Over the past few decades, the study on shear walls with various configurations of reinforcement detailing has shown significant growth due to its efficient performance under earthquake forces. The current work experimentally explores the seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) shear wall detailed with X-shaped web reinforcement configuration. Four numbers of 1:4 scaled models of RC shear wall

In long haul communication environments, speech data transmission is severely affected by echoes. This phenomenon results in high bit errors as well as in degraded and annoying performance. Traditionally these problems, including hybrid and acoustic echoes, have been controlled through the use of echo suppressors. These suppressors were subsequently replaced by line echo cancellers using adaptive Finite

Fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) rebars can be the futuristic potential reinforcing material in place of mild steel (MS) rebars which are highly prone to corrosion. However, the bond properties of the FRP rebars are not consistent with those of mild steel rebars. Therefore, determination of bond strength properties of FRP rebars becomes essential. In this study, an investigation was conducted on 222

Membranes play a vital role in membrane-based water treatment processes. Thus, improvement in the membrane fabrication stage can greatly affect the overall performance of these technologies. Accordingly, this study focuses on optimizing the fabrication process of a microfiltration cellulose acetate membrane prepared using a pore-templating method. The effects of synthesis variables and their interactions

The lower Silurian Qusaiba Shale is one of the major source rocks for Paleozoic oil/gas reservoirs in Saudi Arabia and recently considered a potential unconventional shale gas resource. The study aims to evaluate the reservoir heterogeneity and production potential of Qusaiba Shale through the integration of geological, geomechanical and fractures characteristics. Three lithofacies were identified

Economic emission dispatch with valve-point effect in power systems is a complex multimodal, nonconvex and constrained multi-objective optimization problem. To solve this problem, a hybrid multi-objective algorithm with effective constraint handling method based on Harris hawks optimization and differential evolution is proposed: (1) the concept of Pareto domination is integrated into Harris hawks

Since the discovery of liposomes, this technology has been evolving from the studying of biological membranes to various multidisciplinary studies, especially cosmeceuticals and pharmaceuticals. However, the conventional liposomes encountered many challenges such as metabolite by the process of phagocytosis, instability in plasma, and short half-life. In this study, we synthesized 41 kDa N-stearoyl

Rapid prediction of deformation behaviors of concrete face rockfill dams (CFRDs) is of great significance in guiding their design and construction. The purpose of this study is to develop robust empirical prediction models with physical significance, which can rapidly predict typical deformation behaviors of CFRDs. Based on 87 case histories of in-service CFRDs, the threshold regression theory is used

The Taguchi method (TM) and TM-combined methods [e.g., TM fuzzy method (TM-Fuzzy), TM data envelopment analysis (TM-DEA), TM coupled with grey relational analysis (TM-GRA), etc.] have been proven to be effective to achieve robust design performance. However, the efficient strategy to identify the significant design parameters, and the link between different quality characteristics and design parameters

With simple connectivity and fast-growing demand of smart devices and networks, IoT has become more prone to cyber attacks. In order to detect and prevent cyber attacks in IoT networks, intrusion detection system (IDS) plays a crucial role. However, most of the existing IDS have dimensionality curse that reduces overall IoT systems efficiency. Hence, it is important to remove repetitive and irrelevant

Inefficient utilization of the authorized spectrum emerges cognitive radio (CR) as a hopeful technology for both present and future telecommunications. It is owing to the potency to leverage the obtainable bandwidth of other wireless communication networks and thereby increase its occupancy. The key feature for the cognitive radio system for distinguishing the blank spectrum is spectrum sensing. This

This paper studies the impacts of the construction of a new highway on the built-up land use dynamics in the southern neighboring area of Beirut in Lebanon, whereas the impact of transport infrastructure on land use dynamics has been widely studied, few examples are found for developing countries where data are not widely available. Moreover, it is difficult to assess the impact of the infrastructure

The organic-rich shale intervals of Patala Formation of Paleocene age may be considered as potential shale gas play in the Upper Indus Basin of Pakistan. Until now, seismic and elastic properties of the Patala shales are not investigated in detail necessary to declare it as shale gas play and to differentiate shale gas pay zone from the non-pay zone. Data of eight wells in which Patala shales were

This study proposes a machine learning-based protocol for developing a TRANSYT-7F model for an urban arterial network. The developed artificial neural network (ANN) method models the queue lengths of TRANSYT-7F using saturation flow, start-up lost time, and platoon dispersion as inputs. The queue lengths of the selected approaches of the study network can be obtained using the ANN model without running

This study explores an optimised thrust system layout for addressing sudden loads. Firstly, an adaptive mechanical model of a propulsion system under sudden external loads is established. Secondly, the relative variation coefficient (CRV), an evaluation index of thrust suitable for sudden loads, is proposed. Finally, on the basis of this adaptive mechanical model, the layout parameters of a uniform

