There are now several initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of cement production, such as the use of alternative binders for clinker. However, reducing the carbon emissions of the cement sector will only be possible when design optimization is combined with other measures. The construction industry is reluctant to reduce the cement content of concrete mixes and is not encouraged to use performance-based design for concrete. In most cases, these steps will negate the benefits of using alternative binders in concrete. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of lowering the cement content and additionally substituting part of the cement on the mechanical properties and durability of concrete. The reference mix was taken from a real bridge recently built in Croatia, and the alternative combination was prepared with a reduced cement content of 22%. All mixes were evaluated based on their mechanical strength and resistance to chloride penetration. The carbon footprint of each mix was also studied. The study concluded that the alternative mix with lower cement content had comparable durability and a significantly lower carbon footprint, meaning that the alternative mix proved to be a more sustainable option.

Throughout their service life, concrete structures are exposed to various environmental conditions that affect their durability. The cementitious matrix inevitably comes into contact with air, which leads to a progressive carbonation reaction. As a result of carbonation, changes occur in the microstructure and porosity of the cementitious matrix. Calcium aluminate cement is produced to increase the resistance of composites to aggressive environments, but its application is limited by the occurrence of conversion process. The addition of slag inhibits the conversion process of calcium aluminate cement and prevents a reduction in compressive strength due to the formation of C2ASH8 hydrate, while contributing to the net zero commitment of the cement industry. It remains an open question how these changes in microstructure caused by the addition of slag affect the carbonation rate of calcium aluminate cement-based concrete. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the effects of slag on the microstructure and porosity of calcium aluminate-based concrete before and after accelerated carbonation. For this purpose, the mechanical properties, porosity, and reaction product of a concrete mix containing 30% calcium aluminate cement replacement by slag were compared to calcium aluminate cement-based concrete before and after exposure to 3% CO2 for 7 and 28 days. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) were tested to understand the changes in reaction products and pore size distribution, respectively.

Agricultural production has benefited a lot from herbicides; however, the use of herbicides caused many environmental problems. Herbicide application can affect the biodiversity of an ecosystem by killing non-target organisms. Microorganisms in the soil are important factors for plant growth; they represent the biological factor of soil fertility. Herbicides can have a beneficial effect on the development of some microorganisms and a negative on others, leading to depletion of microbial diversity in soil. The objective of this work is to determine microbial activity in the soil and to isolate herbicide-resistant bacteria after the use of the "Stomp" herbicide. Agar plate method was used for the determination of microbial prevalence in the soil. The results showed an increase in the total number of bacteria, ammonifiers, fungi, and actinomycetes. Nine isolates, mostly Gram-positive spore-forming rods, showed an ability to grow in the mineral salt medium with different concentrations of "Stomp" herbicide. Isolates G1/1 and G1/2, showed high level of tolerance at the initial pendimethalin concentration of 25 mg/l. Those isolates have the potential to be used to decontaminate herbicide affected ecosystems.

The line graph L(G) of a graph G is defined as a graph having vertex set identical with the set of edges of G and two vertices of L(G) are adjacent if and only if the corresponding edges are incident in G. Higher iteration L i(G) is obtained by repeatedly applying the line graph operation i times. Wiener index W(G) of a graph G is defined as the sum of distances which runs over all pairs of vertices in G. The problem of establishing the extremal values and extremal graphs for the ratio W(L i(G))/W(G) was proposed by Dobrynin and Melnikov [Mathematical Chemistry Monographs, Vol. 12, 2012, pp. 85-121]. In this paper we establish the maximum value and characterize the extremal graphs for i = 1. In doing so, we derive unexpectedly an interesting relation that involves the Gutman index and the first Zagreb index.

In the last decade, there have been many reports on the negative impact of wildfires on various ecosystems. Unfortunately, wildfires have been intensifying as global temperatures, droughts, and other instances of extreme weather events rise around the world. These circumstances are forcing communities to vigorously address the uncontrolled spread of wildfires, where the ultimate goal is the protection of wildlife. At the same time, many disaster prevention and monitoring methods, based on image processing and computer vision, have been developed. In this paper, we present a new unsupervised method based on RGB color space for the early detection of wildfires from still images. From the analysis of existing state-of-the-art methods, it is evident that different methods explore different color spaces for the extraction of flame features. Our motivation was to use only RGB color space and thus eliminate the time-consuming task of color space conversion. The proposed method consists of several new image processing techniques used to efficiently extract flame features. It outperforms the existing methods, where an increase of 3% and 2% is recorded in the F1 score and Matthews correlation coefficient, respectively. Such performance demonstrates the merits of the proposed method for flame segmentation and detection.

Uvod: U današnje vrijeme kao glavni alat za procjenu starosti u forenzičkoj medicine koriste se radiološki snimci. Pojavom kompjuterizirane tomografije konusnim snopom omogućen je 3D uvid u anatomske strukture zuba, a samim tim unaprijeđen i olakšan proces identifikacije, obzirom da su zubi najtvrđi dio ljudskog tijela i kao takvi se često koriste za procjenu starosti. Cilj rada je ispitati radnu hipotezu prema kojoj dentalna dob procijenjena metodom volumetrijske analize pulpe kompjuteriziranom tomografijom konusnim snopom odgovara hronološkoj dobi ispitanika. Metode: Kroz ovu prospektivnu pilot studiju analizirani su CBCT snimci bosanskohercegovačke populacije kod 30 ispitanika (17 žena i 13 muškaraca). Snimci su u .DICOM formatu importovani u ITK Snap program pomoću kojeg je izmjeren volumen pulpe zuba interkaninog sektora gornje i donje vilice, i to za očnjake, centralne i lateralne sjekutiće. Kriteriji za uključivanje podrazumijevali su odsustvo kalcifikacije, artefakata i bez većih restauracija kod navedenih zuba. Podaci o svakom mjerenju korelirani su sa dobi i spolom ispitanika. Statistička obrada i interpretacija prikupljenih podataka urađena je pomoću statističkog programa SPSS. Rezultati: Provedeno istraživanje je potvrdilo da se volumen pulpe zuba smanjuje sa godinama starosti. Dob ispitanika je varirala između 16 i 54 godine. Najmanji volumen pulpe izmjeren je kod centralnog sjekutića mandibule, a najveći kod maksilarnog očnjaka. Volumen pulpe zuba gornje vilice općenito je bio veći nego kod zuba donje vilice. Kod žena je zabilježen manji volumen pulpe zuba u odnosu na volumen pulpe kod muškaraca. Zaključak: Kod svih analiziranih zuba postojala je značajna korelacija između dobi i volumena pulpe zuba, sa jačom korelacijom kod muškaraca. Studija je pokazala da se dob može procijeniti na osnovu poznavanja volumena pulpe zuba interkanine regije, uz uspostavljanje matematičkog modela za koji je potreban veći broj ispitanika.