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At the Azgir nuclear test site in Western Kazakhstan 17 nuclear explosions were carried out at a depth of 165 to 1500 m, as well as ground explosions. Nine underground cavities with a total volume of about 1.2 million m3 with extremely high residual radioactivity were formed in the thickness of the rock salt layers. Five of the nine cavities are filled with groundwater and strontium, cesium and plutonium radionuclides are leaking into the environment, and radionuclides spread through food chains. A medical examina...

The study presents a developed instrumental and methodological complex designed to monitor changes in the state and development of dangerous processes in a natural and technogenic system, including the structural integrity of building structures and geodynamic processes in the soil rocks of their placement sites, including the activation of previously passive faults. The complex includes three orthogonal molecular-electronic linear displacement sensors and three orthogonal torsional vibration sensors which can sel...

The electrification process of the materials and technical equipment-s, especially the external parts of them, frequently occur during their use, being sometimes an intrinsic process, such as for example flowing of a flammable liquid through a pipe. The electrification process of materials and technical equipment-s is responsible for generating, through specific mechanisms, significant quantities of electrostatic charges. The presence of electrostatic charges on materials and technical equipment-s, used in areas w...

Magnesium oxychloride cement (MOC) is a non-hydraulic binder produced in a more eco-efficient way than Portland cement and due to its favorable properties represents its promising alternative in the production of construction materials for specific applications. The specific advantage of MOC is the fact that it can accommodate organic as well as inorganic substances in the form of fillers, aggregates, additives, reinforcement, etc. which enables enriching properties and performance of the final composite material....

The Research Institute for Brown Coal j. s. c. (VUHU) has been involved in the research project of the EU Research Fund of Coal and Steel - The impact of extreme weather events on mining operations for four years. The project is focused on assessing the impact of climate change on mining activities in major European coal basins. Other participants are scientific teams from Poland, Great Britain, Spain, Germany and Greece. This is the last year of the project solving, so this paper summarizes the results of the sol...

The first oil discovery from Romanian Black Sea area was in 1987, relatively late compared with the first successful Romanian onshore well, more than 100 years earlier. Starting from that moment and continuing till recent years, several discoveries were done; some are already put into production and some others are still in the exploration phase. In order to extract as much oil as possible and also to define new hydrocarbon reservoirs, it is mandatory to have a proper understanding of the petroleum systems from th...

As the world adopts the technological era, the adverse effects of climate change have been experienced by the increasing population, which has led to a rise in energy demand. Heavy industries depend on dirty fossil fuels that release GHG emissions into the atmosphere. This paper aims to review the integration of a nuclear-renewable hybrid energy system (NRHES) to produce green hydrogen in decarbonizing hard-to-abate industries in the ASEAN region. In this study, the two main hydrogen production methods were identi...

The paper deals with the possibility of obtaining zinc and iron from waste galvanic sludge, which arises during galvanic plating. Galvanic sludges, which contain more significant amounts of heavy metals, form wastes that are suitable for recycling. These arise during the treatment of wastewater from the operation of the electroplating plant. It is a mixture of metal hydroxides, mainly iron, zinc, chromium, and others. The sludge is sedimented in the reaction wells and, after sedimentation, is pumped into the sludg...

In recent years, the growing impact of flood events on society, economy and environment, has increased the need for early prevention and mitigation measures. The prediction of future flooding areas represents an important tool that can reduce the magnitude of consequences, by identifying and mapping the flood prone-areas. The intensity and extension of floods depends on various contributing parameters, such as hydrometeorological and geomorphological indicators, land use, anthropic activities. Therefore, by analys...

Almonds can be infected by mycotoxigenic fungi both during the vegetation and during storage after harvesting. Most of the times the almonds are healthy, but during the improper storage they can be contaminated by fungi from the genus Aspergillus, Fusarium and Penicillium. The mentioned fungi are very dangerous for health because they are producing carcinogenic mycotoxins. The purpose of the work was to identify the fungi that are growing on the marketed almonds when they are placed on culture media after a previo...

