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Aims: Bacterial urinary tract infections are observed in all age groups due to the development of antibiotic-resistant species. This study aimed to investigate resistance genes gyrase subunit A (gyrA), topoisomerase IV (parC) subunit gene, beta lactamase (blaZ), erythromycin ribosome methylase (ermC), ermB, and ermA in Staphylococcus saporophyticus isolated from patients with urinary tract infections (UTIs) in Mazandaran Province, Iran.
Materials & Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, 3280 clinical samples were collected from patients with UTIs in Mazandaran Province from April to December 2022. Isolates were identified by biochemical tests. Microbial sensitivity tests were performed by disk diffusion method according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to check the presence of resistance genes.
Findings: Out of a total of 3280 clinical samples collected, 2088 samples were detected by biochemical tests at the genus level. Escherichia coli (55.22%) and staphylococci (21.59%) were the most frequent bacterial isolates. S. saprophyticus was identified in 52 (2.49%) samples. The frequency of gyrA and parC genes in S. saprophyticus isolates was 23 and 1.92%, respectively. The blaZ gene was observed in none of the samples. The prevalence of ermA, ermB, and ermC genes was 21, 1.92, and 26%, respectively.
 The antibiogram test showed that the highest frequency of resistance to erythromycin, azithromycin, and clarithromycin was 70, 36, and 20%, respectively.
Conclusion: According to the present study findings, rapid detection of these strains in hospitals leads to more effective control of the spread of these strains.
 

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Abstract In this paper, using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Finite Element Method (FEM), health monitoring of damaged cantilever beams having longitudinal cracks is discussed. The main focus is devoted to the nonlinear behavior (breathing) of crack, which, to our knowledge, is taken into account in the crack detection of structures using ANNs, for the first time. Thus nonlinear behavior of crack is modeled using FEM.The changes in the natural frequencies (due to crack) of various vibration modes were implemented as input for training and testing of ANNs. By producing various scenarios for sound and damaged beams (with different damage location and severity), two specific classes of ANNs were trained to predict the location and length of longitudinal cracks. The Results showed a promising prediction for the length of cracks by the proposed methodology. Also a considerable approximation observed in the prediction of cracks location.

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Nowadays, fluid storage tanks are as important as fluids in urban life. The dynamic behavior of this important structure is different from common structures. Baffles as a passive control device can reduce the effects of sloshing which reduces the structural response to seismic excitation. In this study, the effect of baffles on seismic response of cylindrical vertical liquid storage tanks is investigated. The considered baffle is an annular plate with constant level from the base and constant inner diameter fixed on wall of the tank. Considering Laplace equation as the governing equation of fluid domain, and using boundary element method, a rigid tank is analyzed in the frequency and time domains. Afterwards, the baffle effects on natural frequency (in the frequency domain), and on base shear and overturning moment (in the time domain) due to El Centro and Erzincan earthquakes are investigated. Based on the results of mentioned analyses, it is observed that when the baffle is installed, the natural frequency of liquid domain reduces. Moreover, by installing the baffle, the base shear slightly increases whereas overturning moment remarkably reduces.

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It is well known that ground surface with irregular topographic features causes complicated seismic responses. The complex seismic response is mainly caused by wave scattering. In this study, for a homogeneous, isotropic, linearly elastic half-space, the formulation of a two-dimensional SH-wave field based on the direct boundary element method and Neumann series expansion is developed. By discretizing the ground surface to boundary elements, the boundary integral equation is formulated into a general matrix form. This general matrix form is then reduced to a more efficient form, which considerably reduces the size of the computational matrices using Neumann series expansion. For this purpose, a Fortran computer program is developed, whose accuracy and feasibility in the frequency domain is shown by some numerical analyses conducted for grounds with semicircular convex and concave, and symmetrical V-shaped canyon topographical configurations. Comparing the results of the present study with those available in the literature shows the accuracy of the present study by just considering two first terms of Neumann series expansion. The minor differences of the results of the present research with other reseach results may be assigned to the number of terms of Neumann series expansion and the order of used boundary elements. In other words, if the number of terms of Neumann series expansion and the order of used boundary elements incease, the accuracy of the numerical results may enhance. Based on the results of the present research for various parameters of different two-dimensional canyons, the following conclusions may be obtained: When the exciting frequency increases, the wave-length decreases. As a result, the violence effects of incident wave due to canyon effects may be significant for a given canyon. Moreover, the displacement field of various canyon points follows more complicated pattern. On the other hand, for smaller exciting frequencies with larger wave-lengths, the canyon effects as the main cause of disturbation source are not so remarkable, and the displacement field of various canyon points are smoother. The effects of incident wave angle is also remarkable on the disturbation patterns of displacement field of different canyon points. When the angle increases, the triangle canyons experience more complicated patterns compared to semicircular canyons. Analyses' results show important effects of shape and depth of various canyons. These effects are more considerable when depth's variations are remarkable in comparison with the wave-length of incident wave. Furthermore, the mentioned effects are functions of frequency and angle of incident wave.

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It is well known that ground surface with irregular topographic features causes complicated seismic responses. The complex seismic response is mainly caused by wave scattering. In this study, for a homogeneous, isotropic, linearly elastic half-space, the formulation of a two-dimensional SH-wave field based on the direct boundary element method and Neumann series expansion is developed. By discretizing the ground surface to boundary elements, the boundary integral equation is formulated into a general matrix form. This general matrix form is then reduced to a more efficient form, which considerably reduces the size of the computational matrices using Neumann series expansion. For this purpose, a Fortran computer program is developed, whose accuracy and feasibility in the frequency domain is shown by some numerical analyses conducted for grounds with semicircular convex and concave, and symmetrical V-shaped canyon topographical configurations. Comparing the results of the present study with those available in the literature shows the accuracy of the present study by just considering two first terms of Neumann series expansion. The minor differences of the results of the present research with other reseach results may be assigned to the number of terms of Neumann series expansion and the order of used boundary elements. In other words, if the number of terms of Neumann series expansion and the order of used boundary elements incease, the accuracy of the numerical results may enhance. Based on the results of the present research for various parameters of different two-dimensional canyons, the following conclusions may be obtained: When the exciting frequency increases, the wave-length decreases. As a result, the violence effects of incident wave due to canyon effects may be significant for a given canyon. Moreover, the displacement field of various canyon points follows more complicated pattern. On the other hand, for smaller exciting frequencies with larger wave-lengths, the canyon effects as the main cause of disturbation source are not so remarkable, and the displacement field of various canyon points are smoother. The effects of incident wave angle is also remarkable on the disturbation patterns of displacement field of different canyon points. When the angle increases, the triangle canyons experience more complicated patterns compared to semicircular canyons. Analyses'''' results show important effects of shape and depth of various canyons. These effects are more considerable when depth''''s variations are remarkable in comparison with the wave-length of incident wave. Furthermore, the mentioned effects are functions of frequency and angle of incident wave.

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Dams as one of the most important structures are always exposed to various hazards such as earthquake. As dam failure may lead to financial damages and fatalities, it should be designed with most economical and accurate methods. An earthquake causes hydrodynamic pressure waves exerting on the dam. This is one of the important factors in design of dams that are always considered by consulting engineers. Helmholtz equation is the governing relation on the propagation of hydrodynamic pressure waves in dam reservoirs during an earthquake. In order to solve the Helmholtz equation to calculate hydrodynamic pressures on dams, the reservoir’s boundary conditions (BCs) should be taken exactly into account. The BCs include (a) the interface boundary of dam and reservoir (as initial zone of reservoir excitation), (b) bottom boundary (with partial absorption of wave energy by accumulated sediments), (c) upstream boundary (with radiation of another part of the wave energy from the reservoir), and (d) formation of surface waves in the upper boundary of the reservoir. The purpose of present study is to model the mentioned physical phenomena in the frequency domain, using a new semi-analytical method, called Decoupled Equations Method (DEM). In the DEM, only the domain boundaries are discretized by specific high-order non-isoparametric elements. The main features used for modeling of geometry and physics of the problem consists of: (1) high-order Chebyshev polynomials as mapping functions, (2) special shape functions of 2n_η+1 degree polynomials for (n_η+1)-node elements , (3) Clenshaw-Curtis quadrature, and (4) integral forms produced by weighted residual method. By using these features and their properties, coefficient matrices of the system of governing equations become diagonal. This means that the governing partial differential equation for each degree of freedom (DOF) becomes independent from other DOFs of the domain to be analyzed. Therefore, this reduction in space dimensions of the main problem may significantly reduce computational costs in comparison with other available numerical methods. In this study, for the first time in order to provide a solution by low costs to calculate the hydrodynamic pressure distribution on the gravity dams, the relations of reservoir’s BCs are derived in local coordinates by using of the DEM and, the process of applying derived equations is then expressed into the solution of Helmholtz equation. To verify this method, an example of this field is solved by using the DEM, where dam and its rigid foundation are excited by horizontal harmonic vibration. The obtained responses from the solution of this example indicates that the present method for modeling of the potential problems with natural boundary conditions under earthquake excitations, by considering propagation of hydrodynamic waves in the reservoir, show acceptable accuracy and feasibility in comparison with the available analytical solution. The results of the DEM should be developed for more general condition of dam-reservoir interaction, which include flexible concrete gravity dams with inclined dam-reservoir interaction boundary conditions along with partial absorption of wave energy by accumulated sediments. These features are being followed by the authors, and will be disseminated in new papers soon.

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The existence of crack and notch is a significant and critical subject in the analysis and design of solids and structures. As most of damage problems do not have closed-form solutions, numerical methods are current approaches dealing with fracture mechanics problems. This study presents a novel application of the decoupled equations method (DEM) to model crack issues. Based on linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), the J-integral is computed using the DEM. In this method, only the boundaries of problems are discretized using specific higher-order sub-parametric elements and higher-order Chebyshev mapping functions. Implementing the weighted residual method and using Clenshaw-Curtis numerical integration result in diagonal Euler’s differential equations. Consequently, when the local coordinates origin (LCO) is located at the crack tip, the geometry of crack problems are directly implemented without further processing. In order to present infinite stress at the crack tip, a new form of nodal force function is proposed. Validity and accuracy of this method is fully demonstrated through two benchmark problems. The numerical results agree very well with the results from existing experimental results and numerical methods available in literature.

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Base isolation systems may be considered as one of the most powerful tools of earthquake engineering pertaining to the passive structural vibration control technologies. It may enable a building or non-building structure to survive a potentially devastating seismic impact. Generally, it is thought that application of seismic isolation is limited to low- and medium-rise structures, and the use of isolation for high-rise buildings considered as impractical or unfeasible. However, existing examples of isolated high-rise buildings in Japan, also in Iran, suggest that these viewpoints clearly disagrees with the real state-of-practice that exists there. Since the 1995 Kobe earthquake, just fewer than 200 isolated high-rise buildings, ranging from 60 to 180 meters height, have been constructed in Japan. However, this strategy is still uncommon in most countries of the world. Implementation of base isolation can greatly decrease inter-story drifts and floor accelerations, which results in protection of building’s contents. As a result, high-rise buildings can be kept fully operational during the earthquake and also immediately occupiable just after the event. In other words, isolation can be adopted for the improved performance of high-rise buildings. To maintain the efficiency, the period of isolation system has to be considered between 4 and 7 seconds. Clearly, structures like this will be vulnerable to long period ground motions. Therefore, it is necessary to study the behavior of these structures under such earthquakes. Long-period ground motions can be divided into far-source and near-fault classes. Most far-source long-period ground motions were generated by large earthquakes and effective propagation paths. Therefore, far-source long-period ground motions are generally associated with offshore earthquakes in subduction zones. Near-fault long-period ground motions are generated mainly by rupture directivity effects in the vicinity of earthquake source faults,. They consist primarily of rupture directivity pulses, which can be damaging, especially when combined with site effects and basin edge effects. In this paper, three base isolated models of 8-, 14-, and 20-story shear buildings using isolator type of lead-rubber bearing (LRB) and friction pendulum system (FPS), under long-period ground motions are studied. A set of 14 long-period ground motions – 5 far-source long-period motions and 9 near-fault long-period motions – as well as 14 short-period ground motions were selected. Total earthquake input energy per unit mas was used as a measure to distinguish long-period motions so that those which had a significant input energy over the periods of 2 seconds were considered as long-period motions. For each model two isolators – LRB and FPS – were designed so that the design displacement and the period of systems were exactly the same. The isolators were designed carefully and all dimensions and parameters were checked to insure practicality of the design. Then nonlinear dynamic analysis was implemented to evaluate the response of the structures. Results show that in the cases that input motions are short-period, increasing the height of the structure doesn’t significantly affect the structure response and the isolation displacement are nearly the same. On the other hand, as the height of the structure is increased, its response due to the long-period ground motions becomes more significant, and these motions impose a great displacement demand in the isolation system.

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Damage detection of structures is an important issue for maintaining structural safety and integrity. In order to evaluate the condition of structures, many structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques have been proposed over the last decades. Major approaches of SHM are non-destructive in nature and are widely used for damage detection in engineering structures such as aerospace, civil and marine structures. The existence of damage in a structure may be traced by comparing the response of time-domain wave traveling in the structure at its present state with a base-line response. A difference from the base-line response is correlated to the damage location through estimation of time of arrival of the new peaks (scattered waves). Thus, by employing the wave based methods, presence of damage in a structure is detected by inspecting at the wave parameters affected by the damage. The wave parameters that are commonly used for damage detection are the parameters representing attenuation, reflection and mode conversion of waves due to damage. Although detection of flaws is extremely important for many industrial applications, current approaches are severely restricted to specific flaws, simple geometries and homogeneous materials. In addition, the computational burden is very large due to the inverse nature of the problems where one solves many forward and backward problems. For instance, conventional ultrasonic methods measure the time difference of returning waves reflected from a crack; however, for laminated composite plates, the ultrasonic wave would be partially reflected at the interface of two layers where no crack actually exists, and partially continues to propagate further where it eventually is reflected back by the true crack. Numerical methods employed in crack detection algorithms require the solution of inverse problems in which the spatial problem is often discretized in space using finite elements in association with an optimization scheme. The solution of these problems is not unique, and sometimes the optimization algorithm may converge to local minima which are not the real optimal solution. Moreover, they often require hundreds of iterations to converge considering the algorithm used in the process. On the other hand, an accurate detection of cracks requires the re-meshing of the finite element domain at each iteration of the optimization. This is a severe limitation to any numerical approach when the conventional finite element method is employed for crack modeling, as the re-meshing of a domain is often not a trivial task. This paper investigates crack detection of two-dimensional (2D) structures using the extended finite element method (XFEM) along with particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The XFEM is utilized to model the cracked structure as a forward problem, while the PSO is employed for finding crack location as an optimization scheme. The XFEM is a robust tool for analysis of structures having discontinuities without re-meshing. Therefore, it is an efficient tool for an iterative process. Also, the PSO is a well-known non-gradient based method which is suitable for this inverse problem. The problem is formulated such that the PSO algorithm searches crack coordinates in order to detect the existing crack by minimizing an error function based upon sensor measurements. This problem is a non-destructive evaluation of a structure. Three benchmark numerical examples are solved to demonstrate capability and accuracy of the XFEM and the PSO for crack detection of 2D domains.

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Uncertainty inherently exists in quantity of a system’s parameters (e.g., loading or elastic modulus of a structure), and thus its effects have always been considered as an important issue for engineers. Meanwhile, numerical methods play significant role in stochastic computational mechanics, particularly for the problems without analytical solutions. In this article, spectral finite element method is utilized for stochastic spectral finite element analysis of 2D continua considering material uncertainties. Here, Lobatto family of higher order spectral elements is extended, and then influence of mesh configuration and order of interpolation functions are evaluated. Furthermore, Fredholm integral equation due to Karhunen Loève expansion is numerically solved through spectral finite element method such that different meshes and interpolation functions’ orders are also chosen for comparison and assessment of numerical solutions solved for this equation. This method needs fewer elements compared to the classic finite element method, and it is specifically useful in dynamic analysis as supplies desirable accuracy with having diagonal mass matrix. Also, these spectral elements accelerate the computation process along with Karhunen Loève and polynomial chaos expansions involving numerical solution of Fredholm integral equation. This research examines elastostatic and elastodynamic benchmark problems to demonstrate the effects of the undertaken parameters on accuracy of the stochastic analysis. Moreover, results demonstrate the effects of higher-order spectral elements on speed, accuracy and efficiency of static and dynamic analysis of continua.

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Dry-joint masonry structures are one of the oldest building techniques from ancient and historical masonry buildings. This method used in building of historical structures that are highly vulnerable today. Also in many masonry structures, mortar strength is affected strongly by duration of time and corrosion, so the structure behavior is more likely dependent on the dry-joint characteristics. To assess the existing damages of masonry walls, non-destructive dynamic-based methods are attractive tools as they are able to capture the global structural behavior. In micro-modeling method of this paper, masonry walls are represented by Distinct Element Method (DEM) as assemblies of units consist of block and mortar, which represent an idealization of their discontinuous nature governing their nonlinear mechanical behavior. Due to the heterogeneity and the complexity of the interface’s behavior between blocks and mortar, DEM seems to be the best-adapted to model this kind of structures, in particular for reproducing complex nonlinear post-elastic behavior. At the first step, micro-modeling strategy is used for masonry walls by DEM, and particularly post-elastic behavior is verified with valid experimental data. However, DEM does not directly obtain natural frequencies and mode shapes of the wall via a classic vibrational analysis. Therefore, the second objective of this study is to propose a technique to indirectly identify dynamic characteristics of masonry walls using DEM. The aim of the part is to check the capability of dynamic identification procedures, in the extraction of the dynamic characteristics of the masonry wall in the used DEM software. For this purpose, the dynamic behavior at low vibration levels of an existing masonry building subjected to forced hammer impact test, was investigated. By transforming data collected from dynamic response of the wall, from the time domain to the frequency domain, using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), we can find natural frequencies from Fourier amplitude spectrum. The proposed technique is then validated by comparison with the results of modal analysis which was carried out using Finite Element Method (FEM). The dynamic characteristics of walls (i.e., natural frequencies and mode shapes) may change when different levels of damage are induced in the wall. The proper knowledge of these variations is a key issue in order to study the seismic demand and seismic performance of structures. Aiming at finding adequate correspondence between dynamic behavior and internal crack growth, several numerical simulations are performed, progressive damage is induced in the wall, and sequential structural frequency identification analysis is then performed at each damage stage. In this paper, frequency and drift are selected as dynamic behavior and crack growth indices, respectively. Quantifying the relative frequency drop shows, despite the shape does not vary significantly with increasing damage, there is a relation between frequency drop and damage variations, based on analyzed data. These properties are firstly modified in the elastic range, and then is developed in the inelastic range with increasing damages. It is also observed that while the failure mode of the wall is diagonal cracking, the in-plain vibration mode shapes are much affected by initiation of crack. On the other hand, modal properties of out-of-plane mode shapes undergoes fewer effects by the diagonal crack.

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In this paper, the Wave Finite Element Method (WFEM) is developed for modelling of stress wave propagation in one-dimensional problem of nonhomogeneous linear, anisotropic micropolar rod of variable cross section. For this purpose, the WFEM equations are developed based on the micropolar theory of elasticity. Two kinds of waves with fast and slow velocities are detected. For micropolar medium, an additional rotational Degree of Freedom (DOF) is considered besides the classical elasticity’s DOF. The method proposed in this paper is implemented to solve the wave propagation and impact problems in micropolar rods with different layers. The results of the proposed method are compared with some numerical and/or analytical solutions available in the literature, which indicate excellent agreements between the results.

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Earthquakes are one of the most Terrible danger that are likely to cause heavy human losses and destroy entire civilization on scale of minutes. The more recent damaging events in Mexico City (1985 Mexico) in bam (2003 Iran) or Tohoku (2011 Japan) recall that so far little is known about earthquake physics that could prevent people from their deadly effects. To reduce casualties Decades of research involving numerous laboratories worldwide aim at investigating this large scale phenomenon and trying to understand how it triggers, propagates, and stops. A trusty physical modeling of strong ground motion requires to examine three crucial parameters of seismic source specifications, wave propagation path, and seismic site effects. A reliable physical modeling of strong ground motion requires to examine three crucial parameters of seismic source specifications, wave propagation path, and seismic site effects. Among various seismic source specifications, a more physically realistic source model is the specific barrier model or (SBM) for short. The SBM is specifically more suitable for regions with poor seismological data bank and/or ground motions from large earthquakes with large recurrence intervals. In order to simulate seismic ground motions from a specific earthquake source model in an efficient way, the stochastic modeling method has been widely used. An essential part of the seismological model used in this method is the quantitative description of the far-field spectrum of seismic waves emitted from the seismic source. Since shear (S) wave is primarily the main factor of earthquake damages, the application of stochastic approach of the SBM has almost been focused on the far-field S wave spectrum, in which two corner frequencies of observed earthquake are represented. The ‘two-corner-frequency’ shows two considerable length-scales of an earthquake source: a length-scale that quantifies the overall size of the fault that ruptures (e.g., the length L of a strike-slip fault) and another length-scale that measures the size of the subevents. Associated with these length-scales are two corresponding time scales: (1) the overall duration of rupture, and (2) the rise time. The SBM has a few main source parameters which have been calibrated to earthquakes of different tectonic regions. In this paper, it has been tried to simulate source, path and site of entire earthquake and compare the results of simulation with real earthquake. To this end SBM with uniform PDF for arrival time but different types of PDFs of subevent size used to simulate source. To investigate effect of PDFs of subevent size on the source spectra as well as earthquake spectra as result of simulation, uniform and fractal distribution along with classic distribution for subevent size are considered. In order to take into account, the effects of path of propagation, Geometric and inelastic Attenuation Compatible with center of Italy (L’Aquila region) have been used. Finally, to considering effect of the layers of soil (sediments) near surface on amplitude, period, duration and other characteristic of seismic waves, transfer function for linear wave propagation has been computed with the Thomson-Haskell matrix method. Transfer function in this method illustrate how a soil column with different layers attenuates and amplifies seismic waves as a function of frequency.

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