How to Assess Advantages of Economic-Geographical Position for Russian Regions

The category of economic-geographical position (EGP) was formalized based on a review of the scientific literature. The developed method of international and interregional EGP potential assessment was based on the use of gravity models; it can further be widely used in regional studies to explore the benefits of the spatial location of objects (countries, regions, cities, etc.). These calculations for Russia’s regions showed significant spatial differentiation. The maximum potential of interregional EGP potential have the regions located near Moscow and St. Petersburg agglomerations, the potential decreases uniformly to the east. The maximum international EGP potential concentrated in regions on the coast of the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Sea of Japan. The potential of the Kaliningrad region 5.6 times higher than it is for the Tyva Republic. In addition, it was revealed a significant increase in the total EGP potential in the 2000s, and its shift to the southern regions of the Far East due to the growth of the Asia-Paci c economies. The results were also used to identify connections between the EGP potential and indicators of socio-economic development. It was found that favourable EGP is one of the factors for GRP growth, investment, foreign trade, migration growth and spread of new technologies. Formalizing EGP as a category allows using it to predict the spatial changes in the socio-economic development of Russia

Alumni Capital: University Alumni Relations strategy

The purpose of this study is to describe the strategies of interaction with alumni and suggest directions for their inclusion in the managerial arsenal of the central administration of the university. The Far Eastern Federal University, relatively recently created on the basis of four independent universities, three of which were strongly industry-oriented, provides rich material for research on strategies of interaction with alumni that have developed in its various structural divisions. At the same time, most of these strategies are not initiated by the central administration, and the biggest part of them even is out of its view. Strategies for interaction with alumni arise as forms of reproduction, increment and conversion of the social capital of alumni, leaders of the academic community and several departments of the university. The university appears to researchers as a kind of “exchange office”, in which there is a constant movement of different types of capital, the main of which is social and its subspecies – alumni capital

Seasonal dynamics of organic carbon and metals in thermokarst lakes from the discontinuous permafrost zone of western Siberia

Despite relatively good knowledge of the biogeochemistry of Siberian thermokarst lakes during summer base flow, their seasonal dynamics remains almost unexplored. This work describes the chemical composition of 130 thermokarst lakes ranging in size from a few m2 to several km2, located in the discontinuous permafrost zone. Lakes were sampled during spring flood, just after the ice break (early June), the end of summer (August), the beginning of ice formation (October) and during the full freezing season in winter (February). The lakes larger than 1000m2 did not exhibit any statistically significant control of the lake size on dissolved organic carbon (DOC), the major and trace element concentrations over three major open water seasons. On the annual scale, the majority of dissolved elements including organic carbon increased their concentration from 30 to 500 %, with a statistically significant (p summer>autumn>winter. The ice formation in October included several stages: first, surface layer freezing followed by crack (fissure) formation with unfrozen water from the deeper layers spreading over the ice surface. This water was subsequently frozen and formed layered ice rich in organic matter. As a result, the DOC and metal (Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Ba and Pb) concentrations were highest near the surface of the ice column (0 to 20 cm) and decreased by a factor of 2 towards the bottom. The main implications of discovered freeze-driven solute concentrations in thermokarst lake waters are enhanced colloidal coagulation and removal of dissolved organic matter and associated insoluble metals from the water column to the sediments. The measured distribution coefficients of a TE between amorphous organo-ferric coagulates and lake water (<0.45 μm) were similar to those reported earlier for Fe-rich colloids and low molecular weight (<1 kDa, or <1–2 nm) fractions of thermokarst lake waters, suggesting massive coprecipitation of TE with amorphous Fe oxyhydroxide stabilized by organic matter. Although the concentration of most elements was lowest in spring, this period of maximal water coverage of land created a significant reservoir of DOC and soluble metals in the water column that can be easily mobilized to the hydrological network. The highest DOC concentration observed in the smallest (<100m2) water bodies in spring suggests their strongly heterotrophic status and, therefore, a potentially elevated CO2 flux from the lake surface to the atmosphere

Permafrost coverage, watershed area and season control of dissolved carbon and major elements in western Siberian rivers

