Green to Gray: Political Ecology of Paving Over Green Spaces in Moscow, Russia

Moscow, Russia is the largest city in Europe with over 12.6 million residents. The remarkable fact is that it is also a biologically diverse ecosystem with a few dozen specially protected natural areas, including 15 large forest parks and a variety of smaller nature-places. The recent landscaping “improvements” conducted by the Moscow government since 2010 greatly increased negative impacts on the green infrastructure, e.g., a lot more paving, systematic grass mowing, widespread planting of exotic plant species, increased residential and commercial construction, more noise, etc. While quantification of the impacts of the above on the biota is not easy, we offer some insights into the changes over the last 10 years with respect to birds, insects, and plants within a few green spaces inside the city beltway. We then proceed to analyze these changes from the political ecology perspectives by looking at what Moscow residents feel and how they interact with the now more controlled nature and how nonhuman actors interact with the residents. Paradoxically, some developments may have actually increased contact opportunities for the residents with certain elements of nature, while at the same time forcing the wilder natural elements to retreat away from the city and give way to lawns and other controlled substrates

Demographic and Landscape Change in Linden Hills, Minneapolis: A Case Study in Gentrification

Best Our Husky Compact Reflection Act with Personal Integrity and Civic Responsibility . Runner Up Undergraduate Oral Presentation. Abstract Demographic and Landscape Change in Linden Hills, Minneapolis: A Case Study in Gentrification. Linden Hills, a Minneapolis neighborhood best known for its hilly linden-tree lined streets, charming homes, parks, and boutique-style shops, is undergoing a transformation from an older generation neighborhood, of lower-income, into a trendy, young urbanite area--a process commonly referred to as gentrification . Using city records and Google Map\u27s Street View, and drawing on results from a survey of Linden Hills residents, I identify changes in the residential landscape of Linden Hills over the past 50 years and gather opinions on gentrification and the resulting community transformation. From this I was able to see how personal identities changed as the landscape transformed. Through survey and observation, I analyzed that international food offerings within this neighborhood demonstrate how residents have accepted global influences amongst the challenges they have faced with gentrification. While the process of re-making place is neither inherently good or bad, the social, economic, and cultural impacts of such landscape transformation deserves attention at the local scale. I argue that no matter the challenges a neighborhood may face, including those resulting from the process of gentrification, they can still adapt and learn from those changes over time

Influence of Moisture and Temperature Regimes on the Phytolith Assemblage Composition of Mountain Ecosystems of the Mid Latitudes: A Case Study From the Altay Mountains

Background and Aims: Reconstruction of past ecosystems requires a robust understanding of modern deposition patterns and taphonomy for the proxies utilized. Recent advances in phytolith analysis have contributed to improved understanding of these processes, but many gaps remain. This study aims to test a few specific hypotheses that have been proposed by research outside the tropics in the Northern Hemisphere. Our study area focuses on the Northern Altay, a culturally important region, entirely within Russia, north of China, and Mongolia. We collected 60 phytolith assemblages from modern soils at 300 to 2,300 m a.s.l. elevations, sampled from 20 plots in triple replicates within 13 different plant communities. Detailed releves of these plant communities, including forests, meadows, steppe, and alpine tundra, were obtained during the summer of 2017. We used a locally derived scheme of V. P. Sedelnikov to assign studied communities to ecological categories based on moisture and temperature availability.Methods: Standard oxidation and heavy liquid flotation methods of extraction were used. Morphotypes were counted under 400–1,000x magnification on an optical microscope. We used a two-tier approach to phytolith morphotypes classification: a detailed one with over 40 morphotypes included and a shorter one with only sums of selected morphotypes. The former approach can produce some interesting results, such as using various types of rondels (e.g., pyramidal vs. keeled) or large vs. small lanceolate (trichomes). Using sums may be more widely applicable, because the researchers can replicate these results better and less training is needed. However, there are fewer diagnostic options with the sums approach.Key Results: Our results, using discriminant analysis, canonical correspondence analysis and other multivariate statistical methods, confirm earlier studies, both in the region and elsewhere that despite redundancy in phytolith distributions in soils, there are some selected morphotypes that can reliably distinguish communities at various positions along elevational, moisture, and temperature gradients. We developed a regionally diagnostic key that allows researchers to quickly identify various plant communities based on their phytolith assemblages in soils.Conclusions: Seven of 13 regionally important communities at medium elevations in the Altay Mountains can be distinguished by using aggregated and more detailed phytolith morphotypes

The Procedure of Selection of Flywheel Energy Storage as an Autonomous Power Source

Выбор электромаховичных накопителей как готовых устройств сводится к определению числа накопителей и схем их включения при разряде. В статье предложена методика выбора электромаховичных накопителей согласно принципам баланса мощности и энергии системы. Получены основные выражения условий выбора в общем виде. Рассмотрены численные примеры выбора накопителей при каскадной и параллельной схемах разряда. Решение для каскадной схемы работы сведено к задаче оптимизации, определены целевая функция, граничные условия и система ограничений. Численное решение получено с помощью инструмента «Поиск решения» пакета MS ExcelThe market of flywheel energy storages is widely represented by various devices with different characteristics and areas of application. However, there is still no standard procedure of flywheel storage devices selecting, which could be unifying to several analytical expressions. The stock-produced flywheel energy storages selection is solved by determining the number of flywheel modulars and the mode of their operations during discharge. The article proposes a flywheel energy storages selection procedure according to the principles of the power and energy balances of the system. The selection criteria basic expressions are obtained in general form. Numerical examples of the choice of storage devices with cascade and parallel discharge modes are considered. The selection criteria of flywheel energy storage system with cascade operation mode is reduced to optimization task, for which the objective function, boundary conditions and a constraint system are defined. The numerical solution is obtained using the Solver of MS Exce

Phytoliths from some grasses (Poaceae) in arid lands of Xinjiang, China

Opal phytoliths, as silicon dioxide inclusions, are abundant in different parts of a plant. It is known that grasses are the most representative in this respect. The research of phytoliths, removed from 25 most common grass species in the arid and semiarid lands of the Junggar Basin and adjacent areas, has been undertaken. The visual estimation of diversity and variability of silica cells and identification of their morphological types (patterns) were also the aim of our research. Since the work is preliminary, we have emphasized on the visual estimation of silica cell variability and involved only the leaf blades in the analysis. Drawings of the revealed silica cells, characteristic of 25 species, are provided. The sig-nificant morphological diversity of phytoliths has been revealed, as well as their taxonomic similarity at the level of subfamilies. These data can be used for the identification of phytoliths from sediments

Demographic Changes, Trade Routes, and the Formation of Anthropogenic Landscapes in the Middle Volga Region in the Past 2500 Years

The development of landscapes of the central part of the Middle-Volga region in the last 2500 years was a discontinuous process of the explosive growth of population and land utilization alternating with stages of depopulation and desolation. The periods of depopulation and transitions of cultures occurred at similar times to climate changes. Some cultures were associated with distinct climatic episodes, such as the association of the Dark Ages Cold Period with Hun, post Hun, Heraldic, and Khasarian times, and the Medival Warm Period with the time of Volga Bulgaria. A combination of archaeological and paleoecological analyses allowed us to reconstruct a sequence of landscape and land use changes in relation to the historical development of the region. The first millennium CE was a time of major changes in population, agricultural technologies, social structure, and settlement patterns in the forest-steppe zone. The Middle Volga region underwent a transition from a non-populated, mainly forested landscape of first centuries CE to a highly deforested agricultural landscape of the Volga Bulgarian state by the 11th century CE. Within several centuries, the landscape was transformed by shifting cultivation, wood and ore extraction, and the formation and expansion of pastures and road networks. The process of deforestation in the region was facilitated by the relatively warm climates of the Medieval Warm Period.411-45

TeV-scale bileptons, see-saw type II and lepton flavor violation in core-collapse supernova

Electrons and electron neutrinos in the inner core of the core-collapse supernova are highly degenerate and therefore numerous during a few seconds of explosion. In contrast, leptons of other flavors are non-degenerate and therefore relatively scarce. This is due to lepton flavor conservation. If this conservation law is broken by some non-standard interactions, electron neutrinos are converted to muon and tau-neutrinos, and electrons - to muons. This affects the supernova dynamics and the supernova neutrino signal. We consider lepton flavor violating interactions mediated by scalar bileptons, i.e. heavy scalars with lepton number 2. It is shown that in case of TeV-mass bileptons the electron fermi gas is equilibrated with non-electron species inside the inner supernova core at a time-scale of order of (1-100) ms. In particular, a scalar triplet which generates neutrino masses through the see-saw type II mechanism is considered. It is found that supernova core is sensitive to yet unprobed values of masses and couplings of the triplet.Comment: accepted to Eur.Phys.J.

Pop-up Seminar: Ukraine vs. Russia (Q&A)

Over two weeks after our first pop-up (Feb. 10) Russian experts Dr. Blinnikov (Geography) and Dr. Lindsey (Political Science), made themselves available to answer the questions on the minds of our campus community and beyond.https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/sopa_seminars/1002/thumbnail.jp

An orchid (Orchidaceae)-rich area recommended for preservation in Novosibirsk Region, Russia

The spatial distribution of 14 species of the orchid family (Orchidaceae) was studied at the left bank of the Koynikha River (Iskitimskiy District, Novosibirsk Region, Russia). Four species are listed in the Russian Federation Red Data Book, four are listed in the Novosibirsk Region Red Data Book. The number of individual plants is sufficient to ensure the long-term viability of each red-listed orchid population. What is apparently one of the largest populations of Cypripedium macranthos in the region is described (up to 5,000 individuals). Some of the orchids discovered require further study, namely interspecific hybrids of Dactylorhiza and Gymnadenia and distinctive floral developmental morphs of Platanthera. Аpplying the international criteria for allocation of an “Important Plant Area”, we nominate a new one for South Siberia. Based on the analysis of plant species composition of protected areas in Novosibirsk Region, we conclude that in situ preservation of orchids in the region is overall insufficient. It is therefore necessary to organize a new protected area “Orchid Zapovednik” in the category of “botanical Zakaznik” on 335 hectares with an explicit floral diversity conservation mandate and long-term orchid population monitoring

Pop-up Seminar: Ukraine vs Russia

The School of Public Affairs held its first pop-up seminar of 2022: “Ukraine vs Russia” where faculty with close ties to that region of the world hosted a 1-hour webinar discussing the latest headlines, implications, and what it means to people living near the border. The School of Public Affairs pop-up seminar discusses questions of immediate importance to our local and global communities. “Ukraine vs Russia” was a collaboration between St. Cloud State University\u27s School of Public Affairs, College of Science and Engineering, Department of Geography & Planning, and Department of Political Science.https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/sopa_seminars/1000/thumbnail.jp