Background It is known that drug shortages represent a major challenge for all stakeholders involved in the process, but there is little evidence regarding insights into patients′ awareness and perspectives. This study aimed to investigate the patients-perceived drug shortages experience and their view on outcomes in different European hospital settings. Furthermore, we wanted to explore information preferences on drug shortages. Methods A retrospective, cross sectional, a mixed method study was conducted in six European hospital settings. One hospital (H) from each of this country agreed to participate: Bosnia and Herzegovina (H-BiH), Croatia (H-CR), Germany (H-GE), Greece (H-GR), Serbia (H-SE) and Poland (H-PO). Recruitment and data collection was conducted over 27 months from November 2017 until January 2020. Overall, we surveyed 607 patients which completed paper-based questionnaire. Questions related to: general information (demographic data), basic knowledge on drug shortages, drug shortages experienced during hospitalization and information preferences on drug shortage. Differences between hospital settings were analyzed using Chi-squared test or Fisher’s exact test. For more complex contingency tables, Monte Carlo simulations (N = 2000) were applied for Fisher’s test. Post-hoc hospital-wise analyses were performed using Fisher’s exact tests. False discovery rate was controlled using the Bonferroni method. Analyses were performed using R: a language and environment for statistical computing (v 3.6.3). Results 6 % of patients reported experiences with drug shortages while hospitalized which led to a deterioration of their health. The majority of affected patients were hospitalized at hematology and/or oncology wards in H-BiH, H-PO and H-GE. H-BiH had the highest number of affected patients (18.1 %, N = 19/105, p  < 0.001) while the fewest patients were in H-SE (1 %, N  = 1/100, p  = 0.001). In addition, 82.5 %, ( N  = 501/607) of respondents wanted to be informed of alternative treatment options if there was a drug shortage without a generic substitute available. Majority of these patients (66.4 %, N = 386/501) prefer to be informed by a healthcare professional. Conclusions Although drug shortages led to serious medical consequences, our findings show that most of the patients did not perceive shortages as a problem. One possible interpretation is that good hospital management practices by healthcare professionals helped to mitigate the perceived impact of shortages. Our study highlights the importance of a good communication especially between patients and healthcare professionals in whom our patients have the greatest trust.

To promote collaboration across canine science, address reproducibility issues, and advance open science practices within animal cognition, we have launched the ManyDogs consortium, modeled on similar ManyX projects in other fields. We aimed to create a collaborative network that (a) uses large, diverse samples to investigate and replicate findings, (b) promotes open science practices of preregistering hypotheses, methods, and analysis plans, (c) investigates the influence of differences across populations and breeds, and (d) examines how different research methods and testing environments influence the robustness of results. Our first study combines a phenomenon that appears to be highly robust, dogs’ ability to follow human pointing, with a question that remains controversial: do dogs interpret pointing as an informative gesture, as an imperative command, or as a simple associative cue? We collected preliminary data (N = 61) from a single laboratory on two conditions of a 2-alternative object choice task: (1) Ostensive (experimenter pointed to a baited cup after making eye-contact and saying the dog’s name); (2) Non-ostensive (experimenter pointed to a baited cup without making eye-contact or saying the dog’s name). Dogs followed the ostensive point, but not the non-ostensive point, significantly more often than expected by chance. Preliminary results also provided suggestive evidence for variability in point-following across dog breeds. The next phase is the global participation stage of the project. We propose to replicate this protocol in a large and diverse sample of research sites, simultaneously assessing replicability between labs and further investigating the question of dogs’ point-following comprehension.

Introduction: A new disease coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is with insufficiently known epidemiological characteristics and spectrum of clinical expression in childhood. Children have a lower incidence of this disease with a predominance of mild forms but severe clinical forms, such as among others, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and multisystem inflammatory syndrome may occur, according to current findings. In children with atypical symptomatology and positive or suspicious epidemiological survey, practitioners should consider the possibility of COVID-19.Methods: This study formed the group of 70 children previously healthy or with no pre-existing heart disease from Sarajevo with positive post-COVID history. Following the history of disease and epidemiological data, establishing the 1st day of disease or contact, a detailed cardiovascular examination was performed, including parameters of body weight, height, oxygen saturation, pulse, blood pressure, 12 leads electrocardiogram (ECG) done on Schiller machine, values of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), or serological test on corona: Immunoglobulin (Ig) G and IgM. Echocardiographic examination was done using M, B mode, color, continuous wave, and pulse wave Doppler in standard views. Laboratory blood tests included: Full blood count, creatinine phosphokinase myofibril, creatinine phosphokinase, lactate dehydrogenase; liver enzymes, D dimer, C reactive protein, and urine.Results: Majority of children (64.3%) were asymptomatic. ECG was normal in relation to patients’ age except in eight patients (intermittent palpitations on exertion) who had short PR interval 0.120–0.140 ms, with no delta wave, with heart rate within the normal range according to age, so 24 h ECG Holter was performed without any significant arrhythmias, incomplete right branch block has been documented in 12%, monofocal ventricular ectopic extrasistoly in 15%. Mean IgG, as a marker of infection, showed a statistical significance when compared between age Groups I and II (<5) and older groups: III, IV, and V (>5) (p < 0.05; p = 0.043). PCR test was negative in 9 (70 children), although they showed symptoms, COVID-19 infection clinical data, and positive laboratory findings. Echocardiogram was normal in all patients with normal ejection fraction of the left ventricle.Conclusion: The possibility of COVID-19 in children with atypical symptomatology and positive or suspicious epidemiological survey should be in the focus of every pediatrician at primary care institutions nowadays. Cardiovascular assessment should always be an option in post-COVID patients. Immunological assessment is necessary in post-COVID patients in order to gain a further understanding of PTS status. With more serological testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 physicians would be able to make a diagnosis of COVID-19 timely and more accurately, as well as to evaluate the role of asymptomatic children in disease transmission and to assess the importance of protective antibodies and the distribution of COVID-19.

