Russian border regions in the economic corridor of China-Mongolia-Russia

The object of the paper are the border regions of Siberia as a part of the planned China-MongoliaRussia economic corridor in China’s foreign policy initiative “One Belt One Road”. The aim of the study is to reveal the nature of the interaction of these regions with the outside world to determine the ways of their development within a common economic space of the corridor. The study is based on the analysis of foreign investment flows to the border regions using macro- and microeconomic methods. The volume foreign capital goes mainly to mining, while other industries are dominated by small enterprises formed by foreign citizens, not corporations. In these areas, intermediary business prevails, which does not require increased human capital. China is gradually replacing other counter-partners in the use of natural resources, including mineral and forest ones. The problems of development of the border regions in common economic space of the corridor due to similar resource specialisation and weak development of the embedded economy have been identified. With the development of transit infrastructure, it is necessary to develop local industries integrated into large projects and capable of using this infrastructure to expand sales markets.

Job Satisfaction and Implications for Organizational Sustainability: A Resource Efficiency Perspective

This study contributes to the organizational sustainability literature by exploring a methodology for defining and making the notion of employee flourishing at work operational. It applies stochastic frontier methods on British longitudinal data to estimate the maximum job satisfaction that employees can achieve should they utilize their resources efficiently. It offers a new perspective on the notion of social comparisons and extends the literature by demonstrating the scope for organizational intervention in the context of commonly assumed, time invariant variables, which are often thought to be beyond interventionist possibilities. Findings suggest that many British employees fail to reach their job satisfaction potential, reporting satisfaction scores below those of their peers with similar resource endowments. This inefficiency correlates strongly with personality traits. Implications for organizational sustainability policy and practice are discussed.

Building capacity through open approaches: Lessons from developing undergraduate electrophysiology practicals

Background: Electrophysiology has a wide range of biomedical research and clinical applications. As such, education in the theoretical basis and hands-on practice of electrophysiological techniques is essential for biomedical students, including at the undergraduate level. However, offering hands-on learning experiences is particularly difficult in environments with limited resources and infrastructure. Methods: In 2017, we began a project to design and incorporate electrophysiology laboratory practicals into our Biomedical Physics undergraduate curriculum at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. We describe some of the challenges we faced, how we maximized resources to overcome some of these challenges, and in particular, how we used open scholarship approaches to build both educational and research capacity. Results: We succeeded in developing a number of experimental and data analysis practicals in electrophysiology, including electrocardiogram, electromyogram, and electrooculogram techniques. The use of open tools, open platforms, and open licenses was key to the success and broader impact of our project. We share examples of our practicals and explain how we use these activities to strengthen interdisciplinary learning, namely the application of concepts in physics to understanding functions of the human body. Conclusions: Open scholarship provides multiple opportunities for universities to build capacity. Our goal is to provide ideas, materials, and strategies for educators working in similar resource-limited environments.

Ecological outcomes of hybridization vary extensively in Catostomus fishes

Hybridization has been studied extensively to learn about speciation and mechanisms of reproductive isolation, but increasingly we recognize that hybridization outcomes vary geo-graphically and can depend on the environment. At the same time, hybridization can reshape biotic interactions in an ecosystem, leading to ecological shifts where hybridization occurs. Identifying how hybrid individuals function ecologically would link evolutionary outcomes of hybridization to ecological consequences, but relatively few studies have focused on ecological traits of hybrids. We described the feeding ecology of several Catostomus fish species and their hybrids by using stable isotopes (δ13C and δ15N) as a proxy for diet and habitat use, and compared two native species, an introduced species, and three interspecific hybrid crosses. We replicated this comparison spatially, including hybrids and parental species from seven rivers in the Upper Colorado River basin where parental species co-occur and the opportunity for hybridization exists. Although relationships between native species in isotopic space varied, individual native species did not fully overlap in isotopic space in any river sampled, suggesting little overlap of resource use between these historically sympatric species. The introduced species overlapped with one or both native species in every river, suggesting similar resource use and potential for competition. Hybrids occupied intermediate, matching, or more extreme (transgressive) isotopic space relative to parental species, and were isotopically variable within and among rivers. We suggest that ecological outcomes of hybridization, like genomic outcomes of hybridization, are likely to vary across locations where a pair of species hybridizes. This variation implies that hybridization might have large unpredictable, idiosyncratic ecological effects on fish assemblages where hybrids occur. Although we found little evidence that hybrids are at a disadvantage ecologically—there were no significant declines in body condition relative to parental species—it is nevertheless possible that abiotic or biotic attributes of a river might constrain the range of interspecific hybrids that are successful, thus contributing to variation in hybridization outcomes across rivers.

