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Background: Despite the low transmission risk of Monkeypox (mpox) in Belarus, this study is vital as it contributes to our understanding of vaccine hesitancy among healthcare professionals (HCPs). It aims to assess vaccination perceptions and evaluate the willingness to pay for the vaccine among Belarusian HCPs, thereby enhancing pandemic preparedness. Methods: in October 2022, a cross-sectional survey-based study was conducted among Belarusian HCPs using a self-administered questionnaire (SAQ). Invitations were disseminated via social media platforms using a snowball sampling method. The SAQ encompassed various categories, including sociodemographic details, medical history, sources of mpox information, perceived and factual mpox knowledge, and perceptions of the mpox vaccine according to the health belief model (HBM), mpox vaccine acceptance and willingness to pay (WTP). Results: while a large proportion of respondents had good knowledge of mpox epidemiology and its clinical manifestations, their awareness of available vaccines and treatment options was limited. Consequently, a significant correlation was found between the history of influenza vaccination and mpox-related knowledge. Furthermore, the study showed that just over half of the participants (51.4%) were willing to receive the mpox vaccine if offered for free, safely, and effectively, with their decision largely influenced by perceived benefits (Spearman's rho = 0.451) and cues to action (Spearman's rho = 0.349). However, a considerable degree of hesitancy (30.6%) and resistance (18.1%) towards the mpox vaccine was observed, underscoring the need for targeted interventions to address these issues. Conclusions: this study highlights a significant knowledge gap among Belarusian HCPs about mpox vaccines and treatments, despite a general awareness of the disease's epidemiology and symptoms, and it underscores the need for targeted interventions to enhance mpox knowledge and vaccine acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents results of monitoring the transboundary transport of pollutants with river water of the Western Dvina River and the Dnieper River basins for the period from 2010 to 2020. The impact of water runoff long-term dynamics on the transboundary surface water quality is discussed. The assessment of the excess transport of pollutants is given, taking into account differences in the values of standard concentrations adopted on the territory of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. There is an analysis of the differences between the concentrations of substances at the observation stations opened on the border with the Republic of Belarus in 2013–2016 (the Western Dvina in Verkhov'e village; the Dnieper in Khlystovka village, and the Sozh River in Bakharevka village) and at the observation stations away from the border (the Western Dvina in the town of Velizh; the Dnieper in the city of Smolensk, and the Sozh in Khislavichi urban-type settlement) in the paper. The pollution of the catchments with various substances is characterized, and priority indicators that help to recommend some measures to reduce the contamination of catchments with them are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the research is to study trade and economic cooperation between Ukraine and the Republic of Belarus, the agreement and legal basis of bilateral cooperation, the dynamics of foreign trade turnover, tendencies and forms of production cooperation in the context of modern challenges. The methodology of work is a complex of scientific principles, general scientific and special historical methods, as well as interdisciplinary and comprehensive approaches to the historical discourse of modern Ukrainian-Belarusian trade and economic relations based on the integral use of sources on this issue. The scientific novelty is stipulated by insufficient research of trade and economic aspects of cooperation between Ukraine and the Republic of Belarus in the Ukrainian historiography at the present stage, where, with few exceptions, there are almost no generalized papers on these issues. The author's view on the dynamics of cooperation between the two countries for the whole period of 1991-2020 is shown, the peculiarities of bilateral cooperation after the presidential elections on August 9, 2020 in Belarus, which led to deepening political crisis in the republic, have been clarified, the prospects of given research have been determined. The conclusions. It has been proven that almost thirty years of experience of cooperation between Ukraine and the Republic of Belarus in the new geopolitical realities is the evidence of the importance of bilateral trade and economic cooperation based on pragmatism and mutual interest, broad contacts at the level of the heads of the states, governmental and non-governmental structures, diplomatic bodies as well agreement and legal basis. It has been shown that owing to the industrial cooperation of the two states, the growth of the dynamics of mutual trade turnover, the search for constructive solutions in interregional cooperation, the concerted work of all structures coordinating Ukrainian-Belarusian relations, the accumulated institutional and legal support, it became possible to preserve the accumulated potential in the interstate relations ensuring the vector of bilateral opportunities in the context of integration and globalization processes of the present time. At the same time, in connection with the ongoing political crisis in Belarus, the format of bilateral relations has changed. Although economic cooperation continues, the challenges affecting the mutual dialogue are inducing Kyiv to consider different options for the development of bilateral cooperation; in the economic dimension, the search for opportunities to diversify and replace the Belarusian products is taking place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale social unrest and protests of the citizens of the Republic of Belarus have been taking place in the country since the beginning of August 2020. Protesters accuse authorities of falsifying the results of the August 9th presidential elections. They demanded that dictator Lukashenko leave power, that another free and fair election be held, and that political prisoners be released from prison. They also demanded that those guilty of violence against peaceful protesters be brought to justice. It has become clear that during all this time, the pro-Western opposition has not been able to make significant progress and the opposition will not be allowed to take power in Minsk. President Lukashenko has resumed friendship with the Kremlin and called on Moscow's support to stay in power, indicating that resolving the internal political crisis in Belarus will now be a process controlled exclusively by Moscow. Russia will, at the same time, reject any western interference. The support of the Belarusian president from the Kremlin will be made according to a scenario mounted in Moscow and will be done mainly in order not to allow the derailment of the Belarusian state on any western trajectory. And to finally move to a comprehensive integration of the Republic of Belarus into the Russian space, also following a Russian scenario. Of course, all these gestures of Moscow will involve costs that are difficult to assess, but which most likely the people of Belarus and Lukashennko will have to pay. At the close of this analytical material, however, it is difficult to make predictions about the next stages of escalation of the internal conflict, the prospects for normalizing the situation and the fate of the Belarusian dictator. Probably even for the most knowledgeable connoisseurs of the Belarusian space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Belarusian State Medical University (BSMU) is one of the leading medical universities of the Republic of Belarus. Students from different countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America alongside with Belarusian students study at the university. The aim of this work was to study the peculiarities of the body constitution of 18-22-year-old students of different nationalities. The group of 511 medical students (225 young men and 286 young women) aged 18 to 22 were examined, 294 of whom were Belarusians and 217 of other nationalities (Turkmens, Lebanese, Iranians and Indians). Anthropometric measurements were carried out, a somatotype was determined, and various indices were calculated (BMI, WHR, WHtR, CI). The significance of the differences in absolute values was determined by using the Mann-Whitney U-test, while the relative values were compared using the Chi-squared test. Among the students of different ethnicities studying at BSMU, the tallest were the Belarusians (179.40 and 166.41 cm for young men and young women, respectively), the shortest were the Indians (171.48 and 157.81 cm, respectively; in both cases p<0.001); the rest of the groups had an intermediate position according to the body height. The leading somatotype among the Belarusian, Iranian and Turkmen young males were muscular or transitional to muscular (42.0, 44.8 and 50.0% among the surveyed respectively). Many Indians had the thoracic somatotype (38.6%), the Lebanese had a widely represented abdominal somatotype (51.4%, p < 0.05). The leading somatotype of the Belarusian and Turkmen young women was stenoplastic (55.5% and 56.3%, respectively). Among the Iranian young women, the morphotype with increased fat deposition was the most common (41.2%, p < 0.001). According to the WHtR values indicating the risk of metabolic syndrome, there were 2.5% of overweight cases in the young Belarusian males, while it was observed in 11.4% of the surveyed Indians, 12.5% of the Turkmens (in both cases - p < 0.05), 17.2% of the Iranians (p < 0.01) and 22.6% of the Lebanese (p < 0.001). Among the surveyed females, WHtR showed that 23.5% of the surveyed Iranians and 16.0% of the Indians had this risk (in both cases, p < 0.001 when compared to the group of the Belarusian women, who had 1.4% of such cases). The study of BSMU students from different countries revealed the most significant differences of the analyzed values in the male samples. The considerable differences in height, waist circumference, BMI, WHtR and CI were found between the males from Belarus and Iran, Lebanon. Significant similarities in most anthropometric indicators were found between the students from Belarus and Turkmenistan, both among young males and young females. WHtR and BMI reflected the nutritional status and the risk metabolic disorders better than WHR both in young males and young females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the third time since 2005 atmospheric deposition of trace elements in Belarus was monitored by the moss technique widely used in Europe for air pollution studies. Samples of moss species of Hylocomium splendens and Pleurozium schreberi were collected at 86 sites over the Gomel, Vitebsk and Minsk Regions in the summer of 2015. A total of 30 elements were determined by epithermal neutron activation analysis. Studying of the temporal trends in Belarus was undertaken with the results obtained in previous moss surveys in 2005/2006 and 2010/2011. Comparison with the analogous data from the neighbouring countries showed relatively low contamination levels in Belarus for the most heavy and toxic elements. The results of survey 2010/2011 showed that, except Cr, other element concentrations reduce or are at the same levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Children's Eating