The development intelligence tools is gaining a new dimension every day, and this is an area of dynamic development. The importance of this paper is to select the tool that represents the best solution for the given needs in public administration. A multi-stage, broad- based survey with clear selection criteria leads to the choice of three tools. Criteria for tool evaluation were set, virtual machines were created, tests and analyzes were performed. The evaluations carried out give the choice of the most accepTable business intelligence tool for use and interoperability in public administration.

The thematic conception of the work consists of legal issues of special forms of control of state administrative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (at the state level, the level of federal units and districts). The paper analyzes the structure of bodies that perform this type of control, starting with the ombudsman institutions (Ombudsman for Human Rights of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ombudsman for Children of Republic of Srpska), and with special reference to the institutions of auditors (of which there are four in Bosnia and Herzegovina). The author will present the organization of these institutions, the election of their members (ombudsmen and auditors), the way they act, and the possibilities they have, as well as the legal mechanisms they can use to protect both citizens and the public interest.

Making informed driving decisions requires reliable prediction of other vehicles' trajectories. In this paper, we present a novel learned multi-modal trajectory prediction architecture for automated driving. It achieves kinematically feasible predictions by casting the learning problem into the space of accelerations and steering angles - by performing action-space prediction, we can leverage valuable model knowledge. Additionally, the dimensionality of the action manifold is lower than that of the state manifold, whose intrinsically correlated states are more difficult to capture in a learned manner. For the purpose of action-space prediction, we present the simple Feed-Forward Action-Space Prediction (FFW-ASP) architecture. Then, we build on this notion and introduce the novel Self-Supervised Action-Space Prediction (SSP-ASP) architecture that outputs future environment context features in addition to trajectories. A key element in the self-supervised architecture is that, based on an observed action history and past context features, future context features are predicted prior to future trajectories. The proposed methods are evaluated on real-world datasets containing urban intersections and roundabouts, and show accurate predictions, outperforming state-of-the-art for kinematically feasible predictions in several prediction metrics.

Karst aquifers are important sources of thermal and groundwater in many parts of the world, such as the Alpine–Dinaric–Carpathian region in Europe. The Upper Triassic dolomites are regionally recognized thermal and groundwater aquifers but also hydrocarbon reservoirs. They are characterized by predominantly fractured porosity, but the actual share of depositional and diagenetic porosity is rarely investigated. In this research, we presented the geometric characterization of the measured microporosity of the Upper Triassic dolomites of the Žumberak Mts (Croatia), through thin-section image processing and particle analysis techniques. Pore parameters were analyzed on microphotographs of impregnated thin sections in scale. A total of 2267 pores were isolated and analyzed. The following parameters were analyzed: pore area, pore perimeter, circularity, aspect ratio (AR), roundness, solidity, Feret AR, compactness, and fractal dimension. Furthermore, porosity was calculated based on the pore portion in each image. The effective porosity on rock samples was determined using saturation and buoyancy techniques as an accompanying research method. We analyzed distributions of each parameter, their correlation, and most of the parameters are characterized by an asymmetric or asymmetric normal distribution. Parameters that quantify pore irregularities have similar distributions, and their values indicate the high complexity of the pore geometry, which can significantly impact permeability.

Aim: Global expenditure on medicines is rising up to 6% per year driven by increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and new premium priced medicines for cancer, orphan diseases and other complex areas. This is difficult to sustain without reforms. Methods: Extensive narrative review of published papers and contextualizing the findings to provide future guidance. Results: New models are being introduced to improve the managed entry of new medicines including managed entry agreements, fair pricing approaches and monitoring prescribing against agreed guidance. Multiple measures have also successfully been introduced to improve the prescribing of established medicines. This includes encouraging greater prescribing of generics and biosimilars versus originators and patented medicines in a class to conserve resources without compromising care. In addition, reducing inappropriate antibiotic utilization. Typically, multiple measures are the most effective. Conclusion: Multiple measures will be needed to attain and retain universal healthcare.

Motivation/Background: positive staphylococci (CPS) are common contaminants of raw milk. Before it is used, various heat treatments are applied to destroy microorganisms, inactivate enzymes and improve technological properties and concentration of dry matter of milk. This work aimed to determine the influence of commonly used heat treatments in diary on presence and number CPS in raw milk from Bosnia and Herzegovina area and to affirm whether there is a difference in efficacy between different treatments. Method: Using the standard method, 40 samples of raw milk from farms were inoculated for counting the initial number of CPS in raw milk. Samples were then exposed to heat treatments in vapor sterilizer and CPS number was counted using the same standard method. Results: Applied treatments included heat treatments at: 68 °C/40 s, 70 °C/15 s, 72 °C/without holding, 63 °C/30 min and 72 °C/15 s. CPS presence was detected in all tested samples of raw milk in numbers ranging from 2,82 to 5,32, with an average of 4,30, calculated as log10 /ml. Conclusions: Raw milk samples collected in the field initially registered a high CPS number. The applied heat treatments were effective to a large extent. The initial CPS count of milk seems to be the most important factor determining the number of CPS after heat treatments as well as traits of the strains.