bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mini-Review: Antibacterial Products from Teak Leaf Extract (Tectona grandis L.)
Authors: Latifah Azmi  , Paramitha Retno Ramadhanti  , Afreza Tamimi Hasibuan  , Waras Nurcholis
Published: March 2021

Teak (Tectona grandis L.) is a plant that has a high resistance to weather changes and termite attacks. The dominant use of teak in the furniture industry left behind its leaf as agricultural waste (agro-waste). Several pharmacological activities have been identified in the teak leaf part. In this review article, the authors gathered information from previous studies regarding the potential use of teak leaf antibacterial compounds to be made into various antibacterial products, namely hand sanitizers, floor disinfectants, fruit and vegetable disinfectants, and deodorant. Literature searches are carried out through search engines and online journal databases. The results of the literature review show that there are at least eight antibacterial compounds from teak leaf that have been isolated, identified, and tested for their activity, namely anthratectone, naphthotectone, juglone, gallic acid, ellagic acid, rutin, quercetin, and sitosterol. Furthermore, it is known that the solvent that can be used for teak leaf extraction by providing the best antibacterial activity is ethanol. This information is used as a recommendation for optimization of teak leaf extraction as part of the author’s suggestion in making antibacterial products. In addition, previous research related to the use of ethanol extract from the teak leaf as an antibacterial product for liquid soap was also included. The study shows that the teak leaf extract liquid soap has promising activity compared to its comparable commercial soap, thereby strengthening the author's idea to utilize teak leaf extract as a component of the active ingredient of other antibacterial products, namely hand sanitizers, floor disinfectants, fruit and vegetable disinfectants, and deodorant.
Factors influencing for the marketing of branded generic drugs - A study on possible strategies in the Indian pharmaceutical market
Authors: Umesh Chandra  , Shwetha G S
Published: March 2021

The competition in the Indian pharmaceutical sector is high and the success of a company depends on the ability of Research and Development. A lot of scope exists for the smaller companies as well as larger companies to focus on branded generic drug market for the generation of prescription. The space for product differentiation is less in this segment as all the companies market the same medicine and performance is also the same. Hence, the companies emphasize on various other factors for brand differentiation. Data were collected from 107 doctors for 13 different factors which can influence the prescription generation of the branded generic drugs. It was then run through factor analysis to understand more influencing factors. It was found that two sets of factors, namely, company-related factors and environmental-related factors influence doctors to write the prescription. The company-related factors were found to have more influence compared to environmental-related factors for brand recall while writing the prescription.
A Model-free Four Component Scattering Power Decomposition for Polarimetric SAR Data
Authors: Dey Subhadip , Bhattacharya Avik , Frery Alejandro , López-Martínez Carlos
Published: March 2021

Target decomposition methods of polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) data explain scattering information from a target. In this regard, several conventional model based methods utilize scattering power components to analyze polarimetric SAR data. However, the typical hierarchical process to
enumerate power components uses various branching conditions,
leading to several limitations. These techniques assume ad hoc
scattering models within a radar resolution cell. Therefore, the
use of several models makes the computation of scattering powers
ambiguous. Some common issues of model-based decompositions
are related to the compensation of the orientation angle about
the radar line of sight and the negative power components’
occurrence. We propose a model-free four-component scattering
power decomposition that alleviates these issues. In the proposed
approach, we use the non-conventional 3D Barakat degree of
polarization to obtain the scattered electromagnetic wave’s polarization state. The degree of polarization is used to obtain the even-bounce, odd-bounce, and diffused scattering power components.
Along with this, a measure of target scattering asymmetry is
also proposed, which is then suitably utilized to obtain the
helicity power. All the power components are roll-invariant, nonnegative and unambiguous. In addition to this, we propose an
unsupervised clustering technique that preserves the dominance
of the scattering power components for different targets. This
clustering technique assists in understanding the importance of
diverse scattering mechanisms based on target characteristics.
The technique adequately captures the clusters’ variations from
one target to another according to their physical and geometrical
properties. This study utilized two dual-frequency (i.e., C- and L-bands) polarimetric SAR data. These two data sets are used to
show the decomposition powers’ effectiveness and the apparent
interpretability of the clustering results.
Region-based classification of PolSAR data using radial basis kernel functions with stochastic distances
Authors: Negri RG , Frery Alejandro , Silva WB , Mendes TSG , Dutra LV
Published: March 2021

