Three-years in expectation: the effect of “maternity capital” policy on housing and education expenditures

This paper assesses the effectiveness of the “maternity capital” subsidy by estimating the changes in consumption patterns of families with two children in the Russian Federation between 2000-2016. The main focus is on the housing and education expenditures as they represent two main ways of current usage of the subsidy. The research covers four different time periods of families with two children, which are expenditures in the first year after the second child’s birth and the three consecutive years. I found that the subsidy decreases the housing expenditures by 18.4 percent and increases the education expenditure by 63 percent at the year of the second child’s birth using the Difference-in-Difference method

Intelligent Hardware-Software Processing of High-Frequency Scanning Data

The constant emission of polluting gases is causing an urgent need for timely detection of harmful gas mixtures in the atmosphere. A method and algorithm of the determining spectral composition of gas with a gas analyzer using an artificial neural network (ANN) were suggested in the article. A small closed gas dynamic system was designed and used as an experimental bench for collecting and quantifying gas concentrations for testing the proposed method. This device was based on AS7265x and BMP180 sensors connected in parallel to a 3.3 V compatible Arduino Uno board via QWIIC. Experimental tests were conducted with air from the laboratory room, carbon dioxide (CO2), and a mixture of pure oxygen (O2) with nitrogen (N2) in a 9:1 ratio. Three ANNs with one input, one hidden and one output layer were built. The ANN had 5, 10, and 20 hidden neurons, respectively. The dataset was divided into three parts: 70% for training, 15% for validation, and 15% for testing. The mean square error (MSE) error and regression were analyzed during training. Training, testing, and validation error analysis were performed to find the optimal iteration, and the MSE versus training iteration was plotted. The best indicators of training and construction were shown by the ANN with 5 (five) hidden layers, and 16 iterations are enough to train, test and verify this neural network. To test the obtained neural network, the program code was written in the MATLAB. The proposed scheme of the gas analyzer is operable and has a high accuracy of gas detection with a given error of 3%. The results of the study can be used in the development of an industrial gas analyzer for the detection of harmful gas mixtures

DESIGN AND ENGINEERING OF ADVANCED SI-BASED THIN FILM ANODE MATERIALS FOR LI-ION BATTERIES

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are a versatile way of energy conversion and storage. Thin film batteries are the next generation of Li-ion battery technology with the thickness of tens μm and aimed to power a diverse range of microdevices. In order to increase the storage possibility, i.e. capacity, of such batteries, new high capacity electrode materials should be developed. Silicon-based materials are the most promising anodes due to the highest theoretical capacity and a low potential. However, the current drawbacks of Si such as significant volume expansion, electrical contact loss, and low conductivity impede its practical application in LIBs and commercialization. In this doctoral thesis, the research has been performed in two main directions in order to improve the existing microbatteries and find a way to develop a stable Si-based thin film electrode. The first direction is an investigation of novel silicon carbide thin film (3C-SiC) with a cubic lattice as an anode for LIBs. The advanced method of "single" particle measurement for studying the electrochemical properties of an individual microparticle provided the new data which allowed suggesting the mechanisms of lithiation/delithiation in 3C-SiC film. The use of XRD, TEM, XPS, Raman spectroscopy confirmed that there was no degradation of the 3C-SiC crystal lattice. The obtained results demonstrated that there are in two possible reasons of 3C-SiC thin film electrochemical activity, an intercalation or a capacitance. The second direction is the design of the three-dimensional (3D) amorphous Si (a-Si) thin film anode. The improvement of a-Si thin film anode was achieved through studying the effects of substrate surface condition, dopants incorporation, electrolyte additive and addition of graphene (GF) underlayer. The designed n-type doped porous a-Si thin film and 3D a-Si/GF anode exhibited high electrochemical performance in the lithium cells for several hundred cycles

Periostin in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) development and synergistic effects mediated via CCL5

The incidence of IBD is rising all over the world and is affecting 1 in 4000 people in Europe and 1 in 16.000 in Asia. [1] Welldocumented, reliable numbers for Kazakhstan are currently not available but observations from local physicians (personal communication) suggest that numbers might be significantly higher than suggested by the literature. The matricellular protein Periostin has recently been shown to be involved in IBD [2] (and our own unpublished data). In a chemically induced murine model (dextrane sulfate sodium DSS) it mediates intestinal inflammation through the activation of NF-κB signaling, which suggests that periostin is a potential therapeutic target for inflammatory bowel disease [2]. CCL5, also know as RANTES, is a chemokine shown to be interacting with the G protein-coupled receptors CCR1, CCR3 and CCR5 [3]. In a recent study it could be shown that CCR5 expression correlates with the infiltration of inflammatory cells into the lamina propria of IBD patients [4]. Periostin is a matricellular protein originally isolated from osteoblasts and found to be preferentially expressed in the periosteum [5, 6]. Periostin contains an N-terminal secretory signal peptide, followed by a cysteine-rich domain, four internal homologous repeats, and a C-terminal hydrophilic domain. The four internal repeats exhibit homology to the axon guidance protein fasciclin I that is involved in the development of nervous system in invertebrates and were thus named fasciclin domains

Nonlinear Inverse Problem for an Ion-Exchange Filter Model: Numerical Recovery of Parameters

This paper considers the problem of identifying unknown parameters for a mathematical model of an ion-exchange filter via measurement at the outlet of the filter. The proposed mathematical model consists of a material balance equation, an equation describing the kinetics of ion-exchange for the nonequilibrium case, and an equation for the ion-exchange isotherm. The material balance equation includes a nonlinear term that depends on the kinetics of ion-exchange and several parameters. First, a numerical solution of the direct problem, the calculation of the impurities concentration at the outlet of the filter, is provided. Then, the inverse problem, finding the parameters of the ion-exchange process in nonequilibrium conditions, is formulated. A method for determining the approximate values of these parameters from the impurities concentration measured at the outlet of the filter is proposed

FORMATION OF COGNITIVE ABILITIES OF JUNIOR SCHOOL CHILDREN BASED ON INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTION

Purpose: In the article, the authors reviewed a number of methods for the formation of cognitive processes of children of primary school age. The main emphasis is placed on the disclosure of the essence and role of interdisciplinary connection as one of the main means of forming the cognitive abilities of junior school children since the problem of interdisciplinary connection in education now attracts increasing attention of scientists and practical teachers. Methodology: The history of pedagogy has accumulated a valuable heritage on the theory and practice of interdisciplinary connections, namely: an objective need to reflect the real relationship of objects and phenomena of nature and society in the educational cognition was formed (from the standpoint of pedagogy, methodology, psychology); ideological and developmental functions of interdisciplinary connections, their positive influence on the formation of a true system of scientific knowledge and the general mental development of the pupil were distinguished; method of coordinated teaching in various academic subjects was developed, attempts were made to prepare the teacher for the implementation of interdisciplinary connections in practice. Result: The existing subject system of education, including primary grades, presupposes an autonomous consideration of individual aspects of reality and orients pupils towards the private assimilation of knowledge in one or another particular area that are weakly interconnected. Also, the article presents the opinions and definitions of scientists on the formation and development of children's cognitive processes, which allowed identifying a number of controversies, which were the prerequisites for research. Applications: This research can be used for universities, teachers, and students. Novelty/Originality: In this research, the model of formation of the cognitive abilities of junior schoolchildren based on interdisciplinary connection is presented in a comprehensive and complete manner

Mapes of secondary sources in the problem of ERT probing 2D medium: numerical method and analytical solutions

The paper considers a mathematical model of electrical tomography above the media with local inclusions. Numerical solutions of a system of integral equations for a medium with local inclusion are compared against a numerical implementation of the analytical solution of the problem for a case of a sphere in homogeneous space. The parameters of local inclusion and the depth of heterogeneity are varied. Maps of secondary sources in the ERT (Electrical Resistivity Tomography) probing problem are constructed: for local inclusion in the form of the ellipsoid, an ellipsoid in a homogeneous space (analytical solution of the problem) and for two - layer half - spaces as well. Numerical results are presented, and maps of secondary sources in the cases where the immersed heterogeneity is an insulator and a conductor are computed