Browse

Stress agents are only potentially stressful, generating psychological stress only under certain conditions, even if some of them are able of generating stress reactions in most individuals. Therefore, effects of stressors depend not only on their own characteristics but also on attributes of the subject receiving their action such as quality and breadth of emotional responses, adaptive strategies available and mobilized in the created interaction etc. Specific responses to a situation that potentially endangers l...

It is no longer a novelty that for the socio-economic development of the society in which we live, the main resource is represented by information. Of the data and information that society faces on a daily basis, most have spatial reference. Thus, the field of Geographic Information Systems has become an interactive way of viewing and accessing the components of the geographical environment. For the management of natural disasters, a multi-temporal spatial data is required. Satellite remote sensing is the ideal to...

Water quality was investigated in Lake Matita, part of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, Romania, to assess the overall status of the freshwater ecosystem, in accordance with the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD ? 2000/60/EC), which addresses all surface waters i.e., rivers, lakes, transitional waters and coastal waters in the EU. From this perspective, a specific physical and chemical analysis of surface water samples was performed, collected in different sectors of the lake, during the summer of June 2020. Se...

With the development of space and information technology, emergency monitoring using satellite data is gaining tremendous relevance. If we take into account the area of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2.7 million km2), there is an urgent need to create a unified space monitoring system for the most priority natural and man-made disasters. This article discusses the space monitoring system, its composition and functional diagram of the basic elements of the system and remote access services to the resources and results...

Renewable energy is one of the most lenient and convenient ways to get energy. With ongoing climate change and exhaustion of fossil fuels, we need to find and promote other alternatives to get the energy, and wood biomass is one of them. Historically Latvia has large areas of abandoned agricultural lands, that are overgrowing with various wood species, which could be used for energy production. The wood resources are natural, renewable and environmentally friendly. The purpose of research work is to assess the amo...

The study deals with a usage of spectral indices for the ecological control of the state of forestry with particular emphasis on the control of causes and effects of forest fires, their effective detection and prevention. The Karabai tract was selected as an object of study, which is a monoculturally planted pine forest with predominance of Rhinus sylvestris L. and P. pallasiana D. Don, located on the territory of Kherson region, Ukraine. This forestry is known for one of the largest forest fires in Ukraine, which...

The dynamic impact loading has significant influence on the conveyor belts operation time. This paper focuses on the tensile properties of fabric conveyor belts subjected to the impact loading induced by dropping a hammer. The induced damage of the conveyor belt was inspected after the drop. The impact of the hammer simulated the belt stress at the chutes where the transported material falls onto the belt. The falling material usually damages the belt on its surface, i.e. the rubber cover layer that protects the b...

The problem of increasing the energy efficiency of the national economy is the most important for countries with developing economies. For example, in the Republic of Ecuador (RE), the average GDP growth rate was 5.73% over 2010-2019. This requires high-quality development of the energy sector to ensure sustainable development of the national economy. The power generation structure in RE is not optimal because the share of oil is 87%, while the share of hydro resources is 6%. For RE, this reduces the efficiency of...

Cleaning contaminated soil from heavy metals is a very important issue for Ukraine at present. Soil pollution is considered to be the result of metallurgical and chemical industries, as well as the irrational application of chemical plant protection. The goal of the studies was investigation of effectiveness of phytoremediation with co-cultivation of herbaceous plants as one of decontamination methods. An innovative method of cleaning soil from heavy metal contamination using a combination of switchgrass and peren...

At present the traffic lights are common part of the road intersections. This type of traffic control has many advantages: increase in traffic safety, clearly defined driving preference, increase in intersection capacity etc. On the other hand the intersections with traffic lights can show also some disadvantages, for example wrong behaviour of road participants, problem with traffic flow continuity, often due to wrong signal program, traffic volumes or geometric and building parameters of intersection, economic a...

Occupational diseases linked to noise risk are still one of the most important employment problems, particularly in the quarry activities. Many negative effects on human health can arise after long exposure to noise in an occupational context. To protect workers' health and prevent hearing problems, employers must provide to workers with hearing protection equipment. In recent years, however, there have been many problems with the use of hearing protection devices. These have a highly mitigating effect but can iso...

Modern actualization of the global problems of mankind indicates that environmental problems occupy one of the first places in terms of threat level. An analysis of studies of this period indicates that far from many publications, these problems are formulated as the tasks of harmonization and humanization of relations between society and nature. Most non-philosophical works tend to analyze planetary resource problems and disaster prevention. This interpretation is a continuation of the deterministic approach to r...

The presented article is devoted to the development of equivalent models of geological environments based on the grid method, taking into account possible oil pollution resulting from emergencies at oil storage and oil refining facilities and amounting to about 25% of the total share of leaks, as a result of which an average of 2% to 10% of extracted raw materials is lost annually in the world. The main sources of emergencies at oil storage and oil refining facilities are examined, and it is shown that their resul...

