Morphology of Tigris River within Baghdad City

In recent years, substantial changes have occurred in the morphology of the River Tigris within Baghdad City. Although huge volumes of sediment are being trapped in recently constructed headwater reservoirs, the number of islands in the Tigris at Baghdad is increasing. The debris of bridges destroyed in the wars of 1991 and 2003 and their subsequent reconstruction have enhanced the development of these islands. As a consequence the ability of the river to carry the peaks of flood waters has been reduced. This has led to potential increase of flooding in parts of the city. <br><br> The bed of the River Tigris has been surveyed on three occasions (1976, 1991, and 2008). The most recent survey was conducted by the Ministry of Water Resources, extended 49 km from the Al-Muthana Bridge north Baghdad to the confluence with the Diyala River south Baghdad. It yielded cross-section profiles at 250 m intervals. The data are used to predict the maximum flood capacity for the river using the one-dimensional hydraulic model for steady flow "HEC-RAS" modeling. Calibration of the model was carried out using field measurements for water levels along the last 15 km of the reach and the last 10 yr of observation at the Sarai Baghdad gauging station. <br><br> The model showed a significant predicted reduction in the current river capacity below that which the river had carried during the floods of 1971 and 1988. The three surveys conducted on the same reach of the Tigris indicated that the ability of the river to transport water has decreased

Future Prospects for Macro Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) Technique in North East Iraq

Countries in Middle East and North Africa (MENA region) are considered arid and semi-arid areas that are suffering from water scarcity. They are expected to have more water shortages problem due to climatic change. Iraq is located in the Middle East covering an area of 433,970 square kilometers populated by 31 million inhabitants. One of the solutions suggested to overcome water scarcity is Rain Water Harvesting (RWH). In this study Macro rain-water harvesting technique had been tested for future rainfall data that were predicted by two emission scenarios of climatic change (A2 and B2) for the period 2020-2099 at Sulaimaniyah Governorate north east of Iraq. Future volumes of total runoff that might be harvested for different conditions of maximum, average, and minimum future rainfall seasons under both scenarios (A2 and B2) were calculated. The results indicate that the volumes of average harvested runoff will be reduced when average rainfall seasons are considered due to the effect of climatic change on future rainfall. The reduction reached 10.82 % and 43.0% when scenarios A2 and B2 are considered respectively

Expected Future Precipitation in Central Iraq Using LARS-WG Stochastic Weather Generator

The Middle East (ME) is characterized by its water shortage problem. This region with its arid climate is expected to be the most vulnerable in the world to the potential impacts of climate change. Iraq (located in ME) is seriously experiencing water shortage problem. To overcome this problem rain water harvesting can be used. In this study the applicability of the long-term weather generator model in downscaling daily precipitation Central Iraq is used to project future changes of precipitation based on scenario of seven General Circulation Models (GCMs) outputs for the periods of 2011-2030, 2046-2065, and 2080-2099. The results indicated that December-February and September-November periods, based on the ensemble mean of seven GCMs, showed an increasing trend in the periods considered; however, a decreasing trend can be found in March, April, and May in the future

CLIMATE CHANGE AND FUTURE PRECIPITATION IN AN ARID ENVIRONMENT OF THE MIDDLE EAST: CASE STUDY OF IRAQ

In this paper impact of climate change on precipitation in the arid environment of Iraq is examined. LARS-WG weather generator was applied to 5 representative regions to model current and future precipitation under climate change. Seven Global Climate Models (GCMs) have been employed to account for any uncertainty on future projection for three selected periods, 2011-2030, 2046-2065 and 2080-2099. Performance of LARS-WG in each site was first evaluated using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test for fitting wet/dry days in each site, as well as comparison of the mean and standard deviation between the observed and simulated precipitation. The developed LARS-WG models were found to perform well and skilful in simulating precipitation in the arid regions of Iraq as evidenced by the tests carried and the comparison made. The precipitation models were then used to obtain future projections for precipitation using the IPCC scenario SRES A2. Future precipitation results show that most of the Iraq regions are projected to suffer a reduction in annual mean precipitation, especially by the end of the 21st century, while on a seasonal basis most of the regions are anticipated to be wetter in autumn and winter. Journa

Constrained Statistical Modelling of Knee Flexion from Multi-Pose Magnetic Resonance Imaging

© 1982-2012 IEEE.Reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) through arthroscopy is one of the most common procedures in orthopaedics. It requires accurate alignment and drilling of the tibial and femoral tunnels through which the ligament graft is attached. Although commercial computer-Assisted navigation systems exist to guide the placement of these tunnels, most of them are limited to a fixed pose without due consideration of dynamic factors involved in different knee flexion angles. This paper presents a new model for intraoperative guidance of arthroscopic ACL reconstruction with reduced error particularly in the ligament attachment area. The method uses 3D preoperative data at different flexion angles to build a subject-specific statistical model of knee pose. To circumvent the problem of limited training samples and ensure physically meaningful pose instantiation, homogeneous transformations between different poses and local-deformation finite element modelling are used to enlarge the training set. Subsequently, an anatomical geodesic flexion analysis is performed to extract the subject-specific flexion characteristics. The advantages of the method were also tested by detailed comparison to standard Principal Component Analysis (PCA), nonlinear PCA without training set enlargement, and other state-of-The-Art articulated joint modelling methods. The method yielded sub-millimetre accuracy, demonstrating its potential clinical value

Climate Change and Future Long Term Trends of Rainfall at North-eastern Part of Iraq

Iraq is facing water shortage problem despite the presence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. In this research, long rainfall trends up to the year 2099 were studied in Sulaimani city northeast Iraq to give an idea about future prospects. The medium high (A2) and medium low B2 scenarios have been used for purpose of this study as they are more likely than others scenarios, that beside the fact that no climate modeling canter has performed GCM (global climate model) simulations for more than a few emissions scenarios (HadCM3 has only these two scenarios) otherwise pattern scaling can be used for generating different scenarios which entail a huge uncertainty. The results indicate that the average annual rainfall shows a significant downward trend for both A2 and B2 scenarios. In addition, winter projects increase/decrease in the daily rainfall statistics of wet days, the spring season show very slight drop and no change for both scenarios. However, both summer and autumn shows a significant reduction in maximum rainfall value especially in 2080s while the other statistics remain nearly the same. The extremes events are to decrease slightly in 2080s with highest decrease associated with A2 scenario. This is due to the fact that rainfall under scenario A2 is more significant than under scenario B2. The return period of a certain rainfall will increase in the future when a present storm of 20 year could occur once every 43 year in the 2080s. An increase in the frequency of extreme rainfall depends on several factors such as the return period, season of the year, the period considered as well as the emission scenario used

Cancer chemotherapy-induced effects on tooth formation

Reduced mortality has resulted in an ever-growing population of childhood cancer survivors (Childhood Cancer Survivors, CCS) The increased survival rate for common pediatric malignancies is due to advances in diagnostic, therapeutic, supportive and long-term care strategies.Despite efforts to minimise the side effects of oncological treatments, treatment with cytotoxic therapies is often associated with acute and late complicationsThe present work provides new insights on the pathogenesis of disturbed tooth development and salivary glands function following the administration of selected chemotherapeutic agents. The observed amelogenesis defects and reduced function of ion transporters in the parotid gland require further investigation.The second aim of this thesis was to inform oral health professionals about late oral and non-oral side effects of oncological treatment in long-term childhood cancer survivors (CCS). In addition to conventional chemotherapeutic agents, targeted therapies and immuno-therapy have also been introduced for specific subtypes of pediatric malignancies. Longitudinal observational studies should be performed following CCS after their cancer treatment in order to identify potential adverse effects and keep prevention and management recommendations up to date

L1 transfer in the acquisition of manner and path in Spanish by native speakers of English

In this article the authors argue that L1 transfer from English is not only important in the early stages of L2 acquisition of Spanish, but remains influential in later stages if there is not enough positive evidence for the learners to progress in their development (Lefebvre, White, & Jourdan, 2006). The findings are based on analyses of path and manner of movement in stories told by British students of Spanish (N = 68) of three different proficiency levels. Verbs that conflate motion and path, on the one hand, are mastered early, possibly because the existence of Latinate path verbs, such as enter and ascend in English, facilitate their early acquisition by British learners of Spanish. Contrary to the findings of Cadierno (2004) and Cadierno and Ruiz (2006), the encoding of manner, in particular in boundary crossing contexts, seems to pose enormous difficulties, even among students who had been abroad on a placement in a Spanish-speaking country prior to the data collection. An analysis of the frequency of manner verbs in Spanish corpora shows that one of the key reasons why students struggle with manner is that manner verbs are so infrequent in Spanish. The authors claim that scarce positive evidence in the language exposed to and little or no negative evidence are responsible for the long-lasting effect of transfer on the expression of manner

Prospects for Improving the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties of Magnesium Diboride Superconducting Strands

The magnetic and transport properties of magnesium diboride films represent performance goals yet to be attained by powder-processed bulk samples and conductors. Such performance limits are still out of the reach of even the best magnesium diboride magnet wire. In discussing the present status and prospects for improving the performance of powder-based wire we focus attention on (1) the intrinsic (intragrain) superconducting properties of magnesium diboride, Hc2 and flux pinning, (2) factors that control the efficiency with which current is transported from grain-to-grain in the conductor, an extrinsic (intergrain) property. With regard to Item-(1), the role of dopants in Hc2 enhancement is discussed and examples presented. On the other hand their roles in increasing Jc, both via Hc2 enhancement as well as direct fluxoid/pining-center interaction, are discussed and a comprehensive survey of Hc2 dopants and flux-pinning additives is presented. Current transport through the powder-processed wire (an extrinsic property) is partially blocked by the inherent granularity of the material itself and the chemical or other properties of the intergrain surfaces. These and other such results indicate that in many cases less than 15% of the conductor's cross sectional area is able to carry transport current. It is pointed out that densification in association with the elimination of grain-boundary blocking phases would yield five-to ten-fold increases in Jc in relevant regimes, enabling the performance of magnesium diboride in selected applications to compete with that of Nb-Sn

Four-Face Heated Uniaxial Reinforced Concrete Columns Interaction Charts

This paper presents an analytical method for generating the interaction diagrams of uniaxially reinforced concrete (RC) columns that are subjected to four-face heating. Twenty-one (21) specimens obtained from previous case studies that were subjected to four-face heating (with different fire test times ranging from 63 to 356 fire minutes) are used to validate the proposed uniaxial interaction charts. The results obtained from the case studies and from the proposed charts are also compared with the finite element software (FIN EC). The 500°C isotherm as well as the zone method are used in the computer software program to find the required load capacities. The proposed method's values fall within the range of values obtained from laboratory tests and computer software, which suggests its validity. Also, the zone method in FIN-EC software is reliable for evaluating load-bearing capacity, while the 500°C method is useful in situations with shorter fire times. The results obtained provide a valuable tool for designing and evaluating structures that may be exposed to fire. Nonetheless, the study is restricted by its concentration on a particular type of column under four-face heating, which may reduce its relevance to other types of structures and heating situations. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2023-09-07-01 Full Text: PD