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A comparative analysis of the applicability of several variants of the production function models for the analysis of modern Russian economy is presented in a paper. Through regression analysis, the effect of such factors as the oil prices on the world market, the innovation, the hypothesis of constant returns to factors of production is estimated. Calculations were made both for the economy as a whole and for separate industries. It is shown that the models of the economy of Russia as a whole and some of its industries in relation to real data have significant increasing returns to labor. Limits of applicability for the models are discussed.

The paper considers a method for studying panel data based on the use of agglomerative hierarchical clustering — grouping objects based on the similarities and differences in their features into a hierarchy of clusters nested into each other. We used 2 alternative methods for calculating Euclidean distances between objects — the distance between the values averaged over observation interval, and the distance using data for all considered years. Three alternative methods for calculating the distances between clusters were compared. In the first case, the distance between the nearest elements from two clusters is considered to be distance between these clusters, in the second — the average over pairs of elements, in the third — the distance between the most distant elements. The efficiency of using two clustering quality indices, the Dunn and Silhouette index, was studied to select the optimal number of clusters and evaluate the statistical significance of the obtained solutions. The method of assessing statistical reliability of cluster structure consisted in comparing the quality of clustering on a real sample with the quality of clustering on artificially generated samples of panel data with the same number of objects, features and lengths of time series. Generation was made from a fixed probability distribution. At the same time, simulation methods imitating Gaussian white noise and random walk were used. Calculations with the Silhouette index showed that a random walk is characterized not only by spurious regression, but also by “spurious clustering”. Clustering was considered reliable for a given number of selected clusters if the index value on the real sample turned out to be greater than the value of the 95% quantile for artificial data. A set of time series of indicators characterizing production in the regions of the Russian Federation was used as a sample of real data. For these data only Silhouette shows reliable clustering at the level p < 0.05. Calculations also showed that index values for real data are generally closer to values for random walks than for white noise, but it have significant differences from both. Since three-dimensional feature space is used, the quality of clustering was also evaluated visually. Visually, one can distinguish clusters of points located close to each other, also distinguished as clusters by the applied hierarchical clustering algorithm.

The article examines the impact of non-market actions of participants in oligopolistic markets on the market structure. The following actions of one of the market participants aimed at increasing its market share are analyzed: 1) price manipulation; 2) blocking investments of stronger oligopolists; 3) destruction of produced products and capacities of competitors. Linear dynamic games with a quadratic criterion are used to model the strategies of oligopolists. The expediency of their use is due to the possibility of both an adequate description of the evolution of markets and the implementation of two mutually complementary approaches to determining the strategies of oligopolists: 1) based on the representation of models in the state space and the solution of generalized Riccati equations; 2) based on the application of operational calculus methods (in the frequency domain) which owns the visibility necessary for economic analysis.

The article shows the equivalence of approaches to solving the problem with maximin criteria of oligopolists in the state space and in the frequency domain. The results of calculations are considered in relation to a duopoly, with indicators close to one of the duopolies in the microelectronic industry of the world. The second duopolist is less effective from the standpoint of costs, though more mobile. Its goal is to increase its market share by implementing the non-market methods listed above.

Calculations carried out with help of the game model, made it possible to construct dependencies that characterize the relationship between the relative increase in production volumes over a 25-year period of weak and strong duopolists under price manipulation. Constructed dependencies show that an increase in the price for the accepted linear demand function leads to a very small increase in the production of a strong duopolist, but, simultaneously, to a significant increase in this indicator for a weak one.

Calculations carried out with use of the other variants of the model, show that blocking investments, as well as destroying the products of a strong duopolist, leads to more significant increase in the production of marketable products for a weak duopolist than to a decrease in this indicator for a strong one.

This paper considers the problem of water consumption in the regions of Russia with low water availability. We provide a review of the existing methods to control quality and quantity of water resources at different scales — from households to worldwide. The paper itself considers regions with low “water availability” parameter which is amount of water per person per year. Special attention is paid to the regions, where this parameter is low because of natural features of the region, not because of high population. In such regions many resources are spend on water processing infrastructure to store water and transport water from other regions. In such regions the main water consumers are industry and agriculture.

