This contribution investigates the effect of the addition of the Hubbard U parameter on the electronic structural and mechanical properties of cubic (C-type) lanthanide sesquioxides (Ln2O3). Calculated Bader's charges confirm the ionic character of Lnsingle bondO bonds in the C-type Ln2O3. Estimated structural parameters (i.e., lattice constants) coincide with analogous experimental values. The calculated band gaps energies at the Ueff of 5 eV for these compounds exhibit a non-metallic character and Ueff of 6.5 eV reproduces the analogous experimental band gap of cerium sesquioxide Ce2O3. We have thoroughly investigated the effect of the O/Ce ratios and the effect of hafnium (Hf) and zirconium (Zr) dopants on the reduction energies of C

High performance self-consolidating concrete HP-SCC is one of the most complex types of concrete which have the capacity to consolidated under its own weight, have excellent homogeneity and high durability. This study aims to focus on the possibility of using industrial by-products like Silica fumes SF in the preparation of HP-SCC enhanced with discrete steel fibers (DSF) and monofilament polypropylene fibers (PPF). From experimental results, it was found that using DSF with volume fraction of 0.50 %; a highly improvements were gained in the mechanical properties of HP-SCC. The compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength and elastic modulus improved about 65.7 %, 70.5 %, 41.7 % and 80.3 % at 28 days age, respectively

A comprehensive practical study of typical mechanical properties of welded Aluminum alloy AA7020-T6 (Al-Mg-Zn), adopting friction stir welding (FSW) technique and conventional metal inert gas (MIG) technique, is well achieved in this work for real comparison purposes. The essences of present output findings were concentrated upon the FSW samples in respect to that MIG ones which can be summarized in the increase of the ultimate tensile strength for FSW was 340 MPa while it was 232 MPa for MIG welding, where it was for base metal 400 MPa. The minimum microhardness value for FSW was recorded at HAZ and it was 133 HV0.05 while it was 70 HV0.05 for MIG weld at the welding metal. The FSW produce 2470 N higher than MIG welding in the bending t

The two-dimensional transient heat conduction through a thermal insulation of temperature dependent thermal properties is investigated numerically using the FVM. It is assumed that this insulating material is initially at a uniform temperature. Then, it is suddenly subjected at its inner surface with a step change in temperature and subjected at its outer surface with a natural convection boundary condition associated with a periodic change in ambient temperature and heat flux of solar radiation. Two thermal insulation materials were selected. The fully implicit time scheme is selected to represent the time discretization. The arithmetic mean thermal conductivity is chosen to be the value of the approximated thermal conductivity at the i

Background: The combination of thermoplastic nylon resin materials and auto polymerizing resin is necessary in some situation for repair and adjustment. This study evaluated shear bond strength between thermoplastic nylon material (flexible) and auto polymerizing acrylic resin subjected to holes and silica coated layer. Materials and Method: Forty five (45) specimens were prepared from flexible acrylic bonded to auto-polymerizing acrylic resin and divided into three groups according to the surface treatments as follows: Group A: 15 specimens of flexible acrylic bonded with cold-cure acrylic by holes. Group B: 15 specimens of flexible acrylic bonded with cold-cure acrylic by silica coated layer. Group C: 15 specimens of flexible acrylic bon

Objective(s): This study aims to evaluate the hardness of two commercially available cold cured acrylic resin material
(Vertex and PAN) when polymerized at different temperature in comparison to those polymerized by conventional
methods in air at 23C ± 5C.
Methodology: Eighty specimens, forty from cold cured acrylic (Vertex Type) and forty from cold cured acrylic (PAN
type) were prepared, flasking and packing procedure were done according to manufacturer direction and divided
according to processing as follow: 20 specimens (10 from Vertex type and 10 from PAN type) were processed in air for
two hours at 23C ± 5C under press (bench curing) as a control, and 60 specimens (30 from Vertex type and 30 from
PAN type) wer

It is well known that petroleum refineries are considered the largest generator of oily sludge which may cause serious threats to the environment if disposed of without treatment. Throughout the present research, it can be said that a hybrid process including ultrasonic treatment coupled with froth floatation has been shown as a green efficient treatment of oily sludge waste from the bottom of crude oil tanks in Al-Daura refinery and able to get high yield of base oil recovery which is 65% at the optimum operating conditions (treatment time = 30 min, ultrasonic wave amplitude = 60 micron, and (solvent: oily sludge) ratio = 4). Experimental results showed that 83% of the solvent used was recovered meanwhile the main water

Cryptography algorithms play a critical role in information technology against various attacks witnessed in the digital era. Many studies and algorithms are done to achieve security issues for information systems. The high complexity of computational operations characterizes the traditional cryptography algorithms. On the other hand, lightweight algorithms are the way to solve most of the security issues that encounter applying traditional cryptography in constrained devices. However, a symmetric cipher is widely applied for ensuring the security of data communication in constraint devices. In this study, we proposed a hybrid algorithm based on two cryptography algorithms PRESENT and Salsa20. Also, a 2D logistic map of a chaotic system is a

Upper limb amputation is a condition that severely limits the amputee’s movement. Patients who have lost the use of one or more of their upper extremities have difficulty performing activities of daily living. To help improve the control of upper limb prosthesis with pattern recognition, non-invasive approaches (EEG and EMG signals) is proposed in this paper and are integrated with machine learning techniques to recognize the upper-limb motions of subjects. EMG and EEG signals are combined, and five features are utilized to classify seven hand movements such as (wrist flexion (WF), outward part of the wrist (WE), hand open (HO), hand close (HC), pronation (PRO), supination (SUP), and rest (RST)). Experiments demonstrate that usin