Concrete filled steel tube (CFST) columns are being popular in civil engineering due to their superior structural characteristics. This paper investigates enhancement in axial behavior of CFST columns by adding steel fibers to plain concrete that infill steel tubes. Four specimens were prepared: two square columns (100*100 mm) and two circular columns (100 mm in diameter). All columns were 60 cm in length. Plain concrete mix and concrete reinforced with steel fibers were used to infill steel tube columns. Ultimate axial load capacity, ductility and failure mode are discussed in this study. The results showed that the ultimate axial load capacity of CFST columns reinforced with steel fibers increased by 28% and 20 % for circular and square c

 Inflammatory bowel disease includes both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is a chronic, progressive relapsing disease of gastrointestinal tract that require long-term treatment or maintenance therapy. Taking patient’s beliefs about the prescribed medication in consideration had been shown to be an important factor that affects compliance of the patient in whom having positive beliefs is a prerequisite for better compliance. The aim of the current study was to investigate and assess beliefs about medicines among a sample of Iraqi patients with inflammatory bowel disease and to determine possible association between these beliefs and some patient-specific factors.

This study is a cross-sectional study carried out o

The present study experimentally and numerically investigated the impact behavior of composite reinforced concrete (RC) beams with the pultruded I-GFRP and I-steel beams. Eight specimens of two groups were cast in different configurations. The first group consisted of four specimens and was tested under static load to provide reference results for the second group. The four specimens in the second group were tested first under impact loading and then static loading to determine the residual static strengths of the impacted specimens. The test variables considered the type of encased I-section (steel and GFRP), presence of shear connectors, and drop height during impact tests. A mass of 42.5 kg was dropped on the top surface at the m

Detection of early clinical keratoconus (KCN) is a challenging task, even for expert clinicians. In this study, we propose a deep learning (DL) model to address this challenge. We first used Xception and InceptionResNetV2 DL architectures to extract features from three different corneal maps collected from 1371 eyes examined in an eye clinic in Egypt. We then fused features using Xception and InceptionResNetV2 to detect subclinical forms of KCN more accurately and robustly. We obtained an area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) of 0.99 and an accuracy range of 97–100% to distinguish normal eyes from eyes with subclinical and established KCN. We further validated the model based on an independent dataset with

BACKGROUND: Burkholderia cepacia adhesion and biofilm formation onto abiotic surfaces is an important feature of clinically relevant isolates. The in vitro biofilm formation of B. cepacia onto coated indwelling urinary catheters (IDCs) with moxifloxacin has not been previously investigated. OBJECTIVES: To examine the ability of B. cepacia to form biofilms on IDCs and the effect of coating IDCs with moxifloxacin on biofilm formation by B. cepacia in vitro. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The adhesion of B. cepacia to coated and uncoated IDCs with moxifloxacin was evaluated. Pieces of IDCs were coated with moxifloxacin (adsorption method). The spectrophotometric method was used to check moxifloxacin leaching into tubes. Coated and uncoated tubes were i

Malaysia's growing population and industrialisation have increased solid waste accumulation in landfills, leading to a rise in leachate production. Leachate, a highly contaminated liquid from landfills, poses environmental risks and affects water quality. Conventional leachate treatments are costly and time-consuming due to the need for additional chemicals. Therefore, the Electrocoagulation process could be used as an alternative method. Electrocoagulation is an electrochemical method of treating water by eliminating impurities by applying an electric current. In the present study, the optimisation of contaminant removal was investigated using Response Surface Methodology. Three parameters were considered for optimisation: the curr

The current study includes 144 samples were 106 bacterial samples belonging to the clinical sources, 38 bacterial samples belonging to the environmental sources to investigate the presence of bacteria P. aeruginosa. The results of diagnosis clarified that there are 45 bacterial isolates belonging to the bacterium P. aeruginosa The examination of the sensitivity of all bacterial isolates was done for elected 45 isolation towards the 11 antibiotic by spread method on the dishes. The results showed that the resistance ratio toward Cefixim, Cefotaxim, Tetracycline, Amoxicillin, Cloxacillin, Methicillin, Erythromycin and Naldixic acid was 77.7, 73.3, 84.4, 82.2, 80, 77.7, 77.7 and 73.3 respectively, While most isolates were sensitive to all o

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways in which many cells and cellular elements play a role. The treatment guidelines recommend theuse of a second controller drug in addition to medium doses of inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) rather than the use of high doses ICS alone in the treatment of moderate-severe persistent asthma. This study was conducted to compare the clinical efficacy and safety of three treatment regimens in Iraqi patients with moderate-severe persistent asthma.The study included three groups; each group included 15 patients. Patients were administered beclomethasone inhaler alone 1500-2000 μg/day, beclomethasone inhaler 750-1000 μg/day plus oral controlled release aminophylline tablets 450 mg/day or