The Banking System in Kazakstan

The Kazakstani banking system, its youthfulness notwithstanding, is developing rapidly. The paper provides an overview of the development experienced by the banking system in Kazakstan focusing on several different sides of the issue, such as the role of the National Bank, its strategy for the recovery of the commercial banks, the privatization of the banks and the financial system model to be adopted.Kazakstan, National Bank, Economic Reform, Financial Sector, Economic Transition

Privatization in Mongolia

This report is divided into four parts. The first part discusses the first wave of privatization. The second part discusses the development of the capital market in Mongolia; the third part presents and discusses the second wave cash privatization program. And the fourth part offers some new options.Privatization, Mongolia, Transition Economies

Privatization in the Republic of Kazakhstan

In 1991 the Kazakhstan government has embarked on an ambitious economic reform program, in which privatization would be both the driving force and an important component for the successful transformation of the Kazakh economy. A fast transferal of government-owned assets and services to the private sector was regarded as the key to the success of all these transformation efforts. The paper provides an analyses of the first two phases of privatization process in Kazakhstan.Kazakhstan, Privatization, Transition

Voucher Privatization in Russia: First results and experiences

The main political problem faced by architects of the Russian VPP was the question of satisfying the interests of all partners taking part in privatization: employees, management, citizens and potential strategic investors. Therefore, a very rigid procedure of shares distribution was introduced in the program. This procedure assumed three rounds: closed subscription round,voucher auctions round and investment tenders round. Length: 47 PagesVoucher, privatization, transition economies

Foreign Privatization in Poland

Article describes role foreign direct investment (FDI) in long-term development of the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. FDI is the most common vehicle used by foreign investors when entering new markets with their own products and technologies. CEE countries have a large potential need for FDI. Foreign investments can be the driving forces toward achieving the four following goals: combat the lack of foreign capital, accelerate the privatization process of CEE economies, introduce modern technology and management techniques, supply the local markets with quality products. Early optimism about CEE economic reforms and resulting large FDI inflows was based on the expected opening up of new markets with good growth prospects, the existence of a skilled labor force and low labor costs, and relatively low cultural barriers, particularly for West European companies investing in Central Europe. The emergence of a large number of potentially highly profitable new investment opportunities was expected to generate a flow of FDI as well as internal funds to finance new investment. Since then, both sides have reassessed the potential costs and benefits. To date, the volume of FDI into CEE countries has been very small, the technology is in most cases outdated, and the management skills of Western investors are disappointing. From the other side, the costs of doing business for Western companies in the CEE are much higher than they expected and the anticipated benefits have been lower, at least in the short to medium term. Is there a more accurate assessment of the that situation? In this paper, the authors attempt to: present the real growth in FDI from a global perspective; examine the structure of the CEE investment; put forth some basic political recommendations to promote an active strategy and policy towards FDI which the CEE countries can incorporate into the enhancement of their indigenous competitive advantage and capabilities.Central and Eastern Europe, Foreign Direct Investment, Economic Reforms

The Coming Transformative Impact of Large Language Models and Artificial Intelligence on Global Business and Education

Rapid advances in the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLM) as a basis for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, and their sudden wide accessibility, have garnered significant attention recently. These technologies (e.g., ChatGPT, BARD), which have the ability to predict and generate human language, have led to excitement and concerns regarding their use in various industries. This paper explores the history of LLM, examines their applications in business and education, and delves into the critical ethical concerns and challenges of these emerging technologies to ensure that their uses are not only effective, but also responsible and equitable

CLI Crawler

Many systems within the IT infrastructure have a Command Line Interface (CLI) for configuration changes. Some of these systems may expose a Configuration Management interface over a web service but this web service usually only exposes a fraction of the configuration possibilities in a CLI. Thus it would be of great help to investigate how a framework for automated CLI discovery can be developed, which is what this bachelor’s thesis is about. One objective of the bachelor’s thesis was to determine the best possible way to access the command structure of CLIs and to determine how a CLI discovery application can be developed. The other objective was to develop such a prototype. Such a CLI discovery application must support exporting the result of the discovery process into a YANG model (a hierarchical modeling language for NETCONF) in the future. A prototype, CLI Crawler, was developed. CLI Crawler was designed to be as automated as possible, however during the discovery process user interaction is required in order to help CLI Crawler get past certain obstacles. Such an obstacle could be when a CLI requires a certain input that only the user has knowledge of. At first CLI Crawler connects to a remote system with the use of Secure Shell (SSH) or Terminal Network (Telnet). Thereafter the discovery process is started which traverses all of the possible commands, modes and attributes in a certain CLI. During such a discovery process the command structure is both being printed in real-time in the GUI as a hierarchical tree structure and added to a database which will be used for exporting the command structure as YANG in the future. CLI Crawler shows that it is possible to develop a framework for automated CLI discovery. However more work and research has to be done before CLI Crawler will become a viable way of discovering and representing a CLI’s command structure. For instance more CLIs have to be integrated with CLI Crawler in order to make them compatible with the discovery process

Demographic responses of boreal-montane orchid Malaxis monophyllos (L.) Sw. populations to contrasting environmental conditions

In an age of changes in species’ geographical ranges, compounded by climatic and anthropogenic impacts, it become important to know which processes and factors influence plant populations and their persistence in the long term.Here we investigated dynamic and fitness components in twelve populations of Malaxis monophyllos (L.) Sw., situated in different geographical (regions) and ecological (type of habitat) units. Although M. monophyllos is a rare species, characterized by highly fragmented, boreal-montane distribution range, in last few decades it successfully colonized secondary habitats in Polish uplands. Our results indicate that M. monophyllos is represented mainly by small populations, which annual spatial and temporal changes might be very high, what affects the ephemeral character of these populations, regardless of the region and type of habitat. This dynamic structure, in turn, is caused by intensive exchange of individuals in populations, as well as by their short above-ground life span. Despite the large range of variation in size and reproductive traits, we can distinguish some regional patterns, which indicate boreal region as the most optimal for M. monophyllos growth and persistence in the long term, and with montane and upland/anthropogenic populations, due to lower reproductive parameters, as the most threatened. Although it should be considered that anthropogenic populations, despite their lower reproductive parameters and instability in the long term, present an intermediate, geographical and ecological character, therefore they may be valuable in shaping, both M. monophyllos’ future range, as well as its potential for response on ongoing and future changes. In general, reproduction is the main factor differentiating of M. monophyllos populations in regions, and we can suspect that it may become the cause of the future differentiation and isolation of these populations, occurring with progressive range fragmentation

Microvascular Decompression: Salient Surgical Principles and Technical Nuances

Trigeminal neuralgia is a disorder associated with severe episodes of lancinating pain in the distribution of the trigeminal nerve. Previous reports indicate that 80-90% of cases are related to compression of the trigeminal nerve by an adjacent vessel. The majority of patients with trigeminal neuralgia eventually require surgical management in order to achieve remission of symptoms. Surgical options for management include ablative procedures (e.g., radiosurgery, percutaneous radiofrequency lesioning, balloon compression, glycerol rhizolysis, etc.) and microvascular decompression. Ablative procedures fail to address the root cause of the disorder and are less effective at preventing recurrence of symptoms over the long term than microvascular decompression. However, microvascular decompression is inherently more invasive than ablative procedures and is associated with increased surgical risks. Previous studies have demonstrated a correlation between surgeon experience and patient outcome in microvascular decompression. In this series of 59 patients operated on by two neurosurgeons (JSN and PEK) since 2006, 93% of patients demonstrated substantial improvement in their trigeminal neuralgia following the procedure—with follow-up ranging from 6 weeks to 2 years. Moreover, 41 of 66 patients (approximately 64%) have been entirely pain-free following the operation