Publications

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Optimization and Applications, OPTIMA 2018, held in Petrovac, Montenegro, in October 2018.The 35 revised full papers and the one short paper presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 103 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on mathematical programming; combinatorial and discrete optimization; optimal control; optimization in economy, finance and social sciences; applications.

The series “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” contains publications on theory, applications, and design methods of Intelligent Systems and Intelligent Computing. Virtually all disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer and information science, ICT, economics, business, e-commerce, environment, healthcare, life science are covered. The list of topics spans all the areas of modern intelligent systems and computing such as: computational intelligence, soft computing including neural networks, fuzzy systems, evolutionary computing and the fusion of these paradigms, social intelligence, ambient intelligence, computational neuroscience, artificial life, virtual worlds and society, cognitive science and systems, Perception and Vision, DNA and immune based systems, self-organizing and adaptive systems, e-Learning and teaching, human-centered and human-centric computing, recommender systems, intelligent control, robotics and mechatronics including human-machine teaming, knowledge-based paradigms, learning paradigms, machine ethics, intelligent data analysis, knowledge management, intelligent agents, intelligent decision making and support, intelligent network security, trust management, interactive entertainment, Web intelligence and multimedia. The publications within “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” are primarily proceedings of important conferences, symposia and congresses. They cover significant recent developments in the field, both of a foundational and applicable character. An important characteristic feature of the series is the short publication time and world-wide distribution. This permits a rapid and broad dissemination of research results.

This book contains a selection of papers accepted for the presentation and discussion at the 2018 International Conference on Digital Science (DSIC’18). This Conference had the support of the Institute of Certified Specialists, Russia, AISTI (Iberian Association for Information Systems and Technologies), and Springer. It will take place at Convention Centre, Budva, Montenegro, October 19–21, 2018. DSIC’18 is an international forum for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, results, experiences, and concerns in the several perspectives of Digital Science. The main idea of this Conference is that the world of science is unified and united allowing all scientists/practitioners to be able to think, analyze, and generalize their thoughts. DSIC aims efficiently to disseminate original research results in natural, social, art, and humanities sciences. An important characteristic feature of the Conference should be the short publication time and worldwide distribution. This Conference enables fast dissemination, so conference participants can publish their papers in print and electronic format, which is then made available worldwide and accessible by numerous researchers. The Scientific Committee of DSIC’18 was composed of a multidisciplinary group of 26 experts. One hundred and seven invited reviewers who are intimately concerned with Digital Science have had the responsibility for evaluating, in a “double-blind review” process, the papers received for each of the main themes proposed for the Conference: Digital Art and Humanities; Digital Economics; Digital Education; Digital Engineering; Digital Environmental Sciences; Digital Finance, Business and Banking; Digital Media; Digital Medicine, Pharma and Public Health; Digital Public Administration; Digital Technology and Applied Sciences. DSIC’18 received 88 contributions from 16 countries around the world. The papers accepted for the presentation and discussion at the Conference are published by Springer (this book) and will be submitted for indexing by ISI, SCOPUS, among others.

quarter of a century has passed since the Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted in 1993, yet the issue of the results and the prospects for constitutional transformation has not disappeared from the political agenda. For some, the Constitution signifies an ultimate break up with the communist past and a legal foundation for the advancement of the Russian society toward democracy and the rule of law; for the others, it is exactly the Constitution that is the culprit for the authoritarian trend that has prevailed, and for the sustained stagnation in Russia’s economic, social and political development. The author of this chapter is in the middle of these extreme viewpoints. He believes that the Constitution has truly played a pivotal role in Russia’s move toward democracy by establishing the basic principles of civil society and the rule of law, and in this respect, it remains of everlasting and paramount importance. Nevertheless, that does not mean that it should be utterly inaccessible for changes, especially given the elapsed time and the negative experience of the authoritarian transformation of the political regime, the amendments that were introduced between2008 and 2014, and the current objectives of the democratic movement. The rationale for changes is to return to the constitutional principles, reaffirm their initial democratic meaning by rejecting the excessive concentration of the Presidential power, the results of counter-reforms and the adulteration through legislative and regulatory compliance practices. Some of the proposed remedies aim to establish a new form of government (Presidential - Parliamentary), which would necessitate Constitutional amendments — adjustments that would regulate the separation of powers and redistribution of authority. Others seek to transform the system without changing the text of the Constitution through legislative reforms, judicial interpretation and the policy of law. Yet, the third approach prioritizes institutional reforms. Not everything in social development depends on the provisions of the law, political improvisation and practice can prove just as critical. In their cumulative entirety such initiatives can help avoid the two extremes: that of constitutional stagnation gravitating toward the bureaucratic asphyxiation, and that of constitutional populism which has a tendency to destabilize the political system. In its practical activities to transform the political regime, the opposition ought to remember the maximum repeatedly confirmed by experience, — the further a party is from power, the more radical tend to be its constitutional proposals. Conversely, empowered groups tend to be more moderate in their initiatives.