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Region-based classification of PolSAR data can be effectively performed by seeking for the assignment that minimizes a distance between prototypes and segments. Silva et al. [“Classification of segments in PolSAR imagery by minimum stochastic distances between wishart distributions.” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing 6 (3): 1263–1273] used stochastic distances between complex multivariate Wishart models which, differently from other measures, are computationally tractable. In this work we assess the robustness of such approach with respect to errors in the training stage, and propose an extension that alleviates such problems. We introduce robustness in the process by incorporating a combination of radial basis kernel functions and stochastic distances with Support Vector Machines (SVM). We consider several stochastic distances between Wishart: Bhatacharyya, Kullback-Leibler, Chi-Square, Rényi, and Hellinger. We perform two case studies with PolSAR images, both simulated and from actual sensors, and different classification scenarios to compare the performance of Minimum Distance and SVM classification frameworks. With this, we model the situation of imperfect training samples. We show that SVM with the proposed kernel functions achieves better performance with respect to Minimum Distance, at the expense of more computational resources and the need of parameter tuning. Code and data are provided for reproducibility.
Detecting Changes in Fully Polarimetric SAR Imagery With Statistical Information Theory
Authors: Nascimento ADC , Frery Alejandro , Cintra RJ
Published: March 2021

© 1980-2012 IEEE. Images obtained from coherent illumination processes are contaminated with speckle. A prominent example of such imagery systems is the polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR). For such a remote sensing tool, the speckle interference pattern appears in the form of a positive-definite Hermitian matrix, which requires specialized models and makes change detection a hard task. The scaled complex Wishart distribution is a widely used model for PolSAR images. Such a distribution is defined by two parameters: the number of looks and the complex covariance matrix. The last parameter contains all the necessary information to characterize the backscattered data, and thus, identifying changes in a sequence of images can be formulated as a problem of verifying whether the complex covariance matrices differ at two or more takes. This paper proposes a comparison between a classical change detection method based on the likelihood ratio and three statistical methods that depend on information-theoretic measures: the Kullback-Leibler (KL) distance and two entropies. The performance of these four tests was quantified in terms of their sample test powers and sizes using simulated data. The tests are then applied to actual PolSAR data. The results provide evidence that tests based on entropies may outperform those based on the KL distance and likelihood ratio statistics.
Do Medical Marijuana Laws Increase Hard-Drug Use?
Authors: Chu Yu-Wei
Published: March 2021

Medical marijuana laws generate significant debate regarding drug policy. For instance, if marijuana is a complement to hard drugs, then these laws would increase the usage not only of marijuana but also of hard drugs. In this paper I study empirically the effects of medical marijuana laws by analyzing data on drug arrests and treatment admissions. I find that medical marijuana laws increase these proxies for marijuana consumption by around 10–15 percent. However, there is no evidence that cocaine and heroin usage increases. From the arrest data, the estimates indicate a 0–15 percent decrease in possession arrests for cocaine and heroin combined. From the treatment data, the estimates show a 20 percent decrease in admissions for heroin-related treatment, although there is no significant effect for cocaine-related treatment. These results suggest that marijuana may be a substitute for heroin, but it is not strongly correlated with cocaine.

© 2015 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
A binary ABC algorithm based on advanced similarity scheme for feature selection
Authors: Hancer E , Xue Bing , Karaboga D , Zhang Mengjie
Published: March 2021

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Feature selection is the basic pre-processing task of eliminating irrelevant or redundant features through investigating complicated interactions among features in a feature set. Due to its critical role in classification and computational time, it has attracted researchers' attention for the last five decades. However, it still remains a challenge. This paper proposes a binary artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm for the feature selection problems, which is developed by integrating evolutionary based similarity search mechanisms into an existing binary ABC variant. The performance analysis of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by comparing it with some well-known variants of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and ABC algorithms, including standard binary PSO, new velocity based binary PSO, quantum inspired binary PSO, discrete ABC, modification rate based ABC, angle modulated ABC, and genetic algorithms on 10 benchmark datasets. The results show that the proposed algorithm can obtain higher classification performance in both training and test sets, and can eliminate irrelevant and redundant features more effectively than the other approaches. Note that all the algorithms used in this paper except for standard binary PSO and GA are employed for the first time in feature selection.
Genetic programming for feature construction and selection in classification on high-dimensional data
Authors: Tran Binh , Xue Bing , Zhang Mengjie
Published: March 2021

Classification on high-dimensional data with
thousands to tens of thousands of dimensions is a challenging task due to the high dimensionality and the
quality of the feature set. The problem can be addressed
by using feature selection to choose only informative
features or feature construction to create new high-level
features. Genetic programming (GP) using a tree-based
representation can be used for both feature construction and implicit feature selection. This work presents
a comprehensive study to investigate the use of GP for
feature construction and selection on high-dimensional
classification problems. Different combinations of the
constructed and/or selected features are tested and compared on seven high-dimensional gene expression problems, and different classification algorithms are used
to evaluate their performance. The results show that
the constructed and/or selected feature sets can significantly reduce the dimensionality and maintain or
even increase the classification accuracy in most cases.
The cases with overfitting occurred are analysed via
the distribution of features. Further analysis is also performed to show why the constructed feature can achieve promising classification performance.

