MEDIATION AS ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION: LEGAL ANALYSIS, FOREIGN PRACTICE, AND PERSPECTIVES IN RUSSIA

Purposes: The article is devoted to the analysis of legal problems of mediation as an alternative way to resolve disputes. The article examines the Russian and foreign experience in the legal regulation of mediation. Methodology: The use and adaptation of foreign experience in applying the mediation procedure are aimed at increasing the speed of dispute resolution, the level of confidentiality and the ability to maintain partnerships. The authors suggest ways to improve the effectiveness and applicability of this procedure in practice. According to Sungatullina L.A., it seems efficient and promising to use alternative methods for resolving disputes in general and to apply the mediation procedure in particular. Izmailov R.R. He believes that the experience of using mediation techniques has shown its effectiveness in resolving various categories of disputes: labor, family, corporate, business conflicts, as well as in the field of housing relations. Mikhailov A.V. notes that the effectiveness of the mediation process largely depends on the implementation at all stages of the basic principles. Results: The authors conclude that it is advisable to apply mediation to disputes arising from administrative and other public relations. As one of the ways to improve the legislative regulation of mediation, it is proposed to consider the possibility of introducing a notarial certification of mediation agreements. Implications/Applications: Alternative dispute resolution is a set of procedures that facilitate non-judicial dispute resolution. In English practice, it is indicated by the steady turnover of Alternative dispute resolution (hereinafter - ADR). Different non-judicial forms of resolution of a case are referred to ADR in different countries. As a rule, three well-known forms are called: arbitration, mediation, and negotiations. Novelty/Originality: The novelty of this study in classifying the mediation techniques

Pathogen-derived methods for improving resistance of transgenic plums (Prunus domestica L.) for Plum pox virus infection

Plum pox virus (PPV), the causal agent of Sharka disease, is considered to be one of the most serious pathogens of stone fruits including apricots, plums and peaches. This disease is of particular concern in central and southern Europe, the Mediterranean areas and North America. The transformation of plum with viral genes, such as coat protein, can provide virus resistant varieties or gene resources for breeding new resistant varieties. In the current study we report the evaluation of two technologies for producing plants resistance to PPV, one based on co-suppression and another on RNA-silencing. Two gene constructs were evaluated; the binary vector pCamPPVcp that contained the selective hpt gene and ppv-cp gene in sense-orientation (driven by double 35S promoter) and vector pCamPPVRNAi that contained self-complementary fragments of gene ppvcp (698bp) driven by double 35S promoter and the hpt and gus genes.The fragments of the ppv-cp gene in pCamPPVRNAi were separated by a pdk-intron to produce a “hairpin” RNA structure in antisense-sense orientation. Seven independent transgenic lines with the sense-oriented ppv-cp gene and five transgenic lines with inverted repeats of the ppv-cp gene fragment were produced. The accumulation of coat protein in five pCamPPVcp lines was confirmed by Western blotting. Transgenic shoots were rooted and acclimatized to the greenhouse. After grafting with PPV infected buds PPV-CP was detected by Western blotting in all control and pCamPPVcp transformed plants whereas no PPV coat protein were observed in samples from plants transformed with the pCamPPVRNAi “hairpin” construct. These preliminary results confirmed the efficiency of the RNAi strategy for producing virus resistant plants in general and PPV resistant stone fruits in particular.Keywords: RNA interference, PPV, transformation, coat protein, Prunus domestic

Development of a New Method of Storage and Maximum Separation of Chlorophils From Chlorophylcontaining Vegetables at Reception of Healthfull Nanoproducts

The aim of the work is the development of a new way of deep processing of chlorophyll-containing vegetables that gives a possibility not only to preserve chlorophylls a and b and other biologically active substances (BAS) of raw materials, but also to transform hidden bound (inactive) forms of chlorophyll in the free easy-digestible form at getting steam-thermally processed semi-products and healthy food products in the nanoform.For achieving the aim, the complex effect of steam-thermal processing and mechanolysis at fine-dyspersed comminution using the new equipment was applied as an innovation for thermal processing and comminution.There was developed the new method of getting healthy products of chlorophyll-containing vegetables (broccoli, spinach, Brussels cabbage, green leguminous haricot bean), steam-thermally processed (by hot steam) in the steam-convectional stove and fine-dyspersed with high contents of chlorophylls and other BAS and prebiotics. The method is based on the complex effect of processes of thermodestruction, mechanodestruction and non-enzymatic catalysis on raw materials at fine-dyspersed comminution. It was demonstrated, that at steam thermal processing of chlorophyll-containing vegetables (CCV) in the steam-convectomat during 5 minutes, there takes place not only preservation of chlorophylls a and b, but more full separation (in 1,33…1,4 times) from the hidden (bound) form, comparing with fresh vegetables. There was elucidated the mechanism of this process. The more full extraction of hidden forms of β-carotene (2 times more than in fresh CCV) takes place in parallel.The essentially more effect of transforming hidden forms was revealed at fine-dyspersed comminution of steam-thermally processed CCV. It was demonstrated, that thermally processed nanoproducts of CCV contain 2…2,1 more chlorophylls a and b, 2,0…3,3 times more carotenoids in the bound form than fresh vegetables.The quality of obtained new types of fine-dyspersated steam-thermally processed green products as puree and soups-purees of CCV exceeds one of known analogues by contents of chlorophylls a and b, β-carotene and other BAS, which are in nanosize easy-digestible form.Using new types of fine-dyspersated purees of CCV, there was developed the new green line of healthy nanoproducts: soups-purees, nanodrinks, nanosorbets, sauces-dressings, sauces-deeps, ice-cream, snacks and so on. It was demonstrated, that new products exceed existing analogues by BAS content (chlorophylls, β-carotene, L-ascorbic acid, phenol compounds)

