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Despite numerous achievements of modern science the problem of lightning initiation in an electrodeless thundercloud, the maximum electric field strength inside which is approximately an order of magnitude lower than the dielectric strength of air, remains unsolved. Although there is no doubt that discharge activity begins with the appearance of positive streamers, which can develop under approximately half the threshold electric field as compared to negative ones, it remains unexplored how cold weakly conducting streamer systems unite in a joint hot well-conducting leader channel capable of self-propagation due to effective polarization in a relatively small external field. In this study, we present a self-organizing transport model which is applied to the case of electric discharge tree formation in a thundercloud. So, the model is aimed at numerical simulation of the initial stage of lightning discharge development. Among the innovative features of the model are the absence of grid spacing, high spatiotemporal resolution, and consideration of temporal evolution of electrical parameters of transport channels. The model takes into account the widely known asymmetry between threshold fields needed for positive and negative streamers development. In our model, the resulting well-conducting leader channel forms due to collective effect of combining the currents of tens of thousands of interacting streamer channels each of which initially has negligible conductivity and temperature that does not differ from the ambient one. The model bipolar tree is a directed graph (it has both positive and negative parts). It has morphological and electrodynamic characteristics which are intermediate between laboratory long spark and developed lightning. The model has universal character which allows to use it in other tasks related to the study of transport (in the broad sense of the word) networks.

This article solves the problem of developing a technology for collecting initial data for building models for assessing the functional state of a person. This condition is assessed by the pupil response of a person to a change in illumination based on the pupillometry method. This method involves the collection and analysis of initial data (pupillograms), presented in the form of time series characterizing the dynamics of changes in the human pupils to a light impulse effect. The drawbacks of the traditional approach to the collection of initial data using the methods of computer vision and smoothing of time series are analyzed. Attention is focused on the importance of the quality of the initial data for the construction of adequate mathematical models. The need for manual marking of the iris and pupil circles is updated to improve the accuracy and quality of the initial data. The stages of the proposed technology for collecting initial data are described. An example of the obtained pupillogram is given, which has a smooth shape and does not contain outliers, noise, anomalies and missing values. Based on the presented technology, a software and hardware complex has been developed, which is a collection of special software with two main modules, and hardware implemented on the basis of a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B microcomputer, with peripheral equipment that implements the specified functionality. To evaluate the effectiveness of the developed technology, models of a single-layer perspetron and a collective of neural networks are used, for the construction of which the initial data on the functional state of intoxication of a person were used. The studies have shown that the use of manual marking of the initial data (in comparison with automatic methods of computer vision) leads to a decrease in the number of errors of the 1st and 2nd years of the kind and, accordingly, to an increase in the accuracy of assessing the functional state of a person. Thus, the presented technology for collecting initial data can be effectively used to build adequate models for assessing the functional state of a person by pupillary response to changes in illumination. The use of such models is relevant in solving individual problems of ensuring transport security, in particular, monitoring the functional state of drivers.

Based on the time-discrete model, we study the effect of selective proportional harvesting on the population dynamics with age and sex structure. When constructing the model, we assume that the population birth rate depends on the ratio of the sexes and the number of formed pairs. The regulation of population growth is carried out by limiting the juvenile’s survival when the survival of immature individuals decreases with an increase in the numbers of sex and age classes. We consider cases where the harvest is carried out only from a younger age class or from a group of mature females or males. We find that the harvesting of males or females at the optimal level is responsible for changing the ratio of females to males (taking into account the average size of the harem). We show that the maximum number of harvested males is achieved either at such a harvest rate when their excess number is withdrawn and the balance of sexes is established or at such an optimal catch quota at which the sex ratio is shifted towards breeding females. Optimal female harvesting, in which the highest number of them are taken, either maintains a preexisting shortage of adult males or leads to an excess of males or the fixing of a sex balance. We find that, depending on the population parameters for all considered harvesting strategies, the hydra effect can observe, i. e., the equilibrium size of the exploited sex and age-specific group (after reproduction) can increase with the growth of harvesting intensity. The selective harvesting, due to which the hydra effect occurs, simultaneously leads to an increase remaining population size and the number of harvested individuals. At the same time, the size of the exploited group after reproduction can become even more than without exploitation. Equilibrium harvesting with the optimal harvest rate that maximizes yield leads to a population size decrease. The effect of hydra is at lower values of the catch quota than the optimal harvest rate. At the same time, the consequence of the hydra effect may be a higher abundance of the age-sex group under optimal exploitation compared to the level observed in the absence of harvesting.

