The aim of this study was to examine the concentration of total and available forms of heavy metals (Ni, Cr, Cu, Zn, Pb and Mn) in the greenhouse soils as well as the distribution of these metals in the different parts of tomato plants grown on these soils. Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) was used to determine heavy metals concentration. The concentration of available forms of all examined heavy metals in the soils and in tomato fruits were low, although the total concentration of hazardous heavy metals Ni and Cr in soils exceeded the maximum permissible values, prescribed by legislative rules in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The reasons for the low uptake of heavy metals by tomato plants are mainly related to the chemical properties of soil which are not favorable for heavy metal availability. In addition, the results of this study also showed that the accumulation of all examined heavy metals especially Cr and Ni were much higher in the roots than in the fruits. The low accumulation of heavy metals in tomato fruits is the result of synergy of different plant defense mechanisms that limiting or reducing heavy metal transport from root to fruits.

Ovo istraživanje obuhvaća opažanja fenološke varijabilnosti od 28 provenijencija hrasta lužnjaka u bosansko­hercegovačkom pokusu provenijencija u Žepču. Pokus je baziran na slučajnom blok sustavu sa tri (3) ponavljanja, gdje je svaka provenijencija u svakom bloku predstavljena sa 36 biljaka, osim provenijencija Drvar, Mutnica, Zvornik i Vinac, koje su djelomično zastupljene u pokusu. Proces listanja praćen je tijekom 2012. i 2013. godine, od kraja ožujka do početka svibnja. Praćeno je pet (5) fenofaza listova koje su za hrast kitnjak razradili Derory i dr. (2006.). Analiza fenoloških faza pokazala je da postoje statistički značajne razlike između ispitivanih provenijencija. Razlike su potvrđene za početak, trajanje i završetak pojedinih fenoloških faza listanja između provenijencija, što ukazuje na genetsku varijabilnost između populacija i zavisnost fenoloških faza od vremenskih uvjeta. U ovom istraživanju nije bilo moguće napraviti razliku između provenijencija na osnovi najranijeg pojavljivanja faza. Provenijencija Bijeljina nešto ranije ulazi u fazu B u 2012. godini, dok u 2013. godini u fazu B ulazi u isto vrijeme kao i ostale provenijencije. Provenijencija Bosanska Dubica kasni s ulaskom u sve faze u obje godine, i kašnjenje u odnosu na ostale provenijencije u prosjeku iznosi 7-10 dana. S obzirom na lokaciju populacije Bosanska Dubica u planinskim uvjetima možemo pretpostaviti da se radi o kasnoj formi. Dobiveni rezultati već sada mogu biti korišteni u programu oplemenjivanja hrasta lužnjaka, kao i u očuvanju genetske varijabilnosti uz pomoć in situ i ex situ metoda. Dobivene rezultate treba koristiti za planiranje, repopulaciju i reintrodukciju hrasta lužnjaka u Bosni i Hercegovini. Ovo istraživanje treba nastaviti kako bi se dobila detaljnija slika o fenologiji hrasta lužnjaka i utvrdila eventualna prisutnost ranih i kasnih formi, uzimajući u obzir i učinke klimatoloških uvjeta.

Carbon nanotube-based field-effect transistors (NTFETs) are ideal sensor devices as they provide rich information regarding carbon nanotube interactions with target analytes and have potential for miniaturization in diverse applications in medical, safety, environmental, and energy sectors. Herein, we investigate chemical detection with cross-sensitive NTFETs sensor arrays comprised of metal nanoparticle-decorated single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). By combining analysis of NTFET device characteristics with supervised machine-learning algorithms, we have successfully discriminated among five selected purine compounds, adenine, guanine, xanthine, uric acid, and caffeine. Interactions of purine compounds with metal nanoparticle-decorated SWCNTs were corroborated by density functional theory calculations. Furthermore, by testing a variety of prepared as well as commercial solutions with and without caffeine, our approach accurately discerns the presence of caffeine in 95% of the samples with 48 features using a linear discriminant analysis and in 93.4% of the samples with only 11 features when using a support vector machine analysis. We also performed recursive feature elimination and identified three NTFET parameters, transconductance, threshold voltage, and minimum conductance, as the most crucial features to analyte prediction accuracy.

