International Legal Aspects of Control of Trafficking in New Psychoactive Substances

Aim. To analyze relevant provisions of the main national and international regulatory legal acts in the field of monitoring and control of new potentially dangerous substances.Tasks. To study the current legal regulation of legal and illicit trafficking of new psychoactive substances in the Russian Federation and the EAEU states. To examine new amendments in the legislation of the European Union regulating the substances traffic control and illicit traffic countering. To provide an overview of the procedures of new psychoactive substances scheduling under the International Drug Control Conventions. To formulate proposals for improving the national and international anti-drug legislation.Methods. The methods of logical and comparative legal analysis, as well as the legal prediction method have been used in this article.Results. The legislation of the EAEU countries in the field of the control of the legal and illicit trafficking of new psychoactive substances needs to be improved and harmonized. The substances scheduling procedures under the international drug control conventions in the EU and the UN are very difficult multi-stage and excessively long. The timing of adoption of new regulatory acts certainly does not correspond to the potential danger of uncontrolled trafficking of new potentially dangerous psychoactive substances for public health.Conclusion. The penalties under Art. 234.1 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code “Illicit trafficking of potentially dangerous psychoactive substances” should be toughened. The legal procedure for forming the state Register of new psychoactive substances must be changed. In the EAEU countries, it should be necessary to make agreement at the interstate level about a uniform approach to the introduction and content of criminal justice responses to the illicit trafficking of new psychoactive substances. In the EU countries and in the frame of the UN, the scheduling procedure under international drug control should be changed regarding new psychoactive substance. All such substances of this kind should be included in a Special Annex for which certain agreed control measures would be prescribed, with the possibility of subsequent expert evaluation of the potential danger of the substance to individual and public health. These established control measures in the fut ure might be toughened or reduced based on the WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence critical review and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) position

Segregated Network Polymer Composites with High Electrical Conductivity and Well Mechanical Properties based on PVC, P(VDFTFE), UHMWPE, and rGO

The formation of a segregated network structure (wittingly uneven distribution of a filler) is one of the most promising strategies for the fabrication of electrically conductive polymer composites at present. However, the simultaneous achievement of high values of electrical conductivity with the retention of well mechanical properties within this approach remains a great challenge. Here, by means of X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS), near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectra, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), dielectric spectroscopy, and compression engineering stress-strain curve analysis, we have studied the effect of a segregated network structure on the electrical conductivity and mechanical properties of a set of polymer composites. The composites were prepared by applying graphene oxide (GO) with ultralarge basal plane size (up to 150 μm) onto the surface of polymer powder particles, namely, poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-tetrafluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TFE)), and ultrahigh-molecular-weight poly(ethylene) (UHMWPE) with the subsequent GO reduction and composite hot pressing. A strong dependence of the segregated network polymer composites' physical properties on the polymer matrix was demonstrated. Particularly, 12 orders of magnitude rise of the polymers' electrical conductivity up to 0.7 S/m was found upon the incorporation of the reduced GO (rGO). A 17% increase in the P(VDF-TFE) elastic modulus filled by 1 wt % of rGO was observed. Fracture strength of PVC/rGO at 0.5 wt % content of the filler was demonstrated to decrease by fourfold. At the same time, the change in strength was not significant for P(VDF-TFE) and UHMWPE composites in comparison with pure polymers. Our results show a promise to accelerate the development of new composites for energy applications, such as metal-free supercapacitor plates and current collectors of lithium-ion batteries, bipolar plates of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells, antistatic elements of various electronic devices, etc. © 2020 American Chemical Society

Tunka Advanced Instrument for cosmic rays and Gamma Astronomy

The paper is a script of a lecture given at the ISAPP-Baikal summer school in 2018. The lecture gives an overview of the Tunka Advanced Instrument for cosmic rays and Gamma Astronomy (TAIGA) facility including historical introduction, description of existing and future setups, and outreach and open data activities.Comment: Lectures given at the ISAPP-Baikal Summer School 2018: Exploring the Universe through multiple messengers, 12-21 July 2018, Bol'shie Koty, Russi

An efficient integral equation technique for the analysis of arbitrarily shaped capacitive waveguide circuits

In this contribution a new and efficient integral equation formulation is presented for the analysis of arbitrarily shaped capacitive waveguide devices. The technique benefits from the symmetry of the structure in order to reduce the dimensions of the problem from three to two dimensions. For the first time, this technique formulates the waveguide capacitive discontinuity problem as a 2-D scattering problem with oblique incidence, combined with an efficient calculation of the parallel plate Green's functions. The numerical method allows the efficient evaluation of the electromagnetic fields inside the analyzed structures. Results for different practical capacitive waveguide devices are successfully compared with commercial software tools for validation of the proposed theory. Finally, a novel low-pass filter implementation based on circular conducting posts has been proposed. The field contour lines in the critical gaps of the new structure are curved due to the use of rounded posts. This could result in improved power handling capabilities with respect to standard corrugated low-pass filters. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.This work has been developed with financial support from SENECA project reference 08833/PI/08, and CICYT project reference TEC2007-67630-C03.Quesada Pereira, FD.; Vera Castejon, P.; Alvarez Melcon, A.; Gimeno Martinez, B.; Boria Esbert, VE. (2011). An efficient integral equation technique for the analysis of arbitrarily shaped capacitive waveguide circuits. Radio Science. 46:1-11. doi:10.1029/2010RS004458S1114

