The phenomenon of crony capitalism has been explored primarily with reference to its impact on economic growth. This study investigates the political implications of crony capitalism and, specifically, the interaction between political competition and crony capitalism. Based on a case study of political trajectories in two regions of the Russian Federation, I argue that under crony capitalism p...

Fungal endophytes in spotted knapweed influence its competitive interactions. Abstract Fungal symbionts are often overlooked in studies of plant invasion. Nevertheless, their role could be essential to the competitive success of the invader. We studied fungal endophytes in the widespread invasive Centaurea stoebe (common knapweed). A preliminary experiment showed that endophytes in roots of C. ...

The article is devoted to the study of language representations of the concept of “woman” in the minds of the Russian and Chinese people based on a comparison of associative experiments of two languages, identifying the dynamics of the concept in the language consciousness of the people, establishing the specificity of the concept in the Russian language picture of the world referring to the Ch...

Invasive species that are closely related to each other may have similar population dynamics and, therefore, be controlled by targeting life stages. We studied two invasive knapweed species, spotted (Centaurea stoebe subsp. micranthos) and the hybrid meadow complex ( Centaurea × moncktonii ) in New York, USA, determine their individual growth rates (λ) across several sites over three years. Bot...

The objective of this study was to compare biological parameters such as length, weight, age, caviar production indices, caviar/weight, growth, condition factor and sex ratios of Persian sturgeon (Acipenser persicus Borodin, 1897) and Russian sturgeon (A. gueldenstaedti Brandt & Ratzeburg, 1833) in the Caspian Sea during 1990-2014. The results showed that a variety of differences between this t...