Requirement engineering (RE) is the process of discovering stakeholders’ requirements and needs and documenting them in such a way that they can serve as the basis for all other system development activities. Despite recent advances in RE practices and tools, requirements engineers are still experiencing fundamental problems. Therefore, the identification and characterization of such challenges would

In this study, the problem of two-dimensional non-Newtonian Oldroyd-B fluid flow over the upper horizontal paraboloid surface (UHPS) is investigated. The shape of a submarine, the bonnet of a car, the shape of the jet plane, and the shape of the upper pointed bullet are some daily life examples of the paraboloid surface. At a free stream, the Oldroyd-B fluid flow over UHPS is created by the reaction

At the shrinkage limit, the soil is just fully saturated. Shrinkage limit of soils can be perceived as a point of inflection in either direction. While decreasing the water content, from its liquid state to the solid state, a point of inflection is reached (shrinkage limit) when further reduction in water content will not cause a reduction in the volume of the soil mass. While increasing the water

In this paper, the segmentation model is developed using the convolutional neural network for automatic segmentation of a right ventricle MRI image. The proposed model is trained end-to-end using an RVSC dataset that contains the right ventricle magnetic resonance images. The proposed model gives state-of-art achievement for dice metric and also for the Jaccard index. The proposed model achieves an

In recent years, research in wireless sensor networks and their application in health care and environmental monitoring have attracted significant interest. In such applications, the accuracy of the distance estimation between a patient and a beacon node is crucial for determining patient location. In this study, the distance between the mobile node (carried by the Alzheimer’s patient) and the beacon

Stressed power system conditions such as power swing, voltage instability and load encroachment may influence the secure operation of conventional backup protection at their third zone (zone 3). In this paper, a new integrated backup protection algorithm for distance relay is proposed based on wide-area measurements to distinguish the fault-stress conditions in the presence of offshore wind farm (WF)

In this study, digital elevation models (DEMs) derived from AlosPalsar data (Japanese Space Agency—JAXA), Sentinel-1A data, and Envisat ASAR data (European Space Agency—ESA) were compared by using a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). In addition, AW3D30, SRTM, and ASTER GDEM (open-access DEMs) data were also included in the accuracy evaluation. The DEM accuracies were investigated in three

In this present study, an adsorption process was investigated to removal of Congo Red (CR) dye from aqueous solutions by using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as an adsorbent. The physico-chemical properties of MWCNTs were characterized by TEM, SEM, Raman spectroscopy and BET surface area. The response surface methodology, which is including central composite design, was used to investigate

In today’s world where an individual is becoming more and more busy and independent, the use of recommendation-based systems is steadily increasing. Thus, making available professional knowledge to the common man in a short-span quite necessary. The aim of our recipe recommendation system is to recommend recipes to users based on their questions. To make the recommendation model important as well as

The main aim of this research work is to establish, under fully developed conditions, an analytical solution for viscoelastic fluids flow obeying the constitutive Phan–Thien–Tanner (PTT) and Finely Extensible Nonlinear Elastic-Peterlin (FENE-P) models. In fact, a unified formulation for laminar, stationary and fully developed flow in the cases of circular and flat ducts geometries is obtained for velocity

Impact contact behaviors with different velocities, direction and contact states occurred in the process of coal drawing between coal gangue particles and the hydraulic support greatly increase the difficulty of coal gangue recognition in top coal caving. In order to finally realize coal gangue recognition in top coal caving, this paper studied the impact behavior of a single particle coal gangue and

Electrochemical micromachining (ECMM) is a non-traditional micro-fabrication technology developed to produce complex geometries on very hard and electrically conducting surfaces. Typical applications of ECMM include aerospace components, medical devices and gas turbine blades. Duplex stainless steel 2205 (DSS 2205) is an exceptional corrosion-resistant iron alloy with a nearly identical volume of austenite

Super-hard high-temperature resistant M-42 that is best cobalt steel with high hardness and hot strength finds the application in manufacturing of twist drills, milling cutters, taps, reamers, broaches etc. The wire cut EDM process was seen as a decent option over conventional machining forms. In this research work, the effect of normal brass wire (Nbw) and cryo-treated brass wire (CTbw) on M-42 steel

The repair method for pavements should be selected considering the structural capacity of sublayers, in addition to the conditions observed at the pavement surface, to reduce the recurrence of distress in the repaired area. However, it is practically impossible to include the structural capacity of sublayers in the database of the pavement management system (PMS) because this would require additional

Quran is the most significant religious document in the Arabic language in Islamic law. Several Quranic search engines have been designed and widely used for the past two decades. However, these search engines have certain limitations. For example, in many cases, the search is unable to retrieve relevant verses because it is based on keywords or root search and does not rely on the semantic relation

This paper presents a new visual place recognition (VPR) method based on dynamic time warping (DTW) and deep convolutional neural network. The proposal considers visual place recognition in environments that exhibit changes in several visual conditions like appearance and viewpoint changes. The proposed VPR method belongs to the sequence matching category, i.e., it utilizes the sequence-to-sequence

When aggregating data from multi-source uncertain information, how to increase the certainty and reduce the conflict is still an open issue. This paper proposes a new method to measure information quality based on Shannon entropy, which can be used to measure the certainty or information provided by probability distributions. Furthermore, a method to obtain information quality-fused values from different

The selection of building materials plays an important role in the control of engineering projects. The subject of this paper is to study the problem of balancing the relationship between the general contractor and building material suppliers in the construction supply chain. Firstly, to solve the problem, this paper from the perspective of material quality safety analyzes the problems between material

A double wedge cut was used to improve the cut effects in the medium-depth hole blasting of rock roadways. First, the cavity formation mechanisms of single wedge cut and double wedge cut were analysed theoretically. The results show that the cavity formation resistance of the second-order wedge cut is reduced by the first-order wedge cut. Second, simulations of the two cut modes were conducted, which

Mangrove plants (focally, Avicennia marina) are resources rich in bioactive substances, and they are considered as promising agents in various biological activities. Phytochemical analyses of the roots and leaves of Avicennia marina collected from the coast of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, showed different proportions of various parameters which generally recorded higher values in root samples than those analyzed

In this work, a fine correlation among destructive and diagnostic parameters of transformer’s paper insulation is presented. The degree of polymerization (DP) directly assesses the condition of the paper insulation strength and is measured through destructive procedure. Generally, 2-FAL, CO2 and CO are the aging products of paper decomposition and referred as diagnostic parameters. An Adaptive Neuro

Analysing learners’ behaviours in MOOCs has been used to identify predictive features associated with positive outcomes in engagement and learning success. Early methods predominantly analysed numerical features of behaviours such as the page views, video views, and assessment grades. Analysing extracted numeric features using baseline machine learning algorithms performed well to predict the learners’

Precipitation behavior of Al3(Sc,Zr) particles in a new high-alloyed Al–Zn–Mg–Cu–Zr–Sc aluminum alloy during homogenization was investigated by use of three-dimensional atom probe, transition electron microscope and high-resolution transition electron microscope. The results indicate that Al3Sc was the precursor of Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitate. The supersaturated solid solution containing Sc decomposed at

This investigation studies the flow of a Newtonian fluid close to stagnation point past a stretching/shrinking plate embedded in a porous media. Heat transfer analysis with nonlinear thermal radiation (TR) is also carried out. Homogeneous-heterogeneous reactions with unequal diffusivities of reactants take place in the fluid. The controlling partial differential equations (DEs) of the existing model

This paper presents a novel approach for prolonging the network lifetime and reducing the energy being consumed within the wireless sensor networks (WSN). The sensor nodes are distributed in the geographical area in a heterogeneous manner and spread in an advanced and normal mode with high and low energy, respectively. All sensor nodes are organized in groups or clusters. Every cluster has a cluster

In this study, the dynamic response of buried fluid-conveying pipelines subjected to blast loading using the Love shell theory has been investigated. The fluid is considered as ideal fluid, and the velocity potential is used to describe the fluid pressure acting on the pipeline. The governing equations of the buried fluid-conveying pipelines are derived through Hamilton’s principle. The modal superposition

The objective of this study is to analyse the movement of nitrates and dissolved oxygen under the effect of denitrification in a fracture–matrix (F–M) system with skin formation. An implicit finite difference scheme is developed to model the coupled nonlinear partial differential equations. A varying grid is considered at the fracture–skin interface to handle the mass transfer from the fracture to

The vital sensing parameter on self-sensing actuation in the spring form of shape memory alloy (SMA) is determined through experimental analysis. A unique measurement technique is adopted that interlinks the electro–thermo–mechano features during the shape memory effect in NiTi, NiTiCu, and NiTiFe springs. The influence of the spring index, the number of active turns, material composition, and transition

Friction and wear characteristics of 6061 Al alloy composite reinforced with sub-micron Al2O3 particles (Al/Al2O3 submicron composite) against commercial semi-metallic brake pad material were determined in dry sliding condition at different loads and sliding speeds using a pad-on-disc configuration. The tribological performance of Al/Al2O3 submicron composite was evaluated against conventional grey

