Catastrophic State Research Articles

Assessment of environmental risks of space activities as a determinant of global security

The paper investigates environmental risks of space activities in ensuring the concept of Clean Space as an integral component of global security. It has been proven that man-made debris in orbital space reached catastrophic proportions which calls upon immediate changes with the purpose of sustainable development of space activities. The work incorporates an elaborated classification of environmental risks that occur in the process of space activities, divided into four groups: by the source of risk, by type of orbit, by cause and effect and by the possibility of influence. It has been determined that countries to have generated the most space debris objects are Russia (the USSR), USA and China. Ukrainian national legislation in the sphere of space activities is currently at the stage of harmonization with international space agencies. Numerous issues remain insufficiently substantiated: improvement of the Technical Regulations for space activities, Procedures of liability insurance for damage inflicted to the space object, since the respective insurance contract must be one of the documents mandatory for fulfilling international obligations of the state with regard to its accountability for any type of national space activities. It has been established that apart from the Kessler effect there also exists a temporality effect – the effect of ”lengthened” time combined with the effect of its acceleration (singularity) – accelerated development of situational changes. This affects the catastrophic state of space debris cluttering in Earth’s orbit since the launch of the first artificial satellite. The paper examines a particular range of risks in accordance with two phases of the technological lifespan of space systems – ‘Operation’ & ‘Utilization’. It is stipulated by the fact that namely in these phases there exists the highest probability of occurrence of major risks of “influence”. Prospects of further research consist in the development of the system for assessment of risks of influence at all phases of the technological lifespan of space systems: ‘Mission analysis/needs definition’; ‘Feasibility’; ‘Preliminary design’; ‘Detailed design’; ‘Qualification & Production’; ‘Operation’; ‘Utilization’.

Rapt in (destructive) plasticity: Demonlover and the annihilation of cinematic form

ABSTRACT Expanding upon Faure’s and Epstein’s writings on the plasticity of the cinematic image, this article updates this concept for the post-cinematic image of the internet era via an analysis of Olivier Assayas’s Demonlover (2002). In doing this, it connects plasticity to Deleuze’s work on the cinema and his assertion that ‘the brain is the screen’. Rather than a continuation of the optimistic narrative Deleuze traces for the cinema in the face of major catastrophe, we see in Demonlover a bleak vision for both the future of the cinematic image and humanity in the late capitalist era. Rather than a salve against catastrophe, Demonlover, embodies this catastrophic state diegetically through the metamorphoses of its main protagonist as well as formally. The film thus comes to be characterised by a form of plasticity that doubles down on the destructive potential implicit in Faure’s and Epstein’s writings yet only formulated decades later by Catherine Malabou in an attempt to account for the psychic operations of post-traumatic subjects she calls the new wounded. This is destructive plasticity; this kind of plasticity governs the operations of the world we observe in Demonlover and the logics of the new regime of the image it presents to us.

The Day Our School Went Pitch Black and the Nights We Reclaimed the Light

I will never forget that a year ago, last March 2020, we had to close our school suddenly. It feels like someone just turned off the light without warning, and everything went pitch black. Confused and scared, we tried to make sense of and confront the endless challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic brought upon our school organization. The virus caused significant interruptions to our processes, policies, people, technostructure, and financial resources. However, with each tiresome blow, the school leaders and teachers navigated through and around those challenges. The only comforting thought was we were not alone in our quest to survive, for every organization around the world was thrown into this catastrophic state and was fighting hard to persist and endure.
 Looking back, I reflect on the extraordinary challenges our organization experienced akin with most organizations using Kurt Lewin's Three-Step Change Model and the three ways we responded to COVID-19.

