Risk identification and assessment can be analysed using many risk management tools. Fishbone diagram is one of these techniques which can be employed, for the identification of the causes behind the construction failure, which   has become a phenomenon that often gets repeated in several projects. If these failures are not understood and handled scientifically, it may lead to disputes between the project parties. Additionally, the construction failure also leads to an increase in the project budget, which in turn causes a delay in the completion of the projects. Punching shear in reinforcement slab may be one of the reasons for construction failures. However, there are many doubts about other causes that lead to this failure as w

Two novel demountable shear connectors for precast steel-concrete composite bridges are presented. The connectors use high-strength steel bolts, which are fastened to the steel beam with the aid of a special locking configuration that prevents slip of bolts within their holes. Moreover, the connectors promote accelerated construction and overcome typical construction tolerances issues of precast structures. Most importantly, the connectors allow bridge disassembly, and therefore, can address different bridge deterioration scenarios with minimum disturbance to traffic flow, i.e. (1) precast deck panels can be rapidly uplifted and replaced; (2) connectors can be rapidly removed and replaced; and (3) steel beams can be replaced, while precast

In composite steel-concrete structures, shear connectors in the form of headed steel studs are commonly utilized to transfer longitudinal shear force developed at the interface between the two materials. To overcome the shortcomings of design codes, which frequently understate shear capacity and fail to take advantage of sophisticated computational methods, this paper presents an optimization attempt to estimate the shear strength of headed steel studs utilizing the Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) technique using MATLAB software. Data from 234 experimental tests are employed to identify and highlight key input parameters influencing the shear strength of headed steel studs. These key parameters include concrete compressive strength (f’c

The bubbled slab, a type of reinforced concrete (RC) slab with plastic voids, is an innovative design that employs a biaxial distribution of voiding formers within the slab to reduce the slab’s self-weight while preserving a load-carrying capacity that is approximately comparable to that of solid slabs. This paper presents a new approach for figuring out the effective critical shear perimeter of voided slabs using the reduced-volume concept of concrete. This approach aims to reduce the coefficient of variation of the current design standards, namely the ACI 318-19 and Eurocode 2, for assessing the slabs’ resistance to punching shear. Our experimental program investigated the impact of voiding former patterns and the location of

In the geotechnical and terramechanical engineering applications, precise understandings are yet to be established on the off-road structures interacting with complex soil profiles. Several theoretical and experimental approaches have been used to measure the ultimate bearing capacity of the layered soil, but with a significant level of differences depending on the failure mechanisms assumed. Furthermore, local displacement fields in layered soils are not yet studied well. Here, the bearing capacity of a dense sand layer overlying loose sand beneath a rigid beam is studied under the plain-strain condition. The study employs using digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV) and finite element method (FEM) simulations. In the FEM, an experiment

Breastfeeding (BF) serves as a complete nutritional source for the first six months of infant’s life. Breast milk contains all essential nutrients that necessary for the physiological growth and development of infants. The aim of this study was to compare the physiological growth of infants including weight, height and head circumference who were exclusively breastfed for 6 months and those who were given bottle-fed or mixed fed and to find a percentage of exclusive breastfeeding among mothers who contributed in this study in Sulaimani city. This study was carried out in Sulaimani city/ Kurdistan region of Iraq and the cases were enrolled between the first of October 2018 and first of October 2019. The infants’ weight, height and hea

            Human Interactive Proofs (HIPs) are automatic inverse Turing tests, which are intended to differentiate between people and malicious computer programs. The mission of making good HIP system is a challenging issue, since the resultant HIP must be secure against attacks and in the same time it must be practical for humans. Text-based HIPs is one of the most popular HIPs types. It exploits the capability of humans to recite text images more than Optical Character Recognition (OCR), but the current text-based HIPs are not well-matched with rapid development of computer vision techniques, since they are either vey simply passed or very hard to resolve, thus this motivate that

The application of the test case prioritization method is a key part of system testing intended to think it through and sort out the issues early in the development stage. Traditional prioritization techniques frequently fail to take into account the complexities of big-scale test suites, growing systems and time constraints, therefore cannot fully fix this problem. The proposed study here will deal with a meta-heuristic hybrid method that focuses on addressing the challenges of the modern time. The strategy utilizes genetic algorithms alongside a black hole as a means to create a smooth tradeoff between exploring numerous possibilities and exploiting the best one. The proposed hybrid algorithm of genetic black hole (HGBH) uses the

To ensure that a software/hardware product is of sufficient quality and functionality, it is essential to conduct thorough testing and evaluations of the numerous individual software components that make up the application. Many different approaches exist for testing software, including combinatorial testing and covering arrays. Because of the difficulty of dealing with difficulties like a two-way combinatorial explosion, this brings up yet another problem: time. Using client-server architectures, this research introduces a parallel implementation of the TWGH algorithm. Many studies have been conducted to demonstrate the efficiency of this technique. The findings of this experiment were used to determine the increase in speed and co