Having a full situational awareness while driving is one of the most important perceptions for safe driving which can be reduced by various factors such as in-vehicle infotainment, distraction, or mental load leading. Machine learning methods are being used to optimize for the identification of these inhibiting factors. To do so, three types of data were used: biographic features, physiological signals

In this study, the effect of high temperature on the flexural and compressive strength of mortars containing waste PET aggregates was investigated experimentally. The mortar samples prepared in 5 different concentrations with a total of 2.5%, 5%, 10%, 20% and 30% PET aggregate substitution were heated up to 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 and 400 °C. After waiting for 1, 2 and 3 h at these temperatures, flexural

Lightning can be described as a high voltage electrical discharge event that occurs between the cloud and the ground. The development of a warning system that enables us to predict lightning before it occurs and to take safety precautions is essential to minimize undesired lightning-related events. This study aims to predict lightning events 1 h in advance by using meteorological data recorded by a

The classification of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using ADNI dataset requires suitable feature segmenting techniques to detect the existing and relevant finer smaller brain region features, together with effective classification model, to eliminate a massive, labor-intensive and time-consuming voxel-based morphometry technique. Here, in this paper, a deep learning-based segmenting method using SegNet

The high gas-sensing performance of semiconductors is mainly due to the high surface-to-volume ratio because it permits a large exposed surface area for gas detection. This paper presents an evaluation study for the effects of nano-CuO coating parameters on the CO gas-sensing performance. The effects on gas-sensing performance and heat transfer efficiency of CuO coating were evaluated by investigating

Among the successful methods in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is the chemical EOR. The surfactant-based chemical techniques are highly recommended. However, some drawbacks remained unsolved such as surfactant selection and application in the reservoirs. Surfactants are particularly applied in sandstone reservoirs, so paving the path to expand the implementation to limestone reservoirs is required. Recently

The main objective of this study was to describe the reproductive cycle of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus (Lamarck, 1816) on the south Atlantic coast of Morocco. In this study, we selected three sites in the Agadir region: Sidi R’bat, Cap Ghir, and Anza to study from March 2018 to February 2019 some aspects of reproduction in this species through sex-ratio, the histological identification of

Over the last few years, many studies were performed to investigate rubberized concrete’s behavior as a sustainable alternative for conventional concrete by replacing natural aggregates with recycling old rubber tires. These studies have shown that the concrete's mechanical and durability properties are significantly reduced, while its ductility and damping ratio improved. Accordingly, using this material

The rising renewable penetrations has paved ways for the microgrids to operate independent of the conventional centrally located power plants. At low load hours, the microgrid operation is often disrupted due the excess power generations creating voltage (V) and frequency (f) regulation issues. The use of energy storage devices to absorb such excess generations would be infeasible due to their less

The task of preserving patient data is becoming more sophisticated with the evolution of technology and its integration with the medical sector in the form of telemedicine and electronic health (e-health). Secured medical image transmission requires adequate techniques for protecting patient privacy. This study aims at encrypting Coronavirus (COVID-19) images of Computed Tomography (CT) chest scan

The optimization of the reactive extraction of butyric acid from an aqueous stream was effectively carried out using response surface methodology. Three process parameters were studied, viz. initial butyric acid concentration, trioctylamine concentration and temperature, to examine the interactive effects on extraction efficiency and distribution coefficient. A Box-Behnken design comprising of seventeen

Species belonging to the genus Artemisia have high economic value and are used in folk and modern medicine. Analysis and identification of their genetic relationships can help in efficient conservation and further utilization of Artemisia genetic resources. This study was conducted to evaluate the genetic diversity among seven species of the genus Artemisia using their morphological characteristics

Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a communication protocol at application layer in the Internet of things (IoT). It employs NSTART parameter to maintain outstanding parallel connections toward individual destinations for data transfer. In the existing implementation of CoAP, the value for NSTART is defined statically. Where the higher values of this parameter up to a threshold give better

In underwater drilling and blasting engineering, the blasting vibration signal is mixed with a mass of noises due to the complexity of monitoring environment, the error of monitoring sensors and the reflection of propagation medium. In order to accurately obtain the characteristics of vibration signal, a novel denoising model is established. The complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive

Generally, metamaterials are any material with a special properties that are not in nature. Among them, the optical metamaterial is a type of electromagnetic metamaterial, that interacts with light or visible wavelengths. The mathematical modeling of this interaction is usually introduce by perturbed Schrödinger equation. The aim of this paper is to study the perturbed Schrödinger equation model of

This paper is in the continuation of a well-established line of research in multi-criteria decision making, namely, the development of the basic ELECTRE methodology. In the present study, we make an attempt to enhance the influence of the ELECTRE III method, which was conceived in response to the deficiency that existing variants of the ELECTRE method did not provide a full ordering of the alternatives