Ensuring security of economic and informational interests of mining enterprises taking into account innovative technological trends

It was revealed that mining enterprises are poorly focused on rapid introduction of innovative technologies and developments in line with modern technological trends. Conceptual approach to ensuring the security of economic and informational enterprises` interests with innovative technological trends has been developed. Developed approach, in contrast to existing ones, makes it possible to determine directions of ensuring security in current period from perspective of future. It has been substantiated that proposed approach has high scientific explanatory potential for revealing substantive factors that determine current and desired enterprises` economic and informational interests’ security state. Highlighting security of economic and informational interests as component which is one of the first is responding to integration of innovation and technology degree will help to improve entire enterprise`s economic security ensuring quality. It is proposed to use ratio indicator of IT capital value to sum of fixed and intangible assets as indicator of security state of enterprise`s economic and informational interests. Verification of this indicator has been implemented. It is shown that automation of verification makes it possible to exclude subjective decision factor. On basis of verified indicator, state of economic and informational interest’s security of mining enterprises was assessed. The value obtained at PrJSC Northern GZK is 1, which corresponds to very high security state. Estimated values at all enterprises in sample are 0 and so they correspond to catastrophic security state. Obtained results are important, since they allow to reasonably make management decisions regarding the directions of ensuring the economic and informational interests security of mining enterprises on basis of IT capital value increasing

Strategies to advance recovery (STAR) protocol implemented colorectal cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

SARS-CoV-2 hampered the resolution of multiple diseases, including cancer. To show that a multidisciplinary program of Strategies to Advance Recovery (STAR) can be implemented in a public hospital in Chile, despite the global pandemic and state of a national catastrophe, to provide a solution to cancer patients. A retrospective descriptive study, of patients requiring an elective resolution of a colorectal cancer. Patients met the inclusion criteria, established in the STAR program. A total of 24 perioperative interventions were performed in the protocol. Demographic variables, days of hospitalization, complications, mortality, and readmissions were described. The 24 interventions of the protocol were successfully implemented, although some partially. Sixteen patients aged 53 to 83 years (50% women) were operated. The median length of hospitalization was four days (range 2 to 9). Four complications were recorded, all were grade I or II according to the Clavien-Dindo classification. Two patients were readmitted. There were no reoperations or mortality. One patient was infected with coronavirus, diagnosed at the time of readmission. The STAR protocol reduces the length of hospital stay. In a pandemic context such as COVID-19 it becomes a useful resource and can be implemented in cancer patients, as herein reported.

Шляхи екологічного виховання в шкільному освітньому процесі

The article attempts to characterize the main forms and directions of work in the environmental education of schoolchildren. The purpose and objectives of the article are due to the catastrophic state of the environment on the one hand, and the direct indifference of the majority of modern society to the environment as a whole. The authors describe the main directions of work on the formation of ecological culture and consciousness among schoolchildren. The concept of the «New Ukrainian School» was taken as a basis and proposed, which emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary connections of school disciplines and the formation of basic competencies in modern children. So, the authors give examples of how with the help of natural educational disciplines it is possible to influence the ecological consciousness of children, thereby expanding their horizons, and teaching them to rationalistic analysis and comparison of facts. The study substantiates the stages of the formation of environmental education through educational classes and research activities of schoolchildren from creating motivation to get acquainted with the surrounding environment to students ' awareness of the causes and consequences of environmental problems, conscious attitude and finding ways to solve them. Without separating educational activities and elements of environmental education, teachers will be able to promote a deep awareness of students in the role of a favorable environmental environment. And the formation of ecological consciousness among schoolchildren will contribute to their responsible attitude to their own health.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE SYSTEM OF INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AGRACULTURAL BUSINESS

