The educational courses that fall into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) category require an extensive practical training in laboratories, in order to build and strengthen students’ skills, thereby preparing them for a future job market. In particular, the significant advancements in computer science and engineering press an urgent need to rethink the core of the existing academic courses, their objectives, and the tools for the practical work, due to the need to maintain the balance between the knowledge that academia provides to the students and the actual requirements for students’ future job vacancies. To this end, our educational research includes the design and development of two different types of laboratories, i.e., a low-cost Raspberry Pi-based laboratory, and a laboratory in the cloud, for the practical teaching of the course Distributed systems. In this paper, we present the valuable feedback from our undergraduate students for both types of the aforementioned experimentation approaches, thereby unraveling the pros and cons of both, and analyzing the existing challenges that still need to be properly tackled.

During their work, pharmacists are faced with a number of ethically difficult situations which include consideration of the values, rights and responsibilities. The overall aim of this study was to analyse the factors that influence the ethical values of pharmacists. We aimed to determine the relationship of these factors and the pharmacists’ perceptions of difficulty and frequency of ethical issues in community pharmacy settings. The research design was cross-sectional and descriptive; the data were gathered from a sample of community pharmacists in Serbia by using validated self-administered survey instrument. In all, 590 pharmacists participated (94.06% females) with working experience from 1 to 39 years (mean 15.17 ± 10.04 years). The majority of respondents stated that the main factor influencing the ethical values of pharmacists is professional ethics, followed by family norms. The most common reasons for addressing ethical issues associated with values are related to the following: importance of cooperation with other healthcare professionals, respect for the rules and regulations, patients` wellbeing, working within one’s competence to limit liability, controlling and monitoring the organizational and occupational framework of pharmacy profession. The respondents in our study identified an ethical imperative for pharmacists in limiting harm to patients and resistance to commercial pressures which might compromise their judgment. The results demonstrate a need for careful examination of the values that could be identified and explored in dilemmas created by commercial environment and dual personality of users (patients, costumers) of community pharmacy service.

ABSTRACT Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has a continuously rising prevalence worldwide. Pharmacogenetics has been recognized as a promising concept for pharmacological treatment of T2D, as antidiabetic drugs are not equally effective and safe for all patients, and the costs of diabetes treatment are increasing. The latest published guidelines on T2D treatment firmly endorse the use of newer antidiabetic drugs, sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i), dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (DPP-IVi), and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA), considering their satisfactory pharmacological effect and good safety profile. Furthermore, SGLT2i and GLP-1RA show protective effects in patients with established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease. However, there has been growing evidence that the effectiveness and safety of these drug classes could depend on genetic variability. Here, we summarized the results of the published studies on the pharmacogenetic biomarkers for the three drug classes. A number of genetic variations have been investigated so far. The explored candidate genes mostly encode drug targets, drug-metabolizing enzymes, and genes linked to T2D risk. Although many of the results are promising, it is still necessary to obtain more information from larger controlled studies to confirm their clinical significance. This approach may lead towards more personalized treatment for patients with T2D.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) has a very picturesque past. Founded in 11th century, it has always been a crossroads of faiths and civilizations. Extended Reality (XR) technologies can finally take us to time travel into this history, enable us to experience past events and meet historical characters. In this paper, we overview the latest applications we developed that use Virtual Reality (VR) video, Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR) for interactive digital storytelling about BH history. “Nine dissidents” is the first BH VR documentary, tackling a still tricky subject of dissidents in the Socialist Yugoslavia, artists and writers falsely accused, persecuted and still forbidden. “Virtual Museum of Old Crafts” aims to present and preserve crafts intangible heritage through Virtual Reality. “Battle on Neretva VR” is recreating a famous WWII battle offering the users to experience it and meet comrade Tito, the commander of the Yugoslav Liberation Army. “Sarajevo 5D” shows the cultural monuments from Sarajevo that do not exist anymore in physical form using Augmented Reality. Through user experience studies, we measure the user immersion and edutainment of these applications and show the potential of XR for the presentation and preservation of cultural heritage.