On the concentration of large deviations for fat tailed distributions, with application to financial data

Large deviations for fat tailed distributions, i.e. those that decay slower than exponential, are not only relatively likely, but they also occur in a rather peculiar way where a finite fraction of the whole sample deviation is concentrated on a single variable. The regime of large deviations is separated from the regime of typical fluctuations by a phase transition where the symmetry between the points in the sample is spontaneously broken. For stochastic processes with a fat tailed microscopic noise, this implies that while typical realizations are well described by a diffusion process with continuous sample paths, large deviation paths are typically discontinuous. For eigenvalues of random matrices with fat tailed distributed elements, a large deviation where the trace of the matrix is anomalously large concentrates on just a single eigenvalue, whereas in the thin tailed world the large deviation affects the whole distribution. These results find a natural application to finance. Since the price dynamics of financial stocks is characterized by fat tailed increments, large fluctuations of stock prices are expected to be realized by discrete jumps. Interestingly, we find that large excursions of prices are more likely realized by continuous drifts rather than by discontinuous jumps. Indeed, auto-correlations suppress the concentration of large deviations. Financial covariance matrices also exhibit an anomalously large eigenvalue, the market mode, as compared to the prediction of random matrix theory. We show that this is explained by a large deviation with excess covariance rather than by one with excess volatility.Comment: 38 pages, 12 figure

SYNTHESIS OF THICK GALLIUM NITRIDE LAYERS BY METHOD OF MULTI-STAGE GROWTH ON SUBSTRATES WITH COLUMN STRUCTURE

Subject of Research.The paper deals with processes of formation and transformation of defects during multi-stage growth of thick gallium nitride layers with hydride vapor phase epitaxy on GaN/Al2O3 substrates with buried column pattern formed with the use of metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. Methods. The growth of initial GaN layers was performed with the use of metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. On the surface of the initial layers columns with the height of 800 nm were generated by means of ion etching. These columns were overgrown with 3-4 µm-thick GaN layers. On thus formed substrate multi-stage growth of GaN layers was performed with the use of hydride vapor-phase epitaxy. The total thickness of GaN layers was 100-1500 µm. The grown layers were studied by optical and electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Main Results. Density of threading dislocations in the layers grown by hydride vapor-phase epitaxy was (3-6)·107 cm-2, that was one order of magnitude lower than in the used substrate, and two to three orders lower than dislocation density in typical GaN layers grown on commercial sapphire substrates. Raman spectroscopy data were indicative of low level of mechanical stress in the layers and their high structural uniformity. It was established that under multi-stage growth conditions, non-catastrophic cracks (those that do not cause sample destruction) are able to transform into macropores and appear to be an important structural element, serving to stress relaxation in the bulk of thick gallium nitride layers grown on foreign substrates. Practical Relevance. The results of the study can be used in the development of III-nitride heterostructures for optoelectronics and high-power and high-frequency microelectronics

ТРУДНОСТИ ВЕДЕНИЯ ГЕМОДИАЛИЗ-ЗАВИСИМЫХ ПАЦИЕНТОВ С ОСТРЫМ ИНФАРКТОМ МИОКАРДА. КЛИНИЧЕСКИЙ ПРИМЕР

The clinical case reports a personalized expert approach to the management of a patient with myocardial infarction receiving programmed hemodialysis. The challenges facing by cardiologists with antiplatelet therapy, statin therapy, betablockers and renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system blockers as basic therapy have been discussed. The experience of performing coronary angiography with a limited dosage of the contrast agent followed by the stenting in the patient intolerant to unfractionated heparin is presented The complexity of post-puncture hemostasis before dialysis is highlighted. A particular attention has been paid to the existing difficulties in selecting rational loading doses of antiplatelet agents for these patients due to poor evidences on the elimination of clopidogrel metabolites from the blood flow.Представленный клинический пример демонстрирует персонифицированный экспертный коллегиальный подход к ведению пациентки с инфарктом миокарда, находящейся на программном гемодиализе. Разобраны вопросы назначения кардиологом антитромбоцитарной терапии, терапии статинами, бета-адреноблокаторами и блокаторами ренин-ангиотензин-альдостероновой системы в качестве базовой терапии. Обсужден опыт проведения интервенционным хирургом коронарографии и стентирования в условиях непереносимости нефракционированного гепарина, ограниченном объеме введения контрастного препарата, сложности постпункционного гемостаза до диализа. Отражены существующие сложности в подборе больной рациональных нагрузочных доз дезагрегантов, с учетом дефицита знаний о возможностях элиминации метаболитов клопидогреля из кровоток