DEVELOPMENT AND MECHANICAL BEHAVIOUR OF SELF-COMPACTING GEOPOLYMER CONCRETE

High consumption of natural resources, environmental concern of CO2 emission due to cement production and improvement on concrete performance has become a driving force behind the search for alternative materials. An effort made in this regard is the development of self-compacting geopolymer concrete (SCGC). SCGC is a novel material that involves innovation in the production and casting of concrete. It is a type of concrete that does not require compaction for placing it and can be produced by completely eliminating ordinary Portland cement. So far several studies have been done on the characteristics of self-compacting concrete and that of geopolymer concrete in both fresh and hardened state. However, no work has been conducted on SCGC

Customer Satisfaction With Service Quality in Iraqi Conventional Banks: The Case of Salah Al Din Banks

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the customer satisfaction of the banks sector in Iraq, and in particular Salah Al Din, based on customer perception regarding service quality. This is an empirical study using mainly primary data collected through a well-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire has been personally administered on a sample size of 149 bank customers, chosen who were based on a convenient sampling from five Iraqi banks; Rafidain Bank, Rasheed Bank, Agricultural Bank, Estate Bank and Mosul Bank. This paper makes a useful contribution as there are only a few studies dealing with the assessment of service quality in conventional banking sector of Iraq. The results indicate that all of the four hypotheses tested are supported. There is a positive impact and significant relationship between the customer satisfaction and four dimensions of service quality. The highest satisfaction according to customer’s perception is in the empathy area and lowest in the tangibles area. The positive and significant relationships confirm the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction of the conventional banks in Iraq

STR-823: FLEXURAL BEHAVIOUR AND BOND-DEPENDENT COEFFICIENT OF BASALT FRP BARS IN CONCRETE BEAMS

This paper presents an experimental study aimed at determining the bond-dependent coefficient (kb) and investigating the flexural performance of concrete beams reinforced with ribbed basalt fiber-reinforced polymer (BFRP) bars. The performance of the BFRP-RC concrete beams is compared against that of GFRP-RC ones. A total of five concrete beams measured 200 mm wide × 300 mm deep × 3100 mm long were constructed and tested in four-point bending over a clear span of 2700 mm. The main variables were reinforcement type (BFRP, GFRP, and steel bars as reference) and reinforcement ratio. The test results showed that the average kb was 0.85 for the ribbed BFRP bars. The kb value of ribbed BFRP bars was lower than 1.0 recommended by the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code, CHBDC (CSA S6-14)

Analyzing Energy-efficiency and Route-selection of Multi-level Hierarchal Routing Protocols in WSNs

The advent and development in the field of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in recent years has seen the growth of extremely small and low-cost sensors that possess sensing, signal processing and wireless communication capabilities. These sensors can be expended at a much lower cost and are capable of detecting conditions such as temperature, sound, security or any other system. A good protocol design should be able to scale well both in energy heterogeneous and homogeneous environment, meet the demands of different application scenarios and guarantee reliability. On this basis, we have compared six different protocols of different scenarios which are presenting their own schemes of energy minimizing, clustering and route selection in order to have more effective communication. This research is motivated to have an insight that which of the under consideration protocols suit well in which application and can be a guide-line for the design of a more robust and efficient protocol. MATLAB simulations are performed to analyze and compare the performance of LEACH, multi-level hierarchal LEACH and multihop LEACH.Comment: NGWMN with 7th IEEE Inter- national Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA 2012), Victoria, Canada, 201

Type 1 diabetes mellitus presenting with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in a neonate

Neonatal diabetes mellitus (NDM) is a rare manifestation with an incidence of one affected individual among 400000 live births. NDM can be divided into Transient (TNDM) and Permanent (PNDM) types. A significant overlap occurs between both groups, to an extent that TNDM cannot be distinguished from PNDM based solely on clinical features. Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (TIDM). DKA at diagnosis is more common in young children near the age of five years. Neonatal DKA is a rare occurrence causing it to be missed in the differential diagnosis of neonatal illness and results delay in appropriate management and increase in morbidity and mortality rate

Hazards and benefits of elective induction of labor at term

Background: The objective of this study was to compare the rates of caesarean section and neonatal outcome in patients with elective induction of labor compared to patients with spontaneous onset of labor.Methods: Authors studied 200 patients with 100 in elective induction group and 100 in spontaneous onset laboring group. Two groups were compared with respect to demographic profile, basic examination, ultrasound findings, P/A, P/V findings, duration of labor, mode of delivery and neonatal outcome.Results: Various parameters like age residence, per abdominal findings were comparable in two groups. Labor was not prolonged in study group compared to control group. Rate of caesarean section remained high in induction group (21%) in comparison to spontaneous laboring group (4%). Rate of instrumental deliveries did not differ significantly between the groups. 5 min Apgar score did not vary significantly; however, the NICU admission was higher in induction group compared to spontaneous laboring group. Duration of hospital stay was longer in study group.Conclusions: Elective induction of labor has higher rates of caesarean deliveries. NICU admission was also longer in induction group

DEVELOPMENT AND MECHANICAL BEHAVIOUR OF SELF-COMPACTING GEOPOLYMER CONCRETE

High consumption of natural resources, environmental concern of CO2 emission due to cement production and improvement on concrete performance has become a driving force behind the search for alternative materials. An effort made in this regard is the development of self-compacting geopolymer concrete (SCGC). SCGC is a novel material that involves innovation in the production and casting of concrete. It is a type of concrete that does not require compaction for placing it and can be produced by completely eliminating ordinary Portland cement. So far several studies have been done on the characteristics of self-compacting concrete and that of geopolymer concrete in both fresh and hardened state. However, no work has been conducted on SCGC

Role of simulation in open varicose veins surgery: A systematic review

Objective: To assess the types and effectiveness of simulators present for open varicose vein surgery. Methods: The systematic review was conducted at The Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi and comprised studies published from 1st January 2000 to 30th June 2020 related to open varicose vein surgical procedures done on simulators. Databases searched were PubMed, Medline, Google Scholar, Cochrane and Scopus using appropriate key words. The primary outcome of the review was to assess the effectiveness of different types of simulators used for varicose vein surgery. Results: Of the 286 articles found, 6(2%) were included. A variety of simulators ranging from animal models, homemade simulators and commercially designed models with high fidelity options had been used. Technical competence was the major domain assessed in most of the studies 5(83.3%), while 1(16.6%) study focussed on self-assessment. Blinding was done in 4(66.6%) studies for assessment purpose, and videorecording of the trainees\u27 performance was done in 5(83.3%) studies. Most studies 4(66.6%) found the use of simulation to be an effective tool in achieving technical competence. Conclusion: The use of simulation in the training of surgical residents for open varicose vein surgery was found to be beneficial, but most studies were heterogeneous in terms of design, simulator types and study participants. This makes it difficult to establish the superiority of any one type of simulator over the rest. Further research is needed to develop and validate simulators in open varicose vein surgery procedures

Kernohan–woltman notch phenomenon:Case report and Review of literature

Subdural hematoma (SDH) is usually secondary to mechanical trauma. Spontaneous subdural hematoma is still rare with unclear pathophysiology. The classic findings of subdural hematoma is sudden drop in mental status, an ipsilateralmydriasis with contralateral hemiparesis. However SDH can sometimes compress the contralaterl corticospinal tract resulting in ipsilateral motor weakness, this phenomenon is known as Kernohan-Woltman Notch Phenomenon