Every ecosystem is a complex organization of carefully mixed life forms; a dynamic and particularly sensible system. Consequently, their progressive decline may accelerate climate change and vice versa, influencing flora and fauna composition and distribution, resulting in the loss of biodiversity. Climate changes effects are the principal topics of this volume. Written by internationally renowned contributors, Biodiversity loss in a changing planet offers attractive study cases focused on biodiversity evaluations and provisions in several different ecosystems, analysing the current life condition of many life forms, and covering very different biogeographic zones of the planet.

BackgroundSwallowing accelerometry has been suggested as a potential non-invasive tool for bedside dysphagia screening. Various vibratory signal features and complementary measurement modalities have been put forth in the literature for the potential discrimination between safe and unsafe swallowing. To date, automatic classification of swallowing accelerometry has exclusively involved a single-axis of vibration although a second axis is known to contain additional information about the nature of the swallow. Furthermore, the only published attempt at automatic classification in adult patients has been based on a small sample of swallowing vibrations.MethodsIn this paper, a large corpus of dual-axis accelerometric signals were collected from 30 older adults (aged 65.47 ± 13.4 years, 15 male) referred to videofluoroscopic examination on the suspicion of dysphagia. We invoked a reputation-based classifier combination to automatically categorize the dual-axis accelerometric signals into safe and unsafe swallows, as labeled via videofluoroscopic review. From these participants, a total of 224 swallowing samples were obtained, 164 of which were labeled as unsafe swallows (swallows where the bolus entered the airway) and 60 as safe swallows. Three separate support vector machine (SVM) classifiers and eight different features were selected for classification.ResultsWith selected time, frequency and information theoretic features, the reputation-based algorithm distinguished between safe and unsafe swallowing with promising accuracy (80.48 ± 5.0%), high sensitivity (97.1 ± 2%) and modest specificity (64 ± 8.8%). Interpretation of the most discriminatory features revealed that in general, unsafe swallows had lower mean vibration amplitude and faster autocorrelation decay, suggestive of decreased hyoid excursion and compromised coordination, respectively. Further, owing to its performance-based weighting of component classifiers, the static reputation-based algorithm outperformed the democratic majority voting algorithm on this clinical data set.ConclusionGiven its computational efficiency and high sensitivity, reputation-based classification of dual-axis accelerometry ought to be considered in future developments of a point-of-care swallow assessment where clinical informatics are desired.

Copyright © 2011 by Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. E-mail for permission to publish: amabih@anubih.ba him an internationally acknowledged scholar. As Professor Kecmanovic authored or edited a great many widely read psychiatry textbooks he has contributed enormously to the education of medical students, psychiatric residents, psychiatrists, psychologists and psychiatric social workers in the former Yugoslavia in general and in the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina in particular. Kecmanovic’s latest book is entitled Controversies and Dilemmas in Contemporary Psychiatry. As the title suggests, it deals with those topics in psychiatry that are debatable in the fi rst place. And there are many of them. As Kecmanovic put it, if we take all the dilemmas out of psychiatry there is not much psychiatry left . Kecmanovic does not take sides. He dissects arguments, casts light on the pros and cons. He explains how some dilemmas might be resolved, and why others are not likely to be resolved because the resolution of them is simply beyond the scope of psychiatry. Kecmanovic is focused on the most important and most intriguing questions that psychiatrists cannot help but confront – no matter whether they are more interested in conceptual issues or in day-to-day clinical practice. Indeed, most psychiatrists are not keen on discussing controversies and dilemmas in contemporary psychiatry because they believe that debating burning psychiatric questions unveils the weaknesses of psychiatry and thereby tarnishes the public image of psychiatry. In this book Kecmanovic forces psychiatrists to face up to the aspects of their job that are only apparently question-free. Th at is only one of the reasons why the book deserves their attention. Kecmanovic has chosen to discuss those subject-matters that, in his opinion, contain the main controversies and dilemmas in contemporary psychiatry, such as the defi nition of mental disorder, mental health, similarities and difDusan Kecmanovic is one of the most prominent psychiatrists in the former Yugoslavia. Before leaving Sarajevo in 1993 he was Professor of Psychiatry and Political Psychology at Sarajevo University, and a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. His publications – 24 books and more than 250 papers (as the primary author) published by reputed publishers and in respected journals – made Acta Medica Academica 2011;40(1):195-196 DOI 10.5644/ama2006-124.27

