A survey and tutorial of electromagnetic radiation and reduction in mobile communication systems

This paper provides a survey and tutorial of electromagnetic (EM) radiation exposure and reduction in mobile communication systems. EM radiation exposure has received a fair share of interest in the literature; however, this work is one of the first to compile the most interesting results and ideas related to EM exposure in mobile communication systems and present possible ways of reducing it. We provide a comprehensive survey of existing literature and also offer a tutorial on the dosimetry, metrics, international projects as well as guidelines and limits on the exposure from EM radiation in mobile communication systems. Based on this survey and given that EM radiation exposure is closely linked with specific absorption rate (SAR) and transmit power usage, we propose possible techniques for reducing EM radiation exposure in mobile communication systems by exploring known concepts related to SAR and transmit power reduction in mobile systems. Thus, this paper serves as an introductory guide to EM radiation exposure in mobile communication systems and provides insights toward the design of future low-EM exposure mobile communication networks

Patent Law and TRIPS: Refining the Patent Law of Iraq to Ensure Compliance with TRIPS

Currently Iraq is not one of the members of the TRIPS Agreement, but in the accession process since 2004. Therefore, Iraqi Patent and Industrial Design Law No. 65 of 1970 has to be aligned with the TRIPS Agreement in order to fulfill the accession requirements. Hence, this research is comprised of legal comparative and analytical study to the significant provisions of the Iraqi Patent and Industrial Design Law No. 65 of 1970, before and after amendments among themselves and in comparison, to the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement. In this context the research finds out that the law No. 65 of 1970 through its amendments has attempted to conform to the TRIPS Agreement. Nevertheless, the research concludes that the Iraqi patent law needs further amendments in order to benefit from all the flexibilities that offered by the TRIPS Agreement to the member countries

The Relationship Between Human Resource Management Practices and Job Satisfaction: A Case of Telecommunication Firm in Saudi Arabia

Previous studies have documented the impact of HRM practices on employees’ job satisfaction. Also, it has been found that HRM practices play a significant role in predicting employees’ job satisfaction. However, it is argued in this thesis that very limited number of studies have been conducted on the relationship between HR practices and employee job satisfaction in the perspective of developing countries in general, so this study aimed at investigating whether HRM practice have a positive impact on employees’ job satisfaction in one of telecommunication company called Zain located in Saudi Arabia. To this end, 97 respondents working in Zain telecommunication company located in Saudi Arabia were selected to participate in the study. Job satisfaction was measured by the 15-item developed by wright and cropanzana (1998). HRM practices was measured by the 26-items This instrument have 7 items to measure staffing, 7 items to measure training & development, 7 items to measure performance appraisal and 5 items to measure the compensation. The instruments for HRM practices was measured by using the 5-item questionnaire developed by (Singh, 2004 & Qureshi M Tahir, 2006). The findings revealed that HRM practices was statistically and significantly related to overall job satisfaction. training & development was found to be the best predictor of job satisfaction. The limitations of this study and the recommendations for future research are also discussed

Saving seed under international intellectual property Treaties and Iraqi Patent Law = La regulación de la reserva de semillas para resembrarlas en los tratados internacionales de propiedad industrial y en la legislación iraquí de patentes

Abstract: This study analyses legal position of saving seeds in internal and international levels, for example the TRIPS Agreement and the UPOV Convention of 1991. In this context the study attempts to compare and analyse the latest regulations of saving seeds in Iraq to previous amendments carried out by Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and previous Iraqi governments and to the TRIPS Agreement. The study finds out that the Law No. 15 of 2013 on Registration, Accreditation and Protection of Agricultural Varieties is an attempt to comply with the TRIPS Agreement by providing plant variety protection.Keywords: Intellectual Property Law of Iraq, Saving Seeds, Plant Variety Protection, TRIPS Agreement, UPOV Convention of 1991.Resumen: Este artículo analiza la regulación legal de la práctica de los agricultores consistente en conservar semillas de su propia producción para proceder a sembrarlas en el siguiente ciclo de cultivo. Se analiza la regulación en el ámbito nacional y en el internacional, incluyendo la contenida en el Acuerdo ADPIC y en el Convenio de la UPOV de 1991. En este contexto, el trabajo compara y analiza las últimas regulaciones al respecto en Irak (incluidas las modificaciones introducidas por la Autoridad Provisional de la Coalición Internacional y por el gobierno iraquí) con la regulación del Acuerdo ADPIC. El estudio concluye que la Ley Nº 15 de 2013 sobre Registro, Acreditación y Protección de Variedades Agrícolas es un intento de cumplir con el Acuerdo sobre los ADPIC al proporcionar protección de variedades vegetales.Palabras clave: Legislación iraquí de propiedad intelectual e industrial, reserva de semillas, protección de variedades vegetales, Acuerdo sobre los ADPIC, Convenio de la UPOV de 1991

