Vol 93, No 1 (2023)

The article is devoted to current issues in the development of the machine tool industry in Russia. The results of a study of the critical needs of mechanical engineering conducted by MSUT STANKIN are presented. Current challenges associated with attempts to restrain the technological development of Russia are identified. Mechanisms for solving industry problems that ensure the ability of machine-building enterprises to produce high-tech products in the absence of access to foreign technologies and equipment are considered. The author proposes a concept for centralizing the functions of planning and coordinating industry development, including machine tool building and the production of critical components, on the basis of a single center. The article was prepared on the basis of a report heard at a meeting of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences on April 26, 2022.

This article considers the problem of population migration from Southeast Asia to Western European countries, on the one hand, and from China, India, and other Asian countries and territories to Southeast Asia, on the other. The formation of the model of metropolis−colony relations in Southeast Asia is shown; similarities and differences between the British and Dutch models of colonialism are revealed. The author analyzes the influence of Amsterdam’s imperial policy on the formation of the “Dutchness” of a cross-border identity, which had a significant impact on the model of the migration behavior of the inhabitants of the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) and on the postcolonial interaction between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and independent Indonesia. The relationship between the economic development model of Indonesia and the migration activity of Indonesians, who increasingly prefer societies of vigorous economic growth of Northeast Asia and Australia to the former metropolis, is shown.

The results of the latest demographic forecasts from the world’s leading specialized centers (United Nations Population Division, the Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) are considered, demonstrating a certain bias in favor of individual countries and their calculation methods. The second part of this article provides a description of a digital twin of the planet’s demographic system constructed by a Chinese−Russian team and implemented in China’s national supercomputer center. In addition, the results of some calculations carried out using this tool are described.

The article analyzes the role of increasing greenhouse gas absorption in the Land Use, Land Use Change, Forestry (LULUCF) sector to achieve carbon neutrality in Russia. Recommendations are given for improving the text of the “Strategy for the socioeconomic development of the Russian Federation with low greenhouse gas emissions until 2050” (LCDS). The interest of the business community in investing in climate projects in LULUCF, especially in forest climate projects, is shown. The latest changes in legal regulation are presented, opening up the possibility of increasing the return on investment in forest climate projects, and a detailed analysis of the content of the operational plan for the implementation of the LCDS in the LULUCF sector (LCDS OP) is carried out. A prospective assessment of the balance of greenhouse gases in Russian forests in 2050 is given, assuming a constant volume of logging and the area of burned areas. The ratio of public and private investment in the implementation of activities and climate projects in LULUCF proposed in the LCDS OP was calculated (4: 1), which indicates an unjustified bias in the direction of public financing. The authors justify the need for significant refinement of the LCDS OP and continuation of work to find an optimal scenario for decarbonization of the Russian Federation using the LULUCF potential.

The internal contradictions that affect the interaction of the techno- and biosphere during the intensification of subsoil development are considered. The necessity of timely ecologization of the technological paradigm of the development of subsoil use as one of the main elements of the technosphere and a natural transition to a new technological order corresponding to the characteristics of a post-industrial society has been substantiated. The causes of the modern systemic ecological crisis associated with the antagonistic form of interaction between man and nature have been indicated. This crisis can be overcome through the gradual ecologization of the technological paradigm in general and subsoil use in particular. The massive use of naturelike technologies contributes to the modernization of the technological order. It is this form of revolutionary transformation that opens the way for establishing coevolutionary interaction of systemic antagonists—man and the living nature of the Earth—based on the principles of parallel nondestructive development.

Modern Russia inherited the Soviet scientific system, in which the university sector was rather weakly involved in research activities. However, by now the situation has changed significantly. The Russian government has actively stimulated the development of science in universities. It is shown in this article that the contribution of the university sector to the production of scientific knowledge has grown significantly and is already comparable with the contribution of the research sector in a number of indicators. The results of scientific research in both sectors—university and research—are published in journals of a comparable level, and the levels of citation of these publications are also comparable. Note that in economics, psychology and psychiatry, and social sciences, the university sector dominates. In addition, researchers from universities are more involved in international scientific collaboration. However, the sector itself is heterogeneous. Its main scientific achievements are related to the results obtained in leading research universities.

The article is devoted to the history of the first astronomical and geographical expedition (April 9, 1727–February 18, 1730), organized by the Academy of Sciences and Arts in St. Petersburg and sent to the city of Arkhangel'sk (the future Arkhangel'sk received this official name in 1613) and the Russian Lapland. All work was supervised by the extraordinary professor of astronomy Louis Delisle de la Croyère (1687–1741). For the first time in the history of Russia, the latitudes of 14 settlements in the country and the longitude of Arkhangel'sk were determined using astronomical methods. In April–May 1728, Croyère was the first in the world to conduct gravimetric studies so far to the north. For three years, he conducted systematic observations of the meridional altitudes of the Sun and stars from the list of J.-N. Delisle, refraction of solar rays and northern lights, and the behavior of the magnetic needle, as well as meteorological observations.

The readers of Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences are presented with reflections on volumes III and IV of the fundamental multivolume summarizing work on the Paleolithic by the outstanding archaeologist and historian Academician A.P. Derevyanko. The main stages in the development of humankind and its technology, known from preserved ancient sites, are described. The finds at the sites consist mostly of remains of the stone industry and crushed bones of animals hunted by ancient humans. A great piece of luck is the discovery of the remains of humans. Volumes III and IV of Derevyanko’s book are devoted to the Acheulean age, a period marked by the beginning of complex interactions between representatives of the first and second waves of migrants from Africa: Homo erectus with the Oldowan tradition of stone processing and Homo Heidelbergensis of the second wave of migrants, who possessed the world’s first universal tool of a standard almond shape, i.e., the hand axe. Following the pattern of the distribution of the Heidelberg man and the hand axe, the author of this article comes to the conclusion that volumes III and IV of Derevyanko’s book clearly reflect the complex picture of interactions between the carriers of the two different technological cultures. The Acheulean age sees, for the first time in history, the formation of local cultural provinces of primitive human communities coming from different origins, which raises, also for the first time, the issue of interactions between different races and cultural traditions. 

RAS Academician Vladimir Porkhanov and Gilbert Massard (France) were awarded the highest award of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the field of medicine.