Impact of Human Intervention and Sea Level Rise on Water-Logging Scenarios inside Polders-24 And 25 of Bangladesh

Coastal region of Bangladesh possesses a fragile ecosystem and is exposed to hazards like cyclones, floods, storm surges, and water-logging. A detail understanding on the impact of water-logging due to various natural, man-made and climate change scenarios is still lacking. Considering this research gap, the present research is aimed to study impacts of these scenarios inside polders-24 and 25 which are situated on the western part of the coastal region. In this Study as natural scenario, sedimentation in the Hari River; as man-made scenario, new polders in the south-central region and as SLR scenario, an extreme sea level rise of 1.48m are considered. Long-term satellite images are analyzed, and numerical model is applied in the study area. The result shows that water-logging is more acute inside polder-25 compared to polder-24. Sedimentation in Hari River aggravates the water-logging condition. Dredging in Hari River does improve the situation. Journal of Engineering Science 12(3), 2021, 73-83

The Figurative Foundations of Rousseau's Politics

Rousseau claims that the lawgiver must “persuade without convincing,” binding this legislative communication to the “first language,” which would, Rousseau writes, “persuade without convincing, and depict without arguing.” Drawing on a wide range of contextual sources, I show that this first language of Rousseau's is figurative, imagistic, and modeled on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, which William Warburton claimed were “the uniform voice of nature” in his Divine Legation of Moses. More importantly, I demonstrate that Rousseau was himself using this lost ancient language to provide a figuration of his own: the “illusory image” of natural man. Through the Second Discourse, men could be persuaded that they were by nature free, preparing the way for a social contract in which they could legitimately give themselves law. This is an image that I argue has been effectively persuasive up to the present day—and our politics, like Rousseau's, thus seemingly rests on figurative foundations.

La Representación en el Leviatán de Hobbes: la metamorfosis del hombre natural en persona civil: the metamorphosis of natural man in civil person.

El propósito de esta investigación radica en determinar el rol unificador entre estado de naturaleza y Estado civil de la representación desarrollado en el capítulo XVI del Leviatán. La representación es un momento de transición entre estado natural y Estado civil: donde lo simbólico toma el lugar de la racionalidad práctica y se sedimenta como lo real para los hombres. Es por la capacidad de crear personas artificiales que los hombres pueden atribuir libremente predicados a cosas que no los tienen realmente y, además de donar su cuerpo físico, pueden crear la persona del Estado, el Leviatán; asumir la soberanía y la sujeción y recrear la subjetividad humana políticamente.

On the question of the religious factor in politics

The article examines the phenomenon of the religious factor in modern world politics, suggests taking into account the religious factor along with other factors of historical development (economic, political, social, natural and climatic, etc.). From the traditionalist point of view, the confrontation between the teachings of humanism and traditional religions is shown, as a spiritual confrontation of various religious teachings. The main spiritual and political processes in the modern world are revealed: the process of purposeful destruction of traditional values, religions and cultures and the process of reviving traditional values, religions and cultures in order to preserve the “blooming complexity”, i.e., the civilizational diversity of the world community. In the first process, on the basis of numerous data, shows the struggle of the supporters of the religious-philosophical doctrine of humanism with traditional religious teachings, especially Christianity, and the main task of this struggle provided dechristianization of man and society, because the Christian faith is the basis of the locomotive of world history, European civilization. The main goal of this struggle is to replace Christianity and the traditional world religions with the religion of man-God, i.e., humanism and rationalism. The author reveals the meaning of the concept of transhumanism: the creation of an artificial, unified, fully controlled world populated by biological objects without individuality or any personal characteristics at all. Thus, the ant-human essence of the religion of man-god is revealedthe destruction of the “natural man”. The article presents the main essential features of the second spiritual-political process, which is opposite to the first one. On the basis of numerous sociological studies, it is proved that in general, there is a noticeable increase in traditional religiosity and the importance of traditional religions in the world. The strengthening of the role of traditional religions and religious organizations in the life of society, especially Orthodoxy and the Russian Orthodox Church, is also recorded in Russia. At the same time, the article notes the contradictory nature of both processes, the confrontation of which is still far from complete. As a result of the analysis, three main conclusions are made. First, in the future, those peoples and civilizations whose spiritual roots will be the strongest will remain and will determine world politics, and traditional spiritual meanings and values will continue to be significant for the majority of members of a particular community. Second, those nations and civilizations that will continue to be in a state of spiritual impoverishment and, as a result, will finally lose their own spiritual sovereignty will be the losers, even to the point of complete disappearance. Third, the rejection of traditional religions, meanings and values in favor of the religion of man-god can lead humanity to the physical disappearance and replacement of “natural man” with “artificial intelligence”.

