Insurance in the digital economy: science, practice, education

The monograph deals with the transformation of the insurance business in the conditions of digitalization. The logic of scientific analysis is based on the impact of digitalization on all environmental systems of the insurance business, which, in turn, require the transformation of all aspects of the insurer's activities. The scientific analysis of the usefulness of insurance services is given, the influence of digitalization on the formation of information flows and business processes in the insurance business is considered. The experience of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey in the development of digitalization of the insurance market is summarized, development problems are formulated and a number of practical recommendations are given. A significant block of material is devoted to the analysis of social aspects of the insurance business, including the tasks and opportunities of insurance organizations in the formation of sustainable development. The problems of ensuring the quality of insurance services in the conditions of digitalization, regulatory activities in this area, protection of the interests of the consumer of insurance services are considered. New approaches to training personnel for the insurance market are considered, domestic and foreign experience is summarized. The results of a study of the use of digital technologies at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation and partner universities are presented. For a wide range of readers interested in insurance problems. It can be useful for students, postgraduates and teachers of economic universities.

YK-4-279 Attenuates Progression of Pre-Existing Pigmented Lesions to Nodular Melanoma in a Mouse Model

More options are needed for the effective treatment of melanoma. In a previous study, we discovered the small molecule drug YK-4-279 almost completely inhibited tumor progression in the BrafCA;Tyr-CreERT2;Ptenflox/flox transgenic mouse model. YK-4-279 had no effect on tumor initiation but blocked progression of invasive melanoma. Our current study was designed as a treatment model, where YK-4-279 was administered during pigmented lesion formation. The study design included the use of three groups: (1) a control group that received only DMSO without a drug (MOCK), (2) mice following our prior studies with YK-4-279 administered at the time of tumor induction (YK-4-279), and (3) mice treated during tumor initiation (YK-4-279 delay). While the MOCK mice had progression of tumors, both YK-4-279 and YK-4-279 delay groups had a significant block or delay of progression. The majority of mice in the YK-4-279 groups had a block of progression, while the YK-4-279 delay group had either a partial block (60% in male mice or 29% in females) or a delay in disease progression in females (28 days in controls to 50 days in YK-4-279 delay group). Here, we demonstrate that YK-4-279 has a significant impact on blocking or delaying tumor progression in a pre-clinical treatment model of melanoma.

Shareholder Democracy and Shareholder Activism

This chapter examines shareholder-driven corporate governance (SCG) through the twin concepts of shareholder democracy and shareholder activism. Taken together, these concepts are the vehicle through which SCG takes effect in practice. The term activist investor describes an institutional investor that seeks value-enhancing changes in the leadership, governance, capital structure, or strategy and operations of a corporation in which it is invested. There are two basic types of activism: offensive activism, in which a hedge fund takes over a poorly performing firm and then reforms it to enhance its performance; and defensive activism, in which the activist institution takes on an advocacy role when it is unhappy with a corporation of which it already holds a significant block. Meanwhile, shareholder democracy refers to the ability of shareholders to influence the corporation through their votes. It is an important concept in corporate law, one that underpins the legitimacy of shareholder activism.

Was the Pericope Adulterae Suppressed?

This chapter demonstrates that the outright deletion of a significant block of text like the pericope adulterae from a written Gospel book would be surprising, if not impossible: editorial and literary objections to textual deletion were common; manuscript evidence suggests that scribes preferred to preserve the texts they found in their exemplars, though they did omit or delete a few words here and there; and editors preferred to preserve earlier texts, even if portions of these texts were regarded as spurious. Editors and scholars discussed possible additions to texts, often at length, but they were deeply hesitant to remove these disputed passages. The chapter then considers the suppression theory, which was first articulated by Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century and then revived in the nineteenth century by New Testament scholars interested in explaining the story's early demise.

