A novel demountable shear connector is proposed to link a concrete slab to steel sections in a way that resulting steel-concrete composite floor is demountable, i.e. it can be easily dismantled at the end of its service life. The proposed connectors consist of two parts: the first part is a hollow steel tube with internal threads at its lower end. The second part is a compatible partially threaded bolted stud. After linking the stud to the steel section, the hollow steel tube can be fastened over the threaded stud, which create a complete demountable shear connector. The connector is suitable for use in both composite bridges and buildings, and using cast in-situ slabs, precast solid slabs, or hollow-core precast slabs. A series of push-off

Two groups of chronic hepatitis B and C virus patients were divided into Pre-treated patients (25 CHB patients with positive HBs Ag for more than 6 months and 40 CHC patients), and post-treated patients [12 CHB patients (4, 6, and 2 were treated with lamivudine, IFN-? and combination of LMV + IFN-? respectively), and 27 patients for CHC (3, 13 and 11 patients were treated with Ribavirin, IFN-? and combination therapy (RBV+ IFN-?) respectively].These patients were followed up for 6 months. By using ELISA technique, levels of IL-6, IL-10, IFN-? and TNF-? were measured in vivo and in vitro (supernatant of PBMCs stimulated with PHA) and compared with healthy control. The mean level of IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-? in CHB patients showed significant dif

Abstract

The human mind knew the philosophy and logic in the ancient times, and the history afterwards, while the semiotics concept appeared in the modern time, and became a new knowledge field like the other knowledge fields. It deals, in its different concepts and references, with the processes that lead to and reveals the meaning through what is hidden in addition to what is disclosed. It is the result of human activity in its pragmatic and cognitive dimensions together. The semiotic token concept became a knowledge key to access all the study, research, and  investigation fields, due to its ability of description, explanation, and dismantling. The paper is divided into two sections preceded by a the

In this study, chemical oxidation was employed for the synthesis of polypyrrole (PPy) nanofiber. Furthermore, PPy has been subjected to treatment using nanoparticles of neodymium oxide (Nd2O3), which were produced and added in a certain ratio. The inquiry centered on the structural characteristics of the blend of polypyrrole and neodymium oxide after their combination. The investigation utilises X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR, and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) for PPy, 10%, 30%, and 50% by volume of Nd2O3. According to the electrochemical tests, it has been noted that the nanocomposites exhibit a substantial amount of pseudocapacitive activity.

Visceral leishmaniosis is one of the most fatal old-world neglected disease with estimated 90 thousand worldwide cases emerge each year. In Iraq, the cutaneous and visceral form are endemic but available chemotherapies are either toxic with diverse side effects, expensive available drugs or parasite …

An oxidative polymerization approach was used to create polyaniline (PANI) and Fe₂O₃ /PANI nanoparticle combination. Various characterization approaches were used to investigate the structural, morphological, and Fe₂O₃ /PANI nanoparticle structures. The findings support the synthesis of polycrystalline nanoparticle PANI and Fe₂O₃ /PANI spherical nanoparticle composites. Gram-positive bacteria are tested for antibacterial activity. Various quantities of Nanoparticles of PANI and Fe₂O₃ /PANI nanoparticle composites were used to test Staph-aureus and gram-negative bacteria, E-coli, and candida species. PANI has antibacterial properties against all microo

Using watermarking techniques and digital signatures can better solve the problems of digital images transmitted on the Internet like forgery, tampering, altering, etc. In this paper we proposed invisible fragile watermark and MD-5 based algorithm for digital image authenticating and tampers detecting in the Discrete Wavelet Transform DWT domain. The digital image is decomposed using 2-level DWT and the middle and high frequency sub-bands are used for watermark and digital signature embedding. The authentication data are embedded in number of the coefficients of these sub-bands according to the adaptive threshold based on the watermark length and the coefficients of each DWT level. These sub-bands are used because they a