Tufa deposits in karst rivers are unique habitats created by mutual interactions between specific environmental and biotope features and inhabited by diatoms as a highly abundant and diverse algal group. This pilot study aimed to investigate the diversity of diatom communities on tufa depositing habitats and assess the Una River’s ecological status using a comparative molecular and morphological approach for diatom identification. The 312 base pairs of the rbcL gene were barcoded and analyzed using MiSeq reads and amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) obtained by the DADA2 pipeline. The reference database Diat.barcode v7 was used for taxonomic assignment. The morphological identification of the diatoms was carried out in parallel. In total, the combined dataset revealed 46 taxa identified at genus rank, 125 on the subgenus, and 145 on combined taxonomy rank. The metabarcoding approach mostly leads to a lower number of identified taxa at species rank (58 in molecular vs. 119 in optical inventory), resulting in higher values of beta diversity and heterogeneity in diatom assemblages in samples obtained by morphological approach. Despite the high percentage of taxonomically not assigned diatom ASVs to the species rank, high Shannon diversity index values and a similar number of taxa per locations compared to the morphological approach were obtained. Taxa Achnanthidium minutissimum (Kützing) Czarnecki, Achnanthidium pyrenaicum (Hustedt) H.Kobayasi, Amphora pediculus (Kützing) Grunow, Diatoma vulgaris Bory, Navicula cryptotenella Lange-Bertalot, and Navicula tripunctata (O.F.Müller) Bory were identified at all locations in both inventories. Although limited consistency in the diatom abundances between the two inventory datasets was found, a similar grouping of samples was observed connected to the river’s longitudinal gradient. The data obtained using molecular approach in most sites indicated a mostly lower ecological status (good or moderate) compared to the data obtained from the morphological approach (high, good, and moderate). The potential of environmental DNA (eDNA) diatom metabarcoding for water monitoring and diversity studies is undeniable, but to fully realize the benefits of these methods in the future, it is essential to standardize protocols and expand the reference database for species found in specific habitats, such as tufa deposits.

The aim of the article is to present to the medical, and then to the general public, the person and work of Milivoje Sarvan (1896–1978)—one of the pioneers of social paediatrics in Serbia and one of the most prominent paediatricians, scientists and organizers of health services in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the second half of the 20th century. Milivoje Sarvan was born in 1896 in Požega, in the Kingdom of Serbia. He completed his medical studies in Lyon (France) in 1921. Upon his return to Serbia, he was a county physician in Aleksinac for three years and, shortly after the establishment of the University Children’s Hospital in Belgrade in 1924, he was among the first assistants employed there. Out of the total of 23 years of professional work in Serbia, for 19 years he was an assistant and assistant professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade. At the end of 1946, at the initiative of the Ministry of Public Health of the People’s Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr. Milivoje Sarvan was appointed full professor and head of the Department of Paediatrics at the newly established Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo. At the same time, he was elected head of the Paediatric Clinic in Sarajevo when it was established, and he would later manage it from 1947 until his retirement in 1967. Already at the beginning, Prof. Sarvan developed the activities of the Clinic in several directions: he created the conditions for clinical, teaching and scientific research work. He took care of the education of future paediatricians and child care workers, organized courses in social paediatrics for general practitioners and professional training for paediatricians in the country and abroad. The next period of his activities was marked by the intensive development of the Clinic in all areas of its work. He published more than 120 professional and scientific papers in national and foreign medical journals, and several health education books on mother and child care that have been published in several editions, with large print runs. He was the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and vice-rector of the University of Sarajevo, founder of the Paediatric Section of the Society of Physicians of Bosnia and Herzegovina, lifetime president of the Association of Paediatricians of Yugoslavia, a member of the Scientific Society of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1955 and the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina from its foundation in 1966. He was honoured with high level social awards and recognitions, including the highest state award of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia—the AVNOJ award. After his retirement (1967), he lived in Belgrade, where he died in 1978. Conclusion. Bearing all of this in mind, there is no doubt that Dr. Milivoje Sarvan is one of the significant figures in the field of professional, scientific and organizational work in the field of children’s health care in the former Yugoslavia, leaving a significant and indelible mark in the current states of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Visual Abstract The auditory brainstem response (ABR) is a measure of subcortical activity in response to auditory stimuli. The wave V peak of the ABR depends on the stimulus intensity level, and has been widely used for clinical hearing assessment. Conventional methods estimate the ABR average electroencephalography (EEG) responses to short unnatural stimuli such as clicks. Recent work has moved toward more ecologically relevant continuous speech stimuli using linear deconvolution models called temporal response functions (TRFs). Investigating whether the TRF waveform changes with stimulus intensity is a crucial step toward the use of natural speech stimuli for hearing assessments involving subcortical responses. Here, we develop methods to estimate level-dependent subcortical TRFs using EEG data collected from 21 participants listening to continuous speech presented at 4 different intensity levels. We find that level-dependent changes can be detected in the wave V peak of the subcortical TRF for almost all participants, and are consistent with level-dependent changes in click-ABR wave V. We also investigate the most suitable peripheral auditory model to generate predictors for level-dependent subcortical TRFs and find that simple gammatone filterbanks perform the best. Additionally, around 6 min of data may be sufficient for detecting level-dependent effects and wave V peaks above the noise floor for speech segments with higher intensity. Finally, we show a proof-of-concept that level-dependent subcortical TRFs can be detected even for the inherent intensity fluctuations in natural continuous speech.

Objective: This comprehensive research aimed to thoroughly examine the effectiveness of a diode laser (445 nm) in combination with non-surgical treatment in patients with chronic periodontitis (CP) by evaluating a wide range of clinical and microbiological parameters. Materials and methods: Thirty-one subjects diagnosed with CP were included in this study. The total number of treated periodontal pockets was 862. The subjects were randomly assigned to group 1, which underwent scaling and root planing and laser therapy (SRP+L), and group 2, which underwent scaling and root planing (SRP) only. All respondents underwent a periodontal diagnostic protocol. The parameters plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI), bleeding on probing index (BOP), probing depth (PD), clinical attachment level (CAL), and tooth mobility (TM) were registered. Clinical periodontal measurements were performed at baseline and one and three months after therapy. Microbiological analysis was conducted on Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (Aa), Porphyromonas gingivalis (Pg), and Tannerella forsythia (Tf) using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). For microbiological analysis, samples were taken at baseline, immediately after therapy, and after three months. Laser irradiation was performed immediately after SRP. Results: All clinical parameters improved statistically from baseline to three months after therapy. For all examined clinical parameters, better results were achieved in group 1 than in group 2. This study showed a more significant reduction in Pg and Tf from baseline to three months in group 1 compared to group 2. Conclusion: These results showed that the diode laser wavelength 445 nm was also usable in treating periodontal diseases as an additional method to SRP.