This study investigates the characterization and mechanical performance of Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA) mixtures modified with two types of polymers: styrene–butadiene–styrene (SBS) and high-molecular-weight polyethylene (PE). Neat asphalt cement PG 64-16 was modified using a higher content of SBS and PE at concentrations of 6%, 7%, and 8% by weight of asphalt through the dry blending method to produce Highly Modified Asphalts (HiMA). The physical and rheological properties of the modified binders were evaluated using penetration, softening point, rotational viscosity, and dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) tests. Also, their phase compatibility and morphological changes were evaluated using the storage stability testing and scanning electron

Vascular patterns were seen to be a probable identification characteristic of the biometric system. Since then, many studies have investigated and proposed different techniques which exploited this feature and used it for the identification and verification purposes. The conventional biometric features like the iris, fingerprints and face recognition have been thoroughly investigated, however, during the past few years, finger vein patterns have been recognized as a reliable biometric feature. This study discusses the application of the vein biometric system. Though the vein pattern can be a very appealing topic of research, there are many challenges in this field and some improvements need to be carried out. Here, the researchers reviewed

Today, the science of artificial intelligence has become one of the most important sciences in creating intelligent computer programs that simulate the human mind. The goal of artificial intelligence in the medical field is to assist doctors and health care workers in diagnosing diseases and clinical treatment, reducing the rate of medical error, and saving lives of citizens. The main and widely used technologies are expert systems, machine learning and big data. In the article, a brief overview of the three mentioned techniques will be provided to make it easier for readers to understand these techniques and their importance.

Lacing reinforcement plays a critical role in the design and performance of reinforced concrete (RC) slabs by distributing the applied loads more evenly across the slab, ensuring that no specific area of the slab is overloaded. In this study, nine slabs, divided into three groups according to the investigated parameters, were meticulously designed and evaluated to study the interplay between the lacing reinforcement and other key parameters. Each slab was crafted for simple support and was subjected to both static and repeated two-point load tests. The lacing reinforcement had an angle of 45° with various tension and lacing steel. The repeated-tested specimens with lacing reinforcement experienced smaller ductility than those of s

Abstract-Servo motors are important parts of industry automation due to their several advantages such as cost and energy efficiency, simple design, and flexibility. However, the position control of the servo motor is a difficult task because of different factors of external disturbances, nonlinearities, and uncertainties. To tackle these challenges, an adaptive integral sliding mode control (AISMC) is proposed, in which a novel bidirectional adaptive law is constructed to reduce the control chattering. The proposed control has three steps to be designed. Firstly, a full-order integral sliding manifold is designed to improve the servo motor position tracking performance, in which the reaching phase is eliminated to achieve the invariance of

Lacing reinforcement plays a critical role in the design and performance of reinforced concrete (RC) slabs by distributing the applied loads more evenly across the slab, ensuring that no specific area of the slab is overloaded. In this study, nine slabs, divided into three groups according to the investigated parameters, were meticulously designed and evaluated to study the interplay between the lacing reinforcement and other key parameters. Each slab was crafted for simple support and was subjected to both static and repeated two-point load tests. The lacing reinforcement had an angle of 45° with various tension and lacing steel. The repeated-tested specimens with lacing reinforcement experienced smaller ductility than those of s

The aim of the current research is to identify the effect of the active thinking model in the achievement of students of the fifth grade applied science of physics, and their pivotal thinking by verifying the two zero hypotheses, where there is no significant difference at the level of significance (0.05) between the average scores of the experimental group who studied physics using the active thinking model and the average scores of the control group students who studied the same material in the usual way in the achievement test, as well as in the pivotal thinking test. The research sample consisted of (77) students of the applied fifth grade students in two divisions (a) and (b), randomly selected (a) to be the experimental group, and (b)