Introduction. Higher level of knowledge and frequent contacts with peers with disabilities can influence the emergence of more positive attitudes of students towards peers with disabilities. In regard to that, our aim was to test the importance of knowledge, contact frequency and other possible factors influencing attitudes of students toward disabled peers. Methods. The study included 140 students of 4th and 5th grade of primary schools. The research was conducted in the period from December 2020 to March 2021 in two primary schools. The Chedoke McMaster scale was used to examine students' attitudes toward peers with disabilities, while Contact with Disabled Persons Scale and the Children's Knowledge about Handicapped Persons Scale were used to assess frequency of contact and knowledge about disabilities. Results. Girls showed a significantly higher level (25.21±6.21) of frequency of contacts with students with disabilities compared to boys (19.66±7.30) (p=0.043) and higher level of knowledge (27.88±5.88) about disabilities compared to boys (25.50±4.69) (p=0.009). Respondents who attended school together with children with disabilities (31.07 ± 8.41) showed a significantly higher level of frequency of contacts with students with disabilities compared to respondents who did not attend school with peers with disabilities (13.72±6.32) (p=0.001). Conclusion. Higher level of knowledge and frequent contacts with peers with disabilities does not have influence on the emergence of more positive attitudes of students towards peers with disabilities.

Introduction. Tinnitus is a perception of a sound in the ears in the absence of acoustic stimulation whose pathophysiological mechanisms have not been evaluated yet. Approximately, 1-2% of people report distress which can negatively affect their daily performance. Our study aimed to assess the incidence of anxiety in patients with tinnitus. Methods. The study was designed as a cross-sectional study. The participants were divided into two groups: a group of 73 patients with tinnitus (with two subgroups in relation to the duration of tinnitus-less than one year and more than one year) and a control group of 43 patients without tinnitus. We examined the presence of anxiety in all patients using the Burns Anxiety Inventory (BAI). The quality of life of all patients was estimated by Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI). Results. In the group of patients with tinnitus, 56.2% of them had mild and 24.7% moderate hearing loss, while 27.7% of respondents from control group had mild and 8.5% moderate levels of hearing impairment. THI results showed that patients with tinnitus less than 1 year had a significantly (p= 0.002) higher level of disorders in daily life, compared with the group who had tinnitus for more than 1 year. The 30.8% of respondents had minimal anxiety, 26.7% borderline anxiety, 17.5% mild anxiety, the same percentage of respondents moderate, 5% severe, while 2.5% had extreme anxiety based on BAI. Conclusion. Anxiety can be considered as potentially significant modulators of changes in brain structures observed in people with tinnitus.

Introduction. Inhalation of coal dust during blasting in brown coal mines has been shown to lead to a lung disease called pneumoconiosis. There is very little data in the literature on the direct impact of coal on the quality of life of people who work in coal mines as well as the body's immune response to the effects of coal dust. The aim was to examine the immune response to exposure to coal dust in miners in a brown coal mine and whether mine workers have poorer quality of life compared to those not exposed to coal dust. Methods. This is a cross-sectional study among 100 employees in the Brown Coal Mine in Ugljevik, of which 50 of them are exposed to coal dust on a daily basis. Blood samples were taken from all subjects to test for the presence of cytokines IL-2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 13, 17A, 17F, 21, 22, IFN-g and TNF-a. The quality of life of employees was measured using a questionnaire for self-assessment of physical and mental health (36-item Short-Form Health Survey, SF-36). Results. Group of miners had a significantly (p<0.05) higher concentrations of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6, IFN-g, IL-17A and IL-22 when compared to the control group. Subjects from the control group had significantly (p<0.05) higher concentrations of anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-4 and IL-10 when compared to the group of miners. The quality of life was significantly (p<0.05) better in the control group when compared to the group of miners. Conclusion. Physical functioning, general health, mental health and Physical component summary were significantly poorer in the group of miners. Exposition to coal dust led to a significant increase in the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and a decrease in the production of anti-inflammatory cytokines.

