Genrikh R. Ivanitskii

Characteristics of Temperature Distributions around the Eyes

Infrared (IR) rays are only slightly scattered by air molecules, dust, and vapor. Therefore, it is possible to perform distant measurements of spatial and temporal temperature changes in animal and humans by recording IR irradiation using modern IR cameras in different spectral ranges. The study of the characteristics of IR irradiation of the human body has numerous practical implications. Since IR irradiation results from oscillations of atoms within molecules, rather than electrons, it is sometimes possible to use the measurements of IR irradiation to carry out distant IR spectroscopy with the identification of these molecules. Earlier [1] we demonstrated, using the diagnostics of cardiovascular diseases as an example, that the use of modern thermovision systems is a promising approach to developing new methods of medical diagnostics and control of treatment efficiency. Development of systems for preliminary express selection of persons arriving to railway terminals and airports from infected regions during various pandemics, including some specific forms of pneumonia and influenza, becomes an increasingly important task. All hopes to solve it are pinned on the use of IR systems of distant thermal recording. In this connection, it is important to determine whether elements of the human face have any specificity with respect to temperature distribution that could serve as markers for this selection. The purpose of our study was to answer this question. Each human internal organ has its characteristic temperature. For example, the temperature of the liver is relatively high (38 ° C). However, the mean internal temperature of the human body is comparatively constant (about 37 ° C), because blood flow balances the temperatures of different organs. This temperature may serve as an indicator of pathological processes. Its increase by at least one degree centigrade is a distinct sign of pathology, although a disease may be accompanied by a smaller increase in body temperature. In the normal state, the variations of the internal temperature of the human body are within one-tenth of a degree. The external temperature of the human body is related to the internal temperature, but it also depends on the ambient temperature and humidity and on individual physiological parameters of the human skin, including the adipose tissue. The difference between areas of open body surface may be as large as 7 ° C. The surface temperature is the lowest ( ≈ 27 ° C ) on the feet and the highest ( ≈ 34 ° C ) on the neck near the carotid arteries. The daily and monthly variations in internal temperature are no larger than 0.1–0.6 ° C (the temperature is the lowest at night in summer and the highest in the afternoon in winter). In women, temperature often increases by 0.6–0.8 ° C during ovulation. In addition, the integral temperature of the left half of the body is known to be higher than that of the right half in 54% of humans.

Simulation of growth of colonies of filamentous fungi in a hydrogen peroxide gradient.

Microscopic fungi are potent destructors and utiliz-ers of organic and some inorganic substances. Forexample, microscopic fungi were shown to activelycover and destruct engineering and technological con-structions in the exclusion zone of the ChernobylAtomic Power Plant [1]. The main sources of radioac-tive contamination in this zone are the so-called “hot”particles of 1–100 µm in size, which have various radi-onuclide composition and possess a high specific activ-ity (10–1000 Bq/particle) [2]. Upon interaction withwater, all types of sources radiation generate active rad-icals, primarily hydrogen peroxide as the most stablecompound [3]. These isolated radiation sources createlocal gradients of hydrogen peroxide on moist sub-strates, affecting the growth rate of microscopic fungushyphae.In this work, we used mathematic modeling to studythe dynamics of growth of colonies of microscopicfungi in a hydrogen peroxide gradient.A study of nine strains of four species of filamen-tous fungi [4, 5] revealed two principally different typesof growth responses of filamentous fungi to hydrogenperoxide (Fig. 1). Hypha elongation rate of type A fungigradually decreased as the hydrogen peroxide concen-tration increase and completely stopped at high hydro-gen peroxide concentrations ( 10

Revisiting Paradoxical Situations Associated with Hydrocephalus

A case study of hydrocephalus shows the vagueness of the concept of the “norm” as used in medicine. Self-organizing dynamic stability in biosystems can go far beyond the average statistical norm, while the body still retains its stability and functional performance.

Spontaneous Mobility of a Lipid Layer in a System Composed of Three Immiscible Liquids

Physical properties of a liquid surface depend on molecular association. This allows the systems with atypical mobility to be formed on the basis of liquids with different physicochemical properties. These systems offer new promising high-technology applications. Information about lipid mobility at the lipid– water interface is a very important biological characteristic, because all cells are coated with phospholipid membranes. Even insignificant gradients of thermal or electromagnetic fields induce a pronounced mobility of lipid films at lipid–water interfaces. Therefore, from the standpoint of membranology, a living organism can be regarded as an ensemble of mobile lipid layers “animated” by water.