The ever-expanding urban architecture in developing areas requires more land space for construction purposes to be available. For this, utilizing the sub-surface areas through excavations in populous cities is now on the increasing trend. Two major concerns in such excavation projects are excavation-wall stability and the induced ground settlements which can be countered by a soil nailing-ground anchor system. In this regard, influential factors such as nail length and nail inclination angles can affect the overall performance of stabilized ground. Therefore, the focus of the present study is on how the aforementioned influence excavation-induced ground deformations. The numerical simulation is conducted using the software Plaxis 2D. The established numerical models help to explain how changes in the nails’ inclination angles and anchor lengths can change the observed behavior of the walls; from which helpful tips for practicing engineers are drawn accordingly. Such results could also be utilized for classroom presentations to aid students’ understanding of geotechnical engineering concepts.

Machine Learning (ML) is a part of Artificial intelligence (AI) that designs and produces systems, which is capable of developing and learning from experiences automatically without making them programmable. ML concentrates on the computer program improvement, which has the ability to access and utilize data for learning from itself. There are different algorithms in ML field, but the most important questions that arise are: Which technique should be utilized on a dataset? and How to investigate ML algorithm? This paper presents the answer for the mentioned questions. Besides, investigation and checking algorithms for a data set will be addressed. In addition, it illustrates choosing the provided test options and metrics assessment. Finally, researchers will be able to conduct this research work on their datasets to select an appropriate model for their datasets.

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has long proven to be a good method to mobilize the residual oil that is by passed and capillary trapped by secondary recovery methods. Chemical EOR methods enhance the microscopic and macroscopic efficiency, and ultimately the overall oil recovery is improved. However, the adsorption rate of the surfactant, low resistance to high temperature and salinity are some of the factors that would turn chemical flooding impractical and uneconomic in many cases. Lately, the application of nanotechnology in enhanced oil recovery has showcased some good and prolific results in terms of incremental oil recovery. In this study, the applicability of Nanoparticle flooding in carbonate rocks of Pilaspi formation was probed through a series of tests such as thin section analysis, x-ray diffraction, x-ray fluorescence, interfacial tension and contact angle measurements. The results showed that the composition of the carbonate rocks is predominantly calcite (CaCO3) with minor traces of quartz and dolomite. From the interfacial tension (IFT) measurements, it was figured out that the silica and alumina Nanofluids lowered the IFT by 27% and 42% with the light oil, and 43% and 49% with the heavy oil, respectively. The contact angle measurements revealed that the Alumina Nano-fluid at 0.25 wt. % reduced the contact angle on the surface of the light and heavy oil aged thin sections from 169◦ and 115◦ to nearly 119◦ and 78◦. On the other hand, the silica nanoparticle at 0.25 wt. % reduced the contact angles on both thin section types to around 129◦ and 80◦, respectively.

Geotechnical engineering requires the use of ecologically acceptable, long-lasting, and effective solutions to fortify clayey soil. The mechanical behavior of clayey soil strengthened with carbon fibres (CFs) was studied in this work. Soil specimens were subjected to uniaxial compression strength tests at their optimal moisture content (OMC). The impacts of CFs length and percentage on the strengthened soil specimens' shear resistance, and stress-strain curve behavior were investigated. The effect of CFs on specimen cohesiveness and angles of internal friction was also investigated. The results showed that adding CFs to clayey soil can increase its shear resistance and cohesiveness greatly. Because the fibres can be spread easily in soil samples and had a suitable length that can generate an interlaced network among soil grains that restricted soil movement once exposed to external stresses, it is presumed that utilizing three percent of CFs weight content had six millimeters length could indeed give the highest impact on resistance development among all the specimens.

Up to April 9, 2020, 142490 cases have been confirmed as COVID-19 infection including 5705 associated deaths in the Middle East. Most of the countries, such as Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia have imported COVID-19 cases from Iran. Using the available data from WHO webpage, up to 9 April 2020, we traced epidemic curves and estimated the basic reproduction number ( ) of COVID-19 through the susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) model for the Middle East countries. Epidemic curves for Middle East countries and territory show similar trend as Iran, with a couple of weeks’ delay in time. In SIR model, ranged between 7.41 as in Turkey to lowest as 2.60 for Oman whereas basic reproduction number for Iran, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, West Bank and Gaza Strip territory, and Cyprus were 4.13, 2.71, 3.39, 4.18, 4.45, 2.75, 2.60, 3.52, 3.35, 3.16, 4.99, 4.08, 2.89, and 4.05, respectively. This study indicates an important trend on an early outbreak of COVID-19 based on estimated for the Middle East countries, mean 3.76 for COVID-19, with median and interquartile range (IQR) in the Middle East.

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that is developed to organize the structure of information in a text file. The data in XML formatted documents are represented by specifying a number of tags and determining the structural relationship between those tags. It has a simple structure and can be handled by any text editor. Therefore, XML formatted data is being commonly used to transfer and share data between different applications and organizations without having to convert the format of the data (Yang, 2019). In the XML world, “well-formed” and “valid” are the two most frequently used terms. A well-formed XML document is free from errors that can cause the document to not parse, such as: spelling, punctuation, grammar, and syntax errors. While in addition to having a well-formed markup, a valid XML must conform to a document type definition, this means the document must be semantically correct and matches a described standard of schemas and relationships (Appel, 2020).There are two standards of document type definition that can be used to validate an XML document, one is DTD or Document Type Definition which is used to identify the legal structure and names the legal elements of an XML document (Dykes and Tittel, 2011), and the other is XSD or XML Schema Definition. XSD is a diagrammatic representation that defines the valid structure of an XML document, it enables specifying the building blocks of an XML data set such as elements and attributes and their data types, number of child elements, fixed and default values of the elements and attributes that can appear in the documents (XML Schema Tutorial, 2020). In some applications the process of validating XML documents is combined with parsing the document. However, in some other cases the process of parsing and validating the XML documents need to be separated. This study focuses on constructing a separate XML document validator and validating XML documents against the defined XSD rules. A Java program is used to perform this experiment. Furthermore, the critical differences between XSD and DTD are also mentioned.

Geotechnical map is a vital guidance to visualize the behavior of soils. The objective of this paper is to present the geotechnical maps that can be used for preliminary investigation in Ranya city of northern Iraq. The study area is 13.02 km2 with latitude and longitude of 36°15'14" N 44°52'59" E, respectively. A total number of 116 boreholes with the depth up to 5.0 m were utilized to create allowable bearing capacity, particle size, and Atterberg limit maps. Kriging interpolation tool in the ArcGIS software was used to analyze the soil properties data and to achieve the maps. The appraisal study area was divided into three layers 0.5-1.5, 1.5-3.0, and 3.0-5.0 m and the results show the average bearing capacity of 112.2, 168.5, and 244.2 kN/m2 sequentially. Moreover, Particle size distribution’s results illustrate that gravel percentage increases in the deeper layers, while fines content decreases with no significant change of sand content. In addition, very high bearing capacity areas were mostly found in the southern and northern parts of the studied area. However, the eastern area represents the area with the minimum bearing capacity where it gradually increases toward the west. Furthermore, the liquid limit and plasticity index reduce from the north to south with an increase in depth of the layers from 3.0-5.0 m. The highest liquid limit value is observed in the depth of 1.5-3.0 m.

Performance of Unreinforced Hollow-Block Masonry Houses During 23 August 2017 Ranya Earthquake

The competitive advantage of aspect oriented programming (AOP) is that it improves the maintainability and understandability of software systems by modularizing crosscutting concerns. However, some concerns, such as logging or debugging, may be overlooked and should be entangled and distributed across the code base. AOP is a software development paradigm that enables developers to capture crosscutting concerns in split-aspect modes. Additionally, it is a novel notion that has the potential to improve the quality of software programs by removing the complexity involved with the production of code tangles via the usage of separation of concerns. As a result, it provides more modularity. Throughout its early development, some believed that AOP was easier to build and maintain than other implementations since it was based on an existing one. The statements are predicated on the premise that local improvements are easier to implement. Additionally, without appropriate visualization tools for both static and dynamic structures, cross-cutting challenges may be difficult for developers and researchers to appreciate. In recent years, AspectJ has begun to enable the depiction of crosscutting concerns via the release of IDE plugins. This article explains aspect oriented programming and how it may be used to improve the readability and maintainability of software projects. Additionally, it will evaluate the challenges it presents to application developers and academics.

Mosul Dam is located in the northwestern part of Iraq impounding the Tigris River; about 60 km north of Mosul city. This project is multipurpose project; to provide water for irrigation, flood control and hydropower generation. The dam is 113 m high and 3650 m long including the spillway. The dam is earth fill type with a mud core. The dam was designed to impound 11.11 km3 because it is based and underlain by gypsum beds alternated with limestone and marl. Therefore, it is planned to use continuous grouting to fill the karst caverns. The used quantity exceeded 95000 tons of solid grouting materials since 1986 up to 2014. After all, is the dam safe? The details are given in the current article.

Cement is one of the most widely used building materials on the planet. Cement manufacturing has also increased carbon emissions to their greatest level in recent years. Alternative or low-emissions binders have become more popular as a partial cement substitute in recent years. Because of its huge yearly output as waste material and low cost, fly ash is now regarded as one of the most accessible choices. Fly ash-based construction materials have a lot of promise as cement substitutes because of their high performance and inexpensive cost. The purpose of this article is to look at how fly ash affects the workability, setting time, compressive strength, and tensile strength of concrete. The kinds and characteristics of fly ash were also investigated.

This paper investigates for rising optical fiber transmission strength, increasing bandwidth, and decreasing communication system weakness by using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). WDM gives today's distention speed and communication traffic. Systems using WDM faces nonlinearities, which the most intensive nonlinear attack is, four wave mixing (FWM). FWM creates and increases crosstalk between WDM channels as a result slows down and impairs the performance of the communication system. This investigation uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) for evaluating execution of WDM fiber system by repairing Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD). We took results in the case of trying PMD-Emulator and without trying PMD-Emulator in the system design. We compared the results got in both cases. Furthermore, we compared the performance of the system with the investigations done using different ways, methods, and techniques for compensating PMD and FWM appears in WDM systems. As PMD-Emulator, helps enhancing the system design performance, and OFDM gives the feature of robustness and useful execution to the system. OFDM examined by appointing interfered orthogonal signal sets, for 16 channels; with equally spaced OFDM channels. Oure results showed that the optical fiber communication system using OFDM technique gives perfect removing FWM signal crosstalk, and accurate data transmission, comparing to other techniques used in other researches. We got a decreased FWM power to -77dBm, and the BER of -0.317. Furthermore, the system quality increased with applying PMD-Emulator and OFDM. In addition, using PMD-Emulator in the system design raised the results effectiveness. The program used in the present work is optisystem-15, and the results obtained in this study coincide with the theoretical and actual results obtained by the previous studies.

With the rapid use of the Four-Wheel Drive System (FWDS) worldwide, the necessity of having an adequate control system to control speed and direction in FWDS is extremely required. For this purpose, several control schemes are available in the literature to control the speed and direction in FWDS which should be fast convergence of the control, continuous control performance, and solving external disturbances. In latest years, finite-time controllers (FTC) have gained more consideration from many researchers in the control area, who have expressed applications in several procedures and systems. This research provides a major review of the FTC approaches via both input and output feedbacks for controlling FWDS.

Smartphones are used for many daily activities like tele-communication, gaming, web browsing, fitness and health monitoring and traditional office working. Smartphones are equipped with built-in sensors to be able to perform these activities. It is well known that the sensors affect the resolution of the smartphone applications which is very vital in life critical applications (LCA). In this paper, two main sensors, the gyroscope and accelerometer have been studied. All commercial smartphones contain these two sensors and support functions related to them. These two sensors have direct link with the physical measurements which feed the fitness and health applications. A fitness application has been selected and ran under Android and iOS operating systems in two different popular smartphones: Samsung Note5 and iPhone7s smartphones. Statistical methodology has been applied to analysis the data and evaluate the performance of the sensors. The results show that commercial smartphones are not reliable devices for motion-related measurements and they can only be used for general purpose monitoring but not in life critical applications.

