Social Forecasts Research Articles

Reframing Social Policy for Welfare and Equal Opportunities in a Digital Culture

A primary and crucial goal of social policy is to ensure, within prevailing economic frames, equality and social justice in the pursuit of sustainable development. An integrated pattern of beliefs, values, customs, and goals in its wider meaning constitutes culture as a whole perspective in human life. In the globalizing world, cultural diversity exists that complicates the achievement of consensus in decision-making. However, a welfare culture is evolving based on new values and perspectives of the society. A digital culture is also strongly asserting itself, allowing new application methods such as quantum computing in problem-solving. Within the expanding horizons of social policy, many calculations and forecasts have made it possible to reduce poverty rates. However, poverty as a great divide still plagues the world.Child poverty is a huge global as well as national problem. Lack of opportunities for education and employment is dividing our societies. Children and young people who are growing up in poverty, or at risk of poverty, also have inadequate nutrition, insufficient access to health services, and are thus not well equipped for employment on reaching working and productive age. Participation in early childhood care and education is nowadays given high priority in political agendas simultaneously with the effective organization of health care and social eldercare of the aging population. The economic recovery, getting started again in 2021 after strong efforts to curb the corona virus disease (COVID-19), together with good governance, guides transformative social policy. Risks and tensions have been shown to cause deviant and disruptive trends that require risk management actions to avoid, for example, cybercrime. Human-ethical principles become crucial supportive means to control and evaluate the effects of a rapidly increasing technological capacity.The purpose of this article is to awaken awareness of global inequality with focus on poverty causing social disadvantage. Responsible governance based on humane ethical values, new thinking together with acceptable risk management, could lead to a social policy aiming for social justice, solidarity, and equal values. Advanced technology could be efficiently used to assess these values in society, although concerns remain about the negative appearance of dark sides.

Research on E-Commerce Customer Feature Extraction Question Answering System Based on Artificial Intelligence Semantic Analysis

In order to analyze e-commerce customer behavior and preference, a migration identification method of consumer behavior tendency is proposed. Data mining technology is adopted to mine social data in individual online we-media platforms and to mine individual personal attributes and preferences from their unconscious social language. Its methods are through the customer identification model construction related research, consumer preference identification and analysis related research, based on data mining technology of consumer preference identification and analysis, and the introduction of feature extraction method: semantic analysis. According to the data, there are 2,990 customer interest consumption forecasts, 1,836 customer social network data consumption forecasts, and 3,652 customer preference consumption forecasts. In order to screen out the main factors that have the greatest impact on consumer behavior from all kinds of consumer behavior propensity factors, the multiple step-based regression method is adopted for factor selection. Because of the large difference in the multidimensional dynamic vector, the corresponding consumer behavior tendency changes greatly, so the migration identification method of consumer behavior tendency is feasible.

Inefficiency in social security trust funds forecasts

ABSTRACT We examine forecast accuracy and efficiency of the Social Security Administration’s projections for cost rate, trust fund balance, trust fund ratio made during 1980–2020 with horizons up to 95 years. We find that the deterioration in the accuracy of the forecasts during 2010’s has reversed in recent years. The level of informational inefficiency has been pervasive during 1990–2009, although it shows signs of improvement after 2010.

АНАЛІЗ МЕТОДІВ ОЦІНКИ ФОРМАЛІЗОВАНИХ ТЕНДЕНЦІЙ ПОКАЗНИКІВ ЕКОНОМІЧНОЇ ДИНАМІКИ

Globalization of the economy as the most important phenomenon of today is reflected in the generalized statistical laws, their main trends of manifestation and development must be taken into account when developing economic and social forecasts at all levels of management decision-making. The assessment of future states of objects, processes and phenomena is based on the already accumulated knowledge about the nature, properties and patterns of existing or anticipated trends in their development. The choice of method and specification of the mathematical model, determining the structure and components of the studied object, phenomena, establishing relationships between them, which will trace the patterns of change in the process of existence and development, is the main step in forecasting the dynamic characteristics of economic indicators. Sometimes the type of model can be determined based on a graphical representation of the dynamics of the dynamics of the series. But, even when the trend is known, it can be described by various functions. This point determines the use of several modeling functions to approximate the same time series, followed by the definition of the most successful model for predicting the dynamics of the indicator for subsequent periods. The correct choice of mathematical model determines the results of trend extrapolation. The optimal approach to solving this problem would be a preliminary analysis of the process under study, in fact, its internal structure and logic, the relationship with the external environment. The article analyzes the theoretical foundations and mathematical methods for predicting formalized trends in economic dynamics. The advantages and disadvantages of the basic mathematical models of forecast calculations of dynamic indicators are determined. The necessity of combining different mathematical methods of development of alternatives of forecast tendencies of development of economic processes, characterized by existence of difficult interrelations, as one of means of maintenance of verification of forecasts - the generalized estimation of reliability, accuracy and validity is substantiated.

Need for application of remote sensing technologies for development of agro-industrial complex

Agricultural production has influence on all areas of social activity. In the modern context of agro-industrial complex development, ensuring the economic security of the country directly depends on availability and suitability of the land, the degree of developed land. Land is a source of food, profits, economic independence of each region, the state of which depends on continuous monitoring and application of advanced technologies. The purpose of the work is to determine quantitative and qualitative state of arable land in the Volgograd region, the level of spread of degradation processes based on digital and remote sensing technologies, as well as the creation of graphic documentation necessary for making economic forecasts and plans. Availability and use of arable land in 33 municipal districts of the Volgograd region are unequal. The largest number of arable land is 5,4 % in Pallasovsky district, the smallest one is 1,3 % in Sredneakhtubinsky district. The differentiation of the region into five natural-agricultural and three land-assessment areas is caused by the necessity to register soil fertility during agricultural use of arable land, both in irrigated arable land and non-irrigated. According to the statistical records the irrigated arable land is used only in the amount of 20 %. 88 % of the region’s territory is subject to degradation processes. The land with the cadastral number 34:21:040003:67and an area of 137,2 hectares is characterized by a high degree of territory blurring, degradation of soil cover, which led to the loss of humus and removal to the upper layers of the soil of salt marshes. Remote sensing techniques allow obtaining reliable information and making social and economic forecasts in large areas in a short period of time.

ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION AS A NEW STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT

The article considers the peculiarities of improvement and principles of the strategy of architectural education and the training peculiarities of modern specialists-architects for a new social order to improve the quality of professional activity. The need to improve the quality of architectural education and training of specialists is described. Implementation of programs of environmental ecological protection, rational using of natural resources, formation of a full-fledged human living environment by means of garden and park architecture, preservation of the natural environment in the city and creation of anthropogenic landscapes is a professional task of architects. New forms of creative activity are ahead of the theory and methodology of architectural design, which include everything new in technical and cultural progress. Digital technologies have penetrated into all spheres of human activity and today it is impossible to imagine modern architecture without their use. The introduction of digital technologies in the educational process in higher education in the training of future architects has become a matter of time. Computer and information technology are only a tool, but not a universal tool that can replace all areas of educational activity in the field of higher architectural education. The potential and creative capabilities of modern information technology in the training of future architects is not fully used, which shifts the emphasis of vocational education towards technocratization to the detriment of the creative, artistic component. Architecture is both art, and engineering, and construction. Digital systems are no longer only amplifiers of the speed of human action, not only new means of analysis, formation and perception, but also integral components of design, which is understood as creative activity. A special place in the training of an architect is occupied by creative design. Science and the broad humanity education are becoming a breeding ground for architectural creativity. This determines the tasks of training and education of the architect. The organization of architectural education as a holistic system of architect’s activities must take into account the fundamental changes that under the influence of social development and scientific and technical, economic and social forecasts occur in the activities of the architect. Ideological and social views of the architect, his spatial, constructive and aesthetic ideas are expressed in the artistic form and stylistic nature of the architectural work. Architectural and artistic image of architecture is invariably formed from the worldview; current issues of the time, from ideas about what should be an artificial space and what requirements it must meet.

A Review on Human Healthcare Internet of Things: A Technical Perspective

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a promising technology which interconnects the available resources to offer reliable and effective smart objects. The smart objects act as a definitive building block in the development of interdisciplinary cyber-physical systems and smart ubiquitous frameworks. The IoT revolution is improving the potential of healthcare infrastructures for providing quality care to patients and assisted living. IoT is renovating the traditional healthcare system with promising technical, economic and social forecasts. The current researches in the IoT have opened more possibilities in the field of medicine that aims to improve the quality of healthcare with minimum cost. This survey paper explores the advances in Human Healthcare Internet of Things (H2IoT) and analyses the present-day networks, architectures, topologies, platforms, services and applications in healthcare. This paper also surveys the challenges in H2IoT design, privacy, security, threats and attack classification.

РОЗВИТОК СОЦІОЛОГІЧНОЇ ОСВІТИ В УКРАЇНІ

Sociology as sciences and a subject matter has been researched, the phenomenon of significant influence of individual features and knowledge of creators of sociology on its development at an initial stage has been proved, the reasons of differences in evolution of sociology in the Western Europe, the USA and in the East Europe have been analyzed. Improvements of a statement of this period in textbooks for higher schools are offered. The inaccuracy of the statement distributed in modern textbooks about absence of sociological researches in Soviet Union is revealed. It is specified on the facts of their development in 20-30th years in the form of searches of "the scientific organization of work" and in 60-70th years as realization of "social forecasts". Significant and completely new information was obtained during the study of structural and didactic characteristics of the sociological education sector in Ukraine. The analysis of reference books for entrants higher education institutions of Ukraine during the years of independence made it possible to trace the evolution of the names of specializations in sociological education of Ukraine and to obtain data on how many higher education institutions offer students different types of learning. The fact of great differences between the classifiers of professions and what was offered and is offered by higher education institutions has revealed and analyzed. The introduction of the new Classifier of Professions DK 0003: 2005 should cause changes in the activities of the higher education institutions. Ways to accelerate the development and improvement of the sociological education sector in the domestic higher education system are proposed, taking into account the Bologna process and other integration processes, in particular, the need to include Ukraine in creating a common European space Union to continue building its human potential through the creation and accumulation of "development knowledge", an important part of which is sociological knowledge. Restoration of sociology and formation of sociological education in the USSR 80th years, development and permanent changes of sociological education in independent Ukraine is investigated. Curricula and other aspects of preparation of experts of sociology in several universities and other higher schools are investigated, is specified on existence of a nonagreement of terminology of formulations in diplomas of higher schools with the official Qualifier of trades.

How can we overcome the crisis of the medical humanities?

Medical humanities is a complex of scientific and educational concepts that ensure the integration of medical theory and practice in the context of society. The current crisis of medical humanities is associated with the intensive development of new biotechnologies and a much slower process of developing explanatory hypotheses, normative regulators and social forecasts of their use in practice. This lag could be regarded as natural, if not for the pace of technological progress, by orders of magnitude higher than all previous changes in the technological sphere. The paradox is that the society interested in humanitarian expertise of application of new technologies, at the same time brakes its development. From a philosophical point of view, this is a typical substitution of value - technology becomes self-valuable, and the understanding of what happens as a result of their application, recedes into the background. The most dangerous thing in this situation is the change of approaches to training, which will work with new technologies. Digital medicine requires operational skills, the time for the acquisition of which is "taken" in universities from "non-core" (mainly humanitarian) disciplines. Therefore, every year the trend of dehumanization of medical education is increasing in Russian medical universities. The asset of the annual all-Russian scientific and practical conference "Philosophical problems of biology and medicine" addressed, in connection with the situation, an Open letter to the Ministries, Committees of the State Duma and the All-Russian Popular Front. The letter has already received much more signatures than is required for the consideration of such a document. We publish his full text and our comment below.

ANTROPOLOGICAL SKETCH OF THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF TRANSITIONAL SOCIETY

Purpose of the article is to create a working model of the social structure of a society with transition type, which moves from its totalitarian past to democratic organization. In our model the basis of social stratification is the principle of the influence of individuals’ personal characteristics on social transformations. As such principle, we propose self-control of mental content. Theoretical basis. The object of the research is a transitional society. The subject of the research is its social stratification. The individual mental content determines not only his behavior, but a life strategy that affects the social development of society as well. We determined the social structure layers according to the degree of the individual’s self-control of mental content. Carriers of slave consciousness have the lowest degree of control, which are in a fanatical state from the surrounding psychosocial influences (ideology, religion, etc.). The insignificant degree of self-control is discovered among those who have seized consciousness - social infants susceptible to populist promises. The social layer of the owners of injured consciousness (egoists and nihilists) demonstrates the highest degree of self-awareness among these three social layers. All three social layers, taking into account their life strategies, which are conditioned with the prevailing external influence on their consciousness, belong to the zone of social deformation. The last one is the core of the social structure of the transitional society. The halo of the structure of such society forms a social layer of socially sensitive personalities. Since they build their own strategy of their own lives more independently, it can be assumed that they are conventionally out of the social deformation zone. Originality. The proposed model of the social structure of a transitional society has excellent prognostic capabilities. Social forecasts are based on a comparative analysis of the quantitative ratio of all social layers. For example, the prevailing aggregate number of slave consciousness carriers and owners of the seized consciousness is characteristic for the first steps of a post-totalitarian society. If it continues to be fixed in time, this is the evidence of the inhibition process in social transformations and so on. Conclusions. The dynamics of social perturbations in transitional societies is effectively investigated due to the lines of the greatest mutual influence of personal characteristics on social processes. One of these lines is the individual’s self-control in sphere of the mental content. The social structure model of a particular transition society created by the results of future sociological researches will allow to predict the state and prospects of its social transformations. And the main thing is that it will help to detect the factors of the success in social development of a particular society, which is the indispensable condition for the construction of a state policy.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD OF ASSESSING THREATS AND RISKS- MANAGEMENT THE OF ECONOMIC SAFETY IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE

Russia today is a dynamically developing state that, despite external pressure, continues to strengthen its positions in the world arena, timely preventing external and internal threats to economic security. Social stability is a fundamental prerequisite for the dynamic development of the state. In this regard, the state's task is to prevent destructive processes in social and economic development, using a set of measures and management procedures. The state of the social sphere, trends and forecasts of its formation have always been in the focus of the interests of the leadership of our country, government organizations and the scientific community. This is because the social sphere is of primary importance for the development of society in particular and the state as a whole. In recent years, large-scale changes have begun to take place in the Russian Federation, including the development of new public legislation, the implementation of targeted projects, the formation of a new concept of public protection of the population, and many actions have been taken to provide a decent level of well-being and increase the quality of life of the Russian people. Despite the fact that the Russian government has made great efforts to reduce the scale of unemployment and poverty, improving the quality of life, the social problem remains quite acute. The main factor was the sudden change in the international situation in the last few years, the introduction of financial and restrictive sanctions, the implementation of hostile political activities by certain foreign states against Russia, and as a result, the complication of the social and financial situation within our state. However, successful social and financial development remains the highest value for the Russian state in the near future. The purpose of this activity is to identify the relevance and complexity of problems of economic security and assess indicators that determine threats to security in the public sphere. Observation and diagnosis of the degree of threats to the national interests of the state on the basis of indicators of socio-economic development indicators in the public domain is a priority task in the existing realities of our life. Modeling the threats to economic security, ie, obtaining specific values of economic security indicators depending on their belonging to a particular risk class (level), it is possible to develop an appropriate plan of measures to improve economic security in the social sphere on the basis of the proposed classification. Monitoring and diagnosing the level of threats to the national interests of the country on the basis of indicators of social and economic development in the social sphere is a paramount task in the existing realities of our life. At the same time, the results obtained serve as a good basis for developing development strategies for the future with the preservation of social stability. The aim of the study is to formulate methodological provisions for the development of the theory of economic security based on the definition of threats to the economic security of the social sphere, using the proposed model of the relationship between the key factors that affect the level of security in this area. The research uses a set of general scientific approaches (abstract-logical, deductive, complex and systemic). The realization of the research process was carried out with the help of the dialectical method of cognition, which predetermines the study of economic phenomena in their interconnection and development. To solve individual problems, economic-statistical methods, comparison methods, absolute, relative and average values, graphical and tabular data representation, correlation-regression analysis, Ward clustering were used.

Financial forecasts accuracy in Brazil's social security system.

Long-term social security statistical forecasts produced and disseminated by the Brazilian government aim to provide accurate results that would serve as background information for optimal policy decisions. These forecasts are being used as support for the government’s proposed pension reform that plans to radically change the Brazilian Constitution insofar as Social Security is concerned. However, the reliability of official results is uncertain since no systematic evaluation of these forecasts has ever been published by the Brazilian government or anyone else. This paper aims to present a study of the accuracy and methodology of the instruments used by the Brazilian government to carry out long-term actuarial forecasts. We base our research on an empirical and probabilistic analysis of the official models. Our empirical analysis shows that the long-term Social Security forecasts are systematically biased in the short term and have significant errors that render them meaningless in the long run. Moreover, the low level of transparency in the methods impaired the replication of results published by the Brazilian Government and the use of outdated data compromises forecast results. In the theoretical analysis, based on a mathematical modeling approach, we discuss the complexity and limitations of the macroeconomic forecast through the computation of confidence intervals. We demonstrate the problems related to error measurement inherent to any forecasting process. We then extend this exercise to the computation of confidence intervals for Social Security forecasts. This mathematical exercise raises questions about the degree of reliability of the Social Security forecasts.

Review and comments on the background of the book, "Whether and which prisons are needed. Reflections on Contemporary Issues. Anniversary Book on the occasion of 25 years of the Polish Penitentiary Association". Scientific eds.: Piotr Stępniak, Tomasz Kalisz and Wojciech Zalewski.

This presentation was prepared for the 25th anniversary of the Polish Penitentiary Association. Its Editors suggested the invited authors to submit articles relating to four basic issues: 1) the dysfunctionality of the penalty of deprivation of liberty; 2) the alternatives to custodial sentences; 3) the problem of increasing participation in the population of prisoners with unfavorable criminal and social forecasts as a side effect of the development of an alternative to the penalty of deprivation of liberty (this is determined by the compression of the prison population); 4) the question of the complexity of the process of rational execution of the penalty of deprivation of liberty.

Artificial neural networks and aggregate consumption patterns in New Zealand

This study engineers a household sector where process macroeconomic information to reproduce consumption spending patterns in New Zealand. To do this, heterogeneous artificial neural networks (ANNs) are trained to forecast changes in per worker consumption. In contrast to existing literature, results suggest that there exists a trained ANN that significantly outperforms a linear econometric model at out-of-sample forecasting. To improve the accuracy of ANNs using only in-sample information, methods for combining private knowledge into social knowledge are explored. For one type of ANN, relying on an expert is beneficial. For most ANN structures, weighting an individuals forecast according to how frequently that individuals ANN is a top performer during in-sample training produces more accurate social forecasts. By focusing only on recent periods, considering the severity of an individuals errors in weighting their forecast is also beneficial. Possible avenues for incorporating ANN structures into artificial social simulation models of consumption are discussed.

Artificial intelligence and social forecasting*

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the study of how to write programs enabling computers to do things that would require intelligence if done by people, and it could engage with social forecasting in two ways. First, it is part of the overall social‐technological context within which forecasters work. Commercial Al‐programs will affect markets and life‐styles; and advice‐giving “expert” systems will raise novel legal, social, and psychological problems. Second, AI‐programs might be used for making the social forecasts. Unlike the (essentially quantitative) computer models used for this purpose today, they could reason (and explain themselves) in verbal form. Writing an expert system requires clarification of the theories, assumptions, and “rule‐of‐thumb” inferences concerned. It would be easier to identify the inherent moral‐political bias than it is in models comprising sets of differential equations.

Social Indicators

This paper reviews the development of the field of social indicators from its origins in the 1960s to the present. Three classes of social indicators are identified: normative welfare indicators, which focus on direct measures of welfare and are subject to the interpretation that if they change in the right direction while other things remain equal things have gotten better or people are better off; satisfaction indicators, which measure psychological satisfaction, happiness, and life fulfillment by using survey research instruments that ascertain the subjective reality in which people live; and the most inclusive category, descriptive social indicators, which are indexes of social conditions (i.e. contexts of human existence) and changes therein for various segments of a population. Correspondingly, two conceptions of how social indicators are to be interpreted and used are discussed: One, which emphasizes the policy-analytic uses of social indicators, presumes that the proper relationship of social indicators to social policy occurs at the level of operating or managing organizations; the other, which emphasizes the uses of social indicators in social reporting, presumes that the proper role of social indicators is public enlightenment and the formation of general as opposed to operational policy. Three sociological contributions to the descriptive social indicators/enlightenment approach are described: the development of replication and longitudinal studies, the production of analytical studies of social change and social reports, and the creation of formal models for the analysis of data on social change. Current research problems that are identified include the development of social accounting systems, the construction of indicators of institutional values and structures, and the production of improved social forecasts and forecasting techniques. It is concluded that, while issues of public concern may change from time to time, the critical public and private sectors continue to need statistical information about current social conditions and trends.

Planning Tools for Effective Research Management in the '80s: Integrating Social, Economic, Political and Technical Forecasts into Business Strategy

Planning Tools for Effective Research Management in the '80s: Integrating Social, Economic, Political and Technical Forecasts into Business Strategy

Is there a future for social forecasting?

This paper examines the recent rise of, and interest in social forecasting. It reviews the various ways in which social forecasts are attempted: particularly through the techniques of modelling which have been taken from, and developed beyond the models used by the basic science and technologies. It then describes the shifts in thinking emerging from different beliefs and attitudes which seem to portend a new ideology in our global society. Finally the paper briefly addresses the crucial issue known as the ‘World Problematique’ and evaluates the role that social forecasting has to play in devising possible solutions, particularly from the viewpoint of industry, trade and commerce.

A methodological approach to the integration of technological and social forecasts

A methodological approach to the integration of technological and social forecasts