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Luxury has always been an intrinsic part of world history, but the words “luxe” or “luxury” in the conventional sense are quite new, entering the French and English languages only in the seventeenth century. It was only at the end of the seventeenth century that the core of this phenomenon came up for discussion in Europe against a backdrop of development of international trade and incipient economic growth. During these debates, the concept of luxury was gradually demoralized by economic liberalism. Translations played a seminal role in the defining of the concept of luxury. European thinkers coordinated their positions even if they disagreed with each other. How was the notion of luxury conceptualized outside the European Roman world? Russia is an interesting example that helps to understand it. The article answers when and why the concept of luxury entered Russian political thought and why luxury, although finding itself outside the bounds of morality, continued to be only condemned in the economic sphere.

The article is devoted to the prehistory of the emergence in the Russian political language of such an important concept for the European culture of the Modern times as civilization. In view of the historiography, the article focuses on the adjective politichnyy. In the language of Muscovy in the 16th–17th centuries, the notion of barbarians was mainly used to mean “non-Christian peoples” for whom Christians were contrasted. In the second half of the 17th century, ideas according to which barbarism was associated with a lack of knowledge and science, as well as manners, were introduced to Russia and later adopted by the elite. From this position, Russia was seen, above all, as a barbarous country. With the successes of Peter the Great reforms and the advances in the European knowledge, Russia’s status as a politichnyy nation began to be recognized, which was officially proclaimed in 1721. By the first quarter of the 19th century, the adjective politichnyy stopped being used to describe the stage of a nation’s development which opposed to barbarism. Politichnyy was used to mean “courteous”. This was due to the fact that the politichnyy stage, perceived as external assimilation of manners and knowledge, was absorbed by the idea of enlightenment, which implied interiorization of assimilated knowledge and a corresponding change in human behavior.

We revisit a model describing Seebeck effect on a weak link between two charge Kondo circuits, which has been proposed in the [Phys. Rev. B 97, 085403 (2018)]. We calculate the thermoelectric coefficients in the perturbation theory assuming smallness of the reflection amplitudes of the quantum point contacts. We focus on the linear response equations for the heat conductance in three different scenarios as: Fermi liquid vs Fermi liquid, Fermi liquid vs non-Fermi liquid, nonFermi liquid vs non-Fermi liquid. The oscillations of the heat conductance as a function of the gate voltage of each quantum dot are analysed in both Fermi liquid and non-Fermi liquid regimes. We discuss possible experimental realizations of the model to observe the signatures of the non-Fermi liquid behaviour in the heat conductance measurements., Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures

This paper is devoted to the study of a regulator based on a power electronic dc/ac converter that can carry out different functions on the improvement of electric power quality in the three-phase low-voltage grid. The algorithm of the control system is based on the Park–Gorev transform and the use of pulse-width modulation of converter voltage has been suggested. The effect of structure of an output passive converter filter on the operation of the grid regulator has been analyzed. A technique to calculate L- and LCL-filters of a regulator have been considered, as well as mathematical models of a regulator for analysis of its dynamic characteristics and determining the parameters of a control unit in the current feedback circuit, has been presented. Computer simulations that demonstrate the effect of the characteristics of an output filter and parameters of a control system on the dynamic characteristics of a device and level of current modulation distortion of the regulator have been carried out.

The publication in 1973 in “Uralsky Rabochiy” of an article by the Sverdlovsk historians F. P. Bystrykh (1902—1976) and V. Y. Krivonogov (1911—1977), in which they severely criticized the collection “Questions of the History of Capitalist Russia. Problems of Multiformity” (1972), was one of the important events connected with the defeat of the so-called “new direction” in Soviet historical science. Historiographers analysing the publication of Bystrykh and Krivonogov establish their motivation primarily by external circumstances. In the present article we propose to turn to the study of ego-documents for the reconstruction of personal motives that may have led a Soviet historian to address the ideological criticism of his academic opponents as well as to identify new circumstances in the history of relations between historians in Sverdlovsk in the 1950s and early 1970s which led to the conflict over the “new direction”. For this purpose, the article analyzes the extensive set of letters from Krivonogov to his teacher Academician N. M. Druzhinin (1886—1986) found in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The article is devoted to the problem of the perception in the USSR of C. Schmitt and his works. It is shown that the Russian Empire paid attention to and criticized Schmitt’s 1912 work Law and Judgment. Soviet readers in the 1920s–1940s were already acquainted with the content of Schmitt’s key works such as Political Romanticism, Dictatorship, The Historical and Spiritual State of Modern Parliamentarism, Political Theology, The Concept of Political, The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations, and On the Three Types of Juristic Thought, and a discussion of these works was a part of the intellectual life of the USSR in the 1920s–1940s. Moreover, Soviet Marxist-theorists of law, while criticizing Schmitt’s ideas, agreed with some of his ideas regarding the criticism of the bourgeois state and law until 1933. However, after 1933, Schmitt’s works in the USSR turned into an object of harsh criticism, and he himself was proclaimed a key fascist theoretician of state and law. Since the late 1940s, because of the so-called struggle with “cosmopolitanism”, Schmitt’s works received less attention. In the 1950s–1970s, Schmitt’s works appeared only in some critical statements, and the works of Soviet authors of the 1920s-1940s about Schmitt actually fell into oblivion. A new wave of interest in Schmitt began only in the second half of the 1980s, and his works can already be considered in the context of the intellectual history of modern Russia.

In this Letter we investigate the properties of a quantum impurity model in the presence of additional many-body interactions between mobile carriers. The fundamental question which is addressed here is how the interactions in the charge and spin sectors of an itinerant system affect the quantum impurity physics in the vicinity of the intermediate coupling fixed point. To illustrate the general answer to this question we discuss a two-channel charge Kondo circuit model. We show that the electron-electron interactions resulting in the formation of a massive spin mode in an itinerant electron subset drive the system away from the unstable non-Fermi liquid (NFL) fixed point to the stable Fermi liquid (FL) regime. We discuss the thermoelectric response as a benchmark for the NFL-FL crossover.

Luxury has always been an intrinsic part of world history, but the words ‘luxe’/’luxury’ in the conventional sense are quite new, entering the French and English languages only in the 17th century. It was only at the end of the 17th century that the core of this phenomenon came up for discussion in Europe against a backdrop of development of international trade and incipient economic growth. During these debates, the concept of luxury was gradually demoralized by economic liberalism. A seminal role in the defining of the concept of luxury was played by translations. European thinkers coordinated their positions even if they disagreed with each other. How was the notion of luxury conceptualized outside the European Roman world? Russia is an interesting example that helps to understand it. The article answers when and why the concept of luxury entered Russian political thought and why although the luxury, finding itself outside the bounds of morality, continued to be only condemned in the economic sphere.

The paper discusses the operation of the boost DC-DC converter in sliding mode control. Brief information about the sliding mode control is given, its advantages and disadvantages are noted. The features of the operation of the boost DC-DC converter in the sliding mode are considered. The analysis of the converter’s operation with an abrupt change in the input voltage is carried out. The influence of the circuit quality factor (Q-factor) on the values of overshoot in the output voltage and inductor current is shown. The results of computer simulation at various values of the quality factor, inductance and capacitance of the regulator are presented. Recommendations are given for selecting the parameters of the boost DC-DC converter to achieve the best results in the sliding mode control.

Conductance-based synaptic model is more biologically plausible than current-based synapse but is much harder implementable on the neuromorphic hardware. This paper tries to answer the question – does approximation of the realistic conductance-based model by the simple current-based synapse lead to significant changes of spiking network behavior and degradation of its characteristics? The results obtained from theoretical analysis and computational experiments support the thesis that the considered simplification of synapse model can be evaluated as acceptable.

Hydrochemical control of field development allows to define the first signs of well drowning. The most informative method it is online monitoring of the parameters of the liquid from wells. This article presents the main results of research work aimed at creating a flow-through device and methods of interpreting the results of measurements of the electrophysical parameters of liquid. This method can be used to assessment genetic profile of water and justification the optimal scheme of hydrochemical control.

Airworthiness regulations require that the airliner should be proved to ensure passengers safety. The level of the aircraft system reliability is specified in Federal laws such as Code of Federal Regulations part 25. Electrical power system is very essential system because of providing energy for most functional systems for example such as flight control system, full authority digital engine controller, landing gear retraction system, and others. For providing safety conventional aircrafts have emergency electrical system which comprises ram air turbine, auxiliary power unit, batteries. This paper offers several architectures of power supply system without any special emergency systems. The required level of reliability is provided by state-of-the-art electrical units as permanent magnet generators or switched reluctance generators, power semiconductors, lithium-ion batteries. It allows to design simpler and lighter power system of airliner that will reduce cost of its design, certification, production and maintenance. The paper also concerns more-electric aircrafts.

Chaotic spiking neural network serves as a main component (a “liquid”) in liquid state machines (LSM) – a very promising approach to application of neural networks to online analysis of dynamic data streams. The LSM ability to recognize complex dynamic patterns is based on “memory” of its liquid component – prolonged reaction of its neural network to input stimuli. A generalization of LSM called self-organizing LSM (LSM including spiking neural network with synaptic plasticity switched on) is studied. It is demonstrated that memory appears in such networks under certain locality conditions on their connectivity. Genetic algorithm is utilized to determine parameters of neuron model, synaptic plasticity rule and connectivity optimal from point of view of memory characteristics.

The subject of this article is the section of spiking neural network (SNN) closest to the source of input signals. The purpose of this layer is to provide input signal preprocessing and the extraction of primary informative features, promoting its higher-level analysis by subsequent SNN layers. The 1-layer and 2-layer WTA (winner takes all) architectures of this section are explored. Two independent criteria used to evaluate its necessity and efficiency in the given task are discussed. A variant of the STDP plasticity rule specially designed for the WTA preprocessing layer is described. An optimization procedure based on genetic algorithm and practical recommendations for its implementation are also included in the paper. The article contains three practical examples similar to real-world problems, which serve as illustrations for ideas presented in this work.