In this paper, we present a numerical method for solving a quadratic interval equation in its dual form. The method is based on the generalized procedure of interval extension called” interval extended zero” method. It is shown that the solution of interval quadratic equation based on the proposed method may be naturally treated as a fuzzy number. An important advantage of the proposed method is that it substantially decreases the excess width defect. Several numerical examples are included to demonstrate the applicability and validity of the proposed method.

The current work accomplished a comprehensive evaluation of heavy metals pollution in soil of agricultural areas from Tanjaro sub-district, Sulaimaniyah province, Kurdistan Region, NE Iraq. Ninety soil samples were collected from thirty different locations. Concentrations of 16 heavy metals were measured by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry ICP-OES. The pollution index (PI), potential ecological risk index (Er), enrichment factor (EF), and ecological risk index (RI) were used to assess the pollution in soil samples. High levels of Li and Ni, and moderate Ba, Cd, Hg, and Pb according to the results of concentration analysis, pollution index (PI), and potential ecological risk (ERI). High levels of Cd and Hg according to the results of Er. Agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) and principal component analysis (PCA) suggested that heavy metals were generated from different natural and anthropogenic sources like natural weathering, fertilizer application, and transportation. Origins of Hg, Cd, Ni, and Pb are probably from activities like overuse of pesticides and fertilizers, whereas Pb could be exhausted from vehicle exhausts as well. Furthermore, spatial distributions revealed nonpoint source pollution for the studied heavy metals. The obtained results help in the remediation techniques of contaminated soils such as dilution with decontaminated soil or extraction or separation of heavy metals.

The increasing number of cars inside cities creates problems in traffic control. This issue can be solved by implementing a computer-based automatic system known as the Automatic Car Plate Recognition System (ACPRS). The main purpose of the current paper is to propose an automatic system to detect, extract, segment, and recognize the car plate numbers in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). To do so, a frontal image of cars is captured and used as an input of the system. After applying the required pre-processing steps, the SURF descriptor is utilized to detect and extract the car plate from the whole input image. After segmentation of the extracted plate, an efficient projection-based technique is being exploited to describe the available digits and the city name of the registered car plate. The system is evaluated over 200 sample images, which are taken under various testing conditions. The best accuracy of the proposed system, under the controlled condition, shows the high performance and accuracy of the system which is 94%.

In this study, formation-water samples were collected by NOC Staff, during drilling time, from the Mauddud Formation reservoir of the Khabbaz Oilfield, for this reason four samples from four wells; Kz-3, Kz-4, Kz-7, and Kz-23 were selected to geochemical analysis. Analyzed geochemical parameters include TDS and the concentrations of the different dissolved cations and anions present in brines (Ca⁺², Mg⁺², Na⁺¹, SO4^-2, Cl^-1, HCO3^-1, and NaCl). Variations among the resulted data are discussed by comparison with other Cretaceous Brines. Geochemical ratios of Na/Cl, (Na-Cl)/SO₄) and (Cl-Na)/Mg⁺² was calculated for formation water classification following Bojarski, (1970). The calculated geochemical ratios of the studied samples in the studied four wells indicate that all of these waters are "chloride calcium" type under subsurface conditions, this type reflect closed system isolated associations reservoir, which are becoming high hydrostatic in deeper zones without influence by infiltration waters. A major transversal fault cutting the structure at its SE plunge had participated in the dilution of the Mauddud reservoir brine effectively.

This study aims to evaluate the rank (or grade) and economic value of so–called coal horizons outcropping in the vicinity of Banik and Shiranish-Islam villages of Zakho District, Duhok Governorate. These coal-like beds (locally known as Banik Coal) make up few meters within the upper part of the Jurassic Naokelekan Formation. The evaluation was mainly based on standard chemical tests of coal (proximate and ultimate analyses) achieved in foreign and local laboratories. The test results were assessed according to the standard coal tests introduced by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The latest stratigraphic studies revealed that the presumable coal horizons were thin beds of limestone and dolomitic limestone alternated with frequent shales all impregnated with bituminous materials, mostly of hydrocarbon source. The bituminous beds were traced in both upper and lower parts of Naokelekan Formation. The standard proximate coal analysis has shown low percent of fixed carbon and high percent of volatiles and ash which support the hydrocarbon source of these bituminous beds. Consequently, it would be difficult to classify these bituminous beds similarly to the standard coal ranks of ASTM. The high values of mineral matter display the dominance of minerals rather than the carbon in the local samples. However, the Gross Calorific Value (heating value) of these beds would imply that they can be used as relatively poor quality source of fuel. Besides, the exploitation of Banik coals would be influenced by the cost of extraction (or mining), the expected prices of produced coal, and the prices of alternative sources of energy.

The Qamchuqa Formation is widely exposed in Kurdistan Region (IKR); north of Iraq. The formation along with the Bekhme Formation form the bulk of the main mountains (anticlines) in the IKR. Among those anticlines is the Ranya anticline, which has a NW – SE trend, where the Qamchuqa Formations has a thickness of about 700 m. The main lithological facies of the formation are limestone, dolomitic limestone and dolomite. We have sampled the uppermost 89 meters of the northeastern limb, by collecting 10 samples of different sampling intervals that range from (3 – 12) m. The ten rock samples were tested by an XRF to measure the concentration of the oxides at each sample. The XRF results showed that the 10 rock samples are limestone with different percentages of oxides. The weighted averages of the oxides in the collected samples have been calculated, and the results showed that the limestone beds along the studied section in the upper part of the Qamchuqa Formations are suitable for the cement industry. The average concentration of CaO and MgO is 55.13 % and 0.26 %, respectively.

