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In paper describes the geological structure and mineral associations of the Ural emerald mines (Middle Urals, Russia) as the main source of high-quality chrysoberyl and its rare variety, alexandrite. The purpose of work is to identify the crystal chemical characteristics and nature of the color of natural chrysoberyl and alexandrite, as well as to study the comparative crystal chemical characteristics with their synthetic analogs. Samples for research were chrysoberyl and alexandrite from mica carrying rocks and p...

This paper examines changing environment of natural gas market with focus on Europe. It discusses the supply demand balance suggesting that developments in recent years will likely lead to higher natural gas prices and the need for new infrastructure in order to provide energy security at affordable prices. Last decade has seen significant fluctuations in prices of natural gas globally. In middle of 2018 market signal indicates that prices have bottomed out in the first half of 2016 and now they are on upward traj...

This scheme is based on the idea that the stratigraphic limits of this time interval (251 ma) correspond to the temporal positions of a large number of distinct dynamic moments (change of meaning of the radial motions) linked with two cycles: Valach climatic cycle (VhCCy ? 4.1 ma, pulsations of the Solar System) and Raup-Sepkoski cycle (RSCy ? 26.78 ma, pulsations of our galaxy). Many of these moments, often perceived as tectonic phases or as important extinctions, led various global changes which allowed the sepa...

As a part of the Czech Historical Atlas project, the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague prepare a printed atlas devoted to the history of the former Czechoslovakia in the 20th century. The atlas is now in the process of creating and reviewing individual maps. This paper deals with the thematic division of the atlas, the use of individual cartographic methods and important notes on the creation of his...

ABSTRACT The specialized software packages dedicated to mine planning and design activity developed greatly in the past years. In order to take advantage of this software evolution, the available geospatial data, the information about the geology of the deposits, the surface morphology and the open pit models which are accessible in classic format, on printed paper, all the information must be converted in digital format for fitting in dedicated digital databases. The paper presents the steps taken in this digitiz...

Presently, most electronic navigation charts (ENC) are vector format maps based on the S-57 data model. This model uses the descriptive and spatial characteristics of bodies of water to create hydrographic information which can be used to solve such problems as: marine traffic monitoring, vessel route planning, maritime dangerous situation detection, etc. This paper presents an approach to maritime safety monitoring on the basis of intelligent GIS technology. GIS-oriented systems are often used for maritime safety...

We present developed model for decision support in environmental economics within geo-information management paradigm. We consider socio-economic geographically distributed natural-technical systems and use to manage them the basic principles of environmental economics and geo-information management in accordance with a complex approach that involve the integration of efforts of all sectors: society, government and business. We used Foresight technologies, theory of decision making under uncertainties, geoinformat...

The dehumification of soils in the North Kazakhstan region is one of the most pressing problems due to the inadequate control of the cultivation technology of agricultural crops with the intensive occurrence of soil erosion. This paper considers the processes of dehumification of humus by the main types of soils in the North Kazakhstan region. The results of the research have demonstrated that humus in soil types has been decreased in 30 years from 1.78% to 30.2% since 1978 to 2018. The content of humus in 9 types...

It is important to gain a better understanding regarding the effect of frequent drought stress on biochemical and physiological processes in plants as well as on the plant population and community in ecosystem. One method of early detection and monitoring of water stress is by measuring the diameter changes of the stem using dendrometers. They can be used to determine not only the annual thickness growth, but also the distribution of the growth and the rate of expansion and shrinkage of the wood and bark during th...

Extensive research, conducted by Kazakhstani specialists in Earth sciences, resulted in accumulation of a big amount of information. Hydrogeological data are scattered and unsystematized, and it makes their processing and analysis very difficult. Therefore, it is necessary to create a unified information base, containing profile hydrogeological information and data from the related areas of knowledge, which will help to solve scientific and production tasks efficiently. Informational and analytic systems are devel...

