Post-Cracking Properties of Concrete Reinforced with Polypropylene Fibers through the Barcelona Test.

The Barcelona method was developed as an alternative to other tests for assessing the post-cracking behavior of fiber-reinforced concrete, with the main advantage being that it uses significantly smaller specimens compared to other methods. For this reason, it can provide a solution for characterizing concrete in hard-to-reach constructions such as roads and tunnels. On the other hand, polypropylene (PP) fibers have gained increased attention in recent years within the scientific community due to their high tensile strength and cost-effectiveness.

Influence of Synthetic Fibers on the Flexural Properties of Concrete: Prediction of Toughness as a Function of Volume, Slenderness Ratio and Elastic Modulus of Fibers.

The construction industry requires concrete with adequate post-cracking behavior for applications such as tunnels, bridges, and pavements. For this reason, polypropylene macrofibers are used, which are synthetic fibers that fulfill the function of providing residual strength to concrete. In this study, an experimental plan is carried out to evaluate the bending behavior of concrete reinforced with polypropylene fibers using the four-point bending test according to ASTM C1609.

Geo-environmental parametric 3D models of SARS-CoV-2 virus circulation in hospital ventilation systems.

The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has the potential to cause natural ventilation systems in hospital environments to be rendered inadequate, not only for workers but also for people who transit through these environments even for a limited duration. Studies in of the fields of geosciences and engineering, when combined with appropriate technologies, allow for the possibility of reducing the impacts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the environment, including those of hospitals which are critical centers for healthcare. In this work, we build parametric 3D models to assess the possible circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the natural ventilation system of a hospital built to care infected patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dataset of manually classified images obtained from a construction site.

A manually classified dataset of images obtained by four static cameras located around a construction site is presented. Eight object classes, typically found in a construction environment, were considered. The dataset consists of 1046 images selected from video footage by a frame extraction algorithm and txt files containing the objects' class and coordinates information.

Integrity of Neurocognitive Networks in Dementing Disorders as Measured with Simultaneous PET/Functional MRI.

Functional MRI (fMRI) studies have reported altered integrity of large-scale neurocognitive networks (NCNs) in dementing disorders. However, findings on the specificity of these alterations in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) and behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) are still limited. Recently, NCNs have been successfully captured using PET with F-FDG.

Resting-State Networks as Simultaneously Measured with Functional MRI and PET.

Functional MRI (fMRI) studies reported disruption of resting-state networks (RSNs) in several neuropsychiatric disorders. PET with F-FDG captures neuronal activity that is in steady state at a longer time span and is less dependent on neurovascular coupling. In the present study, we aimed to identify RSNs in F-FDG PET data and compare their spatial pattern with those obtained from simultaneously acquired resting-state fMRI data in 22 middle-aged healthy subjects.

Discrimination between Alzheimer's Disease and Late Onset Bipolar Disorder Using Multivariate Analysis.

Background: Late onset bipolar disorder (LOBD) is often difficult to distinguish from degenerative dementias, such as Alzheimer disease (AD), due to comorbidities and common cognitive symptoms. Moreover, LOBD prevalence in the elder population is not negligible and it is increasing. Both pathologies share pathophysiological neuroinflammation features.

Eigenanatomy on Fractional Anisotropy Imaging Provides White Matter Anatomical Features Discriminating Between Alzheimer's Disease and Late Onset Bipolar Disorder.

Background: Late Onset Bipolar Disorder (LOBD) is the arousal of Bipolar Disorder (BD) at old age (>60) without any previous history of disorders. LOBD is often difficult to distinguish from degenerative dementias, such as Alzheimer Disease (AD), due to comorbidities and common cognitive symptoms. Moreover, LOBD prevalence is increasing due to population aging.

Computer aided diagnosis of schizophrenia on resting state fMRI data by ensembles of ELM.

Resting state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) is increasingly used for the identification of image biomarkers of brain diseases or psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. This paper deals with the application of ensembles of Extreme Learning Machines (ELM) to build Computer Aided Diagnosis systems on the basis of features extracted from the activity measures computed over rs-fMRI data. The power of ELM to provide quick but near optimal solutions to the training of Single Layer Feedforward Networks (SLFN) allows extensive exploration of discriminative power of feature spaces in affordable time with off-the-shelf computational resources.