This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From experimental observations, when the girder specimen was cracked and the transverse steel reinforcement bars started straining, the CFRP strips started to work more effectively and contributed together with the transverse steel reinforcement to resist torsion load. Additionally, Finite Element (FE) simulations were developed using Abaqus to model the torsional behavior of the retrofitted girders, the results of which were validated with the experimental data. With the numerical model, the effect of concrete compressive strength, transverse reinforcement spacing, and CFRP strip spacing were examined. The effectiveness of the CFRP strips in enhancing the torsional strength of the girder was found to increase with increasing the spacing between the transverse reinforcement.
Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR)-based plastic optical fiber sensor for estimating the concentration and refractive index of sugar in human blood serum. The sensor is fabricated by a small part (10mm) of optical fiber in the middle is embedded in a resin block and then the polishing process is done, after that it is deposited with about (40nm) thickness of gold metal. The blood serum is placed on gold coated core of an Optical grade plastic optical fiber of 980 µm core diameter.
The cytotoxicity of different concentrations of purified methionine γ- lyase from Pseudomonas putida on cancer cell lines (RD, AMN3 and AMGM) at 96 hr was studied. The bacterial enzyme with concentration 1000µg/ml was revealed highly cytotoxicity against cancer cell lines in comparison with other concentrations whereas slight cytotoxicity was observed on normal cell (REF).
Objective: To evaluate the functional outcomes after extended curettage and reconstruction using a combination of bone graft and bone cement (sandwich). Methodology: In this prospective case series 16 skeletally mature patients with primary giant cell tumor around the knee were included. Patients with previous surgically treated, malignant transformation, degenerative knee changes and those presenting with pathological fracture were excluded. The tumor was excised with bone graft filling space beneath the articular cartilage and a block of gel foam was placed over the cortical surface of picked bone graft. Remaining cavity was filled with polymethylmethacrylate cement (sandwich) with or without internal fixation. The func tional evaluation
... Show MoreBackground: Immediate postpartum contraceptive and post abortion contraception methods are effective safe methods and are becoming a standard practice in many countries, yet it is not widely used in Iraq.
Aims: this study: is designed to assess the attitude and willingness of women to immediate contraception after giving birth or abortion and their satisfaction to previous use.
Methods and Material: Four hundred thirty-four women were surveyed in the labor word immediately after giving birth/ abortion. Their knowledge, attitude and contraception use were assessed according to the response they reported to a given questionnaire.
Results: women were not sure abo
... Show MoreOptimizing the Access Point (AP) deployment is of great importance in wireless applications owing the requirement to provide efficient and cost-effective communication. Highly targeted by many researchers and academic industries, Quality of Service (QOS) is an important primary parameter and objective in mind along with AP placement and overall publishing cost. This study proposes and investigates a multi-level optimization algorithm based on Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO). It aims to an optimal multi-floor AP placement with effective coverage that makes it more capable of supporting QOS and cost effectiveness. Five pairs (coverage, AP placement) of weights, signal threshol
The emphasis of Master Production Scheduling (MPS) or tactic planning is on time and spatial disintegration of the cumulative planning targets and forecasts, along with the provision and forecast of the required resources. This procedure eventually becomes considerably difficult and slow as the number of resources, products and periods considered increases. A number of studies have been carried out to understand these impediments and formulate algorithms to optimise the production planning problem, or more specifically the master production scheduling (MPS) problem. These algorithms include an Evolutionary Algorithm called Genetic Algorithm, a Swarm Intelligence methodology called Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA), Bat Algorithm (BAT), T
... Show MoreOptical Mark Recognition (OMR) is the technology of electronically extracting intended data from marked fields, such as squareand bubbles fields, on printed forms. OMR technology is particularly useful for applications in which large numbers of hand-filled forms need to be processed quickly and with a great degree of accuracy. The technique is particularly popular with schools and universities for the reading in of multiple choice exam papers. This paper proposed OMRbased on Modify Multi-Connect Architecture (MMCA) associative memory, its work in two phases: training phase and recognition phase. The proposed method was also able to detect more than one or no selected choice. Among 800 test samples with 8 types of grid answer sheets and tota
... Show MoreThe study objectives were to (1) describe the characteristics of the pharmacy professionals and (2) explore the association between job satisfaction and factors, such as work control, work stress, workload and organization and professional commitments.
This study was a cross-sectional design. The survey items were mainly adapted from the US National Pharmacist Workforce Survey. An electronic (Qualtrics) questionnaire was posted on pharmacist social media in several A