Sam Hughes and Mobilization of Canadian Volunteers for War (August 1914 — October 1915)

The process of mobilization of Canadian volunteers, carried out by the Minister of Militia Sam Hughes during the First World War, is considered. The chronological framework is limited by the dates of Canada’s entry into the war (August 4, 1914) and the end of the active phase of the mobilization of Canadian volunteers (October 1915) in connection with the first symptoms of the army manning crisis. The relevance of the study is due to insufficient knowledge of the specifics of Canada's mobilization activity during the First World War. For the first time, ideas are formulated and the activities of the Minister of Militia S. Hughes in the process of mobilizing Canadian troops during the war years are analyzed. The sources for the study were Canadian historical and statistical collections, as well as a collection of official documents of the Canadian government and publications of the Canadian federal and provincial press for two military years (1914—1915). The article traces the views of S. Hughes on the issue of Canada's participation in the war and his activities in the field of recruiting the volunteer army (1914—1915). It is proved that the decisive character of S. Hughes and the authoritarian style of his leadership predetermined the nature of the Canadian mobilization. In fact, it got out of the control of the British authorities due to the minister's refusal from the official mobilization plan, which provided for a too slow pace of manning. Thus, the personal efforts of S. Hughes to organize the process of mobilization contributed to its complete success.

Prediction of dynamics and seaworthiness of amphibious hovercraft

Annotation – The creation of hovercraft projects is a very expensive procedure, and the emergence of new ships of this type and their evolution is proceeding at a very slow pace. Despite the fact that hovercraft have been used for decades and there is a large amount of literature that is related to the theory of such ships and the practice of their design, there are still a number of unresolved problems associated with these ships. There are various methods, theories and publications that allow to calculate and design various complexes and systems of hovercraft, and as a result, this allows to create vessels that are successful in operation and with good seaworthiness. But at the same time, until now, the main problem remains to achieve sufficient accuracy in predicting the operational characteristics of hovercraft under various modes. Therefore, it is not uncommon for a successful hovercraft project to be born after a series of unsuccessful trial and error. The presented work describes a methodology for creating simulations of hovercraft for various modes of their operation. Various types of simulations of such ships and the ways of their implementation into functioning software are considered. The main mathematical models that are involved in the implementation of such simulations are described and their structure is shown for various hovercraft. The described complex of mathematical models, embodied in the program, allows an in-depth analysis of the dynamics and operational characteristics of hovercraft before the completion of their design and before the start of construction. It is argued that the most difficult, but suitable for real practical problems of analyzing the dynamics of hovercraft is the simulation of this ship with 6 degrees of freedom. The study allows us to conclude that the described methodology for creating a complex of mathematical models makes it possible with high accuracy to predict the dynamics of hovercraft and simulate any hovercraft with 6 degrees of freedom, which will reduce the cost of designing and building a lead hovercraft with accurately predictable seaworthiness and operational characteristics.

Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant

The 1-m-tall dwarf elephant Palaeoloxodon falconeri from the Pleistocene of Sicily (Italy) is an extreme example of insular dwarfism and epitomizes the Island Rule. Based on scaling of life-history (LH) traits with body mass, P. falconeri is widely considered to be ‘r-selected’ by truncation of the growth period, associated with an early onset of reproduction and an abbreviated lifespan. These conjectures are, however, at odds with predictions from LH models for adaptive shifts in body size on islands. To settle the LH strategy of P. falconeri, we used bone, molar, and tusk histology to infer growth rates, age at first reproduction, and longevity. Our results from all approaches are congruent and provide evidence that the insular dwarf elephant grew at very slow rates over an extended period; attained maturity at the age of 15 years; and had a minimum lifespan of 68 years. This surpasses not only the values predicted from body mass but even those of both its giant sister taxon (P. antiquus) and its large mainland cousin (L. africana). The suite of LH traits of P. falconeri is consistent with the LH data hitherto inferred for other dwarfed insular mammals. P. falconeri, thus, not only epitomizes the Island Rule but it can also be viewed as a paradigm of evolutionary change towards a slow LH that accompanies the process of dwarfing in insular mammals.

Prospects for Nigeria in 2022

Significance Further deployments of security personnel to the main conflict hotspots are likely as the administration seeks to gain a symbolic advantage over major bandit groups ahead of an election year. Meanwhile, budget revenues may fall short of projections and the slow pace of structural reforms will be compounded by political manoeuvring in advance of the 2023 elections. All of this will make it difficult for the Buhari administration to cement a reform legacy in its final full year in office.

