Determination of tensile shear strength of lap joints is carried out according to three standards: BAS EN 205:2018 for adhesives used for non–load–bearing structures, and according to BAS EN 302-1:2014 for adhesives used for the manufacture of load-bearing structures and according to EN 14257:2019 for lap joints who are exposed to elevated temperatures. The paper presents the results of tensile shear strength of lap joints made of solid fir/spruce (Abies alba ssp./Picea abies spp). Tensile shear strength was tested in 4 groups of tests samples. The Group 1 consisted the samples were 7 days in standard atmosphere [20/65]. The Group 2 consisted the samples were previously soaked in water at (20 ± 5) °C, then recondition in standard atmosphere [20/65]. The Group 3 consisted the samples were previously 6 h soaked in boiling water 2 h, then soaked in water at (20 ± 5) °C; the samples tested in the wet state. The Group 4 consisted the samples were previously exposed to heat in a preheated fan oven, at (80 ± 2) °C, for (60 ± 2) min. The test results can be applied for gluing windows, doors, stairs, high-frequency gluing, veneering panels, etc.

Particleboards are used in the manufacture of furniture, as well as the furnishing of structures and prefabricated homes. Their quality dictates where they can be used and how long they can last. The boards’ characteristics deteriorate as they are used. To examine the change-degradation of the properties of the boards are exposed to the effects of the external climate (rain, snow, wind, sun) or regimes of accelerated aging. For this purpose, a degradation test of the properties of wood-based panels was performed, which aims to create a model that will describe the change in bending strength of the mentioned panels. The paper presents the results of bending strength and thickness swelling tests of 16 mm thick particleboards that were exposed to accelerated aging regimes, and the basic model of property degradation.

In the second half of the 20th century, the industrialisation and deagrarization of Bosnia and Herzegovina had a strong impact on the dynamics of urban development and economic growth of the post-war Sarajevo, which intensified immigration from its relatively underdeveloped regional environment. This was accompanied by accelerated housing construction, and it encouraged the spatial expansion of the city. Planning guidelines were set by the city administration and were based on the long-term development plans. They identified the disposition of urban functions necessary for housing, work, recreation and traffic, and the policy of building multi-residential buildings was aimed general social interest. At the same time, the planning activities neglected the actual socio-economic status of immigrants who had lesser opportunities for housing through the social distribution system of apartments, began the process of self-organized unregulated settlement construction with single-family houses on the city's slopes. This began an era of two parallel but controversial actions within town space: planned and unregulated housing construction. Spontaneous possession of the city's territory with unregulated construction today is characterised by: complex property-legal relations, high degree of construction, absence of public space, pedestrian communications and service functions, low quality of the infrastructure network, and that settlements are formed on unstable terrains and on active landslides. Since the consequences of the complexity of the situation cannot be addressed through radical urban transformation, we see an alternative in the idea of partial spatial interventions – transformation by method of sanation. Starting with the thesis that construction is always deeply connected to society's understanding of the function of space and the place of man in it, we have opened up a central question, and searching for answers is the basic goal of this paper: Is it possible to solve problems accumulated by decades within Sarajevo's unregulated residential settlements through means of transformation by method of sanation? Or: Can partial spatial interventions improve the overall quality of individual and social life? For the purpose of finding answers, we conducted an analysis of the causes of the formation and genesis of these settlements, as well as a series of problems produced by the accumulation of separate spatial interventions without elementary professional guidance. The results of this analysis showed that the answer to the questions asked can be positive, by establishing a critical relationship with the potential of the space of specific settlement sites, in terms of the degree of functional usability, correlation with utilities and user interactions with the environments they inhabit. We have concluded that it is precisely the potential of individual sites, by logically applying the transformation by method of sanation, will enable dual achievement – the merging the solution within the technical and structural aspect of potential landslides with the articulation of the public on new pedestrian communications. Also, it has been shown that the application of this method enables the typification of technical solutions, functions, contents, activities, urban design, and even the public itself. And this means that the conclusions on the characteristics of individual Sarajevo unregulated residential settlements, endangered by landslides, can offer general guidelines for design concepts, within them, an overall improvement of individual and social life.

