Elbow stiffness is hard to treat and commonly resulted from trauma or degenerative arthritis. This study aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of using ultrasound therapy in management of stiff elbow joint resulted from several etiological factors. A total number of 42 patients (35 male and 7 female) allocated randomly from the Department of Physiotherapy at Al-yarmouk Teaching Hospital during 2013. Each patient examined physically by physiotherapist taking in consideration the measurement of the joint movement angle using goniometer in flexion and the extension, and the pain score using visual analogue scale (VAS). Ultrasound therapy initiated thrice weekly for two weeks. At the time of entry, the means degree of flexion and extension

Abstract 

This paper presents an intelligent model reference adaptive control (MRAC) utilizing a self-recurrent wavelet neural network (SRWNN) to control nonlinear systems. The proposed SRWNN is an improved version of a previously reported wavelet neural network (WNN). In particular, this improvement was achieved by adopting two modifications to the original WNN structure. These modifications include, firstly, the utilization of a specific initialization phase to improve the convergence to the optimal weight values, and secondly, the inclusion of self-feedback weights to the wavelons of the wavelet layer. Furthermore, an on-line training procedure was proposed to enhance the control per

There is an interesting potential for the use of GFRP-pultruded profiles in hybrid GFRP-concrete structural elements, either for new constructions or for the rehabilitation of existing structures. This paper provides experimental and numerical investigations on the flexural performance of reinforced concrete (RC) specimens composite with encased pultruded GFRP I-sections. Five simply supported composite beams were tested in this experimental program to investigate the static flexural behavior of encased GFRP beams with high-strength concrete. Besides, the effect of using shear studs to improve the composite interaction between the GFRP beam and concrete as well as the effect of web stiffeners of GFRP were explored. Encasing the GFRP

The present work represents a theoretical study for the correction of spherical aberration of an immersion lens of axial symmetry operating under the effect of space charge, represented by a second order function and preassigned magnification conditions in a focusing of high current ion beams. The space charge depends strongly on the value of the ionic beam current which is found to be very effective and represents an important factor effecting the value of spherical aberration .The distribution of the space charge was measured from knowing it's density .It is effect on the trajectory of the ion beam was studied. To obtain the trajectories of the charged particles which satisfy the preassined potential the axial electrostatic potential w

This study investigates the influence of five nanomaterials nano-alumina (NA), nano-silica (NS), nano-titanium (NT), nano-zinc oxide (NZ), and carbon nanotubes (CNT)on enhancing the fatigue resistance of asphalt binders. NA, NS, and NT were incorporated at dosages of 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10%, while NZ and CNT were added at 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5%. A series of physical, rheological, and performance-based tests were conducted, including penetration, softening point, ductility, and rotational viscosity. Based on the outcomes of the overall desirability evaluation, the first three dosages of each nanomaterial were selected for further testing due to their superior workability and binder flexibility. Subsequent investigations included the high-tem

Ziegler and Nichols proposed the well-known Ziegler-Nichols method to tune the coefficients of PID controller. This tuning method is simple and gives fixed values for the coefficients which make PID controller have weak adaptabilities for the model parameters variation and changing in operating conditions. In order to achieve adaptive controller, the Neural Network (NN) self-tuning PID control is proposed in this paper which combines conventional PID controller and Neural Network learning capabilities. The proportional, integral and derivative (K_P, K_I, K_D) gains are self tuned on-line by the NN output which is obtained due to the error value on the desired output of the system under control. The conventio

This research is devoted to design and implement a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system (SCADA) for monitoring and controlling the corrosion of a carbon steel pipe buried in soil. A smart technique equipped with a microcontroller, a collection of sensors and a communication system was applied to monitor and control the operation of an ICCP process for a carbon steel pipe. The integration of the built hardware, LabVIEW graphical programming and PC interface produces an effective SCADA system for two types of control namely: a Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) that supports a closed loop, and a traditional open loop control. Through this work, under environmental temperature of 30°C, an evaluation and comparison were done for