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in 'Memetic Computing'. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12293-015-0173-y. The following terms of use apply: https://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/publication-policies/aam-terms-of-use.
Higher Education in Russia: The Rise of Economic Dominance
Authors: Studnikov S. S.
Published: March 2021

Choosing a university is not an easy matter, and, as a rule, it is a task of multi-criteria optimization, and one of the weighty criteria is career prospects. At present, the children of those who themselves were applicants during the USSR collapse started to choose a university. At that time, it was believed that only elite universities (Moscow State University, MGIMO, etc.) would serve as a social lift to the most prestigious organizations of business, government, and science. In part, this can explain the almost total desire of modern school graduates to have a higher education, although often it is the desire of their parents. Using the example of the higher education market in Russia, the author examines the tendencies of universities’ concentration, their stratifiation into three levels with different institutional conditions and the dominance of the upper levels (alpha universities) over the lower ones (beta and gamma universities). The article analyses Russian alpha universities’ features against the background of a similar global hierarchy and identifies development trends for universities after the explosive introduction of distance learning technologies.
National Interests, Strategic Goals and Long-Term Security of the Russian Federation
Authors: Kazantsev S. V.
Published: March 2021

The state and the nation have their interests. They call them “the national interests”. Even though the study of national interests began many centuries ago, there is still no single methodology to determine national interests, let alone quantifying them. National interests largely determine the goals that society sets for itself. Thus, from the national interest “preservation and survival of society” arises the strategic goal of human society, the state, and the nation — to increase the population and ensure its security. The preservation of territorial integrity is one of the national interests, so each state has the goal to preserve its territorial integrity and maintain the territory of its habitat in a life-friendly condition. If a goal is set, there should be indicators of its achievement. For example, for the strategic goal “ensuring socio-economic well-being and growth of well-being” indicators are the volume and dynamics of income of members of the society, the unemployment rate, the coeffiients of differentiation of incomes of the population and some other indexes. The author of this paper has identifid seven strategic goals of a society that correspond to six universally recognized national interests. To quantify the measure of their achievement, the author selected 23 indicators. The author based his choice according to the state of Russian statistics. It turned out that this indicator had a downward trend in 2000–2018, and its flctuations were damped.
Assessment of nitrate, phosphate and sulphate levels in wastewater from Muhammad Ayuba dam in Kazaure, Jigawa state, Nigeria
Authors: Oladeji S.O.
Published: March 2021

In the continuation of the evaluation of the physicochemical parameters of wastewater of Muhammad Ayuba dam in Kazaure, Nigeria, this investigation was carried out for the assessment of certain nutrients parameters i.e., nitrate, phosphate and sulphate that are primarily responsible for the eutrophication. This investigation was conducted during November, 2019 to January, 2020 (Harmattan season) to measure the content of nitrate, phosphate and sulphate ions in the wastewater collected from Muhammad Ayuba dam. During the study, standard techniques were used to determine the content of nitrate, phosphate and sulphate using spectrophotometer at specific wavelengths in determination of parameter of interests. The results obtained indicated that the concentrations were in the range of 78.50 – 88.40 mg/L for nitrate, 55.70 – 62.40 mg/L for phosphate and 91.40 – 100.20 mg/L for sulphate ions, respectively. The contents of nitrate, phosphate and sulphate in the wastewater exceeded the limit set by FAO/WHO for these anions in wastewater with exception of sulphate ions that was below the limit. Pearson correlation (r = 0.484) of the different anions indicated that their level of contamination might be traced to the same source means runoff from fertilizer application. Therefore, the water of the dam is majorly polluted with domestic wastes and absolutely rich in sulphate ions especially detergents from nearby houses. The study also revealed gradual accumulation of anions in the wastewater of the dam suggested more pronounced pollution in it.  Thus, regular monitoring of these ions must be required to evaluate their environmental impacts and possible potential risks.
N.I. Kareev’s Engagement in Scientific and Educational Environment: Reviewer’s Opinion on His First Publication
Authors:   P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University, Yaroslavl, 150003 Russia, Dementyeva V.V.
Published: March 2021

