This paper deals with the modeling of a preventive maintenance strategy applied to a single-unit system subject to random failures.

According to this policy, the system is subjected to imperfect periodic preventive maintenance restoring it to ‘as good as new’ with probability

p and leaving it at state ‘as bad as old’ with probability q. Imperfect repairs are performed following failures occurring between consecutive

preventive maintenance actions, i.e the times between failures follow a decreasing quasi-renewal process with parameter a. Considering the

average durations of the preventive and corrective maintenance actions a

The temperature distributions are to be evaluated for the furnace of Al-Mussaib power plant. Monte Carlo simulation procedure is used to evaluate the radiation heat transfer inside the furnace, where the radiative transfer is the most important process occurring there. Weighted sum of gray-gases model is used to evaluate the radiative properties of the non gray gas in the enclosure. The energy balance equations are applied for each gas, and surface zones, and by solving these equations, both the temperature, and the heat flux are found.

   Good degree of accuracy has been obtained, when comparing the results obtained by the simulation with the data of the designing company, and the data obtained by the zonal method. In

               In this research, the semiparametric Bayesian method is compared with the classical  method to  estimate reliability function of three  systems :  k-out of-n system, series system, and parallel system. Each system consists of three components, the first one represents the composite parametric in which failure times distributed as exponential, whereas the second and the third components are nonparametric ones in which reliability estimations depend on Kernel method using two methods to estimate bandwidth parameter h method and Kaplan-Meier method. To indicate a better method for system reliability function estimation, it has be

This paper describes DC motor speed control based on optimal Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) technique. Controller's objective is to maintain the speed of rotation of the motor shaft with a particular step response.The controller is modeled in MATLAB environment, the simulation results show that the proposed controller gives better performance and less settling time when compared with the traditional PID controller.

Generally, direct measurement of soil compression index (Cc) is expensive and time-consuming. To save time and effort, indirect methods to obtain Cc may be an inexpensive option. Usually, the indirect methods are based on a correlation between some easier measuring descriptive variables such as liquid limit, soil density, and natural water content. This study used the ANFIS and regression methods to obtain Cc indirectly. To achieve the aim of this investigation, 177 undisturbed samples were collected from the cohesive soil in Sulaymaniyah Governorate in Iraq. Results of this study indicated that ANFIS models over-performed the Regression method in estimating Cc with R² of 0.66 and 0.48 for both ANFIS and Regre

Humor is an interesting phenomenon that has been studied widely, yet it is considered a universal trait that cannot be an old subject for a study. This study is conducted to investigate humor from a universal pragmatic lens in a stand-up comedy show, namely, You Wanna Hear Something Crazy?. It aims to study humor as a coin with two sides, the production side and the understanding side. To achieve the aim of the study, the researchers use an eclectic contains Grice’s CP model (1975) and Habermas’s UP model (1979, 1984, 1987, 1998). The study has noted that while using the observance and the non-observance of the cooperative maxims to produce humor, the universal validity claims of truth, sincerity, and normative rightness for rea

BP algorithm is the most widely used supervised training algorithms for multi-layered feedforward neural net works. However, BP takes long time to converge and quite sensitive to the initial weights of a network. In this paper, a modified cuckoo search algorithm is used to get the optimal set of initial weights that will be used by BP algorithm. And changing the value of BP learning rate to improve the error convergence. The performance of the proposed hybrid algorithm is compared with the stan dard BP using simple data sets. The simulation result show that the proposed algorithm has improved the BP training in terms of quick convergence of the solution depending on the slope of the error graph.

Background: As photochemical reaction that can stiffen the cornea, CXL is the only promising method of preventing progression of keratectasia such as KC and secondary ectasia following refractive surgery. The aim of CXL is to stabilize the underlying condition with a small chance of visual improvement. Objective: To show the sequences of changes in visual acuity and topographic outcomes during 1 year post CXL for patients with progressive Keratoconus.Type of the study: Cross sectional studyMethods: CXL procedure was done for 45 eyes with progressive KC. The following parameters had been monitored pre operatively, 1, 3, 6 and 12 months postoperatively: K apex, K2, corneal thickness at thinnest location, anterior and posterior elevation po

Background: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the roots of the maxillary posterior teeth and the maxillary sinus using spiral computed tomography, and measured the distances between the roots of the maxillary posterior teeth and the sinus floor. Materials and Methods: The sample of the present study was a total of 120 Iraqi subject (60 males & 60 females) aged (20-60) years old, who admitted to spiral Computed Tomography scan unit in AL-Zahraa hospital in AL-Kut city to have Computed Tomography scan of the brain and paranasal sinuses who had complaints of headaches or with suspicion of sinusitis but without pathological findings in maxillary sinuses. From November 2012 to April 2013, CT sagittal reconstruc

The effect of the magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) method on the temperature rise (TR), and material removal rate (MRR) has been investigated in this paper. Sixteen runs were to determine the optimum temperature in the contact area (between the abrasive powder and surface of workpiece) and the MRR according to Taguchi orthogonal array (OA). Four variable technological parameters (cutting speed, finishing time, working gap, and the current in the inductor) with four levels for each parameter were used, the matrix is known as a L16 (4⁴) OA. The signal to noise ratio (S/N) ratio and analysis of the variance (ANOVA) were utilized to analyze the results using (MINITAB17) to find the optimum condition and identify the significant p