This study includes adding chemicals to gypseous soil to improve its collapse characteristics. The collapse behavior of gypseous soil brought from the north of Iraq (Salah El-Deen governorate) with a gypsum content of 59% was investigated using five types of additions (cement dust, powder sodium meta-silicate, powder activated carbon, sodium silicate solution, and granular activated carbon). The soil was mixed by weight with cement dust (10, 20, and 30%), powder sodium meta-silicate (6%), powder activated carbon (10%), sodium silicate solution (3, 6, and 9%), and granular activated carbon (5, 10, and 15%). The collapse potential is reduced by 86, 71, 43, 37, and 35% when 30% cement dust, 6% powder sodium meta-silicate, 10% powder activated

Near surface mounted (NSM) carbon fibers reinforced polymer (CFRP) reinforcement is one of the techniques for reinforcing masonry structures and is considered to provide significant advantages. This paper is composed of two parts. The first part presents the experimental study of brick masonry walls reinforced with NSM CFRP strips under combined shear-compression loads. Masonry walls have been tested under vertical compression, with different bed joint orientations 90° and 45° relative to the loading direction. Different reinforcement orientations were used including vertical, horizontal, and a combination of both sides of the wall. The second part of this paper comprises a numerical analysis of unreinforced brick masonry (URM) wa

The smart city concept has attracted high research attention in recent years within diverse application domains, such as crime suspect identification, border security, transportation, aerospace, and so on. Specific focus has been on increased automation using data driven approaches, while leveraging remote sensing and real-time streaming of heterogenous data from various resources, including unmanned aerial vehicles, surveillance cameras, and low-earth-orbit satellites. One of the core challenges in exploitation of such high temporal data streams, specifically videos, is the trade-off between the quality of video streaming and limited transmission bandwidth. An optimal compromise is needed between video quality and subsequently, rec

This paper presents comprehensive analysis and investigation for 1550nm and 1310nm ring optical modulators employing an electro-optic polymer infiltrated silicon-plasmonic hybrid phase shifter. The paper falls into two parts which introduce a theoretical modeling framework and performance assessment of these advanced modulators, respectively. In this part, analytical expressions are derived to characterize the coupling effect in the hybrid phase shifter, transmission function of the modulator, and modulator performance parameters. The results can be used as a guideline to design compact and wideband optical modulators using plasmonic technology

Purpose: To explore whether baseline matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-8 level in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) (exposure) can predict the outcome (reduction in probing pocket depth (PPD) (outcome)) of nonsurgical periodontal therapy (NSPT) (manual or ultrasonic or both) in patients with periodontitis (population/problem) after 3 months. Methods: Six databases (PubMed, Cochrane library, ProQuest, Ovid, Scopus, EBSCO) were searched for relevant articles published until 30 July 2021. Retrieved articles were passed through a three-phase filtration process on the basis of the eligibility criteria. The primary outcome was the change in PPD after 3 months. Quality of the selected articles was assessed using Cochrane Risk of Bias tool (RoB2

The current study introduces a novel technique to handle electrochemical localized corrosion in certain limited regions rather than applying comprehensive cathodic protection (CP) treatment. An impressed current cathodic protection cell (ICCPC) was fabricated and firmly installed on the middle of a steel structure surface to deter localized corrosion in fixed or mobile steel structures. The designed ICCPC comprises three essential parts: an anode, a cathode, and an artificial electrolyte. The latter was developed to mimic the function of the natural electrolyte in CP. A proportional-integrated-derivative (PID) controller was designed to stabilize this potential below the ICCPC at a cathodic potential of −850 mV, which is crucial for prote