Foreign trade and marketing processes in the context of sustainable development

Purpose: The article aims to study foreign economic and trade relations between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the CIS and the Western European countries. In addition, the study improves forms of foreign economic cooperation between the countries and suggests the stages of its implementation in the integration group. Design/Methodology/Approach: Central and Eastern European countries are experiencing the increase and acceleration of the labour migration to Western European countries, which has a negative impact on their medium-and long-term development. As a theoretical and methodological basis, the article uses historical-logical, dialectical principles and contradictions, the method of the scientific abstraction. The process-system approach, which was used in the study of foreign economic relations between the partner countries, gained special importance in the argument of the need to implement stages. Findings: Authors presented the form of the foreign economic cooperation between the countries as the geostrategic economic block and the stages of its implementation. As the study shows, these stages will help to smooth out the economic inequality between the Central and Eastern regions of Europe and Western European countries. Practical implications: In practice, authors investigate the phased implementation of the geostrategic economic bloc form, which will reduce inequality between the partner countries of the European Union. Originality/Value: The economic inequality between developed and developing countries of the European Union is increasing every year, which can lead to the transformation of the integration group, so it is necessary to develop new forms and mechanisms of foreign economic relations between the partner countries.peer-reviewe

National competitiveness as the object of indicative planning in the context of re-industrialization

Three years after the adoption of legislation regarding strategical planning we are able to see the first statistical results, reflecting actual conditions of regulated objects. The subject of this article is to examine the system of indicators of state economic policy, targeting to stimulate the development of economic potential with the aim to improve national economic competitiveness. The objective is the competitiveness of domestic economy as the subject of regulation. The aim is the analysis of the system of indicators on the basis of comparison of actual and planned data, detecting weakly correlated indicators and to make recommendations to correct the system of indicators. The article analyses the indicators that are being used in normative and legal documents. The authors consider long-term and medium-term targets for economic frontier development, as well as main factors that should be accounted while formulating the system of indicators for the economic potential in long- and medium-term. As the list of indicators of economic development in the strategic documents is vast, the chosen direction considers the production with high added value. The indicators considered reflect the indicative aim of scientific development, national innovation system and technology as the most important foundations for improvement of national economic competitiveness. Multidirectional trend of economic development and administration indicators has been detected. The formation of system of supplementary indicators that reflect the development of production frontier has been proposed.peer-reviewe

The role of heat transfer time scale in the evolution of the subsea permafrost and associated methane hydrates stability zone during glacial cycles

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Climate warming may lead to degradation of the subsea permafrost developed during Pleistocene glaciations and release methane from the hydrates, which are stored in this permafrost. It is important to quantify time scales at which this release is plausible. While, in principle, such time scale might be inferr ed from paleoarchives, this is hampered by considerable uncertainty associated with paleodata. In the present paper, to reduce such uncertainty, one-dimensional simulations with a model for thermal state of subsea sediments forced by the data obtained from the ice core reconstructions are performed. It is shown that heat propagates in the sediments with a time scale of ∼ 10–20 kyr. This time scale is longer than the present interglacial and is determined by the time needed for heat penetration in the unfrozen part of thick sediments. We highlight also that timings of shelf exposure during oceanic regressions and flooding during transgressions are important for simulating thermal state of the sediments and methane hydrates stability zone (HSZ). These timings should be resolved with respect to the contemporary shelf depth (SD). During glacial cycles, the temperature at the top of the sediments is a major driver for moving the HSZ vertical boundaries irrespective of SD. In turn, pressure due to oceanic water is additionally important for SD ≥ 50 m. Thus, oceanic transgressions and regressions do not instantly determine onsets of HSZ and/or its disappearance. Finally, impact of initial conditions in the subsea sediments is lost after ∼ 100 kyr. Our results are moderately sensitive to intensity of geothermal heat flux