Stakeholder Management of Temporary Sport Event Organizations

The aim of this study is to investigate, through the application of stakeholder theory, the challenges faced by the Bergen 2017 Organizing Committee when hosting the 2017 Road World Championship in cycling. Data for the case study were collected through interviews with eight senior representatives from stakeholders such as the Organizing Committee Bergen 2017, international and national federations, event observations and the analysis of selected documents. The study examined the development of stakeholder relationships through three phases in the development and delivery of the event (i.e., pre-event, event time and post-event). The Bergen 2017 organising committee members were referred to as happy amateurs by the media but proved to be astute in managing their relationship with the international federation as a primary stakeholder and resourceful in coping with a shortage of professional staff due to the help by volunteers. The research illustrates the problematic nature of stakeholder management in temporary event organizations and how it is possible to host a major event with limited resources, in terms of skills, time, staff, finance and support from important stakeholders. These results have significant implications for event organizers facing similar resource challenges and who have to manage a complex network of stakeholders. The results also have implications for stakeholder theory in relation to the distinctive challenges arising from the temporary nature of the organizing committee and their evolution through the different phases.

Industry-energy system management by a Copula-based stochastic programming approach

In this study, a Copula-based stochastic industry-energy system management (CSIE) model was developed based on Copula-based stochastic programming and interval linear programming. CSIE model can not only deal with extreme random events in industry-energy system (IES) of resource-dependent cities, but also quantify the risks of industrial energy demand-supply. To prove the practicability, a case study of IES planning in Yulin city was represented. Reasonable solutions of energy production and industrial energy consumption strategy were obtained, which can guarantee that pollutant emission meets the environmental requirements, and the system cost gets the lowest during 2021-2035. Furthermore, CSIE model could be spread to IES management in similar resource-dependent cities.

LCVP, The Leipzig catalogue of vascular plants, a new taxonomic reference list for all known vascular plants

The lack of comprehensive and standardized taxonomic reference information is an impediment for robust plant research, e.g. in systematics, biogeography or macroecology. Here we provide an updated and much improved reference list of 1,315,562 scientific names for all described vascular plant species globally. The Leipzig Catalogue of Vascular Plants (LCVP; version 1.0.3) contains 351,180 accepted species names (plus 6,160 natural hybrids), within 13,460 genera, 564 families and 84 orders. The LCVP a) contains more information on the taxonomic status of global plant names than any other similar resource, and b) significantly improves the reliability of our knowledge by e.g. resolving the taxonomic status of ~181,000 names compared to The Plant List, the up to date most commonly used plant name resource. We used ~4,500 publications, existing relevant databases and available studies on molecular phylogenetics to construct a robust reference backbone. For easy access and integration into automated data processing pipelines, we provide an ‘R’-package (lcvplants) with the LCVP.

Saving for the bad times: slack resources during an economic downturn

Purpose This paper aims to examine what firms in Spanish industrial sectors redeployed their resources, depending on their organisational slack (resource excess), when faced with the global economic crisis of 2008. Design/methodology/approach Various financial measures for slack resources and performance have been analysed from more than 400 Spanish firms from 2006 (pre-crisis) to 2017 (recovery). Findings The first finding is that every slack is useful against an economic downturn. The results show how industrial companies use their slack resources when faced with a generalised crisis according to the level of slack possessed. The key role of the available slack against this environmental threatens is remarked. Research limitations/implications Not every resource is useful against an economic downturn. The results show how industrial companies use their slack resources when faced with a generalised crisis in accordance with the types and levels of slack. The key role of the liquid resources, in particular cash, against this environmental threat is discussed. However, we also observe the behaviour of firms with only a few excess resources and find very similar resource consumption patterns. Originality/value Although organisational slack is a well-known concept in management, few studies deal with how companies consume or use other types of resources when confronting a crisis. This paper not only addresses this question but also offers insights for a detailed evaluation of various types of slack during and after a crisis.

aYChr-DB: a database of ancient human Y haplogroups

Ancient Y-Chromosomal DNA is an invaluable tool for dating and discerning the origins of migration routes and demographic processes that occurred thousands of years ago. Driven by the adoption of high-throughput sequencing and capture enrichment methods in paleogenomics, the number of published ancient genomes has nearly quadrupled within the last three years (2018–2020). Whereas ancient mtDNA haplogroup repositories are available, no similar resource exists for ancient Y-Chromosomal haplogroups. Here, we present aYChr-DB—a comprehensive collection of 1797 ancient Eurasian human Y-Chromosome haplogroups ranging from 44 930 BC to 1945 AD. We include descriptors of age, location, genomic coverage and associated archaeological cultures. We also produced a visualization of ancient Y haplogroup distribution over time. The aYChr-DB database is a valuable resource for population genomic and paleogenomic studies.