The universities in Bulgaria operate in a very dynamic environment. The Ministry of Education and Science (MES) changes annually the requirements that their systems must meet. Changes can be small and affect only parts of the information systems in use or impose fundamental changes. To cope with this challenge, each university has a choice - either to move to a high level of digitalization or to maintain a minimum digitization of processes, so that no correction is needed in them, thus increasing the hours of work...

The National Geo-Information Center (NGIC) is a newly established research infrastructure which is part of the National road map for scientific infrastructure (2017-2023) of Bulgaria. Its primary strategic objective is to improve the coordination and integration of the efforts of the existing scientific infrastructure networks to integrate the primary Earth observation data into a single complex geo-information center, and to support their joint analysis for the assessment, forecasting and prevention of natural an...

Systematic monitoring of buildings and structures is necessary to ensure the safety and reliable functioning of infrastructure facilities. An important component for high-precision measurement control during monitoring is the verification of double measurement accuracy and the identification of systematic errors. By double measurements we mean the comparison of measurement result difference between the monitoring series, determining the displacements that occurred as systematic errors using the mathematical appara...

Today our cities are facing different challenges (huge increase of urban population, strong trends of migration toward cities and climate changes that affecting urban environment. These challenges require these changes require intelligent decision-making, with a focus on environmental protection. Ecological urbanism is a new concept for urban development and planning that puts a focus on environment in the processes of urban planning in order to create for communities sustainable places and provide intelligent sol...

The region of Spis in North - Eastern Slovakia is a region rich in cultural and natural values. Small sacral structures are significant elements of Spis cultural landscapes and trees are an integral part of them. This paper presents results of field mapping of small sacral objects and their greenery in this region. The presented mapping was conducted within the research project VEGA 1/0371/18 ?SacralArch: Preservation of the Historical Legacy and Architectural Diversity of Small Sacral Structures in Cultural Lands...

The implementation of a competence-based approach in higher education suggests the reinforcement of personality-oriented education, the use of technologies that demonstrate the personal growth of the student, and the formation of professionalism. For this purpose, traditional teaching methods are complemented by innovative ones that create conditions for student activity, putting him in a situation of free choice and decision making. The article focuses on the training portfolios technology application in the educ...

Currently, the urgent task associated with the development and production of new, cheaper, building materials. Rocks have a reserve of free internal energy, which is determined by the method of their formation. The use of this energy reserve can reduce the work that needs to be done during the technological transformation of raw materials in the production of building materials. In this paper, it is proposed to evaluate the efficiency of using various finely dispersed systems to use as a criterion - surface activi...

Russian Arctic regions are most sensitive to global climate change. Their unique and fragile ecosystems are very dependent on freshwater. Beyond temperature rise, climate change is accompanied by shifts in precipitation and wind conditions, thereby causing floods, droughts, and altered mixing regimes, all having a serious impact on the abiotic and biotic structure. This work is relevant for better understanding of the biota of the Russian Arctic. Cladocerans are very promising for studying climate change risks owi...

Currently, the issue of pollution of the Caspian Sea, which is saturated with oil industry facilities, is highly relevant. Monitoring of such objects and phenomena that pose a potential and real threat of natural and man-made emergencies, such as emergency oil spills that entail significant environmental damage, is important for Kazakhstan. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the capabilities of SAR and optical images in the task of detecting oil spills, having tested them in the task of mapping zones wi...

The article deals with a set of regional problems that require early adoption of political, environmental, institutional and scientific solutions to ensure sustainable development of the Kaliningrad region. The main problems are the imperfection of the legislative system, in which watercourses and lakes have different ownership forms to make it difficult to determine legal liability for the condition of water object. The imperfection of local management systems and the irrational separation of powers between autho...

The construction sector is one of the most material-intensive and power-consuming industries having a negative impact on the environment. The adverse environmental factors include greenhouse gas emissions, depletion of natural raw materials, extensive landfilling or dumping in the sea. In this regard, resource conservation, waste minimization, as well as the reduction of harmful substances emissions into the atmosphere, hydrosphere and soil are considered currently as the most significant environmental challenges....

The present study includes a total of 13 Bulgarian municipalities, situated along the border between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Serbia. The municipalities are the following: Bregovo, Boynitsa, Kula, Makresh, Belogradchik, Chuprene, Chiprovtsi, Georgi Damyanovo, Godech, Dragoman, Trun, Trekliano and Kyustendil. These frontier municipalities belong to the Northwestern, as well as the Middle West parts of Bulgaria. Most of them are known to be the least developed Bulgarian municipalities and the one...

