Ecologic-geochemical condition of natural waters of the active water exchange zone of the south of Kuzbas

Pollution of surface and underground waters of the active water exchange zone of the south of Kuzbas has been considered. The evaluation of the level of modern condition of natural waters is conducted based on the materials of five years of researches. The conformity of the maximum concentration limit of the investigated waters is ascertained. The main contaminants of natural waters are reveale

Families with increased risk of alcohol and tobacco use by adolescents

BACKGROUND. Increasing number of incomplete families is considered a negative trend in the society because it results in deterioration of the family’s educative function, due to which children in such families are more likely to start and practice antisocial behaviors. Many sociological studies showed that children from single-parent and reconstructed families are at increased risk of early use of alcohol, drugs, and smoking. According to the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, 27,5% of families with children younger than 18 years in Ukraine are single-parent families, which is a substantial portion. Therefore, we aimed to identify levels of alcohol consumption by adolescents, based on the type of family in which they have been brought up. METHODS. The study group consisted of 28 000 Ukrainian youth aged 14-27 who were participants of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs conducted in different types of secondary schools in 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007. The outcome variable was alcohol consumption. Independent variables included accessibility of alcohol, economic status, parental control, smoking status, relationship with parents, and the type of family. RESULTS. The multivariate analysis revealed that higher alcohol consumption was associated with unsatisfactory relationship with a father, with being brought up in a single-parent family, with insufficient control by parents, and with smoking of an adolescent. CONCLUSIONS. The study documents the existence of social phenomenon which is related to families characterized by problematic relationship both between spouses and between generations, and alcohol and tobacco use by adolescents and possibly by their parents. The data do not give grounds to ascribe these families to a particular socio-economic stratum, but they definitely deserve public attention and care

Семейные и социальные факторы приобщения подростков к употреблению алкоголя

BACKGROUND: Many authors discuss factors which influence involving adolescence into alcohol use. This study was aimed to assess contribution of factors related to alcohol use in the family, getting into situations of alcohol use as well as preventive work in teenage establishments. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Survey of 373 adolescents attending teenage clubs was conducted in Kazan, Russia, with questions related to alcohol use in the family and among peers, age and circumstances of first alcohol use. The outcome measure was whether respondents were current alcohol users. Associations were explored through logistic regression models. RESULTS: Alcohol use by teenagers did not differ by gender. Odds of using alcohol increased with age (OR=1.46 95%CI 1.19-1.80 per year). Risk of alcohol use was lower if no family members used alcohol (OR=0.3 95%CI 0.2-0.5) compared to those teenagers who have any family members who used alcohol. After adding to the model variables related to the first alcohol use, most significant was association with the response that no one has ever proposed to drink alcohol (OR=0.014 95%CI 0.005-0.041) compared to any situations of alcohol use, while the association with familial factors was attenuated. This shows that impact of familial factors could be mediated through the occasions of alcohol use. Teenagers whose parents do not use alcohol less likely get into situations where they are proposed to drink in a peer group (12% vs. 24%) or at a party (18% vs. 25%). Adolescents who expressed negative attitude to alcohol-related work in youth clubs more likely were alcohol users themselves (OR=21.1 95%CI 2.6-170.3), which is better applicable for diagnostics than for program evaluation. CONCLUSION: Absence of alcohol in the family predetermines alcohol use by adolescents. Teenagers whose parents do not use alcohol less likely get into situations where they are suggested to drink alcohol. KEY WORDS: alcohol, alcohol initiation, adolescents, family, parents, youth peer groups, youth clubsАКТУАЛЬНОСТЬ: Многочисленные работы обсуждают факторы, касающиеся приобщения подростков к употреблению алкоголя. Цель работы - оценить вклад факторов, связанных с потреблением алкоголя в семье, попадания в ситуации, где принято употреблять алкоголь, профилактической работы в подростковых учреждениях. МАТЕРИАЛ и МЕТОДЫ: Опрошено 373 человека, посещавших подростковые клубы города Казани, Россия. Анкета включала вопросы, касающиеся потребления алкоголя, правил, принятых в семье и в компаниях сверстников, возраста первой пробы и ситуаций, в которых она произошла. Результирующая переменная – употребляет ли респондент алкоголь. Построены логистические регрессионные модели, учитывающие перечисленные выше факторы. РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ: Потребление алкоголя подростками не различалось в зависимости от пола. С возрастом вероятность того, что подросток потребляет алкоголь, увеличивалась (OR=1.46 95%CI 1.19-1.80 на год). Добавление в модель переменных, касающихся потребления алкоголя членами семьи, показало, что вероятность его потребления подростком ниже, если никто в семье его не потребляет, (OR=0.3 95%CI 0.2-0.5) чем в случае потребления алкоголя любыми членами семьи. После добавления в модель переменных, касающихся ситуации первого употребления алкоголя, наиболее статистически значимой оказалась связь с ответом, что никто и никогда прежде не предлагал алкоголь (OR=0.014 95%CI 0.005-0.041) по сравнению с любыми ситуациями предложения алкоголя, значимость же связи с употреблением алкоголя членами семьи при этом снизилась, что указывает на медиацию влияния потребления алкоголя в семье через ситуации потребления алкоголя. Подростки, чьи родители не употребляют алкоголь, с меньшей вероятностью оказываются в ситуациях, когда им могут предложить алкоголь в компании сверстников (12% против 24%) или на вечеринке (18% против 25%). Добавление в модель переменных, касающихся профилактической работы в клубах, не изменило результатов, однако если подростки негативно оценивали такую работу, то они с большей вероятностью были потребителями алкоголя (OR=21.1 95%CI 2.6-170.3), что скорее может служить диагностическим целям, чем оценке эффективности проведенных мероприятий. ВЫВОДЫ: Отсутствие алкоголя в семье является фактором, определяющим употребление алкоголя подростками. Подростки, чьи родители не употребляют алкоголь, с меньшей вероятностью попадают в ситуации, где им могут предложить алкоголь

