BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is commonly associated with hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, oxidative stress and inflammation which are well known cardiovascular risk factors. Pomegranate peel polyphenols have a proven hypolipemic, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity. However, there is a lack of clinical studies that would confirm its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects in diabetic patients. The potential of pomegranate peel extract (PoPEx) to counteract inflammation and oxidative stress in T2DM patients was investigated. For this purpose, a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study involving adult T2DM patients treated with PoPEx or placebo for eight-weeks was conducted. METHODS Patients were randomly divided into two groups: the first group (n = 30) received capsules containing PoPEx 250 mg twice daily, while the placebo group (n = 30) received placebo capsules twice daily. Plasma concentration of inflammatory factors (interleukin 6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and high sensitivity C reactive protein (hsCRP)), oxidative stress biomarkers (thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), nitrites (NO2-), superoxide anion radical (O2-), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), total antioxidant capacity (TAC)), homocysteine and lipid profile were analyzed. RESULTS The PoPEx treatment showed a significant reduction of inflammatory factors (IL-6, TNF-α, hsCRP), oxidative stress biomarkers (TBARS, NO2-, O2-) and homocysteine, while the TAC was increased. Moreover, a significant improvement in lipid profile was observed in the PoPEx group. Additional analysis showed a significant inverse correlation between the decrements of all measured inflammatory markers and TAC in the PoPEx group. CONCLUSIONS The study demonstrated that eight-week-long PoPEx administration had favorable effects on inflammatory status and oxidative stress biomarkers in diabetic patients.

The aim of the paper is to analyze international sanctions in the third decade of the 21st century. International sanctions are non-violent actions that individual states undertake against other states to force them to change certain foreign and domestic policy aspects that are considered unacceptable. Sanctions, introduced by one country, or an international organization are divided into unilateral and multilateral. Sanctions are usually divided into three forms: diplomatic (restriction or complete termination of diplomatic relations), economic (usually related to the prohibition of trade, usually related to weapons), and military sanctions. The aim of the paper is to analyze the current economic multilateral sanctions against the Russian Federation. The purpose of the introduction of sweeping sanctions is to try to overthrow the current government, which made it impossible to implement the policy that led to the introduction of the sanctions. Descriptive and comparative methods and scientific articles were used in the paper together with announcements by regulators, websites of relevant institutions, books, etc. Data on monthly oil and gas production, exports, inflows, and outflows of capital, mandatory financial reports of large companies, data on the monetary base of the central bank, data on direct foreign investments, and data on lending are observed. The paper shows that the general public is actually deprived of a large number of essential statistical data that was updated on a monthly basis until February 2022. Namely, one of the key reasons why there is doubt about the effectiveness of sanctions is that not enough relevant economic indicators are coming from Russia. Instead, optimistic Russian economic analyses, forecasts, and projections are transmitted. The work indicates that there are certain misconceptions among experts and the general public regarding sanctions. The conclusion is that certain sanctions, such as bans related to agricultural products and artificial fertilizers, have been relaxed. However, all sanctions are introduced to hurt the country and lead to regime change. The paper raises numerous questions arising from the fact that there is great uncertainty that has led to a slowdown in economic activity at the global level.

Human coronaviruses are agent which cause respiratory illnesses and have been described to be continously emerging. Seroprevalence of IgM/IgG antibodies was determined by lateral flow immunoassay. Study were include data on participants experience of COVID-19 symptoms during the pandemic (including symptoms and health status). Among 443 serum samples for detection seroprevalence, 186 (42.0%) were seropositive on specific antibodies (IgM/IgG) or participants who had COVID-19 with or without symptoms. Of the seropositive the age group 25-50 years old had the highest percentage (32.8%) followed by 51-64 years (30.6%). Ninety seropositive patients (out of 186; 48.4%) were detected with the specific symptoms. The most frequently symptoms were fever (n=54, out of 90; 60.0%), muscle pain (46.7%), dry cough and loss of smell (36.7%) and others. More than one symptoms were detected in 59 cases (65.6%). The most common comorbidities were diabetes mellitus (n=12, out of 186; 6.5%), than hypertension (nine; 4.8%) and heart diseases (seven; 3.8%). More than half of seropositive were asymptomatic (n=96, out of 186; 51.6%). Note: In period March 2020 - June 2021, among 3323 samples, 804 (24.2%) were positive on SARS-CoV-19 with RT-PCR. The results showed that 394 (out of 804; 49.0%) positive samples were collected from female and 410 (51.0%) from male. The most prevalent of SARS-CoV-19 viruses were detected in > 65 years old (n=267, out of 804; 33.2%). Further research on the contribution of symptomatic or asymptomatic individuals to the community spread of COVID-19 is essential for effective control of the pandemic spread of SARS-CoV-2.

