Search

In the context of permanent changes, the development of flexible management methodologies becomes an urgent necessity. The main factors influencing the effectiveness of modern management are the following: validity and flexible variability of managerial decisions, availability of a vision of the ways of development of the organization, high efficiency of organizational processes, competence and agility of employees. The article considers the essence of the concepts of «flexibility of the system» with the further extension of these definitions to «flexibility of the system of organization and management of the economic system». Flexibility is proposed to be understood as the ability of a system, which is subject to random influences of internal and external factors, to change its state or trajectory of movement (development) within the limits that are due to the critical values of the main parameters, after which irreversible changes in the integrity of the system occur. The definition of the concept of «dexterous worker» as a competent specialist, who has all the properties of dexterity developed at a high level (ingenuity, liveliness, energy, interest, intelligence, dexterity) is presented. The features of the formation of flexible teams are considered, taking into account the typology of employees. In a flexible team, employees have the right to express and defend their own point of view in a controversial situation, but not to block each other. In a flexible team, a change in personal assessment of the situation drives, not disappoints. This is the «secret» of the effective work of a flexible team. An important component in building a flexible team is mentoring. The starting point of mentoring is managerial self-awareness as an awareness of one’s own strengths, weaknesses and personality traits. Mentoring refers to management methods aimed at the development of an individual by sharing a vision of a problem and choosing effective tools for solving it based on personal experience or best practice of other managers.

In the context of permanent changes caused by instability due to the ongoing war and an increased uncertainty in the business environment, the conditions for the development of enterprises are changing dramatically. The article elaborates an interpretation of enterprise development as a process of quantitative, qualitative, and structural changes in its status (potential) and functional activity to achieve the established vision and goal (effectiveness), which are caused by an immanent tendency to improvement. The concept of development of a socioeconomic system is considered. The interaction of the main elements of the development of the socioeconomic system is analyzed. Both the conceptual and the basic models of enterprise development management have been elaborated. Studies have shown that in the current economic conditions, business activity is a decisive factor in the economic performance of an enterprise. At the same time, business activity is a defining characteristic of the company’s position in the market. Thus, the growth of business activity of an economic entity in the capital, goods, and labor markets, aimed at improving the effectiveness of its activities, becomes the primary task of the economic development of the enterprise. It is determined that the results of activity characterize the degree of achievement of the goal of development of enterprise, which is described by an aggregate of indicators. Changes that may occur during the implementation of a certain conception of development primarily affect such functional characteristics as capital, sufficient costs of production, output. Estimates of such changes can be obtained based on the results of experimentation with the corresponding searching (working) models. On the basis of the above and taking into account the best practices of project management, strategies and models of enterprise development are considered, including strategies for growth, activation, transformation and creation. These strategies provide elemental, mixed, and system types of development.

Long-read DNA sequencing technologies require high molecular weight (HMW) DNA of adequate purity and integrity, which can be difficult to isolate from plant material. Plant leaves usually contain high levels of carbohydrates and secondary metabolites that can impact DNA purity, affecting downstream applications. Several protocols and kits are available for HMW DNA extraction, but they usually require a high amount of input material and often lead to substantial DNA fragmentation, making sequencing suboptimal in terms of read length and data yield. We here describe a protocol for plant HMW DNA extraction from low input material (0.1 g) which is easy to follow and quick (2.5 h). This method successfully enabled us to extract HMW from four species from different families (Orchidaceae, Poaceae, Brassicaceae, Asteraceae). In the case of recalcitrant species, we show that an additional purification step is sufficient to deliver a clean DNA sample. We demonstrate the suitability of our protocol for long-read sequencing on the Oxford Nanopore Technologies PromethION® platform, with and without the use of a short fragment depletion kit.

Examples of overdominance are usually explained by deleterious effects in homozygotes. Here, Kellenberger et al. describe a case of overdominance in the floral color of the Alpine orchid Gymnadenia rhellicani apparently maintained by pollinator preferences without deleterious effects in homozygotes.

Abstract Biotic stress can induce plastic changes in fitness-relevant plant traits. Recently, it has been shown that such changes can be transmitted to subsequent generations. However, the occurrence and extent of transmission across different types of traits is still unexplored. Here, we assessed the emergence and transmission of herbivory-induced changes in Brassica rapa and their impact on interactions with insects. We analysed changes in morphology and reproductive traits as well as in flower and leaf volatile emission during two generations with leaf herbivory by Mamestra brassicae and Pieris brassicae and two subsequent generations without herbivory. Herbivory induced changes in all trait types, increasing attractiveness of the plants to the parasitoid wasp Cotesia glomerata and decreasing visitation by the pollinator Bombus terrestris, a potential trade-off. While changes in floral and leaf volatiles disappeared in the first generation after herbivory, some changes in morphology and reproductive traits were still measurable two generations after herbivory. However, neither parasitoids nor pollinators further discriminated between groups with different past treatments. Our results suggest that transmission of herbivore-induced changes occurs preferentially in resource-limited traits connected to plant growth and reproduction. The lack of alterations in plant-insect interactions was likely due to the transient nature of volatile changes.

