Laser acceleration of ion beams

We consider methods of charged particle acceleration by means of high-intensity lasers. As an application we discuss a laser booster for heavy ion beams provided, e.g. by the Dubna nuclotron. Simple estimates show that a cascade of crossed laser beams would be necessary to provide additional acceleration to gold ions of the order of GeV/nucleon.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Talk at the Helmholtz International Summer School "Dense Matter in heavy Ion Collisions and Astrophysics", August 21 - September 1, 2006, JINR Dubna, Russia; v2, misprints correcte

Right Handed Weak Currents in Sum Rules for Axialvector Constant Renormalization

The recent experimental results on deep inelastic polarized lepton scattering off proton, deuteron and $^{3}$He together with polari% zed neutron $\beta$-decay data are analyzed. It is shown that the problem of Ellis-Jaffe and Bjorken sum rules deficiency and the neutron paradox could be solved simultaneously by assuming the small right handed current (RHC) admixture in the weak interaction Lagrangian. The possible RHC impact on pion-nucleon $\sigma$-term and Gamow-Teller sum rule for $(p,n)$ nuclear reactions is pointed out.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev. Lett. LaTeX, 8 pages, 21 k

Syntopy of Pulmonary Vein Orifices in the Left Atrium of the Human Heart

INTRODUCTION: The syntopy of the left atrial (LA) structures is the least studied aspect of the normal heart anatomy. The morphometric data on the position of orifices of the pulmonary veins in the LA walls relative to the adjacent heart structures and heart vessels are important as reference parameters of heart morphology and are needed in the endovascular treatment of atrial fibrillations. AIM: To establish the general patterns and topospecific peculiarities of the location of the pulmonary vein orifices relative to the oval fossa and orifices of the venae cavae using morphometric methods of anatomical preparations of conventionally normal adult human heart. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty–four wet anatomical preparations of the heart without macroscopic signs of hemodynamically significant cardiac pathology were studied. The preparations were obtained from patients aged 35–89 years who died from diseases not related to heart pathology. LA diastole was modeled by filling its cavity with silicone; after it hardened, the distances from the oval fossa and orifices of the venae cavae to the orifices of the pulmonary veins were measured using sliding calipers. RESULTS: The article presents variation, medians, and extreme values of distances from the oval fossa and orifices of the venae cavae to the orifices of the pulmonary veins at the site of their opening to LA. The significance of differences of morphometric parameters of the topography was evaluated, and their correlation and one–way regression analyses were implemented. The strongest regression dependence was found for LA width and distance from the orifice of the superior vena cava to the orifice of the left inferior pulmonary vein (Y) r2 = 0.45; Х = 19.94 + 0.545Y). The heart dimensions and LA length were not significant predictors for the studied parameters. CONCLUSION: The right pulmonary veins were located expectedly closer to the orifices of the venae cavae and the oval fossa than the left pulmonary veins. The narrowest was the space between the orifices of the superior vena cava and the right superior pulmonary vein. The farthest from the orifices of both venae cavae was the orifice of the left inferior pulmonary artery. The strongest correlation relationships were characteristic of the distances from the orifices of both venae cavae to the orifices of the homolateral pulmonary veins, which we propose to consider as one of the criteria of the harmoniousness of the structure of the atrial complex. © Authors, 2022

Particle Motion in Rapidly Oscillating Potentials: The Role of the Potential's Initial Phase

Rapidly oscillating potentials with a vanishing time average have been used for a long time to trap charged particles in source-free regions. It has been argued that the motion of a particle in such a potential can be approximately described by a time independent effective potential, which does not depend upon the initial phase of the oscillating potential. However, here we show that the motion of a particle and its trapping condition significantly depend upon this initial phase for arbitrarily high frequencies of the potential's oscillation. We explain this novel phenomenon by showing that the motion of a particle is determined by the effective potential stated in the literature only if its initial conditions are transformed according to a transformation which we show to significantly depend on the potential's initial phase for arbitrarily high frequencies. We confirm our theoretical findings by numerical simulations. Further, we demonstrate that the found phenomenon offers new ways to manipulate the dynamics of particles which are trapped by rapidly oscillating potentials. Finally, we propose a simple experiment to verify the theoretical findings of this work.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, published in PR

Cuticular wax composition of mature leaves of species and hybrids of the genus Prunus differing in resistance to clasterosporium disease