The article presents design and verification of a road embankment supported by reinforced retaining walls with a passive facing system, which was the most optimal and effective method to design a road embankment in a cramped space in a flyover intersection of highways. The cross section presented in the paper consists of three roads at different levels, when the road in the middle is placed about 8 m above the other ones. The design was done using the analytical computational model and the numerical modelling, bas...

The expense of restoring of excavators cutting bodies is increasing these days in the Most Basin area, primarily the replacement of tooth because of abrasion expense. The main reason is the complicated geological situation of overburden rocks, first of all the occurrence of sands and hard structures in the overburden cuts rocks in the deep horizons of open pit mines. The main target of this article is the brief description of realised research. It is design of the optimum methodology of bucket tooth cutting body h...

The microclimate of the urban environment is influenced by urban development, road surface, distribution of green areas. The city, especially with a highly developed industry, pollutes the atmosphere above itself, increases its turbidity and thereby reduces the influx of solar radiation. Such changes in the microclimate of the urban environment often occur as a result of changes in urban development, artificial changes in the relief, and the cutting down of forest plantations. Due to changes in the urban environme...

The article presents the possibilities of using post-mining facilities and areas for tourist and geo-education purposes, as well as the specificity and conditions of such ventures, from local initiatives to projects with international renown. Factors deciding about the success of investments using post-mining relics were analyzed, mainly in terms of conditions for the implementation of projects for protection and securing such remnants as well as economic and social results of the project in the long-term perspect...

The article deals with setting of the degradation of fibre-cement panels containing polyvinyl-alcohol (PVA) fibres. The degradation is being studied with a help of a soaking ? drying test. It is a long-time test, which is one of the series of tests (hot water test, frost resistance test, shrinking of panels, UV test), by which the degradation of panels is determined. The motivation for carrying out this test lies in searching for a substitute of asbestos-cement panels that cannot be used due to carcinogenic asbest...

Application of rubber at higher temperatures requires sufficient heat resistance. The experimental research was carried out with the rubber intended for use at higher operating temperatures as gaskets for caps in mining. The intakes during the operation of the rubber gasket are accompanied with physical as well as chemical changes that lead to thermal degradation of the material. The mechanical properties (tensile strength, elongation, Shore hardness, and abrasion resistance) of the examined type of rubber were de...

In case of the strong earthquake offshore Japan, tsunami wave approaches the nearest coast in approximately 20 minutes. So, time required for evaluation of tsunami danger is the key parameter for any warning system. The authors propose to determine the parameters of initial sea surface displacement at tsunami source (initial data to simulate numerically wave propagation) by a part of the measured tsunami wave time series until the first maximum. This is a clear and easy to apply stop criterium. Determination of th...

Anavarza (Anazarvus) ancient city has been established on an area of 143,000 m2 with a castle, stadium, ancient theater, mosaics, bathes, churches, gates of victory, aqueducts and stone graves. It is the largest ancient city in Anatolia. Anavarza City of Antiquity is situated near Dilekkaya village of the Kozan County, and it is approximately 70 kilometres to Adana city centre (Turkey). The history of the Anavarza goes back to 2100 years, and it has became the capital of Cilicia in 408. Archaeological excavations ...

This paper focuses on the capabilities of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop databases that support alternative tourism and, in particular, wine tourism in Bulgaria. The main task of the paper is to collect and integrate existing public and open-source graphical and attribute data. We use GIS tools to create a database, an online register, and an interactive map of wineries and wine houses according to Bulgarian laws and tradition. We create a specialized spatial GIS database containing administrative...

It is recognised on global and European level that organic agriculture is more sustainable and environment friendly production system. Organic agriculture, including food, (hereinafter - agri-food) production shows considerable growth on the global and European Union (EU) level, including Latvia. It has been widely considered by scholars, experts and politicians that organic agri-food production is beneficial for rural development through: enhanced entrepreneur activities; growth of jobs; creation of added value a...

