Switching Properties of the Contact Coatings Based on Refractory Metals Alloys

Funding Information: This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in the frame of the state assignment FSSN-2020-0003. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.Switching the properties of the Ag contact groups of an electromagnetic relay with the electrodeposited Ni-W and Co-W alloy coatings was studied. It is shown that these coatings are able to stabilize the spread of contact resistance within the entire test interval and to increase the service life of Ag contact groups from 2.3 × 106 to 4.5 × 106 commutation cycles. According to our research, the service life of coated contact groups is mainly determined by a change in the surface morphology caused by the electrical erosive transfer of the contact materials and to a lesser extent by the formation of poorly conductive adsorbed hydrocarbon films.publishersversionpublishe

An Effect of Co–W Barrier Sublayer on the Functional Characteristics of Au–Ru Contact Coatings

Funding Information: Funding: This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in the frame of the state assignment FSSN-2020-0003. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.The performance characteristics (microhardness, porosity, roughness, and transient resistance) of Au–Ru coatings with and without the Co–W alloy barrier sublayer electrodeposited on the surface of contact blades of commercially produced reed switches were investigated. It was found that the barrier sublayer reduces the average roughness of the coatings without significant change in their porosity. The Au–Ru coatings without sublayer exhibited a greater variation in the transient resistance during an increase in the pressing force. The service time of reed switches with the barrier sublayer increased in both testing modes: in low-power (50 mV, 5 µA, 50 Hz) by more than 4 × 106 switching cycles, and in mean-power (12 V, 0.25 A, 50 Hz) by more than 1.8 × 106 switching cycles.publishersversionpublishe

Synthesis and Application of Domestic Glassy Carbon TiO2 Nanocomposite for Electrocatalytic Triclosan Detection

Nanoparticles of TiO2 are suitable for many catalytic and photocatalytic applications due to their extraordinary properties such as superhydrophobicity, semiconductivity, electron-rich, and environmental compatibility. The main crystalline phases of TiO2, anatase, and rutile possess different crystal structures, crystallinity, crystalline sizes, and specific surface areas, and these characteristics directly affect the catalytic performance of TiO2. In the present study, domestic carbon material enhanced with TiO2 nanoparticles was synthesized and used for the construction of a modified carbon paste electrode. The electrocatalytic activity of the modified electrodes was investigated depending on the TiO2 crystalline phases in the electrode material. Furthermore, the obtained working electrode was utilized for triclosan detection. Under optimized experimental conditions, the developed electrode showed a submicromolar triclosan detection limit of 0.07 µM and a wide linear range of 0.1 to 15 µM. The relative standard deviations for repeatability and reproducibility were lower than 4.1%, and with satisfactory selectivity, the proposed system was successfully applied to triclosan monitoring in groundwater. All these results confirm that the sustainable production of new and domestically prepared materials is of great benefit in the field of electrocatalysis and that the morphology of such produced materials is strongly related to their catalytic properties

Connecting the data landscape of long-term ecological studies: The SPI-Birds data hub

The integration and synthesis of the data in different areas of science is drastically slowed and hindered by a lack of standards and networking programmes. Long-term studies of individually marked animals are not an exception. These studies are especially important as instrumental for understanding evolutionary and ecological processes in the wild. Furthermore, their number and global distribution provides a unique opportunity to assess the generality of patterns and to address broad-scale global issues (e.g. climate change). To solve data integration issues and enable a new scale of ecological and evolutionary research based on long-term studies of birds, we have created the SPI-Birds Network and Database (www.spibirds.org)\u2014a large-scale initiative that connects data from, and researchers working on, studies of wild populations of individually recognizable (usually ringed) birds. Within year and a half since the establishment, SPI-Birds has recruited over 120 members, and currently hosts data on almost 1.5 million individual birds collected in 80 populations over 2,000 cumulative years, and counting. SPI-Birds acts as a data hub and a catalogue of studied populations. It prevents data loss, secures easy data finding, use and integration and thus facilitates collaboration and synthesis. We provide community-derived data and meta-data standards and improve data integrity guided by the principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), and aligned with the existing metadata languages (e.g. ecological meta-data language). The encouraging community involvement stems from SPI-Bird's decentralized approach: research groups retain full control over data use and their way of data management, while SPI-Birds creates tailored pipelines to convert each unique data format into a standard format. We outline the lessons learned, so that other communities (e.g. those working on other taxa) can adapt our successful model. Creating community-specific hubs (such as ours, COMADRE for animal demography, etc.) will aid much-needed large-scale ecological data integration

Russian-Speaking Diaspora In Finland As A Public Diplomacy Tool

The article deals with complex studies of  the  Finnish case particularly migrants’ inclusion analysis into local cultural and political environments (as conditions to cultural and political environment stability) as well as public diplomacy impact evaluation of an important «soft power»  tool where migrants role is rather high. Authors scrutinize migrants’   interaction with  the  environment,   outline cause-and-effect   links of  this interaction, and unveil external factors that influence the respondents’ political behavior. The research  method is based upon interviews,  which result  in respondents’ typology development, political information channels were defined, and the influence of education and social inclusion upon political communication  was characterized. This method helps to perceive migrants’ integration policy at example of Finland, the fourth most attractive country  in the world in accordance  with the Migrant  Integration  Policy  Index.  Finnish experience could be highly useful for Russia in terms of both national migration policy development.   The resulting characteristics  of migrants’ political communication  might be of high interest in terms of migration policy regulation and understanding the issue of migration quotas, help to predict structural changes in society, also to provide the basis for making decisions on the effective use of public diplomacy tools