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An analysis of the possible effect of long-term stress from radiation exposure on cognitive functioning in 300 children from families evacuated to Kyiv, Ukraine, following the Chornobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986 indicates that the evacuee children performed as well as their contemporaries in memory, attention and intelligence tests. This was also the case for children who were in utero at the time of the disaster. However, more evacuee mothers reported memory difficulties in their children than classmates' mothers. This is likely to be connected with mothers' anxiety.

The article presents the main results of the monitoring surveys (1992-2003) on inter-ethnic attitudes of Ukrainian population measured according to the social distance scale by Bogardus adapted by the article author in 1990 in Ukraine. The obtained data made it possible to reveal a number of phenomena and paradoxes of the mass inter-ethnic self-consciousness of population. New results confirmed the growing orientations (in the mass consciousness) to the more ethnic distance which promote development of the national and governmental isolation. The author paid a lot of attention to methodology (the social distance scale). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Density functional theory (DFT) and Hartree–Fock (HF) methods have been used to calculate the electronic and geometric structures of cis- and trans-[Pt(NH3)2X2] (X = Cl-, Br-, I-), [cis-Pt(NH3)2(H2O)2]2+ and its deprotonated forms. The thermodynamic parameters ΔH0298, ΔS0298, ΔG0298, and ΔCp = f(T) have been obtained from DFT force fields and normal mode frequencies. It is shown that the greater stability of the trans-isomers is due, at the molecular level, to different interligand interactions. The stability of the cis-isomers is significantly increased by intermolecular Pt…Pt and NH2-H…X nonvalence interactions between mononuclear [cis-Pt(NH3)2X2] moieties, the effect reducing in the row Cl- > Br- > I-. The thermodynamic parameters of possible phases of the hydrolysis of [cis-Pt(NH3)2(H2O)2]2+ have been also derived. Solvent effects have been investigated calculating the equilibrium constants for the proton transfer reactions both in gas phase and water solution. It is shown that in aqueous medium the hydroxobridged platinum dimer [Pt(NH3)2- (μ-OH)]2+2, characterized by a Pt…Pt distance of 3.119 Å, is the preferred hydrolysis product. It is also shown that with short metal–metal interactions, such as those found in [cis-Pt(NH3)2Cl2] and [cis-Pt(NH3)2(H2O)2]2+, the conditions for the formation of linear polynuclear complexes with Pt—Pt bonds (the so-called “platinum blues”) are created. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2004 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]