This corpus-based study focuses on the nine English central modal verbs (can, could, will, would, may, might, shall, should, and must) across the two chosen genres of the COCA corpus – Spoken and Academic genres, which show the greatest number of differences in terms of genre characteristics, such as formality or intended audience. Because research on modal verbs across genres, especially one inclusive of the spoken genre, is limited, this study investigates these two genres to test the hypothesis that the general genre characteristics influence the choice of modal verbs. As a result, the distribution of modal verbs across the different genres differs too. The results suggest that genre can indeed be indicative of the frequency and use of modal verbs, which may be ascribed to two language processes colloquialization and democratization.

Language learning beliefs create a considerable impact on the students' behavior, and thus greately affect the final learning outcome. Therefore, there exists a compeling need to explore learners' beliefs, and in particular to specify the stances of those more successful learners, to provide accordingly a better learning envoronment for all students. The aim of the current paper was to investigate the language learning beliefs among Bosnian university students, and to focus on the differences that exist between the groups of the participants based on their self-evaluated proficiency level. A one way ANOVA revealed no significant differences in the overall BALLI, whereas a significant difference was observed in one of the five subscales. The present study findings might be used to provide ground for the future improvement of language learning and teaching in a foreign language context similar to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

One of the most significant developments in recent history has probably been organ donation and organ transplantation. They are frequently the only treatment available in certain cases. However, there is an ever-increasing discrepancy between the number of people needing transplantation and the organs available, because the decision to donate an organ is up to each individual. The study aims to assess the impact of the intervention on knowledge, attitudes and practices on organ donation among religious immigrants in Sweden. Data were collected through three group interviews using open-ended questions and qualitative content analysis. Thirty-six participants, 18 males and 18 females from six countries, participated in the focus group interviews. The analysis of the collected data resulted in two main categories: “Religion in theory and practice” and “More information—more knowledge about organ donation” including seven subcategories. Understanding of religion and religiosity, happiness by taking the class, the practice of religion in everyday life, the overcoming the prejudices in religion, having more information about organ donation and the donations process, as well as that the increased information changes people’s minds, were some of things the informants emphasised as predictors of the decision of organ donation. A class dealing with religion, the religious aspects of organ donation and the way the Swedish healthcare system is organised increased people’s knowledge and changed their attitudes so they became potential organ donors. More intervention studies are needed in every field of medicine to build confidence and give time to educate and discuss issues with potential organ donors in Sweden.

Bosnian-Herzegovinian ethnomusicology started to develop in the early 1930s. The first Bosnian ethnomusicologist, Friar Branko Marić, began to research the traditional folk music of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1920s and presented the results of his research in the doctoral dissertation Volkmusik Bosnien und der Herzegovina (1936). The first systematic ethnomusicological research was initiated by Cvjetko Rihtman in 1947 within the Institute of Folklore Research. The main goal of his fieldwork was the collection of old, traditional “untouched”, and therefore locally colored music forms. Thus, the concept of “authentic” was for a long time dominant in collecting, and when associated with “old” it worked well. However, this one-sided approach had to be overcome, since rigid approach to modern processes was a threat to the development of Bosnian ethnomusicological thought.

The paper will discuss the relationship between a language and space and the elaboration of such spatial relationship at the level of a complex sentence with a spatial clause. Within the semantic cases of the spatial relationships – locative, ablative, adlative and perlative – there are certain submeanings that are encoded at the level of a complex sentence with a spatial clause in different ways. Unlike case-marked prepositonal constructions, in which spatial relations are expressed by case meaning and prepositions, these spatial relationships at the level of a complex sentence are generally indicated by conjuctions, and then by antecedents and postcedents to which the conjunctions refer. The spatial clauses in the complex sentence are introduced by relative adverbs, which express different types and subtypes of spatial relations with their lexical and semantic properties. When we talk about spatial relations at the level of a complex sentence, the spatial clause is a prototype and specific in the formally grammatical plan as compared to the other types of dependent clauses. We will also compare the spatial clauses with relative clauses introduced by relative adverbs. Ključne riječi: prostor, mjesna klauza, veznici, odnosni prilozi, lokativ, ablativ, adlativ, perlativ

This research study is focused on the influence of human capital on innovation in SMEs. The human capital factors are the independent variables: employee’s education, employee’s development, and employee’s challenge, while the dependent variable is product innovation. Data of manufacturing and service firms in the economies of Africa and the Middle-East are taken from the World Bank Enterprise Survey database through a stratified random sampling. A sampled of 33,977 firms are observed in 53 countries. The methodology employed in this study is the quantitative research approach. A pairwise correlation, regression model and forecasting model are used for the analyses of the data. The findings from the analyses show satisfactory levels of significance with pvalues below 1% even though not all the Pearson correlation coefficients of the independent variables with the dependent variable are high. The goodness-of-fit, in terms of R-squared, Root MSE, and mean percentage error, found from the regression of human capital with product innovation is slightly poor. This is due to the loose relation between independent and dependent variables in real life and partly to the data available for this research. However, human capital acquired from skilled and formal training of employees has a more positive and significant influence on SMEs to innovate products. The findings have implications on managerial decisions and governmental policies. The results also give insight into the limitations of the research and areas for further investigations.

This article reports on an investigation into the ability of SiO2–Ta2O5 as a new sorbent for simultaneous preconcentration of Cd(ii), Co(ii), Cr(iii), Cu(ii), Fe(iii), Mn(ii), Ni(ii) and Pb(ii) ions from water by the column method and the parameters involved in this process.

Mixed mountain forests of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst), and silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) cover a total area of more than 10 million hectares in Europe. Due to altitudinal zoning, these forests are particularly vulnerable to climate change. However, as little is known about the long-term development of the productivity and the adaptation and mitigation potential of these forest systems in Europe, reliable information on productivity is required for sustainable forest management. Using generalized additive mixed models this study investigated 60 long-term experimental plots and provides information about the productivity of mixed mountain forests across a variety of European mountain areas in a standardized way for the first time. The average periodic annual volume increment (PAI) of these forests amounts to 9.3 m3ha−1y−1. Despite a significant increase in annual mean temperature the PAI has not changed significantly over the last 30 years. However, at the species level, we found significant changes in the growth dynamics. While beech had a PAI of 8.2 m3ha−1y−1 over the entire period (1980–2010), the PAI of spruce dropped significantly from 14.2 to 10.8 m3ha−1y−1, and the PAI of fir rose significantly from 7.2 to 11.3 m3ha−1y−1. Consequently, we observed stable stand volume increments in relation to climate change.