Bridge Abutment Protection against Scouring for Unsteady Flow Conditions

The bridge abutment is one of the main parts of a bridge and significantly contributes to bridge stability. This study experimentally investigated the effect of the unsteadiness characteristics of hydrographs on the scouring phenomenon around the bridge abutment under clear water conditions. The ability of the permeable and impermeable spur dikes and their distances from the abutment at its upstream on the control of scouring around the bridge abutment was also investigated. The experimental observations imply that the effect of unsteady flow on the scouring process is relatively similar to the steady flow conditions. The results showed that the base time of hydrographs, the type of spur dikes, and the distance of spur dikes from the bridge abutment were the dominant parameters among the considered parameters in this study on the scouring process around the abutment. The results also revealed that the impermeable spur dike was able to completely eliminate scouring around the bridge abutment for two distances of 2L and 3L (where L is the abutment length) for both steady and unsteady flow conditions

Relationship Between Iranian L2 Learners’ Intercultural Communicative Competence and Personality Traits

The rapid development of communication technologies has facilitated communication between citizens with diverse personality traits. As intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has recently found its way into L2 theory and research, not only is it important for L2 learners to gain knowledge of ICC but also it is essential to be aware of personality traits. Therefore, through investigating the (possible) relationship between ICC and personality traits, this study was an attempt to gain knowledge of L2 learners’ ICC and personality traits/types profiles. For this purpose, 165 upper-intermediate L2 learners (70 males and 95 females) participated in this study. Then, they filled out the ICC questionnaire and the MyersBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI) in different sessions. Data were analyzed through Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, independent samples t-test, and one–way ANOVA. Results indicated that (1) the participants were stronger at the introvert trait and extravert, intuitive, feeling, and judging type, (2) there was no relationship between the eight personality traits and the ICC scores, (3) the participants’ gender differences had no significant effect on their ICC scores, (4) and there were no statistically significant differences between the participants’ ICC scores for the three age groups. Findings are theoretically and practically significant. Pedagogical implications and suggestions are discussed in detail

THE ENHANCEMENT EFFECT OF CASTOR OIL ON THE PERMEABILITY OF FLURBIPROFEN AS TRANSDERMAL GEL

Objective: The object of this study was to improve flurbiprofen permeability transdermally using castor oil as penetration enhancer.Methods: Castor oil with different concentrations (1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5%) was used in this study as a natural enhancer to improve flurbiprofen permeation transdermally as a gel. The formulated gel of the drug was evaluated for several physicochemical characteristics. The in vitro release and permeability studies for the drug were performed using Franz cell diffusion apparatus across the synthetic membrane. Korsmeyer Pappas kinetic model was used to study the release mechanism of flurbiprofen from the gel.Results: The results demonstrated that castor oil was safe with no skin irritation and the formulas were stable over time. Castor oil was significantly effective in increasing the percent of flurbiprofen permeability from 46%±2.9 for the gel without enhancer to 95%±2 for the gel with 5% castor oil and increasing its penetration is directly related to the oil concentration. Two mechanisms for the drug release from the gel were involved, which are non-Fickian (anomalous) and super case II transport.Conclusion: Flurbiprofen gel was prepared and evaluated successfully for an in vitro parameters with a good permeation across a synthetic membrane. The results demonstrated that castor oil had an effective enhancement for permeation of flurbiprofen

Cosmological solutions of time varying speed of light theories

We consider scalar-tensor theory for describing varying speed of light in a spatially flat FRW space-time. We find some exact solutions in the metric and Palatini formalisms. Also we examine the dynamics of this theory by dynamical system method assuming a $\Lambda$CDM background and we find some exact solutions by considering the character of critical points of the theory in both formalisms. We show that for any attractor the form of non-minimal coupling coefficient is quadratic in terms of the scalar field $\Psi$. Also we show that only attractors of the de Sitter era satisfy the horizon criteria.Comment: 16 pages, final version accepted for publication in Physics Letters

Effects of Freeze-dried Watermelon on Bone and Clinical Parameters of Ovariectomized Mice

