The Kaliningrad Challenge

The Kaliningradskaya Oblast, Russia's Baltic enclave which soon will turn into an island amid the enlarged EU and NATO, constitutes a twofold challenge to European politics: Due to its economic, social, historical, geographical, strategic, and cultural peculiarities the detached region may become a source of instability. However, due to the same peculiarities the region also bears the potential to serve as a pilot-region for an EU-Russian partnership. To meet the latter perspective all actors concerned need to engage in a dialogue-based, coordinated, and problem-solving approach. This study provides recommendations to a wide range of actors on how to approach the Kaliningrad challenge in a proactive manner. It presents a policy paper drafted by a group of Kaliningrad experts from eight countries and is complemented by fourteen issue-oriented chapters which provide in-depth reasoning on the suggestions made by the group. Hanne-Margret Birckenbach is professor of political sciences at the University of Giessen, Germany. Christian Wellmann is deputy director of SHIP--The Schleswig-Holstein Institute for Peace Research, Germany.

Crisis Management Challenges in Kaliningrad captures the evolving nature of the types of crises faced by a society as it transforms and evolves. Once the westernmost bastion of the Soviet Union and now the westernmost part of the Russian Federation, the Kaliningrad Oblast remains cut off from direct land communication with mainland Russia and provides a condensed, real-life laboratory in which to observe changing political, technological and economic priorities in Post-Soviet society. Expert contributors from the region chart the tensions, problems and opportunities created by the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and examine the change in status and situation of the Kaliningrad Oblast. By looking at a selection of economic, environmental and social crises a historical link between the Soviet and Post-Soviet eras is formed and rigorously examined.

This book gathers the best contributions from the conference “Digital Transformation of the Economy: Challenges, Trends and New Opportunities”, which took place in Samara, Russian Federation, on May 29–31, 2018. Organized by Samara State University of Economics (Samara), Russia, the conference was devoted to issues of the digital economy.Presenting international research on the impact of digitalization on economic development, it includes topics such as the transformation of the institutional environment under the influence of informatization, the comparative analysis of the digitalization development in different countries, and modeling the dependence of the rate of change in the economy on the level of the digitalization penetration into various spheres of human activity. It also covers business-process transformation in the context of digitalization and changes in the structure of employment and personnel training for the digital economy. Lastly, it addresses the issue of ensuring information security and dealing with information risks for both individual enterprises and national economies as a whole. The book appeals to both students and researchers whose interests include the development of the digital economy, as well as to managers and professionals who integrate digital solutions into real-world business practice.

The book presents expert assessments of modern opportunities for fisheries and aquaculture in terms of economic efficiency, the state of fishery reservoirs, and the state of ichthyocenoses. The purpose of this book is to provide interested parties (government bodies, representatives of business, science and civil society) with information about modern solutions in the field of aquatic biological resources management, the state of aquatic ecosystems and fish stocks, and modern and promising technologies in aquaculture and fisheries. The book contains an assessment of the state and recommendations for the restoration of natural aquatic ecosystems, an analysis of the state of fisheries and aquaculture in inland waters, taking into account regional characteristics, the development of a methodology for assessing freshwater fish stocks, information on advanced technologies in cage aquaculture in reservoirs and lakes and in circulation systems, data on opportunities for capacity building in small-scale fisheries, and the prospects for establishing a data and information management system for fisheries and aquaculture.

This book aims to review the key areas of modern research in power engineering regarding environmental conservation, as well as the research and development of digital technologies in the energy sector. The main result of fruitful work within the framework of the III International Conference "Energy Ecosystems: Prospects and Challenges: Applied Digital Technologies" has become this book, which includes 16 best reports on priority issues of modern energy development. The book is of interest to scientists, students, researchers, representatives of energy companies, representatives of leading Russian and European universities, and research institutes. We feel confident that our book will serve as an important source of information and knowledge that will lead to scientific and innovative progress in the field of sustainable development of the society.

This book comprises the proceedings of the International Perm Forum “Science and Global Challenges of the 21st Century” held on October 18th – 23rd, 2021, at Perm State University, Perm, Russia. Global challenges, which determine the main trends in the development of social and economic life in the XXI century, require the integration of specialists in various fields of knowledge. That is why the main principle of this edition is interdisciplinarity, the formation of end-to-end innovation chains, including fundamental and applied research, and the wide application of smart innovations, networks, and information technologies. The authors seek to find synergy between technologies and such fields as computer science, geosciences, biology, linguistics, social studies, historical studies, and economics. The book is of interest to researchers seeking nontrivial solutions at the interface of sciences, digital humanities, computational linguistics, cognitive studies, machine learning, and others.

The land border between Russia and the European Union is one of the longest land borders in the world, with very considerable trade flowing across the border in both directions. This book examines the nature of the EU-Russia border, and the issues connected with its management. It describes the territories and the societies on each side of the border, discusses the challenges which confront border management, including migration and criminal activities, and explores how people on both sides perceive each other and perceive threats and security issues. It concludes by assessing achievements to date in managing the border and by assessing continuing unresolved challenges.

From our earliest schooldays, we are shown the world as a colorful collage of countries, each defined by their own immutable borders. What we often don't realize is that every political boundary was created by people. No political border is more natural or real than another, yet some international borders make no apparent sense at all. While focusing on some of these unusual border shapes, this fascinating book highlights the important truth that all borders, even those that appear "normal," are social constructions. In an era where the continued relevance of the nation state is being questioned and where transnationalism is altering the degree to which borders effectively demarcate spaces of belonging, the contributors argue that this point is vital to our understanding of the world. The unique and compelling histories of some of the world's oddest borders provide an ideal context for this group of experts to offer accessible and enlightening discussions of cultural globalization, economic integration, international migration, imperialism, postcolonialism, global terrorism, nationalism, and supranationalism. Each author's regional expertise enriches a textured account of the historical context in which these borders came into existence as well astheir historical and ongoing influence on the people and states they bound. To view more maps from the David Rumsey Map Collection, visit www.davidrumsey.com.