Book
Advances in Social Science, Management and Human Behaviour
The world is changing. From shopping malls to transport terminals, aircraft to passenger ships, the infrastructure of society has to cope with ever more intense and complex flows of people. Today, more than ever, safety, efficiency and comfort are issues that must be addressed by all designers. The World Trade Centre disaster brought into tragic focus the need for well-designed evacuation systems. The new regulatory framework in the marine industry, acknowledges not only the importance of ensuring that the built environment is safe, but also the central role that evacuation simulation can play in achieving this.
An additional need is to design spaces for efficiency – ensuring that maximum throughput can be achieved during normal operations – and comfort – ensuring that the resulting flows offer little opportunity for needless queuing or excessive congestion. These complex demands challenge traditional prescriptive design guides and regulations. Designers and regulators are consequently turning to performance-based analysis and regulations facilitated by the new generation of people movement models.
Technical competencies and specific engineering skills alone are not sufficient in the modern labor market but employers expect engineers to actively promote the products they create. Engineers often perceive their skills differently than employers do. Insufficient university training in a number of fields including the development of social, management and communication skills leads to an objective and understandable gap between the perceived and the required levels of such competencies. Based on the results of a survey of 3158 engineers conducted in 2011 in the Russian Federation, the study shows a number of deficits in the perception of innovation skills and the respective demand for these.
Technical competencies and specific engineering skills alone are not sufficient in the modern labor market but employers expect engineers to actively promote the products they create. Engineers often perceive their skills differently than employers do. Insufficient university training in a number of fields including the development of social, management and communication skills leads to an objective and understandable gap between the perceived and the required levels of such competencies. Based on the results of a survey of 3158 engineers conducted in 2011 in the Russian Federation, the study shows a number of deficits in the perception of innovation skills and the respective demand for these.
Already enough long time the Russian economy operates in rather stable macroeconomic conditions provided by existence of oil and gas "pillow". Even world financial crisis of 2008- 2009 didn't lead to long and essential falling of the prices for oil that allowed Russia to continue the policy on stabilizing the main macroeconomic indicators. At the same time, proclaimed by Russian Government, course on modernization of economy (actually proclaimed at the beginning of the 2000s, but not just at recent 4 years) should cause definite changes in national innovative system during this period and in these favorable financial conditions. In this article we will consider how the technological profile of the Russian innovative system has been changed and what forms of innovative behavior of key economic agents were established.
Smoking is a problem, bringing signifi cant social and economic costs to Russiansociety. However, ratifi cation of the World health organization Framework conventionon tobacco control makes it possible to improve Russian legislation accordingto the international standards. So, I describe some measures that should be taken bythe Russian authorities in the nearest future, and I examine their effi ciency. By studyingthe international evidence I analyze the impact of the smoke-free areas, advertisementand sponsorship bans, tax increases, etc. on the prevalence of smoking, cigaretteconsumption and some other indicators. I also investigate the obstacles confrontingthe Russian authorities when they introduce new policy measures and the public attitudetowards these measures. I conclude that there is a number of easy-to-implementanti-smoking activities that need no fi nancial resources but only a political will.
One of the most important indicators of company's success is the increase of its value. The article investigates traditional methods of company's value assessment and the evidence that the application of these methods is incorrect in the new stage of economy. So it is necessary to create a new method of valuation based on the new main sources of company's success that is its intellectual capital.