Peculiarities of formation of competitive strategy of the enterprises of flour-milling branch of Ukraine

The article deals with the peculiarities of formation of competitive strategy of the enterprises of flour-milling branch of Ukraine. The paper substantiates the necessity to determine the stage of the life cycle of the industry in the process of formation of the competitive strategy. The market analysis of flour-milling industry of Ukraine is carried out on indicators: size of the market, commodity nomenclature, buyers and their behavior, raw material base and intensity of competition.  The paper determines that the flour-milling industry of Ukraine is at the stage of growth and has a number of tendencies, such as: decrease   in sales volumes, increase in export volumes, standardization of products and average level of competition intensity. The following stages of the life cycle of the industry are studied: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. The paper proves the necessity of distinguishing the stage of renewal in the life cycle of the industry, which is implemented on the basis of modern technologies. The practical significance of the research consists in developing recommendations for choosing a competitive strategy of the flour mill enterprise in accordance with the stage of the life cycle of the industry. The enterprises of the flour-milling industry of Ukraine, in accordance with the stage of the life cycle of the industry are recommended to form competitive advantages on the basis of the concept of "lean production"

APPLICATION OF ICT FOR EXPERT ASSESSMENT OF LATENT VARIABLES IN PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH

The article analyzes the approaches to the study of latent variables in psychological and pedagogical research. The study confirms that some competences and personal qualities belong to the latent constructs (tolerance, readiness for life-long learning, value orientations, etc.) that are difficult to measure. To make their assessment more accurate and reliable, the expert evaluation method with ICT support is suggested providing for the involvement of a greater number of experts in the assessment process. The pedagogical expertise, covering a set of procedures necessary for getting collective expert opinion or assessment of a pedagogical object, phenomenon or process, is considered as the core of the expert evaluation method. The developed ICT assessment support for latent variables evaluation is oriented at the three-level classification of competences. It provides for determining the level of development of social-personal, general-scientific, instrumental, general-professional and specialized-professional competences (the first level of classification) and their constituent structural parts (the second level of classification) as well as the level of acquired knowledge, skills, values and personal qualities (the third level of classification). The developed ICT assessment tool includes the data concerning the Author (Developer), Experts, Expert Assessment, the indices obtained as a result of the analysis of Expert Assessment (Coefficients). Experts are expected to assess the significance of smaller structural units correlating them with the larger ones. Initially, the development level of every individual competence in correlation with the social and professional competence is assessed in percentage; the acquisition of social and professional competence is taken as 100%. Then the significance index of the competences that are the structural parts of every given competence is determined; the significance index of competence structural parts in reference to the relevant competence is assessed

Comparative ultrafast spectroscopy and structural analysis of OCP1 and OCP2 from Tolypothrix.

The orange carotenoid protein (OCP) is a structurally and functionally modular photoactive protein involved in cyanobacterial photoprotection. Recently, based on bioinformatic analysis and phylogenetic relationships, new families of OCP have been described, OCP2 and OCPx. The first characterization of the OCP2 showed both faster photoconversion and back-conversion, and lower fluorescence quenching of phycobilisomes relative to the well-characterized OCP1. Moreover, OCP2 is not regulated by the fluorescence recovery protein (FRP). In this work, we present a comprehensive study combining ultrafast spectroscopy and structural analysis to compare the photoactivation mechanisms of OCP1 and OCP2 from Tolypothrix PCC 7601. We show that despite significant differences in their functional characteristics, the spectroscopic properties of OCP1 and OCP2 are comparable. This indicates that the OCP functionality is not directly related to the spectroscopic properties of the bound carotenoid. In addition, the structural analysis by X-ray footprinting reveals that, overall, OCP1 and OCP2 have grossly the same photoactivation mechanism. However, the OCP2 is less reactive to radiolytic labeling, suggesting that the protein is less flexible than OCP1. This observation could explain fast photoconversion of OCP2

The three-dimensional structure of Drosophila melanogaster (6-4) photolyase at room temperature

