Articoli di riviste sul tema "Statistics, etc., France, 1909"

The article is devoted to the role of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the freight supplying of the Russian Far East in 1903–1913 (since the commissioning of its last section through Manchuria along the CER). Methodologically, the article is based on a comparison of various sources: customs, port, railway statistics, reports of the Dobrovolny flot (Voluntary Fleet), etc. It is concluded that the sources do generally provide a possibility to conduct a study in the period under review, and it can be based on different tables from the foreign trade yearbooks and railway statistics on transportation to the Ussuri railroad. The statistics are considered in two ways: 1) "import - transportation from Russia" and "by sea - by the railroad". This allows us to draw conclusions about where the goods mainly came from and how they got to the local market. Comparative statistics are built for the most important categories of goods: cereals, sugar, fuel, timber, metals, textile, etc. A comparison of the freight transportation by the railroad and by sea showed that, at least until 1909, the railroad supply was not significant, but began to grow later, when the railway transportation to the region helped to reduce the share of imports, especially in terms of supplying textiles and some categories of metal goods.

Abstract Women show greater and greater activity on the job market, they obtain better positions, salaries, etc. However, the statistics concerning their professional activity differ from those of men. We should take into consideration the fact that women are the ones who give birth to children and, in majority, take care of their upbringing, especially in the first years of child’s life. Policies of particular states are different in terms of the amount and availability of family benefits, and that can be reflected in women’s willingness to return to work.

Abstract. Physically-based droughts can be defined as a water deficit in at least one component of the land surface hydrological cycle. The reliance of different activity domains (water supply, irrigation, hydropower, etc.) on specific components of this cycle requires drought monitoring to be based on indices related to meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological droughts. This paper describes a high-resolution retrospective analysis of such droughts in France over the last fifty years, based on the Safran-Isba-Modcou (SIM) hydrometeorological suite. The high-resolution 1958–2008 Safran atmospheric reanalysis was used to force the Isba land surface scheme and the hydrogeological model Modcou. Meteorological droughts are characterized with the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) at time scales varying from 1 to 24 months. Similar standardizing methods were applied to soil moisture and streamflow for identifying multiscale agricultural droughts – through the Standardized Soil Wetness Index (SSWI) – and multiscale hydrological droughts, through the Standardized Flow Index (SFI). Based on a common threshold level for all indices, drought event statistics over the 50-yr period – number of events, duration, severity and magnitude – have been derived locally in order to highlight regional differences at multiple time scales and at multiple levels of the hydrological cycle. Independent spatio-temporal drought events have then been identified and described by combining local characteristics with the evolution of area under drought. Summary statistics have finally been used to compare past severe drought events, from multi-year precipitation deficits (1989–1990) to short hot and dry periods (2003). This multilevel and multiscale drought climatology will serve as a basis for assessing the impacts of climate change on droughts in France.

Abstract. This paper presents experiments of PM10 data assimilation with the optimal interpolation method. The observations are provided by BDQA (Base de Données sur la Qualité de l'Air), whose monitoring network covers France. Two other databases (EMEP and AirBase) are used to evaluate the improvements in the analyzed state over one month (January, 2001) and for several outputs (PM10, PM2.5 and chemical composition). Then, the method is applied in operational conditions. The results show that the assimilation of PM10 observations significantly improves the one-day forecast for total mass (PM10 and PM2.5). The errors on aerosol chemical composition are not reduced and are sometimes amplified by the assimilation procedure, which shows the need for chemical data. As the observations cover a limited part of the domain (France versus Europe) and as the method used for assimilation is sequential, we focus on the horizontal and temporal impacts of assimilation in the last part of this paper. To conclude, we discuss the perspectives, especially the use of a variational method for assimilation or the investigation of the sensitivity to a few choices (e.g., the error statistics, etc.).

The article presents the views of 30 experts on a number of national policy problems in the Chuvash Republic. According to experts, friendly, conflict-free interethnic and interconfessional relations prevail in Chuvashia, rare cases of negative interethnic contacts are characteristic of everyday situations, most often related to the use of native languages. The possibility of interethnic conflicts is considered as unlikely. They may be associated with potentially ill-conceived actions in the sphere of linguistic and other ethno-cultural interests of representatives of individual peoples. According to experts, preservation and improvement of good-neighborly relations between representatives of certain ethnic groups are greatly influenced by the verified national policy and successful economic development of the republic. Some experts support the opinion which prevails among the republic population on the negative impact of labor migrants on the labor market opportunities for the old-age population, although statistics data do not confirm such attitudes. From experts’ viewpoint, successful implementation of national policy in the republic could be facilitated by organization of a special state management structure (ministry, committee), active involvement of enthusiasts in national cultural associations in various management issues, regular ethnological monitoring, dissemination of positive practices in the field of interethnic relations, etc. In general, experts believe that there is no noticeable influence of the ethnic factor on real politics in Chuvashia.

Abstract. Physically-based droughts can be defined as a water deficit in at least one component of the land surface hydrological cycle. The reliance of different activity domains (water supply, irrigation, hydropower, etc.) on specific components of this cycle requires drought monitoring to be based on indices related to meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological droughts. This paper describes a high-resolution retrospective analysis of such droughts in France over the last fifty years, based on the Safran-Isba-Modcou (SIM) hydrometeorological suite. The high-resolution 1958–2008 Safran atmospheric reanalysis was used to force the Isba land surface scheme and the hydrogeological model Modcou. Meteorological droughts are characterized with the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) at time scales varying from 1 to 24 months. Similar standardizing methods were applied to soil moisture and streamflow for identifying multiscale agricultural droughts – through the Standardized Soil Wetness Index (SSWI) – and multiscale hydrological droughts, through the Standardized Flow Index (SFI). Based on a common threshold level for all indices, drought event statistics over the 50-yr period – number of events, duration, severity and magnitude – have been derived locally in order to highlight regional differences at multiple time scales and at multiple levels of the hydrological cycle (precipitation, soil moisture, streamflow). Results show a substantial variety of temporal drought patterns over the country that are highly dependent on both the variable and time scale considered. Independent spatio-temporal drought events have then been identified and described by combining local characteristics with the evolution of area under drought. Summary statistics have finally been used to compare past severe drought events, from multi-year precipitation deficits (1989–1990) to short hot and dry periods (2003). Results show that the ranking of drought events depends highly on both the time scale and the variable considered. This multilevel and multiscale drought climatology will serve as a basis for assessing the impacts of climate change on droughts in France.

This article analyzes a new trend in the arms export policy of modern France – an increasing share of European countries in the geographical structure of sales. Based on statistics and examples, regional priorities of French export before Emmanuel Macron’s presidency are identified; the reasons for the turn towards Europe at present stage and its possible limits are studied. The author draws attention to the fact that until recently, the Middle East and Asia have been key partners of France, providing two thirds of international demand for the products of French defense industry. However, today their role is declining in favor of the EU countries: Belgium, Romania, Greece, etc., with which Paris has signed a series of major contracts in 2018–2021. This development primarily stems from a difficult foreign policy context forcing the EU members to allocate more funds for defense needs, as well as from temporary difficulties in France’s relations with Middle Eastern clients. The author concludes that the «Europeanization» of sales is likely to continue but it is too early to talk about a full reorientation of French exports towards Europe. A more realistic task Paris de facto solves is to balance its export structure by diversifying the range of customers.

The paper presents the results of the study on the importance of the historiographical component in the Russian science of universal history at the beginning of the second half of the XIX century. Special attention is paid to the study by Russian historians of the European science of universal history, which had a significant impact on the formation of the Russian science of universal history, starting with the university lecture courses by T.N. Granovsky and P.N. Kudryavtsev in the middle of the XIX – the beginning of the XX century. Special attention is paid to the first historiographical works by Mikhail Nazarovich Petrov (“The Latest National Historiography in Germany, England and France”) and Vladimir Ivanovich Guerrier (“Essay on the Development of Historical Science”), due to whom the European historiography of universal history turned into a research field. These two works, one of which was published in Kharkov in 1861, and the other – in 1865 in Moscow, laid the “beginnings” of historiography per se, i.e. historiography as an independent scientific discipline with its own research subject, methods, methodology, etc. In fact, there was rethinking of historiography as a historical phenomenon, and consequently, there was a need to find the “point” where knowledge about the history of science acquired its internal logic and thus turned from historiographical experience into systematized knowledge. The essence of this “point” (or moment) is that a system or organized knowledge (in other words, a concept) appeared in historiography, which turned knowledge about the history of science into a scientific discipline. The questions when and how this happened remain open. In any case, M.N. Petrov and V.I. Guerrier were the first Russian historians who sought to turn the “beginnings” of historiography into a scientific discipline. The question of the priority of the first Russian professional historiographer is still unresolved. V.E. Illeritsky expressed an opinion that it belongs to S.M. Solovyov, according to R.A. Kireeva – to M.O. Koyalovich.

On October 11, 2010, France became the first European country to ban the full-face Islamic veil – the burqa and niqab, in public places. After France becoming a “pioneer” in this area, by contrast to the United Stated and Russia, facial veil prohibition acts have been adopted in several other European countries and discussed in even more. These acts and political debates have generated a colossal number of research papers – mostly on legal issues by lawyer-scholars, critical analyses and, I’m sure, will produce many more. They have mainly focused on different aspects of the right to religious and cultural freedom, the right to gender equality. However, the novelty of Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor’s monograph “The Republic, Secularism and Security: France versus the Burqa and the Niqab” lies in a non-standard approach to the veil-ban issue – he investigates using different methodological instruments not only the legal core the ban, but also (and mostly) the factors motivating the French legislator, what it symbolizes. Since the niqab and burqa wearers are extremely rare in France, as in almost all European Countries, one may agree that there surely isn’t an actual social problem, needing to be regulated by the government. Such disproportional This difference between practical importance and French legislative effort have urged Professor Cohen-Almagor to dwell on the reasons of such a high interest by the public administration to the religious facial veil. The study was carried out using various scientific methods: general scientific (analysis, synthesis, modeling, abstraction, etc.), empirical (observation, statistics), specifically legal (comparative legal, axiological, sociological, hermeneutics), historical (diachronic, ideographic). Huge practical experience, thorough, systemic knowledge of the regulatory material and practical aspects of its implementation allow the Author to analyze the symbolic and instrumental role of the facial veil in France’s pursuit for national identity building.

The purpose of the study is to study the mechanism for implementing the censorship and library policy of the Soviet state on the example of mass libraries of the Penza region in the late 1950s – early 1960s. Materials and methods. The tasks of the Internet were implemented by analyzing and summarizing the documents of the State Archive of the Penza Region (Fund R-2357 – Department of Culture of the Penza Oblast Executive Committee). The work uses methods: historical-genetic, historical-comparative. Results of the study. The article describes the regulatory framework that re-regulates the process of purging library book collections from outdated and politically harmful literature (Instructions of the USSR Ministry of Culture of September 16, 1955 and February 2, 1960, Bibliographic decrees-smolders of outdated publications, Summary lists, etc.), explaining the criteria for classifying publications as «outdated and politically harmful letter-tours». The determination of the work of cultural institutions, including libraries, in general, the configuration of library funds, in particular, political, economic, socio-cultural conditions in the state, a specific international and domestic political situation (for example, the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, the speech of the «anti-party group», etc.). Attention is paid to the activities of the Penza Regional Department for the Protection of Military and State Secrets in the press for the withdrawal of outdated and politically harmful literature from book funds, a round of quarterly and annual reports of Obllit is disclosed. On the basis of unreleased archive documents, the practice of the Department of Culture of the Penza Regional Committee for the Implementation of Soviet Censorship and Library Policy was studied. According to the work of the regional (in the Department of Culture of the Penza Regional Executive Committee), paradise and city (in the departments of culture) commissions to write off an outdated theater, visits of commission members and local inspections. The state of book funds of urban, district and rural mass libraries of the Penza region was studied for the presence of literature subject to withdrawal from mass circulation; statistics are provided on the «blockage» of book collections of mass libraries of the region. Examples of administrative and disciplinary penalties are given, which were imposed on library workers, mainly managers, for non-compliance with directives on clearing book funds of outdated literature and issuing publications to readers that were subject to seizure. Conclusions. Consideration of the content and methods of library and censorship practice made it possible to identify the features of the exercise of censorship functions in relation to mass libraries at the regional level; determine the vector of subsequent research on the scientific problem.

