Problems and prospects of development of tourism in the Astrakhan region

Features of functioning of tourist business in the Astrakhan region are investigated, problems and prospects of tourist business are defined, ways of increasing the competitiveness and efficiency come to light. On the basis of SWOT the analysis the factors influencing tourist business come to light

Blood flow oscillations as a signature of microvascular abnormalities

Laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) was utilized for blood ow measurements. Wavelet analysis was used to identify spectral characteristics of the LDF signal in patients with rheumatic diseases and diabetes mellitus. Baseline measurements were applied for both pathological groups. Blood flow oscillations analyses were performed by means of the wavelet transform. Higher baseline perfusion was observed in both pathological groups in comparison to controls. Differences in the spectral properties between the groups studied were revealed. The results obtained demonstrated that spectral properties of the LDF signal collected in basal conditions may be the signature of microvasculature functional state

Peculiarities of local blood microcirculation in patients with psoriasis

Local hemodynamic parameters were studied by means of laser Doppler flowmetry in 15 patients with psoriasis in the stationary stage, who have plaques on the inner surface of the forearm. LDF signals recorded at the site of psoriatic lesions of the tissue as well as in the intact tissue at a distance of 1-2 cm from the affected area were analysed. LDF signals were postprocessed by continuous wavelet transform using the Morlet wavelet

Pilot studies of the unique highland palsa mire in Western Sayan (Tuva Republic, Russian Federation)

In contrast to the well-studied West Siberian sector of frozen bogs in the Russian Arctic, the frozen mound bogs (so-called “palsas”) on the highlands of Southern Siberia have not yet been studied, but they are suspected to be even more sensitive to ongoing climate change. This article provides the pilot study on palsa mire Kara-Sug in the highland areas of Western Sayan mountain system, Tuva Republic. The study focuses on the current state of palsa mire and surrounding landscapes, providing wide range of ecological characteristics while describing ongoing transformations of natural landscapes under a changing climate. The study used a variety of field and laboratory methods: the integrated landscape-ecological approach, the study of peat deposits, geobotanical analysis, and modern analysis of the chemical composition of water, peat, and soils. The study shows that highland palsa mires are distinguished by their compactness and high variety of cryogenic landforms leading to high floristic and ecosystem diversity compared with lowland palsa mires. This information brings new insights and contributes to a better understanding of extrazonal highland palsa mires, which remain a “white spot” in the global environmental sciences

Interaction of Mitochondrial Calcium and ROS in Neurodegeneration

Neurodegenerative disorders are currently incurable devastating diseases which are characterized by the slow and progressive loss of neurons in specific brain regions. Progress in the investigation of the mechanisms of these disorders helped to identify a number of genes associated with familial forms of these diseases and a number of toxins and risk factors which trigger sporadic and toxic forms of these diseases. Recently, some similarities in the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases were identified, including the involvement of mitochondria, oxidative stress, and the abnormality of Ca signaling in neurons and astrocytes. Thus, mitochondria produce reactive oxygen species during metabolism which play a further role in redox signaling, but this may also act as an additional trigger for abnormal mitochondrial calcium handling, resulting in mitochondrial calcium overload. Combinations of these factors can be the trigger of neuronal cell death in some pathologies. Here, we review the latest literature on the crosstalk of reactive oxygen species and Ca in brain mitochondria in physiology and beyond, considering how changes in mitochondrial metabolism or redox signaling can convert this interaction into a pathological event

Multimodal optical measurement for study of lower limb tissue viability in patients with diabetes mellitus

According to the International Diabetes Federation, the challenge of early stage diagnosis and treatment effectiveness monitoring in diabetes is currently one of the highest priorities in modern healthcare. The potential of combined measurements of skin fluorescence and blood perfusion by the laser Doppler flowmetry method in diagnostics of low limb diabetes complications was evaluated. Using Monte Carlo probabilistic modeling, the diagnostic volume and depth of the diagnosis were evaluated. The experimental study involved 76 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. These patients were divided into two groups depending on the degree of complications. The control group consisted of 48 healthy volunteers. The local thermal stimulation was selected as a stimulus on the blood microcirculation system. The experimental studies have shown that diabetic patients have elevated values of normalized fluorescence amplitudes, as well as a lower perfusion response to local heating. In the group of people with diabetes with trophic ulcers, these parameters also significantly differ from the control and diabetes only groups. Thus, the intensity of skin fluorescence and level of tissue blood perfusion can act as markers for various degrees of complications from the beginning of diabetes to the formation of trophic ulcers

Resummation Approach in QCD Analytic Perturbation Theory

We discuss the resummation approach in QCD Analytic Perturbation Theory (APT). We start with a simple example of asymptotic power series for a zero-dimensional analog of the scalar $g\,\phi^4$ model. Then we give a short historic preamble of APT and show that renormgroup improvement of the QCD perturbation theory dictates to use the Fractional APT (FAPT). After that we discuss the (F)APT resummation of nonpower series and provide the one-, two-, and three-loop resummation recipes. We show the results of applications of these recipes to the estimation of the Adler function $D(Q^2)$ in the $N_f=4$ region of $Q^2$ and of the Higgs-boson-decay width $\Gamma_{H\to b\bar{b}}(m_H^2)$ for $M_H=100-180$ GeV$^2$.Comment: 8 pages, 2 Figures, 3 Tables. Talk presented by the first author at the International HADRON STRUCTURE'11 Conference, Tatranska Strba (Slovakia), June 27--July 1, 2011 and also at the International Conference "NEW TRENDS IN HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS (experiment, phenomenology, theory)", Alushta, Crimea, Ukraine, September 3--10, 201

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN