Moscow Institute Research Articles

The Change in the Original Plan for Marx’s Capital and Its Causes

As remarkable as it may seem, the set of problems concerning the structure of Marx’s chief work, as well as its relation to Theories of Surplus Value, on the one hand, and to the earlier publication A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, on the other, has never been the subject of an investigation. One can scarcely find another book that has shaped a whole century to the same extent, theoretically and practically, and which, despite its enormous importance, has been treated with a greater indifference with regard to its form, the history of its genesis and the logic of its structure! It would be superfluous to speculate here about the reasons for the unsatisfactory state of research on Marx. Suffice it to say that – despite all the discussions about Marx that we have gone through over the past three decades, in the advanced capitalist countries of Europe – we still find ourselves only at the start of scientific research on Marx. Only the publication of Marx’s works announced by the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow will decisively change this situation. Regardless, it would be an inexcusable relapse into the mistakes of historicism to remain theoretically inactive until such a time. On the contrary, the following investigation attempts to critically evaluate the problem encompassed in the title on the basis of already-known source materials and to demonstrate that important insights can be gleaned from them. The problem that arises here is twofold. The first concerns the preliminary question whose answer must precede any scientific analysis of Marx’s thought, the question of the completeness of the materials that have come down to us. That is, whether Capital, as it exists now – including Theories of Surplus

Church Immunities in Practice during the Reign of Ivan IV

This article examines the dynamic and interactive relationship between the central governmental authorities in Moscow and regional church institutions, especially monasteries, during Ivan IV’s reign (1533-1584). This relationship is plainly visible in the texts of immunity charters—official exemptions from taxes or other fees exacted on churches, monasteries, and entire tracts of land. Based on the complete corpus of surviving immunity charters, this article demonstrate that regional officials sometimes violated these charters by collecting taxes and fees from persons or institutions that were supposed to be exempt from them, but that these abuses prompted immediate and stern responses from the tsar’s officials and clerics affected by these infractions, and by central authorities in (sometimes) distant Moscow. The disputes over these immunities generated a lively crisscrossing dialogue between church and state officials in the provinces and in the capital, showing the links between the Muscovite center and periphery.

Sub-Interval Analysis and Possibilities of Its Use

This paper is a brief review and development of a part of the plenary report in the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Three existing tools of sub-interval analysis (sub-interval arithmetic, incomplete data analysis and images) are reviewed and elements of two new tools (sub-interval calculus and layerwise analysis) are presented. The sub-interval analysis may be used, e.g., in economics: microeconomics, macroeconomics, accounting, econometrics, utility theory; internet.

A. Miller, D. Svizhkov and I. Schierle, éds. , « Poniatija o Rossii »

This two-volume venture into the history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte) in Russia, undertaken under the auspices of the German Historical Institute in Moscow and published by Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, is a welcome, if delayed, response to the immense project undertaken under the leadership of Reinhart Koselleck in Germany, which resulted in the monumental nine-volume lexicon, Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe and numerous other works questioning and perfecting its methodology. Those of us st...

Analysis of the “Ulitka” noise background as an anti-coincidence filter for the OGRAN gravitational-wave antenna

An analysis of experimental data from the “Ulitka” high-frequency gravitational-gradient meter installed in the underground Baksan Neutrino Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences is presented, focusing on the planned use of this instrument as an “anti-coincidence filter” for the OGRAN gravitational-wave antenna. The statistics of the Ulitka noise background over a year’s observing are analyzed, and compared with the background measured earlier when Ulitka was located on the territory of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow. A reduction in the rate of occurrence of large nonthermal spikes is noted. We have found associations between earthquakes and excitations of the seismically isolated high-frequency mode of the longitudinal oscillations of Ulitka.

The development of distance education in the Russian Federation and the former Soviet Union

<!-- @font-face { font-family: "Cambria Math"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 200%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.Abstract, li.Abstract, div.Abstract { margin: 18pt 1cm 15pt 36pt; line-height: 150%; font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.AbstractCxSpFirst, li.AbstractCxSpFirst, div.AbstractCxSpFirst { margin: 18pt 1cm 0.0001pt 36pt; line-height: 150%; font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.AbstractCxSpMiddle, li.AbstractCxSpMiddle, div.AbstractCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 1cm 0.0001pt 36pt; line-height: 150%; font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.AbstractCxSpLast, li.AbstractCxSpLast, div.AbstractCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 1cm 15pt 36pt; line-height: 150%; font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }.MsoChpDefault { font-size: 10pt; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; } --><p class="Abstract">Distance education in the present Russian Federation and former Soviet Union has a long tradition that prevails to this day. The majority of students in Russia are enrolled in distance learning programs. The numbers indicate the existence of a well-established system for distance education, of which little is known in Western literature. A review of distance education research in the Anglo-American sphere showed that within the past 10 years not a single article dealing with the Russian system was published. Consequently, within international DE research Russia remains uncharted territory. The following explorative study introduces the educational and tertiary educational system and presents current statistical data while emphasizing the historical perspective to further describe how the distance education system is embedded therein. In order to discuss current practice in this field, one of the biggest higher distance education institutions in Moscow with approximately 110,000 students is used as an example.</p>

A “telescopic” system in the calibration problem for strapdown inertial navigation systems

An algorithm for the bench calibration of strapdown inertial navigation systems is studied. This algorithm was developed at the Moscow Institute of Electromechanics and Automatics. A mathematical model for the calibration process is constructed. A method for representing the original calibration problem in the form of a standard estimation problem is proposed with the aid of a so-called “telescopic” system. On the basis of the original algorithm, a new calibration algorithm is constructed; this new algorithm allows one to improve the estimation accuracy for the parameters of accelerometer and gyroscope units. The maximum attainable estimation accuracy for these parameters is determined.

Symmetric theta divisors of Klein surfaces

This is a slightly expanded version of the talk given by the first author at the conference Instantons in complex geometry, at the Steklov Institute in Moscow. The purpose of this talk was to explain the algebraic results of our paper Abelian Yang-Mills theory on Real tori and Theta divisors of Klein surfaces. In this paper we compute determinant index bundles of certain families of Real Dirac type operators on Klein surfaces as elements in the corresponding Grothendieck group of Real line bundles in the sense of Atiyah. On a Klein surface these determinant index bundles have a natural holomorphic description as theta line bundles. In particular we compute the first Stiefel-Whitney classes of the corresponding fixed point bundles on the real part of the Picard torus. The computation of these classes is important, because they control to a large extent the orientability of certain moduli spaces in Real gauge theory and Real algebraic geometry.

A first in cinema…stereoscopic films in Russia and the Soviet Union

ABSTRACTThis article traces the development of Soviet 3D technology at the Scientific Research Film and Photo Institute (NIKFI) in Moscow. The first system developed by Semen Ivanov created stereo pairs with two frames next to each other on a 35mm film that could be projected onto a raster screen to be viewed without glasses. Moscow theatres were specially equipped with projectors for the demonstration of such 3D films, including the 1941 concert film Zemlia molodosti/The Land of Youth. However, the search continued for improvements to the system: both Ivanov's Stereo 35/19 and Andrei Boltianskii's Stereo 35/Over-and-Under offered refinements to the frame size and allowed the use of standard equipment, deployed for the first colour 3D opera film, Aleko (1954). NIKFI later developed the Stereo 70 system, for which the Institute received the Academy Award for Technical Achievements in 1991. The replacement of projection equipment in modern cinemas means that films made in these systems can no longer be projected; they have now partly been restored digitally.

Application of Electrochemical Breath Test for Detection of Helicobacter Pylori in Screening of Moscow Students

The incidence of Helicobacter pylori infection is analyzed by the results of screening of first- and fourth-year students of Moscow Institute of Foreign Affairs using HelicoSense Scientific breath test system. Age-related dynamics of the infection in patients examined for the first time has been traced. The data on infection rates in patients after eradication therapy are presented.

Nikolay Basov—Nobel Prize for Lasers and Masers

F e a Institute, Boston, MA (D.P.S.). T he 1964 Nobel Prize for physics was shared by 3 physicists—2 Russians, Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov (1922-2001) and his teacher Aleksandr M. Prokhorov (1916-2002), and 1 American, Charles H. Townes (1915)—for basic research in the field of experimental physics. Their research led to the discovery of the laser and maser. Townes worked independently of the 2 Russian physicists. From these achievements, the new field of quantum electronics emerged. Lasers and masers have been used in radio astronomy, radar, satellite communication, medicine, and other fields. In medicine, lasers have been used in a wide range of tasks, including delicate operations in which it is necessary to burn tissue. Both lasers and masers collect energy waves, amplify them hundreds of times, and produce a beam with waves that are almost perfectly parallel with little or no interference. Basov, the son of a professor at the Voronezh Forest Institute, was born on December 14, 1922, in Usman, a village near the city of Voronezh in central Russia (about 160 miles northeast of Kharkov). After graduating from high school in 1941, Basov entered the Russian army and trained as a doctor’s assistant at the Kuibyshev Military Medical Academy. He served near the First Ukranian Front during World War II (1939-1945). After being discharged from the army in December 1945, Basov entered the Moscow Institute of Physical Engineers, from which he graduated in 1950. Two years before graduation, he became a laboratory assistant in the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow. In 1952, while studying the interaction between incident electromagnetic waves and matter, Basov

In Memoriam: Professor Evgeny (Eugene) Rivin, 1932–2011

In Memoriam: Professor Evgeny (Eugene) Rivin, 1932–2011

Contributors

Contributors

Years of M.V. Lomonosovs Study

The article attempts to analyze the 20-year life and work ofM.V. Lomonosov associated with the primary, special, higher and further education. Shows the basic episodes of his education and upbringing in the family, and also in educational institutions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Marburg and Freiberg. Special attention paid to self work of student Lomonosov, the development of his creative talents by influence of teachers, lecturers and professors.

The politics and contexts of Soviet science studies (Naukovedenie): Soviet philosophy of science at the crossroads

Naukovedenie (literarily meaning ‘science studies’), was first institutionalized in the Soviet Union in the twenties, then resurfaced and was widely publicized in the sixties, as a new mode of reflection on science, its history, its intellectual foundations, and its management, after which it dominated Soviet historiography of science until perestroika. Tracing the history of meta-studies of science in the USSR from its early institutionalization in the twenties when various political, theoretical and institutional struggles set the stage for the development of the field, to the sixties when the field resurfaced within the particular political context of the Cold War, and using the history of Moscow Institute for the History of Science and Technology as a case-study, I situate Soviet naukovedenie project within the culture of late-socialism in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, asking what this discourse meant for its creators and practitioners, as well as for the high-ranked Soviet officials who provided the authoritative support for this field.

Aleksandr Prokhorov—Lasers and Masers

The 1964 Nobel Prize in physics was shared by 3 physicists: Russians Aleksandr Mik hail ovich Prokhorov (1916-2002) and Nikolay G. Basov (1922-2001) and American Charles H. Townes (1915) for fundamental research in quantum electronics that led to the development of the maser and laser. Specifically, Basov and Prokhorov performed the basic research that led to the invention of laser and maser devices, which was accomplished independently by Townes and others. Maser stands for microwave amplication by stimulated emission of radiation; a laser is an optical maser. These devices collect energy waves, amplify them hundreds of times, and produce a beam of almost perfectly parallel waves with little or no interference or static. The principles of the laser and maser have been applied to many fields, including medicine. Prokhorov was born of Russian parents on July 11, 1916, in Atherton in northeastern Queensland, Australia. His father had fled Russia in 1911 after escaping from exile in Siberia. After the Russian Revolution (1917), the family returned to the Soviet Union in 1923. Prokhorov studied physics at Leningrad State University, graduating with the baccalaureate degree in 1939. He then became a graduate student at the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow. However, his studies were interrupted by World War II (1939-1945). He served in the Russian Army from 1941 to 1944. After the war, he returned to school and received his doctorate in 1946 from the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow. After receiving his doctorate, Prokhorov became a senior associate at the Institute. Here, he and Basov, who was Prokhorov’s student, jointly suggested the maser principle of amplifying and emitting parallel electromagnetic waves that are all in phase and all on the same wavelength. About the same time, Townes, at Columbia University in New York City, was independently working out the principle of the maser. Townes was the first to actually build such a device (1954). In 1954, Prokhorov became director of the Oscillation Laboratory at the P. N. Lebedev Institute, and later, he was appointed professor of physics at the M. V. Lomonosov State University in Moscow. Beginning in the mid-1950s, Prokhorov concentrated on the development of masers and lasers and on the search for crystals with suitable spectral and relaxation properties. His detailed studies of ruby (one of the most useful crystals for lasers) led to its widespread use at microwave and optical wavelengths. Prokhorov also created paramagnetic masers and proposed the concepts of open resonators and gas dynamic lasers, and he further investigated the resonance and nonresonance interactions of laser radiation with matter. Prokhorov wrote a number of fundamental articles on the construction of infrared and visible light lasers and on nonlinear optics. Prokhorov died of pneumonia in Moscow in 2002. Prokhorov was honored on a stamp (Scott No. 2218j) issued by the island of St Vincent in 1995.