Attitudes Test (ChEAT) is a self‐report questionnaire that is conventionally summarized with a single score to identify "problematic" eating attitudes, masking informative variability in different eating attitude domains. This study evaluated the empirical support for single‐ versus multifactor models of the ChEAT. For validation, we compared how well the single‐ versus multifactor‐based scores predicted body mass index (BMI). Method: Using data from 13,674 participants of the 11.5 year‐follow‐up of the Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT) in the Republic of Belarus, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate the performance of 3‐ and 5‐factor models, which were based on past studies, to a single‐factor model representing the conventional summary of the ChEAT. We used cross‐validated linear regression models and the reduction in mean squared error (MSE) to compare the prediction of BMI at 11.5 and 16 years by the conventional and confirmed factor‐based ChEAT scores. Results: The 5‐factor model, based on 14 of the original 26 ChEAT items, had good fit to the data whereas the 3‐ and single‐factor models did not. The MSE for concurrent (11.5 years) BMI regressed on the 5‐factor ChEAT summary was 35% lower than that of the single‐score models, which reduced the MSE from the null model by only 1%–5%. The MSE for BMI at 16 years was 20% lower. Discussion: We found that a parsimonious 5‐factor model of the ChEAT explained the data collected from healthy Belarusian children better than the conventional summary score and thus provides a more discriminating measure of eating attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the Republic of Belarus, development of a forensic reference database on the basis of 18 autosomal microsatellites (STR) using a population dataset ( N = 1040), 'familial' genotypic dataset ( N = 2550) obtained from expertise performance of paternity testing, and a dataset of genotypes from a criminal registration database ( N = 8756) is described. Population samples studied consist of 80% ethnic Belarusians and 20% individuals of other nationality or of mixed origin (by questionnaire data). Genotypes of 12346 inhabitants of the Republic of Belarus from 118 regional samples studied by 18 autosomal microsatellites are included in the sample: 16 tetranucleotide STR (D2S1338, TPOX, D3S1358, CSF1PO, D5S818, D8S1179, D7S820, THO1, vWA, D13S317, D16S539, D18S51, D19S433, D21S11, F13B, and FGA) and two pentanucleotide STR (Penta D and Penta E). The samples studied are in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium according to distribution of genotypes by 18 STR. Significant differences were not detected between discrete populations or between samples from various historical ethnographic regions of the Republic of Belarus (Western and Eastern Polesie, Podneprovye, Ponemanye, Poozerye, and Center), which indicates the absence of prominent genetic differentiation. Statistically significant differences between the studied genotypic datasets also were not detected, which made it possible to combine the datasets and consider the total sample as a unified forensic reference database for 18 'criminalistic' STR loci. Differences between reference database of the Republic of Belarus and Russians and Ukrainians by the distribution of the range of autosomal STR also were not detected, corresponding to a close genetic relationship of the three Eastern Slavic nations mediated by common origin and intense mutual migrations. Significant differences by separate STR loci between the reference database of Republic of Belarus and populations of Southern and Western Slavs were observed. The necessity of using original reference database for support of forensic expertise practice in the Republic of Belarus was demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents information about new localities of Parmotrema stuppeum, rare foliose lichen in Belarus. Both earlier known and new localities of the species are discussed. New data on the ecology of P. stuppeum in Belarus are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the influence of the process of urbanization on the Belarusian nationality. Due to some historical conditions the Western cities-communes have not formed in Belarus. At the beginning of the New Ages the Belarusian city has had Magdeburgian law and the trading relations, it has been the centre of the political life, the residence of the State officials and the provinces. Through the social-economical backwardness of the Russian empire the peasants of Belarus could not move into the towns from the country. The towns and the cities in Belarus were not Belarusian but Jewish and Polish ones. Due to the World War II there have emerged the Polish Holocaust, repatriation and the Soviet industrialization which have made some auspicious conditions for the overtaking modernization in Belarus. During only one generation the peasant Belarusian nation has become the urban one. Such overtaking process of the urbanization has been preventing the formation of the standards and the traditions of the Belarusian city. The basis of the social and cultural life of Belarusians has been forming the traditions of the Soviet culture. That is why we can come to the conclusion that the overtaking modernization is closely related to the radical changes of the national identity. The more overtaking is modernization of the cities and the whole State, the more dangerous is the deprivation of the national peculiarity. The nation whose spiritual life is not utterly formed can hardly successfully adapt itself to the social and economical changes, which are determined by the overtaking modernization. These alterations do absolutely not correspond to its spiritual way of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]