This book covers the classical theory of Markov chains on general state-spaces as well as many recent developments. The theoretical results are illustrated by simple examples, many of which are taken from Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. The book is self-contained, while all the results are carefully and concisely proven. Bibliographical notes are added at the end of each chapter to provide an overview of the literature.

Due to the need to reindustrialize the domestic industry at the post-industrial stage of development, it has become necessary to implement megaprojects aiming at the qualitative makeover of the national economy. The purpose of this paper is to develop an industrial megaproject risk management model and methodological support based on a comparative analysis of existing approaches and using Russian and international experience. The research has resulted in two megaproject risk management models: a fragmentary model and a comprehensive one. A risk mitigation potential analysis for ongoing megaprojects has been performed confirming the efficiency of use of the comprehensive megaproject risk management model. The suggested comprehensive risk management model allows taking into consideration the main distinctive feature of modern megaprojects, i.e. multiplicity of management entities operating on the basis of the partnership principle.

This training manual is addressed to law students, learning English for professional purposes.

The book consists of two parts:

Part 1 – Legal Listening

The main aim of the materials of the 1st part is teaching students listening to texts on legal topics in English. The materials are supplied with the recording of texts to practice in-class listening (on CD), they also contain communicative tasks and key answers as well as scripts. The texts cover the following themes: The Practice of Law, Company Law, Contract Law and Employment Law.

Part 2 - Legal Reading is directed to teaching students different kinds of reading based on authentic legal texts.

The texts of all the sections cover the following topics: Company Law, Contract Law, Family Law.

Both parts of the manual envisage exercises for both  inclass  and out-of- class work, including the use of the Internet.

The book includes Progress tests with answers.

This article aims to question media and advertising discourses, exemplified by an issue of Cosmopolitan, from a critical discourse analysis perspective and in a multidisciplinary and interdiscursive manner. Irish novelist Louise O’Neill provides a poignant critique of familiar schemes and patterns through the dystopian setting of her thought-provoking novel Only Ever Yours (2014). She is interested in problematic issues of female identity, various stereotypes related to beauty myths, objectification, female body, commodification, ageism, and other forms of discrimination. The study of her dystopian world cannot be complete without tracing some sociocultural particulars so that the reader can identify the targets deeply rooted in our culture’s popular tropes.

Corruption, fake news, and the “informational autocracy” sustaining Putin in power

After fading into the background for many years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia suddenly has emerged as a new threat—at least in the minds of many Westerners. But Western assumptions about Russia, and in particular about political decision-making in Russia, tend to be out of date or just plain wrong.

Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin since 2000, Russia is neither a somewhat reduced version of the Soviet Union nor a classic police state. Corruption is prevalent at all levels of government and business, but Russia’s leaders pursue broader and more complex goals than one would expect in a typical kleptocracy, such as those in many developing countries. Nor does Russia fit the standard political science model of a “competitive authoritarian” regime; its parliament, political parties, and other political bodies are neither fakes to fool the West nor forums for bargaining among the elites.

The result of a two-year collaboration between top Russian experts and Western political scholars, Autocracy explores the complex roles of Russia’s presidency, security services, parliament, media and other actors. The authors argue that Putin has created an “informational autocracy,” which relies more on media manipulation than on the comprehensive repression of traditional dictatorships. The fake news, hackers, and trolls that featured in Russia’s foreign policy during the 2016 U.S. presidential election are also favored tools of Putin’s domestic regime—along with internet restrictions, state television, and copious in-house surveys. While these tactics have been successful in the short run, the regime that depends on them already shows signs of age: over-centralization, a narrowing of information flows, and a reliance on informal fixers to bypass the bureaucracy. The regime’s challenge will be to continue to block social modernization without undermining the leadership’s own capabilities.

Whether professional or amateur, sports businesses must develop their brand and image to meet the expectations of a diverse environment, consisting of fans, sponsors, and other stakeholders. The value and instruments of market research can provide the required resources for sports businesses to realize their plans. In Market Research in the Sports Industry, Jasenko Ljubica and Neven Seric provide a comprehensive elaboration of market research methods to be used by sports businesses. The book identifies and explains the most effective uses of market research, drawing upon real-life case studies. The application of the methods presented in this book, ranging from the simplest - monitoring the environment to the most complex sampling methods, can significantly contribute to the development of sports businesses by increasing the number of members, sponsors, followers and fans. The book will be invaluable for researchers, educators and students of Sports Management and Marketing, and it will also prove useful to sporting professionals seeking to gain a competitive edge in the market.