The importance of state ensuring the right of citizens to quality medical care in the conditions of COVID-19 vaccination

The article analyzes the state guarantee of the right of citizens to quality medical care in terms of vaccination from COVID-19. It is determined that in today's conditions it is extremely important to ensure the proper functioning of health care, the provision of quality medical services which in turn will guarantee proper medical care. The state must provide the citizens of Ukraine not only with the vaccine, but also with reliable information about the need for vaccination. It turns out that the small number of vaccinated in Ukraine is not only due to the slow pace of procurement and vaccination, but also the lack of awareness of citizens about all the benefits of the need for vaccination. It is concluded that the positive in today's conditions are: the efforts of the legislator still not to influence the subjective choice of every resident of Ukraine on the need for vaccination; regulatory support of the Center for Public Health, which in turn will strengthen the network of regional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CCP); creation of a Roadmap for the introduction of a vaccine against acute respiratory disease COVID-19 caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

‘Farming Writing’: An Innovative Subgenre of Internet Literature

As an innovative subgenre of Internet literature, ‘farming writing’ has attained popularity in contemporary China’s cyberspace, which, in a narrow sense, denotes narratives pertaining to agronomic theories and agrarian practices. Disparate from cliché-ridden web romances that deploy authorial ‘golden finger’ to equip protagonists with impeccable demeanour and prowess, ‘farming’ fiction is characterised by reality-oriented, detail-enriched depictions, notwithstanding its essence as ‘feel-good writing’. Furthermore, ‘farming’ works are marked by a slow pace, peaceful setting and plain theme, enabling readers to identify with characters and escape from reality. In this article, I scrutinise a ‘farming’ novel under the genre of danmei (aka Boys Love), and further posit that the popularity of ‘farming writing’ is also attributed to the Chinese ethnicity’s devotion to agriculture since time immemorial.

Analysing the Pattern of Productivity Change in the European Energy Industry

For an industry to succeed in a competitive market, it should continuously take care of not only its stakeholders but also its technical efficiency and productivity. In this paper, data envelopment analysis was combined with Malmquist productivity analysis to investigate the pattern of multifactor productivity changes in the European energy industry over the period from 2005–2016. The results showed that the whole industry was technically inefficient and had large potential for improvement. A slight average increase in productivity that was observed over the studied period proved to be sensitive to the financial and economic situation and equally sensitive to technological and efficiency advances. As for efficiency gains, they reflected the nature of the energy industry, implying that they were due to scale efficiencies rather than human resource improvements. Although technological innovation and the optimal scale of production increased productivity, the slow pace at which this occurred and the negative outlook highlighted by the observed trends call for more serious consideration of the future productivity deployment of the European energy industry, particularly in the context of its decarbonisation, diversification, and modernisation.

A modelling study on the vaccination against COVID-19 in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The long-awaited roll-out of vaccination programmes against COVID-19 from across the globe has fuelled hope for a reduction in the incidence of cases and deaths, as well as the resumption of economic and social activities. Despite being the most effective measure to mitigate the pandemic, especially in regions where non-pharmaceutical interventions had been ineffective, many people suffered from the lack of efforts by government officials to conduct vaccination. In Brazil, vaccination has always been cutting across party political and ideological lines, which have delayed the start of vaccination and brought the whole process into disrepute. Such disputes put the immunisation of the population in the background and create additional hurdles beyond the pandemic, mistrust and scepticism over vaccines. We conduct a mathematical modelling study to analyse the impacts of late vaccination and with slowly increasing coverage, as well as how harmful it would be if part of the population refused to get vaccinated or missed the second dose in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The general framework we propose can be extended to analyse the epidemic situation in any region. Our results indicate that if the start of vaccination had been 30 days earlier, combined with efforts to drive vaccination rates up, about 18,000 deaths could have been averted. Furthermore, the slow pace of vaccination and the low demand for the second dose could cause a resurgence of cases as early as 2022.

ANALYSIS OF PECULIARITIES OF PASSENGER CAR BODY WEAR

The article considers the issues of analysis of the patterns of operation of the loadbearingelements of the body of carriage. A comparative analysis of the size and nature of theoperation of structural elements of carriages of different types and years of their construction.In recent years, there has been a significant aging of the operational fleet of carriage. Atnowadays, carriages of various models and their modifications with an extended service life, whichis approaching the limit, are in operation on the railway network of Ukraine.The technical, economic and ecological indicators of transport, the degree of reliability andtraffic safety depend on the age of the carriages. At nowadays, the level of development of technicalmeans and technology of repair and restoration of rolling stock is increasing fast.To increase the competitiveness of rail passenger transport, it is necessary to overcome thehigh degree of wear of the carriages fleet of JSC «Ukrzaliznytsia». Because of the lack of domesticand the complete absence of foreign investment in the railways, the tendency to increase physicaldepreciation and obsolescence of fixed assets is progressing. According to the data of the branch of«Passenger Company» JSC «Ukrzaliznytsia» in 2020 the inventory includes is almost 5 thousandcarriages, most of which have served their intended service life. As a result, the current wear of thecarriages fleet is approaching 92 %.Most of the carriages fleet was built in the 70s and 90s of the last century at car plants inGermany and Russia. Due to the constant lack of funding, the fleet of carriages of JSC«Ukrzaliznytsia»was renewed at a slow pace. Every year the carriages fleet wears out and ages. Thisreduces the competitiveness of railways, which negatively effects on quantity of passenger traffic.Naturally, carriages should not only create the necessary level of comfort, but also ensure trafficsafety and high reliability in operation. The results of the study made it possible to consider the issueof further use of carriages, which are most affected by corrosion.