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Green Douglas-fir was introduced in the Călimănești Forest District at the beginning of the 20th century. Currently, there are 78 stands with green Douglas-fir covering 1451.1 ha, of which the species itself is found on 389.15 ha. Only seven of these stands are pure (share of green Douglas-fir at least 80 per cent), whereas the majority of them (71) are mixed with both softwoods (e.g., Norway spruce, silver fir, Scots pine and European larch) and broadleaves (predominantly European beech, sessile oak, hornbeam, and sycamore maple, but also wild cherry, small-leaved linden, and common ash). The species was used especially in the European beech vegetation layer, at altitudes ranging from 250 m to 1100 m. Consequently, the soils under these stands are extremely variable, from brown to brown podzolic or even podzols. Green Douglas-fir has shown remarkable high resistance to disease and pathogens, as well as no damaging effects of snow or wind. Throughout the area, diameters and heights of the species are higher than those of cohabitants, either softwoods or broadleaves. In the oldest stand (115 years old) green Douglas-fir has reached 83.2 cm in diameter and 40.5 m in height, with a wood production of 1167.1 m³ ·ha-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Histopathological findings of various inclusions were reported in the central nervous system of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients but not in the peripheral nerves. Case report. We present a 66-year-old man with lower limb weakness, with later development of weakness in the upper limbs and loss of sphincter control. Neurological examination showed the affection of both upper and lower motor neurons. He had paresthesia on the left side of his body and socks-distribution numbness. Histopathology of the sural nerve and genetic report showed basophilic periodic acid-Schiff (PAS)-positive intra-axonal inclusions and heterozygous L144F mutation in the exon 5 of the SOD1 gene. Conclusion. It seems that the presence of the basophilic peripheral nerve inclusions may suggest a diagnosis of SOD1-positive ALS.

Background/Aim. Risk factors for malnutrition of patients during hospitalization have not been precisely deter-mined. The aim of the study was to determine these factors in hospitalized gastroenterological patients. Methods. Nutritional status (NS) of 650 gastroenterological patients was assessed at the hospital admission and at discharge by the six parameters: unintentional weight loss, lymphocyte count, serum albumin concentration, body mass index, triceps skinfold thickness, and mid-upper arm muscle circumference. The influence on NS at discharge was tested for ten factors: gender, age, affected organ, the nature, severity, and complications of the disease, the length of hospitalization, mobility worsening during hospitalization, Karnofsky score, and NS on admission. Primary and secondary risk factors were defined among the factors significantly influencing malnutrition. Results. Seven factors were found to be the independent predictors for malnutrition in hospitalized gastroenterological patients. NS at admission was considered as a primary risk factor (Forward: Wald multivariate logistic regression analysis, p < 0.001 for five applied assessment parameters). The other six factors, obtained in the evaluation according to 1-3 assessment parameters, were considered as secondary risk factors: severe disease activity, malignancy, the existence of complications, male gender, hospitalization > 14 days, and mobility worsening during the hospitalization (Forward: Wald multivariate logistic regression analysis, p from 0.001 to 0.027). Conclusion. There are seven risk factors for malnutrition among gastroenterological patients during hospitalization. Timely nutritional support in these patients can prevent the development of intrahospital malnutrition and its negative influence on the clinical outcome.

Background/Aim. Chronic low back pain syndrome (CLBPS) is the most common cause of functional disability and loss of working ability in developed countries. Some research shows that neuropathic pain (NP) is present in almost 50% of patients with CLPBS. The aim of this study was to determine the characteristics of NP and its impact on quality of life (QoL) in patients with CLBPS. Methods. Patients were tested using three questionnaires for NP: Pain Detect Questionnaire, Leeds Assessment of Neuropathic Symptoms and Signs, and Douleur Neuropathique 4 questions. Thirty-two patients diagnosed with NP based on current clinical criteria and with positive results for NP on all three NP questionnaires formed an experimental group. A control group consisted of 32 patients with CLBPS who did not fulfill clinical criteria for NP and were negative for NP on all three questionnaires. Hamilton depression and anxiety rating scales (Ham-D and Ham-A, respectively) and Short Form (SF)-36 questionnaire were also applied. Results. According to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), disc herniation was typically detected in the experimental group, while degenerative changes were commonly found in the control group. Patients from the experimental group had significantly greater intensity of pain, pain radiation in the legs, and the pain was usually presented as episodes of sudden attacks with mild pain between them. The most distinctive features of NP were allodynia, electric shock sensation, and hypoesthesia to prick. Patients from the experimental group also had significantly higher depression and anxiety scores, as well as worse QoL compared to the control group, especially in mental domains. Predictors of worse QoL in the patients with CLBPS were a higher level of anxiety and depression. Conclusion. The presence of allodynia, electric shock-like sensations, and hypoesthesia to prick in patients with CLBPS suggest NP. CLBPS patients with NP had worse scores in mental domains of QoL compared to CLPBS patients without NP.

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The paper analyzes the appearance of the ordinary and the everyday in the essays of Borislav Radović, which is most often manifested through the character of a small man. In the trivial and mundane, the writer finds the sublime and the important, which often receives a mythological framework. The work also deals with the writer's position of artist-walker, flanner, which introduces a predominantly modernist line in Radović's essays. The analysis method and the close reading method seek to give an overview of the rich gallery of little people in the essay book Some Things. The aim of the paper is to give an insight into the ways in which Borislav Radović records little and usually in everyday life, which after the artistic processing receives the outlines of the unusual and mysterious. Through various procedures (enumeration, ironicity, mythologization) and in different forms, the writer provides an opportunity for the reader to reconsider the reasons why a small man often remains out of focus of art. The results of the paper show that Radović's essays offer a different image of the little man, not naturalistic or veristic but not idealistic, which represents an innovative approach to a marginalized topic in recent Serbian essay writing.

