Publications

the Great War, but have tended to neglect the course of this diplomacy once the fighting erupted. This volume addresses that lacuna with a broad range of essays examining the foreign relations of the empire, as well as its republican and early Soviet successors, from the July 1914 Crisis to the end of the Civil War in 1922. Written by distinguished and emerging scholars from North America, Europe, Russia, and Japan, the essays make abundant use of Russian archival collections, largely inaccessible until the 1990s, to reassess the conjectures and conclusions previously drawn from other sources. While some chapters focus on traditional “diplomatic” history, others adopt new “international history” by placing Russia’s relations with the world in their social, intellectual, economic, and cultural contexts. Arranged in roughly chronological order, the first volume covers the late imperial period, from 1914 through mid-1916, while the second proceeds through the revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War, up to the end of that conflict in 1922. Together, these books’ comments should foster a renewed appreciation for international relations as a central element of Russia’s Great War and Revolution.

This book examines the development of bilateral energy relations between China and the two oil-rich countries, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Challenging conventional assumptions about energy politics and China’s global quest for oil, this book examines the interplay of politics and sociocultural contexts. It shows how energy resources become ideas and how these ideas are mobilized in the realm of international relations. China’s relations with Kazakhstan and Russia are simultaneously enabled and constrained by the discursive politics of oil. It is argued that to build collaborative and constructive energy relations with China, its partners in Kazakhstan, Russia, and elsewhere must consider not only the material realities of China’s energy industry and the institutional settings of China’s energy policy but also the multiple symbolic meanings that energy resources and, particularly, oil acquire in China.

China’s Energy Security and Relations with Petrostates offers a nuanced understanding of China’s bilateral energy relations with Kazakhstan and Russia, raising essential questions about the social logic of international energy politics. It will appeal to students and scholars of international relations, energy security, Chinese and post-Soviet studies, along with researchers working in the fields of energy policy and environmental sustainability.

asks whether the Caspian functions as a conceptual framework for various forms of exchange in commerce, diplomacy, political culture, forces of dissent and revolutionary movements, movement of peoples, material culture, art, and literature as well as ecology, disease, navigation and maritime culture. Are there tangible historical ties in the early modern and modern periods between regions of the Caspian littoral – Iran, the South Caucasus, Dagestan, Russia, and Central Asia? In what ways do exchanges in this region connect to neighboring, more established cultural and political spheres and with broader trends of global history? Can these ties create a viable field of study beyond Middle Eastern, Eurasian, and Russian studies to underscore interregional connections? Can the Caspian be conceptualized as an alternative or as a compliment to more established frames, such as the Persianate World or Central Eurasia and the steppe? To what extent can the links within this region be separated from state-centered histories of Iran and the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union?

As the EU’s relations with Russia remain at an all-time low and continue to be in a state of paralysis, marked by de-institutionalisation, inertia and estrangement, the EU’s policy towards Russia seems up for review. By taking stock of the implementation of the EU’s Global Strategy and the five principles that are guiding EU-Russia relations, this volume provides a forward-looking angle and contributes to a better understanding of the current EU-Russia relationship and the prospects for overcoming the existing deadlock. By bringing together European and Russian scholars and adopting an interdisciplinary perspective that combines insights from EU studies, international relations, and European and international law, the book provides a comprehensive and holistic view on the state of affairs in EU-Russia relations.

Non-destructive testing technology methods are usually used for detection, location  and sizing of both surface and internal defects of different nature. The School of  Non-Destructive Testing of the Tomsk Polytechnic University, Russia, is promoting  scientific research and industrial applications of non-destructive testing technology,  which includes microwave, acoustical (ultrasonic), infrared, magnetic, vibration,  radiography, visual and other testing and related methods, for safety of operation of  medical and industrial processes.  Today, there is a need for educational materials that will help in the formation  and continuous training of their specialists in non-destructive testing. This tutorial  can be used as a complementary technical document to enhance the skills of NDT  professionals and as a basic resource to educate managers and decision makers in  the industry about the future of NDT.  The current timely book presents recent advantages and perspective directions in  scientific investigations and industrial applications of non-destructive testing in  different areas including medicine, quality assurance, sensors and engineering  systems: ultrasionic tomography, infrared inspection and spectral analysis, surface  material control, diagnostics of metal nanopowders, biomedical engineering.  NDT takes centre stage in our technological world, books that highlight what is  possible are both welcome and instructive. I am delighted to see this comprehensive  book take shape and promote the field to the next generation of researchers looking AQ1 for new avenues to explore.

Given Australia’s lack of energy security strategy, it is not surprising that the country is void of institutional knowledge and know-how of Russian foreign energy strategy. The ‘lucky country’ as it were, relies entirely on sea-lines of communication to the north to supply fuel and to export Australian coal and natural gas. Australia has entered the 2020s as the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter; however, maintaining complacency in Canberra’s current export activities will ultimately lead to a long-term security crisis. This book critically examines Russian energy strategy in the Asia-Pacific, with a view to determining the security implications for Australia. Russia is important for global energy security chains because of its vast resource wealth and its geographical position – a pivotal position to supply both the European and Asian markets. Australia has no such luxury, geographically constrained as an island continent; it relies on the nearby Asia-Pacific import market to demand our energy and to facilitate the delivery of our national oil supplies. Understanding Russian foreign energy strategy in the region is crucial given the growing energy requirements in Australia’s emerging Asia-Pacific arena.

