Information Technology and Russia's Social Modernization

Information technologies play a very important role in modernizing Russia's economy and society as whole. Its competitive advantage lies in the availability of highly educated labour resources. Russia accounts for approximately 9% of researchers in the world as opposed to a share of about 0.3% in the world innovation market. Our approach is based on identifying ways to set up IT innovation centres and create an organizational and economic mechanisms making possible the transfer of new technologies to production processes and the creation of tools for innovative management. In the markets of high technology Russia will concentratie on software tools for IT security, applied modelling information systems, various types of software, and cryptographic systems, some types of specialized computing systems. In the Education Project two main mechanisms of systemic change are envisaged: to identify and support leading higher educational institutions; to introduce on a grand scale new knowledge-management methods and put mechanisms into practice. Among the main intentions of the Education Project the following should be mentioned: the modernization of its material-technical base, the internetization of education, the expansion of innovation centres on the pattern of universities and scientific and research institutes, the creation of Russian "Siliceous Valley"- Skolkovo complementary clusters of small, innovative companies. In the framework of the Health Care 2020 Programme. Activities are underway to introduce a Federal Register of the most widespread diseases, to operate waiting lists of those who need high technology medical help, and to centralize access to the common database of normative and reference information. Drafts of their electronic presentation formats are developed on the basis of international ISO standards. An Internet market for various types of medical and information services is being set up; telemedicine technologies are being taken into account. The social orientation of IT development will improve educational and health care systems, accelerate progress in extending the number of qualified professionals in IT (according to experts, the demand for these in 2012 will increase by up to 550,000 persons, and even then the country's demand will only be satisfied to the degree of 15%). A model enabling Russia to enter the group of countries with a high development of intellectual potential demands more intensive introduction of IT in modernization of Russian society. --codes Information technology,human factor,modern economy,social factors,telecommunication,education,personal training,medicine,national healthcare,telemedicine,social networks,internatization

The Tips for Social Networking Safety

The Internet is definitely not secure. Most of us have ever encountered security problems in the social networks. The most common troubles arising in the network are: the issues of confidentiality, hacking and stealing passwords and potential problems in the workplace. Some tips how to deal with these problems are given in this paper. When posting information about yourself in social media, anyone must be prepared that a large number of people all over the world can see it. Thus, your private life becomes public. Even if you take all the measures for your personal information protection from people you don’t know, these attempts, may be useless as there are many hacker programs that help to select passwords for popular websites and hack them. Moreover, people face potential problems in the workplace because of social networks use. For example, you can post information about colleagues or your boss that can be interpreted as a disclosure of confidential information, discrediting you in the eyes of the company, that may lead to serious consequences

The Genetic Architecture of Alopecia Areata

Alopecia areata (AA) is the most prevalent autoimmune disease in the US. With An estimated lifetime risk of 1.7%, it affects both genders with similar frequencies and people of all ages. AA affects more individuals than most other autoimmune diseases combined, and yet despite its prevalence, there is an enormous unmet medical need, in part due to the dearth of information about the underlying pathogenesis. In AA, autoimmunity arises against the hair follicles in the skin, which causes hair loss associated with an aberrant accumulation of immune-response cells around the affected hair follicles. Evidence supporting a genetic basis for AA stems from multiple lines of research, including increased risk of disease in first degree relatives, twin studies, and more recently, our initial family-based linkage study and genome wide association study (GWAS) in a cohort of unrelated individuals. Importantly, our GWAS identified a set of 16 statistically independent risk haplotypes across 8 loci, implicating specific genes that increase risk of AA, all of which have been validated. Genome wide genetic studies can provide critical insight into disease mechanisms, especially when little is known about the underlying causes of disease. In this study, I use complementary gene mapping methods, performing one study in a cohort of families and a second study in a cohort of unrelated cases and controls. Using these two approaches, I obtain new evidence about the genetic influences on AA. Our family cohort contains statistically significant evidence for linkage at a new locus, on chromosome 2q36.1-q37.3 (LOD=4.17) and family-based tests of association implicate 47 genes. I then conducted a GWAS that expanded our initial cohort with the addition of 800 cases and obtained statistically significant evidence for a new locus at chromosome 16p13.13 (p=4.6x10-7). This region has been implicated in several other autoimmune diseases and contains several genes that are known to be involved with immune processes. Taken together, these two studies demonstrate the presence of both rare and common variants are contributing to AA etiology and support emerging evidence that suggests the genetic architecture of common complex diseases involves both rare and common variants

Application of the Temporal Database Technology in the Development of Latvian Railway Information Systems

