This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From

This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From

Until today, one of the leading predominant infections is Urinary tract infection (UTI). It exerts a huge burden on health systems worldwide each year. Treating UTIs empirically with antimicrobials improves morbidity rates. This study aims to assess the prevalence of UTI-associated bacteria in adult patients and to determine their antibiotic susceptibility profile. A retrospective study was conducted for adult outpatients who visited Al-Diwaniya tertiary hospitals from January 2020 till February 2022 to review their medical and lab records in addition to sociodemographic data. A total of 256 patients’ records were included of which 204 (79.7%) belong to females and 52 (20.3%) were males with an average age of 39.22±17.10 years. T

Until today, one of the leading predominant infections is Urinary tract infection (UTI). It exerts a huge burden on health systems worldwide each year. Treating UTIs empirically with antimicrobials improves morbidity rates. This study aims to assess the prevalence of UTI-associated bacteria in adult patients and to determine their antibiotic susceptibility profile. A retrospective study was conducted for adult outpatients who visited Al-Diwaniya tertiary hospitals from January 2020 till February 2022 to review their medical and lab records in addition to sociodemographic data. A total of 256 patients’ records were included of which 204 (79.7%) belong to females and 52 (20.3%) were males with an average age of 39.22±17.10 years. The pr

Inferential methods of statistical distributions have reached a high level of interest in recent years. However, in real life, data can follow more than one distribution, and then mixture models must be fitted to such data. One of which is a finite mixture of Rayleigh distribution that is widely used in modelling lifetime data in many fields, such as medicine, agriculture and engineering. In this paper, we proposed a new Bayesian frameworks by assuming conjugate priors for the square of the component parameters. We used this prior distribution in the classical Bayesian, Metropolis-hasting (MH) and Gibbs sampler methods. The performance of these techniques were assessed by conducting data which was generated from two and three-component mixt

Photonic crystal fiber interferometers are used in many sensing applications. In this work, an in-reflection photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based on Mach-Zehnder (micro-holes collapsing) (MZ) interferometer, which exhibits high sensitivity to different volatile organic compounds (VOCs), without the needing of any permeable material. The interferometer is robust, compact, and consists of a stub photonic crystal fiber of large-mode area, photonic crystal fiber spliced to standard single mode fiber (SMF) (corning-28), this splicing occurs with optimized splice loss 0.19 dB In the splice regions the voids of the holey fiber are completely collapsed, which allows the excitation and recombination of core and cladding modes. The device reflection

Hollow core photonic bandgap fibers provide a new geometry for the realization and enhancement of many nonlinear optical effects. Such fibers offer novel guidance and dispersion properties that provide an advantage over conventional fibers for various applications. Dispersion, which expresses the variation with wavelength of the guided-mode group velocity, is one of the most important properties of optical fibers. Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) offer much larger flexibility than conventional fibers with respect to tailoring of the dispersion curve. This is partly due to the large refractive-index contrast available in the silica/air microstructures, and partly due to the possibility of making complex refractive-index structure over the fibe

Despite widespread agreement on the beneficial nature of hydrated lime (HL) addition to asphalt concrete mixes, understanding of the effect of HL particle size is still limited. Previous investigations have focused mainly on two different size comparisons, and so certain guidance for a practical application cannot yet be produced. This study investigates three distinct sizes of HL, in the range of regular, nano, and sub-nano scales, for their effects on the properties of modified asphalt concretes. Five different percentages of HL as a partial replacement of ordinary limestone filler in asphalt concrete mixes were studied for wearing course application purposes. Experimental tests were conducted to evaluate the mechanical properties

(28)Bacterial local isolates of Bacillus sp. were obtained from soil samples. Isolates were tested for thermostable alpha- amylase production on solid media; fifteen isolates were able to develop clear zone around the bacterial growth after floating the plates with iodine reagent (Lugol's solution). There were further tested in submerged culture which led to selection of Bacillus sp. H14since it was the most efficient .Microbial and biochemical tests showed that the local isolate Bacillus sp.H14was refered to the species B.licheniformis that signed as H14 was refered to the species B.licheniformis H14 .,To get ahigher yield of alpha – amylase(48.70unit/mg protein) production from the local isolate B.licheniformis H14 . This study used