(6-4) photolyases are flavoproteins that belong to the photolyase/cryptochrome family. Their function is to repair DNA lesions using visible light. Here, crystal structures of Drosophila melanogaster (6-4) photolyase [Dm(6-4)photolyase] at room and cryogenic temperatures are reported. The room-temperature structure was solved to 2.27 angstrom resolution and was obtained by serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) using an X-ray free-electron laser. The crystallization and preparation conditions are also reported. The cryogenic structure was solved to 1.79 angstrom resolution using conventional X-ray crystallography. The structures agree with each other, indicating that the structural information obtained from crystallography at cryogenic temperature also applies at room temperature. Furthermore, UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy confirms that Dm(6-4)photolyase is photoactive in the crystals, giving a green light to time-resolved SFX studies on the protein, which can reveal the structural mechanism of the photoactivated protein in DNA repair.Peer reviewe

The primary structural photoresponse of phytochrome proteins captured by a femtosecond X-ray laser

Phytochrome proteins control the growth, reproduction, and photosynthesis of plants, fungi, and bacteria. Light is detected by a bilin cofactor, but it remains elusive how this leads to activation of the protein through structural changes. We present serial femtosecond X-ray crystallographic data of the chromophore-binding domains of a bacterial phytochrome at delay times of 1 ps and 10 ps after photoexcitation. The data reveal a twist of the D-ring, which leads to partial detachment of the chromophore from the protein. Unexpectedly, the conserved so-called pyrrole water is photodissociated from the chromophore, concomitant with movement of the A-ring and a key signaling aspartate. The changes are wired together by ultrafast backbone and water movements around the chromophore, channeling them into signal transduction towards the output domains. We suggest that the observed collective changes are important for the phytochrome photoresponse, explaining the earliest steps of how plants, fungi and bacteria sense red light.Peer reviewe

Časově rozlišená spektroskopie světlem indukovaných procesů

This Ph.D. thesis is devoted to the study of the photophysical properties of photosynthetic pigments. The brief introduction to the field is given in Chapter 1. In studies presented in the thesis, femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy was used to determine the relation between the molecular structure of carotenoids and its spectroscopic properties. The experimental and data analysis methods are described in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 addresses the investigation of the effect of isomerization on excited-state dynamics of the carbonyl carotenoid fucoxanthin. In Chapter 4, the different response of carbonyl carotenoids to solvent proticity is used to estimate the structure of an unknown carotenoid from Chromera velia. In Chapter 5, spectroscopic properties of the S1 state of three linear carotenoids were studied after excess energy excitation in the S2 state. Chapter 6 presents a femtosecond spectroscopic comparison study of Orange and Red Carotenoid Proteins binding different carotenoids

Effect of Isomerization on Excited-State Dynamics of Carotenoid Fucoxanthin

Ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy and single-wavelength anisotropy measurements were used to study the effect of isomerization on the excited-state properties of fucoxanthin in polar and nonpolar solvents. The excitation wavelengths were 477 nm for all-trans-fucoxanthin, and 333 and 477 nm for cis-fucoxanthin. All transient absorption spectra of the fucoxanthin isomers in polar solvents show intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) state features, typical for carbonyl carotenoids. Global analysis of the data requires an additional fitting component, originated from the presence of blue and red forms of fucoxanthin in a polar protic solvent. Here we demonstrate that the ICT state decays faster than the S1 state, due to the significant contribution of the red form to the ICT state dynamics. The isomerization does not affect the S1 lifetime, but induces a larger difference between the S1- and ICT-state lifetimes in cis-fucoxanthin, which is likely caused by alterations of ICT coupling to either the S1 or S0 states; the S∗-state signal is more pronounced for cis-isomers in a nonpolar solvent

Spectroscopic properties of the S1 state of linear carotenoids after excess energy excitation

Properties of the S1 state of neurosporene, spheroidene and lycopene were studied after excess energy excitation in the S2 state. Excitation of carotenoids into higher vibronic levels of the S2 state generates excess vibrational energy in the S1 state. The vibrationally hot S1 state relaxes faster when carotenoid is excited into the S2 state with excess energy, but the S1 lifetime remains constant regardless of which vibronic level of the S2 state is excited. The S∗ signal depends on excitation energy only for spheroidene, which is likely due to asymmetry of the molecule, facilitating conformations responsible for the S∗ signal