successful application of a tbm in a project requires investigating both the ground conditions and the machine and backup system design features. prediction of the machine performance is very important as it has a big effect on the duration of the project and the costs. in this respect, both penetration rate and advance rate must be estimated. utilization factor, which depends on the type of op...

Utilization is one of the main managerial factors that is applied for construction process analysis well. It directly affects the project duration and construction costs. Therefore, a utilization study in tunneling projects is essential. In this work, the utilization of an earth pressure balance Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) in Tabriz urban railway project was studied using the Monte Carlo simula...

Successful application of a TBM in a project requires investigating both the ground conditions and the machine and backup system design features. Prediction of the machine performance is very important as it has a big effect on the duration of the project and the costs. In this respect, both penetration rate and advance rate must be estimated. Utilization factor, which depends on the type of op...

The study of downtime and subsequently machine utilization in a given project is one of the major requirements of an accurate estimation of TBM performance and daily advance rate. Interestingly, while it is very common to report the components of downtime when discussing a tunneling project in the literature; there has not been a great amount of in-depth studies on this topic in the recent year...

In every tunnel boring machine (TBM) tunneling project, there is an initial low production phase so-called the Learning Phase Period (LPP), in which low utilization is experienced and the operational parameters are adjusted to match the working conditions. LPP can be crucial in scheduling and evaluating the final project time and cost, especially for short tunnels for which it may constitute a ...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) is a common cause of deterioration in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients receiving tuberculosis treatment after starting antiretroviral therapy (ART). Potentially life-threatening neurological involvement occurs frequently and has been suggested as a reason to defer ART. METHODS We conducted a prospec...

BACKGROUND The immunopathogenesis of tuberculosis-associated immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) remains incompletely understood, and we know of only 1 disease site-specific study of the underlying immunology; we recently showed that Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture positivity and increased neutrophils in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with tuberculous meningitis (TB...

BACKGROUND Diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is difficult. Rapid confirmatory diagnosis is essential to initiate required therapy. There are very few published reports about the diagnostic significance of 65 kD heat shock protein (hsp) in TBM patients, which is present in a wide range of Mycobacterium tuberculosis species and elicits a cellular and humoral immune response. In the presen...

Tingible body macrophages (TBM), long thought simply as scavengers of apoptotic lymphocytes, are located in the unique microenvironment of germinal centers in close proximity to antigen-retaining follicular dendritic cells (FDC). Observations that TBM endocytose FDC-iccosomal (immune-complex coated bodies) antigen suggested that TBM might present this antigen and help regulate the germinal cent...