The review paper on N.I. Kareev’s first work published in the September issue of the Journal of the Ministry of National Education in 1869 was analyzed. N.I. Kareev’s publication was focused on the pronunciation of sounds and the graphic system of the ancient Greek language. R.A. Fogt, the qualified expert in classical philology, reviewed it. R.A. Fogt emphasized N.I. Kareev’s good skills in ancient languages studies that he trained at the Moscow gymnasium and used as the background for his reflections about the ancient Greek language. The critical comments of the reviewer were discussed. These remarks concerned the following aspects of N.I. Kareev’s work: historiographical sources, conceptual apparatus, argumentation, logical inconsistencies in the text, and vision of the specifics of the ancient Greek phonetics. In particular, R.A. Fogt pointed out that N.I. Kareev showed little interest in G. Kurtius’ work, expressed his disagreement with the proposal to use the methods of I. Reuchlin in philological research when transcribing Greek letters with Latin, disputed the claim that θ retained its ancient sound in the modern Greek language, etc. As an experienced educator, R.A. Fogt gave advice not only concerning the research procedures, but also about writing methodological manuals for the educational process. The balanced nature of the review paper, its friendly tone, and a generally positive assessment of N.I.’s Kareev work were revealed. It was concluded that this review meant recognition of the young N.I. Kareev in the scientific and educational environment and turned out to be an incentive for his further work as a scientist and author of textbooks.
Personal Identity during the Time of Troubles in Russia (Setting Up a Problem)
Authors:   Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, 603140 Russia, Kuznetsov A.A.
Published: March 2021

This paper considers the phenomenon of personal identity development and democratization of the history of Russia during the Time of Troubles. D.S. Likhachev’s opinion on the discovery of a personality in the Russian literature of the 17th century is discussed. It is demonstrated that the problem of personal identity in the socio-political space of Russia was raised for the first time during the Time of Troubles. Hunger, devastation, deprivation, underestimation of the value of human life paradoxically promoted the development of a view on the personal identity as an important element of life. The historical and anthropological problem of studying the formation and development of self-identification in Russia under the influence of destructive and tragic events of the Time of Troubles is formulated. The above problem can be solved by carrying out a mass biographical research based on numerous sources and using the methods of prosopography and historical anthropology. The unremitting wars that took place in the second half of the 16th century favored the development of personal identity at the public level. A generation of nobles accustomed to making decisions under the war conditions emerged. In the Time of Troubles, other social groups adopted the behavioral strategies of the nobility. As a result, imposture, unregulated (both traditionally and legally) leadership in the Cossack hosts, robber gangs, and self-organized grouping became common. Under these circumstances, people were willing to actively participate in the events of the Time of Troubles and in the changes of the political course. Therefore, the historical sources confirm that the history of Russia exhibited the first sings of democratization during the Time of Troubles.
The Secret of the Byzantinist Dmitry Ainalov
Authors:   Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia, Sychenkova L.A. , Pirgo M.D. ,   Independent Researcher, Slavyansk, 84101 Ukraine
Published: March 2021

This paper, for the first time, considers the Mariupol period of D.V. Ainalov’s life, as well as the history of his family and his ancestry from the Crimean-Azov Greeks. D.V. Ainalov’s personal documents concerning his family tree and the early period of his life were introduced into scientific circulation. His research focus (Hellenistic and Byzantine art) was determined by the inherent bond with the Greek culture, which had survived and flourished among the Azov Greeks. With the help of the archival documents, the atmosphere in D.V. Ainalov’s family was revealed in order to understand the conditions under which he developed his artistic abilities. Our findings confirm that the inner circle of D.V. Ainalov’s family, which included artists, prompted him to visual thinking and, therefore, played a key role in his subsequent interest in the study of art. An important evidence of D.V. Ainalov’s artistic abilities is his iconographic legacy. Refining the details of D.V. Ainalov’s biography helps to get a better insight into his creative “laboratory” and personal motives, thereby adding new dimensions to his historiographical image. The paper raises the issue of the urgent need for a special monographic research summarizing and covering in detail all stages of personal and creative biography of D.V. Ainalov.
“The Greatest Slovak” in the Historical Memory of Modern Slovakia
Authors:   Mari State University, Yoshkar-Ola, 424000 Russia, Krylova O.S. , Rokina G.V. ,   Mari State University, Yoshkar-Ola, 424000 Russia
Published: March 2021

The development and preservation of historical memory in the Slovak Republic were discussed using the Slovak pantheon of national heroes as an example. The study aims to show commemorative practices used in the historical development of the country. The mechanisms and tools for defining the collective historical memory of Slovaks in the modern times were considered. Some examples of the political use of memories of the past were analyzed. The title of the paper traces back to the public survey about “the greatest Slovak” arranged by the Slovak radio station and television in May 2018–October 2019. A number of examples illustrating the process of formation of historical myths and stereotypes in the collective historical memory of Slovaks over several centuries were provided. In modern Slovakia, the public is generally rejecting the old stereotypes and new myths are emerging against the background of heated discussions between politicians and historians. A simultaneous destruction of the old “places of memory” and the formation of the new ones is taking place. Furthermore, the traditional pantheon of Slovak national heroes is being updated. These processes have a considerable influence on the development of the country. In this work, special attention was paid to such historical figures of Slovakia as L. Štúr, the Founding Father of the Slovak nation, and M.R. Štefánik, the outstanding politician. The results of the television survey were analyzed in detail: the public had to choose 100 most outstanding personalities of the Slovak history, politics, and culture, as well as to determine “the greatest Slovak” among them. The latter title was finally awarded to M.R. Štefánik. It was concluded that the collective historical memory in Slovakia is at its early stage of development and that Slovaks have not fully overcome the myths and stereotypes of the past.
Cariсature as a Source of the Soviet Childhood History (Based on the “Pionerskaya Pravda” Newspaper in the Second Half of the 1920s)
Authors:   Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia, Salnikova A.A. , Korniushkina K.A. ,   Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia
Published: March 2021

