The role of human resources on the economy: a study of the Balkan eu member states

In this paper we analyze the impact of the quality of human capital on the main economic indicators of South-Eastern Europe countries [SEE] at the NUTS 2 level. The subjects of this research are the human capital indicators of regional competitiveness. The quality of human capital depends largely on the age structure of the population and the quality of education. Those regions, which have the highest percentage of the working-age population and highly educated people, are able to achieve higher productivity and gain a competitive advantage over other regions. As main indicators of the quality of human capital we identified: population; persons aged 25-64 with tertiary education attainment; students in tertiary education and participation of adults aged 25-64 in education and training and human resources in science and technology. As main economic indicators, we identified: regional gross domestic product; employment and income of households. The aim of this paper is to determine whether there is a correlation between the indicators of the quality of human capital and economic indicators. As a main methodology we have used the correlation coefficient which shows interdependence of the analyzed indicators. As part of our analysis, we consider only EU member states that belong to the SEE countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. We conclude that in all countries there is a high multiple correlation coefficient between the indicators human resources in science and technology, number of students and employment.This paper is the result of the project No. 47007 III funded by the Ministry for Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia

Zitterbewegung of Klein-Gordon particles and its simulation by classical systems

The Klein-Gordon equation is used to calculate the Zitterbewegung (ZB, trembling motion) of spin-zero particles in absence of fields and in the presence of an external magnetic field. Both Hamiltonian and wave formalisms are employed to describe ZB and their results are compared. It is demonstrated that, if one uses wave packets to represent particles, the ZB motion has a decaying behavior. It is also shown that the trembling motion is caused by an interference of two sub-packets composed of positive and negative energy states which propagate with different velocities. In the presence of a magnetic field the quantization of energy spectrum results in many interband frequencies contributing to ZB oscillations and the motion follows a collapse-revival pattern. In the limit of non-relativistic velocities the interband ZB components vanish and the motion is reduced to cyclotron oscillations. The exact dynamics of a charged Klein-Gordon particle in the presence of a magnetic field is described on an operator level. The trembling motion of a KG particle in absence of fields is simulated using a classical model proposed by Morse and Feshbach -- it is shown that a variance of a Gaussian wave packet exhibits ZB oscillations.Comment: 16 pages and 7 figure

Outcome of patients admitted with acute coronary syndrome on palliative treatment: insights from the nationwide AMIS Plus Registry 1997-2014.

OBJECTIVE: Compliance with guidelines is increasingly used to benchmark the quality of hospital care, however, very little is known on patients admitted with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and treated palliatively. This study aimed to evaluate the baseline characteristics and outcomes of these patients. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: Eighty-two Swiss hospitals enrolled patients from 1997 to 2014. PARTICIPANTS: All patients with ACS enrolled in the AMIS Plus registry (n=45,091) were analysed according to three treatment groups: palliative treatment, defined as use of aspirin and analgesics only and no reperfusion; conservative treatment, defined as any treatment including antithrombotics or anticoagulants, heparins, P2Y12 inhibitors, GPIIb/IIIa but no pharmacological or mechanical reperfusion; and reperfusion treatment (thrombolysis and/or percutaneous coronary intervention during initial hospitalisation). The primary outcome measure was in-hospital mortality and the secondary measure was 1-year mortality. RESULTS: Of the patients, 1485 (3.3%) were palliatively treated, 11,119 (24.7%) were conservatively treated and 32,487 (72.0%) underwent reperfusion therapy. In 1997, 6% of all patients were treated palliatively and this continuously decreased to 2% in 2013. Baseline characteristics of palliative patients differed in comparison with conservatively treated and reperfusion patients in age, gender and comorbidities (all p<0.001). These patients had more in-hospital complications such as postadmission onset of cardiogenic shock (15.6% vs 5.2%; p<0.001), stroke (1.8% vs 0.8%; p=0.001) and a higher in-hospital mortality (25.8% vs 5.6%; p<0.001).The subgroup of patients followed 1 year after discharge (n=8316) had a higher rate of reinfarction (9.2% vs 3.4%; p=0.003) and mortality (14.0% vs 3.5%; p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Patients with ACS treated palliatively were older, sicker, with more heart failure at admission and very high in-hospital mortality. While refraining from more active therapy may often constitute the most humane and appropriate approach, we think it is important to also evaluate these patients and include them in registries and outcome evaluations. CLINICAL TRIAL NUMBER: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01 305 785

Is pretreatment with Beta-blockers beneficial in patients with acute coronary syndrome?

