Vol 3, No 4 (2017)

A retrospective analysis of parameters of the mental conditions of navy personnel is presented. In the course of the current military  reform, the proportion of personnel members who experience  negative feelings has decreased by 30%. At present, different  degrees of fatigue are experienced by 43,9% of navy specialists.  According to the results of a similar study conducted in 2007, this  parameter was significantly higher (72,2%). Several positive trends  are found to emerge, including a decrease in craving for alcohol as a  means for ameliorating emotional stress and an increase in interest  to service duties. Factor analysis of data revealed the most prevalent strategies for securing of mental integrity, including quite promising  ones (self-control, self-education, and creativity), hardly promising  ones (adaptation), non-promising (passive attitudes to self), and even incompatible with military service (stagnation and degradation).

Unusual living conditions and the extreme activities create the risk of loss of health or even death of military personnel. We selectively  analysed medical reports on the health status of the personnel and the activities of the medical service by Form 3/MED in military  units, where about 60% of the total number of draft sailors and  sergeants of the Russian Navy served from 2003 to 2016. The  analysis of health problems in draft sailors and sergeants over 13  years showed that the average annual total incidence was  1864,5±91,9‰, the primary incidence — 997,4±60,4‰, the need  for dynamic follow-up — 170,3±20,1‰, hospitalization —  985,2±71,7‰, days out of work — 12 941±898‰, dismissal for  health reasons — 33,82±1,94‰. The death rate was 27,75±5,40  deaths per 100 thousand sailors per year. General and Primary incidence, need for follow-up, hospitalization, days out of work tended to increase and the death rates tended to decrease.  Dismissal for health reasons were relatively stable. Prevention of  diseases of these classes will contribute to improving the health of draft servicemen in the Russian Navy.

The paper sheds light on several episodes in the life of Yuri Nikolayevich Petrov, Candidate of Medical Sciences, navy doctor,  radiation hygienist, veteran of the Department of Navy and Radiation Hygiene of S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy, the author of dozens of inventions and innovation proposals. Many of navy hygienists in  Russia esteem Yu. N. Petrov as their tutor. The principal features of  his personality have ever been independence in thought, invariable  adherence to principles, exclusive modesty, and outstanding  benevolence. His life-long motto is the following phase taken from  his autobiographic essay: «In any routine, it is possible and essential to find its interesting aspects and thus make it fascinating. Ever  since, the routine turns into pleasure and life becomes wonderful».  The highlights of his professional activities include involvement in the liquidation of the consequences of K-8 submarine wreck (13.10.1960), the detection of radioactive cloud after nuclear tests in China (1968), the discovery of a foreign nuclear submarine beneath  the aircraft-carrying cruiser Minsk, involvement in radiation control  during the first trips of soviet nuclear submarines and in associated  studies of internal irradiation in humans, involvement in developing  and implementing of systems for environmental radiation control at  facilities having terrestrial nuclear reactors, studies of on-board  water decontamination, and, after retirement, fifteen years of practice in the sphere of consumer rights protection.

Based of literature sources, the scientific, pedagogical, and medical accomplishments of Prof. Ivan Fedorovich Bush are described,  including his service at fleets of the Russian Empire and his  formation as a surgeon and researcher at Imperial Medico-Surgical  Academy. His role in and contribution to the development of military  dentistry and oral surgery and the reform of education in dentistry in Russia, as well as his philosophical stance and ideas related to the history of medicine are outlined. The chapters of his opus magnum  «Tutorial on Teaching the Art of Surgery» that are related to diseases of the oral cavity and  mandibulofacial apparatus and their surgical treatment are discussed in  detail. The paper incudes also the inventory of ranks, titles and award granted to Prof. I. F. Bush in 1804–1833.

Diagnostic medicine has significantly changed during the past decade. The emergence of proteomics and genomics has significantly increased our understanding of disease. These fields have also  revealed the vast array of proteins that are expressed in various  disease processes, such as cancer. Measurement of these unique  proteins expressed in certain diseases may offer diagnostic clues or  allow patient prognosis to be assessed. Another approach is to  measure the effects that these ligands have on the structure and function of albumin. Albumin is known to play an important role  in modulating the serum concentrations of various proteins produced by tumor cells. In this review, we introduce the reader to the  technique of spin labeling followed by electron paramagnetic  resonance spectroscopy. This method is a powerful tool for evaluating the structural and functional changes that can occur to albumin following the binding of various ligands. We describe the  utility of this technique for the diagnosis of cancer and sepsis, as  well as some other novel potential applications.