Geotechnical engineers have always been concerned with the stabilization of slopes. For this purpose,
various methods such as retaining walls, piles, and geosynthetics may be used to increase the safety factor of slopes prone to failure. The application of stone columns may also be another potential alternative for slope stabilization. Such columns have normally been used for cohesive soil improvement. Most slope analysis and design is based on deterministic approach i.e a set of single valued design parameter are adopted and a set of single valued factor of safety (FOS) is determined. Usually the FOS is selected in view of the understanding and knowledge of the material parameters, the problem geometry, the method of analysis and the

Alteration of repeat tract length within the SSR of phase variable genes may enhance the persistence of isolates within their host for a long time (a period of months) (Alamro et al.,2014). Alamro et al. (2014) showed there was trend towards selection for OFF state or low expression for five phase variable genes (opc, hmbr, nadA, nalP, hpuAB) in three carriers (V54, V124 and V64) within strains belonging into CC174 and CC167 in first, second and third time points. He concluded that the selection for low or OFF state helped N. meningitidis to persist for a long time (Alamro et al., 2014). The current study aimed to detect the alteration in the repeat tracts of the same five variable genes within the previous three carriers (V54, V124, and V6

Reflection cracking in asphalt concrete (AC) overlays is a common form of pavement deterioration that occurs when underlying cracks and joints in the pavement structure propagate through an overlay due to thermal and traffic-induced movement, ultimately degrading the pavement’s lifespan and performance. This study aims to determine how alterations in overlay thickness and temperature conditions, the incorporation of chopped fibers, and the use of geotextiles influence the overlay’s capacity to postpone the occurrence of reflection cracking. To achieve the above objective, a total of 36 prism specimens were prepared and tested using an overlay testing machine (OTM). The variables considered in this study were the thickness of the

Reflection cracking in asphalt concrete (AC) overlays is a common form of pavement deterioration that occurs when underlying cracks and joints in the pavement structure propagate through an overlay due to thermal and traffic-induced movement, ultimately degrading the pavement’s lifespan and performance. This study aims to determine how alterations in overlay thickness and temperature conditions, the incorporation of chopped fibers, and the use of geotextiles influence the overlay’s capacity to postpone the occurrence of reflection cracking. To achieve the above objective, a total of 36 prism specimens were prepared and tested using an overlay testing machine (OTM). The variables considered in this study were the thickness of the

In this paper, a procedure to establish the different performance measures in terms of crisp value is proposed for two classes of arrivals and multiple channel queueing models, where both arrival and service rate are fuzzy numbers. The main idea is to convert the arrival rates and service rates under fuzzy queues into crisp queues by using graded mean integration approach, which can be represented as median rule number. Hence, we apply the crisp values obtained to establish the performance measure of conventional multiple queueing models. This procedure has shown its effectiveness when incorporated with many types of membership functions in solving queuing problems. Two numerical illustrations are presented to determine the validity of the

Modeling data acquisition systems (DASs) can support the vehicle industry in the development and design of sophisticated driver assistance systems. Modeling DASs on the basis of multiple criteria is considered as a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. Although literature reviews have provided models for DASs, the issue of imprecise, unclear, and ambiguous information remains unresolved. Compared with existing MCDM methods, the robustness of the fuzzy decision by opinion score method II (FDOSM II) and fuzzy weighted with zero inconsistency II (FWZIC II) is demonstrated for modeling the DASs. However, these methods are implemented in an intuitionistic fuzzy set environment that restricts the ability of experts to provide mem

Gas and downhole water sink-assisted gravity drainage (GDWS-AGD) is a new process of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in oil reservoirs underlain by large bottom aquifers. The process is capital intensive as it requires the construction of dual-completed wells for oil production and water drainage and additional multiple vertical gas-injection wells. The costs could be substantially reduced by eliminating the gas-injection wells and using triple-completed multi-functional wells. These wells are dubbed triple-completion-GDWS-AGD (TC-GDWS-AGD). In this work, we design and optimize the TC-GDWS-AGD oil recovery process in a fictitious oil reservoir (Punq-S3) that emulates a real North Sea oil field. The design aims at maximum oil recovery us

This research work considers one of the authentic and most modern modes of storytelling, as employed by Garcia Marquez in one of his famous stories "An Old ManWith Enormous Wings" (1972). Technically, the work is divided into four parts: the first serves as an introduction to his literary works, his use of magic realism, and addresses mainly the interests of Arab readers; the second handles the development of modern short story through the perspective of realism, until the emergence of magic realism as a new style; the third deals with the origin, nature and development of this style, and his mastery of it; the fourth part tries to analyze the story and its plot, thoughts, characters, symbols and metaphors, in the light of the artistic p