This volume provides an understanding of how systems of child protection evolve in disparate cultural, social and economic contexts. Using the former Soviet Union as a starting point, it examines how 13 countries have developed, defined and evolved their system of protecting children and providing services to families over the last 25 years since independence. The volume runs an uniform approach in each country and then traces the development of unique systems, contributing to the international understanding of child protection and welfare.   This volume is a fascinating study for social scientists, social workers, policy makers with particular interest to those focusing on children, youth, and family issues alike as each chapter offers a clear and compelling view of the central changes, competing claims and guiding assumptions that have formed each countries individual approach to child protection and family services.    

The 50th volume in the book series ‘Global Perspectives on Higher Education' offers a stimulating and thoughtful assessment of higher education from a global perspective which addresses the challenges and prospects for the next decade. The challenges now faced by higher education and its likely future prospects and patterns are examined in terms of policy papers and case studies. Five broad topics are considered: the situation of academic faculty, the demand for access, the role of the university in society and its governance, funding trends, and higher education’s international dimensions.

The book aims to trace and explain the historical evolution of Moscow, the capital of the Tsardom of Russia, Soviet Union and Russian Federation, as a political entity and political community, and to understand what place Moscow occupied within the Russian political space and what role it played in Russian political life for centuries until 2018. The authors consistently examine the dramatic political history of the contemporary Russian capital in the Moscow (13th – 17th centuries) and St. Petersburg (18th – 19th centuries) epochs, in the Soviet period, in the post-Soviet era, and identify its key points and the most pivotal events.

This book consists of seven chapters, each providing a different point of view on the topic of critical thinking, which is defined as the analysis of facts to form a judgment. Chapter One aims to develop a method for improving students’ critical thinking skills using cooperative learning. Chapter Two focuses on an education program designed to develop students’ creativity and critical thinking skills and the impact this program had on teachers in Portuguese public schools. Chapter Three discusses the methods of teaching critical thinking that are most suitable for the Russian educational community. Chapter Four analyzes the importance of critical thinking skills for fighting misinformation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, around which many unscientific rumors and conspiracy theories are propagated alongside truthful information. Chapter Five also concerns the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically in connection with the natural human bias towards optimism and how this bias distorts risk assessment in health-related decisions but also provides a sense of control and hope. Chapter Six discusses how teachers can leverage Donald Trump’s proclivity towards manipulative rhetoric, glaring fallacies, and conspiracy theories for teaching critical thinking skills, as well as the potential pitfalls of doing so. Finally, Chapter Seven aims to rethink Essential Learning Outcomes by examining what skills are valued by employers and proposes a strategy of cross-listing courses to facilitate skill acquisition across disciplines.

This special conference starts the new series, and therefore, it launches a tradition to follow, and an opportunity for a rapid spin up. This ICCQ conference was organized by the HSE and leading IT innovative companies such Huawei and Yandex. The ICCQ 2021 attracted a number of renowned experts including Jens Palsberg, Anders Møller, and David West. The papers were submitted from the world over. The conference attracted speakers and attendees from the USA, Europe, and Asia; therefore, this is truly an international event. Although ICCQ started as a relatively small single-day conference, it immediately gained the IEEE support. The plan for the next years is to embrace the world while keeping high quality standards.

We believe that Russian religious philosophy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has great importance for Christian theology and philosophy. Russian thinkers, rooted in the tradition of the Church Fathers, strove for an integral knowledge of reality, based on the unity of faith and reason. Such philosophers and theologians as Peter Chaadaev, Alexei Khomiakov, Vladimir Soloviev, Evgenii Trubetskoi, Pavel Florensky, Sergei Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Semyon Frank, Georges Florovsky, and Aleksei Losev had penetrating insight into the nature of reality and thought deeply about religion and culture, science and philosophy, and history and society. Their legacy deserves a prominent place in contemporary philosophical and theological discussions. The series Ex Oriente Lux aims to meet this need. It serves as a way to bring Eastern Christian intuitions into the current post-secular philosophical and theological context. Each volume focuses on one Russian thinker and includes a selection of essays on the thinker’s main ideas in historical and contemporary contexts. The books are prepared by Western and Russian scholars, thus creating a space for intellectual dialogue. The series comes out of research connected with the annual conferences on Russian religious philosophy held in Krakow, Poland. The “Krakow Meetings” are organized jointly by the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow and the Edith Stein Institute of Philosophy in Granada, Spain.

This book describes various approaches in modelling financial risks and compiling ratings. Focusing on emerging markets, it illustrates how risk assessment is performed and analyses the use of machine learning methods for financial risk assessment and measurement. It not only offers readers insights into the differences between emerging and developed markets, but also helps them understand the development of risk management approaches for banks. Highlighting current problems connected with the evaluation and modelling of financial risks in the banking sector of emerging markets, the book presents the methodologies applied to credit and market financial risks and integrated and payment risks, and discusses the outcomes. In addition it explores the systemic risks and innovations in banking and risk management by analyzing the features of risk measurement in emerging countries. Lastly, it demonstrates the aggregation of approaches to financial risk for emerging financial markets, comparing the experiences of various countries, including Russia, Belarus, China and Brazil.

Challenges of the 21st Century: Democracy, Environment, Inequalities, Intersectionality  

This IV ISA Forum of Sociology will be our first virtual Forum, with over 800 sessions, more than 3,000 papers and the participation of sociologists from 125 countries.

This Forum will be a unique opportunity to gather our research results and analyses of the extraordinary time we live and study, of its impact on individuals and societies and on four global challenges it has intensified: democracy, environment, inequalities and intersectionality.

During six days, hundreds of panels will explore the world in the pandemic and the world that may come out of it based on research grounded in the field and topics of the ISA Research Committees, Working and Thematic groups. Young researchers and experienced scholars from different regions of the world will expose their analyses of societies and sociology in the pandemic. Leading scholars from different continents will share their perspectives in the Forum’s Opening and Closing Plenaries: Michael Burawoy, Isabel Casimiro, Manuel Castells, Ashish Kothari, Rita Segato, Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Maristella Svampa. This Forum will also be an opportunity for our global community to pay tribute to three of our most distinguished colleagues to which special panels are dedicated: Immanuel Wallerstein, Erik Olin Wright and Marielle Franco.

The pandemic has stressed how deeply interdependent we have become and accentuated the need of a more global sociology. Epistemologies of the South and intersectional perspectives on democracy, ecology and social justice are more than alternative options for sociology in the 21st century. There are at its core and have deeply transformed it. Opening more spaces for our colleagues from the Global South has been a central goal in this Forum. We are particularly pleased to host semi-plenary sessions set up by the Brazilian Sociological Society with the Porto Alegre Local Organizing Committee, by the Latin American Sociological Association and by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, and that the president of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa will join us in the closing session.

Sari Hanafi, President of the ISA Geoffrey Pleyers, President of the IV ISA Forum of Sociology

We discuss the applicability of multiphase lattice Boltzmann method for the simulation of the drop oscillation. We demonstrate that the simulation of the single drop excited to the first eigenmode does follow Rayleigh formula. Simulations show no sensitivity to the number of the discrete velocities with D3Q19 and D3Q27 representations of the distribution function in three dimensions. The boundaries do influent the motion of the drop—division of the computational area by the even and the odd number of cells comes out important and leads to symmetry violence. The second part of the chapter describes the oscillations of the ensemble of three drops due to the excitation of the central drop in the first eigenmode. The motion of the backdrops does strongly depend on the viscosity of the fluid. We provide future details of simulations.

This paper is devoted to a comparative analysis of the elite burial complexes of the Lower Volga-Don region in different periods of the Sarmatian era, and to interpretation of the changes occurring in their distribution and composition. An overview of the changes in the rite, composition of burial goods, and spatial distribution of the “Barbarian” elite graves of the Volga-Don region demonstrates the social structure of nomadic societies becoming more complex over time and becoming orientated towards the settled centers of the Northern Black Sea region, especially to the city of Tanais. An additional source of information is the composition and origin of the “prestige items” found in these graves. According to their analysis, cultural groups with different thanatological doctrines, in other words culturally varying societies, participated in the process. It seems that the observed changes were largely not due to the “regular migratory waves of nomads from East to West,” but to foreign political factors, in particular the development of relations between the major political powers of the era – Parthia and Rome. An important strategic role in their struggle was played by the Caucasus and the countries adjacent to it to the north, where the Bosporan Kingdom occupied a pivotal position: Its Asian part directly bordered numerous warlike “Barbarian” tribes of the North Caucasus and the Eastern Azov areas. Steppe peoples of the North Caucasus exerted a strong influence on the political affairs in southern Caucasia, including Iberia, Albania, Armenia, and in Media Atropatene and Parthia as well. The nomadic chiefdoms of the Volga-Don region, with their significant military potential, were obviously involved in internal and foreign political conflicts in the territories of the Bosporan Kingdom and the Caucasus. Evidently, the booty and gifts obtained in the course of military actions and conclusions of treaties and agreements were partially demonstrated in the funeral ceremonies of the “Barbarian” nobility, reinforcing their claims to leadership. These artifacts, discovered at necropolises in burial complexes, show different aspects of the culture and policies which involved the Sarmatian elites.

