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We took samples of uncultivated soil from the surface layer (0–10 cm) at 138 sites from all over Croatia and measured their radionuclide activity concentrations with high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry. This second part of our report brings the results on 40K and 137Cs to complement those on the 232Th and 238U decay chains addressed in the first part. Together they give the most complete picture of radioactivity of Croatian soil so far. Activity concentrations of 40K were the highest in the Pannonian region, and there was an opposite trend for 137Cs. We found that the concentrations of 137Cs tended to increase with altitude, annual precipitation, and vegetation density. The concentration ratio of 137Cs and K in soil, which indicates the potential for 137Cs entering food chains via uptake by plants, was the lowest in agriculturally important areas in the east of the Pannonian region. In addition, we used the obtained results on activity concentrations to calculate the related absorbed dose rate as a measure of external exposure to ionising radiation from soil. The sum of the absorbed dose rates for naturally occurring radionuclides and 137Cs showed that external exposure was generally the highest in the Dinaric region and Istrian Peninsula.

The assessment of environmental radioactivity much relies on radionuclide content in soil. This stems from the significant contribution of soil to both external and internal exposure to ionising radiation via direct emission of gamma radiation and soil-to-plant radionuclide transfer, respectively. This motivated us to carry out a systematic research on the radioactivity of soil in Croatia to obtain relevant data that can be used as a basis for understanding the related effects of geomorphological, biogeographical, and climatological properties of the environment. We collected samples of the surface layer of uncultivated soil (0–10 cm) at 138 sites from all over the country and measured them for radionuclide activity concentrations by means of high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry. This resulted in radioactivity maps containing data on activity concentrations of representative radionuclides in the environment. In this paper, which is the first in our two-part presentation, we focus on the naturally occurring 232Th and 238U decay chains and their correlations with the diversity of Croatian regions. For both of the chains, activity concentrations were the highest in the Dinaric region, the lowest in the Pannonian region, and intermediate in the Adriatic region. Relatively high concentrations of 226Ra in the soil of the Dinaric region implied a possibility of an enhanced emanation of its progeny 222Rn into the air. Activity concentrations of 210Pb were additionally elevated in areas with dense vegetation, most probably due to an atmospheric deposition of airborne 210Pb onto the surface of plants and their eventual decomposition on the ground.

The nearby galaxy M51 (also known as the Whirlpool galaxy) hosts an iconic grand-design spiral pattern and both IRAM facilities conducted the first cloud-scale (∼50 pc resolution) survey of the molecular gas reservoir across a the disk of a massive star-forming galaxy (PAWS, PdBI+30m Arcsecond Whirlpool galaxy Survey) using the CO(1-0) line emission. PAWS showed that the various properties of the giant molecular cloud (GMC) population vary with galactic environment (center/bar, spiral arms, inter-arm). Recent observations of a ∼1000 pointing mosaic of the nearby late-type spiral galaxy IC342 using NOEMA resolved its GMC population at ∼70 pc resolution and find consistent trends. Investigation of the dense molecular gas phase at cloud-scales using tracers such as HCN(1-0) confirms the trends seen in kpc-scale surveys, namely that the dense gas star formation efficiency inn general apparently anticorrelates with the inferred dense gas fraction. Multi-line studies of the molecular gas in the galactic disks of nearby galaxies such as the ongoing large NOEMA+30m program to map the dense molecular gas phase in GMCs in the central part of M51 will allow for gaining new insights of the properties of this important molecular gas phase.

In this paper authors analyze the predictive power of existing models for the detection of earnings management of the companies in countries around the world. In addition, based on a representative sample of companies in the industrial sector of the Republic of Serbia, they tend to develop an improved model for the detection of manipulative financial reporting, which will be suitable for the Serbian business environment by using multiple linear regression. The application of existing models of discretionary accruals in the Serbian economic environment shows that these predictive models do not have sufficient explanatory power (Jones model 5.4%; Dechow model 2.6%; Kasznik model 37%), and there is a need for their further modifications. From these models, only Kasznik model proved to be statistically significant model for the sample of 65 companies in the industrial sector of the Republic of Serbia. As a result of the research, a modified model of discretionary accruals has been developed, which has improved explanatory power and which allows detection of new techniques of manipulation of financial reporting in the industrial sector of the Republic of Serbia. The explanatory power of our modified model is 63.7%.