Genus <i>Nicotiana</i> L.: a review of traits significant for ornamental crop production

Background. The collection of Nicotiana L. species (Solanaceae) maintained at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Tobacco, Makhorka and Tobacco Products (VNIITTI) is a valuable genetic resource used in breeding and genetic research on interspecific hybridization, cytoplasmic male sterility, and as a genebank for resistance to major tobacco diseases. Many species have ornamental features and properties: bright color and unusual morphology of the corolla, aroma, peculiar plant shape and others, and are promising for use in landscaping and garden designing. To identify and evaluate such species the collection was for the first time screened for a set of morphological and ornamental characters.Materials and methods. Thirty-seven accessions of Nicotiana spp. were studied in the greenhouses and at the experimental breeding site of VNIITTI using breeding methods and agricultural practices developed at the Institute and generally accepted in crop production.Results and conclusion. Phenotypic assessment of 37 Nicotiana accessions resulted in identifying for the first time 14 traits of ornamental value and selecting 18 original species and 10 hybrids of N. alata × N. × sanderae environmentally adapted to the local conditions and promising for landscaping and garden designing: with bright flowers, prolonged flowering, and relative resistance to stressful weather conditions. The typicality and stability of their progeny was assessed, and their germplasm was maintained and preserved in vivo

Случай новой коронавирусной инфекции COVID-19 у пациента, находящегося на лечении программным гемодиализом

Coronavirus infection (COVID-19) is an acute infectious disease caused by a new strain of the virus of the genus coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 with the aerosol-droplet and contact-household transmission mechanism; patogenetically local and systemic inflammatory process, hyperactive impulsive cascade, endotheliopathy, hypoxia, leading to the development of micro – and microthrombosis; it occurs from asymptomatic to clinically significant forms of intoxication, vascular lesions, lungs, heart, kidneys, and GI tract with risk of complications (ARF, ARDS, sepsis, shock, multiple organ dysfunction SYNDROME, pulmonary embolism). Currently, there are few data on the course of this disease in patients undergoing treatment with program hemodialysis, as well as methods of specific treatment of this group of patients. The article describes the case of the first patient in the Clinical Infectious Hospital named after S.P. Botkin with end-stage chronic kidney disease corrected by program hemodialysis, who had a COVID-19.Коронавирусная инфекция (COVID-19) – острое инфекционное заболевание, вызываемое новым штаммом вируса из рода коронавирусов SARS-CoV-2 с аэрозольно-капельным и контактно-бытовым механизмом передачи, патогенетически характеризуется локальным и системным иммуновоспалительным процессом, гиперактивностью коагуляционного каскада, эндотелиопатией, гипоксией, приводящим к развитию микро- и макротромбозов, протекает от бессимптомных до клинически выраженных форм с интоксикацией, поражением сосудов, легких, сердца, почек, желудочно-кишечного тракта с риском развития осложнений (острая дыхательная недостаточность, острый респираторный дистресс-синдром, сепсис, шок, синдром полиорганной недостаточности, тромбоэмболия легочной артерии). В настоящее время имеются немногочисленные данные о течении данного заболевания у пациентов, находящихся на лечении программным гемодиализом, а также методах специфического лечения данной группы больных. В статье описан случай первого пациента в Клинической инфекционной больнице имени С.П. Боткина с хронической болезнью почек терминальной стадии, корригируемой программным гемодиализом, перенесшего COVID-19

Three-Dimensional Simulations of a Starburst-Driven Galactic Wind

We have performed a series of three-dimensional simulations of a starburst-driven wind in an inhomogeneous interstellar medium. The introduction of an inhomogeneous disk leads to differences in the formation of a wind, most noticeably the absence of the ``blow-out'' effect seen in homogeneous models. A wind forms from a series of small bubbles that propagate into the tenuous gas between dense clouds in the disk. These bubbles merge and follow the path of least resistance out of the disk, before flowing freely into the halo. Filaments are formed from disk gas that is broken up and accelerated into the outflow. These filaments are distributed throughout a biconical structure within a more spherically distributed hot wind. The distribution of the inhomogeneous interstellar medium in the disk is important in determining the morphology of this wind, as well as the distribution of the filaments. While higher resolution simulations are required in order to ascertain the importance of mixing processes, we find that soft X-ray emission arises from gas that has been mass-loaded from clouds in the disk, as well as from bow shocks upstream of clouds, driven into the flow by the ram pressure of the wind, and the interaction between these shocks.Comment: 37 pages, 16 figures, mpg movie can be obtained at http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~jcooper/movie/video16.mpg, accepted for publication in Ap

Dark Matter Search Perspectives with GAMMA-400

GAMMA-400 is a future high-energy gamma-ray telescope, designed to measure the fluxes of gamma-rays and cosmic-ray electrons + positrons, which can be produced by annihilation or decay of dark matter particles, and to survey the celestial sphere in order to study point and extended sources of gamma-rays, measure energy spectra of Galactic and extragalactic diffuse gamma-ray emission, gamma-ray bursts, and gamma-ray emission from the Sun. GAMMA-400 covers the energy range from 100 MeV to ~3000 GeV. Its angular resolution is ~0.01 deg(Eg > 100 GeV), and the energy resolution ~1% (Eg > 10 GeV). GAMMA-400 is planned to be launched on the Russian space platform Navigator in 2019. The GAMMA-400 perspectives in the search for dark matter in various scenarios are presented in this paperComment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to the Proceedings of the International Cosmic-Ray Conference 2013, Brazil, Rio de Janeir

Кинетические характеристики процесса растворения PdCl2 в водно-хлоридных СРЕДах

The reaction of dissolution of solid PdCl2 in water-chloride media at room temperature was studied. It was established that the reaction proceeds via a mechanism of topochemical reaction. With the ionic strength fixed, the reaction rate constant is shown to depend on the chloride ion concentration with n = -2, thus confirming that this reaction goes through the formation of hydroxyl and aquachloride complexes of palladium. At low chlorides background С (NaCl) &lt; 0.3 M, and the topochemical nature of the reaction is mainly determined by hydroxide concentration in equilibrium with aquachloride complexes of palladium. The nature and rate of topochemical reaction is determined by concentration of NaCl. With decreasing the concentration of chloride ion from 1 M to 0.2 M reaction proceeds from kinetic to diffusion region.Изучена реакция растворения твердого PdCl2 в водно-хлоридных средах при комнатной температуре. Показано, что она протекает по механизму топохимической реакции

Two novel approaches for photometric redshift estimation based on SDSS and 2MASS databases

We investigate two training-set methods: support vector machines (SVMs) and Kernel Regression (KR) for photometric redshift estimation with the data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5 and Two Micron All Sky Survey databases. We probe the performances of SVMs and KR for different input patterns. Our experiments show that the more parameters considered, the accuracy doesn't always increase, and only when appropriate parameters chosen, the accuracy can improve. Moreover for different approaches, the best input pattern is different. With different parameters as input, the optimal bandwidth is dissimilar for KR. The rms errors of photometric redshifts based on SVM and KR methods are less than 0.03 and 0.02, respectively. Finally the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches are summarized. Compared to other methods of estimating photometric redshifts, they show their superiorities, especially KR, in terms of accuracy.Comment: accepted for publication in ChJA

The GAMMA-400 space observatory: status and perspectives

The present design of the new space observatory GAMMA-400 is presented in this paper. The instrument has been designed for the optimal detection of gamma rays in a broad energy range (from ~100 MeV up to 3 TeV), with excellent angular and energy resolution. The observatory will also allow precise and high statistic studies of the electron component in the cosmic rays up to the multi TeV region, as well as protons and nuclei spectra up to the knee region. The GAMMA-400 observatory will allow to address a broad range of science topics, like search for signatures of dark matter, studies of Galactic and extragalactic gamma-ray sources, Galactic and extragalactic diffuse emission, gamma-ray bursts and charged cosmic rays acceleration and diffusion mechanism up to the knee

The Minimum Stellar Mass in Early Galaxies

The conditions for the fragmentation of the baryonic component during merging of dark matter halos in the early Universe are studied. We assume that the baryonic component undergoes a shock compression. The characteristic masses of protostellar molecular clouds and the minimum masses of protostars formed in these clouds decrease with increasing halo mass. This may indicate that the initial stellar mass function in more massive galaxies was shifted towards lower masses during the initial stages of their formation. This would result in an increase of the number of stars per unit halo mass, i.e., the efficiency of star formation.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

A New Model for the Spiral Structure of the Galaxy. Superposition of 2+4-armed patterns

We investigate the possibility of describing the spiral pattern of the Milky Way in terms of a model of superposition 2- and 4-armed wave harmonics (the simplest description, besides pure modes). Two complementary methods are used: a study of stellar kinematics, and direct tracing of positions of spiral arms. In the first method, the parameters of the galactic rotation curve and the free parameters of the spiral density waves were obtained from Cepheid kinematics, under different assumptions. To turn visible the structure corresponding to these models, we computed the evolution of an ensemble of N-particles, simulating the ISM clouds, in the perturbed galactic gravitational field. In the second method, we present a new analysis of the longitude-velocity (l-v) diagram of the sample of galactic HII regions, converting positions of spiral arms in the galactic plane into locii of these arms in the l-v diagram. Both methods indicate that the ``self-sustained'' model, in which the 2-armed and 4-armed mode have different pitch angles (6 arcdeg and 12 arcdeg, respectively) is a good description of the disk structure. An important conclusion is that the Sun happens to be practically at the corotation circle. As an additional result of our study, we propose an independent test for localization of the corotation circle in a spiral galaxy: a gap in the radial distribution of interstellar gas has to be observed in the corotation region.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, Latex, uses aas2pp4.st

Анализ влияния различных факторов риска на краткосрочные и отделенные исходы пациентов с COVID-19 на программном гемодиализе

Patients receiving renal replacement therapy (RRT) in the form of maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) belong to a group of particularly high risk of infection and the course of COVID-19. The new coronavirus infection also has a great impact on long-term outcomes.Materials and methods: A retrospective observational study included 510 patients on MHD, hospitalized from April 1, 2020 to April 01, 2021. The outcome of hospitalization was chosen as the primary endpoint of the study: discharge or 28day mortality. Death within 6 months after discharge and the development of complications related to COVID-19 during this period were considered as secondary endpoints. Data collection was carried out by analyzing electronic and archival medical records. Quantitative variables: age, duration of hospitalization, days in the intensive care unit, laboratory blood parameters: the level of D-Dimer, Glucose, Interleukin-6, Procalcitonin, Lymphocytes and Platelets, CRP, CPK, CPK-MB, LDH, Fibrinogen, Ferritin. Qualitative indicators: gender, ventilator, ARDS, the presence of diabetes, the presence of obesity, the presence of complications: cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, septic, macrothrombotic, stage of pneumonia. To identify statistically significant predictors of the risk of an event, the odds ratio (OR) method was used.Results: average age 57.8±14 years, men – 59.5%, average bed day 17.6±10.6 days. In concomitant diseases, diabetes mellitus was indicated in 24% of patients, obesity was registered in 4.3% of patients. Hospital mortality (28-day) in the total cohort of follow-up was 16.05%, in total with out-ofhospital mortality of 22%. Mortality in intensive care reached 62.7%, on ventilator more than 86%, with ARDS 94.3%. No statistical significance was revealed by gender and the presence of diabetes mellitus (DM) in concomitant diseases. When comparing short-term outcomes, the age groups over 65 differed statistically. The following laboratory blood parameters showed a significant difference (P&lt;0.001): D-Dimer, Glucose, IL-6 lymphocytes, Leukocytes, Neutrophils, Platelets, LDH, Ferritin. The following odds ratios (OR) were obtained: ARDS (OR 143.78; 95% CI 33.4-616.2; p=0.0001), on ventilator (OR 57.96; 95% CI 23.1-144.5; p=0.0001), the presence of septic complications (OR 26.4; 95% CI 13.8-50; p=0.0001), the course of the disease is defined as severe (OR 25; 95% CI 12.9-48.2; p=0.0001), the course of the disease is defined as complicated (OR 11.6; 95% CI 6.8-19.7; p=0.0001), the presence of gastrointestinal complications (OR 6.5; 95% CI 2.28-18.4; p=0.0007), the presence of obesity (OR 2.57; 95% CI 1.0-6.5; p=0.039). Mortality of patients receiving two main treatment regimens T-1 and T-2 did not differ (15.8% vs 15.7%). Significant differences (p=0.0001) appeared when compared with the T-0 and T-4 schemes, in which mortality was recorded at 8.8% and 85.7%, respectively. When comparing long-term outcomes, the analysis did not reveal statistical significance by gender. The statistical difference was noted by age. Among laboratory indicators, the PCT level was higher in survivors with complications. A significant difference among all survivors and deceased (P&lt;0.001) was shown by: D-Dimer, blood glucose level, IL-6, CRP. The highest OR was calculated for the following indicators: the presence of gastrointestinal complications (OR 7.7; 95% CI 1.0-57.7; p=0.03), the initial LDH blood level of 622 units /l (OR 4.7; 95% CI 1.63-13.63; p=0.0086), the course of the disease defined as complicated (OR 4.05; 95% 1.97-8.33; p=0.003), the course of the disease is defined as severe (OR 2.4; 95% CI 1.17-5.0; p=0.03).Conclusions: gastrointestinal complications had the greatest impact on unfavorable short-term and long-term outcomes in patients on programmed hemodialysis. In relation to such laboratory markers as Ferritin, CRH, LDH, threshold values of a significant increase in the chances characteristic of dialysis patients were obtained. During the first year of the epidemic, therapy remained largely supportive and aimed at preventing complications, the main isolated treatment regimens showed no significant differences in the impact on the outcomes of COVID-19.