Compressive Strength and Elastic Modulus of Slurry Infiltrated Fiber Concrete (SIFCON) at High Temperature

SIFCON is a special type of fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) with an unattached fiber matrix that gives the composite matrix important tensile properties and, due to its high fiber content, SIFCON also has distinctive and unique ductility and energy absorption properties. Higher temperature resistance is one of the most important parameters affecting the durability and service life of the material. In this research, the compression strength and elastic modulus of Slurry Infiltrated Fiber Concrete (SIFCON) were tested both before and after exposure to high temperatures. Two fire exposure durations of 2 and 3 hours are examined. In addition to room temperatures, three temperature ranges of 400 ° C, 600 ° C and 900 ° C have been introduced. The results of the experiment showed that the compressive strength and elastic modulus decreased after exposure to high temperatures. The drastically reduction of compressive strength took place with increasing temperature above 600 °C. While, the reduction in elastic modulus values is more significant than the decrease in compressive strength at the same fire flame temperatures. The residual compressive strength and elastic modulus at 900 °C were in the range of (52.1% to 59.6%) and (30.6% to 34.1%) respectively

Ransomware Attack: Rescue-checklist Cyber Security Awareness Program

Ransomware attacks have been spreading broadly in the last few years, where attackers deny users’ access to their systems and encrypt their files until they pay a ransom, usually in Bitcoin. Of course, that is the worst thing that can happen; especially for organizations having sensitive information. In this paper we proposed a cyber security awareness program intended to provide end-users with a rescue checklist in case of being attacked with a ransomware as well as preventing the attack and ways to recover from it. The program aimed at providing cyber security knowledge to 15 employees in a Sudanese trading and investment company. According to their cyber behaviour before the program, the participants showed a low level cyber security awareness that with 72% they are likely of being attacked by a ransomware from a phishing email, which is well known for spreading ransomware attacks. The results revealed that the cyber security awareness program greatly diminished the probability of being attacked by a ransomware with an average of 28%. This study can be used as a real-life ransomware attack rescue plan

Status of Rural Women: Patriarchy and Inevitability of Subjugation; A Study of Rural Area in Multan, Pakistan

Women are oppressed in every walk of life but oppression may differ from place to place. Urban Rural divide has shown the different social structures for women. The present research was conducted with these objectives: to identify the status of women in rural settings, to analysis perception of society about social status of women, to explore the impact of Patriarchy on women in context of rural settings of Multan, Pakistan. Mix research methods were used to carry this research. Interviews were conducted from 100 married women, living in rural areas of Multan. A Focus Group Discussion was also conducted to address the research questions. The findings of the study suggest that women’s health, education and economic status is poor, whereas women’s status stems from patriarchy, the power and controlling structure where men dominates over women. This is patriarchy which maintains the women’s submissive role and it generates a structure which subjugates women of rural area. The study suggests that by expanding the canvas of formal economy, it may channelize the women’s low paid or unpaid work. This can help enhance women’s economic and social status in rural areas. Key Words: Patriarchy, Status of Women, Rural Women, Gender Inequalit

Decision support system based on BWM for Analyzing success factors affecting the quality in the Iraqi construction projects

Creating a balance between cost, time, and quality in construction projects is always expected. It is possible to have a project with excellent quality and minimal cost, but at the expense of time, or vice versa. The goal of this paper is to discover, evaluate and prioritize the factors that most influence the desired construction projects' level of quality (success factors) in Iraq. Over a comprehensive review of literature, 11 potential quality-related factors were found to fall into the following five categories: client, contractor, design, materials, and project related factors. These factors' significance was determined using fuzzy Best Worst Method (BWM). Result shows the most three significant success factors influencing quality in the construction projects were related to contractor, client, and designer. These factors were financial competence of contractor, technical capability of client, and designer suitable selection with weights (30.84%, 15.58%, and 10.05%) respectively. These results conclude that maximization of the success factors will guarantee that the building sector achieves its quality objectives

Design and implementation of Arduino based robotic arm

This study presents the model, design, and construction of the Arduino based robotic arm, which functions across a distance as it is controlled through a mobile application. A six degree of freedom robotic arm has been designed and implemented for the purpose of this research. The design controlled by the Arduino platform receives orders from the user’s mobile application through wireless controlling signals, that is Bluetooth. The arm is made up of five rotary joints and an end effector, where rotary motion is provided by the servomotor. Each link has been first designed using solid works and then printed by 3D printer. The assembly of the parts of the robot and the motor’s mechanical shapes produce the final prototype of the arm. The Arduino has been programmed to provide rotation to each corresponding servo motor to the sliders in the designed mobile application for usage from distance

Evaluation of construction companies performance by using stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis

The extent to which the facility and the construction process meet and/or surpass a client's expectations is critical for client satisfaction. As a result, company evaluation is a well-established procedure in project management in the construction industry to ensure projects are performed in compliance with the contract documents and applicable laws and regulations. The purpose of this study is to present and debate certain criteria for evaluating the Iraqi construction sector companies’ performance based on Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) to assess company responsibility and performance in support of future projects. The evaluation criteria of construction companies are studied in this paper. The criteria have been categorized into main groups: (a) organization and management; (b) time; (c) quality; (d) cost; (e) resource; (f) safety practices. The main criteria have been divided into forty-four sub criteria. The findings of this paper demonstrate that the most important criteria in evaluating the construction companies’ performance is cost, followed by time, quality, organization and management, resources, and lastly safety practices which ranked based on the weight of criteria (35.7%, 24.2%, 16.3%, 11.2%, 7.4%, 5.2% respectively) with the SWARA technique

