The development of poli­tical geography and geopolitics as an academic and research discipline in the Baltic re­gion: The historical contribution of Saint Petersburg University

In this article, we address the little-researched and complicated problems of the genesis, periodisation, and development of political geography and geopolitics as academic and re­search disciplines across the Baltic region in general and the contribution of Saint Peters­burg University in particular. The terms ‘political geography,’ ‘geopolitics’ and the corre­sponding academic disciplines, as well as the first concepts of political geography and geo­politics, emerged in the Baltic. The Russian and German schools of thought made a valuable contribution to these fields of research. Using the historical, structural-genetic, and activity-geospace approaches, we identify and analyse the major historical, research, and academic paradigms in the development of political geography. In doing so, we consider the case of Saint Petersburg University. These paradigms (state-descriptive, anthropogeographical, state-geopolitical, and activity-societal) differ in their methodological frameworks and the­matic priorities. We demonstrate that the term ‘political geography’ and the science it de­notes are of Russian origin, having been developed by German scientists during their aca­demic service for Russia. Further, we analyse the contribution of German and Russian re­searches to the development of the Saint Petersburg school of political geographic and geo­political thought and describe its current state

Geopolitical regionalisation of the Baltic area: the essence and historical dynamics

The article discusses a theoretical framework for investigating regionalisation and geopolitical regionalisation, employing the activity-geospatial approach. The main theoretical foci of this study are system-forming, or region-building, socio-geo-adaptation and geopolitical relations. The article examines various types of transboundary and transnational geopolitical regionalisation as manifestos of geopolitical relations. These types are categorised based on scale, functional area, historical and geographical characteristics, quality, legal status and geospatial features, placing particular emphasis on the Baltic region. An essential aspect of studying a region involves identifying and defining its spatial boundaries. Since determining the exact limits of the Baltic region remains problematic, this article examines various approaches to address this issue, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, particularly in the context of geopolitical analysis. The concluding part of the article explores several centuries of the evolution of the Baltic Sea region, divided into historical geopolitical stages. It is highlighted that the geopolitical essence of the Baltic region was changing radically over time. Particular attention is paid to the current state of the Baltic regional geopolitical entity, which is classified as a conflict-ridden or confrontational geopolitical region in the 'Eurasian arc of instability' interpreted as a geopolitical macroregion

Forms of International Cooperation in Environmental Education: the Experience of Saint Petersburg State University

The authors analyse different forms of environmental education projects and programmes implemented in the Baltic Sea region. The first one is "The Baltic University" programme taught in English. The "Baltic University" is a network of more than 200 universities from 14 counties of the Baltic Sea region. This education programme offers an opportunity for students to enroll on bachelor and master degree programmes related to environmental and social problems of the Baltic Sea region. The Polar and Marine Sciences, POMOR master programme, represents the second form of international environmental education. Russian and German researchers from six universities and four research centres have developed the programme. The target group of the programme are Russian and international students, studying together during the whole duration of the programme. It is the first internationally accredited MA programme taught in English. International accreditation proves the compliance of the programme with international education standards. The same cooperation model is used in a new international master programme - Cold Regions Environmental Landscapes Integrated Science (CORELIS). The programme started in 2016. It is implemented jointly by Hamburg university (the lead partner of the project), and university professors from Helsinki (Finland) and Lisbon (Portugal). Researchers from the Austrian National Institute of Polar Research (Austria, and Lund University (Sweden) will join the programme at a later stage. Such an approach will help achieve the synergy of the European and Russian approaches to environmental education. The Russian-Norwegian master programme "Geoecological monitoring and rational use of natural resources in the Northern oil and gas production regions" is a good example of the third form of international environmental education. The programme similar to POMOR and CORELIS. However, it has one distinctive feature - Russian and foreign students study together from the second term only. The authors describe the ways of achieving the learning objectives of these master programmes depending on the students' language skills and their basic knowledge of ecology and nature management

Correlation of susceptibility to ortho-aminoazotolueneinduced hepatocarcinogenesis with Car and Ahr signaling pathway activation in mice

Ortho-aminoazotoluene (OAT) is a potent hepatocarcinogen for most strains of mice. It has previously been shown that OAT application activates the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (Ahr) and the constitutive androstane receptor (Car) in the mouse liver. Both of these receptors are directly involved in the process of hepatocarcinogenesis. In this study, we investigated the effect of chronic OAT administration on the mRNA expression levels of Ahr, Car and their target genes Cyp1a1 and Cyp2b10 in the liver of DD/He (DD) and CC57BR/Mv (BR) mouse strains contrasting in sensitivity to hepatocarcinogenesis. The inflammatory response of these strains was also studied. Male mice of both strains received OAT oil solution at the dose of 225 mg/kg body weight four times within two months. Control animals received the equivalent solvent amount. Mice were sacrificed on days 1 and 4 after the last OAT administration. Gene expression levels in the liver were determined by real-time PCR. The inflammatory response was evaluated by serum concentration of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha). In resistant BR mice, OAT induced a pronounced and prolonged increase in Cyp1a1 mRNA, showing primarily Ahr activation, while the DD strain displayed a more pronounced elevation of Cyp2b10 expression, indicative of Car activation. In addition, a strong inflammatory response to OAT was recorded in DD mice but not in BR. It is assumed that the prevalence of Ahr signaling pathway activation over Car signaling pathway activation is a factor of resistance to OAT-induced hepatocarcinogenesis