Music education is an important factor of students’ development. The positive effect of music training is evident in all areas, from the intellectual, psychomotor to social and emotional ones, and therefore music classes in the music school should focus both on music making and on experience, understanding and evaluating music, as well as on expressing one’s own ideas, feelings and thoughts. In ear training classes it can be achieved through the area of music listening. Didactical initiatives of the 19th and 20th century contributed to the recognition of the advantages of the auditory approach, while technological innovations allowed the practical application of music listening. Although there are examples that point to fostering the emotional experience in music classes, music listening is still focused on giving assignments of cognitive type and learning about music components. Some exceptions pertain to the application of multimodality in music teaching using both musical and extra-musical areas. The paper is aimed at pointing to the value of the cognitive-emotional music listening and to the possibilities it opens in ear training classes. The cognitive-emotional music listening focuses on experiencing, understanding and appreciation of classical music aimed at shaping students’ worldview and improving their music competences. It can be achieved by the multimodal and interdisciplinary approach to a musical piece. Students learn about the musical-historical context of the emergence of a piece in a given time and circumstances, about the composing approach and the theoretical and harmony features of the work, they develop their musical and critical thinking, make music, and evaluate both music and their own achievements. Repeated listening to a musical piece or excerpts from it, observing and familiarizing with the piece from different perspectives and discussion about the piece and experience after listening make it possible to better understand the piece and its specifics, as well as to discover and improve one’s own self and accept others and the different.

Abstract Double strand break (DSB) repair primarily occurs through 3 pathways: non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ), alternative end-joining (Alt-EJ), and homologous recombination (HR). Typical methods to measure pathway usage include integrated cassette reporter assays or visualization of DNA damage induced nuclear foci. It is now well understood that repair of Cas9-induced breaks also involves NHEJ, Alt-EJ, and HR pathways, providing a new format to measure pathway usage. Here, we have developed a simple Cas9-based system with validated repair outcomes that accurately represent each pathway and then converted it to a droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) readout, thus obviating the need for Next Generation Sequencing and bioinformatic analysis with the goal to make Cas9-based system accessible to more laboratories. The assay system has reproduced several important insights. First, absence of the key Alt-EJ factor Pol θ only abrogates ∼50% of total Alt-EJ. Second, single-strand templated repair (SSTR) requires BRCA1 and MRE11 activity, but not BRCA2, establishing that SSTR commonly used in genome editing is not conventional HR. Third, BRCA1 promotes Alt-EJ usage at two-ended DSBs in contrast to BRCA2. This assay can be used in any system, which permits Cas9 delivery and, importantly, allows rapid genotype-to-phenotype correlation in isogenic cell line pairs.

ABSTRACT Based on available literature, practices, and agricultural movements, this study analyzed the conceptualization of agroecology in the West Balkans (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and North Macedonia). For decades, like Yugoslavia, they shared common agricultural development, and agroecology was viewed on a theoretical basis alone. Currently, cooperation exists between agroecology (scientific discipline) and organic agriculture (practical platform). All countries have committed to transition toward sustainable agriculture; however, lower productivity and economical/structural impediments have resulted in variable acceptance of agroecology. Nevertheless, agroecology is recognized as an alternative approach to conventional agriculture, with the potential to meet future food demands.

Executive functions (EF) play a crucial role in overall human functioning. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often have EF deficits. The goal of this study was to examine EF and developmental domains in preschool children with ASD. The sample for this study comprised 32 children (27 boys, mean age 65.3 months, SD- 4.0 months) with ASD. The control group consisted of 32 typically developing children (16 boys, mean age 64.3 months, SD- 5.1 months). EF were assessed with Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function and developmental domains were assessed with the Developmental Assessment of Young Children. The results of this study indicated that children with ASD do not have uneven EF and developmental profiles, although the EF and developmental domains scores were more heterogeneous than in typically developing children. Children with ASD had substantially lower EF and developmental scores than typically developing children. Implications of these results are discussed.