Exposure of reinforced concrete buildings to an accidental fire may result in cracking and loss in the bearing capacity of their major components, columns, beams, and slabs. It is a challenge for structural engineers to develop efficient retrofitting techniques that enable RC slabs to restore their structural integrity, after being exposed to intense fires for a long period of time. Experimental
investigation was carried out on twenty one slab specimens made of self compacting concrete, eighteen of them are retrofitted with CFRP sheets after burning and loading till failure while three of them (which represent control specimens) are retrofitted with CFRP sheet after loading till failure without burning. All slabs had been tested in a simply supported span and subjected to two-point loading. The main variables were the effect of different temperature levels (300ºC, 500ºC and 700ºC),different concrete compressive strength (20MPa, 30MPa and 40MPa) and cooling rate (gradually and sudden cooling conditions) on the behavior of retrofitted one way slabs .The structural response of each slab specimen was investigated in terms of load-deflection behavior, ultimate load carrying
capacity and mode of failure. The experimental results, generally, indicate that slabs retrofitted using CFRP sheets restored flexural strength values nearly equal to or lower than those of the reference slabs, the retrofitted slabs exhibited larger deflection than the control slabs at ultimate loads. Retrofitted control slabs after loading regained about 93.95% to 97.92% of their original load capacity
(before retrofitting) while the other slabs regained from 42.% to 84% of the load capacity of the original control specimens. Most of the tested slabs failed by concrete crushing at mid span and partial debonding of certain retrofitting systems was also observed for a few cases
Blockchain is an innovative technology that has gained interest in all sectors in the era of digital transformation where it manages transactions and saves them in a database. With the increasing financial transactions and the rapidly developed society with growing businesses many people looking for the dream of a better financially independent life, stray from large corporations and organizations to form startups and small businesses. Recently, the increasing demand for employees or institutes to prepare and manage contracts, papers, and the verifications process, in addition to human mistakes led to the emergence of a smart contract. The smart contract has been developed to save time and provide more confidence while dealing, as well a
... Show MoreObjective: To evaluate the clinical significance of open diagnostic testicular biopsy as prognostic predictor of
successful sperm retrieval among azoospermic infertile patients.
Design: Prospective study.
Setting: Infertility clinic and assisted reproduction unit at the institute of embryo research and infertility
treatment, Baghdad University.
Patients: Sixty infertile azoospermic patients.
Intervention: Pieces of testicular tissue taking during open diagnostic multiple bilateral testicular biopsies was
prepared for histological examination and grouped according to well-defined histopathological patterns.
Measurement of testicular size and serum reproductive hormones (FSH, LH, Testosterone, and PRL) were done
Effective management of advanced cancer requires systemic treatment including small molecules that target unique features of aggressive tumor cells. At the same time, tumors are heterogeneous and current evidence suggests that a subpopulation of tumor cells, called tumor initiating or cancer stem cells, are responsible for metastatic dissemination, tumor relapse and possibly drug resistance. Classical apoptotic drugs are less effective against this critical subpopulation. In the course of generating a library of open-chain epothilones, we discovered a new class of small molecule anticancer agents that has no effect on tubulin but instead kills selected cancer cell lines by harnessing reactive oxygen
Leading edge serration is now a well-established and effective passive control device for the reduction of turbulence–leading edge interaction noise, and for the suppression of boundary layer separation at high angle of attack. It is envisaged that leading edge blowing could produce the same mechanisms as those produced by a serrated leading edge to enhance the aeroacoustics and aerodynamic performances of aerofoil. Aeroacoustically, injection of mass airflow from the leading edge (against the incoming turbulent flow) can be an effective mechanism to decrease the turbulence intensity, and/or alter the stagnation point. According to classical theory on the aerofoil leading edge noise, there is a potential for the leading edge blowi
... Show MoreIn aired and semiarid areas like Iraq, saline soil may be considered one of the major concerns. In addition to environmental effects, they may produce significant geotechnical hazards that could interrupt the structure stability depending on the salt type and its concentration. So, it is crucial to identify the degree of the soil salinity with a proper tool for getting a qualified assessment and consequently offering a suitable treatment. In this paper, the electrical resistivity technique has been employed to detect the degree of soil salinity by considering a new electronic system. The system used a single-phase Direct Current (DC) to Alternating Current (AC) inverter accompanied by a transformer. Natural soils became artificially saline
... Show MoreThis paper develops a fuzzy multi-objective model for solving aggregate production planning problems that contain multiple products and multiple periods in uncertain environments. We seek to minimize total production cost and total labor cost. We adopted a new method that utilizes a Zimmermans approach to determine the tolerance and aspiration levels. The actual performance of an industrial company was used to prove the feasibility of the proposed model. The proposed model shows that the method is useful, generalizable, and can be applied to APP problems with other parameters.
This practical research aims to study playfulness in Al- A'sha's poetry by analyzing the context and rhetorical interaction between the poetic text and the various sources and quotations it contains. The study relies on a theoretical framework derived from the sciences of playfulness to highlight how linguistic, social, and cultural context influences the construction of poetic meanings, and how rhetorical interaction plays a pivotal role in poetry's communication with the recipient and other texts. Through analyzing selected examples of Al-A'sha's poetry, it becomes clear that the poet was not merely a transmitter of words, but rather an active participant in a network of discursive exchanges with his cultural and literary heritage, borro
... Show MoreAggregate production planning (APP) is one of the most significant and complicated problems in production planning and aim to set overall production levels for each product category to meet fluctuating or uncertain demand in future. and to set decision concerning hiring, firing, overtime, subcontract, carrying inventory level. In this paper, we present a simulated annealing (SA) for multi-objective linear programming to solve APP. SA is considered to be a good tool for imprecise optimization problems. The proposed model minimizes total production and workforce costs. In this study, the proposed SA is compared with particle swarm optimization (PSO). The results show that the proposed SA is effective in reducing total production costs and req
... Show More