The role of fruits and vegetables in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases such as osteoporosis are continuously being explored. The purpose of this study was to investigate the dose-dependent effects of freeze-dried watermelon in the prevention of bone loss in ovariectomized (OVX) mice, a model of post-menopausal osteoporosis. We hypothesized that compounds in watermelon such as lycopene and citrulline would help prevent bone loss in this animal model. Three month old C57BL/6 female mice (n=68) were sham-operated or OVX and randomly assigned to treatment groups for 12 weeks: sham-control (SHAM), OVX-control, OVX + 1%, 10% or 25% (w/w) freeze-dried watermelon (WM), or OVX-control with alendronate (OVX-ALN) injection (100 μg/kg body weight). All diets were isocaloric, isonitrogenous and had the same calcium and phosphorus concentrations. The 25% WM group had significantly higher final body weight and % body fat compared to the OVX-control group. The DXA scans using PIXImus showed watermelon was not able to prevent the decrease in whole body, tibial, and lumbar bone mineral content and density due to estrogen deficiency. Micro-computed tomography (μCT) analyses showed no similarities between WM-fed groups and SHAM for tibial trabecular and cortical bone microarchitecture. However, the lumbar trabecular micro-architecture analyses revealed that the WM 10% group had similar connectivity density to the SHAM group and higher than the other two doses of WM and OVX-control groups. Bone volume, structure model index and trabecular separation of the WM 10% group are similar to the SHAM and OVX-control groups. Watermelon supplementation increased liver catalase mRNA and tended to increase plasma glutathione peroxidase activity. Our data indicates that watermelon, in a moderate amount, might be a suitable dietary option for maintaining skeletal health.Nutritional Scienc

Comparison of Body Composition Changes in Nursing/Midwifery Students of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences Using Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis at the Beginning and End of the First Semester

Background: Due to the nutritional status changes, students are considered as at-risk group. The aim of this study was to compare the body composition changes in nursing/midwifery students of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences (RUMS) using Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) at the beginning and end of the first semester. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all 57 newly entered nursing/midwifery students who had been registered in Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences in 2012, were selected using census method. Body composition using BIA, and students’ height and waist circumference using a tape meter were measured and compared at the beginning and end of the first semester. Data were analyzed using independent t-test, paired t-test, and non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-ranks test by SPSS 18. Results: The students’ mean age was 19.12±0.83 years. The comparison of lean body mass, total body water, and height of students at the beginning and end of the first semester showed a significant increase (P=0.023, P=0.032, and P=0.013, respectively). Body fat percentage in non-native students compared to the native ones increased (P=0.012). The percentage of underweight and overweight students did not show a significant difference at the beginning and end of the first semester (P=0.655). Conclusion: At the end of the first semester, the increase percentage of body fat in non-native students was alarming. It seems that authorities should review the meal plan of students who live in dormitories and use healthy food pyramids for these students

Unsupervised Moving Object Segmentation using Background Subtraction and Optimal Adversarial Noise Sample Search

Moving Objects Segmentation (MOS) is a fundamental task in many computer vision applications such as human activity analysis, visual object tracking, content based video search, traffic monitoring, surveillance, and security. MOS becomes challenging due to abrupt illumination variations, dynamic backgrounds, camouflage and scenes with bootstrapping. To address these challenges we propose a MOS algorithm exploiting multiple adversarial regularizations including conventional as well as least squares losses. More specifically, our model is trained on scene background images with the help of cross-entropy loss, least squares adversarial loss and ℓ 1 loss in image space working jointly to learn the dynamic background changes. During testing, our proposed method aims to generate test image background scenes by searching optimal noise samples using joint minimization of ℓ 1 loss in image space, ℓ 1 loss in feature space, and discriminator least squares loss. These loss functions force the generator to synthesize dynamic backgrounds similar to the test sequences which upon subtraction results in moving objects segmentation. Experimental evaluations on five benchmark datasets have shown excellent performance of the proposed algorithm compared to the twenty one existing state-of-the-art methods