Allelopathy is a unique phenomenon in nature that refers to direct or indirect, positive or negative, impact of one plant (including microorganisms, insects, and herbivores) on another plant through chemical secretions (allelochemicals). Ambrosia artemisiifolia (ragweed) is a well-known invasive plant possessing allelochemicals that have been found to inhibit the growth and development of plants in their immediate environment. This study aimed to determine the allelopathic impact of the aqueous leaf extract isolated from ragweed leaves (concentrated extract, 1:2, 1:4, and 1:8) on seed germination and early seedling growth of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and white clover (Trifolium repens L.). The examined aqueous extract of ragweed had a higher inhibitory effect on the germination of white clover seeds compared to barley. The germination of barley seeds was the lowest at the concentrated leaf extract (up to 70%), while the same process in barley seeds was not determined at this concentration. In the other treatments, germination was significantly lower in both examined species compared to the control. Shoot and root growth of both researched species was inhibited in all treatments compared to the control. The obtained results indicate that the aqueous ragweed extract significantly inhibits the growth of roots and shoots of both tested species, which increases the need for more intensive research on this topic.

Background: Llamas are becoming increasingly popular as livestock and as companion animals and their blood samples may require transportation over long distances and storage for extended periods prior to hematological analyses. Hematological parameters are influenced by a range of factors, including age, sex, diet and environment. Examining how these parameters change over time in stored blood samples can provide insights into the natural variation of these parameters in llamas, which can inform future research on the health and biology of these animals. This study sought to evaluate the stability of hematological markers at 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36 and 42 hours of storage in blood samples of llamas (Lama glama) stored at 4°C. Methods: The study was conducted on blood from eight clinically healthy llamas captivated at Sarajevo Zoo-Pionirska dolina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The effect of storage was observed on the following hematological parameters: Red Blood Cell count (RBC), hematocrit (HCT), hemoglobin (HGB), Mean Cell Volume (MCV), Mean Cell Hemoglobin (MCH), Mean Cell Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC), Reticulocyte count (RETIC), White Blood Cell (WBC). White blood cell differentiation, absolute white blood cell counts, platelet count (PLT) and mean platelet volume (MPV) are also included. Result: During 42 hours of storage at 4°C, it was discovered that red blood cells, hemoglobin, white blood cells, mean cell hemoglobin and reticulocyte, as well as the differentiation of white blood cells and measurement of their absolute values, remained stable. However, hematocrit increased at 12 h, while mean cell hemoglobin concentration decreased at 12 h when stored at 4°C.

The subject of the analysis are the practices and effects of changed direct, interpersonal communication on teachers – students reality in the form of online consultations, in new communication technologies mediated by patterns. The text analyzes the transformation of traditional, academic communication practices in teaching processes conditioned not primarily by technological but existential reasons, starting from the hypothesis that the effectiveness of consultative, communication forms cannot be achieved exclusively through mediated forms, the absence of interpersonal, social interaction. The purpose of the analysis was related both to recording the real effects of mediated communication patterns of online consultations and to analyzing indicators of improvement and development forms of online teaching. On the selected sample of students and teachers of the Department of Communication and Journalism Studies, Faculty of Political Science, University of Sarajevo, primarily, study-oriented and interested in the field of studying and researching communication processes, the surveys aims to analyze conditionally mediated communication from the aspect of communicators, participants in the communication as well as from the aspect of the content and mediator of the communication process and its effects in comparison with established, traditional academic practices. The results of the examination of attitudes indicate that the mediated patterns of consultative forms optimized the material, technical dimension of transmission and reception, but reduced the qualitative, content aspect of the message in terms of its understanding and the inclusion of sensory inputs in the communication process. Untimeliness in responding to inquiries, different denotative and connotative forms of understanding the message, and the absence of metacommunication are just some of the recorded indicators of the absence of basic conditions for effective communication in forms of mediated consultation.

The aim of this paper is to present the Information System on Research Activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina - E-CRIS.BH, and the total number of registered researchers, research organizations, departments and projects, but also the number of bibliographic records to which the typology of documents/works has been assigned within the mutual COBISS.BH database. E-CRIS.BH is an information system that represents an electronic database of researchers, research organizations, research departments and research projects. It is an information system on research activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which originated from the Register of Scientific Institutions, Scientific Staff, Scientific and Research Projects and Infrastructure Investments in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Register of Scientific Institutions, Scientific Staff, Scientific and Research Projects and Infrastructure Investments in Canton of Sarajevo. The Register of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is conceived as an umbrella system and the registers of the canton as its subsystems. The project was implemented by the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The connection of E-CRIS.BH with the bibliographic database of COBISS.BH provides insight into the bibliographies of researchers, which are an integral part of every scientific work, a condition for synthesizing knowledge and data that lead to the required scientific results. The COBISS users have the opportunity to record researchers, research organizations, departments and projects necessary for the creation of a bibliography of researchers and organizations within their national library information systems in the COBISS.Net network (regional network). The results show that 2.230 researchers and 86 organizations have been registered so far in E-CRIS.BH. A total of 73.657 bibliographic records have been created so far within the COBISS.BH common database, which a typology of documents/works has been assigned to. In the first group – articles and other components – a typology was determined for 21.122 bibliographic records. In the second group – monographs and other completed works - a typology was determined for 52.372 bibliographic records. In the third group – performed works - (events) – a typology was determined for 163 bibliographic records.