While gender issues are almost always multidimensional and complex, this book discusses them from a cultural angle and with a focus on crossing borders, to represent their concepts meaningfully and to illuminate their realities as sharply as possible. Its five parts detail specific aspects and issues within that focus, namely communication, literary representation, equality and violence, work and politics, and cross-cultural connections. This combination of a wide topical range with specific discussions of gender issues makes the volumes insights worthwhile for a wide range of readers, from individuals and groups engaging with current gender challenges, to institutional and political decision-makers entrusted with improving gender relations on national or international levels, up to social, economic or educational institutions empowered to implement such solutions in everyday reality. Its unity in diversity contributes to gender and cultural studies by offering considerations and conclusions that are specific and generalizable, theoretically robust and empirically tested, professionally rational and poetically ravishing.

Looking at pictures can be a delightful, exciting or moving experience, but some pictures – and these are often the most rewarding – require some explanation before they can be fully understood. Delving into the origins, designs and themes of over 100 pictures from different periods and places, this book illuminates the art of looking at – and talking about – pictures. Woodford shows how you can read a picture by examining the formal and stylistic devices used by an artist, and explores popular themes and subject matters, and the relationship of pictures to the societies that produced them. The book is supplemented by a glossary of key terms, ranging from art movements and technical terms to religious and classical terminology, to give readers all the information they need at their fingertips.

Increasing cooperation through greater interdependency of the organizational networks structures is a topical issue for a diverse range of industries, including the energy sector However, despite the advantages of such form of activity, Russian organizations do not tend to cooperate. An extensive analysis of the techno-economic network of the Russian power sector innovation ecosystem made it possible to identify hub-organizations which could be regarded as the catalysts for partnership development. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to elaborate the mechanisms of target network creation behind hubs’ involvement in the network expansion. Thus, it could provide a solid foundation not only for an increased number of partnerships but could also serve the purpose of embedding companies in the strategic activity ultimately enabling them to achieve competitive parity with the rest of the world.

Russia has been experiencing the results of an acute economic crisis since 2012. However, the government has not been explicit in its declarations regarding austerity policies. On the contrary, it tends to represent its measures as "normal" and generally justifies cuts to public expenditure and reduced spending as part of a new understanding of the welfare state and socio-economic relations. Nevertheless, there is a clear connection between the crisis and the introduction of conservative discourse and the "traditional values" concept that targets gender equality both in public and private domains.

The Russian case study is exemplary and didactic. As Russia is new to market economics and has never developed a consistent neoliberal agenda, the shift to conservative ideologies came unexpectedly easily. Gender has become a battleground for the government to fight over social problems and austerity measures. Unlike the EU countries, the Russian government does not hesitate to challenge human rights and gender equality, easily shifting the blame to leftist ideologies – primarily feminism – that are held responsible for family instability and the poor state of demography and health. Using the concept of "traditional values" as a cover for increasing austerity measures, the government relies on short-term strategies. However, this shift to conservative public discourse has not been readily accepted by the Russian population, least of all by women. There is clear resistance from various social groups, including women. This resistance is not just taking the familiar form of public protests (although they have been taking place as well), but rather in the form of withdrawal from public space to minimise dealings with the state, a strategy familiar from the Soviet experience of resistance. Therefore, on the surface, Russian public discourse seems to be dominated by officially promoted ideologies, but this does not mean that society just accepts or even implements those ideologies eagerly.

At the same time, there is a clear tendency to follow supranational austerity measures by cutting public spending, amending social security policies, privatising care, and forcing women to return to the double-burden situation in the Soviet-type social contract by openly attacking feminist ideologies, gender equality, and human rights. In this situation, Russian NGOs, especially those with a human rights and gender-sensitive agenda, need more subtle strategies to deal with public policies, starting at the local government level.

A number of recent events in the last decade have renewed interest in Russian discourses on international law. This book evaluates and presents a contemporary analysis of Russian discourses on international law from various perspectives, including sociological, theoretical, political and philosophical. The aim is to identify how Russian interacts with international law, the reasons behind such interactions, and how such interactions compare with the general practice of international law. It also examines whether legal culture and other phenomena can justify Russia's interaction in international law. Russian Discourses on International Law explains Russia's interpretation of international law thrugh the lens of both leading western scholars and contemporary western-based Russian scholars. It will be of value to international law scholars looking for a better understanding of Russia's behaviour in international legal relations, law and society, foreign policy, and domestic application of international law. Further, those in fields such as sociology, politics, pholosophy, or general graduate students, lawyers, think tanks, government departments, and specialised Russian studies programmes will find this book helpful.

An age-structured bioeconomic model, which is completely continuous in age and time, is developed in order to compare with traditional discrete models. Both types have advantages and disadvantages. The continuous framework complements discrete models as it allows for deeper and more transparent analytical study and leads to analytical results that would be difficult to achieve within a discrete framework. To make the model realistic, a nonlinear recruitment function is introduced and steady state solutions and constant-effort optimal fishing are studied analytically. In addition, the framework has been used for numerical analysis. Simulations are used to investigate how optimal harvesting patterns vary with parameter values.

