WATER LEVEL FLUCTUATION USING SURVEILLANCE CAMERA

Floods are the most frequent type of natural disaster that cause loss of life and damages to personal property and eventually affect the economic state of the country. Researchers around the world have been made significant efforts in dealing with the flood issue. Computer vision is one of the common approaches being employed which include the use of image segmentation techniques for image understanding and image analysis. The technique has been used in various fields including in flood disaster applications. This paper explores the use of a hybrid segmentation technique in detecting water regions from surveillance images and introduces a flood index calculation to study water level fluctuations. The flood index was evaluated by comparing the result with water level measured by sensor on-site. The experimental results demonstrated that the flood index reflects the trend of water levels of the river. Thus, the proposed technique can be used in detecting water regions and monitoring the water level fluctuation of the river.

Renovation of Current Business Models Formats and Elaboration of New Ones in Restaurant Business: Process Innovative Approach

Topicality. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the specifics of the restaurant business involves not only implementation of innovative management technologies, but also updating the current enterprises business models formats, and elaborating the new ones in the restaurant business sphere. The aim of this research is to analyse the existent situation of innovative updating the nowadays enterprises business models formats, and elaborating the neoteric ones in the restaurant business sphere abroad, and in Ukraine as well. Research methods combine the information systematisation in the innovative updating processes of the restaurant business sphere enterprises. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study are theoretical elaborations and scientific conceptions of blighty and foreign scientists in the field of enterprises activity and marketing researches, and laws of Ukraine. Results. The scientific novelty of the article is in the defining the necessity in innovative renewal of the current enterprises business models formats, and elaboration of the new ones, functioning in the restaurant business sphere, in the use of innovative technologies for improving their work efficiency, in identifying the principles of modern technologies implementation, depending on the type of institution and the kind of innovation. Conclusions and discussion. In this article, it is emphasized that nowadays the sphere of restaurant business is in the process of its formation due to the problems of the current political and economic state of the country. It is noted that in order to stimulate entrepreneurial activity in the restaurant business sphere, the further implementation of innovative management technologies is one of the most powerful competitiveness tool. The efficiency of innovative measures implementation at the mentioned above enterprises is analysed. It was found out that this industry is underdeveloped, which indicates the presence of significant untapped potential for further development, and opportunities for reclaiming new market segments. For effective implementation of innovations, it is necessary to update the existing, and develop some new business models formats of enterprises in the restaurant business. The stages of updating the current and developing the new formats of enterprises business models in the restaurant business, by applying the innovative development strategy, are offered.

Qualitative Research and Aging in Context: Implications to Social Study in China

This article begins with a review of methods that gerontologists use in social and behavioral research. The value and focus of qualitative research are highlighted with their epistemological roots. Qualitative approaches and their uses are summarized in terms of “interpretive” and “critical” social sciences that draw the insights of sociological paradigms. With a further review of qualitative research on aging and gerontological studies in China, the article focuses on an integrated micro-macro model by illuminating the ideas of clinical sociology and the general public policy framework of an “economic state in transition.” Implications to social policy study (particularly on aging in China) are discussed.

Travelling to improve yourself and to increase common good of humankind and your country: recommendations of Leopold von Berchtold in the context of the Enlightenement discourse

The recommendations of the Bohemian philanthropist of the late eighteenth century Leopold von Berchtold to travelers were not unique: there were others before and after. In the previous centuries other authors also tended to recommend their readers to pay attention to the economic state of foreign countries and provided them with a long list of questions they had to ask the people in the country of their destination. However, Berchtold’s recommendations were the product of his time, the age of Enlightenment, and they mentioned numerous topics and problems characteristic for that period. For instance, the author believed that self-improvement of a traveler had to begin long before the start of the trip. In Berchtold’s opinion, a traveler prepared for the journey was a kind of ideal, universal superhuman who was physically proficient, expert in all spheres of science, mechanics, economics, and medicine, who knew many languages, and was a talented artist and musician. Among the topics related to the Enlightenment, to which the author paid attention, were, for instance, patriotism of the traveler, which he understood as civil virtue, destined to improve not only his own country but also the whole of humankind. Moreover, patriotism in Berchtold’s interpretation did not contradict cosmopolitanism but rather it based itself on it. Philanthropy – which in the eighteenth century was a kind of secular religion – also featured a lot in Berchtold’s recommendations. Finally, the theme of doubt, as a basis for a critical assessment of reality and verification of authorities, pierced through the whole text of Leopold Berchtold. So did the topic of the public sphere, especially sociability and creation of social networks. The recommendations of Berchtold are thus valuable as a source that can tell a lot about the age of Enlightenment – not only about the practical side of traveling but also about the intellectual history of that period.