This paper deals with the phenomenon of newspaper caricature and its influence on the life of Soviet children. Caricatures were widely used by the Soviet authorities as a means of official propaganda, in children’s periodicals as well. For children, they were employed to create an image of the “standardized” Soviet child, through cartooning and criticism of antipodes. The analysis of caricatures from the pages of the “Pionerskaya Pravda” newspaper dating back to the second half of the 1920s revealed the ways by which various archetypes developed in the satirical ideological images. Their strong impact on children was demonstrated. The caricatures for young readers of “Pionerskaya Pravda” were considered as a creolized text (binary – verbal–non-verbal) with categorical, simplified, political, and educational purposes. A classification of caricature images based on their genre and content was developed. The value of newspaper caricatures as a source for reconstruction of children’s “sovetization” in the USSR during the second half of the 1920s was discussed.
The Social Structure of Medieval Craft in the Volga Region Based on Archaeological Data
Authors:   Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia, Valiulina S.I.
Published: March 2021

The social structure of medieval craft in the Volga region was studied with the help of archaeological data. For this purpose, the manufacturing techniques were analyzed and described. Reconstruction of the craft organization demands a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis (integration of the traditional archaeological and archaeometric methods) of craft products, raw materials, and workshops. This approach was applied to the investigation of the Bilyar settlement, which is the best studied pre-Mongolian monument and, therefore, the most informative one. The conclusions were made about the organizational specifics of the Bulgarian craft, concerning, in particular, its topography within the city. Two major social forms were singled out: palatial (khan) craft and free small commodity production. Three main components of craft associations were established: apprenticeship institution, settling by professions inherent in the organized craft, and manufacture control. The progressive development of the Bulgar craft was disrupted by the Mongol invasion that changed the vector of cultural development in all craft areas. New trends in the craft organization typical of the Golden Horde were particularly pronounced in the Lower Volga capitals of Sarai al-Mahrusa (Selitrennoye settlement) and Sarai al-Jedid (Tsarevskoye settlement).
Miracles of the Saints in Nikon’s Chronicle as a Source for the Study of the Church Ideology during the 1520s–1530s
Authors:   Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia, Novoselov A.N.
Published: March 2021

This paper examines the informative potential of miracles described in Nikon’s Chronicle. Miracles are understood as a symbolic genre of the Old Russian literature. They are stories about unexpected and miraculous events taking place through the will of God and solving some earthly problems. The miracles worked by the following Russian saints were analyzed: Saint Peter of Moscow, Sergius of Radonezh, Barlaam of Khutyn, etc. The texts of miracles from the saints’ lives, Russian chronicles dating from the 15th century to the early 16th century, and Nikon’s Chronicle were compared. It was concluded that the storylines had been considerably revised in the 1520s–1530s. A hypothesis was introduced that the texts were transformed as a result of the influence exercised by Maximus the Greek and the non-possessors, who expressed doubts that certain metropolitans and monastery rectors could have been recognized as miracle workers. This hypothesis was confirmed through the comparative analysis of Nikon’s Chronicle and the trial minutes of Maximus the Greek. The conclusion was made that the miracles described in the earlier sources were rewritten in the subsequent years to shift the emphasis on the important role played by certain church figures in the key historical events.
ЗАБЫТЫЕ ДРЕВНОСТИ ДОЛИНЫ РЕКИ УГАМ
Authors:   Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia, Kashchey O.A. , Nedashkovsky L.F. ,   Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia
Published: March 2021

This paper is devoted to one of the urgent problems of modern archaeological research, i.e., to analysis of the discoveries of pre-revolutionary archaeology and to actualization of its achievements. Archaeological monuments of the Ugam River valley (within the territories of modern Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where the Ugam River flows into the Chirchiq River) that had been lost during the Soviet times were used as an example. These monuments have literally fallen out of the research interest. The analysis of data available in the written sources on the archaeological findings in the Ugam River basin dating between the late 19th and early 20th centuries enabled us to identify the location of eight monuments forgotten by modern researchers, to map the routes of N.I. Veselovsky (1885) and J.-A. Castagné (1913) – the discoverers of the Ugam antiquities, and to single out two stages in the development of pre-revolutionary archaeology. N.I. Veselovsky described a cave with ancient paintings in red and purple colours, a stone construction, and two tepes. J.-A. Castagné provided data on four caves. The results of our research indicate the need for field archaeological investigations in order to rediscover the monuments that had been found by the pre-revolutionary researchers, as well as to expand the current research focus to the unjustly forgotten antiquities of the Ugam River basin.
N.I. Kareev in the Czech and Slovak History and Historiography
Authors:   Comenius University, Bratislava, 811 02 Slovakia, Daniš M.
Published: March 2021

