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.

SAAEETAK: PoremeEaj dijastoliEke funkcije lijeve klijetke (LK) je jedan od prvih poremeEaja funkcije LK, koji se registriraju prije poremeEaja regionalnog kontraktiliteta, EKG promjena i bola u prsnom koπu, πto bitno mijenja prognozu pacijenata s akutnim koronarnim sindromom. PoremeEaj relaksacije LK Eesto se registrira u pacijenata s akutnim infarktom miokarda (AIM), a poremeEaj krutosti LK u pacijenata s AIM prednje stijenke. Najizraaeenija dijastoliEka abnormalnost uzrokovana ishemijom miokarda je produaeena i usporena relaksacija miokarda. Ehokardiografske tehnike omoguEavaju evaluaciju dijastoliEkog punjenja obje pretklijetke i klijetke.

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