Medium access prioritizing in the heterogeneous low-rate wireless PANs

Coping with customer interests to employ Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in the new applications requires dealing with the fact of nodes variety that implies the heterogeneous nature of the traffic. This necessitates employing differentiation techniques that lead in the end to implementing prioritization in some processes of the system. The medium access controlling process plays a main role in the WSN work life cycle and the QoS provisioning is mainly based on the MAC efficiency. In this paper, we introduce the main techniques of WSN medium access prioritizing in the cluster-based Low-PANs. We propose using the prioritizing source as the categorizing factor. Furthermore, this study analyzes the impact of applying the MAC prioritization on the performance of the WSN. The simulation results prove that prioritizing nodes improves the system performance in terms of the access delay and the throughput metrics

The Mediating Role of Institutional Trust on Corporate Image and Customer Trust in Iraqi Banking Sector

In today’s highly volatile environment, banks strive to leverage the perceptions of their multiple customers more than ever before to build a sustainable competitive advantage. Accordingly, corporate image and customer trust concepts are of vital importance for both academicians and practitioners, concerning their potential impact on internal and external stakeholders. Recognizing the intensified significance of a multi-stakeholder perspective, the current study attempts to contribute to the literature by examining the mediating role of institutional trust on the relationship between corporate image and customer trust. The study applies the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method to examine this relationship. The data are collected from a total of 372 Iraqi banking customers using a random sampling technique. The finding for path-1 shows that there exists a positive and significant association between corporate image, institutional trust, and trust in online banking services. Similarly, the result of path-2 also reveals a positive and significant association between institutional trust and trust in online banking services. Finally, bias-corrected bootstrapping confirms that institutional trust plays a mediating role between corporate image and trust in online banking services in Iraq. This study has important theoretical and practical implications. It not only fills some of the gaps in the literature about trust in online banking services, particularly for Iraq but it also reinforces to policy-makers that institutional trust is an important factor in promoting customers’ trust in financial services

A novel low complexity high efficiency hybrid PAPR reduction for OFDM systems

In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid multiplicative-additive technique to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. This technique consists of two inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) blocks. The input symbols of the first IFFT are the mapped symbols, whereas the input symbols of the second IFFT are the summations of the absolute value of the real part of the outer signal constellation points and zeros symbols. First, the output of the two IFFT blocks is partitioned into four subblocks, which are subsequently used to rearrange the subblocks with padding zeros in a specific manner. Then, a new optimization scheme is introduced, in which only a single two-phase sequence and four iterations needs to be applied. Numerical analysis shows that the hybrid proposed technique achieves better bit error rate (BER) and PAPR reduction performance than partial transmit sequences (PTS) multiplicative technique and tone reservation (TR) additive PAPR technique. The other salient feature of this scheme is that no side information (SI) is needed which increases transmission efficiency

THROMBOPROPHYLAXIS IMPACT IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING MAJOR ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY IN SUDAN

Objective: Venous thromboembolism is an important complication of major orthopedic surgery. The aim of present study was to investigate the efficacy of the currently used thromboprophylaxis protocol, determine the incidence of VTE post operatively and the risk factors behind it in patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery. Methods: A retrospective descriptive study for 403 patients underwent major orthopedic surgery from July 2013 to July 2014 in main hospitals in Khartoum state where major orthopedic surgery performed. Data were collected using observation checklist and analyzed using SPSS version 22 to study the association between the type of surgery, patient’s risk factors, choice and duration of thromboprophylaxis and development of VTE after major orthopedic surgery. Results: Total 403 patients were incorporated the study, 2.73% were diagnosed with DVT developed within 5 days post operatively. 1.64% of the patients not received any type of thromboprophylaxis, 0.27% wore compression stocking. Pharmacological methods were used in the rest of the patients, 96.72% administered to them enoxaparine. 75.95% of the patients presented with one or more than one risk factors for VTE other than the orthopedic surgery. 4% of patients received thromboprophylaxis for more than 14 days while 96% received it for 3-5 days. The incidence of DVT was higher in diabetic patients (p- value= 0.03) and hypertensive (p- value= 0.046) who aged ≥60 years. Conclusion: Results showed that VTE was a significant complication of major orthopedic surgery, despite the use of thromboprophylaxis and the incidence was 2.73% in our study.                             Peer Review History: Received 13 June 2020; Revised 25 June; Accepted 6 July, Available online 15 July 2020 Academic Editor: Essam Mohamed Eissa, Beni-Suef University, Egypt, [email protected] UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file:                Reviewer's Comments: Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 5.5/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.0/10 Reviewer(s) detail: Dr. Michael Otakhor Erhunmwunse, St. Philomena Catholic Hospital, Nigeria, [email protected]  Francesco Ferrara, USL Umbria, Pharmacy Department, Perugia, Italy, [email protected]  Similar Articles: PREVALENCE OF CYTOMEGALOVIRUS IGG ANTIBODIES, POTENTIAL RISK FACTORS AND AWARENESS OF CONGENITAL CYTOMEGALOVIRUS AMONG FEMALE DOCTOR