bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Residual post fire strength of non-prismatic perforated beams
Authors: Abdulkareem Bashar F. , Izzet Amer F.
Published: January 2022

The main aim of this study is to assess the performance and residual strength of post-fire non-prismatic reinforced concrete beams (NPRC) with and without openings. To do this, nine beams were cast and divided into three major groupings. These groups were classified based on the degrees of heating exposure temperature chosen (ambient, 400, and 700°C), with each group containing three non-prismatic beams (solid, 8 trapezoidal openings, and 8 circular openings). Experimentally, given the same beam geometry, increasing burning temperature caused degradation in NPRC beams, which was reflected in increased mid-span deflection throughout the fire exposure period and also residual deflection after cooling. But on the other hand, the issue with existing openings was exacerbated. The burned NPRC beams were then gradually cooled down by leaving them at ambient temperature in the laboratory, and the beams were loaded until failure to examine the effect of burning temperature degree on the residual ultimate load-carrying capacity of each beam by comparing them to unburned reference beams. It was found, increasing the exposure temperature leads to a reduction in ultimate strength about (5.7 and 10.84%) for solid NPRC beams exposed to 400 and 700°C, respectively related to unburned one, (21.13 -32.8) % for NPRC beams with eight trapezoidal openings, and (10.5 - 12.8) % for those having 8 circular openings. At higher loading stage the longitudinal compressive strain of Group ambient in mid-span of solid beams reach 2700 με, while the others with openings exhibit divergent strain higher than that, it’s about 3300 με meanwhile, the lower chord main reinforcements have been pass beyond yielding stress. Exposure to high temperatures reduces rafters’ stiffness causing a reduction in load carrying capacity, companion with premature failure consequently reduce the strain at the ultimate stage.
Alkali-Silica. Reaction Of Foamed. Concrete Containing. Waste Glass as Aggregate
Authors: Massekh Nawal B , Hillal Ameer A.
Published: January 2022

This research focused on examining Alkali-Silica. Reaction (ASR) of foamed concrete mixes containing1different1types of1crushed waste glass (CWG) with different chemical compositions. The reactivity was determined in sodium hydroxide solution by adopting mortar bar test. Four types of waste glass with different particle sizes and different percentages content were used. From the test results of recorded expansion of these mixes, it was noticed that the coarse glass resulted in more expansion than that of fine glass. Lead-silicate1glass (CR) exhibits the maximum expansion followed by1soda-lime1glass (SL) and boro-silicate glass (BS), while less expansion was recorded in mixes with green glass (GG). As compared to reference mix (FC), it was noted that the mixes with crushed waste glass (SL), (BS), and (CR) undergo notable expansion, while the expansion of the mixes with (GG) slightly increased compared to the reference mix (FC).
Improving the Properties of Polyurethane Foam by Adding Urea Powder
Authors: Saeed Ghazi K. , Hamdoon Nabhan Abdulkareem , Abass Sattar A.
Published: January 2022

Samples of pure polyurethane (polyol + isocyanate) were prepared as well as other samples by adding urea powder, and when adding urea powder, the flexibility and cohesion of polyurethane improved, as well as its thermal conductivity decreased and its density increased, as well as flame and fire resistance. The best ratio was 5g of urea for each 12cm3 polyurethane.
Effect of Laser Process on Microstructure and Fatigue Resistance of Steam Turbine Blade
Authors: Abdulwahab Zaman A. , Jafar Sami I. , Ajeel Sami A.
Published: January 2022

The steal turbine blades, operating in steam electricity production plants are subjected to periodic circular stresses that cause fatigue failure with the passage of time. The chemical composition so steam turbine blades show that is steel 52 it has a wide range of applications, mostly in welded construction, All kinds of welded construction, wind turbines, load-lifting equipment, platform components, cranes, bridge components, and structures. This research aims to study the microstructure of these turbine blades before and after the occurrence of fatigue, and for the purpose of improvement the fatigue resistance, the blades were treated with a laser and the amount of improvement in fatigue resistance was calculated and also the change in the microstructure after laser treatment was studied. The remelting process applied with this parameter Pulse energy = 8 joules, Pulse width = 4.5 Ms., Pulse frequency = 12 Hz, Laser Average Power = 96 W, Laser peak power = 1.78 KW. The results show, after remelting process the microstructure of the specimen is smooth and increase the cyclic of fatigue comparison with specimen without leaser remelting process. So, the fatigue resistance is increased.
Forecasting the Compressibility Parameters of Gypseous Soil using Artificial Neural Networks
Authors: Al-Zubaidy Dunia S , Aljanabi Khalid R , Khaled Zeyad S M
Published: January 2022

