Νew Technologies and Innovation Development in Russia

lyle6 wrote:local Vietnamese drinks tap water, absorbs massive amounts of residual agent orange, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!

Calm down my guy. I'm from Vietnam myself. We Vietnamese (well, most of us tbh) use actual brains to think, as opposed to those whose vocab consists only the word 'gas station' and 'Russia bady bad bad'.

To wrongly quote Sheldon Cooper, "Even though someone could teach sign language to KoKo the gorilla, no one could ever teach Vann rudimentary common sense."

Perm software will reduce the time required to create optical chips from two years to six months. 

Specialists of Perm State National University with the support of the NTI Competence Center "Photonics" have developed software that will reduce the time required to create photonic integrated circuits by more than four times. The program has no analogues in Russia, Perm State University told TASS on Thursday.

"The development process with today's approach takes about two years, and with the new Difra lab software, it can be completed in a period of one week to six months. In the future, users themselves will be able to build systems on a chip from ready-made data libraries, and the development time of the FIS will be reduced to three days" – the project developers said.

Creating photonic integrated circuits on optical chips involves determining the optical material, calculating the parameters of individual elements, and then "assembling" the optical system from these elements on a virtual chip. The Difra lab database will be gradually updated with ready-made projects, so that the build on a chip can be reduced to three days.

The project received positive recommendations of the competition at the last educational intensive course "Archipelago-2121". The final version of the software will be available by the end of 2022.

The NTI Photonics Competence Center was established on the basis of Perm State National University based on the results of a competitive selection of a Russian venture company to provide state support for the centers of the National Technology Initiative in 2020. The Perm Photonics Competence Center is the only one in the country with such an innovation profile.

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Giredmet has grown the world's largest crystal for positron emission tomography detectors. 

A team of specialists from the Laboratory of Technologies for Obtaining High-purity Substances of Giredmet JSC (Moscow, part of Rosatom's scientific division) has grown the world's largest single crystal of cerium-activated lutetium orthosilicate for use as scintillators (phosphors that can emit visible light when exposed to ionizing radiation) in positron emission tomography (PET) gamma-ray detectors.

Cultivation was carried out by the Czochralski method, that is, by introducing a seed into the melt, and then pulling the crystal up. Specialists received a crystal with record parameters: the diameter is 75 mm, the height is more than 15 cm, and the weight is 5 kg.

The characteristics of the resulting crystal meet all the required quality parameters — high density and light output, short attenuation time and good radiation resistance. "Modern PET devices use time-of-flight technology and use several tens of thousands of scintillation crystals, usually 3x3x20 mm in size . Several hundred small crystals will be cut out of the resulting crystal" – said Konstantin Ivanovskikh, Deputy Director for Science and Innovation at Giredmet. "The technological ability to synthesize large samples can significantly reduce the specific cost of each individual pixel for PET. And this is really important, because today up to 40% of the cost of a PET scanner is made up of scintillation crystals."

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Vibration-proof platform for placing electronic equipment in wagons and locomotives. 

COMMENG Company (Commeng LLC, Saint Petersburg) has completed the development of a vibration-proof platform designed for installing complex electronic equipment (for example, servers) in locomotives and railway and metro cars.

The development takes into account the application features — namely, acceleration and deceleration at the beginning of movement and braking, as well as the impact on the payload during emergency braking.

The figure shows an example of a platform using cable vibration isolators and spring shock absorbers to compensate for the effects in the longitudinal direction that occur when changing the speed of movement, starting and braking the train.

Spring shock absorbers can also be installed in the longitudinal or in the longitudinal and transverse directions. Depending on the payload weight that the platform is designed for, the number of turns or/and the cable stiffness of the cable shock absorber changes.

The methods of fixing the platform and fixing the payload on it are not of fundamental importance and can be selected from several options.

Materials used:

- base and mounting surface of the platform-steel, powder-coated;

- cable vibration isolators — electroplated steel, stainless steel cable;

- spring vibration isolators — electroplated steel, steel spring wire.

- fasteners (rivets, rivet nuts, screws) - electroplated steel or stainless steel.

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Robots of the Russian 'holding' Yandex begin to bring food to US students, 19.08.2021.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian holding company Yandex and the US service Grubhub have begun to bring food with the help of robots to students at Columbus University, Ohio, the Yandex press office reported.

