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Diplocarpon coronariae is a fungal pathogen that is prevalent in low-input apple production. Over the past 15 years, it has become increasingly distributed in Europe. However, comprehensive insights into its biology and pathogenicity remain limited. One particular aspect is the rarity of the sexual morph of this pathogen, a phenomenon hitherto unobserved in Europe. Diplocarpon coronariae reproduces through a heterothallic mating system requiring at least two different mating types for sexual reproduction. Genes determining the mating types are located on the mating-type locus. In this study, D. coronariae strain DC1_JKI from Dresden, Germany, was sequenced and used to unravel the structure of the mating type locus. Using short-read and long-read sequencing methods, the first gapless and near-complete telomere-to-telomere genome assembly of D. coronariae was achieved. The assembled genome spans 51.2 Mbp and comprises 21 chromosome-scale contigs of high completeness. The generated genome sequence was used to in silico elucidate the structure of the mating-type locus, identified as MAT1-2. Furthermore, an examination of MAT1-1 and MAT1-2 frequency across a diverse set of samples sourced from Europe and Asia revealed the exclusive presence of MAT1-2 in European samples, whereas both MAT loci were present in Asian counterparts. Our findings suggest an explanation for the absence of the sexual morph, potentially linked to the absence of the second mating idiomorph of D. coronariae in European apple orchards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diplocarpon coronariae is a fungal pathogen that is prevalent in low-input apple production. Over the past 15 years, it has become increasingly distributed in Europe. However, comprehensive insights into its biology and pathogenicity remain limited. One particular aspect is the rarity of the sexual morph of this pathogen, a phenomenon hitherto unobserved in Europe. Diplocarpon coronariae reproduces through a heterothallic mating system requiring at least two different mating types for sexual reproduction. Genes determining the mating types are located on the mating-type locus. In this study, D. coronariae strain DC1_JKI from Dresden, Germany, was sequenced and used to unravel the structure of the mating type locus. Using short-read and long-read sequencing methods, the first gapless and near-complete telomere-to-telomere genome assembly of D. coronariae was achieved. The assembled genome spans 51.2 Mbp and comprises 21 chromosome-scale contigs of high completeness. The generated genome sequence was used to in silico elucidate the structure of the mating-type locus, identified as MAT1-2. Furthermore, an examination of MAT1-1 and MAT1-2 frequency across a diverse set of samples sourced from Europe and Asia revealed the exclusive presence of MAT1-2 in European samples, whereas both MAT loci were present in Asian counterparts. Our findings suggest an explanation for the absence of the sexual morph, potentially linked to the absence of the second mating idiomorph of D. coronariae in European apple orchards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bacterial pathogen Erwinia amylovora causes fire blight on rosaceous plants, including apples and their wild relatives. The pathogen uses the type III secretion pathogenicity island to inject effector proteins, such as Eop1, into host plants, leading to disease phenotypes in susceptible genotypes. In contrast, resistant genotypes exhibit quantitative resistance associated with genomic regions and/or R-gene-mediated qualitative resistance to withstand the pathogen. In Malus , strong resistance is observed in some wild species accessions, for example, in Malus xarnoldiana accession MAL0004. The resistance locus FB_Mar12 , previously identified on linkage group 12 (LG12) of MAL0004, is one of two gene loci in Malus proven to withstand highly virulent North American strains of E. amylovora. This suggests the influence of a major gene, with a few candidate genes proposed within the FB_Mar12 region. In this report, we provide evidence that this gene locus is completely broken down by a mutant strain of the E. amylovora effector protein Eop1 (Δ eop1) following artificial shoot inoculations of an 'Idared' × MAL0004 F1 progeny set, indicating a gene-for-gene interaction. Interestingly, Δ eop1 does not overcome the resistance of the FB_Mar12 donor MAL0004 itself, but only the QTL on LG12, an indication that other resistance factors, possibly QTLs/genes are contributing to the fire blight resistance of MAL0004. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous Mendelian randomization (MR) studies showed an association between hypothyroidism and cataract and between high-normal free thyroxine (FT4) and late age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but not between FT4, thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), or hyperthyroidism and diabetic retinopathy or cataract. These studies included a limited number of genetic variants for thyroid function and did not investigate autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) or glaucoma, include bidirectional and multivariable MR (MVMR), and examine sex differences or potential mediation effects of diabetes. We aimed to address this knowledge gap. Methods: We examined the causality and directionality of the associations of AITD, and FT4 and TSH within the reference range with common age-related eye diseases (diabetic retinopathy, cataract, early and late AMD, and primary open-angle glaucoma). We conducted a bidirectional two-sample MR study utilizing publicly available genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics from international consortia (ThyroidOmics, International AMD Genetics Consortium, deCODE, UK Biobank, FinnGen, and DIAGRAM). Bidirectional MR tested directionality, whereas MVMR estimated independent causal effects. Furthermore, we investigated type 1 diabetes (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) as potential mediators. Results: Genetic predisposition to AITD was associated with increased risk of diabetic retinopathy (p = 3 × 10−4), cataract (p = 3 × 10−3), and T1D (p = 1 × 10−3), but less likely T2D (p = 0.01). MVMR showed attenuated estimates for diabetic retinopathy and cataract when adjusting for T1D, but not T2D. We found pairwise bidirectional associations between AITD, T1D, and diabetic retinopathy. Genetic predisposition to both T1D and T2D increased the risk of diabetic retinopathy and cataract (p < 4 × 10−4). Moreover, genetically predicted higher FT4 within the reference range was associated with an increased risk of late AMD (p = 0.01), particularly in women (p = 7 × 10−3). However, we neither found any association between FT4 and early AMD nor between TSH and early and late AMD. No other associations were observed. Conclusions: Genetic predisposition to AITD is associated with risk of diabetic retinopathy and cataract, mostly mediated through increased T1D risk. Reciprocal associations between AITD, diabetic retinopathy, and T1D imply a shared autoimmune origin. The role of FT4 in AMD and potential sex discrepancies needs further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This research aims to analyze the presence and distribution of resistance genes in the avium and fruticosa subgenomes of Prunus cerasus through computational methods and bioinformatics tools. Results: Analysis of genome and transcriptome sequencing data revealed a total of 19,570 transcripts with at least one resistance gene domain in Prunus cerasus subgenome avium and 19,142 in Prunus cerasus subgenome fruticosa. Key findings include the identification of 804 "complete" resistance gene transcripts in Prunus cerasus subgenome avium and 817 in Prunus cerasus subgenome fruticosa, with distinct distributions of resistance gene classes observed between the subgenomes. Phylogenetic analysis showed clustering of resistance genes, and unique resistance proteins were identified in each subgenome. Functional annotation comparisons with Arabidopsis thaliana highlighted shared and unique resistance genes, emphasizing the complexity of disease resistance in cherry species. Additionally, a higher diversity of RLKs and RLPs was observed, with 504 transcripts identified and 18 showing similarity to known reference genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenotyping of genetic resources is an important prerequisite for the selection of resistant varieties in breeding programs and research. Computer vision techniques have proven to be a useful tool for digital phenotyping of diseases of interest. One pathogen that is increasingly observed in Europe is Diplocarpon coronariae, which causes apple blotch disease. In this study, a high-throughput phenotyping method was established to evaluate genetic apple resources for susceptibility to D. coronariae. For this purpose, inoculation trials with D. coronariae were performed in a laboratory and images of infested leaves were taken 7, 9 and 13 days post inoculation. A pre-trained YOLOv5s model was chosen to establish the model, which was trained with an image dataset of 927 RGB images. The images had a size of 768 × 768 pixels and were divided into 738 annotated training images, 78 validation images and 111 background images without symptoms. The accuracy of symptom prediction with the trained model was 95%. These results indicate that our model can accurately and efficiently detect spots with acervuli on detached apple leaves. Object detection can therefore be used for digital phenotyping of detached leaf assays to assess the susceptibility to D. coronariae in a laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The class of Boolean combinations of tree languages recognized by deterministic top-down tree automata (also known as deterministic root-to-frontier automata) is studied. The problem of determining for a given regular tree language whether it belongs to this class is open. We provide some progress by two results: First, a characterization of this class by a natural extension of deterministic top-down tree automata is presented, and as an application we obtain a convenient method to show that certain regular tree languages are outside this class. In the second result, it is shown that, for fixed k , it is decidable whether a regular tree language is a Boolean combination of k tree languages recognized by deterministic top-down tree