Man against machine: Debates in the expert community on the lethal autonomous systems

In the recent years debates surrounding the autonomous weapons systems development and regulation have gained a new momentum. Despite the fact that the development of such type of weapons continues since the twentieth century, recent technological advances open up new possibilities for development of completely autonomous combat systems that will operate without human in-tervention. In this context, international community faces a number of ethical, legal, and regulatory issues. This paper examines the ongoing debates in both the Western and the Russian expert community on the challenges and prospects for using lethal autonomous systems. The author notes that Russian and Western discourses on most of the issues have very much in common and diff erences are found mainly in the intensity of debates — in the West they are much more ac-tive. In both cases the most active debates focus around two issues: the potential implications of fully autonomous weapons systems including the unclear line of accountability, and the prospects for international legal regulation of the use of lethal autonomous weapons. Both the Russian and the Western experts agree that the contemporary international humanitarian law is unable to handle the challenges posed by aggressive development of the lethal autonomous weapons. All this points to the need to adapt the international humanitarian law to the new realities, which, in turn, requires concerted actions from leading states and international organizations.

Means of communication and socio-legal aspects of interaction between subjects of religious-penitentiary space: the case of Muslims

The Constitutional and Legal Institute of Religious Freedom in the Penitentiary System is subordinated to and regulated by the rules established by the Federal Executive Body exercising law enforcement functions in the fi eld of execution of sentences (FSIN of Russia). Finding themselves isolated from society, ethnic and practising Muslims, sentenced to imprisonment, feel forced restrictions on the religious freedom. The time and place of Muslims who perform religious rites and rituals are regulated by the documents issued by the Ministry of Justice of Russia were outlined the internal regulations for correctional institutions. The state is entrusted with the duty to provide in prisons a special environment, which would enable the spiritual nourishment of Muslims, whose rights to freedom of religious life are supported by centralized Islamic religious organizations. The civil institutions exercise public control over this implementation. At the same time, the Russian State is increasingly interested in interacting with the main subjects of the religious and penitentiary space. Among them there are offi cial structures of the Islamic Ummah, sending educated imams and Islamic theologians for religious service in prisons, representatives of the Islamic expert community, also there are Public Councils on the problems of the penitentiary system under the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. The present author considers the activities of Muslim spiritual departments to provide prison libraries with religious literature (the Holy Quran and semantic translations, the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad, His biography, books on Islamic law) as well as the best examples of religious literature, which manifest the traditional values of Russian Islam and the imperatives of a positive socio-cultural environment to be the signifi cant means of communication in the religious-penitentiary environment.

The military-political situation in Central Asia in the context of the growing instability in Afghanistan

The Central Asian region due to its economic potential and strategic signifi -cance has traditionally been of particular importance for Russia’s foreign policy. It was therefore not surprising that a serious deterioration of the political situation in Afghanistan in summer-autumn 2021 caused by the military defeat and the subsequent collapse of the pro-Western regime followed by the seizure of power by the Taliban raised serious concern of the Russian leadership. The developments in Afghanistan have attracted an increasing attention of the expert community, prompting a fl urry of comments and forecasts. Although many of these papers were published hastily, their assessments and conclusion were usually based on the long-term observations. This paper attempts to provide an overview of the military-political situation in the Central Asian region as it was caught by a new crisis in Afghanistan and as it is seen by both Russian and foreign experts. The fi rst section outlines positions and interests of the key regional and non-regional actors that have a signifi cant impact on the military-political situation in Central Asia. The second section examines the response of the Russian Federation to the situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban took power. Finally, the third section provides an overview of the latest expert comments and reports that attempt to assess possible implications of those events for the regional military-political dynamics and the national security interests of the Russian Federation.

Developing General Cultural Competences: A Case Study of Students Taking a Course in Pedagogy and Psychology

The education system and teachers are currently faced with the need to increase the interest of students not only in their chosen specialty and related training courses but in the content of the compulsory basic-level disciplines. One of the possible solutions to this problem may be filling such courses with practice-oriented and universal content, which can contribute to the formation and implementation of general cultural competences even in the learning (professional training) process. The purpose of the work is to present to the expert community the results of introducing the authors approach to the development of a set of knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies of students, as they are taught pedagogy and psychology, and to compare the process and results of face-to-face and online training conducted according to the authors program. The attention is focused on the development of practical skills and abilities within the framework of this course, in particular, the ability to conduct classes for peers with elements of training. The study used an adapted experimental curriculum of the pedagogy and psychology course, means of assessment (control works in the form of tests with open and closed questions) and self-assessment (authors questionnaire). The sample consisted of 68 undergraduate and postgraduate students of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The results of using the developed program showed high efficiency in relation to indicators of academic success of the students due to the creation of conditions for mutual learning and conducting classes by the students themselves.