Nowadays, companies face numerous challenges to operate successfully and remain competitive in the market. Globalization is increasing competition in the market, allowing many companies to operate in foreign markets. Increasing competition has made companies constantly trying to increase their productivity while reducing costs. To meet all the requirements, and at the same time function in the best possible way, companies must be organized adequately, taking into account the whole set of processes from the company's internal organization to the company's appearance on the market. It means, if the end-user is to be satisfied, the company must implement quality in all phases of business, ie business ethics and company culture, through the quality of technology, personnel, etc. In other words, it must be satisfied the system quality of the company, known in the literature as QMS (Quality Management System). The main purpose of this paper is to review the multiple understanding of the concept of QMS and its different underpinning theories in a business to customer context. The design of this research is based on mere documentary analysis and some observations.

Abstract In this paper, we consider data driven control of Hammerstein systems. For such systems a common control structure is a transfer function followed by a static output nonlinearity that tries to cancel the input nonlinearity of the system, which is modeled as a polynomial or piece-wise linear function. The linear part of the controller is used to achieve desired disturbance rejection and tracking properties. To design a linear part of the controller, we propose a weighted average risk criterion with the risk being the average of the squared L2 tracking error. Here the average is with respect to the observations used in the controller and the weighting is with respect to how important it is to have good control for different impulse responses. This criterion corresponds to the average risk criterion leading to the Bayes estimator and we therefore call this approach Bayes control. By parametrizing the weighting function and estimating the corresponding hyperparameters we tune the weighting function to the information regarding the true impulse response contained in the data set available to the user for the control design. The numerical results show that the proposed methods result in stable controllers with performance comparable to the optimal controller, designed using the true input nonlinearity and true plant.

This paper presents new records and noteworthy data on the following taxa in SE Europe and adjacent regions: diatom alga Stauroneis neofossilis, parasitic fungus Anthracoidea arenariae, horsetail Equisetum hyemale, liverwort Harpanthus flotovianus, mosses Fissidens exilis and Rhizomnium punctatum, monocots Epipactis helleborine subsp. orbicularis, Himantoglossum calcaratum subsp. rumelicum and Schoenus nigricans and dicots Calluna vulgaris, Mahonia aquifolium and Willemetia stipitata subsp. albanica.

Atrial flutter (AFL) is typically characterized by electrical activity propagating around specific anatomical regions and it is usually treated with catheter ablation. In this study, we modeled the electrical propagation pattern of AFL using directed network mapping (DNM). DNM is a recent method that makes use of network theory (NT) to characterize the electrical propagation [1, 2], such as the identification of cycles and focal points. The network is composed by nodes and edges resembling electrodes located across the atrial surface and the direction of the electrical propagation from one electrode to another.

The study problematizes the democratic consequences of globalization and conceptualizes attention to the fact that an adversary process of disintegration occurs in parallel with integration and globalization. It further distinguishes between globalization as an objective historical process and globalism as adverse domination. In order to reverse the resistance against globalization, active policies are required in opposite directions: strengthening democracy above the level of the nation-state and investing efforts in local economic development. Globalization can regulate through international agencies, although it cannot be sufficiently democratic. Globalization causes the weakness of national borders, restriction of state domination on information stream and traditional borders, and broadcast of democratic values by new communication instrumentals that stable democracy to favorite aim and too success method in people minds. However, globalization strengthens democratization, political, cultural, and social transformation. World citizenship necessarily presupposes creating a new political identity, and cosmopolitanism must show how this identity can be achieved without a democratic deficit or a bureaucratic-oligarchic plethora. It is essential to build a theory of globalization by understanding what is arising in various spheres separately. The world cannot be governed based on several abstract ideological principles such as liberalization, privatization, and monetarism insofar as the hegemonism policies' philosophy. After a certain level of development, the Soviet Union could no longer be successfully managed from one center, converting even less powerful globally. The consequences of centralism are rough, inadequate, belated solutions that do not consider the specifics (historical, cultural, sociopolitical, economic, psychological) of regions (Balkans, Muslim World, Latin America) and any particular nation-state. Each of which must have a different development strategy. The events like Arab Spring should advance for democratization in non-democratic regions because freedom, equality, and justice are common values between people that are hidden in democracy nature. SCIENTIFIC COLLECTION «INTERCONF» | No 78 133