Tikrit Journal of Engineering Sciences

The science of hiding information behind other cover media file is known
steganography. Audio steganography means that a secret message is hidden by
embedding it in an audio file. This paper presents a new audio steganography
approach that is used the contourlet transform to hide a speech and image in an
audio signal. The cover audio signal is modified to be suitable as input to contourlet
transform and then secret data embed to the subbands of contourlet transform. The
results showed high hiding capacity of data up to 90% of cover audio file size. In
addition, performance analysis by measures factors: Normalized Correlation (NC),
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) appears good
quality results for both stego and secret data.

Because of rapid population growth and increasing need for humans to use the vehicles in the last decade. Identifying these vehicles by license plates is considered. The quick development in image processing field can solve this issue by capturing the image of these vehicles and then identify the vehicle license plate. Most traffic applications depend on Automatic detection of the license plate and identification technology such as searching for stolen vehicles, traffic control on the road, monitoring cars from entering area, some information about the vehicle, parking systems, monitor the border crossing, maximum speed or red-light violation ticket, and identify the identity of the driver etc. In this paper we try to design a system that can identify the characters of the new plates of vehicles in Iraq, which relies on image recognition. First capture the picture of the vehicle using a digital camera and recognize the text of the captured pictures using optical character recognition technology and then compared it with all vehicle plates numbers stored in the database.

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is one of the popular techniques for high data rates nowadays. However, the channel transfer function estimation for OFDM based systems is essential, to increase the bit rate with low bit error rate (BER) degradation. Numerous algorithms are provided in the literature such as the pilot assisted channel estimation methods. This paper suggests to making use of the null subcarriers, such as the cyclic prefix interval, to make more occupation of the pilot subcarriers. Least squares estimator has been employed to estimate the channel frequency response. However, simulation results, using MATLAB programming, show that the BER performance has been improved, where the required signal to noise ratio (SNR) has been reduced by approximately 4dB, for different baseband mapping.

This work aimed to study the impact of Alton Kopri wastewater on the Lesser-Zab River water. Specifically, the study aimed to determine the impacts of the formed wastewater on the Lesser-Zab River using the mass balance principle (MBP) and provide appropriate solutions to this problem. Fresh samples from Alton Kopri wastewater and the Lesser-Zab River water were collected from February 2013 to September 2013. The samples were analyzed for temperature, pH, total alkalinity, total hardness, total acidity, chloride, turbidity, solids, dissolved oxygen, 5-day biochemical oxygen demand, and sulfate. Results presented graphically demonstrated that Alton Kopri wastewater can be classified as medium- to strong-type wastewater, whereas the Lesser-Zab River can be categorized as a moderately polluted river and moderately hard to hard water. The application of MBP revealed that Alton Kopri wastewater affected the Lesser-Zab River water; hence, appropriate solutions were outlined to minimize the impact of the former on the water resource and treatment of the latter.

A challenging problem for a direct search design methods was introduced in this work. Pattern Search PS method was used to find the optimum designed section of a prestressed simply supported post tensioned beam with variable tendon eccentricity. Flexural and geometrical design constraints were used to get the optimum sectional properties of the beam. Then, new constraints concerning the placement of the tendon through the longitudinal section of the beam were introduced and involved through finding the optimum results. A single objective function was used since a multi objective optimization procedure could not be run with nonlinear constraints, and optimizing a post tensioned beam with variable eccentricity represents a highly constraints problem. Another optimization method was used here only to check the validity of the procedure adopted using PS, the results were compared for the methods and a good agreement were found between them. Apparently, using the additional constraints of the tendon placement causes a lot of difficulties to find the optimum results, as it was noticed through the elapsed time of the solution, although, both methods gave a reliable and practical optimum values, and this is due to the robust use of the design constraints to limit the optimum designed variables within the ACI code 2011 limits. Increasing the efficiency of the solution was gained through using a lot of design constraints, in addition to the basic design constraints needed in the flexural design, to avoid trapping in local optima.

The modern communication systems require high data, and this rate cannot be achieved in Single input- Single out put (SISO) systems. This prosperity can be gained by improving the channel capacity using systems for Multiple Input-Multiple output (MIMO). In this paper the parameters effecting channel capacity are studied, these include (antennas numbers, antennas distribution, and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)) using multiplexing, diversity and beamforming techniques. The results showed that the channel capacity for multiplexing technique increased semi-linearly with antennas number when the antennas at transmitter side and receiver side are equal. While the increase in capacity became less when the antennas distribution is different. Increasing the antennas ate the receiver side gives better capacity than increasing the antennas ate the transmitter side. The multiplexing techniques give the best performance from diversity techniques and beamforming when (SNR) greater than (10 dB). While the beamforming technique gives the best performance for (SNR) less than (10 dB).