Abstract. The present study aims at identifying and apportioning the major sources of fine aerosols in Paris (France) – the second largest megacity in Europe –, and determining their geographical origins. It is based on the daily chemical composition of PM2.5 characterised during one year at an urban background site of Paris (Bressi et al., 2013). Positive Matrix Factorization (EPA PMF3.0) was used to identify and apportion the sources of fine aerosols; bootstrapping was performed to determine the adequate number of PMF factors, and statistics (root mean square error, coefficient of determination, etc.) were examined to better model PM2.5 mass and chemical components. Potential Source Contribution Function (PSCF) and Conditional Probability Function (CPF) allowed the geographical origins of the sources to be assessed; special attention was paid to implement suitable weighting functions. Seven factors named ammonium sulfate (A.S.) rich factor, ammonium nitrate (A.N.) rich factor, heavy oil combustion, road traffic, biomass burning, marine aerosols and metals industry were identified; a detailed discussion of their chemical characteristics is reported. They respectively contribute 27, 24, 17, 14, 12, 6 and 1% of PM2.5 mass (14.7 μg m−3) on the annual average; their seasonal variability is discussed. The A.S. and A.N. rich factors have undergone north-eastward mid- or long-range transport from Continental Europe, heavy oil combustion mainly stems from northern France and the English Channel, whereas road traffic and biomass burning are primarily locally emitted. Therefore, on average more than half of PM2.5 mass measured in the city of Paris is due to mid- or long-range transport of secondary aerosols stemming from continental Europe, whereas local sources only contribute a quarter of the annual averaged mass. These results imply that fine aerosols abatement policies conducted at the local scale may not be sufficient to notably reduce PM2.5 levels at urban background sites in Paris, suggesting instead more coordinated strategies amongst neighbouring countries. Similar conclusions might be drawn in other continental urban background sites given the transboundary nature of PM2.5 pollution.

Abstract. The present study aims at identifying and apportioning fine aerosols to their major sources in Paris (France) – the second most populated "larger urban zone" in Europe – and determining their geographical origins. It is based on the daily chemical composition of PM2.5 examined over 1 year at an urban background site of Paris (Bressi et al., 2013). Positive matrix factorization (EPA PMF3.0) was used to identify and apportion fine aerosols to their sources; bootstrapping was performed to determine the adequate number of PMF factors, and statistics (root mean square error, coefficient of determination, etc.) were examined to better model PM2.5 mass and chemical components. Potential source contribution function (PSCF) and conditional probability function (CPF) allowed the geographical origins of the sources to be assessed; special attention was paid to implement suitable weighting functions. Seven factors, namely ammonium sulfate (A.S.)-rich factor, ammonium nitrate (A.N.)-rich factor, heavy oil combustion, road traffic, biomass burning, marine aerosols and metal industry, were identified; a detailed discussion of their chemical characteristics is reported. They contribute 27, 24, 17, 14, 12, 6 and 1% of PM2.5 mass (14.7 μg m−3) respectively on the annual average; their seasonal variability is discussed. The A.S.- and A.N.-rich factors have undergone mid- or long-range transport from continental Europe; heavy oil combustion mainly stems from northern France and the English Channel, whereas road traffic and biomass burning are primarily locally emitted. Therefore, on average more than half of PM2.5 mass measured in the city of Paris is due to mid- or long-range transport of secondary aerosols stemming from continental Europe, whereas local sources only contribute a quarter of the annual averaged mass. These results imply that fine-aerosol abatement policies conducted at the local scale may not be sufficient to notably reduce PM2.5 levels at urban background sites in Paris, suggesting instead more coordinated strategies amongst neighbouring countries. Similar conclusions might be drawn in other continental urban background sites given the transboundary nature of PM2.5 pollution.

This study is explores the problem of cars entry in to subway stations. Cars been driven in to subway stations in many countries including France, Russia, Belarus, Belgium, Italy, etc. Sometimes this results in fatalities or injuries and stoppage of work at the station. In this article, we have systematized statistics on cases of cars entry in to subway stations around the world and suggest a resolution for this problem. The proposed in the study of an anti-ram protective bollard capable of blocking cars driving into stations could serve as such a resolution. Then we develop an method that of determined the optimal location of anti-ram protective bollards. The authors tested the developed methodology on the example of the Prospect Mira station (Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya line) of the Moscow subway. Equipping territories around subway stations with the developed an bollards will resolve the problem of protecting subway stations against cars entering their territories and will protect people.

The purpose of this study is to characterize the features of self–identification by the student youth of Chuvashia. The work is carried out within the framework of the emerging traditions of studying interethnic relations, as well as the general civil, regional and ethnic identity of the population, at the same time, some subjects are considered taking into account new conditions. This involves the makeup of respondents, as well as the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on respondents’ responses. The article is based on the materials of a survey of 300 students of universities and secondary professional educational institutions of the Chuvash Republic studying humanities, technical and natural sciences. Conditional and marginal data distributions were obtained using data processing in the SPSS Statistics 22 program. As a result, it was revealed that in the list of problems that cause concern among students, the state of interethnic relations in the republic took one of the last places, but not because of their low importance for each of the young people, but due to real situation in the republic, when the absolute majority of people characterized the interethnic situation positively. The survey showed that the majority of respondents gave the most priority to the general civil identity, which surpassed the regional and ethnic ones in terms of the frequency of choice. It should be emphasized that there is no antagonism between these levels of identity, on the contrary, they organically combine with each other, and such a relationship is often situational. A favorable interethnic situation can be disrupted, and, according to students, the reasons for such changes are determined by unprofessional actions of the authorities, improper upbringing in the family, defiant behavior of some ethnic groups representatives, provocative publications in the media, social networks, etc. Such studies conducted in monitoring mode are important not only to increment the theoretical knowledge, but to provide materials that can be used to justify specific management decisions as well.

We study variants of the SEIR model for interpreting some qualitative features of the statistics of the Covid-19 epidemic in France. Standard SEIR models distinguish essentially two regimes: either the disease is controlled and the number of infected people rapidly decreases, or the disease spreads and contaminates a significant fraction of the population until herd immunity is achieved. After lockdown, at first sight it seems that social distancing is not enough to control the outbreak. We discuss here a possible explanation, namely that the lockdown is creating social heterogeneity: even if a large majority of the population complies with the lockdown rules, a small fraction of the population still has to maintain a normal or high level of social interactions, such as health workers, providers of essential services, etc. This results in an apparent high level of epidemic propagation as measured through re-estimations of the basic reproduction ratio. However, these measures are limited to averages, while variance inside the population plays an essential role on the peak and the size of the epidemic outbreak and tends to lower these two indicators. We provide theoretical and numerical results to sustain such a view.

Background Patients with chronic diseases, like patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), have long history of care driven by multiple determinants (medical, social, economic, etc.). Although in most epidemiological studies, analyses of health care determinants are computed on single health care events using classical multivariate statistical regression methods. Only few studies have integrated the concept of treatment trajectories as a whole and studied their determinants. Methods All 18- to 80-year-old incident ESRD patients who started dialysis in Ile-de-France or Bretagne between 2006 and 2009 and could be followed for a period of 48 months after initiation of a renal replacement therapy were included ( n = 5568). Their care trajectories were defined as categorical state sequences. Associations between patients’ characteristics and care trajectories were assessed using a regression tree model together with a discrepancy analysis. Results On average, each patient experienced 1.56 different renal replacement therapies (min = 1; max = 5) during the 48 months of follow-up. About 55% of patients never changed treatment and only 1% tried three or more renal replacement therapy modalities. Twelve homogeneous care trajectory groups were identified. Covariates explained 12% of the discrepancy between groups, particularly age, regions and initiation of hemodialysis with a catheter. Conclusions Regression tree analysis of categorical state sequence highlighted geographical disparities in the care trajectory of French patients with ESRD that cannot be observed when focusing on a single outcome, such as survival. This method is an original tool to visualize and characterize care trajectories, notably in the context of chronic condition like ESRD.

10737 Background: Paper was aimed to compare differences in pre-operative management, decision on surgery and surgical approach for breast cancer in six European Breast Cancer Units in Italy, France, Czech Republic and Serbia and Montenegro, and to discuss impact of detected differences on outcome of the disease. Methods: The authors of this paper, who have been invited as young visiting/observing/training guests by four prestigious European Breast Cancer Units in Italy and France (National Cancer Institute - Milan, European Institute of Oncology - Milan, Institute Gustave Roussy - Villejuif, Institute Curie - Paris) as fellows of different European and international institutions (EUSOMA, EACR, ESSO, UICC, ESO, FECS, French Government) in the period 2003–2005, tried to detect and compare differences regarding pre-surgical evaluation, decision making and surgical approach for breast cancer as well as to discuss the impact of identified changes on outcome of the disease. The special attention has been directed to inspection of such small details as waiting list for consultation and hospitalisation, way of decision for surgical intervention (individual or oncology meeting/staff), horizontal or oblique incision for mastectomy, duration of hospital stay, sentinel node procedure (blue dye, radioactive tracer or both, one or two-days protocol, imunochistochemistry examinations during frozen section or not), preferred way of breast reconstruction, number of assistants during operation, drainage, preservation of intercostobrachial nerve during axillary surgery, suture, etc. The data were collected according to personal presence in different institutes, observation and asking the questions. Descriptive statistics were used to show the differences among the parameters under comparison. Results: This study which clearly showed a great range of differences, sometimes very significant, in parameters regarding pre-surgical evaluation and surgical treatment of breast cancer. Conclusions: Although being found, and sometimes significant, the observed differences in several parameters regarding pre-operative evaluation and surgical treatment of breast cancer in six European breast cancer units do not have influence to the outcome of the breast cancer. No significant financial relationships to disclose.

AbstractPhysical distancing is intended to mitigate the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, the impact of a decrease in face-to-face contacts on non-physical social contacts of older people remains unclear. In particular, we focus on intergenerational contacts that are especially relevant for older people’s mental health. Our analyses rely on an online quota sampling survey conducted in France, Italy and Spain during April 14–24, 2020. We considered the subsample of individuals aged 50 + (N = 4207). We calculated post-stratification weights based on official statistics and used logistic regressions to analyze how changes in intergenerational contacts differed by socioeconomic factors and to what extent non-physical contacts (via phone, social media, etc.) have compensated the reduction in face-to-face contacts. Finally, the change in digital devices’ use has been explored as a consequence of both decreased physical intergenerational contacts (PIC) and increased non-physical intergenerational contacts (NPIC). We found that about 50% of older people have increased their NPIC during the first lockdown. Younger individuals, those with medium level of education, and those economically better off displayed higher probabilities of increased NPIC as compared to their counterparts. NPIC increased especially for individuals whose face-to-face contacts decreased, particularly so if this happened with respect to contacts with children. A large share of older people has increased their use of video calls and instant messages, while only some increased the use of social media. These findings are relevant to understand how intergenerational contacts changed during the pandemic and may be central to better plan future outbreak responses.

Abstract Due to the constantly growing demand for flour confectionery and culinary products, it became necessary to develop specialized requirements for the quality of wheat flour as a raw material. To date, there are no such requirements in our country, and for the production of these products, bakery flour obtained according to the traditional wheat grind scheme was used, the quality of which had to be leveled depending on the range of confectionery products. One way to solve this problem is to differentiate the properties of wheat flour according to its intended purpose and their rationing. The purpose of the study is to develop quality requirements for Russian wheat flour for the production of wafer sheets according to objectively and reliably determined indicators of the dough rheological properties using an alveograph device to create, in the future, a system for classifying wheat flour by its intended purpose. Flour quality assessment was carried out using domestic devices and laboratory equipment (MOK system, Falling-number value, etc.); the dough rheological properties were evaluated by an alveograph device (company Chopin, France), wafer sheets were baked and evaluated using methods previously developed by the authors. The analysis of the interdependence of standardized quality indicators, as well as newly developed ones, was conducted to identify indicators that differentiate the quality of wheat flour by its intended purpose, i.e. by finished products. For this, methods of mathematical statistics were applied.

Library collection development is directly related to the issues of placement, storage and delivery of documents. The eternal storage of the totality of documents that make up the national heritage is one of the functions of national libraries (NL), which solve the problem of placing materials with consideration to their financial and other capabilities.An overview of the successful national libraries’ practice in solving the lack of storage space problem is presented (Library of Congress, British Library, German National Library, National Diet Library of Japan, National Library of France, Royal Library of Sweden, Austrian National Library, National Library of the Czech Republic, Royal Library of the Netherlands). The experience of the Russian State Library in solving this problem is also analyzed.Finding place for growing collections with a tight of storing conditions is a challenge that requires not only constant attention, but also a flexible approach. Various options for solving this problem are being considered: construction of new (including remote) storage facilities; efficient use of existing premises (for example, an implementation of high density storage systems or co-opting of premises built for other purposes — idle exhibition centers functional conversion, etc.); lease of rentable areas.The research is based on the analysis of information from official websites of the national libraries.The appendix presents the results of the NL survey on the following issues: withdrawing of certain categories of materials, dispatching them to depositories; construction of new storage buildings; statistics concerning active use and actual availability of collections.