With the advent of Industry 4.0, the trend of its implementation in current factories has increased tremendously. Using autonomous mobile robots that are capable of navigating and handling material in a warehouse is one of the important pillars to convert the current warehouse inventory control to more automated and smart processes to be aligned with Industry 4.0 needs. Navigating a robot’s indoor positioning in addition to finding materials are examples of location-based services (LBS), and are some major aspects of Industry 4.0 implementation in warehouses that should be considered. Global positioning satellites (GPS) are accurate and reliable for outdoor navigation and positioning while they are not suitable for indoor use. Indoor positioning systems (IPS) have been proposed in order to overcome this shortcoming and extend this valuable service to indoor navigation and positioning. This paper proposes a simple, cost effective and easily configurable indoor navigation system with the help of an optical path following, unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) robot augmented by image processing and computer vision deep machine learning algorithms. The proposed system prototype is capable of navigating in a warehouse as an example of an indoor area, by tracking and following a predefined traced path that covers all inventory zones in a warehouse, through the usage of infrared reflective sensors that can detect black traced path lines on bright ground. As metionded before, this general navigation mechanism is augmented and enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI) computer vision tasks to be able to select the path to the required inventory zone as its destination, and locate the requested material within this inventory zone. The adopted AI computer vision tasks that are used in the proposed prototype are deep machine learning object recognition algorithms for path selection and quick response (QR) detection.

This article proposes a method for hand identification, adapting the method of Viola-Jones for identifying two different objects. The main objective of this work is to solve the problems of hand identification. Thus, our approach based on learning for two objects as one package. Also, the proposed method folds into three parts; the first part is training for both objects, second detection of both objects, and third the identification step to identify if the hand is wearing a glove or not, then labeling each one with a suitable state. Moreover, to test our method, we have proposed a new dataset, which includes a variety of cases with different compositions of hand. As a result, 8 cases were used to test the method. The method was able to detect a human hand successfully. Additionally, it could identify whether the hand was or was not wearhing a glove. The accuracy of detecting a hand without a glove was about 63%, and the accuracy of detecting a hand with a glove on was about 61%. Even though the tests scored different accuracy, as a first step towards solving this problem, it is a big achievement to even reach this level of accuracy.

Water coning is the biggest production problem mechanism in Middle East oil fields, especially in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. When water production starts to increase, the costs of operations increase. Water production from the coning phenomena results in a reduction in recovery factor from the reservoir. Understanding the key factors impacting this problem can lead to the implementation of efficient methods to prevent and mitigate water coning. The rate of success of any method relies mainly on the ability to identify the mechanism causing the water coning. This is because several reservoir parameters can affect water coning in both homogenous and heterogeneous reservoirs. The objective of this research is to identify the parameters contributing to water coning in both homogenous and heterogeneous reservoirs. A simulation model was created to demonstrate water coning in a single- vertical well in a radial cross-section model in a commercial reservoir simulator. The sensitivity analysis was conducted on a variety of properties separately for both homogenous and heterogeneous reservoirs. The results were categorized by time to water breakthrough, oil production rate and water oil ratio. The results of the simulation work led to a number of conclusions. Firstly, production rate, perforation interval thickness and perforation depth are the most effective parameters on water coning. Secondly, time of water breakthrough is not an adequate indicator on the economic performance of the well, as the water cut is also important. Thirdly, natural fractures have significant contribution on water coning, which leads to less oil production at the end of production time when compared to a conventional reservoir with similar properties.

Implementation of a Quality Assurance (QA) program in geological investigation is very significant and essential, especially when the investigation is carried out for selection and evaluation of strategic and vital project sites. The current work is a case study for selection and evaluation of a strategic site in Iraq where a QA program was implemented for the first time in the Iraq Geological Survey (as a Contractor) as a mandatory condition implied by the Client for all work carried out and included in the geological investigation. The geological investigation included six main activities: 1) geology, 2) hydrogeology, 3) geophysics, 4) engineering geology, 5) drilling and 6) laboratory work. The main roles of QA staff were to: 1) check the qualifications of all staff members involved in the six activities, 2) verify work procedures by means of which the staff members of each activity were performing their tasks, 3) follow-up all carried out works in the field, laboratory and office, 4) verify all types of work outputs by the staff members of the six activities, and 5) recognize any nonconformance in any type of carried out work before been recognized by the QA and/ or Quality Control (QC) staff of the Client. During the performance of the contract that lasted for 30 months, three nonconformance cases by the Contractor were recognized by the QA staff members and relevant corrective actions were performed. The three cases were not detected or recognized by the QA and QC staff members of the Client.

This study reports on the petroleum potential of the Upper Triassic Baluti Formation in Bekhme-1 and Gulak-1 Wells from Akri¬-Bijeel Block within the Bekhme Anticline area, North of Erbil City. The area is a part of the Zagros Fold and Thrust Belt, and is locally situated within the High Folded Zone. Typically, the Baluti Formation is composed of gray and green shale calcareous dolomite with intercalations of thinly bedded dolomites, dolomitic limestones, and silicified limestones which in places are brecciated. The geochemical indicators obtained from Rock-Eval pyrolysis of Baluti samples gave Total Organic Carbon content (TOC wt. %) average values of 0.15 and 0.18 wt. % and potential hydrocarbon content (S2) average values of 0.78 mg HC/g rock and 0.58 mg HC/g rock for Bekhme-1 and Gulak-1 respectively, suggesting a source rock of poor potential. The type of organic matter is of mixed type II-III and III kerogens with an average Tmax value of 440 °C for both boreholes, exhibiting early to peak stage of thermal maturity. Considering the results of this study, it is concluded that Baluti Formation in the studied area can not be regarded as a potential source rock for hydrocarbon generation.

Influence of slip and inclined magnetic field on stagnation-point flow with chemical reaction are studied. Implementation of the similarity transformations, transformed the fluid non-linear ordinary differential equations and numerical computation is performed to solve those equations using Spectral Collocation Method. Various pertinent parameters on fluid flow, temperature and concentration distributions of the Casson nanofluid flow as well as the local skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number, and Sherwood number are graphically displayed. The results indicate that thermophoresis parameter N_t enhanced the temperature and nanoparticle concentration profiles, because a rise in thermophoresis parameter enhances the thermophoresis force within the flow regime. Values of both local Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are enhanced with an increase in Hartman number (magnetic field parameter). The present results are compared with previously reported ones and are found to be in excellent agreement.

