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Climate models indicate that dry extremes will be exacerbated in many regions of the world1,2. However, confidence in the magnitude and timing of these projected changes remains low3,4, leaving societies largely unprepared5,6. Here we show that constraining model projections with observations using a newly proposed emergent constraint (EC) reduces the uncertainty in predictions of a core drought indicator, the longest annual dry spell (LAD), by 10–26% globally. Our EC-corrected projections reveal that the increase in LAD will be 42–44% greater, on average, than ‘mid-range’ or ‘high-end’ future forcing scenarios currently indicate. These results imply that by the end of this century, the global mean land-only LAD could be 10 days longer than currently expected. Using two generations of climate models, we further uncover global regions for which historical LAD biases affect the magnitude of projected LAD increases, and we explore the role of land–atmosphere feedbacks therein. Our findings reveal regions with potentially higher- and earlier-than-expected drought risks for societies and ecosystems, and they point to possible mechanisms underlying the biases in the current generation of climate models.

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. THE FACTS III. SUBSTANTIVE CONTENT OF THE ABUSE OF RIGHT DOCTRINE VARYING FORMULATIONS ACROSS JURISDICTIONS IV. THE "EXPANDABLE" DOCTRINE--CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING THE APPLICATION OF [...]

The bites of hard ticks are the major route of transmission of tick-borne infections to humans, causing thousands of cases of diseases worldwide. However, the characteristics of the human population that is exposed to tick bites are still understudied. This work is aimed at characterizing both the structure of the population directly contacting ticks and the human behavioral features associated with tick bites. We studied 25,970 individuals who sought medical help after a tick bite at the Centre for Diagnostics and Prevention of Tick-borne Infections (CDPTBI) in Irkutsk City (Russian Federation). The demographic and behavioral characteristics of the human population were analyzed using z-tests for proportions, the Mann-Whitney U-test, and the Spearman rank correlation coefficient. The majority of bitten people were urban residents (70 %), and most of them were either of active ages between 30 and 74 years old (62 %), or children between 0 and 9 years old (approximately 20%). Tick bites occurred mostly in the range of 150 km around the location of the diagnostic facility (83 %). In comparison to the general population, significant differences were revealed in the representation of different age groups among bitten people. The population affected by tick bites included fewer men and women in the ages of 10–29 and over 75 years old than would be predicted based on the demographics of the general population. Vice versa, the proportions of people in the ages of 5–9 and 60–74 increased among bitten people. Among men, such activities (in order of occurrence) as “leisure and recreation”, “visiting allotments”, “foraging for forest food”, and “fulfilling work duties” tend to be more associated with tick bites. Among women, tick bites occurred mainly during “visiting allotments”, “leisure and recreation”, “visiting cemeteries” and “contact with pets and plants at home”. The overall vaccination rate was 12 %; however, significantly more men than women were vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis (up to 20 % vs. approximately 7 % respectively). The structure of the tick bite - affected population suggests that it is age-specific human behavior that mainly determines the frequency of contact between people and ticks. However, in several age groups, especially among children from 5 to 9 and people aged 30–39 years old, gender-related factors could significantly change the exposure of people to tick bites.

Background: One of the main distinguishing features of the new generation of the Russian Federal State Educational Standard (RFSES) is competency approach to educational quality evaluation, as described in various patents. The trend consists in giving more and more freedom to universities in the curricula design. But regional universities met this improvement with caution, because they have no experience in the development of competitive curricula without the support of clearly defined state standards with limitation of educational content. In view of rapid development of technologies, this issue becomes especially critical for engineering degrees. Methods: Authors explored two widely known international approaches to syllabi design. They are Worldwide CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate) Initiative and TUNING Educational Structures in Europe. Two target groups (Employers and Academic staff) were involved to make a decision about list of competencies of RU engineering graduates and the comparative analysis. Results: An example of designing a training course, in which competences are formed on the basis of scientific and innovative-practical components, and help to increase the capacity and quality of knowledge acquired by students, is presented. Conclusion: A comparison of the target groups decisions and ranks has shown the need to change the teaching staff ideology to build the innovative student-centered educational environment. The aim of such environment is to generate and implement ideas and to commercialize results. In case of success it will grow achieving -focused leaders with skills of team-buildling, project management, innovative SME development. That is exactly the competences which are so lacking today's students on the basis of the survey.

Background: The conceptual model of the working program of educational discipline which allows unifying the evaluation process of filling the content of the work program of the selected discipline is developed. It considers following properties: linearity, logic of a statement, student knowledge level, which provides the possibility of a full-fledged presentation of special and professionally oriented disciplines. Methods: Based on the content analysis it is revealed that system of criteria for assessing and filling of work program content is independent and complete which allows taking into account the comprehensive aspects. Results: This paper describes evaluation methodology of the work program's content and determines the difficulty level and the learning time of each chapter. It allows obtaining a more objective and balanced work program for the discipline that meets the requirements of the federal state educational standards of a higher professional education, the requirements of tutors of special and professionally oriented disciplines, the requirements of the Professor. Conclusion: Using developed methods described in recent patents makes it possible to quantify the chosen educational material, to take into account not only the opinion of the developer teacher, but also the opinion of teachers of special and professionally oriented disciplines. The model reflects in detail not only the structure of the work program and the relationship between the points of the structure, but also a place of the work program in the curriculum. Developed a way of filling the content of the work program takes into account the requirements of the Federal state educational standards of higher education to determine the place, role and tasks of the discipline.

