THE REUNIFICATION OF CRIMEA AND THE CITY OF SEVASTOPOL WITH THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Crimea and the City of Sevastopol justifiably separated from Ukraine and reunified with the Russian Federation in 2014. Support for this proposition is found in historic, economic, and political reasoning. Extant principles of public international law, derived from the Treaty of Westphalia, and subsequently developed by Great Powers to facilitate their strategic interests, when applied to the Crimean/Russian reunification, produce absurd results: nailing a population to a cross of misery, oppression, and poverty. In addition, the principles invoked are underdeveloped, prejudiced toward Nation States holding the imprimatur of “Great Powers,” and ignore individual and population preferences. Moreover, scholarly and jurist analyses repose upon an edifice of incomplete facts, and ignore the 1991 illegal annexation of Crimea by Ukraine. Crimea suffered twenty-three years of economic rot under Ukrainian rule. Under the Russian Federation, economic conditions in the peninsula are improving, despite the US/EU sanctions imposed upon the Crimean population, a cruelty that the Great Powers cannot justify. Exceptional circumstances that took place in Ukraine in 2013/14 permitted scheduling a referendum to seek independence from Ukraine. Polls taken after the 2014 referendum unanimously demonstrate that the population of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol prefer reunification with the Russian Federation, as opposed to going back and becoming a subject of Ukraine rule and exploitation under a US installed right wing regime. Repeated calls to “give back” Crimea to Ukraine are based on twisted historical narratives, solely designed to weaken the Russian Federation

Eastern and Southern Ukraine’s Right to Secede and Join the Russian Federation

This article answers a multi-faceted question: do the people occupying the region of Eastern and Southern Ukraine have the right to secede from Ukraine and merge with the Russian Federation? It also evaluates the legal status of the economic sanctions imposed upon the Russian Federation for its alleged interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine.The argument proceeds from the assumption that the international legal system does not repose on a foundation of empirical validity, but rather upon sets of authoritative statements, insusceptible of verification. In this context, the article constructs an argument based upon relevant public international law texts, interpreted according to contemporary jurisprudential thought and principles of statutory construction partially embodied in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969, the implied right of secession contained in the UN General Assembly’s Declaration on Friendly Relations of 1970, and the need to achieve pragmatic results to legal questions. The argument thus avoids traditional doctrinal analysis and the mud of history.In short, the people occupying the region of Eastern and Southern Ukraine have the right to secede from Ukraine and merge with the Russian Federation, and the economic sanctions imposed against the Russian Federation for its presumed interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine are illegal under the United Nations Charter and the World Trade Organisation.

Student Career Choices before and during Quarantine Measures

Nowadays, in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a dramatic transformation of the professions in demand and labor market preferences. In this regard, universities need to review and pay special attention to young people’s professional development taking into account new conditions. In February 2020, before quarantine in the Russian Federation, the authors of the present research conducted a survey in order to study the students’ career preferences. The survey involved 616 students of Bachelor’s and Master’s programs of M. K. Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University (“My professional career”), 78 students of the Arctic State Agrotechnological University (“Labor values of youth”), 29 students of the Arctic State Institute of Culture and Arts (“Me and my professional career”). The results showed that the students consider career development as an opportunity to realize their material goals, to combine professional and personal interests, and to set up their own business. In addition, during a quarantine measures due to the COVID 19 pandemic in May 2020, an express survey of 437 students was conducted. The results of the survey showed that some students have changed their attitude to their future career, i.e., they wanted to get advanced professional education, improve their digital skills to make it easier to adapt for remote work. Some students expressed their thoughts regarding future employment, i.e., a budget organization or the sphere of small and medium businesses. The authors concluded that university programs for future specialists’ training should take into account students’ career preferences, desires, professional intentions and attitudes

