Current issues of anti-epidemic readiness of a Russian Federation region for emergency situations associated with infectious diseases dangerous for humans. Report 2. Priority directions of anti-epidemic readiness

The purpose of this study was to determine priority directions of anti-epidemic readiness of the Russian Federation Region for emergency situations associated with infectious diseases dangerous for humans, at the present stage. Readiness of the Russian Federation region for emergency situations associated with infectious diseases dangerous for humans (anti-epidemic readiness) implies a set of preventive and anti-epidemic measures, implementation of relevant management decisions at the Regional level, which aim to ensure the safety of people living (temporarily located) in conditions of epidemiological risks. Anti-epidemic readiness is provided through targeted distribution of logistics, human resources, scientific methods, and informational resources of public health of the region, taking into account the priority of the organization of preventive measures especially for those infectious diseases that define dominant epidemiological risk in a particular municipality. Efficient use of resources is not possible without administrative, legal and financial support. As the result of the research priority directions of anti-epidemic readiness of the Russian Federation region for emergency situations associated with infectious diseases dangerousfor humans, taking into account the dominant epidemiological risks, are formulated

CURRENT ISSUES OF ANTI-EPIDEMIC READINESS OF A RUSSIAN FEDERATION REGION FOR EMERGENCY SITUATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH INFECTIOUS DISEASES DANGEROUS FOR HUMANS. REPORT 1. CONCEPTS, TERMS, DEFINITIONS

In the last decade outbreaks and epidemics of infectious diseases dangerous for humans cause tension epidemiological situation in the world and in the Russian Federation. Epidemic manifestation of these diseases has symptoms of emergency situations and requires the use of additional forces and means of Public Health, as well as administrative, legal and financial support. The purpose of this study is formulation of the concept of "public health emergency situations associated with diseases dangerous for humans". In considering of definitions "emergency situation", "disease" and "event" in international and national law, the thesis is confirmed that epidemic manifestation of infectious diseases dangerous for humans, are signs of an emergency. In addition, the interpretation of these terms focuses on the distinction between potential risk and its actual implementation. Consequently, the threat of public health emergency situations should be viewed from the risk methodology, by which we proposed to evaluate internal and external epidemiological risks and to define its dominance for each municipality of the Russian Federation Region. Infectious diseases dangerous for humans which able to cause public health emergency situations, can be divided into three groups. 1. Diseases that form the external epidemiological risk - dangerous infectious diseases requiring measures for sanitary protection of the territory of the Russian Federation. 2. Diseases that form the internal epidemiological risk - dangerous infectious diseases, registration both single and mass indigenous events requires emergency response and using of additional forces and means of public health of the Region. 3. Infectious diseases of importance in regional pathology, prevention of which is to implement long-term programs. In the framework of this paper the definition of "public health emergency situations associated with diseases dangerous for humans" is proposed. It focuses on the feasibility of upgrading approaches to priority directions of anti-epidemic readiness of the Russian Federation Region, taking into account the probability of epidemiological risks

Detecting the (Quasi-)Two-Body Decays of τ\tau Leptons in Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiments

Novel detector schemes are proposed for the short-baseline neutrino experiments of next generation, aimed at exploring the large-$\Delta m^2$ domain of \omutau oscillations in the appearance mode. These schemes emphasize good spectrometry for charged particles and for electromagnetic showers and efficient reconstruction of \ypi_gg decays. The basic elements are a sequence of relatively thin emulsion targets, immersed in magnetic field and interspersed with electronic trackers, and a fine-grained electromagnetic calorimeter built of lead glass. These elements act as an integral whole in reconstructing the electromagnetic showers. This conceptual scheme shows good performance in identifying the $\tau$ (quasi-)two-body decays by their characteristic kinematics and in selecting the electronic decays of the $\tau$.Comment: 34 pages, 8 figure

The Temperature-Dependent Selectivity of Potential Interaction Partners for the Small Heat Shock Protein IbpA from Acholeplasma laidlawii

© 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.Small heat shock proteins (sHsps) of α-crystalline type play a key role in the cell survival under stress conditions by preventing irreversible denaturation and aggregation of proteins. In contrast to most Mollicutes (mycoplasmas) where no sHsps were found, recently, some sHsp homologs were identified in the Acholeplasmataceae family, including Acholeplasma laidlawii, the only representative of Mollicutes that is known to survive in a host-free environment. Using pull-down followed by LC-MS, we identified the potential target proteins co-eluting with IbpA from the A. laidlawii cell extracts after exposition to low- and high temperatures. 308 and 464 proteins were co-eluted with IbpA from the cold- and heat-treated extracts, respectively, while only 240 of them were co-eluted with sHsp independently of the temperature. Most of potential IbpA targets were identified as enzymes involved in biosynthetic cycles and energy metabolism. We show IbpA specificity for target proteins on the incubation temperature. Significant differences between protein pools co-eluting specifically with IbpA at either 4 or 46 °C could be observed in terms of their aliphatic index, charge, molecular weight, and isoelectric point. Interestingly, only the isoelectric point distribution significantly differed between the protein pool co-eluting with IbpA under cooling (4 °C) and the entire proteome. In contrast, significant discrepancies in the distributions of aliphatic index, charge, hydropathy, molecular weight, and isoelectric point could be observed between the pool of proteins co-eluting with IbpA under heating (46 °C) and the entire proteome, indicating that there is likely a complex selective mechanism for proteins interaction with IbpA under heat shock conditions