The procedure of transition from a priori to a posteriori information for a linear experiment in the context of Big Data systems is considered. At first glance, this process is fundamentally sequential, namely: as a result of observation, a priori information is transformed into a posteriori information, which is later interpreted as a priori for the next observation, etc. It is shown that such a procedure can be parallelized and unified due to the transformation of both the measurement results and the original a priori information into some special type. The properties of various forms of information representation are studied and compared. This approach makes it possible to effectively scale the Bayesian estimation procedure and, thus, adapt it to the problems of processing large amounts of distributed data.

This article analyses antitrust enforcement practice in Russian courts in the area of competition-restricting agreements. The analysis is based on the court decision database of litigations with the Russian competition authority (the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS)). In the database litigations that officially started in the period 2008–2012 were included. Final court decisions were evaluated, taking into account litigation duration (sometimes up to 3 years). The database contains 400 cases, including 236 horizontal agreements and 164 other agreements (mostly vertical agreements). Based on the evidence of this database, important features and problems of the interpretation and implementation of competition law in Russia and priority areas of enforcement were identified. Antitrust policy was analysed taking into account the risks of type 1 and type 2 errors, including the problem of flexibility of prohibitions (per se vs Rule of reason (ROR) approaches), standards of proof and the problem of consistency of enforcement.

Quantum confinement is known to affect a nanosized superconductor  through quantum-size variations of the electronic density of states. Here, it is  demonstrate that there is another quantum-confinement mechanism over- looked in previous studies. In particular, it is found that the electron–electron attraction can be enhanced due to quantum-confinement modifications of electronic wave functions. The superconducting correlations are strengthened  by such quantum mechanical effect, which creates a subtle interplay with  surface–substrate phonon modifications. The combined effect depends on nanofilm thickness and can be controlled by nanoarchitechture. The calculations are in a reasonable agreement with experiments performed on high-quality aluminum films. These findings shed light on the long-standing  problem of the size dependence of the critical temperature in low-  dimensional superconductors.  

The article investigates one‐dimensional (1D) suspension‐colloidal transport of size distributed particles with particle attachment. A population balance approach is presented for computing the particle transport and capture by porous media. The occupied area of each attached particle is particle‐size dependent. The main model assumption is the retention‐rate dependency of the overall vacancy concentration for all particle sizes. For the first time, we derive an exact averaging (upscaling) procedure resulting in a closed system of large‐scale equations for average concentrations of suspended and retained particles, and of occupied rock surface area. The resulting large‐scale 3x3 system significantly differs from the traditional 2x2 deep bed filtration model. However, the traditional model becomes a particular case that corresponds to an equal occupied area for all particles. The averaging yields the appearance of two empirical suspension and site‐occupation functions, which govern the kinetics of particle retention and site occupation, respectively. 1D flow problems for the averaged equations are essentially non‐linear. However, they allow for exact solutions. We derive novel exact solutions for three 1D problems: continuous injection of particulate colloidal suspension, injection of colloidal suspension bank with particle‐free chase drive, and fines migration induced by high‐rate flows. The analytical model for continuous injection closely matches three series of laboratory tests on nano‐fluid transport.

 

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the concept of “state immunity” as reflectedin the legislation and judicial practice of the Russian Federation. A study in decisions ofRussian courts prior to the adoption of the Federal Law on Immunities of 2016 leads to theconclusion that, even during the juridical consolidation of the theory of absolute immunity inRussia, on a number of questions Russia in fact adhered to a theory of functional immunity.The concept of absolute immunity which the USSR followed (and which Russia as itslegal successor subsequently also followed) gradually began to conflict with the RussianFederation’s foreign economic activity and contract practices, and instances of Russia’srenunciation of absolute immunity increased in frequency. This tendency clearly shows that inthe 21st century the state cannot have absolute immunity because that version of sovereigntyconflicts with the global practice of state participation in private international relations. Inother words, the Russian Federation with the adoption of its Federal Law on Immunities hasmoved away from a theory of absolute immunity to acknowledge and employ a theory of thefunctional immunity of the state. At the same time, the Law on Immunities of 2016 alreadyrequires more elaboration and corrections even though it was only recently passed andimplemented. The methodology of study is based on the application of formal, logicaland comparative research methods together with general systematic methods of analysisand synthesis, deduction and induction. Questions touched upon in this article are widelydiscussed in establishing doctrines of private international law in both foreign and in Russianstudies. Issues connected with state immunity are raised by the authors and suggestions fortheir resolution are formulated based on the legal experience of contemporary Russia.

We introduce and study noncommutative (or "quantized") versions of the algebras of holomorphic functions on the polydisk and on the ball in C^n. Specifically, for each nonzero complex number q we construct Fréchet algebras O_q(D^n) and O_q(B^n) such that for q=1 they are isomorphic to the algebras of holomorphic functions on the open polydisk D^n and on the open ball B^n, respectively. In the case where 0<q<1, we establish a relation between our holomorphic quantum ball algebra O_q(B^n) and L.L.Vaksman's algebra C_q(B^n) of continuous functions on the closed quantum ball. Finally, we show that O_q(D^n) and O_q(B^n) are not isomorphic provided that |q|=1 and n>1. This result can be interpreted as a q-analog of Poincaré's theorem, which asserts that D^n and B^n are not biholomorphically equivalent unless n=1.

The article introduces a special issue on studying EU-Russian relations. It overviews Russian- and English-language academic research to identify whether there is sufficient dialogue on issues studied, theories applied and categories used for a transnational epistemic community to emerge. This latter would allow the academic world to better contribute to the resolution of the present crisis in EU-Russian relations. Although an overlap is identified in issues, theories and categories the article exposes multiple differences in how they are approached in English- and Russian-language academic writings. These findings challenge the existence of a transnational epistemic community in EU-Russian relations. The article concludes by discussing steps to make for this community to develop, and introduces contributions to the special issue.

The present paper considers the questions of modeling and analysis of dynamical features of social networks taking into account evolutionary changes. A two level approach to monitoring of social network dynamics and evolution is described, including the functionality of both levels. Possible practical interpretations and correlations with the customer-centric concept are mentioned.

The method of serious games is investigated in the context of post-industrial development. It is shown that using the method of business games allows you to simulate real situations in which a student is forced to make creative, independent and responsible decisions under conditions of stress and uncertainty. The objective prerequisites for the use of business games in higher education have been investigated, it has been shown that this method contributes to the individualization of the student, improves the quality of training and student interest, identifies potential entrepreneurs and develops entrepreneurial abilities. The obstacles to the use of the business games method and the related problems are investigated. The problem of “escape from freedom” is a fundamental ideological and psychological problem that can only be solved with a change in the entire learning paradigm. The problem of the influence of the traditions of Soviet pedagogy can be solved through the broad popularization and introduction of active teaching methods. The problem of high cost of gamification can be solved by more extensive use of paper-based business games. The problem of low motivation of teachers can be solved by introducing a new rating calculation system based on questions about the teacher's use of innovative teaching methods, his ability to engage and develop students. The authors proposed and tested a method for assessing the coverage of business games for university students based on an analysis of curriculum programs. It is shown that the lag of the Russian teaching practice from the developed countries in terms of the use of business games is about twenty years.

Filtration describes a variety of the construction complex problems: strengthening loose soil to create a solid foundation, the movement of groundwater with solid impurities near underground structures, and many others. A model of two-sized deep bed filtration particles moving with different velocities in a porous medium with three-size pores is considered. The competition of pores and various size particles for deposit formation is modeled. Solutions are constructed at the porous medium inlet and on the concentrations front of the fast particles. For constant filtration coefficients, a global exact solution is obtained. Numerical calculation illustrates the evolution of the filtration process.

In this paper we describe a methodology that allows researchers to measure empirically, in the form of well-defined indicators, the extent to which economic analysis and evidence is been applied in the enforcement of competition law, using data collected from the decisions of competition authorities. By mapping the value of these indicators to different legal standards, our methodology also allows one to identify the legal standards adopted in the assessment of different conducts that were investigated by the authorities. The policy implications of empirical work in this area are potentially very important, since the extent to which economic analysis is applied in the assessment of anti-competitive conduct by competition authorities may well influence the quality of this assessment (i.e. the quality of enforcing competition law, measured by the extent to which decision-errors and deterrence effects are minimised). Empirical analysis using the indicators can be used to undertake comparative analysis in different countries, to examine the extent to which authorities favour specific legal standards in the assessment of specific conducts and the way in which the judicial review process treats decisions depending on the legal standard used.

The solution of the filtration problem allows calculating the injection of the grout into a loose ground to create a solid foundation. The basic deep bed filtration model of a monodisperse suspension in a porous medium is considered. Based on the synthesis of the standard asymptotic solution for a short time and the asymptotics of the filtration problem for a long time, a uniform asymptotic solution is constructed. A numerical calculation shows that the asymptotics is close to the solution for any time.

Abstract — This paper describes the Event Mining platform. The platform allows analyzing information extracted from Internet sources and structuring data for process mining execution according to event log format. The basic component of the monitoring system is the multifaceted ontology joined a few ontology types. The problem ontology describes domains representing research interests of experts needing analysis of world events to model global processes including events of specified types. Our goal for this part of KB is to provide users ability to independently expand the under study field without having any subject limitations, which makes it possible to talk about obtaining global processes models in result. The log ontology describes event logs formats. It is a “meta-ontology” for structuring data extracted from Internet. The sources ontology defines information sources used by experts for analysis. Ontologies are used to search information on events with information retrieval tools. Ontology-driven architecture is described. The algorithm for optimizing task of searching and structuring the information on events is presented. Some examples of event mining with different tools are considered in the paper.

This article describes the dynamic optimization model with human capital as a group educational characteristic (along with these groups population) and as the main factor of their production. The main feature of this model is inequality in qualification which leads towards the run for the middle as unlinear dynamics of educational effectiveness for different groups. The research of the simulation model in one specific regime allowed to describe two different scenarios. They include the development of the groups and run for the middle dynamics. These results allow stating conceptual usability of the model for real society dynamics description.

