What is Specific about Art/Cultural Projects?

The present issue focuses on the contribution made by art/cultural initiatives to the development of multiple identity in some of the European cities having in mind the subjectivity of the artists and plurality of the surrounding cultures. The art/cultural projects (AES- Russia, Europe Art Train – Holland, Life Station – Austria and some others) with intercultural dimension have a special character to offer because: they are dealing with meaning, and enable dialogue between people in different social groups. The examples will be taken from different European countries, which aim to reinterpret the reality of life, to show, answer, and question its contradictions. The attention will be focused on their political, educational and aesthetic contribution to the community construction having in mind their desire for new intercultural policy and practices. Every artist crosses borders daily but those who choose to cross cultural borders (language, expression, music, tradition) enter into a fertile, but dangerous field. Artists do not aim specifically to produce multicultural work but since they are living in specific time, and since art is rooted in real life, the realities of everyday life are transposed into their work. This paper is fundamentally interested in the role that art projects can play in a modern society and promotes the initiative that links an artistic dimension to a form of interactive social urban situation. All projects are representing ‘laboratories’ that use public spaces. It is more than obvious that the social and the economic fields are not separated from the cultural one beside the tendency that is putting them in opposition as artists and the world rather than artists in the world. In the last two decades, the world of the arts has economised rapidly. Increasingly, artists have turned the economy into a subject of their own work. Art/cultural projects engage people’s creativity, and so lead to problem-solving. They encourage questioning, and the imagination of possible future actions. They offer self-expression, which is an essential characteristic of the active citizen. Some experiences from the art/cultural field are shifting attention towards the people themselves: their imagination, motivation, demands, fantasies and only then the city is becoming a cultural product, a community construction.Intercultural actions, Policy agenda, Art/cultural projects, Networking aspects

DSP Prototype of a Chaos-Based Multi-User Communication System: Design and Performance Analysis

This paper presents the implementation of a multi-user chaos-based communication system in DSP (digital signal processor) technology. The system is based on the chaotic phase shift keying (CPSK) digital modulation scheme, where chaotic signals are used as the spreading sequences of a CDMA (code division multiple access) system. Using chaotic signals offers the advantages of increased security and higher system capacity compared with conventional sequences. The aim of this hardware implementation was to enable a comparison against analytical performance results for CPSK. The transceiver prototype was implemented on a 32-bit floating-point TigerSHARC DSP. Its bit error rate (BER) characteristics were measured in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise. The prototype achieves excellent BER performance, matching that of theoretical CPSK. The effects of the limited number precision of the hardware platform are thus negligible. However, due to the limited concurrency of DSP, the multi-user system only supports low data rates. Despite this, the prototype demonstrates that the CPSK scheme is a promising and viable CDMA option for the future

Совершенствование транспортных комплексов гранитных карьеров

Проведен анализ основных технологических схем транспортирования горной массы в условиях гранитных карьеров Украины. Предложены новые технологические схемы карьерного транспорта с использованием канатных напочвенных дорог.Проведен анализ основных технологических схем транспортирования горной массы в условиях гранитных карьеров Украины. Предложены новые технологические схемы карьерного транспорта с использованием канатных напочвенных дорог

RESEARCH ON FINDINGS ABOUT CULTIVATION AND USE OF ANNUAL AND BIENNIAL FLOWERING PLANT SPECIES IN THE REGION OF ŠIBENIK AND KNIN – THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA

Most plant species that are cultivated in climatic conditions prevailing in the Republic of Croatia as annual or biennial flowering plants originate from warm and temperate climate zones of the planet. The plant groups in question are primarily used in privately-owned gardens and on various landscapes. They can be planted in raised flower beds, as well as used for landscape edging, rock gardens, decorative pots and they are also used as cut flowers. They are cost effective and provide the premises with a decorative value added. The objective of the survey research was to verify the findings about cultivation and use of annual and biennial flowering plants that are frequently used in gardens and landscaping in Šibenik and Knin. The survey research was conducted in May 2016 on a sample comprising of 30 respondents (for annual species) and 29 different respondents (for biennial species) from the region of the cities Šibenik and Knin and their outskirts. The respondents assessed the decorative features of six selected species per individual flower group and the method of their maintenance with an average grade (4). The participants in the survey showed a higher level of knowledge on annual flower species (67.7%-100%) compared with the knowledge on biennial flower species (57.9%-75.9%). The persons questioned correctly assessed the use of various species according to their function in the premises. Most respondents used decorative pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo) amongst annual flower plants for decoration of premises, whilst amongst biennial plants they primarily opted for daisies (Bellis perennis). The data provided can be used for the promotion of cultivation and use of flowering plants in practice

Polymorphic expression of glutathione transferases A1, M1, P1 and T1 in epithelial ovarian cancer: a Serbian case-control study

PURPOSE: Since several studies have proposed that epithelial ovarian cancer should not be considered as a single disease entity and that it results from an accumulation of genetic changes, we aimed to assess the polymorphic expression of major cytosolic glutathione S-transferases (GSTM1, T1, A1 and P1) with respect to ovarian cancer susceptibility and aggressiveness. METHODS: This case-control study was conducted on 93 newly diagnosed epithelial ovarian cancer patients and 178 healthy matched controls. The multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect homozygous deletions of GSTM1 and GSTT1 genes. Analysis of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) GSTA1 C69T was performed using PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), while for SNP GSTP1 Ile105Val real-time PCR was used. RESULTS: No significant association to ovarian cancer risk was found for individual GSTM1, GSTA1 and GSTP1 genotypes (p>0.05). However, the carriers of GSTT1-active genotype were at 2-fold higher risk of ovarian cancer development (95%CI: 1.00-4.01, p=0.049), which was even more elevated in the subgroup of patients with positive family history of cancer. Moreover, the frequency of all three GST genotypes that might be associated to ovarian cancer risk (GSTT1-active, GSTA1-active and GSTP1-referent) was significantly higher in patients than in the control group (p=0.042). Even more, patients who were carriers of combination of these three genotypes represented over 64% of the total number of patients within any of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stages of ovarian cancer. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides supportive evidence that GSTs might affect both susceptibility and progression of ovarian cance

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements