St Petersburg University researchers describe for the first time all structures in the braincase of present-day crocodylians

Paleontologists from St Petersburg University have been the first in the world to describe all the structures in the braincase of present-day crocodylians and to assign a single individual name to each of its components. Additionally, during the work, the researchers managed to find new evolutionary traits in the animal’s braincase and figure out through what developmental mechanisms it acquired its current structure. The research findings are published in Journal of Anatomy.

The braincase of crocodylians has a distinctive structure. Unlike evolutionary relatives (birds and squamates), in crocodylians, all braincase bones are rigidly fixed together and form an akinetic structure. In the process of evolution, this made it possible for animals to develop powerful jaws and stronger bite forces, thanks to which crocodylians could gnaw through the hard shell of crayfish and turtles and hunt fish and land animals, including dinosaurs. As a result, they have managed to fill the niche of predators and survive to the present day.

At present, in comparison with other parts of the crocodylian skull, the structure of their braincase has been understudied.  This is because, until recently, scientists did not have the opportunity to investigate the complicated akinetic structure so that in the end the valuable collection specimen remained intact. At the same time, there is confusion in the already known data in terms and names. This complicates the work of many researchers studying the evolution of crocodylians.

Ivan Kuzmin, a doctoral student at St Petersburg University, decided to readdress this situation together with his colleagues from St Petersburg University, the Borissiak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Research and Practical Clinical Centre for Diagnostics and Telemedicine of the Moscow Department of Health, and the Smithsonian Institution (USA). To achieve this, they used computed tomography and a special 3D visualisation programme to create and study 3D models of 75 braincases of present-day crocodylians. This made it possible, without damaging the collection samples, to literally disassemble them by the bones and study every detail. Additionally, the researchers analysed academic papers describing the structure of the braincase from the beginning of the 19th century. The earliest work studied was an article dated 1821.

As a result, the scientists compiled a summary table in which they assigned a name to each structure in the crocodylian braincase. ‘Our paper is the first one in which this part of the skull is described in detail and a complete ordered list of all its details is provided. We have introduced some terms, for example, the names of bone processes in the auditory area. In some cases, because the structures were named incorrectly before us, in others, because we have discovered new elements,’ notes Ivan Kuzmin, the main author of the study, Master of Science from St Petersburg University.

While studying 3D models of braincases, the researchers found previously unknown evolutionary features. According to the scientists, recent data can help to better understand the structure of the crocodylian skeleton and resolve the contradictions around the genealogical tree of reptiles. The fact is that for almost 30 years, molecular biologists and palaeontologists have been unable to agree on the sequence in which crocodylian species should be located on the evolutionary tree.

For example, based on gene studies, molecular biologists assume that alligators are the most basal ones, while palaeontologists, studying fossil remains, come to the conclusion that the most primitive ones are gharials. ‘In the future, we plan to conduct a phylogenetic analysis and, based on its results, resolve this conflict,’ says Ivan Kuzmin. ‘The initial assumptions show that molecular biologists might be right.’

During the research, the authors also found out through what developmental mechanisms the crocodylian braincase acquired an akinetic structure. The researchers compared the evolution of the braincase in fossil relatives of crocodylians (crocodylomorphs) with the development of the braincase in the embryos of present-day animals. They have found out that in the crocodylian braincase area, in contrast to lizards and birds, complimentary structures appear at the initial stages of ontogenesis.

“Bones in an embryo are formed in two ways: endochondral and dermal. In the former case, cartilage first appears; then it ossifies. In the latter case, bones are formed as bones initially,” explains Ivan Kuzmin.

“Most of the braincase of all animals is formed by the endochondral process. However, it has turned out that everything happens differently in crocodylians.”

“In addition to structures that are formed through endochondral ossification, they have new elements that are formed embryonically in the form of dermal ossifications. That is, new bone blocks that are missing in other animals are attached to the cartilaginous structures, as in the LEGO construction set. With further development of the embryo, cartilages are transformed into bones, and everything merges into a single structure. The same embryonic processes likely happened during the early stages of crocodylomorph evolution,” Ivan says.

TPU students win at Abilympics Championship

Students of Tomsk Polytechnic University have come out as winners in the regional stage of Abilympics, a championship of professional skills for people with disabilities, have been announced.

This year, 186 representatives of Tomsk and Tomsk Oblast universities, vocational schools and schools took part in the Championship. They competed for a professional championship in 24 competencies from web design and information security to multimedia journalism and industrial robotics.

Nikita Morozov and Kirill Levchenko, students of the TPU School of Computer Science and Robotics, represented TPU at the Championship. They competed in the Database Administration and Design of Characters/Animation competences respectively.

