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Abstract The significance of economic factors in the emergence and development of “de facto states” remains insufficiently studied and debatable. This article deals with the case of South Ossetia, one of the six unrecognized republics that emerged in the post-Soviet space. Based on the study of statistical data, secondary sources and expert interviews with representatives of local authorities, business, and the academic community, the authors analyzed structural changes and the state of the economy of South Ossetia and views on development prospects in the context of state building. It has been shown that as a result of large-scale assistance from Russia, a structurally weak hyperservice economy has formed, whose key industries depend on government demand and Russian investments. Limited economic self-sufficiency, cross-border settlement of Ossetians and Georgians, as well as numerous family ties contribute to the emergence of a variety of cross-border practices (shuttle trade, smuggling, and peculiar payment systems) that reduce social tensions. The case of South Ossetia confirms that unrecognized status is not in itself an obstacle to economic development, but the lack of external legitimacy limits access to markets and creates difficulties for financial and trade transactions. As a result, Eurasian integration has become rather a source of problems for this republic, creating obstacles difficult to overcome for local businesses in trade with Russia, the only EAEU country that recognizes the Republic of South Ossetia as a sovereign state. As a result, economic problems, along with security issues, serve as a key argument for South Ossetia’s support for the idea of joining the republic to Russia.

Abstract Currently, a new generation of high-speed, information-intensive resistive memory based on nonstoichiometric dielectrics is being developed. The electron structure of nonstoichiometric silicon oxide SiOx is set by the value of parameter x. It is found that the treatment of thermal SiO2 in hydrogen plasma electron cyclotron resonance leads to the enrichment of silicon oxide with excess silicon, which in turn leads to the appearance of electron and hole traps in SiOx. SiOx conductivity is bipolar: electrons are injected from negatively biased silicon and holes are injected from positively biased silicon. Cathodoluminescence (CL) experiments confirm the assumption that the traps in SiOx are due to the excess silicon. p++-Si(100)/SiOx/Ni memristor metal-dielectric-semiconductor (MDS) structures are fabricated based on the developed procedure for the preparation of nonstoichiometric oxide in hydrogen plasma of electron cyclotron resonance. Such structures have the properties of resistive switching of SiOx that do not require a forming operation.

Charge transport in amorphous silicon nitride (Si3N4) is studied experimentally in a wide range of electric fields and temperatures. The experimental data are compared with the results of numerical calculations. To describe the ionization of deep centers (traps) in Si3N4, the Frenkel effect is used with the account for thermally assisted tunneling and the multiphonon mechanism. It is shown that the Frenkel effect with allowance for thermally assisted tunneling formally describes the experiment. However, an anomalously small frequency factor (109 s–1) and a large effective tunneling mass (3m0) must be used in calculations in this case. A satisfactory agreement between the results of experiments and calculations was attained using the theory of multiphonon ionization of traps with the following parameters: $$W_{T}^{{e,h}}$$ = 1.6 eV, $$W_{{{\text{opt}}}}^{{e,h}}$$ = 3.2 eV, $$W_{{{\text{ph}}}}^{{e,h}}$$ = 0.064 eV, $$m_{{e,h}}^{*}$$ = 0.6m0, and Ne,h = 6 × 1018 cm–3, which correspond to the thermal energy, optical energy, phonon energy, tunneling effective mass, and concentrations of electron and hole traps, respectively.

Abstract— Research into the identity of residents of Kaliningrad Oblast is characterized by a combination of close attention to the ideologically significant factors of its formation and its deficit in personal belief and mindset issues. At best, researchers talk about stereotypes of public opinion and enduring mythologems. The authors seek to fill this gap by offering a look at identity as a reflective project supported by narratives and controlled by social practice. The purpose of the article is to show shifts in the understanding of the surrounding reality that took place in Kaliningrad society at the beginning of the 21st century and to the nature of their influence on the self-identification of Kaliningrad residents. The authors relied on a series of interviews conducted in the summer of 2020. The results of content analysis of text materials were compared with findings by other researchers and sociological survey data. The analysis showed that Kaliningrad society is characterized by opposing cultural phenomena: “Delays,” i.e., comprehension of ongoing changes in categories relevant to the previous era, and “getting ahead,” the use of narratives and practices characteristic of postmodernity. The authors suggest that the level of pluralism achieved by Kaliningrad society, based on a combination of modern and traditional values, provides the identity of the oblast’s residents with the necessary stability. However, the contradiction between identity retention policy within traditional statist ideas and the reflexivity of modern society, in which an individual is not bound by traditions and ascriptive relations, can upset the existing equilibrium.

