On the 14th of May 2019, the Control and Systems Engineering Department held a series of seminars in the Discussion Hall (number 9) in the department. These seminars were held as a part of the scientific activities of the department to discuss the projects of postgraduate students who successfully passed the second and supplementary stage for the two academic years 2016-2017 and 2017-2018. The objective of these seminars is to evaluate what has been accomplished for the research projects of the postgraduate students, in the Control and Mechatronics branches, and to give them advice and guidance. The seminars included the discussion of the following students:

1- Safa Farhan Fadhel / Research title: Robust Postprandial Glucose Control for Type 1 Diabetes.

2- Musa'ab Essam Sadek / Research title: Design of Adaptive Sliding Mode Control for Underactuated Systems.

3- Abdul-Wahab Abdul-Razzaq Abdul-hussein / Research title: Vision Based Sign Language Recognition.

4- Ruka'a Thamir Kamil / Research title: Path Planning for Multiple Mobile Robot Systems.

   On Sunday, the 5th of May 2019, the Control and Systems Engineering Department held a scientific seminar entitled "Developments of Cellular Networks: Horizons and Applications" in the Networks Laboratory. This seminar was delivered and supervised by Lect. Dr. Qusay Fadhel Hasan and Lect. Dr. Yaser Nabeel Ibrahem along with two other professors from the United Kingdom, namely, Dr. Laith Abdullah Al-Jubory and Dr. Omar Younis Qasim, who delivered the lecture directly through the Internet using the Skype. In this seminar, several topics were reviewed, such as mobile phone technology through decades and how cellular communication networks were transformed from conventional communications networks to sophisticated and complex computer networks to meet the increasing demand for data transmission and processing. In this context, remote lectures were a unique means of exchanging information among specialists despite the large distance. Therefore, the arrangement of such seminars or lectures increases the horizons of the Iraqi researcher. The seminar was attended by several academic staff members and students of the department and the audience interacted by asking several questions that were answered by the lecturers.

 The graduate student in the Control and Systems Engineering Department (Noor Mohammad Mehdi) received the master's degree in Computer Engineering after discussing her dissertation entitled "Design and Implementation of Load Balanced Routing Protocol". The discussion was held on Thursday, the 2nd of May 2019, at the Discussion Hall (number 9) in the department. In this regard, the discussion committee consisted of:

1- Asst. Prof. Dr. Abbas Hussein Miri \ Chairman,

2- Asst. Prof. Dr. Hassan Jaleel Hassan \ Member,

3- Lect. Dr. Waleed Fawwaz Shareef \ Member,

4- Asst. Prof. Dr. Muna Mohammed Jawad \ Member and Supervisor

In this dissertation, the researcher used a router, which is a device that helps redirect packets from one network to another or from one node to another in the network. The process of transferring data from the source to the destination is called routing and this is done by taking advantage of the best path over the network. The load balancing is an important mechanism used to remove congestion by moving packages from excess nodes to other nodes that are lightly loaded to improve the overall system performance. On this occasion, we congratulate the student (Noor Mohammad Mehdi) and wish her all success.

   A group of students from the Control and Systems Engineering Department participated in the explorer robot competition, which was held at the Iraqi Engineers Association under the supervision of Lect. Dr. Bashra Kadhim Oleiwi and Asst. Lect. Farah Flayyeh Hasan. This competition was held on Saturday, the 4th of May 2019, at the association headquarters, where several teams from different universities participated. In this regard, the robots of the Control and Systems Engineering Department received the satisfaction of the arbitration committee, which consisted of five members with different specialties, in addition to the praise of the attendees for the efforts made by the supervisors of the participating students. In particular, our department won the following places:

The first place: Ali Hussain Rhaif / Forth Stage (Mechatronics Engineering).

The second place: Mohammed Haidar Mohammed / Third Stage (Control Engineering).

The third place: Hussein Qaisar / Third Stage (Mechatronics Engineering).

We would like to express our gratitude and appreciation to the Head of the Iraqi Engineers Association, Mr. Faleh Kadhum Zayer, and the Head Assistant, Dr. Maher Yahya Salloum, for giving this opportunity to our youth to show their potentials and abilities, which serve the scientific process, praying to Allay for further progress in serving our beloved country.

      On Sunday, the 10th of March 2019, the Control and Systems Engineering Department held the first sports festival at the university stadium for the students and the academic staff members of the department. This festival was inaugurated by the President of the University, Prof. Dr. Amin Daway Thamir, the esteemed sponsor of the festival and in the presence and direct supervision of the head of the department Asst. Prof. Dr. Azad Raheem Kareem. This festival included various sports competitions in which four teams participated. These teams represent the first, second, third and fourth stages, in addition to the participation of the staff members and employees of the department. The festival objective, as mentioned by the head of the department prior to its launch, is to create relationships among the students, and moreover between the students and the department staff through their participation in collective activities, which in turn creates interaction and understanding based on respect between the academic staff and the student and among the students themselves. In this regard, the sports competitions were organized for topics specified by the department, such as team work, the creation of the leadership spirit of the students, entertainment, competition and diligence to win. Thanks to the university presidency and the department for supporting such important activities for the interest of the student, and we wish our students success and diligence in their study.