Morphology of supported polymer electrolyte ultra-thin films: a numerical study

Morphology of polymer electrolytes membranes (PEM), e.g., Nafion, inside PEM fuel cell catalyst layers has significant impact on the electrochemical activity and transport phenomena that determine cell performance. In those regions, Nafion can be found as an ultra-thin film, coating the catalyst and the catalyst support surfaces. The impact of the hydrophilic/hydrophobic character of these surfaces on the structural formation of the films has not been sufficiently explored yet. Here, we report about Molecular Dynamics simulation investigation of the substrate effects on the ionomer ultra-thin film morphology at different hydration levels. We use a mean-field-like model we introduced in previous publications for the interaction of the hydrated Nafion ionomer with a substrate, characterized by a tunable degree of hydrophilicity. We show that the affinity of the substrate with water plays a crucial role in the molecular rearrangement of the ionomer film, resulting in completely different morphologies. Detailed structural description in different regions of the film shows evidences of strongly heterogeneous behavior. A qualitative discussion of the implications of our observations on the PEMFC catalyst layer performance is finally proposed

Recombinant small heat shock protein from Acholeplasma laidlawii increases the Escherichia coli viability in thermal stress by selective protein rescue

© 2017, Pleiades Publishing, Inc.In both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, the survival at temperatures considerably exceeding the optimum is supported by intense synthesis of the so-called heat shock proteins (HSPs), which act to overcome the adverse effects of heat stress. Among mycoplasmas (class Mollicutes), which have significantly reduced genomes, only some members of the Acholeplasmataceae family possess small HSPs of the α-crystallin type. Overproduction of a recombinant HSP IbpA (Hsp20) from the free-living mycoplasma Acholeplasma laidlawii was shown to increase the resistance of Escherichia coli to short-term heat shock. It has been long assumed that IbpA prevents protein aggregation and precipitation thereby increasing viability of E. coli cells. Several potential target proteins interacting with IbpA under heat stress were identified, including biosynthetic enzymes, enzymes of energy metabolism, and components of the protein synthesis machinery. Statistical analysis of physicochemical properties indicated that IbpA interaction partners significantly differ in molecular weight, charge, and isoelectric point from other members of the E. coli proteome. Upon shortterm exposure to increased temperature, IbpA was found to preferentially interact with high-molecularweight proteins having a pI of about 5.1, significantly lower than the typical values of E. coli proteins

A New Measurement of the π0\pi^0 Radiative Decay Width

High precision measurements of the differential cross sections for $\pi^0$ photoproduction at forward angles for two nuclei, $^{12}$C and $^{208}$Pb, have been performed for incident photon energies of 4.9 - 5.5 GeV to extract the ${\pi^0 \to \gamma\gamma}$ decay width. The experiment was done at Jefferson Lab using the Hall B photon tagger and a high-resolution multichannel calorimeter. The ${\pi^0 \to \gamma\gamma}$ decay width was extracted by fitting the measured cross sections using recently updated theoretical models for the process. The resulting value for the decay width is $\Gamma{(\pi^0 \to \gamma\gamma)} = 7.82 \pm 0.14 ~({\rm stat.}) \pm 0.17 ~({\rm syst.}) ~{\rm eV}$. With the 2.8% total uncertainty, this result is a factor of 2.5 more precise than the current PDG average of this fundamental quantity and it is consistent with current theoretical predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

GIS TOOLS IN THE WORK OF EPIDEMIOLOGICAL DIVISION OF SPECIALIZED ANTI-EPIDEMIC FORMATION DURING OBJECT EXERCISE OF LOCALIZATION A CHOLERA IMPORTED FOCUS

The results of the object exercise of the Specialized Anti-Epidemic Formation (SAEF) of Irkutsk Antiplague Research Institute performed in July 2011 are summarized. According to the exercise plan, SAEF subdivisions carried out tasks on monitoring of surface waters in conditions of an imported, cholera focus. GIS (Geo-Informational Systems)-technologies and. GPS-navigation were used, for optimization, the SAEF actions. Algorithm of measures on the basis of the epidemic significance of vibrios isolated, from surface waters was developed