Objective. Th e aim of this paper is to determine the concentration ofnitric oxide (NO) in the saliva of subjects resulting from the presenceof various metal restorative activities in the oral cavity. Patients andmethods. Th e research was conducted on 20 subjects (12 women and8 men), aged 18-30, with no metal fi llings in their oral cavity and 20subjects (11 women and 9 men) aged 18-30 with prosthetic and conservativework in their oral cavities made of various metals. Th e pHof the saliva was established by means of an “Orion” type pH meter atan optimal temperature of 250C. Th e concentration of NO was determinedby conversion of NO3-2 into NO2-2 with the help of elementaryzinc and then by colorimetric testing of the NO2-2 concentration bymeans of the Griess reagent. Results. Our results established that theconcentration of NO in patients with various metals (60.18±10.24) is33.7% higher, which is statistically insignifi cant, in relation to the controlgroup (45.01±6.28). Conclusion. Various metal restorative activitiesstemming from dentistry practice do not cause changes in the pHvalues of saliva and NO concentrations.

Coronary angiography is an invasive diagnostic procedure in which radiocontrast is injected into the coronary arteries under X-ray guidance in order to display the coronary anatomy and possible luminal obstruction. Despite the advances in other diagnostic methods, it remains to be "the golden standard" of coronary disease diagnostics. Although today the complication rate is far lower than previously, the possibility of complication still exists, and an invasive cardiologist must be able to complete the procedure flawlessly, and to competently deal with complications, should they occur. In order to be able to do that, he/she must master the proper techniques in performing the coronary angiography procedure, and be comfortable with all the available access-sites.

The fluoride element is found in the environment and constitutes 0.06 – 0.09 % of the earth’s crust. Fluoride is not found naturally in the air in large quantities. Average concentration of fluoride in air are in the magnitude of 0.5 ng/m3.[1] Fluoride is found more frequently in different sources of water but with higher concentrations in groundwater due to the presence of fluoride-bearing minerals. Average fluoride concentrations in see water are approximately 1.3 mgL-1. Water is vitally important to every aspect of our lives. Water is a risk because of the possible input and transmission of infectious pathogens and parasitic diseases. We use clean water to drink, grow crops for food and operate factories. The most common pollutants in water are chemicals (pesticides, phenols, heavy metals and bacteria). [2] According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, there are 6 groups which cause contamination of drinking water: microorganisms, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals, radioactive substances. This chapter concerns the importance of continuously monitoring of fluoride and chloride in drinking water by using a fluoride (F-ISE) and chloride (Cl-ISE) ion-selective electrodes. Disinfectants that are added to reduce the number of microorganisms, as well as disinfection byproducts can cause a series of disorders in body (anaemia, impaired function of liver, kidneys, nervous system). Chemical disinfection is economically most favourable when it comes to processing large amounts of water, for the preparation of drinking water and wastewater treatment. That is why this type of disinfection is used almost exclusively in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Chlorine is one of the most widely used disinfectants. Water monitoring information helps us to control pollution level. In this context, our work concerns the determination of fluoride in spring waters from different villages in Tuzla's Canton in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and chloride in drinking tap water from Tuzla and Gradacac as well as one sample of bottled water. Spring water sample from “Tarevcica” is designed by SW1, from “Zatoca” by SW2, from “Sedam vrela” by SW3 and “Toplica” by SW4 while a tap water from Tuzla by TW and tap water from Gradacac by GW and bottled water by FW. The development of potentiometric ion-selective electrode has a wide range of applications in determining ions in water and other mediums. These electrodes are relatively free from interferences and provide a rapid, convenient and non-destructive means of quantitatively determining numerous important anions and cations. [3] The use of ion-selective electrodes

A colored weak singlet scalar state with hypercharge 4/3 is one of the possible candidates for the explanation of the unexpectedly large forward-backward asymmetry in $t \bar t$ production as measured by the CDF and D0 experiments. We investigate the role of this state in a plethora of flavor changing neutral current processes and precision observables of down-quarks and charged leptons. Our analysis includes tree- and loop-level mediated observables in the K and B systems, the charged lepton sector, as well as the $Z \to b \bar b$ width. We perform a fit of the relevant scalar couplings. This approach can explain the $(g-2)_\mu$ anomaly while tensions among the CP violating observables in the quark sector, most notably the nonstandard CP phase (and width difference) in the $B_s$ system cannot be fully relaxed. The results are interpreted in a class of GUT models which allow for a light colored scalar with a mass below 1 TeV.