Awareness about the importance of marketing of higher education institutions has been steadily growing amongst decision makers on international level. That trend is particularly noticeable in case of adult education programs, which need continual promotion since it is a type of non-formal education. In Bosnia and Herzegovina private universities and private providers of non-formal education programs have been promoting adult education for some time now. At the same time public universities, mainly influenced by the marketing myopia phenomenon, use promotional activities only sporadically. Therefore, for the purpose of improving promotion of adult education programs in public universities, a qualitative exploratory study has been conducted. The aim was to investigate attitudes and opinions of adults about promotion activities for adult education programs. Data was collected through focus groups from representatives of four generations: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Y and Z. Research results show that different generations have different needs and expectations when it comes to adult education programs. A generally positive attitude towards adult education programs has emerged. Values have been identified which could be communicated through promotion activities. Based on research results several recommendations are given for improvement of adult education promotion. Research results presented in this article directly contribute to achieving UNESCO's Education for Sustainable Development 2030 agenda (priorities 1, 2, 3 and 5), contributing further indirectly to achieving Sustainable Development Goals 4, 8 and 10.

In order to raise and harmonize the quality standards of pharmaceutical studies at the national level of Bosnia and Herzegovina and thus get closer to the implementation and quality assurance of study programs of EU countries, a team of professors from the University of Sarajevo-Faculty of Pharmacy prepared and was awarded the Erasmus+ project IQPharm. IQPharm (Innovating quality assessment tools for pharmacy studies in Bosnia and Herzegovina) aims at capacity building of quality management, and aims to introduce new tools for quality improvement, digitization and modernization of pharmacy studies at public universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including strengthening semi-structured experiential education in line with EU standards and higher education regulations for regulated professions. The introduction of new tools for the assessment of the quality of study programs (KREF) enables the development of evidence-based recommendations for change, modification and innovation of existing methods of knowledge transfer, didactic approaches and curricula. The introduction of a new system of proficiency testing through experiential education (OSCE) sets equal standards at the national level for the learning outcomes of graduate pharmacists. The development of E-platform ensures the digitization and modernization of experiential education management. Experiential education at the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be significantly improved through the introduction of the E-platform, by raising the standards of the practice itself and facilitating its implementation by student services, students and their mentors. A special part of this project is the development of free modules, which are extracurricular subjects intended to enrich the knowledge of students and graduates of pharmacy, They should track the labor market trends, and thus make higher education more agile and attractive.

The quality management system at the University of Sarajevo is guided by the following principles: promotion of constant improvement of the quality of the study programmes and the application of the best educational approaches and practices. The Bologna process gives special importance to outcome based education (OBE), so learning outcomes are established as a new measure of institutional excellence, shifting a change in focus from "What should student do to successfully complete her/his studies?" to "What competences student acquired during her/his studies?" or more precisely "What can student do after finishing her/his studies?". In this paper, after basic information about outcome based education and the importance of this approach with the implementation of the Bologna process in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), an overview of the approach to quality assurance and to study programmes improvements based on learning outcomes is given. Focus on learning outcomes enables the fundamental change of the focus from the teacher to the student, which is one of the foundations of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG).

This paper presents the electronic publishing development at the University of Sarajevo through two projects, the development of the publishing portal of the Faculty of Philosophy and the implementation of the Open Journal System for the Social Issues Journal Pregled, published by the University of Sarajevo. As a technical solution, the electronic publishing portal of the Faculty of Philosophy combines Open Monograph Press and Open Journal System. Till now, three journals and more than sixty books published by the Faculty are available through this portal. In the previous period we completed the first phase of archiving the magazine Pregled with 1000 articles, accompanied by relevant metadata. This paper aims to present how librarians can contribute to the development of electronic publishing and open access. In the paper, we will also present plans for the next period that includes the creation of the Scientific Serial Publications Register of the University of Sarajevo.

