Northern settlement family-style: labor planning and population policy in Noril'sk

This paper reviews labor planning and population policies in Noril'sk, a mining and metallurgical settlement in northern Siberia. When the settlement was established in 1935, planners were lacking in ideas about how to recruit workers to staff the mines and smelters and how to retain the labor force once it was in place. From 1935-79, planners followed a forced labor policy dependent upon the labor of prisoners. However, this solution was not adequate for meeting the manpower needs of an economy undergoing rapid technological sophistication. Northern wage increments were introduced after 1945 to recruit skilled workers from other regions. These increments built up over a 4-year period to a maximum of 80% of base pay. A special cost of living bonus was also awarded. Although these inducements facilitated labor recruitment, labor retention remained a major problem. Surveys indicated that workers would prefer improvements in housing and social services to further wage increases. Thus, policy was directed at the housing shortages, poor medical care, and inadequate child care facilities in Noril'sk. Such improvements facilitated labor retention but also contributed to overpopulation. The population doubled between 1956-80, exceeding 180,000 in the latter year. In the early 1980s, selective measures toward population control were implemented to ensure maintenance of living standards (e.g., encouragement of older workers to leave the area upon retirement, more careful screening of recruits). The goal is to stabilize city size at around 250,000. The Noril'sk case illustrates that quality of life investments can alleviate labor retention problems even in the harshest physical environments. Recent policies have advocated productivity-enriching technologies that do not require increments in the labor force.     

Nonlinear wave conversion in electron-positron plasmas

Wave conversion mechanisms causing large-frequency shifts are considered for an electron-positron plasma in a strong magnetic field. In particular, we discuss the effects of the nonlinear erenkov as well as the cyclotron resonances in order to associate pulsar radio-emissions with our present model for nonlinear conversion of high-frequency radiation into the low-frequency region.     

A note on the energy loss from pulsars

We respond to comments made in a recent letter by Karimet al. (1984), and show that the examples of interstellar absorption at2800 Å that they have presented so far can all be attributed to overexposure of the IUE detectors.     

Distance estimate of M31 based on the size distribution of Hii regions and dark clouds

The size distribution of dark clouds and of H II regions were used to derive a distance of 440±22 kpc for M31. Some galactic H II regions and dark clouds were combined with the same ingredients in M31 to study the mass spectrum of both phenomena. A gas to dust ratio of 10001 has been derived for M31. Radii of the classical H II regions as derived in this work using distance of 440 kpc agrees with the galactic classical H II region radii.     

Cascade processes in the surface layers of pulsars

The influence of the Landau-Pomeranchuk effect on the development of a shower generated by ultrarelativistic particles bombarding the surface of a pulsar is discussed. Because of this effect, the path length of the shower increases while low-energy photon generation is strongly suppressed. In view of this, the mechanism of pair production suggested by Cheng, Ruderman, and Jones for the pulsar magnetosphere, may be essential only for pulsars whose magnetic field intensity at the surface lies in a relatively narrow range of aroundB 10¹² G.     

The solar causes of geomagnetic disturbances

Geomagnetic disturbances have been identified with respect to their sources for 1977–1983. The disturbance level was found using the daily planetary index A _p. High-amplitude ( 50), mean-amplitude (24) and low-amplitude ( 12) disturbances are caused by solar flares of importance 1, coronal holes, and filament cavities, respectively. The ranges of probable amplitudes of disturbances of different nature and their relative number are found from Poisson random distributions of amplitudes.     

On the collision probability for comets with the Sun

We consider the collision probability for comets with the Sun under the suppositions of different velocity distributions and various initial conditions. We solve the problem applying Laplace's method and using Schiaparelli's hyperboloid of visibility. The probabilities obtained in this manner are given separately for elliptic and hyperbolic orbits.     

Effects on partial prequency redistributionR II on the level population ratios in a resonance line

Angle-averaged partial frequency redistributionR II has been employed in obtaining a simultaneous solution of radiative transfer equation in the comoving frame and the statistical equilibrium equation for a non-LTE two level atom. We have obtained the ratios of population densities of the upper and lower levels of the resonance line of PV by utilizing the data given in Bernacca and Bianchi (1979). Line source functions are also obtained for different types of variations of density and velocity of the expanding gases. We have considered the atmosphere to be 11 times as thick as the stellar radius. The first iteration was started by putting the density of the upper level (N ₂) equal to zero. However, the convergent solution shows a substantial increase inN ₂ although it is still much less than the equilibrium value. The line source function and the ratio of the densities of the particles in the upper and lower levels fall sharply from a maximum at τ=τ_max to minimum at τ=0. We have studied the scattering integral \(\int {_{ - \infty }^{ + \infty } J_x \phi _x } dx\) and found that this quantity also varies quite similar to the ratioN ₂/N ₁ and the line source functionS _L.     

Local kinematics of OB stars

Analysis of observational data of OB stars show an, excellent agreement of the density distributions in space ?(x, y, z) as well as in velocity space \(\rho (\dot x,\dot y,\dot z)\) with the predictions of the density wave theory, the values for the density and velocity fluctuations are explained only by the non-linear theory. These theoretical calculations predict perturbations greater than ±10 km s^?1, consistent with the observations for the velocity field. Thus one should disregard analytical treatments of the linearized equations since they predict maximum perturbations of ±5km s^?1. Another consequence of this is the fact that the Gould's Belt is not a local anomaly, but a local feature of the density waves. The analysis of observational data show that the wave pattern is similar to that of the gas and dust.     

Extreme relativistic model for neutron stars and pulsars

Exact solutions have been obtained for a massive fluid sphere under the extreme causality condition (dP/dρ)=1. Radial pulsational stability of these structures has been discussed. It is found that for pulsationally stable configurations the surface to central density ratio is greater than 0.30, the maximum values for surface and central redshifts are 0.85 and 3.40 respectively in the extreme case, and the maximum mass and size are respectively 4.8M _⊙ and 20.1 km. It has also been shown that these structures are gravitationally bound, with a maximum binding energy per unit rest mass equal to 0.25 for a surface to central density ratio ?0.40. Slow rotation of these configurations has also been considered, and the relative drag and moment of inertia have been calculated. These results have been applied to the Crab pulsar and the mass of the pulsar has also been calculated based upon this model.