The paper presents the engineering practice, which the company “Regeneracija” Ltd. Velika Kladuša – Bosnia and Herzegovina uses to perform preliminary experimental testing and measurements, followed by mathematical modeling of critical pressure of these vessels, in order to obtain the projected quality of pressure vessels made of composite materials. The paper will confirm the hypothesis that it is possible to relate mathematical connection and dependence of the critical pressure of vessels of composite materials (Pkr) with mechanical characteristics of vessel material (σM), vessel diameter (D), and vessel wall thickness (s). In this way, by varying the mentioned parameters, it is possible to achieve the desired product quality in the production of composite material containers by achieving the projected critical and thus working pressure. Generally speaking, the mathematical model of critical pressure obtained in this way will be a good indicator for design engineers to know how much critical pressure a given vessel can withstand, and based on that to take quick control of working or projected pressure, but also for designing completely new vessels made of composite materials as a substitute for the expensive experimental testing.

This paper investigates the local and global character of the unique positive equilibrium of a mixed monotone fractional second-order difference equation with quadratic terms. The corresponding associated map of the equation decreases in the first variable, and it can be either decreasing or increasing in the second variable depending on the corresponding parametric values. We use the theory of monotone maps to study global dynamics. For local stability, we use the center manifold theory in the case of the non-hyperbolic equilibrium point. We show that the observed equation exhibits three types of global behavior characterized by the existence of the unique positive equilibrium, which can be locally stable, non-hyperbolic when there also exist infinitely many non-hyperbolic and stable minimal period-two solutions, and a saddle. Numerical simulations are carried out to better illustrate the results.

Natural disasters that cause tremendous material harm and threaten human lives, infrastructure, and economic and social activities become more frequent. While most material and human casualties are the effects of sudden and brief natural disasters, it is not possible to disregard long-term disasters, most frequently triggered by climate change. Damage from long-term disasters is quite significant and hampers the sustainability of the economy and life in densely populated cities. Following climate change, it is concluded that special attention should be paid to coastal cities, cities along rivers and the potential risks of possible disasters should be reduced before they materialize. The reduction of disaster risk is an endeavor involving various professional fields, viewpoints, and stakeholders. An integrated approach that brings together all the necessary elements is therefore required. The planning for protection against natural disasters and in the very moments when it occurs, it is necessary to quickly obtain reliable data to coordinate activities in the field well. However, there are problems in the field with the availability, access, and spatial data use. In this sense, the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) can provide an appropriate framework for sharing spatial data through the cooperation of administration, public, and private institutions and citizens.

Architectural space of the 21st century confirms, for the umpteenth time that, architecture is a personified image of society: The products of architectural interventions are the final creations in time and space. The whims of the market, the linear economy model, and users' pluralistic needs generated by cultural preferences mutually develop "white elephants" - inert material, useless and expensive to deconstruct. In response to social, environmental, climate, and economic changes, the construction sector needs to revalue existing construction techniques. The lack of broader application of the circular economy model, the use of inorganic materials and chemical bonds in architectural structures, due to the loss of cultural significance or the appearance of natural disasters, are deprived of their function and produce a large amount of waste. Therefore, the reuse of organic materials derived from renewable energy sources is becoming essential for pushing further the boundaries of reversible design and energy efficiency in architectural interventions. Limits of use of the old – new materials - compressed straw are defined by comparing the results of thermal properties of the building envelope elements - U and R values and levels of reversibility through two opposite approaches to construction, on the example of the conceptual design of a housing unit affected by natural disasters. Analysing the three levels of reversibility that 21st century buildings should possess, given the existing research, the material level limit is shifted in terms of returning to nature with potentially zero environmental waste. Comparing the results of the R values of prefabricated straw structures with the R values of materials predominantly used in architectural interventions raises awareness of the importance and benefits of using compressed straw in architectural envelopes. Existing design parameters of straw structures are optimized by valorising the importance of local climate and materials used. The interaction of native - cellulosic materials breaks down dogmas related to this material and generates the architectural language of reversible and energy-efficient architectural straw products.

Abstract Male infertility is caused by spermatogenetic failure, clinically noted as oligoor azoospermia. Approximately 20% of infertile patients carry a genetic defect. The most frequent genetic defect leading to azoospermia (or severe oligozoospermia) is Klinefelter syndrome (47, XXY), which is numerical chromosomal abnormality and Y- structural chromosome aberration. The human X chromosome is the most stable of all human chromosomes. The X chromosome is loaded with regions of acquired, rapidly evolving genes. The X chromosome may actually play an essential role in male infertility and sperm production. Here we will describe X chromosome aberrations, which are associated with male infertility.

