Book review. Sadia Belkhir (ed.). Cognition and language learning. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2020. Pp. 157.

In this paper, cotton, polyester and cotton/polyester fabrics were modified by using herbal extract of Picea omorika and copper ferrite nanoparticles and their antibacterial and dielectric properties were investigated. Antibacterial activities of all samples were examined against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Most of the fabrics modified by copper ferrite showed antibacterial activities against Escherichia coli, while the addition of the herbal extract improved their antibacterial protection. Dielectric properties were measured in frequency range from 24 Hz to 75 kHz at room temperature and the results showed that the modification of all three fabrics with copper ferrite caused increase in their electrical conductivity. The obtained results point to the possibility of using investigated fabrics for antibacterial protection as well as for the electromagnetic shielding application.

Tourism is an economic activity with great contribution for the development of many countries. To develop rural areas, tourism is especially important and need to be improved in these areas. The Government of Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina has decided to have tourism improvement as one of main objectives in their development strategy focusing on better conditions for development of tourism. Investments in tourism should be applied to the entire area of the Brčko District. Since Brčko District mainly consists of rural areas, it is necessary to invest in rural tourism. The first step of this study was to determine the tourist potential of rural areas. The determination of rural tourist potential in Brčko District was carried out with the assistance of the Brčko District Government. For this purpose, the method of expert decision-making was used, and three experts were selected who evaluated six rural settlements. To obtain results based on expert evaluation, two multi-criteria methods were used: the Full Consistency Method (FUCOM) for determining the importance of criteria and the fuzzy Measurement Alternatives and Ranking according to the COmpromise Solution (MARCOS) method to rank rural settlements in terms of their tourism potential. The results showed that the settlement of Bijela has the best rural tourist potential, while the settlement of Grbavica has the least potential. The results obtained by applying this model showed how rural tourism in Brčko District can be improved. The research model for testing the tourism potential has shown good results and can be applied in other branches of tourism with some adaptation to certain branches of tourism.

With the advancements in SDN and NFV, both applications and network functions can be re-designed, and deployed at more appropriate locations. Thanks to the MEC platforms, cloud-alike service deployments are offered to the users/vehicles at closer proximity. However, MEC deployments are usually i) constrained in resources, ii) contain heterogeneous and distributed network and computing resources, and iii) cover narrower region that constrains service continuity due to the high mobility of vehicles. Thus, in this paper, we present our approach on collocating MEC platforms with roadside infrastructure (i.e., RSUs) in order to improve the QoS of infotainment services for vehicles on the smart highway. We tackle both challenges presented above by deploying MEC platforms along the highway, thereby having distributed control over each MEC host in the form of Kubernetes master nodes, and one powerful and yet centralized orchestrator in the cloud. Our approach is one of the earliest attempts to collocate MEC with the RSU, and to test the benefits of the smart application placement in a realistic vehicular environment.

The construction industry is responsible for a large amount of both embodied carbon and emissions. Especially with concrete, there is still a lot of potential for designing recipes in a more ecological way. Approaches to reduce the environmental impact of concrete include the use of industrial and agricultural by-products. This study combines the approaches of replacing cement with granulated blast furnace slag and the use of NaOH-treated rice straw fibers. The research objective comprises the design of an ecologically optimized concrete as well as the question of whether a pretreatment of rice straw fibers with NaOH improves the performance of the designed concrete. The method includes mechanical and physical testing of the of the designed concrete as well as an optical analysis with a scanning electron microscope. The results indicated that treating rice straw with 1% NaOH indicates a better bond between fibers and the surrounding matrix. The tests in which the rice straw was treated with NaOH achieved a higher density, splitting strength, tensile strength and compressive strength. The study contributes an ecologically optimized concrete with granulated blast furnace slag and NaOH-treated rice straw concrete, which shows a great potential as an environmentally friendly, low-cost construction material.

Rosario Fusco (1910-1977) e Murilo Rubiao (1916-1991), dois escritores mineiros e que foram contemporâneos. Dois escritores muito diferentes: de um lado, a predilecao de Rubiao pelo conto, a busca para atingir o essencial, a lentidao na abordagem, os rigores de uma ascese em prol de uma linguagem concisa; do outro, a predilecao de Fusco pelo romance ficcional, pelo texto verborragico e excessivo. Tambem foram homens bem diferentes, mas com muitos pontos em comum nas suas trajetorias de vida. Alem disso, andavam na contramao da tendencia dominante da producao literaria brasileira dos ano 40; as ficcoes de Fusco e os contos de Rubiao sao marcados por acontecimentos insolitos garimpados do cotidiano. A homenagem a a Murilo Rubiao se faz aqui por meio de Rosario Fusco e ao estilo fusquiano. Intento apresentar como a ficcao de Fusco, a.s.a. associacao dos solitarios anonimos , publicada postumamente em 2003, faz uma seria e zombeteira homenagem ao contista Murilo Rubiao.