In the Database Administration competence, the contestants had to create a database using Microsoft Access 2016, a database management system, had to fill it with similar information, as well as had to provide an opportunity for data access and had to organize a user interface to work with the database.

The contestants of the Design of Characters/Animation competence worked on creating the images of a 2D character for a public service announcement raising civic consciousness and patriotism. The boys had to animate a picture and prepare a summary of it.

According to the results of the Championship, Nikita Morozov became a winner in his competence, while Kirill Levchenko took the third position in the Design of Characters/Animation competence. They were awarded medals, diplomas and gifts.

Abilympics is an international non-profit movement that aims to develop the Abilympics system of professional skill competitions for people with disabilities in the Russian Federation.

New method of spraying water to improve oil treatment and fire fighting

The scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University were able to improve industrial methods of spraying water by creating a complete mathematical description of this process. According to them, the data obtained will help improve fire extinguishing technologies, as well as a number of processes in the petrochemical industry. The research findings were published in the Powder Technology academic journal.

Spraying water with various impurities and its subsequent evaporation is an important part of many technologies applied in the petrochemical industry, the TPU scientists said. According to them, such systems have a low efficiency, which affects the cost of production.

For instance, in thermal treatment chambers, where byproducts are separated, relatively large drops of an aqueous solution do not have enough time to evaporate during one operation cycle, which significantly reduces efficiency and increases time consumption.

The scientists assume energy and resource consumption can be optimized due to the special conditions of spraying liquid, under which it will be impossible for large droplets to form. The exact mathematical parameters of such a process are provided in the new research conducted by the TPU physicists.

“Crushing droplets of liquids, emulsions, solutions and suspensions can multiply the surface area of their evaporation. Using this effect along with changing the design and position of the sprayers, it is possible to significantly increase the efficiency of a large number of systems, from fire extinguishing to thermal energy using water vapor,” Pavel Strizhak, Professor of the TPU Butakov Research Center, told Sputnik news agency.

The data obtained, according to the authors of the research work, will help significantly increase the thermal power of combustion engines and boiler furnaces, as well as raise heat absorption in heat exchange systems by three to five folds. In the long run, this will also make it possible to optimize the dimensions of the combustion chambers, heat and mass transfer devices and the entire set of the other elements of heat and power systems.

Another area that will be significantly affected by the research findings is environmentally friendly energy, the TPU scientists believe. According to them, nowadays, the systems are being actively implemented which allow capturing hazardous products of combustion of hydrocarbons by using water and water vapor, preventing their release into the atmosphere.

“We have determined the transformation and decay time of droplets under the action of aerodynamic forces and for the first time have found the exact values of the critical criterion for the Weber and the Reynolds number, taking into account the capillarity and the Ohnesorge and Laplace numbers. This makes it possible to mathematically describe the entire process of crushing drops and make adjustments to the existing methods of spraying,” Ivan Voytkov, a TPU invited research engineer, one of the authors of the research, said.

According to the scientists, the new experimental data are highly accurate, since the crushing of drops was first studied in the dynamics of a real air flow, for which video recording was used at a frequency of up to 100,000 frames per second. Water-containing mixtures of various compositions used in the industry were analyzed as well.

Team of Tomsk Universities share their experience of Urban Greenhouse Challenge Held at TPU

The team titled as Environmental Engineering Group representing Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk State University, Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radio-Electronics, Tomsk State University of Architecture and Construction reached the final of Urban Greenhouse Challenge: Reforest, an international competition of student projects.

The team members shared what helped them to create a successful project and whether it was easy to work together with students from different universities.

It is the first time Urban Greenhouse Challenge: Reforest, international competition has been held at a Russian university. Tomsk Polytechnic University became its main organizer. The key task of the contestants was to develop a project of a city farm, an autonomous greenhouse for growing coniferous and deciduous seedlings on multi-tiered shelving units. The prize pool of the competition is $10,000.

According to the team members of the Environmental Engineering Group, the main concept of their project since the beginning of the project has not changed. It is a small city greenhouse that can be located in public spaces to enhance awareness of the population on the problem of growing coniferous plants and to demonstrate the process itself.

The contestants are also willing that their complex could operate without an operator and are intended to pay special attention to the design and environmental friendliness of the project so that the greenhouse could harmoniously fit the city landscapes.

“An educational course that was quite deep and fundamental, as well as consultations with mentors helped us so much. It was helpful to hear the experts’ opinions as some moments even did not come to our minds. For instance, we were suggested to pay attention to material recycling and reuse,” the students say.

Moreover, all the team members study different majors: optical engineering, circuit design and programming, ecology, architecture and construction, marketing. Despite the different experience and situation with a distance learning mode, it did not obstruct them to work well together and invent their concept.

“Everyone has a similar vision of our concept from the beginning. Due to the fact that all the team members have competencies in different areas, we could have created the final concept of the project quite fast. Simultaneously, we learned something new from each other, for instance, I learned a lot about microclimate control systems in greenhouses.

“We did not face any problems with communication as we were in touch on social media and via Zoom. It was much convenient to work in this way as we all have different opportunities and schedules. At the moment, one of the team members is in Italy. What about our chances for victory, we have cautious optimism.

“From what we have seen and heard, we have realized that our vision of a city greenhouse is different from what the other teams are developing. We love our project and we are sure that it will be positively assessed,” Sofia Romanenko, a student of the TPU School of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, the head of the team, shared her thoughts.

TPU receives welding robot

The TPU School of Non-Destructive Testing has received a new welding robot. It will be used for laboratory and practical classes from the next study year. Students will learn how to program robots for welding at hands-off productions.

The robot is produced by KUKA, its cost is over 10 million rubles. It is currently being commissioned at the TPU Center for Industrial Tomography (academic building No. 18, 7, Savinykh Street).

“There is welding at any up-to-date production and welding specialists are in high demand. TPU trains undergraduate and graduate welding engineers. These are specialists who can create new equipment for welding, renew the existing one and automate welding processes. Although digitalization and robotic automation of the industry form new requirements for such engineers: competencies in programming robots are required,” Pavel Baranov, Head of the Division for Electronic Engineering of the TPU School of Non-Destructive Testing, says.

The robot is a manipulator to which any up-to-date welding power supply can be connected. It is capable to both weld and simulate different melding conditions.

“Robot welding makes the top of future professions. Robots improve welding speed, quality, repeatability of a result that is why it will be difficult to imagine hands-off productions of Industry 4.0 without them. Nowadays, there is no training in robot welding anywhere. The new robot allowed us to introduce new majors for our undergraduate and graduate students. The students will write their software in computer classes so that the robot will be capable to find a welding position and weld. After they test their codes using the real robot in the laboratory,” Pavel Baranov explains.

TPU has recently received a welding simulator. It fully simulates the welder’s work, helps to master main welding conditions, records mistakes and evaluates the quality of a welding joint. The welding simulator will also be applied to the educational process in the next study year. The students will begin to study the kinds and technology of welding using the welding simulator and then continue their training using the real equipment.

Russian Academy of Sciences confers medal on TPU Student

The results of the 2020 Competition for a Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences for Young Scientists of Russia and Students of Higher Educational Institutions of Russia for the Best Research Works have been announced.

According to the results of the 2020 Competition in Physicotechnical Problems of the Energy Industry, Kristina Paushkina, a second-year graduate student of the TPU School of Energy and Power Engineering, was conferred the medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences for her research work “Scientific Rationale of the Application Perspectives of Energetically, Environmentally and Economically Efficient Composite Fuels in Heat Power Engineering”. Kristina’s research supervisor is Dmitry Glushkov, Associate Professor of the TPU Research School of High-Energy Physics.

“The research is the continuation of research works under the supervision of Pavel Strizhak, Professor of the TPU Butakov Research Center. There was conducted experimental and theoretical research of the ignition process and combustion of composite fuels based on waste coal adding combustible municipal solid waste. There were researched not only the characteristics of ignition and combustion but also the ecological ones, such as the concentration of sulphur oxide and nitrogen in flue gases. Based on the obtained data, there was developed a feasibility study of the application of the obtained fuels at the existing facilities of the heat power engineering industry on the example of Kemerovo Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast and Tomsk Oblast,” Kristina Paushkina says.

The Competition is held to identify and support talented young researchers, to contribute to the professional growth of scientific youth, to encourage creative initiatives of young scientists of Russia and students of higher educational institutions of Russia in conducting research.

Annually, the Russian Academy of Sciences confers 21 medals with prizes of 50,000 rubles each on young scientists for the best research works and 21 medals with prizes of 25,000 rubles each on students of higher educational institutions of Russia.

A new safe and efficient data processing technology

Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University ETU-LETI scientists, together with Smartilizer, studied a new approach to data analysis that does not require transferring data from the source to an analytical center.

The researchers tested the effectiveness of existing open-source systems on different data sets: sensor readings from moving cars and X-rays of pneumonia patients. To test the applicability in IoT systems, the authors evaluated the following features: ease of use and installation, analysis capabilities, accuracy, and performance. The paper was published in the journal Sensors.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a data transmission network that consists of physical objects with in-built connectors. Using such connectors, the objects are able to communicate with each other and their environment. For example, in the smart home concept, appliances are connected to each other and external control device, allowing managing from a cell phone.

The standard architecture of an IoT system consists of three layers. The first (device layer) is the hardware devices that produce and collect the data. The middle layer is responsible for transferring data from the devices to the application layer, which provides services or applications that integrate or analyze the data.

Traditional approaches to such systems involve data collection from IoT devices into one
centralized repository for further analysis. However, they are not always applicable due to a large volume of collected data, communication channels with limited bandwidth, security and privacy requirements.

Significant disadvantages are an increase in total processing time, network traffic, and risk of unauthorized access to the data. Therefore, new approaches to the analysis of such data are being developed. One of them is federated learning that allows analyzing data directly on sources and federating the results of each analysis to yield a result as traditional centralized data processing. There is less load and risk because all the data is processed locally.

One of the main applications of this AI-based technology is the security and privacy of
personal data collected around the world every second. This issue has become extremely important after the adoption of several legislative regulations, such as the GDPR in the European Union, CCPA in the USA, and PDPA in Singapore. They require transparent processing of personal data with an explicitly stated purpose and the consent of the data subject.

In a smart home, the data sources are the devices in each apartment: the alarm clock, the
bathroom faucet, the underfloor heating, and the lights. In the traditional approach, all data from each apartment is collected in a centralized repository. It is used to train a model (such as a neural network), and after that, the model would be transmitted back to the smart home control system.

At the alarm call, such a model “knows” that heating should start warming up, the bathtub should be filled, and the lights in certain rooms should turn on. On the one hand, data collection is necessary to train such a model because the more data, the smarter the model.

On the other hand, information about you: when you get up, when you go to the bathroom, when you eat, and so on, becomes available to someone else, and you do not know how it will be used. According to the principles of federated learning, the data will not leave your apartment.

ETU “LETI” scientists tested systems from different companies: Google, Webank, Baidu, the OpenMined community, and others. The authors conducted a series of experiments with them on three data sets.

The first contained the parameters of a moving passenger car (average speed, engine load, etc.) and assessed the driving style, the road surface, and the traffic state. The second included similar signal data for dumpers, and its analysis provided information about the vehicle operation. Finally, the third set was X-ray images from 5,232 patients (3,383 images of them with signs of pneumonia). The analysis allowed us to distinguish sick people from healthy ones.

“We compared all currently available open-source federated learning frameworks and
evaluated their capabilities. Our approach proved to be effective in all three cases. However, not all of them are suitable for industrial development now. Some systems are still in their early stages and not ready for widespread use. Nevertheless, the federated learning technology itself is extremely relevant and rapidly developing,” says Ivan Kholod, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science and Technology at ETU “LETI.”

TPU launches an online school to teach Russian to international students

The Division for Russian of the Tomsk Polytechnic University School of Core Engineering Education has launched the Global Russian Online School (GROSchool) project, which plans to teach Russian to international students on a permanent basis.

The School will offer a range of language courses: from learning the language for everyday use to special courses, such as “Business Russian”, “Russian for Engineers”, etc. Classes will be held online, allowing international students who are not yet able to come to Russia or who prefer to learn a foreign language remotely to be involved in the language learning process.

“The idea of launching an online school appeared in our Division a long time ago, yet it was last year that gave us the invaluable experience of running classes in a distance learning format, and we are now ready to take these classes to a commercial level,” says Evgenia Sherina, Head of the Division for Russian Language and Director of the GROSchool.

The Head of the project noted that the modern website was specially created for the School and would allow attendees not only to view the list of courses, but also to calculate their tuition fees and to submit an application promptly. Enrolment for the traditional TPU Summer Holidays Russian Language School for international attendees will soon be opened.

St. Petersburg Mining University demonstrates potential of plasma technology for producing ultra-pure corundum

A research group from Saint Petersburg Mining University has conducted a series of successful experiments to produce corundum with a purity of over 99.999% using innovative plasma technology. With low-temperature plasma used for melting alumina in the reactor, contamination of the final product by electrode materials can be avoided, thereby ensuring its high quality.

Following the results achieved in this work, Mining University obtained a patent for a plasma furnace with multi-layer refractory lining. The invention helps improve the heat-balance control of the plasma furnace whilst enhancing the chemical purity of the corundum produced. To carry out the experiments, the researchers used a plasma torch of the Institute for Electrophysics and Electric Power of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The development of plasma nanotechnologies and new materials for the minerals sector is one of the promising areas of scientific work at the University. Amongst the most significant completed projects are the plasma technologies of manufacturing aluminium for metallurgy and hydrogen energy and the technologies of producing ultra-pure white corundum and sapphire glass.

