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In the present article we explore the process of changing the level of approval of a political leader under the influence of the processes taking place in online platforms (social networks, forums, etc.). The driver of these changes is the interaction of users, through which they can exchange opinions with each other and formulate their position in relation to the political leader. In addition to interpersonal interaction, we will consider such factors as the information impact, expressed in the creation of an information flow with a given power and polarity (positive or negative, in the context of influencing the image of a political leader), as well as the presence of a group of agents (opinion leaders), supporting the leader, or, conversely, negatively affecting its representation in the media space.

The mathematical basis of the presented research is the Kirman model, which has its roots in biology and initially found its application in economics. Within the framework of this model it is considered that each user is in one of the two possible states, and a Markov jump process describing transitions between these states is given. For the problem under consideration, these states are 0 or 1, depending on whether a particular agent is a supporter of a political leader or not. For further research, we find its diffusional approximation, known as the Jacoby process. With the help of spectral decomposition for the infinitesimal operator of this process we have an opportunity to find an analytical representation for the transition probability density.

Analyzing the probabilities obtained in this way, we can assess the influence of individual factors of the model: the power and direction of the information flow, available to online users and relevant to the tasks of rating formation, as well as the number of supporters or opponents of the politician. Next, using the found eigenfunctions and eigenvalues, we derive expressions for the evaluation of conditional mathematical expectations of a politician’s rating, which can serve as a basis for building forecasts that are important for the formation of a strategy of representing a political leader in the online environment.

The paper presents results of numerical modeling of stress-strain state of jack-up rigs used for shelf hydrocarbon reservoirs exploitation. The work studied the equilibrium stress state of a jack-up rig standing on seafloor and mechanical behavior of the rig under seismic loading. Surface elastic wave caused by a distant earthquake acts a reason for the loading. Stability of jack-up rig is the main topic of the research, as stability can be lost due to redistribution of stresses and strains in the elements of the rig due to seismic loading. Modeling results revealed that seismic loading can indeed lead to intermittent growth of stresses in particular elements of the rig’s support legs resulting into stability loss. These results were obtained using the finite element-based numerical scheme. The paper contains the proof of modeling results convergence obtained from analysis of one problem — the problem of stresses and strains distributions for the contact problem of a rigid cylinder indenting on elastic half space. The comparison between numerical and analytical solutions proved the used numerical scheme to be correct, as obtained results converged. The paper presents an analysis of the different factors influencing the mechanical behavior of the studied system. These factors include the degree of seismic loading, mechanical properties of seafloor sediments, and depth of support legs penetration. The results obtained from numerical modeling made it possible to formulate preliminary conclusions regarding the need to take site-specific conditions into account whenever planning the use of jack-up rigs, especially, in the regions with seismic activity. The approach presented in the paper can be used to evaluate risks related to offshore hydrocarbon reservoirs exploitation and development, while the reported numerical scheme can be used to solve some contact problems of theory of elasticity with the need to analyze dynamic processes.

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.

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.