automata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the different barriers that firms face as they advance with their technology uptake and tap into new markets. We show on a sample of 36,900 industrial enterprises that inwards-oriented firms had access to financial means but shied away from the economic risks associated with innovation activities. Exporters see opportunities for their innovation projects, but shy away from the investments needed. The failure to provide a supportive eco-system for innovation is one of the reasons why Russian manufacturers have not succeeded to integrate into global supply chains beyond the territories of the former Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relational models theory provides an alternative framework to study group and intergroup processes. One of four models people use to constitute groups is communal sharing (CS). Ethnographic and experimental evidence suggests that CS is produced by concrete and symbolic enactments of connections between bodies (cuddling, touching, synchronicity, commensality). We tested the effect of commensality on CS and ingroup favouritism in four Experiments with 3‐person groups (total n = 330) and found that commensality enhances emergent group communal sharing but does not enhance ingroup favouritism. In Experiment 1, sharing food enhanced ingroup communal sharing but in Experiment 2 this effect was not significant. In Experiments 3 and 4, sharing water enhanced communal sharing, but only when served from the same bottle, implying consubstantial assimilation. Ingroup favouritism was not enhanced by commensality in any experiment, even when explicitly presented as exclusively ingroup (Experiment 2), suggesting non‐comparative group formation through ingroup commensality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moscow is home to a quarter of Russia's creative workers and generates over half of the creative industry's value added. Due to its favourable development, the sector is increasingly receiving attention from policy makers and academics alike as a feasible option to reduce the country's dependence on its extractive industries. The signs look promising: the city's creative industries are likely to grow fast, attract investments and have become a successful exporter of creative goods and services. This paper provides an assessment of Moscow's creative industries and asks what needs to be done in order to allow the industry to prosper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infinite games (in the form of Gale-Stewart games) are studied where a play is a sequence of natural numbers chosen by two players in alternation, the winning condition being a subset of the Baire space ωω. We consider such games defined by a natural kind of parity automata over the alphabet ℕ, called ℕ-MSO-automata, where transitions are specified by monadic second-order formulas over the successor structure of the natural numbers. We show that the classical Büchi-Landweber Theorem (for finite-state games in the Cantor space 2ω) holds again for the present games: A game defined by a deterministic parity ℕ-MSO-automaton is determined, the winner can be computed, and an ℕ-MSO-transducer realizing a winning strategy for the winner can be constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGCs) lose their ability to grow axons during development. Adult RGCs thus fail to regenerate their axons after injury, leading to vision loss. To uncover mechanisms that promote regeneration of RGC axons, we identified transcription factors (TF) and open chromatin regions that are enriched in rat embryonic RGCs (high axon growth capacity) compared to postnatal RGCs (low axon growth capacity). We found that developmental stage-specific gene expression changes correlated with changes in promoter chromatin accessibility. Binding motifs for TFs such as CREB, CTCF, JUN and YY1 were enriched in the regions of the chromatin that were more accessible in embryonic RGCs. Proteomic analysis of purified rat RGC nuclei confirmed the expression of TFs with potential role in axon growth such as CREB, CTCF, YY1, and JUND. The CREB/ATF binding motif was widespread at the open chromatin region of known pro-regenerative TFs, supporting a role of CREB in regulating axon regeneration. Consistently, overexpression of CREB fused to the VP64 transactivation domain in mouse RGCs promoted axon regeneration after optic nerve injury. Our study provides a map of the chromatin accessibility during RGC development and highlights that TF associated with developmental axon growth can stimulate axon regeneration in mature RGC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial design as a driver for innovation is increasingly attracting attention throughout different disciplines. In order to switch from the oil-led development model to an innovation-driven economy, Russia attempts to strengthen its manufacturing industry through support policies for engineering and industrial design capabilities. The programme 'Development of engineering activities and industrial design in Russia' is part of the larger initiative for advancing manufacturing and raising its competitiveness which started in 2014. The paper builds on very recent data and interviews with