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.

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are known to induce new bone formation in vivo but treating trabecular bone defects with a BMP based therapeutic remains controversial. Here, we evaluated the safety and efficacy of a novel Autologous Bone Graft Substitute (ABGS) comprised of recombinant human BMP6 (rhBMP6) dispersed within an autologous blood coagulum (ABC) as a physiological natural carrier in patients with a closed distal radial fracture (DRF). We enrolled 32 patients in a randomized, standard of care (SoC) and placebo (PBO) controlled, double-blinded Phase I First in Human (FiH) clinical trial. ABGS was prepared from peripheral blood as 250 μg rhBMP6/mL ABC or PBO (1 mL ABC containing excipients only) and was administered dorsally via a syringe injection into the fracture site following closed fracture fixation with 3 Kirschner wires. Patients carried an immobilization for 5 weeks and were followed-up for 0 to 26 weeks by clinical examination, safety, serial radiographic analyses and CT. During the 13 weeks follow-up and at 26 weeks post study there were no serious adverse reactions recorded. The results showed that there were no detectable anti-rhBMP6 antibodies in the blood of any of the 32 patients at 13- and 26-weeks following treatment. Pharmacokinetic analyses of plasma from patients treated with ABGS showed no detectable rhBMP6 at any time point within the first 24 hours following administration. The CT image and radiographic analyses score from patients treated with AGBS showed significantly accelerated bone healing as compared to PBO and SoC at 5 and 9 weeks (with high effect sizes and P=0.027), while at week 13 all patients had similar healing outcomes. In conclusion, we show that intraosseous administration of ABGS (250 μg rhBMP6/mL ABC) into the distal radial fracture site demonstrated a good tolerability with no serious adverse reactions as well as early accelerated trabecular bone healing as compared to control PBO and SoC patients.

Although the Hippo transcriptional coactivator YAP is considered oncogenic in many tissues, its roles in intestinal homeostasis and colorectal cancer (CRC) remain controversial. Here, we demonstrate that the Hippo kinases LATS1/2 and MST1/2, which inhibit YAP activity, are required for maintaining Wnt signaling and canonical stem cell function. Hippo inhibition induces a distinct epithelial cell state marked by low Wnt signaling, a wound-healing response, and transcription factor Klf6 expression. Notably, loss of LATS1/2 or overexpression of YAP is sufficient to reprogram Lgr5+ cancer stem cells to this state and thereby suppress tumor growth in organoids, patient-derived xenografts, and mouse models of primary and metastatic CRC. Finally, we demonstrate that genetic deletion of YAP and its paralog TAZ promotes the growth of these tumors. Collectively, our results establish the role of YAP as a tumor suppressor in the adult colon and implicate Hippo kinases as therapeutic vulnerabilities in colorectal malignancies.

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.

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.

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.

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 Objective Hemangioblastomas of the posterior cranial fossa and spinal cord in adults are excessively vascularized, well-differentiated, and scarce tumors with no metastatic potential. This paper discusses its surgical management and outcome, pointing out their morphological, radiological, and histopathological aspects. This report based on a personal series of six patients and on a literature review. Methods A single-institution personal 6-case series of adult patients diagnosed and operated on by a senior neurosurgeon (KIA) due to posterior cranial fossa or spinal cord hemangioblastoma was analyzed. For easier understanding of hemangioblastoma, we have classified them into four different types. Results The tumors, which were all surgically treated, were located in the posterior cranial fossa in five patients (4 cerebellar, 1 brain stem) and intramedullary in the thoracic spinal cord in one patient. All patients successfully recovered neurologically after a complete tumor resection, having no post-operative neurological deficit or other complications. Conclusion Surgical management of cerebellar and spinal cord hemangioblastoma in adults is highly dependent on its morphological features, as well as on microsurgical technique applied. Since huge differences exist between the cystic/nodular tumor type (Type 1) and the solid type and its two additional variants (Types 2–4), morphology is the most important consideration when deciding surgical approach. Despite significant morphological differences among different subtypes of hemangioblastomas, their histology appears to be relatively similar. Nonetheless, a meticulous and refined surgical technique has to be utilized to achieve a successful outcome.

Background Altered levels of many hematological parameters have been directly associated with diabetes in adults, while studies on children with type 1 diabetes mellitus are lacking. The aim of this study was to determine hematological indices in diabetic Bosnian children in comparison to healthy controls as well as to correlate their levels to blood glucose and hemoglobin A1c. Methods 100 healthy and 100 children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (age 1-18) were included in this study. Complete blood count, hemoglobin A1c, and glucose were tested. Results were analysed by IBM SPSS Statistics version 23. Results Significant differences (p<0.05) between healthy and diabetic children were found in relation to HbA1c, glucose, mean platelet volume, the number of white blood cells and erythrocytes, hematocrit, hemoglobin and MCH values. No gender differences or significant age differences were seen for hemoglobin, hematocrit, and MCV, while platelets, MPV, and MCH differed by age only in healthy children. When diabetic children were classified according to HbA1c levels, significant differences were seen for erythrocyte count and hematocrit value (p=0.013 and 0.019, respectively). The number of erythrocytes and white blood cells correlated significantly with HbA1c (p=0.037 and 0.027, respectively). Conclusions Lower levels of erythrocytes, hematocrit, and hemoglobin in diabetic compared to healthy children indicate possible development of anemia, while higher MCV, MCH, and MPV values indicate an alteration in erythrocyte morphology. Hematological indices could be a useful inexpensive tool in the diagnosis and follow up of type 1 diabetes in children.

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.

Purpose: To determine the potential value of an adapted questionnaire to discover the predictors of preceptors' higher interest in precepting pharmacy interns and to evaluate preceptors' motivational factors and incentives for teaching as well as their professional satisfaction. Method: A link to the survey study of adapted questionnaire (JSAMPPP) was e-mailed to all pharmacists registered with the Pharmaceutical Chamber of the Republic of Srpska. Pharmacists' demographic and work experience characteristics, their attitudes related to motivation for precepting, value of incentives for precepting, job satisfaction, and influence of interns on pharmacists' professional practice were obtained. Results: Half of the preceptors who reported feeling satisfied with their professional life also showed interest in teaching. In addition, teaching pharmacy students positively contributed to the overall job satisfaction of the preceptors. Pharmacy preceptors were found to be most motivated by intrinsic factors. The most valued incentives reported were those related to continuing education. Conclusions: The adapted questionnaire has potential value and it revealed the following predictors of preceptors' higher interest in precepting: enjoyment of teaching, satisfaction with professional life, satisfaction as a pharmacy preceptor, and interns' influence on preceptors. These identified predictors can be emphasized to improve pharmacy students' internship experiences, thereby reinforcing the pharmacy profession.