Context. In line with Sustainable Development Goals 3 “Good health and well-being” and 12 “Responsible Consumption and Production”, this paper is concerned with the fragile population of the less-than-3-years-old children. More specifically, it investigates how infant food safety is perceived at the household level and at the level of childhood and health professionals directly in contact with them. Objective. The paper aims to analyze consumer priorities and perceptions of hazards in infant foods qualitatively and quantitatively. Methodology. To do so, a survey was carried out in France on 1750 people representative of the general population. A hybrid method is proposed to analyze the results of the survey, mixing artificial intelligence and statistics. Main insights. Within the declared priorities when choosing infant food, health comes first, with a top ranking for the absence of harmful substances, followed closely by nutritional balance—far ahead of environment, ease of use and price. The results show that the rankings of the hazards that cause the most worry are globally homogeneous throughout the populations (families, professionals, etc.) and higher for chemical contaminants from agricultural practices and packaging. For health professionals, concerns are higher than in the general population for all categories of contaminants, and specific concerns such as risk related to environmental and unknown contaminants are much more prevalent. The perception of risk varies with the food considered. For infant formula in particular, users seem puzzled by somehow contradictory messages. Perspectives. The study is intended to be generalized to Europe.

Gender audit in education is necessary to assess the gender equality in educational institutions. As it was proven that the gender equality has a positive impact on the economic development it is important to determine the best methods to assess the issue and to improve its state. As a result, the purpose of our article is to determine the best practices of gender audit as a tool to assess and facilitate gender equality. To achieve our goal, we used several scientific methods, such as synthesis, analysis, deduction, etc. Gender equality issues have been found to be linked to economic development and are currently part of expanded economic growth models. This is especially true for gender equality in education, which is crucial for all subsequent areas of activity. It has been determined that approaches to gender equality and gender audit have evolved recently, starting from a purely formal one, when equality was defined as equal access for boys and girls to school education, and to the use of comprehensive gender equality indices ranging from 3 to 5 weighted elements, cover lifelong learning, financial component and representative component, i.e. women's participation in governance at different levels. It is substantiated that gender audit at this stage focuses on a broad definition of gender equality and is a tool to help determine its current level and possible ways to improve the situation. Currently, gender audit is in the form of a participatory audit involving not only external experts but also representatives of the organization where it is conducted. Not only formal statistics are analyzed, but also surveys, interviews among team members are conducted. The practice of gender audit in Lithuania and France shows that France, which started this process earlier, is at a stage when the legal support of this issue is relatively well-established, but there are still problems with compliance with the established norms. Incentives for their observance at this stage are mainly penalties. Lithuania has also begun to form a legal framework for gender equality, but practical implementation has not yet become widespread. Gender stereotypes are still very strong in the country.

- Wouter E.A. van Beek, Henri Maurier, Philosophie de L’Afrique Noire (2ème éd.), St. Augustin: Anthropos Institut, 1985. - Wouter E.A. van Beek, A.M. Hocart, Imagination and proof. Selected essays of A.M. Hocart, Edited and with an introduction by Rodney Needham, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987. 130 pp. - Martin van Bruinessen, B.B. Hering, Studies on Indonesian Islam, Occasional Paper no. 19, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville (Australia), 1986, 50 pp. - Martin van Bruinessen, B.B. Hering, Studies on Islam, Occasional Paper no. 22, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville (Australia), 1987, 94 pp. - Martin van Bruinessen, L.B. Venema, Islam en macht: Een historisch-anthropolische perspectief, Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1987. - H.J.M. Claessen, Colin Renfrew, Peer polity interaction and socio-political change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 179 pp., maps, ills., index, bibl., John F. Cerry (eds.) - H. Dagmar, Fred R. Myers, Pintupi country, Pintupi self; Sentiment, place and politics among Western Desert aborigines, Washington etc.: Smithsonian Institution Press, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. - Mies Grijns, Rosanne Rutten, Women workers of Hacienda Milagros; Wage labor and household subsistence on a Philippine sugar cane plantation. Publikatieserie Zuid- en Zuidoost-Azie no. 30, Amsterdam: Anthropologisch-Sociologisch Centrum, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1982, x + 187 pp. - Mies Grijns, Ann Laura Stoler, Capitalism and confrontation in Sumatra’s plantation belt, 1870-1979, Newhaven: Yale University Press, 1985, xii + 244 pp. - Nico de Jonge, Rodney Needham, Mamboru. History and structure in a domain of Northwestern Sumba. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987, 202 pp. - Anton Ploeg, Kenneth E. Read, Return to the high valley. Coming full circle. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. xxi + 269 pp. - Rien Ploeg, Tom R. Zuidema, La Civilisation Inca au Cuzco, Collège de France, Essais et Conférences, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986. - Harry A. Poeze, E.E. van Delden, Klein repertorium; Index op tijdschriftartikelen met betrekking tot voormalig Nederlands-Indië, samengesteld door E. E. van Delden. Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen. Deel 1, Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur 1887-1900, 1986, 79 pp. Deel 2, Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur 1900-1909, 1986 80 pp. Deel 3, Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur 1910-1917, 1987, 80 pp. - Harry A. Poeze, J.J.P. de Jong, Diplomatie of strijd; Een analyse van het Nederlands beleid tegenover de Indonesische revolutie 1945-1947. Amsterdam: Boom, 531 pp. - Harry A. Poeze, D.C.L. Schoonoord, De Mariniersbrigade 1943-1949; Wording en inzet in Indonesië. ‘s-Gravenhage: Afdeling Maritieme Historie van de Marinestaf. - R. de Ridder, Edmundo Magaña, Myth and the imaginary in the new world, Amsterdam: CEDLA, Latin America Studies no. 34, 1986. 500 pp. 64 ills., Peter Mason (eds.) - P.G. Rivière, Edmundo Magaña, Contribuciones al estudio de la mitología y astronomía de los indios de las Guayanas, Dordrecht-Providence: Foris Publications. 1987. - A. de Ruijter, P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Generalisatie in de culturele antropologie (Afscheidscollege ter gelegenheid van het neerleggen van het ambt van hoogleraar in de sociale wetenschappen aan de Rijksuniversiteit van Leiden op 12 juni 1987), 1987, Leiden: E.K. Brill. - Mary F. Somers Heidhues, Yoe-Sioe Liem, Überseechinesen - eine minderheit: Zur erforschung interethnischer vorurteile in Indonesien, Aachen: Edition Herodot im Rader-Verlag, 1986. - N.J.M. Zorgdrager, H. Beach, Contributions to circumpolar studies. Uppsala Research Reports in Cultural Anthropology no. 7, 1986. 181 pages.

The characterization of radioactive waste packages is mandatory for their transport, interim storage and final disposal. In this framework, the Nuclear Measurement Laboratory of CEA DES IRESNE Institute, at Cadarache, France, uses a high-energy electron linear accelerator (LINAC) to produce an interrogating bremsstrahlung beam with endpoint energies ranging from 9 to 21 MeV to perform X-ray imaging and high-energy photon interrogation on large concrete packages. In particular, highenergy photon beam induces photofission reactions in both fissile (235U, 239Pu, 241Pu) and fertile (238U, 240Pu, 232Th, etc.) actinides possibly present in the radioactive waste. In order to assess their mass, we use delayed gamma rays emitted by their photofission products, which are measured with a 50 % relative efficiency High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector. Actinide differentiation, which is important for the fissile mass estimation, is based on the ratios of gamma rays emitted by different photofission products and requires appropriate corrections for the gamma attenuation in concrete. To this aim, we report here a localization method of point-like nuclear materials in the concrete matrix, based on the differential attenuation of several gamma rays emitted by a same photofission product. We use here the 1435.9 and 2639.6 keV lines of 138Cs, with both experimental data and MCNP numerical simulations to determine the (r,θ) coordinates of nuclear materials. Then, the depth inside the concrete matrix, which is determined with a precision of a few percent, mainly depending on counting statistics on 1435.9 and 2639.6 keV net peak areas, is used to correct for the different gamma ratios used in the actinide identification method. Experimental tests with uranium samples have been performed to validate the localization method.

Neutron diffraction texture measurements provide bulk averaged textures with excellent grain orientation statistics, even for large-grained materials, owing to the probed volume being of the order of 1 cm3. Furthermore, crystallographic parameters and other valuable microstructure information such as phase fraction, coherent crystallite size, root-mean-square microstrain, macroscopic or intergranular strain and stress, etc. can be derived from neutron diffractograms. A procedure for combined high stereographic resolution texture and residual stress evaluation was established on the pulsed-neutron-source-based engineering materials diffractometer TAKUMI at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Center, through division of the neutron detector panel regions. Pole figure evaluation of a limestone standard sample with a well known texture suggested that the precision obtained for texture measurement is comparable to that of the established neutron beamlines utilized for texture measurement, such as the HIPPO diffractometer at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (New Mexico, USA) and the D20 angle-dispersive neutron diffractometer at the Institut Laue–Langevin (Grenoble, France). A high-strength martensite–austenite multilayered steel was employed for further verification of the reliability of simultaneous Rietveld analysis of multiphase textures and macro stress tensors. By using a texture-weighted geometric mean micromechanical (BulkPathGEO) model, a macro stress tensor analysis with a plane stress assumption showed a rolling direction–transverse direction (RD–TD) in-plane compressive stress (about −330 MPa) in the martensite layers and an RD–TD in-plane tensile stress (about 320 MPa) in the austenite layers. The phase stress partitioning was ascribed mainly to the additive effect of the volume expansion during martensite transformation and the linear contraction misfit between austenite layers and newly transformed martensite layers during the water quenching process.

Panicum milliaceum is a specialty crop that maintains the economic stability of agriculture in arid and barren regions of the world. Predicting the potential geographic distribution of Panicum milliaceum globally and clarifying the ecological needs of Panicum milliaceum will help to advance the development of agriculture, which is important for the maintenance of human life and health. In this study, based on 5637 global distribution records of Panicum milliaceum, we used the MaxEnt model and ArcGIS software, the Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model (BCC-CSM2-MR) was selected to predict the potential global geographic distribution of Panicum milliaceum in the present and future in combination with the environmental factor variables; we evaluated the significant factors constraining the potential geographic distribution of Panicum milliaceum by combining the contributions of environmental factor variables; and we assessed the accuracy of the MaxEnt model by using AUC values and Kappa statistics. The results showed that the MaxEnt model was highly accurate, the simulation results were credible, and the total suitable area of Panicum milliaceum in the world is 4563.82 × 104 km2. The high habitat area of Panicum milliaceum is 484.95 × 104 km2, accounting for 10.63% of the total habitat area, and is mainly distributed in the United States, the Russian Federation, France, Ukraine, Australia, Germany, etc. The soil factor (hswd) was the most important environmental factor limiting the potential geographic distribution of Panicum milliaceum, followed by the precipitation factor (Precipitation of the Driest Month, bio14) and temperature factor (Mean Temperature of the Wettest Quarter, bio8). Under four future climate change scenarios, the area of the potential geographic distribution of Panicum milliaceum decreased to different extents at different levels compared to the contemporary period. Therefore, climate change may significantly affect the global distribution pattern of Panicum milliaceum cultivation in the future and thus reshape global Panicum milliaceum production and trade patterns.

AbstractThe article focuses on vocational training of future agricultural specialists in the context of European experience. Thus, theoretical framework of the research has been thoroughly justified. It includes the prominent documents of European authorities such as the Charter of European Agricultural Education, CAP context indicators for 2014–2020, European Parliament’s publications, Eurostat statistics such glossary of farmers training level terms, as well as respected researches of many European scholars (A. Miceli, A. Moore, M. Mulder et al.). It has been found that European approach to organizing vocational training of future agricultural specialists is rather multiaspect and strives to fulfill educational needs of majority of learners, namely, through practical agricultural training, basic agricultural training and full-time agricultural trainings. It has been clarified that more and more young people realize the importance of the agricultural sector to the overall prosperity of the European Union; therefore they seek quality vocational training based on relevant vocational schools. It has been stated that European Union constantly develops various strategies for developing the agricultural sector, in particular through enhancing quality of future agricultural specialists’ vocational training. It has been defined that despite the fact that low incomes, certain risks, uncertainties in an economic environment due to globalization processes may somehow discourage younger generations to pursue career in agriculture, the CA implements different mechanisms for sustaining stable development of agricultural education. It has been specified that such countries as France and Germany regularly update the content of agricultural education so that it takes into account the trends in vocational training of future agricultural specialists opportunity and allows applying the most advanced teaching technologies, promoting knowledge significance, widening access to all levels of education, implementing a system of lifelong learning, individualizing agricultural education. It has been outlined that the prospects for further studies are seen in studying the most important aspects in the legal framework of the agricultural education system in innovative experience of European countries, the USA, Canada, Australia, etc.