In this article we propose a new approach to the analysis of econometric industry parameters for the industry consolidation level. The research is based on the simple industry automatic control model. The state of the industry is measured by quarterly obtained econometric parameters from each industry’s company provided by the tax control regulator. An approach to analysis of the industry, which does not provide for tracking the economy of each company, but explores the parameters of the set of all companies as a whole, is proposed. Quarterly obtained econometric parameters from each industry’s company are Income, Quantity of employers, Taxes, and Income from Software Licenses. The ABC analysis method was modified by ABCD analysis (D — companies with zero-level impact to industry metrics) and used to make the results obtained for different indicators comparable. Pareto charts were formed for the set of econometric indicators.

To estimate the industry monopolization, the Herfindahl – Hirschman index was calculated for the most sensitive companies metrics. Using the HHI approach, it was proved that COVID-19 does not lead to changes in the monopolization of the Russian IT industry.

As the most visually obvious approach to the industry visualization, scattering diagrams in combination with the Pareto graph colors were proposed. The affect of the accreditation procedure is clearly observed by scattering diagram in combination with red/black dots for accredited and nonaccredited companies respectively.

The last reported result is the proposal to use the Licenses End-to-End Product Identification as the market structure control instrument. It is the basis to avoid the multiple accounting of the licenses reselling within the chain of software distribution.

The results of research could be the basis for future IT industry analysis and simulation on the agent based approach.

A promising method of increasing precipitation in arid climates is the method of creating a vertical high-temperature jet seeded by hygroscopic aerosol. Such an installation makes it possible to create artificial clouds with the possibility of precipitation formation in a cloudless atmosphere, unlike traditional methods of artificial precipitation enhancement, which provide for increasing the efficiency of precipitation formation only in natural clouds by seeding them with nuclei of crystallization and condensation. To increase the power of the jet, calcium chloride, carbamide, salt in the form of a coarse aerosol, as well as NaCl/TiO₂ core/shell novel nanopowder, which is capable of condensing much more water vapor than the listed types of aerosols, are added. Dispersed inclusions in the jet are also centers of crystallization and condensation in the created cloud to increase the possibility of precipitation. To simulate convective flows in the atmosphere, a mathematical model of FlowVision large-scale atmospheric flows is used, the solution of the equations of motion, energy and mass transfer is carried out in relative variables. The statement of the problem is divided into two parts: the initial jet model and the FlowVision large-scale atmospheric model. The lower region, where the initial high-speed jet flows, is calculated using a compressible formulation with the solution of the energy equation with respect to the total enthalpy. This division of the problem into two separate subdomains is necessary in order to correctly carry out the numerical calculation of the initial turbulent jet at high velocity (M > 0.3). The main mathematical dependencies of the model are given. Numerical experiments were carried out using the presented model, experimental data from field tests of the installation for creating artificial clouds were taken for the initial data. A good agreement with the experiment is obtained: in 55% of the calculations carried out, the value of the vertical velocity at a height of 400 m (more than 2 m/s) and the height of the jet rise (more than 600 m) is within an deviation of 30% of the experimental characteristics, and in 30% of the calculations it is completely consistent with the experiment. The results of numerical simulation allow evaluating the possibility of using the high-speed jet method to stimulate artificial updrafts and to create precipitation. The calculations were carried out using FlowVision CFD software on SUSU Tornado supercomputer.

The influence of the process of initiating a rapid local heat release near surface streamlined by supersonic gas (air) flow on the separation region that occurs during a fast turn of the flow was investigated. This surface consists of two planes that form obtuse angle when crossing, so that when flowing around the formed surface, the supersonic gas flow turns by a positive angle, which forms an oblique shock wave that interacts with the boundary layer and causes flow separation. Rapid local heating of the gas above the streamlined surface simulates long spark discharge of submicrosecond duration that crosses the flow. The gas heated in the discharge zone interacts with the separation region. The flow can be considered two-dimensional, so the numerical simulation is carried out in a two-dimensional formulation. Numerical simulation was carried out for laminar regime of flow using the sonicFoam solver of the OpenFOAM software package.

