In recent decades, tremendous success has been achieved in the advancement of chemical admixtures for Portland cement concrete. Most efforts have concentrated on improving the properties of concrete and studying the factors that influence on these properties. Since the compressive strength is considered a valuable property and is invariably a vital element of the structural design, especially high early strength development which can be provide more benefits in concrete production, such as reducing construction time and labor and saving the formwork and energy. As a matter of fact, it is influenced as a most properties of concrete by several factors including water-cement ratio, cement type and curing methods employed.
Because of acce

In this work, lead oxide nanoparticles were prepared by laser ablation of lead target immersed in deionized water by using pulsed Nd:YAG laser with laser energy 400 mJ/pulse and different laser pulses. The chemical bonding of lead oxide nps was investigated by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR); surface morphology and optical properties were investigated by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and UV-Visible spectroscopy respectively, and the size effect of lead oxide nanoparticles was studied on its antibacterial action against two types of bacteria Gram-negitive (Escherichia coli) and Gram-positive (Staphylococcusaurus) by diffusion method. The antibacterial property results show that the antibacterial activity of the Lead oxide NPs was

A ‘locking-bolt’ demountable shear connector (LBDSC) is proposed to facilitate the deconstruction and reuse of steel-concrete composite structures, in line with achieving a more sustainable construction design paradigm. The LBDSC is comprised of a grout-filled steel tube and a geometrically compatible partially threaded bolt. The latter has a geometry that ‘locks’ the bolt in compatible holes predrilled on the steel flange and eliminates initial slip and construction tolerance issues. The structural behaviour of the LBDSC is evaluated through nine pushout tests using a horizontal test setup. The effects of the tube thickness, strength of concrete slab, and strength of infilled grout on the shear resistance, initial stiffness, and du

Software-defined networking (SDN) is an innovative network paradigm, offering substantial control of network operation through a network’s architecture. SDN is an ideal platform for implementing projects involving distributed applications, security solutions, and decentralized network administration in a multitenant data center environment due to its programmability. As its usage rapidly expands, network security threats are becoming more frequent, leading SDN security to be of significant concern. Machine-learning (ML) techniques for intrusion detection of DDoS attacks in SDN networks utilize standard datasets and fail to cover all classification aspects, resulting in under-coverage of attack diversity. This paper proposes a hybr

Etoricoxib (EXB) is a highly selective cox-2 inhibitor which belongs to the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). EXB is a class II drug according to the biopharmaceutical classification system (BCS), which possess a very low aqueous solubility in water.  In the present study, many trials were made to improve the aqueous solubility and dissolution rate of EXB by solid dispersion technique.

Eighteenth EXB formulas were formulated as a solid dispersion using a variety of hydrophilic polymers (as carriers)   including poloxamer 407 (PXM 407), poloxamer 188 (PXM 188) and polyethylene glycol 4000 (PEG 4000) at different drug: polymer ratios (1:1, 1:3 and 1:5). These formulas were prepared by two methods; solvent

Big data analysis is essential for modern applications in areas such as healthcare, assistive technology, intelligent transportation, environment and climate monitoring. Traditional algorithms in data mining and machine learning do not scale well with data size. Mining and learning from big data need time and memory efficient techniques, albeit the cost of possible loss in accuracy. We have developed a data aggregation structure to summarize data with large number of instances and data generated from multiple data sources. Data are aggregated at multiple resolutions and resolution provides a trade-off between efficiency and accuracy. The structure is built once, updated incrementally, and serves as a common data input for multiple mining an

This work involved the successful synthesis of three new Schiff base complexes, including Ni(II), Mn(II), and Cu(II) complexes. The Schiff base ligand was created by reacting the malonyldihydrazide molecule with naphthaldehyde, and the final step involved reacting the ligand with the corresponding metallic chloride yielding pure target complexes. FTIR, 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR, mass, and UV/Vis spectroscopies were used to comprehensively characterize the produced complexes. These substances have been employed in this study to photo-stabilize polystyrene (PS) and lessen the photo-degradation of its polymeric chains. Several methods, including FTIR, weight loss, viscosity average molecular weight, light and atomic force microscopy, and energy disper

New isatinic hydrazone Schiff-base ligands, namely furan-2-carboxylic acid (2-oxo-1,2-dihydro-indol- 3-ylidene)-hydrazide (L1), thiophene-2-carboxylic acid (2- oxo-1,2-dihydro-indol-3-ylidene)-hydrazide (L2) and 2-(pyridine-2-yl-hydrazono)-1,2-dihydro-indol-3-one) (L3) are reported. The ligands were prepared by the condensation of furan-2-carboxylic acid hydrazide (L1), thiophene- 2-carboxylic acid hydrazide (L2), and 2-hydrazino pyridine (L3) with isatine. Monomeric complexes were prepared from the reaction of the corresponding metal chloride with the ligands. The ligands and their nine new complexes of the general formulae [M(Ln)2]Cl2 [where M = Co(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II); n = L1, L2 and L3] were characterised by spectroscopic methods (FTI