The Accumulation of Electrical Energy Due to the Quantum-Dimensional Effects and Quantum Amplification of Sensor Sensitivity in a Nanoporous SiO Matrix Filled with Synthetic Fulvic Acid.

A heterostructured nanocomposite MCM-41 was formed using the encapsulation method, where a silicon dioxide matrix-MCM-41 was the host matrix and synthetic fulvic acid was the organic guest. Using the method of nitrogen sorption/desorption, a high degree of monoporosity in the studied matrix was established, with a maximum for the distribution of its pores with radii of 1.42 nm.

Partial Identification of Personalized Treatment Response with Trial-reported Analyses of Binary Subgroups.

Medical journals have adhered to a reporting practice that seriously limits the usefulness of published trial findings. Medical decision makers commonly observe many patient covariates and seek to use this information to personalize treatment choices. Yet standard summaries of trial findings only partition subjects into broad subgroups, typically binary categories.

When ignorance is bliss: Intentional agnosticism in drug approval.

In developed nations, public health agencies typically use data from randomized controlled trials to evaluate new drugs. However, these trials routinely exclude populations to which clinicians prescribe approved drugs, meaning some patients are treated with drugs, which were approved on the basis of another group's treatment response. Despite having opportunities to change, some health agencies have not mandated greater inclusion in drug trials and appear to prefer remaining ignorant of some populations' treatment effects when approving a drug.

Growth of Silver Nanoparticles Using Polythiocyanatohydroquinone in Aqueous Solution.

Motivated by evidence that silver nanoparticles have found numerous technological applications we have explored in this work utilization of polythiocyanatohydroquinone as a new efficient reducing and stabilizing agent for the preparation of such nanoparticles. The formation of silver nanoparticles has been confirmed by the UV-Vis spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction and by transmission electron microscopy. The potentiometric and spectroscopy kinetic measurements during the nanoparticles growth are also presented.

Spectroscopy study of silver nanoparticles fabrication using synthetic humic substances and their antimicrobial activity.

In this present study, silver nanoparticles were synthesized using synthetic humic substances (HSs) as reducing and stabilizing agents. Preference of synthetic HSs over natural humic matter is determined by a standardization problem resolution of the product due to the strict control of conditions of the synthetic HSs formation. It allows to receive the silver nanoparticles with the standardized biologically-active protective shell that is very important for their use, mainly in medicine.

[Burkholderia cepacia under different ecological conditions: the amount and variability of the bacterial population].

In a series of prolonged experiments with the use of the bacteriological method and PCR analysis the amount and state of B. cepacia population, associated and not associated with infusoria Tetrahymena pyriformis, were dynamically evaluated under different conditions: in water, brain heart broth, soil extract and at different temperature (4 degrees C and 25 degrees C). In soil extract at 25 degrees C B.

Direct nn-Scattering Measurement With the Pulsed Reactor YAGUAR.

Although crucial for resolving the issue of charge symmetry in the nuclear force, direct measurement of nn-scattering by colliding free neutrons has never been performed. At present the Russian pulsed reactor YAGUAR is the best neutron source for performing such a measurement. It has a through channel where the neutron moderator is installed.

[Biocenosis of the natural foci of sapronotic infections (the results of 15-year observations)].

The summarized results of original studies, carried out in 1988-2003 by scientists of the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, are discussed. The part dealing with the regularity and mechanisms of the circulation of pathogenic bacteria in the biocenosis of soil and water reservoirs includes the following subjects: population and intracellular interactions with protozoa; the evaluation of different representatives of hydrobios as hosts and the transmission along trophic biocenotic chains; the effect of algae and their metabolic products on bacterial populations; the possibility of the colonization of higher plants from the soil and the subsequent infection of rodents; the variability and clonal structure of bacterial population in its interaction with protozoa and plants; the chain of Yersinia circulation in agrocenosis. The part dealing with the mechanisms of the prolonged reservation of causative agents includes such subjects as the reversible transition of bacteria into the latent (uncultivable) state in soils and water reservoirs, as well as the biological inductors of this process; the prolonged preservation of latent bacteria in the cysts of protozoa and blue-green algae; the indication of causative agents in the natural foci of plague and pseudotuberculosis.

[Variability of the clonal structure of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis population under different conditions].

In a series of experiments the dynamics of the clonal structure of Y. pseudotuberculosis population was evaluated by cytopathogenicity in soil extract, as well as in associations with blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) and infusoria, under different temperature conditions. In all variants of experiments made at low environmental temperature (10 degrees C) a considerable part of Y.

[Evolution of epidemiology].

The emergence, formation and stages of the development of today epidemiology of infectious diseases are analyzed. Differences in views concerning the essence of epidemiology as science between Russian and foreign schools are indicated. The brief description of the main stages in rendering basic concepts of Russian epidemiology more extensive and profound, including the gradual alteration of the view on epidemiology as the science dealing only with the epidemic process, is presented.

[Integrative processes in modern epidemiology].

