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.

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.

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.

In recent years, the topic of sustainability of return has been topical. A significant number, if not the vast majority, are in fact returnees to rural areas in the wider area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are many objective reasons why this is so, but in this paper we will deal with the perspectives of sustainable return on the example of the region "Srednje Podrinje". Animal production imposes itself as the simplest form of production in order to engage existing resources owned by returnees, primarily land. However, one of the problems faced by the inhabitants of rural areas is the lack of knowledge about the markets for agricultural products, in connection with their chances but also threats.

The paper focuses on the political position populism occupies in representative democracies as an inclusionary pylon for fascism, with the analog review of the Balkans and its global security lessons. Populism implies a constant conflict between elite, establishment, alienated structures linked to interests contrary to the public or members of other ethnoreligious backgrounds. Both left and right populism aim at a particular political and social homogeneity. The phenomenon of increased countries with developed democratic institutions and standards with authoritarianism leads to a closed circle of global "legitimate-democratic" violence, in which democratic institutions and standards, human and minority rights, and freedoms will be a danger. The Balkan's lessons in dealing with similar individuals and movements that promote the "cleansing" of Europe and preserving an "identity" artificially tailored to others' hatred are proactivity. The Balkans' (un)-successful fight against the historical forms of right-wing extremism in more current circumstances have become like an overflowing foundation of global right-wing networks. Humankind's great concern stems from the increasingly aggressive foreign policy, xenophobic sentiment, and the growing inclination of the autocratic populist government to stop the transition of violence to democracy in the scientifically-technologically and culturally-spiritually objectively connected global community. Solutions based on opportunism and manipulation do not offer anything concrete that could improve the socio-political-security-economic situation. When a liberal sees that certain elements use coercion to regulate social relations according to their desire, to force the whole of society on acceptable socio-economic behavior, the liberal should feel a personal responsibility to stand up for freedom.

How do people treat robot teammates compared to human opponents? Past research indicates that people favor, and behave more morally toward, ingroup than outgroup members. People also perceive that they have more moral responsibilities toward humans than nonhumans. This paper presents a 2×2×3 experimental study that placed participants (N = 102) into competing teams of humans and robots. We examined how people morally behave toward and perceive players depending on players’ Group Membership (ingroup, outgroup), Agent Type (human, robot), and participant group Team Composition (humans as minority, equal, or majority within the ingroup compared to robots). Results indicated that participants favored the ingroup over the outgroup and humans over robots – to the extent that they favored ingroup robots over outgroup humans. Interestingly, people differentiated more between ingroup than outgroup humans and robots. These effects generalized across Team Composition.

When a plant is under heavy metals stress, it has different mechanism of coping with it. Brassica oleracea var. acephala (kale) is a plant that has an ability of heavy metal accumulation and removal of heavy metals from the ground. The plants were  exposed to 50, 100, 200, and 500 μM of CdCl2 for 5days, in controlled in vitro conditions. Root length was measured to confirm the Cd effect on plant growth. There are five key antioxidants enzymes responsible for the regulation of heavy metals stress: superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), Peroxidase (POD) and Polyphenol oxidase (PPO). All enzymes showed significant activity, especially triggered by 500 μM CdCl2 in both varieties. The domestic sorts seem more resistant if compared to hybrid variety, showing significant lower expression of antioxidants enzymes at higher concentrations.  In general, significant percentage of enzymes is more expressed in the hybrid Italian sort, Nero di Toscana, indicating the ability of domestic sorts to be more resistant to heavy metal stress.

Two SMN (survival motor neuron) genes are presented in the human genome: SMN1,  which present the telomeric gene whose homozygous deletion or mutation like gene conversion, causes spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), and SMN2, the centromeric version whose copy number modulates the phenotype of SMA These genes are commonly detected by Polymerase Chain reaction-based methods, and these are MLPA (Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification), qPCR (quantitative Polymerase chain reaction) and PCR-RFLP (Polymerase chain reaction-Restriction fragment length polymorphism). This paper reviews the current standing of the most common PCR methods used in the detection of spinal muscular atrophy genes. MLPA, qPCR, and PCR-RFLP currently represent the most common methods of choice for the detection of mutations, especially for deletion and duplication mutations.

