PERCEPTION OF ENTREPRENEURS REGARDING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IN MONTENEGRO: REGIONAL ANALYSIS

The goal of this work is to analyze the economic ambient by entrepreneurs through the identification of the most significant barriers exerting influences on the development of business in Montenegro. For the needs of researching, the questionnaire was created consisting of 30 questions, including five groups of barriers. The questionnaire was filled in by 102 business people with their main offices in Montenegro. Collected data were processed by means of the statistical processing data program SPSS20. The descriptive analysis was used with a view of getting the hierarchy of observed barriers, while the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for determining statistically significant differences regarding to observed barriers by entrepreneurs classified into three geographical regions (maritime, central and northern). Financial resources, procedures in the local competence and centralized procedures were recognized by entrepreneurs as barriers of the greatest importance on entrepreneurial development. Statistically significant differences between the observed barriers by entrepreneurs in three geographical regions appeared in case of development inequality of regions and administrative procedures in employment

Energy and economy savings in the process of methanol synthesis using Pinch technology

A heat exchanger network (HEN) for the process of methanol synthesis has been studied by pinch design analysis. Great economic and energy savings were realized by the pinch analysis in comparison to the existing plant. Also, it was found that it is possible to reduce the requirements for the consumption of utilities. The HEN was reconstruded by adding new heat exchangers. In order to produce new HEN, the capital costs had to be increased, but the total cost trade-off between the capital and energy costs will be decrease by 30 %

King's Sarcoidosis Questionnaire (KSQ) - Validation study in Serbian speaking population of sarcoidosis patients.

IntroductionSarcoidosis is a multiorgan, multisystem chronic disease of unknown etiology and unpredictable course. Health status is reduced in sarcoidosis and assessing it is a difficult multitask effort due to many faces this disease might have. Recently, a new questionnaire for assessing health status in sarcoidosis was developed by a group of authors from England-King's Sarcoidosis Questionnaire (KSQ). The benefit of KSQ is the ability to develop the best care plan for the patient, as well as to differentiate the efficacy of the administered treatment.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to validate the KSQ in Serbian speaking population of sarcoidosis patients. The test itself is a modular, multi-organ health status measure for patients with sarcoidosis for use in clinic and the evaluation of therapies. The correlation of KSQ with different clinical course of sarcoidosis (acute vs chronic disease) and with the clinical outcome status (COS) in sarcoidosis was also investigated.MethodsA total of 159 biopsy positive sarcoidosis patients participated in this study. The average age of the participants was 49.67, majority was female (67.3%) and majority had only pulmonary form of sarcoidosis (71.7%). KSQ - new disease-specific health status instrument, was compared with 5 other already existing instruments already used and validated in sarcoidosis (Saint George Respiratory Questionnaire- SGRQ, Daily Activity List -DAL, Fatigue Assessment Scale- FAS, Medical Research Council dyspnea scale-MRC, Borg Dyspnea Scale and 15D as general questionnaire.ResultsKSQ has significant correlation with other quality of life questionnaires already used in sarcoidosis. Translated version of KSQ shows significant internal reliability, similar to the original KSQ. Serbian version of KSQ has significant correlation with different clinical course of sarcoidosis and with COS as well. The translated version of KSQ is reliable sarcoidosis specific instrument for assessing health status in these patients

BMP signaling pathway in the rat model of TNBS colitis following BMP7 therapy

Beyond stimulating bone formation, the bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are important in development, inflammation and malignancy of the gut. We have previously shown that BMP7 has a regenerative, anti-inflammatory and anti- proliferative effect on experimental inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in rat. To further investigate the BMP signaling pathway we monitored the effect of BMP7 therapy on the BMP signaling components in rat colon during different stages of experimentally induced colitis by 2, 4, 6- trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS). The results showed increased of BMP2 and -7 expression in the chronic phase of colitis. BMP7 treatment slightly enhanced BMP4, -6 and -7, and suppressed the BMP2 expression. CTGF and noggin expression was elevated in TNBS colitis, and slightly decreased upon BMP7 therapy. BMP receptor I expression was unchanged, while BMP receptor II was increased at day 14 and 30 of TNBS inflammation, and decreased following BMP7 therapy. BMP7 increased Smad1, Smad3 and Smad4. Inhibitory Smads were increased in colitis, but not in rats treated with BMP7. We conclude that BMP signaling is preserved in colon during TNBS-induced colonic inflammation and could be modulated with BMP7, suggesting that IBD is a reversible process with self-recovery features

Expression of bone morphogenetic proteins and cartilage-derived morphogenetic proteins during osteophyte formation in humans

Bone- and cartilage-derived morphogenetic proteins (BMPs and CDMPs), which are TGFβ superfamily members, are growth and differentiation factors that have been recently isolated, cloned and biologically characterized. They are important regulators of key events in the processes of bone formation during embryogenesis, postnatal growth, remodelling and regeneration of the skeleton. In the present study, we used immunohistochemical methods to investigate the distribution of BMP-2, -3, -5, -6, -7 and CDMP-1, -2, -3 in human osteophytes (abnormal bony outgrowths) isolated from osteoarthritic hip and knee joints from patients undergoing total joint replacement surgery. All osteophytes consisted of three different areas of active bone formation: (1) endochondral bone formation within cartilage residues; (2) intramembranous bone formation within the fibrous tissue cover and (3) bone formation within bone marrow spaces. The immunohistochemistry of certain BMPs and CDMPs in each of these three different bone formation sites was determined. The results indicate that each BMP has a distinct pattern of distribution. Immunoreactivity for BMP-2 was observed in fibrous tissue matrix as well as in osteoblasts; BMP-3 was mainly present in osteoblasts; BMP-6 was restricted to young osteocytes and bone matrix; BMP-7 was observed in hypertrophic chondrocytes, osteoblasts and young osteocytes of both endochondral and intramembranous bone formation sites. CDMP-1, -2 and -3 were strongly expressed in all cartilage cells. Surprisingly, BMP-3 and -6 were found in osteoclasts at the sites of bone resorption. Since a similar distribution pattern of bone morphogenetic proteins was observed during embryonal bone development, it is suggested that osteophyte formation is regulated by the same molecular mechanism as normal bone during embryogenesis