The paper describes a method for constructing a two-dimensional computational grid using hexagonal cells. A study of grid convergence has been carried out. A technique is given for setting the initial profiles of the flow parameters at the entrance to the computational domain, which makes it possible to reduce the computation time by reducing the number of computational cells. A method for non-stationary simulation of the process of rapid local heating of a gas is described, which consists in superimposing additional fields of increased pressure and temperature values calculated from the amount of energy deposited in oncoming supersonic gas flow on the corresponding fields of values obtained in the stationary case. The parameters of the energy input into the flow corresponding to the parameters of the electric discharge process, as well as the parameters of the oncoming flow, are close to the experimental values.

During analyzing numerical simulation data it was found that the initiation of rapid local heating leads to the appearance of a gas-dynamic perturbation (a quasi-cylindrical shock wave and an unsteady swirling flow), which, when interacting with the separation region, leads to a displacement of the separation point downstream. The paper considers the question of the influence of the energy spent on local heating of the gas, and of the position on the streamlined surface of the place of heating relative to the separation point, on the value of its maximum displacement.

This paper demonstrates the advantages of using artificial intelligence algorithms for the design of experiment theory, which makes possible to improve the accuracy of parameter identification for an elastostatic robot model. Design of experiment for a robot consists of the optimal configuration-external force pairs for the identification algorithms and can be described by several main stages. At the first stage, an elastostatic model of the robot is created, taking into account all possible mechanical compliances. The second stage selects the objective function, which can be represented by both classical optimality criteria and criteria defined by the desired application of the robot. At the third stage the optimal measurement configurations are found using numerical optimization. The fourth stage measures the position of the robot body in the obtained configurations under the influence of an external force. At the last, fifth stage, the elastostatic parameters of the manipulator are identified based on the measured data.

The objective function required to finding the optimal configurations for industrial robot calibration is constrained by mechanical limits both on the part of the possible angles of rotation of the robot’s joints and on the part of the possible applied forces. The solution of this multidimensional and constrained problem is not simple, therefore it is proposed to use approaches based on artificial intelligence. To find the minimum of the objective function, the following methods, also sometimes called heuristics, were used: genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization, simulated annealing algorithm, etc. The obtained results were analyzed in terms of the time required to obtain the configurations, the optimal value, as well as the final accuracy after applying the calibration. The comparison showed the advantages of the considered optimization techniques based on artificial intelligence over the classical methods of finding the optimal value. The results of this work allow us to reduce the time spent on calibration and increase the positioning accuracy of the robot’s end-effector after calibration for contact operations with high loads, such as machining and incremental forming.

We consider a model of populations that are closely related and share a common areal. System of nonlinear parabolic equations is formulated that incorporates nonlinear diffusion and migration flows induced by nonuniform densities of population and carrying capacity. We employ the method of lines and study the impact of migration on scenarios of local competition and coexistence of species. Conditions on system parameters are determined when a nontrivial family of steady states is formed.

Flexible software for modeling polymeric film production by use of blown extrusion has been developed. It consists of library of mathematical models for extrusion and forming blown film, sub-system for changeover to new type of film and sub-system for investigation of extrusion and forming for film quality control under film production. The sub-system for changeover allows to choose the equipment of extrusion line on technical and economic indices, to synthesize 3D model of the line and to generate regulation ranges of regime parameters for given type of film. The sub-system for investigation allows to calculate temperature profiles of heating and cooling material, geometrical and optical characteristics of film depending on regime parameters for stages of extrusion and forming and to evaluate regime parameters ensuring given quality of polymeric film.

The model of market pricing in duopoly describing the prices dynamics as a two-dimensional map is presented. It is shown that the fixed point of the map coincides with the local Nash-equilibrium price in duopoly game. There have been numerically identified a bifurcation of the fixed point, shown the scheme of transition from periodic to chaotic mode through a doubling period. To ensure the sustainability of local Nashequilibrium price the controlling chaos mechanism has been proposed. This mechanism allows to harmonize the economic interests of the firms and to form the balanced pricing policy.