The text critically analyses the provisions of the Proposal of the Law on Implementation of the Decisions of Courts in the Federation of BiH concerning their compliance with the Constitution of BiH, precision, Article III/3 /b and the Decision on the Representative/Agent of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the European Court of Human Rights and the Office of the Representative/Agent of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the European Court of Human Rights, as well as the expediency of passing such a law.

Nowadays companies have been facing arising modern world challenges, where rules employee's knowledge, high technology, digitalisation, expertise and innovation, what put demanding tasks for firms to invest more in talents' learning and development in order to master changes and sustain competitive advantage. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of talented managers’ learning and development on their retention within the companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Methodology in this research article included an appropriate questionnaire on talents' training and education and talents' engagement, as the measure for talent retention. The results from this research showed that talented managers in Bosnia and Herzegovina attended mostly “on job trainings and educations through job instructions” and “external trainings through seminars”. Furthermore, it is discovered that talent training and education affect the factors of employee engagement, but it is not statistically significant for talent retention. The contribution of this study is in the first place to the existing theory on talents management, as well as to companies in developing countries to realise the importance of talents learning and development and the need for its customization to talents' uniqueness in order to increase talent retention.

This text is a review of New Approaches to University of Sarajevo's Publishing Activities.

Glioblastoma’s (GBM) origin, recurrence and resistance to treatment are driven by GBM cancer stem cells (GSCs). Existing transcriptomic characterisations of GBM classify the tumours to three subtypes: classical, proneural, and mesenchymal. The comprehension of how expression patterns of the GBM subtypes are reflected at global proteome level in GSCs is limited. To characterise protein expression in GSCs, we performed in-depth proteogenomic analysis of patient-derived GSCs by RNA-sequencing and mass-spectrometry proteomics. We identified and quantified over 10,000 proteins in two independent GSCs panels, and propose a GSC-associated proteomic signature (GSAPS) that defines two distinct morphological conditions; one defined by a set of proteins expressed in non-mesenchymal - proneural and classical - GSCs (GPC-like), and another expressed in mesenchymal GSCs (GM-like). The expression of GM-like protein set in GBM tissue was associated with hypoxia, necrosis, recurrence, and worse overall survival in GBM patients. In a proof-of-concept proteogenomic approach, we discovered 252 non-canonical peptides expressed in GSCs, i.e., protein sequences that are variant or derive from genome regions previously considered protein-non-coding. We report new variants of the heterogeneous ribonucleoproteins (HNRNPs), which are implicated in mRNA splicing. Furthermore, we show that per-gene mRNA-protein correlations in GSCs are moderate and vary compared to GBM tissue.

The World Health Organization and the American College of Sports Medicine have released guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behavior, as part of an effort to reduce inactivity worldwide. However, to date, there is no computational model that can facilitate the integration of these recommendations into health solutions (e.g., digital coaches). In this paper, we present an operational and machine-readable model that represents and is able to reason about these guidelines. To this end, we adopted a symbolic AI approach that combines two paradigms of research in knowledge representation and reasoning: ontology and rules. Thus, we first present HeLiFit, a domain ontology implemented in OWL, which models the main entities that characterize the definition of physical activity, as defined per guidance. Then, we describe HeLiFit-Rule, a set of rules implemented in the RDFox Rule language, which can be used to represent and reason with these recommendations in concrete real-world applications. Furthermore, to ensure a high level of syntactic/semantic interoperability across different systems, our framework is also compliant with the FHIR standard. Through motivating scenarios that highlight the need for such an implementation, we finally present an evaluation of our model that provides results that are both encouraging in terms of the value of our solution and also provide a basis for future work.

Ergot alkaloids (EAs) are mycotoxins produced by several species of fungi of the genus Claviceps, among which Claviceps purpurea is the most widespread in Europe. This species has been found in many economically important cereal grains, such as rye, wheat, triticale, barley, millet and oats. The distribution of EAs contamination has a sporadic incidence with many factors involved in its occurrence, greatly varying between fungal strains, geographic regions, host plants and regional/local weather conditions, at the same time emphasizing that cool, damp weather favours ergot by enhancing the germination of sclerotia. The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence of ergot sclerotia and EAs in wheat and rye grain samples (n = 64) taken during the year 2021 from Croatian cereal producers located in the Central and Eastern parts of Croatia. In two of the rye samples the presence of ergot sclerotia was detected in the amount of 259 mg/kg and 536 mg/kg, whereas none of the wheat samples tested positive for ergot sclerotia. A higher contamination with EAs was determined in the rye samples (18% contaminated, max 167.4 µg/kg), while a lower frequency of contamination, with only one positive sample (1.9 %), was determined in wheat (68.5 µg/kg). The results pointed to a low-level of EAs contamination of wheat and rye cultivated by Croatian producers during the whole investigative period. However, although a low percentage of the positive tested rye samples with EAs was determined, the content of ergot sclerotia in two of the samples was higher than is allowed by legislation for foodstuffs. Because the levels of these mycotoxins and ergot sclerotia content can vary depending on a number of factors, further research of them is required over a longer period of time and under different cereal cultivation and processing conditions.

