Local Self-Government in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina – Concept, Competences and Bodies

Opisuju se lokalna samouprava u Federaciji Bosne i Hercegovine (FBiH) te normativna rješenja i praktič na iskustva lokalne samouprave u FBiH. Predstavlja se zakonski okvir i struktura lokalne samouprave, kako na nivou Bosne i Hercegovine tako i na nivoima entiteta Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine i Republike Srpske. Lokalna samouprava jedno je od najsloženijih pitanja organizacije i funkcionisanja vlasti. Ona je neporeciva vrijednost i sastavni dio svakog savremenog demokratskog političkog sistema. Najvažniji evropski pravni dokument iz ove oblasti je Evropska po- velja o lokalnoj samoupravi koju je Bosna i Hercegovina rataificirala 1994.Local self-government in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, normative solutions, and some practical experiences of local self-government in the Federation are described. Furthermore, there is a description of the legal framework and the structure of local self-government predominantly concerning the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The most important European legal document in the field is the European Charter of Local Self-Government, ratified by Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1994

Legal Aspects of Local Self-Government Financing in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Od financiranja lokalne samouprave zavisi provođenje njenih nadležnosti. Bez adekvatnog financiranja ne možemo očekivati kvalitetnu lokalnu samoupravu za građane kao krajnje korisnike usluga. Financiranje lokalne samouprave predstavlja važan princip koji je zajamčen i Europskom poveljom o lokalnoj samoupravi. Bez značajnije financijske i materijalne autonomije, cjelokupan koncept i funkcioniranje lokalne samouprave gube na značaju. Cilj ovog članka jest predstavljanje osnovnih pitanja o financiranju lokalne samouprave u Bosni i Hercegovini, odnosno njenim entitetima Federaciji Bosne i Hercegovine i Republici Srpskoj. Analiza predstavlja međunarodnopravne odredbe o financiranju lokalne samouprave sadržane u Europskoj povelji o lokalnoj samoupravi i pravne odredbe iz nacionalnog zakonodavstva Bosne i Hercegovine i njezinih entiteta.The financing of local self-government influences the capacities of local units to perform their tasks. One cannot expect to receive high quality local services unless local units have sufficient financial means and are able to provide a wide range of services. The principle of local self-government financing is a basic principle guaranteed by the European Charter of Local Self-Government. The whole concept of local self-government and its functioning lose on their importance if there is not sufficient financial autonomy. The paper aims at presenting the basic issues of local self-government financing in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republic of Srpska. Some of the main international legal norms related to the financing of local self-government from the European Charter and national legal regulation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its entities are analysed in the paper. The analysis has shown that the funds allocated to Bosnian local self-government are far from sufficient. Furthermore, there is a significant difference in local self-government funding between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which spends 8.42 per cent of its budget on local finances, and the Republic of Srpska, which spends 24 per cent

Kooperationsintensität und Kooperationsförderung in der deutschen Laserindustrie

The high-tech strategy of the federal government defines eight key technologies, including laser industry as a part of the optical technologies. This study provides a first descriptive overview of cooperation propensity and public cooperation funding for German Laser Source manufacturers between 1990 and 2010. Results show that the industry in general was characterized by expansion even though there were periods with a high degree of fluctuations. The spatial analysis of firm entries and exits reveals some interesting insights. The majority of large laser source companies are located in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Thuringia. These regional distribution patterns hold for the absolute number of publicly funded cooperation projects. When considering the relative number of collaborative projects per firm and region the picture changes. It turns out that especially laser source manufacturers in Thuringia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hamburg show up the highest cooperation propensities and an above-average demand for public funding.R&D cooperation, innovation networks, public funding, laser industry

Detection of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) by using the RT- PCR and Serological Assay for Detecting Surface Antigen HBsAg

The diagnosis of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in Iraq depend on the clinical symptoms and the positively serological assay and within which direct examination of the surface antigen (HBsAg) in serum. CDC and WHO recently considered the detection viral DNA interaction by real time-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) as a standards laboratory for the diagnosis of HBV, therefore the aim of study is to evaluate this method in the diagnosis of HBV and a feasibility of this test as compared with the traditional way serological assay for direct detection of surface antigen (HbsAg) and recognize the ability of each test to find a relationship between the infection frequency and  the gender to know the capacity of each scan in determining the extent of the disease . were taken samples from patients (33male and27female) that clinically 60 bloods suspected to be infected with HBV and compared the direct serological assay with RT-PCR ratios. The result showed that were 100%, 63.3% and chi square values ​​were 1.279 , 1.865  respectively, F-test showed significant difference among females 10.22  and male 9.36  when examined by RT - PCR , followed by test Duncan which determined the different viral loads in both sexes . Our findings showed that RT –PCR offers a way sensitive, efficient and accurate for the diagnosis and determination the extent of HBV infection

Active wetting of epithelial tissues

Development, regeneration and cancer involve drastic transitions in tissue morphology. In analogy with the behavior of inert fluids, some of these transitions have been interpreted as wetting transitions. The validity and scope of this analogy are unclear, however, because the active cellular forces that drive tissue wetting have been neither measured nor theoretically accounted for. Here we show that the transition between 2D epithelial monolayers and 3D spheroidal aggregates can be understood as an active wetting transition whose physics differs fundamentally from that of passive wetting phenomena. By combining an active polar fluid model with measurements of physical forces as a function of tissue size, contractility, cell-cell and cell-substrate adhesion, and substrate stiffness, we show that the wetting transition results from the competition between traction forces and contractile intercellular stresses. This competition defines a new intrinsic lengthscale that gives rise to a critical size for the wetting transition in tissues, a striking feature that has no counterpart in classical wetting. Finally, we show that active shape fluctuations are dynamically amplified during tissue dewetting. Overall, we conclude that tissue spreading constitutes a prominent example of active wetting --- a novel physical scenario that may explain morphological transitions during tissue morphogenesis and tumor progression

