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A. Beganović, B. Petrovic, M. Surić Mihić

Occupational exposure in Bosnia and Herzegovina is regulated by the national regulation on radiation protection for occupational and public exposure. All radiation workers are required to be monitored using whole body passive thermoluminescent dosemeters and, in case of non-uniform external exposures, by dosemeters that would indicate dose to the most affected body parts. Exposed workers are almost exclusively employed in the medical field, and some of them work in nuclear medicine departments where they handle unsealed radioactive sources. Introduction of the positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) in two largest clinical centers in the country was expected to cause the increase of equivalent doses to hands received by staff handling the positron emitting radionuclides. Hence, routine monitoring of finger doses became a necessity. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the available data on monitoring with ring dosemeters during PET-CT procedure in two hospitals in Bosnia and Herzegovina and compare them with other practices in the nuclear medicine department, as well as with the results of monitoring in other countries. In general, results confirm that effective doses, as well as equivalent doses to hands, are well below annual dose limits. Finger dosemeters have been proven to be an invaluable asset in the incidental situations that sometimes occur in nuclear medicine departments. Different number of patients and differences in injection methodologies are identified as a possible source of differences between doses in two hospitals. Overall, routine evaluation of doses to hands provides a sound basis for possible optimization processes, as well as confirmation of good practices.

G. Spinetti, Martina Mutoli, S. Greco, Federica Riccio, S. Ben-Aicha, Franziska Kenneweg, A. Jusic, D. de Gonzalo-Calvo et al.

Diabetes mellitus, a group of metabolic disorders characterized by high levels of blood glucose caused by insulin defect or impairment, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and related mortality. Patients with diabetes experience a state of chronic or intermittent hyperglycemia resulting in damage to the vasculature, leading to micro- and macro-vascular diseases. These conditions are associated with low-grade chronic inflammation and accelerated atherosclerosis. Several classes of leukocytes have been implicated in diabetic cardiovascular impairment. Although the molecular pathways through which diabetes elicits an inflammatory response have attracted significant attention, how they contribute to altering cardiovascular homeostasis is still incompletely understood. In this respect, non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are a still largely under-investigated class of transcripts that may play a fundamental role. This review article gathers the current knowledge on the function of ncRNAs in the crosstalk between immune and cardiovascular cells in the context of diabetic complications, highlighting the influence of biological sex in such mechanisms and exploring the potential role of ncRNAs as biomarkers and targets for treatments. The discussion closes by offering an overview of the ncRNAs involved in the increased cardiovascular risk suffered by patients with diabetes facing Sars-CoV-2 infection. Graphical Abstract