The relevance of the work done comes from the fact that the current technologies of manufacturing corundum have been in use since the mid-20th century. By now, they have reached their maximum capacity, and a further increase in output within the traditional technology would cause a problem of growing energy intensity and power consumption. Yet, it would not ensure the required purity, hardness, and thermal stability of the final product.

The proposed technology involving the innovative plasma furnace to melt alumina opens up good prospects for industrial use. Victoria Kison, a PhD student in the Department of General and Technical Physics, is writing her thesis based on the empirical data from the experiments. Doctor of Physico-Mathematical Sciences Alexander Mustafaev, head of the department, supervises her work.

Synthetic corundum has numerous uses in a variety of industries. For white corundum, these include sandblasting, treating of hardened and tempered steels; it also serves as refractory and abrasives. Transparent corundum – leucosapphire – is used to make substrates for microchips, in optical devices, lasers, and for the manufacture of ultra-thin medical scalpels. The value of corundum is due to its hardness, which is 9 out of 10 on the Mohs scale. Diamond has the highest value of hardness. Corundum can also be used as a material for producing aluminium by electrolysis.

Scientists from St Petersburg University discover at the Dead Sea a mineral previously only known in meteorites

Scientists from St Petersburg University, in cooperation with researchers from Germany, USA and Italy, have discovered terrestrial allabogdanite, (Fe,Ni)2P. It is a mineral that, until now, has been found only in the extraterrestrial substance of meteorites. The discovery was made in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, in the historical region of the South Levant in the Middle East. The research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation and published in American Mineralogist.

The general view of the rock with allabogdanite-barringerite association. © Mineralogical Society of America.

Allabogdanite was first reported in the early 2000s from the Onello – a small iron meteorite recovered from the gold placer at the Bolshoi Dolguchan River in Eastern Yakutia. Chemically, the mineral belongs to phosphides – the compounds containing phosphorus in a negative oxidation state. It was named in honour of the crystallographer Alla Bogdanova. Since that, allabogdanite was identified in several iron meteorites.

The recent discovery at the Dead Sea is the first confirmation of the mineral on Earth. Allabogdanite was detected in the course of a systematic study of terrestrial phosphides from the Dead Sea region.

“Our research included the experiments on phase transitions of terrestrial allabogdanite at high pressure and high temperature at the DESY synchrotron light source in Germany,” said Sergey Britvin, the main author of the article, Professor in the Department of Crystallography at St Petersburg University.

“It has been found that terrestrial allabogdanite could be formed at pressures exceeding 25 gigapascals that corresponds to ca. 250 kbar. Such high pressures on Earth can be attained during catastrophic collisions with large meteorite impactors, or at the Earth’s mantle conditions, at a depth of more than 500 kilometres. However, the discovery of terrestrial allabogdanite is associated with the surface rocks of the Hatrurim Formation (also known as the Mottled Zone) in the Negev Desert in Israel. This is the area where natural cyclophosphates have been recently discovered, ” added Professor Sergey.

The Mottled Zone, or the Hatrurim Formation. (a) Areas of outcrops of the Mottled Zone (brown spots) in the South Levant. The largest territories are the Hatrurim basin (Israel) and the Daba-Siwaqa complex (Jordan). (b) The Hatrurim Basin in the Negev Desert, Israel, and the Halamish bed – the location of associations containing allabogdanite. © Mineralogical Society of America

Professor Sergey Britvin added that the discovery of allabogdanite in the historical region of the South Levant in the Middle East raises many questions related to the formation conditions of surficial rocks in this region.

Despite the fact that allabogdanite was discovered in meteorite almost 20 years ago, it was only in 2008 that it was shown that the mineral belongs to the indicators of high pressure. The results of current research evidence that terrestrial allabogdanite is a metastable high pressure phase. It was formed as a result of transformation from another mineral – barringerite, and was preserved under normal conditions as a result of quenching – an abrupt release of temperature and pressure.

East view of the Hatrurim Basin, Israel. © Mineralogical Society of America

‘This way excludes the possibility of allabogdanite formation as an intermediate phase from the elements under atmospheric pressure. This, in turn, raises a number of key questions regarding the origin of rocks in the Mottled Zone. Until now, no evidence for the large meteorite collisions or the rocks having Earth’s mantle origin has been found in the South Levant. However, such evidence might have been ‘erased’ from the Earth’s surface as a result of later processes of geological erosion. The discovery of allabogdanite justifies the necessity of further research in this direction,’ said Professor Sergey Britvin.

The research is supported by the grant from the Russian Science Foundation (project No 18-17-00079).