The Subject and Concept of Innovation Activity (Projection on Russian Specifics)

The role of innovations in the development of society is considered. It is shown that innovations are a routine economic process of enterprise development, requiring the involvement of a number of resources for implementation. The availability of resources, the complexity of their acquire and use determine the demand for innovative approaches to the development of enterprises and the economy as a whole. The article compares the problems of innovative development faced by enterprises and scientific organizations abroad and in Russia. The differences in the problems and tasks that need to be solved are shown. As a result, the approaches to stimulating innovative development that are used abroad do not always give comparable results in Russia. At the same time, there are problems in Russia that are not relevant abroad and, as a result, are not discussed there. The focus on borrowing foreign solutions leads to the fact that the tasks relevant for Russia are not discussed in the expert community and are not solved practically.

On the Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Scientific Research

The regulatory framework for evaluating the effectiveness of scientific research within the national scientific system, at the level of individual scientific organizations and researchers is considered. The analysis of individual indicators of scientific performance at the national level is carried out. In particular, the following indicators were analyzed: publication and patent activity, development and use of advanced technologies, commercialization of technologies in the domestic market and international technological exchange. The compliance of evaluation indicators at the level of scientific organizations and certification of researchers with indicators used at the national level is analyzed. It is concluded that till now the evaluation system usedhad little impact on decision-making on the allocation of resources for scientific research. Low attention of the expert community to the transfer of developments to the real sector was noted, although the available statistics show that there is an interest in new technologies on the part of manufacturing enterprises.

Methodological approach to ensuring the quality of expert examination in the information system of the Federal roster of experts in the scientific and technological sphere.

The article analyzes and proposes a methodological approach to ensuring the quality of expert examination of innovative projects and the results of their implementation with the involvement of the expert community formed in the information system of the Federal Roster of Experts in the Scientific and Technological sphere.

ETHNOCULTURAL AND LANGUAGE POLICY IN CHUVASHIA: EXPERT OPINION

The article analyzes the opinion of the expert community on a number of problems concerning the ethnocultural development and language policy in Chuvashia. The survey was conducted in 15 regions of the country using the tools developed at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology under the Russian Academy of Sciences. In autumn 2020, 30 experts expressed their opinion, they represented equally the sphere of state and municipal administration, science, higher education, the media, as well as national cultural associations and other public organizations. Much attention of the experts was directed to the ways and methods of implementing the amendments to the Constitution of Russia in Chuvashia adopted in 2020, including by expanding the opportunities of regional legislation in the field of ethno-cultural development. Different points of view are expressed on such subjects as the legislative strengthening of the Chuvash language in the public space, the decision to switch to voluntary study of native languages in educational institutions, the possibility of state and public support for native languages of various peoples, etc. The attitude to such innovations was determined during the All-Russian Population Census as the ability of citizens to name themselves as representatives of more than one nationality and to name not one native language but more, to determine the extent of using other languages in everyday life other than Russian. The opinion of experts on the place and role of national cultural associations in the work on the ethno-cultural direction was studied. On a number of issues, experts expressed an integrated opinion, including supporting the cultural needs of the old-time and newly arriving population, on the need to consider native languages as belonging to traditional family values, on the possibility of identifying the level of language use in everyday life during the population census, etc. At the same time, quite opposite opinions were expressed on a number of issues. For example, this is in reference to the possibility to consider oneself a person belonging not to one, but, for example, to two ethnic identities during the population census, about the activity of national and cultural associations when discussing the amendments to the Constitution of Russia, etc.

PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF ATU GAGAUZIA, REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA: EXPERT APPROACH (RESULTS OF RESEARCH)

In this article, I consider a new approach that can be used to build regional economic policy. The current situation of economic development makes new demands on the process of determining priorities in development, which later becomes key elements in decision-making at the state and regional levels. It is important to apply different methods and techniques for collecting and processing information. In 2019, a study was carried out to estimate the opinion of the expert community (50 people) about the problems and priorities of economic development in a particular region, an example of which was the autonomous-territorial unit Gagauzia (Gagauz Yeri) of the Republic of Moldova. Based on the results obtained, the author presented the results of the study and developed recommendations for the application of the expert approach in the future, when regional authorities develop strategic decisions and elaborate the documents at the regional level.

RESEARCH OF THE POSSIBILITY OF PRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION OF RDF FUEL

The issues of sustainable development of waste management systems are actively discussed throughout the world both at the level of government agencies and at the lev-el of the scientific and expert community. One of the ways to improve the existing practice of waste management in Russia is the search for ways to involve them in eco-nomic circulation as secondary material and energy resources. The article shows the fea-sibility of using solid municipal and industrial waste for the production of alternative fuels.