This article describes a study on e-government infrastructure. The subject of the study are electronic channels of interaction as a part of e-government infrastructure. It provides a definition for electronic channels of interaction. It outlines a set of requirements that electronic channels of interaction must meet before being used in e-government. It provides a list of electronic channels of interaction that are available currently and in the near future. It conducts a comparative analysis of these channels' ability to meet the outlined requirements. And it draws a conclusion concerning the new channels' (various types of mobile interactions and interactive television) potential ability to organize interaction within e-government frameworks.

The Corporate Rating of Concepts

The traditional methods of rating agencies fail in times of crisis. This was confirmed yet again by the global crisis. It looks like the methods and technologies that rating agencies adopted so many years ago will have to change. The development of an information society provides this with a unique opportunity. The paper proposes strengthening the holistic and conceptual assessments of what an organization does. This is achieved using both the cultural knowledge and the natural laws of fundamental thermodynamics, methods of inverse problem solving, and quantum mechanics.

Social Exclusion and Information and Communication Technologies: Lessons from Studies of Single Parents and the Young Elderly

Current notions of social exclusion are to an extent anchored in older concerns with relative poverty, which had the merit of considering not just material deprivation but also the social and cultural dimensions of participation or exclusion. The focus of this article is on the role of ICTs in relation to people's ability to participate in society. It draws upon detailed qualitative research on single parent and young elderly households to explore what counts as experiences of inclusion or exclusion and the processes behind them.
Dealing mainly, but not exclusively, with the more traditional ICTs of telephony and broadcasting, the article considers processes of self-exclusion as people have mixed evaluations of these technologies derived both from current circumstances and past experiences. It then looks beyond the acquisition of ICTs to show how other modes of access to these resources are important before reflecting upon the quality of experience of ICTs, not just in terms of the functionality on offer but also taking into account that technologies are themselves symbolic goods. Finally, and drawing on more recent research, the article asks what lessons might be learnt from these traditional ICTs when considering newly emerging ones like the Internet.

This part of the article looks at the main trends of forming today's information society in Russia. It uses official 2000—2008 statistics to analyze the rates of social, investment, innovative and production development in this field. The data show that Russia is currently in the process of forming the foundations of an information society economy, but that national businesses are only interested in the field's high-profit segment. The article suggests that information societies could potentially become self-sufficient by redistributing the high-profit segment's earnings to the lower ends of the field. The low-end segments primarily survive through the help of state financing. In the meantime, the state sector's insufficient in volvement in the high-end segment is keeping the low-end from relying on the high-end's for help. The article also shows that Russia is exhibiting the traces of innovative inactivity and pursuing the dangerous policy of having its local manufacturer being squeezed out by information market imports.

Cooperation in the field of Exchange of Digital Collections and Cultural Content

The article briefly introduces the EC MEDICI Framework of Cooperation, originated under umbrella of the European Commission and grown up at international level after the start up period. Main projects care of MEDICI: information sharing, research projects, initiative in the field of education. A brief overview on recent MEDICI's initiatives: "On culture in a world wide information society", "Intangible heritage: a proper digital format", "EU directives & cultural heritage", "EU legislation & cultural heritage", Planned conservation & "Monuments Integrated Management System", "Long term preservation of digital content", Monument's ID Card & Visual documentation of monuments, cultural tourism 2.0 etc. MEDICI and the World Summit Award (section eCulture and Heritage).