Influence of the participatory budgeting on the infrastructural development of the territories in the Russian federation

The relevance of the investigated problem is caused by the need for the advancing of participatory budgeting practice in the Russian Federation. Due to insufficient development of theoretical, scientific, and methodological aspects of the participatory budgeting, very few territories in the Russian Federation use this tool effectively. The most important issue to be addressed is increasing the effectiveness of involving of local communities in the process of the rational allocation of budgetary funds. The objective of this paper is to study how participatory budgeting influences the potential of infrastructural development of territories in the Russian Federation. The leading methods of investigation of the problem include analyzing the common practices in certain regions and specifying the different categories of participatory budgeting. Using these methods, the authors consider the participatory budgeting as a process of allocating the budget funds to address the primary local problems, which leads to improving territorial infrastructure development. The results of the given research include updated conceptual basis of participatory budgeting; indicators reflecting the influence of the participatory budgeting on infrastructural development and criteria for its implementation in the municipalities; organizational chart clarifying the methodological aspects of different types of the participatory budgeting; and classification of territorial development mechanisms based on the participatory budgeting models of financing municipal projects. The practical significance of the given research is focused on the development of the practice of the relevant projects financing through the participatory budgeting in the Russian regions by systematizing their conceptual frameworks. Results of the study can be used by regional and municipal authorities to improve the relevant legislation, and by representatives of local communities to increase their participation in the budgeting process. © 2016 Tsurkan et al

Development of a Capillary Electrophoresis Platform for Identifying Inhibitors of Protein–Protein Interactions

Methods for identifying chemical inhibitors of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are often prone to discovery of false positives, particularly those caused by molecules that induce protein aggregation. Thus, there is interest in developing new platforms that might allow earlier identification of these problematic compounds. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has been evaluated as a method to screen for PPI inhibitors using the challenging system of Hsp70 interacting with its co-chaperone Bag3. In the method, Hsp70 is labeled with a fluorophore, mixed with Bag3, and the resulting bound and free Hsp70 separated and detected by CE with laser-induced fluorescence detection. The method used a chemically modified CE capillary to prevent protein adsorption. Inhibitors of the Hsp70-Bag3 interaction were detected by observing a reduction in the bound to free ratio. The method was used to screen a library of 3,443 compounds and results compared to those from a flow cytometry protein interaction assay. CE was found to produce a lower hit rate with more compounds that reconfirmed in subsequent testing suggesting greater specificity. This finding was attributed to use of electropherograms to detect artifacts such as aggregators and to differences in protein modifications required to perform the different assays. Increases in throughput are required to make the CE method suitable for primary screens but at the current stage of development it is attractive as a secondary screen to test hits found by higher throughput methods