The purpose of study is to identify of socially responsible and ethically appropriate relations between economic entities in the agricultural business. Despite having high risks, modern agricultural industry is a profitable sphere of business. The author deepens theoretical and methodological basis and tools for research of the notion of social responsibility, based on the statistical method. Subjects of socially responsible relations in the system of agricultural business have been classified: these are agricultural enterprises, their partners, employees, municipalities, local and central authorities. The ethics of the enterprises with their employees takes the most crucial place in the mechanisms of social responsibility. The main types of the relations are social responsibility of the business entities towards employees and that of employees towards an agricultural enterprise. The article makes a proposition that an important requirement for agricultural business to qualify as socially responsible is a just wage for its employees. The quantity and quality of the work done, level of education and the contribution of employees to an enterprise’s revenue are indicators of a wage amount. The research has provided a possibility to identify the contradictions in the formation of a just payment in the agricultural sector of economy, especially in the top management of the enterprises. Another object of the research were problems linked to organisation of secure work conditions of the employees in the agricultural sector of economy and the specifics of the corresponding business environment, which enabled the author to identify the role of employers in the mentioned process. The author provides an analysis of the relationships between the actors in the agricultural business which identifies their two main types (i.e. cooperation and competition) and researches the positive and negative aspects. The analysed factors of influence were split up into two different groups: the stimulating and demotivating ones. The role of a price in the mechanisms of socially responsible relations in the agricultural business is also closely examined. The influence of large agricultural companies on the development of socially responsible and ethical relations between entities of the agricultural business has also been identified. The author prove essentiality of holding companies in the agricultural branch to the securing of its efficiency and diverse potential opportunities to implement innovative developments, equipment and enter international markets with less costs. The system analysis uncovered some issues inside the actions of agricultural holding companies: unfair competition and yielding of superprofits by the means of exhausting overexploitation of infrastructure and natural resources available. The results studies have shown a connection between the specific weight of big holding companies in a region and the state of social infrastructure in there. The conclusion made on the basis of an analysis of two regions of Ukraine — the regions of L’viv and Kirovohrad . It is concluded that the catastrophic state of the existing social infrastructure in the Kirovohrad region is a consequence of the dominance of large and medium-sized agricultural companies there. Farming enterprises were qualified as the mostly socially responsible entities in the modern agricultural business. Keywords : social responsibility, salary, agroholdings, cooperation, competition, farms, agribusiness.

Synphytoindication evaluation of habitats of plant species listed in the Red Data Book of Ukraine and habitat risk assessment under the impact of climate change

Ecological assessment of plant habitats in the territory of the upper basin of the Prut River was carried out using synphytoindication analysis of 2386 vegetation plots. This provided an opportunity to supplement the assessment of habitat conditions for 84 species of vascular plants listed in the Red Data Book of Ukraine. The conducted phytoindication assessment allowed to update and clarify information on the ranges of ecological amplitude for 55 species from the Red Data Book of Ukraine as well as to calculate indicators values for Crepis jacquinii for the first time. Based on the results of phytoindication assessment made for 49 species, the maximum ecological values (for 37 species) and minimum ecological values (for 38 species) were specified. Complete information on 12 environmental factors was obtained for habitats of 55 species, or 9% of species of vascular plants in the Red Data Book of Ukraine. A degree of possible threat to plant habitats is calculated, i.e. their reduction and loss due to increase in average annual temperature by 1, 2 and 3 °C. With the increase in temperature by 3 °C, the risk of habitat loss can reach 30% and only 3.5% of habitats remain out of danger, which indicates the catastrophic state of the studied habitats. At the same time, rising temperature can significantly affect the edaphic properties of the soil, in particular, the acidity regime; such indirect climate effects can be more significant for ecosystems than the direct ones. The obtained data indicate the risk of loss of species habitats, and subsequent result depends on further realization of species potential. Three options of the realization are possible: reduction and extinction, migration to other areas or landscape elements, and enhancing adaptive capacity of species. Results of ecological assessment of plant species and forecasting possible changes in their habitats based on synphytoindication methodology demonstrated the effectiveness and wide range of use of this methodology.

