Journal of Science and Engineering Applications

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a movement disorder resulting in tremors and conductivity problems in nerves, which lead to difficulties performing basic tasks such as turning a doorknob. This involved designing an under-$100 device to automatically rotate doorknobs without destroying the door, thus improving patient independence. Development was carried out according to functional and non-functional requirements, brainstorming design ideas, and selecting the best solution with the help of a decision matrix. Panels were chosen for their low cost and availability, while other parts were designed and 3D printed. Torque calculations and simulations supported the design’s performance against criteria such as achieving a four-second rotation of a doorknob. The final device presented is a low-cost, easy-to-use device for use in low-resource contexts where no assistive device exists for people with motor impairment. This innovation could greatly enhance the quality of life for Parkinson’s patients and their caregivers.

From the first YOLO version to the last version, it was considered the most common, acceptance and speed object detection algorithm. YOLO is a single-step object detection algorithm since it performs both detection and classification at the same step. This paper focuses on and highlights on the key contributions of each version and the modifications that happened in each one. Most modifications tend to improve either the accuracy or speed of the model or to improve both of them for example by manipulation of the number of layers or by the innovation of new technologies such as Bag of Freebies or to innovation a new type of backbones. So, this paper reviews these approaches and how much they effect on the model performance by making a comparison between the different versions of YOLO algorithms.

This study include the effect of leaching on the engineering properties especially compressibility characteristics; In addition of the gypesous soil containing (35.5 , 27%) gypsum. The engineering properties of these two soils were first studied, which included determining (the index properties and compaction properties of the soil) for both natural and compacted cases; The washing process was also conducted for the natural and compacted soils to study the effect of this process on the engineering properties of this soil, especially the compressibility. The result showed that the increase of gypsum content in the soil result in the increase of the maximum dry density, giving better consolidation properties due to the decrease in the value of the initial void ratio (e0), also the decrease in both of the compression index (Cc) and the coefficient of consolidation (Cv); The results of washing also showed the transformation of the soil after the washing process into a very soft soil with a moisture content higher than the liquidity limit (L.L), such that it is difficult to prepare non-distorted models for the purpose of studying the properties of joining; In addition to an increase in the value of the initial void ratio (e0) after washing the soil. Undisturbed and there was a decrease in this value for compacted (and partially hydrated) soil, and washing led to an increase in the value of the liquidity limit (L.L) and the plasticity limit (P.L) with the increase of the washing period.

It is known that energy is essential to life and economic growth. Energy is a foundation stone of the modern industrial economy. Energy provides an essential ingredient for almost all human activities, for example, without water, life as we know it would not be possible. Clean water or fresh water is rare in many low-density locations, and most of the time, there is no electrical grid connection or other energy source available, except renewable energy sources, which mostly pertain to solar radiation. Because desalination may turn salty water into a potable supply, it is a feasible solution to the issue of water shortage. Desalination is a reasonable answer for these areas' demands. Desalination systems and energy conversion are two distinct and independent technologies used in RE desalination. The actual issue with these technologies is determining the best economic layout and assessment of the integrated plants to make them profitable for isolated or desert areas. The conversion of renewable energy sources, such as solar, necessitates significant financial outlays, and despite extensive research and development, the technology is not yet sufficiently advanced to be used on a broad scale. With a focus on solar energy applications, this article provides an overview of the most significant advancements in the field of desalination using renewable energies, as well as the highlights that have been made in recent years.

Increasing population , urbanization, and expanding infrastructure projects have led to a significant rise in construction and demolition waste (CDW), increasing the demand for raw materials and creating a need for effective waste management. Despite the environmental and economic advantages of recycling, the use of recycled aggregates in construction remains limited due to low awareness, weak regulations, quality concerns, and the lower cost of natural materials. With landfill space rapidly decreasing, recycling CDW particularly by incorporating Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) into concrete is a sustainable solution. This study reviews the application of RAP in pervious concrete, highlighting its impact on mechanical properties, permeability, density, Abrasion resistance and porosity. While RAP tends to reduce mechanical strength and density, it lowers the demand for virgin resources and can cut environmental impact by 15–30%, with greenhouse gas emissions reduced by up to 17% when replacing 50% of natural aggregates.