Obtaining casts of aluminum alloys by foundry in loose molds fabricated on installations of three-dimensional printing

Three-dimensional printing is used more and more often at Russian enterprises in preparing the production of cast articles for fabricating models and casting molds. A ZPrinter 310 Plus and a ZCast molding sand are used at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys to obtain molds by this method in the production of pilot casts of aluminum and magnesium alloys. Because of the absence of reference data on the strength and heat-transfer properties of these mixtures, it is difficult to optimize the thickness of the mold wall during their design. In connection with this, the physical and production properties of the ZCast mixture were determined as applied to different conditions of formation of the mold wall before it was poured with the aluminum alloy. The results showed that the method of rapid prototyping the models and molds can be effectively used in foundry for obtaining casts of aluminum alloys, especially at the stage of preparing the production of cast articles.

Predictions of scenarios for the consumption of scrap metal in ferrous metallurgy

This article analyzes the development of a method for using secondary sources of iron in ferrous metallurgy and examines the main models that have been created in the EC nations and Japan in recent decades to optimize the recycling of dormant scrap. Various national and regional models now exist to describe the production and consumption of steel products. Optimizing the consumption of sources of iron, particularly secondary sources, is becoming a complex scientific problem that includes many different factors. A simulation model developed by the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys to describe the recycling of secondary resources in ferrous metallurgy is used to calculate optimum scenarios for the growth of ferrous metallurgy in industrially advanced nations (Japan is used as an example).

Development of MEMS sensors for aircraft control systems

Results of development of MEMS sensors for control systems of Tu-204, Il-96, Tu-334, Yak-130 aircraft performed at the Moscow Institute of Electromechanics and Automatics are presented. Design features and obtained technical parameters of the developed devices are considered. Prospects for their application in a wide range of aircraft are shown.

Understanding Bacterial Cell−Cell Communication with Computational Modeling

In the past decades, bacterial cell-cell communication has captivated interest of a broad scientific community drawn from a wide spectrum of disciplines including biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and engineering. Extensive exchange of experimental techniques and theoretical paradigms resulted in burgeoning development of the field as well as inevitable mixing of research cultures. As is often the case when multiple disciplines address a complex scientific problem, mathematical equations can provide a unifying platform which synergizes the efforts. Indeed, integration of many disparate experimental results in the form of models that span multiple scales from molecules to populations has already greatly benefited the field. In the present contribution, I will briefly survey the key developments in the rapidly growing field of modeling approaches toward understanding bacterial cell-cell communication on a systemic level. Complex prokaryotic metabolism generates a diverse array of chemicals that enter the extracellular environment and can potentially function as signaling molecules. The list of bacteria-produced substances known to function as cell-cell communication signals grows constantly1,2 and is likely to continue expansion in the foreseeable future. Once outside the bacterial cell, these molecules find themselves in diverse, often hostile, environments where they freely diffuse until adsorbed to surfaces, chemically degraded, assimilated by other organisms, or perceived by potential signal recipients. Even in the absence of degradation, the intensity of this undirected, diffusion-propagated chemical signal rapidly falls with the distance from the signal source. Thus, success of any cell-cell communication mediated by freely diffusing molecules, defined as the ratio of received to the total number of secreted molecules, strongly depends on the characteristic cell-to-cell distance. Apart from some exceptional situations in which bacteria might find themselves enclosed in tiny diffusion-impermeable compartments (see section 3), this implies that cell-cell communication becomes a significant factor only when the local cell density reaches certain threshold level. Not surprisingly, most of the known cell-cell signaling and communication in bacteria is cell density dependent. In the majority of examined systems (a few notable exceptions have also been characterized, see e.g., ref 3 and discussion in section 7), the mode of bacterial cell-cell communication is autocrine, i.e., cells capable of producing the signal are also the cells that can receive the signal. The received signal is directly translated into a change in transcription regulation, the decision-making level of a prokaryotic cell at which cell-cell communication is integrated with other sensory inputs. The ability of bacteria to regulate gene expression programs in response to autocrine diffusible signals is typically referred to as quorum sensing, * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Andrew.Goryachev@ ed.ac.uk. Phone: 44-131-650-7807. Andrew Goryachev is a computational cell biologist with a multifaceted background and broad interests in the dynamics of cellular regulatory networks. Trained as a biophysicist at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, he received his Ph.D. in theoretical computational Chemistry at the University of Toronto. Presently, he is a Lecturer at the Centre for Systems Biology, University of Edinburgh, UK. He has a longstanding interest in bacterial quorum sensing to understanding of which he contributed by developing computational models on intracellular as well as population-wide scales. Chem. Rev. 2011, 111, 238–250 238