Analysis of organic and inorganic carbon (DOC and DIC, respectively), pH, Na, K, Ca, Mg, Cl, SO₄ and Si in ~ 100 large and small rivers (< 10 to &le; 150 000 km²) of western Siberia sampled in winter, spring, and summer over a more than 1500 km latitudinal gradient allowed establishing main environmental factors controlling the transport of river dissolved components in this environmentally important region, comprising continuous, discontinuous, sporadic and permafrost-free zones. There was a significant latitudinal trend consisting in a general decrease in DOC, DIC, SO₄, and major cation (Ca, Mg, Na, K) concentration northward, reflecting the interplay between groundwater feeding (detectable mostly in the permafrost-free zone, south of 60° N) and surface flux (in the permafrost-bearing zone). The northward decrease in concentration of inorganic components was strongly pronounced both in winter and spring, whereas for DOC, the trend of concentration decrease with latitude was absent in winter, and less pronounced in spring flood than in summer baseflow. The most significant decrease in K concentration from the southern (< 59° N) to the northern (61–67° N) watersheds occurs in spring, during intense plant litter leaching. The latitudinal trends persisted for all river watershed size, from < 100 to > 10 000 km². Environmental factors are ranked by their increasing effect on DOC, DIC, δ¹³C_DIC, and major elements in western Siberian rivers as follows: watershed area < season < latitude. Because the degree of the groundwater feeding is different between large and small rivers, we hypothesize that, in addition to groundwater feeding of the river, there was a significant role of surface and shallow subsurface flow linked to plant litter degradation and peat leaching. We suggest that plant-litter- and topsoil-derived DOC adsorbs on clay mineral horizons in the southern, permafrost-free and discontinuous/sporadic permafrost zone but lacks the interaction with minerals in the continuous permafrost zone. It can be anticipated that, under climate warming in western Siberia, the maximal change will occur in small (< 1000 km² watershed) rivers DOC, DIC and ionic composition and this change will be mostly pronounced in summer

ПОДХОДЫ К ФОРМИРОВАНИЮ ТЕХНОЛОГИЧЕСКОЙ ДОЛИНЫ МГУ ИМ. М.В. ЛОМОНОСОВА

LomonosovMoscowStateUniversityis a leading Russian institution of higher education, the only one included in the top 100 authoritative global ranking – ARWU (Shanghairanking). Since 2014 it is planned to implement a large-scale project of theTechnologyValleyinRussia, the research world-class center associated with the University. The paper analyzes the main approaches to the implementation of the project, based on the analysis of international experience. We formulated recommendations for its implementation. In the modern world, the competitiveness of the country is determined by its ability to create opportunities for human potential, to attract and retain the most talented people. TheTechnologyValleyproject inRussiashould be developed regarding to its local position advantages and theMoscowuniversity development goals should also be taken into account. The accelerated development of the project can become a successful anti-crisis strategy. МГУ имени М. В. Ломоносова – это ведущий университет России, единственный входящий в топ-100 авторитетного глобального рейтинга ARWU (Шанхайский рейтинг). С 2014 года в России планируется реализация масштабного проекта создания Технологической долины, научно-исследовательского центра мирового уровня, связанного с университетом. В работе проанализированы основные подходы к реализации данного проекта на основе изучения международного опыта. Сформулированы рекомендации по его реализации. В современном мире конкурентоспособность страны определяется созданными возможностями для раскрытия человеческого потенциала, для привлечения и удержания наиболее талантливых людей. Проект создания Технологической долины должен реализовываться с учетом преимуществ, обусловленных его расположением вблизи Московского университета, и способствовать развитию самого университета. Проект может стать успешной антикризисной стратегией.

