Immunomodulatory Potential of Differently-Terminated Ultra-Small Silicon Carbide Nanoparticles

Ultra-small nanoparticles with sizes comparable to those of pores in the cellular membrane possess significant potential for application in the field of biomedicine. Silicon carbide ultra-small nanoparticles with varying surface termination were tested for the biological system represented by different human cells (using a human osteoblastic cell line as the reference system and a monocyte/macrophage cell line as immune cells). The three tested nanoparticle surface terminations resulted in the observation of different effects on cell metabolic activity. These effects were mostly noticeable in cases of monocytic cells, where each type of particle caused a completely different response (‘as-prepared’ particles, i.e., were highly cytotoxic, –OH terminated particles slightly increased the metabolic activity, while –NH2 terminated particles caused an almost doubled metabolic activity) after 24 h of incubation. Subsequently, the release of cytokines from such treated monocytes and their differentiation into activated cells was determined. The results revealed the potential modulation of immune cell behavior following stimulation with particular ultra-small nanoparticles, thus opening up new fields for novel silicon carbide nanoparticle biomedical applications

Future agroclimatic conditions and implications for European grasslands.

Grasslands play a significant role in livestock fodder production and thus, contribute to food security worldwide while providing numerous additional ecosystem services. However, how agroclimatic conditions and adverse weather events relevant for grasslands will change across the European grassland areas has not been examined to date. Using a single reference setup for soil and management over 476 European sites defined by climate stations, we show the probability of eight selected adverse weather events with the potential to significantly affect grassland productivity under climate change and how these events vary regionally across Europe. Changes in these eight key agroclimatic indicators create markedly specific spatial patterns. We found that by 2050, the exposure of the south and west European grasslands to heat and drought may double in comparison with today and that the area with frequent occurrences of heat and drought will expand northwards. However, across Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic countries to southern Finland and Sweden, the likelihood of these events is likely to decrease. While changing cultivars and management strategies are unavoidable, shifting grassland production to other regions to reduce the risk may not be possible as the risk of adverse events beyond the key grassland-growing areas increases even further. Moreover, we found marked changes in the overall thermal and water regimes across European regions. The effect of adverse weather events in the future could be different in other regions of the world compared to regions in Europe, emphasizing the importance of conducting similar analyses for other major grassland producing regions. To mitigate the impact of climate change, new ways of maintaining grassland productivity need to be developed. These methods include more efficient selection of species mixtures for specific regions, including increased use of legumes and forbs; incorporation of new genetic resources, including the development of hybrid cultivars, such as Festulolium hybrids; and incorporation of state-of-the-art technologies in breeding programs and new grazing management

Samoorganizujące się procesy w transporcie - czy możemy je wykorzystać w celu poprawy sterowania ruchem?

The goal of traffic control is to influence the traffic in the way it becomes more effective and safe. At present traffic control is working with the traffic flow considering it a quantity that is possible to regulate and control. The fact that each vehicle represents an independent intelligence is usually not taken into account. In fact each vehicle's driver decides in dependence on many different factors - from his knowledge and information he possesses to his actual state of mind. When all individual reactions of drivers are combined, self-organizing processes may arise and these self-organizing tendencies may sometimes contribute to the improvement of traffic situation but sometimes they may counterwork and cause more traffic problems.Celem sterowania ruchem jest wpływ na ruch w taki sposób, aby stał się on bardziej efektywny i bezpieczny. Obecnie sterowanie ruchem działa na strumień ruchu, uważając go za ilość, którą można regulować i kontrolować. Fakt, że każdy pojazd przedstawia niezależną inteligencję zazwyczaj nie jest brany pod uwagę. W zasadzie kierowca każdego pojazdu decyduje - w zależności od wielu różnych czynników - od własnej wiedzy i informacji, jakie posiada, po aktualny stan umysłu. Kiedy połączone zostaną wszystkie indywidualne reakcje kierowców, mogą wystąpić procesy samoorganizujące się i te tendencje do samoorganizacji mogą czasem pomóc w usprawnieniu sytuacji ruchowej, aczkolwiek czasem mogą działać wręcz odwrotnie i powodować dalsze problemy z ruchem

Study of standards and national ITS architectures within the E-FRAME project

Modern Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are now being widely deployed; in order to ensure that these deployments will bring maximum benefit to end users and other stakeholders, an ITS architecture, which defi nes how the deployed system would fi t into overall ITS structure, has to be defi ned. Help is available to achieve these goals from the European ITS Framework (FRAME) Architecture, now being upgraded by the European project E-FRAME. Within this project also the importance of mutual influence between standards and architecture is judged

REGIONAL SCIENTIFIC-PRACTICAL CONFERENCE «HIGHLIGHT OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATION ACTUAL TECHNOLOGIES UNDER FEDERAL STATE EDUCATIONAL STANDART OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATION»

The article provides information on the work of the regional scientific-practical conference "Current technologies of pre-school education in the light of federal state educational standart of preschool education" dedicated to the implementation of modern technologies of pre-school education in the context of the requirements of the federal state educational standards of preschool education. The conference was organized by the department of psychology and pedagogy of preschool and primary education, Minin University to discuss the pressing issues related to the selection and implementation of educational technologies in the light of the requirements of the Standard and upgrade modern framework of pre-school education through a major transformation. This resulted in the launch of various innovative processes in preschool education as a separate grade of general education. A review of the most significant articles that illustrate the experience of implementing different technologies of pre-school education is observed

THE PROJECT “CLINICAL BASE TRAINING” IN THE NETWORKING CONDITIONS BETWEEN A COLLEGE AND A UNIVERSITY

The article considers approaches to training pre-school teachers in the clinical practice. The key point in the organization of student practice is networking of educational institutions of secondary vocational and higher education. This study illustrates the experience of the project "Clinical practice" in the framework of the agreement on networking between the Nizhny Novgorod Province College and Minin University. The backbone is project activity of students on the basis of college resource center. The educational project at the end of practice undergoes the procedure of expertise with the involvement of potential employers. As a result of the expertise the project gets recommendations for implementation in the educational process of preschool educational organizations. Project Advisory support is provided by the students - participants of clinical practice