The widespread of Online Social Networks and the opportunity to commercialize popular accounts have attracted a large number of automated programs, known as artificial accounts. This paper (Project repository available at http://github.com/karpovilia/botdetection) focuses on the classification of human and fake accounts on the social network, by employing several graph neural networks, to efficiently encode attributes and network graph features of the account. Our work uses both network structure and attributes to distinguish human and artificial accounts and compares attributed and traditional graph embeddings. Separating complex, human-like artificial accounts into a standalone task demonstrates significant limitations of profile-based algorithms for bot detection and shows efficiency of network structure based methods for detecting sophisticated bot accounts. Experiments show that our approach can achieve competitive performance compared with existing state-of-the-art bot detection systems with only network-driven features.

Background

Ending the global tobacco epidemic is a defining challenge in global health. Timely and comprehensive estimates of the prevalence of smoking tobacco use and attributable disease burden are needed to guide tobacco control efforts nationally and globally.

Methods

We estimated the prevalence of smoking tobacco use and attributable disease burden for 204 countries and territories, by age and sex, from 1990 to 2019 as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study. We modelled multiple smoking-related indicators from 3625 nationally representative surveys. We completed systematic reviews and did Bayesian meta-regressions for 36 causally linked health outcomes to estimate non-linear dose-response risk curves for current and former smokers. We used a direct estimation approach to estimate attributable burden, providing more comprehensive estimates of the health effects of smoking than previously available.

Findings

Globally in 2019, 1·14 billion (95% uncertainty interval 1·13–1·16) individuals were current smokers, who consumed 7·41 trillion (7·11–7·74) cigarette-equivalents of tobacco in 2019. Although prevalence of smoking had decreased significantly since 1990 among both males (27·5% [26·5–28·5] reduction) and females (37·7% [35·4–39·9] reduction) aged 15 years and older, population growth has led to a significant increase in the total number of smokers from 0·99 billion (0·98–1·00) in 1990. Globally in 2019, smoking tobacco use accounted for 7·69 million (7·16–8·20) deaths and 200 million (185–214) disability-adjusted life-years, and was the leading risk factor for death among males (20·2% [19·3–21·1] of male deaths). 6·68 million [86·9%] of 7·69 million deaths attributable to smoking tobacco use were among current smokers.

Interpretation

In the absence of intervention, the annual toll of 7·69 million deaths and 200 million disability-adjusted life-years attributable to smoking will increase over the coming decades. Substantial progress in reducing the prevalence of smoking tobacco use has been observed in countries from all regions and at all stages of development, but a large implementation gap remains for tobacco control. Countries have a clear and urgent opportunity to pass strong, evidence-based policies to accelerate reductions in the prevalence of smoking and reap massive health benefits for their citizens.

Information about companies published in a news feed is invariably tinted by emotional tonality. As such, resulting perceptions may influence the opinion of market players, and consequently affect the dynamics of a company’s share price. This study aims to evaluate various hypotheses about the impact of the tone of news items regarding dividends, capital expenditures, and development on the stock prices of Russian companies. Information disclosure is extensively studied, and there have been limited studies on the effect of disclosures on Russian companies. However, until now, there have been no research studies which verify hypotheses on the influence of news sentiment on corporate share prices in the Russian market.

This analysis was conducted using data from 49 Russian public companies included in the Moscow exchange index over the period from the end of 2017 to the beginning of 2019. To account for the proximate impact of news items on consequential market phenomena, an event study methodology was applied in order to estimate and construct the models of dependency of cumulative abnormal return (CAR) on news tone level, and control for financial and nonfinancial factors.

Our results provide evidence for the positive impact of the tone of news texts on the share prices of Russian companies. The increase in news tone by one standard deviation leads to a cumulative abnormal stock return increase of 0.26 percentage points. This result is consistent with previous research conducted on data from developed stock markets. Moreover, the relationship between the tone or sentiment level of a news item and the stock price reaction is linear, without the diminishing marginal effect.

Our conclusions should prompt companies to invest effort in delivering information in a tonally positive way, highlighting the most positive news. Investors, in turn, should rationally approach the interpretation of published information.

Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most important emerging techniques for the future generation communication systems. Recently a new approach to IoT physical layer design based on FH OFDMA and nonparametric reception techniques has been proposed. This approach offers a number of benefits including: high interference proofness and thus high user capacity, elimination of the channel estimation and equalization techniques and thus reduced overhead, low complexity of both transmission and reception techniques. However initial acquisition and synchronization methods design for such systems remains a challenging problem. In existing IoT solutions this problem is solved by employing signals with special properties. This paper advocates a different approach: initial acquisition and synchronization methods development based solely on the same signalling and reception techniques that are used for information transmission and the use of low-rate codes with low complexity decoding.