Žana Stanić, R. Fureš, M. Vulić, E. Čečuk, M. Plazibat, Z. Hrgović, A. Cerovac

7. Cabrera C, Radolec M, Prescott A, De La Cruz C, Beck S. Interdisciplinary approach for the medical management of gestational gigantomastia. AJP Rep. 2020;10(03):e304e308. 8. Lesavoy MA, GomezGarcia A, Nejdl R, Yospur G, Syiau TJ, Chang P. Axillary breast tissue: clinical presentation and surgical treatment. Ann Plast Surg. 1995;35(4):356360. 9. Fletcher MB, Corsini LM, Meyer MD, Osswald SS. Gestational gigantomastia: a case report and brief review of the literature. JAAD Case Rep. 2020;6(11):11591161. 10. Mangla M, Chhatwal J, Nautiyal R, Prasad D. Gestational gigantomastia in the setting of myasthenia gravis. J Obstet Gynaecol India. 2019;69(S1):8487. 11. Husain M, Khan S, Bhat A, Hajini F. Accessory breast tissue mimicking pedunculated lipoma. BMJ Case Rep. 2014;2014:bcr20142 04990. 12. Khan RN, Parvaiz MA, Khan AI, Loya A. Invasive carcinoma in accessory axillary breast tissue: a case report. Int J Surg Case Rep. 2019;59:152155. 13. Lokuhetty MD, Saparamadu PA, AlSajee DM, AlAjmi R. Gigantomastia in pregnancy with an accessory axillary mass masquerading as inflammatory carcinoma. Diagn Cytopathol. 2011;39(2): 141143. 14. Swelstad MR, Swelstad BB, Rao VK, Gutowski KA. Management of gestational gigantomastia. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2006;118(4): 840848. 15. Antevski BM, Smilevski DA, Stojovski MZ, Filipovski VA, Banev SG. Extreme gigantomastia in pregnancy: case report and review of literature. Arch Gynecol Obstet. 2007;275(2):149153. 16. Alhindi N, Mortada H, Alzaid W, Al Qurashi AA, Awan B. A systematic literature review of the clinical presentation, management, and outcome of gestational gigantomastia in the 21st century. Aesthetic Plast Surg. 2022;47:1029. 17. Hassayoune N, Mhallem Gziri M, Lentini A, et al. Severe gestational gigantomastia: from mastectomy to staged autologous breast reconstruction. A case report. JPRAS Open. 2021;29:6570. 18. Lapid O. Breast reconstruction after mastectomy for gestational gigantomastia. Aesthetic Plast Surg. 2013;37(2):388391. 19. Qin F, Si L, Zhang H, et al. Management of gestational gigantomastia with breast reconstruction after mastectomy: case report and literature review. J Int Med Res. 2020;48(6):030006052092046.

I. Burazor, O. Djokić, M. Perić, T. Bilic, O. Subic, T. Rankovic-Nenezic, N. Tasić, D. Tasić et al.

Type of funding sources: None. Obesity and overweight play a key role in the development of cardiovascular disease or myocardial ischemia, particularly today, as does their relationship to traditional and non-traditional risk factors. Despite, diet and weight management are grossly under-met per desired body mass index (BMI) threshold goals among very high-risk patients with established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Thus, we aimed to investigate the presence of overweight and obesity in patients with established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease who were admitted to our center. Patients and methods: Out of 790 patients admitted in our center between May and October 2021, we analyzed 341 patients who underwent isolated coronary artery by-pass surgery. Risk factors were noted as well as previous drug therapy, previous COVID 19 infection and vaccination. Anthropometric data were measured and BMI was determined. Obesity was defined as a BMI >_30 kg/m2 and overweight as a BMI between 25 and 30 kg/m2 . Patients with a BMI >_40 kg/m2 were considered morbidly obese. Early cardiac rehabilitation (phase 1) was performed by using personalized approach in all patients. Out of 341 patients (64.68±7.91 years of age), 275 were males (80.6%). The total of 97 (28.44%) had previous myocardial infarction. Blood pressure was well controlled. Majority of the patients reached the step 2 goals according to EAPC Guidelines on prevention (130.7±6.45/75.27±6.54mmHg), and were adherent to prescribed drugs. Mean heart rate was 65±5.65/minute. Only 27% of females and 22% of males had normal weight with BMI between 18.5 and 24.9.kg/m2. The mean BMI was 27.76 kg/m2. 50% of males and females were overweight. Obesity was noted in 23% of females and 27% of males (0.7% morbidly obese. Early cardiac rehabilitation was performed in all patients and they were all referred to participate the phase 2 programs. Diet and body weight reduction in overweight and obese ASCVD patients should continue to be a priority given the impact on cardiovascular risk. There is a potential for optimizing management of overweight and obesity in patients. In addition to a better risk factor profile, weight loss also leads to a better quality of life. Cardiovascular prevention and rehabilitation programs should include weight loss intervention. Different forms of self-support and use of digital health might be used as a specific component of a comprehensive intervention to reduce total cardiovascular risk, extend life expectancy, and improve quality of life.

