Improving green budget decisions and transparency through public participation: evidence from Russia

Addressing climate change and protecting the environment have become the key global challenges and priorities and requires a whole-of-society approach. Many countries are increasing their commitments to meet the Paris Agreement’s goals, introducing green budgeting among them. The goal of the paper is to understand how public participation in public budgeting with green objectives is being effectuated in the Russian Federation, and to look at what governments can do to facilitate it. The author explores the relevance of environmental problems for Russians, and analyses public participation in environmental policy-making with a focus on budgeting in Russia. The paper provides examples of green participatory budgeting practices of global interest, highlights the potential of participatory budgeting encouraging pro-environmental behaviour, potentially enriching the repertoire of climate-friendly actions and fostering the growing interest in green budgeting. The author concludes with recommendations on how to improve public participation in relation to greening the budget process

'Gas cushion' model and hydrodynamic boundary conditions for superhydrophobic textures

Superhydrophobic Cassie textures with trapped gas bubbles reduce drag, by generating large effective slip, which is important for a variety of applications that involve a manipulation of liquids at the small scale. Here we discuss how the dissipation in the gas phase of textures modifies their friction properties. We propose an operator method, which allows us the mapping of the flow in the gas subphase to a local slip boundary condition at the liquid/gas interface. The determined uniquely local slip length depends on the viscosity contrast and underlying topography, and can be immediately used to evaluate an effective slip of the texture. Besides superlubricating Cassie surfaces our approach is valid for rough surfaces impregnated by a low-viscosity 'lubricant', and even for Wenzel textures, where a liquid follows the surface relief. These results provide a framework for the rational design of textured surfaces for numerous applications.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Teacher's Professional Health as a Factor of the Development of a Student's Harmonic Personality (on J. Updike's Novel “Terrorist”)

AbstractDefining factors of a student's personality development requires analyzing the notion of professional health of a teacher. Urgent social instability, social changes, environmental problems and changes in educational policy influence both teachers and students. Professionalism of teachers is necessary condition for young people's resistance to negative psychological impacts. The scope of our work is a generalized approach to uncover connections between teachers’ professionalism and their contributions to the development of the student's harmonic personality. We analyze several criteria of teachers’ level of professionalism including their moral intentions, drawing on previous work of Russian, U.S., German, Turkish, etc. scholars. We use correlative analysis, comparative, structural-typological methods, and structural-poetical method while engaging literary images of a teacher and a student from the novel “Terrorist” by well-known American writer J. Updike. The results demonstrate that the development of a student's harmonic personality is closely connected to the professional health of a teacher. We find that the professional health of a teacher is the base for the harmonious development of the cognitive, psychological and moral characteristics of a student's personality

Flows and mixing in channels with misaligned superhydrophobic walls

Aligned superhydrophobic surfaces with the same texture orientation reduce drag in the channel and generate secondary flows transverse to the direction of the applied pressure gradient. Here we show that a transverse shear can be easily generated by using superhydrophobic channels with misaligned textured surfaces. We propose a general theoretical approach to quantify this transverse flow by introducing the concept of an effective shear tensor. To illustrate its use, we present approximate theoretical solutions and Dissipative Particle Dynamics simulations for striped superhydrophobic channels. Our results demonstrate that the transverse shear leads to complex flow patterns, which provide a new mechanism of a passive vertical mixing at the scale of a texture period. Depending on the value of Reynolds number two different scenarios occur. At relatively low Reynolds number the flow represents a transverse shear superimposed with two co-rotating vortices. For larger Reynolds number these vortices become isolated, by suppressing fluid transport in the transverse direction.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Green Budgeting Tools and Practice

Russia is following the course of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and shaping its climate strategy. In March 2023, Russia approved the National Action Plan for the second phase of adaptation to climate change for the period until 2025. The public budget is the main tool for achieving the political goals of the government, therefore, in order to implement the public policy in the field of environmental protection and counteraction to climate change, green budgeting is being introduced. The purpose of this article is to actualize the ideas of green budgeting, systematize such budgeting tools within the framework of the general concept of green budgeting, taking into account foreign experience of their use. The author uses general scientific methods, in particular methods of analysis and synthesis of relevant scientific literature, legal information and publications of international organizations. The following conclusions are made: The public budget system is able to minimize those economic activities that are adverse for the environment by creating the possibility of tracking, analysis, evaluation and adjustment of budget expenditures using the tools of green budgeting. The latter does not require restructuring of the public finance management system; the prerequisite for its practical use is the presence of environmental care among the state national goals