Publications

This book contains an in-depth overview of the current state of the recently emerged and rapidly growing theory of Gnk groups, picture-valued invariants, and braids for arbitrary manifolds. Equivalence relations arising in low-dimensional topology and combinatorial group theory inevitably lead to the study of invariants, and good invariants should be strong and apparent. An interesting case of such invariants is picture-valued invariants, whose values are not algebraic objects, but geometrical constructions, like graphs or polyhedra.

In 2015, V O Manturov defined a two-parametric family of groups Gnk and formulated the following principle: if dynamical systems describing a motion of n particles possess a nice codimension 1 property governed by exactly k particles then these dynamical systems possess topological invariants valued in Gnk.

The book is devoted to various realisations and generalisations of this principle in the broad sense. The groups Gnk have many epimorphisms onto free products of cyclic groups; hence, invariants constructed from them are powerful enough and easy to compare. However, this construction does not work when we try to deal with points on a 2-surface, since there may be infinitely many geodesics passing through two points. That leads to the notion of another family of groups — Γnk, which give rise to braids on arbitrary manifolds yielding invariants of arbitrary manifolds.

Topical Problems of Green Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering 2019 (TPACEE 2019)

We propose an efficient algorithm based on boundary operator equations for the numerical simulation of time-dependent waves in 3D. The algorithm employs the method of difference potentials combined with the (strong) Huygens’ principle (lacunae of the solution). It can handle nonconforming boundaries on regular structured grids with no loss of accuracy and offers sublinear computational complexity.

The writings of Thomas Robert Malthus continue to resonate today, particularly An Essay on the Principle of Population which was published more than two centuries ago. Malthus Across Nations creates a fascinating picture of the circulation of his economic and demographic ideas across different countries, highlighting the reception of his works in a variety of nations and cultures. This unique book offers not only a fascinating piece of comparative analysis in the history of economic thought but also places some of today’s most pressing debates into an accurate historical perspective, thereby improving our understanding of them. Providing a complex and multi-faceted analysis of the reception and dissemination of the works of Malthus, this book examines how his approach was misunderstood and distorted throughout his lifetime and beyond. It illuminates the different ways in which groups of actors, including laymen, politicians and experts, have reacted to his work in specific historical and intellectual contexts, and with particular theoretical, political and moral concerns. Detailed breakdowns of the main controversies over his work are also explored. An insightful read for scholars studying economics and history of economic thought, this book guides readers from Malthus’s original publications to their continuing impact today. This will also be a useful volume for ethics, political thought and intellectual history students.

The materials of The International Scientific – Practical Conference is presented below. The Conference reflects the modern state of innovation in education, science, industry and social-economic sphere, from the standpoint of introducing new information technologies. It is interesting for a wide range of researchers, teachers, graduate students and professionals in the field of innovation and information technologies.

This book explores Russia’s efforts towards both adapting to and shaping a world in transformation. Russia has been largely marginalized in the post-Cold War era and has struggled to find its place in the world, which means that the chaotic changes in the world present Russia with both threats and opportunities. The rapid shift in the international distribution of power and emergence of a multipolar world disrupts the existing order, although it also enables Russia to diversify it partnerships and restore balance. Adapting to these changes involves restructuring its economy and evolving the foreign policy. The crises in liberalism, environmental degradation, and challenge to state sovereignty undermine political and economic stability while also widening Russia’s room for diplomatic maneuvering. This book analyzes how Russia interprets these developments and its ability to implement the appropriate responses. 

Forest ecosystems, their products and services play an important role in achieving ambitious climate change mitigation objectives at the same time requiring profound adaptation to climate change. Forest management schemes to support climate action have to be developed within their regional context but also have to be aligned with national or EU-level climate, forest and sustainability policies. The conference on “Managing forests in the 21st century” is the final conference of the FORMASAM, REFORCE and FOREXCLIM research projects. The conference bringstogether scientific experts on forest management from all over Europe facing very specific management challenges. The aim isto discuss and improve the understanding the role of forests and forest management in the context of climate change. The conference addresses climate change impacts, as well as needs for mitigation and adaptation especially with regard to the following scientific questions: 1. What are the impacts of climate extremes and disturbances? 2. What are the management challenges (and options) for resilient forests? 3. What can we do to increase the contribution of forest management to climate change mitigation?

This concise book provides a survival toolkit for efficient, large-scale software development. Discussing a multi-contextual research framework that aims to harness human-related factors in order to improve flexibility, it includes a carefully selected blend of models, methods, practices, and case studies. To investigate mission-critical communication aspects in system engineering, it also examines diverse, i.e. cross-cultural and multinational, environments.

This book helps students better organize their knowledge bases, and presents conceptual frameworks, handy practices and case-based examples of agile development in diverse environments. Together with the authors’ previous books, "Crisis Management for Software Development and Knowledge Transfer" (2016) and "Managing Software Crisis: A Smart Way to Enterprise Agility" (2018), it constitutes a comprehensive reference resource that adds value to this book.

This book addresses the challenges and opportunities of contemporary and future development of Eurasia. The main theme of the first part of the book is examining the reaction evoked in different countries by the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative.” The second part analyses other national and international integration and infrastructure projects in Eurasia. This unique publication brings together in one volume works by leading researchers from different countries, all united by their common interest in the political and economic processes unfolding in the Eurasian continent. By offering various points of view from experts from all over the world, this book provides a multi-dimensional analysis of the Eurasian future and will be of value to a wide range of readers, including scholars, publicists, the international business community and decision-makers.

The book is the result of an extensive research conducted by professors of five academic institutions from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - the BRICS countries. The purpose of this work is to analyze the anti-corruption and anti-money laundering legislation in each of these countries, showing the similarities and differencies in terms of domestic legal frames and the international guidelines.

This third edition of Moral Constraints on War offers a principle by principle presentation of the ethics of war as is found in the age-old tradition of the Just War. Parts one and two trace the evolution of Just War Theory, analyzing the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello: the principles that determine the conditions under which it is just to start a war and then conduct military operations. Each chapter provides a historical background of the principle under discussion and an in-depth analysis of its meaning. More so than in the previous editions, there is a special focus on the transcultural nature of the principles. Besides theoretical clarifications, each of the principles is also put to the test with numerous historical and contemporary examples. In Part three, Just War Theory is applied in three specific case studies: the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in World War II, the Korean War (1950-53), and the use of armed drones in the "war on terror." Bringing together an international coterie of philosophers and political scientists, this accessible and practical guide offers both students of military ethics and of international relations rich, up-to-date insights into the pluralistic character of Just War Theory.

This is the third book in a series on Medieval Novgorod and its surroundings and deals with a substantial body of animal bones that have been recovered over the last decade. The zooarchaeological evidence is discussed by the editor and a number of English and Russian specialists who dug the site, looking at domestic exploitation of animals, diet, animal husbandry, and butchery practices. Detailed data sets are provided to enable the reader to make comparisons with their own research, but the book is also suitable for those with a more general interest in Medieval Russian archaeology.

This book discusses important topics for engineering and managing software startups, such as how technical and business aspects are related, which complications may arise and how they can be dealt with. It also addresses the use of scientific, engineering, and managerial approaches to successfully develop software products in startup companies. The book covers a wide range of software startup phenomena, and includes the knowledge, skills, and capabilities required for startup product development; team capacity and team roles; technical debt; minimal viable products; startup metrics; common pitfalls and patterns observed; as well as lessons learned from startups in Finland, Norway, Brazil, Russia and USA. All results are based on empirical findings, and the claims are backed by evidence and concrete observations, measurements and experiments from qualitative and quantitative research, as is common in empirical software engineering. The book helps entrepreneurs and practitioners to become aware of various phenomena, challenges, and practices that occur in real-world startups, and provides insights based on sound research methodologies presented in a simple and easy-to-read manner. It also allows students in business and engineering programs to learn about the important engineering concepts and technical building blocks of a software startup. It is also suitable for researchers at different levels in areas such as software and systems engineering, or information systems who are studying advanced topics related to software business.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Analysis of Images, Social Networks and Texts, AIST 2019, held in Kazan, Russia, in July 2019.

The 24 full papers and 10 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 134 submissions (of which 21 papers were rejected without being reviewed). The papers are organized in topical sections on general topics of data analysis; natural language processing; social network analysis; analysis of images and video; optimization problems on graphs and network structures; analysis of dynamic behaviour through event data.

