Reciprocal Teaching is an interactive method that is used to improve reading comprehension. Using this teaching strategy, teachers and students take turns leading discussions regarding sections of text using the four strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing. This study is an attempt to investigate the effect of using reciprocal teaching on improving female college students' achievement in reading comprehension. To fulfill the aim of the study, the researcher has adopted two null hypotheses: first, there is no significant difference between the achievement of students' who practice the reciprocal teaching technique and that of students who do not practice it. Second, there is no statistically significant difference

The gamma dose rates and specific activity of 137Cs, 60Co and 40K in
samples of soil taken from places near the landfill radiation at Al-
Tuwaitha site were measured using a portable NaI(Tl) detector. The
results of gamma dose rates in samples were ranged from 52.6
nGy.h-1 to 131nGy.h-1. Then the specific activity of 137Cs, 60Co and
40K in soil were determined using high pure germanium (HPGe)
detector. The specific activities were varied from 1.9 to 115500 Bq.
kg-1 for 137Cs, from 6.37 to 616.5 Bq. kg-1 for 60Co, and from 3 to
839.5 Bq. kg-1 for 40K. The corresponding health risk for the annual
effective dose equivalent varied from 1.85×10-14 to 15.7mSv/y. The
results were compared with various internationa