Introduction: Hyperuricemia is an independent risk factor for the development of many diseases. Aim: The aim of this paper is to compare the effects of allopurinol and febuxostat on the values of triglycerides and uric acid in hyperuricemic patients. Methods: This was a pharmacological-clinical retrospective-prospective study. The research sample comprised 50 examinees of both genders and different ages who were undergoing allopurinol (100 mg/day) or febuxostat (80 mg/day) therapy. Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) Software and Microsoft Excel were used for statistical analysis. Results: Examinees who were treated with allopurinol had a statistically significant decrease in uric acid concentrations (by 126.28 ± 20.36 μmol/l) at the end of the observation compared to the initial values (p = 0.006). Examinees who were treated with febuxostat had a statistically significant decrease in uric acid concentrations (by 252.80 ± 94.17 μmol/l) at the end of the observation compared to the initial values (p = 0.001). The initial value of triglycerides was 1.58 ± 0.64 mmol/l in allopurinol-treated examinees, and 1.60 ± 0.52 mmol/l in febuxostat-treated examinees. After three and six months of allopurinol use, there was a statistically significant increase in triglyceride values (p = 0.046 and p = 0.042, respectively). A statistically significant decrease in triglyceride values (by 0.16 ± 0.10 mmol/l) was noted after three months of febuxostat use (p = 0.012). Conclusion: The results of this research confirmed the previous findings and pointed out the positive pharmacological effects of allopurinol and febuxostat.

Microbiology laboratory is a type of medical laboratory and should be safe and efficient environment. Even it is not a mandatory for the accreditation in most of the countries, ISO/IEC 15189 remains the most common reference for quality of work in medical laboratories. It is mostly based on good laboratory practices and is oriented to support accurate clinical decisions. ISO/IEC 15189 has potential to become very effective instrument for development and improvement of medical laboratories. Results from laboratory should guide the majority of clinical decisions and help in providing adequate patient care. This article provides a simple approach to meet the minimum requirements set. To achieve intended goal and strictly follow the requirements proposed in the standard, the trained and well-motivated laboratory staff is necessary to implement the system. The objective of this article is for it to be used as a guideline for evaluation and implementation of the ISO 15189.

This paper presents the results of development of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) for prediction of medical device performance based on conformity assessment data. Conformity assessment data of medical devices was obtained from periodical inspections conducted by ISO 17020 accredited laboratory during 2015–2019 period. For the development of ANNs, 1738 samples of conformity assessment of infusion and perfusor pumps was used. Out of the overall number of samples, 1391 (80%) of them were used during system development and 346 (20%) samples were used for subsequent validation of system performance. During system development, the impact on overall system accuracy of different number of neurons in hidden layer and the activation functions was tested. Also, two neural network architectures were tested: feedforward and feedback. The results show that feedforward neural network architecture with 10 neurons in single hidden layer has the best performance. The overall accuracy of that neural network is 98.06% for performance prediction of perfusor pumps and 98.83% for performance prediction of infusion pumps. The recurrent neural network resulted in accuracy of 98.41% for both infusion pumps and perfusor pumps. The results show that conformity assessment data obtained through yearly inspections of medical devices can successfully be used for prediction of performance of single medical device. This is very important in increasing the safety and accuracy of diagnosis and treatment of patients.

Increasing incidence of cardiovascular disease and their mortality rate render them as second leading cause of death worldwide. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used in many fields of science and industry, but also has found its use in medicine for diagnosis, treatment and prediction of diseases. This paper presents the review of AI application in cardiology. The review is based on research papers published in Medline database. Findings of the review indicate that, according to accuracy parameter, the overall performance of AI based models for cardiovascular application is above 83%. Based on the results, AI algorithms and deep learning can be rendered as accurate, hence showing possibility to be used as a diagnostic tool now and in the future. New era of modern diagnosing is coming and Artificial Intelligence has the potential to change the way in which medicine is practiced.