A. Boiko, N. M. Madrid, R. Seepold

Sleep is essential to physical and mental health. However, the traditional approach to sleep analysis—polysomnography (PSG)—is intrusive and expensive. Therefore, there is great interest in the development of non-contact, non-invasive, and non-intrusive sleep monitoring systems and technologies that can reliably and accurately measure cardiorespiratory parameters with minimal impact on the patient. This has led to the development of other relevant approaches, which are characterised, for example, by the fact that they allow greater freedom of movement and do not require direct contact with the body, i.e., they are non-contact. This systematic review discusses the relevant methods and technologies for non-contact monitoring of cardiorespiratory activity during sleep. Taking into account the current state of the art in non-intrusive technologies, we can identify the methods of non-intrusive monitoring of cardiac and respiratory activity, the technologies and types of sensors used, and the possible physiological parameters available for analysis. To do this, we conducted a literature review and summarised current research on the use of non-contact technologies for non-intrusive monitoring of cardiac and respiratory activity. The inclusion and exclusion criteria for the selection of publications were established prior to the start of the search. Publications were assessed using one main question and several specific questions. We obtained 3774 unique articles from four literature databases (Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, PubMed, and Scopus) and checked them for relevance, resulting in 54 articles that were analysed in a structured way using terminology. The result was 15 different types of sensors and devices (e.g., radar, temperature sensors, motion sensors, cameras) that can be installed in hospital wards and departments or in the environment. The ability to detect heart rate, respiratory rate, and sleep disorders such as apnoea was among the characteristics examined to investigate the overall effectiveness of the systems and technologies considered for cardiorespiratory monitoring. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of the considered systems and technologies were identified by answering the identified research questions. The results obtained allow us to determine the current trends and the vector of development of medical technologies in sleep medicine for future researchers and research.

I. Djuric, B. Džudović, B. Subotic, Jelena Džudović, J. Matijašević, Marija Benic, S. Šalinger, I. Mitevska et al.

Background: Patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE) may have various types of atrial fibrillation (AF). The role of AF in hemodynamic states and outcomes may differ between men and women. Methods: In total, 1600 patients (743 males and 857 females) with acute PE were enrolled in this study. The severity of PE was assessed using the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) mortality risk model. Patients were allocated into three groups according to their electrocardiography recordings taken during hospitalization: sinus rhythm, new-onset paroxysmal AF, and persistent/permanent AF. The association between the types of AF and all-cause hospital mortality was tested using regression models and net reclassification index (NRI) and integrated discrimination index (IDI) statistics with respect to sex. Results: There were no differences between the frequencies of the types of AF between men and women: 8.1% vs. 9.1% and 7.5% vs. 7.5% (p = 0.766) for paroxysmal and persistent/permanent AF, respectively. We found that the rates of paroxysmal AF significantly increased across the mortality risk strata in both sexes. Among the types of AF, the presence of paroxysmal AF had a predictive value for all-cause hospital mortality independent of mortality risk and age in women only (adjusted HR, 2.072; 95% CI, 1.274–3.371; p = 0.003). Adding paroxysmal AF to the ESC risk model did not improve the reclassification of patient risk for the prediction of all-cause mortality, but instead enhanced the discriminative power of the existing model in women only (NRI, not significant; IDI, 0.022 (95% CI, 0.004–0.063); p = 0.013). Conclusion: The occurrence of paroxysmal AF in female patients with acute PE has predictive value for all-cause hospital mortality independent of age and mortality risk.

S. Fajfer, J. Kamenik, Arman Korajac, N. Košnik

We present constraints on the left-handed dimension-6 interactions that contribute to semileptonic and leptonic decays of K, D, pions and to nuclear beta decay. We employ the flavour covariant description of the effective couplings, identify universal CP phases of New Physics and derive constraints from decay rates and CP-odd quantities. As a result, we can predict the maximal effects of such flavoured NP in D decays from stringent K decay constraints and vice-versa.

Cheng-Yu Wu, Anis Cilic, O. Pak, R. Dartsch, J. Wilhelm, M. Wujak, Kevin Lo, M. Brosien et al.