The results of instrumental observations of the acoustic effects caused by stronger earthquake with the magnitude mb = 5.7 which occurred in Iran on July 08, 2019 are given. The observations were carried out at three pointes: Geophysical observatory "Mikhnevo" (54.94° N; 37.73° E), Center for geophysical monitoring in Moscow (55.70° N; 37.57° E) of Sadovsky Institute of Geosphere Dynamics of Russian Academy of Sciences and at a point located in Zvenigorod town, Moscow Region (55.69° N; 36.77° E), which provided th...

The Geological Survey of Norway, in 2019, collected helicopter borne geophysical data in parts of Loppa and Kv?nangen municipalities, in Northern Norway. The objective of the airborne survey was to obtain a dense high-resolution magnetic, electromagnetic and radiometric data set over the surveyed area. These data are required for the enhancement of the general understanding of the regional geology of the area. Adjoining areas covered by previous airborne surveys in 2014 were merged with the current data. The studi...

In the current context, in which the analysis of the failures by infrared thermography for the hydraulically operated machines is an increasingly widespread internationally method, starting from the year 2016, in Romania, at INOE 2000 - IHP Bucharest the first thermographic analyzes were laid made on hydraulic equipment. It is known that by maintaining normal limits of variation of the temperature and viscosity of the hydraulic oil in the actuation plants, are created the conditions of the productivity increase an...

An actual problematic question in geography didactic, directly related to the quality and effectiveness of training, is that of the methodological principles. They are defined as the regulatory basic rules and criteria adopted in the practice, the compliance of which determines the optimal organization and effective implementation of the geography training process. The system of principles is open and dynamic. The principles themselves are not independent and isolated from one another, but interact. Principles are...

The review of methods and devices for measuring of the raindrops sizes is considered in the article. A brief classification of the main groups of methods and devices for measuring of raindrop diameters is proposed. These materials could be useful in the development and selection of methods for analysis the characteristics of natural rains and artificial rains which are created by sprinkler machines. It is noted that all existing methods can be conditionally divided into the following groups: direct, indirect, opti...

Nodule bacteria (rhizobia) forming nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with legumes have a multicomponent genome represented by chromosome and a number of plasmids of different sizes. Genes related to symbiotic activity of Sinorhizobium meliloti are located predominantly on two megaplasmids SMa and SMb (1.35 and 1.68 Mb, correspondingly). Genomes at about 80% of native rhizobia nodulating alfalfa contained cryptic plasmids with sizes varied from 7 up to 450 kb. Functional role of this class of plasmids remained unclear up t...

The article presents an assessment of changes in chernozem soils of agricultural land as a result of anthropogenic impacts. It is shown that the agricultural soil utilization leads to significant disturbances in the ecological balance and is accompanied by an increase in the disequilibrium of the state of the systems, an increase in the degradation risk, which becomes excessive with improper use of soils and the wrong choice of farming systems. In order to prevent negative developments associated with agricultural...

The problem of the environment is becoming more and more pressing. The economic evolution of the world has led on the one hand to wellbeing, but on the other hand, has not taken into account Natural Resources. Sustainable development is on the agenda of all countries and represents a challenge for a return to green values. The European Union has sustainable development as one of its priorities. However, all this is not possible without proper education. The EU and national governments have set clear targets to gui...

The Brown Coal Research Institute j. s. c. is realising the long term research and survey in the field of restoration problems. The target of these works changed during development of localities. The main problems of present days are reclamation during frequent hot and dry periods, the extreme alkaline soil reaction of any localities soils, occurrence of phytotoxic and sterile areas and methodology of areas retained to natural succession founding. The article is devoted to the methodology of research and to the de...

The purpose of this study is to address and consider ancient manor complexes as landscape objects, and to identify the linkages between their formation, location and environmental conditions. Ancient manors are unique monuments of the spiritual and material culture of Central Russia. The landscape has the imprint of the historical and cultural heritage of the past, which, in turn, largely determines its current state and appearance. We consider the manor as a landscape-historical estate complex, which was formed d...

A business model consists of specific components that enable the presentation of the path and tools for creating value or its loss in the activities of enterprises. Classically, from the accounting science research point of view and in accordance with the disclosure map proposed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), there are four main components of a business model: inputs (capitals), business activities, outputs and outcomes. The research subject presented in the paper is inputs, which includ...

Digitization is one of the key development priorities for the European Union, which also applies to three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In recent years, significant progress has been made in the Baltic States in the fields of connectivity, digital technology use and e-government. Unfortunately, the progress was different in each of the Baltic States, and there were also serious shortcomings in all the states, e.g. concerning human capital. However, unlike Lithuania, the business sectors of Latvia a...

The paper discusses the conceptual issues of creating and using the information infrastructure of a multi-satellite system for Earth remote sensing (MS RS) to address a wide range of problems in the oil and gas industry. We analyzed the information needs arising from monitoring the state of oil and gas production, storage, transportation, and refining facilities, as well as the possibilities of meeting these needs in the framework of a promising MS RS created on the basis of a small spacecraft constellation. The c...

