Non-prismatic reinforced concrete (RC) beams are widely used for various practical purposes, including enhancing architectural aesthetics and increasing the overall thickness in the support area above the column, which gives high assurance to services that this will not result in the distortion of construction features and can reduce heights. The hollow sections (recess) can also be used for the maintenance of large structural sections and the safe passage of utility lines of water, gas, telecommunications, electricity, etc. They are generally used in large and complex civil engineering works like bridges. This study conducted a numerical study using the commercial finite element software ANSYS version 15 for analysing RC beams, hollow longitudinally sectioned and retrofitted with carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRPs), which were subjected to concentrated vertical loads. The numerical analysis results on the simulated beam models were in excellent agreements with the previous experimental test results. This convergence was confirmed by a statistical analysis, which considered the correlation coefficients, individual arithmetic means and standard deviations for all the calculated deflections of the simulated beam models. A proposed numerical simulation model with the hypotheses can be considered suitable for modelling the behaviours of simple supported non-prismatic RC beams under vertical concentrated loads. The numerical results showed that altering the cross-section from solid to hollow could reduce the load carrying capacities of the beams by up to 53% and increase the corresponding deflections by up to 40%, respectively. Using steel pipes for making recesses could enhance the loading capacity by up to 56%, increase the ductility, and reduce the corresponding deflections by up to 30%, respectively. Finally, it was found that bonding the CFRP sheets in the lower middle tensile areas of the hollow beams could improve the resistance and reduce the deformations by up to 27%. The failure patterns for all the numerical models were shear failure. The cylinder compressive strength could be used as a mechanical parameter for modelling and assessing the structural behaviours of the beam models, as its increase could improve the load carrying capacities and reduce the deflections by 30–50%.
Background: Rituximab is a chimeric IgG1 kappa immunoglobulin that has been genetically modified to incorporate human constant region sequences together with murine light- and heavy-chain variable region sequences. People use it to treat rheumatoid arthritis and certain malignancies. Objective: The study aimed to assess the potential association between the serum levels of Factor I, CD59, interleukins (IL)-6, and interferon-gamma (IFN)-γ and the response to Rituximab treatment in Iraqi rheumatoid arthritis patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the rheumatology center at Baghdad Teaching Hospital. Ninety adult patients who have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and are receiving Rituximab intravenous i
... Show MoreAbstract Kidney stones are one of the most common and most painful medical problems known (1). Nurses assess and monitor patients through diagnosis and treatment and teach patients how to avoid recurrence of stones (2). A descriptive study was conducted on 150 patients diagnosed with recurrent kidney stones, who were attending the out patients consultation urology disease clinics at surgical specialties, Al-Kadhimia, Al-Yarmook, and Al-Karama Teaching Hospital and Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) departments for the period from the 1st of Feb. 2002 through to the end of May 2004. The aim of
A total of 70 pregnant women with toxoplasmosis were studied to evaluate of some immunological aspects. The women were distributed into three groups: 37 women were IgG positive, 18 women were IgM positive and 15 women were IgG and IgM positive as well as 25 healthy women were considered as control group. Serum samples were collected and ELISA method was employed to assess levels of interleukins 4, 6, 10, Interferon gamma-induced protein 10 (IP-10), Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). As compared with control the levels of cytokines were significantly increased in serum of three pregnant women groups with toxoplasmosis and the highest increase was observed in the IgM positi
... Show MoreThe prolactin hormone played role in the many autoimmune disorders. To determine the importance of high levels of prolactin in triggering rheumatoid arthritis, thirty patient's women with hyperprolactinemia aged (20-45) years old have been investigated and compared with twenty five healthy individuals. All the studied groups were carried out to measure the concentration of citrulinated peptide(CCP) by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay( ELISA), antikeratin antibodies (AKA)and antinuclear antibodies(ANA) by indirect fluorescent assay IFAT. There was a significant elevation of CCP concentration compared with control groups (P< 0.05). The percentage of antikeratin antibodies and antinuclear antibodies was (20%, 10%) respectively, and
... Show MoreThe organation ⁄monomer N-naphthylacrylamide (NAA) was prepared; subsequently the synthesized monomer was successfully copolymerized with acrylicacid (AA) and methylacrylate (MA) by free radical technique using dry benzene as solvent and benzoyl peroxide (BPO) as initiator. The overall conversion was kept low (≤ 10% wt/wt) for all studies copolymers samples. The synthesized monomer and copolymers were characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and their thermal properties were studied by DSC and TGA. The copolymers compositions were determined by elemental analysis. Kelen-Tudes and Finmman-Ross graphical procedures were employed to determine the monomers reactivity ratios. The der
... Show MoreThe concept of self is considered one of the important dimensions in the human personality, because feeling of self is an important characteristic in this phase from the psychological point of view.
The first source which forms the concept of self is the physical image, where the built and appearance of the body is considered among the vital matters which determine the person's image of himself/herself.
The current research aims to:
1) Identify the level of physical self concept at the kindergarten children.
2) Identify the level of psychological self concept at the kindergarten children.
3) Iden
... Show MoreThis study was carried out to describe the gene expression of the micro RNA 122a gene with the development of diabetes in Iraq. The difference in gene expression between patients and healthy controls was properly considered. In this study, blood was isolated from 121 individuals divided into two groups as follows: 80 samples of diabetic patients and 41 samples from a healthy control. miRNA was isolated and transformed into cDNA, and the expression of mi122a was measured by qRT-PCR. The researchers looked at the relationship between age and gender and the occurrence of diabetes, as well as how they compared to controls. When comparing the mean gene expression level (Ct) of patient groups to the corresponding Ct means in the control group, th
... Show MoreObjectives: The study aimed to determine the effect of chemotherapy on the life style of patients who
receive chemotherapy.
Methodology: A descriptive study was conducted in Specialty Surgery Teaching Hospital, Al-yamok
Teaching Hospital, and Radiation and Nuclear Medicine Hospital in Baghdad for the period from May
2007 to October 2008. A purposive "non-probability" sample of (loo) patients with bladder cancer
who receive chemotherapy where concerned in this study.
A questionnaire fom was constnicted for the purpose of the study and it was comprised of
two parts. The questiormaire consists of (125) items. They include (1) demographic information (2)
assessment of lifestyle dimension. The content validity of the q