Cognitive modeling of informatization influence on socio-economic indicators of the region

The article discusses topical issues of the influence of informatization on the development of the country’s regions in the conditions of the modern unstable world. The nature of the development of a region can be reflected and understood on the basis of qualitative and quantitative information about its socio-economic indicators, about their relationship and trends in their changes under the influence of internal and external factors. At the same time, information can most often be incomplete, difficult to access, untimely, contradictory, etc. Therefore, in this paper, it is proposed to use a cognitive approach and cognitive modeling of complex systems to overcome the problems of information deficiency by imitating cognitive modeling of the structure and behavior of a complex regional system. The simulation was carried out using the author’s CMCS (Cognitive Modeling Complex System) software system. The results of multi-stage cognitive modeling, consisting in the development of cognitive maps “Influence of ICT on the state of the region” and “Digitalization of the republic” (according to the socio-economic state of the Republic of Dagestan), analysis of structural properties and modeling scenarios for the development of situations on the model are presented. Scenarios make it possible to foresee the ways of possible development of the system under the influence of various factors, including the factor of informatization.

Sociolinguistic Conditionality of Yakut Language Functioning in Field of School Education: Origins of Incipient Crisis

The results of a sociolinguistic analysis of factors that reduce the language competence of Sakha schoolchildren in a broad extralinguistic context based on field data representing the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the research object is presented in the article. Attention is paid to the functioning of the Yakut language in the field of education, which is undergoing various transformations depending on the course of the state educational policy, the socio-economic state of the region and the processes of globalization, the consequences of which form risks for the ethnocultural component of communities in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation with non-dominant languages. It is argued that the language policy in the field of education, which implements “de jure” bilingual, polylingual models, in the implementation of which the formal approach prevails, actually minimizes the presence of the Yakut language in the education system due to insufficient consideration of linguistic attitudes and the real needs of the Sakha ethnic community. It is noted that the conditions of active contact bilingualism in the regions of the Russian Federation, a variety of ambiguous extralinguistic factors predetermine the strengthening of institutional support, state protectionism in the field of optimal linguistic support of training and educational processes. It is proved that taking into account the experience of research on family, civil language policy can help in obtaining an optimal solution to the problems of language reproduction on regional material.

The construction sector in the condition of COVID–19: experience of Russia, EU countries, USA

All the negative changes in connection with the pandemic, which directly affected the model of financial behavior of the main investors in the construction industry, will ultimately continue to negatively affect the state economy. This situation will lead to an even greater decrease in entrepreneurial activity in construction. As a result, those positions of supply and demand, the economic state of the construction sector and individual organizations that have been destroyed since the beginning of 2020, under the most favorable scenario, will be able to return to their previous positions only in two years.

Tools to Overcome Internal Socio-Economic Inequality

Introduction. Dynamic economic growth and improvement of the quality of life of the population throughout the country are the priorities of the state policies in modern Russia. Differences in natural and climatic conditions, sectoral specialization of the economy, and infrastructural constraints have caused the differentiation of interregional and intraregional socio-economic development of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipalities. The current measures of state regulation and support for the regions do not provide for overcoming inequality. Based on the results of the research conducted, the article formulates proposals on substantiation of tools that take into account the features of territories and the ways of their self-development. Materials and Methods. The research on inequality of municipalities was conducted on the basis of data from the territorial body of the Federal State Statistics Service for the Republic of Mordovia, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Entrepreneurship of the Republic of Mordovia, as well as from reports and strategic documents of municipalities. The empirical material was processed using the methods of comparison and grouping. The level of inequality of municipal territories was identified, which made it possible to substantiate the main directions and tools for their development. Results. An assessment of the socio-economic state of the municipal districts of the Republic of Mordovia has been carried out and the level of their differentiation has been revealed with the calculation of variation indicators; the administrative and territorial units have been grouped according to the demographic situation, the differences between them and the possibilities of self-development of each of the selected groups have been analyzed. Discussion and Conclusion. The tools to overcome inequality have been identified, taking into account the features of the municipalities, which require adjustments to municipal strategies for socio-economic development until 2025 and formulation of a concept for the spatial development of the Republic of Mordovia. Recommendations for activating some of the existing tools and developing new ones have been put forward. The results obtained can be used by local governments when updating the priorities for the development of territories and the applied tools of the economic mechanism of strategic management.

German Travelers in Peru of the Second Half of 19th and Early 20th Centuries: Development and Environment Construction

The article is dedicated to the analysis of Peruvian travelogues of German-speaking travelers in the second half of 19th — early 20th centuries. Until now, this material has not attracted the attention of americanists. In the present analysis the author sets the following tasks: identifying the place of Peru in the German social and cultural discourse of the corresponding period; describing the social portrait of the German traveler in Peru; highlighting the main patterns underlying the image of Peru created by travelers; analyzing factors that influenced the creation of these patterns. The analysis shows the following results. First, the place of Peru in German discourse can be described as insignificant. Secondly, the typical German traveler to Peru was an educated middle-class person with a certain background concerning the Peruvian theme. Third, the author identifies the following patterns — stable sets of ideas about Peru: exoticism, mostly negative image of local habitants, dichotomy of the Peruvian past and present, in which the past acts as an era of glory, and the present — as the time of decline; view of the landscape as a reflection of the political and economic state of the country. The author also characterizes the main descriptive model of Peru for German travelers as “realistic”. Finally, the author identifies some factors that influenced the formation of the image of this country, in particular, the colonial discourse and the racial theory, as well as the political sympathies of the travelers themselves.