In this paper, we use concepts and results from percolation theory to investigate and characterize the effects of multi-channels on the connectivity of Dynamic Spectrum Access networks. In particular, we focus on the scenario where the secondary nodes have plenty of vacant channels to choose from-a phenomenon which we define as channel abundance. To cope with the existence of multi-channels, we use two types of rendezvous protocols: naive ones which do not guarantee a common channel and advanced ones which do. We show that, with more channel abundance, even with the use of either type of rendezvous protocol, it becomes difficult for two nodes to agree on a common channel, thereby potentially remaining invisible to each other. We model this

The concept of the active contour model has been extensively utilized in the segmentation and analysis of images. This technology has been effectively employed in identifying the contours in object recognition, computer graphics and vision, biomedical processing of images that is normal images or medical images such as Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI), X-rays, plus Ultrasound imaging. Three colleagues, Kass, Witkin and Terzopoulos developed this energy, lessening “Active Contour Models” (equally identified as Snake) back in 1987. Being curved in nature, snakes are characterized in an image field and are capable of being set in motion by external and internal forces within image data and the curve itself in that order. The present s

A bolted–welded hybrid demountable shear connector for use in deconstructable steel–concrete composite buildings and bridges was proposed. The hybrid connector consisted of a partially threaded stud, which was welded on the flange of a steel section, and a machined steel tube with compatible geometry, which was bolted on the stud. Four standard pushout tests according to Eurocode 4 were carried out to assess the shear performance of the hybrid connector. The experimental results show that the initial stiffness, shear resistance, and slip capacity of the proposed connector were higher than those of traditional welded studs. The hybrid connector was a ductile connector, according to Eurocode 4, with slip capacity higher than 6 mm. A nonli

When optimizing the performance of neural network-based chatbots, determining the optimizer is one of the most important aspects. Optimizers primarily control the adjustment of model parameters such as weight and bias to minimize a loss function during training. Adaptive optimizers such as ADAM have become a standard choice and are widely used for their invariant parameter updates' magnitudes concerning gradient scale variations, but often pose generalization problems. Alternatively, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) with Momentum and the extension of ADAM, the ADAMW, offers several advantages. This study aims to compare and examine the effects of these optimizers on the chatbot CST dataset. The effectiveness of each optimizer is evaluat

Background/Aim There is an association between patient general health, socioeconomic status and fracture incidence. Aim of this study was to demonstrate the relation between the socioeconomic and health status and the occurrence of fractures in Al-Kindy Hospital residents. Methods A prospective cross-sectional study was performed by using data collected from fractured patients in Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital / Baghdad Orthopaedics Outpatient Clinic, between 12 December 2021 and 8 March 2022. A hundred patients aged 20 to 75 years were included in this study. The data were collected using a researcher-administered questionnaire, which included items to assess patient's socioeconomic status (accommodations, occupation, income status, level of e

Computer systems and networks are increasingly used for many types of applications; as a result the security threats to computers and networks have also increased significantly. Traditionally, password user authentication is widely used to authenticate legitimate user, but this method has many loopholes such as password sharing, brute force attack, dictionary attack and more. The aim of this paper is to improve the password authentication method using Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNNs) with three types of distance include Euclidean Distance, Manhattan Distance and Euclidean Squared Distance and four features of keystroke dynamics including Dwell Time (DT), Flight Time (FT), mixture of (DT) and (FT), and finally Up-Up Time (UUT). The resul

Wastewater projects are one of the most important infrastructure projects, which require developing strategic plans to manage these projects. Most of the wastewater projects in Iraq don’t have a maintenance plan. This research aims to prepare the maintenance management plan (MMP) for wastewater projects. The objective of the research is to predict the cost and time of maintenance projects by building a model using ANN. The research sample included (15) completed projects in Wasit Governorate, where the researcher was able to obtain the data of these projects through the historical information of the Wasit Sewage Directorate. In this research artificial neural networks (ANN) technique was used to build two models (cost