The article describes the principles of construction of training complexes designed to practice the skills of using individual respiratory protection. Design, optimization and implementation of training complexes requires analysis and formalization of their structure, development of methodological and algorithmic support. In order to solve the problem of developing a virtual training complex, the article proposes a methodology for building software systems that model the structure of physical objects and algorithm...

The most important part of any successful program of obtaining stable yields of agricultural crops is the development of effective plant protection products. The use of pesticides and chemical control methods has revolutionized agriculture. Chemical means of protection attracted attention by cheapness, variety of drugs, and most importantly, high efficiency The toxicity of some pesticides did not cause much concern, and only excessive saturation of the environment with pesticides sharply raised the question of lim...

Measuring tools are one of the main tool groups, which subgroup, manual measuring tools play a decisive role for further development of the measuring tools and machinery for wood processing. Nowadays a wide range of these tools used in construction sites, workshops, studios, households and in manufacturing for quality control operations, measurement inspection and other. Depending on woodworks diversity and processing method, the manual measuring tools have various functions, shapes and uses. The diversity of tool...

Silicon carbide is a promising material for heat-loaded units due to its high strength at elevated (up to 1500 °C) temperatures and good thermal conductivity. However, when heated in oxidising media SiC tends to lose its properties, and development of SiC-based materials able to withstand such conditions is a challenging issue. The present research discusses development of a heat- and oxidation-resistant structural ceramics based on SiC with oxide sintering aids. Sintering aids were chosen in ternary systems CaO-A...

In work the solution of a operational and confidential data transmission problem with the necessary quality level of decodifying in the conditions of continuous increase in volume of video content containing data on critical infrastructure objects is proposed. The mechanisms allowing to define availability of planimetric information at stage of color-difference transformation are developed. Evaluation of the work of the developed method is given. To increase the data transfer rate, it is proposed to encrypt only t...

Renewable energy sources, including wood pellets, are increasingly used in the world to reduce CO2 emissions from the production of electrical and thermal energy. One of the largest producers of wood pellets in Europe is located in Latvia; it is a significant exporter of wood pellets on the European scale, exporting approximately 90% of the total quantity produced and supplying the remaining 10% to the domestic market. Even though there are favourable conditions for wood pellet production, industrial consumption o...

The article describes an information-analytical system for assessing the impact of solid waste landfills on the environmental. The proposed system can be an informational basis for creating a national register of municipal solid waste, both authorized, acting in accordance with the requirements of current legislation, and unauthorized dumps. This basis will provide a scientific and economic justification for making decisions on the prospects for the management of municipal solid waste at the regional and local lev...

The diagnostics of residual service life of key industrial products is essential in real technical operations. The diagnostics facilitates reliable monitoring of real-time state of the equipment and thus ensures its safety. Steel structures in heavy machinery are used for brown coal mining and require high purchase investments. That is why the diagnostics of these structures is so important. Each equipment failure represents a considerably high loss of mined volumes and thus also the financial loss. It is therefor...

This study was conducted to determine the effects of various levels of dietary protein and short-term starvation periods on compensatory growth, body compositions and organ indices of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) during 46 days. Fish were fed ad libitum twice a day or starved as follows: two control groups, one group was feed daily with extruded pellets containing 41% crude protein (D41) and the other control group was feed daily with commercial pellets containing 50% crude protein (D50); two groups fasted ...

This paper deals with the effective usage of digital twin for managing and optimizing production in small and medium-sized companies. Simple and effective business operation is related to the necessary digitization of documents. A set of digitized information and production-related data are the basis for the creation of a digital twin. The use of a digital twin involves effective management, control and optimization of production within a set of several small and medium-sized companies with the same or technologic...

The article reveals the types of negative impact on land and soil in the construction of pipelines and discusses the regulatory problems in the field of reclamation of disturbed lands. To this end, the legal acts of Federal legislation, as well as the main regulatory and technical documentation in the field of environmental protection in the construction of trunk pipelines are studied. The main legal conflicts of legal regulation of environmental activities are identified. In particular, the analysis of environmen...

