Depleted zinc: Properties, application, production.

The addition of ZnO, depleted in the Zn-64 isotope, to the water of boiling water nuclear reactors lessens the accumulation of Co-60 on the reactor interior surfaces, reduces radioactive wastes and increases the reactor service-life because of the inhibitory action of zinc on inter-granular stress corrosion cracking. To the same effect depleted zinc in the form of acetate dihydrate is used in pressurized water reactors. Gas centrifuge isotope separation method is applied for production of depleted zinc on the industrial scale. More than 20 years of depleted zinc application history demonstrates its benefits for reduction of NPP personnel radiation exposure and combating construction materials corrosion.

A highly sensitive and versatile virus titration assay in the 96-well microplate format.

This report describes a fast, reproducible, inexpensive and convenient assay system for virus titration in the 96-well format. The micromethod substantially increases assay throughput and improves the data reproducibility. A highly simplified variant of virus quantification is based on immunohistochemical detection of virus amplification foci obtained without use of agarose or semisolid overlays. It can be incorporated into several types of routine virological assays successfully replacing the laborious and time-consuming conventional methods based on plaque formation under semisolid overlays. The method does not depend on the development of CPE and can be accommodated to assay viruses with substantial differences in growth properties. The use of enhanced immunohistochemical detection enabled a five- to six-fold reduction of the total assay time. The micromethod was specifically developed to take advantage of multichannel pipettor use to simplify handling of a large number of samples. The method performs well with an inexpensive low-power binocular, thus offering a routine assay system usable outside of specialized laboratory setting, such as for testing of clinical or field samples. When used in focus reduction-neutralization tests (FRNT), the method accommodates very small volumes of immune serum, which is often a decisive factor in experiments involving small rodent models.

[Molecular typing of the tick-borne encephalitis virus isolated from patients with different-infection severities in the south of Russia's Far East]. / Molekuliarnoe tipirovanie shtammov virusa kleshchevogo éntsefalita, vydelennykh ot liudei s razlichnoi stepen'iu tiazhesti infektsii na territorii iuga Dal'nego Vostoka Rossii.

The thick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV), which is widespread in the Eurasian continent, belongs to the Flaviviridae family, Flavirus genus, and comprises the Far Eastern, Siberian and West European subtypes. It was for the first time that the gene part of the E 24 strain envelope glycoprotein of TBEV, which caused infection in residents of the South of Russia's Far East, was analyzed. It was established that the TBEV Far-Eastern subtype causes different-severity disease cases ranging from the focal ones with the lethal outcome to latent infection forms. On the basis of the phylogenetic analysis, the Far-Eastern subtype was shared between 4 sub-clusters, 2 of which constitute a majority of the analyzed TBEV strains.

[Skeletal mineralization in cattle in 1960 and 1990 based on trephine biopsy data]. / Mineralizatsiia skeleta krupnogo rogatogo skota v 1960 g. i v 1990 g. po materialam trepanobiopsii.

Skeleton of cows living in the zone of Kiev Polesye (Woodlands), a comparatively safe area of radioactive pollution, as compared with 1960, was found to have practically the same content of calcium, phosphorus, sodium, copper; the content of potassium decreased, that of zinc was greater; the increased content of magnesium, manganese, strontium and lead was statistically valid. An increased incorporation of magnesium, zinc and manganese and a decreased fixation of iron and potassium were mainly due to changed conditions of feeding and maintenance of the animals, while the increased content of strontium and lead was a result of the increased pollution of the environment.