Article
Roots of Friendship: Socio-Behavioral and Psychological Foundations of Male Alliances
The summary paper argues that the phenomenon of male alliance (friendship) emerges as a consequence of mutual preference demonstrated by male individuals - both human and animal, - and such preference can be empirically captured. Friendly relations between men are built on two different foundations: (1) the principle of biological and social similarity and (2) the principle of psychological complementarity of the alliance members. Friendship is predominantly formed between boys and men of the same ethnic (racial) origin, similar age, behavior, and common social background. By contrast, psychologically friends are selected based on the complementarity of their temperament and main personality traits, such as ergonicity, sthenicity, emotionality, neophobia/neophilia, extraversion/introversion, dependence/independence of behavior, and dominance/submissiveness. These principles trigger the following key effects: a person is more likely to develop an individual preference and find a friend in childhood, and the number of potential friends is very limited.
The monograph discusses theoretical and practical approaches to economic effectiveness and efficiency of information systems (IS) estimation in Russian economy. First, the book considers modern theoretical results. Firm level empirical tests of IT and IS influence on productivity, such as estimation of computer capital impact on productivity; lagged effects of IT, complementary relations between computer, organization and human capital are of special interest.
The author tested some hypotheses on samples of Russian firms. For example, positive effect of computer capital on productivity was tested on a sample of 200 firms. Complementary relations between computer and organizational capital were investigated on some cases of Russian firms.
Theoretical advances enabled improvement of IT effectiveness estimation in practice. For this author purposes a number of new instruments such as map of organizational practice, extended matrix of change, a set of models for allocating IT costs across IT services within the firm. Existing methodologies of IT economic effectiveness and efficiency analysis are discussed as well.
Author acknowledges Michail Lugachyov, Chief of the Economic faculty IS economics department for consistent support of this research and important comments, Konstantin Zimin for access to unique set of data on IT expenses in Russian firms, Vladimir Ananyin and Pavel Alfyorov for useful discussions.
This paper reports a Foresight exercise, which was carried out to develop a research strategy and a business model for the science park of Ankara University (AU). Science parks have been crucial elements of innovation systems both in developed and developing countries due to their role in bridging the gap between academia and business through knowledge spill-overs and spin-offs. Although there is a widespread consensus about the usefulness of the science park concept, the actual performance of science parks and how well they meet expectations have been controversial. This paper discusses the success factors for science parks. A three dimensional policy framework, which includes ‘complementarity’, ‘networking’ and ‘strategic scalar positioning’ is suggested to be taken into account during the design and operation of science parks. The paper describes the Foresight process and the policies and strategies developed by using the three dimensional policy framework proposed for the newly established science park at Ankara University.
Properties of increasing positively homogeneous functions are studied; in particular, their representations by use of tropical inner products with coefficients chosen from tropical support sets are described. An application to a model of economic complementarityand weak links is developed. It is shown that weak links do not necessary bound total factor productivity from below but in some cases constraint it from above.
The heterogeneity of our visual environment typically reduces the speed with which a singleton target can be found. Visual search theories explain this via nontarget similarities and dissimilarities that affect grouping, perceptual noise, etc. Here, we show that increasing the heterogeneity of a display can facilitate rather than inhibit visual search for size and orientation singletons when heterogeneous features smoothly fill the transition between highly distinguishable nontargets. We suggest that this smooth transition reduce the “segmentability” of dissimilar items to otherwise separate subsets making the visual system to treat them as a near-homogenous sets opposing to a singleton.
Into the Red explores the emergence of a credit card market in post-Soviet Russia during the formative period from 1988 to 2007. In her analysis, Alya Guseva locates the dynamics of market building in the social structure, specifically the creative use of social networks. Until now, network scholars have overlooked the role that networks play in facilitating exchange in mass markets because they have exclusively focused on firm-to-firm or person-to-person ties. Into the Reddemonstrates how networks that combine individuals and organizations help to build markets for mass consumption. The book is situated on the cutting edge of emerging interdisciplinary research, linking multiple layers of analysis with institutional evolution. Using an intricate framework, Guseva chronicles both the creation of a credit card market and the making of a mass consumer. These processes are placed in the context of the ongoing restructuring in postcommunist Russia and the expansion of Western markets and ideologies through the rest of the world.
Despite the fact that the range of players in telecommunication market is not large, the companies operate in continuously increasing competition on one side and slowing extensive growth of the industry on the other. This leads companies to an understanding the fact that the efforts of the company's management should be directed to the area of intensive growth. One of the factors that increase the intensification of a telecommunication company is planning a tariff policy strategy. This paper is devoted to forming the tariff policy of a company with regard to the preferences of subscribers.
The paper examines social differences in the understanding of the concept of ‘friendship’ in late 18th – early 19th century Russia deployed in the unpublished correspondence of Count Aleksandr Vorontsov, a member of the social elite of the Catherinean Age, and Aleksei D´iakonov, an obscure official who was Vorontsov’s client. While letter exchange was a kind of freemasonic practice, and both correspondents were members of a Masonic lodge, Vorontsov used sentimentalist language and addressed his client as “friend,” trying to erase or at least obscure the social boundaries between them. Social equality, even as a rhetorical formula, was progressively becoming possible between an aristocrat and an educated commoner such as D´iakonov, and it unfolded in rhetorical terms. D´iakonov adopted vis-à-vis his patron an attitude that reflected their respective positions on the hierarchical ladder, thus conforming to the traditional behavior of a Russian official and avoiding Western (Masonic, or sentimentalist) rhetoric of equality.
The distractive effects on attentional task performance in different paradigms are analyzed in this paper. I demonstrate how distractors may negatively affect (interference effect), positively (redundancy effect) or neutrally (null effect). Distractor effects described in literature are classified in accordance with their hypothetical source. The general rule of the theory is also introduced. It contains the formal prediction of the particular distractor effect, based on entropy and redundancy measures from the mathematical theory of communication (Shannon, 1948). Single- vs dual-process frameworks are considered for hypothetical mechanisms which underpin the distractor effects. Distractor profiles (DPs) are also introduced for the formalization and simple visualization of experimental data concerning the distractor effects. Typical shapes of DPs and their interpretations are discussed with examples from three frequently cited experiments. Finally, the paper introduces hierarchical hypothesis that states the level-fashion modulating interrelations between distractor effects of different classes.
This article describes the expierence of studying factors influencing the social well-being of educational migrants as mesured by means of a psychological well-being scale (A. Perrudet-Badoux, G.A. Mendelsohn, J.Chiche, 1988) previously adapted for Russian by M.V. Sokolova. A statistical analysis of the scale's reliability is performed. Trends in dynamics of subjective well-being are indentified on the basis the correlations analysis between the condbtbions of adaptation and its success rate, and potential mechanisms for developing subjective well-being among student migrants living in student hostels are described. Particular attention is paid to commuting as a factor of adaptation.