Felis Catus is a small carnivorous mammal and it is considered to be the only domesticated species among Felidae family. The purpose of this work is to genetically characterize cat breeds from Bosnia and Herzegovina and to compare them to one unknown completely different cat. To achieve this, samples of 20 cats that belong to the European Shorthair Cat (ESH) breed have been collected, plus the target subject. Further, for the genetic microsatellite characterization, the DNA material was isolated from each cat, in order to compare them to the sample taken from an unknown cat breed that will be referred to as the subject of this research. Genetic diversities within and between populations were be analyzed using 5 microsatellite markers.  The obtained results showed that the subject cat genetically differs from other ESH breed cats, where the observed heterozygosity patterns within the cat breeds showed minimum but expected genetic variety among the analyzed cat species.

Deployable bar structures are made of lightweight materials, and that is one of the reason why they do not require high transportation costs, are easy to assemble (by unfolding) and disassemble (by folding) and are able to successfully respond to many requirements when in the shortest possible time it is necessary to provide architectural structures for various purposes. In this paper, the deployable bar structures are analyzed with the aim of forming a universal multifunctional space which could be used as a facility for temporary housing, healthcare, education and similar purposes. Due to the fact that geometric shape of a certain space significantly determines the function of that space, and the way it is used, detailed analyses of the geometric shapes of these structures have been conducted. Comparison of the forms explored so far with the existing architectural deployable bar structures has resulted in two distinct geometric forms: singly curved (barrel vault) and doubly curved (dome). It was concluded that the application of these forms in the form of freestanding modules provides limited opportunities for organizing functional content due to the specific locations of certain connections between elements, as well as the complicated design process. This is one of the reasons for rare application of these structures in architecture. The proposal of a multifunctional “Universal module 6” which consists of unified singly curved modules in combination with doubly curved and prismatic forms came as a result of the conducted analyses. Proposals for forming more complex architectural spaces of higher capacity provide a wider range of applications of these structures and opens new possibilities for their use.

There are numerous algorithms and solutions for car or object detection as humanity is aiming towards the smart city solutions. Most solutions are based on counting, speed detection, traffic accidents and vehicle classification. The mentioned solutions are mostly based on high-quality videos, wide angles camera view, vehicles in motion, and are optimized for good visibility conditions intervals. A novelty of the proposed algorithm and solution is more accurate digital data extraction from video file sources generated by security cameras in Bosnia and Herzegovina from M18 roadway, but not limited only to that particular source. From the video file sources, data regarding number of vehicles, speed, traveling direction, and time intervals for the region of interest will be collected. Since finding contours approach is effective only on objects that are mobile, and because the application of this approach on traffic junctions did not yield desired results, a more specific approach of classification using a combination of Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) and Support Vector Machines (Linear SVM) has shown to be more appropriate as the original source data can be used for training where the main benefit is the preservation of local second-order interactions, providing tolerance to local geometric misalignment and ability to work with small data samples. The features of the objects within a frame are extracted first by standardizing the feature variables and then computing the first order gradients of the frame. In the next stage, an encoding that remains robust to small changes while being sensitive to local frame content is produced. Finally, the HOG descriptors are generated and normalized again. In this way the channel histogram and spatial vector becomes the feature vector for the Linear SVM classifier. With the following parameters and setup system accuracy was around 85 to 95%. In the next phase, after cleaning protocols on collected data parameters, data will be used to research asphalt deformation effects.

The authors analyze transformations of landscape topography of the open pit "Grivice" in Banovići basin (Northeastern Bosnia). This complex research is based on field screening and GIS analysis of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of researches terrain. Specifically, two DEMs of the Grivice area were prepared, a natural model based on a topographic map, scale 1:25000, issued in 1976 by the Military Geographical Institute (MGI) from Belgrade, while the Google satellite image from 2018 and the Digital Surface Model (DSM) were used for the anthropogenic model,issued in 2018 by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Using methods and algorithms integrated in QGIS, raster and vector values of treated transformation parameters(hypsometry, slope and aspect, hydrographic network, etc.) were obtained, and their analytical-synthetic interpretation and geovisualization were also performed. Finally, ten thematic maps,which illustrate the anthropogenic transformation of the landscape topography of the researched area, were created.

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.

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.