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Algal-bacterial associations were studied in unialgal xenic cultures of Synedra acus subsp. radians, Asterionella formosa and Fragillaria crotonensis planktonic diatoms from Lake Baikal, using epifluorescent and scanning electron microscopy. It was found that rod- and ovoid-shaped bacteria colonized cell walls of diatoms. Cloning and sequencing of fragments of 16S rRNA gene in diatom cultures revealed members of Gammaproteobacteria (Pseudomonas sp.), Betaproteobacteria (Janthinobacterium sp., Hydrogenophaga sp., Methylophilus sp.), Bacteroidetes (Flavobacterium sp., Pedobacter sp.), and Acinobacteria (Nocardioides sp.).

The article considers issues of assessment of the relation between road accidents severity and psychoemotional state of Russian society. In the context of the hypothesis about the significant impact of people's awareness of the value of life on their ordinary behavior, four subtasks were solved. Firstly, the difference in road accidents severity between all road accidents and road accidents that happened in alcohol intoxication state was established. Secondly, indicators of the psychoemotional state of people from different Russian regions were identified. Thirdly, dependencies Road accidents severity = f(Psychoemotional state of people from Russian region) for two cases - All road accidents and Road accidents that happened in alcohol intoxication state were defined. Finally, it was found that degree of impact of alcohol intoxication on road accidents severity depends on the psychoemotional state of people from different Russian regions. Produced results can be used in the development of regional programs of road safety management taking into account features of the psychoemotional background in different subjects of Russia. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2018.

The article considers the results of research of accident rate heterogeneity in cities-administrative centers of subjects of Russian Federation (2015, 2016). Using methods of ranging, regression analysis and spatial differentiation these cities were classified into 5 classes on the basis of relative disadvantage in road traffic safety sphere. For each group of cities differentiated recommendations on financing regional road traffic safety programs were suggested. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2018.

The article considers the economic aspects of constructing high-rise buildings in the world and in Russia. Data on the number of high-rise buildings in Russian cities with a million population are presented. It is proved that interest in high-rise construction in Russia has been formed only in Moscow and partly in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. The analysis showed that the reason for this is the expensiveness of high-rise construction. According to the enlarged macro-calculation, the cost of building 1 m 2 of the area of the Federation Towers complex (Moscow City) is about 2710 $/m 2 . Practically a possibility of return on investments in the foreseeable time interval exists only in Moscow. For the regions of Russia this task is rather complicated. Population density in regional Russian cities is quite low, business entities do not have the necessary financial resources for investing in high-rise construction, and investments from abroad absent. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2018.

The article presents results of a comparative study on the spatial non-uniform distribution of social and economic damage caused by road accidents in the Russian Federation (2015) and the United States of America (2010). Social and economic damage caused by road accidents in regions of the compared countries is evaluated by known methods in absolute terms and expressed in specific units per one average resident. The comparison is performed with the use of Pareto charts constructed in normalized coordinates. The Lorenz curve which identifies the non-uniform distribution of damage in the territory of a country is approximated by a linear function. The comparison of parameters of linear functions "Cumulative curve of damage caused by road accidents = f (country regions)", which identify the specifics of the location of Lorenz curves on the normalized coordinate plane, shows that both Russia and the USA are characterized by almost identical distribution of specific (per person/year) social and economic damage in the territory of the corresponding country. © 2018 The Author(s).

The results of assessment of damage from the road accident rate in subjects of the Siberian Federal District (SFD) of the Russian Federation are presented in the article. The thesis about spatial differentiation of the Gross Regional Product (GRP) losses in different regions of the country because of people's death and injuries in the road accidents (RA) and due to formations of property and ecological damage was chosen as a working hypothesis. The calculations, carried out for 12 subjects of the SFD, confirmed this idea. The range of calculated values of economic damage from road accident rate (in % of GRP) was from 1.3 (Tomsk region) to 12.6 (Republic of Tyva) in 2015. In article the attempt to explain the received result by heterogeneous development of economics in various Russian regions is made. The consequence of it is a heterogeneous quality of people's life and quite various perception of life value by inhabitants of different regions that influences their life safety level. © 2018 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.

