Background In the rapidly changing industrial environment and job market, engineering profession requires a vast body of skills, one of them being decision making under uncertainty. Knowing that misunderstanding of probability concepts can lead to wrong decisions, the main objective of this study is to investigate the presence of probability misconceptions among undergraduate students of electrical engineering. Five misconceptions were investigated: insensitivity to sample size, base rate neglected, misconception of chance, illusory correlation, and biases in the evaluation of conjunctive and disjunctive events. The study was conducted with 587 students who attended bachelor schools of electrical engineering at two universities in Serbia. The presence of misconceptions was tested using multiple-choice tasks. This study also introduces a novel perspective, which is reflected in examination of the correlation between students’ explanations of given answers and their test scores. Results The results of this study show that electrical engineering students are, susceptible to misconceptions in probability reasoning. Although future engineers from the sample population were most successful in avoiding misconceptions of chance, only 35% of examinees were able to provide a meaningful explanation. Analysis of students’ explanations, revealed that in many cases majority of students were prone to common misconceptions. Among the sample population, significant percentage of students were unable to justify their own answers even when they selected the correct option. The results also indicate that formal education in probability and statistics did not significantly influence the test score. Conclusions Results of the present study indicate a need for further development of students’ deep understanding of probability concepts, as well as the need for the development of competencies that enable students to validate their answers. The study emphasizes the importance of answer explanations, since they allow us to discover whether students who mark the correct answer have some misconceptions or may be prone to some other kind of error. We found that the examinees who failed to explain their choices had much lower test scores than those who provided some explanation.

Quantitative study of an acid hydrolysis of bromazepam, which in acidic solution simultaneously undergoes reversible 4,5-azomethine bond cleavage and protolytic reactions, was performed (t = 25 °C). When an equilibrium is established, four species are simultaneously present in solution. Two approaches, both based on theoretically derived dependence between the absorbance (A) and the solution acidity ([H3O+]), were used to determine appropriate equilibrium constants. In the first, the least-squares method was used to fit experimentally obtained (A, [H3O+]) value pairs to a derived function. With values obtained as fitting parameters, the probability distribution for equilibrium constants was calculated with the virtual experiments performed using Monte Carlo simulations. In the second one, spectrophotometric analysis indicated an existence of two distinct pH intervals, both with three dominant species involved. Spectral data were used to calculate equilibrium constants by a linear curve fitting analysis. Values obtained for equilibrium constants from the numerical and the experimental approaches are in good accordance and were used to calculate distribution of all the species as a function of pcH. Key words: bromazepam, acid hydrolysis, equilibrium constants.

Nova digitalna ekonomija, kao ekonomska aktivnost koja proističe iz onlajn povezanosti više milijardi ljudi, biznisa, podataka, uređaja i procesa, kreirala je izuzetne mogućnosti pojedincima, kompanijama i zemljama da unaprede svoje strategije konkurentnosti zahvaljujući novim tehnologijama. Ovaj rad prikazuje izazove digitalne globalizacije sa kojima se kompanije suočavaju. Otuda i propozicija da kompanije moraju prilagoditi/promeniti svoje poslovne modele jačanjem svoje digitalne aktive i reklasiranjem stavki koje se nalaze na strani digitalne pasive. Ovaj rad takođe uključuje analizu inovacionog ekosistema Srbije i njegove pripremljenosti za sprovođenje digitalne transformacije. Pod pretpostavkom da država ostvari mnogo značajnije investicije u digitalnu infrastrukturu i pruži podršku za potreban pravni okvir i razvoj preduzetničkih i digitalnih kompetencija, rad ukazuje na mere koje je potrebno sprovesti u cilju unapređenja digitalne agende Srbije na putu ka svom društvenom i ekonomskom oporavku.