Domestication as Enskilment : Harnessing Reindeer in Arctic Siberia

Acknowledgements Funding for this project was provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation (SFR1725) to R. Losey, the JPI HUMANOR project (ESRC ES/M011054/1) to D. Anderson, ERC GRETPOL to D. Arzyutov, and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research to N.Fedorova (18-09-40011). The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Nenets families, the Okotettos and Yaungads, who hosted us during our stay in Iamal, which is greatly appreciated. Special thanks are also offered to the staff of Iamal-Nenets Autonomous District, and the staff of the Iamal-Nenets Regional Museum and Exhibition Complex of I.S. Shemanovskii, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, and British Museum for providing access to their collections.Peer reviewedPostprin

Customs Union and Kazakhstan's Imports

The paper provides an empirical analysis of the early impact of formation of the customs union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia and associated changes in imports schedule on the structure of Kazakhstan's imports. Trade creation effects appear to have been insignificant. At the same time the change in tariffs appears to have created some trade diversion, with a significantly negative impact on imports from China in particular and a significantly positive impact on imports from within the customs union. The magnitude this effect is relatively small, however. The results tentatively suggest that the benefits of the new tariff policy per se to Kazakhstan are limited at best. Larger benefits could come from gradual liberalization of services sectors and market access within the economic union

Analyse der Digitalisierung in der Schweizer Wirtschaft

Eine KOF Studie im Auftrag der Schweizerischen Stiftung für Forschung und Ausbildung «Qualität» (SFAQ) und der Schweizerischen Vereinigung für Qualitäts- und Management-Systeme (SQS

Digital transformation: A review and research agenda

The ongoing and ubiquitous digital transformation challenges the raison d'être of firms and forces managers to rethink business strategies and operations and academics to reconsider related theories. To aid these efforts, we conduct a systematic review of research on firms' digital transformation, generating a database of 537 peer-reviewed academic articles and analyzing it using a novel multi-layered framework. The framework separates three layers: an organization's core activities, its peripheral activities, and its external environment. We find that firms that have come far in their transformations are more embedded in platform ecosystems with unclear business boundaries. Relatedly, we identify a tension between decentralizing versus centralizing power across organizational layers during a firm's digital transformation and how this dynamic affects corporate strategies and firms' internal and external boundaries.ISSN:1873-5681ISSN:0263-237

Intraoperative Assessment of Breast Cancer Tissues after Breast-Conserving Surgery Based on Mapping the Attenuation Coefficients in 3D Cross-Polarization Optical Coherence Tomography

Intraoperative differentiation of tumorous from non-tumorous tissue can help in the assessment of resection margins in breast cancer and its response to therapy and, potentially, reduce the incidence of tumor recurrence. In this study, the calculation of the attenuation coefficient and its color-coded 2D distribution was performed for different breast cancer subtypes using spectral-domain CP OCT. A total of 68 freshly excised human breast specimens containing tumorous and surrounding non-tumorous tissues after BCS was studied. Immediately after obtaining structural 3D CP OCT images, en face color-coded attenuation coefficient maps were built in co-(Att(co)) and cross-(Att(cross)) polarization channels using a depth-resolved approach to calculating the values in each A-scan. We determined spatially localized signal attenuation in both channels and reported ranges of attenuation coefficients to five selected breast tissue regions (adipose tissue, non-tumorous fibrous connective tissue, hyalinized tumor stroma, low-density tumor cells in the fibrotic tumor stroma and high-density clusters of tumor cells). The Att(cross) coefficient exhibited a stronger gain contrast of studied tissues compared to the Att(co) coefficient (i.e., conventional attenuation coefficient) and, therefore, allowed improved differentiation of all breast tissue types. It has been shown that color-coded attenuation coefficient maps may be used to detect inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity of various breast cancer subtypes as well as to assess the effectiveness of therapy. For the first time, the optimal threshold values of the attenuation coefficients to differentiate tumorous from non-tumorous breast tissues were determined. Diagnostic testing values for Att(cross) coefficient were higher for differentiation of tumor cell areas and tumor stroma from non-tumorous fibrous connective tissue: diagnostic accuracy was 91–99%, sensitivity—96–98%, and specificity—87–99%. Att(co) coefficient is more suitable for the differentiation of tumor cell areas from adipose tissue: diagnostic accuracy was 83%, sensitivity—84%, and specificity—84%. Therefore, the present study provides a new diagnostic approach to the differentiation of breast cancer tissue types based on the assessment of the attenuation coefficient from real-time CP OCT data and has the potential to be used for further rapid and accurate intraoperative assessment of the resection margins during BCS

Temporal and structural genetic variation in reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) associated with the pastoral transition in Northwestern Siberia

Just as the domestication of livestock is often cited as a key element in the Neolithic transition to settled, the emergence of large‐scaled reindeer husbandry was a fundamental social transformation for the indigenous peoples of Arctic Eurasia. To better understand the history of reindeer domestication, and the genetic processes associated with the pastoral transition in the Eurasian Arctic, we analyzed archaeological and contemporary reindeer samples from Northwestern Siberia. The material represents Rangifer genealogies spanning from 15,000 years ago to the 18th century, as well as modern samples from the wild Taĭmyr population and from domestic herds managed by Nenetses. The wild and the domestic population are the largest populations of their kind in Northern Eurasia, and some Nenetses hold their domestic reindeer beside their wild cousins. Our analyses of 197 modern and 223 ancient mitochondrial DNA sequences revealed two genetic clusters, which are interpreted as representing the gene pools of contemporary domestic and past wild reindeer. Among a total of 137 different mitochondrial haplotypes identified in both the modern and archaeological samples, only 21 were detected in the modern domestic gene pool, while 11 of these were absent from the wild gene pool. The significant temporal genetic shift that we associate with the pastoral transition suggests that the emergence and spread of reindeer pastoralism in Northwestern Siberia originated with the translocation and subsequent selective breeding of a special type of animal from outside the region. The distinct and persistent domestic characteristics of the haplotype structure since the 18th century suggests little genetic exchange since then. The absence of the typical domestic clade in modern nearby wild populations suggests that the contemporary Nenets domestic breed feature an ancestry from outside its present main distribution, possibly from further South