It is suggested that IL-23/IL-17 axis and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of IL23R may have crucial role in pathogenesis of Crohn’s disease (CD). Thus, we sought to assess the IL23R SNPs contribution to susceptibility and phenotype of CD. We recruited 117 CD subjects and 117 controls from Poland and 30 CD subjects and 30 controls from Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). Two common IL23R SNPs: rs1004819, rs7517847 were genotyped using TaqMan SNP assays. In the Polish population it was found that allele rs1004819: A increases the risk of CD, while allele rs7517847: A is protective against disease development. In Poles the co-carriage of two IL23R risk genotypes was associated with increased risk of CD. A significantly increased risk of CD early onset was observed in Poles carrying at least one rs7517847: G allele. It was also found that IL23R SNPs may be associated with structuring/penetrating CD behavior, as alleles rs1004819: A and rs7517847: G were significantly less frequent in patients without complications, from Poland and B&H, respectively. Allele rs1004819: A was also significantly more frequent in Poles with penetrating CD. These results confirm IL23R SNPs contribution to CD susceptibility in the Polish population and suggest their impact on early age of onset and more severe disease course.

Background: Despite multistep efforts, many asthma patients remain symptomatic. Anti-inflammatory activities of curcumin are shown. Aim of the study was to analyse the impact of curcumin add-on therapy on inflammatory parameters, lung function, disease control and quality of life in asthma patients. Subjects and methods: Three-months lasting study was done on 150 non-smokers with asthma, that were treated with stable, moderate dose of inhaled glucocorticoids (IGK) and divided into three groups (n=50 each): curcumin group (receiving curcumin 500 mg per os twice daily), placebo group (receiving placebo tablets) and control (non-intervention) group. Sputum eosinophils (sEo), blood eosinophils (bEo), high sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP), predicted forced expiratory volume in first second (FEV1%), Asthma Control Test (ACT) and mini Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (mAQLQ) were compared before and after study, as well as between groups. Results: Before study, all followed parameters were similar between groups. After study, FEV1%, ACT and AQLQ were improved in all groups, but these improvements were more prominent in curcumin group than in placebo and control. Additionally curcumin group only showed improvement in sEo, bEo and hsCRP. Furthermore, curcumin group showed more frequent clinically significant improvement in ACT score (change>3) and in mAQLQ score (change≥0.5) when compared to placebo and control. On the other side, after study FEV1%, ACT, mAQLQ, hsCRP, sEo and bEo were similarly distributed among placebo and control group. Conclusion: This is the first placebo controlled and single-blind study to suggest that add-on therapy with curcumin could improve lung function, disease control and quality of life in moderate partially controlled asthma. Future studies may benefit from a larger sample size, longer study duration, double blind design, different dose of curcumin and/or improvements in oral bioavailability.

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1720. https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1720 To date, there is no comprehensive treatment of interests and interest groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This article seeks to fill that gap. It does so by explaining that interest groups reflect the country's complex political system with multiple levels of power sharing along societal cleavages. Political parties are the major power centers, and the link between ethnicity and party allegiance is most significant in defining the role of interest groups. The result is a pillarized (separate, intragroup) and bifurcated group system with 3 separate interest group subsystems with little interchange between them. This fragmentation has been challenged by international institutional organizations promoting multiethnic interests. Nevertheless, with the persistence of many informal interests, the group system is stymied in moving toward an integrated system, a development that is key to strengthening BiH's consociational democracy.

Biodiversity of diatoms and applicability of diatom indices in biomonitoring based on littoral epiphytic samples of Lake Modrac were investigated. Diatoms were taken mostly from Phragmites australis stems in 2017, during which physical and chemical parameters of the water were measured. A total of 85 diatom taxa were identified. Gomphonema (13 spp.), Navicula (11 spp.), and Nitzschia (8 spp.) were the most abundant genera. Obtained values of trophic indices (TID, TvD, and TDIL) pointed to meso- to eutrophic status for most localities, while values of the IBD, EPI, ?D, and IPS indices indicated good ecological status, except for localities at the mouth of 2 main tributaries which had moderate or poor ecological status. Based on the hierarchical group average clustering and nonmetric multidimensional scaling, 4 groups were identified, mainly related to the sampling period, with higher spatial variation in species composition during summer. Since environmental legislation in Bosnia and Herzegovina still does not provide detailed instructions on using diatoms in biological assessment, results of this study can be useful for the development of biomonitoring tools for lakes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Aim of this paper is to explore latency in reconvergence after link failure when using BGP-LS/PCEP as southbound protocols in IP/MPLS network with centralized controller. Controller in network is PCE element in charge of Traffic Engineering management. Scenario in this paper describes an IP/MPLS network with four routers, fours links and four tunnels passing through multiple links. In case of a link failure, affected tunnels must be rerouted to alternative links evenly distributing traffic across the links. Therefore, it is necessary to have a central controller that will have a complete knowledge of the network in order to evenly and efficiently redistribute traffic. Our IP/MPLS network contains multi-vendor devices and do not support OpenFlow protocol hence as a southbound protocols standardized BGP-LS and PCEP are used. BGP in general is designed as a very slow protocol. Additional, BGP-LS has to wait for the internal routing protocol on the routers to update the Traffic Engineering Database before the BGP-LS signals change event to its peers. Therefore, we will explore some possibilities of reducing the latency in reconvergence after link failure.

