University of Zagreb

About: University of Zagreb is a education organization based out in Zagreb, Grad Zagreb, Croatia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & European union. The organization has 21769 authors who have published 50267 publications receiving 783239 citations. The organization is also known as: Zagreb University & Sveučilište u Zagrebu.

Determinants of non-performing loans in Central and Eastern European countries

Abstract: This paper analyses the determinants of the changes in the non-performing loan (NPL) ratio in selected European emerging markets The model was estimated on a panel dataset using a fixed effects estimator for seven Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries between Q3:2007 and Q3:2012 The countries analyzed are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia Although the literature on NPLs is quite extensive, this is the first empirical research on the countries of CEE region using aggregate, country-level data on problem loans The results suggest that the primary cause of high levels of NPLs is the economic slowdown, which is evident from statistically significant and economically large coefficients on GDP, unemployment and the inflation rate

Harnessing the biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland

Abstract: A large proportion of European biodiversity today depends on habitat provided by low-intensity farming practices, yet this resource is declining as European agriculture intensifies. Within the European Union, particularly the central and eastern new member states have retained relatively large areas of species-rich farmland, but despite increased investment in nature conservation here in recent years, farmland biodiversity trends appear to be worsening. Although the high biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland has long been reported, the amount of research in the international literature focused on farmland biodiversity in this region remains comparatively tiny, and measures within the EU Common Agricultural Policy are relatively poorly adapted to support it. In this opinion study, we argue that, 10 years after the accession of the first eastern EU new member states, the continued under-representation of the low-intensity farmland in Central and Eastern Europe in the international literature and EU policy is impeding the development of sound, evidence-based conservation interventions. The biodiversity benefits for Europe of existing low-intensity farmland, particularly in the central and eastern states, should be harnessed before they are lost. Instead of waiting for species-rich farmland to further decline, targeted research and monitoring to create locally appropriate conservation strategies for these habitats is needed now.

Localization of major gangliosides in the PNS: implications for immune neuropathies

Abstract: Summary Antibodies targeting major gangliosides that are broadly distributed in the nervous system are some- times associated with clinical symptoms that imply selective nerve damage. For example, anti-GD1a anti- bodies are associated with acute motor axonal neuropa- thy (AMAN), a form of Guillain-Barresyndrome that selectively affects motor nerves, despite reports that GD1a is present in human axons and myelin and is not expressed differentially in motor versus sensory roots. We used a series of high-affinity monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against the major nervous system gangliosides GM1, GD1a, GD1b and GT1b to test whether any of them bind motor or sensory fibres differentially in rodent and human peripheral nerves. The following observations were made. (i) Some of the anti-GD1a antibodies preferentially stained motor fibres, support- ing the association of human anti-GD1a antibodies with predominant motor neuropathies such as AMAN. (ii) A GD1b antibody preferentially stained the large dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurones, in keeping with the pro- posed role of human anti-GD1b antibodies in sensory ataxic neuropathies. (iii) Two mAbs with broad struc- tural cross-reactivity bound to both gangliosides and peripheral nerve proteins. (iv) Myelin was poorly stained; all clones stained axons nearly exclusively. Our findings suggest that anti-ganglioside antibody fine specificity as well as differences in ganglioside access- ibility in axons and myelin influence the selectivity of injury to different fibre systems and cell types in human autoimmune neuropathies.

OpenIoT: Open Source Internet-of-Things in the Cloud

Abstract: Despite the proliferation of Internet-of-Things (IoT) platforms for building and deploying IoT applications in the cloud, there is still no easy way to integrate heterogeneous geographically and administratively dispersed sensors and IoT services in a semantically interoperable fashion. In this paper we provide an overview of the OpenIoT project, which has developed and provided a first-of-kind open source IoT platform enabling the semantic interoperability of IoT services in the cloud. At the heart of OpenIoT lies the W3C Semantic Sensor Networks (SSN) ontology, which provides a common standards-based model for representing physical and virtual sensors. OpenIoT includes also sensor middleware that eases the collection of data from virtually any sensor, while at the same time ensuring their proper semantic annotation. Furthermore, it offers a wide range of visual tools that enable the development and deployment of IoT applications with almost zero programming. Another key feature of OpenIoT is its ability to handle mobile sensors, thereby enabling the emerging wave of mobile crowd sensing applications. OpenIoT is currently supported by an active community of IoT researchers, while being extensively used for the development of IoT applications in areas where semantic interoperability is a major concern.