Non-prismatic reinforced concrete (RC) beams are widely used for various practical purposes, including enhancing architectural aesthetics and increasing the overall thickness in the support area above the column, which gives high assurance to services that this will not result in the distortion of construction features and can reduce heights. The hollow sections (recess) can also be used for the maintenance of large structural sections and the safe passage of utility lines of water, gas, telecommunications, electricity, etc. They are generally used in large and complex civil engineering works like bridges. This study conducted a numerical study using the commercial finite element software ANSYS version 15 for analysing RC beams, hol

A new laboratory study conducted on stepped spillways in order to investigate their efficiency of dissipating flow energy. All previous study on stepped spillway indicated that the flow energy dissipation decreased as increasing in discharge. Increasing in the step numbers and the spillway slope led to energy dissipation decrease. In this study, an experimental attempt to increase energy dissipation at variable discharges was performed on stepped spillway and that leads to decreasing the cost of initiating the stilling basin or may be ignoring it. Five spillways were constructed from concrete and tested to investigate and compare among them. Three were roughed by gravel with different size for each one, one of them was s

The paper presents a highly accurate power flow solution, reducing the possibility of ending at local minima, by using Real-Coded Genetic Algorithm (RCGA) with system reduction and restoration. The proposed method (RCGA) is modified to reduce the total computing time by reducing the system in size to that of the generator buses, which, for any realistic system, will be smaller in number, and the load buses are eliminated. Then solving the power flow problem for the generator buses only by real-coded GA to calculate the voltage phase angles, whereas the voltage magnitudes are specified resulted in reduced computation time for the solution. Then the system is restored by calculating the voltages of the load buses in terms

The expansion in water projects implementations in Turkey and Syria becomes of great concern to the workers in the field of water resources management in Iraq. Such expansion with the absence of bi-lateral agreement between the three riparian countries of Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; Turkey, Syria and Iraq, is expected to lead to a substantially reduction of water inflow to the territories of Iraq. Accordingly, this study consists of two parts: first part is aiming to study the changes of the water inflow to the territory of Iraq, at Turkey and Syria borders, from 1953 to 2009; the results indicated that the annual mean inflow in Tigris River was decreased from 677 m³/sec to 526 m³/sec, after operating Turkey reserv

Background: Obesity is considered an important risk factor for periodontal disease. It has been reported that reactive oxygen species linking both diseases, systemic melatonin supplementation as antioxidant therapy, was addressed as an adjuvant to scaling and root surface debridement (SRP) to enhance the treatment of periodontitis. Objective: To investigate the efficacy of systemic melatonin administration in periodontitis-obese patients as an adjuvant to scaling and root surface debridement (SRP). Methods: A randomized clinical trial was conducted at a dental-specialized center. Eighty subjects were included and allocated into group-I: twenty periodontium-healthy, normal-weight people; group-II: 30 obese patients with stage-III tre

This paper introduces a non-conventional approach with multi-dimensional random sampling to solve a cocaine abuse model with statistical probability. The mean Latin hypercube finite difference (MLHFD) method is proposed for the first time via hybrid integration of the classical numerical finite difference (FD) formula with Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) technique to create a random distribution for the model parameters which are dependent on time [Formula: see text]. The LHS technique gives advantage to MLHFD method to produce fast variation of the parameters’ values via number of multidimensional simulations (100, 1000 and 5000). The generated Latin hypercube sample which is random or non-deterministic in nature is further integ

        In real situations all observations and measurements are not exact numbers but more or less non-exact, also called fuzzy. So, in this paper, we use approximate non-Bayesian computational methods to estimate inverse Weibull parameters and reliability function with fuzzy data. The maximum likelihood and moment estimations are obtained as non-Bayesian estimation. The maximum likelihood estimators have been derived numerically based on two iterative techniques namely “Newton-Raphson” and the “Expectation-Maximization” techniques. In addition, we provide compared numerically through Monte-Carlo simulation study to obtained estimates of the parameters and reliability function i

A vascular necrosis (AVN) is defined as cellular death of bone components due to interruption of the blood supply; the bone structures then collapse, resulting in bone destruction, pain, and loss of joint function. AVN is associated with numerous conditions and usually involves the epiphysis of long bones, such as the femoral head. In clinical practice, AVN is most commonly encountered in the hip. Early diagnosis and appropriate intervention can delay the need for joint replacement. However, most patients present late in the disease course. Without treatment, the process is almost always progressive, leading to joint destruction within 5 years. Treatment of a vascular necrosis depends mainly on early diagnosis which mainly based on clinical

  Malondialdehyde (MDA) is one of many low molecular weight end-products of lipid peroxidation; it is as an index of lipid peroxidation. Uric acid is one of the endogenous oxidant-antioxidant paradoxes.        The aim of this study is to evaluate the levels of serum MDA and uric acid in smokers and non smokers.  This study was carried out from January to July 2012 on (30) smokers and (30) non smokers. Serum MDA level was measured spectrophotometrically using thiobarbituric acid method, whereas serum uric acid was measured using enzymatic colorimetric method.      The results of the study revealed a significant increase (P<0.001) in uric acid value in smokers subject