The development of the program of interaction of participants at the International Research School is described. What does it include. How and why it evolved. What was she on the 11th IRS.

The role of the governments in the development and operation of universities in the emerging countries is being significantly transformed by the global agenda. There are a lot of evidences that governments’ aimed at the establishment of the world-class universities increase their interference in higher education systems and even in the operation of particular institutions. Governments set tasks for universities related to the accelerated increase of their global competitiveness by launching so-called excellence-initiatives in higher education. Consequently, the matter of the changing autonomy of the higher education institutions participating in excellence initiatives arises.

There are academic and expert discussions arguing that the implementation of excellence initiatives is in large degree irrelevant to national and local challenges. The question arises whether governments should specifically set national and local objectives for world-class universities, or whether the growth of global competitiveness brings benefits for national and local challenges. Through the analysis of excellence initiatives, this chapter shows that in most cases governments do not specify the objectives related to national and local contribution. This chapter presents a study that examines the implementation of the Russian excellence initiative, Project 5-100, which aims to have at least five universities participating in the project in the top 100 world rankings by 2020. This initiative ignores potential direct national and local contribution. At the same time, the experience of the Russian initiative shows that participating universities purposefully develop nationally and locally relevant activities while they move towards global competitiveness without government pressure. The chapter discusses why these objectives are interrelated.

We are constructing an imperfect competition general equilibrium model, with non-consumable money and labor market; our toolkit is an equilibrium default model of Shubik-Wilson (1978). Our result has an ‘equilibrium volatility’ simultaneously occurring at all three markets: labor, goods, and credit market, with a fixed money supply from a bank. A worker and an entrepreneur strategically and simultaneously trade at the three markets. Players are uncertain about each other’s actions, and do not have a convergence of common beliefs of common knowledge. It is impossible to calculate equilibrium mixed strategies exactly, but it is possible to identify some Pareto-efficient strategies and study induced prices, wages, interest rates, default, allocations and payoffs, which are all volatile, and their fluctuations are not independent. We present an equilibrium result, when a total value of default is bigger than total money supply.

We develop a theory of equilibrium market volatility in a general equilibrium duopoly with complete information. The resulting economic system possesses a property, which can be described as ‘natural volatility’ of markets, even if players have complete information. Economy is described as a strategic market game where every player has market power as a buyer and a seller. Players are uncertain about each other’s actions, and due to the properties of expected utility maximization there is no convergence of common beliefs of common knowledge to unique mixed strategies equilibrium, hence, rational expectations approach cannot be applied.  Volatility at the market appears from a multiplicity of equilibrium mixed strategies; they cannot be computed precisely, but only approximated. We identify several Pareto-efficient strategies and study induced prices, allocations and payoffs, which are all volatile. 

Incentives are usually designed to promote desirable behaviour. In many instances, however, even in the absence of an incentive scheme, people may deliberately choose to act as desired. In such a case, introducing a system of incentives may discourage people from doing this. The discouragement mechanism works through the pos- sibility of errors that may wrongly classify the observed behaviour as undesirable, and hence trigger penalties. The effect is amplified by pessimism, which leads to an overestimation of the error probability, and by the disappointment from errors, which increases the disutility of unfair penalties. This approach is capable of ex- plaining two typical observations for enterprises/industries subject to environmental regulation – overcompliance (excessive investment in compliance) and discretionary inspections by regulators (raised frequency of inspections to enterprises suspected of non-compliance).

We develop a theoretical model in which adoption decisions are based on information received from others about the quality of a new technology and on their risk attitude. We test the predictions of this model using a field experiment in Bangladesh. We show that treated farmers who receive better training in System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technology have more accurate information about this technology, and have a higher impact on the adoption rate of untreated farmers. We also find that untreated farmers that are more risk-averse tend to adopt less and are less influenced by their treated peers. Finally, a trained farmers' impact on his untrained peers increases if he himself adopts SRI technology. Our results indicate that the crucial determinant of technology adoption for untreated farmers is their degree of risk aversion and the accuracy and reliability of information transmission about the quality of technology circulated among farmers.

Physical activity is considered today as a leading factor in health and well-being in developed countries. With decreasing levels of alcohol and tobacco consumption, widespread sedentary lifestyles have taken centre stage among the predictors of non-communicable diseases. That is why Russia, along with other countries, has adopted the “Physical activity strategy for the WHO European Region 2016–2025”. Young people are among the target groups of public policy promoting physical activity. This paper investigates physical activity among young people aged 15 to 24 years. The empirical study is based on a descriptive and econometric analysis of micro-data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), 2000–2016. The research shows that 50% of young men and 65% of young women do not exercise on a regular basis. Both for men and for women, the probability of physical activity is positively related to their educational level, household income, and residence in capital cities. Negative relations were found between the probability of physical activity and smoking, status of married person, and employed and non-employed status. The results for alcohol consumption, body mass index and self-assessed health are inconclusive for this age group. The results confirm the necessity of better-targeted public policy motivating physical activity in youth. Overall, policy measures motivating young people to take part in physical activity will have a long-term effect. Habits developed in youth often persist into adulthood. The result will be a gain in the health and longevity of the Russian population.

Thin superconducting films are usually regarded as type-II superconductors even when they are made of a type-I materials. The reason is a strong influence of the stray magnetic fields outside the superconductive sample. While very thin films indeed reach this limit, there is a sufficiently large interval of film thicknesses in which the magnetic properties cannot be classified as either of the two conventional superconductivity types. We demonstrate that in this interval superconducting condensate and magnetic field reveal exotic spatial profiles that are very sensitive to system parameters, in particular, the temperature and applied field. Magnetic properties of such systems can be attributed to a special regime of intertype superconductivity. Its physical origin lies in the removal of infinite degeneracy of the superconducting state at the critical Bogomolnyi point. Here we demonstrate that qualitative characteristics of obtained condensate-field structures and the way they change with the temperature and applied field are independent of the choice of the in-plane boundary conditions for the order parameter and magnetic field.

The article demonstrates rather general approach to problems of discrete geometry: treat them as global optimization problems to be solved by one of general purpose solver implementing branch-and-bound algorithm (B&B). This approach may be used for various types of problems, i.e. Tammes problems, Thomson problems, search of minimal potential energy of micro-clusters, etc. Here we consider a problem of densest packing of equal circles in special geometrical object, so called square flat torus ℝ2/ℤ2 with the induced metric. It is formulated as Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Problem with linear and non-convex quadratic constraints.  The open-source B&B-solver SCIP, this http URL, and its parallel implementation ParaSCIP, this http URL, had been used in computing experiments to find "very good" approximations of optimal arrangements. The main result is a confirmation of the conjecture on optimal packing for N=9 that was published in 2012 by O. Musin and A. Nikitenko. To do that, ParaSCIP took about 2000 CPU*hours (16 hours x 128 CPUs) of cluster HPC4/HPC5, National Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute", this http URL

There is a gap in the proof of the main theorem in the article [ShCh13a] on optimal bounds for the Morse lemma in Gromov-hyperbolic spaces. We correct this gap, showing that the main theorem of [ShCh13a] is correct. We also describe a computer certification of this result.

In this paper, we present the results of the study on the development of social network analysis (SNA) discipline and its evolution over time, using the analysis of bibliographic networks. The dataset consists of articles from the Web of Science Clarivate Analytics database and those published in the main journals in the field (70,000+ publications), created by searching for the key word "social network*." From the collected data, we constructed several networks (citation and two-mode, linking publications with authors, keywords and journals). Analyzing the obtained networks, we evaluated the trends in the field`s growth, noted the most cited works, created a list of authors and journals with the largest amount of works, and extracted the most often used keywords in the SNA field. Next, using the Search path count approach, we extracted the main path, key-route paths and link islands in the citation network. Based on the probabilistic flow node values, we identified the most important articles. Our results show that authors from the social sciences, who were most active through the whole history of the field development, experienced the "invasion" of physicists from 2000's. However, starting from the 2010's, a new very active group of animal social network analysis has emerged.

This paper deals with the productive morphological causative r(ə)- in Abaza (Northwest Caucasian), a highly polysynthetic ergative language. We discuss the causativization process in Abaza as well as the semantic properties of the construction and elaborate an analysis of the event structure of the Abaza morphological causatives based on the scope of adverbials.

Public procurement costs evaluation is important both for procurement optimization at the company level and for evaluating the public procurement regulation system. This paper presents a survey-based methodological approach to public procurement costs evaluation at the macro level. We have modified the PwC approach and developed an alternative public procurement cost evaluation methodology at the macro level. The PwC methodology was adapted to developing and transitional economies and piloted on Russian data. Average costs of each type of procurement procedures implemented in 2016 were evaluated. A regression analysis of factors impacting public procurement costs evaluation revealed considerable differences between respondents who have and do not have experience with complex procurement procedures. Although the average overall costs of public procurements in Russia amounted to about 1% of the total value of concluded contracts, the figure stands at 6.6–8.1% for small purchases. This exceeds the economy from price decrease and calls for a need to simplify regulation of such procurements.

The present study is aimed at the research of the set of the Venetian lettere ducali of the fourteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries and the preparation of their full-text publication. Due to their diplomatic and paleographic characteristics, the lettere ducali stored in St. Petersburg are an example of a fairly well-developed chancery production, despite the chancery still being in the process of institutionalization at that point. At the same time, the lettere ducali are among the most widespread varieties of the documents issued by the Venetian Doges at that time. In this regard, the clarification of the criteria of authenticity and attributive features of these letters is the most urgent purpose of the project, given that the systematic publication and sequential study of the lettere ducali of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries are yet to be done in the future. As regards the medieval and early modern chancery activity in the Venetian Republic, only the period up to the thirteenth century has been studied well enough; as for the later times, only minor sets of the authentic lettere ducali have been published. The documents in question from the manuscript collection of N.P. Likhachev (1862-1936), Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, have never been published, and went almost unnoticed in the scholarly discourse. The publication of these documents will allow the medievalists the study of the previously unknown sources. The extensive study of the diplomatic and paleographic peculiarities of the letters, their description and visualization, their attribution and the transcription of the notes of the scribes will provide the researchers of the given period with the tools of the historical criticism of this variety of documents. The preliminary outcomes of the research and the deep analysis of certain case studies found in the manuscripts are to be presented as scholarly articles in double-blind peer-reviewed journals, as well as in conference proceedings.

The present study is devoted to the research into a set of the Venetian lettere ducali to the Marquises d’Este of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries collected by N.P. Likhachev (1862-1936), Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, stored in the Western European section of the Saint Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the preparation of their full-text critical publication. The lettere ducali are an excellent source to study the Serenissima and its continental and overseas domains. The source material of the Venetian lettere ducali have long and not without reason been considered and actively investigated by researchers as one of the most important sources on the economic, social, political, legal, environmental, cultural, and ethnic history of Venice. In addition, Venetian sources often provide researchers with important material on the history of other states of the Italian Peninsula, including, in our case, the domains of d’Este. This explains the exceptional importance of studying lettere ducali as the most important source on the history of the Western European Middle Ages and early modern times. This study revealed historical material on the specific cities and regions of Italy (Venice, Treviso, Ferrara, Verona, Padua, the Po Delta), as well as the Venetian colonies in the Mediterranean (Crete, Cyprus) and the Adriatic (Shkodra, Dalmatian Coast), history of international relations, history of economic relations, history of everyday life, history of state institutions and international law, history of a medieval document, history of Latin writing.

Nordic countries are among the main destinations for immigrants in the world because of their traditionally generous policies. They are also some of the most integrated and similar countries. Yet, in the 1970s when they became confronted with the “multicultural question”, they made different choices. This article shows that the presence or absence of a sizeable immigration was the main causal factor. It explains why Sweden adopted multiculturalism while Finland and Iceland did not. However, this factor was sufficient and not necessary. The formulation of multicultural policy provisions (MCPs) in Norway despite a small and late labour immigration was the result of diffusion from Sweden. In Denmark, the absence of sizeable immigration combined with the presence of a nationally-oriented policy legacy to further deny such outcome. There was an upward albeit slow convergence towards multiculturalism. Groupings of multiculturalist and assimilationist countries stuck together until the civic turn in the mid-2000s.

Estimates of the term structure of interest rates depend heavily on the quality of the market data from which it is constructed. Estimated rates can be incorrect because of observation errors and omissions in the data. The usual way to deal with the heteroscedasticity of observation errors is by introducing weights in the fitting procedure. There is currently no consensus in the literature about the choice of such weights. We introduce a non-parametric bootstrap-based method of introducing observation errors drawn from the empirical distribution into the model data, which allows us to perform a comparison test of different weighting schemes without implicitly favoring one of the contesting models – a common design flaw in comparison studies. We use government bonds from several countries with examples of both liquid and illiquid bond markets. We show that realistic observation errors can greatly distort the estimated yield curve. Moreover, we show that using different weights or other modifications to account for observation errors in bond price data does not always improve the term structure estimates, and often worsens the situation. Based on our comparison, we advise to either use equal weights or weights proportional to the inverse duration in practical applications.

This paper describes a group of derivational verbal suffixes in Abaza, a polysynthetic language belonging to the Northwest Caucasian family. For each suffix I propose a short description of its most remarkable features. In particular, I discuss the polysemy of the refactive and assertive markers and their interaction with the event structure of the verb. Other suffixes such as the putative and inferential markers are interesting due to their peculiar morphological behavior. The diversity of the discussed affixes is tentatively explained by the different pathways of their morphological and semantic development.

This article discusses the phenomenon of recent decades associated with the redevelopment of former industrial areas and factory districts. These areas previously had a homogeneous environment in which residents construct a local solidarity, but now functions and image of industrial districts are changing. Transformations of former industrial spaces is analyzed on example of two Moscow neighborhoods. The author’s research based on case study includes interviews with residents and developers, observations, analysis of media discussion and online communities, and secondary data analysis. Relying on concepts of social differentiation and social identity, the author considers former industrial neighborhood in terms of housing statuses, visual representations, senses and subjective perception.Redevelopment accentuates the differences between the “old” residents of industrial neighborhoods who live in the former factory buildings, and the “new” residents who buy dwelling in new buildings constructed on the former factory spaces or in nearby areas. These differences related with spatial representations and helps to build a model of socio-cultural and territorial dynamics of the industrial areas. The research shows that the formation of a new territorial identity occurs in conditions of social and housing inequality.