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 tests with different parameters including wall thickness of steel tube, compressive strength of concrete slab and infilled grout were carried out to study shear strength, shear stiffness, failure modes and relative slip characteristics of demountable shear connectors. Experimental results indicated that the shear connector has a high strength and initial stiffness, also the slip capacity that is higher than the requirements of the current codes of practice. Finally, it is suggested that under applied loading, concrete slabs do not crack or crush, demountable connectors can yield into plastic state, therefore, concrete slabs and steel beams can be easily replaced, repaired or reused.
The performance and durability of the asphalt pavement structure mainly depend on the strength of the bonding between the layers. Such a bond is achieved through the use of an adhesive material (tack coat) to bond the asphalt layers. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of moisture in conjunction with repeated traffic loads on the strength of the bonding between asphalt layers using two types of tack coats with different application rates. Using the nominal maximum size of aggregate (NMAS), the layers were graded (25/19) and (19/9.5) mm. The slabs of multilayer asphalt concrete were prepared using a roller compactor using two types of tack coats to bond between layers, namely rapid curing cut back a
... Show MoreThe key objective of the study is to understand the best processes that are currently used in managing talent in Australian higher education (AHE) and design a quantitative measurement of talent management processes (TMPs) for the higher education (HE) sector.
The three qualitative multi-method studies that are commonly used in empirical studies, namely, brainstorming, focus group discussions and semi-structured individual interviews were considered. Twenty
A mathematical method with a new algorithm with the aid of Matlab language is proposed to compute the linear equivalence (or the recursion length) of the pseudo-random key-stream periodic sequences using Fourier transform. The proposed method enables the computation of the linear equivalence to determine the degree of the complexity of any binary or real periodic sequences produced from linear or nonlinear key-stream generators. The procedure can be used with comparatively greater computational ease and efficiency. The results of this algorithm are compared with Berlekamp-Massey (BM) method and good results are obtained where the results of the Fourier transform are more accurate than those of (BM) method for computing the linear equivalenc
... Show MoreA new class of higher derivatives for harmonic univalent functions defined by a generalized fractional integral operator inside an open unit disk E is the aim of this paper.
Zernike Moments has been popularly used in many shape-based image retrieval studies due to its powerful shape representation. However its strength and weaknesses have not been clearly highlighted in the previous studies. Thus, its powerful shape representation could not be fully utilized. In this paper, a method to fully capture the shape representation properties of Zernike Moments is implemented and tested on a single object for binary and grey level images. The proposed method works by determining the boundary of the shape object and then resizing the object shape to the boundary of the image. Three case studies were made. Case 1 is the Zernike Moments implementation on the original shape object image. In Case 2, the centroid of the s
... Show MoreIn this investigation, water-soluble N-Acetyl Cysteine Capped-Cadmium Telluride QDs (NAC/CdTe nanocrystals), utilizing N-acetyl cysteine as a stabilizer, were prepared to assess their potential in differentiating between DNA extracted from pathogenic bacteria (e.g. Escherichia coli isolated from urine specimen) and intact DNA (extracted from blood of healthy individuals) for biomedical sensing prospective. Following the optical characterization of the synthesized QDs, the XRD analysis illustrated the construction of NAC-CdTe-QDs with a grain size of 7.1 nm. The prepared NAC-CdTe-QDs exhibited higher PL emission features at of 550 nm and UV-Vis absorption peak at 300 nm. Additionally, the energy gap quantified via PL and UV–Vis were 2.2 eV
... Show MoreAntibacterial substances belong to a group of compounds that attack dangerous microorganisms. Therefore, killing bacteria or reducing their metabolic activity will lessen their adverse effects on a biological system. They originated from either synthetic materials, microbes, or mold. Many of these medications treat the gram-negative bacteria from the critical precedence group, such as pseudomonas, carbapenem-resistant acinetobacter, and enterobacterales. This study aims to investigate the simultaneous analysis of specific antibacterial spectrophotometrically. The WHO maintains this list of priority infections with antibiotic resistance. Drug combinations in single dosage forms are becoming increasingly popular in the pharmaceutical industry
... Show MorePathology reports are necessary for specialists to make an appropriate diagnosis of diseases in general and blood diseases in particular. Therefore, specialists check blood cells and other blood details. Thus, to diagnose a disease, specialists must analyze the factors of the patient’s blood and medical history. Generally, doctors have tended to use intelligent agents to help them with CBC analysis. However, these agents need analytical tools to extract the parameters (CBC parameters) employed in the prediction of the development of life-threatening bacteremia and offer prognostic data. Therefore, this paper proposes an enhancement to the Rabin–Karp algorithm and then mixes it with the fuzzy ratio to make this algorithm suitable
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