Cerium oxide nanoparticles (nanoceria) have recyclable antioxidative activity. It has numerous potential applications in biomedical engineering, such as mitigating damage from burns, radiation, and bacterial infection. This mitigating activity is analogous to that property of metabolic enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase - scavengers of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Therefore, nanoceria can protect cells from environmental oxidative stress. This therapeutic effect prompted studies of nanoceria and metabolic enzymes as a combination therapy. The activity and structure of SOD, catalase, and lysozyme were examined in the presence of nanoceria. A complementary relationship between SOD and nanoceria motivated the present work, in which we explored a method for simultaneous delivery of SOD and nanoceria. The biocompatibility and tunable degradation of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) made it a candidate material for encapsulating both nanoceria and SOD. Cellular uptake studies were conducted along with a cytotoxicity assay. The antioxidative properties of PLGA-nanoceria-SOD particles were verified by adding H2O2 to cell culture and imaging with fluorescent markers of oxidative stress. Our results suggest that PLGA is a suitable encapsulating carrier for simultaneous delivering nanoceria and SOD together, and that this combination effectively reduces oxidative stress in vitro.

In this study, we test how the level of relative teacher wages affects educational outcomes. Russia provides a unique setting for testing this relationship given its high regional heterogeneity. We use two measures of educational outcomes at different levels of the school system. Our results show that the level of relative teacher wages has a significant positive effect on both test scores. Institutional reforms in teacher wage setting in Russia further allow us to estimate an instrumental variable model and difference-in-difference model, which confirm the robustness of our main result. We also provide some evidence on the possible channels of this effect.

The official method of measuring poverty in Russia is based on an absolute approach that uses an expertly calculated subsistence level as a poverty line. However, there is an ongoing debate about the possible use of other approaches to measuring poverty. This study focuses on identifying the relative ‘poverty line’ relevant to contemporary Russian society as a threshold of high poverty risk. Drawing on representative all-Russian surveys, the authors conclude that the relative poverty thresholds set at 0.5 and 0.75 times the median per capita family income identify different subgroups of the poor. A median threshold of 0.75 highlights poverty of the elderly, who are not considered to be poor by the absolute approach officially used in Russian statistics, but need attention in terms of social policy.

The paper describes a new form of investment attraction recently introduced in Russia—territories of outrunning socio- economic development (TOSEDs). These initiatives provide tax and other benefits to 20 territories in the Far East and to 90 cities in which a considerable number of jobs are concen- trated in a single factory (mono-cities). Using secondary sour- ces and interviews, we present the initial legislation for TOSEDs, the evolution of the initial legislation, and the func- tioning of TOSED residents. We also identify several opportuni- ties for foreign investors who have installed or intend to install their new manufacturing facilities in TOSEDs.

A model of the electric field enhanced thermal (thermo-field) emission of electrons from the metal cathode substrate into a thin insulating film on its surface is developed. A system of equations for the cathode surface temperature in the arc discharge and the electric field strength in the film, providing the required discharge current density, is formulated. It is shown that existence of the insulating film can result in a considerable reduction of the cathode temperature in the discharge due to lower potential barrier height at the metal-insulator boundary than at the metal-discharge boundary in case of the cathode without the film. It is found that due to an enhancement of the thermal emission of electrons into the film by the electric field generated in it, an additional decrease in the cathode temperature by about 100 K takes place.

One of the major targets of modern agri-food policy in Russia is a significant increase of agri-food exports — almost twice as much by 2024. In this projection, China is viewed as the most promising market. However, Russia’s entrance to the Chinese market faces a number of constraints. In addition to the standard difficulties associated with Russia’s agricultural and food exports (export infrastructure constraints, expensive logistics, and import bans on certain Russian products), there are fundamental constraints on supply to China in the long-term. This paper formulates a long-term view of the prospects of, and risks associated with, introducing Russian agricultural products into the Chinese market. Methodically, the paper is based on an evaluation of competitive performance by the conventional method of measuring a country’s comparative trade advantages with the Balassa index. Also the authors use trade statistics of Comtrade, Russian and Chinese national statistic agencies, estimates of international analytical centers such as World Bank, USDA, OECD, McKinsey.

Based on the obtained experimental data, a model is developed for the processes of a variation in the charge state of MIS (metal–insulator–semiconductor) structures under the concurrent influence of high-field tunneling electron injection and radiation. The model takes into account the interaction between injected electrons and charges appearing in the dielectric film due to radiation and high-field ionization. It is shown that some holes may be annihilated during the interaction between injected electrons and holes trapped in a SiO2 film, thus leading to the formation of surface states at the interface with silicon. The effect of the electric-field intensity and injection current density on the generation and annihilation of positive charge and the formation of surface states under radiation is studied. The effect of charge processes occurring in the insulator film of a MIS structure under the concurrent action of radiation and high-field electron injection on a change in the threshold voltage of MIS devices and radiation sensors based on them is considered.

It has been proved by the latest research on key performance indicators (KPIs) of transportation services that their successful implementation into practice is possible only if there is a thorough database of indicators and the methodology of their calculation. To reach these goals, it is necessary to classify the indicators within the framework of the system which includes the two levels: the basic (the first) and the specific (the second) KPI. This division allows to form the complex of models to calculate the basic indicators, which characterize performance (e.g. performance per hour), time parameters, expenses, reliability, etc. The article provides the analysis of papers on the methods of transportation efficiency rating in supply chains and the ways of their development to increase the efficiency of transportation; the new approach to obtain analytic dependencies to calculate KPI of transportation on the basis of the integral (factorial) method of economic analysis; the examples of calculations of some KPIs of transportation. The suggested KPI models can be used to create programs aimed at the digitalization of transportation operations in supply chains.

A model of a composite consisting of a dielectric base with a small admixture of semiconductor nanoparticles shaped as identical ellipsoids of revolution is considered. A uniform spatial distribution of the impurity and a uniform distribution of the directivity of the axes of revolution are assumed.

It is shown that the formulas obtained for the effective dielectric constant of the composite correspond to a superposition of two Debye processes with different relaxation times. The dielectric constant strongly nonlinearly depends on the ratio of semi-axes of the ellipsoids of revolution. This feature allows one to obtain good agreement with experimental data under the assumption that the aggregation of nanoparticles is possible even at low concentrations.

The model implies that, in the absence of an increase in the aggregation of conducting nanoparticles with an increase in the concentration, the dielectric constant of the composite linearly depends on the impurity concentration. For a composite with growing aggregation of nanoparticles, this dependence exhibits a nonlinear growth.

Water Conservation and Wastewater Treatment in BRICS Nations: Technologies, Challenges, Strategies, and Policies addresses issues of water resources—including combined sewer system overflows—assessing effects on water quality standards and protecting surface and sub-surface potable water from the intrusion of saline water due to sea level rise.

Global warming is leading to a wide range of dramatic impacts caused by changes in surface temperature and precipitation, and increases in the frequency and scale of extreme weather events, such as floods and droughts. Climate change is occurring much faster than the global average in Russia. The water problems associated with the impacts of climate change have been very diversified due to the country’s huge amount of territory and vary substantially depending on season, economic activities, and population. The observable changes and impacts have already been dramatic in many areas, with high economic costs and loss of human life. The projections related to future climate change are even more worrisome and alarming: the threat to water resources will increase, possibly leading to huge losses. Large-scale adaptation and resilience measures are required in most Russian regions to avoid dangerous consequences in the near and medium term; however, the country still has a very weak adaptation policy, places a low priority on climate action, and employs poor proactive decision-making even in the most vulnerable areas. Climatic risk-management tools and adaptation of a national strategy will be essential elements for water management under conditions of heightened climate change in Russia.

The article highlights the issue on taxation of income gained by self-employment activity. This issue is frequently considered as a problem for many countries. Thus, study of successful practices of different developed countries may be useful for working out the national effective taxation system concerning self-employment incomes. The comparative study was by such main features, as tax registration, and limits on the amount of income. The analysis of the ways to solving the aforementioned problem, based upon practices of such countries as France, the USA, Great Britain, Germany, shows differences and similarities. At the same time, it points at the original approach to taxation of self-employment incomes in Russia. The authors pay special attention to the fact, that the development of information and communication technologies is a factor of increasing shadow economy, which exacerbates the problem of budget revenue generation. The main ways to improve the situation were worked out by authors taking into account practices of foreign countries.