Abstract. The physical properties of claystones, shales, and slates are highly dependent on the alignment of phyllosilicate minerals. With increasing overburdening, the shape and the crystallographic preferred orientation of these minerals are affected by uniaxial shortening as well as tectonic processes including recrystallization under elevated pressure and temperature conditions. The microstructural anisotropy expressed mainly by the alignment of phyllosilicates significantly predetermines the orientation of fractures, hence the shear strength and stability of clay-rich sediments and rocks. A quantitative analysis of phyllosilicate alignment is therefore essential to evaluate the properties and the mechanical behavior of these rocks. This can be carried out by analyzing the crystallographic preferred orientation (texture). Although texture analysis is a common tool in geosciences, it becomes more difficult in fine-grained rocks owing to for example particle size, heterogeneity, the polyphase composition, and difficulties in sample preparation. Methods such as electron backscatter diffraction, neutron diffraction, or laboratory X-ray diffraction are restricted with respect to preparation artifacts, sampling size and statistics, water content, etc. To overcome these issues, we successfully apply high-energy X-ray diffraction as available at synchrotron research facilities, e.g., at the German Electron Synchrotron Facility (DESY) in Hamburg, Germany, or the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. In combination with Rietveld refinement we analyze the bulk texture of phyllosilicate-rich rocks. Here we present the results of texture analysis from a wide range of these rocks: Pleistocene poorly consolidated mud (rocks), affected only by sedimentation and burial; more highly consolidated but tectonically largely unaffected Jurassic claystone from the Opalinus Formation of the Swabian Alb; Carboniferous shales from the Harz mountains representing low-grade metamorphic and deformed rocks. Our methodical approach to quantifying the microstructural anisotropy using texture analysis in fine-grained rocks allows for the quantification of physical properties resulting from the alignment of phyllosilicates. Furthermore, it enables the prediction of direction-dependent mechanical strength, which is crucial for the establishment of long-term repositories for radioactive waste in shales and claystones.

According to statistics, the global, population aging problem is severe and growing rapidly. The aging problem is most obvious in some European countries, and most of them are developed countries, such as Japan, Italy, Germany, France, etc. The current internal and external environments of parks in China are complex. The inefficient utilization of space in urban parks is a prominent problem. The design of public spaces that only considers the visual experience is incomplete. Based on the optimization of urban park space planning principle, this study examined a new measure of the acoustic environment in elderly public activity space and designed a new elderly healthy urban park environment. Methods: Using the main parks in Shenyang (Zhongshan Park, Nanhu Park, Youth Park, and Labor park) as the study sites, this study analyzed problems in the acoustic environmental data through on-site inspection, questionnaire survey, and physical data collection. By using general linear regression and multiple regression methods, this study analyzed the impacts of plant density, site elevation, structure enclosure, functional mixing degree on the acoustic environment, and elderly population activities. Based on the acoustic environment, we propose improvements and construction ideas, as well as technical methods, for urban elderly public activity space planning. The utility of the “elderly public activity space planning principle” was also considered. Results: Elderly activity space in urban parks was affected by three main factors—plant density, degree of structural enclosure, and function mixing degree. These factors should be optimized to construct healthy acoustic environments and attract different types of people. Discussion: Compared to past studies, the new influencing factors of the planning principle for elderly public activity space found in this study, would benefit the urban park environment for the elderly and support sustainable development of cities. Conclusions: This study proposes three optimizations to the elderly urban park space planning principle and builds four healthy models of elderly urban space activity.

<strong>Prof. Linczényi </strong>is known as one of the pioneers of quality management in academia and among professionals in former Czechoslovakia. Moreover, he is also considered a father of quality in Slovakia. He held back then the function of Vice President of the European Organization for Quality for the East Block. He was a member of the Association of Scientific and Technical Societies and after the division of the Czech and Slovak Republics, he became actively involved in preparatory activities for the establishment of the Slovak Society for Quality. He worked for more than 40 years as the head of the Quality Management department at STU, based in Bratislava. Professor is an author and co-author of many scientific monographs and textbooks such as, e.g. Engineering Statistics, Quality Management, Distance Learning for Quality Managers, Quality Professional, textbook for Quality Management at Secondary Vocational Schools and many others. He published more than 400 articles in domestic and international magazines and participated at domestic and international conferences, symposia and congresses, e.g. in Australia, China, Israel, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Estonia, Portugal, France, Poland, Czech Republic, Croatia, Montenegro, Germany, Netherlands, etc. Regularly, he also attended congresses organized by the European Organization for Quality. Prof. Linczényi is an author of the economic basis idea for quality management, and in his research, he created quality indicators and profitability indicators of quality. One of his contributions can be considered the definition of Creative Quality Management. For his scientific results, he was awarded the title of Scientist of the Year by the president of the Slovak Republic and similarly he was awarded by the Slovak president and Chairman of the Office for Standardization, Metrology and Testing for the lifelong contribution in the area of Quality Management. Slovak Society for Quality had awarded professor for his lifetime work in the area at the occasion of World Quality Day.

Relevance. The COVID-19 pandemic is characterized by a long undulating course. One of the directions of the dynamic assessment of the incidence of this infection is, as is known, the characterization of the determinants of the epidemic process and the study of the actual effectiveness of various measures.Aims. Were to study the features of the COVID-19 morbidity in the European, American and Asian regions of the world on the example of individual countries with an assessment of the possible impact of regime-restrictive measures on the daily increase in cases.Materials & methods. A descriptive epidemiological study involved the use of the following data on COVID-19: daily increase in new infections in absolute numbers and relative indicators during 1 June 2020 till 30 November 2020 in five countries (France, Italy, USA, Brazil, India) , description and timing of various restrictive measures. Information obtained from open sources (situation reports from WHO, CDC, ECDC, national ministries of health, etc.). Time series characterized, defining sharply differing values, timing and duration of ups and downs, the rate of average daily growth (decline). Statistical analysis was carried out using the IBM SPSS Statistics 26.Results. On average, for the analyzed period of time, 1303 were registered in Italy, 4897, France – 52799, Brazil – 31853, India –50507new cases. The average incidence rate in the compared countries ranged from 500.98 ± 417.06 per 100,000 in India to 4399.43 ± 2390.77 per 100,000 in the US. After the passage of the «first wave» of the incidence of COVID-19, regardless of the region of the world, there was an increase in the daily increase in new cases of SARS-CoV-2 in the summer-autumn period of 2020. Furthermore, with the differences in the morbidity rates in the different countries, there were also characteristics the formation of similar to the region. For the European region (Italy, France), there was a simultaneous beginning of an increase in the incidence in August-September 2020, a similar trend towards exponential growth and synchronous fluctuations in the daily increase in absolute cases of diseases. For the countries of the American region (USA and Brazil), a similar sinusoidal nature of the dynamics of the average daily increase in infection cases and its synchronicity until October 2020 was revealed. The Asian region, on the example of India, had significant differences in the dynamics of the analyzed indicators in comparison with the countries of the European and American regions. Differences in the formation of morbidity in the summerautumn period were more pronounced between the regions and related to the level of average daily growth, the incidence rate, the month of the maximum rise in the incidence in this period, and trend differences. Comparison of the ongoing isolation measures with the daily increase in cases revealed their discrepancy. This could create the preconditions for the activation of the epidemic process of infection and the ineffectiveness of measures.Conclusions. We found that in the five countries examined, the situation developed according to a similar scenario. Nevertheless, in different regions of the world there was a specificity in the involvement of the territory in the epidemic process. A more in-depth study of the timeliness and completeness of regime-restrictive measures against SOCID-19 should include a comparison with the patterns of formation and manifestations of the epidemic process. In turn, this is important for scientifically based implementation and increasing their effectiveness.

Organizational changes in project activity and the stages of its formation in the Ukrainian SSR as a tool for constructing a new social reality have been traced. The first stage was the approval of the altered role of architecture and the architect in socialist model, the second - the inclusion of social relations and lifestyle in the subject of architectural creativity, the third - conceptual approaches / models and the fourth - the creation of new samples of architecture. Global trends in urban planning and housing construction in the 1920s - 1930s essential for understanding the processes taking place in the construction of the capital Kharkov have been established. Namely: – the formation of urban planning schools at the turn of the XIXth and XXth centuries. (England, France, Germany, Austria (Vienna), as well as in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kharkov and Kiev; – outsourcing knowledge from other sciences (statistics, economics, law, sociology, etc.); – aspiration to construct cheap housing, industrialization and standardization; – attraction of private capital to the construction of residential complexes. A similarity pointed out between architectural and urban planning concepts is composed of the attraction to conceptual solutions alike to the "garden city" in early 1920s, the search for a new housing typology (sometimes small) with facilities; creation of the concepts of a house-commune and a housing complex. Implementation of avant-garde concepts in the development of social and housing infrastructure of the metropolitan Kharkov is considered. In the 1920s the formation of architectural and urban planning concepts in the USSR took place in correlation with the basic social ideas of architectural and urban planning practices of the West in the following sequence: noncritical borrowing of Western bourgeois models ("garden city"), attempts at social innovation inspired by the classics of utopian socialism (house-commune as phalanx reincarnation), constructing new functional-spatial models as means of implementing social doctrine (residential complexes); socio-economic invention in the context of industry planning (Sotsgorod). Practical verification of the models created at each stage became an incentive for new searches. Keywords: architectural and town-planning tendencies, socialization of town-planning, socialization of residential architecture complexes, metropolitan Kharkov.

Рассмотрены современные тенденции мирового рынка картофеля в связи с меняющейся ситуацией за последние десятилетия в сфере производства, структуры целевого использования и потребления картофеля и его роли в современных агропродовольственных системах разных стран и регионов мира. Анализ проведен на основе данных мировой статистики, материалов из различных баз данных и интернет-источников (Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, РИНЦ и др.), а также авторских работ, опубликованных за последние годы в широко известных международных изданиях (Springer, Wageningen Academic Publishers и др.). По оценкам FAO, площадь возделывания картофеля в странах мира составляет 19 млн га, а общий объем мирового производства картофеля оценивается на уровне 378 млн т. На продовольственное потребление приходится примерно две трети урожая картофеля (64%), на корм для животных – 12%, на семенные и другие цели –21%. Начиная с 2005 года, общий объем производства картофеля в развивающихся странах впервые превысил сложившиеся показатели производства картофеля в странах развитых экономик. В Латинской Америке наиболее крупные производители картофеля – Перу (4,7 млн т) и Колумбия (2,8 млн т). В Северной Америке (США, Канада) общий объем производства картофеля составляет 24,4 млн т. США традиционно находятся в пятерке мировых лидеров по объему производства картофеля (20 млн т). В странах ЕС крупнейшими производителями картофеля традиционно остаются Германия, Франция, Нидерланды, Великобритания и Бельгия. Динамичное развитие европейской индустрии переработки картофеля во многом способствовало поддержанию высокого уровня производства картофеля в этом регионе. Среди стран Восточной Европы лидирующие позиции по объемам производства картофеля занимают Россия, Украина, Беларусь и Польша, где потребление на душу населения традиционно превышает 90-100 кг в год, в то время как в среднем по всему европейскому региону этот показатель составляет 83,4 кг в расчете на одного жителя. Ключевые слова: картофель, рынок, производство, потребление, целевое использование. The article considers the current trends of the world potato market in connection with the changing situation over the past decades in the field of production, the structure of the intended use and consumption of potatoes and its role in modern agro-food systems of different countries and regions of the world. The analysis was carried out on the basis of world statistics data, materials from various databases and Internet sources (Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, RSCI, etc.), as well as author's works published in recent years in well-known international publications (Springer, Wageningen Academic Publishers, etc.) According to FAO estimates, the area of potato cultivation in the world is 19 million hectares, and the total world potato production is estimated at 378 million tons. Food consumption accounts for about two-thirds of the potato crop (64%), 12% for animal feed, 21% for seed and other purposes. Since 2005, the total volume of potato production in developing countries for the first time exceeded the established indicators of potato production in developed economies. In Latin America, the largest potato producers are Peru (4.7 million tons) and Colombia (2.8 million tons). In North America (USA, Canada), the total potato production is 24.4 million tons. The United States is traditionally among the top five world leaders in terms of potato production (20 million tons). In the EU countries, the largest potato producers are traditionally Germany, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Belgium. The dynamic development of the European potato processing industry has largely contributed to maintaining a high level of potato production in this region. Among the countries of Eastern Europe, the leading positions in terms of potato production are occupied by Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, where per capita consumption traditionally exceeds 90-100 kg per year, while the average for the entire European region is 83.4 kg per inhabitant.

In in the last 60 or so years, the global rabbit industry has been growing steadily. This paper studies the global rabbit meat trade by focusing on trade growth and regional pattern. First, rabbit meat productionand regional structure are introduced, as the basis of trade. Then, the global rabbit meat trade is studied in detail, including trade growth, regional structural changes, comparative advantages and competitiveness of major countries. Finally, a gravity model is built to test major factors affecting the rabbit meat trade andexplore the driving forces behind the trade. The data come from different channels, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Bank, the World Trade Organization and related government statistics. The results show that: (1) Over the past 60 yr, the global rabbit industry has achieved great progress. In the first half of the period, rabbit meat was mainly produced in Europe; then, rabbit meat production in Asia increased steadily and rapidly in the second half period, while European production decreased continuously. (2) The rabbit meat trade had been increasing for about 20 yr from 1961 to 1979, after which it fluctuated for another 20 yr. However, since 2001 it has been stable around an average level of 37 thousand tonnes, with only minor fluctuation. The trade pattern is currently from Asia (mainly China) and South America (mainly Argentina) to European countries. In 2018, the top 5 export destinations were Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and France (3). Hungary and Argentina have been two strong competitorsin the last two decades, while Spain and Belgium are two new and promising countries in the rabbit meat trade. Now China no longer has comparative advantages in the rabbit meat trade (4). The gravity model results show that rabbit meat trade is mainly driven by demand. Countries with a high Gross Domestic Product tend to increase their imports more, but decrease their exports. Countries with higher populations export more rabbit meat but import less. Common language and contiguity of two countries have significant impacts on rabbit meat trade. Based on the above results, some suggestions and policy implications are provided. Rabbit farmers or processing companies should pay more attention to domestic consumers or neighbouring countries to survey potential markets; traders should explore more markets in order to reduce the degree of trade concentration and lower risks. Governments should popularise the nutritional knowledge of rabbit meat to encourage people (especially young people) to consume more healthy rabbit meat instead of pork, with a view to reducing obesity or other heart diseases, etc.

Abstract Mathematical analysis of mass-action law (MAL) of the intermediate-forming system analysis led to the general median-effect equation (MEE) for action dynamics that determines potency (Dm, median-effect dose, and dynamic order [m, the shape of dose-effect-curve (DEC) where m=1, &gt;1, &lt;1 indicate hyperbolic, sigmoidal and flat sigmoidal, respectively]; the combination index equation (CIE) for interaction that quantifies synergism (CI&lt;1), additive effect (CI=1) and antagonism (CI&gt;1); and the dose-reduction index equation (DRIE) for interaction consequences, where DRI=1, &gt;1 and &lt;1 indicate no dose-reduction, favorable dose-reduction, and unfavorable dose-reduction. All terms of MEE, CIE, and DRIE are dimensionless relativity ratios, thus ensuring the general applicability of MAL. Therefore, the MAL biodynamics, pharmacodynamics, and bioinformatics (MAL-BD/PD/BI) is the top-down fundamental theory-based R&D, which approach is different from the classical observation/statistics-based bottom-up R&D. The MEE, CIE, and DRIE all center on “One” (the Unity Theory of One) (UTO), which are not feasible to derive from the classical specific-aimed derivations, such as Michaelis-Menten, Henderson-Hasselbalch, Hill, Scatchard, and Langmuir equations. The most important extensions and utilities of AML-MEE/CIE are the linearization of DECs with the median-effect plot (MEP) that led to the Minimum Two-dose Data Point Theory (MTDPT), which automatically adds two default data points to DECs (Do, dose-zero, and Dm, the universal reference point and the dynamic-orders common link). Thus, 2 becomes 4, 3 becomes 5, and 4 becomes 6 doses. This discovery allows digital quantitative, simple, efficient, cost-effective, Econo-Green biomedical R&D and drug evaluation of unified regulatory guidance. This MAL-theoretical approach is particularly beneficial in animal studies, clinical trial protocol design, and computerized analysis/simulation. The MAL-theoretical approach (MEE and CIE) was introduced by Chou and Talalay (1984), then by a Review article by Chou (2006) and a Perspective article (2006). Based on the bibliometrics by Web of Science and Google Scholar, as of August 26, 2023, these three articles have been cited 8,020, 5,194, and 5,129 times in 1,523, 1,242, and 1,157 journals internationally. The MAL-BD/PD/CI/BI is an Econo-green complementary alternative to traditional bottom-up studies. The MAL dynamics and informatics have been cited by 1,184 patents and by thousands of research grants sponsored by international governmental institutions, including USA (NIH, NCI, NCATS, NSF, and FDA), EU (Euro. Reginal Develop. Fund), China (Natl Key R&D), Japan (Soc. of Promotion of Sci), Korea (Natl. Sci. Foundation), Germany (Deutsch Fortungsgemeinschaft), France (INSERM), England (MRC), etc. The MAL-BD/PD/CI BI dynamics and informatics provide a new avenue for efficient and cost-effective translational and precision medicine and beyond, including environmental, agricultural, marine, material, biophysical, radiation, and food sciences. Citation Format: Ting-Chao Chou. The Unity Theory of One: The dynamic algorithm of mass action law for drug and biosimilar digital evaluation/simulation in molecules, cells, and organs, regardless of units, physical states, and mechanisms [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC Virtual International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2023 Oct 11-15; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2023;22(12 Suppl):Abstract nr LB_B20.

The article reveals the meaning of “competency”. The author proves that purpose of higher education is to acquire a high level of academic and creative artistic, professional and general competencies required for activities in a specific occupation or a field of knowledge. In Ukrainian education the term “competency” is used within the meaning suggested by European countries. DeSeCo programme (Definition and Selection of Competencies: Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations) launched in 1997 within the Federal Statistics Department (Switzerland) and the National Centre for Education Statistics (USA and Canada) defines “competency” as an ability to successfully meet one’s individual and social needs, to act and to perform tasks. Competency is based on knowledge and skills, but is not limited to those. It always includes one’s personal attitude to the above, and one’s experience enabling to “entwine” such knowledge with what the person already knows, and ability to guess a real-life situation, in which he/she will be able to apply such knowledge. In other words, each competency is built on a combination of cognitive attitudes and practical skills, knowledge and abilities, values, emotions, behavioural components, i.e. everything one can summon up for an active action. The author elucidates the essence and content of the competency-based approach to development of professional competencies in architecture students and analyzes professional competency as a component of training of architects-to-be. Acquisition of professional competencies by architecture students must rely on existing key competencies of school leavers. They must be fluent in the national language and have foreign language communication skills, must have information and communication competency and mathematical competency, teamwork skills, self-learning skills throughout their lives, etc. However, a student’s personal qualities also play a key role here, such as creative talent, developed spatial thinking, responsibility, organizational skills, teamwork skills, originality, ingenuity, creativity, realistic approach, sense of harmony, taste and style, observation skills, good memory, sociability and punctuality. Architectural training in Ukraine lasts for 6 years. One can divide training of architects-to-be into the following stages: I. Initial: introducing students to their future occupation. Realization of their potential in architecture will depend on their perceptions developed at this stage. This stage may help a person to understand his/her place in occupation or to become disillusioned with the chosen field. Time-wise this stage covers the first and second years of study. II. Evolvement: development of the feeling of professionalism. This is facilitated by studying occupation-oriented coursesand understanding the content of the future professional activity. Time-wise this stage covers the third and fourth years of study. III. Final: architecture students begin to realize specific features of their future occupation. They do not only have acertain scope of knowledge, but are able to acquire their own subjective experience in architectural activity. Time-wise this stage covers the fifth and sixth years of study and includes preparation of a graduation thesis. The article reveals that at all stages of training Architectural Design is a key major course, where students learn methods for comprehensive solution of an architectural problem in view of contemporary stylistic trends and design standards, study features of design of buildings with varying three-dimensional spatial structure, learn typological features of residential and public buildings. The article offers a partial analysis of international and domestic experience in architectural training using the process of architectural practical training as an example. When performing practice-oriented design projects, students develop skills for professional solution of architectural and artistic, functional planning, design and technology problems and gradually create their own creative methodof architectural design. During their initial years of study students hone skills in variable methods of sketching, techniques for three-dimensional, structural, image-bearing, colouristic modelling of architectural composition, which greatly enriches their creative experience in design. Organization of learning activity implies that students find their own ways to solve the problem based on familiarization with known methods of occupational activity. In senior years of study problematic nature of Architectural Design contributes to professional growth of students, creative design encourages use of parti diagrams, creative techniques and innovative methods of search for solutions. It stimulates creative activity of students and develops their self-reliance,which is greatly contributed by creation of learning situations close to real-life architectural activity. The article offers a partial analysis of international and domestic experience in architectural training using the process of architectural practical training as an example. The author gives examples of students’ architectural practical training in Ukraine, Germany, Poland, USA, Sweden and France.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The contemporary rise of data visualization and imaging technologies in all areas of knowledge now places design and visuality at the heart of research and its communication, with fundamental implications for scientific epistemology. Jacques Bertin's Laboratoire de Graphique (LG) of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in France, is a privileged entry for this study, since it was a major player in this movement, at the crossroads of graphic innovation and social sciences as they reinvented themselves in the second half of the twentieth century.</p><p>This intervention aims to explore a black box of research in the humanities and social sciences, according to two approaches, that of the interdisciplinary collaborations and that more experimental of the graphic design and formatting of information. By design we mean as all the processes from graphical display of data, to CHI, new methods of scientific representation.</p><p>This laboratory was created and directed by the cartographer and semiologist Jacques Bertin from 1954 to 2000 at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études and, under the impetus of Fernand Braudel, at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), is considered as a forerunner of productions and reflections on graphic research in the social sciences. His work articulates an unprecedented production of images, visualization of data and scientific research, forming the subject of a fundamental treatise, Graphical Semiology (1967). The intervention will trace the largely unknown history of this laboratory, will pinpoint the contributions and the intellectual trajectory of its graphic experiments and collaborations.</p><p>Indeed, while the activities related to the LG's cartographic research are relatively well known, its interactions with history, statistics, sociology, anthropology, urbanism, literature and the decorative arts remain unexplored.</p><p>Jacques Bertin, in <i>Semiology of graphics</i> (1967), highlighted the concept of « visual variables » to build a general rhetoric of visual representation: background shape orientation grain color, etc.</p><p>The paradox of these visual variables is the desire to achieve an objectivity of representation, while taking into account the ”aesthetic“ part of the data. This graphic rhetoric developed by Bertin has influenced many works and disciplines, becoming almost standard, convention, rules. In this session we propose to discuss the relationship between design and visual variables in the contemporary visual display of information.</p><p>We will start by presenting the two complementary funds of archives of the Laboratoire de Graphique the NAs and the BnF, allowing a genetic analysis of the origin of certain concepts of Bertin to give an account of the process of their elaboration.</p><p>We will present collaborations, content, and processes to produce a story that is at once aesthetic, social, economic, and political. We will measure the evolution of scientific imaginaries, the values and uses of representation methods and graphic communication tools, their epistemological scope into 4 thematics:</p><ol><li>The Life of the Graphic Lab: Pathways, Collaborations and Practices at EHESS. Collaboration Braudel-Bertin,creation of the visual identity of the EHESS, practices and conceptualization of the place of graphic research in the social sciences. Bertin heritage in current research programs</li><li>The graphic semiotics of Jacques Bertin: genesis and effects, including in contemporary digital humanities (statistics,big data, cultural analytics). Visual variable and Display of information as the starting point of a research, fieldworks</li><li>The expressivity and plasticity of graphic work: the representation of geographical and human territory. Contribution of the experimental work of the Graphical Laboratory to cartography; materialization of the instrumental design and graphic knowledge in the uses and materiality of the cards from the point of view of the plastic creation and the patrimonial conservation. Objectivity and visual display: relationships between graphics and fact in scientific demonstration</li><li>Graphical semiology in contemporary research, from graphic semiology to information design; pedagogical and epistemological issues of graphic semiology; dissemination of the work of the Laboratoire de Graphique and impact on the field of design and different disciplines in the international context. « Redesigning » the concepts of Bertin: how new data processing tools can contribute?</li></ol><p>The new convergences between design and research will be mobilized to question the place devolved to design in the visual and instrumental construction of contemporary scientific practices and knowledge. This will stimulate a dynamic and a collective experience of interdisciplinary discovery of uses of these methods and tools in heritage context.</p>