key companies to study the effectiveness of these policies. We point out a series of structural weaknesses of industrial design in Russia in general and find that the industrial design policy in Russia largely remains non-systemic and fragmented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent developments in display technology and computation have strongly increased the operability of virtual reality applications, and both academic and commercial interest in the subject is on the increase. This paper studies publication patterns of VR in medicine and various medical subfields by analysing 9830 documents from 1991 to 2018 to put the rising publication numbers into context. The focus rests on identifying those areas that show exceptional growth. While scholars in surgery were the first to publish extensively on VR, psychology and psychiatry are now the only fields that show a relative increase in publication growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how Cognitive Reliability Error Analysis Method (CREAM) can add value to the existing Quality Management System at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. We tested the CREAM framework on a sample of 71 nonconformance reports between 2016 and 2018 from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor Document Management Database. All the nonconformances described in these reports relate to the incidents connected to the welding process of the vacuum vessel components. For failure categories like wrong identification, lack of attention, memory loss, or inadequate planning, CREAM provides additional information to redesign the work space. Moreover, CREAM identified quality control and management control as main underlying weaknesses that cause nonconformities. Future analysis should focus more on organizational error causes and resulting indirect links. Also, the use of a methodology like CREAM needs to be provided as special training by experts throughout all areas of activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Postnatally acquired cytomegalovirus (pCMV) infection through breast milk (BM) may cause severe illness and even death, yet BM is advantageous for preterm infants. Therefore, effective methods to prevent CMV transmission are needed. Methods To assess the effectiveness of short-term pasteurization (62°C for 5 seconds) in preventing CMV transmission via BM in preterm infants. Design: Prospective interventional bicentric cohort study with infant enrollment between 6/2010 and 1/2012. A cohort from the Tuebingen neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) from 1995–1998 served as historical controls. Differences in CMV transmission were compared with reference to the cumulative time at risk for CMV transmission. Setting: Two German level-3 NICUs. Eighty-seven preterm infants of 69 CMV immunoglobulin G-positive mothers with birth weight <1500 g or gestational age <32 weeks and 83 historical controls were included. Intervention: BM samples were short-term pasteurized from postnatal day 4 to discharge. Primary endpoint: CMV status at discharge, evaluated by polymerase chain reaction and short-term microculture from urine. Results Two of 87 (2.3%) study infants had a pCMV transmission. This compared to 17 of 83 (20.5%) controls. Total time under risk for infection was 9.6 years vs 10.0 years in controls, yielding an incidence of 0.21/year (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.03 to 0.75/year) vs 1.70/year (95% CI, 0.99 to 2.72/year), respectively. The risk ratio controls vs study infants was 8.3 (95% CI, 2.4 to 52.4) according to Cox proportional hazard model (P =.0003). Conclusions Short-term pasteurization significantly reduces the incidence of pCMV infection through BM in the NICU. Clinical Trials Registration NCT01178905. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to report on a design intervention at the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) control room which resulted from a user-centred design approach intended to raise its usability.Design/methodology/approach Adapting a user-centred design approach, the observations and interviews revealed a number of weaknesses of the current control room design.Findings While most suggestions would require larger restructuring, the designers intervened with simple solutions resulting in the improved handling of many pieces of hardware. This study suggests that such design interventions hold the possibility to majorly improve the efficiency of the control room and thereby raise the potential outcome of such highly capital intense installations.Originality/value Thereby, this paper has immediate relevance to the astronomical field and the corresponding advancements in electronics, engineering and technology development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive innovation builds on overcoming poverty through the creative power and problem-solving capacity of the poor. While the concept is met with increasing interest from policymakers, it is not clear how this collaboration is actually taking place. This paper introduces digital storytelling (DST) as a method to successfully give marginalized communities a voice in collaborative innovation processes. In contrast to previous experiences with DST that mainly look backward, we applied the technique in a pilot study to envisage a better future with the San community in Platfontein. This paper describes how the method was employed to engage community members to share their thoughts and ideas through DST. We further show that for these insights to become meaningful inputs for innovation, they need to be interrogated through thematic analysis by service design specialists. The method revealed a rich source of new ideas and thinking for contemporary service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies open innovation practices in Russian state-owned enterprises (SOEs). In 2011, the Russian Government set ambitious goals in science, technology and innovation, and uses its large SOEs as channels to achieve these targets. These initiatives focus on the collaboration among innovation actors and introduce open innovation (OI) principles. Based on a large-scale innovation survey, we compare private enterprises to state-owned peers and present selected case studies. Our data support the claim that Russian SOEs are driving the demand for technology and mainly absorb incoming OI activities. Different to their peers, SOEs extend their OI activities to the country's knowledge producers, such as research and technology organisations (RTOs), and leading universities. They work on incorporating scientific knowledge that could, indeed, hold the key to globally competitive technological innovations, but also have better capabilities to include business partners. Abbreviation : OI: Open innovation; SOE: State-owned enterprise; RTO: Research and technology organisation; STI: Science, technology and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian government plans to lift the country's agriculture and food productions and aims to become the biggest global supplier of healthy, high-quality, and ecologically 'clean' foods. Although innovative activities in the field have been rising over the last decade, the intensity still remains far below both other Russian economic activities as well as other competitor nations. Policymakers focus on Russia's Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) as a channel to transfer new technologies to agricultural and food producers. As demand for new technologies is low, public funds are invested into RTOs to increase the quality of their basic research activities. Instead of converting these additional funds into better technology transfer, agricultural RTOs specialize in government-funded basic research and reduce further their role as applied research organizations. Thereby, RTOs do not seek to increase their competitive position but instead maximize their benefits from public support. This article questions the leverage effect that public support measures have for technology transfer activities in the present case, and suggests that a more holistic approach including both supply and demand is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper studies drivers for eco‐innovation in Russian manufacturing firms on a sample of 2,212 innovative firms, of which over 600 introduced eco‐innovations. The companies in our sample specifically mention environmental regulation as a reason for engaging in eco‐innovations. Furthermore, we show that those firms who engage in eco‐innovations are motivated even stronger by the desire to increase resource efficiency. Companies under state ownership are especially prone to a higher likelihood to invest. We conclude that regulations are mostly relevant to the late comers who are obliged to follow minimum standards. On the other hand, the state uses its controlling influence to press companies under their control to exceed these minimum standards. Thus, we argue, state ownership does indeed have an influence on both the likelihood to eco‐innovate and on the levels of spending. Eco‐innovative state‐owned companies are only prone to invest in eco‐innovations, if they get additional money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, Russia has supported the establishment of cluster initiatives to strengthen economic development, open channels for knowledge transfer, raise the national technology base, and integrate domestic manufacturing more prominently into global value chains. This paper studies 25 pilot cluster initiatives which received financial support within the national programme. The analysis shows that privately funded initiatives tend to use the cluster format as an efficient way to organize economic activities. Publicly funded cluster initiatives, in contrast, are more likely to engage in R&D partnerships with institutes in technologically advanced regions, such as Western Europe or South-East Asia, and thereby act as transfer channels to strengthen the region’s technology base. Also, industries that build on analytical knowledge are more likely to engage in partnerships than industries that use local and tacit knowledge. Still, the cluster management organizations struggle greatly to appoint adequately skilled staff and to cope with limited financial resources, as these are the biggest barriers for cluster internationalization, while cultural differences and geographical distance were of much less importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two models of automata over infinite alphabets are presented, mainly with a focus on the alphabet . In the first model, transitions can refer to logic formulas that connect properties of successive letters. In the second, the letters are considered as columns of a labeled grid which an automaton traverses column by column. Thus, both models focus on the comparison of successive letters, i.e. 'local changes'. We prove closure (and non-closure) properties, show the decidability of the respective non-emptiness problems, prove limits on decidability results for extended models, and discuss open issues in the development of a generalized theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering and industrial design services are closely connected to both an economy's value and level of employment. While the global market for engineering services is growing steadily, the Russian engineering and industrial design market is very fragmented. Russia began a targeted policy for engineering and industrial design in 2013 to support service providers who were struggling with high interest rates on loans and insufficiently qualified staff. This article reports on this initiative and reflects on its impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Maternal uniparental disomy of chromosome 6 (upd(6)mat) is a rare finding and its clinical relevance is currently unclear. Based on clinical data from two new cases and patients from the literature, the pathogenetic significance of upd(6)mat is delineated. Methods Own cases were molecularly characterized for isodisomic uniparental regions on chromosome 6. For further cases with upd(6)mat, a literature search was conducted and genetic and clinical data were ascertained. Results Comparison of isodisomic regions between the new upd(6)mat cases and those from four reports did not reveal any common isodisomic region. Among the patients with available cytogenetic data, five had a normal karyotype in lymphocytes, whereas a trisomy 6 (mosaicism) was detected prenatally in four cases. A common clinical picture was not obvious in upd(6)mat, but intrauterine growth restriction ( IUGR) and preterm delivery were frequent. Conclusion A common upd(6)mat phenotype is not obvious, but placental dysfunction due to trisomy 6 mosaicism probably contributes to IUGR and preterm delivery. In fact, other clinical features observed in upd(6)mat patients might be caused by homozygosity of recessive mutations or by an undetected trisomy 6 cell line. Upd(6)mat itself is not associated with clinical features, and can rather be regarded as a biomarker. In case upd(6)mat is detected, the cause for the phenotype is identified indirectly, but the UPD is not the basic cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the specificities of Russian user innovators on a sample of 1,670 home interviews. The percentage of end users who innovate and their willingness to share ideas is much higher in comparison to western countries and rooted in community activities which spread during Soviet times. We identify two groups of user innovators: urban, male, well educated, and financially better-situated vs a much more diverse group of small town folks who innovate out of necessity. The first group confirms previous findings, the second group is unique to developing markets and to Russia in particular. As these user innovators are reluctant to commercialise their innovations and would rather keep them for themselves or share with their peers on a voluntary basis, a great source of ideas and commercial opportunity remains untouched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a hyperinflammatory condition with impairment of cytotoxic T-cells and natural killer cells. Causes in infants are mostly hereditary immune defects as well as various infectious triggering factors, amongst these cytomegalovirus (CMV). Vertical CMV transmission may occur in utero, during birth, and by breast feeding. Usually, a CMV infection transmitted via breast milk is symptomatic only in very immature preterm infants. We report on a late preterm infant born after 35 + 5 weeks of gestation with a birth weight of 1840 g, being admitted to our intensive care unit at the age of 9 weeks with acute enteritis and severe dehydration. After a prolonged recovery, the infant developed a sepsis-like condition with hyperpyrexia, hepatosplenomegaly, and pancytopenia. Combination with high ferritin levels (2809 μg/l), hypertriglyceridaemia (481 mg/dl), elevated soluble IL-2 receptor (sCD25, 9120 U/ml), and reduced perforin expression allowed diagnosis of HLH, caused by an acute CMV infection. Since connatal CMV infection had been ruled out earlier, we report the rare case of secondary HLH triggered by a postnatally acquired symptomatic CMV infection in an immunocompetent infant, most likely transmitted via breast milk. The infant was successfully treated with ganciclovir without need for immunosuppressive therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Profit-oriented transfer activities have become a center piece of STI policies. There is little understanding tough of how companies facing financial headwind re-adjust their knowledge transfer activities in the light of economic downturn. This paper studies influence factors for transfer revenues during the years 2009, 2010 and 2012 in around 1000 Russian Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs). The data shows that in times of crisis, quality-related variables like scientific papers, patents or successful application for competitive research funds were no longer positively correlated to transfer revenues. Also recruitment strategies or long-standing relationships between customer organizations and RTOs had no influence. The paper concludes that RTOs are in a very weak position if economic outlooks are darkening and require public financial support to maintain their ability to continuously provide their services once until the economy will recovers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congenital analbuminaemia is a rare autosomal recessive disorder manifested by the presence of a very low amount of circulating serum albumin. The clinical diagnosis may be challenging because of the absence of unambiguous symptoms and because hypoalbuminemia may have many causes different from a genetic lack of the protein. We describe the clinical and molecular characterization of a new case of congenital analbuminaemia in an infant of apparently non-consanguineous parents from Treves, Germany. For molecular diagnosis, we used our strategy, based on the screening of the albumin gene by single-strand conformation polymorphism, heteroduplex analysis and direct DNA sequencing, which revealed that the proband is homozygous and both parents are heterozygous, for a novel G > T transversion at nucleotide c.270+ 1, the first base of intron 3. The mutation inactivates the strongly conserved GT dinucleotide at the 5' splice site consensus sequence of this intron. In conclusion, we report the clinical findings and the molecular defect of this case, which contributes to a better understanding of the biological mechanism of congenital analbuminaemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies sectoral differences in technology transfer of 170 Russian Research and Technology Organisations engaged into technology transfer to agriculture, mining and quarrying, high-tech, medium-high-tech, medium-low-tech and low-tech industries. RTOs in these five groups do not overlap by customers' economic activities and are representative for all Russian regions. Certain factors have in fact opposite effects in different sectors. A customer without a clear vision is perceived as a curse by one sector, but by another one perceived as a blessing. Another such factor is the high economic risk of the application of new technologies. Furthermore, we proved the presence of influence factors which show the same effects with different degrees of intensity depending on the sectors. Thereby, we also provide insights into Russia's innovation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show the existence and effective computability of optimal (even finite-state) winning strategies for request-response games in case the quality of a play is measured by the limit superior of the mean accumulated waiting times between requests and their responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies technology creation and transfer of 95 Russian research and technology organisations (RTOs) into producer organisations in agriculture and mining. Previous findings suggested that in agriculture, the barriers for technology adaption are particularly high due to technological conservatism and the atomic structure of the industry. Although RTOs in agriculture publish more and register more patents, they struggle to translate their success into transfer activities. While technology transfer in mining goes well hand in hand with applied research, RTOs in agriculture either build on new technologies or generate revenues through ready-to-use services. The explanation for this rather short-term oriented demand for services of Russia's RTOs lies in the financial situation of client organisations. The vast majority complain about their dire lack of financial means to pay for new technologies. Consequently, agricultural producers do not generate enough revenues to pursue future opportunities, with far reaching consequences. The situation could get better if the RTOs and the client would agree to longer-lasting relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about how transfer processes are shaped by the underlying industry and its technical regimes. In our analysis, we differentiate between Science and Technology-modes of learning which incorporate the latest developments in research, and a more practice-oriented mode based on industry-specific knowledge. We test whether Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs), that provide technology transfer to firms, follow one or the other mode in correspondence to their customer's needs. Our analysis is based on 67 Russian RTOs transferring technology either to low-tech or high-tech manufacturing firms. For high-tech manufacturing, the use of patents and the intake of scientists are vital for successful technology transfer. Own basic research is positively correlated only with transfer to low-tech manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]