The paper presents the research of temporal data usage in the information systems (IS) for railway transport. In the research the IS artifact building phase has been executed. The models and methods oriented at the operation with the temporal objects of the railway transport system have been designed. The work takes into consideration the problems of the temporal objects presentation in the relational databases, as well as the problems of provision of their integrity and the questions of interaction with them. The investigation results have been employed in the development of the interactive passenger train schedule IS for the Latvian Railway

Russian sinology at the second half of XIXth century: ways of application of knowledge

В статье рассматриваются становление российского китаеведения до начала XX в. и пути его развития во второй половине XIX в. Подчеркивается, что выпускники-востоковеды могли продолжить академическую карьеру или встать на путь практического применения полученных знаний на дипломатической службе.The main ways of evolution of Asian studies in Russia before XXth century are discussed in the article. There were different opportunities for graduated orientalists and it is emphasized that scholars could pursue an academic career as well as diplomatic due to their education

Artist Branding Toolkit: Exploring the Creation of Eras in Artist Marketing

The purpose of this thesis is to act as a toolkit for artists early in their careers to reference when building their brand in the early stages. This toolkit is to be used by labels, artist management teams, and independent artists. In order to achieve this, I will go into an overview of personal branding. I will demonstrate how to apply these branding techniques to artists. I will then deepen my inquiry into an exploration of “eras,” showing how they are created and why they are important through a deep dive into three artists that have successfully created eras in their music careers. I will explain why this information is important and how to utilize it for one\u27s own success in order to create a strong and lasting career in the music industry

SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL ASPECTS AND REGIONAL INTEGRATION WITHIN STRATEGIO PLANNING FOR THE SUSTAINABLE DEYELOPMENT OF ST. PETERSBURG

Since they are subjects of the Russian Federation, St. Petersburg and the Leningradskaya Oblast (Leningrad district), as well as other regions of Russia, are implementing the National Strategy of sustainable development. According to the Concept of Transition of the Russian Federation to Sustainable Development, balance between socio-economic goals and protection of the natural environment, together with preserving natural resources, is a real necessity at present [Concept, 1996]. One of the basie documents determining global policy towards sustainable development and preservation of the biosphere is Agenda 21 adopted by the UNO Conference in 1992 in Rio. As a natural continuation of this International document, the Baltic Agenda - 21 acts as a local agenda for the Baltic Sea Region, which formulated the goals of sustainable development for the Baltic States. The same objectives for continued improvement of the socio-economic situation and standards of living of the population were put into operation by the Strategie Plan for the sustainable development of the city of St. Petersburg, created for the first time in 1997 [Strategie Plan, 1997], This paper analyses the achieved level of strategie planning of the city’s development, as well as the sustainability indicators formulated. The authors suggest new indicators describing the condition of natural resource management, which are based on materiał flows entering theeconomy of the region and thus providing information for proactive environmental protection activities and strategie planning. Such indicators have been presented by Eurostat in 2001 [Economy-wide materiał flow accounts, 2001] and investigated by specialists of Wuppertal Institute, Germany [Bringezu, 2002]. In the conditions of a łąck of reąuired material  flow statistics, as a primary step, it is suggested to use MlPS-analyses of energy efficiency based on the energy balance sheet of the city

Towards Integration of Cognitive Models in Dialogue Management: Designing the Virtual Negotiation Coach Application

This paper presents an approach to flexible and adaptive dialogue management driven by cognitive modelling of human dialogue behaviour. Artificial intelligent agents, based on the ACT-R cognitive architecture, together with human actors are participating in a (meta)cognitive skills training within a negotiation scenario. The agent  employs instance-based learning to decide about its own actions and to reflect on the behaviour of the opponent. We show that task-related actions can be handled by a cognitive agent who is a plausible dialogue partner.  Separating task-related and dialogue control actions enables the application of sophisticated models along with a flexible architecture  in which  various alternative modelling methods can be combined. We evaluated the proposed approach with users assessing  the relative contribution of various factors to the overall usability of a dialogue system. Subjective perception of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction were correlated with various objective performance metrics, e.g. number of (in)appropriate system responses, recovery strategies, and interaction pace. It was observed that the dialogue system usability is determined most by the quality of agreements reached in terms of estimated Pareto optimality, by the user's negotiation strategies selected, and by the quality of system recognition, interpretation and responses. We compared human-human and human-agent performance with respect to the number and quality of agreements reached, estimated cooperativeness level, and frequency of accepted negative outcomes. Evaluation experiments showed promising, consistently positive results throughout the range of the relevant scales