Nafion-117/PEDOT composite membranes were synthesized by in situ chemical polymerization of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) using ammonium persulfate as an oxidant. The polymerization of EDOT in Nafion membranes for various EDOT/oxidant treatment sequences was studied for the first time. PEDOT introduction leads to a slight decrease in both the ion-exchange capacity and water uptake of the composite membranes, as well as to an increase in cationic transport. Membranes initially treated with an oxidant exhibit better conductivity and lower hydrogen permeability. The effect of both modification of Nafion-117 membranes by PEDOT and hot-pressing of hydrogen-oxygen membrane-electrode assemblies (MEAs) on the performance of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells was studied. The maximum power density of the fabricated MEAs increases 1.5-fold: from 510 (for a pristine Nafion-117 membrane) to 810 mW cm(-2) (for a membrane modified by PEDOT). The current density at a voltage of 0.4 V reaches 1248 and 2246 mA cm(-2), respectively

Inorganic-organic composites based on the foil and standard RALEX (R) cation-exchange heterogeneous membranes (Mega a.s., Czech Republic) were prepared by in situ modification with sulfated zirconia (S-ZrO2). The composite membranes were characterized by SEM, TGA, X-ray diffraction, and FTIR spectroscopy. The effect of S-ZrO2 doping on membrane transport properties was studied using measurements of water uptake, ion-exchange capacity, conductivity, cation diffusion, hydrogen permeability, current-voltage characteristics, and membrane specific permselectivity (Ca2+/Na+). The S-ZrO2 incorporation leads to an increase in conductivity and permselectivity of the composite membranes. The proton conductivity of the S-ZrO2-doped foil membrane (0.0316 S/cm at 30 degrees C) is 4 times higher than that of the pristine membrane. The Ca2+/Na+ permselectivity of the standard RALEX (R) CM membrane doped by S-ZrO2 reaches 3.8 at low current densities. Moreover, the composite membranes retain their selectivity during the long-term tests (> 50 h continuous electrodialysis). The sulfated zirconia doping of heterogeneous membranes demonstrated an excellent separation efficiency that can be used in wastewater treatment, desalination, and related electromembrane separation processes as well as to reduce scaling of electrodialysis modules.

Context.  We discuss the origin of quasi-harmonic emission bands that have been observed in the dynamic spectra of the Jovian decameter emission (DAM).   Aims. We aim to show that the interpretation of the observed structure can be based on the effect of double plasma resonance (DPR) at ion cyclotron harmonics.  Methods. According to the proposed model, in the extended source in the upper ionosphere of Jupiter, where the DPR condition is satisfied for one of the ion cyclotron frequency harmonics, the ion cyclotron waves are effectively excited at the frequency of the lower hybrid resonance. The observed electromagnetic radiation with a quasi-harmonic structure arises due to scattering of ion cyclotron waves by supra-thermal electrons.   Results. Based on the  {VIP}4 magnetic field model, we determine the longitudes at which the source of the considered radiation can be located. The obtained estimates of the plasma density and its height distribution in the source, as well as the energies of emitting ions and scattering electrons provide information about the plasma parameters in the upper ionosphere of Jupiter. Furthermore, these estimates are in good agreement with the observational data.   % conclusions heading (optional), leave it empty if necessary    {}

Strong rotation makes an underlying turbulent flow quasi-two-dimensional that leads to the upscale energy transfer. Recent numerical simulations show that under certain conditions, the energy is accumulated at the largest scales of the system, forming coherent vortex structures known as condensates. We analytically describe the interaction of a strong condensate with weak small-scale turbulent pulsations and obtain an equation that allows us to determine the radial velocity profile $U(r)$ of a coherent vortex. When external rotation is fast, the velocity profiles of cyclones and anticyclones are identical to each other and are well described by the dependence $U(r) \propto \pm r \ln (R/r)$, where $R$ is the transverse size of the vortex. As the external rotation decreases, this symmetry disappears: the maximum velocity in cyclones is greater and the position of the maximum is closer to the axis of the vortex in comparison with anticyclones. Besides, our analysis shows that the size $R$ of the anticyclone cannot exceed a certain critical value, which depends on the Rossby and Reynolds numbers. The maximum size of the cyclones is limited only by the system size under the same conditions. Our predictions are based on the linear evolution of turbulent pulsations on the background of the coherent vortex flow and are accompanied by estimates following from the nonlinear Navier-Stokes equation. 

Agility as a capability to rapidly respond to changes and to reduce uncertainty in an increment-based way is also critically important in Educational Organizations, such as Colleges, Universities, online learning platforms, and educational service providers. Nowadays, people can easily get access to educational courses, and the ability to provide a personalized educational track and change it depending on an agile business context is critically important. The user needs to identify the target specialization or job and get the shortest path with the list of recommended courses and alternatives. This paper summarizes the key ideas relating to methodological principles and practical tools of agility that can be applicable to educational organizations and suggests the model that builds a unique educational path, based on users behavior, data on existing courses, and personal information. The suggested model uses gamification techniques to boost short-term motivation and allows customizing and rebuilding the educational track, also considering churn rate and the educational progress of the user.

This chapter provides a detailed narrative of the organization of Francisco de Miranda’s Leander expedition which constituted the first deliberate attempt to trigger a revolution in Spanish America. Miranda lived on and off in London. Throughout those years he built friendly relations with the former Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Pownall. Disappointed with the apathy of the British authorities, Miranda left London with his secretary Thomas Molini on 2 September 1805 to travel to New York where he arrived on 9 November. On 12 February 1806, the Leander met a 32-cannon frigate HMS Cleopatra. It was searched, and as a result about twelve to nineteen British mariners were detained. The Leander went ahead with the mission, arriving first to Bonaire in the Leeward Antilles, then to Trinidad. On 26 May, it was approached by the 18-cannon HMS Lily. According to its captain Donald Campbell, the Leander crew was dissatisfied and nearly in a state of mutiny.

This article is about the probability distribution of the maximum of the logarithm of the complexity of an individual travelling salesman problem. The complexity is defined as a number of nodes of the decision tree, which was created by the branch and bound algorithm. We applied our earlier results that the distribution of the logarithm of the complexity of travelling salesman problem can be approximated by the normal distribution. In combination with the representation of the distribution of maximum of normally distributed random variables, we obtain the approximation for the distribution of the maximum of the complexity in cases of infinitely large samples. The accuracy of the approximation was visualized on the graph. In order to simplify the approximation for comparatively small samples, we used the normal distribution with the parameters equal to the expectation and standard deviation of approximation for infinitely large samples. This allowed us to obtain representations for the normal distribution, which approximates the distribution of the maximum of the natural logarithm of the complexity in series of mm travelling salesman problem of size nn. The quality of the representations was analysed by the experiment. On the graph, we showed the quantiles of the theoretical distribution of the maximum of the logarithm of the complexity and the sample’s quantiles in the case of samples of 500 and 1000 travelling salesman problem.

This chapter provides a critical comparative overview of sustainability disciplines in selected international investment agreements (IIAs), including bilateral investment treaties (BITs), with a particular focus on model IIAs and actual BITs concluded between Canada and several African countries. The chapter demonstrates two general tendencies. First, an overwhelming number of BITs between capital-exporting states and African countries contain no express reference to the public and further societal interest of the host state. The same goes for BITs between a developing state and an African country. Second, to date only six BITs between a developed country and an African state (all Sub-Saharan least-developed countries) do refer to the public interest and sustainable development of the host state, and all of them are concluded by Canada.

Regulation of risks in banking is driven by evolution of financial intermediation and markets, and vice versa. The study analyzes a changing nature of financial institutions’ regulatory and supervisory trends in emerging markets over last 20 years, providing outlook for the future. Although the principles of the Basel Accord have long been the cornerstone of banking regulation in the world, precise requirements and scope were reformed and implemented in response to crises and global trends. At the turn of the century, the regulatory themes in EMs were focused on ensuring financial stability which was closely associated with regulatory and supervisory independence. However, the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 has changed the paradigm from partial improvements under financial liberalization regime to a world-wide regulation tightening on the basis of close coordination between regulators and supervisors in the world. The role of the G-20’s Financial Stability Board was to ensure that initiatives are implemented globally, which further enhanced convergence of financial risks regulation in EMs and DMs. In recent years, that uniformity started to decline as the number of local peculiarities and initiatives impacting banking business increases: some countries eased or lifted certain globally accepted restrictions, yet imposing local regulations (including financial sanctions). Functioning of financial institutions in emerging markets becomes more and more complicated. Moderns technological innovations enter spheres of compliance and supervision via RegTechs and SupTechs as a solution to this growing number of such inconsistences.

Comparison of trends and peculiarities of financial systems in different countries, especially, in emerging markets, should start with setting the global context. The study identifies several periods of development of world financial institutions in the 21st century – deregulation (global optimism regarding financial development), re-regulation (change in the paradigm following the Global Financial Crisis), and deglobalization (growing divergence between conditions for doing banking in different countries). Progress of banking systems in EMs was additionally shaped by local peculiarities at the turn of the century, most of which were related to their location (e.g. European banks penetrated in CEE countries, Russian financial system was dominating in CIS). The common features of emerging markets was low banking services’ penetration and high promised returns. Through time, higher market saturation, technological advances, and trends in regulation and supervision increased degree of convergence in financial systems in developed and developing countries in what concerns main KPIs. That caused revision of focus towards greater attention to risk management and local needs. Global macroeconomic risks, related to countries with high debt, technological risks and changing clients demands will become the drivers of banking systems development in emerging markets.

During the last two decades group of scholars developed the Strategy-as-Practice approach to research of strategic planning process, which analyses it on a micro-level. It involves aspects of strategic planning, providing analysis of practitioners, practice, and praxis of strategy. Another concept described in the article is agile methodology. Albeit since these concepts appeared a lot of managerial issues in them were analyzed, their intersection was never discovered. This mixed-method research is aimed to cover such a gap through qualitative, quantitative, and model-building approaches. Firstly, with the usage of grounded theory methods, there were conducted in-depth interviews with experts in agile methodology, business processes, and strategic planning. Then, with received insights hypotheses were developed, which is a consequence were implemented in a case study on IT company. The informal observation was conducted, and managers were interviewed. As a result, a model of strategic planning was developed. In the last part of the research, some ideas from interviews and case studies were tested and further ways of research development were stated. Thus, the results of research itself become applicable and useful not only for scientists but for practitioners too.

