Ričardas Krikštolaitis

Sustainable Development and Energy Security Level After Ignalina NPP Shutdown

Abstract The paper presents the investigation of the impact of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) shutdown on Lithuanian energy security. The system of energy security indicators, covering technical, economic and socio-political aspects is presented. The integral characteristic of these indicators shows the level of energy security. The paper analyses the Lithuanian energy security level in 2007. To make a comparison, the energy security level in 2010, after the shutdown of Ignalina NPP, when Lithuanian Power Plant in Elektrėnai becomes the main electricity producer, is forecasted. Two alternatives are analysed: Lithuanian Power Plant uses either gas or heavy fuel oil for electricity production. The security level of each indicator, each indicator block and the total security level are presented as the result. Energy security indicators, which increased or decreased after the shutdown of Ignalina NPP, are analysed, including the indicators which have had the greatest impact on the change in energy securit...

Sublingual compared with vaginal misoprostol for labour induction at term: a randomised controlled trial

Objective  To compare the efficacy and safety of 50 μg of sublingual misoprostol with 25 μg of vaginal misoprostol administered for labour induction at term.

New localities of Dermacentor reticulatus ticks in the Baltic countries

According to previous observations in three Baltic States, Dermacentor reticulatus was found only in Lithuania where it occurred mainly in the central and western parts of the country. During the past decade, evidence about a changing distribution of D. reticulatus in the Baltic countries was provided by the occurrence of canine babesiosis in the new locations in Lithuania and Latvia. In the present study the current distribution of D. reticulatus in Lithuania and Latvia was investigated. Ticks were collected in different habitats in 2013-2014. A total of 3693 questing ticks belonging to D. reticulatus (n = 2789), Ixodes ricinus (n = 896) and I. persulcatus (n=8) were collected in Lithuania and Latvia. Questing D. reticulatus ticks were found in 73.4% (58/79) and in 44.4% (12/28) of the sampling localities in Lithuania and Latvia, respectively. Relative abundances of the ticks in different habitats were compared. All sites with high abundance of D. reticulatus ticks were localized in open areas close to a water basin and mixed forest. The present study demonstrates that during the past two decades D. reticulatus has expanded its range in the Baltic countries. D. reticulatus has been detected in 38 new localities in which this species had not been previously reported. The northern border of D. reticulatus in central Europe moved further to the north. New localities (n = 12) with D. reticulatus occurrence have been found in southern Latvia.

Criticality assessment of energy infrastructure

After the last major accidents in the energy sector of the last decade (USA and Canada (2003), India (2012), Russian-Ukrainian (2009)), energy infrastructure criticality assessment has become one of the most important issues. It has become the topical subject of the economy and national security in all countries. There is no single measure unit for the assessment of critical infrastructure with respect to “interdependency” among critical infrastructure sectors. This paper proposes to use criticality of infrastructure element as a measure to assess the importance of considered element to the normal activity of all sectors of infrastructure. The pilot numerical simulation of heat and electricity infrastructure was performed to demonstrate the implementation of the application of developed method for the assessment of infrastructure functionality and criticality.

Assessment of Lithuanian power supply security depending on nuclear energy

The Lithuanian energy sector is one of the most significant and problematic branches of its economic sector. One of the main threats to the security of the power supply in Lithuania is the closure of the Ignalina nuclear power plant (NPP). The Lithuanian power supply is assessed in terms of security indicators in this paper. Indicators are the parameters of the nuclear chain. A system of 22 indicators was formed in the study. The indicators were divided into four blocks: technical, economical, socio-political, and environmental. Threshold values of some indicators, employed in simulations, were obtained using an expert assessment and functional interdependences methods. In this paper the security level of the Lithuanian power supply from a nuclear energy point of view is determined.

Lithuanian energy security level assessment based on indicator dependence

The issue of energy security has recently become especially important and problematic in Lithuania. Prior to 2010, Lithuania was a nuclear power energy producing country; however the second (last) unit of Ignalina NPP was shutdown at the end of 2009. Thus, Lithuania is currently producing a part of electricity in its thermal power plants and imports the other part. The purpose of this paper is to assess Lithuanian energy security level taking into account various security indicators whose values were obtained from statistical data. The indicator system was divided into three blocks, namely: technical, economical and socio-political, and each block was divided into groups. As the indicators, ascribed to groups, are interdependent, these dependencies were invoked for the calculation of the weights of indicators. Additionally, the paper presents pilot calculations and the comparison of energy security level in Lithuania in 2007, 2010 and after the construction of a liquefied natural gas terminal.