The Relationship Between Serum 25 hydroxy Vitamin D Deficiency and Dietary Pattern in Baxshin Hospital, Sulaimani City

Vitamin D is one of the fat-soluble vitamins that have a great role in phosphate and calcium balance and bone structure. To our knowledge, there are limited data on the relation between dietary pattern and serum vitamin d concentration. Therefore, the aim of the current study is find out whether, there are any associations between serum vitamin D and with any specific dietary pattern. A cross sectional study was implemented in Baxshen hospital in order to find the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and its relation with dietary pattern among healthy participants. 1131 participants were enrolled in the current study male and female with age 18 – 65 years old, living in Sulaimani city and its districts have not used any supplement in the past 6 months before enrolling the study.  Two questionnaires were used for collecting of data, the first one was included demographical data of the participants. Including their age, gender, marital status, educational level, address, and etc. The second one was data on dietary pattern; particularly we focused on some vitamin D dietary sources. A three-day dietary records estimate was taken from the patients and this data were coded and put in dietary software (windiet) and then analyzed. The age of the sample ranged from 18 to 65 years old with the mean of 34.34 years old with a standard deviation of 12.6. One hundred sixty-two (14.3%) of the 1131 participants were female, nine hundred sixty-nine (85.7%) of the participants were male. 65.5 % of them exposure to sun less than 30, 34.5% exposure to sun more than half hour. About 84.6% of participants had severe deficiency of vitamin D and 6.9% of participants had adequate vitamin D. Fish, eggs and yogurt conception was common among those participants whom their serum vitamin D was adequate, in contrary, there were less consumed among those who had vitamin D deficiency.  The percentage of obese (99.8%) was significantly higher than normal weight and overweight among severe deficiency Vitamin D. Furthermore, a highly percentage of adequate was (93.6%) in the normal weight. The mean of vitamin D intake was 761 ± 195.65 IU, in normal weight group, and the mean of vitamin d intake was 125.98 ± 53.15 IU, in obese group. This study has concluded that the reach Dietary sources of vitamin D is not enough to provide the body adequate amount of vitamin D, in addition, Obese and overweight individuals tend to have less serum vitamin D status compared to normal weight individuals and finally recommended daily amount of vitamin d intake should be established for Kurdistan people

Contemporary Challenges and Solutions

CA18131 CP16/00163 NIS-3317 NIS-3318 decision 295741 C18/BM/12585940The human microbiome has emerged as a central research topic in human biology and biomedicine. Current microbiome studies generate high-throughput omics data across different body sites, populations, and life stages. Many of the challenges in microbiome research are similar to other high-throughput studies, the quantitative analyses need to address the heterogeneity of data, specific statistical properties, and the remarkable variation in microbiome composition across individuals and body sites. This has led to a broad spectrum of statistical and machine learning challenges that range from study design, data processing, and standardization to analysis, modeling, cross-study comparison, prediction, data science ecosystems, and reproducible reporting. Nevertheless, although many statistics and machine learning approaches and tools have been developed, new techniques are needed to deal with emerging applications and the vast heterogeneity of microbiome data. We review and discuss emerging applications of statistical and machine learning techniques in human microbiome studies and introduce the COST Action CA18131 “ML4Microbiome” that brings together microbiome researchers and machine learning experts to address current challenges such as standardization of analysis pipelines for reproducibility of data analysis results, benchmarking, improvement, or development of existing and new tools and ontologies.publishersversionpublishe

International nosocomial infection control consortium (INICC) report, data summary of 36 countries, for 2004-2009

The results of a surveillance study conducted by the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) from January 2004 through December 2009 in 422 intensive care units (ICUs) of 36 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe are reported. During the 6-year study period, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN; formerly the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance system [NNIS]) definitions for device-associated health care-associated infections, we gathered prospective data from 313,008 patients hospitalized in the consortium's ICUs for an aggregate of 2,194,897 ICU bed-days. Despite the fact that the use of devices in the developing countries' ICUs was remarkably similar to that reported in US ICUs in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were significantly higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals; the pooled rate of central line-associated bloodstream infection in the INICC ICUs of 6.8 per 1,000 central line-days was more than 3-fold higher than the 2.0 per 1,000 central line-days reported in comparable US ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia also was far higher (15.8 vs 3.3 per 1,000 ventilator-days), as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (6.3 vs. 3.3 per 1,000 catheter-days). Notably, the frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates to imipenem (47.2% vs 23.0%), Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (76.3% vs 27.1%), Escherichia coli isolates to ceftazidime (66.7% vs 8.1%), Staphylococcus aureus isolates to methicillin (84.4% vs 56.8%), were also higher in the consortium's ICUs, and the crude unadjusted excess mortalities of device-related infections ranged from 7.3% (for catheter-associated urinary tract infection) to 15.2% (for ventilator-associated pneumonia). Copyright © 2012 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030