The focus of this work is on systematically understanding the effects of packing density of the sand grains on both the internal and bulk mechanical properties for strip footing interacting with granular soil. The studies are based on particle image velocimetry (PIV) method, coupled with a high resolution imaging camera. This provides valuable new insights on the evolution of slip planes at grain-scale under different fractions of the ultimate load. Furthermore, the PIV based results are compared with finite element method simulations in which the experimentally characterised parameters and constitutive behaviour are fed as an input, and a good level of agreements are obtained. The reported results would serve to the practicing engineers, r

This research paper aimed to quantitively characterize the pore structure of shale reservoirs. Six samples of Silurian shale from the Ahnet basin were selected for nitrogen adsorption-desorption analysis. Experimental findings showed that all the samples are mainly composed of mesopores with slit-like shaped pores, as well as the Barrett-Joyner-Halenda pore volume ranging from 0.014 to 0.046 cm3/ 100 g, where the lowest value has recorded in the AHTT-1 sample, whereas the highest one in AHTT-6, while the rest samples (AHTT-2, AHTT-3, AHTT-4, AHTT-5) have a similar average value of 0.03 cm3/ 100 g. Meanwhile, the surface area and pore size distribution were in the range of 3.8 to 11.1 m2 / g and 1.7 to 40 nm, respectively.

       In terms of the core nucleus plus valence nucleon, shell-model calculations using two model spaces and interactions, the relationship between a nucleus' proton skin, and the difference in proton radii of mirror pairs of nuclei with the same mass number are investigated. In this work, two pairs of mirror nuclei will be studied: 17Ne-17N and 23Al-23Ne. For 17Ne-17N nuclei, p-shell and mixing of psd orbits are adopted with Cohen-Kurath (ckii) and psdsu3 interactions. While for 23Al-23Ne, the sd-shell and sdpf shell are adopted with the universal shell model (USD) and sdpfwa interactions. Also, the ground state density distributions, elastic form factors, and root mean square radii of these pairs' nuclei are studied and com

The article gives the analysis of an Arabic root-form from the standpoint of progressive phono-semantics and phono-grammar. Within the framework of this linguistic paradigm the theory of sound association with its meaning is confirmed owning to the Arabic word structure. According to the combination of definite root forms consonants the principles of progressive phono-grammar of the Arabic language are exercised. The sound quantitative changes of root consonants are also the result of progressive semantic phono-grammar.

An accurate assessment of the pipes’ conditions is required for effective management of the trunk sewers. In this paper the semi-Markov model was developed and tested using the sewer dataset from the Zublin trunk sewer in Baghdad, Iraq, in order to evaluate the future performance of the sewer. For the development of this model the cumulative waiting time distribution of sewers was used in each condition that was derived directly from the sewer condition class and age data. Results showed that the semi-Markov model was inconsistent with the data by adopting ( 2 test) and also, showed that the error in prediction is due to lack of data on the sewer waiting times at each condition state which can be solved by using successive conditi

Correct grading of apple slices can help ensure quality and improve the marketability of the final product, which can impact the overall development of the apple slice industry post-harvest. The study intends to employ the convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures of ResNet-18 and DenseNet-201 and classical machine learning (ML) classifiers such as Wide Neural Networks (WNN), Naïve Bayes (NB), and two kernels of support vector machines (SVM) to classify apple slices into different hardness classes based on their RGB values. Our research data showed that the DenseNet-201 features classified by the SVM-Cubic kernel had the highest accuracy and lowest standard deviation (SD) among all the methods we tested, at 89.51 %  1.66 %. This

The last four decades have witnessed a number of rapid and successive international changes in terms of future impacts and orientations. International economy has transformed into a competitive small village due to the information technology revolution and the liberation processes and the economic openness that the market witnesses, there became one market and the activists in this international market are not governments only but rather international organizations and huge multinational corporations where each spares no effort to take every opportunity and face challenges within the frame of  removing all impediments and release transactions under the auspices of  these global developments, the idea of creating Islamic

A robust video-bitrate adaptive scheme at client-aspect plays a significant role in keeping a good quality of video streaming technology experience. Video quality affects the amount of time the video has turned off playing due to the unfilled buffer state. Therefore to maintain a video streaming continuously with smooth bandwidth fluctuation, a video buffer structure based on adapting the video bitrate is considered in this work. Initially, the video buffer structure is formulated as an optimal control-theoretic problem that combines both video bitrate and video buffer feedback signals. While protecting the video buffer occupancy from exceeding the limited operating level can provide continuous video str