Проложное Житие Александра Свирского: реконструкция ранних этапов истории текста

The paper addresses the problems of the attribution and the geographical and chronological origins of the synaxarion redaction of the Life of St. Alexander Svirsky; it relies on textological, codicological, and palaeographic analysis of the surviving manuscripts. The author draws some conclusions about the formation of the regional variants of this medieval hagiographic text. Alexander Svirsky was the only Christian saint who was honored by receiving a manifestation of the Holy Trinity; this occurred in 1508. He founded the monastery of the Holy Trinity and was its archpriest until his dormition in 1533. The Life of Alexander Svirsky was written in 1545 by Herodion Kochnev, one of the saint’s acolytes, at the directive of Metropolitan Macarius for the Great Menaion Reader. The Life of St. Alexander Svirsky survives in a large number of copies— about 200—from the 16th and 17th centuries. Only nine of these copies show the text variant that the author of this study calls “the synaxarion variant”; they appear in synaxaria from the second half of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries. Word-by-word text comparison allows one to conclude that these nine copies fall into three different redactions, each reflecting Herodion’s text. All three redactions originate from different areas, and they differ in subject matter and in the methods of elaboration of the Menaion text. On the one hand, this confirms that obviously there was a great need for this kind of text; on the other hand, it acknowledges the absence of a norm by means of which such texts might be compiled. The first, earliest, synaxarion redaction survives in seven copies, including one of the earliest copies of the Life, which dates back to 1549, according to a note by the scribe. It might have been created soon after Herodion’s text for the Great Menaion Reader to coincide with Alexander’s canonization in 1547. Despite the small number of surviving copies, this redaction was rather widespread and was known in Pskov and Novgorod, in the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, and probably in Romanov. The other two redactions were found in late, isolated copies. The second synaxarion redaction is known from the Vologda Synaxarion, and the third one—from the Synaxarion delivered from Moscow to Mozhaysk.Житие Александра Свирского (1545 г.) сохранилось в большом количестве списков; всего за полтора века бытования текста возникло как минимум десять редакций, некоторые известны лишь по одному списку. Одна из первых проложных редакций Жития возникает почти одновременно с появлением текста в Успенском комплекте Великих Миней четьих и содержит некоторые новые сведения. На материале кодикологического, палеографического и текстологического анализа рукописей в работе решаются проблемы атрибуции, локализации, времени создания проложных текстов Жития Александра; высказывается предположение о формировании региональных вариантов средневекового агиографического текста

NCBI Peptidome: a new repository for mass spectrometry proteomics data

Peptidome is a public repository that archives and freely distributes tandem mass spectrometry peptide and protein identification data generated by the scientific community. Data from all stages of a mass spectrometry experiment are captured, including original mass spectra files, experimental metadata and conclusion-level results. The submission process is facilitated through acceptance of data in commonly used open formats, and all submissions undergo syntactic validation and curation in an effort to uphold data integrity and quality. Peptidome is not restricted to specific organisms, instruments or experiment types; data from any tandem mass spectrometry experiment from any species are accepted. In addition to data storage, web-based interfaces are available to help users query, browse and explore individual peptides, proteins or entire Samples and Studies. Results are integrated and linked with other NCBI resources to ensure dissemination of the information beyond the mass spectroscopy proteomics community. Peptidome is freely accessible at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/peptidome

Project Based Learning in Teaching Communication Skills in English as a Foreign Language to Engineering Students

The aim of this paper is to consider project based learning as one of the most efficient and productive methods used in teaching English as a foreign language to engineering students of Russian technical universities. Special emphasis is put on communication skills to be mastered by future engineers through project based learning. It is of great importance to note that highly developed oral and written communication skills are valuable for engineering students wishing to become successful and competitive in the international arena. Hence, engineering students must be trained well to develop their communication skills in English in the field of professional activity, mainly in the science research area. An inter-disciplinary project designed on the basis of project based learning for the second year students of Tomsk Polytechnic University is reviewed in this work. The authors come to the conclusion that project based learning is an ideal teaching method since it allows engineering students to improve significantly their oral and written communication skills as well as apply the content knowledge in the field of their professional activity within the English language course

Efficient and nontoxic biomolecule delivery to primary human hematopoietic stem cells using nanostraws

Introduction of exogenous genetic material into primary stem cells is essential for studying biological function and for clinical applications. Traditional delivery methods for nucleic acids, such as electroporation, have advanced the field, but have negative effects on stem cell function and viability. We introduce nanostraw-assisted transfection as an alternative method for RNA delivery to human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). Nanostraws are hollow alumina nanotubes that can be used to deliver biomolecules to living cells. We use nanostraws to target human primary HSPCs and show efficient delivery of mRNA, short interfering RNAs (siRNAs), DNA oligonucleotides, and dextrans of sizes ranging from 6 kDa to 2,000 kDa. Nanostraw-treated cells were fully functional and viable, with no impairment in their proliferative or colony-forming capacity, and showed similar long-term engraftment potential in vivo as untreated cells. Additionally, we found that gene expression of the cells was not perturbed by nanostraw treatment, while conventional electroporation changed the expression of more than 2,000 genes. Our results show that nanostraw-mediated transfection is a gentle alternative to established gene delivery methods, and uniquely suited for nonperturbative treatment of sensitive primary stem cells

Febrile Seizures Cause a Rapid Depletion of Calcium-Permeable AMPA Receptors at the Synapses of Principal Neurons in the Entorhinal Cortex and Hippocampus of the Rat

Febrile seizures (FSs) are a relatively common early-life condition that can cause CNS developmental disorders, but the specific mechanisms of action of FS are poorly understood. In this work, we used hyperthermia-induced FS in 10-day-old rats. We demonstrated that the efficiency of glutamatergic synaptic transmission decreased rapidly after FS by recording local field potentials. This effect was transient, and after two days there were no differences between control and post-FS groups. During early ontogeny, the proportion of calcium-permeable (CP)-AMPA receptors in the synapses of the principal cortical and hippocampal neurons is high. Therefore, rapid internalization of CP-AMPA receptors may be one of the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. Using the whole-cell patch-clamp method and the selective CP-AMPA receptor blocker IEM-1460, we tested whether the proportion of CP-AMPA receptors changed. We have demonstrated that FS rapidly reduces synaptic CP-AMPA receptors in both the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex. This process was accompanied by a sharp decrease in the calcium permeability of the membrane of principal neurons, which we revealed in experiments with kainate-induced cobalt uptake. Our experiments show that FSs cause rapid changes in the function of the glutamatergic system, which may have compensatory effects that prevent excessive excitotoxicity and neuronal death