The future of the Russian economy depends on several major factors: national institutions for development, human capital, technological and financial resources, and external environment. As a country with long-term ambitions, Russia is prioritizing the prosperity of its citizens, strategic security, and reviving the arts and sciences. Russia’s economic restructuring is unique in its complexity following the triple transition in the early 1990s: from the USSR to the Russian Federation, from a planned economy and state property to a market economy and private property, and from the socialist ideology to democracy. As the continental superpower with a long history of domestic and international political rivalries and conflicts, Russia has struggled to reach the current level of development. The deconstruction of global governance, as it was structured following World War II, is causing concerns to Russian political elites. In the twenty-first century, the ability of the Russian economy to retain a prominent place in the world will depend on our human capital, territory, resources, political influence, arts, and sciences. Due to the modest size of the Russian GDP, Russia will have to adapt to the world with a bigger China, the USA, India, and the European Union. Russia will stay in a group of countries with similar GDP but very different levels of development, such as Brazil, Japan, Germany, and Indonesia.

About three Soviet readers-intellectuals of the 1920-s

In this paper, we consider the problem of event recognition on single images. In contrast to conventional fine-tuning of convolutional neural networks (CNN), we proposed to use image captioning, i.e., a generative model that converts images to textual descriptions. The motivation here is the possibility to combine conventional CNNs with a completely different approach in an ensemble with high diversity. As event recognition task has nothing serial or temporal, obtained captions are one-hot encoded and summarized into a sparse feature vector suitable for the learning of an arbitrary classifier. We provide the experimental study of several feature extractors for Photo Event Collection, Web Image Dataset for Event Recognition and Multi-Label Curation of Flickr Events Dataset. It is shown that the image captions trained on the Conceptual Captions dataset can be classified more accurately than the features from an object detector, though they both are obviously not as rich as the CNN-based features. However, an ensemble of CNN and our approach provides state-of-the-art results for several event datasets.

This paper investigates the influence of individual mobility on consumer choice in the mobile phone market. The aim is to understand whether consumer mobility influences the switching of an individual to another tariff within one mobile operator. Data were obtained from 1,154 mobile phone users of one of the largest mobile operators in Russia for the period from November 2011 to November 2012. Customers had limited choices in fast and low-cost switching from one operator to another. Hence, we use data of users switching between tariffs within one operator. The data were analyzed by a mixed logit model which is applied to a discrete choice from a variety of disordered alternatives. This solves the restriction of the standard logit model by allowing for random taste variation. We developed three mobility metrics limiting the drawbacks of established metrics. The results show that mobility does influence consumer choices. Tariff plans differ from each other according to the categories of people that use them. Subscriber mobility is one of the features that separate these categories. There are tariffs preferred by highly mobile people, and those that are preferred by people with low mobility. When the individual’s mobility changes, it is highly likely that she will switch to another tariff plan. Mobile operators should take consumer mobility into account when analyzing consumer behavior to increase retention rates.

In this paper, we consider the distribution of the supremum of non-stationary Gaussian processes, and present a new theoretical result on the asymptotic behaviour of this distribution. Unlike previously known facts in this field, our main theorem yields the asymptotic representation of the cor- responding distribution function with exponentially decaying remainder term. This result can be efficiently used for studying the projection density estimates, based, for instance, on Legendre polynomials. More precisely, we construct the sequence of accompanying laws, which approximates the distribution of maxi- mal deviation of the considered estimates with polynomial rate. Moreover, we construct the confidence bands for densities, which are honest at polynomial rate to a broad class of densities.

