This article analyzes electronic letters to the editor on the coverage of the riot in Kondopoga (2006) and the bombings in the Moscow subway (2010). Letters to electronic media are used for the first time as a source for popular opinion on nationalism and ethnic conflicts in Russia. The first argument of this study is methodological: a comparison between the polls and the letters suggests that letters to electronic media represent public opinion on nationalism even though Internet users still constitute a minority of Russian citizens. This study also claims that the letters under examination indicate a move from extreme nationalism to so called “banal nationalism,” the term coined by Michael Billig, during the period between 2006 and 2010. Finally, the article argues that the concept of the civic nation is not yet well understood or accepted by Russian citizens. Although this concept, expressed in Russian by the newly coined word rossiane, became somewhat more popular in 2010 than it had been in 2006, the ethnic understanding of Russian still prevails. The basis for the new identity rossiane, as it is presented in the letters, lacks common memories, myths and traditions that would resonate strongly in popular imagination.

The inhibitory management effect is usually un- derestimated in artificial control systems, using biological anal- ogy. According to our hypothesis, the muscle hypertonus could be effectively compensated via stimulation by bio plausible patterns. We proposed the approach for the compensatory stimulation device in development of previously presented archi- tecture of neurointerface, where (1) neuroport is implemented as DAC and stimulator, (2) neuroterminal – as neurosimulation of a set of oscillator motifs on one-board computer. In the set of experiments with 5 volunteers we measured the efficacy of motor neuron inhibition via antagonist muscle or nerve stim- ulation registering muscle force with and without antagonist stimulation. For the agonist activation, we used both voluntary activity and electrical stimulation. In the case of stimulation of both agonist and antagonist muscles and nerves, we exper- imented with delays between muscles stimulation starts in the range 0...20 ms. We registered the subjective discomfort rate. We didn’t identify a significant difference between antagonist muscle and nerve stimulation in both voluntary and stimulation of agonist activity. We determined the most effective delay between stimulation of agonist and antagonist muscle/nerve as 10–20 ms.

In this study, Yulia Mikhailova and David Prestel suggest that the political culture of pre-Mongolian Rus’ may be similar to that of post-Carolingian Europe, where public order still existed in the absence of a strong centralized authority. In Rus’ as also in the west, there was an order of norms rather than of institutions. Drawing on sources such as the Testament of Vladimir Monomakh and the Homily of Princes, Mikhailova and Prestel maintain that cross kissing was considered a sacred obligation for Rus’ rulers, a view given further support by the behavior of princes as recorded in the chronicles. They appear to trust oaths made on the cross and accept that there will be negative consequences for those who break them. Violations threaten one's salvation, and when chroniclers are favorably disposed to certain princes, they attempt to demonstrate that their violations are justified by an offence on the part of the prince with whom the agreement was enacted.

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This work is dedicated to the review and perspective of the new direction that we call "Neuropunk revolution" resembling the cultural phenomenon of cyberpunk. This new phenomenon has its foundations in advances in neuromorphic technologies including memristive and bio-plausible simulations, BCI, and neurointerfaces as well as unconventional approaches to AI and computing in general. We present the review of the current state-of-the-art and our vision of near future development of scientific approaches and future technologies. We call the "Neuropunk revolution" the set of trends that in our view provide the necessary background for the new generation of approaches technologies to integrate the cybernetic objects with biological tissues in close loop system as well as robotic systems inspired by the biological processes again integrated with biological objects. We see bio-plausible simulations implemented by digital computers or spiking networks memristive hardware as promising bridge or middleware between digital and [neuro]biological domains.