This paper presents the results of experimental investigation carried out on concrete model piles to study the behaviour of defective piles. This was achieved by employing non-destructive tests using ultrasonic waves. It was found that the reduction in pile stiffness factor is found to be about (26%) when the defect ratio increased from (5%) to (15%). The modulus of elasticity reduction factor as well as the dynamic modulus of elasticity reduction factor increase with the defect ratio

Cloud storage provides scalable and low cost resources featuring economies of scale based on cross-user architecture. As the amount of data outsourced grows explosively, data deduplication, a technique that eliminates data redundancy, becomes essential. The most important cloud service is data storage. In order to protect the privacy of data owner, data are stored in cloud in an encrypted form. However, encrypted data introduce new challenges for cloud data deduplication, which becomes crucial for data storage. Traditional deduplication schemes cannot work on encrypted data. Existing solutions of encrypted data deduplication suffer from security weakness. This paper proposes a combined compressive sensing and video deduplication to maximize

The paper aims to propose Teaching Learning based Optimization (TLBO) algorithm to solve 3-D packing problem in containers. The objective which can be presented in a mathematical model is optimizing the space usage in a container. Besides the interaction effect between students and teacher, this algorithm also observes the learning process between students in the classroom which does not need any control parameters. Thus, TLBO provides the teachers phase and students phase as its main updating process to find the best solution. More precisely, to validate the algorithm effectiveness, it was implemented in three sample cases. There was small data which had 5 size-types of items with 12 units, medium data which had 10 size-types of items w

The clayey soils have the capability to swell and shrink with the variation in moisture content. Soil stabilization is a well-known technique, which is implemented to improve the geotechnical properties of soils. The massive quantities of waste materials are resulting from modern industry methods create disposal hazards in addition to environmental problems. The steel industry has a waste that can be used with low strength and weak engineering properties soils. This study is carried out to evaluate the effect of steel slag (SS) as a by-product of the geotechnical properties of clayey soil. A series of laboratory tests were conducted on natural and stabilized soils. SS was added by 0, 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20% to the soil.

In this paper, we propose an approach to estimate the induced potential, which is generated by swift heavy ions traversing a ZnO thin film, via an energy loss function (ELF). This induced potential is related to the projectile charge density, ρq(k) and is described by the extended Drude dielectric function. At zero momentum transfer, the resulting ELF exhibits good agreement with the previously reported results. The ELF, obtained by the extended Drude model, displays a realistic behavior over the Bethe ridge. It is observed that the induced potential relies on the heavy ion velocity and charge state q. Further, the numerical results show that the induced potential for neutral H, as projectile, dominates when the heavy ion velocity is less

Diyala River is a tributary of Tigris River, it is one of the important rivers in Iraq. It covers a total distance of 445 km (275 miles). 32600 km²is the area that drains by Diyala River between Iraqi-Iranian borders. This research aims to evaluate the water quality index WQI of Diyala River, where three stations were chosen along the river. These stations are D12 at Jalawlaa City at the beginning of Diyala River, the second station is D15 at Baaquba City at the mid distance of the river, and the third station is D17 which is the last station before the confluence of Diyala River with Tigris River at Baghdad city. Bhargava method was used in order to evaluate the water quality index for both irrigation and drink

Facial recognition has been an active field of imaging science. With the recent progresses in computer vision development, it is extensively applied in various areas, especially in law enforcement and security. Human face is a viable biometric that could be effectively used in both identification and verification. Thus far, regardless of a facial model and relevant metrics employed, its main shortcoming is that it requires a facial image, against which comparison is made. Therefore, closed circuit televisions and a facial database are always needed in an operational system. For the last few decades, unfortunately, we have experienced an emergence of asymmetric warfare, where acts of terrorism are often committed in secluded area with no