Cadastral valuation of lands polluted with radionuclides

The major method to correct the cadastral value of land for contamination with radionuclides is to reduce it by the sum of expenses necessary for land remediation and for special measures ensuring the obtaining of agricultural and forestry products satisfying safety norms. Lands contaminated with radionuclides and used in agriculture and forestry are often removed from the system of land taxation. In this case, their cadastral value becomes an excessive element of the state cadaster of real estate. An approach toward cadastral valuation of such lands suggested by the authors assumes the creation of a system of compensation payments as the main source of financing of land rehabilitation and soil conservation measures. An original system of calculation of such payments has been tested for radioactively contaminated lands in Plavsk district of Tula oblast. It is argued that compensation payments for radioactively contaminated agrocenoses should be higher than those for natural cenoses.     

Exponential gain and saturation of a self-amplified spontaneous emission free-electron laser

Self-amplified spontaneous emission in a free-electron laser has been proposed for the generation of very high brightness coherent x-rays. This process involves passing a high-energy, high-charge, short-pulse, low-energy-spread, and low-emittance electron beam through the periodic magnetic field of a long series of high-quality undulator magnets. The radiation produced grows exponentially in intensity until it reaches a saturation point. We report on the demonstration of self-amplified spontaneous emission gain, exponential growth, and saturation at visible (530 nanometers) and ultraviolet (385 nanometers) wavelengths. Good agreement between theory and simulation indicates that scaling to much shorter wavelengths may be possible. These results confirm the physics behind the self-amplified spontaneous emission process and forward the development of an operational x-ray free-electron laser.     

Approaches to assessing the risk of chemical contamination of Urban Soils

The existing approaches to studying the risk of chemical contamination of soils are analyzed. It is noted that the actual and critical loads of contaminants on the soil cover are often compared for estimating these risks. The insufficient use of economic tools and methods for assessing the risk of soil contamination is emphasized. The sanitary-hygienic standards are found out to be exceeded for lead, zinc, cadmium and copper content in soils in six localities, each of 6250 m² in the area, situated in the industrial and transport zones of Podol’sk and Moscow. The values of actual and maximal permissible damage exerted by the heavy-metal contamination to the studied soils are calculated. The probable damage R and the degree of probable damage implementation (DPDI) are used as the indices of soil contamination risk.     

Rare structural variants disrupt multiple genes in neurodevelopmental pathways in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a devastating neurodevelopmental disorder whose genetic influences remain elusive. We hypothesize that individually rare structural variants contribute to the illness. Microdeletions and microduplications >100 kilobases were identified by microarray comparative genomic hybridization of genomic DNA from 150 individuals with schizophrenia and 268 ancestry-matched controls. All variants were validated by high-resolution platforms. Novel deletions and duplications of genes were present in 5% of controls versus 15% of cases and 20% of young-onset cases, both highly significant differences. The association was independently replicated in patients with childhood-onset schizophrenia as compared with their parents. Mutations in cases disrupted genes disproportionately from signaling networks controlling neurodevelopment, including neuregulin and glutamate pathways. These results suggest that multiple, individually rare mutations altering genes in neurodevelopmental pathways contribute to schizophrenia.     

Voyager measurements of hydrogen Lyman-α diffuse emission from the Milky Way

Doppler-shifted hydrogen Lyman-alpha (Lyα) emission from galaxies is currently measured and used in cosmology as an indicator of star formation. Until now, the Milky Way emission has not been detected, owing to far brighter local sources, including the H (hydrogen) glow, i.e., solar Lyα radiation backscattered by interstellar atoms that flow within the solar system. Because observations from the Voyager spacecraft, now leaving the heliosphere, are decreasingly affected by the H glow, the ultraviolet spectrographs are detecting Lyα diffuse emission from our Galaxy. The surface brightness toward nearby star-forming regions is about 3 to 4 rayleighs. The escape fraction of the radiation from the brightest H II regions is on the order of 3% and is highly spatially variable. These results will help in constraining models of Lyα radiation transfer in distant galaxies.