Micropiled-Raft Foundations for High-Rise Buildings on Soft Soils — A Case Study: Kerman, Iran

For the structures supported on soft soils, piled raft foundations have been shown to be more economical than conventional piled foundations. In piled raft foundations, the bearing capacity of the underlying soil is taken into account to support the superstructure loads and the piles are placed such that they increase the bearing capacity of the raft and control both the total and differential settlements of the superstructure. In the city of Kerman, Iran, the predominance of soft soils had historically hampered the construction of high-rise buildings across the city. Recently, an eighteen-story reinforced concrete building was constructed on a micropiled-raft foundation which was placed on a 30 m-thick layer of soft saturated calcareous silty soil. Conventional laboratory and plate loading test results on the foundation soil indicated that a raft foundation would have adequate bearing capacity, but would experience excessive settlements. As a remedial solution, a micropiled-raft foundation system was considered as a design option for the foundation of the structure. A prototype micropile was designed and installed based on the FHWA (2000) guidelines and tested at the site. The test results were used to design the micropiled raft foundation using a finite element program. The results of the analysis showed that micropiled-raft foundations can provide a cost-effective engineering solution for high-rise buildings constructed on soft soils. The results of this study were successfully employed to construct additional high-rise buildings in the city

Weighting indicators of employee performance evaluation using Taguchi experimental design approach

Performance evaluation is a prerequisite for many activities in the field of human resource whose accurate implementation results in efficiency and effectiveness of performance feedback, training and development, employee promotion, human resource planning, etc. So accurate weighting of evaluation indicators is of great importance and can affect evaluation results. Therefore, using Taguchi experimental design, this study tries to weight indicators realistically taking into account interaction and synergy force among indicators. Moreover, differences in the importance of different levels of indicators were investigated. The result of using Taguchi experimental design as weight indicators showed that this approach can be a proper way to weight performance evaluation indicators

Total Quality Management (TQM) in Iranian primary schools teachers

This paper aims to present the perception of primary school teachers in Shiraz city (Iran) regarding Total Quality Management (TQM) in education. It is an attempt to understand how these perceptions vary by demographic variable such as, gender & subject specialization (Arts and Sciences). Data were collected from 156 primary school teachers in Shiraz city (Iran) on the Bonstingle’s conceptualization of Deming’s 14 points Total Quality Management (TQM) in Education (2011) and were analyzed using SPSS version 18.0. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to find out the significance of difference between variables subscales. Significant difference was found between male and female teachers in the perception of total quality management. Female teachers had higher mean score than male teachers. There is no significant difference between Arts and Sciences primary school teachers in the perception of TQM in education

Total Quality Management (TQM) in Iranian primary schools teachers

This paper aims to present the perception of primary school teachers in Shiraz city (Iran) regarding Total Quality Management (TQM) in education. It is an attempt to understand how these perceptions vary by demographic variable such as, gender & subject specialization (Arts and Sciences). Data were collected from 156 primary school teachers in Shiraz city (Iran) on the Bonstingle’s conceptualization of Deming’s 14 points Total Quality Management (TQM) in Education (2011) and were analyzed using SPSS version 18.0. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to find out the significance of difference between variables subscales. Significant difference was found between male and female teachers in the perception of total quality management. Female teachers had higher mean score than male teachers. There is no significant difference between Arts and Sciences primary school teachers in the perception of TQM in education

A Scientometric Study of Oral Medicine Articles from Iran Published in PubMed-Indexed Journals

Objectives This study aimed to scientometrically assess the oral medicine articles from Iran published in PubMed-indexed journals.Methods In this descriptive cross-sectional study, the author information section of PubMed database was electronically searched for oral medicine articles published from the beginning of 2006 to the beginning of 2016 with at least one author from Iran using the keywords “oral medicine”, “oral and maxillofacial medicine”, “stomatology”, “stomatologist”, and “Iran”. The results were reported as frequency, and trend analysis was performed.Results A total of 280 oral medicine articles published from the beginning of 2006 to the beginning of 2016 were found to have at least one author from Iran, which comprised 2.9% of the entire articles in this field. The majority of published articles were original articles (77%) followed by case reports (15%), review articles (5%), short communications (2%) and letter to editors (1%). The majority of articles had been published in J Dent Res Dent Clin Dent Prospects (18%), followed by J Dent (Tehran) (6.7%), and J Contemp Dent Pract (5.5%). The trend of publication of articles was ascending during this time period except for the year 2011. The frequency of articles had a significantly ascending trend during the aforementioned time period (P=0.004).Conclusion From the beginning of 2006 to the beginning of 2016, Iran’s share of oral medicine articles published in PubMed-indexed journals was around 3% and had an ascending tren

Voltammetric determination of hydroxylamine in water and waste water samples using a NiO nanoparticle/new catechol derivative modified carbon paste electrode

A (9,10-dihydro-9,10-ethanoanthracene-11,12-dicarboximido)-4-ethylbenzene-1,2-diol (DED) mo­di­fied NiO/NPs carbon paste electrode “(DED/NiO nanoparticle (NiO/NPs)/CPE) was constructed for determination of hydroxylamine (HX). The cyclic voltammogram showed that the electro­catalytic oxidation of HX at the surface of DED/NiO/NPs/CPE occurs at a potential of about 800 mV less positive than with an unmodified electrode. Square-wave voltammetry results presented that the electrocatalytic oxidation peak currents of HX in pH 8.0 had two linear dynamic ranges in the range of 0.1 to 2.0 and 2.0 to 400.0 µM HX, with a detection limit of 0.07 µM. The kinetic parameters such as electron transfer coefficient a (0.47) and rate constant (2.454 × 103 M-1 s-1) were determined for the chemical reaction between HX and DED. Finally, this method was evaluated for the determination of HX in water and waste water samples