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.

ISO 20000-1:2011 is the most important standard for the management of IT services. ISO 27001:2013 is the most important standard for information security. This paper compares these two standards in the real environment of IPTV/VoIP service of Telecom operator in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This paper produces a new improved version of ISO 20000 standard in the field of information security based on recommendations from ISO 27001 standard in the field of information security. A new improved version of ISO 20000 standard is implemented in a real environment of Telecom operator and it produced a better results then the previous model.

This paper compares two project management methodologies PRINCE 2 and Scrum in a case study of digital business transformation. There is no universal methodology, that could work for all projects, but digital transformation or Industry 4.0 indicates new management strategies, for which right framework is almost mandatory. Paper also emphasizes that digital transformation of an organisation can not be just an IT project. In case study we discuss budget, time and value for a project. We analyzed project of digital transforamation of insurance company, where we had case study of issuing a travel insurance policy. PRINCE 2 definitely provides wide range of guidelines that help managing project, but all the documentation demands certain knowledge, usually more time, and not lot of flexibility in project control. On the other side, Scrum does not provide enough documentation, and it’ better for small projects, with fast delivery needs. Every methodology goal is efficiency and effectiveness, and we try to give guidelines which one to use, based on simple comparison.

Abstract Aims Raised blood pressure (BP) is the biggest contributor to mortality and disease burden worldwide and fewer than half of those with hypertension are aware of it. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global campaign set up in 2017, to raise awareness of high BP and as a pragmatic solution to a lack of formal screening worldwide. The 2018 campaign was expanded, aiming to include more participants and countries. Methods and results Eighty-nine countries participated in MMM 2018. Volunteers (≥18 years) were recruited through opportunistic sampling at a variety of screening sites. Each participant had three BP measurements and completed a questionnaire on demographic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Hypertension was defined as a systolic BP ≥140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥90 mmHg, or taking antihypertensive medication. In total, 74.9% of screenees provided three BP readings. Multiple imputation using chained equations was used to impute missing readings. 1 504 963 individuals (mean age 45.3 years; 52.4% female) were screened. After multiple imputation, 502 079 (33.4%) individuals had hypertension, of whom 59.5% were aware of their diagnosis and 55.3% were taking antihypertensive medication. Of those on medication, 60.0% were controlled and of all hypertensives, 33.2% were controlled. We detected 224 285 individuals with untreated hypertension and 111 214 individuals with inadequately treated (systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg) hypertension. Conclusion May Measurement Month expanded significantly compared with 2017, including more participants in more countries. The campaign identified over 335 000 adults with untreated or inadequately treated hypertension. In the absence of systematic screening programmes, MMM was effective at raising awareness at least among these individuals at risk.

This paper presents a nonlinear flatness-based approach for simultaneous control of the active and reactive power of a self-excited induction generator (SEIG) in wind energy conversion system (WECS). The proposed flatness-based controller (FBC) generates the control outputs which are applied to the current-controlled voltage source inverter (CC-VSI) and gearbox. A differential flatness theory is exploited to derive the flat outputs of the SEIG generator as well as to prove that the overall system is differentially flat one. This enables a transformation of this system into the linear canonical (Brunovsky) form and facilitates the design of the controller. The design methodology of the flatness-based controller relies on using a flux-based mathematical model of the SEIG in rotating $dq$ reference frame. The set points of the active and reactive powers are converted into system variables using a high-level reference trajectory generator (HLRTG). The proposed approach provides an efficient decoupled control for both the active and reactive power of the SEIG generator. The efficiency of the proposed control system is confirmed through simulation experiments.

Development of a spatial decision support system requires integration of various spatial data sets coming from different information systems of possibly more than one organization. The spatial decision support system development for spatial planning and environmental protection is discussed and spatial data integration is described. The heterogeneity of information systems from which spatial data come is reflected through their purpose. Utility and real estate cadaster systems imply services to citizens as part of spatial data infrastructure in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The spatial planning information system is intended for registration of environmental changes and spatial decision making. Utility cadaster information system development is described along with important aspects on how to satisfy both functional cadastral services and spatial planning experts needs to analyze information related to land use and network supply systems. Particular attention is given to spatial data transformation for utility cadaster database development in accordance with a prescribed data model.

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.