From Social Data Mining to Forecasting Socio-Economic Crisis

Socio-economic data mining has a great potential in terms of gaining a better understanding of problems that our economy and society are facing, such as financial instability, shortages of resources, or conflicts. Without large-scale data mining, progress in these areas seems hard or impossible. Therefore, a suitable, distributed data mining infrastructure and research centers should be built in Europe. It also appears appropriate to build a network of Crisis Observatories. They can be imagined as laboratories devoted to the gathering and processing of enormous volumes of data on both natural systems such as the Earth and its ecosystem, as well as on human techno-socio-economic systems, so as to gain early warnings of impending events. Reality mining provides the chance to adapt more quickly and more accurately to changing situations. Further opportunities arise by individually customized services, which however should be provided in a privacy-respecting way. This requires the development of novel ICT (such as a self- organizing Web), but most likely new legal regulations and suitable institutions as well. As long as such regulations are lacking on a world-wide scale, it is in the public interest that scientists explore what can be done with the huge data available. Big data do have the potential to change or even threaten democratic societies. The same applies to sudden and large-scale failures of ICT systems. Therefore, dealing with data must be done with a large degree of responsibility and care. Self-interests of individuals, companies or institutions have limits, where the public interest is affected, and public interest is not a sufficient justification to violate human rights of individuals. Privacy is a high good, as confidentiality is, and damaging it would have serious side effects for society.Comment: 65 pages, 1 figure, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Development of a Methodology for the Economic Assessment of Managerial Decisions as a Factor of Increased Economic Security

The article notes that the emergence of such a phenomenon as the interdependence of security and development, the so-called security-development nexus, becomes a determinant during the development of strategic documents at all hierarchical levels. It gives relevance to the search for methodological solutions that would on a strategic level take into account any potential threats to economic security, and on a tactical level provide for pragmatic actions that are not in conflict with the strategic development vector of business entities. The authors identify the instability factors that pose a real threat to economic security. They substantiate the expediency of forming a new model of the national economy development with a focal point on new industrialization. The article factors in the most important trends in the development of the global economy that determine the strategic vector of enhancing the economic security in Russia. It is ascertained that in the conditions of new industrialization, the intellectual core of the high-tech economy sector is formed by convergent technologies (NBICS technologies). The authors offer a methodological approach to the economic assessment of managerial decisions in the context of uncertainty. They also identify methodological principles that must be taken into account in developing a modern methodology for the economic assessment of business decisions. The principles include forming a preferred reality, or the so-called “vision of the future,” the priority of network solutions as the basis for the formation of new markets; mass customization and individualization of demands, principal changes in the profile of competences that ensure competitiveness on the labor market, use of the ideology of inclusive development and impact investment that creates common values. The proposed methodology is based on the optimum combination of traditional methods used for the economic assessment of managerial decisions with the method of real options and reflexive assessments with regard to entropy as a measure of uncertainty. The proposed methodological approach has been tested in respect of the Ural mining and metallurgical complex.The article has been prepared with the support of the grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research № 16–06–00403 "Modelling the Motivational Potentials of the Multi-subject Industrial Policy in the Context of New Industrialization"

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Accelerators and Deterrents to the Coordinated and Balanced Development of the Regions

In the article, the hypothesis that the modern industrial-technological process causes complication of socio-economic space and conducts to amplification its integrity, which, in turn, causes the need for the coordinated and balanced development, is proved. The process of complication of economic space is revealed as a result of number growth of communications caused by creation of the enterprises and organizations, by the change of structure of manufacture and increase of an educational level of the population. The characteristics of a new quality of economic space are given. The factors of the coordinated and balanced development of territories are allocated. The contents «a commercial combination» is shown. The necessity of transition to the system innovation thinking in conditions of becoming complicated economic space is proved. The idea of use «rebalancing of the economy « as a new vision of equation in conditions of crisis situations is offered. The conclusion is made that the result of theoretical and practical searches should become formation vital stability of development of territories, which is provided with intelligence — technological and moral — ethical level of the population, living on it.This article has been prepared with the financial support of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Project No. 15-14-7-2

Improvement of the social and economic development of single-industry regions in the Russian Federation

In this paper, the author has made a comprehensive analysis of a number of Russian studies devoted to single-industry towns, categorizing them according to their contribution to theoretical knowledge as well as their methods and methodology. Common features in these papers have been identified, including those establishing the criteria for classifying a city as a single-industry one and estimating the number of such cities in the Russian Federation in terms of their socio-economic status. Methods for assessing the socio-economic development of single-industry towns and directions for their development are proposed. Having summarized existing theoretical and methodological approaches set out in the various papers reviewed, the author (1) proposes the adoption of the novel concept of a “single-industry region”; (2) identifies the criteria for assigning such a designation; (3) calculates the number of such single-industry regions in the Russian Federation; (4) suggests allocation of grants from the federal budget to the respective RF Subjects for improving the socio-economic situation in their single-industry towns; (5) classifies single-industry regions into (a) “balanced socio-economic development”, (b) “an unbalanced and backward economic development”, (c) “an unbalanced and backward social development” and finally (d) “deprived regions that are unbalanced and have very low levels of socio-economic development”. The author has developed a model for improving the socio-economic development of single-industry regions, whose focus is on a balanced approach to project planning for the socioeconomic development of mono-cities and the efficient allocation of budgetary funds, providing mechanisms for regular and detailed monitoring of the socioeconomic development of mono-cities and allowing the effectiveness of the allocation of budgetary funds to be systematically monitored by introducing a system of grantification aimed at improving the socioeconomic development in mono-cities. The scientific and practical results of the research will allow the development of theoretical and methodological approaches to improving the socioeconomic development of single-industry towns, facilitating the introduction of the new term “single-industry region” into the academic lexicon