Nowadays, simulators are being used more and more during the development of robotic systems due to the efficiency of the development and testing processes of such applications. Undoubtedly, these simulators save time, resources and costs, as well as enable ease of demonstrations of the system. Specifically, tools like the open source Robotic Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo have gained popularity in building models of robotic systems. ROS is extensively used in robotics due to the pros of hardware abstraction and code reuse. The Gazebo platform is used for visualisation because of its high compatibility with ROS. In this paper, ROS and Gazebo have been integrated to build an interface for the visualisation of the Katana Arm manipulator.

Haditha Dam is constructed on the Euphrates River in the western part of Iraq completed in 1988 and located 14 km west of Haditha town. Haditha Dam is a combined earthfill and concrete dam with a total length of 9064 m. The maximum height of the dam is 57 m from the deepest point at the river channel and dam crest level is 154.00 m (a.s.l.). The storage capacity is 6×109 m3 at normal operation water level of 143 m (a.s.l.). The exposed formations in the dam site and reservoir area are the Euphrates (Lower Miocene) and Fatha (Middle Miocene) formations. Both formations are well known in Iraq to be karstified at different intensities. The right bank of the Euphrates River is severely karstified with tens of sinkholes of different shapes, dimensions and activities. The presence of the karstified rocks is the main reason the dam has a very long grout curtain which extends along its entire length and includes the concrete powerhouse and spillway structure in the river channel, and the right and left bank extensions. The right bank extension of the grout curtain is exceptionally long due to the extent of the sinkhole area. Grouting was performed here in boreholes drilled at one-meter spacing to reduce water penetration and movement through the flank of the dam. The grout curtain under the embankment in the river section was done in two rows, while under the concrete structure it is comprised of three rows of holes. The left bank extension has two rows. The depths of all parts of the curtain varied following the karstification zones and intensities. The main aim of the current study is to elucidate and discuss the influence of the karstified rocks at the dam site and reservoir on the design and especially the length of the dam and the need for side extensions.

This paper presents the performance analysis of a photovoltaic cell derived from a single diode equivalent circuit under the influence of several kinds of electrical and environmental parameters. The characteristics of a solar cell have been investigated using MATLAB simulation and have been validated experimentally. In this paper the photovoltaic cell is represented by an exact equivalent circuit including all parameters such as a diode saturation current, light generated current, temperature effects, series and shunt resistance values. Also, this paper includes the impacts of clouds, dust, chalk powder, fly ash and bird droppings on the efficiency of the photovoltaic panel. A comparison between the experimental and model simulation results confirmed the reality of results, and indicate the validity of the exact model for photovoltaic performance analysis.

The web servers (WSGI-Python) and (PHP-Apache) are in middleware tier architecture. Middleware architecture is between frontend tier and backend tier, otherwise it’s a connection between frontend tier and backend tier for three tier architecture. The ELearning systems are designed by two different dynamic web technologies. First is by Python-WSGI and the second is by Personal Home Page (PHP-Apache). The two websites were designed with different open source and cross platform web technologies programming language namely; Python and PHP in the same structure and weight will evaluate perform over two different operating systems (OSs): 1) Windows-16 and 2) Linux-Ubuntu 20.4. Both systems run over the same computer architecture (64bit) as a server side with a common backend MySQL web database for both of them. Nevertheless, the middleware for PHP is a cross Apache MySQL PHP Perl (XAMPP), but the middleware for Python is Pycharm and the web server gateway interface (WSGI). WSGI and Apache are both web servers and this paper will show which of them has a better response time (RT). On the one hand, the experimental results demonstrate that the Python-WSGI is even weightier in Mbyte than PHP-Apache, on the other hand Python is still faster and more accurate than PHP. The designed SPG is by handwriting codes: one time designed the SPG by PHP source code and the other time designed by Python source code. Both Python-WSGI and PHP-Apache results are targeted to compare by the least time in milliseconds and take in to account enhanced performance.

In this paper, analysis and ranking of single contingency due to the outage of transmission lines for a large scale power system of the Kurdistan Region (KR) are presented. Power System Simulator software (PSS®E33) is used to simulate the Kurdistan Region power system network and perform the contingency analysis for single line outage. This analysis is essential in order to predict and evaluate the voltage stability in case of contingency occurrence to know the most severe case and plan for managing it. All possible transmission line outages of the network are tested individually. After each branch disconnects, load flow analysis are applied by using Newton Raphson method then all bus voltages are recorded, and compared with them before the contingency. Voltage performance index is calculated for all possible contingencies to rank them according to their severity and determine the most severe contingency which is corresponding to the highest value of performance index. Also, the contingencies which cause load loss and amount of this load are observed.

This study reviewed the most common methods for removing lead ions from industrial wastewater and municipal wastewater. Most of the research done was reviewed using traditional methods such as chemical precipitation, ion exchange, reverse osmosis, oxidation, evaporation, electric-dialysis, membrane filtration, and solvent extraction. These operations were related to several restrictions, that comprised the treatments to be limited to a definite concentration of the Lead (II) ions. Similarly, disadvantages complicated the production of huge quantities of dangerous waste although very high costs. This means these operations were very costly. For these reasons, to utilize the agricultural waste and low-cost adsorbents operation can be considered as eco-friendly. Currently, agricultural waste and natural materials are present in a huge quantity, and that is very damaging to the environment. Therefore, adsorption is an alternate operation for eliminating Lead (II) ions. According to the increased quality of adsorption operations, like the properties of improved adsorptive, increase availability, and cost-effectiveness, the operation is economical option for eliminating Lead(II) ions.

