Vol 93, No 6 (2023)

This article is focused on the modeling of multiphase hydrodynamic flows within “digital core” technology for the needs of the oil and gas industry. The essence of this technology is direct numerical simulation of the flows on the scale of the pore space of oil and gas reservoir rocks with direct resolution of the structure of this space and the dynamics of interphase boundaries. The importance of the development of high-performance computing facilities (supercomputers) for the successful implementation of this technology is emphasized. Work carried out by the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, RAS, in the field of mathematical models, computational algorithms, and their software implementation is described.

Currently, big data is one of the most discussed phenomena in the field of information technology. What is big data? How are they created? How does big data software work? How is big data theory and practice used and can be used in relation to geosciences? How is the issue of big data developing within the Russian Academy of Sciences? These are the questions discussed in an article prepared on the basis of a scientific report presented at a meeting of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences on March 28, 2023.

According to the modern climate paradigm, anomalous phenomena occurring in the polar regions of the Earth, such as rapid warming in the Arctic and intensive destruction of glaciers in the Antarctic, are a serious danger and challenge for civilization since they can potentially lead to global climate warming by several degrees and a rise in the level of the World Ocean by several tens of centimeters as soon as the 21st century. It is presumed that the main cause of these processes, which have strongly accelerated since the second half of the 1970s, was the anthropogenic factor of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, leading to the greenhouse effect. This statement, taken for granted in most developed countries, has led to several international agreements to limit carbon emissions and ideas about the need for a rapid transition to a low-carbon green economy. As for the influence of natural factors on the development of the mentioned dangerous processes, no one denies such a possibility since the facts of climatic changes in preindustrial eras are well known in the geological history of the Earth. However, the geological time scales are so large that most climatologists implicitly proceed from the assumption that short-term climate changes observed over the past and present centuries with a characteristic time of tens of years are mainly determined by rapidly changing atmospheric and oceanic processes. However, one should bear in mind the influence of rapid geophysical processes, such as cycles of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, which are comparable in time scales with modern climate changes. If an analysis is based on the large megathrust earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 8 and the large-scale deformation waves caused by them in the lithosphere, then, considering physically based trigger mechanisms, it is possible to construct a geodynamic scheme that explains the observed climatic changes in the Arctic and the glacier destruction processes in the Antarctic. This article describes this new geodynamic concept.

What was the role of French literature and culture in the work of A.N. Ostrovskii, one of the most original, “soil” authors of the 19th centure? Why did contemporaries find a French trace in his most original dramas, and why did mastery of the French language (which he himself knew by no means perfectly) become one of the constant topics discussed by the characters of his dramas? These are the questions asked by the author of this article, dedicated to the anniversary of perhaps the most famous Russian playwright, who was a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. The use of French words, Gallicisms, and macaronic language is analyzed by Ostrovskii from the point of view of the processes taking place in Russian culture from the mid-19th century, when it ceased to be a culture of bilingualism but was still actively and sometimes painfully experiencing, this time at the everyday level, its failed bilingualism. Along the way, in the context of Ostrovskii’s Gallophilia/Gallophobia, the question is raised about the specifics of the playwright’s attitude to the literary tradition and, in particular, to the tradition of N.V. Gogol.

In the present review, the authors draw attention to the indigenous bifidoflora, which is not always used in the selection of natural bifidobacteria to replenish the human intestinal microflora with effective strains. At the same time, the use of indigenous bifidoflora actually expands the possibilities for obtaining new strains suitable for probiotic purposes. Nature has rationally organized the constant improvement of the normal human intestinal microflora, our main assistant, thereby prolonging our life. Finding a replacement for this process is quite difficult, but quite feasible.

This article is devoted to the life and work of the outstanding chemical physicist Academician Vitalii Iosifovich Gol'danskii (1923–2001). His scientific interests were wide and included chemical physics, high energy chemistry, nuclear chemistry and physics, particle physics, and biophysics. Among his achievements is the discovery of secondary neutrons arising from the bombardment of nuclei of heavy elements, which formed the basis for the production of plutonium from uranium-238; discovery of electromagnetic polarization of hadrons and quantitative determination of polarizability constants; pioneering work in the field of Mössbauer and positron spectroscopy; discovery of solid-phase polymerization at ultralow temperatures. Touches to the portrait of the scientist are added by the memories of his friends and colleagues.

This article analyzes documents of the founder of Russian scientific Egyptology V.S. Golenishchev (1856–1947), stored in domestic and foreign archives. The article draws attention to the correspondence of Golenishchev with his colleagues, meaning their reflection of contemporary political events (from the speech of Orabi Pasha in Egypt in the early 1880s to the events on the eve of World War II). The material examined makes it possible to conclude that the personal position of the scientist was predominantly apolitical; he was primarily engaged in collecting and researching ancient Egyptian texts and clearly saw the feasible preservation of the sociopolitical situation to which he was accustomed as a guarantee of the stability necessary for scientific work.

This article reviiews a book dedicated to the modern Chines state and its main institutions of state power and governance.