Local contexts as activation mechanisms of market development: contemporary art in emerging markets

The paper studies how local contexts contribute to the emergence of markets. In particular, it explains how potential entrepreneurs are motivated to become active in establishing new markets. Empirically, the focus is on contemporary art markets in two emerging countries: India and Russia. The paper draws upon qualitative interviews with 65 contemporary art dealers conducted in New Delhi, Mumbai, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. We show how different socio-cultural contexts function as activation mechanisms: in India, family backgrounds predominantly structure the decision-making processes, among others through the economic, social and cultural capital which these families provide. In Russia, by contrast, such family background is non-existent. Instead, the socio-economic turmoil of 1990s and 2000s as well as the strong involvement of the state function as activation mechanisms. We suggest that these different activation mechanisms contribute to explaining the diverging market performance in both countries

Features of social security in France: an experience for Russia

This article discusses the experience of establishment of a welfare state, which has been accumulated for a long time in France. It has the highest public spending for social protection among all the European countries with the highest quality of life. The French social security system is compulsory and, among other things, it solves the problems of retirement, unemployment and national healthcare. These challenges are currently the greatest in the social life of Russia, due to several reasons. Principally due to new phenomena in the economy of the country such as formation of market relations, establishment of a welfare state and in this connection it is useful to experience the French social model.В данной статье рассматривается опыт построения социального гос-ударства, накопленный на протяжении длительного времени, во Франции. По уровню социального обеспечения именно Франция занимает лидирующее положение среди всех европейских стран, обладающих наиболее высоким уровнем жизни. Французская система социального обеспечения является обязательной и, среди прочего, решает проблемы, возникающие в связи с выходом на пенсию, безработицей и получением помощи по линии национального здравоохранения. Данные проблемы в настоящее время относятся к числу наиболее актуальных в общественной жизни России, что обусловлено новыми явлениями в экономике страны — формированием рыночных отношений, построением социального государства и в этой связи опыт французской модели социального государства представляется весьма полезным

Mediators of mechanotransduction between bone cells

Mechanical forces are known to regulate the function of tissues in the body, including bone. Bone adapts to its mechanical environment by altering its shape and increasing its size in response to increases in mechanical load associated with exercise, and by decreasing its size in response to decreases in mechanical load associated with microgravity or prolonged bed rest. Changes in bone size and shape are produced by a cooperative action of two main types of the bone cells - osteoclasts that destroy bone and osteoblasts that build bone. These cell types come from different developmental origins, and vary greatly in their characteristics, such as size, shape, and expression of receptor subtypes, which potentially may affect their responses to mechanical stimuli. The objective of this study is to compare the responses of osteoclasts and osteoblasts to mechanical stimulation. This study has allowed us to conclude the following: 1. A mediator is released from a single source cell. 2. The response to the mediator changes with distance. 3. The value of the apparent diffusion coeficient increases with distance. 4. A plausible proposed mechanism is that ATP is released and degrades to ADP. 5. Future experiments are required to confim that ATP is the mediator as suggested

Kraichnan model of passive scalar advection

A simple model of a passive scalar quantity advected by a Gaussian non-solenoidal ("compressible") velocity field is considered. Large order asymptotes of quantum-field expansions are investigated by instanton approach. The existence of finite convergence radius of the series is proved, a position and a type of the corresponding singularity of the series in the regularization parameter are determined. Anomalous exponents of the main contributions to the structural functions are resummed using new information about the series convergence and two known orders of the expansion.Comment: 21 page

Environment quality management in green cities

The article is devoted to the issues of improvement of quality of urban environment during realization of the project of development of green cities, which combines economic and ecological advantages. The article substantiates top-priority directions of change of approaches to management of urban territories and integration of efforts of science, business, and society in promotion of green technologies. The main methodological approach to provision of ecological balance in green cities consists in development of the most comprehensive complex of ecological and economic indicators of development of the city in view of implementation of progressive technologies of filtration of industrial emissions into the atmosphere, sewage water treatment, waste processing, etc. The article offers methodological substantiation of the system of indicators which include evaluation of anthropogenic influence on urban environment and calculation of integrated economic effect from implementation of green technologies which minimize unfavorable effect of these influences. These indicators include emissions release into the atmosphere, soil pollution, development of green areas, use of urban territories which are taken out from the system of natural use, use of city public transport, etc. The developed indicators can not only reflect the existing ecological state and economic development of the city fully but be used for development of perspective scenarios of development of green urban economy on the basis of industrially developed middle-sized cities of Russia and the CIS.peer-reviewe

The earliest spectroscopy of the GRB 030329 afterglow with 6-m telescope

The earliest BTA (SAO RAS 6-m telescope) spectroscopic observations of the GRB 030329 optical transient (OT) are presented, which almost coincide in time with the "first break" ($t\sim 0.5$ day after the GRB) of the OT light curve. The beginning of spectral changes are seen as early as $\sim 10-12$ hours after the GRB. So, the onset of the spectral changes for $t<1$ day indicates that the contribution from Type Ic supernova (SN) into the OT optical flux can be detected earlier. The properties of early spectra of GRB 030329/SN 2003dh can be consistent with a shock moving into a stellar wind formed from the pre-SN. Such a behavior (similar to that near the UV shock breakout in SNe) can be explained by the existence of a dense matter in the immediate surroundings of massive stellar GRB/SN progenitor). The urgency is emphasized of observation of early GRB/SN spectra for solving a question that is essential for understanding GRB physical mechanism: {\it Do all} long-duration gamma-ray bursts are caused by (or physically connected to) {\it ordinary} core-collapse supernovae? If clear association of normal/ordinary core-collapse SNe (SN Ib/c, and others SN types) and GRBs would be revealed in numbers of cases, we may have strong observational limits for gamma-ray beaming and for real energetics of the GRB sources.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Proceedings of the 4th Workshop "Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Afterglow Era", Roma, 2004 October 18-22, eds. L. Piro, L. Amati, S. Covino, and B. Gendre. Il Nuovo Cimento, in pres