BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION IN BERDIANSK COUNTY OF TAURIDA GOVERNORATE IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE ХІХ CENTURY

The purpose of the article is to cover the local range of problems of bridge construction in Berdiansk county of Taurida Governorate in the second half of the XIX century. The article analyses mechanisms of emergence of infrastructure facilities in Ukraine which was under Russian rule. Moreover, the article reveals prioritization of infrastructure facility emergence in a certain locality, the construction process itself and difficulties in implementation of projects, cost estimation, technical characteristics. In addition, the article investigates the role of zemstvo in development of transport system infrastructure and its influence on county development. It was found out that bridges were facilities of vital importance for a locality: possibility of conducting trading operations, receiving correspondence, rural-urban communication, but on the technological side bridge construction still wasn't at a very high level. Investigation analysis showed significant contribution of zemstvo into development of transport infrastructure, although counter-reforms slowed down the pace of development of communication routes of the county.

BIOAVAILABLE STRONTIUM ISOTOPE BASELINE FOR THE NOVOTEMIRSKIY BRONZE AGE MINE

Для оценки мобильности и идентификации происхождения древних популяций требуется проводить сравнение их изотопных отношений 87Sr/86Sr с локальной базовой (фоновой) линией биодоступного стронция, характерной для каждого конкретного местонахождения или потенциального района происхождения индивида или артефакта. В данной работе на примере древнего рудника Новотемирский (Южный Урал) эпохи бронзы проведена оценка такой базовой линии. Изотопные отношения 87Sr/86Sr определены в поверхностной и подземной воде, коренной породе (серпентинит), глине из стенки шахты, кости светлого хоря, а также в траве и раковине двустворки с берега озера. Наименьшим разбросом изотопных отношений стронция друг относительно друга обладают поверхностная и подземная вода, раковина и трава, что позволяет использовать их для определения объединенной базовой линии биодоступного стронция. Мульти-прокси (поверхностная и подземная вода, травы и раковина двустворки) локальная базовая линия биодоступного стронция для района древнего рудника Новотемирский (Южный Урал) может быть представлена в виде диапазона 0,7096 ± 0,0003 (2σ, n = 5). To assess the mobility and provenance of ancient populations, it is necessary to compare their 87Sr/86Sr isotopic ratios with the local bioavailable strontium baseline (background), characteristic of each specific location or potential provenance region of an individual or artifact. Its definition requires a comprehensive approach to the analysis of heterogeneous samples («proxies») characterizing the ecosystem of the archaeological site under study, the identification of the most suitable proxies, as well as the unification and standardization of the sampling and analytic protocols. A pilot study is presented devoted the definition of the local range of bioavailable strontium by the example of the Novotemirskiy Bronze Age mine (Southern Urals). 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratios were determined in surface and underground water, bedrock (serpentinite), clay from the mine wall, and steppe polecat's bone, as well as in grass and a bivalve shell from the lake. The lowest range of strontium isotope ratios relative to each other is characteristic of surface and groundwater, shell and grass, which allows them to be used to determine the combined baseline of bioavailable strontium. Multi-proxy (surface and underground water, grass and a bivalve shell) local bioavailable strontium baseline for the Novotemirskiy ancient mine (Southern Urals) is 0,7096 ± 0,0003 (2σ, n = 5).

A novel centrality measure for identifying influential nodes based on minimum weighted degree decomposition

It has theoretical interest and practical significance to find out influential nodes which make the information spread faster and more extensive in complex networks. A variety of centrality measures have been proposed to identify influential nodes, while numerous of them are one-sided and may lead to inaccurate for identification. To overcome this issue, based on the defined minimum weighted degree decomposition, we propose a novel centrality method for identifying influential nodes by combining the local and global information. First, considering the local topological attribute of node and spread characteristic of neighbor nodes, the local influentiality is defined as the node’s influence in the local range. Then, a weighted neighborhood coreness centrality is presented as the node’s global influence capability by taking into account the potential impact of edges on information dissemination among nodes and position characteristic of node. Finally, taking the combinatorial centrality of local and global range as the final influence of node is more comprehensive and universally applicable. We use Susceptible–Infected–Recovered (SIR) model, monotonicity, Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient and imprecision function to estimate the performance of our method. Comparison experiments conducted on 14 real-world networks indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Liquid Force and Rupture Distance between Two Particles

The study of liquid force has a special meaning to industrial manufacturing. By taking the liquid bridges between equal and unequal particles as objects, the liquid force-displacement curves were measured and recorded by using a novel Nano UTM T150 tensile system. The influences of diameter, diameter ratio, liquid volume, and the surface tension on the liquid force-distance curve, the maximum liquid force, and rupture distance were compared and sorted. The results show that the maximum liquid force and rupture distance both increase with the increase in liquid volume, particle diameter, diameter ratio, and surface tension. The diameter plays a decisive role in determining the value of the maximum liquid force compared with surface tension and liquid volume, which only influence the force value in a local range. The rupture distance shows a positive correlation with liquid volume and surface tension and a negative correlation with the diameter or diameter ratio. The maximum liquid force between unequal particles is about half of the sum of the force between the equal spheres of larger and smaller size in that system.