The interaction of a host plant with pathogen implies an extremely complex process involving the outer waxy layer of the cuticle, cutin, cell membrane, and intracellular structures. However, the initial contact between plants and pathogens takes place in cuticular waxes covering the surface of leaves, stems and fruits. Despite many findings on the role of plant epicuticular waxes, there is a gap in the understanding of the relationship between individual compounds and their functions. The pathogenic fungus Clasterosporium carpohilum (Lev.) Aderh. parasitizes the tissues of many stone fruit trees, damaging leaf and fruit surface. The aim of this work was to find out if the quantity and composition of leaf epicuticular wax could be responsible for the resistance to clasterosporium disease. The study of differences of plants in fungal resistance was carried out on species and hybrids of the genus Prunus from the collection of the Botanical Garden of Oles Honchar Dnipro National University (Dnipro city, Ukraine). The chloroform extracts of epicuticular waxes from the surface of mature leaves were analyzed by gas chromatography connected to mass-spectrometry. GC/MS assay was performed using Shimadzu GCMS-QP 2020 El equipped with capillary column (5% diphenyl/95% dimethyl polysiloxane), and helium as a carrier gas. Mass Spectrum Library 2014 for GSMS was used to identify the separated compounds of the wax extracts. The maximum total wax amount on the adaxial and abaxial leaf surface of hybrid 2 was twice the minimum wax accumulation for hybrid 4. Overall, 20 individual compounds belonging to six hydrocarbon classes were identified. Leaf epicuticular wax composition both in Prunus persica (L.) Batsch and P. dulcis (Mill.) D. A. Webb, and hybrids was dominated by long-chain n-alkanes with even carbon number (77.6–90.9% of total sum). The alkenes’ class was represented only by 17-pentatriacontene detected in the wax of both Prunus species. Octadecanaldehyde was found in epicuticular wax of P. dulcis while absent in wax of the more resistant species P. persica. Prime alcohols 1-tetradecanol and 1-hexacosanol were detected in leaf waxes of hybrid 4 and P. dulcis respectively. The ester class contained seven compounds found in leaf epicuticular waxes of both plant species and all hybrid forms. The identification of phthalic acid esters in leaf wax extracts was unexpected, and the phthalates’ origin is discussed. Strong positive correlation between leaf damage and tetrapentacontane content in epicuticular waxes could presumably be the result of infection-induced metabolism reprogramming in epidermal cells of infected leaves

Hyperspectral monitoring AOTF-based apparatus

The apparatus for hyperspectral imaging in visible range is described. The rugged and compact design makes it suitable for unmanned aerial vehicles. The system is capable both for recording the entire spectral-spatial data (“hypercube”) and for selective grabbing the spectral images at characteristic wavelengths. This selective mode provides real-time extracting the most valuable information from the monitoring scene and reduces requirements for operation speed and data storage capacity of processing subsystem. The technical characteristics and basic features of the hyperspectral apparatus are presented and discussed

Interaction of bacterial extracellular microvesicles with eukaryotic cells.

Bacterial extracellular microvesicles (BMV) are formed by nonpathogenic, pathogenic and opportunistic bacteria. BMV are spherical bilayer-membrane organelles containing different cargoes: lipopolysaccharides, pathogen associated molecular patterns (PUMP), DNA, RNA, signal molecules, proteins, antibiotic resistance factors, virulence factors, toxins providing various immune response options and conducive to the survival and pathogen dissemination in the human body. BMVs secretion play an important role in the ability of microorganisms to cause various diseases. BMV are involved in biofilms formation, help bacteria to obtain nutrition in a nutrient-poor conditions, to evade the host's immune response, provide communication and surviving in a stressful environment during infection inside the host. The heterogeneity of the biogenesis mechanisms causes differences in the BMV and their characteristics including virulence rate. BMVs host cells entering is mediated by several mechanisms and helps to activate innate and adaptive immune reactions. This review focuses on interaction study of BMV with various eukaryotic cells types including neutrophils, dendritic cells, macrophages, epithelial, endothelial cells. This interaction depends on bacteria species, type of target cell and number of vesicles and can lead to different responses: non-immunogenic, pro-inflammatory, cytotoxic. Subcellular and molecular mechanisms related to the involvement of extracellular microvesicles in host's immune response modulation are presented. Stimulation of immune response is provided by increased secretion of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines. In some cases BMV use mechanisms to evade immune surveillance: anti-inflammatory cytokines secretion, alterations of phagocytosis and chemotaxis of macrophages, increasing the proteolytic cleavage of CD14 on the macrophage surface, alterations of antigen-presenting function of dendritic cells, T-cell proliferation suppression, reducing the pro-inflammatory cytokines secretion, evasion of host-immune cells direct interactions, destruction of neutrophilic traps. These features allow bacterial cells to survive in the human body, increase their invasive potential, and reduce the excessive inflammatory reactions leading to death of the pathogen itself and life-threatening damage of tissues and organs of the host. Further studies of these mechanisms will improve existing therapeutic approaches to the infectious diseases treatment

