Test results of six half-scale reinforced concrete flat plates connections with an opening in the vicinity of the column are reported. The test specimens represent a portion of a slab bounded by the lines of contraflexure around the column. The tests were designed to study the effect of openings on the punching shear behavior of the slab-column connections. The test parameters were the location and the size of the openings. One specimen had no opening and the remaining five had various arrangements of openings around the column. All specimens were cast with normal density concrete of approximately 30 MPa compressive strength. The openings in the specimens were square, with the sides parallel to the sides of the column. Three sizes of ope

The present study was done to prepare a gastroretentive floating tablet of captopril (CAP) which is an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (ACE-inhibitor) used in the treatment of hypertension and heart failure. CAP is mainly absorbed from the proximal intestine and to a lesser extent from the stomach, also CAP stability decreases as the pH raised above 1.2 and this makes it a suitable candidate for floating dosage form.Effervescent floating tablets of CAP were prepared in order to prolong the gastric residence time and increase the bioavailability of the drug. The floating tablets of CAP were prepared by direct compression and wet granulation technique, using the polymer hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC) as the primary retarding p

Strengthening of composite beams is highly needed to upgrade the capacities of existing beams. The strengthening methods can be classified as active or passive techniques. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to provide detailed FE simulations for strengthened and unstrengthened steel–concrete composite beams at the sagging and hogging moment regions with and without profiled steel sheeting. The developed models were verified against experimental results from the literature. The verified models were used to present comparisons between the effect of using external post-tensioning and CFRP laminates as strengthening techniques. Applying external post-tensioning at the sagging moment regions is more effective because of the e

It is easy to talk about democracy, but it is difficult to practice. We talk about postmodernism, but difficult to be embodied in the ground. Yet, the age of democracy and modernity at the same time prompted the researcher to try to find a media concept for it. It does not mean that this concept has not yet formed. But the rooting of democracy and the approaching of states and groups towards it, made it necessary to by studied again.

The relationship between democracy and the media has made them look like one concept. The existence of one is linked to the existence of the other. The reality is only a linguistic formulation, but the social and cultural aspect is related to democracy origin

The economy of a city has an important role not only in its establishment but also in its development. This is quite clear in the city of Baghdad throughout its history since its building in 762 A.D. In addition, most of its problems that the city is suffering from are basically related to not giving enough importance to the economic factors in the master planning of Baghdad since 1950’s. This may explain the failiars of master plans in dealing with the actual population growth and the city's inability to absorb such increases and interrelated and diverse activities which are negatively reflected on the economic variables particularly the effect on the land values, and the strong competitions amongst the land uses without previ

The analysis of the classic principal components are sensitive to the outliers where they are calculated from the characteristic values and characteristic vectors of correlation matrix or variance Non-Robust, which yields an incorrect results in the case of these data contains the outliers values. In order to treat this problem, we resort to use the robust methods where there are many robust methods Will be touched to some of them.

   The robust measurement estimators include the measurement of direct robust estimators for characteristic values by using characteristic vectors without relying on robust estimators for the   variance and covariance matrices. Also the analysis of the princ

The present study investigates the use of intensifiers as linguisticdevices employed by Charles Dickens in Hard Times. For ease of analysis, the data are obtained by a rigorous observation of spontaneously occurring intensifiers in the text. The study aims at exploring the pragmatic functions and aesthetic impact of using intensifiers in Hard Times.The current study is mainly descriptive analytical and is based on analyzing and interpreting the use of intensifiers in terms ofHolmes (1984) andCacchiani’smodel (2009). From the findings, the novelist overuses intensifiers to the extent that 280 intensifiers are used in the text. These intensifiers(218) are undistinguished

         This paper examines the use of one of the most common linguistic devices which is hyperbole. It shows how hyperbolic devices are used as an aspect of exaggeration or overstatement for an extra effect in which the speaker can use hyperbole to add something extra to a situation in order to exaggerate his idea or speech. It is, like other figures of speech, used to express a negative or positive attitude of a specific unit of language. Thus, this paper is set against a background of using hyperbole concerning two main fields (advertisements and propaganda). So, the use of hyperbole will be implied by analyzing them concerning their meaning) literal and non-literal).  Methodology of this

As the process of  estimate for model and variable selection significant is a crucial process in the semi-parametric modeling At the beginning of the modeling process often At there are many explanatory variables to Avoid the loss of any explanatory elements may be important as a result , the selection of significant variables become necessary , so the process of variable selection is not intended to simplifying  model complexity explanation , and also predicting. In this research was to use some of the semi-parametric methods (LASSO-MAVE , MAVE and The proposal method (Adaptive LASSO-MAVE) for variable selection and estimate semi-parametric single index model (SSIM) at the same time .

Language plays a major role in all aspects of life. Communication is regarded as the most important of these aspects, as language is used on a daily basis by humanity either in written or spoken forms. Language is also regarded as the main factor of exchanging peoples’ cultures and traditions and in handing down these attributes from generation to generation. Thus, language is a fundamental element in identifying peoples’ ideologies and traditions in the past and the present. Despite these facts, the feminist linguists have objections to some of the language structures, demonstrating that language is gender biased to men. That is, language promotes patriarchal values. This pushed towards developing extensive studies to substantiate s