The use of natural gas as a home heating source has, unfortunately, generated a number of gas explosion events, most of which have as their main cause the accidental leakage of combustible gas. The dynamic effects generated by the explosion pressures differ from case to case, depending on the concentrations of combustible gas accumulated in the chambers from the time of the occurrence of the gas leak to the occurrence of the source of initiation. Often, these dynamic effects involve concentrations close to the sto...

Climate change-s effect on nature, the human population and water resources have become a serious issue. It affects the delicate balance between precipitation, evaporation, discharge and other interactions between the atmosphere and surface, which is represented by the water cycle as we know it. The adaptation of water resources to changing hydrological conditions within basins is crucial. However, the uncertainty of climate change makes it difficult for hydrological models to evaluate future conditions. To suppre...

Ductile iron is currently one of the most popular construction materials. Its mechanical properties are close to those of steel. The basic material in the production of ductile iron is gray iron, which can be produced in a cupola or in an electric induction or electric arc furnace. After tapping the gray cast iron from the furnace, the gray cast iron is processing into ductile iron. This process is called modification. Magnesium and its alloys and cerium are most often used as modifiers. In addition to the modific...

The paper presents the effect of zeolitic volcanic tuff on soil fertility as a consequence of treating soil with zeolitic tuff supplies (clinoptilolite rich tuff). This high silicon tuff type and the essential features of the clinoptilolite has generated in time changes in soil properties like soil reaction, an effective pH buffering, increase of water absorption and cation exchange properties. The effect of using three different doses of zeolitic volcanic tuff, with and without ammonium nitrate addition as fertil...

One of the largest producers of GHG emissions in agriculture is the dairy and meat livestock sector. Grassland is the main feed base for dairy and meat cattle. Managed grasslands can become a major contributor to and leverage of GHG gas exchange. High quality information with studies on the flow of the three main GHG gases and concentration linked to different management strategies is important for the development of good management practices, as well as for the development of climateresilient landscapes and the r...

This article deals with the design and implementation of an intelligent biometric system that allows the detection and classification of a person's face from static image data and creates a system for evaluating its reliability. In its introductory part, it theoretically describes applied biometrics and biometric systems for security identification and user verification, and also deals with the theory of the description of algorithms for human face detection and recognition. Subsequently, the authors use the MATLA...

Food waste is a growing global concern, with the attention of major global organizations focusing on monitoring and finding solutions to optimize it. According to the latest data published by the National Institute of Public Health on this topic (2019), in Romania, food waste is estimated at 6,000 tons per day 49% from households, 37% from the food industry, 7% from retail, 5 % of public catering and 2% of the agricultural sector. In this context, it was proposed to implement a system based on reducing waste and w...

Recent years have seen an increase in microbial biofilm resistance, which has led to great challenges for the medical community in terms of treating diseases and the food industry in terms of contamination and the loss of shelf life. The purpose of this work is to test the antimicrobial efficacy against the biofilm formed by the following reference strains: Streptococcus pyogenes (ATCC 19615), Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), Shigella flexneri (ATCC 12022), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853), Escherichia coli ...

In accordance with the latest trends, considerable emphasis is put on all mining companies in the Czech Republic not only on reducing the environmental impact of brown coal mining, but also on overall efficiency, the balance of which can be improved by increasing of the operational reliability of individual components of technological units and reducing operating costs. And it is the latter sphere, in that Vrsanska uhelna a.s. does considerable initiative. In cooperation with the firm RENOMAG s.r.o. and the Resear...

The work is devoted to the study of the effect of powdered WC monocarbide of different grain sizes, introduced into the composition of the binder of diamond grains of the composition 94 WC + 6Co + Cu in the manufacture of a diamond-bearing matrix of BS-NQ drill bits with a diameter of 75.6 mm, designed by ISM (Ukraine). The effectiveness of the mentioned crowns was evaluated according to the proposed indicator F= ( - mechanical drilling speed; h - the value of the deepening per single experience, - - linear wear o...

Many national and international agencies and organizations collect and provide open access to data on parts of the Earth's surface covered by water. Data on ocean temperature and acidity, precipitation, river flows, lake, sea, and groundwater levels, and many other open data sets allow researchers to monitor and observe water at different scales and time frames, and to better understand ecological processes and human impacts on the water environment. The main challenge in analyzing the vast amount of openly availa...

Currently, one of the main tasks of every employer is to ensure a safe and healthy working environment for every employee. In a global case, it should not only be a legal act, but especially a moral act. The modern policy of each employer should therefore be set in such a way as to continuously improve the occupational safety of employees. This continuous improvement can be achieved in particular through continuous periodic inspections and audits carried out by independent occupational safety staff. This chapter d...

In connection with elaboration of scientific project -Statistical study of forestry companies competitiveness- and on the basis of the accumulated national and foreign experience a system of indicators and sub-indicators for complex quantitative assessment of forestry companies competitiveness has been offered. The proposed indicators are: competitiveness of product being offered; labor productivity; financial results; enterprise growth; market adaptability; economic realization of property of forest resources; si...

Ash and slag waste (ASW) is a finely dispersed mineral material resulting from the combustion of brown and hard coal at thermal power plants. The involvement of ash and slag waste in industrial circulation is one of the effective ways to solve the issue of energy and resource saving. Utilization of ash and slag waste in industrial production will provide a solution to the environmental problem of environmental pollution by industrial waste - technogenic fine dust and harmful effluents by gradually reducing the rat...

The western area of Romania, like the entire country, due to its geographical position - in the temperate zone, is exposed to a wide range of risk weather and climate phenomena with the potential to occur throughout the year. The purpose of this work is to identify some indicators that most correctly express the extreme nature of the manifestations of some meteorological parameters and their characterization over a four-year period. The paper analyzes the main meteorological parameters from the profile stations in...

Amorpha fruticosa L. (false indigo bush) is an invasive shrub species from Fabaceae family originating from North America. Nowadays this species creates great problems because it is invading floodplains along the rivers from Europe, even the Danube River floodplain reaching to the Danube Delta. The floodplain area of the river Mure? is highly affected by this invasion, this species occupying great surfaces of grassland and arable land. The researches were developed on the lowland area alongside the river Mure? (Ar...

Zeolites can either occur naturally, in volcanic rock formations, or can be synthesized in the laboratory. When ground to a fine powder, they can be successfully used as supplementary cementitious material because of their chemical composition consisting in large amounts of SiO2 and Al2O3 that react with Ca(OH)2 to produce C-S-H gels. The composition of synthetic zeolites can be tailored to suit the purpose of their use in cementbased mortar and concrete and they can be produced from a variety of sources and at mu...

Crop cultivation is beneficial for reducing soil erosion and nutrient loss, but there is conflicting information on how crop cultivation affects emissions of nitrogen dioxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas. Judicious selection of the cultivated crop in a plant succession is considered an effective approach to maintaining crop productivity. In this paper, we investigated the effects of cultivated crops on soil N2O emissions. Eight crops were used in this study: barley, buckwheat, clover, oats, potatoes, spring whea...

At one of the Kazakh uranium deposits, studies were carried out on the effect of ironoxidizing bacteria on the redox potential of leaching solutions. The studies carried out on three bioreactors with a volume of 1 m3 and one bioreactor with volume 6 m3 made it possible to establish a close relationship between the content of ferric iron in the solution and the redox potential of the leaching solution. In situ recovery of uranium uses sulfuric acid leaching solutions containing sulfuric acid from 3.5 g/liter to 25 ...

Using remote sensing functional aspects of the landscape such as energy exchange between vegetation and the atmosphere, surface reflectance or vegetation heat flux can be monitored and evaluated in detail. Multispectral imagery is used to obtain information on the condition of the vegetation and plant growth, as it allows us to obtain information on possible nutrient deficiencies, pest damage or other manifestations of abiotic stress on the plants. Each surface reflects and emits radiation at different wavelengths...