RATIONALE Tobacco smoking and air pollution are primary causes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, only a minority of smokers develop COPD. The mechanisms underlying the defense against nitrosative/oxidative stress in non-susceptible smokers to COPD remain largely unresolved. OBJECTIVES To investigate the defense mechanisms against nitrosative/oxidative stress that possibly prevent COPD development or progression. METHODS Four cohorts were investigated: (1) sputum samples (healthy, n=4; COPD, n=37), (2) lung tissue samples (healthy, n=13; smokers without COPD, n=10; smoker+COPD, n=17), (3) pulmonary lobectomy tissue samples (no/mild emphysema, n=6) and (4) blood samples (healthy, n=6; COPD, n=18). We screened 3-nitrotyrosine (3-NT) levels, as indication of nitrosative/oxidative stress, in human samples. We established a novel in vitro model of a cigarette smoke extract (CSE)-resistant cell line and studied 3-NT formation, antioxidant capacity, and transcriptomic profiles. Results were validated in lung tissue, isolated primary cells and an ex vivo model using adeno-associated virus-mediated gene transduction and human precision-cut lung slices (hPCLS). MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS 3-NT levels correlate with COPD severity of patients. In CSE-resistant cells, nitrosative/oxidative stress upon CSE was attenuated, paralleled by profound upregulation of heme-oxygenase-1 (HO-1). We identified carcinoembryonic-antigen-related-cell-adhesion-molecule-6 (CEACAM6) as a negative regulator of HO-1-mediated nitrosative/oxidative stress defense in human alveolar type 2 epithelial cells (hAEC2). Consistently, inhibition of HO-1 activity in hAEC2 increased the susceptibility towards CSE-induced damage. Epithelium-specific CEACAM6 overexpression increased nitrosative/oxidative stress and cell death in hPCLS upon CSE treatment. CONCLUSIONS CEACAM6 expression determines the hAEC2 sensitivity to nitrosative/oxidative stress triggering emphysema development/progression in susceptible smokers.

Jasenka Dizdarevic, Marc Michalke, A. Jukan

The Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol is one of the most widely used IoT protocol solutions. In this work, we are especially interested in open-source MQTT Broker implementations (such as Mosquitto, EMQX, RabbitMQ, VerneMQ, and HiveMQ). To this end, we engineer a network testbed to experimentally benchmark the performance of these implementations in an edge computing context with constrained devices. In more detail, we engineer an automated deployment and orchestration of the containerized MQTT broker implementations, with support for deployment across either moderately powerful AMD64 devices, or more resource constrained ARM64 devices. The proposed MQTT implementations are evaluated in terms of overhead response time and different payload sizes. Results showed that the hardware platform used as well as the message size, and the network parameters (latency, packet loss and jitter) have a significant impact on the performance differences between the brokers. All results, software tools and code are fully reproducible and free and open source.

I. Dunder, S. Seljan, M. Odak

Detecting phishing attacks is not straightforward, since there are many obstacles that derive from language complexity and technical aspects. Studying phishing attacks and other related issues heavily relies on computer datasets, i.e. digital corpora that reflect these linguistic and technical intricacies. Diverse studies using phishing datasets have been performed, but mainly for the English language. Research for other languages is scarce, and especially for not widely spoken languages. For the Croatian language there is an evident lack of corpora that are essential for diverse analyses and for constructing models that are capable of recognizing phishing attacks and protecting users. These datasets are necessary for natural language processing and building machine learning workflows, where results largely depend on corpora that must be specifically crafted for this purpose. Therefore, creating high-quality domain-specific corpora is of great importance in the domain of information security. Such corpora can be employed for teaching purposes in various courses in higher education, and could be analyzed in numerous ways in order to understand the underlying principles of phishing attack strategies. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the entire process of data acquisition and corpus creation for the phishing detection domain. In addition, an analysis of the corpus is presented with regard to different aspects, such as descriptive attributes, terminology characteristics, metadata and language.

