Ambient air pollution is one of eight global risk factors for deaths and accounts for 38.44 all causes death rates attributable to ambient PM pollution, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is 58.37. We have estimated health endpoints and possible gains if two policy scenarios were implemented and air pollution reduction achieved. Real-world health and recorded PM pollution data for 2018 were used for assessing the health impacts and possible gains. Calculations were performed with WHO AirQ+ software against two scenarios with cut-off levels at country-legal values and WHO air quality recommendations. Ambient PM2.5 pollution is responsible for 16.20% and 22.77% of all-cause mortality among adults in Tuzla and Lukavac, respectively. Our data show that life expectancy could increase by 2.1 and 2.4 years for those cities. In the pollution hotspots, in reality, there is a wide gap in what is observed and the implementation of the legally binding air quality limit values and, thus, adverse health effects. Considerable health gains and life expectancy are possible if legal or health scenarios in polluted cities were achieved. This estimate might be useful in providing additional health burden evidence as a key component for a clean air policy and action plans.

Studies of materials used for works of art and cultural monuments throughout the history contribute to the comprehensive understanding of particular cultures, their technological achievements and customs over time. Investigations of the authenticity of objects and the interventions they may have endured over time keep an important role for their successful restoration and preservation. A three-layer sample of the colored wall decoration from Ottoman Ćejvan Ćehaja mosque from Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina was investigated by FTIR spectroscopy. The plaster was identified as gypsum-lime binder. Inorganic pigments were found in two layers, reddish-brown mixture of Fe2O3 and MnO2 and green pigment recognized as viridian, Cr2O3 ∙ 2H2O. The upper layer of "golden color" is found to be a physically compact piece of gold foil or leaf whose fixation method meets both the Ottoman and "west" mode of binding. The mode of adhesion by animal glue could be the result of decoration immanent to Islamic culture, but also to reconstruction from the late 19th century during the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia.

Abstract With the proliferation of connected vehicles, new coverage technologies and colossal bandwidth availability, the quality of service and experience in mobile computing play an important role for user satisfaction (in terms of comfort, security and overall performance). Unfortunately, in mobile environments, signal degradations very often affect the perceived service quality, and predictive approaches become necessary or helpful, to handle, for example, future node locations, future network topology or future system performance. In this paper, our attention is focused on an in-depth stochastic micro-mobility analysis in terms of nodes coordinates. Many existing works focused on different approaches for realizing accurate mobility predictions. Still, none of them analyzed the way mobility should be collected and/or observed, how the granularity of mobility samples collection should be set and/or how to interpret the collected samples to derive some stochastic properties based on the mobility type (pedestrian, vehicular, etc.). The main work has been carried out by observing the characteristics of vehicular mobility, from real traces. At the same time, other environments have also been considered to compare the changes in the collected statistics. Several analyses and simulation campaigns have been carried out and proposed, verifying the effectiveness of the introduced concepts.

Abstract Objective of the study is to research the epidemiological aspects of maternal alloimmunization against erythrocyte antigens of fetuses (AB0, Rhesus, Lewis, Kell, Duffy and others) and to identify the most common types of hemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN) in the West Herzegovina region. Study Design The 20-year retrospective epidemiological study includes all pregnant women who had been immunologically tested and newborn treated for HDN. Results The indirect antiglobulin (IAT) detected antibodies against antigens in 545 (1.8%) pregnant women of the 29 663 who were tested at the Department of Transfusion Medicine. During the 20-year-long study 310 (1.0%) newborn with HDN were treated. Our results indicate that 42% (230/545) of the pregnant women had AB0 immunization. The most common form of HDN is AB0 HDN 64% (199/310), whereas RhD HDN was treated in 19% (59/310) of the newborn infants. ETR was performed on 29 (19%) infants, 21 (72.4%) with AB0 HDN, and 7 (26%) with RhD HDN. Conclusion This 20-year-long study concludes that, even though there has been significant progress in the prevention of immunization and proactive treatment of HDN, precautionary measures are still required as is the need for gynecologists and obstetricians to be active. The reasons for this are the non-existence of preventive measures for non-RhD immunization, the irregular immunological screening of RhD positive women in pregnancy in the region encompassed by the study in the past few years. The above raises new questions and recommends further research and monitoring of immunization and HDN treatment worldwide.

Abstract An aluminum-based, self-powered, miniaturized sensor for breath humidity detection is presented. The sensor is designed as an interdigitated capacitor made out of sputtered aluminum 1 % silicon (Al 1 %Si) thin film, 700 nm thickness, with digits 1.5 mm long, 0.01 mm wide and 0.01 mm clearance between them. The voltage on the open end of the sensor is generated when the surface is covered with a thin layer of water vapor, for instance if a person blows on it. The voltage generated is up to 1.5 V. The voltage generation is based on an electrochemical process of interaction between aluminum, water and oxygen from air, similar to the operation of an aluminum-air battery. The rise time of the signal during water vapor (or breath) detection is as small as 10 ms which makes it one of the fastest humidity sensors reported to date. The relaxation time is in the range of 50 ms. To make detection possible, the sensor surface needs to be activated by native oxide removal with the help of electric current and de-mineralized water droplet. Usability of the sensor was demonstrated in the detection of human breathing, where the sensor managed to follow the cycles of inhaling and exhaling.