Campgrounds are an essential part of the camping experience due to the attractions and facilities they offer to campers. The factors that motivate campers to travel have increasingly become more complex making it vital to take camper expectations into account for effective planning of campgrounds. The present study aimed to determine the trailer park amenities based on expert opinion. The paper systematically applied the Fuzzy Pivot Pairwise RElative Criteria Importance Assessment (Fuzzy PIPRECIA) Method in the selection of the trailer park criteria. Four main criteria and 20 sub-criteria were considered. In the findings the amenities were structured as follows: primarily, 'location,' followed by 'necessities' and 'campground attributes' and finally 'facilities and camping tools.' Spearman and Pearson correlation coefficients were employed to determine the consistency of the proposed model.

In order to address the main challenges related to the rare diseases (RDs) the European Commission launched the European Reference Networks (ERNs), virtual networks involving healthcare providers (HCPs) across Europe. The mission of the ERNs is to tackle low prevalence and RDs that require highly specialised treatment and a concentration of knowledge and resources. In fact, ERNs offer the potential to give patients and healthcare professionals across the EU access to the best expertise and timely exchange of lifesaving knowledge, trying to make the knowledge travelling more than patients. For this reason, ERNs were established as concrete European infrastructures, and this is particularly crucial in the framework of rare and complex diseases in which no country alone has the whole knowledge and capacity to treat all types of patients.It has been five years since their kick-off launch in Vilnius in 2017. The 24 ERNs have been intensively working on different transversal areas, including patient management, education, clinical practice guidelines, patients' care pathways and many other fundamental topics. The present work is therefore aimed not only at reporting a summary of the main activities and milestones reached so far, but also at celebrating the first 5 years of the ERN on Rare and Complex Connective Tissue and Musculo-skeletal Diseases (ReCONNET), in which the members of the network built together one of the 24 infrastructures that are hopefully going to change the scenario of rare diseases across the EU.

This paper considers the method for the calculation of magnetic flux density in the vicinity of overhead distribution lines which takes into account the higher current harmonics. This method is based on the Biot–Savart law and the complex image method. The considered method calculates the values of the magnetic flux density for each harmonic component of the current separately at all points of interest (usually lateral profile). In this way, it is possible to determine the contributions of individual harmonic components of the current intensity to the total value of magnetic flux density. Based on the contributions of individual harmonic components, the total (resultant) value of the magnetic flux density at points of interest is determined. Validation of the computational method is carried out by comparison of the results obtained by the considered calculation method with measurement results. Furthermore, the application of the calculation method was demonstrated by calculating magnetic flux density harmonics in the vicinity of two overhead distribution lines of typical phase conductor arrangements.

The catalase enzyme is analyzed under different conditions in order to get a better understanding of its function, purpose and benefit to organisms. This enzyme resides in all living organisms that have exposure to oxygen. It uses hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as its substrate, and is responsible for breaking down H2O2 into oxygen and water, therefore neutralizing oxidative stress in the cells. Maintaining the levels of oxidative stress is highly important because of the impact that the reactive oxidative species (ROS) have on the cells. ROS damage cells by targeting DNA and proteins leading to various complications and illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases and they even have an impact on the process of aging. To determine the activity of the catalase enzyme and test its stability, different temperatures and pH were employed, along with examining the catalase behavior under the presence of ascorbic acid as an inhibitor. Three samples were used for this experiment: animal sample, plant sample and microorganisms. The indicator of the reaction which aided in the process of determining whether catalase is performing its function was the formation of gas bubbles in the test tubes, and the quantity of that indicator assisted in drawing conclusions about the enzyme activity. This study revealed that the optimum conditions for catalase enzyme activity tend to be 37 °C at a pH of 7, especially present in liver and yeast samples. Ascorbic acid has proven to be a valuable inhibitor of the catalase enzyme. Extremely high or low temperature, along with highly acidic or basic environments tend to alter the enzyme activity disallowing it to perform its key role.