Loop operators and S-duality from curves on Riemann surfaces

We study Wilson-'t Hooft loop operators in a class of N=2 superconformal field theories recently introduced by Gaiotto. In the case that the gauge group is a product of SU(2) groups, we classify all possible loop operators in terms of their electric and magnetic charges subject to the Dirac quantization condition. We then show that this precisely matches Dehn's classification of homotopy classes of non-self-intersecting curves on an associated Riemann surface--the same surface which characterizes the gauge theory. Our analysis provides an explicit prediction for the action of S-duality on loop operators in these theories which we check against the known duality transformation in several examples.Comment: 41 page

Inhibition of mutagenic activation of orthoaminoazotoluene increases its carcinogenicity for mouse liver

Various mutationally impaired genes are often found in malignant tumors of animals and humans. At the same time, a large number of carcinogens demonstrate positive activity in different in vitro tests for mutagenicity. These findings are indicative of a geno- toxic mechanism of carcinogen action. It is considered that chemically active carcinogens induce mutations (and tumors) directly interacting with DNA, while inactive substances are mutagenically activated in the processes of cellular metabolism in target tissues. The aminoazo dyes was found to be activated by N-hydroxilation and subsequent conjugation with sulfuric acid catalyzed by the enzyme sulfotransferase. Previously we found that it is activated metabolites of ortho-aminoazotoluene that are responsible for its inhibitory effect on hormonal induction of tyrosinaminotransferase activity in the liver of sensitive mice. Inhibition of sulfoconjugation of 4-aminoazobenzene, another hepatocarcinogen for mice, by pentaclorophenol was reported to reduce its both mutagenic and carcinogenic activity. In this paper, we confirmed this observation. But we found that, when used ortho-aminoazotoluene, pentaclorophenol inhibited its mutagenic activity, but significantly stimulated the hepatocarcinogenic potency. It seems that carcinogenic action is provoked by unmetabolysed ortho-aminoazotoluene per se or some of its nonsulfated derivatives. The results of our comparative study with ortho-aminoazotoluene and 3.4-benzopyrene are in contradiction with the genotoxic theory of carcinogenesis: both are similarly activated by mouse liver enzymes, but induce tumors in different tissues: the former, hepatocellular carcinomas and the latter, splenic lymphoma. The conclusion was made that the accepted notion about the mechanism of carcinogenesis has to be revised

Stable bundles on hypercomplex surfaces

A hypercomplex manifold is a manifold equipped with three complex structures I, J, K satisfying the quaternionic relations. Let M be a 4-dimensional compact smooth manifold equipped with a hypercomplex structure, and E be a vector bundle on M. We show that the moduli space of anti-self-dual connections on E is also hypercomplex, and admits a strong HKT metric. We also study manifolds with (4,4)-supersymmetry, that is, Riemannian manifolds equipped with a pair of strong HKT-structures that have opposite torsion. In the language of Hitchin's and Gualtieri's generalized complex geometry, (4,4)-manifolds are called ``generalized hyperkaehler manifolds''. We show that the moduli space of anti-self-dual connections on M is a (4,4)-manifold if M is equipped with a (4,4)-structure.Comment: 17 pages. Version 3.0: reference adde

Induction of tyrosine aminotransferase in mice is inhibited by activated metabolites of ortho- aminoazotoluene

Aminoazo dyes and other hepatocarcinogenic substances inhibit glucocorticoid-mediated induction of adaptive enzymes, including tyrosine aminotransferase (TAT), in mouse and rat liver. There is a specific relationship between the effect of a carcinogen on TAT induction and its liver carcinogenicity in animals. Presuming tumor development being initiated not directly by the chemicals employed but their metabolically activated derivatives, the question arises whether TAT induction is inhibited by carcinogen metabolites or by their parent compounds. The goal of this paper is to shed some light on the issue. Mouse strains differing in the sensitivity to both carcinogenic and antiglucocorticoid (TAT induction inhibitory) effects of the mouse-specific carcinogen ortho- aminoazotoluene (OAT) underwent a set of experimental procedures: ablation of gonadal and adrenal glands, administration of inhibitors (CoCl2, pentachlorophenol), inducers (3,4- benzopyrene, Aroclor 1254, 20-methylcholanthrene) of xenobiotic-metabolizing enzyme activities, and others. The results unequivocally confirm that glucocorticoid induction of TAT activity in mouse liver is inhibited by activated metabolite(s) of OAT rather than by its intact molecules. In contrast, nonspecific genotoxic agents such as cyclophosphamide and cisplatin exert no effect on TAT induction by glucocorticoids. The wide occurrence (practically in each TAT-expressing  hepatocyte) and rapidly reversible inhibition of enzyme induction by the carcinogen point to the epigenetic nature of this phenomenon

Broadband velocity modulation spectroscopy of HfF^+: towards a measurement of the electron electric dipole moment

Precision spectroscopy of trapped HfF^+ will be used in a search for the permanent electric dipole moment of the electron (eEDM). While this dipole moment has yet to be observed, various extensions to the standard model of particle physics (such as supersymmetry) predict values that are close to the current limit. We present extensive survey spectroscopy of 19 bands covering nearly 5000 cm^(-1) using both frequency-comb and single-frequency laser velocity-modulation spectroscopy. We obtain high-precision rovibrational constants for eight electronic states including those that will be necessary for state preparation and readout in an actual eEDM experiment.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 3 table