Delays in Construction Projects: Causes and Mitigation

During execution of construction projects, the works proceed at a slower pace than planned, and delays frequently appear. Their appearance leads to additional cost generation, conflicts among project participants and, in worst-case scenario, litigation. The presented study uses online survey as the research tool in order to determine the current level of use of time management techniques and tools in Slovenian construction industry. The obtained results show that the construction companies could use the available contemporary time management tools in larger extent, as well as more efficiently in order to manage their projects more efficiently

Preclinical validation of rilmenidine for repurposing in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Introduction: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has dismal prognosis, as there are no screening tests available, most often is diagnosed in the metastatic phase of the disease and is refractory to conventional, targeted and immunotherapy. We have examined the expression and role of the novel tumor suppressor nischarin (NISCH) in PDAC and the effects of treatment with the agonist rilmenidine (approved for treatment of hypertension) in order to determine the potential of nischarin agonists for repurposing in this deadly disease.EACR 2023: Innovative Cancer Science, 12-15 June 2023, Torino, Ital

Application of Landsat-derived NDVI in monitoring and assessment of vegetation cover changes in Central Serbia

This paper evaluates the application of the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in the monitoring and assessment of temporal vegetation cover changes (from 2006 to 2014) in three municipalities of Central Serbia: Topola, Jagodina and Kuršumlija. Additionally, special focus is placed on the analysis of the forest areas and the possible use of NDVI in the forest management sector. Results of the NDVI applied through Idrisi software identify all vegetation cover types and their typical values for presented case studies and observed periods. Obtained results for Serbian case studies indicate two major observations outlined for the investigated period. It was noticed that vegetation cover is experiencing a certain decrease, and that certain discrepancies exists between the NDVI and official forest area statistics for certain municipalities. The study outlines the positive outcomes of the applied remote sensing techniques, especially for southern Serbian municipalities where illegal logging activities are pronounced. Hence, this method proved very promising for countries performing national forest inventories, such as Serbia, providing local forest managers with several essential up-to-date information about vegetation cover changes on an annual basis. © 2019 Carpathian Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Multiple-criteria decision support system in highway infrastructure management

Highway infrastructure represents a significant part of the public assets, and through its lifetime, is exposed to various deterioration processes leading to the depreciation of its value. It is therefore of vital importance to manage these assets aiming to reduce the loss of their value with time to a minimum. A typical task of road managers is making decisions related to maintenance, repair and rehabilitation based on data regarding the existing condition, risk of its use, life cycle costs and age. Road infrastructure is complex, and therefore the optimal choice of planned interventions is a delicate task often left to the road managers’ subjective judgment. The main goal of research work presented in the paper is the development of a multiple criteria decision support system to determine the priority ranking of asset rehabilitation projects. Results are presented for a selected case study that consists of 27 overpasses for a highway section. The data on the condition of crossovers obtained by regular inspection along their contribution to a structured database are essential. The selection of the set of asset rehabilitation projects is carried out by using the developed decision support system that includes the budget constraint option. The selected set of asset maintenance/rehabilitation projects meets best the pre-defined combination of several criteria and therefore yields the maximized overall benefit. The results showing the selection criteria employed in the decision process and relative importance are crucial in obtaining the targeted goals. The selected criteria should therefore reflect the needs of the users and the actual conditions related to the assets

The effect of partial root drying on growth and ions content and distribution on tomato

Partial root drying (PRD) is a new irrigation and growing plants technique which improves the water use efficiency without significant yield reduction. The aim of the presented paper was to investigate the effect of PRD on tomato plant growth, water-use efficiency (WUE) and ions content and distribution in tomato organs. Obtained results showed that as a consequence of PRD treatment the growth of the whole plants was reduced, but not fruit, although WUE was increased. Water potential values of PRD plants did not differ significantly from those of well-watered plants. These results support the hypothesis that a root-sourced signal and not a leaf-sourced signal may be responsible for triggering growth reduction in these PRD plants. Data for ions content (N, P, Ca, Mn, Zn and Cu) and their distribution between roots, shoots and fruits showed that PRD treatment only significantly changed N content in the shoots

Genetic divergence estimated by RAPD markers and its relationship with hybrid performance in popcorn

The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic diversity of six popcorn inbred lines and to determine the relationship between combing ability and heterosis for grain yield and popping expansion and genetic distance, using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) molecular markers. The genetic distance based on Dice coefficient ranged from 0.086 to 0.212. The highest genetic distance was found between inbreds ZPL2 and ZPL5. Hybrid combination of these two inbreds has the highest grain yield, grain yield heterosis and popping expansion heterosis. A positive and significant correlation was observed in parental lines between grain yield and SCA with genetic distance based on RAPD markers. The genetic divergence, however, was not enough to determine the grain yield heterosis as well as heterosis and specific combining ability for popping expansion

Some characteristics of anthropological status of women in Novi Sad – Republic of Serbia

The aim of this study was to determine the anthropological status of adult females and the prevalence of females with potential health risk using the indices of obesity. The anthropological study was conducted from 2011 to 2013 in Novi Sad, (the north of Serbia). The tested group consisted of 310 women, with mean age 41.42±6.86, involved in the project "The impact of physical activity on the risk factors in the working population." Nutritional condition was determined using the body mass index (BMI kg/m2 ), while the waist circumference and WHR were used for assessing the central obesity. According to the average BMI, the younger females are predominantly with normal weight, while higher percent of older females is characterised with pre-obesity. In total, 45.85% of females are with excessive body weight, 34.62% of them being classified as overweight and 11.23% as obese. Central obesity is more frequent in older females aged up to 40. Potential health risk increases with age, and very high health risk from abdominal and overall obesity was observed in 6.25% of younger and 13,25% of older women. The data therefore point to the necessity of continuous monitoring and a combination of existing programs with other forms of organized physical activity