The integration of achievements in population ecology and the molecular genetics of pathogenic microorganisms into nowadays epidemiology of infectious diseases and the formation of its corresponding trends are discussed. The decisive role of highly complicated key problems of general epidemiology, such as the regularities of the autochthonous existence of pathogenic bacteria in the environment, the mechanisms of the pathogenicity regulation of infective agents and the formation of their epidemic variants, the mechanisms of the prolonged reservation of pathogenic bacteria at interepidemic (interepizootic) periods, the mechanisms of transformation of active (vegetative) and dormant forms in bacterial populations at different stages of epidemic and epizootic cycles, is demonstrated. The detection and analysis of such processes, and especially their latent mechanisms, become possible with the use of new concepts and methodological approaches, highly productive for the progress of epidemiology.

[Ultrastructure of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis in the process of their reversible transition into the dormant (non-culturable) state in association with blue-green algae].

The ultrastructural organization of Y. pseudotuberculosis in the process of the transition of vegetative cells into the dormant (noncultivable) state in interaction with blue-green algae of the species Anabaena variabilis was studied by the method of transmission electron microscopy. The use of type specific Y.

[Ecological-genetic mechanisms of the transition of Salmonella typhimurium to the dormant state in the environment].

The dynamics of vegetative and dormant (noncultivable) of S. typhimurium cells of two isogenic strains in association with microalgae Scenedesmus quadricauda and under the action of the exometabolites of the algae at different stages of their growth was studied using in parallel bacteriological method and PCR. The study revealed that at the stage of active growth green algae and their metabolic products maintain the survival of salmonellae (strain TR = 1) vegetative forms in water at an optimum temperature.

[Strategies of adaptive changes in Vibrio cholerae in natural water reservoirs].

The currently available data on different variations in cholera vibrio habiting in water reservoirs are summarized. The pattern of variations of the main signs of vibrions is discussed in the context of "typical-atypical-inactive-resting (uncultivable) forms". Emphasis is placed on the reversible pattern and adaptive essence of variation whose basis is clonal and selective processes in the heterogeneous bacterial population.

[Effect of blue-green alga (Cyanobacteria) and their exometabolites on formation of resting forms and variability of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis].

Research, carried out with the use of bacteriological methods and polymerase chain reaction, revealed that the transformation of Y. pseudotuberculosis, associated with blue-green algae Anabaena variabilis, into resting (noncultivable) forms took shorter time than in soil extract containing no algae. The exometabolites of "old" cultures of these algae sharply accelerated the formation of resting Y.

[Natural-focus infections: the key questions and new vantage points].

A short history of the concept of natural focal infections is presented: the idea put forward by D. K. Zabolotnyĭ, E.

[Natural foci of diseases: the development of the concept at the close of the century].

E. N. Pavlovskiĭ's concept of natural focality of diseases and the development of general knowledge about natural foci and their structural (components), functional (mechanisms of pathogen maintenance), and ecosystem-related organization (assortment and interrelations of ecosystems) are reviewed from principal (in authors' opinion) aspects.

[Dormant forms of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis during interaction with green algae and their exometabolites (population dynamics and ultrastructure)].

The dynamics of the transition of Y.pseudotuberculosis to the latent (noncultivable) state in sterile soil extraction and in soil extraction, containing Scenedesmus algae or their exometabolites, was evaluated by the bacteriological method and with the use of polymerase chain reaction. The formation of Y.

[The possibility of preserving the causative agent of plague in soil in resting (nonculturable) form].

The parallel study of soil specimens from the burrows of great gerbils, taken in the natural focus of infection at the period between epidemics, by the bacteriological method and with the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) demonstrated that, simultaneously with the negative results of inoculations into nutrient media, PCR revealed the presence of Y. pestis in 4 out of 72 soil specimens. The serological study (in the indirect hemagglutination test) revealed the presence of Y.

[Pathogenic Listeria in the soil and in association with algae: a reversible transition into a nonculturable state].

The analysis of the dynamics of the amount of L. monocytogenes in soil extract in association with green algae and in their absence, carried out in parallel by the bacteriological method and in polymerase chain reaction (PCR), revealed the mass transition of L. monocytogenes into the nonculturable state.

[Nonculturable forms of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis in the soils of a natural focus of pseudotuberculosis].

Soil samples taken from the natural focus of pseudotuberculosis, characterized by the persistent presence of Y. pseudotuberculosis, were studied. Bacteria were detected by means of polymerase chain reaction with the use of 2 test systems; one of them was specific to the chromosomal invasiveness gene (inv) and the other, to gene yopA, localized on plasmid pCad.

[Listeria in plants: an experimental study of its colonization, numbers and variability].

The possibility for Listeria monocytogenes to penetrate into plants from the soil via the root system was experimentally proved. Listeria were shown to continuously persist for 30 days (the term of observation) in the vegetative organs of wheat (roots, stems and leaves). The concentration of Listeria was 10(9) CFU/g in the environment (soil extract) and the roots of wheat, 10(6)-10(7) CFU/g in stems, 10(8)-10(9) CFU/g in leaves.