The search for and development of new neuroprotective (or cerebroprotective) drugs, as well as suitable methods for their preclinical efficacy evaluation, are priorities for current biomedical research. Alpha-2 adrenergic agonists, such as mafedine and dexmedetomidine, are a highly appealing group of drugs capable of reducing neurological deficits which result from brain trauma and vascular events in both experimental animals and human patients. Thus, our aim was to assess the effects of mafedine and dexmedetomidine on the brain’s electrical activity in a controlled cortical-impact model of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in rats. The functional status of the animals was assessed by electrocorticography (ECoG), using ECoG electrodes which were chronically implanted in different cortical regions. The administration of intraperitoneal mafedine sodium at 2.5 mg∙kg−1 at 1 h after TBI induction, and daily for the following 6 days, restored interhemispheric connectivity in remote brain regions and intrahemispheric connections within the unaffected hemisphere at post-TBI day 7. Animals that had received mafedine sodium also demonstrated an improvement in cortical responses to photic and somatosensory stimulation. Dexmedetomidine at 25 μg∙kg−1 did not affect the brain’s electrical activity in brain-injured rats. Our results confirm the previously described neuroprotective effects of mafedine sodium and suggest that ECoG registration and analysis are a viable method evaluating drug efficacy in experimental animal models of TBI.

The orchids (Orchidaceae) constitute one of the largest and most diverse families of flowering plants. They have evolved a great variety of adaptations to achieve pollination by a diverse group of pollinators. Many orchids reward their pollinators, typically with nectar, but the family is also well-known for employing deceptive pollination strategies in which there is no reward for the pollinator, in the most extreme case by mimicking sexual signals of pollinators. In the European flora, two examples of these different pollination strategies are the sexually deceptive genus Ophrys and the rewarding genus Gymnadenia, which differ in their level of pollinator specialization; Ophrys is typically pollinated by pseudo-copulation of males of a single insect species, whilst Gymnadenia attracts a broad range of floral visitors. Here, we present and describe the annotated floral transcriptome of Ophrys iricolor, an Andrena-pollinated representative of the genus Ophrys that is widespread throughout the Aegean. Furthermore, we present additional floral transcriptomes of both sexually deceptive and rewarding orchids, specifically the deceptive Ophrys insectifera, Ophrys aymoninii, and an updated floral transcriptome of Ophrys sphegodes, as well as the floral transcriptomes of the rewarding orchids Gymnadenia conopsea, Gymnadenia densiflora, Gymnadenia odoratissima, and Gymnadenia rhellicani (syn. Nigritella rhellicani). Comparisons of these novel floral transcriptomes reveal few annotation differences between deceptive and rewarding orchids. Since together, these transcriptomes provide a representative sample of the genus-wide taxonomic diversity within Ophrys and Gymnadenia (Orchidoideae: Orchidinae), we employ a phylogenomic approach to address open questions of phylogenetic relationships within the genera. Specifically, this includes the controversial placement of O. insectifera within the Ophrys phylogeny and the placement of “Nigritella”-type morphologies within the phylogeny of Gymnadenia. Whereas in Gymnadenia, several conflicting topologies are supported by a similar number of gene trees, a majority of Ophrys gene topologies clearly supports a placement of O. insectifera as sister to a clade containing O. sphegodes.

Thirty years, 1993–2023, is a huge time frame in science. We address some major developments in the field of evolutionary algorithms, with applications in parameter optimization, over these 30 years. These include the covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy and some fast-growing fields such as multimodal optimization, surrogate-assisted optimization, multiobjective optimization, and automated algorithm design. Moreover, we also discuss particle swarm optimization and differential evolution, which did not exist 30 years ago, either. One of the key arguments made in the paper is that we need fewer algorithms, not more, which, however, is the current trend through continuously claiming paradigms from nature that are suggested to be useful as new optimization algorithms. Moreover, we argue that we need proper benchmarking procedures to sort out whether a newly proposed algorithm is useful or not. We also briefly discuss automated algorithm design approaches, including configurable algorithm design frameworks, as the proposed next step toward designing optimization algorithms automatically, rather than by hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]