The minimum wage, as a labour market policy with distributive impact, is widely debated in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This paper estimates the effect of increasing the minimum wage on poverty and income inequality in BiH, providing the first empirical evidence on the minimum wage in the country. Using data from the Household Budget Survey (HBS) for 2015, the effects of four changes (two per entity) in the minimum wage were simulated using the microsimulation model BiHMOD. First, the effect of the latest changes implemented in the previous period was calculated using the previous minimum wage level as the baseline. Second, the effect of recently proposed changes was simulated using the current level as the baseline. The findings suggest that increasing the minimum wage in BiH has a significant positive effect on poverty reduction, but a limited effect on the level of income inequality. The estimated effects were also calculated for different types of households. The results suggest that a single policy may have unexpected effects if other policies are not taken into account and harmonized accordingly. The findings provide empirical evidence for decision-makers and future policy debate, which is generally missing for this and similar policy issues in BiH.

The unimaginable speed of the development of information and communication technologies has led to the fact that in the time period from 2009 to 2012, human society generated and saved more information than in the entire history until then. As estimated in 2013, approximately 1,200 exabytes were generated around the world, and this vast amount of information is doubled every three years. This would mean that estimated amount of generated data for 2019 is approximately 4800 exabytes, that is, three times more than the total amount information generated throughout the history. Since such a large amount of information cannot be stored or processed (and especially not in real or reasonable time) using the common methods of storing and processing data, a new paradigm of storage, processing and management of large quantities, variety and data processing speed has emerged under the name big data concept.

Cloud computing is a new technology that represents the realization of an old idea that computer data processing is executed and charged as a service. The goal of this chapter is to define the basics of the cloud computing concept and how this technology works, and then explain where is all the data that cloud computing uses, how they are distributed, how and to what extent are available, who are the ultimate beneficiaries, what are the advantages and the disadvantages of applying this concept. This cloud computing model consists of five essential features, three service models, and four application models, and the elaboration of these concepts will be an integral part of this chapter. Particular attention will be paid to the possibility of data abuse in cloud computing and regarding that data protection against manipulation from service providers as well as the financial aspect of cloud computing.

Pozzolanic activity of materials can initially be assumed from the quantity of the pozzolanic oxides SiO2, Al2O3 and Fe2O3. Some of the methods for assessing pozzolanic reactivity of materials include measurement of CaO consumption (Frattini test), decrease in electrical conductivity and pH of a solution containing pozzolanic material, or measurement of an increase in strength of mortar with replacement of cement by pozzolanic material (strength activity index, SAI). The above-mentioned pozzolanicity tests are used in this study to evaluate reactivity of wood biomass fly ashes (WBA-F). The results presented in the paper show that only the SAI method can fully reveal the hydraulic and pozzolanic activity of WBA-F.