Innovative competitiveness of russian regions

The article analyses the competitive challenges of Russian regional economies and proposes ways of selecting competitive priorities. The author assumes that selection of priorities for improving a region’s innovative competitiveness should involve not only its innovative R&D potential but also the effects that innovative and socio-economic development of the regions have on each other. This is because a region’s innovative competitiveness manifests itself in both its ability to create innovation and its increased resistance based on such innovation, and, therefore, it is closely related to its industrial and technological type from the outset. The analysis of research and innovative potentials of Russian regions shows that their innovative competitiveness has been deteriorating largely for the reason that modern Russia lacks any significant groups of political influence whose interests would be closely related to the development of the engineering industry, high technologies, and restoration of a sound industrial structure. The article shows mutual dependence between the socially required level of support to the regions’ innovative competitiveness and the innovation requirements of the industries with prevailing levels of technological efficiency. The author proposes a methodological approach to the selection of priorities for increasing the innovative competitiveness of Russian regions. Such priorities should take into account maintenance and enhancement of the research and innovative potentials of the country, on the one hand, and the need to improve regions’ sustainability, on the other hand. With the contemporary statistic base in mind, the author has created an integrated development priority index for regional innovation centers intended to increase the resistance of the manufacturers with various research intensity levels. The article rates Russian regions according to the technological complexity (high, mid, low, resource-extracting) required by the innovation centers to be created taking metallurgy as an example. The author suggests ways to increase the innovative competitiveness of Russian regions of various industrial and technological types. The article is intended for experts in theoretical and practical management of innovation.The article has been prepared with the support of the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation, Project 14-02-00331 "Region’s Innovative and Technological Development: Assessment, Projections, and Ways of Progressing.

Three strong women : from care to university

Poor educational 'outcomes' of looked after children have been a matter of increasing concern. This article explores some of the factors that might make for educational success by looking at the experiences of three young women who have been in care in Scotland and who have since progressed to university. By exploring these three stories, it is hoped that practitioners and researchers will gain a helpful insight into the crucial factors for them as individuals

Promoting women participation in fish culture enterprises - as a means of poverty alleviation in Nigeria

One major aspect of the poverty status in Nigeria is the high rate of unemployment with the attendant economic in capacity, which in turn is responsible for the persistent problem of malnutrition over the decades. This paper is focused on how women can be empowered for better productivity in fish culture enterprises, seeing that women have been active in different aspects of agricultural production. They also sustain more than half of the developing countries such as Nigeria. Some problems being encountered by would be women fish farmers and suggestions on how women participation in fish and shellfish culture enterprises can be enhanced are proffered. The major ones being those sustainable policies by the Government State ADPs and NGOs are applied to ensure adequate motivation of women for fish culture enterprise

The formation of nodular structures in the top layer of ultrafiltration membranes

The formation of nodular structures in the top layer of ultrafiltration membranes is considered. A critical review of mechanisms described in the literature is given. Flat-sheet poly(ether sulfone) membranes and hollow-fiber poly(ether sulfone)/polyvinylpyrrolidone membranes were made by coagulation of a polymer solution in a nonsolvent medium under different circumstances. From these experiments, a number of empirical rules are found to describe the resulting morphology of the top layer. A new mechanism for the formation of a nodular structure is proposed. It is based on the small diffusion coefficient of the polymer molecules compared to the diffusion coefficient of solvent and nonsolvent combined with a high degree of entanglement of the polymer network. For unstable compositions, phase separation will proceed by growth in amplitude of concentration fluctuations. The rapid diffusional exchange of solvent for nonsolvent in the top layer leads to vitrification of the maxima of the concentration fluctuations that form the nodules. Complete disentanglement of the polymer chains between the nodules is not reached, which explains the small pores and the low porosity of ultrafiltration membranes

Pre-Harvest light intensity affects shelf-Life of fresh-cut lettuce

The industry of fresh-cut produce is continuously growing due to increasing demand for fresh, healthy and convenient foods. However, processing of vegetables accelerates quality deterioration due to structural, physiological and biochemical changes. Therefore, the value of the produce to the consumer is decreased by negative changes in appearance, texture, flavor and nutritional value. Cultivation practices, such as nitrogen application, light and temperature regimes and, the choice of varieties with a higher resistance to processing might greatly influence the postharvest characteristics of lettuce. In this study, the effect of light intensity during growth on shelf-life of fresh-cut lettuce was examined in different varieties. Plants were grown under controlled environmental conditions with day/night temperature 20°C/15°C, relative humidity of 70% and high (250 µmol m-2 s-1) or moderate (120 µmol m-2 s-1) photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) provided by white fluorescent tubes, with a 12h photoperiod. The shelf-life of plants grown under high light was two-fold that of the plants grown under moderate light. The level of leaf chlorophyll differed between light treatments and varieties. The variety with highest pre-harvest chlorophyll content had the shortest shelf life under both light conditions. The shelf life data are supported by chlorophyll fluorescence images indicating that the latter technique may be used as a quality evaluation tool

Robust saturated control of human-induced floor vibrations via a proof-mass actuator

This paper is concerned with the design of a robust active vibration control system that makes use of a proof-mass actuator for the mitigation of human-induced vibrations in floor structures. Ideally, velocity feedback control (VFC) is unconditionally stable and robust to spillover effects, interlacing of poles and zeros of collocated control is then accomplished. However, the use of a proof-mass actuator influences the system dynamics and the alternating pole-zero pattern of the system formed by the actuator and structure is no longer fulfilled. However, a controlled migration of the two zeros of the root locus plot at the origin, resulting from the acceleration output, can be achieved by adding a feed-through term (FTT) to the structure acceleration output. That is, the FTT enables us to control the position of a pair of complex conjugate zeros (an anti-resonance in the frequency domain). This paper proposes the introduction of an FTT designed in such a way that the anti-resonance at the origin is located between the actuator resonance and the structure fundamental resonance. Hence, an integral controller leads to infinite gain margin and significant phase margin. Simulation and experimental results on a concrete slab strip have validated the proposed control strategy. Significant improvements in the stability properties compared with VFC are reported

A Reason for Sophisticated Investors not to seize Arbitrage Opportunities in Markets without Frictions

An example shows that for sophisticated consumers with changing preferences it can be perfectly rational not to seize arbitrage opportunities in markets without frictions.financial economics and financial management ;

The Hyperbolic Factor: a Measure of Decreasing Impatience

Many studies have found that discounting is hyperbolic rather than constant. Hyperbolicdiscounting is becoming increasingly popular in economic applications. Most studies thatprovide evidence in favor of hyperbolic discounting either are merely qualitative or theydepend on assumptions about, or parametric fittings of, utility functions. This paper provides a quantitative measure for the degree of deviation from stationarity that can overcome the problems mentioned. This measure, the hyperbolic factor, can easily be calculated from data and does not require knowledge of the utility function. Moreover, it provides simple preference foundations of the most popular discount functions. Thus, the hyperbolic factor provides an easy tool for theoretical preference foundations, critical empirical tests, and quantitative measurements of hyperbolic discounting.Economics ;