The present work involves the study of the removal of Cu2+, Fe3+, Pb2+ and Zn2+ from synthetic metal solutions using natural zeolite. Laboratory experiments were used to investigate the efficiency of adsorbents in the uptake of heavy metals from industrial wastewater. The kinetic study was used to identify the effect of parameters that affect the rate of adsorption and evaluated their impact on the efficiency of the zeolite in the removal of heavy metals from industrial wastewater. Natural zeolite (clinoptilolite) as adsorbent contacted with multi-component synthetic solutions containing Cu2+, Fe3+, Pb2+ and Zn2+ ions without any pre-modifications and every hour 15 ml of the samples were filtered and taken for metal ion concentration analysis using the ICP-OES. The pH values were monitored and adjusted regularly. The results showed that the capacity of the adsorbents for the removal of heavy metals increased with a greater mass of absorbent, increased initial solution pH, increased agitation speed and higher solution concentration.

Mammography is the most effective procedure for the early detection of breast cancer. In this paper an efficient a Computer Aided Diagnosis (CADx) system is proposed to discriminate between benign and malignant. The system comprises mainly of three steps: preprocessing of the images, feature extraction, and finally classification and performance analysis. The case sample mammographic images, originating from the mini MIAS (Mammographic Image Analysis Society) database. In the preprocessing phase the ROI is cropped and resized by 128 x 128. at the very beginning of the feature extraction process, we have applied Haar Wavelet Transform (HWT) for five levels and, in each level, Discrete Cosine Transform applied with various selection of coefficients. After that, different types of features are fed into the feature similarity measure City Block for the diagnosis of breast cancer. The images are of two classes benign and malignant classes. Finally, K-Nearest Number is employed here as a classifier. In our proposed system, we found competitive results.

The Iraqi Kurdistan region has significant potential for implementing solar energy with an average annual rate of 5.245 kWh/m2. However, most of its energy supply currently comes from nonrenewable energy sources. With the continually increasing demand for energy, an alternative energy-generation technique is required. Among the various renewable energy resources, generating electricity directly from sunlight is the best option because it can be applied by the average household and is environmentally friendly. In this study, a cost and environmental analysis for a 10 kW grid-connected photovoltaic system is presented for a government building with the aim of reducing the load demand on the grid during weekdays and also to inject the generated power into the power grid during weekends. A simulation of the proposed PV system was generated by using Photovoltaic Geographic Information System software to estimate the system’s production performance. The software showed that the highest energy production was 1,660 kWh, which occurred in August; the total electricity production was 16,184 kWh over a 1-year period. The study also showed that the geographical location of Darbandikhan City is quite sufficient for generating electric power from solar energy. It further showed that it can reduce CO2 emissions by 356.60 tons during its lifetime when compared with a gasoline generator and by 131.38 tons when compared with that of a natural gas generator. The proposed system could serve as a good revenue source for the government by exporting the generated electricity to the grid while at the same time serving as motivation for households in the region; furthermore, this system can also be applied to other governmental offices in Kurdistan to generate some or all of its energy needs.

In attempt to determine the amount of hydrocarbon generated from Sargelu Formation, the outcrop and bore hole samples were used. The areal distribution, density, and weight of Sargelu Formation were determined by using traditional methods and using geographic information system. The amount of hydrocarbon generated was determined to be 3.4199 x 10¹² kg.

Mobile traffic volumes have grown exponentially because of the increase in services and applications. Traditional networks are complex to manage because the forwarding, control, and management planes are all bundled together and, thus, administrators are supposed to deploy high-level policies, as each vendor has its own configuration methods. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is considered the future paradigm of communication networks. It decouples control logic from its underlying hardware, thereby promoting logically centralized network control and making the network more programmable and easy to configure. Low-power wireless technologies are moving toward a multitenant and multiapplication Internet of Things (IoT), which requires an architecture with scalable, reliable, and configured solutions. However, employing an SDN-based centralized architecture in the environment of a low-power wireless IoT network introduces significant challenges, such as difficult-to-control traffic, unreliable links, network contention, and high associated overheads that can significantly affect the performance of the network. This paper is a contribution toward a performance evaluation for the use of SDN in wireless networking by evaluating the latency, packet drop ratio (PDR), data extraction rate (DER), and overheads. The results show that SDN adds a high percentage of overheads to the network, which is about 43% of the 57% user packets, and the DER drops when the number of mesh nodes are increased, in addition to the high loss that was observed for packets that traveled over more hops.

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has appeared to be one of the biggest global health threats worldwide with no specific therapeutic agents. As of August 2020, over 22.4 million confirmed cases and more than 788,000 deaths have been reported globally, and the toll is expected to increase before the pandemic is over. Given the aggressive nature of their underlying disease, cancer patients seem to be more vulnerable to COVID-19 and various studies have confirmed this hypothesis. Herein, we review the current information regarding the role of cancer in SARS-CoV-2 infections. Moreover, we discuss the effective supportive treatment options for COVID-19 including Dexamethasone, Tocilizumab and Remdesivir and convalescent plasma therapy (CPT), as well as discuss their efficacy in COVID-19 patients with cancer.

The modeling and calculation of a single phase-to-earth fault of 6 to 35 kV have specific features when compared with circuits with higher nominal voltages. In this paper, a mathematical analysis and modeling of a 3-phase overhead transmission line with distributed parameters consisting of several nominal T-shaped, 3-phase links with concentrated parameters replaced by 1 nominal T-shaped link were carried out. Further analysis showed that not accounting for the distributed nature of the line parameters did not cause significant errors in the assessment of the maximum overvoltage in the arc suppression in single phase-to-earth faults, and that sufficient accuracy insures the representation of the line by only 1 nominal T-shaped, 3-phase link. Such a modeling technique makes it impossible to identify the location of single-phase faults, which is the property of higher harmonic amplification of individual frequencies. Chain equivalent schemas with constant parameters are valid for a single frequency, thereby providing an opportunity to study the nature of the wave process by the discrete selection of parameters. Next in the mathematical representation, we consider the overhead transmission lines as lines with distributed parameters.