Инновационная деятельность быстрорастущих компаний как условие по вышения их конкурентоспособности

This article was conducted to identify the impact of innovative and scientific activities on competitiveness of fast growing Russian companies. The authors demonstrated that the competitiveness of domestic companies depends on their expenditures on R&amp;D and technological innovation, the costs of staff training and other factors. Dataset for the study is based on the national ranking of fast-growing high-tech companies «TechUp 2013».Данная статья направлена на выявление влияния научно-технологической и инновационной деятельности на повышение конкурентоспособности быстрорастущих компаний в России. Авторы показали, что конкурентоспособность отечественных компаний зависит от их расходов на НИОКР и технологические инновации, затрат на обучение персонала и ряда других факторов. Информационной основой для исследования послужили данные национального рейтинга быстрорастущих высокотехнологичных компаний «ТехУспех‑2013»

Multi-decadal changes in tundra environments and ecosystems: Synthesis of the International Polar Year-Back to the Future Project (IPY-BTF).

Understanding the responses of tundra systems to global change has global implications. Most tundra regions lack sustained environmental monitoring and one of the only ways to document multi-decadal change is to resample historic research sites. The International Polar Year (IPY) provided a unique opportunity for such research through the Back to the Future (BTF) project (IPY project #512). This article synthesizes the results from 13 papers within this Ambio Special Issue. Abiotic changes include glacial recession in the Altai Mountains, Russia; increased snow depth and hardness, permafrost warming, and increased growing season length in sub-arctic Sweden; drying of ponds in Greenland; increased nutrient availability in Alaskan tundra ponds, and warming at most locations studied. Biotic changes ranged from relatively minor plant community change at two sites in Greenland to moderate change in the Yukon, and to dramatic increases in shrub and tree density on Herschel Island, and in sub-arctic Sweden. The population of geese tripled at one site in northeast Greenland where biomass in non-grazed plots doubled. A model parameterized using results from a BTF study forecasts substantial declines in all snowbeds and increases in shrub tundra on Niwot Ridge, Colorado over the next century. In general, results support and provide improved capacities for validating experimental manipulation, remote sensing, and modeling studies

The creatine kinase system and pleiotropic effects of creatine

The pleiotropic effects of creatine (Cr) are based mostly on the functions of the enzyme creatine kinase (CK) and its high-energy product phosphocreatine (PCr). Multidisciplinary studies have established molecular, cellular, organ and somatic functions of the CK/PCr system, in particular for cells and tissues with high and intermittent energy fluctuations. These studies include tissue-specific expression and subcellular localization of CK isoforms, high-resolution molecular structures and structure–function relationships, transgenic CK abrogation and reverse genetic approaches. Three energy-related physiological principles emerge, namely that the CK/PCr systems functions as (a) an immediately available temporal energy buffer, (b) a spatial energy buffer or intracellular energy transport system (the CK/PCr energy shuttle or circuit) and (c) a metabolic regulator. The CK/PCr energy shuttle connects sites of ATP production (glycolysis and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation) with subcellular sites of ATP utilization (ATPases). Thus, diffusion limitations of ADP and ATP are overcome by PCr/Cr shuttling, as most clearly seen in polar cells such as spermatozoa, retina photoreceptor cells and sensory hair bundles of the inner ear. The CK/PCr system relies on the close exchange of substrates and products between CK isoforms and ATP-generating or -consuming processes. Mitochondrial CK in the mitochondrial outer compartment, for example, is tightly coupled to ATP export via adenine nucleotide transporter or carrier (ANT) and thus ATP-synthesis and respiratory chain activity, releasing PCr into the cytosol. This coupling also reduces formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and inhibits mitochondrial permeability transition, an early event in apoptosis. Cr itself may also act as a direct and/or indirect anti-oxidant, while PCr can interact with and protect cellular membranes. Collectively, these factors may well explain the beneficial effects of Cr supplementation. The stimulating effects of Cr for muscle and bone growth and maintenance, and especially in neuroprotection, are now recognized and the first clinical studies are underway. Novel socio-economically relevant applications of Cr supplementation are emerging, e.g. for senior people, intensive care units and dialysis patients, who are notoriously Cr-depleted. Also, Cr will likely be beneficial for the healthy development of premature infants, who after separation from the placenta depend on external Cr. Cr supplementation of pregnant and lactating women, as well as of babies and infants are likely to be of benefit for child development. Last but not least, Cr harbours a global ecological potential as an additive for animal feed, replacing meat- and fish meal for animal (poultry and swine) and fish aqua farming. This may help to alleviate human starvation and at the same time prevent over-fishing of oceans