"Yandex and Grubhub launched robotic food distribution on the Columbus University campus. Yandex robots will take students and teachers the food they order in local cafes and restaurants, " he said.

On the Columbus campus, one of the largest in the US, more than 60,000 students study and live. In the distribution of the food will participate 50 rovers of Yandex, which will operate daily from 09.00 to 21.00.

Thanks to having a spacious cargo compartment, the robot can carry many dishes at once.

"We have a large territory and many pedestrian areas. But it is no problem for Yandex robots, which run on sidewalks and easily reach the right place," said Zia Ahmed, food manager of this University.

The Yandex rover is an autonomous robot, adapted to carry small loads. He knows how to chart the route, assess the situation and overcome obstacles. It runs on urban sidewalks at speeds of 5 to 8 kilometers per hour and can work in summer and winter and in any weather conditions.

According to Yandex data, over the past year and a half these robots took home thousands of orders placed in Russian services Yandex.Jeddah and Yandex.Lavka.

Yandex Translate from Spanish

https://mundo.sputniknews.com/20210819/robots-del-holding-ruso-yandex-empiezan-a-llevar-comida-a-estudiantes-de-eeuu-1115225942.html

Russia’s Yandex picks Paris to launch new food delivery service that promises speed, 29/08/2021.

Russian tech giant Yandex has launched an express food delivery service in Paris under the Yango Deli brand, the company said, as demand for online delivery services remains strong after years of Covid-related restrictions.

Paris became the first European capital the Russian company is hoping to break into after launching the same service in Tel Aviv, Israel in November. Yandex is planning to expand the service to London in the third quarter of 2021.

Initially, the Paris service will cover an area with nearly one million residents before expanding into more areas across the city, according to the company.

The objective is to deliver orders within 15 minutes, as the company is using so-called dark stores, dedicated warehouses that cater only to online clients. The technology allows Yandex to provide swift delivery while also enjoying cheaper rental costs.

Yango, the international arm of Yandex Go, the firm’s taxi aggregator and food tech business, was first launched in Russia under the Yandex.Lavka name back in 2019, when the coronavirus pandemic forced people to stay home for months.

Yandex, initially developed as a Russian search engine rivaling Google, is reportedly planning to spend around $650 million on e-commerce initiatives this year. In the first half of 2021, company revenues were up 54% and totaled 154 billion rubles ($2.1 billion).

https://www.rt.com/business/533005-russia-yandex-paris-food-delivery/

Roscosmos will test analog of space plasma torches for incineration of garbage. 
 
Keldysh Research Center (part of Roscosmos ) By the end of the year, it will test an installation with a plasma torch for incineration of solid household waste (MSW). This was announced by the General Director of the Center Vladimir Koshlakov, reports TASS.

"We are currently working on creating a small installation that will allow us to neutralize and dispose of hazardous waste from the municipal sector and industrial waste. By the end of the year, we plan to show our capabilities" – Koshlakov said.

He noted that when the work is completed, the developer will begin to actively interact with the authorities of Nizhny Novgorod on waste incineration.

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The Russian Ministry of Defense has a supercomputer that in 2016 was rated at 16 Petaflops.  The storage was 236 Petabytes.
This makes it the 5th in the world list of supercomputers but it does not compete in civilian rankings.  

The purpose of this complex is for command and control planning in real time.   It serves to optimize logistics and evaluate
a vast number of information inputs.   It really is used as a "super brain".   This sort of processing does not require all the
nodes to sit in the same building with a fixed length of interconnects.    The MOD system is geographically distributed
over a military internet.   This does not detract from its ranking.

The video does not give any details on the current state of the system, but Shoigu already talked a while back about a 1.5
scaling through more nodes.  Given the fast turnover in the field of computing hardware, after 5 years the power must have
increased more than 50%.   The nodes themselves are upgraded over time as the old ones age and become obsolete.  
So this system is growing both in the number of nodes and power per node.

How is the supercomputer called... Nebonet?

Just a matter of time until it becomes self-aware I'm afraid

And before that, it will start giving recommendations and making decisions that no-one can understand the logic behind. But they will be the right ones, and so confidence will build and the system will be developed further..

flamming_python wrote:Just a matter of time until it becomes self-aware I'm afraid

And before that, it will start giving recommendations and making decisions that no-one can understand the logic behind. But they will be the right ones, and so confidence will build and the system will be developed further..

