Electroencephalographic Evidence for Individual Neural Inertia in Mice That Decreases With Time

Previous studies have demonstrated that the brain has an intrinsic resistance to changes in arousal state. This resistance is most easily measured at the population level in the setting of general anesthesia and has been termed neural inertia. To date, no study has attempted to determine neural inertia in individuals. We hypothesize that individuals with markedly increased or decreased neural inertia might be at increased risk for complications related to state transitions, from awareness under anesthesia, to delayed emergence or confusion/impairment after emergence. Hence, an improved theoretical and practical understanding of neural inertia may have the potential to identify individuals at increased risk for these complications. This study was designed to explicitly measure neural inertia in individuals and empirically test the stochastic model of neural inertia using spectral analysis of the murine EEG. EEG was measured after induction of and emergence from isoflurane administered near the EC50 dose for loss of righting in genetically inbred mice on a timescale that minimizes pharmacokinetic confounds. Neural inertia was assessed by employing classifiers constructed using linear discriminant or supervised machine learning methods to determine if features of EEG spectra reliably demonstrate path dependence at steady-state anesthesia. We also report the existence of neural inertia at the individual level, as well as the population level, and that neural inertia decreases over time, providing direct empirical evidence supporting the predictions of the stochastic model of neural inertia.

Operating Successfully on a New Technological Path: The Effect of External Search

Switching to a new technological path is often a serious economic challenge for companies. Incumbents, in particular, are often led by their organizational routines, traditional technological orientation, and experience, and run the risk of losing contact with new technologies, which can decrease their competitiveness. We analyze whether opening up the innovation process to external knowledge partners can help to overcome such path dependence and enable firms to operate successfully on a new technological path. We develop a theoretical concept that shows the potential of external knowledge sources for operating successfully on a new technological path and test it empirically using the example of green technologies. Green technologies are not only relevant for addressing the current environmental problems, but they are also an example of a new technological path that is proving difficult for companies to switch to. Overall, we find strong direct effects of external (green) knowledge on green innovation success. The results even indicate that the direct effect of external knowledge tends to be larger for green than for non-green innovation.

Research on New Public Management from a Multi-dimensional Perspectiv

At present, community pension has become a new type of pension. However, with economic development and social transformation, our country has entered a special period of diversified interests and complex contradictions. Environmental mass incidents show a high incidence trend. "Dilemma." This article uses a new perspective of behavioral public management to analyze the interaction between the government and the public in the decision-making process of environmental projects, and draws the conclusion of "two transformations": the cognitive framework of "public management". Scientific understanding is needed. Transform into the cognitive framework of "public epistemology"; accordingly, the interactive mode of the one-way role of the government and the people and the intermediary influence of experts needs to be transformed into the two-way role of "public epistemology". Based on the interactive mode in which the government, the people and experts play a regulatory role, it is recommended to transform the path dependence of government decision-making led by bureaucratic experts and technical experts into completely democratic decision-making.

An expanded knowledge production function

This paper uses a theoretical motivation for an Expanded Knowledge Production Function(EKPF) that encompasses both path dependence and spatial spillovers to search for evidences inBrazil using a Dynamic Spatial Panel Data approach. The purpose is to identify the determinantsof knowledge production in the 2005-2015 period as well as its temporal evolution, usinginnovation patents as proxies. Regarding its spatial distribution, we identified a North-Southdisparity for the knowledge production in Brazil, with Southeast and South producing alarge part of the country’s patents. Based on the EKPF, we confirmed the importance ofpath dependence and knowledge spillovers to explain the Brazilian innovation. In addition,population density, which generates Jacobian externalities and economies of agglomeration, isan important structural feature in the short run while the number of researchers in universitiesand an increased economic scale are essential to knowledge production in the long run.

Public Procurement Concept as A Path Dependence Result

The rationale and conditions for transformation of a coordination mechanism in public procurement in Russia from market to redistribution, based on the quasi-market technology, are outlined. The authors view modernization of the economic framework of public procurement as an outcome of institutionalizing the rational conduct principles under the influence of such factors as public production conditions and path dependence. The paper describes transformation of the main elements of the machinery for financing public procurement associated with changing the institutional management structure towards support for the “best quality at an affordable price” principle. Alternatives of transaction managements in the financing system of supplying products for public needs are reviewed: from centralized planning in the USSR to the mixed economy in the today’s Russia. A comparative analysis based on the typical features of the market mechanism for transaction coordination justifies the quail-market nature of public procurement technologies in the Russian Federation. Arguments are given for procurement technology dynamics as returning to redistributive transaction coordination that facilitates transformation of public procurement from an economic-structure neutral into a proactive mechanism geared to form new economic orders. A sequence of tasks is given in order to execute the procurement concept in terms of institutional methodology as well as the prospects for developing a system of public procurement as a mechanism of proactive budgeting policy under bilateral economic sanctions that means de-liberalization of international economic relations. Public contractual system is a factor that is gradually restoring an ability to play a stabilizing and stimulating role in order to support the growth of national production and innovations by employing the taxpayer’s money to attain the national strategic development goals

Soviet Legacy and Imagined Past Converge in Levant Battlefields

The article analyzes main drivers of the revitalization of the Soviet ideological narratives in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. A key impetus for the study has been ever increasing number of the terrorist attacks claiming dozens of lives in Russia committed by Central Asian originated fighters as well as arrest of dozens of members of the various religious organizations banned in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The hypothesis rests on the assumption that ideological cacophony stemming from deep controversies embodied in the refashioned Soviet ideological narratives to me major cause of the problem. While employing the path dependence approach, I mainly point to interaction between the surge in the religious extremism and ideological disorientation caused by ideological disorientation in the region continuing since the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991 to address main research question “what are external implications of post-Soviet ideological narratives in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan?.” The paper finds out that the post-independent identity policies are not designed to build a new idea but to moot or keep at arms-length identities marginalized during the Soviet period. The Soviet legacy constitutes the core of the neo-ethnic identities introduced by former communist leaders just slightly refashioned with highly selective and politically motivated supplements. Sharp contradictions embodied in these narratives designed to ensure policy goals is among drivers of the ideological disorientation which in its turn acts as a breeding ground for the recruitment of Uzbek and Tajik youth to the global terrorist networks.