Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) bars are anisotropic in nature and have high tensile strength in the fiber direction. The use of High-Strength Concrete (HSC) allows for better use of the high-strength properties of FRP bars. The mechanical properties of FRP bars can yield to large crack widths and deflections. As a result, the design of concrete elements reinforced with FRP materials is often governed by the Serviceability Limit States (SLS). This study investigates the short-term serviceability behavior of FRP RC I-beams. Eight RC I-beams reinforced with carbon-FRP (CFRP) and four steel RC I-beams, for comparison purposes, were tested under two-point loading.
Deformations on the concrete and crack widths and spacing are measured and

Catalytic reduction is considered an effective approach for the reduction of toxic organic pollutants from the environment, but finding an active catalyst is still a big challenge. Herein, Ag decorated CeO2 catalyst was synthesized through polyol reduction method and applied for catalytic reduction (conversion) of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) to 4-aminophenol (4-AP). The Ag decorated CeO2 catalyst displayed an outstanding reduction activity with 99% conversion of 4-NP in 5 min with a 0.61 min−1 reaction rate (k). A number of structural characterization techniques were executed to investigate the influence of Ag on CeO2 and its effect on the catalytic conversion of 4-NP. The outstanding catalytic performances of the Ag-CeO2 catalyst can be assigne

  This paper deals with numerical approximations of a one-dimensional semilinear parabolic equation with a gradient term. Firstly, we derive the semidiscrete problem of the considered problem and discuss its convergence and blow-up properties. Secondly, we propose both Euler explicit and implicit finite differences methods with a non-fixed time-stepping procedure to estimate the numerical blow-up time of the considered problem. Finally, two numerical experiments are given to illustrate the efficiency, accuracy, and numerical order of convergence of the proposed schemes.

    Nowadays, the process of ontology learning for describing heterogeneous systems is an influential phenomenon to enhance the effectiveness of such systems using Social Network representation and Analysis (SNA). This paper presents a novel scenario for constructing adaptive architecture to develop community performance for heterogeneous communities as a case study. The crawling of the semantic webs is a new approach to create a huge data repository for classifying these communities. The architecture of the proposed system involves two cascading modules in achieving the ontology data, which is represented in Resource Description Framework (RDF) format. The proposed system improves the enhancement of these environments ach

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder of the joints that is characterized by extra-articular involvement in addition to inflammatory arthritis. Joint and periarticular tissue loss brought on by inflammation results in functional impairment. To lessen the significant daily challenges that patients confront and to ensure better outcomes, early detection and treatment are essential. The study's objective was to establish the use of human β-defensin-2 (HBD-2) as a RA diagnostic marker. A total of 60 RA patients and 30 healthy controls participated in the research. The ELISA technique was used to measure serum HBD-2. The following tests were performed: complete blood count (CBC), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), renal func