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—The Amur leopard cat ( Prionailurus bengalensis euptilura Elliot 1871) in the southern part of the Russian Far East mainly lives in flat and foothill landscapes, which have now been mostly transformed by man. The data were collected in the period 1987–2022 in southern Amur oblast (the left bank of the Amur River in the southern part of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO) and the right bank of the Amur River (the right bank of the estuary of the Ussuri River), Khabarovsk krai). Tracks of cats and dead animals were recorded, and camera traps were used. The data of 4560 diaries of employees of the Department of Protection of the Bolshekhekhtsirskii Reserve, located in the research area, for the period 1964–2009 were used. At present on the left bank of the Amur River in the southern part of the JAO, the Amur leopard cat lives constantly, although in the 2010s it was believed that it rarely entered this territory. The number of sightings of cat tracks in the study area on the right bank of the Amur in the years 2011–2021 compared to the period 2000–2010 increased about two times. It has populated areas within the range where it had never been noted previously. The increase in the number and the process of settlement of the Amur leopard cat, both on the left bank and on the right bank of the Amur River began in the 2000s, and since the beginning of the 2010s it has been observed constantly. Currently, the cat lives in a sedentary manner in southern Amur oblast, which is confirmed by the findings of its broods. The cat mainly lives on agricultural land, which is due to its ability to adapt well to anthropogenic changes in the habitat.

The seasonal diet of the sable ( Martes zibellina L. 1758) was studied based on material collected in the years 1987–1996, 1998–2002, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2014, mainly in the Bolʼshekhekhtsirskii Nature Reserve. The sable population of the Khekhtsir Mountain Ridge, the western part of which is occupied by the nature reserve, was artificially restored, and it presently lives in isolation from the species’ main distribution area in the Sikhote-Alin Mountains. The main food items of the sable at any time of the year are mammals (frequency of occurrence (fo) = 94.1%, feed ratio (F) = 84.8%), voles in particular. It chases voles a little more often in winter (December to February) (fo = 84.9%, F = 80.9%) and spring (March to May) (fo = 82.0%, F = 80.0%) than in summer (June to August) (fo = 81.6%, F = 71.3%) or autumn (September to November) (fo = 90.6%, F = 74.8%). Plants are the next most important food in the diet of the sable following mammals: (fo = 26%, F = 12.4%). Sables eat seeds and fruits of ten plant species in all seasons of the year, but those of only three plants are decisive: the Korean pine ( Pinus koraiensis ), the Actinidia kolomikta ( Actinidia kolomikta ), and the Korean mistletoe ( Viscum coloratum ). At the same time, actinidia fruits are the main vegetable food for the sable in summer (fo = 18.4%, F = 12.2%); Korean pine seeds, in autumn (fo = 25.2%, F = 11.1%); and mistletoe fruits, in winter (fo = 8.5%, F = 7.5%). Birds are only minor among sable prey (fo = 1.5%, F = 0.9%). The proportion of birds in the diet of the sable is slightly increased in summer. Insects, mollusks, and honey are the only additional food items in the sable diet, all being seasonal. Only insects (ground beetles, carrion beetles) play significant roles in the diet in summer. Small shares of mollusks are recorded in the sable diet in summer, and some honey in winter.

The problems of crop production management and support for managerial decision-making are still relevant today [4]. Crop production is of strategic importance and is the basis of our country food security. The use of information technology in agriculture was limited to the use of computers and software, mainly for managing financial transactions and maintaining accounting and operational records. It should be noted that the measures taken to increase labor productivity and automate technological processes in the agro-industrial complex did not have a comprehensive nature, therefore, they did not significantly affect the industry efficiency and, as the result, the products competitiveness. Therefore, the computer decision support system development and implementation in the management of crop production technological processes, based on mathematical models for analyzing and assessing the economic efficiency of technologies for cultivating crops, models for rationalizing crop rotation, models for analyzing data from the crop rotation fields history book, models for the optimal selection of plant protection products and fertilizers acquired very topical. This research project can be considered a priority and highly demanded, as contributing to the fulfillment of one of the requirements of the State Program for the Agriculture Development and Agricultural Products, Raw Materials and Foods Markets Regulation of the Russian Federation for 2013-2020. The goal of the project is to improve mathematical models and methods for managing technological processes at agricultural enterprises by developing and implementing an integrated automated information system for crop management. The article is devoted to the theoretical substantiation and feasibility of the software module practical implementation for solving the problem of planning and calculating the organic and mineral fertilizers dosages in farms’ field crop rotations in the Krasnodar Territory, which is part of the developed integrated automated information system for crop management at agricultural enterprises.

The reaction between N, N ′-diaryl-4-chloromethylimidazolium chlorides and N-nucleophiles, viz. various azoles and azines, which proceeds via nucleophilic substitution of the chlorine atom in the chloromethyl group and leads to new dicationic 4-hetarylmethylimidazolium salts, was investigated. This reaction is reversible, whereas the yield of product of the nucleophilic substitution depends significantly on the structure of heterocyclic nucleophile and the nature of used solvent. A series of new dicationic 4-hetarylmethylimidazolium salts was obtained, and they are of interest as promising components of ionic liquids and precursors of N-heterocyclic carbenes.

Geoinformation technologies for assessing the desertification of arid territories provide the determination of the spatial position of research objects, as well as the fixation of changes in the territories in the spatio-temporal aspect under the influence of climatic and anthropogenic factors that determine such changes. Remote, spatio-temporal monitoring consists in mapping desertification areas with accurate geo-referencing of objects and determining the changes that have occurred on them over time (Mariam Akhtar-Schuster, 2020). The assessment of the degree of desertification is based on the classification of desertification types and the methodology of remote studies of degradation sites and geoinformation technologies (Yuferev, 2007). Taking the criteria of ecological state zones (norm, risk, crisis, and disaster) for various types of agricultural land (Vinogradov, 1984) as a basis, we determined the criteria for remote monitoring of environmental disaster zones using up-to-date satellite images on the territory of the Republic of Kalmykia. The use of remote methods for desertification assessment for monitoring makes it possible to identify spatial changes in the monitoring area when the level of impact of anthropogenic and climatic factors changes. Mathematical and statistical processing of the results obtained in spatio-temporal studies make it possible to identify the functional relationships between the area of desertification and the magnitude of the natural and anthropogenic factors, on the basis of which it becomes possible to develop a mathematical model of such changes. Such a model reflects the probable development of the area of desertification, depending on the actual combination of the most significant factors, thus, the choice of such factors is important in modeling. Modeling the degree of degradation is based on an assessment of the size of areas subject to a certain degree of degradation and a mathematical description of the processes of changing their state. As a result, the desertification areas and changes in the areas of these zones were determined in the study area. The monitoring of desertification according to remote survey data of the territory of Kalmykia made it possible to determine an increase in areas subject to desertification by almost 4 times, from 750 to 3000 thousand hectares from 1984 to 2020.

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of disclosing the components of ESG business sustainability in non-financial reporting of companies. The authors raise the question of the availability of non-financial reports, the problem of correlating the information provided by RAEX rating data and the presence or absence of public data on company websites. As in many foreign and Russian publications, the authors of the article emphasize that the practice of non-financial reporting has become typical for large business companies, while at the same time, the official Internet portals of many companies, even the leaders of the ESG rating, contain only occasional mention of projects and initiatives, not appear to be of a systemic nature. The undisputed leaders both in the RAEX rating and in the provision of non-financial reporting are companies belonging to the 1st level of MOEX listing. The authors of the article believe that in order for non-financial reporting to become a common practice not only for large business companies, but also for medium and small businesses, much remains to be done.

This article discusses an important problem related to the disposal of organic waste from poultry farms. Bird droppings are one of the main sources of environmental pollution and consume significant resources for disposal. The search for effective and environmentally safe methods of disposal of such waste is very relevant. The article focuses on the study of the adsorption properties of a clay accumulation site. Due to the insufficient knowledge of this technology of manure burial, full-scale modeling was performed to determine the effectiveness of protecting the components of the ecological and geological environment. It is shown that under conditions of complete water saturation, the liquid fraction from the organic waste layer will easily seep through the voids and cracks of the clay layer and poison the underlying soils and groundwater. It is concluded that a clay special site alone does not provide guaranteed environmental safety of the environment. Engineering and environmental recommendations are given on the mandatory combination of this method of burial of litter with a litter made of a layer of sealed film coating.

Methods of evaluation of substates of sleep and sleepiness differ in, at least, two respects. Although sleepiness has not been separated from other wake and sleep substates using yes-or-no criteria for sleep scoring, it would be consciously perceived and, therefore, assessed with a questionary. However, such subjective method was challenged by the finding suggesting a disconnect between two most widely used subjective and objective indicators of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), a score on the Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) > 10 and a reduced latency to sleep onset (SOL), respectively. We examined whether these two EDS indicators differ in their association with physiological sleepiness, i.e., the polysomnographic indexes of elevated sleep pressure. In the afternoon hours, polysomnographic recordings were obtained throughout 54 50-min and 56 90-min napping attempts of 27 and 28 university students, respectively. Within some but not all 10-min intervals of the 50- or 90-min naps, each EDS indicator was validated against different objective polysomnographic indexes suggesting an association of EDS with elevated sleep pressure. Significant differences in sleep indexes were found between participants with short and longer SOL, but they disappeared right before the appearance of such differences between participants with higher and lower ESS score (usually at the 4th 10-min interval). This mismatch in timing of appearance of significant differences might be a plausible explanation for the lack of significant association between the ESS and SOL. Therefore, the physiologic underpinnings of the ESS can be uncovered despite such a disconnect between these two EDS indicators. Graphical abstract

The paper presents the results of decoding the current condition of protective forest plantations of the Volgograd region and their digital inventory mapping on the basis of remote sensing methods and GIS technologies. We have applied a three-level analysis of the system of forest belts located within an administrative district, a farmstead, and a single forest belt. The laboratory visual interpretation of space images has allowed us to analyze the horizontal projection of the forest belts canopy and crowns, their placement in the canopy, as well as pattern and structure. We have also deciphered the signs of the prevailing patterns of tree species mixing. As a result of the research, we have created digital cartographic models of forest belts, compiled digital standards of elm stands in a given age period, assesse taxation and reclamation features of the current state of plantations. The results obtained can be used to monitor the state of plantings and create a local agroforestry GIS.

The effect of a thin α-Fe 2 O 3 compact buffer layer (BL) on the photoelectrochemical performances of a bare α-Fe 2 O 3 nanorods photoanode is investigated. The BL is prepared through a simple spray deposition onto a fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) conducting glass substrate before the growth of a α-Fe 2 O 3 nanorods via a hydrothermal process. Insertion of the hematite BL between the FTO and the nanorods markedly enhances the generated photocurrent, by limiting undesired losses of photogenerated charges at the FTO||electrolyte interface. The proposed approach warrants a marked improvement of material performances, with no additional thermal treatment and no use/dispersion of rare or toxic species, in agreement with the principles of green chemistry.