A potential alternative energy resource to meet energy demands is the vast amount of gas stored in hydrate reserves. However, major challenges in terms of exploration and production surround profitable and effective exploitation of these reserves. The measurement of acoustic velocity is a useful method for exploration of gas hydrate reserves and can be an efficient method to characterize the hydrate-bearing sediments. In this study, the compressional wave velocity (P-wave velocity) of consolidated sediments (Bentheimer) with and without tetrahydrofuran hydrate-bearing pore fillings were measured using the pulse transmission method. The study has found that the P-wave velocity of consolidated sediments increase with increasing hydrate format

This research presents experimental and theoretical investigation of 15 reinforced concrete spliced and nonspliced girder models. Splices of hooked dowels and cast in place joints, with or without strengthening steel plates were used. Post-tensioning had been used to enhance the splice strength for some spliced girders. The ANSYS computer program was used for analyzing the spliced and non-spliced girders. A nonlinear three dimensional element was used to represent all test girders. The experimental results have shown that for a single span girder using steel plate connectors in the splice zone has given a sufficient continuity to resist flexural stresses in this region. The experimental results have shown that the deflection of hooked do

Detection of early clinical keratoconus (KCN) is a challenging task, even for expert clinicians. In this study, we propose a deep learning (DL) model to address this challenge. We first used Xception and InceptionResNetV2 DL architectures to extract features from three different corneal maps collected from 1371 eyes examined in an eye clinic in Egypt. We then fused features using Xception and InceptionResNetV2 to detect subclinical forms of KCN more accurately and robustly. We obtained an area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) of 0.99 and an accuracy range of 97–100% to distinguish normal eyes from eyes with subclinical and established KCN. We further validated the model based on an independent dataset with

Background: Trauma to the anterior teeth is a common injury in young children. Themaxillary incisors being the most affected. Although root fractures are rare, theydo occur and were previously and often considered hopeless and were extracted.The time between the injury and the initiation of treatment, level of the fractureline, and stage of root development are some criteria to be considered whenchoosing a treatment approach for a complicated tooth fracture. This case reportdescribes the management of a traumatized immature maxillary central incisorwith Elise class IV fracture with vertical oblique subgingival fracture of the root.Materials and method: Apexification was carried out using biodentine followed byremoval of the fracture

Background: Dental calculus is mineralized dental plaque formed on teeth and dental prosthesis surfaces in the oral cavity. Urinary stone is a crystal aggregation formed in urinary system due to minerals saturation present in urine. The structure of dental calculus is similar to that of urinary stone. Objective: To assess oral hygiene and gingival status in patients with urinary stone. And compared with healthy subjects. Patients and Methods: Sixty participants, 25-40 years, were involved in this study who were divided into study and control group. The study group involved patients with urinary stone while the control group involved healthy subjects. Clinical parameters including plaque, calculus and gingival indices were recorded for al

In this paper, the Active Suspension System (ASS) of road vehicles was investigated. In addition to the conventional stiffness and damper, the proposed ASS includes a fuzzy controller, a hydraulic actuator, and an LVDT position sensor. Furthermore, this paper presents a nonlinear model describing the operation of the hydraulic actuator as a part of the suspension system. Additionally, the detailed steps of the fuzzy controller design for such a system are introduced. A MATLAB/Simulink model was constructed to study the proposed ASS at different profiles of road irregularities. The results have shown that the proposed ASS has superior performance compared to the conventional Passive Suspension System (PSS), where the body displacemen

Geographic information system (GIS) is utilized in a variety of tasks such as, resource management, urban planning, emergency planning in case of accident, and rapid response etc. The aim of this study is to produce a digital map with the aid of GIS and a survey data. A survey data is conducted with Total Station technique on sanitary planning positions. The campus of Baghdad University is chosen to test the execution and accuracy of the results for sewer manholes locations. During the field survey, Total Station (Nikon Nivo) is used to identify the 3-D coordinates for each location. Finally, Geographical Information System (GIS) are utilized to present the digital map of the network sewer pipe line to the end users. Although Geographic Inf

Background: Cell adhesion molecules are protein entities that are located on the cell surface. The vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) expression is related to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) with dyslipidemia. Objectives: To determine the levels of VCAM-1 and ICAM-1 in T2DM patients with dyslipidemia and to explore the relationship between VCAM-1 and ICAM-1 and the development of dyslipidemia in T2DM patients. Patients and methods: The study included 150 individuals with an age range of (35-55) years. Patients with diabetes for more than 5 years were excluded. Fifty healthy individuals constituted Group 1 (G1), fifty patients with T2DM constituted Group 2 (G2), and fifty T2DM p