Public Opinions Impacts on Cryptocurrency Valuation: A View from Behavioral Finance Perspective

Many fintech start-ups participant companies and cryptocurrencies have experienced phenomenal growth in value during the past several years. Many specialists would like to know the reasons for such success. In this article we investigate the predictive power of public opinions. This is one of the few works that using quantitative analysis connects social media and internet users' activities with cryptocurrency valuations

Evolution of a Web-Scale Near Duplicate Image Detection System

Detecting near duplicate images is fundamental to the content ecosystem of photo sharing web applications. However, such a task is challenging when involving a web-scale image corpus containing billions of images. In this paper, we present an efficient system for detecting near duplicate images across 8 billion images. Our system consists of three stages: candidate generation, candidate selection, and clustering. We also demonstrate that this system can be used to greatly improve the quality of recommendations and search results across a number of real-world applications. In addition, we include the evolution of the system over the course of six years, bringing out experiences and lessons on how new systems are designed to accommodate organic content growth as well as the latest technology. Finally, we are releasing a human-labeled dataset of ~53,000 pairs of images introduced in this paper

Technical and Environmental Assessment of the Consequences of Accidents on Offshore Gas Pipelines in the Baltic Sea

The failure of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September 2022 had significant technical and economic consequences not only for the European Union energy sector and the gas production and transmission industry of the Russian Federation, but also entailed a number of environmental consequences, the scale of which has yet to be explored. During the preliminary assessment of the consequences of the accident, the team of scientists from the Kant Baltic Federal University, the Atlantic branch of the VNIRO and the Shirshov Oceanology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences calculated the composition of the gas mixture emitted and assessed its volume, studied potential environmental damage to the biogeocenoses of the Western and Southern Baltic, calculated the impact of the gases emitted on global temperature. The studies were based on data obtained from open sources and allow us to give a preliminary assessment of the environmental impact of the accident. The combination of analytical, evaluation and research methods used is basically a classic approach to accounting for the volume of gas emissions and their subsequent impact. Leakage volume was calculated by first determining the volume of gas that entered the natural environment after impact (before the emergency valves were closed), and then determining the second volume of gas (until pressure stabilization in the cut-off pipe sections and in the environment). Based on the information on the biota in the water area and the nature of the gas movement, an estimated impact on biological organisms in the zone of the Bronholm depression was determined. Based on the models of the influence of methane emissions on climatic parameters, the preliminary consequences of the emission were established. The assessment of the environmental impact on the water area was conducted and the main directions of further research determined. The potential ways to minimize the environmental consequences of the accident in the short and long term have been considered

Promotion of «Soft Power» of Russia in Central Asia as an Instrument of Development of the Eurasian Economic Integration

The article says that it is very important to promote the «soft power» of Russia in Central Asia for the development of the Eurasian economic integration. In this regard, the authors demonstrate on some cases that at present soft power plays an important role in the practice of the regional policy of the great powers in the region. The article points out that now Russia has developed and practically controls an extensive system of soft power instruments guaranteeing multilateral cooperation in the social and humanitarian sphere. The authors analyze application of soft power in specific areas and define the shortcomings of Russian soft power that must be addressed for the effective application of this instrument in the world in general and in Central Asia in particular. At the end, some practical conclusions and recommendations are made

Crude Oil Distillation with Superheated Water Steam: Parametrical Sensitivity and Optimization

Stability of crude oil distillation units was analyzed with mathematical models developed using Aspen Hysys. Parametrical sensitivities of light fractions yields, heat duties and steam load of column trays to perturbations of superheated steam flow rate were estimated. Objective function based on the light products yields and energy consumption for distillation was formed. The maxima of the objective function were calculated depending on operational parameters and flow rate of water steam