The Roots of “Penal Populism”: the Role of Media and Politics

Penal populism is often labeled as a process whereby politicians devise punitive penal policies, which are adjudged to be “popular” within the general public, and are designed to mobilize votes rather than improve the crime and justice situation. A “tough on crime” policy stance is usually most manifest during election campaigns. [...]  

Academic Writing for Publication Purposes and Machine Translation: Is the Symbiosis Possible?

The abstracts in Russian and in English are written according to certain rules. For articles written in Russian, an abstract in English is the only means of informing the world scientific community about the authors’ research results. However, the quality of abstracts written in Russian and then translated into English does not always meet the criteria for readability and comply with the accepted academic and publication conventions. This situation might result from the intensive usage of machine translation (MT) systems by authors who do not take into account the guidelines for the input text quality and the limitations inherent in MT systems. The author analyzed the requirements for the input texts and some typical errors in the target ones. The article describes the stages of training masters, postgraduate students and university staff in the effective use of MT systems. The training is based on a bilingual approach, which implies a constant comparison of vocabulary, grammar and style in the native and English languages. The author comes to the conclusion that the effective use of MT systems for writing an abstract in English is possible if the authors have the command of Russian and English at the level sufficient for a concise and unambiguous expression of their thoughts and ideas. Self-censoring is a prerequisite for creating a text that is “understandable” for MT systems. Students must follow simple rules: write sentences of 15-20 words; express one thought per one sentence; use more active verbs; choose nouns that express a specific concept; exclude unnecessary words. At the post-editing stage, learners can use the tools available on the Internet, which allow not only editing the target text, but also will enable learners to acquire independent editing skills

RNase footprinting demonstrates antigenomic hepatitis delta virus ribozyme structural rearrangement as a result of self-cleavage reaction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) is a satellite virus of hepatitis B. During viral replication the 1700-nucleotide-long genomic RNA and its complement, the antigenomic RNA, undergo self-cleavage catalyzed by internal ribozyme motifs that are essential for propagation of the virus <it>in vivo</it>. These self-cleavage activities are provided by 85-nucleotide-long sequence elements, the genomic and antigenomic forms of HDV ribozyme. Recently four permuted variants of the antigenomic HDV <it>cis</it>-ribozyme with a self-cleavage site located at the 5' proximity, in the middle, or nearby the 3' end of the molecule were constructed and synthesized. These constructs exhibit equal activity, a bi-phasic kinetics of self-cleavage reaction and reaction products with low and high stability. We have used ribonuclease probing to footprint the structures of uncleaved and post-cleaved forms of the antigenomic HDV ribozymes in solution. Uncleaved ribozymes, associated and individual products of the self-cleavage reaction were analyzed using ribonuclease and Fe(II)-EDTA protection assays to reveal the differences in the structure of pre- and post-cleaved antigenomic HDV ribozyme in solution.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Our findings demonstrate that a significant conformational change accompanies catalysis in the antigenomic HDV ribozyme in solution, in contrast to minor conformational switch observed in crystals of the genomic form. This study indicates that changes in the structure of stem P1 and stem P4 are minor, those of the region ascribed to stem P2, stem P3 and loop l3 are dramatic, while stem P1.1 results from the self-cleavage reaction.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data agree with the structure of post-cleaved and disagree with that of pre-cleaved forms of HDV ribozyme published elsewhere.</p

Bright X-ray pulsars as sources of MeV neutrinos in the sky

High mass accretion rate onto strongly magnetised neutron stars results in the appearance of accretion columns supported by the radiation pressure and confined by the strong magnetic field of a star. At mass accretion rates above $\sim 10^{19}\,{\rm g\,s^{-1}}$, accretion columns are expected to be advective. Under such conditions, a noticeable part of the total energy release can be carried away by neutrinos of a MeV energy range. Relying on a simple model of the neutrino luminosity of accreting strongly magnetised neutron stars, we estimate the neutrino energy fluxes expected from six ULX pulsars known up to date and three brightest Be X-ray transits hosting magnetised neutron stars. Despite the large neutrino luminosity expected in ULX pulsars, the neutrino energy flux from the Be X-ray transients of our Galaxy, SMC and LMC is dominant. However, the neutrino flux from the brightest X-ray transients is estimated to be below the isotropic background by two orders of magnitude at least, which makes impossible direct registration of neutrino emission from accreting strongly magnetised neutron stars nowadays.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, submitted to MNRA

The Problem of Dissemination of Extremist Materials on the Internet Based on the Analysis of Open Sources

Преступления экстремистской направленности представляют собой значительную опасность, т. к. часто провоцируются и совершаются с использованием сети Интернет, являющейся важнейшим информационным ресурсом и средством распространения идей, мнений, а также пропаганды. С целью информирования и профилактики экстремистских проявлений был применен метод контент-анализа. Целью метода являлось статистическое рассмотрение структуры материалов, определение конкретных площадок их размещения, соотнесение количественных и качественных показателей, которые позволили озвучить выводы. Актуальность работы заключается в выявлении фактов и тенденций, возможных рисков.Extremist crimes represent a significant danger as they are often provoked and committed using the Internet, which serves as an important information resource and way of spreading various ideas, opinions, but also propaganda. In order to inform and prevent extremist manifestations, the study used the method of content analysis. The purpose of the method was to statistically examine the structure of materials, determine specific sites for their placement, correlate quantitative and qualitative indicators that made it possible to voice conclusions. The relevance of the work lies in identifying facts and trends, possible risks