Locomotion of the fish-like foil under own effort

Self-locomotion of the fish-like foil is simulated by the mesh-free method of viscous vortex domains (VVD). The foil consists of three rigid sections connected by the spring hinges. The forcing periodic moment is applied between first and second sections imitating the muscular effort of the fish. The hinge between the second and third sections is elastic and passive. The task is solved as coupled flow-structure interaction

CIVILIZATIONAL IDENTITY OF RUSSIAN STUDENT YOUTH IN A DIGITAL SOCIETY

The modern concept of civilization, processes of civilizational identification and identity on the basis of allocation of basic values have been considered. Traditional spiritual and moral values of Russian population have been studied. Methodological and methodical issues of sociological diagnostics of civilizational identity of Russian students have been revealed. Some results of the author’s sociological research with presentation of a comparative assessment of the orientation of young people on the values of the Russian civilization have been adduced. On the basis of comparative analysis, the description of social constructs (patterns) of values of the Russian civilization has been given, the data on the statistical connection of the civilizational identity of students and their integration into virtual forms of social interaction have been presented. The measures to improve the conditions of the process of civilizational identification of Russian students and to include them in the process of digitalization of society have been substantiated

Digital sociology and new opportunities for social and educational rehabilitation of disabled people

Based on the conducted sociological research and using modern methodological approaches of digital sociology, the feasibility of developing institutional conditions for improving the educational rehabilitation of disabled people by means of modern Internet technologies has been justified. Examples of the development of analogical problems in the works of domestic and foreign authors have been given. The possibilities of scientific and methodological support of social experiments on the development and implementation of educational Internet communications to overcome the disability of disabled people using the Arsenal of digital sociology have been described separately. The data on the attitude of disabled people to higher education in the system of their rehabilitation and life activity, with the identification of social groups with positive, uncertain and negative attitudes with a predominant positive attitude to the possibility of educational rehabilitation have been provided. The educational needs of people with disabilities in various areas have been described, their quantitative characteristics with the definition of priorities and areas of education that are not relevant for people with disabilities have been presented. A significant place in the article has been given to the possibilities of involving disabled people in the process of developing educational programs and in research activities, both in terms of the availability of willing people among them, and the use of various forms of their integration into real research projects as part of temporary creative teams. The conditions for the implementation of scientific support for the development of training programs in the Internet space by conducting their practical testing on the example of the Zagorsk experiment have been characterized separately. Attention to supporting individual research projects of people with disabilities in the course of higher education has been paid, ways to help them collect experimental material have been substantiated. Separately, the role and place of joint forms of scientific activity of disabled people, teachers and students in the performance of state tasks have been shown. Taking into account the important role of social inclusion of disabled people in Internet communications, the prevalence of creating accounts in the Internet information and communication network and using various Internet resources among disabled people and family members has been separately reflected

Vibration Briquetting of Ash of Combined Heat and Power Plant

Ash and slag materials of combined heat and power plant (CHPP) are a unique resource that can be successfully used in construction, road and agricultural industries. However, their industrial use is accompanied with significant organizational and technical problems. Granulation of coal ashes improves the conditions of their storage and transportation, allows mechanizing and automating the subsequent use, increases productivity, improves the working conditions and reduces the loss of raw materials and finished products. This paper proposes a method of compacting of Seversk CHPP (Russia) ash by vibration briquetting using a number of binders (polyvinyl alcohol, glyoxal, liquid sodium glass). The main characteristics of Seversk CHPP ash such as chemical composition, particle size distribution, bulk density, content of unburnt carbon and radioactivity have been determined. Investigation of the effect of binder concentration on the static strength of granules revealed that the increase of binder concentration results in the growth of static strength of the dried granules that reaches a maximum at the concentration of 10 wt %: 0.28 MPa for polyvinyl alcohol, 0.63 MPa for glyoxal and 0.40 MPa for liquid sodium glass