A study conducted over a longer period of time for an architectural heritage building from masonry is presented. The specific features of the asymmetric structural systems, the normative provisions in Romania, the strengthening works possibilities necessary after the action of severe Vrancea earthquakes for these systems and also of structural analysis using instrumental data processing techniques are considered. The results obtained in three stages- before, during and after the strengthening works, from Fourier s...

The article deals with the impact of public recreation on forest communities near sacred sites in the suburban area of the city. The question is actual and is caused by an assessment of influence of forest types of recreation on components of forest biogeocenosis. It is revealed that for this purpose it is necessary to achieve strict observance of the basic ecological and forestry requirements at the organization of forest territories by types of the recreational occupations guaranteeing reliable preservation and ...

In order to fight for a clean environment, different types of action that can be helpful in this situation must be taken. The environment should be taken care of by the governments of individual countries, enterprises and various organizations, but also by ordinary people. The last group is particularly important because people transfer their behavior to their family, children, work, etc. But to know what to do, how to behave to help the environment, people must have an ecological awareness of their actions and li...

Often, accelerated development of business activity in modern world contradicts with environment and thus, ecological condition worsens. The topic is so urgent, that it has acquired a global character and constitutes the significant problem for many country. Mountains of Ajara is one of the demographically loaded region, which has quite developed business environment. Because of its complex relief and high level of precipitation, natural environment is less stable and elemental processes are active (landslide, mud...

The current demand of some specific metals (alloys) in the HiTech industry has pushed researchers to increase the number of investigations to improve the quality of products on the market. Generally, coltan is a byproduct of tin metallurgy and is collected in the slag. The formation of phases in the slag needs to be investigated in order to optimize the collection of coltan in specific phases by trying different ratios in fluxes. Also, cassiterite is associated with iron ores and during smelting the iron get reduc...

In-situ combustion is considered as one of the most effective ways to enhance recovery of heavy crude oils and bitumens. The oxygen from injected air reacts with the heavy components of the crude oil, forming a hot zone in which the cracking and oxidation of the heavy fractions occurs. It is noted that the combustion process essentially depends on the pressure and the nature of the crude oil. Thus detailed study on the effect of the gas phase composition on the processes of crude oil oxidation seems to be relevant...

An electrolyte for chromium based nano-composite electrolytic coatings (nano-CE?) obtaining has been developed. Nano-CEC was applied on steel of the St 3 brand with constant exposure to ultrasound, electrolyte temperature 50?60°?, current density 7kA/m2 for 1 and 2 hours from two variants of chromium-plating electrolytes, differing in the fact that one electrolyte contained strontium sulfate, in the other ? without it. Quantitative assessment of the corrosion resistance of nano - CEC deposited on steel St.3, was e...

Vegetables are considered a rich source of antioxidants (flavonoids, carotenoids, vitamins), which are frequently added to stop the process of oxidation in processed food systems. The solid waste generated in food industry was considered as a low cost raw material for the extraction of natural antioxidants. The effect of drying techniques (ambient-drying and oven-drying) on the total phenolic contents and antioxidant activity of selected vegetables byproducts (garlic (Allium sativum L.), tomato (Lycopersicon escul...

The presented work deals with the effect of maize and legume planting density within mixed cropping system (MC) on selected indicators of soil quality: (1) microbial carbon content (Cmic); (2) total soil carbon (Ctot) content and (3) total soil nitrogen (Ntot) content. To demonstrate potential effect of different plant density within MC, 4-year field experiment was established in 2017 and will continue until 2020. The field experiment consisted of two MC groups with different plant density of maize (75 000 plants/...

Climate-change scenarios all around the world indicate that many areas of the globe will increase in aridity. Plants need a large amount of water and nutrients throughout their life cycle and all aspects of plant development are affected by a reduction in water content in the soil. This reduction in soil moisture leads to changes in the physical environment, which subsequently affect physiological and biochemical processes in plants. Based on sap flow measurements, it is possible to optimize irrigation. For our ex...