The paper presents an analysis of the key processes in the field of adult education in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) referring to its socialist past and current tendencies dominantly motivated by the country’s aspiration towards accession to the European Union (EU). Any effort to offer a systematic overview of the history of adult education in BiH faces ambiguity and a lack of systematic data. Unlike other parts of the education system where historical accounts are to a certain extent preserved and subject to scholarly studies and investigations, adult education in BiH seems to be a field without a documented past. Based on critical discourse analysis, the paper intends to unravel the intricate socio-political texture that has shaped the key themes in adult education both in the country’s socialist past and its democratic present. The results of the analysis indicate several quite clear patterns: (a) the ambiguous treatment of the socialist past, from romanticising to annihilating its achievements and arrangements; (b) the rise of private institutions in adult education in the post-socialist period and the diversification of the education on offer; and (c) tensions between aspirations towards global and European trends on the one hand and insistence on localisation in terms of shaping adult education policy on the other.  

Stratification of women according to their risk of breast cancer based on polygenic risk scores (PRSs) could improve screening and prevention strategies. Our aim was to develop PRSs, optimized for prediction of estrogen receptor (ER)-specific disease, from the largest available genome-wide association dataset and to empirically validate the PRSs in prospective studies. The development dataset comprised 94,075 case subjects and 75,017 control subjects of European ancestry from 69 studies, divided into training and validation sets. Samples were genotyped using genome-wide arrays, and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were selected by stepwise regression or lasso penalized regression. The best performing PRSs were validated in an independent test set comprising 11,428 case subjects and 18,323 control subjects from 10 prospective studies and 190,040 women from UK Biobank (3,215 incident breast cancers). For the best PRSs (313 SNPs), the odds ratio for overall disease per 1 standard deviation in ten prospective studies was 1.61 (95%CI: 1.57–1.65) with area under receiver-operator curve (AUC) = 0.630 (95%CI: 0.628–0.651). The lifetime risk of overall breast cancer in the top centile of the PRSs was 32.6%. Compared with women in the middle quintile, those in the highest 1% of risk had 4.37- and 2.78-fold risks, and those in the lowest 1% of risk had 0.16- and 0.27-fold risks, of developing ER-positive and ER-negative disease, respectively. Goodness-of-fit tests indicated that this PRS was well calibrated and predicts disease risk accurately in the tails of the distribution. This PRS is a powerful and reliable predictor of breast cancer risk that may improve breast cancer prevention programs.

Superficial fungal infections are common. It is important to confirm the clinical diagnosis by mycological laboratory methods before initiating systemic antifungal treatment, especially as antifungal sensitivity and in vitro susceptibility may differ between different genera and species. For many years, the gold standard for diagnosis of superficial fungal infections has been direct fungal detection in the clinical specimen (microscopy) supplemented by culturing. Lately, newer molecular based methods for fungal identification have been developed.

The objective of this work was to evaluate the soil physical and biological properties in an integrated crop-livestock system (ICLS), with or without cattle grazing, in different seasons. The experiment was carried out in the Cerrado biome, in Brazil, in a Rhodic Eutrudox. The treatments consisted of grazing areas ( Urochloa ruziziensis ) at 0.25, 0.35, and 0.45 m heights (with soybean cultivation after grazing) and of nongrazed areas. The ICLS had no negative effects on soil bulk density, total porosity, macroporosity, and microporosity. After ICLS implementation, the values of soil bulk density decreased, and those of soil macroporosity increased, in the grazed and nongrazed areas. However, after three years, bulk density and macroporosity were reestablished to values similar to those before ICLS implementation. Soil penetration resistance was higher in the ICLS, mainly at 0.00–0.05 m soil depth. After four years, ICLS promoted the increase of microbial biomass C and N and the reduction of the metabolic quotient. The microbial biomass carbon and the metabolic quotient were related to the weighted mean diameter. ICLS benefits to soil physical and biological properties are associated with adequate ICLS implementation, adequate grazing height (0.35 m), and maintenance of soil cover.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the teaching of sanitary surveillance in undergraduate nursing courses in Brazil, seeking to know how this theme is addressed during the training of nurses. METHOD The universe of study was composed of Political-Pedagogical Projects, syllabi and curricula of nursing undergraduate courses from Brazilian public institutions. The quantitative analysis was developed through descriptive and inferential statistics, and for the qualitative part, a software was used to analyze the documents. RESULTS A total of 153 public institutions' websites were analyzed. Of these, only 98 presented a Political-Pedagogical Project, a syllabus or a curriculum for on-line consultation, and only 2.04% of these programs had a specific discipline focused on teaching sanitary surveillance. CONCLUSION The findings indicate that the contents related to the teaching of sanitary surveillance in nursing courses of public higher education institutions in Brazil, when present, are inserted, mostly, in other curricular components.