Oxidative stress is a state of excess of prooxidative species relative to the antioxidant defenses (enzymatic and nonenzymatic) in a living organism. The consequence of this imbalance is damage of the major cellular macromolecules (carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and DNA), which further leads to a gradual loss of tissue and organ function. It has been shown that oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathogenesis of many chronic diseases (cardiovascular, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases and cancer) and in the process of aging. Thus, many strategies to combat oxidative stress have been proposed and tested. In this context, food rich in antioxidants has received great attention. Pomegranate, berries, and walnuts have been recognized as “superfood” particularly for their cardioprotective effects. The common characteristic of these foods is the high content of ellagitannins. Since tannins are not bioavailable, they have been neglected in nutrition science and even considered antinutrients for a long time. However, this view has changed dramatically once it was recognized that ellagic acid, released from ellagitannins in the gastrointestinal system, is further metabolized by colonic microbiota to bioavailable compounds—known as urolithins. Thus, urolithins (3,4-benzocoumarin derivatives) have emerged as novel natural bioactive compounds and are now the focus of extensive investigations. So far, urolithins were shown to be powerful modulators of oxidative stress and agents with potential anti-inflammatory, antiproliferative, and antiaging properties. Furthermore, a few synthetic derivatives of urolithins were recognized as lead compounds for new drug development. Available data on urolithin synthesis, physicochemical and pharmacokinetic characteristics, biological activity, and safety will be presented in this review.

High-temperature materials are used in a wide range of industries and applications such as gas turbine engines for aircrafts, power and nuclear power plants, different types of furnaces, including blast furnaces, some fuel cells, industrial gas turbines, different types of reactors, engines, electronic and lighting devices, and many others. Demands for high-temperature materials are becoming more and more challenging every year. To perform efficiently, effectively and at the same time to be economically viable, the materials used at high temperatures must have certain characteristics that are particularly expected for applying under such extreme conditions, for example, the strength and thermal resistance. In the present review, some important requirements that should be satisfied by high temperature materials will be discussed. Furthermore, the focus is put on refractory concretes, ceramics, intermetallic alloys, and composites as four different categories of these materials, which are also considered in respect to possibilities to overcome some of the current challenges.

The focus of the present paper is on the importance and significance of interculturality in teacher education. The paper analyzes the intercultural content of the curricula to develop the intercultural competencies of future teachers in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The sample analyzed was the curricula of the universities of these two countries for the academic year 2018-2019. The analysis of the chosen documents examined the areas of teaching, content, as well as other elements that represent possible opportunities for developing the intercultural competencies of the students. The analyzed curricula do not offer an insight into the results of the teaching practice, which is one of the limitations of this study.  The findings on the poor ratio of intercultural elements in the curricula and the need for their revision, as well a necessity of introducing systematic intercultural education to teacher colleges and universities of education are a valuable contribution. Competent teachers will create a positive environment for proper intercultural communication and develop the intercultural sensitivity of their students thus promoting a culture of dialogue. The result obtained in the analysis can be an incentive to think thorough when creating curricula for educating teachers, both in initial and life-long learning so that they promote intercultural values.

Purpose This paper aims to highlight the importance of braille for visually impaired people and the possibility of printing it by using the ultra-violet (UV) inkjet printing technique. Design/methodology/approach The vision impairment, definitions and statistics, as well as braille letter and standards, are first reviewed. Then, the methods of printing braille have been discussed, with a focus on UV ink-jet printing. Finally, this study indicates a significant role of UV ink-jet printed Braille, its possibilities and its advantages. Findings Research studies in the field of UV ink-jet printed braille are showing that it is possible to print good legible braille of the adequate height of dots. This paper highlights some advantages of printing braille with UV ink-jet, like the possibility of achieving greater dot height than embossing and no need for printing form. Printing of additional elements on top of braille dot has also been tested, and possible use for differentiation of the written notation is shown. This paper also indicates the importance of technological and operating conditions in UV inkjet braille printing. It predicts a significant role of UV inkjet in braille printing. Originality/value This paper provides a detailed review of UV ink-jet printed braille: possibilities, advantages and application.

Economic thought always permeated human living. Economic thought and the development of economics as a discipline in the last few centuries made it central to the world order. However, the foundational problems that mainstream economics suffers from led to uncounted crises and issues within the same order that created it. A physicalist ontology, rationalist epistemology, axiological futility, and methodological deficiency are the problems of philosophical foundations of mainstream economics we reviewed in this paper. The methodology of this paper is qualitative and generally adopts the library research and critical content analysis methods to review and respond to identified foundational problems. Muslims islah and tajdid responses to the West and mainstream economics problems and issues found shape in Islamisation of Knowledge (IOK) and Islamic Economics (IE). The recent shift to Integration of Knowledge (IoK) universalizes the appeal and revives the zeal for IE development in light of IoK based on IOK in this paper. A thorough analysis of IOK, IoK, and IE responses to the West and mainstream economics enabled us to appraise it as the alternative and solution to the foundational problems. The paper clarified the way for future research in IE in light of IoK and directed the academia and industry towards economic reasoning based on robust foundations.

Periodic fever, aphthous stomatitis, pharyngitis, and adenitis (PFAPA) syndrome is the most common autoinflammatory disease in children and is often grouped together with hereditary periodic fever syndromes, although its cause and hereditary nature remain unexplained. We investigated whether differential DNA methylation was present in DNA from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in patients with PFAPA vs. healthy controls. A whole-epigenome analysis (MeDIP and MBD) was performed using pooled DNA libraries enriched for methylated genomic regions and identified candidate genes, two of which were further evaluated with methylation-specific restriction enzymes coupled with qPCR (MSRE-qPCR). The analysis showed that the PIK3AP1 and SPON2 gene regions are differentially methylated in patients with PFAPA. MSRE-qPCR proved to be a quick, reliable, and cost-effective method of confirming results from MeDIP and MBD. Our findings indicate that a B-cell adapter protein (PIK3AP1), as the PI3K binding inhibitor of inflammation, and spondin-2 (SPON2), as a pattern recognition molecule and integrin ligand, could play a role in the etiology of PFAPA. Their role and the impact of changed DNA methylation in PFAPA etiology and autoinflammation need further investigation.

Abstract Objective We investigated the impact of multimorbidity and polypharmacy on the management of atrial fibrillation (AF) patients in clinical practice and assessed factors associated with polypharmacy and oral anticoagulation (OAC) use in AF patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Methods A 14-week prospective study of consecutive non-valvular AF patients was performed in seven Balkan countries. Results Of 2712 consecutive patients, 2263 patients (83.4%) had multimorbidity (AF + ≥2 concomitant diseases) and 1505 patients (55.5%) had polypharmacy. 1416 (52.2%) patients had both multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Overall, 1164 (82.2%) patients received OAC, 200 (14.1%) patients received antiplatelet drugs alone and 52 (3.7%) patients had no antithrombotic therapy (AT). Non-emergency centre and paroxysmal AF were significantly associated with OAC non-use in patients with multimorbidity, whilst age ≥80 years and non-emergency centre were identified to be independent predictors of OAC non-use in patients with polypharmacy. Conclusions Multimorbidity and polypharmacy were common among AF patients in our study. AT was suboptimal and approximately 18% of multimorbid patients with polypharmacy were not anticoagulated. Pattern of AF and non-emergency centre were associated with OAC non-use in AF patients with multimorbidity, whilst non-emergency centre and age ≥80 years were associated with OAC non-use in AF patients with polypharmacy. Key Message Multimorbidity and polypharmacy are common among patients with AF. Antithrombotic therapy was suboptimal in AF patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Approximately, 18% of multimorbid patients with polypharmacy were not anticoagulated.

The estimation of the saturation flow rate is of utmost importance when defining the signal plan at intersections. Because of the numerous influential factors, the values of which are hard to be determined, the subject problem is to be regarded as an extremely complex one. This research deals with the estimation of a saturation flow rate of a shared lane with permitted left turns. The suggested algorithm is based on the application of the artificial neural networks where the data for training are received by simulation. The results obtained by the neural networks are compared with multiple linear regression and the known HCM 2010 approach for determining the saturated flow of a shared lane. The testing data have shown that the approach based on the artificial neural networks foresaw statistically significantly better values than the ones obtained by multiple linear regression, with an error of 27 veh/h against 49 veh/h. The HCM 2010 approach is significantly worse than the two others included in this research. The ways of the future development of the suggested method could include additional factors, such as the grade of the traffic lane, the proximity of the bus stops, and others.

Cyclotides are plant-derived cyclic, disulfide-rich peptides with a unique cyclic cystine knot topology that confers them with remarkable structural stability and resistance to proteolytic degradation. Recently, cyclotides have emerged as promising scaffold molecules for designing peptide-based therapeutics. Here, we provide examples of how engineering cyclotides using molecular grafting may lead to the development of novel peptide ligands of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), today's most exploited drug targets. Integrating bioactive epitopes into stable cyclotide scaffolds can lead to improved pharmacokinetics and oral activity as well as selectivity and high enzymatic stability. We also discuss and highlight the importance of engineered cyclotides as novel tools to study GPCR signaling.

Introduction: Gated tangential field-in-field (FIF) technique is used to lower the dose to organs at risk for breast cancer radiotherapy (RT). In this study, the authors investigated the accuracy of the delivered treatment plan with and without gating using a two-dimensional detector array for patient-specific verification purposes.Methods: In this study, a 6MV beams were used for the merged FIF RT (forward Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy). The respiration signals for gated FIF delivery were obtained from the one-dimensional moving phantom using the real-time position management (RPM) system (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA). RPM system used for four-dimensional computed tomography scanner light-speed, GE is based on an infrared camera to detect motion of external 6-point marker. The beams were delivered using a Clinac iX (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA) with the multileaf collimator Millennium 120. The MapCheck2 (SunNuclear, Florida) was used for the evaluation of treatment plans. MapCheck2 was validated through a comparison with measurements from a farmer-type ion chamber. Gated beams were delivered using a maximum dose rate with varying duty cycles and analyzed the MapCheck2 data to evaluate treatment plan delivery accuracy.Results: Results of the gamma passing rate for relative and absolute dose differences for all ungated and gated beams were between 95.1% and 100%.Conclusion: Gated FIF technique can deliver an accurate dose to a detector during gated breast cancer RT. There is no significance between gated and ungated patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA); one can use ungated PSQA for verification of treatment plan delivery

Abstract We present an overview of the case of a patient with early hysterorrhaphy dehiscence (uteroperitoneal fistula) with endomyometritis and post-cesarean section peritonitis and puerperal acute abdomen in a 35-year-old puerpera. A exploratory relaparotomy, necrectomy, and resuture of the dehiscent part of the hysterotomy were performed with placement of hemostatic sponges on the same portion of the uterus with good recovery.