Digital analysis and biomedical image processing has become important part within modern medicine and biology. Digital pathology is just one of many medicine areas that is being upgraded by constant biomedical engineering research and development. It is very important that some of disciplines as nucleus detection, image segmentation or classification become more and more effective, with minimum human intervention on these processes, and maximum accuracy and precision. Improved optimization of nucleus segmentation methods parameters based on two levels of voting processes is presented in this paper. First level includes hybrid nucleus segmentation based on 7 segmentation algorithms: OTSU, Adaptive Fuzzy-c means, Adaptive K-means, KGB (Kernel Graph Cut), APC (Affinity Propagation Clustering), Multi Modal and SRM (Statistical region merging) based on optimization of algorithms parameters along with implemented first level voting structure. Second level voting structure includes segmentation results obtained in the first level of voting structure in combination with 3rd party segmentation tools: ImageJ/Fiji and MIB (Microscopy Image Browser). A definite segmented image of a nucleus could serve as a generic ground truth image because it is formed as a result of a consensus based on several different methods of segmentation and different parameter settings, which guarantees better objectivity of the results. In addition, this approach can be used with great scalability on 3D-stack image datasets.

Routing process should encompass finding the best route through the network according to different criteria, with respect to the principle of load balancing, dynamic adaptation to current network conditions, special treatment of traffic based on QoS levels, as well as minimum energy consumption through energy-aware routing. The emergence of the IoT paradigm, 5G networks, increased number of real-time and mobile applications, as well as the increasingly complex requirements in terms of QoS, have put a grave task ahead of the researchers and the industry. Adaptive and efficient management of current network and traffic, and basis for making the networks resistant and ready for the inevitable changes in the foreseeable future, must be ensured. The idea of software-defined networks has offered a new architecture that seeks to overcome the disadvantages of classical network architectures. This approach has enabled direct programmability of the network, faster and simpler introduction of innovations, greater granularity of routing criteria, implementation of consistent and comprehensive policies, real-time response to changes, etc. This paper is a state-of-the-art overview of SDN traffic routing benefits in different network environments, as well as open issues and challenges to be addressed in future research.

A new sensitive analytical method using capillary electrophoresis with laser induced fluorescence (CE‐LIF) was applied for the simultaneous detection of DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation levels in human cancers of different origin. DNA hydroxymethylation, measured as 5‐hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) levels, was decreased in gliomas with mutation in the isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) gene when compared to IDH1‐wildtype gliomas. Independent from IDH1 mutation, 5hmC levels were decreased in lung carcinomas when compared to normal lung tissue. Reduced DNA hydroxymethylation was also observed upon dedifferentiation in cultured murine embryonic fibroblasts. Our data show that reduced DNA hydroxymethylation is related to cellular dedifferentiation and can be detected in various types of cancers, independent from the IDH1 mutation status. Quantitative determination of altered 5hmC levels may therefore have potential as a biomarker linked to cellular differentiation and tumorigenesis.

This paper presents analysis of still image IP transmission in the tactical network. The analysis is provided through the delivery time, packets sent/received/lost and the display of the images after the reconstruction on the receiving side. Image transmission is analyzed through multiple scenarios - without and with compression, without and in the presence of jamming. It has been shown that delivery time can be significantly reduced by data compression, without significant loss of visual information. It has also been shown that for analyzing the quality of transmission and usefulness of received information, it is better to use the display of reconstructed images than the degree of packet losses. Furthermore, it has been shown that in the tactical networks of limited bandwidth, it is very important to comply bit rates from source of information to the end user, and in this way to avoid buffer memory overflow and packet losses.