Copper has long been known as a metal with outstanding antimicrobial properties. Although ancient healers were not familiar with the mechanisms of its influence on microorganisms, they had empirically established its effectiveness in sterilizing drinking water, disinfecting wounds, treating skin diseases, various infections and other maladies. Recently, there has been renewed interest in investigating copper and its alloys as possible materials that can limit the spread of bacteria and viruses, given that humanity is often facing various local epidemics, and rarely pandemics, as ongoing Corona virus, SARS CoV-2, first detected in March 2020. This paper reviews the recent literature in the research field of antimicrobial properties of metallic copper, its alloys and other copper - based materials, with the aim to promote their future implementation on contact surfaces, primarily in hospitals and institutions with a high frequency of people where the probability of spreading infection is increased.

Lead-free solders have become a main focus of the electronic industry in recent years, because of the high toxicity of lead. Alloys based on the Sn-Bi system figure as potential replacements for Sn-Pb alloys in soldering due to favorable properties and low cost. One of the main advantages of these alloys are low melting temperatures, while additional advantages include good compatibility with substrates, low process temperature, high reliability, and potential applications in conjunction with reduced graphene oxide nanosheets as thermal interface materials. In this paper, characterization of microstructural and thermal properties as well as hardness measurements of seven alloys of different Sn-Bi compositions are performed. Structural properties of the samples were analyzed using optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). Thermal conductivity of the samples was investigated using the xenon-flash method, and phase transition temperatures were measured using the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis.

The main objective of this study is to provide a critical insight into the position of regional geography in modern geosciences, i.e. to examine the epistemological, methodological, practical and educational function of this synthetically oriented geographical discipline on a theoretical level. For this purpose, we have reviewed a number of readings selected from various published scientific papers and textbooks, which provide some sort of review of the modern concept of regional geography and the notion of region. The 1980s can be taken as the initial period of revitalization and redefinition of regional geography, when in addition to the traditional approach based on chorology, there was also the so-called new regional geography. The dominant concepts found in both these schools were evaluated by using the method of dialectical analysis and synthesis, on the basis of which the guidelines were proposed for future positioning of the spatial determination of the region within the geographical sciences. The general conclusion is that regional geography should not be viewed exclusively through the prism of idiographic concept, but the necessity would also be to aspire to discover the general spatial correlation patterns and regularities through various regional studies.

BackgroundOrgan donation is a personal choice and many ethical, legal, medical, organisational and social factors are involved. It is possible to transplant some organs from live donors and others only from deceased donors. Nevertheless, the shortage of organs worldwide is a problem. Gender differences may cause decission and willingnes to organ donation. Methods A total of 60 informants (30 men and 30 women), born in Bosnia and Herzegovina and living in Sweden were available for follow-up. Data was collected by a questionnaire and statisticaly analysed according to the chi-square test, the D’Agostino-Pearson test for checking normality of continuous data distribution and, based on the distribution of results, Student’s t test or the Mann-Whitney test. Statistical significance was defined as p < 0.05.Results The result showed that significant differences between men and women was highest in the question about definition of transplantation (p<0.0001), information about organ donation (p<0.0001), knowledge about OD (p<0.0001), importance about OD (p<0.003), religious permitting to OD (p=0.0001), religious opposite to OD (p=0.0007), donate to a special person or not (p=0.0062), religion as factor to donate (p=0.0007). It was not better in question about having the donor card (p<0.0001). ConclusionsWomen were found to have more positive attitudes toward organ donation than men. Different socioeconomic factors, cultural beliefs, a higher level of religiousness, a higher level of information and knowledge about organ donation, as well as the ownership of donor cards, may result in a better perception of and willingness to participate organ donation. More knowledge of the religious understanding of organ donations and the reduction in prejudice among respondents would make the awareness and desire for organ donation even greater.

The relationship and effects between fiscal policy and economic growth have been an important theoretical and empirical research topic. The neoclassical models imply that the economic effects of changes in government spending will be neutralised by the impact of consequent changes in private spending. Endogenous growth models, on the other hand, imply that changes in the level and composition of taxation and government expenditure can affect economic growth. This aim of the paper is to explore the relationship and effects of fiscal policy and economic growth in 21 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries over the period 2000-2018. The results, after controlling for various common and country-specific variables, imply that an increase in taxation, but not in non-productive expenditures, can positively affect economic growth. Our main findings are: (i) there is a significant and positive contemporaneous relationship between the general level of taxation and economic growth; and (ii) there is no relationship between the government final consumption and economic growth. Therefore, our results contributed to the scientific literature by providing empirical evidence on the contemporaneous relationship between the general government tax receipt and economic growth in CEE countries.

<p style="text-align: justify;">The aim of this paper is to present a sufficiently adequate and accurate mathematical model of the breaking force of a solid wood panel. For that purpose, an experiment with thirteen repetitions was designed and done. The input sizes that varied on three levels are the density of the wood and the thickness of the solid wood panel. Since the central composite plan with thirteen repetitions of the experiment also includes four repetitions in the marginal areas, two more wood densities and two solid wood panel thicknesses were taken. The force was measured in such a way that the plate fibers were parallel to the bending direction of the plate. The measurements were made in the laboratory of the Technical Faculty in Bihać. The significance of the model coefficients was determined using the R software and the results were presented using the Design Expert software.</p>

Deformation monitoring using Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is a reliable technique today but requires strict standards in data processing and analysis. The procedure for determining the precise positioning and deformation analysis in the test network located nearby the Olympic stadium Koševo in Sarajevo, with an area of about 1 km square, is described. The observations are carried out using dual-frequency GNSS receivers and data are processed using by Trimble Business Center v4.00 software. The analysis is focused on comparing several variants of observation processing: GPS L1, GPS L1 + L2 and GNSS (GPS + GLONASS). Software OS JAG3D is used for deformation analysis. The results show that the reliability of the deformation estimated based on the GPS L1 variant is questionable since it does not detect displacements at all points. The second variant gives better results. The mean values of the differences of the determined simulated displacements are by components: 3 mm, 3 mm and 6 mm. The results determined using the third variant, i.e. GNSS, are the best, when the mean values of the displacement´s differences are: 4 mm, 3 mm and 2 mm, what indicates the recommendation to use this method in a project where high precision is required.

Structural health monitoring of the large infrastructural objects (high buildings, bridges, tunnels, dams, etc.) is in the domain of civil and geodetic engineers who use different methods and instruments for this task. Dam movement is influenced by various factors among which the most important are: thermal variations, hydrostatic pressure and dam ageing. This research investigates influence of thermal variations on dam crest movement by using statistical methods: autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and multiple linear regression. Dam crest movement data is obtained by using optical alignement method on the concrete gravity dam HP Salakovac. In the first part of this research correlation between dam crest movement and concrete temperature is determined, the second part deals with short term concrete temperature prediction and in the final part of this research previously fitted statistical models are used for dam movement prediction. The results showed that proposed model based on statistical methods can provide quality prediction of dam crest movement.