Residues in the RecQ C-terminal Domain of the Human Werner Syndrome Helicase Are Involved in Unwinding G-quadruplex DNA

The structural and biophysical properties typically associated with G-quadruplex (G4) structures render them a significant block for DNA replication, which must be overcome for cell division to occur. The Werner syndrome protein (WRN) is a RecQ family helicase that has been implicated in the efficient processing of G4 DNA structures. The aim of this study was to identify the residues of WRN involved in the binding and ATPase-driven unwinding of G4 DNA. Using a c-Myc G4 DNA model sequence and recombinant WRN, we have determined that the RecQ-C-terminal (RQC) domain of WRN imparts a 2-fold preference for binding to G4 DNA relative to non-G4 DNA substrates. NMR studies identified residues involved specifically in interactions with G4 DNA. Three of the amino acids in the WRN RQC domain that exhibited the largest G4-specific changes in NMR signal were then mutated alone or in combination. Mutating individual residues implicated in G4 binding had a modest effect on WRN binding to DNA, decreasing the preference for G4 substrates by ∼25%. Mutating two G4-interacting residues (T1024G and T1086G) abrogated preferential binding of WRN to G4 DNA. Very modest decreases in G4 DNA-stimulated ATPase activity were observed for the mutant enzymes. Most strikingly, G4 unwinding by WRN was inhibited ∼50% for all three point mutants and >90% for the WRN double mutant (T1024G/T1086G) relative to normal B-form dsDNA substrates. Our work has helped to identify residues in the WRN RQC domain that are involved specifically in the interaction with G4 DNA.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LATENT CRIME IN RUSSIA AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

The article considers the problems of Russian and foreign practice of crime registration, its nature, situation with the latent crime and the methodology of the latency calculation. Latency study is one of the areas of crime analysis, with the ultimate goal of improving the law enforcement practice. The comparative nature of this analysis enriches the content of scientific knowledge about these processes and its practical significance. Thus, it is forced to consider that the comparison of statistics of different countries is related to certain limitations, because different legal systems have different understanding of a number of crimes; in addition the specificity of the crime metering in the national statistics has some effects (hence the range of indicators and their comparability). Official data largely do not coincide with the actual crime. There is a significant layer of latency between them. It is hidden and concealed crimes which can not be metered properly. Its magnitude is influenced by many factors, without which it is impossible to give a reasonable assessment and forecast of the situation. In most developed countries the overall level of latency is much lower than in Russia; if it grows it is mainly due to the growth of the «natural» latency, when the population report to the police only about serious crimes. The data on latency in the UK, USA and Japan confirms it. In Russia, a higher latency is mainly related to a significant block of crimes covered up from the metering. So the real crimes are much more than registered crimes. As a result, we have unreal pattern, we have a construction created by the practice of registration and official statistics. The source of this vicious practice can be found in inappropriate criteria of efficiency of activity of internal affairs bodies.

A Block Compressive Sensing Based Scalable Encryption Framework for Protecting Significant Image Regions

The existing Block Compressive Sensing (BCS) based image ciphers adopted the same sampling rate for all the blocks, which may lead to the desirable result that after subsampling, significant blocks lose some more-useful information while insignificant blocks still retain some less-useful information. Motivated by this observation, we propose a scalable encryption framework (SEF) based on BCS together with a Sobel Edge Detector and Cascade Chaotic Maps. Our work is firstly dedicated to the design of two new fusion techniques, chaos-based structurally random matrices and chaos-based random convolution and subsampling. The basic idea is to divide an image into some blocks with an equal size and then diagnose their respective significance with the help of the Sobel Edge Detector. For significant block encryption, chaos-based structurally random matrix is applied to significant blocks whereas chaos-based random convolution and subsampling are responsible for the remaining insignificant ones. In comparison with the BCS based image ciphers, the SEF takes lightweight subsampling and severe sensitivity encryption for the significant blocks and severe subsampling and lightweight robustness encryption for the insignificant ones in parallel, thus better protecting significant image regions.