Clustering in light nuclei in fragmentation above 1 A GeV

The relativistic invariant approach is applied to analyzing the 3.3 A GeV $^{22}$Ne fragmentation in a nuclear track emulsion. New results on few-body dissociations have been obtained from the emulsion exposures to 2.1 A GeV $^{14}$N and 1.2 A GeV $^{9}$Be nuclei. It can be asserted that the use of the invariant approach is an effective means of obtaining conclusions about the behavior of systems involving a few He nuclei at a relative energy close to 1 MeV per nucleon. The first observations of fragmentation of 1.2 A GeV $^{8}$B and $^{9}$C nuclei in emulsion are described. The presented results allow one to justify the development of few-body aspects of nuclear astrophysics.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics-2, 16-20 May, 2005 (ATOMKI), Debrecen, Hungar

Data growth and its impact on the SCOP database: new developments

The Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) database is a comprehensive ordering of all proteins of known structure, according to their evolutionary and structural relationships. The SCOP hierarchy comprises the following levels: Species, Protein, Family, Superfamily, Fold and Class. While keeping the original classification scheme intact, we have changed the production of SCOP in order to cope with a rapid growth of new structural data and to facilitate the discovery of new protein relationships. We describe ongoing developments and new features implemented in SCOP. A new update protocol supports batch classification of new protein structures by their detected relationships at Family and Superfamily levels in contrast to our previous sequential handling of new structural data by release date. We introduce pre-SCOP, a preview of the SCOP developmental version that enables earlier access to the information on new relationships. We also discuss the impact of worldwide Structural Genomics initiatives, which are producing new protein structures at an increasing rate, on the rates of discovery and growth of protein families and superfamilies. SCOP can be accessed at http://scop.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/scop

Structures and orientational transitions in thin films of tilted hexatic smectics

We present detailed systematic studies of structural transformations in thin liquid crystal films with the smectic-C to hexatic phase transition. For the first time all possible structures reported in the literature are observed for one material (5 O.6) at the variation of temperature and thickness. In unusual modulated structures the equilibrium period of stripes is twice with respect to the domain size. We interpret these patterns in the frame work of phenomenological Landau type theory, as equilibrium phenomena produced by a natural geometric frustration in a system having spontaneous splay distortion.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Search for a signal on intermediate baryon systems formation in hadron-nuclear and nuclear-nuclear interactions at high energies

We have analyzed the behavior of different characteristics of hadron-nuclear and nuclear-nuclear interactions as a function of centrality to get a signal on the formation of intermediate baryon systems. We observed that the data demonstrate the regime change and saturation. The angular distributions of slow particles exhibit some structure in the above mentioned reactions at low energy. We believe that the structure could be connected with the formation and decay of the percolation cluster. With increasing the mass of colliding nuclei, the structure starts to become weak and almost disappears ultimately. This shows that the number of secondary internuclear interactions increases with increasing the mass of the colliding nuclei. The latter could be a reason of the disintegration of any intermediate formations as well as clusters, which decrease their influence on the angular distribution of the emitted particles.Comment: 2 pages and one figur

Fragmentation of relativistic nuclei in peripheral interactions in nuclear track emulsion

The technique of nuclear track emulsions is used to explore the fragmentation of light relativistic nuclei down to the most peripheral interactions - nuclear "white" stars. A complete pattern of therelativistic dissociation of a $^8$B nucleus with target fragment accompaniment is presented. Relativistic dissociation $^{9}$Be$\to2\alpha$ is explored using significant statistics and a relative contribution of $^{8}$Be decays from 0$^+$ and 2$^+$ states is established. Target fragment accompaniments are shown for relativistic fragmentation $^{14}$N$\to$3He+H and $^{22}$Ne$\to$5He. The leading role of the electromagnetic dissociation on heavy nuclei with respect to break-ups on target protons is demonstrated in all these cases. It is possible to conclude that the peripheral dissociation of relativistic nuclei in nuclear track emulsion is a unique tool to study many-body systems composed of lightest nuclei and nucleons in the energy scale relevant for nuclear astrophysics.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 4 tables, conference: Relativistic nuclear physics: from Nuclotron to LHC energies, Kiev, June 18-22, 200