The paper presents the results of radiocarbon (14C) concentration measurements in tree rings in the vicinity of Kursk NPP (Russia) with four operating RBMK reactors. The sampling was carried out from the site with the highest expected accumulation of radiocarbon in vegetation. The site was determined with long-term meteorological data. The measurements of 14C concentration carried out with accelerator-mass spectrometer in Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, Novosibirsk, Russia. The obtained results demonstrated the influence of exploitation of Kursk NPP to the concentration of 14C in tree rings. Based on the equilibrium between the 14C ratio in the tree rings and the surrounding air, retrospective estimates of the radiocarbon discharge and effective doses were made. Effective doses were calculated with two approaches: IAEA methodology and less conservative approach, considering the real food consumption in the Kursk region. The values of calculated doses by the second method (0.08–2.58 μSv) are more than 2 times less than IAEA approach (0.17–5.30 μSv). The highest difference between measured and background 14C in tree ring is 41.7 ± 5.8 pMC in 2014 during the restoration of graphite stack. The main contribution to 14С exposure in the considering period is caused by background – from 70 to 99%.

The available paleosol and paleowood data from the head of the Akkol trough valley, South Chuya range, indicates a climatically driven glacier dynamic in the Russian Altai. Radiocarbon dating of paleosols and paleotree fragments help determine the beginning of the Neoglacial in this high mountain region in the middle of the Holocene. New data limit the advance of the Sofiysky glacier at that time by the front of the Historical moraine. Less so than during the Historical stage (2.3–1.7 cal kBP), glacial activity 5–4 cal kBP is also supported by rapid reforestation. The Akkem moraine in trough valleys of the Russian Altai accumulated prior to the Holocene. The limitations and difficulties of radiocarbon dating of paleosols should be considered when interpreting the dating results.

We present an experimental study of the dynamics of shocks generated by the interaction of a double-spot laser in different kinds of targets: simple aluminum foils and foam–aluminum layered targets. The experiment was performed using the Prague PALS iodine laser working at 0.44 μm wavelength and irradiance of a few 1015 W/cm2. Shock breakouts for pure Al and for foam-Al targets have been recorded using time-resolved self-emission diagnostics. Experimental results have been compared with numerical simulations. The shocks originating from two spots move forward and expand radially in the targets, finally colliding in the intermediate region and producing a very strong increase in pressure. This is particularly clear for the case of foam layered targets, where we also observed a delay of shock breakout and a spatial redistribution of the pressure. The influence of the foam layer doped with high-Z (Au) nanoparticles on the shock dynamics was also studied.

The existence of a symmetric mode in an elastic solid wedge for all admissible values of the Poisson ratio and arbitrary interior angles close to π has been proven.

We consider the Robin Laplacian in the domains Ω and Ωε, ε > 0, with sharp and blunted cusps, respectively. Assuming that the Robin coefficient a is large enough, the spectrum of the problem in Ω is known to be residual and to cover the whole complex plane, but on the contrary, the spectrum in the Lipschitz domain Ωε is discrete. However, our results reveal the strange behaviour of the discrete spectrum as the blunting parameter ε tends to 0: we construct asymptotic forms of the eigenvalues and detect families of ‘hardly movable’ and ‘plummeting’ ones. The first type of the eigenvalues do not leave a small neighbourhood of a point for any small ε > 0 while the second ones move at a high rate O(| ln ε|) downwards along the real axis ℝ to −∞. At the same time, any point λ ∈ ℝ is a ‘blinking eigenvalue’, i.e., it belongs to the spectrum of the problem in Ωε almost periodically in the | ln ε|-scale. Besides standard spectral theory, we use the techniques of dimension reduction and self-adjoint extensions to obtain these results.

We give a unified approach to strong maximum principles for a large class of nonlocal operators of order s ∈ (0, 1) that includes the Dirichlet, the Neumann Restricted (or Regional) and the Neumann Semirestricted Laplacians.

The aim of the paper is to derive the distribution of the number of retrial of the tagged request and as a consequence to present the waiting time analysis of a finite-source M/M/1 retrial queueing system by using the method of asymptotic analysis under the condition of the unlimited growing number of sources. As a result of the investigation, it is shown that the asymptotic distribution of the number of retrials of the tagged customer in the orbit is geometric with given parameter, and the waiting time of the tagged customer has a generalized exponential distribution. For the considered retrial queuing system numerical and simulation software packages are also developed. With the help of several sample examples the accuracy and range of applicability of the asymptotic results in prelimit situation are illustrated showing the effectiveness of the proposed approximation.