In this study, Three-point bending tests have been employed to investigate the mechanical behavior of the composite structure. T-shape profiles have been employed to be investigated and analyzed. in this study, geometry has been modeled and meshed using Ansys Software. Mesh and predicted results have been converged using normal stress as a main indicator of the convergency procedure. A static structure tool has been employed to simulate the mechanical behavior of the composite structure. The numerical results have been carried out based on the normal stress and resultant of the total deformation due to the applied static load. The numerical results have stated that the maximum value of the stress is 0.4 MP a due to the 1000 N. The value of the total deformation of the entire body is 0.004 mm. Eventually, the output of the numerical results has been stated that the composite structure can resist due to the applied static force.

Machine learning (ML) has become a crucial tool in analyzing big data within the healthcare domain, offering predictive capabilities, personalized treatments, and enhanced decision-making processes. This review systematically examines the latest ML techniques applied to big data analysis in healthcare, including supervised and unsupervised learning, deep learning, and ensemble methods. We analyze the advantages and limitations of these approaches and their effectiveness in improving patient outcomes, diagnosing diseases, and optimizing resource allocation. Furthermore, we highlight key challenges such as data privacy, model interpretability, and computational efficiency. This paper provides a comparative assessment of ML-based healthcare solutions, offering insights into future research directions and best practices for integrating ML in real-world medical applications.

This research examines aluminum alloy foams in detail, highlighting current advancements in their manufacturing processes, mechanical and thermal characteristics, structural capabilities, and diverse range of uses. This study emphasizes the relationship between foam architecture and processing characteristics, such as porosity, cell structure, and compositional alteration, based on 40 previous investigations. Alongside hybrid reinforcements made of ceramics, graphene, and industrial waste, advanced manufacturing techniques like stir casting, powder metallurgy, template replication, and additive manufacturing are covered. Analysis is done on crashworthiness, energy absorption, electromagnetic shielding, and mechanical behavior under static and dynamic loads. Furthermore, insights into upcoming research trends are provided to address present issues including cost, stability, and recyclability.

Construction projects in Iraq, as in many developing countries, suffer from a diverse risk that affect the final cost of projects. Most disputes between the employer and the contractor occur because of this risk. A survey on published literature in international and Iraqi scientific journals dealing with the subject of cost deviation in Iraqi construction projects has been done. It was found that the five most important reasons for cost deviation in Iraqi construction projects are; poor project management, poor cost control, poor site management, additional work, poor planning approaches and delay in paying the amounts to the contractor. There is no agreement among Iraqi researchers on the degree of importance or sequence of reasons for the cost overrun in the projects. About (89%) from the researchers used the method of expert questionnaire in obtaining these reasons and accordingly to rank them. Despite the enough number of researches in this field, Iraqi construction projects still suffer from deviation in costs. The researcher recommends to conducting research based on documents of completed projects and not on questionnaires so that the real data may contribute to helping project management avoid disputes due to cost deviation.

Due to its economic appeal and technological feasibility, solar water heating is the most popular application of solar energy. However, the utilization of solar water heaters (SWHs) is limited by the sporadic nature of solar energy and the absence of energy storage. Phase change materials (PCMs) efficiently use the thermal energy from the sun. By integrating PCMs with SWHs, the restriction of restricted usage during the day is removed, and the system becomes more effective and user-friendly. The working fluid's thermal conductivity must be raised in order to enhance its heat extraction properties. One of the main materials with greater thermal conductivity is nanoparticles. Thus, the total thermal conductivity of the working fluid is increased when the nanoparticles are added to the base fluid. An overview of the main technics and enhancement methods of utilization of solar water heaters are presented in this work. This study is generally divided onto three main sections. First, an outline of the types of solar water heaters and the mechanical method to improve the performance. Second section focused on the use of phase change materials to enhance the solar water heater performance. Finally, the third section introduces the use of Nano-Fluids in solar water heater

Rice, fed more than 50% of humans, rice is one of the most important plants in agriculture. Diseases can decrease the quantity and quality of this product, and crop losses from such diseases occasionally range between 30 to 60%. Plant diseases have always been one of the worst threatening situations for farmers. While the leaves of most plants have a unique disease characteristic, it still takes human eyes to spot them. This review also summarizes the outperformance of these approaches in solving various types of problems. This review discusses the constraints of existing studies and outlines prospective guidelines toward the significant enhancement of robust and well rice leaf disease detecting methods. Recent computer vision and Deep Learning developments introduced a disease classification system from leaf images, in modern agriculture. Identifying what type of disease the actual plant suffers from, a deep harvest cycle drives the world farmer to lose 37 percent of all the production due to non-accessibility of the details. (Source: ScienceDirect) The correct identification of disease for rice leaves is important as it can save on costs by enhancing the provision of noticed horticulture and managing the crop's future by maintaining a sound food-transferring system. This is done using a CNN model.

