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The article analyzes empirical data on the long-term demographic and economic dynamics of the countries of the world for the period from the beginning of the 19th century to the present. Population and GDP of a number of countries of the world for the period 1500–2016 were selected as indicators characterizing the long-term demographic and economic dynamics of the countries of the world. Countries were chosen in such a way that they included representatives with different levels of development (developed and developing countries), as well as countries from different regions of the world (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa). A specially developed mathematical model was used for modeling and data processing. The presented model is an autonomous system of differential equations that describes the processes of socio-economic modernization, including the process of transition from an agrarian society to an industrial and post-industrial one. The model contains the idea that the process of modernization begins with the emergence of an innovative sector in a traditional society, developing on the basis of new technologies. The population is gradually moving from the traditional sector to the innovation sector. Modernization is completed when most of the population moves to the innovation sector.

Statistical methods of data processing and Big Data methods, including hierarchical clustering were used. Using the developed algorithm based on the random descent method, the parameters of the model were identified and verified on the basis of empirical series, and the model was tested using statistical data reflecting the changes observed in developed and developing countries during the period of modernization taking place over the past centuries. Testing the model has demonstrated its high quality — the deviations of the calculated curves from statistical data are usually small and occur during periods of wars and economic crises. Thus, the analysis of statistical data on the long-term demographic and economic dynamics of the countries of the world made it possible to determine general patterns and formalize them in the form of a mathematical model. The model will be used to forecast demographic and economic dynamics in different countries of the world.

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 considers the problem of forecasting the number of employed and unemployed persons in a multisectoral labor market using a balance mathematical model of labor force intersectoral dynamics.

The balance mathematical model makes it possible to calculate the values of intersectoral dynamics indicators using only statistical data on sectoral employment and unemployment provided by the Federal State Statistics Service. Intersectoral dynamics indicators of labor force calculated for several years in a row are used to build trends for each of these indicators. The found trends are used to calculation of forecasted intersectoral dynamics indicators of labor force. The sectoral employment and unemployment of researched multisectoral labor market is forecasted based on values these forecasted indicators.

The proposed approach was applied to forecast the employed persons in the economic sectors of the Russian Federation in 2011–2016. The following types of trends were used to describe changes of intersectoral dynamics indicators values: linear, non-linear, constant. The procedure for selecting trends is clearly demonstrated by the example of indicators that determine the labor force movements from the “Transport and communications” sector to the “Healthcare and social services” sector, as well as from the “Public administration and military security, social security” sector to the “Education” sector.

Several approaches to forecasting was compared: a) naive forecast, within which the labor market indicators was forecasted only using a constant trend; b) forecasting based on a balance model using only a constant trend for all intersectoral dynamics indicators of labor force; c) forecasting directly by the number employed persons in economic sectors using the types of trends considered in the article; d) forecasting based on a balance model with the trends choice for each intersectoral dynamics indicators of labor force.

The article shows that the use of a balance model provides a better forecast quality compared to forecasting directly by the number of employed persons. The use of trends in intersectoral dynamics indicators improves the quality of the forecast. The article also provides analysis examples of the multisectoral labor market in the Russian Federation. Using the balance model, the following information was obtained: the labor force flows distribution outgoing from concrete sectors by sectors of the economy; the sectoral structure of the labor force flows ingoing in concrete sectors. This information is not directly contained in the data provided by the Federal State Statistics Service.

Studies of the crisis socio-demographic situation in the Russian Far East require not only the use of traditional statistical methods, but also a conceptual analysis of possible development scenarios based on the synergy principles. The article is devoted to the analysis and modeling of the number of employed, unemployed and economically inactive population using nonlinear autonomous differential equations. We studied a basic mathematical model that takes into account the principle of pair interactions, which is a special case of the model for the struggle between conditional information of D. S. Chernavsky. The point estimates for the parameters are found using least squares method adapted for this model. The average approximation error was no more than 5.17%. The calculated parameter values correspond to the unstable focus and the oscillations with increasing amplitude of population number in the asymptotic case, which indicates a gradual increase in disparities between the employed, unemployed and economically inactive population and a collapse of their dynamics. We found that in the parametric space, not far from the inertial scenario, there are domains of blow-up and chaotic regimes complicating the ability to effectively manage. The numerical study showed that a change in only one model parameter (e.g. migration) without complex structural socio-economic changes can only delay the collapse of the dynamics in the long term or leads to the emergence of unpredictable chaotic regimes. We found an additional set of the model parameters corresponding to sustainable dynamics (stable focus) which approximates well the time series of the considered population groups. In the mathematical model, the bifurcation parameters are the outflow rate of the able-bodied population, the fertility (“rejuvenation of the population”), as well as the migration inflow rate of the unemployed. We found that the transition to stable regimes is possible with the simultaneous impact on several parameters which requires a comprehensive set of measures to consolidate the population in the Russian Far East and increase the level of income in terms of compensation for infrastructure sparseness. Further economic and sociological research is required to develop specific state policy measures.

The article analyses the activity statistics of the Russian participants of volunteer computing (VC) using platform BOINC obtained by the authors. The data has been received with API BOINC and site www.boincstats.com. The script for the database was written in PHP, for data storing was used MySQL.

The database indicators were accumulated across all Russian projects, which allowed the calculation of the indicators characterizing the behavior of the Russian participants in all projects and teams BOINC — absolute and relative number of Russian participants, their activity, the number of introduced points system, the number of participants in each of the Russian project participants, interest in the concept of the VC.

It is shown that the position of Russia in the countries ranking is very low and is retained at the same level for 4 years. According to the authors, low activity of the Russian participants of the VC, due to individualism and the closure of Russian Internet users, as well as to a small interest in the development of fundamental science, scientific research. This, possibly due to the low-prestige as a science as a whole, as well as civil science, crowdsourcing, in particular. And, therefore, we can see insufficient dissemination of the ideas of using the mechanism of VC for research projects.