This research aims to improve the radiation shielding properties of polymer-based materials by mixing PVC with locally available building materials. Specifically, two key parameters of fast neutron attenuation (removal cross-section and half-value layer) were studied for composite materials comprising PVC reinforced with common building materials (cement, sand, gypsum and marble) in different proportions (10%, 30% and 50% by weight). To assess their effectiveness as protection against fast neutrons, the macroscopic neutron cross-section was calculated for each composite. Results show that neutron cross-section values are significantly affected by the reinforcement ratios, and that the composite material PVC + 50% gypsum is an effective shield against fast neutrons.
BACKGROUND: Diabetes Mellitus is a complex chronic illness that has increased significantly around the world and is expected to affect 628 million in 2045. Undiagnosed type 2 diabetes may affect 24% - 62% of the people with diabetes; while the prevalence of prediabetes is estimated to be 470 million cases by 2030. AIM OF STUDY: To find the percentage of undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes in a slice of people aged ≥ 45years, and relate it with age, gender, central obesity, hypertension, and family history of diabetes. METHODS: A cross sectional study that included 712 healthy individuals living in Baghdad who accepted to take part in this study and fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
... Show MoreA new ligand (H4L) and its complexes with ( ZnII, CdII and HgII) were prepared. This ligand was prepared in two steps. In the first step a solution of terephthaldehyde in methanol was reacted under reflux with 1,2-phenylenediamine to give an precursor compound which reacted in the second step with 2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde to give the ligand. The complexes were then synthesized by direct reaction of the corresponding metal chloride with the ligand. The ligand and complexes were characterized by spectroscopic methods FT-IR, UV-Vis, 1HNMR, and atomic absorption, chloride content, HPLC, mole-ratio determination. in addition to conductivity measurement. The data of these measurements suggest a distorted tetrahedral g
... Show MoreA high percentage of existing buildings in Iraq are traditional buildings, yet there is approximately no such green building in Baghdad or other governorates. Most of these buildings require urgent upgrading to increase their performance (operationally, economically, and environmentally), also the building owners looking for identifying and implementing many of the green building measures to reduce the operational and maintenance costs of their buildings. The decision-makers need to support the possibility of achieving sustainable measures of existing building rating systems such as LEED or BREEAM, and that would require an optimization model. The goal of this study is to maximize the
Achieving reliable operation under the influence of deep-submicrometer noise sources including crosstalk noise at low voltage operation is a major challenge for network on chip links. In this paper, we propose a coding scheme that simultaneously addresses crosstalk effects on signal delay and detects up to seven random errors through wire duplication and simple parity checks calculated over the rows and columns of the two-dimensional data. This high error detection capability enables the reduction of operating voltage on the wire leading to energy saving. The results show that the proposed scheme reduces the energy consumption up to 53% as compared to other schemes at iso-reliability performance despite the increase in the overhead number o
... Show MoreThis research aims to predict new COVID-19 cases in Bandung, Indonesia. The system implemented two types of deep learning methods to predict this. They were the recurrent neural networks (RNN) and long-short-term memory (LSTM) algorithms. The data used in this study were the numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Bandung from March 2020 to December 2020. Pre-processing of the data was carried out, namely data splitting and scaling, to get optimal results. During model training, the hyperparameter tuning stage was carried out on the sequence length and the number of layers. The results showed that RNN gave a better performance. The test used the RMSE, MAE, and R2 evaluation methods, with the best numbers being 0.66975075, 0.470
... Show MoreTotal dissolved solids are at the top of the parameters list of water quality that requires investigations for planning and management, especially for irrigation and drinking purposes. If the quality of water is sufficiently predictable, then appropriate management is possible. In the current study, Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models were used as indicators of water quality and for the prediction of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) along the Tigris River, in Baghdad city. To build these models five water parameters were selected from the intakes of four water treatment plants on the Tigris River, for the period between 2013 and 2017. The selected water parameters were Total Dissolved Solids (TDS
... Show MoreA biconical antenna has been developed for ultra-wideband sensing. A wide impedance bandwidth of around 115% at bandwidth 3.73-14 GHz is achieved which shows that the proposed antenna exhibits a fairly sensitive sensor for microwave medical imaging applications. The sensor and instrumentation is used together with an improved version of delay and sum image reconstruction algorithm on both fatty and glandular breast phantoms. The relatively new imaging set-up provides robust reconstruction of complex permittivity profiles especially in glandular phantoms, producing results that are well matched to the geometries and composition of the tissues. Respectively, the signal-to-clutter and the signal-to-mean ratios of the improved method are consis
... Show MoreThis study investigated a novel application of forward osmosis using different types of draw solutions for oilfield produced water treatment from the East Baghdad oilfield affiliated to the Midland Oil Company (Iraq). Magnesium chloride (MgCl2) and magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) were used as draw solutions in forward osmosis process to evaluate their effectiveness. Experiments were conducted in a laboratory scale forward osmosis system with cellulose triacetate hollow fiber membrane. In this work, sodium chloride solution was used as a feed solution with a concentration of 76 g/L (same concentration as the East Baghdad oilfield produced water) and the applied external pressure on the feed solution side was 2 bar. The impact of draw solution (DS)
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