This paper presents a new technique for incorporating local membership information into the standard fuzzy C-means (FCM) clustering algorithm. In this technique, the objective consists of minimizing the classical FCM function with a unity fuzzifier exponent plus the Kullback–Leibler (KL) information distance acting as a fuzzification and regularization term. The KL distance is proposed to measure the proximity between cluster membership function of a pixel and an average of the cluster membership functions of immediate neighborhood pixels. Therefore, minimizing this KL distance biases the cluster membership of the pixel toward this smoothed membership function of the local neighborhoods. This can provide immunity against noise and results in clustered images with piecewise homogeneous regions. Results of clustering and segmentation of synthetic and real-world medical images are presented to compare the performance of the proposed local membership KL information based FCM (LMKLFCM) and the standard FCM, a local data information based FCM (LDFCM) and a type of local membership information based FCM (LMFCM) algorithms.

The paper describes a comprehensive experimental program involving 4 large- scale wall specimens, one reinforced with steel bars (as reference) and three totally reinforced with GFRP bars. Reinforcements were detailed to represent single medium-rise shear wall in regions of low to moderate seismic risk. All walls failed due to concrete compression failure, reaching their flexural capacities with no strength degradation, controlling shear, sliding shear, and anchorage failures. The results show recoverable

ABSTRACT Experimental analysis of reinforced shear-wall with glass-fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) showed its applicability in resisting lateral loads with no strength degradation, acceptable deformation capacity and energy dissipation as illustrated in an earlier article by the authors. The observed performance of GFRP-reinforced shear walls strongly suggested the necessity of proposing design procedure for such lateral resisting member. To propose design guidelines, however, determination of the elastic

the establishment of several construction applications of FRP reinforcement, there is a need for a system to resist lateral loads induced from wind and earthquake loads in these constructions. Reinforced concrete shear walls have shown effective performance in resisting lateral loads caused by wind and earthquake loads. Therefore, shear walls are frequently used in parking garages and multi-story buildings exposed to high lateral loading. This research involved testing a shear wall totally

Well-designed shear walls can be used effectively as a primary lateral-load resisting system for 26 both wind and earthquake loading in multistory buildings. Glass-fiber-reinforced polymer 27 (GFRP) shows considerable deformability under monotonic and fatigue loading in reinforced 28 concrete structures. In this study, four large-scale mid-rise reinforced concrete shear walls—one 29 reinforced with steel bars and three totally reinforced with GFRP bars—were tested to failure 30 under quasi-static cyclic loading