The use of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PETr) in new value-added products is problematic because, during reprocessing in the melt, it undergoes a number of chemical, mechanical, thermal and oxidative degradations, which leads to decreased intrinsic viscosity / molecular mass and implicitly to poor mechanical and thermal properties. In the literature, numerous approaches have focused on obtaining polymer blends using PETr in combination with other thermoplastic polymers. Unfortunately, such mixtures are inc...

In the present work, films based on a potato starch/gelatin composition were prepared with a different ratio of components from 100/0 to 0/100 vol.%/vol.% with increment of 10 vol.% and addition of glycerol as plasticizer. The films were obtained with different drying regimes of the film-forming solutions at 25, 35, 45 and 50 °C for 24 h. For the obtained films the influence of their composition and the drying regime of the film-forming solution on the mechanical properties at puncturing, wettability and water sor...

Heavy hydrocarbon feedstocks including heavy and extra-heavy oils produced from oilsands reservoirs have a high viscosity, which cause a big challenge to their productions and pipeline transportations. Techniques to reduce the viscosity at low incremental production cost are desirable. Thermal decompositions of these resources-derived bitumen at temperatures of 250 °C was explored as a prospect strategy for viscosity reduction. In this work, thermal visbreaking experiments were carried out in a stainless-steel 350...

In situ combustion (ISC) method is considered as a relatively inexpensive and effective method for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). It can achieve a very high oil recovery factor due to a significant increase of pressure and temperature during the combustion process of crude oil. Over the last ten years, high pressure differential scanning calorimetry (HP-DSC) has been widely used for understanding the oxidation process of heavy oil. In this paper, HP-DSC experiments were carried out to investigate the alteration of c...

The article deals with the effective reduction of drinking water loss in its distribution in the territory of the model municipality in the Czech Republic. Loss reduction is a long-term process that is one of the cornerstones of the strategy of each operator or owner of the water supply system. Losses of water in water network characterize not only the construction-technical condition of the distribution system in a given agglomeration, but also one of the business cards of the operator or owner of the distributio...

Oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.), a crop with great economic value, is grown for oil-rich seeds and after soybean is the second most common oil crop. According to literature, oilseed rape has a great demand for sulphur and boron, mainly for synthesis of glucosinolates and sulphur aminoacids. The present research was developed during agricultural year 2017-2018 in Ialomita County using Jumper rapeseed hybrid. The objective of the study was to evaluate the influence of mineral fertilization combined with boron and s...

Manure and manure-based composts may contain antibiotics and antibiotic?resistant genes (ARGs). Application of composts on agricultural soils can be a potential risk of the spread of antibiotic resistance. The effect of compost containing ARGs was assessed in a 35?day pot experiment on the following soil characteristics: the level of respiratory activity and microbial biomass, the bacteria?fungi ratio, the content of tetracycline?resistant genes tet(M) and tet(X), and the content of OmpF gene encoding horizontal t...

The study presented in this paper is related to the extraction of humic lignite substances and the separation of fulvic acids in order to introduce them into a fertilizing matrix and to evaluate the effect on tomato culture. Fulvic acids have biostimulatory effect on agricultural crops and have significant uses in agriculture. For the characterization of fulvic acids (FA), the total acidity and content of carboxylic groups were determined. The separate fulvic acids were introduced into a matrix containing nutrient...

A sustainable remediation of halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons pollution such as chlorobenzenes (CB) based on the use of electro-Fenton as treatment process requires the development of reactor conditions as well as the cost of operations. A combined process coupling an electrochemical and Fenton processes with Pd catalyst in order to degrade CB was investigated with H2O2 production. The electro-Fenton treatment of CB was examined and the processes mechanism was identified for different concentrations of 5-11 mg/L ...