Abstract: This paper outlines factors that impacted the change of demographic behavior of the rural population of the Central Black Earth Region from the middle of the 19th century to the late 20th century. Factor scores have been determined when modeling demographic processes in 1,500 rural settlements. The authors rely on a classical view that late traditional society was highly dependent on negative natural events, characterized by low migration and strong ties of birth rates with death rates. It has been shown that extraordinary positive factors (the rise of zemstvo medicine in particular) stimulated unlimited natural growth. Short-term stress factors (wars, hunger and epidemics) led to compensatory reproduction. The authors also come to a conclusion that modernized society (the latter half of the 20th century) had more complicated relations between demographic behavior factors. The evolution of modernized micro-communities (individual settlements) was subjected to a great number of nonlinear effects. The data demonstrate that the agrarian society at the time continued the move to natural growth although to a lesser extent than during the previous stages. However, the results of such an intention were largely neutralized by migration.

Abstract: The article presents the results of modeling demographic strategies of 1.5 thousand Tambovskaya Guberniya rural settlements in 1959-1989. The authors consider methodological and tool aspects related to the formation of a fractal model and computer experiments based on it. They have determined the values of governing factors affecting the formation of collective goal-oriented ideas about the expected migration rate and the rate of population's natural increase or decline. The results obtained can arguably be extended to a few similar regions of Russia. This study is sequel to previous works where models for the period from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century have been set forth. Modeling has demonstrated that there are two groups of settlements: migration donors and migration recipients. During the period understudy the rural population (when setting their life goals) relied mostly on migration which evidently was a depressing agent for natural increase. Nevertheless, the majority of peasant societies were open to a certain natural increase.
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Abstract: The article gives an example of the way self-organized criticality (SOC) theory can be used to study a number of nonlinear effects in social media, protest movement sharp rises in particular. The authors describe the key ideas of the SOC theory and methods to identify pink noise as a SOC attribute. The research object is an associated total of Facebook communities which lent informational and organizational support to the impeachment of Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff. Chronological frames of the work is January 2015 – august 2016. It has been shown that net activity of some communities understudy was a pink noise within a number of periods. SOC systems can demonstrate explosive activity increase that is the inner potential of systems for self-destruction and/or qualitative transformation. The protest social network studied had key features to generate informational avalanches – fast and big explosions of information creation, transmission and copying. The authors name facts supporting the idea that SOC advent in the nets is caused by mass street actions (violent as well). One parameter of the numerical series studied is a power law factor which can be indicative for network diagnostics, in particular, for revealing their potential for spontaneous informational avalanches.

Abstract: The article presents the results of analysis of long time data series reflecting the intensity of peasant disturbances in various guberniyas of European Russia in the second half of the 19th century by means of self-organized criticality theory . The types of peasant protests are presented that depend on the regularity of protest intensity fluctuations in different guberniyas. It has been found that the population density and the average allotment of land exerted the most powerful influence on the formation of protest potential. A hypothesis has been proposed and substantiated that the presence of pink noise in changes of peasant disturbances intensity means that most of regional communities were in a critical state. This demonstrates serious risks of system stability throughout the period understudy. Inner social environment and structural features existed that led to leaping fluctuations and unexpected increase of peasant disturbances. Regional communities were prone to uprisings under the influence of quite usual factors.