The initial phases of penetration of cold waters from the sea surface into the depth are analyzed within a study of the process of sea surface cooling. The phases of immersion of small volumes of water with negative buoyancy, reaching the bottom, and propagation along the bottom slope have been studied in laboratory experiment and numerical simulation. The interaction between two small volumes of salt water, which sequentially originate in the surface freshwater layer, during their immersion and subsequent propagation along the bottom slope is described in detail. Laboratory experiments have shown that the second of two water spots, equal in volumes and negative buoyancy, always reaches the first one during propagation along the bottom slope. A phenomenological explanation of this fact is suggested. The images of individual phases of the water-spot propagation show quite long-term stability of laminar structure of tracers inside the water spots. The simulation allows distinguishing two characteristic phases (advective and viscous) of interaction between two water spots. The experimental and simulation results allow us to suggest the general scheme of the negative-buoyancy water dynamics in coastal waters.

The natural basic aqueous aluminum and iron sulfate, aluminocopiapite (Al0.60 $${\text{Fe}}_{{0.07}}^{{3 + }}$$ ) $${\text{Fe}}_{{4.00}}^{{3 + }}$$ [SO4]6.03(OH)1.95 ⋅ 19.54H2O (Blyava, South Urals, Russia), was studied using powder X‑ray diffraction, infrared and Mossbauer spectroscopy, and thermal analysis. The enthalpy of formation from the elements $${{\Delta }_{f}}H_{{el}}^{0}$$ (298.15 K) = −11 826 ± 58 kJ/mol was determined by high-temperature melt solution calorimetry on a Tian-Calvet high-temperature heat-flux microcalorimeter “Setaram” (France). Standard entropies and Gibbs energies of formation were estimated for the studied aluminocopiapite and other copiapite-group minerals.

The luminescent and optical properties of materials based on zirconium(IV) oxide grown by crystallization of ZrO2 melts with 0, 2.0, 2.5, 2.8, and 3.7 mol % of Y2O3 are studied. Using Raman spectroscopy, it is found that this material with the Y2O3 concentration below 2 mol % is mainly a monoclinic ZrO2 phase. The photoluminescence spectra of these crystals contain a blue–green band peaking at an energy of 2.4 eV. This fact in combination with the specific features of the refractive index and absorption coefficient dispersions indicates the presence of high concentrations of oxygen vacancies and polyvacancies in the samples. At higher concentrations of Y2O3 in the mixture, the tetragonal ZrO2 modification becomes dominant in the materials under study and the blue–green luminescence intensity decreases. The experimental optical spectra are analyzed in comparison with the ab initio calculated spectra for ideal ZrO2 crystals in the cubic, tetragonal, and monoclinic phases.

The silicon oxide thin films obtained by thermal SiO2 treatment in hydrogen electron cyclotron resonance plasma at various exposure times are investigated. Using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, we have established that such treatment leads to a significant oxygen depletion of thermal SiO2, the more so the longer the treatment time. The atomic structure of the SiOx

The optical properties and composition of thermal silicon oxide thin films processed in a hydrogen electron cyclotron resonance plasma have been studied by ellipsometry, quantum-chemical modeling, and photoluminescence spectroscopy. It has been found that the plasma processing of the films leads to their oxygen depletion and the formation of nonstoichiometric oxide SiOx

Silicon oxide and silicon nitride are two key dielectrics in silicon devices. The advantage of silicon nitride over other dielectrics is that silicon nitride is compatible with silicon technology. Despite numerous studies, the mechanism of charge transfer in the storage elements of resistive memory based on silicon nitride is still not clear. It is required to study in detail the mechanism of charge transfer in a memristor based on silicon nitride in order to further improve the cell information storage element and create a matrix of these elements. Metal–nitride–oxide–silicon (MNOS) structures that exhibit memristor properties are obtained using chemical vapor deposition at low pressure at 700°C. The fabricated structure of the resistive memory storage element based on metal–nitride–oxide–silicon does not require a molding procedure. In addition, such a memristor has a memory window of about five orders of magnitude. We establish that the main mechanism of charge transfer in the MNOS memristor in the high-resistance state is the current model with a limited spatial charge of the traps. In a low resistance state, the charge transfer mechanism is described by the current model with a limited spatial charge with filled traps. The trap’s parameters are determined in a memristor based on silicon nitride in a high-resistance state.