Acceptable and necessary

We must first endure the Dark Age of Technology before The God Emperor of Mankind can reveal himself to us

Now find a way to upload Putin!

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/13/6031

Improving the Structural Characteristics of Heavy Concrete by Combined Disperse Reinforcement

The development of perspective concrete mixes capable of resisting the action of external loads is an important scientific problem in the modern construction industry. This article presents a study of the influence of steel, basalt, and polypropylene fiber materials on concrete’s strength and deformation characteristics. A combination of various types of dispersed reinforcement is considered, and by methods of mathematical planning of the experiment, regression dependences of the strength and deformation characteristics on the combination of fibers and their volume fraction are obtained. It was shown that the increase in compressive strength was 35% in fiber-reinforced concretes made using a combination of steel and basalt fiber with a volume concentration of steel fiber of 2% and basalt fiber of 2%; tensile strength in bending increased by 79%, ultimate deformations during axial compression decreased by 52%, ultimate deformation under axial tension decreased by 39%, and elastic modulus increased by 33%. Similar results were obtained for other combinations of dispersed reinforcement. The studies carried out made it possible to determine the most effective combinations of fibers of various types of fibers with each other and their optimal volume concentration.

Russian researchers have improved the characteristics of concrete. Not a trivial task and with obvious economic and safety implications.

US tech giant Uber bought out in Russia by homegrown Yandex, handing over keys to self-driving cars & food delivery business.

Russia's largest technology company has announced it will buy a series of joint ventures from US ride-sharing and delivery services conglomerate Uber, handing over a billion dollars as part of the deal and sending shares soaring.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Moscow-based Yandex revealed that it would take full control of four separate businesses in which the two giants had previously both held stakes.

In exchange for $1 billion in cash, Yandex will take a 100% stake in restaurant courier app Yandex.Eats, grocery delivery service Yandex.Lavka, and Yandex.Delivery. In addition, it will pick up Uber's share of Yandex Self-Driving Group, giving it total control of the driverless car business. The company will also increase its share in a holding company overseeing a series of mobility ventures.

As part of the deal, Yandex will continue to be able to operate services under Uber's branding in Russia and a number of other countries until 2030.

"Since we started our partnership with Uber in 2018, we've been able to create and rapidly develop a number of successful businesses – all of them are highly synergetic to our e-commerce initiative and to the entire Yandex ecosystem," said Yandex Deputy CEO Tigran Khudaverdyan. "The consolidation of these businesses puts us in a great position to further increase strategic management flexibility, while creating new substantial growth potential for our businesses and cross-platform consumer benefits over the years to come."

Earlier this week, Yandex announced it had picked Paris for its first major expansion into a Western European capital, and it will offer nearly one million residents of the City of Light express food deliveries through its Yango Deli app. Croissants and fromage are set to be delivered within just 15 minutes.

https://www.rt.com/russia/533563-yandex-buys-ventures-uber/

Using a very simple idea, a Russian company is building a prototype gravity battery with a capacity of 300 MWh.  
This is just a heavy weight raised up to 300 meters using electrical motors for storage and then running in reverse
as generators by the dropping of the weight.   The efficiency of this cycle is over 80%.   A less than 20% energy
loss is tolerable considering that a lot of power is wasted from generating stations because they cannot be dialed
up and down to perfectly meet demand.   In other words, even non-alternative, stable base load generation has
limitations.

Gravity electrical storage is clearly not a new concept, and pumped hydro is in many ways better.   But pumped
hydro is limited by geography.    If you want to use water storage tanks, then you may as well use a heavy weight
instead since you do not need to worry about water (leaking, rust, etc.).   Using water would actually waste more
electrical energy since pumps do not operate at 100% efficiency by a long shot.    Only using electrical motors
which act as generators in reverse is much more efficient.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/articles/solar-plus-storage-101

This link gives some idea what a 300 MWh battery is good for.   Ultimately much larger batteries are needed
and the linked video talks about 10 GWh required by the city of Moscow.   The cost of gravity battery systems
is justified by capturing the generated power wasted because of demand fluctuations.   But it can serve to
enable alternative energy generation on a larger scale by dealing with production fluctuations as well.  This
form of electrical storage has a cost about half of lithium batteries and does not have rare earth element resource
limitations.

Installation of the reactor shaft equipment has begun at the MBIR construction site. 