The article provides an overview of the Islamic finance market in Russia. It accumulated data on 30+ Islamic finance institutions and products launched between 2010 and 2019, including discontinued ones. The range includes banks, non-banking microfinance institutions, mutual investment funds, housing cooperatives, investment companies and others. The article provides the author’s assessment of the market size and its dynamics between 2011 and 2019. It analyzes the range of Islamic finance products rendered by the market players, including the industry break down of certain Islamic finance companies. The article summarizes the results of the survey, conducted among the owners and managers of the Islamic finance institutions. It shows the range of opinions regarding the lack of market special regulation and elicits factors influencing the market and impeding its development. The main legal and tax hurdles for the Islamic finance market, in Russia, are analyzed. The results show that the market is still not mature and lacks internal competition. The geographical reach of Islamic financial services is limited. Despite the lack of Islamic banking law, the market size is comparable to that of Kazakhstan. The lack of market regulation is a negative side that holds back the potential newcomers and clients, and, on the contrary, the relative market freedom allows the existing companies to experiment and make use of the emerging niche segment. There is an acute necessity of a tax-friendly regime for murabaha financing and mudaraba-based investment accounts, and a level playing field concerning the mechanisms of state subsidies. Among potential solutions that could contribute to the market development is the creation of a self-regulatory organization that could establish internal standards, develop liquidity management tools and create a proper mediation of arbitrage system, as well as organize takaful funds. Based on the analysis, the author makes a forecast for further market development.

This study determines the effectiveness of using assessments and expectations of economic agents in the analysis of macroeconomic development. The paper tests the hypothesis of the cyclical interaction between economic growth and entrepreneurial behaviour. The authors used the composite economic sentiment indicator (ESI), which combined the confidence indicators of all sectoral business and consumer surveys by the Federal State Statistic Service and the Higher School of Economics reflecting the aggregate sentiment and expectations of approximately 24 thousand entrepreneurs and 5 thousand consumers. The empirical relationship and joint cyclical sensitivity of ESI and GDP growth time series are revealed based on cross-correlations, statistical filtering, a long-term linear regression, and through a two-dimensional vector autoregression model. This model is used further for GDP growth until the end of 2021. Forecasting considers the expected impact of new corona crisis shocks for the Russian economy, which have been growing since March 2020, on the aggregate economic sentiment. The forecasting results show the expected sharp decline in the GDP dynamics in mid-2020 after coronavirus containment measures and a tremendous drop in oil prices, then a slow and unstable recovery in GDP growth by the end of 2021 only to the level of Q4 2019.

There is an established tradition in soccer society, for both soccer fans and club managers to value forwards more than defensive players. However, the soccer rules imply an equally important role of goals scored and goals conceded in a team win. This paper employs these facts to formulate the research hypothesis of undervalued defensive, compared to offensive actions, by professional soccer clubs, known as Moneyball phenomenon in sports economics literature. To test our hypothesis, we use two separate data sets at team and player level (1,224 and 776 observations correspondingly) from two seasons (2017-2019) of the German Bundesliga. We estimate the two groups of models with a dependent variable being, correspondingly, an indicator of win and a market value. We keep the set of controls as similar as possible to make the results of the two groups of models comparable with each other, in terms of a relative contribution of offensive and defensive actions. Offensive actions are measured by shots and key passes, while tackles, interceptions and clearances stay for defensive actions variables. All the key variables are normalized, and the resulting estimates demonstrate both “absolute” and “relative” Moneyball in offense vs defense in different model specifications. This is the first introduction of a term and method of a “relative” Moneyball, to our knowledge. In addition, our results show that there is room for improvement for Bundesliga clubs’ cost of win efficiency, in redistributing funds from offense to defense, at least to some extent.

Background. Reporting of daily hospital COVID-19 deaths in the UK are promoted by the government and scientific advisers alike as a key metric for assessing the progress in the control of the epidemic. These data, however, have certain limitations, among which one of the most significant concerns the fact that the daily totals span deaths that have occurred between 1 and 10 days or more in the past. Data and methods. We obtained daily data published published by NHS England up to and including April 25 in the form of Excel spreadsheets in which deaths counts are presented by date of death according to age and region. Simple descriptive analyses were conducted and presented in graphical and tabular form which were aimed at illustrating the biases inherent in focussing on daily counts regardless of when the deaths occurred. We then looked at how a less biased picture could be obtained by looking at trends in death counts stratifying by an individual period of delay in days between occurrence of death and when the death was included in the daily announcement. Findings. The number of hospital COVID-19 deaths announced daily overestimates the maximum number of deaths actually occurring so far in the epidemic in the UK, and also obscures the pattern of decline in deaths. Taking account of reporting delays suggests that for England as a whole a peak in hospital COVID-19 deaths may have been reached on April 8 with a subsequent gradual decline suggested. The same peak is also seen among those aged 60-79 and 80+, although there is slightly shallower decline in the oldest age group (80+ years). Among those aged 40-59 years a later peak on April 11 is evident. London shows a peak on April 8 and a clearer and steeper pattern of subsequent decline compared to England as a whole. Interpretation. Analyses of mortality trends must take account of delay, and in communication with the public more emphasis should be placed on looking at trends based on deaths that occurred 5 or more days prior to the announcement day. The slightly weaker decline seen at age 80+ may reflect increased hospitalisation of people from care homes, whereas the later peak under the age of 60 years may reflect the higher proportions at these younger ages being admitted to critical care resulting in an extension of life of several days.

Let P=A_1...A_n be a generic polygon in three-dimensional space and let v_1,v_2,...,v_n be vectors A_1A_2,A_2A_3,...,A_nA_1, respectively. P will be called regular, if there exist vectors u_1,...,u_n such that cross products  [u_1,u_2],[u_2,u_3],...,[u_n,u_1] are equal to vectors v_2,v_3,...,v_1, respectively. In this case the polygon P', defined be vectors u_2-u_1,u_3-u_2,...,u_1-u_n will be called the derived polygon or the derivative of the polygon P. In this work we formulate conditions for regularity and discuss geometric properties of derived polygons for n=4,5,6.

This research analyzes the nationalization of Russian party system and presidential candidates from 1996 till 2018 based on the index of nationalization, coefficient of variation, and Euclidean distance, proposing the new method of assessing the aforementioned measurements. The method includes using not the regional level data, but the lower unit of analyses – territorial electoral commissions, which improves the overall precision of the nationalization assessment. Furthermore, the regions themselves are compared to one another in the aspect of their “inner” nationalization.

Experimental studies rarely consider the shape and nature of the education production function, which is useful for deriving optimal levels of input substitution in increasingly resource constrained environments. Because of the rapid expansion of EdTech as a substitute for traditional learning around the world and against the backdrop of full-scale temporary substitution due to the coronavirus pandemic, we explore the educational production function by using a large randomized controlled trial that varies dosage of computer-assisted learning (CAL) as a substitute for traditional learning. Results show production is concave in CAL. Moving from zero to a low level of CAL, the marginal rate of technical substitution (MRTS) of CAL for traditional learning is greater than one. Moving from a lower to a higher level of CAL, production remains on the same or a lower isoquant and the MRTS is equal to or less than one. The estimates are consistent with the general form of a Cobb-Douglas production function and imply that a blended approach of CAL and traditional learning is optimal. The findings have direct implications for the rapidly expanding use of educational technology worldwide and its continued substitution for traditional learning.

This paper investigates the drivers, barriers, and benefits that can be associated with management decisions regarding the implementation of digital technologies in Russian manufacturing enterprises. The empirical basis of the study is the results of the business tendencies surveys for 2018 and 2019. Potential factors for the introduction of digital technologies were divided into three groups: drivers of business activity (production and economic parameters), drivers of digital activity (parameters characterizing the level of enterprise involvement in digital processes) and barriers, preventing the enterprise from transitioning to digital transformation. In the first part, regression analysis is used to identify the relevant factors among the drivers and barriers. In the second part, the benefits expected by enterprise managers from the implementation of individual digital technologies are revealed. Significant drivers are the number of specialists working in the enterprise in the field of information and communication technology (ICT), the presence of a developed strategy in the field of digital technologies, involvement in the government’s digital agenda, and a positive perception of the economic situation at the enterprise by its management. Among the expected benefits, the most important are the optimization of production and logistics operations, increasing the level of customer service and expanding the customer base.

We compute the spaces of sections of powers of the determinant line bundle on the spherical Schubert subvarieties of the Beilinson- Drinfeld affine Grassmannians. The answer is given in terms of global Demazure modules of the current Lie algebra.

Does education promote support for liberal economic views? We show in a large cross-section of countries that in almost all cases those with higher educational attainment are more pro-market and less sympathetic to economic regulation than those who have less formal education. This is true in countries with high support for markets and in those with high distrust of markets and strong support for government regulation. Fixed-effect models show that respondents’ education is negatively related to support for state economic activities. When considering Russian micro data, we observe that whether we confine ourselves to older people educated in the Soviet period or compare the results to a sample from the post-Soviet generation, we consistently find that those with more education are relatively less supportive of market regulation. Different models also show that parental education is a positive predictor of pro-market values.

