Spark Plasma Sintering of Boron Carbide Powder

The results presented in this article demonstrate that boron carbide ceramics of a perfect microstructure, of a high density (up to 99.8%) and microhardness (36.1 GPa) can be made from the industrial micron fraction powder thanks to spark plasma sintering, that opens prospects for wide SPS application in economical production of high-quality boron carbide ceramic products. Optimal ceramics production mode is based on B4C (technical powder), which makes the best combination of physical and mechanical properties and uniformmicrostructure. The experimentally set mode of spark-plasma sintering of highdensity B4C ceramics allows to lower the sintering temperature by 300 ∘C and to shorten the process time by 20 minutes relative to the corresponding values when traditional hot pressing. Keywords: spark - plasma sintering, boron carbide, densit

Geek Culture As a New ‘Image’ of Contemporary Culture

The aim of this article is to present the theoretical grounding of geek culture as a unique contemporary phenomenon, based on structural-functional, evolutionary, and systemic methodology within the overarching culturological approach. We verify the meaning of such concepts as ‘geek’, ‘geek community’, and ‘geek culture’; explore the role and the characteristics of geek culture as a supra-subculture; analyze its global universal features and the specifics of its Russian variant; describe a unique characteristic of geek culture as a self-organizing system; and highlight the dualistic features of geek culture as a ‘marker’ of contemporary social processes.     Keywords: geek, geek culture, geek community, supra-subculture, consumer subculture, mass subculture, youth subculture, counter-culture, mainstrea

Finite-dimensional reductions of the discrete Toda chain

The problem of construction of integrable boundary conditions for the discrete Toda chain is considered. The restricted chains for properly chosen closure conditions are reduced to the well known discrete Painlev\'e equations $dP_{III}$, $dP_{V}$, $dP_{VI}$. Lax representations for these discrete Painlev\'e equations are found.Comment: Submitted to Jornal of Physics A: Math. Gen., 14 page

Scientific visualization as a possible component of the imaginative part of academic drawing and painting in a process of industrial design teaching

The article raises the question of the conscious possibility of scientific visualization usage in a context of designers' education. The article considers the problem of mixing creativity (such as academic drawing) and computer technologies in the process of design students' education. This article underlines the priority of impressions and the secondariness of constructive specifications of images that may appear in the very beginning during the process of work with material. The material of the article covers such things like the nature of image appearance and presumable results of original ideas realization. The actual ideas of image appearance are given as a singularity of a gouache painting technique. According to the tradition of school of academic painting, aspiration to stand out by originality of smear, tone and color of stretch marks, relief, pasty painting are welcome

Stable complexes of tertiary ammonia derivative of phenothiazine with tertramethylsulfonated resorcin[4]arenes obtained under substoichiometric conditions

Eight water insoluble complexes of tetramethylsulfonated calix[4]resorcinarenes 1 and 2 (-CH3 and -C5H 11) with phenothiazine derivative, 3, were obtained under substoichiometric conditions by mixing aqueous solutions of the initial reagents. It was found that complexation of cationic 3 by macrocycles was provided by both Coulomb interaction with the negative sulfonato-groups on the upper rim and by cation-π interactions with the aromatic cavity. The complexes precipitated and, therefore, were studied in organic solvents-DMSO, CD3OD, and CDCl3 using IR-, UV-, and NMR- spectroscopy. Formation of the complexes accompanied by gradual dehydratation of the host-estimated quantity of water in the complexes decreased with increase of the initial concentration of 3. Driving forces of precipitation and complexation, the role of water coordinated by the hosts, and distribution of phenothiazine derivative between two kinds of binding sites are discussed. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc

OPPORTUNITIES OF USE OF THE BIOFEEDBACK METHOD IN REHABILITATION OF PATIENTS WITH OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES CAUSED BY CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL FACTORS

The article shows the opportunity of use of biomonitoring in patients with exogenous toxic encephalopathy in the remote period of chronic mercury intoxication. (CMI) and with, vibration disease caused by local vibration. The efficiency of the biofeedback method was assessed on the basis of the data of electroencephalography, auditory, visual and somatosensoric generated potentials, electroneuromyography, thermometry, dosed cold test and. rheography. Biofeedback training in people with. CMI caused decrease of total brain changes in EEG, improvement of amplitude indices at of the brain generated potentials, in people with vibration disease it caused decrease of manifestation of angiodistonic syndrome and. restoration of neuromuscular conductivity

СHANGES OF IMMUNOREGULATORY INDEXES IN CHILDREN EXPOSED TO STRONTIUM

Evaluation of the immune system parameters can be used in order to assess capacity to adapt under conditions of increased external chemical load, including exposure to metals, which can exert either activating and inhibitory effects upon immune regulation parameters. The aim of this work was the analysis of immunoregulatory markers in a children’s population who consumed water with high strontium content (a sample from the Perm region). We carried out immunological evaluation of the children aged 7 to 12 years, living at a territory with a high strontium content in the drinking water. The comparison group included children from the conventionally clean region. We studied differential changes in cellular immunity (phagocytosis rates), humoral factors of immune defense (serum immunoglobulins), development of specific sensitization for strontium, as well as the processes of apoptosis triggering and regulation. A 3.68-fold increase in strontium levels was shown in fresh water within observation area, and the average  blood strontium content in the children of appropriate observation group was 1.55-fold higher than in children of the comparison group. At the same time, 1.2-fold increase in phagocytic activity determined as phagocytic number and phagocytic index was found, as compared to the control group. In 80% of the subjects, a reduction in serum IgG level was observed when compared to physiological norm, as well as a significant decrease in IgG and enhance in IgM production against the levels found in the comparison group. Wehave also shown an enhanced total sensitization in 55.0% of the observation group as shown by the total IgE test compared with normal age ranges, as well as excessive specific sensitization to strontium by 2.49 times, according to the IgG criterion. Disturbance in apoptosis triggering was associated with decreased number of CD95+ lymphocytes and TNFR1+ cells (2.8-fold compared to reference values), shifted balance in apoptogenic proteins, an average of 2.6-fold decrease in Bcl-2 expression, a 2.8-fold reduction of the p53 transcription factor expression relative to the reference interval. Thus, we have shown an ability of strontium excess in drinking water to influence the most important indices of immune regulation in pediatric population. These changes may serve as indices of populational health status under of external strontium exposure

Self-reflection technologies to design the developmental environment for the professional formation of sports teachers

The significance of this article lies in the fact that the problem of modifying the forms, methods and means of implementing the content of education, training and retraining of personnel for the sphere of physical education, sports and tourism always comes first among other pedagogical problems. To improve the educational process and, specifically, educational activities is an essential objective of all the system of education. The article presents the results of a study of the role, place and function of self-reflection in educational activities, as well as in the formation of a sports teacher’s professional thinking based on self-reflective culture of solving professional problems. Based on the logical-substantive analysis, the article shows that the mechanism of self-reflective thinking is mandatory for the formation of the methodological culture of future specialists’ professional thinking in the implementation of the curriculum content of physical education universities; it has been proved that activation of self-reflection during training leads to the fact that the learner makes his own activity as the object of his influence, he begins to purposefully change, improve or rebuild it. In addition, the article substantiates that the modern practice of education, training and retraining of personnel for the field of physical education, sports and tourism requires constant creative improvement of the teaching staff of higher education, which provides solutions to modern educational problems, the resolution of which will prepare competitive specialists for the open labour market; the analysis of a great number of scientific literature sources shows that psych didactics of developmental education should be based on activation of self-reflection, as a special way and means of forming self-reflective culture of sports teachers; the introduction of self-reflection in the educational process determines the improvement of the methodological culture and the personal inclusion of students, which undoubtedly leads to an increase in their professional competence