Field-based research programs offer students a singular opportunity to understand that today there are no simple scientific, economic or socio-political answers to the complex questions facing governments, communities, and local organizations. Through their research, students can gain a first-hand appreciation that decision making in the real world is a mix of all these disciplines, and that they have a vital role to play in participating in this process. According to the most recent Open Doors report (2006), issued by the Institute of International Education, about 206,000 US students studied abroad in 2004/5. While about 55% studied in Europe, an increasing number studied in other host countries around the world. Social science and physical science students comprised about 30% of all US study abroad students in this period. While study abroad programs encompassing a field research component are still in the minority, an increasing number of home institutions and field-based providers are supporting and conducting these types of programs. As the student papers in this Special Issue of Frontiers demonstrate, there is high quality work being produced by undergraduates in settings as diverse as France, Thailand, Kenya, South Africa and Mali. For these students this opportunity was likely a new experience, involving living and studying in international settings; dealing with language and culture differences; matriculating in programs operated by host country universities, independent program providers, or their home institution’s international program; and learning how to conduct research that meets professional standards. Much has been written and discussed regarding pre-departure orientation of US students studying abroad, along with studies and evaluations of the study abroad experience. Less discussion and research has focused on the experiences of the on-site faculty and staff who host students and incorporate field-based research into their courses and programs. These courses and programs involving student research include the following types: • International university-based research, in which the student conducts research on a topic as part of a course or term paper; • Independent field-based research, in which the student identifies a topic, organizes the project, and conducts the field work, analysis, write-up, etc. for an overall grade; • Collective field-based research, in which students, working under the guidance of a professor (either US or international), conduct a research project as part of a US-based course, or complementary to the professor’s research focus; • Client-focused, directed, field-based research in which the research conducted is in response to, or in collaboration with, a specific client ranging from an NGO, to a corporation, to an indigenous community, or a governmental agency. The purpose of this article is to describe some of the issues and challenges that on-site faculty and staff encounter in preparing and supporting US undergraduate students to conduct formal research projects in international settings in order to maximize their success and the quality of their research. The perspectives described below have been gathered through informal surveys with a range of international program faculty and staff; discussions with program managers and faculty; and through our own experience at The School for Field Studies (SFS), with its formal directed research model. The survey sought responses in the following areas, among others: preparing students to conduct successfully their field-based research in a different socio-cultural environment; the skill building needs of students; patterns of personal, cultural, and/or technical challenges that must be addressed to complete the process successfully; and, misconceptions that students have about field-based research. Student Preparation Students work either individually or in groups to conduct their research, depending on the program. In either case on-site faculty and staff focus immediately on training students on issues ranging from personal safety and risk management, to cultural understanding, language training, and appropriate behavior. In programs involving group work, faculty and staff have learned that good teamwork dynamics cannot be taken for granted. They work actively with students in helping them understand the ebb and flow of groups, the mutual respect which must be extended, and the active participation that each member must contribute. As one on-site director indicates, “Students make their experience what it is through their behavior. We talk a lot about respecting each other as individuals and working together to make the project a great experience.” Cultural and sensitivity training are a major part of these field-based programs. It is critical that students learn and appreciate the social and cultural context in which they will conduct their research. As another on-site director states, “It is most important that the students understand the context in which the research is happening. They need to know the values and basic cultural aspects around the project they will be working on. It is not simply doing ‘good science.’ It requires understanding the context so the science research reaches its goal.” On-site faculty and staff also stress the importance of not only understanding cultural dynamics, but also acting appropriately and sensitively relative to community norms and expectations. Language training is also a component of many of these programs. As a faculty member comments, “Students usually need help negotiating a different culture and a new language. We try to help the students understand that they need to identify appropriate solutions for the culture they are in, and that can be very difficult at times.” Skill Building Training students on the technical aspects of conducting field-based research is the largest challenge facing most on-site faculty and staff, who are often struck by the following: • A high percentage of students come to these programs with a lack of knowledge of statistics and methods. They’ve either had very little training in statistics, or they find that real world conditions complicate their data. According to one faculty member, “Statistics are a big struggle for most students. Some have done a class, but when they come to work with real data it is seldom as black and white as a text book example and that leads to interpretation issues and lack of confidence in their data. They learn that ecology (for example) is often not clear, but that is OK.” • Both physical and social science students need basic training in scientific methodology in order to undertake their projects. Even among science majors there is a significant lack of knowledge of how to design, manage and conduct a research project. As a program director states, “Many students begin by thinking that field research is comprised only of data collection. We intensively train students to understand that good research is a process that begins with conceptualization of issues, moves into review of relevant literature, structures a research hypothesis, determines indicators and measurements, creates the research design, collects data, undertakes analysis and inference. This is followed by write-up in standard scientific format for peer review and input. This leads to refining earlier hypotheses, raising new questions and initiating further research to address new questions.” Consistently, on-site faculty have indicated that helping students understand and appreciate this cycle is a major teaching challenge, but one that is critical to their education and the success of their various field research projects. • The uncertainty and ambiguity that are often present in field research creates challenges for many students who are used to seeking ‘the answer in the book.’ On-site faculty help students understand that science is a process in which field-based research is often non-linear and prone to interruption by natural and political events. It is a strong lesson for students when research subjects, be they animal or human, don’t cooperate by failing to appear on time, or at all, and when they do appear they may have their own agendas. Finally, when working with human communities, student researchers need to understand that their research results and recommendations are not likely to result in immediate action. Program faculty help them to understand that the real world includes politics, conflicting attitudes, regulatory issues, funding issues, and other community priorities. • Both physical and social science students demonstrate a consistent lack of skill in technical and evidence-based writing. For many this type of writing is completely new and is a definite learning experience. As a faculty member states, “Some students find the report writing process very challenging. We want them to do well, but we don’t want to effectively write their paper for them.” Challenges The preceding points address some of the technical work that on-site faculty conduct with students. Faculty also witness and experience the ‘emotional’ side of field-based research being conducted by their students. This includes what one faculty member calls “a research-oriented motivation” — the need for students to develop a strong, energized commitment to overcome all the challenges necessary to get the project done. As another professor indicates, “At the front end the students don’t realize how much effort they will have to expend because they usually have no experience with this sort of work before they do their project.” Related to this is the need for students to learn that flexibility in the research process does not justify a sloppy or casual approach. It does mean a recognition that human, political, and meteorological factors may intervene, requiring the ability to adapt to changed conditions. The goal is to get the research done. The exact mechanics for doing so will emerge as the project goes on. “Frustration tolerance” is critical in conducting this type of work. Students have the opportunity to learn that certain projects need to incorporate a substantial window of time while a lengthy ethics approval and permit review system is conducted by various governmental agencies. Students learn that bureaucracies move at their own pace, and for reasons that may not be obvious. Finally, personal challenges to students may include being uncomfortable in the field (wet, hot, covered in scrub itch) or feeling over-tired. As a faculty member states, “Many have difficulty adjusting to the early mornings my projects usually involve.” These issues represent a range of challenges that field-based research faculty and staff encounter in working with undergraduate students in designing and conducting their research projects around the world. In my own experience with SFS field-based staff, and in discussions with a wide variety of others who work and teach on-site, I am consistently impressed by the dedication, energy and commitment of these men and women to train, support and mentor students to succeed. As an on-site director summarizes, essentially speaking for all, “Fortunately, most of the students attending our program are very enthusiastic learners, take their limitations positively, and hence put tremendous effort into acquiring the required skills to conduct quality research.” Summary/Conclusions Those international program faculty and staff who have had years of experience in dealing with and teaching US undergraduates are surprised that the US educational system has not better prepared students on subjects including statistics, scientific report formatting and composition, and research methodologies. They find that they need to address these topics on an intensive basis in order for a substantial number of students to then conduct their research work successfully. Having said this, on-site faculty and staff are generally impressed by the energy and commitment that most students put into learning the technical requirements of a research project and carrying it out to the best of their abilities. Having students conduct real field-based research, and grading these efforts, is a very concrete method of determining the seriousness with which a student has participated in their study abroad program. Encouraging field-based research is good for students and good for study abroad because it has the potential of producing measurable products based on very tangible efforts. In a number of instances students have utilized their field research as the basis for developing their senior thesis or honors project back on their home campus. Successful field research has also formed the basis of Fulbright or Watson proposals, in addition to other fellowships and graduate study projects. An increasing number of students are also utilizing their field research, often in collaboration with their on-site program faculty, to create professional conference presentations and posters. Some of these field-based research models also produce benefits for incountry clients, including NGOs, corporations and community stakeholders. In addition to providing the data, analyses, technical information, and recommendations that these groups might not otherwise be able to afford, it is a concrete mechanism for the student and her/his study abroad program faculty and staff to ‘give back’ to local stakeholders and clients. It changes the dynamic from the student solely asking questions, interviewing respondents, observing communities, to more of a mutually beneficial relationship. This is very important to students who are sensitive to this dynamic. It is also important to their program faculty and staff, and in most cases, genuinely appreciated by the local stakeholders. In essence, community identified and responsive research is an excellent mechanism for giving to a community — not just taking from it. An increasing interest in conducting field-based research on the part of US universities and their students may have the effect of expanding the international destinations to which US students travel. A student’s sociological, anthropological, or environmental interest and their desire to conduct field research in that academic discipline, for example, may help stretch the parameters of the student’s comfort level to study in more exotic (non-traditional) locales. Skill building in preparing for and conducting field-based research is an invaluable experience for the student’s future academic and professional career. It is a fairly common experience for these students to indicate that with all the classroom learning they have done, their study abroad experience wherein they got their hands dirty, their comfort level stretched, their assumptions tested, and their work ethic challenged, provided them with an invaluable and life changing experience. Conducting field-based research in an international setting provides real world experience, as the student papers in this edition of Frontiers attest. It also brings what may have only been academic subjects, like statistics, and research design and methodology, to life in a real-conditions context. On a related note, conducting real field-based work includes the requirement to endure field conditions, remote locations, bad weather, personal discomforts, technological and mechanical breakdowns, and sometimes dangerous situations. Field research is hard work if it is done rigorously. In addition, field work often includes non-cooperating subjects that defy prediction, and may confound a neat research hypothesis. For a student considering a profession which requires a serious commitment to social or physical science field work this study abroad experience is invaluable. It clarifies for the student what is really involved, and it is helpful to the student in assessing their future career focus, as they ask the critical question — would I really want to do this as a fulltime career? US education needs to bridge better the gap between the physical and social sciences. Students are done a disservice with the silo-type education that has been so prevalent in US education. In the real world there are no strictly scientific, economic, or sociological solutions to complex, vexing problems facing the global community. Going forward there needs to be interdisciplinary approaches to these issues by decision makers at all levels. We need to train our students to comprehend that while they may not be an ecologist, or an economist, or a sociologist, they need to understand and appreciate that all these perspectives are important and must be considered in effective decision-making processes. In conclusion, education abroad programs involving serious field-based research are not a distraction or diversion from the prescribed course of study at US home institutions; rather, they are, if done well, capable of providing real, tangible skills and experience that students lack, in spite of their years of schooling. This is the reward that is most meaningful to the international program faculty and staff who teach, mentor and support US students in conducting their field-based research activities. As an Australian on-site program director stated, “there are relatively few students who are adequately skilled in these (field research) areas when they come to our program. Most need a lot of instruction and assistance to complete their research projects, but that of course is part of what we’re all about — helping students acquire or improve these critical skills.” This is the real service that these programs and on-site faculty and staff offer to US undergraduates. Paul Houlihan, President The School for Field Studies

In my postgraduate formation during the last years of the 80’s, we had close to thirty hospital beds in a pavilion called “sépticas” (1). In Colombia, where abortion was completely penalized, the pavilion was mostly filled with women with insecure, complicated abortions. The focus we received was technical: management of intensive care; performance of hysterectomies, colostomies, bowel resection, etc. In those times, some nurses were nuns and limited themselves to interrogating the patients to get them to “confess” what they had done to themselves in order to abort. It always disturbed me that the women who left alive, left without any advice or contraceptive method. Having asked a professor of mine, he responded with disdain: “This is a third level hospital, those things are done by nurses of the first level”. Seeing so much pain and death, I decided to talk to patients, and I began to understand their decision. I still remember so many deaths with sadness, but one case in particular pains me: it was a woman close to being fifty who arrived with a uterine perforation in a state of advanced sepsis. Despite the surgery and the intensive care, she passed away. I had talked to her, and she told me she was a widow, had two adult kids and had aborted because of “embarrassment towards them” because they were going to find out that she had an active sexual life. A few days after her passing, the pathology professor called me, surprised, to tell me that the uterus we had sent for pathological examination showed no pregnancy. She was a woman in a perimenopausal state with a pregnancy exam that gave a false positive due to the high levels of FSH/LH typical of her age. SHE WAS NOT PREGNANT!!! She didn’t have menstruation because she was premenopausal and a false positive led her to an unsafe abortion. Of course, the injuries caused in the attempted abortion caused the fatal conclusion, but the real underlying cause was the social taboo in respect to sexuality. I had to watch many adolescents and young women leave the hospital alive, but without a uterus, sometime without ovaries and with colostomies, to be looked down on by a society that blamed them for deciding to not be mothers. I had to see situation of women that arrived with their intestines protruding from their vaginas because of unsafe abortions. I saw women, who in their despair, self-inflicted injuries attempting to abort with elements such as stick, branches, onion wedges, alum bars and clothing hooks among others. Among so many deaths, it was hard not having at least one woman per day in the morgue due to an unsafe abortion. During those time, healthcare was not handled from the biopsychosocial, but only from the technical (2); nonetheless, in the academic evaluations that were performed, when asked about the definition of health, we had to recite the text from the International Organization of Health that included these three aspects. How contradictory! To give response to the health need of women and guarantee their right when I was already a professor, I began an obstetric contraceptive service in that third level hospital. There was resistance from the directors, but fortunately I was able to acquire international donations for the institution, which facilitated its acceptance. I decided to undertake a teaching career with the hope of being able to sensitize health professionals towards an integral focus of health and illness. When the International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo in 1994, I had already spent various years in teaching, and when I read their Action Program, I found a name for what I was working on: Sexual and Reproductive Rights. I began to incorporate the tools given by this document into my professional and teaching life. I was able to sensitize people at my countries Health Ministry, and we worked together moving it to an approach of human rights in areas of sexual and reproductive health (SRH). This new viewpoint, in addition to being integral, sought to give answers to old problems like maternal mortality, adolescent pregnancy, low contraceptive prevalence, unplanned or unwanted pregnancy or violence against women. With other sensitized people, we began with these SRH issues to permeate the Colombian Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, some universities, and university hospitals. We are still fighting in a country that despite many difficulties has improved its indicators of SRH. With the experience of having labored in all sphere of these topics, we manage to create, with a handful of colleagues and friend at the Universidad El Bosque, a Master’s Program in Sexual and Reproductive Health, open to all professions, in which we broke several paradigms. A program was initiated in which the qualitative and quantitative investigation had the same weight, and some alumni of the program are now in positions of leadership in governmental and international institutions, replicating integral models. In the Latin American Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FLASOG, English acronym) and in the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO), I was able to apply my experience for many years in the SRH committees of these association to benefit women and girls in the regional and global environments. When I think of who has inspired me in these fights, I should highlight the great feminist who have taught me and been with me in so many fights. I cannot mention them all, but I have admired the story of the life of Margaret Sanger with her persistence and visionary outlook. She fought throughout her whole life to help the women of the 20th century to be able to obtain the right to decide when and whether or not they wanted to have children (3). Of current feminist, I have had the privilege of sharing experiences with Carmen Barroso, Giselle Carino, Debora Diniz and Alejandra Meglioli, leaders of the International Planned Parenthood Federation – Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF-RHO). From my country, I want to mention my countrywoman Florence Thomas, psychologist, columnist, writer and Colombo-French feminist. She is one of the most influential and important voices in the movement for women rights in Colombia and the region. She arrived from France in the 1960’s, in the years of counterculture, the Beatles, hippies, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre, a time in which capitalism and consumer culture began to be criticized (4). It was then when they began to talk about the female body, female sexuality and when the contraceptive pill arrived like a total revolution for women. Upon its arrival in 1967, she experimented a shock because she had just assisted in a revolution and only found a country of mothers, not women (5). That was the only destiny for a woman, to be quiet and submissive. Then she realized that this could not continue, speaking of “revolutionary vanguards” in such a patriarchal environment. In 1986 with the North American and European feminism waves and with her academic team, they created the group “Mujer y Sociedad de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia”, incubator of great initiatives and achievements for the country (6). She has led great changes with her courage, the strength of her arguments, and a simultaneously passionate and agreeable discourse. Among her multiple books, I highlight “Conversaciones con Violeta” (7), motivated by the disdain towards feminism of some young women. She writes it as a dialogue with an imaginary daughter in which, in an intimate manner, she reconstructs the history of women throughout the centuries and gives new light of the fundamental role of feminism in the life of modern women. Another book that shows her bravery is “Había que decirlo” (8), in which she narrates the experience of her own abortion at age twenty-two in sixty’s France. My work experience in the IPPF-RHO has allowed me to meet leaders of all ages in diverse countries of the region, who with great mysticism and dedication, voluntarily, work to achieve a more equal and just society. I have been particularly impressed by the appropriation of the concept of sexual and reproductive rights by young people, and this has given me great hope for the future of the planet. We continue to have an incomplete agenda of the action plan of the ICPD of Cairo but seeing how the youth bravely confront the challenges motivates me to continue ahead and give my years of experience in an intergenerational work. In their policies and programs, the IPPF-RHO evidences great commitment for the rights and the SRH of adolescent, that are consistent with what the organization promotes, for example, 20% of the places for decision making are in hands of the young. Member organizations, that base their labor on volunteers, are true incubators of youth that will make that unassailable and necessary change of generations. In contrast to what many of us experienced, working in this complicated agenda of sexual and reproductive health without theoretical bases, today we see committed people with a solid formation to replace us. In the college of medicine at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the College of Nursing at the Universidad El Bosque, the new generations are more motivated and empowered, with great desire to change the strict underlying structures. Our great worry is the onslaught of the ultra-right, a lot of times better organized than us who do support rights, that supports anti-rights group and are truly pro-life (9). Faced with this scenario, we should organize ourselves better, giving battle to guarantee the rights of women in the local, regional, and global level, aggregating the efforts of all pro-right organizations. We are now committed to the Objectives of Sustainable Development (10), understood as those that satisfy the necessities of the current generation without jeopardizing the capacity of future generations to satisfy their own necessities. This new agenda is based on: - The unfinished work of the Millennium Development Goals - Pending commitments (international environmental conventions) - The emergent topics of the three dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic, and environmental. We now have 17 objectives of sustainable development and 169 goals (11). These goals mention “universal access to reproductive health” many times. In objective 3 of this list is included guaranteeing, before the year 2030, “universal access to sexual and reproductive health services, including those of family planning, information, and education.” Likewise, objective 5, “obtain gender equality and empower all women and girls”, establishes the goal of “assuring the universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights in conformity with the action program of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Action Platform of Beijing”. It cannot be forgotten that the term universal access to sexual and reproductive health includes universal access to abortion and contraception. Currently, 830 women die every day through preventable maternal causes; of these deaths, 99% occur in developing countries, more than half in fragile environments and in humanitarian contexts (12). 216 million women cannot access modern contraception methods and the majority live in the nine poorest countries in the world and in a cultural environment proper to the decades of the seventies (13). This number only includes women from 15 to 49 years in any marital state, that is to say, the number that takes all women into account is much greater. Achieving the proposed objectives would entail preventing 67 million unwanted pregnancies and reducing maternal deaths by two thirds. We currently have a high, unsatisfied demand for modern contraceptives, with extremely low use of reversible, long term methods (intrauterine devices and subdermal implants) which are the most effect ones with best adherence (14). There is not a single objective among the 17 Objectives of Sustainable Development where contraception does not have a prominent role: from the first one that refers to ending poverty, going through the fifth one about gender equality, the tenth of inequality reduction among countries and within the same country, until the sixteenth related with peace and justice. If we want to change the world, we should procure universal access to contraception without myths or barriers. We have the moral obligation of achieving the irradiation of extreme poverty and advancing the construction of more equal, just, and happy societies. In emergency contraception (EC), we are very far from reaching expectations. If in reversible, long-term methods we have low prevalence, in EC the situation gets worse. Not all faculties in the region look at this topic, and where it is looked at, there is no homogeneity in content, not even within the same country. There are still myths about their real action mechanisms. There are countries, like Honduras, where it is prohibited and there is no specific medicine, the same case as in Haiti. Where it is available, access is dismal, particularly among girls, adolescents, youth, migrants, afro-descendent, and indigenous. The multiple barriers for the effective use of emergency contraceptives must be knocked down, and to work toward that we have to destroy myths and erroneous perceptions, taboos and cultural norms; achieve changes in laws and restrictive rules within countries, achieve access without barriers to the EC; work in union with other sectors; train health personnel and the community. It is necessary to transform the attitude of health personal to a service above personal opinion. Reflecting on what has occurred after the ICPD in Cairo, their Action Program changed how we look at the dynamics of population from an emphasis on demographics to a focus on the people and human rights. The governments agreed that, in this new focus, success was the empowerment of women and the possibility of choice through expanded access to education, health, services, and employment among others. Nonetheless, there have been unequal advances and inequality persists in our region, all the goals were not met, the sexual and reproductive goals continue beyond the reach of many women (15). There is a long road ahead until women and girls of the world can claim their rights and liberty of deciding. Globally, maternal deaths have been reduced, there is more qualified assistance of births, more contraception prevalence, integral sexuality education, and access to SRH services for adolescents are now recognized rights with great advances, and additionally there have been concrete gains in terms of more favorable legal frameworks, particularly in our region; nonetheless, although it’s true that the access condition have improved, the restrictive laws of the region expose the most vulnerable women to insecure abortions. There are great challenges for governments to recognize SRH and the DSR as integral parts of health systems, there is an ample agenda against women. In that sense, access to SRH is threatened and oppressed, it requires multi-sector mobilization and litigation strategies, investigation and support for the support of women’s rights as a multi-sector agenda. Looking forward, we must make an effort to work more with youth to advance not only the Action Program of the ICPD, but also all social movements. They are one of the most vulnerable groups, and the biggest catalyzers for change. The young population still faces many challenges, especially women and girls; young girls are in particularly high risk due to lack of friendly and confidential services related with sexual and reproductive health, gender violence, and lack of access to services. In addition, access to abortion must be improved; it is the responsibility of states to guarantee the quality and security of this access. In our region there still exist countries with completely restrictive frameworks. New technologies facilitate self-care (16), which will allow expansion of universal access, but governments cannot detach themselves from their responsibility. Self-care is expanding in the world and can be strategic for reaching the most vulnerable populations. There are new challenges for the same problems, that require a re-interpretation of the measures necessary to guaranty the DSR of all people, in particular women, girls, and in general, marginalized and vulnerable populations. It is necessary to take into account migrations, climate change, the impact of digital media, the resurgence of hate discourse, oppression, violence, xenophobia, homo/transphobia, and other emergent problems, as SRH should be seen within a framework of justice, not isolated. We should demand accountability of the 179 governments that participate in the ICPD 25 years ago and the 193 countries that signed the Sustainable Development Objectives. They should reaffirm their commitments and expand their agenda to topics not considered at that time. Our region has given the world an example with the Agreement of Montevideo, that becomes a blueprint for achieving the action plan of the CIPD and we should not allow retreat. This agreement puts people at the center, especially women, and includes the topic of abortion, inviting the state to consider the possibility of legalizing it, which opens the doors for all governments of the world to recognize that women have the right to choose on maternity. This agreement is much more inclusive: Considering that the gaps in health continue to abound in the region and the average statistics hide the high levels of maternal mortality, of sexually transmitted diseases, of infection by HIV/AIDS, and the unsatisfied demand for contraception in the population that lives in poverty and rural areas, among indigenous communities, and afro-descendants and groups in conditions of vulnerability like women, adolescents and incapacitated people, it is agreed: 33- To promote, protect, and guarantee the health and the sexual and reproductive rights that contribute to the complete fulfillment of people and social justice in a society free of any form of discrimination and violence. 37- Guarantee universal access to quality sexual and reproductive health services, taking into consideration the specific needs of men and women, adolescents and young, LGBT people, older people and people with incapacity, paying particular attention to people in a condition of vulnerability and people who live in rural and remote zone, promoting citizen participation in the completing of these commitments. 42- To guarantee, in cases in which abortion is legal or decriminalized in the national legislation, the existence of safe and quality abortion for non-desired or non-accepted pregnancies and instigate the other States to consider the possibility of modifying public laws, norms, strategies, and public policy on the voluntary interruption of pregnancy to save the life and health of pregnant adolescent women, improving their quality of life and decreasing the number of abortions (17).

During the research, the following methods were used: 1. analysis of literary sources, 2. collection of statistical data. The weight and height indicators of the first teams of the major league clubs of the leading European football countries (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France) were collected. 112 indicators of height and weight of defenders of 20 clubs (Barcelona, Juventus, Chelsea, Bayern, etc.) were recorded; 3) methods of mathematical statistics. The study was carried out in 2022. According to our data, regardless of national characteristics, the strongest central defenders, in comparison with the extreme ones, have a significant advantage in terms of height and weight. Consequently, the weight-height model characteristics of the players of the defensive line should not be presented in a generalized form, as is often done.

This article focuses on the early career of Luigi Mongeri, who was appointed as the chief physician to the Süleymaniye Mental Asylum in 1856 to treat mental illness and improve the living conditions of mentally ill patients in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. It focuses on Mongeri's early career in Italy, investigates his involvement in Ottoman imperial patronage networks and their subsequent effects on his career, and finally explores the reform program he implemented at Süleymaniye. While in the Ottoman Empire, Mongeri appeared as a reformist who claimed to improve the living conditions and treatment of patients by the use medical statistics, abolishing the use of shackles, etc. At the same time in Europe—and especially in France, which was one of the important centers of alienist medicine at the time— he presented himself as an expert on "oriental insanity,” a claim which gained him access to international medical circles and organizations.

AbstractNew data are available in the field of risk assessment: the biomonitoring data which is measurement of the chemical dose in a human tissue (e.g. blood or urine). These data are original because they represent direct measurements of the dose of chemical substances really taken up from the environment, whereas exposure is usually assessed from contamination levels of the different exposure media (e.g. food, air, water, etc.) and statistical models. However, considered alone, these data provide little help from the perspective of Public Health guidance. The objective of this paper is to propose a method to exploit the information provided by human biomonitoring in order to improve the modeling of exposure. This method is based on the Kinetic Dietary Exposure Model which takes into account the pharmacokinetic elimination and the accumulation phenomenon inside the human body. This model is corrected to account for any possible temporal evolution in exposure by adding a scaling function which describes this evolution. Approximate Bayesian Computation is used to fit this exposure model from the biomonitoring data available. Specific summary statistics and appropriate distances between simulated and observed statistical distributions are proposed and discussed in the light of risk assessment. The promoted method is then applied to measurements of blood concentration of dioxins in a group of French fishermen families. The outputs of the model are an estimation of the body burden distribution from observed dietary intakes and the evolution of dietary exposure to dioxins in France between 1930 and today. This model successfully fit to dioxins data can also be used with other biomonitoring data to improve the risk assessment to many other contaminants.

This paper considers the problem of abortion in modern Russia. Using official statistics, we analyze the dynamics of abortion indicators since the early 1990s. On the basis of representative national sample surveys, we conclude that official statistics are complete and reliable. This in turn confirms the steady decline of abortions during the post-Soviet years. A particularly rapid decline in abortions is seen among the youngest women. Modern teenagers have fewer abortions than their predecessors at this age. The current level of induced abortions in women under age 20 in Russia today is less than in France, Great Britain, Sweden, and a number of other developed countries of European culture. The major differentiating factor for frequency of abortion is age. There are no clear correlations between the risks of abortion in Russia and such standard social characteristics as income, type of settlement and education. Despite the positive trend, Russia remains one of the countries with the highest abortion rates in the world. The country’s turn to traditional values and the allegedly growing role of religion are inadequate mechanisms to reduce abortions. Government support is given not to proven, evidence-based measures like the promotion of family planning, sex education, etc., but to repression and restrictions. During the past 10-15 years, a number of restrictive amendments have been introduced into legislation. The authors indicate the counterproductive effects of these restrictions on abortion as an instrument of a pronatalist population policy. This article recommends paying more attention to improvements in the quality of abortion provision by the introduction of modern medical standards and protocols. In the conclusion, the authors suggest ways to improve the official statistics on abortions.

Caricature, in a historical sense, can be deemed as an application that reveals a human’s ability to paint. It is perceived that the caricature, which has been held in human life since cave paintings until today, has also a unique place in our modern life with different ways and various fields through the course of history. The caricature will continue to exist as an influential representative in the combination of painting and criticism. In this context, political caricatures are one of the most practical and efficient methods used to criticize notables of states. The dose of these caricatures is caused many controversies even today, as they increase their violence and cruelty in case of conflicts between states. There are many media outcomes published in Europe that collect with the developments worldwide. It is reasonable to confer following newspapers and magazines as examples in this field: La Silhouette (1829), La Caricature (1830), Penny Magazine (1832), Punch (1841), L’Illustration Journal Universel (1843), Harpers’s Magazine (1850), Le Monde Illustré (1857), The Illustrated London News (1842), Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News (1855), Puck (1871) etc. These newspapers and magazines have a unique place in the world press history in terms of showing all varieties of criticism, apart from being pioneers in many fields. Since these publications systematically followed the political and social events happening all over the world and included many illustrations, caricatures and columns on various topics according to the agenda. These descriptions are noteworthy documents for many disciplines today. In recent years, access to works has increased with the convenience provided by digitalization. Therefore, the descriptions in various printed publications have emerged in a way that supports the studies in many types of research, even with the potential to be the main topic directly. The journal, which addresses many people and issues critically, mainly in France and Europe, has established many studies on the Ottoman Empire and its leaders. Abdülhamid II (1876-1909), has been the subject of a notable amount of critical caricature during his long reign. Within the scope of this research, 15 caricatures that themed Abdülhamid II, which were selected from 836 numbers of Le Rire, published between 1894 and 1909, were determined and examined. The following subjects are processed in these caricatures: Some difficulties experienced by the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and Eastern Anatolia, the rapprochement with the Germans, the endless negotiations in foreign policy, the turmoil in terms of the Ottoman sultanate and the joint studies with Europe. It is aimed to bring these caricatures, some of which are anonymous and some signed, as a consequence of various technical skills, to several fields of study and especially to the literature of art history by analyzing them in artistic and historical terms. Thus, Sultan Abdülhamid II, who had a very important share in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, has been the goal to reveal how Abdülhamid II was introduced or presented to the reader through the caricature.

Women’s football is the sports game with the most spectacular development in recent years both in terms of the number of participants (approximately 40 million) and all other factors involved in this process (international federations, investments, spectators, etc.). The general perception that most specialists have about women’s football is: “Like amateur football, but in slow motion”. This perception has fundamentally changed with the significant improvement in the level of performance shown on the field by football players. The questions we are trying to answer by conducting this research are the following: Are there important technical and tactical differences between women’s and men’s high-performance football? If there are such differences, what relevance do they have for the preparation process? In this context, the present study represents a comparative analysis, from a technical and tactical point of view, of the teams ranked in the top 3 at the last World Cups for both men (2018 FIFA World Cup Russia) and women (2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup France). The data were obtained from the FIFA website and from live statistics provided during each World Cup game. The conclusions that will emerge from this study may represent directions for the further technical and tactical development of women’s football.

The apple is the most widespread fruit species of the temperate climate and has great economic importance. It is characterized by high productivity, good transportability and storability of the fruits. The apples can be offered on the market all year round with a good organization of the assortment and ensure a refrigerated base. The apple production ensures much healthy benefits of people like food, vitamins, fiber, etc. Also it could be seen as an activity that achieves good economic results. The greater return on resources invested in this production will facilitate an increase in the standard of living of employed in this activity. Also, many authors examine apple production, both on a global and national scale. Leading producers of apples in the world are China, USA, Poland and Turkey. In the EU – 27 are Poland, Italy and France in 2021. The aim of the study is to examine the evolution of apple production in Bulgaria for the period after the 1990s. We analyzed apple harvested areas, average yield and production through descriptive statistics methods. In adition we did correlation analysis with follow indicators: export and import quantity and value, production, as well as prices and quantity of export. It was founded that the transition to a market economy in Bulgarian agriculture also had a negative impact on foreign trade in fresh fruit. As a result of all these Bulgaria had turned from an exporter into an importer of fruit

The relevance of this topic was primarily conditioned upon the need to cover women's experience during combat operations, both on and off the front lines. The importance of highlighting such experiences was the insufficient level of study of the relevant issue, as a result – the unsatisfactory level of awareness among the population of the importance of women during military operations. The purpose of the study was to investigate and clarify the issue of the participation and role of European women in the First World War. The following methods were used to conduct the study: comparative, statistical, historical, systematic, terminological, etc. The findings revealed the place of women during the World War in 1914-1918, and identified the main changes observed among the female population in the corresponding time intervals, in particular, the issue of women's emancipation and the feminist movement. On the example of a number of countries, including France, Romania, and Ukraine, statistics on women's employment in jobs that belonged to men before the war were presented. A comparative analysis of the involvement of women in direct military operations during 1914-1918 was carried out. Some changes in the political, social, and economic environment of European countries in relation to women are presented as the main results of emancipation and feminist movements during the First World War, in particular, the Ukrainian women's movement of 1914-1918 is considered. The results of this study can be used to further clarify women's experience during military operations by historians and researchers, as well as public figures to highlight the participation of women in the First World War among the population

Abstract Background Benzodiazepines (BZDs) and Z-drugs have high potential for developing frequent adverse drug events in older adults (e.g., psychomotor sedation, drug-related dementia, deliria, drug dependence, etc.). Knowledge of the prevalence and patterns of the use of BZDs/Z-drugs in vulnerable older patients is important in order to prevent and reduce the burden caused by their drug-related complications. Our study focused on international comparisons of the prevalence, country-specific prescribing patterns and risk factors of regular BZD/Z-drug use in nursing home (NH) residents. Methods This cross-sectional study retrospectively analysed data of 4156 NH residents, prospectively assessed in the Services and Health in the Elderly in Long TERm care (SHELTER) project conducted from 2009 to 2014. Residents aged 65+ in 57 NHs in 7 European countries and Israel were assessed by the InterRAI Long-Term Care Facilities instrument. Descriptive statistics and multiple logistic regression models were used to describe the country-specific prevalence, patterns and risk factors of BZD/Z-drug use. Results The mean age of the participants was 83.4 ± 9.4 years, 73% were female and 27.7% used BZDs/Z-drugs. The prevalence of BZD/Z-drug use differed significantly across countries, ranging from 44.1% in Israel to 14.5% in Germany. The most frequently prescribed were zopiclone (17.8%), lorazepam (17.1%) and oxazepam (16.3%). Lorazepam, oxazepam and diazepam were used in most of the countries. Brotizolam, temazepam and zolpidem showed highest prevalence in Israel (99.4% of all regular users of this medication in the sample), the Netherlands (72.6%) and France (50.0%), respectively. Residing in Israel was the most significant factor associated with the use of BZDs/Z-drugs or BZDs only (odds ratio [OR] 6.7; 95% confidence interval [CI] 4.8–9.2 and OR 9.7, 95%CI 6.5–14.5, respectively). The use of Z-drugs only was most significantly associated with residing in France (OR 21.0, 95%CI 9.0–48.9). Conclusions Despite global recommendations and warnings, the preference for and extent of use of individual BZDs and Z-drugs in vulnerable NH residents differ significantly across countries. The strong association with country of residence compared to clinical and functional factors denotes that prescribing habits, social, cultural, behavioural, and regulatory factors still play an important role in the current diverse use of these medications.

It is described in detail in the article the organic potential of European countries and Ukraine through the prism of specific indicators that characterize it. It is determined that the fullest organic potential of any state is revealed through a system of such indicators: land use in organic farming; number of producers of certified organic products; volumes of retail trade in organic products; volumes of exports and imports of organic products; cost of consumption of organic products per person; the largest importers of state organic products, etc. Based on the constructed complex diagram, which systematically characterizes the organic potential of European countries and, in particular, Ukraine through a set of its main indicators, it is proved that the most powerful European organic leaders in 2019 are: Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Collectively, the indicators that characterize their organic potential in 2019 reached, compared to other European countries, high leadership positions. According to statistics, it is determined that in 2019 Sweden for the first time after many years of importing organic grains became their exporter – 116 million euros. It is noted that Ukraine in the system of indicators characterizing its organic potential in 2019, among European countries is a pioneer, where the development of organic farming and organic food production is a strategic task of the state over the next few years. After all, the area of organic land in 2019 exceeded 460 thousand hectares, and the volume of exports of organic products in the same year reached the level of 272 million euros with only 470 state producers of certified organic products. It was also emphasized that in support of the development of organic potential, Ukraine is implementing international projects aimed at the development of organic production. For example, the project “German-Ukrainian cooperation in the field of organic farming”, the Swiss-Ukrainian program “Development of trade with higher added value in the organic and dairy sectors of Ukraine”, funded by the Swiss Confederation and implemented by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in partnership with SAFOSO AG, EU project “Support to the implementation of agricultural and food policy in Ukraine”.