Automatic segmentation of the prostate on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is one of the topics on which research has focused in recent years as it is a fundamental first step in the building process of a Computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system for cancer detection. Unfortunately, MRI acquired in different centers with different scanners leads to images with different characteristics. In this work, we propose an automatic algorithm for prostate segmentation, based on a U-Net applying transfer learning method in a bi-center setting. First, T2w images with and without endorectal coil from 80 patients acquired at Center A were used as training set and internal validation set. Then, T2w images without endorectal coil from 20 patients acquired at Center B were used as external validation. The reference standard for this study was manual segmentation of the prostate gland performed by an expert operator. The results showed a Dice similarity coefficient >85% in both internal and external validation datasets.Clinical Relevance— This segmentation algorithm could be integrated into a CAD system to optimize computational effort in prostate cancer detection.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) has the second-highest tumor incidence and is a leading cause of death by cancer. Nearly 20% of patients with CRC will have metastases (mts) at the time of diagnosis, and more than 50% of patients with CRC develop metastases during their disease. Unfortunately, only 45% of patients after a chemotherapy will respond to treatment. The aim of this study is to develop and validate a machine learning algorithm to predict response of individual liver mts, using CT scans. Understanding which mts will respond or not will help clinicians in providing a more efficient per-lesion treatment based on patient specific response and not only following a standard treatment. A group of 92 patients was enrolled from two Italian institutions. CT scans were collected, and the portal venous phase was manually segmented by an expert radiologist. Then, 75 radiomics features were extracted both from 7x7 ROIs that moved across the image and from the whole 3D mts. Feature selection was performed using a genetic algorithm. Results are presented as a comparison of the two different approaches of features extraction and different classification algorithms. Accuracy (ACC), sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), negative and positive predictive values (NPV and PPV) were evaluated for all lesions (per-lesion analysis) and patients (per-patient analysis) in the construction and validation sets. Best results were obtained in the per-lesion analysis from the 3D approach using a Support Vector Machine as classifier. We reached on the training set an ACC of 81%, while on test set, we obtained SE of 76%, SP of 67%, PPV of 69% and NPV of 75%. On the validation set a SE of 61%, SP of 60%, PPV of 57% and NPV of 64% were reached. The promising results obtained in the validation dataset should be extended to a larger cohort of patient to further validate our method.Clinical Relevance— to develop a radiomics signatures predicting single liver mts response to therapy. A personalized mts approach is important to avoid unnecessary toxicity offering more suitable treatments and a better quality of life to oncological patients.

Breast cancer is the most commonly occurring malignancy and the leading cause of cancer-related death in women. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive subtype and is associated with high recurrence rates, high incidence of distant metastases, and poor overall survival. The aim of this study was to investigate the PI3K/PTEN/Akt/mTOR pathway as one of the most frequently deregulated pathways in cancer. We aimed to explore the impact of PI3K and mTOR oncogenes as well as the PTEN tumor suppressor on TNBC clinical behavior, prognosis, and multidrug resistance (MDR), using immunohistochemistry and copy number analysis by quantitative real-time PCR. Our results revealed that loss of PTEN and high expression of PI3K and mTOR proteins are associated with poor outcome of TNBC patients. PTEN deletions appeared as a major cause of reduced or absent PTEN expression in TNBC. Importantly, homozygous deletions of PTEN (and not hemizygous deletions) are a potential molecular marker of metastasis formation and good predictors of TNBC outcome. In conclusion, we believe that concurrent examination of PTEN/PI3K/mTOR protein expression may be more useful in predicting TNBC clinical course than the analysis of single protein expression. Specifically, our results showed that PTEN-reduced/PI3K-high/mTOR-high expression constitutes a ‘high risk’ profile of TNBC.

The paper presents the results of modeling the bending strength of wood. During the experimental examination and definition of the model, solid wood was taken, where the bending was performed perpendicular to the grain. The experiment was done with thirteen replications and the input values that varied at three levels were wood density and board thickness. The thirteen-repetition experiment also involved four repetitions in the marginal areas, so two more wood densities and two board thicknesses had to be taken. The experimental measurement was performed in the laboratory of the Technical Faculty Bihać. Based on the experimental results, a sufficiently adequate mathematical model of the breaking force of a solid wood panel perpendicular to the grain is obtained.

Paper presents the design of experiment and determining mathematical model to calculate roughness parameter of wood planned surface. For design of experiment three different types of solid wood were taken and processed on the planner with three different displacements and three different cutting speeds. After measuring the roughness parameter Rz, experimental results were obtained on the basis of which the central composite plan of the experiment was made. Based on that, a model of roughness parameter Rz was made, which is adequate and with high accuracy. The significance of the model coefficients was determined using the R software and the results were presented using the Design Expert software.