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infection (COVID-19) has raised considerable concern on the entire planet. On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was categorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a pandemic infection, and by March 18, 2020, it has spread to 146 countries. The first internal defense line against numerous diseases is personalized immunity. Although it cannot be claimed that personalized nutrition will have an immediate impact on a global pandemic, as the nutritional interventions required a long time to induce beneficial outcomes on immunity development, nutritional strategies are still able to clarify and have a beneficial influence on the interplay between physiology and diet, which could make a positive contribution to the condition in the next period. As such, a specific goal for every practitioner is to evaluate different tests to perceive the status of the patient, such as markers of inflammation, insulin regulation, and nutrient status, and to detect possible imbalances or deficiencies. During the process of disease development, the supplementation and addition of different nutrients and nutraceuticals can influence not only the viral replication but also the cellular mechanisms. It is essential to understand that every patient has its individual needs. Even though many nutrients, nutraceuticals, and drugs have beneficial effects on the immune response and can prevent or ameliorate viral infections, it is essential to detect at what stage in COVID-19 progression the patient is at the moment and decide what kind of nutrition intervention is necessary. Furthermore, understanding the pathogenesis of coronavirus infection is critical to make proper recommendations.

Soil and air pollution in the context of the environmental outcomes of economic activities in agriculture has led to greater pressure on farmers to accept the environment as a stakeholder and to internalize the harmful effects that agriculture has on natural resources. As the costs of prevention and remediation affect the total costs (cost price), manufacturers strive to simultaneously improve both economic and environmental performance and to achieve economic viability. This paper examines traditional business indicators and (re)defining modern performance indicators of agricultural enterprises through eco-efficiency analysis. A set of environmental performance indicators, as a measure of environmental responsibility, was considered in the function of improving economic performance, including indicators on the basis of which material intensity (resource intensity), and material and eco-efficiency (resource efficiency) can be calculated, followed by emissions. and the amount of waste generated in agricultural production.

This paper is motivated by the series of research papers that consider parasitoids’ external input upon the host–parasitoid interactions. We explore a class of host–parasitoid models with variable release and constant release of parasitoids. We assume that the host population has a constant rate of increase, but we do not assume any density dependence regulation other than parasitism acting on the host population. We compare the obtained results for constant stocking with the results for proportional stocking. We observe that under a specific condition, the release of a constant number of parasitoids can eventually drive the host population (pests) to extinction. There is always a boundary equilibrium where the host population extinct occurs, and the parasitoid population is stabilized at the constant stocking level. The constant and variable stocking can decrease the host population level in the unique interior equilibrium point; on the other hand, the parasitoid population level stays constant and does not depend on stocking. We prove the existence of Neimark–Sacker bifurcation and compute the approximation of the closed invariant curve. Then we consider a few host–parasitoid models with proportional and constant stocking, where we choose well-known probability functions of parasitism. By using the software package Mathematica we provide numerical simulations to support our study.

This paper is motivated by the series of research papers that consider parasitoids’ external input upon the host–parasitoid interactions. We explore a class of host–parasitoid models with variable release and constant release of parasitoids. We assume that the host population has a constant rate of increase, but we do not assume any density dependence regulation other than parasitism acting on the host population. We compare the obtained results for constant stocking with the results for proportional stocking. We observe that under a specific condition, the release of a constant number of parasitoids can eventually drive the host population (pests) to extinction. There is always a boundary equilibrium where the host population extinct occurs, and the parasitoid population is stabilized at the constant stocking level. The constant and variable stocking can decrease the host population level in the unique interior equilibrium point; on the other hand, the parasitoid population level stays constant and does not depend on stocking. We prove the existence of Neimark–Sacker bifurcation and compute the approximation of the closed invariant curve. Then we consider a few host–parasitoid models with proportional and constant stocking, where we choose well-known probability functions of parasitism. By using the software package Mathematica we provide numerical simulations to support our study.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to provide high-level care for a large number of patients with COVID-19 has affected resourcing for, and limited the routine care of, all other conditions. The impact of this health emergency is particularly relevant in the rare connective tissue diseases (rCTDs) communities, as discussed in this Perspective article by the multi-stakeholder European Reference Network on Rare and Complex Connective Tissue and Musculoskeletal Diseases (ERN ReCONNET). The clinical, organizational and health economic challenges faced by health-care providers, institutions, patients and their families during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak have demonstrated the importance of ensuring continuity of care in the management of rCTDs, including adequate diagnostics and monitoring protocols, and highlighted the need for a structured emergency strategy. The vulnerability of patients with rCTDs needs to be taken into account when planning future health policies, in preparation for not only the post-COVID era, but also any possible new health emergencies. In this Perspective article, members of the European Reference Network on Rare and Complex Connective Tissue and Musculoskeletal Diseases discuss clinical and organizational challenges in this community caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and what lessons might be learned for the future.