This study deals with the reflections of personality and works of N.I. Kareev in the Czech and Slovak historiography. The contemporary historical science considers N.I. Kareev to be one of the most original and most important representatives of Russian scholarship in the field of social sciences during the late 19th–early 20th centuries. His interdisciplinary and manifold scientific interest in history, sociology, philosophy of history, culturology, and methodology of science has been reflected in the Czech and Slovak humanities. In 1895, N.I. Kareev published in Czech one of his most popular works “The Letters to Studying Youth” (‘Listy studující mládeží’). The introduction to this work, directly addressed to the Czech readers, was particularly valuable. N.I. Kareev’s second work “The Introduction to Sociology” (‘Úvod do sociológie’) was translated into Czech and published in 1907. His articles and the reviews of his works were published on the pages of several Czech journals. N.I. Kareev met in person with many historians, such as Jaroslav Bidlo, Jaroslav Goll, Josef Pekař, and Ľubomír Niederle, as well as with some politicians, such as Tomáš Masaryk and Karel Kramář. His scholarly works on the history of Western Europe were based on both his research on the Austrian Empire and his good knowledge of local realia (including the Slavic ones). After 1989, the Czech and Slovak scholars – historians, philosophers, and sociologists – became increasingly focused on the academic work of N.I. Kareev.
Alternative design for the replacement Cambridge Pipe Bridge
Authors: Prozniak Steven , Moniz Safia , Mellsop Jayden
Published: March 2021

The new Cambridge Pipe Bridge crosses the Waikato River just south of the historic Gaslight Theatre in Cambridge, NZ. The original pipe bridge was a three span truss bridge with a triangular cross section built from steel circular hollow sections and was constructed circa the early 1970s.

Waipa District Council is in the midst of a Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade including new, larger diameter pipework which was proposed to cross the original bridge. As part of the project, strengthening of the existing bridge was designed to accommodate the increased pipe diameter.

Eastbridge and Holmes Consulting developed an alternative tender submission for the main contractor for the works, Fulton Hogan. The alternative design is a new network arch bridge that provides cost savings relative to the original strengthening scheme, a reduction in safety and environmental risks during construction, reduced maintenance costs, and increased seismic resilience for this critical piece of infrastructure.
Eddy current based evaluation of axial force of high-strength bolts
Authors: Akutsu Ayako , Bajracharya Sanjeema , Sasaki Eiichi , Shimozato Tetsuhiro , Tai Masayuki
Published: March 2021

Many bridges have been in service for over 40 years and face to the repapering or reinforcing period due to deterioration. Particularly, in a high-strength bolts used for joints may be loosened due to co-rotation, corrosion, or vibration caused by the vehicles. Thus, it is important to evaluate an axial force of the high-strength bolts. In this research, an axial force evaluation of high-strength bolt using eddy current that does not require measurement preparation has been investigated. The eddy current method is capable of capturing the change in permeability of steel members due to the stress change. Further, the stress distribution of the bolt head is assumed uniform without directionality. Therefore, a numerical simulation and an experiment that measures the output signal of the eddy current probe while introducing axial force to the high-strength bolt has conducted.
Cable stayed bridge over the Crati river in Cosenza
Authors: Pistoletti Pierangelo , Vaccarezza Marcello , Varni Simone , Roggero Paolo , Sciarra Marco
Published: March 2021

The “Bridge over the Crati River” is a cable stayed bridge in a single span of 114.725m, designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava for the city of Cosenza. The main elements are the main tower, the deck, the cables, the reinforced concrete pier and the abutments; one of those is the restraint of the main rear cables. The steel tower has a variable cross section that tapers towards the top where the cables anchoring devices are located. It is inclined of 51° from the vertical and it is anchored by means of 2 anchor stays. The bridge is composed of two parts: a reinforced concrete structure with a span of 30 m that overhangs the railway and the composite cable-stayed bridge with a span of 114.725 m. The cross section of the bridge has a constant width of 24 m all over its length. The deck is sub-divided in four vehicle lanes, two in each direction, divided by a central pedestrian lane slightly raised in comparison with the vehicle lanes. There are 40 stays, placed symmetrically in respect to the middle plane of the structure and arranged according to a mixed geometry between an harp and a fan shape to facilitate the positioning of the anchoring devices at the top of the pylon.
Railway lines of R.F.I. and Ferrotramviaria Crossing in Bari – "Adriatico" cable stayed bridge
Authors: Pistoletti Pierangelo , Maestrelli Paolo , Varni Simone , Sciarra Marco , Danelon Andrea
Published: March 2021