Пациенты, получающие заместительную почечную терапию в виде программного гемодиализа, относятся к группе особо высокого риска инфицирования SARS-CoV-2 и тяжелого течения COVID-19. Большое влияние новая коронавирусная инфекция оказывает и на отдаленные исходы у данной категории пациентов.Материалы и методы. В ретроспективное обсервационное исследование были включены 510 пациентов, получающих программный гемодиализ, госпитализированных в Клиническую инфекционную больницу им. С.П. Боткина с 1 апреля 2020 г. по 1 апреля 2021 г. В качестве первичной конечной точки исследования выбран исход госпитализации: выписка/перевод или 28-дневная (внутригоспитальная) смерть. В качестве вторичных конечных точек рассматривались смерть в течение 6 месяцев после выписки и развитие осложнений, связанных с COVID-19 в этот период. Сбор данных осуществлялся путем анализа электронных и архивных историй болезни. Количественные переменные: возраст, количество дней госпитализации (койко-день), дней в отделении интенсивной терапии, лабораторные показатели крови: уровень Д-димера, глюкозы, интерлейкина-6, прокальцитонина, лимфоцитов и тромбоцитов, ЦРБ, КФК, КФК-МВ, ЛДГ, фибриногена, ферритина. Качественные показатели: пол, искусственная вентиляция легких, острый респираторный дистресс-синдром, наличие сахарного диабета, наличие ожирения, наличие осложнений: сердечно-сосудистых, со стороны желудочно-кишечного тракта, септических, макротромботических, стадия пневмонии. Для идентификации статистически значимых предикторов риска наступления события использовался метод отношения шансов.Результаты: средний возраст 57,8±14 лет, мужчины – 59, 5%, средний койко-день 17,6±10,6 дней. В сопутствующих заболеваниях сахарный диабет был указан у 24% пациентов, ожирение зарегистрировано у 4,3% пациентов. Госпитальная летальность (28-дневная) в общей когорте наблюдения составила 16,05%, в сумме с внегоспитальной летальностью 22%. Смертность в реанимации достигла 62,7%, на ИВЛ более 86%, с ОРДС 94,3%. Не выявлено статистической значимости по полу и наличию в сопутствующих заболеваниях сахарного диабета. При сравнении краткосрочных исходов статистически различались группы по возрасту старше 65 лет. Значимую разницу (P&lt;0,001) показали следующие лабораторные показатели крови: Д-димер, глюкоза, ИЛ-6, лимфоциты, лейкоциты, нейтрофилы, тромбоциты, ЛДГ, ферритин. Получены следующие отношения шансов: острый респираторный дистресс-синдром (ОШ 143,78; 95% ДИ 33,4–616,2; p=0,0001), на искусственной вентиляции легких (ОШ 57,96; 95% ДИ 23,1–144,5; p=0,0001), наличие септических осложнений (ОШ 26,4; 95% ДИ 13,8– 50; p=0,0001), тяжелое течение заболевания (ОШ 25; 95% ДИ 12,9–48,2; p=0,0001), осложнённое течение заболевания (ОШ 11,6; 95% ДИ 6,8–19,7; p=0,0001), наличие осложнений со стороны желудочно-кишечного тракта (ОШ 6,5; 95% ДИ 2,28–18,4; p=0,0007), наличие ожирения (ОШ 2,57; 95% ДИ 1,0–6,5; p=0,039). Смертность пациентов, получающих две основные схемы лечения Т-1 и Т-2, не различалась (15,8% vs 15,7%). Значимые различия (p=0,0001) появлялись при сравнении со схемами Т-0 и Т-4, при которых зарегистрирована смертность 8,8% и 85,7% соответственно. При сравнении отдаленных исходов анализ не выявил статистической значимость по полу. Статистическое различие отмечалось по возрасту. Среди лабораторных показателей уровень PCT был выше у выживших с осложнениями. Значимую разницу среди всех выживших и умерших (P&lt;0,001) показали: Д-димер, уровень глюкозы крови, ИЛ-6, СРБ. Наиболее высокое ОШ было рассчитано для показателей: наличие ЖКТ-осложнений (ОШ 7,7; 95% ДИ 1,0-57,7; p=0,03), уровня исходного ЛДГ крови 622 Ед/л (ОШ 4,7; 95% ДИ 1,63–13,63; p=0,0086), осложнённое течение заболевания (ОШ 4,05; 95% 1,97–8,33; p=0,003), тяжелое течение заболевания (ОШ 2,4; 95% ДИ 1,17–5,0; p=0,03).Выводы: наибольшее влияние на неблагоприятные краткосрочные и отдаленные исходы у пациентов с COVID-19 на программном гемодиализе оказали осложнения со стороны ЖКТ. В отношении таких лабораторных маркеров, как ферритин, СРБ, ЛДГ, были получены пороговые значения значимого увеличения шансов, характерные именно для диализных пациентов. За первый год эпидемии терапия оставалась в значительной степени поддерживающей и направленной на профилактику осложнений, основные выделенные схемы лечения не показали существенных различий по влиянию на исходы COVID-19