We propose dynamic two-level hierarchical model which matches water consumption of a region with its gross regional product. On the top level there is a regional administration (supervisor) and on the lower level there are region enterprises (agents). The supervisor sets fees for water consumption. We study the model with Pontryagin’s maximum principle and provide agents’s optimal control in analytical form. For the supervisor’s control we provide numerical algorithm. The model has six free coefficients, which can be chosen so the model represents a particular region. We use data from Russia Federal State Statistics Service for identification process of a model. For numerical analysis we use trust region reflective algorithms. We provide calculations for a few regions with low water availability. It is shown that it is possible to reduce water consumption of a region more than by 20% while gross regional product drop is less than 10%.

The paper contains a mathematical model for the optimal location of enterprises producing fuel from renewable wood waste for the regional distributed heating supply system. Optimization is based on total cost minimization of the end product – the thermal energy from wood fuel. A method for solving the problem is based on genetic algorithm. The paper also shows the practical results of the model by example of Udmurt Republic.

The paper present a dynamic macro model of world dynamics. The world is divided into 19 geographic regions in the model. The internal development of the regions is described by regression equations for demographic and economic indicators (Population, Gross Domestic Product, Gross Capital Formation). The bilateral trade flows from region to region describes interregional interactions and represented the trade submodel. Time, the gross product of the exporter and the gross product of the importer were used as regressors. Four types were considered: time pair regression — dependence of trade flow on time, export function — dependence of the share of trade flow in the gross product of the exporter on the gross product of the importer, import function — dependence of the share of trade flow in the gross product of the importer on the gross product of the exporter, multiple regression — dependence of trade flow on the gross products of the exporter and importer. Two types of functional dependence were used for each type: linear and log-linear, in total eight variants of the trading equation were studied. The quality of regression models is compared by the coefficient of determination. By calculations the model satisfactorily approximates the dynamics of monotonically changing indicators. The dynamics of non-monotonic trade flows is analyzed, three types of functional dependence on time are proposed for their approximation. It is shown that the number of foreign trade series can be approximated by the space of seven main components with a 10% error. The forecast of regional development and global dynamics up to 2040 is constructed.

The data of episodic field measurements of carbon dioxide balance components (soil respiration — R_soil, ecosystem respiration — R_eco, net ecosystem exchange — NEE) of hayfields under use and abandoned one are interpreted by modelling. The field measurements were carried within five field campaigns in 2018 and 2019 on the drained part of the Dubna Peatland in Taldom District, Moscow Oblast, Russia. The territory is within humid continental climate zone. Peatland drainage was done out for milled peat extraction. After extraction was stopped, the residual peat deposit (1–1.5 m) was ploughed and grassed (Poa pratensis L.) for hay production. The current ground water level (GWL) varies from 0.3–0.5 m below the surface during wet and up to 1.0 m during dry periods. Daily dynamics of CO2 fluxes was measured using dynamic chamber method in 2018 (August) and 2019 (May, June, August) for abandoned ditch spacing only with sanitary mowing once in 5 years and the ditch spacing with annual mowing. NEE and Reco were measured on the sites with original vegetation, and Rsoil — after vegetation removal. To model a seasonal dynamics of NEE, the dependence of its components (Reco, Rsoil, and Gross ecosystematmosphere exchange of carbon dioxide — GEE) from soil and air temperature, GWL, photosynthetically active radiation, underground and aboveground plant biomass were used. The parametrization of the models has been carried out considering the stability of coefficients estimated by the bootstrap method. R2 (α = 0.05) between simulated and measured Reco was 0.44 (p < 0.0003) on abandoned and 0.59 (p < 0.04) on under use hayfield, and GEE was 0.57 (p < 0.0002) and 0.77 (p < 0.00001), respectively. Numerical experiments were carried out to assess the influence of different haymaking regime on NEE. It was found that NEE for the season (May 15 – September 30) did not differ much between the hayfield without mowing (4.5±1.0 tC·ha–1·season–1) and the abandoned one (6.2±1.4). Single mowing during the season leads to increase of NEE up to 6.5±0.9, and double mowing — up to 7.5±1.4 tC·ha–1·season–1. This means increase of carbon losses and CO2 emission into the atmosphere. Carbon loss on hayfield for both single and double mowing scenario was comparable with abandoned hayfield. The value of removed phytomass for single and double mowing was 0.8±0.1 tC·ha^–1·season^–1 and 1.4±0.1 (45% carbon content in dry phytomass) or 3.0 and 4.4 t·ha^–1·season^–1 of hay (17% moisture content). In comparison with the fallow, the removal of biomass of 0.8±0.1 at single and 1.4±0.1 tC·ha^–1·season^–1 double mowing is accompanied by an increase in carbon loss due to CO2 emissions, i.e., the growth of NEE by 0.3±0.1 and 1.3±0.6 tC·ha–1·season–1, respectively. This corresponds to the growth of NEE for each ton of withdrawn phytomass per hectare of 0.4±0.2 tС·ha–1·season–1 at single mowing, and 0.9±0.7 tС·ha^–1·season^–1 at double mowing. Therefore, single mowing is more justified in terms of carbon loss than double mowing. Extensive mowing does not increase CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and allows, in addition, to “replace” part of the carbon loss by agricultural production.

