Search

One of the segments of public catering market both abroad and in Russia is fast food products [1]. Restaurants of this format have a wide audience due to their loyal pricing policy, availability and constant new products [2]. In addition, the fast food industry, through various media and advertising, contributes to solving consumer problems related to lack of time, difficulty in preparation and ease of consumption. At the same time, fast food contributes to a decrease in the quality of nutrition and deterioration in the health of both young people and adults.The goal of the research is to identify consumer preferences in the segment of semi-finished fish products, evaluate their quality and develop recipes for fish products for fast food restaurants.The objectives of the research include marketing research of consumer preferences when choosing semi-finished fish products, assessing the quality of semi-finished fish products sold in retail trade and fast food establishments, and developing recipes for semi-finished fish products for the fast food industry. To conduct a social survey, Google-form has been used, organoleptic assessment has been carried out using 5-point grading scale; physicochemical indicators have been studied using standard methods.Using the results of marketing research, it has been established that semi-finished fish products in the form of fish cutlets and sticks are in demand; consumers want to see new fish items on the menu of fast food restaurants. According to organoleptic assessment and physical and chemical research, it has been found that the best consumer organoleptic properties are found in fish cutlets from fast food restaurants «Vkusno i Tochka», «Burger King» and fish sticks sold in the «Perekrestok» chain of stores. According to physicochemical indicators, the studied samples of semi-finished fish products do not exceed 2.5% in the amount of table salt, 71% moisture and 37% fat.As new items for the fast industry, recipes for semi-finished fish products were developed in the form of nuggets with the addition of processed cheese, pork fat and strips, from longitudinal strips of fish, breaded and deep-fried at a temperature of 180 ° C until golden brown.

Aim. This study aimed to compare and evaluate treatment outcomes in groups of ischemic stroke patients with or without COVID-19 infection who underwent endovascular thrombectomy (EVT). Materials and methods. We conducted a retrospective analysis of 817 case records of IS patients aged 25 to 99 years with confirmed thrombotic occlusion of cerebral arteries and subsequent EVT who were treated in regional vascular centers in St. Petersburg from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021. Results. Patients without COVID-19 had favorable outcome more often than patients with confirmed COVID-19 (35.0% vs. 7.3%, p 0.001); mortality rate was 30% vs. 52%, respectively (p 0.001). Conclusions. Intercurrent COVID-19 significantly worsened prognosis and increased risk of death in ischemic stroke patients who underwent EVT.

Abstract Astrocytes are glycolytically active cells in the central nervous system playing a crucial role in various brain processes from homeostasis to neurotransmission. Astrocytes possess a complex branched morphology, frequently examined by fluorescent microscopy. However, staining and fixation may impact the properties of astrocytes, thereby affecting the accuracy of the experimental data of astrocytes dynamics and morphology. On the other hand, phase contrast microscopy can be used to study astrocytes morphology without affecting them, but the post-processing of the resulting low-contrast images is challenging. The main result of this work is a novel approach for recognition and morphological analysis of unstained astrocytes based on machine-learning recognition of microscopic images. We conducted a series of experiments involving the cultivation of isolated astrocytes from the rat brain cortex followed by microscopy. Using the proposed approach, we tracked the temporal evolution of the average total length of branches, branching, and area per astrocyte in our experiments. We believe that the proposed approach and the obtained experimental data will be of interest and benefit to the scientific communities in cell biology, biophysics, and machine learning.

Abstract Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 are two major respiratory pathogens that cocirculate in humans and cause serious illness with the potential to exacerbate disease in the event of co-infection. To develop a bivalent vaccine, capable of protecting against both infections, we inserted the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into hemagglutinin (HA) molecule or into the open reading frame of the truncated nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) of live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) virus and assessed phenotypic characteristics of the rescued LAIV-RBD viruses, as well as their immunogenicity in mouse and Syrian hamster animal models. A panel of 9 recombinant LAIV-RBD viruses was rescued using the A/Leningrad/17 backbone. Notably, only two variants with RBD insertions into the HA molecule could express sufficient quantities of RBD protein in infected MDCK cells. Intranasal immunization of mice induced high levels of anti-influenza antibody responses in all chimeric LAIV-RBD viruses, which was comparable to the LAIV virus vector. The RBD-specific antibody responses were most pronounced in the variant expressing RBD194 fragment as a chimeric HA protein. This candidate was further tested in Syrian hamsters and was shown to be immunogenic and capable of protecting animals against both infections.

Abstract Measurements and imaging of the mechanical response of biological cells are critical for understanding the mechanisms of many diseases, and for fundamental studies of energy, signal and force transduction. The recent emergence of Brillouin microscopy as a powerful non-contact, label-free way to non-invasively and non-destructively assess local viscoelastic properties provides an opportunity to expand the scope of biomechanical research to the sub-cellular level. Brillouin spectroscopy has recently been validated through static measurements of cell viscoelastic properties, however, fast (sub-second) measurements of sub-cellular cytomechanical changes have yet to be reported. In this report, we utilize a custom multimodal spectroscopy system to monitor for the very first time the rapid viscoelastic response of cells and subcellular structures to a short-duration electrical impulse. The cytomechanical response of three subcellular structures - cytoplasm, nucleoplasm, and nucleoli - were monitored, showing distinct mechanical changes despite an identical stimulus. Through this pioneering transformative study, we demonstrate the capability of Brillouin spectroscopy to measure rapid, real-time biomechanical changes within distinct subcellular compartments. Our results support the promising future of Brillouin spectroscopy within the broad scope of cellular biomechanics.

Abstract Alcohol consumption may impact and shape brain development through perturbed biological pathways and impaired molecular functions. We investigated the relationship between alcohol consumption rates and neuron-enriched extracellular vesicles’ (EVs’) microRNA (miRNA) expression to better understand the impact of alcohol use on early life brain biology. Neuron-enriched EVs’ miRNA expression was measured from plasma samples collected from young people using a commercially available microarray platform while alcohol consumption was measured using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Linear regression and network analyses were used to identify significantly differentially expressed miRNAs and to characterize the implicated biological pathways, respectively. Compared to alcohol naïve controls, young people reporting high alcohol consumption exhibited significantly higher expression of three neuron-enriched EVs’ miRNAs including miR-30a-5p, miR-194-5p, and miR-339-3p, although only miR-30a-5p and miR-194-5p survived multiple test correction. The miRNA-miRNA interaction network inferred by a network inference algorithm did not detect any differentially expressed miRNAs with a high cutoff on edge scores. However, when the cutoff of the algorithm was reduced, five miRNAs were identified as interacting with miR-194-5p and miR-30a-5p. These seven miRNAs were associated with 25 biological functions; miR-194-5p was the most highly connected node and was highly correlated with the other miRNAs in this cluster. Our observed association between neuron-enriched EVs’ miRNAs and alcohol consumption concurs with results from experimental animal models of alcohol use and suggests that high rates of alcohol consumption during the adolescent/young adult years may impact brain functioning and development by modulating miRNA expression.

Introduction. One of the key tasks of the pharmaceutical industry is the search for new promising compounds – potential drug candidates. Natural objects, especially plants, have long been rich sources of new molecules and are widely used in the global food and pharmaceutical industries. Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus L.) is a perennial herb from the Rosaceae family. The fruits and leaves of R. chamaemorus contain a wide variety of polyphenolic secondary metabolites – hydrolysable/condensed tannins and flavonoids. Extracts enriched by polyphenols showed significant antiproliferative activity and inhibition of cell growth, and also induce cell apoptosis. As a result of our previous phytochemical research of R. chamaemorus leaves, five polyphenolic secondary metabolites belonging to the classes of tannins and flavonoids were isolated and characterized.Aim. Screening of previously isolated from R. chamaemorus individual compounds for the hemostasis system in vitro and identification of the most promising compounds for subsequent pharmaceutical development.Materials and methods. Experiments under in vitro conditions were performed on the blood of healthy male donors. The research of the effect on platelet aggregation was carried out according to the Born method on an AT-02 aggregometer (LLC "SPF "Medtech", Russia). Determination of anticoagulant activity was carried out by conventional clotting tests on a Solar CGL 2110 turbidimetric hemocoagulometer (CJSC "SOLAR", Russia). Cytofluorimetric analysis was performed on a NovoCyte instrument (Agilent Technologies, USA).Result and discussion. The influence of the isolated compounds 1–5 on the parameters of activation, platelet aggregation and the coagulation component of hemostasis was studied. At a concentration of 1.0 mg/ml, compounds 1–5 did not affect the fibrinogen concentration and prothrombin time. Compounds 1, 3 and 5 completely suppressed platelet activation at the studied concentrations. Compounds 1 and 3 showed antiaggregation activity comparible to the values of acetylsalicylic acid and are contained in all aqueous and alcoholic extracts of R. сhamaemorus leaves; their quantitative content varies depending on the extraction conditions.Conclusion. Thus, as a result of the screening of individual compounds 1–5 isolated from the leaves of R. chamaemorus their antiaggregating and anticoagulation properties were established. Compounds 1 (4-O-α-L-arabinofuranosylellagic acid) and 3 (quercetin-3-O-β-D-glucuronide) showed antiaggregation activity comparible to that of acetylsalicylic acid, and are the most promising of the studied series of compounds for the subsequent pharmaceutical development of new antiplatelet agents.

Book review: Popov V.V. (2023) From War To Peace: The Politics Of Practical Diplomacy. Moscow, Mgimo-University. 295 p.2023 saw the publication of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation Veniamin V. Popov’s memoirs. Dr Popov not only describes his life path from his fascination with the Arab world in his youth to becoming a diplomat and achieving high positions, but also pays attention to the most important political events and key trends in the development of international relations. The political history in the memoirs of the diplomat echoes episodes of his life, which enlivens the picture of events and makes the memoirs more evocative. The assessment of some historical figures given by Dr Veniamin Popov is also intriguing. The book can be interesting to a wide range of readers: from young diplomats, who can find a lot of useful advice for themselves, to prominent researchers, whose attention may be attracted by new details of historical events.

The article describes the distribution dynamics of the widely spread species Vanessa atalanta (Linnaeus, 1758) (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae), which is for the first time reliably noted for a number of Siberian regions (Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Republic of Khakassia, Kemerovo Territory) and for Tajikistan (Western Pamir, the Bartang river valley).

Current global warming and climate change under the greenhouse effect call for a thorough understanding of the spatial distribution of greenhouse gases in different atmospheric layers. Lidar systems are the most effective for remote greenhouse gas monitoring. We design a two-channel infrared OPO lidar optical system for remote DIAL/DOAS sensing of carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere. In this work, optimal geometric parameters of the transceiving channel of the lidar optical system are chosen, a need to focus laser radiation at a distance of 1 km from an observation point is demonstrated, and numerical simulations confirm the possibility of detecting lidar signals ranging from 10−7 to 10−10 W in the informative spectral range 4800–5100 cm−1 (1960–2083 nm). Laboratory experiments with the main components of the lidar system with experimentally confirmed parameters, which simulate atmospheric measurements of CO2 absorption at a calibrated sensing wavelength of 2005 nm (4987 cm−1) (pressure of 1 atm; CO2 concentration corresponding to the midlatitude summer background atmosphere) in the informative spectral range of the lidar system, enable selecting a pair of wavelengths with resonant absorption of the target gas near 2005 nm to study the background state of the atmosphere in the surface layer. Efficiency of the lidar optical system is confirmed by in situ test experiments, where backscattering signals from a topographic target with an albedo of ∼0.15 spaced 168 m apart from an observer are recorded at 60 mV when operating along a horizontal atmospheric path. The lidar system we design can be used in measuring complexes at carbon test sites. It can also be used for atmospheric monitoring in industrial centers, at background measuring stations, and in swamp areas.