Within the micro and nano world, tiny membrane-enclosed bits of material are more or less free to move and act as communication tools within cells, between cells, between different tissues and between organisms in global environment. Based on the mechanism of membrane budding and vesiculation that includes all types of cells, in this review, we attempted to present a review on SARS-CoV-2 virus actions in compartments of different scales (cells and their surroundings, tissues, organisms and society). Interactions of the virus with cells on a molecular level, with neural system, endothelium, hematopoietic system, gastrointestinal system and genitourinary system. Transmission route between organisms and between mother and fetus are considered. Also, transmission of virus through contact with materials and with environment, the suggested measures to prevent contamination with the virus and to support the organism against the disease are given.

We are living in times where a viral disease has brought normal life in much of the world to a halt. The novel coronavirus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) started in December 2019 in Wuhan, China initially and in a short time crossed the European borders. After mitigating the epidemic in China, Italy became one of the most COVID-19 affected countries worldwide. International travelers are important sources of infectious diseases and a possible source of epidemic. Due to its political, geographic, and cultural similarities, Italy is one of the main economic partners of Southeast European (SEE) countries. Our data show that infection in index cases in all 11 SEE countries was travel-related with Italy being a source country for 8/11 countries. After the first case identifications on February 25, the number of cases in SEE countries is continually rising reaching the total number of 15,612 with 565 fatal cases and overall case fatality ratio (CFR) of 3.6 (median 3.8, range 0.8-5.5) by April 10, 2020. At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is approaching its peak, apart from the problems with treatment of the disease and care for critically ill patients, there are other equally important problems, such as organization of outbreak response, provision of health care, lack of hospital personnel, disruption of personal protective equipment supply chains and health care workers (HCWs) protection. But what is more important is the heroic behavior of the HCWs who are showing their humanity by disregarding their lives.

Američki cvrčak (Scaphoideus titanus Ball.) jedini je poznati prirodni vektor zlatne žutice vinove loze. Hrani se sišući sokove iz floema vinove loze, pri čemu usvaja fitoplazmu (Flavescence dorée) koju unosi u svoj organizam i na taj način ju prenosi hranjenjem sa zaraženih na zdrave trsove. Za uspješno suzbijanje američkog cvrčka vrlo je bitno poznavati njegovu biologiju i ekologiju. Temeljem toga cilj ovog rada bio je istražiti prisutnost i utvrditi brojnost američkog cvrčka, te učinkovitost tretiranja. Istraživanje je postavljeno 2018. godine na lokalitetu Ilok. Pratila se dinamika pojave i utvrdila se brojnost ličinki i odraslih oblika američkog cvrčka u vinogradima na tri različite lokacije u Iloku. Dinamika pojave i brojnost pratila se uz pomoć žutih ljepljivih ploča. Istraživanje je pokazalo da je prosječan ulov po žutoj ploči bio 2, 5 ili 9 američkih cvrčaka, ovisno o lokalitetu. Učinkovitost tretiranja pokazala se najuspješnijom u vinogradu na lokaciji „Principovac“, u kojemu su korištena zaštitna sredstva različitih skupina prema mehanizmu djelovanja. U istraživanju nisu utvrđeni simptomi zlatne žutice vinove loze.

INTRODUCTION Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is the leading cause of chronic liver disease and is a serious global health problem. Hepatitis C infection is highly prevalent in patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD), due to frequent exposure to blood and blood products, nosocomial transmission of HCV, and prolong hemodialysis duration. The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of IL-33/ST2 signaling pathway on severity of the liver disease in ESRD HCV+ patients. METHODOLOGY Blood samples from patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) and hepatitis C infection (HCV), 20 patients with HCV infection, 20 patients with ESRD and 20 healthy control donor patients were taken for the examination of biochemical parameters, for the determination of the serum cytokine concentration, and for the molecular diagnostics of HCV. RESULTS Systemic sST2 positively correlated with serum level of urea and creatinine, respectively. Serum sST2 was significantly increased in ESRD HCV+ patients in comparison to HCV+ group. sST2/IL-1, sST2/IL-4 and sST2/IL-23 ratios were significantly increased in serum of ESRD HCV+ patients in comparison to HCV+ patients. Significantly higher systemic level of sST2 and sST2/IL-1 and sST2/IL-4 ratios were measured in ESRD patients compared to non-ESRD patients. CONCLUSION These results suggested that elevated level sST2, as the consequence of renal failure, causes less destruction of liver in HCV infection.

