The new issues of the scientific journals Estonian Journal of Archaeology, Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences, Linguistica Uralica, Oil Shale, Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and TRAMES have been published.
Brief reviews of the journals:
ESTONIAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
The new issue of Estonian Journal of Archaeology is updated in appearance and contains three important articles. Marcus Adrian Roxburgh analyses the changes in the composition of copper alloys in the so-called Roman Brass Age (last century BC and first centuries AD) in Estonia and northern Latvia, identified by a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (pXRF). According to the author, brass replaced bronze at the latest around the turn of the common era, and a few centuries later gunmetal became more widely used. Riikka Tevali deals with a shipwreck in the Gulf of Finland in the Middle Ages, the investigations of which yielded rich find material consisting of near-stoneware objects produced in the villages of Bengerode and Fredelsloh in southern Lower Saxony, as well as other items from the northern Germany and Øresund region. Tõnno Jonuks, together with several co-authors, takes a look at the imitation of a Stone Age slotted bone point from the Pärnu River. What makes this point special is that it is completely cut out of bone but its finish mimics the technology of slotted points.
ESTONIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES
The June 2023 issue of the Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences is a thematic volume of the 14th International Symposium on the Ordovician System held in Tallinn, Estonia, on 15–26 July 2023. The symposium was initiated by the Subcommission on Ordovician Stratigraphy of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), a constituent scientific body in the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), in cooperation with the international project IGCP 735 ‘Rocks and the Rise of Ordovician Life’.
The Ordovician Period was one of the longest geological periods of the Phanerozoic Eon, characterised by high magmatic and plate tectonic activity, numerous palaeocontinents and microcontinents, and significant fluctuations in sea levels and climate, all of which had a significant impact on the development of life in the early Palaeozoic. The end of the Ordovician Period was marked by a mass extinction of marine invertebrates, one of the ‘big five’ major Phanerozoic extinctions. All these aspects are addressed in 81 contributions by authors from 20 countries. 28 short papers and 53 abstracts cover a wide range of research areas such as Ordovician chronostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, palaeontology, regional geology, correlation issues, impacts, and many more – in fact, they display a cross-section of contemporary research on the Ordovician System around the world. This volume continues the long-standing tradition of former symposia arranged by the Ordovician Subcommission of the International Commission on Stratigraphy to publish special books devoted to various aspects of the Ordovician System.
LINGUISTICA URALICA
The June issue of Linguistica Uralica is a thematic issue with four articles on discourse markers and discourse particles in Uralic languages. These articles were selected from a workshop of the research project ‘The grammar of discourse particles in Uralic’ at the conference ‘Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Language and Culture’ held by the Centre for Excellence in Estonian Studies (CEES) on 12–13 May 2022 in Tartu. The first article by Anna Verschik and Helin Kask studies English discourse markers used in Estonian blogs and vlogs. The second article by Timofey Arkhangelskiy investigates the position of Udmurt discourse clitics in an intricate template of clitic particles. The third article by Mari Saraheimo and Rebeka Kubitsch looks at the two Udmurt past tense forms val ‘was’and vylem ‘have been’ in contexts where the forms no longer function as past tense markers but have undergone pragmatization. And finally, in the fourth article, Aigul Zakirova and Aleksey Kozlov analyse the exhaustive and counteradditive Hill Mari particle =ok, which has etymological cognates in other Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages of the area.
OIL SHALE
In the new issue of Oil Shale there are five articles with authors from seven countries (China, Estonia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Tunisia and Brazil). Despite the narrow scope of the oil shale research niche, work in the field continues to be international and researchers are ready for cooperation. All the articles deal with changes in the physico-chemical properties of oil shale and its behaviour under different pyrolysis conditions. Interesting and novel is the article ‘Characterization of oil shale kerogen semi-coke and its application to remove chemical pollutants from aqueous solutions’ by Estonian scientists. The article seeks the possibility of obtaining an alternative adsorbent from oil shale semi-coke material for removing chemical pollutants from aqueous solution. We also get new knowledge from the article ‘Mass and heat transfer to and from oil shale exposed to a gas stream at constant temperature’. The object of investigation is the Irati Formation in Southern Brazil. It is the world’s second largest resource of oil shale from which shale oil has been produced by Petrobras, a Brazilian state-owned oil company, by the Petrosix® process. We recommend reading other articles as well.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ESTONIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
The June 2023 issue of the Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences features eight articles by the authors from Estonia and abroad.
Karmen Kapp from the University of Helsinki and her co-authors from the University of Tartu and Estonian University of Life Sciences compared the content of polyphenols in the peels, flesh, seeds and leaves of five apple cultivars (‘Antonovka’, ‘Åkerö’, ‘Cortland’, ‘Karksi renett’ and ‘Krista’) grown in Estonia. Of the 21 collected cultivars, five were selected on the basis of their rich or distinct chemical composition. A total of 33 compounds were detected in the peels, 23 in the flesh, 11 in the seeds, and 25 in the leaves. The study proves that apples contain healthy polyphenols. The authors suggest that it is always wise to eat the whole apple because valuable substances are stored not only in the pulp but also in the seeds and in the peel.
The research by Kristjan Pütsep and co-authors from Tallinn University of Technology is aimed at proposing an automatic stabilisation control algorithm solution for the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) hover flight phase. A critical analysis of the existing research work on a similar topic is provided and a flight platform and a suitable test bench for non-destructive tests were developed and presented. The results of the research provide a solid foundation for developing the VTOL aerial vehicle, and the test bench prototype demonstrates a concept that can be further used on various flight platforms.
The issue also contains several research papers on material science as well as interesting reading on optical solitons, data mining, and toxicology and pollution.
TRAMES. A JOURNAL OF THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
The latest Trames presents five contributions.
The opening article by Simone Eelmaa (University of Tartu) tackles the online sexual risks and harm as seen by the parents. Numerous focus group interviews revealed that parents perceive risks as something linked with parenting or characteristics of a specific child. The level of harm was also connected with a child’s (sexual) agency. Sexual agency is a person’s ability to make sexually-related choices. According to parents, children with sexual agency are less likely to be harmed than those without sexual agency. The study provides new considerations to inform policy responses and education programme design.
The next article is a research by Serbian scholars and it analyses the Dark Web and related challenges. The authors also take a look at the Deep Web (Hidden Web, Invisible web). The initial idea of the Dark Web and Deep Web was to hide the users’ identity and conceal the activity of webs, whereas now the main danger lies in terrorist training, illicit arms trade, human trafficking and other crimes.
Taking China as an example, Kunzhe Kang from the University of Manchester researches intertwined relationships between architectural autonomy and market forces. The article is based on the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, and analyses interpersonal networks of critics, architects, and publishers in architectural publications. It is established that the concept of architectural autonomy is constituted by a symbiotic collaboration among these actors through a discursive approach and architectural autonomy, despite indicating an architectural resistance against commercial forces and serving a commodity sold in the cultural market.
Indonesian folklorists Tini Suryaningsi, Ansaar, Iriani and Sritimuryati describe and analyse the massempek game of the Tolotang community. The game is connected with annual rituals linked with visiting the graves of ancestors. Participants are small brave children who are not afraid to fight one another.
The final contribution is from Ukraine. Scholars Olesia Pankiv, Oksana Onyshchuk and Oleksandra Stebelska look at military volunteering in Ukraine since the Russian Federation started the war against the Ukrainian state and its people. They analyse the ethical aspects of the movement. The volunteering movement’s main aim is not only defending the country but also the birth of a nation, shaping the national self-awareness, understanding and accepting the main moral values and ideals, and building up a democratic state based on the ideals of freedom, equality and justice.