INTENSIFICATION OF INVESTMENT IN THE RENOVATION OF RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

The subject of the paper є is to study the mechanisms for investing in residential renovation in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. At the same time, sustainable development is considered both from the point of view of safety and environmental friendliness of residential buildings, and from the social point of view of providing housing to citizens from strategic perspective. It is shown that the current sustainable development goals, the definition of indicators of their achievement do not cover the problem of housing deterioration, which is one of the most acute for national and social security, as well as the financial stability of the state. Therefore, the achievement of SDG-11 in Ukraine is in a high risk zone given the catastrophic state of housing, the scale of the problem, and the high cost of its renovation for insolvent households; this does not solve the problem only at the expense of homeowners as follows from the essence and functions of property owners. The situation in Ukraine differs from European countries in that the state is impossible to further subsidize the owners on a large scale. This requires a combination of public investment in renovation of residential real estate with property reform, transforming part of the housing stock into social housing. As the implementation of housing projects concerns the local level, the general shortcomings of strategic management are shown, where there is no vision of communities to solve the problem. Methodology. Based on the methodological developments of the authors on the insolvency of homeowners in Ukraine (A. Shcherbyna), criticism of unjustified approaches to co-financing by residents and local authorities of renovation projects in Kyiv (O. Popeko), and the need to justify and evaluate investment projects to achieve sustainable development goals (S. Kovalivska), the article forms a comprehensive approach to solving the problem in terms of all three aspects. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to deepen the formulation and analysis of methods to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11 "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable" with the help of provisions on sustainable housing for citizens based on a projectoriented approach and mechanisms for financing projects using public-private partnerships of homeowners with local authorities, as well as taking into account sustainable development goals. Practical implications. The main directions of further progress in reforming property relations in the housing sector and creating tools for intensifying partnership mechanisms at the vertical and horizontal levels in the public administration system are identified. Results. The proposed methodology provides for the selection of projects for budget support and development of recommendations for their implementation, taking into account SDG in several stages: preselection based on cost-benefit analysis; assessment of the impact of the project on SDG (determination of the SDG identity of the project based on a quantitative assessment of the impact of its objectives on SDG and vice versa); determination of the volume and type of budget support (rating of projects based on a comprehensive analysis of their commercial, budgetary and social efficiency, adjusted for the level of manufacturability, export orientation, and SDG identity); development of recommendations for project implementation, which take into account the approaches to assessing the impact of the project on SDG and, conversely, the achievement of SDGs or the risks of their failure to achieve project objectives (4). Value. To link SDG with budget planning, it is proposed to introduce an additional classification of budget expenditures on SDG, which will help to reconcile strategic and budget planning with investment in order to achieve SDG, including in the process of ensuring state participation in programs and projects for renovation and construction of housing based on the concept of sustainable development.

Agricultural and economic systems in the conditions оf enhancing exogenic and endogenous turbulence

The common problems and patterns of development of nature, economy, society, which are in a state of order, disorder, crisis, catastrophe or chaos have become the basis for the conclusion about the unity of their basis. The positions of foreign and Ukrainian scientists on the development of macroeconomic systems in conditions of chaos and order are systematized and their main provisions for the analysis of the development of agro-economic systems in conditions of increasing endogenous and exogenous turbulence are transferred. The expediency of using the turbulent approach method for the analysis of functioning of complex structures is confirmed and the attribution to this type of agro-economic systems, which unite three different environments and their subsystems: natural-biological, production-realization, financial-banking, is substantiated. The types of turbulence are systematized and the risks and losses are revealed, the potential negative consequences of which are amplified with each subsequent stage: from the selection of genetic resources to the disposal of waste production and consumption of food and non-compliance with technological and other requirements. Peculiarities of turbulence occurrence and its potential consequences for different states of basic processes of agrarian-economic systems are analyzed: genetic-resource, soil-adaptive, production-raw materials, processing-product, logistic-realization, financial-economic. The role of the eastern neighbor in restricting the import of agricultural products of Ukraine and accelerating the harmonization of the national system of technical regulation with the basic model of technical regulation of the EU is highlighted. The peculiarities of modern approaches to the preparation and implementation of various scenarios for limiting the impact of the negative effects of turbulence and compensation for losses from it to the actors of agri-food chains are revealed. Proposals for the introduction of creative approaches in the training of managers and their independent development of various scenarios for the emergence and intensification of turbulent chaos have been developed. Key words: order, bifurcations, fluctuations, exogenous and endogenous turbulence, agri-food chains, development scenarios in the event of chaos.

Agricultural and economic systems in the conditions оf enhancing exogenic and endogenous turbulence

The common problems and patterns of development of nature, economy, society, which are in a state of order, disorder, crisis, catastrophe or chaos have become the basis for the conclusion about the unity of their basis. The positions of foreign and Ukrainian scientists on the development of macroeconomic systems in conditions of chaos and order are systematized and their main provisions for the analysis of the development of agro-economic systems in conditions of increasing endogenous and exogenous turbulence are transferred. The expediency of using the turbulent approach method for the analysis of functioning of complex structures is confirmed and the attribution to this type of agro-economic systems, which unite three different environments and their subsystems: natural-biological, production-realization, financial-banking, is substantiated. The types of turbulence are systematized and the risks and losses are revealed, the potential negative consequences of which are amplified with each subsequent stage: from the selection of genetic resources to the disposal of waste production and consumption of food and non-compliance with technological and other requirements. Peculiarities of turbulence occurrence and its potential consequences for different states of basic processes of agrarian-economic systems are analyzed: genetic-resource, soil-adaptive, production-raw materials, processing-product, logistic-realization, financial-economic. The role of the eastern neighbor in restricting the import of agricultural products of Ukraine and accelerating the harmonization of the national system of technical regulation with the basic model of technical regulation of the EU is highlighted. The peculiarities of modern approaches to the preparation and implementation of various scenarios for limiting the impact of the negative effects of turbulence and compensation for losses from it to the actors of agri-food chains are revealed. Proposals for the introduction of creative approaches in the training of managers and their independent development of various scenarios for the emergence and intensification of turbulent chaos have been developed. Key words: order, bifurcations, fluctuations, exogenous and endogenous turbulence, agri-food chains, development scenarios in the event of chaos.

Evaluation of economic indicators of domesticated beluga females farming in cages and ponds until maturation

Formation of beluga brood stocks in artificial conditions whilst a catastrophic state of their natural populations is very timely and relevant. The method of domestication of wild beluga females after intravital obtaining roe was widely used in the Caspian basin, when it was still possible to catch sturgeons in the river. In the Astrakhan region, at the beginning of the current century, that method was considerably used in the formation of beluga brood stocks in cages and ponds after adaptation of fish to artificial conditions of rearing and feeding. At present, the roe obtained from domesticated beluga females is used both for seed production and for caviar production. In addition to studying the fish-breeding indicators of beluga females after obtaining roe, it was of interest to assess the economic efficiency in different farming conditions. The article presents comparative economic indicators of keeping beluga females until maturation in cages and ponds, assessed the total costs, sales income, profit, profitability. The fish-breeding indicators were taken as a basis: total eggs yield, body weight gain, fecundity, the number of oocytes per gram, eggs fertilization ratio, hatching ratio and feed conversion ratio. The article discusses the research data of 15 beluga females in cage conditions and 10 beluga females in ponds. A simplified scheme was adopted in economic calculations, in which it is assumed that feed is a half of the total cost. The results obtained indicate that the profitability of the products obtained from beluga females in cages is an order of magnitude higher than from females in ponds. It was found that the sale of seed production is more profitable than the caviar sales.

Rol del cirujano dentista en estado de catástrofe: dónde estamos y para dónde vamos

Rol del cirujano dentista en estado de catástrofe: dónde estamos y para dónde vamos

Балерина Софья Федорова 2-я в русской скульптуре Серебряного века (С.Д. Эрьзя, М.Д. Рындзюнская, Н.Я. Данько)