The accumulation of organochlorines (OCs) in mussel tissue depends on the physiological and biochemical status of the organism and its interaction with the environment. Mytilus galloprovincialis, 2- and 1-year-old mussels, sampled from Mali Ston Bay, a reference area, and transplanted to Kaštela Bay in cages, were used for the assessment of OC levels and influence of biological parameters on accumulation. Results of bimonthly exposures during one year highlighted that OC accumulation decreases with increasing mussel age. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and p,p′-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (p,p′-DDTs) increased, while organochlorine pesticide (OCP; i.e., HCB, lindane, heptachlor, and aldrin) variations were very low. Statistical analysis generally did not confirm the significant effect of lipid content on the accumulation of OCs in mussel tissue. OC levels in mussels were below the maximum permitted levels for human consumption (European Commission).

Presentations of virtual cultural heritage artifacts are often communicated via the medium of interactive digital storytelling. The synergy of a storied narrative embedded within a 3D virtual reconstruction context has high consumer appeal and edutainment value. We investigate if 360° videos presented through virtual reality further contribute to user immersion for the application of preserving intangible cultural heritage. A case study then analyzes whether conventional desktop media is significantly different from virtual reality as a medium for immersion in intangible heritage contexts. The case study describes bridge diving at Stari Most, the old bridge in Mostar Bosnia. This application aims to present and preserve the bridge diving tradition at this site. The project describes the site and history along with cultural connections, and a series of quiz questions are presented after viewing all of the materials. Successful completion of the quiz allows a user to participate in a virtual bridge dive. The subjective evaluation provided evidence to suggest that our method is successful in preserving intangible heritage and communicating ideas in key areas of concern for this heritage that can be used to develop a preservation framework in the future. It was also possible to conclude that experience within the virtual reality framework did not affect effort expectancy for the web application, but the same experience significantly influenced the performance expectancy construct.

<p>Pravilan pristup u pisanju programskog koda i način optimiziranja koda je bitna karakteristika<br />za dobrog programera sa stajali&scaron;ta zahtjeva koji se postavljaju od strane softverske industrije. Da bi se<br />pristupilo pravilnom pisanju koda neophodno je stvoriti temelj kroz formalno i neformalno obrazovanje.<br />U raduće se prikazati pravilan način pisanja koda uz pravilno optimiziranje koda sa ciljem &scaron;to bržeg<br />izvr&scaron;avanja aplikacije. Doprinos rada se ogleda u izgradnji vje&scaron;tina kod mladih ljudi koji se &scaron;koluju za<br />buduće poslove programera. Cilj je da budući programeri percipiraju sliku na koji način mogu da<br />razviju vlastiti stil pisanja koda.</p>

<p>The aim of the paper was to conduct Critical Discourse Analysis of political discourse of three<br />High Representatives stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the period 2006 &ndash; 2010. In order to<br />carry out the envisaged analysis, the key tool for language description was Systemic Functional<br />Grammar. The theory elaborates significance of language in everyday life and its role in the<br />construction of meanings. The analytical framework for CDA consisted of three stages: description,<br />interpretation and explanation. The paper shows that CDA approach to language analysis and SFG<br />descriptive language tools provide a valuable platform for investigations of language in context. The<br />findings highlight different communicative models which emerge as a result of lexico-grammatical<br />choices that political actors make in specific contexts and under specific circumstances.</p>