This paper presents design and launching of the railways crossing in Bari. The bridge is made up of ten straight spans, 50 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 45 + 112.5 + 112.5 + 66 + 38.8 + 51.2 m, for a total length of 626 m. The longest spans are a cable-stayed bridge with a 70 m high steel pylon, Y shaped, 60° rotated in respect to the deck axis. The deck, supported by 30 stays about every 15 m, has a cross section 25.5m wide, sub-divided in two carriageways of 8.5 m each, separated by a central median of 2.5 m in width. The height of the beam is equal to 2.5 m and the slab has a thickness of 30 cm. Design, construction and launching choices will be described below.
Reverse engineering of existing reinforced concrete slab bridges
Authors: Harrewijn T. L. , Vergoossen R. P. H. , Lantsoght E. O. L.
Published: March 2021

Most bridges in the Dutch infrastructure are built before 1985 and have experienced increasing traffic intensities and loads. On the other hand, the structural (design) codes have changed over the years. A frequently faced problem in practice is that the original design calculations and technical drawings of a large percentage of the existing bridge stock are unknown or lost. Therefore, the current capacity of the bridge is unknown. The currently used method to map the reinforcement dimensions and amounts in an existing bridge is by (X-ray) scanning. As an alternative, this work proposes Reverse Engineering of the existing bridges, by redoing (a correct) former bridge design with a known design year and load class as a starting point. Consequently, the Reverse Engineered bridge design can be assessed according to the current Eurocodes. A parametric study reveals different capacity margins in bridge design than expected beforehand.
Experimental study on PSC beams with various conditions of corrosion
Authors: Jeon Chi-Ho , Nguyen Duy Cuong , Shim Chang Su
Published: March 2021

There have been many reports released on failure of prestressing steels due to corrosion. This is taken seriously in that it can cause sudden collapse of the structure. In this paper, experimental investigation was performed to evaluate the performance of prestressed concrete beams. The strands of the specimens were electro-chemically corroded with Impressed Current Method (ICM). Location of corrosion, degree of corrosion, and the number of corroded strands are the parameters considered herein. The test result shows strength reduction of a centrally corroded PSC beam, but not in the other location near anchorages. Based on the analytical solutions using mechanical models of corroded strands with different pit depth, the flexural strength of the PSC beams was assessed. A procedure to assess the influence of the corroded strand on the behaviour of a PSC beam is suggested.
Reassessment of the load capacity of an aged bridge under new design methods
Authors: Dong Li , Sun Dongli , Zhang Yizhuo
Published: March 2021

With the fast development of design and calculation methods, the loads and checking requirements of the bridge are constantly improving, and the reassessment of aged bridges is necessary in order to estimate the residual load capacity and performance of these structures. By using new design technologies and durability concepts, through the refined spatial finite element analysis of a 100 m span concrete-filled steel tube arch bridge designed in 2003, the reduction of the load capacity caused by the change of loads and codes is calculated; the errors caused by the lack of design and calculation methods are compared; the decrease of load capacity caused by durability degradation in 10 and 20 years is estimated. The method can effectively evaluate how the aged bridges functions now, so that it can provide guidance for the future operation and maintenance of the aged bridges.
Feasibility study for the Samal Island to Davao City Connector Project
Authors: Pitchforth James , Kite Steve
Published: March 2021

The desire to connect Davao City with the Island Garden City of Samal (IGaCOS), in the Southern Philippines, has been around for more than 40 years. A new sea crossing is planned to link the two areas with a road bridge. A feasibility study has been carried out to establish the alignment and preliminary design of the road link, assess the project impacts and analyse the costs and benefits.
Numerical analyses of joint with steel endplates, headed stud anchors and concrete cross-beam in continuous steel-concrete composite girder bridges
Authors: Briseghella Bruno , He Junping , Xue Junqing , Tobia Zordan
Published: March 2021

Short and medium span continuous steel-concrete composite (SCC) girder bridges are becoming more and more popular. The problems caused by the negative bending moment in the continuous SCC girders cannot be ignored. In order to investigate the performances of the continuous joints between adjacent SCC girders, consist of steel endplates and headed shear stud connected to concrete cross-beam, the finite element model was built by using ABAQUS software, of which the accuracy was verified by experimental results. The parametric analyses were carried out to investigate the influences of the strength and reinforcement ratio of the concrete slabs in SCC girders, and the diameters of the horizontal headed shear studs on the performances of the joints. The ultimate moment capacity of the joint increases with the increase in the strength and reinforcement ratio of concrete slab and the diameters of the horizontal headed shear studs.
Highway traffic loading - AS5100 and NZTA Bridge Manual compared to international codes
Authors: Rhodes Steve , Icke Philip , Lyons Paul
Published: March 2021

Highway bridge design and assessment (rating) requires the application of notional traffic load models, with the most onerous load patterns being determined using influence surfaces. Software speeds the process of obtaining critical traffic load effects. This paper compares the requirements of – and load effects arising from – AS5100, the NZ Transport Agency Bridge Manual and other international Codes including those used in the US, UK, Canada, China, and the Eurocode.
Design of segmental box girder bridges with match cast dry joints in Melbourne, Australia
Authors: McManus Adam , Tofful Daniel , Wozniak Rafal
Published: March 2021

A study of recent work undertaken on the Caulfield to Dandenong Level Crossing Removal Project and West Gate Tunnel Project in Melbourne Australia. The viaducts on these projects were precast segmental box girders erected span-by-span with match cast dry joints which present several key advantages in brownfield construction of linear infrastructure.

These case studies consider the application of Australian and International design standards to the design of Australian Infrastructure. It is acknowledged that international design standards such as AASHTO have moved away from the use of match cast dry joints however in the Australian context they are still relevant, and it has been necessary to interrogate current standards to establish a suitable design basis. This approach is imperative when assessing existing infrastructure like recent work on the West Gate Tunnel Project which involved the assessment of the existing precast segmental City Link Viaducts. This study seeks to present recommendations on how AS5100.5 may be modified to provide a more practical and efficient solution for the design of new and the assessment of existing infrastructure.
On the potential for using bridge natural frequencies to detect scour: an experimental study
Authors: Kariyawasam Kasun , Middleton Campbell , Talbot James , Fidler Paul , Haigh Stuart , Roberts Jenny , Madabhushi Gopal
Published: March 2021

Monitoring bridges for precursors of failure has the potential to improve their safety and resilience. However, the most prominent cause of bridge failure, scour, is difficult to monitor as it occurs underwater. The potential to identify scour by monitoring changes in the natural frequencies of a bridge is studied experimentally in this research. A field study was carried out on a bridge with pre- existing scour confined to a section of a piled pier foundation, which was monitored throughout a repair process involving controlled backfilling of the scoured region, i.e. scour in reverse. The changes in natural frequency due to backfilling of the scour hole were unable to be captured experimentally as the estimated magnitudes (9% and 6 % for the first and second modes respectively) were of the same order as the variability of the natural frequency estimates. In order to study the relationship between natural frequency and scour in a more controlled environment, a geotechnical centrifuge experiment was conducted to simulate scour in a small-scale integral bridge model in dense sand. The model showed a significant (up to 40 %) change in natural frequency as a result of a scour depth equivalent to 30 % of the piled foundation depth. These experimental findings suggest that natural frequencies can potentially aid in detecting extensive bridge scour for piled foundations, but it may be challenging to detect localised scour limited to only a small portion of a foundation.
Experimental study on partial-combination method in continuous composite girder
Authors: Su Hang , Su Qingtian , Yu Wensheng , Wang Yunjin , Zeng Minghui
Published: March 2021

Cracking of concrete slab in the negative bending moment region of continuous composite girders is a key problem which needs to be solved in the design of continuous composite girder bridges. The main reason of concrete cracking in the negative bending moment region of continuous composite girder is tensile stress under the effects of temperature and load in the portion of integration. The paper gives the method of partial-combination to connect steel girder with concrete slab, that is, a rubber sleeve is placed on the stud of the negative bending moment region to increase the slip between the concrete slab and the steel girder at the joint. Two specimens of negative bending moment region are designed to observe the mechanical properties in the negative bending moment region of composite girders when using the method of partial-combination. The advantages and disadvantages of the partial-combination method are analysed.
Attachment of a crash-tested traffic barrier to a new bridge deck design in aluminium
Authors: Annan Charles-Darwin , Cormier Martin , Fafard Mario
Published: March 2021

Traffic barriers are mounted on bridges to provide a physical impassable limit to redirect errant vehicles safely into the roadway. The desired level of performance is determined by the bridge usage and the roadway configuration; higher performance levels are associated with higher risk level for impact and severity of impact. Current design standards require that the designed traffic barrier and anchorage system be tested under real crash conditions to assure crashworthiness, i.e. satisfactory interaction with design vehicles. Certain modifications to an already crash-tested and approved barrier may be permitted if it can be demonstrated by advanced analysis that they would not adversely affect the designed performance of the barrier. This study seeks to evaluate the design of a connector for attaching an already approved traffic barrier on bridge decks made from welded multi-void aluminium extrusions. The attachment design facilitates installation, and is able to absorb vehicular impact loads without any permanent plastic deformation in the aluminium deck panel.