An algorithm called Symmetric Integro-Differential Conversion (SIDC) serving to encode continuous real-valued signal to spike form is described. One dynamic numeric signal is converted to 4 spike trains. 2 spiking signal lines serve as a low-pass filter, while 2 other play the role of high-pass filter. The algorithm is computationally efficient and has only one parameter – the desired mean spike frequency in the output spike sequences. This approach allows accurate encoding signals with high variability of spectral properties. A reverse conversion algorithm is proposed which is used to assure that the resulting spike signal preserves information about the original signal to a sufficient extent. Artificial signals being a sum of a sinusoid and a random walk process are utilized to show that the target spike frequency parameter does not require fine tuning - good conversion quality is demonstrated if its value is approximately two orders of magnitude less than the input signal measurement frequency.

This study describes the power conversion and control solution used in the electrical power take-off of a linear direct drive permanent magnet generator for an offshore wave energy device. The proposed solution is assigned to collect the power extracted directly from the phase coils of the generator, which have a large internal inductance. The control circuit with a switched capacitor bank is proposed. The solution demonstrated by the analysis backed up by simulation and experimental results.

At the early stages of their exploration, spiking neural networks were considered mainly as plausible models of biological neuronal ensembles, but then it became clear that they can solve many of the same problems as the traditional neural networks — classification and clustering using various supervised and unsupervised learning methods. The majority of synaptic weight adjustment algorithms proposed for these two kinds of learning are based on different principles — Hebbian learning (STDP etc.) for unsupervised learning and gradient methods similar to error backpropagation — for supervised learning. Since the biological plausibility of gradient descent algorithms is doubtful, it would be desirable to find a purely Hebbian mechanism for the both kinds of learning. The appropriate synaptic plasticity law (though different from STDP) is considered in this paper. It is called 2TP (Two Threshold Plasticity) rule because it includes 2 thresholds for membrane potential — one for firing, leading to synapse potentiation, and one for synaptic depression. It is demonstrated that this rule can serve as a basis for efficient unsupervised and supervised learning algorithms called L2TP/U and L2TP/S, respectively.

The unbalanced current compensator for low voltage power systems is analyzed. For current balancing in four wire systems it is necessary to compensate the negative- and zero-sequence currents. For this purpose, the converter circuits with neutral wire are used. The paper considers the commonly used converters and focuses on distribution of currents in semiconductor switches as well as the neutral wire effect on the harmonic spectrum of currents. Also it is given the calculation of converter parameters based on the developed computer models of compensator.

In this paper, we consider a novel approach to information representation in spiking neural networks. In a certain sense it is a combination of two well-known coding schemes - rate coding and temporal coding. Namely, it is based on asynchronous activity of ensembles of polychronous neuronal groups - groups of neurons firing in determined order with strictly fixed relative temporal delays. We demonstrate how a rate-coded input signal may be converted into this representation form by network structures which are formed as a result of network self-organization process based on STDP-style synaptic plasticity.

This study is an attempt to answer the question – what kind of spiking neural networks could efficiently transform rate-coded input signal into temporally coded form – specific activity of neuronal groups with strictly fixed temporal delays between spikes emitted by different neurons in every group. Since theoretical approach to the solution of this problem appears to be very hard or impossible the network configurations performing this task efficiently were found by means of genetic algorithm. Exploration of their structure showed that while excitatory neurons form the groups with stereotypical firing patterns, the inhibitory neurons of the network make these patterns specific for different rate-coded stimuli and, thus, play the key role in conversion of rate-coded input signal to temporal code.

The subject of this work is evolutionary process in initially chaotic and homogenous spiking neural networks leading to formation of the neuron groups with partially synchronized activity (so called polychronous groups) which are not only capable of recognizing input patterns but also can keep information about pattern presentation in form of their specific activity for a long time. This result is demonstrated for very simple neuron --- coincidence detector and for standard synaptic plasticity model (STDP).

The paper presents the modes of operation of the static compensator (STATCOM) in the case of balancing the unbalanced load in three-wire and four-wire system. The attention is focused on the effect of these modes on the currents of semiconductor switches of the circuit and capacitors on the DC-side of the converter.

The paper is devoted to implementation and exploration of evolutionary development of the short-term memory mechanism in spiking neural networks (SNN) starting from initial chaotic state. Short-term memory is defined here as a network ability to store information about recent stimuli in form of specific neuron activity patterns. Stable appearance of this effect was demonstrated for so called stabilizing SNN, the network model proposed by the author. In order to show the desired evolutionary behavior the network should have a specific topology determined by "horizontal" layers and "vertical" columns.

This document summarizes priority areas for joint research and concerted actions to counteract the public health threat of AIDS/TB as identified within the European Support Action “EUCO-Net” funded under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission.