Ranking institutions within a university based on their scientific performance: A percentile-based approach

Over the recent years, the subject of university rankings has attracted a significant amount of attention and sparked a scientific debate. However, few studies on this topic focus on elaborating the scientific performance of universities’ institutions, such as institutes, schools, and faculties. For this reason, the aim of this study is to design an appropriate framework for evaluating and ranking institutions within a university. The devised methodology ranks institutions based on the number of published papers, mean normalized citation score (MNCS), and four percentile-based indicators using the I-distance method. We applied the proposed framework and scrutinized the University of Belgrade (UB) as the biggest and the best-ranked university in Serbia. Thus, 31 faculties and 11 institutes were compared. Namely, an in-depth percentile-based analysis of the UB papers indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIe) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for the period 2008-2011 is provided. The results clearly show considerable discrepancies in two occasions: first, when it comes to the question of leading author, and second, when it comes to analyzing the percentile rank classes (PRs) of groups of faculties

Vascular access failure-cause or complication of central venous catheterization: Case report

© 2020, University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Science. All rights reserved. The quality of life and patient survival rate in terminal chronic renal insufficiency depends on the duration of vascular approaches. Dialysis catheters are used to establish an adequate vascular approach when emergency hemodialysis is indicated and when all approaches are exhausted. Complications of CVC can be classified into three categories: mechanical (hematoma, arterial puncture, pneumothorax, hemothorax, catheter misplacement, and stenosis), infectious (insertion site infection, CVC colonization, and bloodstream infection) and thrombotic (deep vein thrombosis). Despite the increasing prevalence of haemodialysis patients with complex access issues, there remains no consensus on the definition of vascular access failure or end-stage vascular access. The dilema in these cases remains whether the generalized vascular insufficiency is the cause or a complication of exhausted vascular accesses. This case report is one of the examples of combined complications with generalized vascular access insufficiency. During the year and a half of the chronic dialysis program, the patient had several changes of vascular approaches, and each approach became dysfunctional in certain time due to various causes. After six months of successful hemodialysis, the patient was admitted with signs of infection and during hospitalization was again subjected to multiple changes of the vascular approach due to infection, thrombosis, and vascular access failure

Galectin-3 in critically ill patients with sepsis and/or trauma: A good predictor of outcome or not?

Severe sepsis and/or trauma complicated with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome are leading causes of death in critically ill patients. The aim of this prospective, observa-tional, single centre study was to assess the prognostic value of galectin-3 regarding outcome in critically ill patients with severe trauma and/or severe sepsis. The outcome measure was hospital mortality. In total, 75 critically ill patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit of the tertiary university hospital were enrolled in a prospective observational study. Blood samples were collected upon fulfilling Sepsis-3 criteria and for a trau-matized Injury Severity Score > 25 points. Levels of galectin-3 were significantly higher in nonsur-vivors on the day of enrolment – Day 1 (p<0.05). On Day 1, the area under the curve (AUC) for the galectin-3 for lethal outcome was 0.602. At a cut-off level of 262.82 ng/mL, the sensitivity was 53%, and the specificity was 69.7%, which was objectively determined by a Youden index of 0.20. The discriminative power of galectin-3 in predicting outcome was statistically significant. Galectin-3 on Day 1 is a fairly good predictor of lethal outcome

Effect of Consecutive Cut and Vegetation Stage on Cncps Protein Fractions in Alfalfa (Medicago Sativa L.)

Crude protein (CP) of forages can be separated into fractions of differentiated abilities to provide available amino acids in the lower gut of ruminants. This knowledge is critical to develop feeding systems and to predict animal responses. The objective of this research was to asses whether CP concentrations and the relative proportion of CP fractions by CNCPS in alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) cv K-28 were affected by different cuts and vegetation stages. Fraction B2, which represents true protein of intermediate ruminal degradation rate, was the largest single fraction in all cuts except in the third cut. Soluble fraction A was less than 400 g kg-1 CP in all cuts except in the third cut, while the unavailable fraction C ranged from 56 g kg-1 CP in the first cut to 134.8 g kg-1 CP in the fourth cut. The remaining fraction B3 (true protein of very low degradation rate) only represented less than 60 g kg-1 of total CP. Results showed that undegraded dietary protein represented a small proportion of total CP in alfalfa from the first to the fourth cut

Effect of Nitrogen Fertiliser and Lime on the Floristic Composition, Soil Microbes and Dry Matter Yield of Danthonietum calycinae Grassland

Natural grasslands are significant resources for forage production, which is not exploited enough, mostly because of low production, as a result of bad grasslands management. The research has been carried out on the association Danthonietum calycinae to evaluate the effects of different nitrogen application rates (N20, N80 and N140) and lime (1 tha-1) on the floristic composition, soil microbes and dry matter yield. Botanic composition was strongly influenced by the treatments, especially by N applications. Nitrogen fertilisation led to significant increase of grass species in the association (from 57% to 82%), while higher rate of nitrogen caused a significant decrease of plants from other families (especially legumes). Application of low and medium rate of nitrogen positively effect on microbial abundant in soil, but the highest dose (140 kg N) reduced all microbial count, except fungi. Mineral nitrogen fertilisation had a favourable effect on dry matter yield in all treatments. The highest increase in dry matter yield relative to the control was in N140 treatments (6.66 t ha-1). Results indicated that optimal applications of nutrients for this association is application of PK and lime and 80 kg of nitrogen which enable high yield (6.38 t ha-1) in comparison with control (3.16 t ha-1) and preserving soil fertility and the environment at the same time