We find logarithmic asymptotics of $L_{2}$ -small deviation probabilities for weighted stationary Gaussian processes (both for real and complex-valued) having a power-type discrete or continuous spectrum. Our results are based on the spectral theory of pseudo-differential operators developed by Birman and Solomyak.

A probabilistic approach to modelling avalanche origin and dynamics is developed. An avalanche process is considered as a single event. As a basis, the physically established deterministic models describing the processes of avalanche origin and motion are used. On the other hand, input data and/or parameters of these models are treated as random variables. The study is restricted only with respect to the dynamic stage of the avalanche process. It is assumed that the initial volume of snow, entrained into the motion, and the coefficients of dry and turbulent friction of the avalanche body are random variables. The other input data are deterministic. Three kinds of distribution laws for random variables are examined: uniform, normal and exponential. Several hundred numerical tests, carried out for the selected avalanche path No. 22 in the Khibiny region, Russia, allowed construction of the distribution functions for the output parameters of the dynamic model. These parameters are the front velocity, the height and the volume of the avalanche body at fixed points of the avalanche path. No very strong dependence of distribution functions on the kind of distribution laws was found. The model and empirical distribution functions are very close to one another for run-out distances and sufficiently close for depths and volumes of snow deposits.

Opaque phonological patterns are sometimes claimed to be difficult to learn; specific hypotheses have been advanced about the relative difficulty of particular kinds of opaque processes (Kiparsky 1971, 1973), and the kind of data that is helpful in learning an opaque pattern (Kiparsky 2000). In this paper, we present a computationally implemented learning theory for one grammatical theory of opacity, a Maximum Entropy version of Stratal OT (Bermúdez-Otero 1999, Kiparsky 2000), and test it on simplified versions of opaque French tense–lax vowel alternations and the opaque interaction of diphthong raising and flapping in Canadian English. We find that the difficulty of opacity can be influenced by evidence for stratal affiliation: the Canadian English case is easier if the learner encounters application of raising outside the flapping context, or non-application of raising between words (e.g. life with [ʌɪ]; lie for with [aɪ]).

A number of laser facilities coming online all over the world promise the capability of high-power laser experiments with shot repetition rates between 1 and 10 Hz. Target availability and technical issues related to the interaction environment could become a bottleneck for the exploitation of such facilities. In this paper, we report on target needs for three different classes of experiments: dynamic compression physics, electron transport and isochoric heating, and laser-driven particle and radiation sources. We also review some of the most challenging issues in target fabrication and high repetition rate operation. Finally, we discuss current target supply strategies and future perspectives to establish a sustainable target provision infrastructure for advanced laser facilities.

The transport of relativistic electron beam in compressed cylindrical targets was studied from a numerical and experimental point of view. In the experiment, cylindrical targets were imploded using the Gekko XII laser facility of the Institute of Laser Engineering. Then the fast electron beam was created by shooting the LFEX laser beam. The penetration of fast electrons was studied by observing Kα emission from tracer layers in the target.

During the past 55 years substantial progress concerning sharp constants in Poincaré-type and Steklov-type inequalities has been achieved. Original results of H. Poincaré, V. A. Steklov and his disciples are reviewed along with the main further developments in this area.

Copper activation was used to characterize high-energy proton beam acceleration from near-critical density plasma targets. An enhancement was observed when decreasing the target density, which is indicative for an increased laser-accelerated hot electron density at the rear target-vacuum boundary. This is due to channel formation and collimation of the hot electrons inside the target. Particle-in-cell simulations support the experimental observations and show the correlation between channel depth and longitudinal electric field strength is directly correlated with the proton acceleration.

We derive asymptotic formulas for the solutions of the mixed boundary value problem forthe Poisson equation on the union of a thin cylindrical plate and several thin cylindricalrods. One of the ends of each rod is set into a hole in the plate and the other one issupplied with the Dirichlet condition. The Neumann conditions are imposed on the wholeremaining part of the boundary. Elements of the junction are assumed to have contrastingproperties so that the small parameter, i.e. the relative thickness,appears in the differential equation, too, while the asymptotic structures cruciallydepend on the contrastness ratio. Asymptotic error estimates are derived in anisotropicweighted Sobolev norms.