Title Participants Abstract "αCGRP, another amyloidogenic member of the CGRP family" "Nikolaos Louros" "The Calcitonin-gene related peptide (CGRP) family is a group of peptide hormones, which consists of IAPP, calcitonin, adrenomedullin, intermedin, αCGRP and βCGRP. IAPP and calcitonin have been extensively associated with the formation of amyloid fibrils, causing Type 2 Diabetes and Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma, respectively. In contrast, the potential amyloidogenic properties of αCGRP still remain unexplored, although experimental trials have indicated its presence in deposits, associated with the aforementioned disorders. Therefore, in this work, we investigated the amyloidogenic profile of αCGRP, a 37-residue-long peptide hormone, utilizing both biophysical experimental techniques and Molecular Dynamics simulations. These efforts unravel a novel amyloidogenic member of the CGRP family and provide insights into the mechanism underlying the αCGRP polymerization." "Point-of-care CRP matters : normal CRP levels reduce immediate antibiotic prescribing for acutely ill children in primary care : a cluster randomized controlled trial" "Marieke Lemiengre, Jan Y Verbakel, Roos Colman, Tine De Burghgraeve, Frank Buntinx, Bert Aertgeerts, Frans De Baets" "CFRP to concrete bond at elevated service temperatures and modelling of CFRP strengthened reinforced concrete beams subjected to fire" "Alessandro Proia" "Analytical performance of a platform for point-of-care CRP testing in adults consulting for lower respiratory tract infection in primary care" "Veerle Matheeussen, Viviane O M Van Hoof, Katherine Loens, Anouk Vanderstraeten, Samuel Coenen, Chris C. Butler, Paul Little, Theo J.M. Verheij, Herman Goossens, Margareta Ieven" "C-reactive protein (CRP) is a biomarker widely used for disease severity assessment and treatment of inflammatory conditions. Point-of-care testing (POCT) devices should ideally be rapid and provide similar results to standard tests done in laboratories. Two thousand nine hundred twenty-two serum samples were obtained from adult patients presenting to primary care with symptoms of lower respiratory infection in a European diagnostic study. The analytic performance of the CRP QuikRead POCT device (Orion Diagnostica) was evaluated by comparing results with a central laboratory method (Dimension Vista, Siemens), with both tests performed in a laboratory setting. For a CRP cut-off concentration of ≥ 30 mg/L, the QuikRead test had a sensitivity of 92.2%, and specificity of 99.4%. The mean difference between the QuikRead and the central lab test was 0.4 mg/L. The slope of the Passing-Bablok regression was 0.94 (95% CI 0.930.95) indicating an underestimation of CRP levels of 6% by QuikRead. CRP estimates obtained from the QuikRead test correlate well with a central laboratory assay and the measurement displays low inter-assay variation. Therefore, the QuikRead test is a good candidate for CRP testing in primary care." "Should all acutely ill children in primary care be tested with point-of-care CRP : a cluster randomised trial (vol 14, 131, 2016)" "Jan Y. Verbakel, Marieke Lemiengre, Tine De Burghgraeve, An De Sutter, Bert Aertgeerts, Bethany Shinkins, Rafael Perera, David Mant, Ann Van den Bruel, Frank Buntinx" "Study of the crack pattern and its evolution by DIC of RC beams externally reinforced with TRC and CFRP" "Svetlana Verbruggen, Jan Wastiels" "Textile Reinforced Cements (TRC) are emerging as an external reinforcing material for concrete structures. Especially the high fibre volume fraction TRCs are investigated by researchers as an alternative for the already established Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) strips due to their high mechanical performances, their advantages related to fire safety and their relatively low cost. The application of an external bending rein-forcement on a reinforced concrete beam will considerably influence the cracking behaviour of this beam, with potential benefits for the concerning serviceability limit state. An extensive experimental study of this influ-ence and the difference between the different reinforcing materials (CFRP and TRC) is performed in this pa-per. To measure the crack pattern and its evolution, this paper presents the use of the Digital Image Correla-tion (DIC) technique. Based on these DIC measurements the bending cracking behaviour of reinforced con-crete beams with spans of 0.6 and 2.3 meters is studied. For the small scale beams, the paper shows that the TRC-reinforced beams exhibit a similar crack pattern and evolution to the CFRP-reinforced beams, while for the larger scale beams the TRC-reinforced alternative exhibits a more favourable cracking behaviour. The ef-fectiveness of the DIC measuring technique to monitor the cracking behaviour of externally reinforced con-crete beams is hereby also demonstrated." "Experimental investigation of the fatigue behaviour of off-axis CFRP laminates using Non Destructive Techniques" "Sander Fonteyn, Delphine Carrella-Payan" "Composite materials are in practice subjected to fatigue loading, which most of the times happens to be multiaxial. This multiaxiality can for example appear in tubular specimens under combined tension/torsion loading or in cruciform specimens tested bi-axially. Due to the anisotropy that characterizes composite materials, multiaxial internal loads also occur even under simple uniaxial external loading. Therefore, it is preferable to use external uniaxial fatigue loading of flat coupons in order to study the local multiaxial fatigue behaviour of composites. In this study, Carbon Fibre Reinforced Epoxy (CFRE) flat specimens of two different lay-ups are tested under fatigue in different stress levels and R-ratios. 30° and 75° off-axis flat specimens are tested under uniaxial fatigue and the developed internal multiaxial loads are taken into account to investigate their influence on the fatigue behaviour of the material. Two different advanced monitoring methods, namely Digital Image Correlation (DIC) and Acoustic Emission (AE) are used during testing to clarify the damage processes." "Experimental study of the bond interaction between CFRP and concrete under blast loading" "Azer Maazoun, Stijn Matthys, Bachir Belkassem, Oussama Atoui, David Lecompte" "Specific to blast loading, bond shear tests between carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips and concrete have not yet been reported in literature, to the best knowledge of the authors. Given the high potential of strengthening concrete with CFRP to increase blast resistance, it is necessary to better understand the dynamic interaction between concrete and CFRP under blast impulse. This article presents a new experimental setup developed in order to study blast driven bond interaction between CFRP and concrete. An evaluation of the bond at the interface between the CFRP strip and the concrete is conducted in order to identify the parameters that affect the bond strength under blast loading. Several retrofitted specimens with different bond strength are tested. An explosive driven shock tube (EDST) set-up is used to generate the blast loading. Piezo resistive strain gauges and digital image correlation (DIC) measurement are used to record the debonding process and the evolution of the strain along the bonded area. As such, the bond behaviour is studied for three different bond lengths and the effect of interaction of the blast wave within the concrete is highlighted. The experimental tests demonstrate that under blast loading, the debonding between the CFRP strip and the concrete occurs due to a combined effect: interface stresses caused by the induced force in the CFRP and additional stresses resulting from the propagation of the blast induced stress wave within the concrete." "TRC or CFRP strengthening for reinforced concrete beams: an experimental study of the cracking behaviour" "Svetlana Verbruggen, Tine Tysmans, Jan Wastiels" "Cement-based composites are emerging as strengthening and repair materials for concrete structures, because of their advantages related to ?re safety and their relatively low cost. To be able to compete with the existing Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) solutions, the cement matrix must be reinforced with textiles in high ?bre volume fractions. Extensive experimental veri?cation of the contribution of these Textile Reinforced Cements (TRC) as external reinforcement with regard to the load bearing and cracking behaviour of reinforced concrete beams is still necessary. This paper compares the existing CFRP and TRC solutions with a strong focus on the cracking behaviour by performing seventeen bending experiments monitored with Digital Image Correlation (DIC). It shows that the TRC-reinforced beams exhibit a similar cracking behaviour to the CFRP-reinforced beams. Moreover, precracking of the concrete beams before the application of the external reinforcement reduces only the initial high stiffness, but does not in?uence the cracking behaviour, failure mode or ultimate load. These test results indicate the relevance of non-precracked tests that have been performed in the past." "Comparison between TRC and CFRP as external reinforcement for plain concrete beams" "Svetlana Verbruggen, Jan Wastiels, Tine Tysmans, Silke Puystiens" "Strengthening and repairing existing structures is often more economical and sustainable than demolishing and afterwards rebuilding them. Concrete structures can be strengthened using high performance glass fibre Textile Reinforced Cements (TRC) as an external reinforcement. Until now no evaluation of the cracking behaviour of this system with respect to the established technique of CFRP strips is reported. This paper presents the experimental comparison between both techniques, based on four point bending tests with third point loading, where the crack pattern evolution is monitored with Digital Image Correlation (DIC). A wider TRC external reinforcement retrains the high initial stiffness up to a higher load and reduces the crack widths in comparison with the CFRP solution, designed to meet an equal failure load. These advantages can be attributed to the crack bridging capacity of the external reinforcement."