Academic mobility is a valuable and indispensable mechanism in each country's higher education quality assurance system. It also contributes to building and improving the capacities of individual universities because it enables the introduction of positive and proven teaching practices, modern teaching and research methods, and operational and administrative processes. The added value of mobility is the establishment of personal contacts and professional networking of teaching, scientific, artistic and non-teaching staff of the University of Sarajevo (from now on: "UNSA"), which has a long-term effect on the development of teaching, scientific and technological capacity. Studying through mobility gets an international note - students understand their work in a global context, their CV is enriched with new experiences, their knowledge of a foreign language (s) is improved, and after graduation, they become a competitive workforce. Teaching / scientific, artistic and non-teaching staff gain international experience through mobility, improve themselves, participate in active professional development, and increase the quality of the working environment. In the last 15 years, the University of Sarajevo has had over 2,500 outgoing mobility while hosting more than 1,500 international students, teaching / scientific, artistic and non-teaching staff. The mobility of students and staff significantly improves both the quality and the professional standard of UNSA activities. It indirectly contributes to the development and transformation of society as a whole. Through the integration of UNSA, many processes are uniform and simplified, but still, the heterogeneity and specificity of each organizational unit are present. In addition to all the benefits of student mobility, the most significant administrative challenge is the equivalence and recognition of ECTS credits earned at foreign institutions upon return to home institutions. Student services are faced with many formalities around keeping registers and other administrative forms that need to be tailored to exchange students. The current legal regulations in higher education do not value participation in mobility programs, which is undoubtedly not motivating for students and staff to get involved in them. On the contrary, the current vague legal framework and administrative barriers are significantly demotivating for students as they lose a semester or school year due to participation in mobility programs. It is necessary to develop more adequate regulations that will encourage more frequent, productive, more straightforward and better implementation of academic mobility for students. This could be achieved through participation in programs intended for international students (one-year specialist study, master's degree, dual education, summer schools, etc.). It is necessary to develop mechanisms for adequate evaluation of mobility for teaching, artistic and scientific staff of UNSA, which is particularly important for advancement to higher academic titles. It is also crucial to promote the exchange of administrative staff, which is often unjustifiably neglected, to improve the administrative processes at UNSA and its (sub) organizational units. To achieve this, we should be focused on developing cooperation with potential partners interested in administrative / non-teaching staff mobility.

What is the purpose of universities - education or job training? What should be our priority - competences for the 21st century or finding a job within a year after graduating? The future is unpredictable and today’s actions are not necessarily good, but the worst thing to happen would be doing nothing. The survival and development of university depends on our vision of who are the generations to come, what we will teach them, how we will develop the curricula and how far we will succeed in moving away from linear careers as a Procrustean bed, punishing and forcing us to believe that what we have is the only thing possible if deviations from the prescribed norm happen or if one attempts spurring development. On the other hand, the context in which education takes place is constantly changing, and today’s careers, defined as a collection of all experiences and changes in values and attitudes (not advancement in the workplace) are changing their forms just like Proteus. Therefore, the important question is how to reject the Procrustean bed and accept the concept of a protean career as a guide in the development of higher education? The development of new study programs and the revision of existing ones should be guided by the following postulates: internationalization, interdisciplinarity, equality in access and adaptation to the needs of people who need to build their careers in the next dozen years. Innovative study programs should offer: experiences that will be attractive to students from all over the world, a holistic approach to the learning experience and multiperspective, equality in access to all interested parties at every moment of their lives, and flexibility that will allow the student to have his own pace of learning. Some examples of such programs are dual studies, short cycles, combined studies and recognition of prior learning. The University of Sarajevo is a participant in two ERASMUS+ projects aimed at the development of dual studies and short-cycle programs with the aim of increasing access to education and adapting to the needs of students and employers, which directly support the principles of a protean career.

Abstract Environmental issues and the current global energy crisis serve as further motivators for the promotion of renewable energy sources. However, integrating these sources into existing power grids presents numerous challenges. As the connection capacity approaches its limits, it is imperative to employ innovative engineering methods to integrate distributed generation (DG) into resilient, self-healing smart grids of the future. One such tool is Hosting Capacity (HC) analysis, which is an emerging power system-planning tool used to position investments toward parts of the network that can absorb additional generation and promote efficient use of energy sources, avoiding overloading, inefficiencies, DG misallocations, and network failures. In this study, a technique for calculating the ideal HC in a power system is presented. The goal of this research is to develop a replicable optimization methodology for determining HC in smart distribution systems using a single objective constrained optimization problem solved through the use of genetic algorithm (GA). Detailed power system load and generation modeling and the use of advanced open-source research tool for load flow optimization improve the confidence in the proposed model. This research contributes to collective knowledge of the subject matter and establishes a reliable optimization methodology for determining HC in power systems.

