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Natural graphite, a polygenic mineral, is a product of regional, contact, impact metamorphism, and magmatic or fluid deposition. In fluid-deposited graphite, aqueous C-O-H systems play a special role in determining the characteristics of hydrothermal products by shifting the chemical equilibrium. From this viewpoint, the recently discovered carboniferous mineralization in the Baikal hydrothermalites has attracted increasing interest with regard to graphite crystallization under the influence of low-pressure low-temperature (LPLT) carboniferous H2O-rich fluids. Herein, we studied graphite mineralization in the geyserites and travertines of the Baikal geyserite paleovalley (Eastern Siberia, Russia) by applying a multitude of mineralogical studies. Optical, scanning, transmission electron, and atomic force microscopy, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and carbon isotopic composition analyses of graphite, carbonate carbon, and oxygen in both the hydrothermalites and host rocks were conducted. The obtained results revealed several peculiar features regarding the graphite in geyserites and travertines. We found that Baikal graphite, earlier predicted to be a product of hydrothermalites, generally occurs as a relict graphite of the host metamorphic rocks with partial in situ redeposition. The newly formed LPLT fluid-deposited graphite is characterized by micrometer- and submicrometer-sized idiomorphic crystallites overgrown on the relict metamorphic graphite seeds and between calcite sinter zones during the last stage of travertine formation. The results present additional valuable data for understanding the mechanism, range of the formation conditions, and typomorphism of fluid-deposited graphite with probable crystallization from carbon solution in the C-O-H system at LPLT conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Titanium alloys approved for clinical use in Russia are widely used in traumatology, maxillofacial surgery, and stomatology, mainly for manufacturing various endoprostheses and dental implants, i.e., structures to be introduced and installed into the bone and soft tissues of the human organism, capable of both biointegration and bioadaptation in the tissues of the human organism. In the field of medicinal material science, particularly, in designing structures for medicinal use based on titanium and its alloys and also various coatings on the surface of such structures, the modern methods and instruments developed for the electronic industry are being widely used. The methods designed for investigating materials and structures in electronics are employed in medicinal technology and particularly in the development of titanium implants. This makes it possible to develop the fundamentals for the technology of preparing the optimal microrelief on the surface of titanic endoprostheses intended for engrafting in soft tissues (i.e., fibrointegrable) and covered by bioactive coatings of titanium dioxide (TiO2) with the anatase structure obtained by atomic-layer deposition. The research is aimed at revealing the optimal surface treatment of such endoprostheses in order to achieve improved fibrointegration properties for using them in maxillofacial surgery. It is shown that the strong adhesion and fibrointegration between the titanium endoprosthesis and the connective tissue are achieved at the average surface roughness of (4-8) × 102 nm, the root-mean-square roughness of (5 × 102-1 × 103) nm, a profile height of (3-6) × 103 nm, and a thickness of the bioactive coatings of the order of magnitude of 10 nm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a comparison of commercially used German and Russian reactor pressure vessel steels from the positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) point of view, having in mind knowledge obtained also from other techniques from the last decades. The second generations of Russian RPV steels seems to be fully comparable with German steels and their quality enables prolongation of NPP operating lifetime over projected 40 years. The embrittlement of CrMoV steel is very low due to the dynamic recovery of radiation-induced defects at reactor operating temperatures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents a study on lazurite's crystallographic structural transformation from the Baikal region. It says that one of the most difficult problems related to lazurite is the issue of existence of cubic incommensurate 3D-modulated structure (I3DM). It mentions that two lazurite samples were studied to explore its structural instability such as the cubic with I3DM from the Pokhabikha deposit and the rhombic from the Tultui deposit. It mentions several methods were used in the study including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and thermoanalysis (TA). Results show that the I3DM-structure in cubic lazurite from the Baikal region has a growth origin, although it is not a metastable state at incomplete polymorphic transformation.

Abstract  China, Russia, and India are playing an increasingly important role in global nanotechnology research and development (R&D). This paper comparatively inspects the paper and patent publications by these three countries in the Thomson Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI) database and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database (1976–2007). Bibliographic, content map, and citation network analyses are used to evaluate country productivity, dominant research topics, and knowledge diffusion patterns. Significant and consistent growth in nanotechnology papers are noted in the three countries. Between 2000 and 2007, the average annual growth rate was 31.43% in China, 11.88% in Russia, and 33.51% in India. During the same time, the growth patterns were less consistent in patent publications: the corresponding average rates are 31.13, 10.41, and 5.96%. The three countries’ paper impact measured by the average number of citations has been lower than the world average. However, from 2000 to 2007, it experienced rapid increases of about 12.8 times in China, 8 times in India, and 1.6 times in Russia. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) were the most productive institutions in paper publication, with 12,334, 6,773, and 1,831 papers, respectively. The three countries emphasized some common research topics such as “Quantum dots,” “Carbon nanotubes,” “Atomic force microscopy,” and “Scanning electron microscopy,” while Russia and India reported more research on nano-devices as compared with China. CAS, RAS, and IIT played key roles in the respective domestic knowledge diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript collects all the efforts of the Russian Consortium, bottlenecks revealed in the course of the C-HPP realization, and ways of their overcoming. One of the main bottlenecks in the C-HPP is the insufficient sensitivity of proteomic technologies, hampering the detection of low- and ultralow-copy number proteins forming the "dark part" of the human proteome. In the frame of MP-Challenge, to increase proteome coverage we suggest an experimental workflow based on a combination of shotgun technology and selected reaction monitoring with two-dimensional alkaline fractionation. Further, to detect proteins that cannot be identified by such technologies, nanotechnologies such as combined atomic force microscopy with molecular fishing and/or nanowire detection may be useful. These technologies provide a powerful tool for single molecule analysis, by analogy with nanopore sequencing during genome analysis. To systematically analyze the functional features of some proteins (CP50 Challenge), we created a mathematical model that predicts the number of proteins differing in amino acid sequence: proteoforms. According to our data, we should expect about 100 000 different proteoforms in the liver tissue and a little more in the HepG2 cell line. The variety of proteins forming the whole human proteome significantly exceeds these results due to post-translational modifications (PTMs). As PTMs determine the functional specificity of the protein, we propose using a combination of gene-centric transcriptome-proteomic analysis with preliminary fractionation by two-dimensional electrophoresis to identify chemically modified proteoforms. Despite the complexity of the proposed solutions, such integrative approaches could be fruitful for MP50 and CP50 Challenges in the framework of the C-HPP.