Alma Gavranović-Glamoč, Zinajda Šabić, Selma Alić-Drina, Sanela Strujić-Porović, Selma Jakupović, Alma Kamber, E. Berhamović, Lejla Berhamović et al.

Introduction: Stress among students is a growing problem. As emotional stress increases, the limbic structures and hypothalamus are stimulated, activating the gamma efferent system, which ultimately leads to an increase in muscle tone or additional muscle activity that can become repetitive behaviors such as bruxism. The aim of the study was to investigate the stress level that students are exposed to, to determine the difference between students in terms of gender, faculty, and year of study, and to evaluate the possible relationship between stress level and self-reported bruxism in college students during the pandemic COVID-19. Methods: In April 2022, a cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of students from the Faculty of Dentistry and the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Sarajevo (BiH). The students answered a questionnaire consisting of two parts: The first part contained questions on basic personal data and data on self-reported bruxism and the second part contained questions on the perceived stress scale (PSS). Results: The study included 756 students from both faculties. Analysis of stress levels among students revealed higher stress levels. Female students were more likely to be under stress than male respondents. Students in the Faculty of Pharmacy were more likely to be stressed than students in the Faculty of Dentistry. At the Faculty of Pharmacy, there was no difference in stress levels between the different years of study, while at the Faculty of Dentistry, the individual score for PSS was highest among 1st-year students. A high prevalence (46.8%) of self-reported bruxism was found among students in both faculties. Conclusion: A slight positive correlation between self-reported bruxism and stress suggests that it is important to implement stress management strategies during academic education and to prevent bruxism and its consequences.

S. Ribic, K. Hodzic

Courses in principles of digital computers usually begin with elementary logic circuits, proceed through increasingly complex ones, and often end with the design of a central processing unit. Such processors are typically simpler to explain than commercial microprocessors, but also often have very limited capabilities. The educational processor presented in this paper has a good balance between simplicity and capabilities. All its instructions, including multiplication and bit rotation, are executed in one clock cycle. The method of encoding and decoding instructions is quite simplified so that the encoding of instructions can be done even manually without tables, and the decoder unit is a simple forwarding of parts of the instruction word to the control bits of multiplexers. The processor is symmetric around the number 16: it has 16 three-operand instructions, 16 registers, each register is 16 bits wide, as well as the address and data bus. It is simulated at the logic gates level, a Verilog implementation on FPGA, and an emulated computer run by an implementation of a Forth interpreter written partly in its machine language.

Support channels represent a unique opportunity to improve customer satisfaction by offering a consistent experience in resolving customer issues. Several surveys show that customers have raised their standards of customer support services. While only a few years ago customers willingly waited a long time to speak with one of the service agents and were patient for their problem to be resolved, today’s customers have very limited patience and want a solution to the problem immediately. Customers don’t want to settle for a mediocre support channel experience. Support channels must provide superior service capacities so that customers see that the company values their choice and time. Efficient management of support centers implies accurate modeling of customer behavior on hold. The subject of our research is the application of data research techniques for predicting customer behavior in support channels. In this paper, we apply machine learning methods to predict customer behavior. Based on historical data in the service system, we use classification algorithms to predict customer patience in service channels.

Autistic children often have difficulties in executive functions (EF). These difficulties can, in turn, affect their everyday functioning. It is less clear in what way EF are affected by the severity of autism symptoms in children. We hypothesize that autism severity level does not have the same effect across the different components of EF. In this study, we examined how EF are affected by the autism severity level in a sample of 52 autistic children aged 4–7 years (mean age‐ 5.4 years, SD‐ 0.9 years). EF were measured through teachers' reports on the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions‐ Preschool Version. Autism severity level was measured with the Social Communication Questionnaire‐ Current Form. The results of this study showed that autism severity level impacted two EF, namely Planning and Working memory, and did not affect three EF components: Inhibition, Shifting, and Emotional Control. These results indicate that the cool or cognitive EF are more affected by autism severity level than hot EF. We conclude the article with suggestions for improving EF in autistic children.

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