Identifying and evaluating the business risk (Cost and time overruns) management in construction projects to control and minimize such risk is the aim of this research. In diverse construction site, qualified professional workings are asked through an online questionnaire to collect tremendous diverse thoughts to compare between them. The questionnaire developed the research and collected more sensitive/accurate and reliable data about construction business risk management. The first step in this research is to attain worthy information about business risk management in term of cost and time overruns from previous related studies. A theoretical background about management of business risk is provided by the review of these studies that led to the design of the questionnaire questions. This paper concluded that poor business performance, such as time delays and cost overruns, are common in construction projects. Poor business performances can be significantly reduced by providing adequate construction planning at the beginning of the project, accurate in estimation, preventing changes in projects during construction, improving contract management and improving communication between construction parties.

A study was conducted on sixteen water purification plants in Kirkuk governorate to evaluate the treatment of water in them, where physical and chemical tests were conducted for raw water and treated water for a period of (6) months from December until May. Temperature, turbidity, pH, Total Dissolved Solid (TDS), Electric Conductivity (EC), alkali, Total Hardness (TH) and calcium (Ca+2) were measured. Water quality index Canadian method (CCME) was used to classify raw water quality and treated water. The results showed that the raw water for all stations was classified as category (4) (bad) during the study period. The treated water was different for the treatment plants. Two of the treatment plants recorded good efficiency in water treatment (AL-Shallalah plant and Sin AL-Thiban) the treated water remained in category (2) (good). While the water quality of AL-Mosanaa plant indicated that there was a problem in the treatment of water in this plant, the treated water remained in category (4) bad during the study period. Water quality index fluctuated for other plants during the study period. The study also showed that alkali values of all stations were higher than the allowable limit for raw water and treated water.

Mosul Dam is one of the important dams in Iraq, it suffers like other dams from the problem of sediment accumulation in the reservoir. The daily surface runoff was estimated from three main valleys (Sweedy, Crnold, Alsalam) in the right bank of the reservoir during the period 1/1/1988 - 31/8/2016 by applying SWAT model. The model performance was assessed and the results were good. The daily sediment load was estimated by three methods, Bagnold method was adopted in SWAT, while Toffaletti and Einstein methods were programed by MATLAB. The averages annual sediment load from the main valleys to the reservoir were 1.08×103 - 27.32×103, 0.08×104 - 10.41×104 and 0.44×105 - 28.66×105 tons for Bagnold, Toffaletti and Einstein methods respectively. The valley Sweedy is the main supplier of sediments to the right side of the reservoir with 89%.

Recent repeated flashovers and power outage incidents in an (400/132) kV substation, located in the Ad Diwaniyah Province, have called for extensive investigations to evaluate the effect of subsequent deposition of sandstorm and free carbon particles (soot) on the performance of HV insulators and probable flashover occurrences. In the Ad Diwaniyah Province, the insulators of the transmission lines and substations are normally subjected to sandstorms (once or twice per year). Moreover, rapid brick industry expansion (10 brick factories constructed and operated over the last ten years) within the area of the Shafeyea, where, the (400/132) kV substation is located, has also led to a noticeable industrial pollution. Porcelain and polymeric insulators were exposed to sand and soot polluted environments and the effect of pollution severity on the flashover characteristics was investigated. Flashover voltages were measured under various simulated polluted environments for both porcelain and polymeric insulators. Obtained results show that the deposition rate of soot particles is highly increased when both porcelain and polymeric insulators are already polluted with sand particles regardless of whether the sand particles are charged or not. However, moistening was found very critical to pollutant layer build-up and consequently increases the severity of pollution.

A composite material has been prepared using epoxy resin as a matrix, reinforced with silica fume, carbon fiber, and their hybrid (mixture of silica fume and carbon fiber). Samples were prepared in a fabricated mold with dimensions according to the American Standards for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The additions of silica fume, carbon fiber, and mixture of them were with weight ratios of 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3 wt.%. Properties of this composite material are determined; hardness, compression, and ultrasonic. The results showed that the mechanical properties increases with increasing of silica fume ratio up to 2 wt.%, and for higher than of 2 wt.% they were decrease, whereas the addition of carbon fiber and mixture of carbon fiber with silica fume powder correspondingly enhances the properties up to 2 wt.% and fixed on its values.

This paper presents the study of intelligent controllers for Two-area multi-source interconnected power system model. The controller gains are optimized using Conventional method, GA and BAT algorithms and investigation is carried out for the best optimization method on the basis of dynamic performance and stability of the power system model. The power system model under investigation two area each area consists of thermal, hydro and Double Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) based wind unit with different participation factor in the total generation for their respective area. It has been observed that an appreciable improvement in the system dynamic performance is achieved using Bat algorithms for load frequency controller for multisource power system model as compared with conventional method and GA algorithm.