To ensure safe design of structures against settlement, it is necessary to determine the compressibility parameters of the underneath soil especially compression and rebound indices. In this paper, an approach to forecast the compressibility parameters of gypseous soils based on index parameters was developed using Artificial Neural Networks technique. Two equations were developed to estimate compression and rebound indices using back propagation algorithm to train multi-layer perceptron, in which good agreements were achieved. The input parameters used were: the depth, gypsum content, liquid limit, plastic limit, plasticity index, passing sieve No.200, dry unit weight, water content and initial void ratio. Two output parameters were determined including compression index and rebound index. A parametric study was also conducted to investigate the generalization and robustness of both models. The findings indicate that both models were reliable within the range of utilized data. It was found that gypsum content has the highest effect on the compressibility index followed by water content, plasticity index, dry unit weight and plastic limit, while other parameters have lower effect. The gypsum content has the highest effect again on the rebound index followed by passing sieve No.200, initial void ratio, plastic limit and plasticity index, while other parameters have lower effect.
Strengthening Of Soft Soil Using Caboxymethyl Cellelouse Biopolymer
Authors: Abd Teba A , Fattah Mohammed Y , Aswad Mohammed F
Published: January 2022

The application of appropriate chemicals is a widely used strategy for soil stabilization. The drive of this study is to determine the possibility of using the biopolymer carboxymethyl cellulose as an environmentally acceptable soil stabilizer. In this work, Atterberge limits tests, specific gravity, compaction, and consolidation tests were used to determine the engineering parameters of soils treated with varying amounts of biopolymer. Additionally, changes in the morphological properties of the soft soils were evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It was estimated that as the soil’s biopolymer content increases, the specific gravity drops down, though the optimum water content (OMC) is extended. The outcomes showed diverse effects on Atterberg’s limits by cumulative the liquid limit(LL) and plasticity index (PI) though decreasing the plastic limit as the bio-polymer content increases. By the addition in polymer gratified, the combination boundaries (Solidity index Cc and recompression index Cr) decline.
The Use of Weather Website Data for Construction Project Decision-Making in The Short Term
Authors: Mohammed Safaa S. , Kadhim Noor R. , Abdulrasool Abdulrasool Thamer , Al Shaikhli Hasan Ibrahim
Published: January 2022

In most work sites, it is a priority to keep the work going well and to avoid unforeseen incidents. Fluctuations in weather conditions are one of the factors affecting the continuity of work in construction projects. Indeed, for example, the temperature is important in concrete and asphalt works, and wind speed is important in lifting and high construction works. Therefore, taking the appropriate decision, starting and completing the work, is very important to maintain the quality of the project. This research aims to demonstrate the reliability of short-term decision-making through data taken from the weather site five days before the time to work. The data was collected for a month, five days before the intended day and on the same day, day and night, for different weather factors by weather location such as temperature, humidity, possibility of rain, Uv index, wind speed. By analyzing the data, it was found that there was little difference in those predictors of all the factors recorded. To conclude at the end of the study that it is possible to rely on the decision-making on the weather location in small and medium projects, but in large and sensitive projects, they need to rely on more accurate data than relying on weather location data.
PM and NOX emissions amelioration from the combustion of diesel/ethanol-methanol blends applying exhaust gas recirculation (EGR)
Authors: Chaichan Miqdam T. , Ekab Noora S. , Fayad Mohammed A. , Dhahad Hayder A.
Published: January 2022

The fuel injection timings, equivalence ratio (Ø) and exhaust gas recirculation are considered the most important parameters can effect on combustion process and lower exhaust emissions concentrations. The influence of 15% EGR technology and operating parameters (Ø and injection timing) on NOX emissions and particulate matter (PM) using oxygenated fuel (ethanol and methanol) blends were investigated in this experimental study. The results showed that the NOX emissions concentrations with increasing the equivalence ratio (Ø) and applied EGR for all fuels studied. Besides, the E10 and M10 decreased the PM concentrations compared to the diesel fuel under various equivalence ratios (Ø). The applied EGR increased the PM concentrations, but when combination of oxygenated fuels and EGR leading to the decrease in the PM formation. The NOX emissions concentrations decreased from the combined effect of EGR and oxygenated fuels by 16.8%, 22.91% and 29.5% from the combustion of diesel, M10 and E10, respectively, under various injection timings. It is indicated that NOX emissions decreased with retarded injection timings, while the PM decreased under advanced injection timings.
Analysis of Asphalt Geogrid Reinforced Pavement Rutting by Finite Element Method
Authors: Sadiq Noor , Hilal Miami M. , Fattah Mohammed Y.
Published: January 2022

Pavement is a complex structure consisting of several layers of different materials that influence its stressful behavior. Permanent deformation can occur in pavement layers of insufficient hardness at high temperatures. Significant rutting normally only occurs during hot weather, especially when the flexible pavement surface temperature is 60 ° C or higher. 2D model analysis using ABAQUS software can predict the rutting behavior. The modeling procedure assumes that all materials performance is a linear elastic. Surface, base, subbase and subgrade layers consist of models. Models in every pavement model, subgrade layers are supposed to have endless depth. This paper presents an element-finite model (FE) for the behavior analysis of the dynamic loading unreinforced and geogrid reinforced paving. Increased loading of the model and critical pavement responses for unreinforced or geogrid-reinforced flexible paving, such as vertical stress and vertical surface deflection, were determined. The results indicated a difference in the displacement results when adding the geogrid layer. The results also showed a significant improvement in the behavior of the pavement system. A parametric study was carried out on a type of Truck (3-S1) and the applied pressure was 36 tons with different thicknesses of the asphalt layer once 150 mm and again 25 cm at different temperatures of 20, 40 and 60 ° C. It was found that the higher the temperatures, the higher the displacement as well.
Evaluation of Flood Routing Models and Their Relationship to The Hydraulic Properties of The Diyala River Bed
Authors: Kadhim M A , Al-Bedyry N K , Omran I I
Published: January 2022

In this study, four types of flood routing approaches were studied which give significantly varied results represented by the differences between computed and observed flows and also differ considerably on the friction coefficient and bed slope of the channels. First two approaches use a hydraulic solution to solve the equations of unsteady flow, while the third approach uses the hydrological solution, and the fourth algorithm solves Muskingum approach with seven parameters. All these approaches were run with the same input parameters, the results were compared and tested with four Error Measurement Indices, Sum of Squared Deviations, Error of Peak Discharge, Variance Index, and agreement index. Diyala River was selected for this application. Dynamic wave method gave accurate results, followed by the characteristic method, and then the linear Muskingum-Cunge method, but Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm not gave any senses due to change in roughness or bed slope and gave very identical values with recorded outflow in all conditions, which means that the hydraulic solution is better compared to the hydrological solution. The results also showed that the difference between the calculated and observed flows diminished with a decrease in the coefficient of friction and an increase in the bed slope channel.
Using Of Different Electrocoagulation Cell Configuration Parameters for Treating of Abu-Ghraib Dairy Products Wastewater
Authors: Abd Al-Hamza Sara Mohannad , Abd Al-Hamed Hayder Mohammed
Published: January 2022

One of the most significant issues that people throughout the world will confront in the future years is a lack of clean and safe water. Anthropogenic activities, in particular, are polluting water systems. With rising population, urbanization, and climate change, water reuse has become a requirement in some areas of the globe, putting pressure on the development of effective water treatment methods for a range of contaminants. High biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), oil-grease, and other pollutant loads define dairy sector effluent. Improved technology is required to address these issues. Electrocoagulation is a new type of therapy. It’s simple to use, ecologically friendly, and removes a wide range of contaminants from a variety of water types. The goal of this study was to see how operational factors such applied voltage, number of electrodes, distance between electrodes, electrode shape, and reaction time affected the electrocoagulation of actual dairy effluent. Aluminum and iron electrodes are used for this purpose. It was discovered that raising the applied voltage, reaction time, and decreasing the distance between electrodes improved COD, BOD, EC, TDS, color, and oil-grease removal efficiency. Moreover, switch between square, triangular electrodes and perforated cylindrical. The data show that electrocoagulation is effective at the maximum COD, BOD removal efficiency of first electrode at 20 holes of cylindrical shape is (88.03) %, (87.97) %, respectively. Second triangle shape is (100) %, (100) % respectively. Third square shape is (99.38) %, (99.42) % respectively. the maximum removal of TDS, EC efficiency of first electrode at 20 holes of cylindrical shape is (67.57) %, (62.34) %, respectively. Second triangle shape is (77.45) %, (67.68) % respectively. Third square shape is (81.96) %, (71.25) % respectively. The maximum color and oil-grease removal efficiency of first electrode at 20 holes of cylindrical shape is (100) %, (100) %, respectively. Second triangle shape is (100) %, (100) % respectively. Third square shape is (100) %, (100) % respectively. Electrocoagulation methods for the treatment of dairy wastewaters were shown to be successful in the research. Finally, the findings indicated that electrocoagulation is a technically feasible method for removing contaminants from dairy wastewaters.
Photovoltaic Module Electrical Efficiency Enhancement Using Nano Fluids and Nano-Paraffin
Authors: Chaichan “Miqdam T , Zaidi Muhaned A H , Kazem Hussein A. , Sopian K.
Published: January 2022

Today, photovoltaic modules have become accepted by the public and scientists in the production of clean electricity and as a possible alternative to electricity produced from fossil fuels. These modules suffer from a deterioration in their electrical efficiency as a result of their high temperature. Several researchers have proposed the use of high-efficiency hybrid photovoltaic (PV/T) systems that can cool PV modules and also produce hot water. Improving the PV modules’ electrical efficiency increases the investment attraction and commercialization of this technology. The possibility of restoring the electrical efficiency of the photovoltaic panel that was lost due to its high temperature was investigated in this study. A PV/T system designed to operate with a paraffin-filled thermal tank attached to the PV module was used. Inside the paraffin is a heat exchanger that circulates inside a nanofluid. This design is adopted to cool down the PV module temperature. The study was carried out in the climatic conditions of the month of May in the city of Baghdad - Iraq. The proposed PV/T system’s electrical efficiency was compared with similar systems from the literature. The proposed system has achieved an obvious enhancement as its electrical efficiency was 13.7%.
Green Zone Planning for City Sustainability
Authors: Khaleefah N , Alwan W S
Published: January 2022

: The importance of research has emerged by focusing on sustainable green zone planning to solve the problem of degradation through sustainable strategies, to make green areas determine buildings, not the other way around using GIS, by working on a hypothesis (green areas planning according to an appropriate strategy can sustain cities). The principle of urban planning, urban sustainability, sustainable planning and sustainable cities, as well as urban sustainability and many strategies that support green zone planning and rely on a number of factors for sustainable cities, have been addressed. The research was based on how to plan green areas sustainably, what constraints the planners face in the Dora area south of Baghdad, and the reasons for their deterioration in the urban environment, and after analysing and comparing the changes that occurred over three periods of time (2004 and 2009 and 2019) for 10 residential stores to assess the state of the green areas during that period and how they changed, what problems led to the reduction of areas, increased areas built at their expense, compared to the standards of urban and rural housing in Iraq and the basic plan of the company Paul Servis in 1971, Sustainable planning thus creates a balance in the environment, economy and social values so that these new places meet the work and life needs of the local population and their interests, as one of the indicators of sustainable cities environmental, social and economic, measured by the availability of green and preserved areas relative to population density and coverage, which are one of the most important components of the blocs of urban areas to continue the quality of urban life and environmental and social sustainability, and the ratio of green areas to areas built in a sample of the shop Housing in the study area is very few in most stores and is not in line with international standards, so the current standards need to be adjusted and increased from what they are now, as well as laws in general need to be updated because they are in their current state to achieve the sustainability of green areas in the study area. The most important proposals and solutions that address the problems of green areas (developing a specific strategy, developing some laws on the protection of green areas and setting environmental performance standards for green areas). The research recommended the need to review the planning standard for the individual’s share of green spaces as it does not correspond to the increase in population density, and to guide the pursuit of sustainable strategies within the plans prepared by the long-term municipal departments supporting green areas and work to support environmental performance within municipal circles by presenting the award for outstanding environmental performance on conservation capacity and increasing green spaces, urging a focus on the sustainability of Iraqi cities as they suffer from increased desertification and dredging of green areas and current climate change.
Environmental resilience and physical structure of Bazian City
Authors: Abbas Marwa Alaa , Ebraheem Mustafa Abduljalil
Published: January 2022

The ability of an organism or system to restore form and position elastically following a disturbance or interruption of any type is the true meaning of resilience. How often does the term “resilience” appear in regional or metropolitan contexts to allude to a local socio-economic system’s ability to rebound from a shock or disruption? Resilience can be characterized in a variety of ways. Another term is buffer capacity, which refers to a system’s ability to absorb disturbances and the quantity of disturbance before the system’s structure is altered by modifying the variables and processes that influence behavior. The study concludes that industrial activities affect the city in general and the city’s environment in particular through the pollutants caused by these activities. In order to develop planning solutions to address any change in the city under the concept of environmental resilience, the researchers paid attention to this aspect, which provides treatments, solutions, and suggestions in order to preserve the city from crises and Industrial activities that negatively affect the environment of the city, that the city of Bazian contains industrial factories for the manufacture of cement and bricks because it is rich in raw materials. Of the importance of industrial activities that contribute to the production of an economic resource for the region, but there are deficiencies in the ecological systems that maintain the direct impact of these industries on the environment, the insufficiency of regulations and legislation within the framework of industrial determinants.
A Review of Studying the Relationship of Traffic Stream Characteristics and Noise Intensity with Flexible Pavement Surface Condition
Authors: Merza Taghreed Reyadh , Al-Jumaili Mohammed Abbas
Published: January 2022

In general, roads are a very important infrastructure to facilitate people’s access to their social and economic activities, so knowing the things that affect the efficiency of these roads is very important and how to maintain them. One of the aims of this research is to shed light on previous studies that showed the relationship between traffic characteristics and noise intensity on the condition of the breakable Pavement. The results of previous studies show that flexible Pavement has 19 potential failures and how to address them. There is a relationship between the characteristics of traffic flow and failures that occur in flexible paving. It is also possible to calculate the road condition by knowing the types of faults on the road using several roads or by using specific formulas to calculate the road condition index. There are relationships between the road condition index, the vehicles’ speed, and the models that link Noise to speed. And that most of the relationships that were used to calculate the elastic pavement condition index and its relationship to the movement characteristics are statistical relationships using ANOVA, recreation, and R2
Some Properties of Concrete Containing Waste Brick As Partial Replacement Of Coarse Aggregate And Addition Of Nano Brick Powder
Authors: Abdullah Duaa Jabbar , Abbas Zena K , Abed Suhair Kadhem
Published: January 2022