In the era of sustainable development, the sustainability-era, the different instruments, and modern tools to carry out actions and activities that lead to an increase in the quality of life, both rural and urban environment, led us to ask the following questions: What are in fact the visible or less visible costs, in the medium and long term, when we choose to carry out activities related to agriculture that have easy and short-term success? What are the risks or benefits of such activities, in the medium and lon...

Triticum spelta is one of the most popular wheat species with multiple applications in the bakery industry. Lingonberries fruits are considered as some of the most valuable fruits due to its antioxidant and antimicrobial properties being widely used in the pharmaceutical industry, but also in food processing. This paper presents a study on the influence of using dehydrated and grinded lingonberries fruit as an addition to spelt wheat flour on its baking properties, physicochemical characteristics, antioxidant prop...

The Varna and Beloslav lakes are the most strongly anthropogenized water bodies along the Bulgarian coast. At present, the lakes are again subject to deepening of the navigable channel, which significantly changes the quality of the habitats. An ecosystem approach was used to assess the status of the populations of fish species from the Varna-Beloslav Lake Complex. The paper's main purpose is to provide up-to-date information on the ichthyofauna of the largest northern Bulgarian Black sea brackish water bodies - V...

Although originally developed for military purposes, Global Navigation Satellite Systems have become indispensable for an ever-growing range of civil and scientific applications such as cartography, cadastral and land information systems, transport systems, precision agriculture, self-driving vehicles, rescue missions, etc. The accuracy of positioning by means of GNSS, however, is affected by atmospheric distortions of the GNSS signals as well as by the characteristics of the receiver (e.g. number of channels, fir...

A study was made of the influence of ZSM-5 zeolite on the composition and properties of the products of fast pyrolysis of flax shives in the temperature range of 350-750 -C. Zeolite ZSM-5 increased the heat of combustion of gaseous products, as well as the content of methane, ethylene, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide, which is probably associated with the processes of cracking of volatile products passing through a layer of a catalyst heated to high temperatures. The synthesis and study of zeolite catalysts ZSM-5 con...

The main idea of the article is to assess the landscape potential for the use of renewable energy systems based on systematic and landscape-ecological approaches. In general, these approaches consist of the analysis of the features of landscape components and their impact on the redistribution of energy flows in the landscape, which in turn form the potential of renewable energy resources of each specific landscape contour. A systematic approach is to consider the holistic properties of a particular landscape in t...

Recently, the study of new methods of extraction from vegetable raw materials, such as ultrasonic extraction, microwave extraction and extracritical fluid extraction, has become widespread. The results of the study of ultrasonic extraction in the literature showed that this process provides higher selectivity, has a shorter duration, reduces energy consumption and harmful emissions into the environment. And it is also made in the equipment which design is much simpler than the equipment for pressing. In addition, ...

Uranium in situ recovery (ISR) is an effective method for extracting uranium from sandstone deposits. Many uranium deposits are characterized by the presence of associated metals: gold, platinum group metals and rare earth metals. For one of the uranium deposits in Kazakhstan, studies were carried out on sampling from productive wells at the ISR of uranium. An analysis was carried out for the content of uranium, rare earth elements, scandium, germanium, yttrium and other metals. For the study, samples were taken f...

The waste management sector as one of the most significant economic sectors requires effective management not only in Latvia but in the European Union as whole. According to the recent (2020) available Eurostat data, 505 kg of municipal waste per capita were generated in the EU of which 48% were recycled and 22% were landfilled. Latvia ranges in the 11th position among the EU Member States with 478 kg of generated waste per capita. Romania (287 kg), Poland (346 kg) and Hungary (364 kg) are countries having generat...

Explosive atmospheres may occur both in underground mining, as well as in surface industries such as the oil and gas, chemical, petrochemical, wood or baker industries, basically in all industries which extract, process, use, transport or store flammable substances. Within the European Union, Directive 2014/34/EU regulates the placing on the market of equipment, protective systems and components intended for use in such hazardous atmospheres. In this regard, for proofing the compliance with the essential safety re...

A small quantity of flammable gas mixed with dust can cause a large explosion with severe consequences. In this study, hybrid mixtures explosion tests were performed in a constant volume 0.02 m3 spherical vessel. Five pressure-time curves were recorded. The effects of initial temperature on burning velocity were investigated for Lycopodium Clavatum-methane-air hybrid mixtures. The most important results from evaluated experiments are the values of burning rates to understand better the fundamental flame methane-ai...

When considering environmental priorities in the Moscow region, it was pointed out that not only human economic activity damages the environment, but also resources a significant part is destroyed by fires and other emergencies, which number has been increasing in recent years. Land resources are among the main exhaustible resources without which human existence is impossible. State activity, first and foremost, must be aimed at the land resources effective management and protection against the human economic acti...

The aim of the article was to assess the importance of Natura 2000 sites in halting land take, given that the European Commission has set itself the target of reducing land take in the EU to zero by 2050. In the surveyed area, land take is primarily a consequence of the economic activities carried out and of their pace and intensity; the density of housing also puts pressure on the phenomenon through the permanent expansion of the built-up area of the settlements (the brown belt), especially in the economically ef...

Nature-based Solutions is an umbrella concept, gaining traction in recent years. It implies working with nature in order to simultaneously address multiple challenges humanity faces today, including biodiversity loss, climate change, food and energy insecurity. Nature-based Solutions are being applied across landscape types, including urban, rural, forest and protected areas. Combining nature-based solutions with landscape design, however, has predominantly been considered in cities. However, there is a great pote...

This paper provides a detailed picture of the existing legislation of agricultural land use by entities who do not own it in Bulgaria and makes specific suggestions to improve it, aiming at creating a legislative framework enhancing productivity and sustainability. The study is briefly considering the historical and economic factors for the development of the case law in line with the legal framework in thiscontext. Attention is also paid to the goals of the European Union (EU) to provide properconditions for tech...

The levels of specific activity of 90Sr and 137Cs in fish of one of the most polluted reservoirs of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (ChEZ) - Vershyna Lake. During the research period from 2011 to 2021 for all studied fish of the lake. The peak ranges of the specific activity of radionuclides are noted at the level of 32960-213300 (average value 67832-22936) Bq/kg for 90Sr and 838-25907 (4811-569) Bq/kg for 137Cs. It is shown that at the current stage, the specific activity of 90Sr in the ichthyofauna of the lake exce...

This study is focused on influence of graphene nanoplatelets as additive in magnesium oxychloride cement (MOC) paste. This material composed of light-burned magnesia, prepared at lower temperatures than ordinary Portland cement (PC), is considered as its eco-efficient low-carbon alternative with properties comparable to high-performance concrete such as high mechanical resistance, stiffness., and low porosity. Two composite pastes were prepared, reference paste and paste enhanced with graphene, and subjected to se...

Species of macrofungi were collected from extremely polluted sampling spots in the vicinity of abandoned antimony mines in Slovakia. Concentrations of potentially toxic elements in plants and fungi were determined by ICP-MS and in soils and sediments by both ICP-MS and ICP-ES. Of the edible species the highest values of arsenic and cadmium were recorded in Agaricus arvensis, lead in Imleria badia and representatives of the genera Boletus, Leccinum and Suillus accumulated high levels of mercury. Suillus species als...

From time immemorial, the oceans, seas and their coasts have been the cradle of human civilization and still play a vital role in the lives of millions of people, indirectly affecting all of humanity. The phenomenon of coastalization suggests that our reliance on and dependence from marine and maritime sectors will grow, and their sustainable development is a topical challenge. The Blue growth strategy addresses this issue on a Pan-European level, fostering research and innovation with regards to marine environmen...

Diagnostic ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are important medical imaging methods in modern radiology. Our research is focused on imaging brain structures in neurology. In this paper we present differences of digital image analysis of the substantia nigra (SN) between US and MRI using the same algorithm. In the past, we developed an application for analyzing substantia nigra echogenicity in BMODE US images. Our developed application is based on a principle of binary thresholding in Region of In...