OBJECTIVES: The role of beta-blockers in the treatment of hypertension is discussed controversially and the data showing a clear benefit in acute coronary syndromes (ACS) were obtained in the thrombolysis era. The goal of this study was to analyze the role of pretreatment with beta-blockers in patients with ACS. METHODS: Using data from the Acute Myocardial Infarction in Switzerland (AMIS Plus) registry, we analyzed outcomes of patients with beta-blocker pretreatment in whom they were continued during hospitalization (group A), those without beta-blocker pretreatment but with administration after admission (group B) and those who never received them (group C). Major adverse cardiac events defined as composed endpoint of re-infarction and stroke (during hospitalization) and/or in-hospital death were compared between the groups. RESULTS: A total of 24,709 patients were included in the study (6,234 in group A, 12,344 in group B, 6,131 in group C). Patients of group B were younger compared to patients of group A and C (62.5, 67.6 and 68.4, respectively). In the multivariate analysis, odds ratio for major adverse cardiac events was 0.59 (CI 0.47-0.74) for group A and 0.66 (CI 0.55-0.83) for group B, while group C was taken as a reference. CONCLUSIONS: beta-Blocker therapy is beneficial in ACS and they should be started in those who are not pretreated and continued in stable patients who had been on chronic beta-blocker therapy before

Renormalization group scale-setting from the action - a road to modified gravity theories

The renormalization group (RG) corrected gravitational action in Einstein-Hilbert and other truncations is considered. The running scale of the renormalization group is treated as a scalar field at the level of the action and determined in a scale-setting procedure recently introduced by Koch and Ramirez for the Einstein-Hilbert truncation. The scale-setting procedure is elaborated for other truncations of the gravitational action and applied to several phenomenologically interesting cases. It is shown how the logarithmic dependence of the Newton's coupling on the RG scale leads to exponentially suppressed effective cosmological constant and how the scale-setting in particular RG corrected gravitational theories yields the effective $f(R)$ modified gravity theories with negative powers of the Ricci scalar $R$. The scale-setting at the level of the action at the non-gaussian fixed point in Einstein-Hilbert and more general truncations is shown to lead to universal effective action quadratic in Ricci tensor.Comment: v1: 15 pages; v2: shortened to 10 pages, main results unchanged, published in Class. Quant. Gra

A comprehensive approach to lung function in bronchiectasis

Background: International guidelines recommend simple spirometry for bronchiectasis patients. However, pulmonary pathophysiology of bronchiectasis is very complex and still poorly understood. Our objective was to characterize lung function in bronchiectasis and identify specific functional sub-groups. Methods: This was a multicenter, prospective, observational study enrolling consecutive adults with bronchiectasis during stable sate. Patients underwent body-plethysmography before and after acute bronchodilation testing, diffusing lung capacity (DLCO) with a 3-year follow up. Air trapping and hyperinflation were a residual volume (RV) > 120%predicted and a total lung capacity>120%predicted. Acute reversibility was: \u394FEV1 6512% and 200 mL from baseline (FEV1rev) and \u394RV 6510% reduction from baseline (RVrev). Sensitivity analyses included different reversibility cutoffs and excluded patients with concomitant asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Results: 187 patients were enrolled (median age: 68 years; 29.4% males). Pathophysiological abnormalities often overlapped and were distributed as follows: air trapping (70.2%), impaired DLCO (55.7%), airflow obstruction (41.1%), hyperinflation (15.7%) and restriction (8.0%). 9.7% of patients had normal lung function. RVrev (17.6%) was more frequent than FEV1rev (4.3%). Similar proportions were found after multiple sensitivity analyses. Compared with non-reversible patients, patients with RVrev had more severe obstruction (mean(SD) FEV1%pred: 83.0% (24.4) vs 68.9% (26.2); P = 0.02) and air trapping (RV%pred, 151.9% (26.6) vs 166.2% (39.9); P = 0.028). Conclusions: Spirometry alone does not encompass the variety of pathophysiological characteristics in bronchiectasis. Air trapping and diffusion impairment, not airflow obstruction, represent the most common functional abnormalities. RVrev is related to worse lung function and might be considered in bronchiectasis\u2019 workup and for patients\u2019 functional stratification

Real-time resource availability signaling in IP multimedia subsystem networks

IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) allows the use of unlicensed, non-dedicated and nondeterministic access networks for delivering IP multimedia services. Providing end-to-end Quality-of-Service (QoS) for resource demanding real-time services (e.g. real-time multimedia) over such networks is a challenging task due to varying resource availability of the network and the end-devicei during a single sessionii. A common solution to this problem is adapting service quality and type according to availability of system resources, which requires end-to-end monitoring and signaling of resource availability during a single session. This paper presents an extension of the IMS architecture for real-time resource availability monitoring and signaling. The novelty of the proposed extension is twofold. It takes into account uncontrolled access networks with no resource reservation on the one hand, and end devices on the other. Two system architecture components are introduced for monitoring and signaling of the real-time resource availability in both networks (e.g. bandwidth, buffer space), and end-devices (e.g. battery, CPU, memory, storage), namely a Resource Manager (RM) and a Resource Availability Server (RAS). Our solution does not require any modifications of the IMS architecture and can be implemented as a plug-in

Mucins and Asthma : Are We Headed to the Revolutionary Road?

Mucus represents the first line of defense of our respiratory tract and mucociliary clearance is essential for maintaining the homeostasis of airway epithelium. The latter mechanisms are altered in asthma and mucus plugging of proximal and distal airways is the main cause of death in cases of fatal asthma. Starting from the influential review performed by Luke R. Bonser and David J. Erle in 2017, we discuss the latest evidence in terms of mucins regulation and potential treatment of mucus hypersecretion and tissue remodeling in severe asthma