The report presents the results of studies of the characteristics of the deformation signal during the preparation of regional earthquakes according to laser deformation measurements in the adit of the Talaya seismic station (Baikal region). Studies have shown a number of features during the deformation process on the eve of regional earthquakes. The deformation data recorded on the seismic station (? = 51°40`48``N, ? = 103°38`24``E) during the period from 1994 to 2015 were used as experimental material. During th...

Modern society is rapidly changing under the influence of digital technologies. Digitalization as a modern approach to the development of the Baltic States implies not so much the installation of high-tech equipment and the implementation of software systems, but fundamental changes in business processes, business models and management tools. The transformation of society affects the political, economic and social spheres. The priority task is to introduce the concept of sustainable development of the country and ...

The article discusses the features of the natural resource potential of Zhambyl region in the context of resource-saving agricultural use. A component-based assessment of the most important natural resources and conditions for agricultural use was conducted: biological, soil, water and agroclimatic. The territory under consideration was ranked by a set of features to identify the integral indicator of natural resource potential. A map of the natural resource potential of landscapes in the Zhambyl region has been d...

A serious challenge for the construction of Sofia Metro is the shallow groundwater and the high water abundance of the hydrogeological units that are crossed by the construction route. The dewatering of the excavations for the facilities that are supported on deep foundations and the tunnels is most often associated with large and long-lasting local depressions of the water table. The joint action of the drainage systems around the metro stations and tunnel sections built simultaneously or in overlapping time inte...

The article describes a long-term and seasonal dynamics of zooplankton species diversity and its relationships with hydrologic factors were investigated on Lake Fish located in Samoylov Island on the northeast of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia. This lake was chosen as a research object due to its mixed type of origin: thermokarst-polygonal. Zooplankton was sampled at three locations: on the pelagic and littoral zones of the thermokarst part and polygonal part of the lake. In total, 90 taxa (80 species) of...

Two commonly used programming languages in geosciences are R and Python. Both languages come with inherent advantages and disadvantages. While Python is a general-purpose language with a readable syntax, R is built by statisticians and encompasses their specific language. In contrast with more nominative and static programming languages, like C++ or Java, both R and Python are heavily used in non-informatics disciplines, due to their relative ease of use. Notwithstanding the lower performance of both languages com...

Between geoparks and protected areas occur some differences. Geoparks represent a complementary rather than competitive concept to nature protection. The theory of geoparks considers not only the protection of geological heritage with support for their understanding, education but also promote sustainable socio-economic and cultural development by geotourism. In this context, we referred to the feasible prospects of geoparks in protected areas on the example of Silica Plateau, one of the areas of the proposed Sili...

A technology of pre-design comparative assessment of hazardous industrial facilities alternative options is described in this paper. The technology was designed by the St. Petersburg environmental and design company "Eco-Express-Service" LLC. Options? comparison is carried out in two stages using a score/ranking multi-criteria assessment: at first, a determination and comparison of environmental safety criteria values, and then ? a summary assessment of all set of criteria. 4 competitive methods are used for obtai...

The ore extraction from Krumovo deposit, located at the northern periphery of the Manastir heights in Southeast Bulgaria started in 1906 and continued till 1986. The ore comprised Fe3O4 with admixtures of sulfides such as pyrite, pyrrhotite, marcasite and chalcopyrite. Open pits and underground workings were used. The excavations severely degraded the habitats, vegetation and waters on an area of about 3 km2. By 1986 waste rock (comprising hydrothermally altered basic magmatic rocks, such as gabbro or diorites, ma...

Alkali-activated aluminosilicates and geopolymers in the dry-state are typical dielectrics which is a limiting factor for their utilization in new sophisticated ways in construction industry. Nevertheless, such an issue can be solved by using various electrically conductive admixtures to attain reasonable electrical properties that ensure new functional properties, such as self-heating or self-sensing. Self-heating ability is attained by the addition of electrically conductive aggregates or sufficient amount of me...

The evaluation of explosion-proof electrical equipment for certification is particularly important given the risk of explosion and must be minimized. This in order to ensure the safety of life, health of workers, to prevent damage to goods and the environment when they meet the essential security requirements at European level. Directive 2014/34 / EU states that equipment used in explosive atmospheres must be designed to operate without endangering the environment for which it is intended. This paper deals with th...

Due to the changes in global climate patterns, wildfires have recently become a significantly greater threat to both human settlements and the corresponding activities. The same degree of threats is applicable for numerous species of fauna and vegetation, all across the world, especially in arid climate areas. Scientists that have conducted research on the subject revealed that climate significantly influences the probability of certain areas towards being affected by wildfires, especially taking into consideratio...