The accumulation of construction and demolition waste is one of the major problems in modern construction. Hence, this research investigates the use of waste brick in concrete. Seven different concrete mixes were investigated in this study: a control concrete mix, three mixes with volumetric replacement (10, 20, and 30)% of natural aggregate with brick aggregate, and two mixes with the addition of nano brick powder at a percentage level of 5– 10% by weight of cementitious materials. And the last one was mixed with 10% nano brick and 10% coarse brick aggregate. The experimental results for the additive of nano brick powder showed an enhancement in mechanical properties (compressive, flexural, and tensile strength) compared to the control mix for all ages, while the mixes with 10% coarse brick replacement also showed a slight improvement in the mechanical properties up to 5.33%, 2.79%, and 2.38% for compressive, splitting tensile, and flexural strength, respectively, at 28 days. The nano particles modified the mechanical properties of the CBA concrete when mixed with 10% nano brick and 10% coarse brick aggregate, up to 11.54%, 8.56%, and 3.3% for compressive, flexural, and tensile strength, respectively, at 150 days.
Simulation of thermal comfort on public space and buildings around river in Banjarmasin-Indonesia
Authors: Rahman A
Published: January 2022

The climate and environmental aspects are one of the things that affect architectural products. The city as a gathering place that interacts for a particular purpose has influenced the shape and visual of the city. The density of buildings in a city has affected the urban microclimate. Urban get hotter than rural areas. Urban planners need to pay attention to several aspects related to the solution to the design of the humid tropics. The concept of greening the city evenly and thoroughly, so that the thermal is not too high that can affect comfort. In this research used Rhinoceros 5, Grasshopper, Ladybug, and ladybug for simulation and validation data of wet bulb temperature on a psychometric chart and CBE Thermal Comfort Tool from ASHRAE-55 standard. The purpose of this study used simulation is to facilitate and predict the thermal conditions of buildings and the environment. This application is also used by researchers and architect designers. Based on the simulation, the indoor maximum effective temperature and standard effective temperature are always uncomfortable zones. The building condition with wooden construction is higher of thermal comfort compared with concrete construction buildings and the wood construction is faster reaches maximum value compared to concrete construction.
Climate change impact to dam Operation, case study of Darma Dam, West Java
Authors: Kuntoro A A , Ramadhani D T , Idris A M S , Farid M , Adityawan M B , Widyaningtias  , Annisa G O N
Published: January 2022

Darma Dam is located in the upstream of Cisanggarung River, Kuningan Regency, West Java Province. Darma Dam construction dated from about 1922. Indonesian government continued the construction and began operating in 1962. With effective storage of about 40 million m3, Darma Dam provides water for about 22 thousand irrigation areas and bulk water for several cities and regencies. Several problems encountered in Darma Dam operation and water management are 1) increasing water demand from domestic and industrial sectors, and 2) high inflow variation during the dry and wet season, resulting in a large amount of water spill from the dam spillway. This paper addressed the impact of climate change on the inflow variation of Darma Dam in the dry and wet seasons. Further analysis shows average water spills from the spillway during the wet season may increase from about 12 million m3/year in the present condition to about 20 million m3/year in 2020-2050, while the average water volume during the dry season may reduce from 22.5 million m3 in the present condition to about 20.7 million m3 in 2020-2050. This study suggests that dam operation need adjustment in the future as part of adaptation to climate change.
Evaluation the influence of distance-based K-means method for detecting moving vehicles
Authors: Sari Y , Prakoso P B , Baskara A R
Published: January 2022

Detecting moving vehicles is one of important elements in the applications of Intelligent Transport System (ITS). Detecting moving vehicles is also part of the detection of moving objects. K-Means method has been successfully applied to unsupervised cluster pixels for the detection of moving objects. In general, K-Means is a heuristic algorithm that partitioned the data set into K clusters by minimizing the number of squared distances in each cluster. In this paper, the K-Means algorithm applies Euclidean distance, Manhattan distance, Canberra distance, Chebyshev distance and Braycurtis distance. The aim of this study is to compare and evaluate the implementation of these distances in the K-Means clustering algorithm. The comparison is done with the basis of K-Means assessed with various evaluation paramaters, namely MSE, PSNR, SSIM and PCQI. The results exhibit that the Manhattan distance delivers the best MSE, PSNR, SSIM and PCQI values compared to other distances. Whereas for data processing time exposes that the Braycurtis distance has more advantages.
A review of oil palm fruit fiber reinforced composites
Authors: Bakri B , Naharuddin  , Mustafa  , Medi A , Padang L
Published: January 2022