Цель статьи – культурологический и искусствоведческий анализ трех портретных изображений выдающейся балерины Серебряного века русской культуры Софьи Федоровой 2-й (1879–1963), созданных С.Д. Эрьзей, М.Д. Рындзюнской и Н.Я. Данько. Материалом исследования являются архивные документы, отечественная периодика 1910-х гг., отзывы критиков и воспоминания современников о балерине. На основе использования сравнительно-исторического, биографического и семиотического методов представлена характеристика личности и творчества Федоровой 2-й, реконструирована ее биография; прослежена история создания трех скульптур, выявлены их художественные особенности и смыслоSвоенаполнение. Автор заключает, что Н. Я. Данько и М.Д. Рындзюнская изображают «дневную» Федорову, главным в их работах является демонстрация красоты и выразительности движений балерины. С.Д. Эрьзя запечатлел «ночную» Федорову: сосредоточив внимание на лице артистки, он сумел в своей скульптуре отразить ее сложный внутренний мир. The main aim of the article is to present an art historical and cultural analysis of three portrait images of Sofia Fedorova II(1879–1963), the outstanding ballerina of the Silver Age of Russian culture, created by masters of Russian sculpture Stepan Erzia (portrait bust, 1915, marble), MarinaRyndzyunskaya (statue, 1916, marble) and Natalya Danko (figurine, 1921, porcelain). The research materials are previously unpublished documents from the archives of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Saransk, as well as articles from Russian periodicals of the 1910s; reviews of professional critics and memories about the ballerina. Based on the use of comparative historical, biographical, and semiotic methods, the article reconstructs Fedorova’s biography, considers various aspects of the reception of her personality and work by contemporaries: figures of literature (Vyacheslav Ivanov), theater (S. Giatsintova, E. Gogoleva, K. Stanislavsky, V. Telyakovsky), ballet (S. Grigoriev, B. Nizhinskaya), art critics and historians of ballet (Yu. Belyaev, P. Liven, S. Mamontov), other representatives of the humanitarian intelligentsia (S. Grigorov). Sofia Fedorova is known as an unsurpassed performer of characteristic dances in ballet and opera performances, as well as a ballerina who embodied the images of the innovative choreography of A.A. Gorsky and M.M. Fokin. Vyacheslav Ivanov claimed that the ballerina had “two faces”: the “daytime”, “galloping” Fedorova and the “nighttime” Fedorova, whose sphere was the “dark mysticism of the soul”. The author of the article traced the history of the creation of the three sculptures and revealed their artistic features and semantic content. The three sculptors created completely different sculptural images of Fedorova: a monumental marble figure (Ryndzyunskaya), an easel marble bust (Erzia), and a decorative porcelain figurine (Danko). According to the findings of the author of the study, Danko portrays Fedorova as “daytime” and “galloping” (nevertheless, she manages to create an ethereal image). Ryndzyunskaya also shows Fedorova as“daytime”, the sculptor is attracted by the ballerina’s grace, the beauty and expressiveness of her movement: portraying it, she focuses on purely plastic problems. Erzia is the only sculptor of the three who managed to see and capture the “nighttime” Fedorova. He is not interested in the ballerina’s dance, but in her complex deep inner world: he reflects the “dark mysticism” of her soul, conveys the state of tensity and anxiety that engulfed the woman, revealing not only signs of her incipient mental illness, but also her keen sense of the catastrophic state of the world (during World War I and the impending revolution).

Catastrophe Insurance and Solvency Regulation

This paper provides a welfare analysis of solvency regulation for catastrophe insurance. We consider an economy with risk-averse agents exposed to a common source of risk and an insurer owned by risk-averse shareholders. We show that the optimal insurance contract features full coverage and is Pareto optimal if and only if it includes participation in the insurer’s profit. When such participation is not available (as is often the case in the real world), we demonstrate that solvency regulation allowing insurer default or limited liability in the most catastrophic states is Pareto improving. We use a numerical application to analyze the welfare benefits of different default rates for a wide range of risk lines, risk correlations, and ratios of insureds to insurer’s shareholders. While allowing a small probability of default yields some welfare gains, we show that an excessive default probability may be highly detrimental to welfare. We find that a good rule of thumb is to maintain a default probability lower than the individual probability of loss.

