Abstract: In recent times, global attention has increasingly focused on the critical issue of environmental sustainability, owing to escalating environmental degradation exacerbated by the utilization of green spaces and technological innovation. This phenomenon necessitates thorough examination, prompting the present study to scrutinize the impact of various factors, namely green spaces, technological innovation, environmental taxes, renewable energy consumption (REC), inflation, and economic growth (EG), on environmental sustainability within the context of Iraq. Secondary data extracted from the World Development Indicators (WDI) spanning the period from 1991 to 2022 served as the foundation for this investigation. Methodologically, the study employed the dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to assess the interrelationships among the specified variables. The findings of the study unveiled positive associations between green spaces, technological innovation, environmental taxes, REC, inflation, economic growth, and environmental sustainability in Iraq. These results offer valuable insights for policymakers, guiding the formulation of strategies aimed at realizing environmental sustainability through the judicious utilization of green spaces, technological innovation, and environmental taxes.
Clinical keratoconus (KCN) detection is a challenging and time-consuming task. In the diagnosis process, ophthalmologists must revise demographic and clinical ophthalmic examinations. The latter include slit-lamb, corneal topographic maps, and Pentacam indices (PI). We propose an Ensemble of Deep Transfer Learning (EDTL) based on corneal topographic maps. We consider four pretrained networks, SqueezeNet (SqN), AlexNet (AN), ShuffleNet (SfN), and MobileNet-v2 (MN), and fine-tune them on a dataset of KCN and normal cases, each including four topographic maps. We also consider a PI classifier. Then, our EDTL method combines the output probabilities of each of the five classifiers to obtain a decision b
Water contamination by industrial dyes presents significant environmental and health concerns worldwide. In this research, the efficacy of utilising polypogon monspeliensis (locally known as Skekh EsmAllah (Sh.E)) as a natural adsorbent for the elimination of Methylene Blue (MB) dye from synthetic wastewater is explored. The X-ray diffraction test elucidate that the material is a multi-phase structure. Various operational factors, comprising pH, contact time, isoelectric point, adsorbent dose, dye concentration, and temperature, are used to analyse the adsorption process systematically. The results reveal that Sh.E. has exhibited remarkable removal efficiency and adsorption capacity c
The aim of this study was to increasing natural carotenoides production by a locally isolate Rodotorula mucilagenosa M. by determination of the optimal conditions for growth and production of this agents, for encouragest to use it in food application permute artificial pigments which harmfull for consumer health and envieronmental. The optimal condition of carotenoides production from Rhodotorula mucilaginosa M were studied. The results shows the best carbon and nitrogen source were glucose and yeast extract. The carotenoids a mount production was 47430 microgram ̸ litter and 47460 microgram ̸ litter, respectively, and the optimum temperature was 30°C, PH 6, that the carotenoides a mount was 47470 microgram ̸ litter and 47670 microgr
... Show MoreA simple and novel membraneless paper-based microfluidic fuel cell was presented in this study. The occurrence of laminar flow was employed to ensure no mixing of the fuel and oxidant fluids along the bath of reaction. The acidic wastewater was used as a fuel. It was an air-breathing cell, so air and tab water were used as oxidants. Both the fuel and tab water flowed continuously under gravity. Whatman filter paper was used for preparation of the fuel cell channel and two carbon fibre electrodes were used and firmed on the edges of the cell. The performance of the cell was examined over three consecutive days. The results indicated that the present cell has the potential to generate electric power, but an extensive study is required to harv
... Show MoreA novel demountable shear connector is proposed to link a concrete slab to steel sections in a way that resulting steel-concrete composite floor is demountable, i.e. it can be easily dismantled at the end of its service life. The proposed connectors consist of two parts: the first part is a hollow steel tube with internal threads at its lower end. The second part is a compatible partially threaded bolted stud. After linking the stud to the steel section, the hollow steel tube can be fastened over the threaded stud, which create a complete demountable shear connector. The connector is suitable for use in both composite bridges and buildings, and using cast in-situ slabs, precast solid slabs, or hollow-core precast slabs. A series of push-off
... Show MoreTwo dimensional meso-scale concrete modeling was used in finite element analysis of plain concrete beam subjected to bending. The plane stress 4-noded quadrilateral elements were utilized to model coarse aggregate, cement mortar. The effect of aggregate fraction distribution, and pores percent of the total area – resulting from air voids entrapped in concrete during placement on the behavior of plain concrete beam in flexural was detected. Aggregate size fractions were randomly distributed across the profile area of the beam. Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) was employed to treat the discontinuities problems result from double phases of concrete and cracking that faced during the finite element analysis of concrete beam. Crac
... Show MoreThe preparation of activated carbon (AC) from date stones by using microwave assisted K2CO3 activation was investigated in this paper. The influence of radiation time, radiation power, and impregnation ratio on the yield and methylene blue (MB) uptake of such carbon were studied. Based on Box-Wilson central composite design, two second order polynomial models were developed to correlate the process variables to the two responses. From the analysis of variance the significant variables on each response were identified. Optimum coditions of 8 min radiation time, 660 W radiation power and 1.5 g/g impregnation ratio gave 460.123 mg/g MB uptake and 19.99 % yield. The characteristics of the AC were examined by pore structure analysis, and scan
... Show MoreThe main objective of this paper is to study the behavior of Non-Prismatic Reinforced Concrete (NPRC) beams with and without rectangular openings either when exposed to fire or not. The experimental program involves casting and testing 9 NPRC beams divided into 3 main groups. These groups were categorized according to heating temperature (ambient temperature, 400°C, and 700°C), with each group containing 3 NPRC beams (solid beams and beams with 6 and 8 trapezoidal openings). For beams with similar geometry, increasing the burning temperature results in their deterioration as reflected in their increasing mid-span deflection throughout the fire exposure period and their residual deflection after cooling. Meanwhile, the existing ope
... Show More