Distance Learning Experience in the Context of Globalization of Education

Today, the digitalization of education is one of the main tasks of the state social policy and an urgent sphere of life in modern society. At the beginning of 2020, the spread of COVID-19 forced educational institutions to introduce urgently all levels of distance learning technologies focused on the possibility to learn remotely and in real-time. The research focuses on the need to create an effective mechanism for organizing distance learning in the context of the globalization of education. The purpose of the research is to reveal the experience of distance learning in the context of globalization of education (based on the analysis of using the online learning platform Moodle). The results of the research reveal the prerequisites for the popularization of distance learning technologies in the practice of educational institutions, present the experience of using Moodle in the university educational process and determine the prospects of distance learning in educational practice

Reevaluation of the proposed autocrine proliferative function of prolactin in breast cancer

The pituitary hormone prolactin (PRL) has been implicated in tumourigenesis. Expression of PRL and its receptor (PRLR) was reported in human breast epithelium and breast cancer cells. It was suggested that PRL may act as an autocrine/paracrine growth factor. Here, we addressed the role of locally synthesised PRL in breast cancer. We analysed the expression of PRL in human breast cancer tumours using qPCR analysis and in situ hybridization (ISH). PRL mRNA expression was very low or undetectable in the majority of samples in three cDNA arrays representing samples from 144 breast cancer patients and in 13 of 14 breast cancer cell lines when analysed by qPCR. In accordance, PRL expression did not reach detectable levels in any of the 19 human breast carcinomas or 5 cell lines, which were analysed using a validated ISH protocol. Two T47D-derived breast cancer cell lines were stably transfected with PRL-expressing constructs. Conditioned medium from the T47D/PRL clones promoted proliferation of lactogen-dependent Nb2 cells and control T47D cells. Surprisingly, the PRL-producing clones themselves displayed a lower proliferation rate as compared to the control cells. Their PRLR protein level was reduced and the cells were no longer responsive to exogenous recombinant PRL. Taken together, these data strongly indicate that autocrine PRL signalling is unlikely to be a general mechanism promoting tumour growth in breast cancer patients. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10549-013-2731-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Lithological markers of protobazhenit mats splitting on sedimentary slope

Bazhenov abnormal sequences (BAS) are treated as result of protobazhenit plastic deformation by neocomian submarine slump on sedimentary slope. Protobazhenit mats had low bulk density (1.1-1.5 g/sm3) and positive buoyancy in silty-sandy mud of unconsolidated deposits (bulk density 1.7-1.8 g/sm3). Conceptual geomechanical model of BAS generation includes 6 studies: 1 - bedding (slipping) slide, breakage of under-achimovsky clay and protobazhenit, 2 - out-flow achimovsky sandy slump, 3 - slump pulp spreading under protobazhenit layer with its deformation and cracking, 4 - protobazhenit layer cracking due to local loading of growing sedimentary slope, 5 - secondary heaving sand injection through lateral protobazhenit brake side, 6 - burial stage. Up-floating of protobazhenit mats on semiliquid sedimentary slope occurred discretely with numerous subsidings, splittings and jumpings events. During sedimentary slope progradation mats had lack of Archimedes stability due to rising of sedimentary level, led to increment of hydraulic pressure on their side surfaces. The hydraulic fracturing conditions appeared when this pressure exceeded protobazhenit shear strength. Fracturing event was provoked by microseism or by hydraulic shock of gravity mass movement. Mat usually had splitted on two parts: lower part was fixed within sediments, upper one lifted to Archimedes equilibrium level. Splitting and up-lifting of mat produced debris flows, those were spreading on slope and enriched by protobazhenit’sinclasts. These outstanding debrit layers with bazhenitinclasts may be used as lithological markers of mats splitting events for achimovsky sequences. Theoretical model is illustrated by seismostratigraphic interpretation of achimovsky beds of Imilorskoe field of West Siberia. Two types of debrit layers with bazhenitinclasts was detected in well core. First type is generated byptotobazhenit layer’s breakage by non-uniform load of sedimentary slope (fixed in one well). The second type is associated with on-slope splitting and up-lifting of protobazhenit mats (traced in core of three wells)