Acute Iliac and Femoral Arterial Thrombosis Secondary to Total Hip Arthroplasty

In the presented case report, we evaluated the mechanism of the external iliac, the common femoral and the superficial femoral arterial thrombosis secondary to total hip arthroplasty. A 75-year-old female sufferd from 5.5 cm shorter left lower limb and same sade coxarthritis. Next day after arthroplasty and eqalisation of the lower limbs, an acute ishemia of the treated leg was presented. Multyscan CT angiography revealed the presence of the external iliac, the common femoral and the superficial femoral arterial thrombosis. From the best of our knowledge, it seems to be the only case of this arterial segment thrombosis after total hip arthroplasty and equalistaion of the lower limbs reported

A giant exulcerated phyllodes breast tumor a case report

© 2020, University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Science. All rights reserved. Phyllodes tumors of the breast can be benign, malignant, or borderline. Benign and borderline tumors are rare tumor types that have a positive outlook and high survival rate, while the risk of recurrence is typical for malignant breast tumors. Giant phyllodes tumors are larger than 10 cm in diameter and demand a serious diagnostic and treatment approach. In this study we present a case of a female patient treated for an exulcerated breast carcinoma-a giant borderline phyllodes tumor of the breast. The patient presented to the department for the right breast lump with ulcerated skin and nipple abnormalities. The core biopsy was performed and the patient was diagnosed with a benign tumor. Simple mastectomy was performed and final histopathological report revealed a borderline phyllodes tumor. Diagnosis and treatment of a giant phyllodes tumor remain a great challenge for the surgeons. Establishing the preoperative diagnosis based on histopathological findings is imperative to disease management. Surgery is the mainstay of treatment and mastectomy has been the traditional procedure; in cases where suspicious findings in the axilla are revealed, radical mastectomy is performed and the axilla is to be dissected

Ranking institutions within a university based on their scientific performance: A percentile-based approach

Over the recent years, the subject of university rankings has attracted a significant amount of attention and sparked a scientific debate. However, few studies on this topic focus on elaborating the scientific performance of universities’ institutions, such as institutes, schools, and faculties. For this reason, the aim of this study is to design an appropriate framework for evaluating and ranking institutions within a university. The devised methodology ranks institutions based on the number of published papers, mean normalized citation score (MNCS), and four percentile-based indicators using the I-distance method. We applied the proposed framework and scrutinized the University of Belgrade (UB) as the biggest and the best-ranked university in Serbia. Thus, 31 faculties and 11 institutes were compared. Namely, an in-depth percentile-based analysis of the UB papers indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIe) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for the period 2008-2011 is provided. The results clearly show considerable discrepancies in two occasions: first, when it comes to the question of leading author, and second, when it comes to analyzing the percentile rank classes (PRs) of groups of faculties

Floristički sastav i prinos biomase travnjaka Danthonietum calycinae pod uticajem đubrenja i kalcizacije

The aim of this study was evaluated change of botanical composition and dry matter yield influenced by different fertilizers (control, P60K60, N.60P60K60) and lime (without lime and 1000 kg ha-1 lime) of Danthonietum calycinae grassland type, in central part of Serbia. Nitrogen fertilisation treatments led to an increase of grass species, but also decreased plants from other families. Tretmant P60K60 with lime stimulated an increase of legumes in biomass in first and second year of investigation. Aplication of nitrogen increase forage yield in both years of investigation. Effect of P60K60 tretmans and lime on increasing dry matter yield was observed in second year.Cilj rada je bio ispitivanje uticaja đubrenja i kalcizacije na floristički sastav i prinos biljne zajednice Danthonietum calycinae, u centralnom delu Srbije. Ispitivani su tretmani đubrenja (kontrola, P60K60 i N60P60K60) i kalcifikacije (bez kreča i 1000 kg ha-1). Na tretmanina na kojima je unešen mineralni azot došlo je do porasta udela trava, a pada udela biljaka ostalih familija. Najpovoljniji uslovi za razvoj leguminoza bili su na tretmanima PK sa krečom, u obe godine istraživanja. Povoljan uticaj mineralnog azota uočen je već u prvoj godini, dok je unošenje fosfornih i kalijumovih đubriva dalo efekta na prinos tek u drugoj godini istraživanja

Cardiopoietic cell therapy for advanced ischemic heart failure: results at 39 weeks of the prospective, randomized, double blind, sham-controlled CHART-1 clinical trial

Cardiopoietic cells, produced through cardiogenic conditioning of patients' mesenchymal stem cells, have shown preliminary efficacy. The Congestive Heart Failure Cardiopoietic Regenerative Therapy (CHART-1) trial aimed to validate cardiopoiesis-based biotherapy in a larger heart failure cohort