Installation of the reactor shaft equipment began at the site for the construction of a Multi-purpose Fast Neutron Research Reactor (MBIR) in the city of Dimitrovgrad (Ulyanovsk region). As the press service of the Industrial Center for Capital Construction (OCCS, part of Rosatom) reported on Wednesday, a multi-ton concrete floor slab was installed at the base of the mine.

The installation of the slab marked a new stage of the construction project, the press service notes. From that moment, along with the main works-reinforcement and concreting-the installation phase began at the site. Their completion will mean that the reactor vessel is ready to arrive at the site: it is expected in Dimitrovgrad in the autumn of 2021. According to Sergey Kiverov, Deputy Director for facilities under construction and head of construction projects at MBIR, the construction of the research reactor is proceeding significantly a year ahead of schedule.

MBIR is a unique multi-purpose fast neutron research reactor of the fourth generation under construction in Russia in Dimitrovgrad on the basis of the Research Institute of Nuclear Reactors (JSC "SSC NIIAR", part of Rosatom). Construction began in 2015, according to the plan, the commissioning of the reactor is scheduled for 2028.

MBIR is a high-flow fast neutron research reactor with unique consumer properties. It is planned to use it to conduct reactor and post-reactor research, generate electricity, and develop new technologies for the production of radioisotopes and modified materials. The main purpose of the MBIR reactor is to conduct mass reactor tests of innovative materials and models of core elements for fourth-generation nuclear power systems, including fast neutron reactors with a fuel cycle closure, as well as small and medium-power thermal reactors. It is planned to create an International Research Center on the basis of the MBIR.

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Yandex plans to launch testing of an unmanned taxi in the fall, 08/09/2021.

Yandex plans to launch testing of an unmanned taxi in Moscow in the fall.

MOSCOW, September 8 - RIA Novosti. The Russian Internet holding Yandex plans to launch testing of an unmanned taxi in the Moscow district of Yasenevo in the fall , and is awaiting approval of the corresponding program of an experimental legal regime, the company said.

Yandex will launch testing of an unmanned taxi in Moscow . Cars will begin carrying the first passengers in the fall of 2021 in the Yasenevo area in the south of the capital, "the message says.

The company indicates that at the testing stage the service will be available to a limited number of users in the vicinity of the Yasenevo, Novoyasenevskaya and Bitsevsky Park metro stations. To take part in the project, you will need to fill out an application on a special website. Those interested will be able to call an unmanned taxi in the Yandex Go application.

The company notes that Yandex's unmanned vehicles have been driving on the roads of Moscow for several years, but according to the laws in force, a test driver must sit behind the wheel of the car. In 2021, as explained in Yandex, a law on experimental legal regimes came into force in Russia , which partially removes restrictions for testing unmanned technologies.

As the press service of the company explained to RIA Novosti, the program of the experimental legal regime, which sets out the conditions for launching unmanned taxis in several regions, has been published on the portal of draft regulations. "Now we are awaiting its approval by the relevant departments. This will allow us to start a full-fledged launch of the unmanned taxi service," the press service added.

Yandex began the first tests of an unmanned taxi in the summer of 2018 in Innopolis . For three years of testing in Innopolis, passengers have made more than 20 thousand trips. In total, Yandex's unmanned vehicles have traveled more than 14 million kilometers on public roads in Russia, the United States and Israel.

https://ria.ru/20210908/taksi-1749130377.html

Later in the video (8:40) there is a segment on a small Kalashnikov UAV (made by the Zala enterprise) which uses an
autonomous optical navigation system. This is a spectacular achievement. It uses visual pattern recognition to
identify landmark objects and plot a flight path. It also has a very large range (over 1100 km).

This is not a 1980s cruise missile system and is an example of AI being put into real world use. One of its uses
is to look for people lost in the wilderness. I suppose it would use IR cameras with a high resolution to see through
the brush and forest.

Russian engineers have created a device for communicating with deafblind people with speech disorders. 

Russian engineers have created a device for communicating with deafblind people with speech disorders. The device works on the principle of Braille, designed for writing and reading by blind and visually impaired people. The gadget will translate speech into Braille on the tactile buttons of the device, and the typed text will be translated into synthesized speech. According to the developers, the advantages of the device are its simplicity and compactness.

Engineers from NITU MISIS, together with the Russian design bureau Karfidov Lab, have developed a device for communicating with deafblind people with speech disorders. This is reported by the press service of the MISIS.

