Use of assessment center and cluster group tools for the modeling and visualization of temporal dynamics of competences of production managers for the interaction with counteragents

The article identifies current trends in the composition of indicators and the number of professional competencies of production managers for interaction with contractors. It is proposed to use the assessment center's tools to assess the current level and form a promising set of competencies. The experience of using the assessment center tools for these purposes at industrial enterprises of a large industrial center of our country is summarized. The expediency of using the developed methodological procedure of qualitative cluster grouping to obtain a visual representation of the dynamics of changes for each competence model is justified. This made it possible to visualize the dynamics of changes in the clusters of two professional competencies of production managers for interaction with contractors. The conclusion is formulated that in the work of specialists in assessing the professional competencies of middle-level managers using the assessment center tools, the emphasis should shift to the development of such models of professional competencies for interaction with counterparties that allow taking into account the dynamics of the market, its development prospects and the requirements of potential customers.

Optimization of Caving Technology in an Extrathick Seam with Longwall Top Coal Caving Mining

The optimization of top coal caving technology is an efficient method to improve the recovery ratio in longwall top coal caving (LTCC). In extrathick coal seams, the conventional single-opening sequential caving technology (SOSCT) shows the following problems: low recovery ratio, high rock mixed ratio, and poor drawing balance. For these problems, this research verifies the applicability of multiopening caving technology (MOCT) in extrathick coal seams theoretically. However, different drawing sequences have a great effect on the drawing mechanism. Based on the progressive drawing sequence of cluster-group-support, this paper firstly proposes a systematic naming method for the top coal caving technology. Furthermore, an independent cluster-group caving technology (ICGCT) is given, meaning that all supports are divided into several clusters, a cluster is divided into several groups, and clusters extract top coal in positive order while groups are in reverse order in the drawing process. By establishing an experimental model by the discrete element method PFC2D, the drawing mechanism is investigated under different caving technologies. The results show that ICGCT significantly improves the recovery ratio of the panel and mainly increases the drawing volume of top coal in the middle and upper end of the panel. The shape of the top coal boundary reflects the drawing efficiency. Due to the effect of drawing sequence in ICGCT, the generation and disappearance processes of coal ridge greatly decrease the residual top coal in the middle of the panel. The drawing body shape has a direct influence on the recovery ratio. Multiple complete drawing bodies exist in ICGCT, and the dispersion coefficient of drawing volume changes periodically in the range of 0.5–1.7, which is conducive to the management of drawing processes. In addition, discussing ICGCT and the dependent cluster-group caving technology (DCGCT), it is found that the recovery ratio of DCGCT has a slight increase, which enlarges the maximum drawing range of top coal at both panel ends, shortening the total drawing time of the panel. In summary, ICGCT provides a new approach for improving the recovery ratio and drawing balance in LTCC with an extrathick coal seam.

MODERN MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION AND SECURITY APPROACHES TO THE FORMATION OF AN INNOVATIVE CLUSTER GROUP IN THE CONDITIONS OF COVID-19 ON THE BASIS OF SUSTAINABILITY, DECENTRALIZATION AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

Introduction. Differences in the understanding of the main management and information and security approaches to the formation of an innovative cluster group of SME with large industrial enterprises indicate the ambiguity of ways to measure and evaluate such interaction and its scope, which in Covid-19 on the basis of sustainability, decentralization and European integration requires further study. Methods. The historical and logical method is used in the article; the method of systematization, classification and theoretical generalization; the method of institutional analysis; the method of system analysis; the method of logical analysis and synthesis; the method of graphical analysis. Results. It is proved that the cooperation of industrial SME with large industrial enterprises makes certain demands on them. Before attempting to cooperate with large and medium-sized industrial enterprises, manufacturing SME must have a clear idea of the state of their activities, their own potential and its use, the market position of goods and services relative to competitors. Therefore, the procedure of diagnostics of the state of activity of industrial SME is developed in the work, the leading one in which is the assessment of its solvency. The competitiveness of a production SME, its potential and sustainability are assessed using available methods. Production SME differ in scale and types of activity, policy of its financing, degree of integration into the economy of the region or production cluster, which determines the multiplicity of areas of their support. Discussion. Market support for manufacturing SME should be directed to intensify their activities - assistance in finding markets, customers and business partners, the use of mechanisms for adaptation of enterprises using the full range of opportunities for administrative support. Cooperation of manufacturing SME with large industrial enterprises as a kind of business partnership can take place not only in traditional forms, but also using its most common organizational and economic models - subcontracting, franchising, leasing and venture business. The use of such a range of organizational and economic models of cooperation will help meet the interests of each of its participants and strengthen the economy of the region. Keywords: modern management, information and security approaches, innovative cluster group, COVID-19, sustainability, decentralization, European integration.

The Occurrence and Distribution of Benthic Foraminifera in Tropical Waters Along the Strait of Malacca

Foraminifera are shelled single-celled protists that are found in all marine environments. Benthic foraminifera either live in sediments or attach to surfaces on the seafloor. Understanding the distribution and ecological response of benthic foraminifera is crucial, as they can indicate past and current ocean conditions. However, the benthic foraminifera distribution along the busy Strait of Malacca, which connects the Indian Ocean (north) to the Java Sea (south), is undersampled. In this study, we collected 24 surface samples from the northern Strait of Malacca to understand the distribution of foraminifera assemblages in shallow tropical waters. A total of 49 species of benthic foraminifera were identified. Calcareous hyaline species dominated the assemblages, with an extremely low occurrence of calcareous porcelaneous species. The common calcareous hyaline taxa were Asterorotalia pulchella, Pseudorotalia schroeteriana, Discorbinella bertheloti, Ammonia tepida, and Heterolepa praecincta. Cluster analysis categorised the foraminiferal assemblages into three major groups. The first cluster (Group A) consisted of a more diverse assemblage of hyaline and agglutinated species that inhabited a mean water depth of 45 m. The second cluster represented a population that inhabited deeper water environments (average water depth of 59 m). Finally, the third cluster (Group C) consisted of a foraminifera assemblage that inhabited shallow coastal environments (average depth of 22 m) with higher organic matter enrichment. The multivariate canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed that the foraminiferal assemblages reflected the shallow to deep water transition in the Malacca Strait. Water depth, which defines the depositional environment, had a greater influence on foraminifera distribution here than organic matter and salinity.

Distributed multiple-bipartite consensus in networked Lagrangian systems with cooperative-competitive interactions

In combination with the collective behavior evolutions of bipartite consensus and cluster/group consensus, this paper proposes the notion of multiple-bipartite consensus in networked Lagrangian systems (NLSs). The distributed leaderless and leader-following multiple-bipartite consensus control laws for NLSs are presented in the cooperative-competitive network, where the negative interactions between agents can exist in the same subnetwork. By introducing an acyclic partition and adding the integral item in the control protocols, the final explicit convergence states in the leaderless case are eventually obtained. Moreover, the leader-following scenario can be realized in fifinite time with integrated controllers. All of the effectiveness has been illustrated through numerical simulations.

Personality and Attitudes Confronting Death Awareness During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Italy and Spain

Italy and Spain are two representative examples on strict lockdown last March 2020, also suffering a high rate of mortality in Europe. The aim of this study is to examine their attitudes confronting death awareness during the Covid-19 outbreak. Moreover, Personality was also considered. Different sociodemographic, in situ questions related to attitudes and the brief Big Five of Personality were employed in a cross-sectional design. The main results suggested that Personality traits were stable across countries. A relationship was found between Fear to contagious diseases and Neuroticism and other attitudes during the Covid-19 outbreak, and two different clusters were identified with regards to attitudes, however these did not differ on Personality. Finally, a Cluster group, Neuroticism, Age and Sense of belonging to the Country did predict Fear to contagious diseases. Of note, no differences were found across countries during grief.

Problems of analysis and forecasting of the level of technical equipment of agricultural enterprises (on the example of the Ryazan region)

Currently, the level of technical equipment of agricultural enterprises in the Russian Federation remains at a low level. On average, tractor availability in the country is 2–3 times less than in Kazakhstan and Belarus, and 20–30 times lower than in Western Europe and the United States. At the same time, agricultural production is faced with the task of achieving the level defined by the Food Security Doctrine in a number of industries, and increasing exports in a number of industries (production of cereals and industrial crops). In the Ryazan region, there is an appropriate resource potential for solving these problems. But the main factor constraining the increase in production is the insufficient development of the material and technical base. The dynamics of the number of major types of equipment over the past 10 years remains negative. At the same time, the region has a State program of the Ryazan region “Development of the agro-industrial complex until 2025”, which provides for a number of measures to maintain the level of technical equipment of agriculture. In this regard, the issue of scientific justification of the required amount of equipment and forecasting for the near future becomes relevant. On the regional scale, this is a difficult task, since traditional forecasting methods are not fully suitable for solving this problem due to the wide variety of production conditions in farms — soil fertility, climatic conditions, economic situation, specialization, etc. Therefore, we propose a method for determining the required amount of equipment and the amount of investment, based on the allocation of cluster groups and, then, the development of economic and mathematical models for the use of machine and tractor fleet for typical farms of each cluster group. This article analyzes the level of technical equipment of agriculture in the Ryazan region and identifies cluster groups of farms.