The use of Near-Surface Mounted (NSM) Carbon-Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) strips is an efficient technology for increasing flexural and shear strength or for repairing damaged Reinforced Concrete (RC) members. This strengthening method is a promising technology. However, the thin layer of concrete covering the NSM-CFRP strips is not adequate to resist heat effect when directly exposed to a fire or at a high temperature. There is clear evidence that the strength and stiffness of CFRPs severely deteriorate at high temperatures. Therefore, in terms of fire resistance, the NSM technique has a significant defect. Thus, it is very important to develop a set of efficient fire protection systems to overcome these disadvantages. This pape
... Show MoreImage segmentation using bi-level thresholds works well for straightforward scenarios; however, dealing with complex images that contain multiple objects or colors presents considerable computational difficulties. Multi-level thresholding is crucial for these situations, but it also introduces a challenging optimization problem. This paper presents an improved Reptile Search Algorithm (RSA) that includes a Gbest operator to enhance its performance. The proposed method determines optimal threshold values for both grayscale and color images, utilizing entropy-based objective functions derived from the Otsu and Kapur techniques. Experiments were carried out on 16 benchmark images, which inclu
The kinetics of nickel removal from aqueous solutions using a bio-electrochemical reactor with a packed bed rotating cylinder cathode was investigated. The effects of applied voltage, initial nickel concentration, the rotation speed of the cathode, and pH on the reaction rate constant (k) were studied. The results showed that the cathodic deposition occurred under mass transfer control for all values of the applied voltage used in this research. Accordingly, the relationship between concentration and time can be represented by a first-order equation. The rate constant was found to be dependent on the applied voltage, initial nickel concentration, pH, and rotation speed. It was increased as the applied voltage increased and decreased as t
... Show MoreThe dynamic development of computer and software technology in recent years was accompanied by the expansion and widespread implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) based methods in many aspects of human life. A prominent field where rapid progress was observed are high‐throughput methods in biology that generate big amounts of data that need to be processed and analyzed. Therefore, AI methods are more and more applied in the biomedical field, among others for RNA‐protein binding sites prediction, DNA sequence function prediction, protein‐protein interaction prediction, or biomedical image classification. Stem cells are widely used in biomedical research, e.g., leukemia or other disease studies. Our proposed approach of
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