Autophagy Inhibitors as a Potential Antiamoebic Treatment for Acanthamoeba Keratitis

ABSTRACTAcanthamoebacysts are resistant to extreme physical and chemical conditions. Autophagy is an essential pathway for encystation ofAcanthamoebacells. To evaluate the possibility of an autophagicAcanthamoebaencystation mechanism, we evaluated autophagy inhibitors, such as 3-methyladenine (3MA), LY294002, wortmannin, bafilomycin A, and chloroquine. Among these autophagy inhibitors, the use of 3MA and chloroquine showed a significant reduction in the encystation ratio inAcanthamoebacells. Wortmannin also inhibited the formation of mature cysts, while LY294002 and bafilomycin A did not affect the encystation ofAcanthamoebacells. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that 3MA and wortmannin inhibited autophagy formation and that chloroquine interfered with the formation of autolysosomes. Inhibition of autophagy or autolysosome formation resulted in a significant block in the encystation inAcanthamoebacells. Clinical treatment with 0.02% polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB) showed high cytopathic effects onAcanthamoebatrophozoites and cysts; however, it also revealed high cytopathic effects on human corneal epithelial cells. In this study, we investigated effects of the combination of a low (0.00125%) concentration of PHMB with each of the autophagy inhibitors 3MA, wortmannin, and chloroquine onAcanthamoebaand human corneal epithelial cells. These new combination treatments showed low cytopathic effects on human corneal cells and high cytopathic effects onAcanthamoebacells. Taken together, these results provide fundamental information for optimizing the treatment ofAcanthamoebakeratitis.

Lead and nickel accumulation in Iris pumila: Consideration of its usefulness as a potential bioindicator in the natural protected area of Deliblato Sands, Serbia

In this work, we investigated the suitability of the threatened species, Iris pumila L., as a possible bioindicator of traffic pollution in its natural habitats (mostly protected areas and natural reserves). We examined its potential to accumulate lead (Pb) and nickel (Ni) in polluted habitats, and the genetic variability for this capability, since it is an important facet of bioindicator suitability. We estimated the concentrations of Pb and Ni in the leaves of 17 I. pumila clones (genotypes) grown in one of their natural habitats, the unpolluted semi-arid habitat of the protected Deliblato Sands Special Natural Reserve, and in the leaves of 18 Iris pumila full-sib families grown in an experimental plot in a heavily polluted urban location in Belgrade, Serbia. Comparison of the contrasting habitats by one-way ANOVA analysis showed that both Pb and Ni concentrations were significantly higher (six-fold) in the I. pumila leaves collected from plants grown in the polluted urban habitat. Two-way ANOVA (randomized block design) analysis performed on the full-sib families grown in the urban location failed to detect significant genetic variation for metal accumulation in I. pumila leaves. A significant block effect on the concentration of Ni in leaves was detected, indicating responsiveness to microenvironmental variability. These results suggest that I. pumila can serve as a good indicator of traffic pollution in protected areas. The response is stable since genetic variability of I. pumila populations does not appear to influence its role as an indicator greatly.

Bambusae caulisin Liquamen Suppresses the Expression of Thymus and Activation-Regulated Chemokine and Macrophage-Derived Chemokine in Human Keratinocytes due to Antioxidant Effect

Bambusae caulisin Liquamen (BCL), traditional herbal medicine used in East Asia, is known to have antioxidative and immune-regulating properties. We hypothesized that the potential antioxidant effects of BCL might suppress the production of thymus and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC) and macrophage-derived chemokine (MDC) in human keratinocytes (HaCaT cell). The immune-regulating effect of BCL was demonstrated by antioxidant capacity using DPPH analysis and DCFH-DA analysis. We found that BCL had strong ROS scavenge effect in HaCaT cell. BCL also showed suppression of IFN-γ-induced expression of TARC and MDC, activation of NF-κB, and, moreover, significant block of IFN-γ-induced degradation and phosphorylation of IκB. However, it had no effects on phosphorylation of p38 MAPK. Collectively, these results suggest that BCL may have a therapeutic potential on skin disease such as atopic dermatitis by inhibiting Th2 chemokines which is due, at least in part, to its antioxidant capacities.