Under-reamed piles defined by having one or more bulbs have the potential for sizeable major sides over conventional straight-sided piles, most of the studies on under-reamed piles have been conducted on the experimental side, while theoretical studies, such as the finite element method, have been mainly confined to conventional straight-sided piles. On the other hand, although several laboratory and experimental studies have been conducted to study the behavior of under-reamed piles, few numer­ical studies have been carried out to simulate the piles' performance. In addition, there is no research to compare and evaluate the behavior of these piles under dynamic loading. Therefore, this study aimed to numerically investigate bearing capaci

A number of compression schemes were put forward to achieve high compression factors with high image quality at a low computational time. In this paper, a combined transform coding scheme is proposed which is based on discrete wavelet (DWT) and discrete cosine (DCT) transforms with an added new enhancement method, which is the sliding run length encoding (SRLE) technique, to further improve compression. The advantages of the wavelet and the discrete cosine transforms were utilized to encode the image. This first step involves transforming the color components of the image from RGB to YUV planes to acquire the advantage of the existing spectral correlation and consequently gaining more compression. DWT is then applied to the Y, U and V col

<p>Generally, The sending process of secret information via the transmission channel or any carrier medium is not secured. For this reason, the techniques of information hiding are needed. Therefore, steganography must take place before transmission. To embed a secret message at optimal positions of the cover image under spatial domain, using the developed particle swarm optimization algorithm (Dev.-PSO) to do that purpose in this paper based on Least Significant Bits (LSB) using LSB substitution. The main aim of (Dev. -PSO) algorithm is determining an optimal paths to reach a required goals in the specified search space based on disposal of them, using (Dev.-PSO) algorithm produces the paths of a required goals with most effi

In this work, results from an optical technique (laser speckle technique) for measuring surface roughness was done by using statistical properties of speckle pattern from the point of view of computer image texture analysis. Four calibration relationships were used to cover wide range of measurement with the same laser speckle technique. The first one is based on intensity contrast of the speckle, the second is based on analysis of speckle binary image,  the third is on size of speckle pattern spot, and the latest one is based on characterization of the energy feature of the gray level co-occurrence matrices for the speckle pattern. By these calibration relationships surface roughness of an object surface can be evaluated within the

In this paper, a robust invisible watermarking system for digital video encoded by MPEG-4 is presented. The proposed scheme provides watermark hidden by embedding a secret message (watermark) in the sprite area allocated in reference frame (I-frame). The proposed system consists of two main units: (i) Embedding unit and (ii) Extraction unit. In the embedding unit, the system allocates the sprite blocks using motion compensation information. The allocated sprite area in each I–frame is used as hosting area for embedding watermark data. In the extraction unit, the system extracts the watermark data in order to check authentication and ownership of the video. The watermark data embedding method is Blocks average modulation applied on RGB dom

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the anesthetic effectiveness of a buccal infiltration technique combined with local massage (using 2% lidocaine) in the extraction of mandibular premolars to be utilized as an alternative to the conventional inferior alveolar nerve block.

The research aims at the identity of the accounting information and its characteristics, and then to study the possibility of using accounting information in rationalizing the decisions of capital expenditure. The study relied upon the descriptive analytical approach it is suitable to the nature of this study, the hypotheses of the study were tested by using a number of statistical methods by relying on statistical package program (SPSS), and the research concluded that the companies listed in Khartoum Stock Exchange using accounting information in the comparison between investment alternatives available and estimating the number of years required to recover of the investment cost, the challenges that cause weakness in using the

Background: Insufficient sleep due to excessive media use is linked to decrease physical activity, poor nutrition, obesity, and decreased overall health-related quality of life.

Objectives: To assess the effect of using the internet and social media on the sleep of 4th-stage secondary school students.

Subjects and Methods: Cross-sectional study with the analytic element; for 500 secondary school students, obtained by choosing two schools randomly from each of the six educational directorates, by using a structured questionnaire.

Result: Secondary scho

Wastewater recycling for non-potable uses has gained significant attention to mitigate the high pressure on freshwater resources. This requires using a sustainable technique to treat natural municipal wastewater as an alternative to conventional methods, especially in arid and semi-arid rural areas. One of the promising techniques applied to satisfy the objective of wastewater reuse is the constructed wetlands (CWs) which have been used extensively in most countries worldwide through the last decades. The present study introduces a significant review of the definition, classification, and components of CWs, identifying the mechanisms controlling the removal process within such units. Vertical, horizontal, and hybrid CWs

In solar-thermal adsorption/desorption processes, it is not always possible to preserve equal operating times for the adsorption/desorption modes due to the fluctuating supply nature of the source which largely affects the system’s operating conditions. This paper seeks to examine the impact of adopting unequal adsorption/desorption times on the entire cooling performance of solar adsorption systems. A cooling system with silica gel–water as adsorbent-adsorbate pair has been built and tested under the climatic condition of Iraq. A mathematical model has been established to predict the system performance, and the results are successfully validated via the experimental findings. The results show that, the system can be operational