Background/Aim. The prevalence of diabetes mellitus in general population is constantly increasing. On the other hand, the number of diabetic patients with neuropathic pain is large. The aim of the study was to examine influence of neuropathic pain on quality of life (QoL) in patients with diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN) who did not have any other diabetic complication or any other significant comorbidity. Methods. A total of 32 patients with DSPN and definitive neuropathic pain were compared with 32 patients with DSPN without neuropathic pain. The respondents were matched according to age, gender, and duration of illness. The following scales were used: the Pain Detect Questionnaire, Leeds Assessment of Neuropathic Symptoms and Signs, Douleur Neuropathique EN 4 Questions, Hamilton depression and anxiety rating scales, Neuropathy Impairment Score of the Lower Limb (NIS-LL), and the Short Form 36 Health Survey Questionnaire (SF-36). Results. Patients with neuropathic pain had significantly more severe DSPN measured with NIS-LL (p < 0.01). They were more likely to be engaged in physical work (p < 0.05), and had more symptoms of depression (p < 0.05) than patients without neuropathic pain. Patients with neuropathic pain had significantly lower QoL in both physical and mental domains (p < 0.01). Independent predictors of worse QoL in DSPN were presence of depression (beta=-0.58, p < 0.01) and presence of neuropathic pain (beta = -0.23, p < 0.05) - R2adjusted = 0.48. Conclusion. Independent predictors of QoL in patients with DSPN were presence of depression and neuropathic pain, which signifies importance of their early recognition and early treatment.

Contractual capacity is the starting point for exercising most human rights. It entails the capacity to sign contracts and enter into the legal transactions, and it is a gateway to exercising a range of labour, voting, family, property, succession (etc.) rights envisaged by the law. The full deprivation of contractual capacity leads to the deprivation of most other capacities. Thus, a person is de iure and de facto excluded from societal life. The mechanism for deprivation of contractual capacity exists in both domestic and foreign jurisprudence, as a way of protecting individual rights. The deprivation of contractual capacity in adults is applicable when the competent authority determines one's mental or intellectual impairment. In the past, the prevailing approach to establishing such disability was the medical approach, which is largely the same today, while the social model is seldom applied. The issue of protection of the right to contractual capacity has seldom been comprehensively analyzed, either from the standpoint of social care services or from the standpoint of jurisprudence. Yet, they are both equally relevant in the process of assessing contractual capacity. This paper presents the results of research conducted in social care centers and courts in the territory of the City of Belgrade (Serbia). The research was aimed at establishing whether the status and position of social care service users has improved after introducing the legal mechanism authorizing the courts to assess (within a specific time limit) if there are reasons for continuing the imposed measure of deprivation of contractual capacity, as well as to analyze the major reasons for initiating the legal action for reassessment of contractual capacity.

The subject of the analysis is the character of Sarah in the novel of the same name by Petar Sarić, focusing on her strangeness and fatal beauty, inseparable from her beautiful soul. The character of a foreign woman in the patriarchal community of Banjane invokes other fatal foreigners in Serbian literature, and throughout the research seeks to place Sarić's heroine in the wider context of female characters of Serbian prose. The elements of the erotic in her character are in contact with the sacred, and in examining her influence on others as particularly significant, the experience of the numinous emerges. The aim of the paper is to examine how Sarah's character goes beyond the usual features of female characters in patriarchal settings, and at what moments she remains within the given limits. Based on this, research tries to give Sarah's specific characteristics which make her one of the most complex characters in Sarić's prose.

Introduction/Objective. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating motor neuron disease. The majority of cases are apparently sporadic ALS (SALS) with variants in susceptibility genes or sometimes in high-risk ALS genes. Two ALS susceptibility genes are SMN1, whose functional loss causes spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), and a nearly identical SMN2 gene, which modulates SMA severity. In this study we examined the association of copy number variations (CNVs) of SMN1 and SMN2 genes and two additional genes, SERF1 and NAIP, residing in the same genomic region (i.e. 5q13.2 segmental duplication), with SALS in patients from Serbia. Methods. Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification was used to determine CNVs of each gene in a clinically well-characterised group of 153 Serbian SALS patients and 153 controls. Results. Individual association between SMN1, SMN2, SERF1 or NAIP CNVs and SALS susceptibility or survival was not found. Survival curves based on the multivariable Cox regression analysis showed that three SMN1 copies, lower ALS Functional Rating Scale Revised (ALSFRS-R) score at the time of diagnosis, faster decline of the ALSFRS-R score over time, and shorter diagnostic delay result in shorter survival of Serbian SALS patients. Conclusion. Clinical variables might be complemented with the SMN1 copy number to improve prediction of survival in Serbian SALS patients. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 173016]

The most common chemical’s spills in typical transportation accidents are those with petroleum products such as diesel fuel, the consequence of which is an extensive pollution of the soil. In order to plan properly fuel recovery from the soil, it is important to gain information about the soil depth which may be affected by pollutant and to predict the pollutant concentration in different soil layers. This study deals with the impact of basic atmospheric conditions, i.e. air temperature and humidity on the diesel fuel migration through the soil. The diesel fuel was spilled into columns (L = 30 cm; D = 4.6 cm) filled with sandy and clay soil samples, and its concentrations at various depths were measured after 11 days under various air temperature (20 and 40°C) and relative humidity (30–100%) conditions. The effects observed were explained by understanding physical processes, such as fuel evaporation, diffusion and adsorption on soil grains. The increase in temperature results in higher fuel evaporation loss and its faster vertical migration. The relative humidity effect is less pronounced but more complex, and it depends much on the soil type.