The paper analyzed the natural gas sector in Ukraine for the period 2000 to 2018. This sector was affected by external factors, such as the crisis which began in late 2008/2009, as well as internal factors, including the situation in Ukraine after 2013 (the Annexation of Crimea). A comparative analysis was also conducted of the natural gas sector in European Union countries and Ukraine – compared the specificity of natural gas consumption in 2018. The analysis (I) examined the demand for natural gas in Ukraine between 2000 and 2018; (II) described changes in sources to cover Ukraine’s gas needs with a particular emphasis on its own production; (III) pointed to the fundamental changes that have occurred in the natural gas supply routes to the Ukrainian sector in recent years; (IV) stressed the growing role of own production in balancing Ukraine’s gas needs; (V) described the role of Ukraine as a transit country for Russian gas to be delivered to EU countries (in recent years, the volume of natural gas transmitted via the Ukrainian transmission system has been around 90 bcm annually); and (VI) looked at the structure of natural gas consumption in the Ukrainian gas sector and how it has changed in recent years. Unlike EU countries, the growing role of own production in balancing Ukraine’s natural gas needs was emphasized, which is consistent with the strategy of the Ukrainian government. Also, attention was drawn to the threats that may significantly reduce the role of Ukraine as an important transit country. The paper also puts forward the most important parameters concerning the underground natural gas storage facilities in Ukraine which is one of the largest in Europe.
The idea of a Multilateral Investment Court seems to be one of the most prominent initiatives of the “multilateralization” of international investment law during this century. The creation of a new international, permanent court concentrated on settling investor – state disputes is an extraordinary challenge. Possible problems relate not only to the negotiations concerning the organizational and procedural aspects necessary to ensure the efficient operation of this type of body. It is also necessary to take into account the dynamics of the functioning of international adjudication as such, as well as the controversies surrounding the international legal protection of foreign investments.
This study examines the impact of monetary policy on economic growth in Ukraine between 2006 and 2019. After the stationarity and co-integration tests, a vector- autoregressive model (VAM) was used to estimate the impact of monetary factors on economic growth in Ukraine. The research results show that GDP changes are largely explained by its own earlier dynamics, but in the long-run real GDP quite strongly depends on the money supply, exchange rate against euro, and basic interest rate. At the same time GDP is weakly dependent on the exchange rate against US dollar, CPI and PPI, the volume of loans to business and external debt. The authors explain their findings and compare them with several other empirical studies on the subject concerning some other countries.
The use of biomass in the energy industry is the consequence of ongoing efforts to replace Energy from fossil fuels with energy from renewable sources. However, due to the diversity of the biomass, its use as a solid fuel generates waste with diverse and unstable chemical composition. Waste from biomass combustion is a raw material with a very diverse composition, even in the case of using only one type of biomass. The content of individual elements in fly ash from the combustion of biomass ranges from zero to tens of percent. This makes it difficult to determine the optimal recovery methods. The ashes from the combustion of biomass are most commonly used in the production of building materials and agriculture. This article presents the elemental composition of the most commonly used biomass fuels. The results of the analysis of elemental composition of fly ashes from the combustion of forest and agricultural biomass in fluidized bed boilers used in the commercial power industry were presented. These ashes are characterized by a high content of calcium (12.3–19.4%), silicon (1.2–8.3%), potassium (0.05–1.46%), chlorine (1.1–6.1%), and iron (0.8–6.5%). The discussed ashes contained no sodium. Aluminum was found only in one of the five ashes. Manganese, chromium, copper, nickel, lead, zinc, sulfur, bismuth, titanium and zirconium were found in all of the examined ashes. The analysis of elemental composition may allow for a preliminary assessment of the recovery potential of a given ash.
This study included investigation of efficiency of the threshold used to classify symptoms as present, investigation of efficiency of the cut-off point used to identify potentially addicted to work individuals, investigation of magnitude of the problem of class overlap, and investigation of effects of dichotomization of polytomous items on the estimates of the latent trait level. The sample comprised 16,426 working Norwegians (Mage = 37.31; SD = 11.36) who filled out the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS). The results showed that the difficulty/third threshold parameters corresponding to the threshold used to classify symptoms as present were lower than 1.5 for the items corresponding to tolerance and conflict and higher than or equal to 1.5 for the items corresponding to salience, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal, and problems. The cut-off point used to identify individuals as potentially addicted to work identified 411 individuals (31.9% of all individuals classified by the polythetic approach as potentially addicted to work) whose estimates of the latent trait level were lower than 1.5 as potentially addicted to work. The problem of class overlap (being classified by the polythetic approach into different class despite almost the same level of the latent trait) affected 4,686 individuals (28.5% of the whole sample). The dichotomization of polytomous items had a substantial effect on the estimates of the latent trait level. The findings show that the polythetic approach is not efficient in identifying potentially addicted to work individuals and that the prevalence rates of work addiction based on the polythetic approach are not trustworthy.
In our paper we are going to demonstrate that hypotactic constructions develop from paratactic ones and not the other way round. On the basis of numerous Old English examples, we will try to demonstrate how hypotactic constructions come into being and what is the possible mechanism lying behind this process; one can speak of a hypotactic relation between two clauses when one of them is subordinate and the other is main, so in this sense the term subordinate clauses could actually be used interchangeably with the term hypotactic structures. We will concentrate upon the transition phase between parataxis and hypotaxis, which will allow us to see how hypotaxis was developing from parataxis in English.
Biocomposite foam scaffolds of poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) with different porogenes were produced with batch foaming technique using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) as a blowing agent. In performed experiments composites were prepared from graphene-oxide (nGO), nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) and nano-cellulose (nC), with various concentrations. The objective of the study was to explore the effects of porogen concentration and foaming process parameters on the morphology and mechanical properties of three-dimensional porous structures that can be used as temporary scaffolds in tissue engineering. The structures were manufactured using scCO2 as a blowing agent, at two various foaming pressures (9 MPa and 18 MPa), at three different temperatures (323 K, 343 K and 373 K) for different saturation times (0.5 h, 1 h and 4 h). In order to examine the utility of porogenes, a number of tests, such as static compression tests, thermal analysis and scanning electron microscopy, have been performed. Analysis of experimental results showed that the investigated materials demonstrated high mechanical strength and a wide range of pore sizes. The obtained results suggest that PCL porous structures are useful as biodegradable and biocompatible scaffolds for tissue engineering.
The objective of this study was to deposit directly chromium with diamond nanoparticles (ND) on aluminum alloys and investigate the coating surface. The chromium coatings on aluminum alloys were obtained by electrochemical deposition. The coatings were doped with ND. The diamond nanoparticles were obtained by detonation synthesis. Chromium coatings were deposited on aluminum alloys with a silicon content of 7 % and 10 %. The ND concentration in the electrolyte was 25 g/l. The surface analysis was performed by means of Atomic force microscopy. The surface of the coating of chromium with ND on Al10Si is twice more even than that on Al7Si. The microstructure and microhardness were examined with a metallographic microscope and a microhardness tester. The microhardness of the coated samples is 9163 MPa compared to 893 MPa of uncoated aluminum samples. The thickness of the chromium coatings doped with diamond nanoparticles is between 45 – 55 μm. The coatings are dense, continuous and uniform with good adhesion to the substrate material.