The chapter is devoted to the Russian "diplomacy in exile", in other words, to the diplomacу of anti-Bolshevik forces during the Russian Civil War.

This article analyzes the functional parts and technological software for the developed device for a control of a two-phase synchronous electric motor. An experimental model of a control system for a two-phase synchronous electric motor and software for its operation were designed. The device consists of a source of driving action, a microcontroller that outputs signals to drivers that perform the role of converting the output signals of the microcontroller, filters that smooth out ripples of current flowing through the motor windings, a power source and a two-phase synchronous electric motor. Based on the results obtained, one will plane to create prototypes and conduct their experimental studies in order to further introduce the development into production.

Using the unexpected outcome of Argentinian presidential primary elections in August 2019, which led to the country’s sovereign default, we investigate how the exposure of international bond funds to Argentinian sovereign bonds affected the discretionary sales of bonds by fund managers and flows by ultimate investors, conditional on fund liquidity and maturity structure. We find that more liquid and longer duration funds exhibit less sensitivity to pre-default funds’ exposure in terms of bond holding growth. Our second finding deals with asymmetric information among funds regarding the restructuring of post-default bonds and varying renegotiation costs. These costs are proxied by funds’ previous experience of holding the defaulted Argentinian debt interacted with fund’s distance to Buenos Aires. We confirm our hypothesis that the experienced North American funds with the lowest renegotiation costs retained more of their holdings of Argentinian bonds than all other groups

Confronted with COVID-19, high-income Gulf countries have done better than most of their middle- and low-income neighbours; Jordan and Morocco are also positive exceptions.

In 2021, Dzhunusov and Zaitseva classified two-dimensional normal affine commutative algebraic monoids. In this work, we extend this classification to noncommutative monoid structures on normal affine surfaces. We prove that two-dimensional algebraic monoids are toric. We also show how to find all monoid structures on a normal toric surface. Every such structure is induced by a comultiplication formula involving Demazure roots. We also give descriptions of opposite monoids, quotient monoids, and boundary divisors.

The most recent inflation data from the US and several other countries signal that consumer prices started to rise. The question remains open whether this is a temporary post-pandemic rebound or the beginning of a more persistent inflationary trend

The paper studies the procedure for restoring discreet segments of an unknown source message based on information about possible variants of each sign. An algorithm is proposed based on compiling dictionaries of appropriate lengths, searching for text sections with a total number of character variants that do not exceed a given boundary, and then iterating through and eliminating false variants of dictionary values. Statistical properties of short-length text dictionaries are investigated, and extrapolation estimates are made for long-length texts. The main mathematical properties of this algorithm are described. Theoretical studies of the effectiveness of the procedure under consideration are carried out within the framework of a certain probability-theoretical model.

For each integer n>0, we construct a series of irreducible algebraic varieties X, for which the automorphism group Aut(X) contains as a subgroup the automorphism group Aut(F_n) of a free group F_n of rank n. For n > 1, such groups Aut(X) are nonamenable, and for n > 2, they are nonlinear and contain the braid group B_n. Some of these varieties X are affine, and among affine, some are rational and some are not, some are smooth and some are singular. The byproduct is that for n > 2, each Cremona group of rank > 3n-1 contains Aut(F_n) and the braid group B_n.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a substantial increase in the prevalence of working from home among white-collar occupations. This can have important implications for the future of the workplace and quality of life. We discuss an additional implication, which we label reverse brain drain: the possibility that white-collar migrant workers return to live in their countries of origin while continuing to work for employers in their countries of destination. We estimate the potential size of this reverse flow using data from the European Labor Force Survey. Our estimates suggest that the UK, France, Switzerland and Germany each have around half a million skilled migrants who could perform their jobs from their home countries. Most of them originate from the other EU member states: both old and new. We discuss the potential economic, social and political implications of such reverse brain drain.

Individuals with special education needs have been particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as they have been shown to be at high risk of losing medical and institutional support at a time when people are being asked to stay isolated, suffering increased anxiety and depression as a consequence. Their families have often found themselves under tremendous pressure to provide support, engendering financial hardship, and physical and emotional strains. In such times, it is vital that international collaborations assess the impact on the individuals and their families, affording the opportunity to make national and international comparisons of how people have coped and what needs to be done to optimize the measures taken by families, associations and governments. This paper introduces one such collaboration.

Starting with exploration of the possibility to present the underlying variety of an affine algebraic group in the form of a product of some algebraic varieties, we then explore the naturally arising problem as to what extent the group variety of an algebraic group determines its group structure.

This paper considers non-financial information disclosure impact on the cost of capital in the forms of cost of equity, cost of debt, and the weighted average cost of equity (WACC) in the BRICS countries. It was revealed that companies published non-financial report have lower cost of capital. Cost of debt, cost of equity, and WACC reduces after non-financial report publication. Six industries, where the cost of equity and debt capitals is lower for companies published non-financial reports, were determined: consumer discretionary, energy, industrials, information technology, healthcare, and materials. Moreover, according to the analysis, companies that issued non-financial reports have a lower cost of equity capital growth rate.

The dynamics of a multiplex heterogeneous network of oscillators is studied. Two types of similar models based on the Hodgkin-Huxley formalism are used as the basic elements of the networks. The first type model demonstrates bursting oscillations. The second model demonstrates bistability between bursting attractor and stable steady state. Basin of attraction of the stable equilibrium in the model is very small. Bistabilty is a result taking into account an additional ion channel, which has a non-monotonic characteristic and can be interpreted as a channel with a communication defect. Suggested multiplex networks assumed more active communication between models with a defect as a result in such networks it is enough to have one element with a communication defect in the subnetworks in order to stabilize the state of equilibrium in the entire network.

The economic characteristics of the COVID-19 crisis differ from those of previous crises. It is a combination of demand- and supply-side constraints which led to the formation of a monetary overhang that will be unfrozen once the pandemic ends. Monetary policy must take this effect into consideration, along with other pro-inflationary factors, in the post-pandemic era. It must also think in advance about how to avoid a policy trap coming from fiscal dominance. This paper was provided by the Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies at the request of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) ahead of the Monetary Dialogue with the ECB President on 18 March 2021.  

Work forms one of the important spheres of life and is one of the main determinants of subjective well-being in general and life satisfaction in particular (Argyle 2001; Sousa-Poza & Sousa-Poza 2000). The study aims to disclose the impact of work values and socio-demographic characteristics upon the link between life satisfaction and job satisfaction. The European Values Study 2008-2009 is used as dataset. The sample is limited to those who have jobs (28 653 cases). The results confirm findings from the literature that intrinsic motivation increases life satisfaction (Vansteenkiste 2007). It is in line with self-determination theory according to which pursuit of intrinsic motivation facilitates satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Kasser, 2002). Sharing extrinsic values decreases life satisfaction.  The association between life satisfaction and job satisfaction is stronger for higher educated individuals and self-employed and weaker for women, married individuals, religious individuals and those of younger age. These results are due to the different of job in life of people with different characteristics. The link between life satisfaction and job satisfaction is the same in countries with low and high GDP per capita.

This paper presents a forecast combination approach for short-term assessment of economic growth in Russia. Our method significantly expands the existing domestic academic literature and embraces most advanced nowcasting techniques. The key feature of our approach is forecasting the growth rates of components GDP by expenditure using scenario indicators and a huge set of high-frequency predictors. The total number of combined models is nearly 500. Comparing our approach with popular benchmark models over the period from January 2003 to March 2020, we conclude that our method has higher accuracy of short-term GDP forecasting. The findings of this research may be useful for the development of monetary and communication policy in Russia.

The Short-Term Mortality Fluctuations (STMF) data series provides an opportunity for analysis of intra-annual excess mortality, in particular, human losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the STMF has a limitation caused by the nature of the collected original weekly death counts. In many countries, weekly death counts are available only by broad age groups or/and are too small and shaky. Moreover, the original age scales somewhat vary by country. Thus, the STMF data file presents weekly deaths and death rates by broad age intervals. This simplifies the usage of the STMF and helps to conduct analyses but limits the comparability of results across countries and time. The comparisons may be biased due to differences between the population age composition. This study addresses the problem by providing a method for the estimation of week-specific standardized death rates (SDRs) that combines the aggregated weekly mortality data with detailed annual data on mortality and population. This allows deriving annual transition coefficients for the transformation of crude death rates into SDRs. We show that the derived SDRs approximate well exact SDRs across time and countries.

In this study we analyze the convergence of GDP per capita from 2000 to2013 (current prices and euro exchange rates) for eight countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) of the European Union (CEE8). Some convergence indicators are also calculated for the CEE8 as a whole. The main purpose of this study is to shed some light on the impact of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on regional convergence in advanced emerging countries, like the CEE8. The main result of random effects panel regressions for unconditional beta-convergence is that significant convergence is found for the whole period from 2000-2013, but not for sub-periods on either end of the sample, except for Hungary and Poland. This means that convergence in most CEECs is only significant if the GFC is included in the estimation period. The role of capital regions for the convergence process is an item for future research.

More than a half a century ago, Bela Balassa proposed his famous revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index which represents the intensity of exports and can be represented as the ratio of actual-to-expected trade. Today, the index is still applied in the majority of empirical comparative advantage studies, though many alternative indices that account for the demand dimension by capturing imports have been proposed, and theoretical considerations indicate that a proper RCA index should be based on net trade. However, these alternatives cannot be represented as the ratio of actual-to-expected trade. We develop a new net trade RCA (ntRCA) index which estimates the comparative advantage from net trade and can be presented as the ratio of actual-to-expected net trade. The index is interpreted as the relative ability of a country to gain from trade in a certain product.