Hardly any literature exists on the relationship between equivalence scales and poverty dynamics for transitional countries. We offer a new study on the impacts of equivalence scale adjustments on poverty dynamics for Russia, using the equivalence scales constructed from subjective wealth and more than 20 waves of household panel survey data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey. Our analysis suggests that the equivalence scale elasticity is sensitive to household demographic composition. The adjustments for the equivalence of scales result in lower estimates of poverty lines. We decompose poverty into chronic and transient components and find that chronic poverty is positively related to the adult scale parameter. Chronic poverty, however, is less sensitive to the child scale factor compared to the adult scale factor. Interestingly, the direction of income mobility might change depending on the specific scale parameters that are employed. Our results are robust to different measures of chronic poverty, income expectations, reference groups, functional forms, and various other specifications

In this paper, we study convergence in per capita gross regional products across Russian regions in the period from 1996 to 2017. To this purpose, we estimate growth equations, which are directly derived from a neoclassical growth model, augmented with human capital and migration. To our knowledge, this is the first paper that explicitly applies a neoclassical model to analyze regional convergence process in the Russian case. We also take into account possible spatial effects and do a series of other robustness checks. Our main estimates establish a convergence rate of around 2% per year. While we fail to find any role of human capital for regional economic growth, we find that interregional migration and interdependencies of the growth experience of Russian regions contribute to economic convergence between them.

At the turn of the XIX – XX centuries scientists focused on the procedure of the dissertation research’s scientifically verifications, create expert forms for assessing the quality of scientific work. One of these procedural forms became peer review. The article examines the culture of dissertation reviews at Russian universities in the designated period. The author, using an examples from specific texts of reviews, focuses on the formation of conventions, on criteria for assessing the quality of research, identifies the basic requirements for the degree of scientific texts. The main conclusion of the article is that the assessment texts contributed to the conclusion of academic agreements and their maintenance (retention).

We propose a system of fermionic screening fields depending on a continuous parameter b, which defines eta-deformed OSp(n|2m) sigma-model in the limit b to infinity and a super-renormalizable QFT in b to 0. In the sigma-model regime  we show that leading UV asymptotic of the one-loop RG group flow equations coincides with perturbation around Gaussian theory. In perturbative regime b to 0 we show that the tree level two-particle scattering matrix matches the expansion of the trigonometric OSp(n|2m) R-matrix.

We review the applications of the Quantum Spectral Curve (QSC) method to the Regge (BFKL) limit in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory.  QSC, based on quantum integrability of the AdS_5/CFT_4 duality, was initially developed as a tool for the study of the spectrum of anomalous dimensions of local operators in the N=4 SYM in the planar, N_c to infinity limit.  We explain how to apply the QSC for the BFKL limit, which requires non-trivial analytic continuation in spin S and extends the initial construction to non-local light-ray operators. We give a brief review of high precision non-perturbative numerical solutions and analytic perturbative data resulting from this approach. We also describe as a simple example of the QSC construction at the leading order in the BFKL limit. We show that the QSC substantially simplifies in this limit and reduces to the Faddeev-Korchemsky Baxter equation for Q-functions.   Finally, we review recent results for the  Fishnet CFT, which carries a number of similarities with the Lipatov's integrable spin chain for interacting reggeized gluons.

Financial losses due to low demand for parking spaces in garages at residential estates is a key motivation for this research. The purpose of this paper in particular is to statistically explore the relationship between parking occupancy rates and various factors on transport supply, characteristics of location and the building. The occupancy rate of parking was measured as the ratio of actual number of cars to total number of parking spaces. The fieldwork on counting occupied parking spaces was conducted 2 times per day during a week on a sample of 13 locations in different areas of a 1.4-million Yekaterinburg city in Russia. 4700 observed parking spaces give sample size of 173 records. Statistical analysis shows that the crow-fly distance to the city center as well as the number of public transport stops are strongly associated with occupancy rate for parking. Also, occupancy rate is much more affected by the type of parking ownership. Private owning means purchase of a parking space or renting it while public ownership suggests free access. So private parking means a 45% decline in occupancy compared to the public parking regime. Research provides empirical results and some theoretical underpinnings are also highlighted.