Design of biosensors refers to the field of interdisciplinary research, therefore, it is necessary to develop a unified systems approach that is invariant to the physical nature of the used phenomena and processes to create an automated system for conceptual design of such elements. It is appropriate to choose the fundamentals of non-equilibrium thermodynamics as the basis for the development of this approach. This article discusses the energy-information model of diffusion phenomena, as the processes of diffusion is the general type of the processes that is occurring in bioselective elements. A number of physical effects are described by this model. In this paper authors continue researches in the field of automation of design of biosensors which was presented at the 6th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems and Applications. The new information technology of functional and structural design of biosensors is described. It is based on the energy-information model of chains, invariant to the physical nature of the processes occurring in technical devices. And it uses the device parametric structural diagrams allowing algorithmization of the search and selection of new technical solutions with estimation of their performance.

Monitoring of blood oxygenation, in particular, cerebral venous oxygenation, is necessary for management of a variety of life-threatening conditions. An optoacoustic technique can be used for noninvasive monitoring of blood oxygenation in blood vessels, including large veins. We calculated optoacoustic signals from a cylinder mimicking a blood vessel using a modified Monte Carlo code and analyzed their temporal profiles. The rate of decrease of the integrated optoacoustic signal at different wavelengths of incident near-infrared radiation was related to the effective attenuation coefficient of normally oxygenated venous blood. We obtained good correlation of this parameter with the blood effective attenuation coefficient in a wide spectral range that may be useful in providing an accurate and robust optoacoustic monitoring of blood oxygenation. We also estimated the accuracy of effective attenuation coefficient calculations.

The data on the structure of the M genome segment of CCHF virus strains from Russia and Central Asia (Tajikistan) are presented. Data obtained have been compared with other available published sequences of the middle segment of strains from China, Nigeria, and Pakistan. It has been found that all the known strains can be divided into four genetic groups, based on the nucleotide sequence of the M genome segment and an amino acid sequence of the glycoprotein precursor it encodes, whereas VLG/TI29414 and STV/HU29223 strains from Russia form a separate group. The CCHF virus strain from Tajikistan, TADJ/HU8966, was genetically related to strains 7803 and 75024 from China, and together with these and the Nigerian IbAr 10200 strain, it forms another group.

Accurate and noninvasive measurement of tissue optical properties can be used for biomedical diagnostics and monitoring of tissue analytes. Noninvasive measurement of tissue optical properties (total attenuation and scattering coefficients, optical thickness, etc.) can be performed with the optical coherence tomography (OCT) technique. However, speckle noise substantially deteriorates the accuracy of the measurements with this technique. We studied suppression of speckle noise for accurate measurement of backscattering signal and scattering coefficient with the OCT technique. Our results demonstrate that the precision of measurement of backscattering signals with the OCT technique can be 0.2% for homogeneously scattering media and 0.7% for skin, if spatial averaging of speckle noise is applied. This averaging allows us to achieve the precision of tissue scattering coefficient measurements of approximately ±0.8%. This precision can be further improved by a factor of 2–3, upon optimization of OCT operating parameters.

We study manifolds where the natural skew-symmetric curvature operator has pointwise constant eigenvalues. We give a local classification (up to isometry) of such manifolds in dimension 4. In dimension 3, we describe such manifolds up to a classification of three - dimensional Riemannian manifolds with principal Ricci curvatures r1= r2= 0, r3- arbitrary. We give examples of such manifolds in all dimensions which do not have constant sectional curvature; these manifolds are not pointwise Osserman manifolds in general.

Riemannian manifolds for which a natural curvature operator has constant eigenvalues on circles are studied. A local classification in dimensions two and three is given. In the 3-dimensional case one gets all locally symmetric spaces and all Riemannian manifolds with the constant principal Ricci curvatures r1= r2= 0, r3= 0 , which are not locally homogeneous, in general.

A noninvasive, high-resolution optoacoustic technique is a promising alternative to currently used invasive methods of brain oxygenation monitoring. We present the results of our pilot clinical test of this technique in healthy volunteers. Multiwavelength optoacoustic measurements (with nanosecond optical parametric oscillator as a source of radiation) were performed on the area of the neck overlying the internal jugular vein, a deeply located large vein that drains blood from the brain and from extracranial tissues. Optoacoustic signals induced in venous blood were measured with high resolution and signal-to-noise ratio despite the presence of a thick layer of overlying tissue (up to 10 mm). The characteristic parameters of the signal at different wavelengths correlated well with the spectrum of the effective attenuation coefficient of blood.

The optoacoustic technique is noninvasive, has high spatial resolution, and potentially can be used to measure the total hemoglobin concentration ([THb]) continuously and accurately. We performed in vitro measurements in blood and in vivo tests in healthy volunteers. Our clinical protocol included rapid infusion of intravenous saline to simulate rapid change in the [THb] during fluid therapy or surgery. Optoacoustic measurements were made from the wrist area overlying the radial artery for more than 1?h. The amplitude of the optoacoustic signal generated in the radial artery closely followed the [THb] measured directly in concurrently collected blood samples.

ABSTRACTGenetic analysis of wild-type Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) virus strains recovered in the European part of Russia was performed. Reverse transcriptase PCR followed by direct sequencing was used to recover partial sequences of the CCHF virus medium (M) genome segment (M segment) from four pools of Hyalomma marginatumticks and six human patients. Phylogenetic analysis of the M-segment sequences from Russian strains revealed a close relatedness of the strains (nucleotide sequence diversity, =5.0%). The strains differed significantly from CCHF viruses from other regions of the world (nucleotide sequence diversity, 10.3 to 20.4%), suggesting that CCHF virus strains recovered in the European part of Russia form a distinct group.