ВИКЛИКИ КОМПʼЮТЕРИЗАЦІЇ ТА ФІЗИКО-МАТЕМАТИЧНА ОСВІТА

A fundamental change in the situation with the availability of information in the last decades is considered. This not only opens up great opportunities, but also creates serious problems, especially for the study of physical and mathematical disciplines, especially physics, since they are not descriptive. Being able to answer “any” questions via the Internet gives students the illusion that there is no need for intellectual tension, and recoils from independent thinking. Inconsistency of incomes of contribution of the person in development of a society additionally directs youth to education where it is enough to download information. The test based on solving problems reveals the catastrophic state of school physics. Most students do not rise above the level of copying information from the Internet. A chain has emerged: a reluctance to strain at school – a small number of EIE (external independent evaluation) participants in physics and entrants in their respective specialties – problems of higher education – lack of physics teachers – falling quality of human potential – worsening of the prospects of countryʼs exit from the crisis on the path of innovation. We have a generation that is massively ignorant of physics, generally has poorly developed logical thinking and untrained memory, although it has computer skills (most recently with a smartphone). These devices are used as a toy, adversely affecting the physical development of young people and communication skills. A state program for supporting physical- mathematical and technical education and overcoming the negative aspects of computerization is required. The Theoretical Physics Department of DNU, which has been and remains the leader in the use of computer technology and electronic communication for scientific research, has experience in teaching young people the meaningful use of computer technology. Knowledge testing is focused on the ability to apply knowledge, not the reproduction of educational material. Elements of mathematical modeling are introduced in the general and special courses, and the possibilities of modern mathematical packages for analytical and numerical search for solving practical problems, including the search for new elementary particles on modern colliders, are opened. Key words: information, computerization, logical thinking, competitive situation, knowledge testing, computers in science.

Scaling Features of Two Special Markov Chains Involving Total Disasters

Catastrophe Markov chain population models have received a lot of attention in the recent past. We herewith consider two special cases of such models involving total disasters, both in discrete and in continuous-time. Depending on the parameters range, the two models can show up a recurrence/transience transition and, in the critical case, a positive/null recurrence transition. The collapse transition probabilities are chosen in such a way that the models are exactly solvable and, in case of positive recurrence, intimately related to the extended Sibuya and Pareto–Zipf distributions whose divisibility and self-decomposability properties are shown relevant. The study includes: existence and shape of the invariant measure, time-reversal, return time to the origin, contact probability at the origin, extinction probability, height and length of the excursions, a renewal approach to the fraction of time spent in the catastrophic state, scale function, first time to collapse and first-passage times, divisibility properties.

Safe reinforcement learning using risk mapping by similarity

Reinforcement learning (RL) has been used to successfully solve sequential decision problem. However, considering risk at the same time as the learning process is an open research problem. In this work, we are interested in the type of risk that can lead to a catastrophic state. Related works that aim to deal with risk propose complex models. In contrast, we follow a simple, yet effective, idea: similar states might lead to similar risk. Using this idea, we propose risk mapping by similarity (RMS), an algorithm for discrete scenarios which infers the risk of newly discovered states by analyzing how similar they are to previously known risky states. In general terms, the RMS algorithm transfers the knowledge gathered by the agent regarding the risk to newly discovered states. We contribute with a new approach to consider risk based on similarity and with RMS, which is simple and generalizable as long as the premise similar states yield similar risk holds. RMS is not an RL algorithm, but a method to generate a risk-aware reward shaping signal that can be used with a RL algorithm to generate risk-aware policies.

Modern problems of single-industry towns and their cluster history

The article is devoted to single-industry towns and the possibilities of solving their problems, including with the help of a cluster development model. The relevance of this topic is due to the catastrophic state of single-industry towns in Russia and the need to find ways out of the current situation. The Government of the Russian Federation actively supports the development of special programs and projects to support single-industry towns, but most of the measures taken have shown their inconsistency. The article examines the history of the formation of single-industry towns, the means of their territorial organization and the methods of regional development used. Relying on official statistical data, the authors draw attention to the fact that in modern conditions it becomes impossible to develop only the economic sphere, without taking into account social, geographical, cultural, environmental and other factors. The paper shows the necessary conditions for the development of single-industry towns, the possibilities of their actualization and prospects. The conclusion is made about the need to provide residents with opportunities for self-organization, cluster opportunities to get out of the crisis, the need to study the cultural potential of a particular topos and search for approaches to its versatile development.

"Multidirectional" Shakespeare: Heiner Müller, Anatomy Titus: Fall of Rome, a Shakespeare Commentary, Postcolonialism and the Holocaust

"Multidirectional" Shakespeare: Heiner Müller, Anatomy Titus: Fall of Rome, a Shakespeare Commentary, Postcolonialism and the Holocaust Richard Ashby (bio) Errata 8/30/21:The Editor regrets that this article was published without final corrections being incorporated. Please click to download the updated version of the article which includes a list of corrections. Introduction Over late August and early September 2018, Germany was stunned by racist rioting in the city of Chemnitz, Saxony, when around 8,000 far-right and neo-Nazi activists amassed to protest the imagined threat posed to traditional European civilization, conceived as culturally Christian and ethnically white, by an influx of immigrants and refugees into the country. These protests were sparked by the arrest of Syrian and Iraqi immigrants in relation to the murder of a 35-year-old Cuban-German man, Daniel Hillig. The protest eventually degenerated into riots, where people of "foreign" appearance were violently abused, both verbally and physically, while neo-Nazis delivered the (in Germany, illegal) Nazi salute, in scenes that were described by witnesses as "frighteningly reminiscent" of civil war and Nazi pogroms against Jews. 1The riots were quickly denounced in Germany, with Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel (herself originally from Saxony) stating that "vigilantism . . . intolerance and racism" had no place in the country—though Merkel herself had opined as recently as 2010 that tolerant multiculturalism in Germany had proven an "utter failure." 2At the time, the events in Chemnitz seemed to represent a new nadir in the resurgence of [End Page 223]the radical right in Europe—and indeed the world—as a seemingly transcended Nazi past irrupted into the present and threatened violence against the non-European "others" deemed to represent nothing short of an imminent racial and existential threat to the continued survival of (so-called) white Western civilization. Chemnitz typified the disturbingly recognizable "themes" which, for Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg, the newly emergent right organizes itself around: protecting the physical integrity of the homeland and the purity of the race from the incursions of globalization and the presence of "foreigners." 3 The scenes at Chemnitz may not have surprised German playwright Heiner Müller, also from Saxony—though the similarities between him and Chancellor Merkel perhaps end there. Müller, though a Marxist, did not subscribe to the traditional, vulgar or Hegelian Marxist view that history is informed by progress toward a more equitable future, tending to "presume the catastrophes that mankind is working toward." 4Müller was also increasingly aware over his playwriting life of the brutal history of European colonialism and the racist fear of and antipathy toward the other that history entailed. 5For him, there were obvious continuities between European colonial rationality, hatred of "the foreigner" and the worst calamity of post-Enlightenment European modernity—the Holocaust and the genocide of European Jewry. These phenomena represent a mutually informing historical nexus underpinned by the binary distinctions of same/other, us/them, insider/outsider, citizen/foreigner and civilization/barbarism. Such reasoning had not been overturned by the victory over Nazism, which, far from being defeated at the end of the Second World War, was for Müller still apparent (if more latently) in both the East German socialist system and in the (neo)liberal democratic capitalist system that, by 1991, had reunified Germany—an event that Müller viewed as a new form of colonial "occupation." 6Nazism and the Holocaust, as Müller understood these events, had never simply "gone away." His view of history as an ongoing catastrophe, as opposed to the undeviating development of human progress, meant that for Müller works of art from "the past" were not always and necessarily obsolete or irrelevant to the concerns of the present. On the contrary: past [End Page 224]works—or "Sad stories chanced in the times of old," whether in drama, poetry or prose—may reveal the catastrophic state of history and the irrationalities that produce systems of inequality, oppression and even genocide through time. 7Shakespeare was a writer for whom Müller had a particularly intense obsession and whose plays had seemingly been "waiting for history," able—and perhaps uniquely...