Background Next-generation sequencing (NGS), including whole genome sequencing (WGS) and whole exome sequencing (WES), is increasingly being used for clinic care. While NGS data have the potential to be repurposed to support clinical pharmacogenomics (PGx), current computational approaches have not been widely validated using clinical data. In this study, we assessed the accuracy of the Aldy computational method to extract PGx genotypes from WGS and WES data for 14 and 13 major pharmacogenes, respectively. Methods Germline DNA was isolated from whole blood samples collected for 264 patients seen at our institutional molecular solid tumor board. DNA was used for panel-based genotyping within our institutional Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments- (CLIA-) certified PGx laboratory. DNA was also sent to other CLIA-certified commercial laboratories for clinical WGS or WES. Aldy v3.3 and v4.4 were used to extract PGx genotypes from these NGS data, and results were compared to the panel-based genotyping reference standard that contained 45 star allele-defining variants within CYP2B6, CYP2C8, CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP2D6, CYP3A4, CYP3A5, CYP4F2, DPYD, G6PD, NUDT15, SLCO1B1, TPMT, and VKORC1. Results Mean WGS read depth was >30x for all variant regions except for G6PD (average read depth was 29 reads), and mean WES read depth was >30x for all variant regions. For 94 patients with WGS, Aldy v3.3 diplotype calls were concordant with those from the genotyping reference standard in 99.5% of cases when excluding diplotypes with additional major star alleles not tested by targeted genotyping, ambiguous phasing, and CYP2D6 hybrid alleles. Aldy v3.3 identified 15 additional clinically actionable star alleles not covered by genotyping within CYP2B6, CYP2C19, DPYD, SLCO1B1, and NUDT15. Within the WGS cohort, Aldy v4.4 diplotype calls were concordant with those from genotyping in 99.7% of cases. When excluding patients with CYP2D6 copy number variation, all Aldy v4.4 diplotype calls except for one CYP3A4 diplotype call were concordant with genotyping for 161 patients in the WES cohort. Conclusion Aldy v3.3 and v4.4 called diplotypes for major pharmacogenes from clinical WES and WGS data with >99% accuracy. These findings support the use of Aldy to repurpose clinical NGS data to inform clinical PGx.

The scanning vibrating electrode technique was employed to monitor the in situ localised electrochemical activity on aluminium alloy 2024-T3 at the free corrosion potential in aggressive NaCl solutions with and without corrosion inhibitors 2-mercaptobenzimidazole (MBI) and octylphosphonic acid (OPA). MBI is a very effective inhibitor against pitting corrosion, even in a chloride environment without the reservoir of MBI. In contrast, localised corrosion was observed at several points at the early stage of immersion of AA2024 in NaCl solution containing OPA. Ex situ energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis of the Al_2CuMg particle at the cross-section revealed that MBI does not entirely prevent its dissolution but reduces the dissolution rate and the rate of oxygen reduction by forming an insoluble complex compound Cu–MBI on the partially dealloyed AlCu-based particles, i.e., on the porous copper remnants. The MBI’s action is an efficient option for mitigating the corrosion of Cu-based aluminium alloys.

The sustainable forest management concept contains the essence of the sustainable development paradigm - meeting the current needs of society without compromising the needs of future generations. The strategic commitment of the Faculty of Forestry University of Sarajevo is aimed at quality education of forestry experts, conducting innovative research and the most intensive cooperation with the economy. The methodological approach in this paper is based on a critical analysis of the scope of the educational-research process at the Faculty of Forestry University of Sarajevo, and the potentials of sustainable forest management in BiH, to determine to what extent higher education and research on environmental, sociological and economic aspects of forest management can affect positive changes in BiH society. Apart from identifying the benefits of forest ecosystems in the context of contributing to sustainable development, the research on the attitudes of teaching staff related to the contribution of the educational-research process to general goals of sustainable development from the 2030 Agenda was conducted. The results of this paper show that the concept of sustainable forest management, as it is realized in educational-research process at the Faculty of Forestry University of Sarajevo, has significant potential to contribute to sustainable development in BiH. This contribution is reflected in biodiversity conservation, mitigation of climate change, carbon storage, prevention of natural disasters, impact on the stability of water and soil, energy supply from renewable sources, continuous economic growth, socially responsible production and consumption, job security, development of rural and urban areas as well as maintaining and improving the psychophysical health of the population. Based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that sustainable forest management, grounded on scientific postulates, understanding of diversity of forest ecosystem services and dynamics in society's requirements towards forests, multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral cooperation, can be an important factor of sustainable development in BiH.

Gender equality is a crucial issue for the 21st century society, which implies the responsibility of universities to critically review the current situation, identify social circumstances in which education takes place, and creatively design ways in which they can change social reality. Considering the imperatives of gender-inclusive education, this research is focused on the problem of horizontal gender segregation and its reflection on vertical segregation. The examination starts with insight into the general situation in higher education institutions in BiH to pay special attention to the field of social sciences at the University of Sarajevo. Based on the meta-analysis of available secondary data, the analysis primarily determines the 'diversity index' in this area, and identifies the specifics of scientific fields and the differences between them.