Water scarcity is one of the issues facing Iraq and the world, so finding green ways to desalinate water without harming the environment is one of an important factors. One of these methods is the use of solar energy in water desalination. The traditional solar distillation is one of the successful methods in water desalination, but the productivity of the traditional distillation is somewhat low per square meter, so the productivity of the traditional distillation must be improved. For that reason, a double basin solar still may improve the fresh water output by utilizing the condensation latent heat to heat the water in the upper basin instead of losing it to the atmosphere, as in the case of the conventional solar still. The present work aims to examine the solar still with a double basin for three water depths in the lower basin, 10, 20, and 30 mm, on freshwater productivity and daily efficiency. The still basin area is 400 mm × 1000 mm, with six sub-basins constructed above the first glass cover, each 1 L in volume. The experiments were performed in April 2025 under the climatic conditions of Baghdad, Iraq (Latitude: 33.315° N, Longitude: 44.366° E). The results revealed that the productivity of the double-basin solar still is inversely proportional to the water depth of the lower basin. The maximum water temperature is about 74.5 oC for the lower basin and 71.5 oC for the upper basin at 10 mm water depth. The maximum daily productivity is 6788 ml/m2 at 10 mm water depth. The overall daily efficiency was 72, 70.1, and 62.44 % for 10 mm, 20 mm, and 30 mm water depth. The double basin solar still enhances the distilled water daily for 10 mm water depth by 2.84 % at 20 mm water depth and 14.32% at 30 mm water depth.

SENSORs GAS sensors are at the core of IoT-based environmental monitoring that we survey in the paper. There are also gas sensors and approaches to detecting different gases quantum efficiently. IOT based technology will for long these sensors will be hooked up with a lot of devices for sending real time data between devices, monitoring them, and taking in own decision for automation purpose. These advantages come in the form of greater accuracy, more spatial and temporal implications, and enhanced data analysis (much of which is driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning). The paper presents recent progresses of gas sensor technologies and also provides new challenges/ opportunities from the gas sensor systems and technologies if sensors are embedded into the IoT nodes and applied to smart city, health and agriculture. But now that IoT ecosystem gas sensors are in play, environmental monitoring is about to get more efficient, reliable, and smarter. Thirdly, based on their internet connecting characteristics, the task completion and (de)transmission of data by the IoT end devices can be unmanned and the whole process can be completed automatically, so, there are lots of regularities can be used for the harmful gas detection and the environmental monitoring to improve their work.

Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) aggregates, which are typically deposited in surrounding areas either legally or illegally, accumulate in enormous quantities as a result of recycling flexible pavement. The selection of Roller-Compacted Concrete (RCC) for suitable applications yields a sustainable pavement that meets the economic, environmental, and social demands of contemporary infrastructure. The incorporation of RAP in RCC pavements offers several benefits and drawbacks. The notable advantages of employing RAP aggregates include reduced impact on RAP disposal issues, decreased greenhouse gas emissions, decreased dependence on natural aggregates, and lower transportation costs. Utilizing RAP as a substitute for aggregate in RCC may reduce the amount of natural aggregate used in RCC. This study examined the effects of substituting 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the coarse aggregate weight in RCC with highly-aged reclaimed asphalt pavement (hard RAP) on compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, modulus of elasticity at 7, 28, and 91 days of curing, and drying shrinkage at 14, 21, 28, and 91 days of curing. The substitution of 100% hard RAP adversely affected the characteristics of RCC, resulting in lowered compressive, splitting tensile, and flexural strengths, as well as a reduction in the modulus of elasticity across all curing durations. After a curing time of 28 days, the M-50%H-RAP RCCP mixes exhibited a reduction in compressive, splitting tensile, and flexural strengths, along with the modulus of elasticity, of 26.5%, 30.6%, 20%, and 35.6%, respectively. The drying shrinkage significantly increases as coarse aggregate is substituted with hard RAP. After 28 days of curing, the drying shrinkage rate reaches 10% when 100% of the coarse aggregate is substituted with hard RAP.