Molecular and Phenotypical Characterization of <i>Mannheimia haemolytica</i>Isolated from Goats in Baghdad Province

Mannheimia haemolytica (M. haemolytica) is a gram negative bacterium which can infect humans and animals. It’s commensal as a normal flora of the nasopharynx and tonsils in cattle, sheep and goats, pneumonic pasteurellosis is one of the most economically important infectious disease in goats worldwide prevalence. This study aimed to investigate the incidence of M. haemolytica by bacteriological and molecular characterization in goats. One hundred nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from apparently healthy field goats, seven lung tissue specimens and five nasal mucus swabs from slaughtered goats in Baghdad. All samples were cultured on Blood and MacConky agars. Biochemical tests and EPI20E kit were used for identification of the suspected colonies. 5 (4.46%) isolates of M. haemolytica were identified phenotypicaly and confirmed diagnosis by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique using two primers 16s rRNA and 12s rRNA genes .The results of this study concluded that identification of M. haemolytica by PCR was in accordance with those of phenotypic tests and it providing the basis for effective preventative strategies through epidemiological studies performance.

Efficient Resource Allocation Algorithm in Uplink OFDM-Based Cognitive Radio Networks

The computational complexity of resource allocation processes,in cognitive radio networks(CRNs),is a major issue to be managed.Furthermore,the complicated solution of the optimal algorithm for handling resource allocation in CRNs makes it unsuitable to adopt in real-world applications where both cognitive users,CRs,and primary users,PUs,exist in the identical geographical area.Hence,this work offers a primarily price-based power algorithm to reduce computational complexity in uplink scenarioswhile limiting interference to PUs to allowable threshold.Hence,this paper,compared to other frameworks proposed in the literature,proposes a two-step approach to reduce the complexity of the proposed mathematical model.In the first step,the subcarriers are assigned to the users of the CRN,while the cost function includes a pricing scheme to provide better power control algorithm with improved reliability proposed in the second stage.The main contribution of this paper is to lessen the complexity of the proposed algorithm and to offer flexibility in controlling the interference produced to the users of the primary networks,which has been achieved by including a pricing function in the proposed cost function.Finally,the performance of the proposed power and subcarrier algorithm is confirmed for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing(OFDM).Simulation results prove that the performance of the proposed algorithm is better than other algorithms,albeit with a lesser complexity of O(NM)+O(Nlog(N)).

A Blockchain-Based Architecture for Securing Industrial IoTs Data in Electric Smart Grid

There are numerous internet-connected devices attached to the industrial process through recent communication technologies,which enable machine-to-machine communication and the sharing of sensitive data through a new technology called the industrial internet of things(IIoTs).Most of the suggested security mechanisms are vulnerable to several cybersecurity threats due to their reliance on cloud-based services,external trusted authorities,and centralized architectures;they have high computation and communication costs,low performance,and are exposed to a single authority of failure and bottleneck.Blockchain technology(BC)is widely adopted in the industrial sector for its valuable features in terms of decentralization,security,and scalability.In our work,we propose a decentralized,scalable,lightweight,trusted and secure private network based on blockchain technology/smart contracts for the overhead circuit breaker of the electrical power grid of the Al-Kufa/Iraq power plant as an industrial application.The proposed scheme offers a double layer of data encryption,device authentication,scalability,high performance,low power consumption,and improves the industry’s operations;provides efficient access control to the sensitive data generated by circuit breaker sensors and helps reduce power wastage.We also address data aggregation operations,which are considered challenging in electric power smart grids.We utilize a multi-chain proof of rapid authentication(McPoRA)as a consensus mechanism,which helps to enhance the computational performance and effectively improve the latency.The advanced reduced instruction set computer(RISC)machinesARMCortex-M33 microcontroller adopted in our work,is characterized by ultra-low power consumption and high performance,as well as efficiency in terms of real-time cryptographic algorithms such as the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm(ECDSA).This improves the computational execution,increases the implementation speed of the asymmetric cryptographic algorithm and provides data integrity and device authenticity at the perceptual layer.Our experimental results show that the proposed scheme achieves excellent performance,data security,real-time data processing,low power consumption(70.880 mW),and very low memory utilization(2.03%read-only memory(RAM)and 0.9%flash memory)and execution time(0.7424 s)for the cryptographic algorithm.This enables autonomous network reconfiguration on-demand and real-time data processing.

Multi-Model Fusion Framework Using Deep Learning for Visual-Textual Sentiment Classification

Multimodal Sentiment Analysis(SA)is gaining popularity due to its broad application potential.The existing studies have focused on the SA of single modalities,such as texts or photos,posing challenges in effectively handling social media data with multiple modalities.Moreover,most multimodal research has concentrated on merely combining the two modalities rather than exploring their complex correlations,leading to unsatisfactory sentiment classification results.Motivated by this,we propose a new visualtextual sentiment classification model named Multi-Model Fusion(MMF),which uses a mixed fusion framework for SA to effectively capture the essential information and the intrinsic relationship between the visual and textual content.The proposed model comprises three deep neural networks.Two different neural networks are proposed to extract the most emotionally relevant aspects of image and text data.Thus,more discriminative features are gathered for accurate sentiment classification.Then,a multichannel joint fusion modelwith a self-attention technique is proposed to exploit the intrinsic correlation between visual and textual characteristics and obtain emotionally rich information for joint sentiment classification.Finally,the results of the three classifiers are integrated using a decision fusion scheme to improve the robustness and generalizability of the proposed model.An interpretable visual-textual sentiment classification model is further developed using the Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanation model(LIME)to ensure the model’s explainability and resilience.The proposed MMF model has been tested on four real-world sentiment datasets,achieving(99.78%)accuracy on Binary_Getty(BG),(99.12%)on Binary_iStock(BIS),(95.70%)on Twitter,and(79.06%)on the Multi-View Sentiment Analysis(MVSA)dataset.These results demonstrate the superior performance of our MMF model compared to single-model approaches and current state-of-the-art techniques based on model evaluation criteria.

Using Multivariable Linear Regression Technique for Modeling Productivity Construction in Iraq

Productivity is a very important element in the process of construction project management especially with regard to the estimation of the duration of the construction activities, this study aims at developing construction productivity estimating model for marble finishing works of floors using Multivariable Linear Regression technique (MLR). The model was developed based on 100 set of data collected in Iraq for different types of projects such as residential, commercial and educational projects. Which these are used in developing the model and evaluating its performance. Ten influencing factors are utilized for productivity forecasting by MLR model, and they include age, experience, number of the assist labor, height of the floor, size of the marbles tiles, security conditions, health status for the work team, weather conditions, site condition, and availability of construction materials. One model was built for the prediction of the productivity of marble finishing works for floors. It was found that MLR have the ability to predict the productivity for finishing works with excellent degree of accuracy of the coefficient of correlation (R) 90.6%, and average accuracy percentage of 96.3%. This indicates that the relationship between the independent and independent variables of the developed models is good and the predicted values from a forecast model fit with the real-life data.