The article deals with regional characteristics of the atmosphere ecology in the Ural Federal District (UFD). The official Rosstat data is given on total emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere of the Urals. Analytical work was carried out to assess the specific (for 1 person/year and for 1 km2/year) total air emissions of pollutants and their distribution by sources of pollution - stationary and mobile. On the basis of data analytics, conclusions are drawn about regional peculiarities of atmospheric pollution in UFD subjects. It is established that atmospheric pollution in the UFD in terms of specific (for 1 person/year and for 1 km2/year) indicators significantly exceeds the all-Russian level by almost 2 times. In the subjects of the Ural Federal District, a significant spatial uneven distribution of air pollution is formed. The fact of neglecting the necessity of trapping and neutralizing pollutants is revealed in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District (Yugra) and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

El Niño (EN) is a dominant feature of climate variability on inter-annual time scales driving changes in the climate throughout the globe, and having wide-spread natural and socio-economic consequences. In this sense, its forecast is an important task, and predictions are issued on a regular basis by a wide array of prediction schemes and climate centres around the world. This study explores a novel method for EN forecasting. In the state-of-the-art the advantageous statistical technique of unobserved components time series modeling, also known as structural time series modeling, has not been applied. Therefore, we have developed such a model where the statistical analysis, including parameter estimation and forecasting, is based on state space methods, and includes the celebrated Kalman filter. The distinguishing feature of this dynamic model is the decomposition of a time series into a range of stochastically time-varying components such as level (or trend), seasonal, cycles of different frequencies, irregular, and regression effects incorporated as explanatory covariates. These components are modeled separately and ultimately combined in a single forecasting scheme. Customary statistical models for EN prediction essentially use SST and wind stress in the equatorial Pacific. In addition to these, we introduce a new domain of regression variables accounting for the state of the subsurface ocean temperature in the western and central equatorial Pacific, motivated by our analysis, as well as by recent and classical research, showing that subsurface processes and heat accumulation there are fundamental for the genesis of EN. An important feature of the scheme is that different regression predictors are used at different lead months, thus capturing the dynamical evolution of the system and rendering more efficient forecasts. The new model has been tested with the prediction of all warm events that occurred in the period 1996–2015. Retrospective forecasts of these ev

The structural alteration induced by the substitution of three-valent cations with an isotropic electronic outermost shell for Pb2+ in perovskite-type relaxors was investigated in the solid solutions Pb1-xLaxSc(1+x)/2Ta(1-x)/2O3, x = 0.08 (PST-La) and Pb1-xLaxSc(1+x)/2Nb(1-x)/2O3, x = 0.23 (PSN-La). In order to distinguish the "charge" effects from "strain" effects associated with the incorporation of La3+ in the structure, Sr-containing PbSc0.5Nb0.5O3 was characterized as well. The structure of the compounds was analyzed by in situ Raman spectroscopy, single-crystal x-ray diffraction, and powder neutron diffraction at different temperatures or pressures. It is shown that the embedding of La3+ strongly affects the ferroic structural species due to strain effects through a disturbance of the system of lone-pair electrons associated with Pb2+ and a decrease in the tolerance factor. La doping suppresses the dynamical coupling between off-centered Pb and B-site cations and enhances antiphase BO6 octahedral tilting which, depending on the level of doping, may lead to long-range order of antiphase BO6 tilts at ambient conditions and frustrated antiferroelectric order of Pb ions at low temperatures.

Pressure-induced structural changes in the canonical relaxor Pb0.78Ba0.22Sc0.5Ta0.5O3 were studied with both in-house and synchrotron single-crystal x-ray diffraction as well as Raman spectroscopy at pressures up to 9.8 GPa. The results reveal that the substitution of Ba for Pb in ABO(3) perovskite-type structures, i.e., the substitution of a two-valent element with an isotropic electron shell for an isovalent element with a stereochemically active lone pair, leads to a "diffuse pressure-induced phase transition," a structural transformation over a broad pressure range, without a well-defined critical pressure point. The smeared phase transition of the average structure results from the existence of local structural deformations in the vicinity of A-positioned Ba cations.

Pressure-induced structural changes in the canonical relaxor Pb0.78Ba0.22Sc0.5Ta0.5O3 were studied with both in-house and synchrotron single-crystal x-ray diffraction as well as Raman spectroscopy at pressures up to 9.8 GPa. The results reveal that the substitution of Ba for Pb in ABO(3) perovskite-type structures, i.e., the substitution of a two-valent element with an isotropic electron shell for an isovalent element with a stereochemically active lone pair, leads to a "diffuse pressure-induced phase transition," a structural transformation over a broad pressure range, without a well-defined critical pressure point. The smeared phase transition of the average structure results from the existence of local structural deformations in the vicinity of A-positioned Ba cations.