Among Enterococcus spp, only the virulence gene harboring strains of Enterococcus faecalis and E. faecium are associated with human infections, including urinary tract infections (UTI), pelvic, blood, intraabdominal, and skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI). Over the past decades, enterococcal antimicrobial resistance has escalated in many regions of the world, leading to ominous outcomes. The rising incidence of Healthcare-Associated Infections (HCAIs) secondary to Vancomycin-resistant strain (VRE) resulted in high morbidity and mortality, as well as substantial challenges in control, prevention, and management). The aim of this study is to examine the antimicrobial resistance of E. faecalis and E. faecium species in different human samples. The study included 184 clinical samples over a period of 6 months. E. faecalis was identified in 95.65% and E. faecium in 4.35% of cases. E. faecalis isolates showed resistance to gentamicin in 40.9% of cases and to ampicillin in 1.7% of cases. Resistance to nitrofurantoin and ciprofloxacin was observed in 6.1% and 35.7% of E. faecalis isolates. VRE was isolated in 1.1% of E. faecalis isolates tested for this antibiotic. Resistance of E. faecium isolates to ampicillin and gentamicin was observed in 87.5% of cases in both antibiotics. All urinary isolates of E. faecium were resistant to ciprofloxacin. All E. faecium isolates were sensitive to vancomycin. Based on the results of our study, the growing importance of Enterococcus spp. as a causative agent of hospital infections and infections in the general population, and its antimicrobial resistance to various drugs were observed.

Vehicular ad hoc network (VANETs) improves road safety and efficiency by organizing vehicles and infrastructure to provide a platform for application deployment. The availability of vehicles and infrastructure is critical to the operation of applications. Accurate failure detector (FD) has been one of the fundamental components for maintaining high availability in VANETs. However, it is hard to find the vehicle failure accurately and timely due to the dynamic nature of VANETs caused by the high mobility of vehicles and communications link failures. Therefore, it is important to achieve an accurate FD which can cope with the high mobility of VANETs. In this paper, we propose a dead reckoning based FD, called DR-FD. It can predict the mobility of vehicle accurately and avoid the impact of link failures on the detection results by the cooperation between vehicles. Experimental results are provided to confirm that the proposed DR-FD method can achieve at most 20% reduction in detection time, 30% improvement in mistake rate and 20% improvement in overhead.

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a highly aggressive malignancy with a poor outcome. We present the case of a 57-year-old male patient with extensive-stage (ES-SCLC) treated with chemotherapy and atezolizumab. A complete response was achieved with a long remission of ∼three years. Comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) of the tumor revealed high tumor mutation burden (13 mutations/Mb) and mutations of TP53, RB1 and ERCC4 genes. This case study confirms that a complete response to chemoimmunotherapy may be achieved in the case of ES-SCLC. It further provides the additional value of CGP and predictive testing in the management of ES-SCLC.

Background: In December of 2019, SARS-CoV-2, a new type of coronavirus, appeared, and it turned into an international epidemic. The consequences of the pandemic, especially the isolation measures, fear of infection and bad economic trends, as a result of the crisis, threaten people's basic psychological needs. Objective: The objective of this research was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and perceived social support of persons with disabilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Methods: The research included a total sample of 232 respondents with different types of disabilities. The Symptom Checklist (SCL-90) was used to verify the research objective, which assessed three dimensions: somatization, depression and anxiety. Also, in order to verify the research objective, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support was applied, which consists of 12 statements that measure the perceived social support of family, friends and other people. The research data was processed with descriptive and inferential statistics. The basic statistical parameters were calculated, while the t-test was used for an independent sample of respondents to verify the set objective. Results: The results of the research showed that persons with disabilities, who were infected with the SARS-Cov-2 virus, had a significantly higher level of somatization, anxiety and depression compared to those who were not infected with the virus. The results in relation to social support did not prove to be statistically significant. Conclusion: The obtained results lead to the conclusion that, in the future, interventions by experts of various profiles must be planned to preserve the mental health of persons with disabilities, which is why it is important to invest in the emotional, psychological, social, physical and spiritual well-being of the individual.