Extreme Situation and Challenges of the Time

Introduction. In the XXI century cases of emergence of extreme situations in the world, including in Russia, associated with natural, man-made, social disasters, have become more frequent, requiring urgent adequate decisions from society, politicians, scientists responsible for the fate of people. An extreme situation is an extraordinary situation that goes beyond the usual framework. In this sense, it is a new social reality at a given time, different from the commonplace, everyday life. It can be individual, when a person is left alone in a position of self-isolation, and public, when it concerns the masses, society, humanity. Methods. In the process of the study, a dialectical materialistic, synergistic method was used, which made it possible to draw objective, scientifically substantiated conclusions about the need and possibility of overcoming the negative consequences of incompetent, unqualified decisions in response to the challenges of the time. A systematic approach and a comprehensive assessment of the processes under study allow us to reveal the contradictory nature of the extreme: on the one hand, it shows the mobilization capabilities of the authorities in order to find an effective response to the challenges of the time, on the other hand, it allows us to evaluate the country’s health system from the point of view of effectiveness. Discussion and Conclusion. The expected effect of a critical analysis of the extreme situation associated with the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic in Russia was a fairly timely response from the country’s leadership, as a result of which a professionally grounded concept of responding to the challenge was presented: an increase in health care financing, doctors’ salaries and medical workers, activization of scientists on the removal of vaccination against coronavirus, etc.

Emergency and disaster through the eyes of a non-mathematician

Background. It is our personal desire and interest to study this topic in more details with the help of competent sources, in connection with frequent natural and man-made emergencies that bring great material losses and human casualties. In accordance with this goal, the following tasks have been defined: to consider the semantic meaning of the known formulations of emergency situations and stages of their development; on the basis of the analysis, to formulate a generalized concept of an emergency; to determine the mechanism for the development of an emergency and catastrophe (catastrophic process); to draw conclusions about the role of an emergency in the development of disasters. Results. There is no universally accepted definition of an emergency. The paper presents a generalized formulation of an emergency situation, close to the most common formulations used in the Western countries. The proposed model of the catastrophe development mechanism made it possible to formulate its definition. An emergency situation and disasters are interconnected, and in this interconnection the leading role is assigned to an emergency situation, which defines a disaster as a function of its potential stage. The latter always exists; therefore, the occurrence of disasters is the norm for our natural and man-made environment. It is proposed to bring the wording of an emergency in accordance with its definition, to introduce into the general characteristics of emergency situations the stages of its development, which take place in all classification options. The expediency of such a proposal is explained by the wide information content of our concept of “emergency stage”, which implies the objectivity of the development of the process and the implementation of various organizational measures. The presented mechanism for the development of disasters is applicable for all types of disasters: biological, social, natural, man-made and environmental, and is universal. To prevent or stop any catastrophe development, it is enough to influence any of its three components.

Russian system of preservation of anthropological potential in the face of increasing threat of emergency situations, natural, man-made and terrorist nature

The problem of prevention and liquidation of emergency situations, including terrorist acts is investigated. The improvement of weapons and the professionalization of terrorist organizations make it difficult to determine the cause of natural and man-made emergencies. Therefore, the dominance in Russia of the territorial principle of functioning of the unified state system for the prevention and elimination of emergency situations meets the challenges of time less and less. The urgency of mechanisms of extraterritorial mobilization of forces and means of prevention and liquidation of emergency situations is proved. The existing system of prevention and liquidation of emergency situations of natural and man-made character is connected with the key role of the Ministry of emergency situations of Russia. At the same time, the military Department is in charge of responding to emergency situations determined by military threats. It is proposed to change this hierarchy, defining the leading role of the military Ministry.

Behaviour and distribution of heavy metals at the boundary of “water-bottom sediments” in mouth zones of rivers

The aquatic elementary landscapes of the Don and Northern Dvina Rivers mouth zones as arenas of mass transfer of heavy metals (HM) are studied. The results of long-term comprehensive studies of the authors, which included sampling of water and the upper layer of bottom sediments in order to determine the content of mercury, copper, methane, hydrogen sulfide, as well as pH and Eh values, are presented. According to the type of prevailing geochemical conditions and the level of anthropogenic impact, natural, man-made and natural-anthropogenic aquatic elementary landscapes are distinguished. The bottom water layers in both rivers were characterized by positive Eh values, but it should be noted that they were generally relatively low for surface watercourses. According to the values of the redox potential and the hydrogen index, the methane content and the total hydrogen sulfide, the presence of the following conditions is proved – oxygen, gley, hydrogen sulfide, oxygen-gley and gley-hydrogen sulfide. At the water - sediment interface, in most cases, there was a decrease in pH values by the first tenths of the values, while Eh usually decreased quite sharply, often to negative values. In terms of methane content, the bottom sediments of the aquatic elementary landscapes of the Don and Northern Dvina rivers were similar, while the concentration of total hydrogen sulfide was higher in the Don. It is shown that in the mouth zone of the Don and Northern Dvina rivers, in areas subject to constant organic pollution and eutrophication, there is an increase in the total content of mercury and copper in the bottom sediments. Higher concentrations of gross mercury will generally be found in natural and anthropogenic landscapes dominated by hydrogen sulfide and gley-hydrogen sulfide environments. The important role of microparticles of the polydisperse medium of bottom sediments in the deposition of copper and mercury is revealed.