Huntington’s disease modeling on HEK293 cell line

Huntington’s disease is a hereditary neurodegenerative disorder caused by CAG trinucleotide repeat expansion in the first exon of HTT gene. The mutant HTT protein has an elongated polyglutamine tract and forms aggregates in the nuclei and cytoplasm of the striatal neurons. The pathological processes occurring in the medium spiny neurons of Huntington’s disease patients lead to neurodegeneration and consequently to the death. The molecular mechanisms of the pathology development are difficult to study due to the limited material availability and late onset of the manifestation. Therefore, one of the important tasks is generation of an in vitro model system of Huntington’s disease based on human cell cultures. The new genome editing approaches, such as CRISPR/Cas9, allow us to generate isogenic cell lines that can be useful for drug screening and studying mechanisms of molecular and cellular events triggered by certain mutation on an equal genetic background. Here, we investigated the viability and proliferative rate of several mutant HEK293 cell clones with mutations in the first exon of HTT gene. The mutant clones were obtained earlier using CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology. We showed that mutant cells partially reproduce the pathological phenotype, that is, they have reduced proliferation activity, an increased level of apoptosis and high sensitivity to treatment with 5μM MG132 proteasome inhibitor compared to the original HEK293 Phoenix cell line. Our results indicate that the mutation in the first exon of HTT gene affects not only neurons, but also other types of cells, and HEK293 cell clones bearing the mutation can serve as in vitro model for studying some mechanisms of HTT functioning

Влияние диффузии солей на состояние и распространение многолетнемёрзлых пород и зоны стабильности метан-гидратов шельфа моря Лаптевых

Salt transport in shelf sediments can affect the state of the submarine permafrost and the thermodynamic stability of hydrates. To estimate the effect of salt transport, we used a model analysis of salinization of underwater sediments. It is assumed that the salininization follows the flooding of the shelf, which accompanies transgression of the ocean during the end of the glaciations of the Quaternary period. We used the model of thermal processes in the bottomset bed, developed in collaboration with the Institute of Numerical Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Science. The model was augmented by the equation of salt diffusion in the bottom sediments. In calculations with the model, changes in the temperature of the upper surface of bottom sediments and sea level over the past 400 kyr were prescribed (set). It is shown that the combined effect of heat and salinization of bottom sediments during oceanic transgressions (shelf flooding) leads to the sinking of the current upper boundary of the marine permafrost by about 10–25 m below the sea floor, depending on the current depth of the shelf. Accounting for the salt diffusion is necessary to determine the position of the upper boundary of the permafrost, as well as to calculate the rate of its degradation. In particular, salt transport is able to change both the current position and the rate of displacement of the upper permafrost boundary in several times relative to the case of a time-independent freezing temperature. Note, that this effect is insignificant for estimation of the position of the lower permafrost boundary in the bottom sediments of the inner shelf. Lowering the freezing point leads to the fact that frozen rocks on the outer shelf completely thaw at negative temperatures of bottom sediments under the influence of heat and salts in the present period (experiments TF‑2, TFSAL2). The influence of salinity on the characteristics of the stability zone of methane hydrates in the submarine permafrost is insignificant due to deep level of their occurrence in the shelf sediments.Проанализировано влияние засоления на состояние затопленных морем многолетнемёрзлых толщ шельфа моря Лаптевых. Результаты моделирования показали, что в результате засоления донных осад- ков современная верхняя граница многолетнемёрзлых пород находится на глубине 10–15 м ниже морского дна на внутренней части шельфа и на глубине 20–25 м ниже морского дна на внешнем шельфе. Учёт диффузии соли при исследовании динамики субаквальной мерзлоты необходим для определения положения её верхней границы, а также расчёта скорости её деградации. Согласно расчётам, перенос солей может в несколько раз изменить положение и скорость смещения верхней границы многолетнемёрзлых пород по сравнению со случаем неизменной во времени солёности и, следовательно, постоянной во времени температурой замерзания. Вместе с тем перенос солей заметно не влияет на положение нижней границы многолетнемёрзлых пород и характеристики зоны стабильности метан-гидратов