EXPLORING EMPLOYER BRANDING TO ENHANCE DISTINCTIVENESS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The National Academic Depository of India is a crystallized vision. The depository was conceptualized to digitalize academic awards offered by educational institutions at one place. The depository can eliminate the need to store awards in physical form. It can verify the awards issued by different organizations to different individuals. The secure digital depository is a good remedy to fake and forged certificates. The concept of academic depository is very similar to the concept of financial securities. The concept of depository was tried out with the help of academic awards of one examination body in India. The pilot was completed successfully. In order to become fully functional, the depository has to overcome a few challenges with respect to academic diversities in terms of duration of courses and equivalence. The Legislation on academic depository is being drafted to take care of these challenges. Besides that, the NAD is begetting with many other new kinds of uses and possibilities. The NAD may open up new roles for the educational institutions as well such as to prepare reports for teachers from examination data on teaching learning gaps rather than just labeling students. Academic Depository is a pioneering effort of its kind in the world.The Annual Report is a good mean of describing the situation of a company to all the stakeholders although it is difficult to compare Annual Reports coming from different entities. A process of harmonization of European accounting standards was started in order to bring Annual Reports into line and it is currently being carried out through the adoption of IFRS standards. Once Annual Reports have been created adopting a common accounting standard, the very next step is to code them using the same IT language. If a common computer language is selected, Annual Reports or other documents can easily be compared without recoding and retyping them. The starting point of this process is the definition of an appropriate taxonomy to be used by both those drafting and reading the documents. The process of adopting an appropriate set of accounting standards, selecting the related taxonomy and, finally, drawing up documents using a new business language, called eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) leads companies to produce sound, meaningful and clear documents that greatly improve sharing of useful information. Moreover, the adoption of IFRS standards and XBRL encoded statements provides a set of measures for building sound and widely accepted models. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the changes to income statement presentation and the new concept of financial performance that emerges as a result of the adoption of IFRS and XBRL language. The drawing up of the Income Statement by XBRL may improve the financial performance measurement and disclosure with many benefits for all the stakeholders.The low quality of primary and secondary education in most Latin America countries is a well-known problem. As a response to this reality, the private educational market has been steadily growing in those countries. These private schools, in general, offer a higher quality and personalized education for the students that can afford it. The main selling point of these institutions is access to better resources: better teachers, technologies, materials and pedagogical methods. This difference in education quality creates a problem once students from public schools reach university. This IGUAL project will generate learning solutions (combination of e-learning software, pedagogical methodologies and learning materials) to facilitate the assimilation of new knowledge and the development of new skills even when the student has deficient background knowledge and/or underdeveloped required skills. The solutions that this project will provide have the potential to be used by all students in the Latin AmericanThe relationship between teacher and student is of extreme importance, especially as the latter is going through a delicate period in his life require planned to meet the requirements of the positive relationship in education and influence the psyche and personality and then impact in the community beyond. The most important characteristic of human from other organisms other being a social being by nature it affects and is affected at the same time by culture, traditions and customs of the society, and in this context says sociologist (role Chaim): * it when he speaks of human society is the one who speaks.The author in her article focuses on the issue of long-term unemployment and poverty, which often results in interdisciplinary problems. It is a problem of the whole society, which needs to be constantly looked into and it also constantly needs the elimination of the outside world´s effects on it. The aim of this work is to highlight the seriousness of this problem, the need for its elimination, with emphasis on the confrontation between scientific disciplines and their connections.

Dynamic Model For Energy Security LevelAssessment

Effective functioning of the energy sector is very important for the economy of every modern state. Thus, energy security is an inseparable part of the total economic security of the state. Energy security indicators were constructed for the investigation of the Lithuanian energy security level. The purpose of the paper is to construct a dynamic model for energy security level assessment. Dynamic model of indicators will enable us to forecast the Lithuanian energy security level according to different factors, such as building of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, power interconnections between Lithuania and Poland (LitPolLink), etc. Since technical parameters of new objects are not exactly known, these uncertainties should be reflected in the initial conditions of a differential equations system. Thus, in such conditions, the values of indicators are random variables. The paper presents a model of dynamic indicators and pilot calculations.

Public perception of energy security in Lithuania: between material interest and energy independence

ABSTRACT The issue of the energy security in social sciences research area is mostly prevalent in political sciences. The sociological research of the issues of energy is rather scarce. The reasons of the lack of concern about sociology of energy security could be related to the specific geopolitical context of post-Soviet states. The energy policy of new democratic post-Soviet states are pressed to reconstruct the entire energy system of former Soviet Union. This is not only technological or political, but maybe, first of all, social issue directly related to the consumption of users of gas and electricity and their prices. The societies and different social groups become an important social actors in the stressful energy policy. There is a lack of attention not only to social determinants of perception of energy security but also a lack of deeper analysis of public opinion in Lithuania. This article aims to improve our understanding of the Lithuanian public perception of energy security. This article focuses on two aspects: (a) An analysis of public opinion on the most important aspects of energy security and the social factors influencing them. The hypothesis is that public perception of energy security is related to value orientations. (b) An analysis of how public opinion on energy policy executed by the government and confidence in the government are intertwined with the concept of energy security.

Lithuanian energy security: annual review 2012–2013

Online ISSN 2335-7045. Lygiagretus leidinys: Lietuvos energetinis saugumas : metinė apžvalga 2015-2016 (liet. k.). ISSN 2335-7010