АДИКТИВНИЙ СТАТУС ПРЕДСТАВНИКІВ КОМАНДНОГО І РОБІТНИЧОГО СКЛАДУ МОРСЬКОГО ТОРГОВЕЛЬНОГО ФЛОТУ З РІЗНИМ РІВНЕМ ПСИХОСОЦІАЛЬНОГО СТРЕСУ

Purpose: to investigate the intensity of addictive status in sailors of the merchant fleet with different levels of psychosocial stress, in order to determine the necessity of creating systemic measures for the protection of their mental health, specific for this contingent. Materials and Methods. Based on informed consent in compliance with the principles of bioethics and deontology, 200 representatives of the merchant fleet were surveyed during 2016–2019: 110 members of the command staff and 90 workers. The study involved the use of clinical-psychopathological and psychodiagnostic methods. Result. As a result of the research, it was found that the representatives of the merchant fleet during the post-voyage period increased intensity of the addictive status on objects of chemical and non-chemical origin, the level of which is directly associated with the severity of the psychosocial stress. The general trend of the dynamics of the addictive status in the representatives of the merchant fleet, both in terms of chemical and non-chemical origin, is an increase in the intensity of addictive realization with increasing psychosocial stress. The addictive status intensity in workers of the merchant fleet is significantly higher than in the command staff (except for work), in all the addictive realization range and stress load ranges. Among persons with low psychosocial stress, regardless of professional specificity, the intensity of the addictive status with addictive objects of both chemical and non-chemical origin is within safe use, which is significantly different from the addictive status in persons with moderate and severe levels of psychosocial stress. The addiction by chemical objects (tobacco, coffee/tea) in persons with moderate psychosocial stress is expressed within the limits of harmful effects, with severe psychosocial stress – dangerous use, and non-chemical ones – within the limits of harmful effects, with increasing indicators associated with increasing psychosocial stress. Conclusion. Identified patterns should be taken into account when developing specific measures of psychotherapy and psychoprophylaxis for this contingent, which is the perspective of this study.Мета: дослідити напруженість адиктивного статусу (АС) у моряків торговельного морського флоту з різним рівнем психосоціального стресу (ПС) для визначення необхідності створення специфічних для даного контингенту системних заходів з охорони їхнього психічного здоровʼя. Матеріали і методи. На засадах інформованої згоди з дотриманням принципів біоетики і деонтології протягом 2016–2019 рр. було обстежено 200 осіб представників морського торговельного флоту: 110 членів командного складу (КТФ) та 90 робітників (РТФ). Дослідження включало використання клініко-психопатологічного і психодіагностичного методів. Результати. У результаті дослідження встановлено, що у представників торговельного морського флоту в міжрейсовий період виявлена підвищена напруженість АС за обʼєктами хімічного і нехімічного походження, рівень якої прямо асоційований з вираженістю ПС. Загальним трендом динаміки АС у представників торговельного морського флоту, як за обʼєктами хімічного, так і нехімічного походження, є збільшення інтенсивності адиктивної реалізації з наростанням психосоціального стресового навантаження. Напруженість АС у РТФ є значно вищою, ніж у КТФ (крім роботи), в усіх межах адиктивної реалізації та діапазонах стресового навантаження. Серед осіб із низьким ПС, незалежно від професійної специфіки, напруженість АС адиктивними обʼєктами і хімічного, і нехімічного походження знаходиться в межах безпечного вживання, що значно відрізняється від АС в осіб з помірним і тяжким рівнем ПС. Захопленість хімічними обʼєктами (тютюн, кава/чай) в осіб із помірним рівнем ПС виражена в межах вживання зі шкідливими наслідками, з тяжким ПС – небезпечного вживання, а нехімічними – в межах вживання зі шкідливими наслідками зі зростанням показників асоційовано зі збільшенням ПС. Висновки. Виявлені закономірності повинні враховувати при розробці специфічних заходів психотерапії і психопрофілактики для даного контингенту, що становить перспективу цього дослідження