Oil palm fibers have been developed as reinforcement in the composite. These fibers can be produced from fruit, trunk, and frond of oil palm. In this review, the oil palm fruit fiber for reinforcing composite was focused. Oil palm fruit fibers consist of empty fruit bunch (EFB) and mesocarp fruit (MF) fibers. The chemical composition and characteristics of oil palm fruit fiber are described. Furthermore, the mechanical properties of the composite are reported to be related to the surface treatment of EFB and MF fibers. Applications of such fiber composite are included in this review. From some researches, the surface treatment methods for MF and EFB fibers as reinforcement composite was conducted with using alkali, silane, acryilic acid, acetic anhydride, hydogen peroxide, microwave, and superheated steam. The effect of these surface treatments on oil palm EFB and MF fibers displayed the improvement of the mechanical properties (tensile, flexural and impact strengths) of the composite due to enhance the interface adhesion between fiber and matrix after treatment of fibers.
Degradation mechanism and life prediction of tailings and waste rock aggregate geopolymer concrete under freeze-thaw corrosion
Authors: Sun Qi , Li Botao , Wang Hui , Wang Yiting
Published: January 2022

To study the durability of tailings and waste rock aggregate geopolymer concrete (TWGPC), a large number of tailings and waste rock were used to replace natural sand and stone as aggregates, and a fly ash geopolymer was used to replace cement as cementing material to prepare TWGPC. The slow freezing method was used to carry out single freeze-thaw and freeze-thaw corrosion tests. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM–EDS) were used to analyse the microstructure and reaction products of TWGPC. The degradation mechanism of TWGPC was studied, and the life of TWGPC was predicted. The results show that the higher the concentration of corrosion solution was, the more significant the change trend of the mechanical properties test results. In the early stage of the cycle, acinar gypsum and short columnar ettringite were generated to fill the pores and improve the compactness and frost resistance of TWGPC. In the late stage of the cycle: calcium-silicate-hydrate (C–S–H) was decomposed and gradually replaced by magnesium-silicate-hydrate (M–S–H). The cohesion between mortar and aggregate was reduced, and a large number of products were generated. Cl− inhibited the transmission rate of SO4
2− and reduced the erosion effect of SO4
2− on TWGPC. The single freezing-thawing life prediction model had high accuracy, and the life prediction conclusion based on reliability was consistent with the appearance damage analysis, mechanical property testing and microscopic morphology analysis.
A stable 4-bit ALU design for printed devices
Authors: Suk JunHa , Ahn ChanYeop , Mojahidul Ahsan S M , Kim SoYoung
Published: January 2022

Printed devices fabricated using roll-to-roll (R2R) printing technology have been used in low-cost Internet of Things (IoTs), smart packaging and bio-chips. As the area of applications of printed devices broadens, arithmetic units in digital design need to be implemented. In this paper, we propose a stable 4-bit arithmetic logic unit (ALU) design using a minimum number of transistors that can overcome the limitations of printed devices. We propose the use of a 2:1 transmission gate (TG) multiplexer structure and hybrid 16T full-adder to construct the ALU. New design methods are applied to reduce the number of inverter stages added to overcome the voltage degradation. Using this approach reduces the total number of transistors used in the design from 276 to 153, compared to the conventional design, with significant improvements in delay and power performance.
Key properties of inorganic thermoelectric materials—tables (version 1)
Authors: Freer Robert , Ekren Dursun , Ghosh Tanmoy , Biswas Kanishka , Qiu Pengfei , Wan Shun , Chen Lidong , Han Shen , Fu Chenguang , Zhu Tiejun , Ashiquzzaman Shawon A K M , Zevalkink Alexandra , Imasato Kazuki , Snyder G. Jeffrey , Ozen Melis , Saglik Kivanc , Aydemir Umut , Cardoso-Gil Raúl , Svanidze E , Funahashi Ryoji , Powell Anthony V , Mukherjee Shriparna , Tippireddy Sahil , Vaqueiro Paz , Gascoin Franck , Kyratsi Theodora , Sauerschnig Philipp , Mori Takao
Published: January 2022

This paper presents tables of key thermoelectric properties, which define thermoelectric conversion efficiency, for a wide range of inorganic materials. The twelve families of materials included in these tables are primarily selected on the basis of well established, internationally-recognized performance and promise for current and future applications: tellurides, skutterudites, half Heuslers, Zintls, Mg–Sb antimonides, clathrates, FeGa3-type materials, actinides and lanthanides, oxides, sulfides, selenides, silicides, borides and carbides. As thermoelectric properties vary with temperature, data are presented at room temperature to enable ready comparison, and also at a higher temperature appropriate to peak performance. An individual table of data and commentary are provided for each family of materials plus source references for all the data.
Learning multi-scale heterogenous network topologies and various pairwise attributes for drug–disease association prediction
Authors: Zhang Hongda , Cui Hui , Zhang Tiangang , Cao Yangkun , Xuan Ping
Published: January 2022

Motivation

Identifying new therapeutic effects for the approved drugs is beneficial for effectively reducing the drug development cost and time. Most of the recent computational methods concentrate on exploiting multiple kinds of information about drugs and disease to predict the candidate associations between drugs and diseases. However, the drug and disease nodes have neighboring topologies with multiple scales, and the previous methods did not fully exploit and deeply integrate these topologies.

Results

We present a prediction method, multi-scale topology learning for drug-disease (MTRD), to integrate and learn multi-scale neighboring topologies and the attributes of a pair of drug and disease nodes. First, for multiple kinds of drug similarities, multiple drug–disease heterogenous networks are constructed respectively to integrate the similarities and associations related to drugs and diseases. Moreover, each heterogenous network has its specific topology structure, which is helpful for learning the corresponding specific topology representation. We formulate the topology embeddings for each drug node and disease node by random walking on each heterogeneous network, and the embeddings cover the neighboring topologies with different scopes. Because the multi-scale topology embeddings have context relationships, we construct Bi-directional long short-term memory-based module to encode these embeddings and their relationships and learn the neighboring topology representation. We also design the attention mechanisms at feature level and at scale level to obtain the more informative pairwise features and topology embeddings. A module based on multi-layer convolutional networks is constructed to learn the representative attributes of the drug–disease node pair according to their related similarity and association information. Comprehensive experimental results indicate that MTRD achieves the superior performance than several state-of-the-art methods for predicting drug–disease associations. MTRD also retrieves more actual drug–disease associations in the top-ranked candidates of the prediction result. Case studies on five drugs further demonstrate MTRD’s ability in discovering the potential candidate diseases for the interested drugs.
Improving one-step scarless genome editing in Drosophila melanogaster by combining ovoD co-CRISPR selection with sgRNA target site masking
Authors: Götze Katharina J , Mrestani Achmed , Beckmann Paula , Krohn Knut , Le Duc Diana , Velluva Akhil , Böhme Mathias A , Heckmann Manfred , Abou Jamra Rami , Lemke Johannes R , Bläker Hendrik , Scholz Nicole , Ljaschenko Dmitrij , Langenhan Tobias
Published: January 2022

The precise and rapid construction of alleles through CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome engineering renders Drosophila melanogaster a powerful animal system for molecular structure–function analyses and human disease models. Application of the ovoD co-selection method offers expedited generation and enrichment of scarlessly edited alleles without the need for linked transformation markers, which specifically in the case of exon editing can impact allele usability. However, we found that knockin procedures by homology-directed repair (HDR) under ovoD co-selection resulted in low transformation efficiency. This is likely due to repeated rounds of Cas9 cleavage of HDR donor and/or engineered genomic locus DNA, as noted for other CRISPR/Cas9 editing strategies before, impeding the recovery of correctly edited alleles. Here we provide a one-step protocol to improve the generation of scarless alleles by ovoD-co-selection with single-guide RNA (sgRNA) binding site masking. Using this workflow, we constructed human disease alleles for two Drosophila genes, unc-13/CG2999 and armadillo/CG11579. We show and quantify how a known countermeasure, the insertion of silent point mutations into protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) or sgRNA homology regions, can potently suppress unintended sequence modifications during CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing of D. melanogaster under ovoD co-selection. This strongly increased the recovery frequency of disease alleles.
Service User Involvement and COVID-19—An Afterthought?
Authors: Duffy Joe , Cameron Colin , Casey Helen , Beresford Peter , McLaughlin Hugh
Published: January 2022

We are researchers and activists working in the field of service user involvement for many years in the UK and internationally who are concerned that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, years of progress in service user involvement have been unravelled by service users being left on the outside of key decisions and matters affecting their lives. Instead, we argue, they have become an afterthought. As authors, we combine both academic and service user experience and have been involved in advancing practice, understanding and guidance about the significant contribution that service users bring to knowledge production. This article examines the issues by focusing on the journey of service user involvement before and during the pandemic, as well as on what should come after. Turning to the experiences of disabled people as a case study example, we argue that going back to ‘normal’ would be fundamentally flawed, as evidenced by the marginalised way in which service users have been treated during this period of societal crisis. Our article concludes by urging a reflexive stance to ensure service user involvement re-establishes its pivotal position in public policy and practice.
Chromosome-scale assembly of barley cv. ‘Haruna Nijo’ as a resource for barley genetics
Authors: Sakkour Areej , Mascher Martin , Himmelbach Axel , Haberer Georg , Lux Thomas , Spannagl Manuel , Stein Nils , Kawamoto Shoko , Sato Kazuhiro
Published: January 2022

Cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare) is used for food, animal feed, and alcoholic beverages and is widely grown in temperate regions. Both barley and its wild progenitor (H. vulgare ssp. spontaneum) have large 5.1-Gb genomes. High-quality chromosome-scale assemblies for several representative barley genotypes, both wild and domesticated, have been constructed recently to populate the nascent barley pan-genome infrastructure. Here, we release a chromosome-scale assembly of the Japanese elite malting barley cultivar ‘Haruna Nijo’ using a similar methodology as in the barley pan-genome project. The 4.28-Gb assembly had a scaffold N50 size of 18.9 Mb. The assembly showed high collinearity with the barley reference genome ‘Morex’ cultivar, with some inversions. The pseudomolecule assembly was characterized using transcript evidence of gene projection derived from the reference genome and de novo gene annotation achieved using published full-length cDNA sequences and RNA-Seq data for ‘Haruna Nijo’. We found good concordance between our whole-genome assembly and the publicly available BAC clone sequence of ‘Haruna Nijo’. Interesting phenotypes have since been identified in Haruna Nijo; its genome sequence assembly will facilitate the identification of the underlying genes.
Surgical resection of Masaoka stage III thymic epithelial tumours with great vessels involvement: a retrospective multicentric analysis from the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons thymic database
Authors: Mendogni Paolo , Toker Alper , Moser Bernhard , Trancho Florentino Hernando , Aigner Clemens , Bravio Ivan Gomes , Novoa Nuria Maria , Molins Laureano , Costardi Lorena , Voltolini Luca , Ardò Nicoletta Pia , Verdonck Bram , Ampollini Luca , Zisis Charlambos , Barmin Vitaly , Enyedi Attila , Ruffini Enrico , Van Raemdonck Dirk , Thomas Pascal-Alexandre , Weder Walter , Rocco Gaetano , Brunelli Alessandro , Detterbeck Frank C , Venuta Federico , Falcoz Pierre-Emmanuel , Tosi Davide , Bonitta Gianluca , Nosotti Mario ,   European Association of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) Thymic Working Group, Ozkan Berker , Cımenoglu Berk , Thanner Jürgen , Olivero Carlos Fraile , Alvarado Rodriguez , Boada Marc , Bongiolatti Stefano , Sollitto Francesco , Van Schil Paul , Bocchialini Giovanni , Brioude Geoffrey
Published: January 2022

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to analyse the outcomes of an international cohort of patients affected by Masaoka stage III thymic epithelial tumours with vascular involvement and treated by surgery.

METHODS

Study design was the observational multicentre retrospective cohort study. Data were extracted from the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons thymic database; additional variables were collected. Inclusion criteria were as follows: stage III (Masaoka–Koga) thymic epithelial tumours; surgery with radical intention; clinical or pathological great vessels involvement; and radiologically suspected or diagnosed intraoperatively. Outcome items were analysed.

RESULTS

Sixty-five patients submitted to surgery from 2001 to 2017 fulfilled inclusion criteria. Thymoma and thymic carcinoma patients did not differ for demographics and clinical characteristics. The majority of great vessel treated were superior vena cava or innominate veins (72.3%). Eleven patients (16.9%) had postoperative cardiopulmonary complications; vascular stenosis was observed in 3 patients (4.6%). The multivariable Cox analysis for disease-free survival showed an increased hazard of recurrence for thymic carcinoma (hazard ratio = 3.59; 95% confidence interval: 1.66–7.78, P = 0.001). The 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-year overall survival rates were 0.86, 0.84, 0.81, and 0.53, respectively. There was no significant difference in overall survival according to resection status or between thymoma and thimic carcinoma. The univariable Cox regression model did not show an increased hazard of death for myasthenic patients considering all resection status and for patients who received neoadjuvant therapy.

CONCLUSIONS

We observed that clinical outcomes of patients treated for stage III thymic epithelial tumours with vascular involvement are satisfactory suggesting to increase the confidence in dealing with these complex surgeries. Complete resection should be achieved, even though extensive vascular reconstructions are required.
A comparison of autologous pericardium with Dacron™ for closure of ventricular septal defect in infants
Authors: Desai Manan H , Hachana Skander , Bukhari Syed M , Stough Andrea , Zurakowski David , Jonas Richard A , Ramakrishnan Karthik
Published: January 2022

OBJECTIVES

Glutaraldehyde-treated autologous pericardium (GtAP) and Dacron™ are 2 patch materials commonly used to repair ventricular septal defects (VSDs) in children. The primary objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that GtAP is as effective as Dacron for the repair of isolated VSD in infants.

METHODS

Data were collected retrospectively from all infants who underwent repair of isolated VSD at our institution between January 2009 and April 2017. A total of 156 patients were divided into 2 groups: 99 underwent repair with Dacron patch and 57 with GtAP. The primary end point was the need for reintervention for significant residual VSD. Adjusted hospital charges were also compared.

RESULTS

The 2 groups were comparable in their baseline characteristics. There was no significant difference in postoperative morbidity indicators. One patient in each group underwent reintervention for the closure of residual VSD. The GtAP group had a higher incidence trivial and small residual VSD at discharge than the Dacron group (65% vs 39%, P = 0.007). The median duration of follow-up was 37 (15–75) months with no difference between the 2 groups. Forty-five percentage of the residual VSDs in the Dacron group (19/42) and 54%in the GtAP group (21/39) had closed. There was no difference in hospital charges and clinical outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

GtAP for the closure of isolated VSD in infants is comparable to Dacron. Although the incidence of trivial or small residual VSD is higher with the use of pericardium immediately after surgery, this difference disappears over time.