Ways of optimizing medical services for children at educational institutions under the Health Care system reform in Ukraine.

Aim – scientific substantiation of the ways to optimize preventive childhood medicine under the health care system reform in Ukraine. The medical, sanitary and epidemiological conditions of children’s stay were studied at 147 schools in five oblasts of Ukraine and the city of Kyiv. The following methods were used: system analysis, analytical, mathematical and statistical, bibliosemantic, modeling and expert assessments. The results of an expert assessment (224 specialists) on the optimization of medical services for schoolchildren were analyzed. The main risk factors for schoolchildren staying at educational institutions were identified: daily routine failure, non-compliance with the hygiene requirements for the premises where the educational process is carried out, as well as failure in food and water quality and safety. The levels of medical observation provision were analyzed. There were suggested two ways of maintaining the role of medical personnel in preserving and enhancing the health of schoolchildren: involving doctors of primary care centers of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and creating an autonomous medical service in the institutions of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in accordance with the current licensing requirements. The issues of prevention and promotion of children's health, including schoolchildren, are one of the key aspects of the training of medical personnel at all stages. Such programs need to be modernized on the basis of a competency approach, taking into account the current needs of the health care system and the best international experience in resolving these issues

Chronic Cerebral Ischaemia Forms New Cholinergic Mechanisms of Learning and Memory

The purpose of this research was a comparative analysis of cholinergic synaptic organization following learning and memory in normal and chronic cerebral ischaemic rats in the Morris water maze model. Choline acetyltransferase and protein content were determined in subpopulations of presynapses of “light” and “heavy” synaptosomal fractions of the cortex and the hippocampus, and the cholinergic projective and intrinsic systems of the brain structures were taken into consideration. We found a strong involvement of cholinergic systems, both projective and intrinsic, in all forms of cognition. Each form of cognition had an individual cholinergic molecular profile and the cholinergic synaptic compositions in the ischaemic rat brains differed significantly from normal ones. Our data demonstrated that under ischaemic conditions, instead of damaged connections new key synaptic relationships, which were stable against pathological influences and able to restore damaged cognitive functions, arose. The plasticity of neurochemical links in the individual organization of certain types of cognition gave a new input into brain pathology and can be used in the future for alternative corrections of vascular and other degenerative dementias

Demonstration of Numerical Equivalence of Ensemble and Spectral Averaging in Electromagnetic Scattering by Random Particulate Media

The numerically exact superposition T-matrix method is used to model far-field electromagnetic scattering by two types of particulate object. Object 1 is a fixed configuration which consists of N identical spherical particles (with N 200 or 400) quasi-randomly populating a spherical volume V having a median size parameter of 50. Object 2 is a true discrete random medium (DRM) comprising the same number N of particles randomly moving throughout V. The median particle size parameter is fixed at 4. We show that if Object 1 is illuminated by a quasi-monochromatic parallel beam then it generates a typical speckle pattern having no resemblance to the scattering pattern generated by Object 2. However, if Object 1 is illuminated by a parallel polychromatic beam with a 10 bandwidth then it generates a scattering pattern that is largely devoid of speckles and closely reproduces the quasi-monochromatic pattern generated by Object 2. This result serves to illustrate the capacity of the concept of electromagnetic scattering by a DRM to encompass fixed quasi-random particulate samples provided that they are illuminated by polychromatic light

Hypoxic Preconditioning: The Multiplicity of Central Neurotransmitter Mechanisms and Method of Predicting Its Efficiency

In rats, a single moderate hypobaric hypoxia (HBH) increased the resistance to severe hypoxia (SHBH). The HBH efficiency and neurotransmitter mechanisms of its preconditioning action were investigated by biochemical and pharmacological methods. It will be substantiated in the chapter: (1) HBH preconditioning has its own mechanisms that do not depend on an innate resistance to SHBH and prior hypoxic experience of rats; (2) the same preconditioning effect can be achieved by diverse neuronal pathways and synaptic plasticity means; (3) cholinergic and, presumably, serotoninergic, GABAergic and/or glutamatergic systems of the caudal brainstem, cortex and some other brain structures are involved in HBH realisation; (4) the rate of sensorimotor gating estimated in the model of acoustic startle pre-pulse inhibition (PPI) predicts the efficiency of hypoxic preconditioning and (5) the cholinergic system, including α7 nicotinic receptors, is involved in the mechanisms of HBH-PPI-dependent preconditioning effects

Effect of antibodies to glutamate on age-related memory changes in C57Bl/6 mice

Chronic intranasal administration of antibodies to glutamate to aging C57Bl/6 mice improved passive avoidance conditioning, had no effect on horizontal and vertical locomotor activity, but slowed locomotion in the open-field test. Administration of antibodies to glutamate increased the content of dopamine and its metabolites in mouse hippocampus, but had no effect on the metabolism of neurotransmitter amino acids. In the frontal cortex, antibodies to glutamate did not affect neurotransmitter metabolism, but increased the level of both excitatory and inhibitory amino acids without changing their ratio