A novel demountable shear connector for precast steel-concrete composite bridges is presented. The connector uses high-strength steel bolts, which are fastened to the top flange of the steel beam with the aid of a special locking nut configuration that prevents bolts from slipping within their holes. Moreover, the connector promotes accelerated construction and overcomes the typical construction tolerance issues of precast structures. Most importantly, the connector allows bridge disassembly. Therefore, it can address different bridge deterioration scenarios with minimum disturbance to traffic flow including the following: (1) precast deck panels can be rapidly uplifted and replaced; (2) connectors can be rapidly removed and replaced; and (

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become one of the most common chronic liver diseases worldwide, which characterized by steatosis, inflammation, and fibrosis. The aim of this designed study is to evaluate the ability of guggulsterone to prevent high fat diet induced steatohepatitis in mice. Five groups of male mice were selected and treated as the following: group I, mice had free access to standard commercial diet and considered as control group, group II, mice were fed a specially formulated high-fat diet for 12 weeks to induce non-alcoholic liver disease, while groups III, IV and V the mice were administered high fat diet containing guggulsterone at 500, 1000 and 2000 ppm concentration respectively for 12 weeks. Maintaini

Electrochemical Grinding (ECG) process is a mechanically assisted electrochemical process for material processing. The process is able to successfully machine electrically conducting harder materials at faster rate with improved surface finish and dimensional control. This research studies the effect of applied current, electrolyte concentration, spindle speed and the gap between workpiece and tool on hardness and material removal rate during electrochemical grinding for stainless steel 316. The characteristic features of the electrochemical grinding process are explored through Taguchi-design-based experimental studies. The better hardness can be obtained at 10 A of the current, 150 g/l of the electrolyte concentration, 0.3 mm of gap an

Today's smart engineering systems are often faced with situations that are structurally uncertain, informationally incomplete, and non-probabilistically ambiguous, especially for electrical systems. ARDL models are limited in applications in complex computational environments where the uncertainty is due to vagueness, not randomness, and assume the exact parametric representation of the models and the structure of the stochastic uncertainty. This study proposes a new soft-computing paradigm using Fuzzy Autoregressive Distributed Lag (FARDL) models and compares the performance of the Linear Programming (LP) and Quadratic Programming (QP) estimation algorithms using large-scale parallel Monte Carlo simulations to overcome these drawba

Salt stress negatively affects germination and seedling growth. Sorghum cultivars (Bohuth70, Inqath and Rabeh), seed soaking in dry yeast extract (3, 6 and 9 g l-1) in addition to dry seeds and electrical conductivity (4, 10 and 16 dS m-1) were studied. Traits of germination ratio at first and final counts, lengths of radicle and plumule, seedling dry weight and seedling vigour index were studied. The cultivar of Bohuth70 and concentration of yeast extract (9 g l-1) were superior at all studied traits, while all traits values were reduced with increased saline stress. The combination (Bohuth70×9×4) was superior to most other treatments at first and final counts, radicle length and seedling dry weight, while superiority of plumule length a

This paper discusses an optimal path planning algorithm based on an Adaptive Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm (AMOPSO) for two case studies. First case, single robot wants to reach a goal in the static environment that contain two obstacles and two danger source. The second one, is improving the ability for five robots to reach the shortest way. The proposed algorithm solves the optimization problems for the first case by finding the minimum distance from initial to goal position and also ensuring that the generated path has a maximum distance from the danger zones. And for the second case, finding the shortest path for every robot and without any collision between them with the shortest time. In ord

Background: Folic acid (vitamin B9) is one of the important vitamins that are necessary for growth and development of the embryo and preventing the occurrence of congenital malformations which are one of the important health problems in the developing countries and the world as it has a direct effect on the affected babies, their families and the community. It affects an estimated 3% of newborns worldwide.Periconceptional supplementation with folic acid (before conception and during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy) was found to decrease many important types of these anomalies. Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of periconceptional use of folic acid in pregnant women who are attending antenatal

   The study involved the removal of acidity from free fatty acid via the esterification reaction of oleic acid with ethanol. The reaction was done in a batch reactor using commercial 13X zeolite as a catalyst. The effects of temperatures (40 to 70 °C) and reaction time (up to 120 minutes) were studied using 6:1 mole ratio of pure ethanol to oleic acid and 5 wt. % of the catalyst. The results showed that acid removed increased with increasing temperature and reaction time. Also, the acidity removal rises sharply during the first reaction period and then changes slightly afterward. The highest acidity removal value was 67 % recorded at 110 minutes and 70 °C. An apparent homogeneous reversible reaction kinetic model has been proposed a

 

This work targeted studying organogel as a potential floating system. Organgel has an excellent viscoelastic properties, floating system posses a depot property.  Different formulations of 12-hydroxyoctadecanoic acid (HOA) in sesame oil were gelled and selecting F1, F3 and F5 HOA organogels for various examinations: tabletop rheology, optical microscopy, and oscillatory rheology studies. Also, the floating properties studies were conducted at in vitro and in-vivo levels. Lastly, the in-vitro release study using cinnarizine (CN) was to investigate the organogel depot property. Based on the results, the selected concentrations of HOA in sesame oil organogels showed temperature transitions fr