This paper overviews Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) as an emerging construction material. Emphasis is placed on the accumulated knowledge on durability, safety, and sustainability of reinforced ECC (R/ECC) structures, recognizing that the concrete of the future must meet these characteristics. In light of recent and future full-scale field applications of ECC, the limited studies on l...

BACKGROUND Early recognition is the most important intervention to improve melanoma prognosis. OBJECTIVE To report the value of dermoscopy and digital dermoscopy in the clinical diagnosis of malignant melanoma (MM). METHODS Retrospective analysis of 99 consecutive primary MMs diagnosed between 2010 and 2013. The MMs were divided into 3 groups: 1) the MM was the reason for consultation (MMC)...

A screening instrument's ability to provide clinicians with consistent and reproducible information is crucial to intervention. Despite widespread acceptance and clinical use of the Kujala Anterior Knee Pain Scale (AKPS) in orthopedics and sports medicine, few studies have reported on its reliability and no such studies have concentrated on child or adolescent samples exclusively, segments of t...

The off-stoichiometric Ni(2)MnGa Heusler alloy is a magnetic shape-memory alloy capable of reversible magnetic-field-induced strains (MFIS). These are generated by twin boundaries moving under the influence of an internal stress produced by a magnetic field through the magnetocrystalline anisotropy. While MFIS are very large (up to 10%) for monocrystalline Ni-Mn-Ga, they are near zero (<0.01%) ...

The Ashcroft scale for the evaluation of bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis is the analysis of stained histological samples by visual assessment. Based on the knowledge that this procedure is not standardized in animals and results are highly variable, we hypothesized that modification of this method may improve quantification of lung fibrosis in small animals. To prove our hypothesis, we evaluate...