Mineralogical and Chemical Tracing of Dust Variation in an Underground Historic Salt Mine

The aim of this study was to investigate the causes of the evolution of atmospheric dust composition in an open-to-public subterranean site (UNESCO-recognized historic mine) at increasing distances from the air intake. The role of the components imported with atmospheric air from the surface was compared with natural and anthropogenic sources of dust from inside the mine. Samples of deposited dust were directly collected from flat surfaces at 11 carefully selected sites. The morphological, mineralogical, and chemical characteristics were obtained using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy (ICP). The study showed that the air in the underground salt mine was free of pollutants present in the ambient air on the surface. Most of the components sucked into the mine by the ventilation system from the surface (regular dust, particulate matter, gaseous pollutants, biogenic particles, etc.) underwent quick and instantaneous sedimentation in the close vicinity of the air inlet to the mine. The dust settled in the mine interior primarily consisted of natural geogenic particles, locally derived from the weathering of the host rock (halite, anhydrite, and aluminosilicates). This was confirmed by low values of enrichment factors (EF) calculated for minor and trace elements. Only one site, due to the tourist railroad and the associated local intensive tourist traffic, represented the anthropogenic sources of elevated concentrations of ferruginous particles and accompanied metals (P, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, As, Mo, Cd, Sn, Sb, Pb, and W). The gravitational deposition of pollutants from these sources limits the effects of the emissions to the local range. The used methodology and the results are universal and might also apply to other mines, caves, or underground installations used for museums, tourists, or speleotherapeutic purposes.

A Low-Rank Group-Sparse Model for Eliminating Mixed Errors in Data for SRTM1

The elimination of mixed errors is a key preprocessing technology for the area of digital elevation model data analysis, which is important for further applying data. We associated group sparsity with the low-rank uniqueness of local transformations of mixing errors to effectively remove mixing errors in data from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 1 (SRTM 1) based on the sparseness of low-rank groups. First, the stripe-error structure that appeared globally in multiple directions was able to be better represented locally using group-sparse regularization and the uniqueness of the data in the low-rank direction of the local range and using variational ideas to constrain the gradient direction of the data to avoid redundant elimination. Second, the nonlocal self-similarity of the weighted kernel norm was used to remove random noise. Finally, the proposed model for eliminating mixed errors was solved using an algorithm based on the multiplier method of alternating direction. Experiments using simulated and real data found that the proposed low-rank group-sparse method (LRGS) eliminated mixed errors in both visual and quantitative evaluations better than the most recent processing methods and existing dataset products.

Multi-Feature Driven Active Contour Segmentation Model for Infrared Image With Intensity Inhomogeneity

Active contour model (ACM) is one of the most widely used image segmentation tools at present, but the existing methods only utilize single feature information of image to minimize the energy function, which is easy to cause false segmentations in infrared (IR) images. In this paper, we propose a multi-feature driven active contour segmentation model to handle IR images with intensity inhomogeneity. Firstly, an especially-designed signed pressure force (SPF) function is constructed by combining the global information calculated by global average gray information and the local multi-feature information calculated by local entropy, local standard deviation and gradient information. Then, we draw upon adaptive weight coefficient computed by local range to incorporate the afore-mentioned global term and local term. Next, the SPF function is substituted into the level set formulation (LSF) for further evolution. Finally, the LSF converges after a finite number of iterations and the IR image segmentation result is obtained from the corresponding convergence result. Experimental results demonstrate that the presented method outperforms typical models in terms of precision rate and overlapping rate in IR test images.

The aversive value of pain in human decision-making

According to basic utilitarian principles, people should try to maximize rewards and minimize pain. Here, participants were put in a situation where monetary rewards were paired to electric shocks spanning between pain detection and tolerance thresholds. Monetary offers ranged linearly from $0 to $5 or $10 in Group1 and 2, respectively, and exponentially from $0 to $5 in Group3. The value of pain increased quadratically as a function of the anticipated pain intensity. While increasing the range of monetary offers increased the price requested to accept pain, skewing the distribution of rewards encouraged profit maximization. Participants scoring higher on harm avoidance and lower on persistence scales requested more money to accept pain. Accepting highly painful offers slowed decisions regardless of the value of the concurrent reward. Altogether, pain-related decisions are highly relative to the local range of available rewards and may be under the control of more automatic avoidance mechanisms.

Diversity and distribution of Icelandic ferns (Polypodiopsida)

In this paper a comprehensive list of Icelandic ferns (Polypodiopsida sensu PPG I) is presented alongside detailed distribution maps (5×5 km grid). Apart from general characteristics of the local range, details on ecology and conservation status are provided, including most common habitat types for each species, altitudinal range and a local red list status assessment according to IUCN criteria. The most important bibliography records for each species are also listed.