A General Framework for Fair Regression

Fairness, through its many forms and definitions, has become an important issue facing the machine learning community. In this work, we consider how to incorporate group fairness constraints in kernel regression methods, applicable to Gaussian processes, support vector machines, neural network regression and decision tree regression. Further, we focus on examining the effect of incorporating these constraints in decision tree regression, with direct applications to random forests and boosted trees amongst other widespread popular inference techniques. We show that the order of complexity of memory and computation is preserved for such models and tightly bound the expected perturbations to the model in terms of the number of leaves of the trees. Importantly, the approach works on trained models and hence can be easily applied to models in current use and group labels are only required on training data.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 2 pages reference

Mechanical Properties of Concrete and Mortar Containing Low Density Polyethylene Waste Particles as Fine Aggregate

Iraq industrial activities related to huge amounts of solid, non-biodegradable waste, waste low density Polyethylene (LDPE) plastic being among the well-known. So in this study, the scarped LDPE food boxes were transformed into fine particles and used as a sand for cement mortar and concrete. LDPE wastes were utilized to alter 0 to 25% of fine aggregates in mortar mixtures and 0% to 30% in concrete mixes at an increment of 5%. Compressive strength and dry density were tested for all mortar and concrete specimens.  In addition, splitting tensile strength and ultrasonic pulse speed were tested for specimens of concrete.  Results show that mass, pulse speed of ultrasonic, splitting and compressive tensile strengths were lowered as the size of LDPE raised. The lowest value of dry density, compressive strength and splitting strength was 2240 kg/m3, 18.7 MPa and 1.68 MPa, respectively, for 15% replacement of sand by the LDPE waste in concrete specimens. Whilst, the value of ultrasonic pulse velocity of LDPE concrete mixtures tends to decline lower than the reference values, but it remains nearly to the stander concrete mixtures and can be classified as excellent quality concrete. The density and compressive strength were decreased by using LDPE waste in mortar mixes for all replacement ratios reaching 12% and 42% respectively for 25% substitute

Protein Engineering of a Dye Decolorizing Peroxidase from Pleurotus ostreatus For Efficient Lignocellulose Degradation

Dye decolorizing peroxidases (DyPs) have received extensive attention due to their biotechnological importance and potential use in the biological treatment of lignocellulosic biomass. DyPs are haem-containing peroxidases which utilize hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to catalyse the oxidation of a wide range of substrates. Similar to naturally occurring peroxidases, DyPs are not optimized for industrial utilization owing to their inactivation induced by excess amounts of H2O2. Furthermore, DyPs are active only under acidic conditions and typically lose activity at neutral or alkaline pH. A dye decolorizing peroxidase from the Pleurotus ostreatus (Pleos-DyP4) was identified recently as a first fungal DyP oxidizing Mn2+ to Mn3+ similar to other fungal peroxidases. However, despite its unique pH and thermal stability, similar to other DyPs, it is not suited for industrial applications. Protein engineering methods are widely used to enhance the stability and catalytic efficiency of biocatalysts to render them suitable for industrial purposes. Different directed evolution approaches (namely, error-prone PCR and saturation mutagenesis) were used to construct mutant libraries of DyP4. For protein expression studies, the mutant enzymes were co-expressed with OsmY protein (a novel secretion-enhancing protein) in order to secrete intracellular protein into the media and hence facilitate the screening of mutants. ABTS assay was used to screen for mutants with improved activities in 96-well microtiter plates. Four rounds of error-prone PCR (epPCR) and saturation mutagenesis led to the identification of a mutant with an approximately 10-fold improvement in total activity and resistance to H2O2 inactivation in comparison with the wild type (WT). This study showcases the usefulness of the OsmY-based secretion mechanism of protein in E. coli as a tool in facilitating the screening of DyP4 mutants, and potentially of other heterologous protein variants in E. coli – the preferred host for expression and directed evolution studies