Intraoperative nerve localization is extremely important during surgery, especially laparoscopy. This is particularly challenging when nerves show visual resemblance to surrounding tissue. An example of such a delicate procedure is thyroid and parathyroid surgery, where iatrogenic injury of the recurrent laryngeal nerve can result in transient or permanent vocal problems. A camera system, enabling nerve-specific image enhancement, would be useful in preventing such complications. Hyperspectral camera technology has a potential to provide a nerve-specific image enhancement. As a first step towards such a dedicated camera system, we evaluated the availability of useful spectral tissue signatures by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy using silicon (Si) and indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) sensors. The spectral signatures from the combined Si & InGaAs bandwidth ranges 350–1,830 nm (1 nm spectral resolution) were used to develop a classifier. To build the classifier, 36 heuristic features were extracted from spectral signatures collected during carpal tunnel release (CTR) surgery as well as thyroid and parathyroid (T&P) surgery. As the larger median nerve (exposed during T&P surgery) provided a lower probability to partial volume effect, this data (15 tissue spots) was used to train the classifier. For validation purposes, 40 tissue spots acquired during CTR surgery were used. The differentiation between nerve tissue and the visually quite similar adipose tissue yielded good results. When using one feature, we reached the accuracy of 93.3% in training set and the accuracy of 85% in the independent validation set. When using two features, we reached accuracy of 100% in training set (26 pairs of features) and the maximum accuracy of 92.5% (11 pairs of features) in the independent validation set. For three features, we reached the accuracy of 100% in training set (410 triplets of features), with the accuracy of 100% in the independent validation set (37 triplets of features).

The implications of large lepton-quark-leptoquark couplings for direct leptoquark searches at Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are addressed. It is shown that flavour physics constraints allow for sizeable couplings of leptoquarks to the Standard Model fermions if these interact exclusively with charged leptons and quarks of the same generation. The leptoquark production mechanisms at LHC are thoroughly discussed to demonstrate the importance of inclusion of a t-channel pair production and, in particular, a single leptoquark production if and when the leptoquark couplings are large. A recast of an existing CMS search at LHC for the second generation leptoquarks is accordingly presented. It is shown to yield the best direct limit to date on Yukawa coupling of a leptoquark that couples exclusively to a muon and a strange quark .

Ž. Đorđević, V. Vukadinović, ŽS ad, Beograd, Serbia M. Vasiljević, Traffi c faculty Doboj, B i H S. Vesković, Traffi c faculty, Beograd, Serbia S. Rajilić, Municipal Novi Grad, B i H Deformation of the wheels damage cars and rails and affect on vehicle stability and safety. Repair and replacement cause high costs and lack of wagons. Planning of maintenance of wagons can not be done without estimates of the number of wheels that will be replaced due to wear and deformation in a given period of time. There are many influencing factors, the most important are: weather conditions, quality of materials, operating conditions, and distance between the two replacements. The fuzzy logic model uses the collected data as input variables to predict the output variable number of deformed wheels for a certain type of vehicle in the defined period at a particular section of the railway.

Knowledge-based economy has become a major trend in international society in the 21st century. However, today’s strategies place a greater emphasis on sustainability than in the past, while continuing to emphasize the importance of education and its connection with labour market. There has been a re-orientation, where resource, eco-efficiency and innovation have become major elements for achieving national objectives and a relevant level of competitiveness. This article deals with 30 indices, which define the competitiveness of a specific economy, and involve knowledge parameters. They are classified into four main categories and one special category. They are then analysed regarding the participation of Serbia and their availability. The main focus of this paper is to give detailed analyses of energy indices, as a special category of knowledge indexes. It has been shown that Serbia, in many cases, was not included in the study analysis or that there was insufficient information about Serbia’s position. This article shows that only a part of the presented indices includes Serbia. It is concluded that a new, revised model is needed that will include more exact indicators.