Small business in Ukraine: problems and opportunity of efficient functioning

Статтю присвячено дослідженню проблем малого підприємництва та можливості його ефективного функціонування в сучасних ринкових умовах. Малий бізнес є невід’ємною складовою ринкового господарства. Функціонування в сучасних ринкових умовах надає йому гнучкості, мобілізує фінансові й виробничі ресурси, прискорює темпи науково-технічного прогресу, вирішує проблему зайнятості населення. Тому багатостороння підтримка розвитку малого бізнесу та побудова соціально орієнтованої економіки має стати головним вектором реформ в Україні, що служитиме фактором підвищення рівня життя населення та сприятиме процесам інтеграції національної економіки у світове глобальне господарство.The article is devoted to the problems of small business and the possibility of its effective functioning in the current market conditions. Small business is an integral part of the market economy. Functioning in the current market conditions gives it flexibility, mobilizes financial and industrial resources, boosts scientific and technological progress, solves the problem of unemployment. Therefore, multilateral support of small business development and building a socially oriented economy should become the main vectors of reforms in Ukraine, which will serve as factorsof improving standards of life and facilitating the integration of national economy into the world global economy

Priority areas for watershed service conservation in the Guapi-Macacu region of Rio de Janeiro, Atlantic Forest, Brazil.

Introduction: Land use intensification and urbanisation processes are degrading hydrological ecosystem services in the Guapi-Macacu watershed of Rio de Janeiro. A proposal to pay farmers to restore natural watershed services might be an alternative to securing the water supply in the long-term for the around 2.5 million urban water users in the study region. This study quantifies the costs of changing current land use patterns to enhance watershed services and compares these costs to the avoided costs associated with water treatment for public supply. Methods: We use farm-household data to estimate the opportunity costs of abandoning current land uses for the recovery of natural vegetation; a process that is very likely to improve water quality in terms of turbidity due to reduced inputs from erosion. Opportunity cost estimates are extrapolated to the watershed scale based on remote sensing land use classifications and vulnerability analysis to identify priority zones for watershed management interventions. To assess the potential demand for watershed services, we analyse water quality and treatment cost data from the main local water treatment plant. Results: Changing agricultural land uses for watershed services provision generally comes at high opportunity costs in our study area near to the metropolis of Rio de Janeiro. Alternative low cost watershed conservation options do exist in the livestock production sector. These options have the potential to directly reduce the amount of sediments and nutrients reaching the water bodies, and in turn decrease the costs of treatment needed for drinking water. Land cover changes at the scale needed to improve water quality will, nonetheless, likely exceed the cost of additional investments in water treatment. Conclusions: The state water utility company?s willingness to pay for watershed services alone will not be enough to induce provision of additional watershed services. We conclude that monetary incentives conditioned on specific adjustments to existing production systems could still have a complementary role to play in improving watershed services. However, we note that our willingness to pay analysis focusses on only one of the potentially wide range of ecosystem services provided by natural vegetation in the Guapi-Macacu watershed. Factoring these ecosystem services into the willingness to pay equation is likely to change our assessment in favour of additional conservation action, be it through PES or other policy instruments

final results of the observational EXPLAIN-FXS study

Background As data on the phenotype, characteristics and management of patients with Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) are limited, we aimed to collect such data in Germany in experienced centres involved in the treatment of such patients. Methods EXPLAIN-FXS is a prospective observational (non- interventional) study (registry) performed between April 2013 and January 2016 at 18 sites in Germany. Requirements for patient participation included confirmed diagnosis of FXS by genetic testing (>200 CGG repeats) and written informed consent. Patients were followed for up to 2 years. Results Seventy- five patients (84.0 % males, mean age 16.7 ± 14.5 years, ranging from 2 - 82 years) were analysed. The mean 6-item score, determined according to Giangreco (J Pediatr 129:611-614, 1996), was 6.9 ± 2.5 points. At least one neurological finding each was noted in 53 patients (69.7 %). Specifically, ataxia was noted in 5 patients (6.6 %), lack of fine motor skills in 40 patients, (52.6 %), muscle tonus disorder in 4 patients (5.3 %), and other neurological disorders in 39 patients (51.3 %). Spasticity was not noted in any patient. Seizures were reported in 6 patients (8.1 %), anxiety disorders in 22 patients (30.1 %), depression in 7 patients (9.6 %), ADHD/ADD in 36 patients (49.3 %), impairment of social behavior in 39 patients (53.4 %), and other comorbidities in 23 patients (31.5 %). The mean Aberrant Behaviour Checklist Community Edition (ABC-C) score on behavioral symptoms, obtained in 71 patients at first documentation, was 48.4 ± 27.8 (median 45.0, range 5-115). The mean visual analogue scale (VAS) score, obtained in 59 patients at first documentation, was 84.9 ± 14.6 points (median 90; range 50 – 100). Conclusions This report describes the largest cohort of patients with FXS in Europe. The reported observations indicate a substantial burden of disease for patients and their caregivers. Based on these observations, an early expert psychiatric diagnosis is recommended for suspected FXS patients. Further recommendations include multimodal and multi-professional management that is tailored to the individual patient’s needs. Trial registration The ClinTrials.gov identifier is NCT01711606. Registered on 18 October 2012

Twenty-million-year relationship between mammalian diversity and primary productivity

At global and regional scales, primary productivity strongly correlates with richness patterns of extant animals across space, suggesting that resource availability and climatic conditions drive patterns of diversity. However, the existence and consistency of such diversity–productivity relationships through geological history is unclear. Here we provide a comprehensive quantitative test of the diversity–productivity relationship for terrestrial large mammals through time across broad temporal and spatial scales. We combine >14,000 occurrences for 690 fossil genera through the Neogene (23–1.8 Mya) with regional estimates of primary productivity from fossil plant communities in North America and Europe. We show a significant positive diversity–productivity relationship through the 20-million-year record, providing evidence on unprecedented spatial and temporal scales that this relationship is a general pattern in the ecology and paleo-ecology of our planet. Further, we discover that genus richness today does not match the fossil relationship, suggesting that a combination of human impacts and Pleistocene climate variability has modified the 20-million-year ecological relationship by strongly reducing primary productivity and driving many mammalian species into decline or to extinction

Some investigations into non passive listening

Our knowledge of the function of the auditory nervous system is based upon a wealth of data obtained, for the most part, in anaesthetised animals. More recently, it has been generally acknowledged that factors such as attention profoundly modulate the activity of sensory systems and this can take place at many levels of processing. Imaging studies, in particular, have revealed the greater activation of auditory areas and areas outside of sensory processing areas when attending to a stimulus. We present here a brief review of the consequences of such non-passive listening and go on to describe some of the experiments we are conducting to investigate them. In imaging studies, using fMRI, we can demonstrate the activation of attention networks that are non-specific to the sensory modality as well as greater and different activation of the areas of the supra-temporal plane that includes primary and secondary auditory areas. The profuse descending connections of the auditory system seem likely to be part of the mechanisms subserving attention to sound. These are generally thought to be largely inactivated by anaesthesia. However, we have been able to demonstrate that even in an anaesthetised preparation, removing the descending control from the cortex leads to quite profound changes in the temporal patterns of activation by sounds in thalamus and inferior colliculus. Some of these effects seem to be specific to the ear of stimulation and affect interaural processing. To bridge these observations we are developing an awake behaving preparation involving freely moving animals in which it will be possible to investigate the effects of consciousness (by contrasting awake and anaesthetized), passive and active listening

Contrasting changes in the abundance and diversity of North American bird assemblages from 1971 to 2010

This article is based upon work from COST Action ES1101 "Harmonising Global Biodiversity Modelling" (Harmbio), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).Although it is generally recognized that global biodiversity is declining, few studies have examined long-term changes in multiple biodiversity dimensions simultaneously. In this study we quantified and compared temporal changes in the abundance, taxonomic diversity, functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity of bird assemblages, using roadside monitoring data of the North American Breeding Bird Survey from 1971 to 2010. We calculated 12 abundance and diversity metrics based on five year average abundances of 519 species for each of 768 monitoring routes. We did this for all bird species together as well as for four sub-groups based on breeding habitat affinity (grassland, woodland, wetland and shrubland breeders). The majority of the biodiversity metrics increased or remained constant over the study period, whereas the overall abundance of birds showed a pronounced decrease, primarily driven by declines of the most abundant species. These results highlight how stable or even increasing metrics of taxonomic, functional or phylogenetic diversity may occur in parallel with substantial losses of individuals. We further found that patterns of change differed among the species sub-groups, with both abundance and diversity increasing for woodland birds and decreasing for grassland breeders. The contrasting changes between abundance and diversity and among the breeding habitat groups underscore the relevance of a multi-faceted approach to measuring biodiversity change. Our findings further stress the importance of monitoring the overall abundance of individuals in addition to metrics of taxonomic, functional or phylogenetic diversity, thus confirming the importance of population abundance as an essential biodiversity variable.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe