Joint treatment of severe amblyopia combined with uncomfortable esotropia (case report)

Purpose - to evaluate the effectiveness of a joint method for the treatment of severe amblyopia, combined with uncomfortable esotropia, including chemodenervation of the extraocular muscle and subsequent pleoptic treatment using the «Ambliokor» medical complex. Material and methods. The patient is 3 years old. Diagnosis: unfriendly non-paralytic esohypertropia with a prevalence of OD; amblyopia, severe OD, moderate OS, mixed astigmatism OU. The treatment was carried out in 2 stages. At the first stage in order to eliminate the dysbinocular factor of amblyopia, chemodenervation of the internal rectus muscle of the right eye with the preparation of botulinum toxin type A «Botox» was performed by the intraoperative technique. After 1 month, at the second stage, a complex pleoptic treatment was carried out. Results. After chemodenervation, 1 month later, orthotropy in the primary gaze position without glasses and with glasses was achieved. The vertical deviation significantly decreased to 5 degrees in the position of adduction of the eyeballs. The right lead was restored fully. The forced turn of the head was eliminated. After the third course of complex pleoptic treatment, visual acuity with correction was 0.7 on the right and 0.8 on the left. Restoration of central visual fixation in the right eye was noted. The simultaneous nature of vision was revealed. The deviation angle of the eyes in the primary gaze position without glasses and with glasses to the nose did not exceed +7 degrees according to Hirshberg. Hypertropia persisted in adduction up to 10 degrees according to Hirschberg (hyperfunction of the inferior oblique muscle) in both eyes. «V»-syndrome persisted. The patient is planned to surgically weaken the hyperfunction of the inferior oblique muscle of both eyes, followed by the continuation of a complex of pleopto-orthoptic treatment. Conclusion. The existing extensive base of various methods of influencing the functions of the amblyopic eye allows for successful treatment of even severe amblyopia. Key words: amblyopia, unfriendly esotropia, chemodenervation, pleoptic treatment.

SCYTHIAN AMAZONS: LEVEL OF STUDY

Scythian Amazons have attracted the attention of researchers since a long time. The Amazons as the subject is developed in three main directions, conditioned by the choice of a certain group of sources — literary, pictorial and archaeological. The literary and visual aspects have been developed quite thoroughly by many generations of researchers, as evidenced by the representative corpus of monographs and publications. Both these directions developed in parallel, often intersecting. Literary aspect implies the study of the image of the Amazon — one of the brightest in classical ancient mythology and culture. Several topics could be seen as key here: the degree of an existence historicism of these warlike women ; the meaning of the term «Amazon»; the origin of the cycle of myths about the Amazons; plot cycles; confrontation / opposition to heroes; and finally, the Amazons and gender issues. The pictorial aspect is related to the study of a wide range of works of decorative art, in which female warriors appear. Following subjects are developed here: storylines (Amazonomachy as Pan-Hellenic plot, Grifonomachy as the local variant thereof ; an injured Amazon, etc.); the image of an Amazon in art in general (multi-figure compositions, solitary figures) or in its particular forms — architecture, sculpture, plastic, painting, toreutics, vases art, etc.); interpretation of compositions, iconography, detailed analysis of accessories and so on. Archaeological aspect looks the least developed, since it is connected with the necessary field work. In the process of studying the funerary complexes of Scythian female warriors, three stages can be distinguished. At the first stage (second half of the 19th century — the end of the 1950s), during the occasional excavations of the Kurgan antiquities of the Pripontian steppes, single graves of women with weapons were discovered. They seemed to have already been noticed, but as an exceptional phenomenon. The second stage (the second half of the 20th century) is characterized by a change in the vector of archaeological researches — at this time, not only the large Kurgans begin to be explored, but also the burial grounds of the rank soldiers. Excavation materials are introduced into scientific circulation. The first analytical works appear (O. Ganina, V. Olkhovskiy, V. Ilinskaya and A. Terenozhkin, E. Buniatian, E. Fialko, R. Rolle, V. Guliaev). It should be noted that these publications are used to this day by foreign colleagues. The third stage (the end of the 20th century — the beginning of the 21st century) was marked by a forced turn from fieldwork, especially barrows, to the office investigations. At this time there were publications of a series of graves of Amazons in individual burial grounds, in different regions of European Scythia (steppe and forest-steppe Dnieper, Crimea, Transdnistria and the Don region). Their number reached 250. These works treated different types of the burial structures, certain categories of burial items of Scythian Amazons, their social stratification, complexes chronology, etc. These materials bring us closer to interesting conclusions and generalizations.

Continuous Spontaneous Alternation and Turn Alternation in Artemia sp.

Free-running spontaneous alternation refers to the animal’s tendency to prefer the least recently visited locations in successive spatial choices, which is attributed to the animals’ choice between stimuli based on prior experience. Turn alternation, which is observed in directional choices preceded by a forced turn in one direction, also reflects the animals’ tendency to alternate between directional choices but this tendency has been assumed to rely on other cues (e.g., proprioceptive cues) derived from the prior responses (e.g., forced turn in one direction). Based on previous studies, the turn alternation appears to rely on more primitive (lower-form) information features and to be a more frequently observed empirical phenomenon than the spontaneous alternation. We investigated these two behavioral alternation tendencies in Artemia sp. Experiment 1 tested the continuous spontaneous alternation (cSAB) performance of Artemia sp. in two different mazes: t-maze (three options) and plus maze (four options). Experiment 2 tested the turn alternation performance of Artemia sp. counter-balancing the direction of initial forced-turn between subjects. Our results showed that Artemia sp. had nearly chance level spontaneous alternation performance in the t-maze and plus maze whereas a higher than chance level turn alternation performance. These results support the ubiquity of turn alternation tendency across species and point at the lack of spontaneous alternation in Artemia sp.

Dynamic Instability in Quartering Seas—Part II: Analysis of Ship Roll and Capsize for Broaching

In earlier studies we have analyzed the phenomena which can generate loss of ship controllability in astern seas. In this paper we examine how the yaw instability associated with broaching can lead to roll instability and ship capsize. The dynamic effects responsible for capsize during the forced turn of broaching do not have their origin in the customary roll equation but are the result of interactions with other motions of the ship. Stability studies based solely on the roll equation are thus clearly inappropriate for this case where a multidimensional approach is deemed necessary. After presenting the theoretical background we set out a multi-degree method of global analysis which is based on transient maps. We apply this method to clarify how capsize occurs during the escape from surf-riding and also during transients from arbitrary initial condition of the ship. Our study establishes the connection between speed, heading, automatic control parameters and capsize. The proposed method can be useful in the context of a design methodology for minimizing the risk of ship capsize in astern seas.