Urban vertical farming is an innovative solution to address the increasing demand for food in densely populated cities. With advanced technology and precise monitoring, closed urban vertical farms can optimize growing conditions for plants, resulting in higher yields and improved crop quality. However, to fully optimize closed urban vertical farming systems, research is needed to enhance crop yields and reduce the growing season. The present study is focused on the research of the mutual influence of microclimate parameters, such as temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentration, as well as the spectral composition of light, humidity, and amount of peat in the substrate. The research was conducted within the cultivation of the “Innovator” potato variety at the experimental automated vertical farm of the “Fundamentals of Biotechnology” of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Based on the correlation and Fourier analysis of the dependences of soil moisture and carbon dioxide concentration on time, it is shown that after watering potatoes, there is a 56 h delayed decrease in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the cultivation room, which can be explained by a delayed increase in the intensity of the photosynthesis process. Moreover, a comparison of CO₂ dependence on time with the lighting dynamics at the scale of one day indicates the presence of the intrinsic daily biological rhythm of the CO₂ absorption rate that does not depend on the external lighting conditions. In addition, by analyzing the dependencies of microclimate parameters and the spectral composition of the lighting over time, it was found that switching on lighting influences the microclimate parameters, which can be explained by the heating of LEDs used for lighting. Moreover, the multiple regression analysis of microclimate parameters and soil moisture showed that an increase in peat content in the substrate leads to a transition from the decisive influence of air humidity on soil moisture to the dominant influence of air temperature. The obtained results reveal the complex mutual influence of the parameters determining the growing conditions within automated closed vertical farms. Consideration of this influence is necessary when optimizing the conditions of vegetation and the development of intelligent plant-growing systems.

The notion of dynamic graphs is introduced and some properties of these graphs are examined. Engineering applications and main directions of development of dynamic graph theory are described. Conditio

The cultivation of aromatic plants that are valuable for nutritional and medical aims under artificial conditions with narrow-band LED lighting is becoming widespread. A comparison of the effects of conventional basil field and greenhouse conditions and a city farm (CF) with LED lighting on essential oil and its components was studied in Ocimum × citriodorum Vis. “Kapriz” (OcK), O. basilicum L. “Queen Sheba” (ObQS) and O. minimum L. “Vasilisk” (OmV). Essential oil (EO) was extracted by hydrodistillation from dry leaves of the basil varieties. EO composition was studied by gas chromatography, while the number of glandular trichomes was studied by scanning electron microscopy. We found that in leaves of CF plants, ObQS and OmV increased EO yield (22.9 and 22.7 g/kg DW, respectively) compared to field conditions (10.9 and 13.7 g/kg DW, respectively). The number of glands with four-celled heads also increased. In OcK plants, the amount of EO was almost unchanged, but the number of capitate glandular trichomes was strongly increased. Biochemical analysis showed that in CF plants compared to field ones, eugenol accumulated 40% more in ObQS and three times more in OmV. In addition, 10.9% estragol was detected in the leaves of OcK plants, which was absent in field plants. Thus, LED lighting conditions increased the biosynthesis of phenylpropanoid volatile components in Ocimum.

Globalization activates qualitative changes in multiple economic entities and requires the development of alternative forms of business organization. At present, one of the most promising development tracks is represented by the implementation of network structures, aimed at achieving common goals and obtaining a win-win outcome via joint effort. Business structures that invite dynamic and consistent transformations on a wide scale prove to be able to successfully compete in the market. In this regard, a project management system at a medical hub serves as a vital tool for implementation of open innovation. Participation in the medical hub allows coordinating intentions and establishing aligned communication between all stakeholders, suppliers and private institutions. In modern sectors of the economy, a developing hub becomes a unique structure, because it unites the contributions of the most important healthcare specialists in a single framework. This research examines the structure of healthcare business process models, and scrutinizes the communication between suppliers, partners and consumers of medical services. It also defines the main directions and outlines strategic goals. Assessment of performance of a project management system at a medical hub proves to be the issue of particular relevance, due to the fact that its tasks should be primarily aimed at increasing the share of successful projects and implementing only those ones that comply with the strategy. Based on the latter, a model for the project management system at a medical hub was designed. As a result, the authors developed an assessment mechanism for innovative projects using SNA methods that align with intra-communication interactions (transactions) between the participants in a medical hub. The conducted research allows concluding that in the current era of cutting-edge technologies, the project management system should be considered the most effective management tool for coordinating the actions of a corporate structure at a medical hub.

Fractals are already firmly rooted in modern science. Research continues on the fractal properties of objects in physics, chemistry, biology and many other scientific fields. Fractal graphs as a discrete representation are used to model and describe the structure of various objects and processes, both natural and artificial. The paper proposes an introduction to prefractal graphs. The main definitions and notation are proposed—the concept of a seed, the operations of processing a seed, the procedure for generating a prefractal graph. Canonical (typical) and non-canonical (special) types of prefractal graphs are considered separately. Important characteristics are proposed and described—the preservation of adjacency of edges for different ranks in the trajectory. The definition of subgraph-seeds of different ranks is given separately. Rules for weighting a prefractal graph by natural numbers and intervals are proposed. Separately, the definition of a fractal graph as infinite is given, and the differences between the concepts of fractal and prefractal graphs are described. At the end of the work, already published works of the authors are proposed, indicating the main backlogs, as well as a list of directions for new research. This work is the beginning of a cycle of works on the study of the properties and characteristics of fractal and prefractal graphs.

One of the promising trends in modern agronomy is the development of automated closed urban vertical farms with controlled environmental conditions, which can improve dynamics of the crop vegetation process. In the frame of this work, the analysis of the vegetative stages of potato seed material (minitubers and microplants) grown in the conditions of the automated vertical farm was conducted. The study was performed at the vertical farm of the Federal Research Center “Fundamentals of Biotechnology” of the Russian Academy of Sciences by the analysis of water consumption dynamics. It was established that the 20-day reduction in the vegetative period of the vertical-farm-grown potatoes in comparison with the field-grown ones occurred due to the reduction in the final stage of vegetation (mass gain of newly formed tubers) under the minitubers planting. The same reduction occurred due to both final and initial vegetative stage (absence of tubers germination) under the planting of microplants. The obtained result shed new light on the vegetation dynamics of potato grown under controlled conditions of the urban vertical farms and demonstrated a possibility to perform the study of plant development process using automated diagnostics systems of vertical farms.