Abstract The aim of this study was to examine the seroprevalence of Leptospira spp. in dogs and red foxes in the entity of the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, after heavy rainfall and floods in 2014 and for the two years thereafter. The seroepidemiological study involved testing serum samples from dogs (n = 98) and foxes (n = 112) using MAT (microscopic agglutination test). Antibodies to at least one Leptospira spp. serovar were found in 52.04% of the tested dogs. The dog seroprevalence in 2014 (81.25%) was significantly higher than in 2015 (51.42% p <0.0001) and 2016 (22.5% p<0.05). The highest seroprevalences were for serovars Australis (76.47%), Bratislava (70.58%), Sejroe (66.67%) and Autumnalis (45.09%). Antibodies to at least one Leptospira spp. serovar were detected in 34.82% of the examined red foxes. In 2015, the fox seroprevalence was significantly higher (52.94%) than in 2016 (6.82%) (p <0.0001). The highest seroprevalences were for serovars Sejroe (64.10%), Bratislava (48.72%), Australis (43.59%) and Bataviae (25.64%). The high seroprevalence of Leptospira spp. in dogs and foxes determined during this study indicates the importance of these carnivores in maintaining leptospirosis in the study area, and the potential risk of infection for humans and other animal species that come into contact with these canids. The results obtained indicate that heavy rainfall and intense floods can result in increased Leptospira spp. infection in these canids.

Objective: The main objective of this research is to determine the prevalence and characteristics of neurological manifestations in hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted. 572 hospitalized patients at the COVID Department of Pulmonology of the Mostar University Clinical Hospital in the six-month period from October 31, 2020, to April 30, 2021, were included. We analyzed the incidence of neurological manifestations and the influence of comorbidities and metabolic syndrome on stroke incidence in COVID-19 patients. We analyzed hospital length of stay and mortality in patients with and without neurological manifestations. The research was conducted with respect to all the determinants of the Helsinki Declaration. Results: 572 patients, 351 men (61.4%), and 221 women (38.6%) were included. A fatal outcome was present in a quarter of patients (25.3%). Neurological manifestations were found in 163 patients (28.5%). Myalgia was the most common (16.1%). The following were reported: headache (9.6%), loss of taste (7.34%), loss of smell (6.8%), and vertigo (2.5%). There was a significant difference regarding loss of smell between males and females (p=0.04). The cerebrovascular incident was present in 2.97% of patients and was more frequent in the group of patients with metabolic syndrome. Patients with neurological manifestations had a longer hospital stay, but it was not statistically significant (p=0.9319). The presence of neurological manifestations in general did not influence the mortality rate. Conclusion: Patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection can present with neurologic findings such as myalgia, headache, loss of smell or taste, vertigo, as well as cerebrovascular incidents. Patients with neurological manifestations had longer hospital stays, but the presence of neurological manifestations in general did not influence the mortality rate.

Next-generation mobile communication systems are planned to support millimeter Wave (mmWave) transmission in scenarios with high-mobility, such as in private industrial networks. To cope with propagation environments with unprecedented challenges, data-driven methodologies such as Machine Learning (ML) are expected to act as a fundamental tool for decision support in future mobile systems. However, high-quality measurement datasets need to be made available to the research community in order to develop and benchmark ML-based methodologies for next-generation wireless networks. We present a reliable testbed for collecting channel measurements at sub-6 GHz and mmWave frequencies. Further, we describe a rich dataset collected using the presented testbed. Our public dataset enables the development and testing of innovative ML-based channel simulators for both sub-6GHz and mmWave bands on real-world data. We conclude this paper by discussing promising experimental results on two illustrative ML tasks leveraging on our dataset, namely, channel impulse response forecasting and synthetic channel transfer function generation, upon which we propose future exploratory research directions. The original dataset employed in this work is available on IEEE DataPort (https://dx.doi.org/10.21227/3tpp-j394), and the code utilized in our numerical experiments is publicly accessible via CodeOcean (https://codeocean.com/capsule/9619772/tree).

Highlights • Microarray analysis of dorsal root ganglia from mice subjected to collagen antibody-induced arthritis (CAIA) and controls revealed that arthritis leads to differential expression of 120 circular RNA genes.• Bioinformatical analysis indicates that altered levels of circRNAs in DRG is associated with sensitization-related processes.• Microarray or RT-qPCR analysis showed increased levels of circVps13 and circMicall1 in the inflammatory phase and circNufip1 the late “post-inflammatory” phase in DRG from mice subjected to CAIA.