The Effects of Foreign Trade Liberalization and Financial Flows between Slovenia and the EU after the Accession

The new version of the CGE model of the Slovenian economy, based on the 1998 SAM, was used for simulations of the consequences of further foreign trade liberalization after 1998 as the outcome of the finished processes of implementation of Free Trade Agreements and the European Agreement, adaptation of the Customs Tariff to the EU Common External Tariff for the manufacturing products, adoption of the EU Common External Tariff after the accession of Slovenia to the EU as well as the estimated transfers between both budgets. Results obtained show a positive net outcome of the Slovenian accession to the EU in the long run. On the other hand, rational behaviour of the government will certainly moderate possible short run negative effects and improve favourable long run effects.Computable General Equilibrium Model, EU-Accession, Financial Flows, Trade Liberalization, Transition Country, Regionalism

Influence of Fertilization System on Wheat Yields in Terms of Global Climate Change

Over the last few decades, wheat production, both in Serbia and worldwide, has been practiced under characteristic agrometeorological conditions. It has generally been affected by specific strongly marked agrometeorological and climate extremes, most notably extreme temperature and drought events during critical periods in the growing season, which mostly had a negative impact on the growth, development and yield of wheat in Central Serbia.This paper presents results and discussion on both the potential effect of climate change on winter wheat yield and the possibility to alleviate it through an appropriately adjusted fertilization system.The present study on the effect of different rates and ratios of NPK fertilizers on grain yield in seven winter wheat cultivars under different (dry and “normal“) conditions during the year was conducted in a long-term field experiment at the Small Grains Research Centre in Kragujevac over a period of seven years (2000/01-2006/07).Depending on the fertilization treatment, the average yield reduction in dry years showed 50% variation relative to “normal” years. The highest reduction in grain yield and other productive traits of wheat in dry years was observed in the treatment involving nitrogen nutrition, particularly lower application rates. As compared to the non-treated control, the use of complete NPK fertilization having an increased amount of phosphorus resulted in the lowest yield reduction during the dry years that were unfavorable for winter wheat production. The average grain yield reduction in dry years was lowest in wheat cultivar Matica and highest in Kg-100, respectively

Low-Latency ECDSA Signature Verification - A Road Towards Safer Traffic -

Car-to-car and Car-to-Infrastructure messages exchanged in Intelligent Transportation Systems can reach reception rates up to and over 1000 messages per second. As these messages contain ECDSA signatures this puts a very heavy load onto the verification hardware. In fact the load is so high that currently it can only be achieved by implementations running on high end CPUs and FPGAs. These implementations are far from cost-effective nor energy efficient. In this paper we present an ASIC implementation of a dedicated ECDSA verification engine that can reach verification rates of up to 27.000 verifications per second using only 1.034 kGE

Influence of Fertilization System on Wheat Yields in Terms of Global Climate Change

Over the last few decades, wheat production, both in Serbia and worldwide, has been practiced under characteristic agrometeorological conditions. It has generally been affected by specific strongly marked agrometeorological and climate extremes, most notably extreme temperature and drought events during critical periods in the growing season, which mostly had a negative impact on the growth, development and yield of wheat in Central Serbia.This paper presents results and discussion on both the potential effect of climate change on winter wheat yield and the possibility to alleviate it through an appropriately adjusted fertilization system.The present study on the effect of different rates and ratios of NPK fertilizers on grain yield in seven winter wheat cultivars under different (dry and “normal“) conditions during the year was conducted in a long-term field experiment at the Small Grains Research Centre in Kragujevac over a period of seven years (2000/01-2006/07).Depending on the fertilization treatment, the average yield reduction in dry years showed 50% variation relative to “normal” years. The highest reduction in grain yield and other productive traits of wheat in dry years was observed in the treatment involving nitrogen nutrition, particularly lower application rates. As compared to the non-treated control, the use of complete NPK fertilization having an increased amount of phosphorus resulted in the lowest yield reduction during the dry years that were unfavorable for winter wheat production. The average grain yield reduction in dry years was lowest in wheat cultivar Matica and highest in Kg-100, respectively

SPONGENT: The Design Space of Lightweight Cryptographic Hashing

The design of secure yet efficiently implementable cryptographic algorithms is a fundamental problem of cryptography. Lately, lightweight cryptography - optimizing the algorithms to fit the most constrained environments - has received a great deal of attention, the recent research being mainly focused on building block ciphers. As opposed to that, the design of lightweight hash functions is still far from being well-investigated with only few proposals in the public domain. In this article, we aim to address this gap by exploring the design space of lightweight hash functions based on the sponge construction instantiated with PRESENT-type permutations. The resulting family of hash functions is called SPONGENT. We propose 13 SPONGENT variants -- for different levels of collision and (second) preimage resistance as well as for various implementation constraints. For each of them we provide several ASIC hardware implementations - ranging from the lowest area to the highest throughput. We make efforts to address the fairness of comparison with other designs in the field by providing an exhaustive hardware evaluation on various technologies, including an open core library. We also prove essential differential properties of SPONGENT permutations, give a security analysis in terms of collision and preimage resistance, as well as study in detail dedicated linear distinguishers

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among primary healthcare workers in the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia & Herzegovina: A cross-sectional study

Healthcare workers (HCW) in primary healthcare centres in the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, are on the first combat line with COVID-19. This study aimed to assess the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 among HCW at the primary healthcare centres and to analyse the risk exposure to COVID-19, clinical signs and vaccination status. A cross-sectional study was conducted among HCW at the selected primary healthcare centres between 19 March and 30 April 2021. Antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). A total of 1,023 HCW (mean age 45 years; 71% female) were included in the study. The anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were detected in 69.5% of all participants. There was a significant difference in seropositivity among primary healthcare centres from different geographical regions. As many as 432 (42%) of all participants had confirmed COVID-19 symptoms before the study and, 84.8% of them were seropositive. This study showed that 702 primary HCW were vaccinated with any of these vaccines: Sputnik V, Sinopharm, Pfizer/Biontech. High titre of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was found amongst those who received one (92.6%) or both (97.2%) doses of vaccines. In this study, we report high prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibody among HCW in primary healthcare in the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina during the third pandemic wave

Narcissism and the strategic pursuit of short-term mating : universal links across 11 world regions of the International Sexuality Description Project-2.

Previous studies have documented links between sub-clinical narcissism and the active pursuit of short-term mating strategies (e.g., unrestricted sociosexuality, marital infidelity, mate poaching). Nearly all of these investigations have relied solely on samples from Western cultures. In the current study, responses from a cross-cultural survey of 30,470 people across 53 nations spanning 11 world regions (North America, Central/South America, Northern Europe, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Middle East, Africa, Oceania, Southeast Asia, and East Asia) were used to evaluate whether narcissism (as measured by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory; NPI) was universally associated with short-term mating. Results revealed narcissism scores (including two broad factors and seven traditional facets as measured by the NPI) were functionally equivalent across cultures, reliably associating with key sexual outcomes (e.g., more active pursuit of short-term mating, intimate partner violence, and sexual aggression) and sex-related personality traits (e.g., higher extraversion and openness to experience). Whereas some features of personality (e.g., subjective well-being) were universally associated with socially adaptive facets of Narcissism (e.g., self-sufficiency), most indicators of short-term mating (e.g., unrestricted sociosexuality and marital infidelity) were universally associated with the socially maladaptive facets of narcissism (e.g., exploitativeness). Discussion addresses limitations of these cross-culturally universal findings and presents suggestions for future research into revealing the precise psychological features of narcissism that facilitate the strategic pursuit of short-term mating

The Changing Landscape for Stroke\ua0Prevention in AF: Findings From the GLORIA-AF Registry Phase 2

Background GLORIA-AF (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation) is a prospective, global registry program describing antithrombotic treatment patterns in patients with newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation at risk of stroke. Phase 2 began when dabigatran, the first non\u2013vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC), became available. Objectives This study sought to describe phase 2 baseline data and compare these with the pre-NOAC era collected during phase 1. Methods During phase 2, 15,641 consenting patients were enrolled (November 2011 to December 2014); 15,092 were eligible. This pre-specified cross-sectional analysis describes eligible patients\u2019 baseline characteristics. Atrial fibrillation disease characteristics, medical outcomes, and concomitant diseases and medications were collected. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results Of the total patients, 45.5% were female; median age was 71 (interquartile range: 64, 78) years. Patients were from Europe (47.1%), North America (22.5%), Asia (20.3%), Latin America (6.0%), and the Middle East/Africa (4.0%). Most had high stroke risk (CHA2DS2-VASc [Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age  6575 years, Diabetes mellitus, previous Stroke, Vascular disease, Age 65 to 74 years, Sex category] score  652; 86.1%); 13.9% had moderate risk (CHA2DS2-VASc = 1). Overall, 79.9% received oral anticoagulants, of whom 47.6% received NOAC and 32.3% vitamin K antagonists (VKA); 12.1% received antiplatelet agents; 7.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. For comparison, the proportion of phase 1 patients (of N = 1,063 all eligible) prescribed VKA was 32.8%, acetylsalicylic acid 41.7%, and no therapy 20.2%. In Europe in phase 2, treatment with NOAC was more common than VKA (52.3% and 37.8%, respectively); 6.0% of patients received antiplatelet treatment; and 3.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. In North America, 52.1%, 26.2%, and 14.0% of patients received NOAC, VKA, and antiplatelet drugs, respectively; 7.5% received no antithrombotic treatment. NOAC use was less common in Asia (27.7%), where 27.5% of patients received VKA, 25.0% antiplatelet drugs, and 19.8% no antithrombotic treatment. Conclusions The baseline data from GLORIA-AF phase 2 demonstrate that in newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients, NOAC have been highly adopted into practice, becoming more frequently prescribed than VKA in Europe and North America. Worldwide, however, a large proportion of patients remain undertreated, particularly in Asia and North America. (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation [GLORIA-AF]; NCT01468701

Narcisismo y búsqueda estratégica del emparejamiento a corto plazo a través de las culturas: Enlaces omnipresentes a través de 11 regiones mundiales del Proyecto de la descripción de la sexualidad internacional 2

Previous studies have documented links between sub-clinical narcissism and the active pursuit of short-term mating strategies (e.g., unrestricted sociosexuality, marital infidelity, mate poaching). Nearly all of these investigations have relied solely on samples from Western cultures. In the current study, responses from a cross-cultural survey of 30,470 people across 53 nations spanning 11 world regions (North America, Central/South America, Northern Europe, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Middle East, Africa, Oceania, Southeast Asia, and East Asia) were used to evaluate whether narcissism (as measured by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory; NPI) was universally associated with short-term mating. Results revealed narcissism scores (including two broad factors and seven traditional facets as measured by the NPI) were functionally equivalent across cultures, reliably associating with key sexual outcomes (e.g., more active pursuit of short-term mating, intimate partner violence, and sexual aggression) and sex-related personality traits (e.g., higher extraversion and openness to experience). Whereas some features of personality (e.g., subjective well-being) were universally associated with socially adaptive facets of Narcissism (e.g., self-sufficiency), most indicators of short-term mating (e.g., unrestricted sociosexuality and marital infidelity) were universally associated with the socially maladaptive facets of narcissism (e.g., exploitativeness). Discussion addresses limitations of these cross-culturally universal findings and presents suggestions for future research into revealing the precise psychological features of narcissism that facilitate the strategic pursuit of short-term mating.Estudios previos, en primer lugar a través de las muestras de culturas occidentales, han documentado asociaciones sistemáticas del narcisismo subclínico con múltiples indicadores de estrategias del emparejamiento a corto plazo (p. ej. sociosexualidad ilimitada, infidelidad, caza de pareja). En este estudio se han usado respuestas de la encuesta transcultural de 30.470 personas de 53 naciones de 11 regiones mundiales (América del Norte, América del Sur/América Central, Europa del Norte, Europa del Oeste, Europa del Este, Europa del Sur, Oriente Próximo, África, Asia del Sur/Sudoeste de Asia, Asia del Este y Oceanía) para evaluar si el narcisismo (medido por el Inventario de Personalidad Narcisista; NPI) se asocia panuniversalmente con los indicadores del emparejamiento a corto plazo, tanto en la dirección, como en la intensidad. Los resultados sugieren que el narcisismo (incluidos muchos aspectos suyos medidos por el NPI) tiene las mismas asociaciones básicas con los rasgos de personalidad relacionados con el sexo (p. ej. extraversión alta) y con los resultados sexuales claves (p. ej. búsqueda más activa de las estrategias del emparejamiento a corto plazo) a través de las 11 mayores regiones mundiales del PDSI 2. La discusión se enfoca en las implicaciones y limitaciones del estudio actual