Engine oil or lubricating oil has a major effect on the engine life and the proper operation of any engine. Changing the engine oil before it is due increases a customer’s cost. The lubricating oil in every engine performs many functions such as reducing friction, preventing corrosion, protecting the engine against wear, removing all impurities, lubricating the moving parts, and cooling the engine parts. There are several causes for the deterioration of lubricating oil, including the properties of the oil, oil quality, and high engine temperatures. Consequently, the deteriorated oil must be replaced at a specified mileage or at specific time intervals to get the best engine performance. It is very important to know when to change the oil, because changing the oil too late can affect the engine parts and vehicle performance. However, replacing the oil too early influences the economy and environment and is an inefficient use of depleting resources. This study describes the kinematic viscosity, flash point, and fire point of multigrade Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) 0W-20 Totachi (Totachi Industrial Co. Ltd., Japan) international brand oil, which has a 10,000 km guarantee and is approved by and used in 10 different vehicle brands, to determine the rate of deterioration of the parameters. These parameters are the most important physical behaviors of lubricating engine oils. Having information about these parameters is very important for maintaining an engine’s lifespan. The results of this study showed that after 10,000 km, the Totachi oil parameters such as the kinematic viscosity at cold start, at 40°C and at 100°C, the flash point, and the fire point decreased by 22.03%, 25.98%, 26.75%, 16.94% and 17.34%, respectively, from the base values, and that the oil is suitable to use for 10,000 km.

Gara and Mateen are 2 major anticlines in the northern part of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, located in the vicinity of the town Amadiyah. Both anticlines are oriented in an almost east–west (E–W) trend with a steep southern limb. The length and width of the Gara and Mateen anticlines are 87 km and 63 km, and 11 km and 9.5 km, respectively. The 2 anticlines are separated by a wide and shallow syncline filled by the Tertiary rocks of the Pliocene–Pleistocene age. The oldest exposed rocks in the Gara and Mateen anticlines are from the Triassic age. The carapace of both anticlines is built up by the Bekhme and Qamchuqa formations. The geomorphological and structural features were studied through satellite images and geological maps. Based on these studies, it was found that both anticlines show clear geomorphological and structural features that indicate their lateral growth. Among those features are water and wind gaps, different shapes of valleys that indicate lateral growth, abandoned alluvial fans, whale-back shapes, en-echelon plunges, and multiple dome anticlines. Furthermore, the rate of upward movements was calculated using neotectonic data. In addition, the rate of river and stream incisions was calculated on the basis of the height of the river terrace levels.

A stream survey was conducted in the Sidakan vicinity in the northeastern part of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, which covered the catchment area of the main stream. The covered area is about 450 km2. The exposed rocks in the study area are mainly igneous with subordinate sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. The catchment area was divided into 14 sub-basins using Global Mapper software. The junction point of the valleys at the end of each sub-basin was sampled. From each junction point, 2 stream sediments were collected. The samples were sieved using the wet method into 2 mm fractions, before the fractions were subjected to x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The results obtained from both tests were used to calculate the concentrations of 9 elements (Cr, Ni, Co, Cu, U, Ag, V, Zn, and Cd). The element concentrations are presented in 9 concentration maps after normalizing the concentration values. Some anomalous results were found. The average concentrations of Ag and Cd were nearly 120 and 266 times higher than the background concentrations (6 mg/kg and 16 mg/ kg, respectively). The acquired data also showed interesting average concentrations for the elements Co, Cr, Ni, and U (280 mg/kg, 999 mg/kg, 375 mg/kg, and 12 mg/kg, respectively). All of these anomalous concentrations are discussed and possible reasons for their existence are given.

The petroleum system of the Akri-Bijeel oil field shows that the Palaeogene formations such as the Kolosh Formation seem to be immature. However, the Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous source rocks such as those from the Chia Gara, Naokelekan, and Sargelu formations are thermally mature and within the main oil window because their vitrinite reflectance (Ro%) values are >0.55%. The Triassic Kurra Chine and Geli Khana formations are thought to be in the high maturity stage with Ro values ≥1.3% and within the wet and dry gas windows, whereas the older formations are either within the dry gas zone or completely generated hydrocarbon stage and depleted after the hydrocarbons were expelled with subsequent migration to the reservoir rock of the structural traps.

The synthesis of zeolite materials by hydrothermal transformation of kaolin using a conventional hydrothermal method was investigated. Different analytical techniques were used to characterize the starting kaolin and produced zeolite A samples, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), x-ray diffraction (XRD), x-ray fluorescence (XRF), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The synthetic zeolite type A was obtained after activation of kaolin and metakaolin followed by different thermal and chemical treatments. The metakaolinization phase was achieved by calcining the kaolin in air at 600°C for 3 hours, a much lower temperature than previously reported in the literature. Metakaolin was treated with 3 M sodium hydroxide solution at a ratio of 1:5 and, using stainless steel autoclaves with teflon liners, heated the mixture to 200°C in a microwave for 24 hours. The results from this synthesis route showed that zeolite A with a cubic crystal habit has been successfully synthesized.

It is agreed that before the creation of particles, space was completely devoid of matter and radiation. In this study, we assume that the absolute void comprises 4 dimensions, namely 3 spatial dimensions and a force equivalent representing the factor of change among the elementary dimensions. Our hypothesis is based on the expansion of the spatial dimensions and the subsequent space instability. We demonstrated that when the equivalent outward force strength exceeds a critical limit, it collapses inwardly to restore the equilibrium of the system. Subsequently, the void inside the collapsed force equivalent acts as a void in a confined system, and the energy of the system remains conserved at all stages. With the decrease in the spatial dimensions owing to the collapse, the energy density increases, and at the final stage, the energy in the confined system becomes concentrated, thereby forming a solid state of energy. In this solid state of energy, a particle becomes the source of the elementary particles. The created high-energy sources are controlled by the internal and external forces of the source and all the entities in its external force field until equilibrium is reached. This article gives a summary of the Big Bang theory and its problems, which are further discussed in detail. This article will help in understanding how elementary dimensions play a role in the formation of elementary particles. Quark-gluon plasma, inflation, gravitational collapse, and gravitational lensing provide evidence that supports the elementary dimensions theory presented in this paper.

Most infectious diseases are accompanied by changes in the levels of several trace elements in the blood. A total of 88 female patients referred to the Nawroz Private Laboratory in the Duhok province, Kurdistan Region, Iraq, were enrolled in this study. The enrolled patients were sent to the laboratory for investigation of their hormone levels because they were suffering from various gynecologic abnormalities. The serum levels of anti-chlamydia immunoglobulin (Ig) G and IgM antibodies were estimated using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests, and the serum trace element levels were evaluated by atomic absorption spectroscopy. The results showed that 10 (11.4 %) of the samples tested positive for the presence of anti-chlamydia IgG antibodies, whereas none of the samples tested positive for anti-chlamydia IgM antibodies. Furthermore, a significant reduction in the serum potassium levels was observed in response to the chlamydia infection, whereas no significant changes were observed in any of the other elements.

The Middle–Late Jurassic Sargelu, Naokelekan, and Barsarin formations of northwestern Iraq have been investigated in the Shaikhan oilfield (well Shaikhan-8) to assess their potential for hydrocarbon generation.The results of total organic carbon analysis and rock-eval pyrolysis revealed a good-to-excellent hydrocarbon content and suggest that the depositional conditions were suitable for the production and preservation of organic matter. The thermal maturity proxy indicates that the studied formations were at the start of the hydrocarbon generation period. Most of the samples from the Sargelu and Barsarin formations belong to kerogen type II, whereas those of the Naokelekan Formation belong to kerogen type II/III. The Pr/Ph, Pr/n-C17, and Ph/n-C18 ratios of the extracted bitumen indicated that the organic matter originated from marine sources under reducing conditions. The stable carbon isotope composition of the saturated and aromatic hydrocarbon fractions ranged from –28.3 to –27.7 ‰ and –28.0 to –27.7 ‰, respectively. The biomarker results show a high contribution of marine organic matter that was preserved under relatively anoxic conditions. The profiles of the burial and thermal maturity history show that the simulated generation zones, based on the calculated vitrinite reflectance, indicate immature (0.44%–0.6%)-to-early oil generating (0.6%–0.75%) source rock. The low thermal maturity of the studied formations relative to the depth may be attributed to the low geothermal gradient and heat flow.

The impact of tectonic activities from different tectonic zones on hydrocarbon generation in the Upper Jurassic Naokelekan Formation was addressed in this study. The Upper Jurassic Naokelekan Formation is an important potential of source rocks for hydrocarbon generation that charges most of the Cretaceous and younger reservoirs in the Kurdistan Region, Iraq. A total of 5 rock specimens from the Warte outcrop and 7 cutting samples from Well Bina Bawi-1 were collected for Rock-Eval pyrolysis to investigate the relationship between the ability of the formation to generate hydrocarbons and tectonic activities. The results of Rock-Eval analysis on the analyzed samples showed an average of 2.65 wt% and 0.9 wt% total organic carbon (TOC) for Warte and Well Bina Bawi-1, respectively. Based on the TOC data, the Naokelekan Formation, in general, has a good to very good source rock potential. The qualitative properties of the organic matter (OM) of the formation were inferred from the kerogen types. The Warte section mostly contains type III kerogen that is gas prone, whereas the Well Bina Bawi-1 section contains mixed type I-II kerogen that is oil prone. It should be taken into consideration that the values for the hydrogen index (HI) of the Warte section are unreliable for interpretation of the organic type, because the HI is considerably reduced owing to the high level of thermal maturity. The Tmax values showed that the Warte section is thermally more mature than the Well Bina Bawi-1 section. The difference in the thermal maturity can likely be attributed to the differential effects of the tectonic activities on the studied areas. Depending on the proximity or distance of the area in relation to the subduction zone, the sediments in the Imbricated Zone were more affected by the tectonic activities than the sediments in the High Folded Zone. Accordingly, the main factors that might have caused a higher thermal maturity in the Imbricated Zone include a high paleo heat flow, overthrusting, and hydrothermal activities.

In this study, 225 isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were recovered from burn wounds in major hospitals in Duhok and Erbil, Iraq, between April 2015 and September 2015. A total of 136 of these isolates were from men, comprising 60.4% of the total, whereas 89 (39.6%) were recovered from women. One hundred of these isolates were selected (50 from each province of Erbil and Duhok) and subjected to 16 different antibiotics using the disc diffusion method. The isolates showed a high level of resistance to most of the tested antibiotics, with 90% of the isolates being multidrug resistant. Imipenem was considered as the most effective antibiotic against these isolates with a resistant rate of 47%. The genome of all of these isolates were successfully amplified and produced a single band for the 16S rDNA locus with a molecular weight of about 956 base pairs, which was used to confirm, at the molecular level, that all these isolates were indeed P. aeruginosa. The results of the detection of five virulence-related genes including opr1, toxA, exoS, lasB, and nan1 revealed that 10 of these isolates, accounting for 10%, lacked any of the tested virulence markers. The opr1 gene, as a marker for the presence of a pathogenicity island, was the most dominant marker among all the virulence markers and was detected in 90 isolates (90%), followed by the toxA and exoS genes, which were both observed in 86 (86%) isolates, whereas the lasB gene was found in 82 (82%) isolates and the nan1 gene in 35 (35%) of the isolates, respectively.

Qara Dagh anticline is one of the main anticlines in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region with NW – SE trend. It is a double plunging anticline almost symmetrical and consists of six minor anticlines some of them exhibit en-echelon plunges. The anticline shows many indications of lateral growth which indicate Neotectonic activities. Among those indications is the Darbendi Bazian abandoned alluvial fan. In this study, the details of the fan are presented and discussed as interpreted from satellite images. The interpreted data is checked in the field and it is found that the alluvial fan is a large fan showing typical symmetrical fan. It is a single stage fan covered by fine materials. The thickness of the fan ranges from (2.5 – 6) m, whereas its length and width are 4.18 km and 1.35 km, respectively. The fan was originated from Tinal stream which was draining the area behind the apex towards south and south west and nowadays flows in an opposite direction. The alluvial fan’s geometry, constituents, genesis and mode of deposition are given and discussed.