High-frequency firing activity can be induced either naturally in a healthy brain as a result of the processing of sensory stimuli or as an uncontrolled synchronous activity characterizing epileptic seizures. As part of this work, we investigate how logic circuits that are engineered in neurons can be used to design spike filters, attenuating high-frequency activity in a neuronal network that can be used to minimize the effects of neurodegenerative disorders such as epilepsy. We propose a reconfigurable filter design built from small neuronal networks that behave as digital logic circuits. We developed a mathematical framework to obtain a transfer function derived from a linearization process of the Hodgkin-Huxley model. Our results suggest that individual gates working as the output of the logic circuits can be used as a reconfigurable filtering technique. Also, as part of the analysis, the analytical model showed similar levels of attenuation in the frequency domain when compared to computational simulations by fine-tuning the synaptic weight. The proposed approach can potentially lead to precise and tunable treatments for neurological conditions that are inspired by communication theory.

Abstract Background Non-medical use (NMU) of prescription opioids is of concern due to the opioid epidemic in the United States. Objective: We examined sex differences in the effect of age of first use of prescription opioids on prescription opioid NMU among 17- and 18-year olds. Methods: The National Monitoring of Adolescent Prescription Stimulants Study (N-MAPSS) recruited youth 10–18 years from 10 United States cities between 2008 and 2011 (n = 11,048). The cross-sectional survey included questions on past 30 day prescription opioid use (10,965 provided responses; 278 age 17 to 18 years who used opioids in past 30 days), with NMU defined as non-oral use and/or use of someone else’s opioids. Nonparametric survival analysis with lifetable estimates was used to examine age at first use. Binomial logistic regression was conducted predicting any NMU, adjusted for covariates. Results: Among 278 youth 17 to 18 years, a significant difference in age of first use between those with MU only and any NMU (p < .0001) was observed. Each one year increase in age resulted in a 33% decrease in the odds of any prescription opioid NMU compared to MU only, after controlling for covariates (Odds Ratio = 0.67, 95% Confidence Interval: 0.47,0.96). Sex differences in age at first use were not observed. Conclusions: Risk of past 30 day prescription opioid NMU decreased by a third for each one year increase in age of first use, after adjustment for other covariates. Use of prescription opioids in young adolescents may need to be limited where possible and researched further.

There are only a few reported cases of abdominal ectopic pregnancy and consequential foetal mummification in dogs. The majority of the described cases indicate that this condition may exist for a prolonged period of time without any manifestation of illness. Therefore, sudden signs of abdominal distension, abdominal pain, episodes of epileptiform seizures, dark diarrhoea and lethargy, as were observed in the present case, are not likely to be considered as symptoms of an abdominal ectopic pregnancy. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of an eight-year long abdominal pregnancy in an ovariohysterectomised bitch. We present the clinical, laboratory, radiological and intraoperative findings, and the medical and surgical therapy for an abdominal ectopic pregnancy in a 14 year old Miniature Pinscher bitch, ovariohysterectomised eight years previously.

The increasing integration of renewable energy resources into distribution systems promotes microgrids as important and emerging network concept. The coordination control between the photovoltaic (PV) generator and the battery energy storage system (BESS) is required to provide a necessary amount of active power in the system. Method for voltage regulation for a microgrid which consists of a PV generator with the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control and BESS in the stand-alone mode of operation is presented in the paper. MATLAB/Simulink is used to perform all simulation studies. The validity of the proposed methods is clearly verified on the model of a real distribution network, which might be operated as a microgrid. Obtained results demonstrate that the suggested method can be used for effective voltage regulation in microgrid applications, which remains a vibrant field of research.

In this video, we highlight the anatomy involved with microsurgical resection of a giant T11/T12 conus cauda equina schwannoma. Spinal schwannoma remains the third most common intradural spinal tumor. Tumors undergoing gross total resection usually do not recur. To our knowledge, this is the first video case report of giant cauda equina schwannoma resection. A 55-year-old female presented with paraparesis and urinary retention. Lumbar spine MRI revealed a contrast-enhancing intradural extramedullary tumor at the T11/T12 level. Surgery was performed in the prone position with intraoperative neurophysiology monitoring (somatosensory and motor evoked potentials—SSEPs and MEPs). T11/T12 laminectomies were performed. After opening the dura and arachnoid, the tumor was found covered with cauda equina nerve roots. We delineated the inferior pole of the tumor, followed by opening of the capsule and debulking the tumor. Subsequently, the cranial pole was dissected from the corresponding cauda equina nerve roots. Finally, the tumor nerve origin was identified and divided after nerve stimulation confirmed the tumor arose from a sensory nerve root. The tumor was removed; histological analysis revealed a schwannoma (WHO Grade I). Postoperative MRI revealed complete resection. The patient fully recovered her neurological function. This case highlights the importance of careful microsurgical technique and gross total resection of the tumor in the view of favorable postoperative neurological recovery of the patient. Intraoperative use of ultrasound is helpful to delineate preoperatively tumor extension and confirm postoperative tumor resection.

Congestion control algorithms are usually developed in isolation without thoroughly investigating their co-existence and interactions with other protocols and/or congestion control algorithms. As a result, flows using different algorithms and/or having different Round-Trip Times may overpower each other, resulting in unfair resource distribution, with a subset of the flows usually claiming most of the capacity.To solve the aforementioned problem, we make use of programmable switches and the network programming language P4 to enforce fairness from within the network itself, instead of from the congestion control algorithms ran at the end-points. Our solution P4air continuously monitors the properties of all flows that pass through a switch and groups them based on the behavior of the congestion control algorithms used. Furthermore, for each group, it applies appropriate measures to suppress the aggressive flows and boost smaller flows. Our experiments, using modern programmable hardware (Barefoot Tofino switch), demonstrate significant performance gains for P4air in terms of fairness compared to state-of-the-art solutions.

As fish has been known for its high protein content and other health benefits, aquaculture production has started to flourish in Serbia. Common carp is the predominant species being farmed, compris...