On the Fermionic Frequencies of Circular Strings

We revisit the semiclassical computation of the fluctuation spectrum around different circular string solutions in AdS_5xS^5 and AdS_4xCP^3, starting from the Green-Schwarz action. It has been known that the results for these frequencies obtained from the algebraic curve and from the worldsheet computations sometimes do not agree. In particular, different methods give different results for the half-integer shifts in the mode numbers of the frequencies. We find that these discrepancies can be removed if one carefully takes into account the transition matrices in the spin bundle over the target space.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur

Knowledge and innovation dynamics of the Northwest Russia under geopolitical changes

Over the past 25 years, Russia has faced several economic and geopolitical challenges, including the 2008 global financial crisis, sanctions imposed in 2014, and the COVID-19 pandemic. To remain resilient in the face of these challenges, Russia needs to adopt a flexible development strategy and transition to a new path of development. This transition requires the development of new knowledge-intensive industries, expansion into promising markets, strengthening trade and economic partnerships, and achieving technological sovereignty. This study examines the innovation system in Northwest Russia and identifies factors that are critical for its sustainability and innovation security in the face of geopolitical instability. The study uses an integrated approach to trace the knowledge production and innovation process from research findings to the commercialization of new technologies. The study finds that there are strong correlations between innovation activity and R&D investment, patent activity, and the number of innovative organisations. The study also identifies three types of regional innovation systems in Northwest Russia: core, semi-periphery, and periphery. The nature of the regions' involvement in R&D determines the dynamics and specialization of their publications and patents. The study also finds that there is a positive correlation between the volume of innovative products and quantitative factors in the functioning of subsystems involved in knowledge generation and innovation. Finally, the study examines the geography and structure of the international research network that the regions of Northwest Russia had formed by 2022. It shows that the geopolitical transformation requires a significant part of cooperation ties with unfriendly countries to be restructured

Exact computation of one-loop correction to energy of pulsating strings in AdS_5 x S^5

In the present paper, which is a sequel to arXiv:1001:4018, we compute the one-loop correction to the energy of pulsating string solutions in AdS_5 x S^5. We show that, as for rigid spinning string elliptic solutions, the fluctuation operators for pulsating solutions can be also put into the single-gap Lame' form. A novel aspect of pulsating solutions is that the one-loop correction to their energy is expressed in terms of the stability angles of the quadratic fluctuation operators. We explicitly study the "short string" limit of the corresponding one-loop energies, demonstrating a certain universality of the form of the energy of "small" semiclassical strings. Our results may help to shed light on the structure of strong-coupling expansion of anomalous dimensions of dual gauge theory operators.Comment: 49 pages; v2: appendix F and note about antiperiodic fermions added, typos corrected, references adde

Flexible Printed Circuit Board as Novel Electrodes for Acoustofluidic Devices

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) based acoustofluidics shows broad applications in biomedicine and chemistry. Conventional manufacturing process for SAW devices uses photolithography and metal deposition, thus requires accessing cleanroom facilities. This study presents an efficient and versatile technique based on a flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) for developing SAW acoustofluidic devices. By mechanically clamping interdigital electrodes (IDEs) made on the FPCB onto a piezoelectric substrate, SAWs can be effectively generated with an additional matching network. The SAW amplitudes was measured by a laser vibrometer, which increases with the applied input voltage. The FPCB-SAW device has been applied to actuate 10-m microspheres to form strong streaming vortices inside a droplet, and to drive a sessile droplet for transportation on the substrate surface. The use of the FPCB rather than a rigid PCB can help cut down on the overall footprint of the device and save space. The low requirement in assembling the FPCB-SAW device can facilitate versatile acoustofluidic applications by providing fast prototyping devices.This work was supported in part by the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi Province (2020JQ-233), Fundamental Scientific Research of Central Universities (3102017OQD116), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council fellowship (EP/P002803/1 and EP/P018998/1), Global Challenges Research Fund, and the Royal Society (IEC/NSFC/170142, IE161019)

One-loop corrections to AdS_5 x S^5 superstring partition function via Pohlmeyer reduction

We discuss semiclassical expansions around a class of classical string configurations lying in AdS_3 x S^1 using the Pohlmeyer-reduced from of the AdS_5 x S^5 superstring theory. The Pohlmeyer reduction of the AdS_5 x S^5 superstring theory is a gauged Wess-Zumino-Witten model with an integrable potential and two-dimensional fermionic fields. It was recently conjectured that the quantum string partition function is equal to the quantum reduced theory partition function. Continuing the previous paper (arXiv:0906.3800) where arbitrary solutions in AdS_2 x S^2 and homogeneous solutions were considered, we provide explicit demonstration of this conjecture at the one-loop level for several string solutions in AdS_3 x S^1 embedded into AdS_5 x S^5. Quadratic fluctuations derived in the reduced theory for inhomogeneous strings are equivalent to respective fluctuations found from the Nambu action in the original string theory. We also show the equivalence of fluctuation frequencies for homogeneous strings with both the orbital momentum and the winding on a big circle of S^5.Comment: 45 pages, references added, minor correction