Many properties of ordinary differential equations systems solutions are determined by the properties of the equations in variations. An ODE system, which includes both the original nonlinear system and the equations in variations, will be called an extended system further. When studying the properties of the Cauchy problem for the systems of ordinary differential equations, the transition to extended systems allows one to study many subtle properties of solutions. For example, the transition to the extended system allows one to increase the order of approximation for numerical methods, gives the approaches to constructing a sensitivity function without using numerical differentiation procedures, allows to use methods of increased convergence order for the inverse problem solution. Authors used the Broyden method belonging to the class of quasi-Newtonian methods. The Rosenbroke method with complex coefficients was used to solve the stiff systems of the ordinary differential equations. In our case, it is equivalent to the second order approximation method for the extended system.

As an example of the proposed approach, several related mathematical models of the blood coagulation process were considered. Based on the analysis of the numerical calculations results, the conclusion was drawn that it is necessary to include a description of the factor XI positive feedback loop in the model equations system. Estimates of some reaction constants based on the numerical inverse problem solution were given.

Effect of factor V release on platelet activation was considered. The modification of the mathematical model allowed to achieve quantitative correspondence in the dynamics of the thrombin production with experimental data for an artificial system. Based on the sensitivity analysis, the hypothesis tested that there is no influence of the lipid membrane composition (the number of sites for various factors of the clotting system, except for thrombin sites) on the dynamics of the process.

The article reveals the necessity of introduction of new economic category such as “insurance capital”. Insurance activity generates a specific kind of capital (as a production factor) – the guarantee fund, which is called “primary insurance monetary capital". The article establishes that, due to its probabilistic and statistical nature, the insurance capital has a number of specific features in addition to conventional characteristics of capital as a production factor. Basing on probabilistic-statistical model author investigates the role of insurance capital in the formation of price for insurance services. In particular, the author exposes that the law of diminishing returns is not universal when talking about insurance capital.

The article describes a model of a human in the informational economy and demonstrates the multicriteria optimizational approach to the metric analysis of model-generated data. The traditional approach using the identification and study involves the model’s identification by time series and its further prediction. However, this is not possible when some variables are not explicitly observed and only some typical borders or population features are known, which is often the case in the social sciences, making some models pure theoretical. To avoid this problem, we propose a method of metric data analysis (MMDA) for identification and study of such models, based on the construction and analysis of the Kolmogorov – Shannon metric nets of the general population in a multidimensional space of social characteristics. Using this method, the coefficients of the model are identified and the features of its phase trajectories are studied. In this paper, we are describing human according to his role in information processing, considering his awareness and cognitive abilities. We construct two lifetime indices of human capital: creative individual (generalizing cognitive abilities) and productive (generalizing the amount of information mastered by a person) and formulate the problem of their multi-criteria (two-criteria) optimization taking into account life expectancy. This approach allows us to identify and economically justify the new requirements for the education system and the information environment of human existence. It is shown that the Pareto-frontier exists in the optimization problem, and its type depends on the mortality rates: at high life expectancy there is one dominant solution, while for lower life expectancy there are different types of Paretofrontier. In particular, the Pareto-principle applies to Russia: a significant increase in the creative human capital of an individual (summarizing his cognitive abilities) is possible due to a small decrease in the creative human capital (summarizing awareness). It is shown that the increase in life expectancy makes competence approach (focused on the development of cognitive abilities) being optimal, while for low life expectancy the knowledge approach is preferable.