The device, called "Vibrobrail", works on the principle of Braille. This is a small gadget with built-in tactile elements that transmit signals to the user's fingertips. The device also has a built-in microphone that helps to recognize speech addressed to a deafblind person.

"When they start talking to a deafblind person, the device vibrates. Next, the deafblind person clicks on the button and confirms that he wants to start a dialogue. The entire speech of the speaker is converted into Braille, which is a set of six dots or symbols. The device itself has a display with buttons that, in fact, replace this language. These buttons are tactile and have the possibility of feedback, and a deafblind person thanks to these tactile buttons understands exactly what is being said to him. By pressing these buttons, the deafblind person can also keep in touch with the interlocutor, since the device converts these clicks into ordinary speech" – Alexey Karfidov, head of the Department of Technological Equipment Engineering at NITU MISIS, told RT.

The device works together with the application on the mobile phone with which it is connected via Bluetooth. Due to the dictionary of values implemented in the application, where each Braille character corresponds to a letter of the alphabet, words are recoded into tactile signals — and vice versa.

According to the developers, their device differs from its analogues in its compactness and simplicity. In addition, such devices, which are trying to create for the deafblind, do not have all the functions available to the "Vibrobrail", Russian experts note.

"Vibrobrail" has passed the test tests, and now it is being prepared for mass production.

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The methodology of expert analysis of texts developed in Russia is recognized by the international community. 

Russian philosophers have presented at the international level a new strategy for training young scientists and graduate students working in the field of natural sciences. In the prestigious scientific journal "Science & Education" (Science & Education Contributions from History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science and Mathematics. Journal from the first quartile of the Scopus database), an article by Russian scientists was published. The material received high ratings from international experts.

The article "Expert Text Analysis in the Inclusion of History and Philosophy of Science in Higher Education" was written by Galina Sorina, Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of Lomonosov Moscow State University, in collaboration with Vitaly Pronskikh, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, researcher at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (USA).

The researchers presented an optional course on the philosophy of scientific experiment (on the example of the analysis of an experiment in modern physics) for young scientists and graduate students working in the field of natural sciences within the framework of the discipline "History and Philosophy of Science". The course is pragmatic in nature and meets the needs of current scientific practice. Methodological problems of Big Science, and, in particular, high-energy physics, are one of the central topics of the course.

Cooperation in the field of scientific experiment, initially limited to a small group of participants, has become increasingly complex since the end of the first third of the twentieth century. A modern scientific experiment, primarily in the field of high-energy physics, is a complex socio-cultural phenomenon, since it involves an organized and self-organizing interaction of hundreds and thousands of specialists.

At the same time, the publication in " Science & Education " introduced the world scientific community to the long-term developments of Professor G. V. Sorina in the field of the development of critical thinking and the practice of applying the patented author's Methodology of expert text analysis (META). The META is aimed at developing critical thinking skills and creating an interdisciplinary discussion space that stimulates scientific research.

"For a scientist, the skills of analytical work with concepts, judgments, conclusions, queries are very important, as well as the ability to evaluate the same skills in others and the ability to identify and analyze various types of errors. META develops all these skills and shows how they work in teams. Teamwork is especially important in the development of modern Big Science" – Galina Sorina says.

According to the professional conclusion of international experts, the strategy of training young scientists using the Methodology of expert text analysis effectively prepares students and postgraduates to work together in the field of Big Science.

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Another Russian processor of its own design:
https://maltsystem.ru/en/news/345-tsmcmalt3-en

In the area of the port of Ust-LUGA, the government of the Leningrad region reserves sites for projects related to hydrogen energy, the industry portal "Russian Shipping" reports.

The government of the Leningrad Region reserves sites for the placement of infrastructure for the storage, production and shipment of hydrogen in the Ust-Luga port area. As the correspondent of "Russian Transport" reported, this was announced during the X Anniversary St. Petersburg International Gas Forum by Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Leningrad region Dmitry Yalov.

"We are laying land reserves for projects related to hydrogen energy, hydrogen production in the south and north of the region, in particular, in the special economic zone that is being created around the Baltic Chemical Company and the Ruskhimalliance company... near the port of Ust-Luga," the official said.

http://www.xn----etbbecbrbp5ahkja1ae7v.xn--p1ai/news/block-14393/