Hungary’s Marki-Zay threatens Orban's chances in 2022

Significance The opposition now has a real chance to unseat Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the 2022 elections for the first time since Fidesz’s 2010 landslide. Vast incumbent advantages and a likely spending spree fuelled by EU funds still make Orban the likelier winner, but as a political outsider, Marki-Zay may appeal beyond the opposition’s traditional base. Impacts Russia retains an interest in keeping Orban in power and Kremlin meddling in the election is possible. The United States has an interest in change and may contribute to it, for instance through sanctions, as it did in Bulgaria last summer. To avoid appearing to interfere in member state politics, the EU will postpone planned moves to withhold funding from Hungary.

Which Physical Quantity Deserves the Name “Quantity of Heat”?

“What is heat?” was the title of a 1954 article by Freeman J. Dyson, published in Scientific American. Apparently, it was appropriate to ask this question at that time. The answer is given in the very first sentence of the article: heat is disordered energy. We will ask the same question again, but with a different expectation for its answer. Let us imagine that all the thermodynamic knowledge is already available: both the theory of phenomenological thermodynamics and that of statistical thermodynamics, including quantum statistics, but that the term “heat” has not yet been attributed to any of the variables of the theory. With the question “What is heat?” we now mean: which of the physical quantities deserves this name? There are several candidates: the quantities Q, H, Etherm and S. We can then formulate a desideratum, or a profile: What properties should such a measure of the quantity or amount of heat ideally have? Then, we evaluate all the candidates for their suitability. It turns out that the winner is the quantity S, which we know by the name of entropy. In the second part of the paper, we examine why entropy has not succeeded in establishing itself as a measure for the amount of heat, and we show that there is a real chance today to make up for what was missed.

Curcumin, Resveratrol and Cannabidiol as natural key-prototypes in drug design for neuroprotective agents

: Nowadays, neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Huntington’s disease (HD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), represent a great challenge for different scientific fields, such as neuropharmacology, medicinal chemistry, molecular biology, and medicine, once all these pathologies remain incurable, with high socio-economic impacts and high costs for governmental health services. Due to their severity and multifactorial pathophysiological complexity, the available approved drugs for clinics have not yet shown adequate effectiveness in disease-modifying effects, with very restricting options in the therapeutic arsenal, which highlight the permanent need for continued drug discovery efforts in Academia and Industry. In this context, natural products, such as curcumin (1), resveratrol (2), and cannabidiol (CBD, 3) have been recognized as important sources of inspiration, promising chemical entities, prototype models, and starting materials for medicinal organic chemistry. Once their molecular architecture, multifunctional properties and single chemical diversity could address the discovery, optimization, and development of innovative drug candidates with improved pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics compared to the known drugs, there may be a real chance of discovering novel effective drugs to combat NDs. In this review, we report the most recent efforts of medicinal chemists worldwide, published in the scientific literature available in PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of Sciences database, during the last 10 years of research devoted to the exploration of curcumin (1), resveratrol (2) and cannabidiol (CBD, 3) as starting materials or privileged scaffolds in the design of multi-target directed ligands (MTDLs) with potential therapeutic properties against NDs.

Exercising the powers of local self-government agencies in Ukraine

The notion of governance is fundamental in the management of every given society, and for this to be realized, there is that need in placing powers in the hands of it's community for the proper enhancement of the community. In it's plight of achieving credible development and potential Justice system, there that need of the local Self-Government agencies to be fully involved in the well-being of the society. It is therefore in this light that this article is explore to study and compare international experience in the area of local self-government agencies functioning, providing propositions on its implementation in Ukraine. International experience in exercising the powers by local self-government agencies is analyzed; offers concerning its adaptation in Ukraine are given. It is noted that local self-government agencies constitute an important component of the functioning and development of any country, but their impact on ensuring the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of the community, addressing their pressing issues is one that needs improvement. The positive aspect of decentralization is also due to the shift of a significant part of administrative powers from the center to municipalities and local communities in society, especially in its progressive part, there is a real chance to implement those changes, at least at the local level, which are extremely necessary for a long period of time. Conversely, if the central authorities are endowed with the maximum amount of power and imperative powers, while leaving local self-government agencies a fairly narrow amount of real power, the development tendencies of such a state will be mostly negative.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN AGRICULTURE: A REAL CHANCE FOR ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

В статье даны анализ современного состояния сельского хозяйства в Узбекистане и выявлены основные проблемы сдерживающие развитие отрасли. Для повышения экономической эффективности производства сельскохозяйственной продукции необходимо внедрение инновационной технологий искусственный интеллект.

Anti-inflammatory therapy of lower urinary tract infection in patients with distal urethral diseases

Introduction. Recurrent infection of the lower urinary tract (UTI) is a very common pathology in women of different age groups. This category of urological patients is most often found in the practice of an outpatient urologist. Aim. To study the possibilities of the effect of hydrolytic enzymes on the effectiveness of complex antiinflammatory therapy of chronic infectious and inflammatory diseases of the lower urinary tract in women with pathology of the distal urethra, paraurethral region and on the results of surgical treatment of patients with female hypospadias, paraurethral cysts. Materials and methods. 96 patients with various forms of chronic lower UTI and its complications as a result of diseases of the urethra and paraurethral zone (female hypospadias, hypermobility of the urethra, paraurethral cyst) we was observed. In the course of our study, all the observed patients, were divided into 2 groups. Group I – 40 people (control) patients who received only anti-inflammatory and antibacterial therapy according to the spectrum of the detected pathogen of UTI in combination with surgical treatment, and the group II – 56 patients who received anti-inflammatory and antibacterial therapy according to the spectrum of the detected pathogen of UTI and surgical treatment in combination with enzyme therapy for a course of 14 days. Results. In the II group all patients after discharge from the hospital were monitored for 6 months. Only 1 patient had a relapse of exacerbation of chronic lower urinary tract infection. Enzyme therapy as a component that optimizes anti-inflammatory therapy provides a real chance for earlier relief of the infectious process in these patients and improvement of the results of surgical treatment of paraurethral pathology. Discussion. Chronic recurrent infection of the lower urinary tract in women is often associated with the presence of pathological conditions of the distal urethra in the form of female hypospadias and hypermobility of the urethra, as well as paraurethral pathology in the form of paraurethral cysts. Patients with this pathology need surgical treatment and mandatory complex anti-inflammatory therapy. Enzyme therapy as a component that optimizes anti-inflammatory therapy provides a real chance for earlier relief of the infectious process in these patients and improvement of the results of surgical treatment of paraurethral pathology. Conclusion. The inclusion of hydrolytic enzymes in patients with UTI and with diseases of the distal urethra and paraurethral region in the anti-inflammatory therapy regimen increases the effectiveness of etiotropic therapy and improves the results of surgical treatment of diseases of the distal urethra and paraurethral region.

Joint stock companies as an object of public control in the Russian Federation: socio-economic and legal analysis

The purpose of the current study is to examine whether “learning by Zoom” or e-learning was a short-term temporary solution or whether there is a real chance that distance teaching and learning will become a teaching technique in the post-COVID era. What is teachers’ personal preference for e-learning with regard to interpersonal interaction with the students, the benefits of e-learning for students, as well as interest, order, organization, and clarity in teaching. Moreover, the effectiveness of e-teaching was examined from a multicultural perspective – at schools in Israel, the hi-tech state, and in Belarus, where the culture of the book is a major symbol. We explored the perceptions of teachers in Israel and in Belarus on four measures: personal preferences, advantages and disadvantages for teaching and learning, measures of good teaching (interest, order, and organization), and interpersonal interactions between the teacher, the students, and the faculty. E-teaching is not an alternative for traditional education but does generate a new reality that facilitates great improvements and advantages but produces new challenges for the educational system.

Special Features of Formation of the High Damping State in Bimetallic Structural Materials Obtained by Explosion Welding

Special features of the high-damping state formation in bimetallic materials produced by explosion welding have been studied. High-damping Mn-Cu alloy was used for the damping base of the bimetallic composite and high–strength steel (grade: 30HGSA) was used to form the coating layer. The effect of planar tensile stresses (observed in the damping component of the bimetal and caused by valuable difference between coefficients of thermal expansion of components of the bimetal) is discussed. Damping properties of bimetallic materials were found to be comparable with damping characteristics of monolithic high damping alloys. High-strength steel provides high-strength characteristics of the surface layer of the bimetal, where the strength level reaches 1100MPa and the hardness is equal to 50 HRC. Obtained combination of high damping and high strength in developed bimetallic materials provides real chance for practical application of these materials in industry.

Transatlantic Workers' Solidarity

The Kuzbas (short for the Kuznetsk Basin in Western Siberia) was the largest coal mining region and one of the most important industrial centers in the Soviet Union. This chapter, after a short introduction of the history of the Autonomous Industrial Colony (AIC) that had been established in Siberia with the help of American workers, will focus on the American perspectives on Kuzbas as a real chance to build a workers’ utopia and discuss what had been promised to be achievable in Siberia. The voices of those who worked and later returned from Siberia will be compared with the arguments of those who did not believe the terrible reports that were brought back from the Soviet Union, the place where a worker could eventually be freed from the harrowing chains of capitalism.