In this paper we analyze the agglomeration of three small urban centers in Sverdlovsk Region (Russia). We describe agglomeration economies as the process where firm can be divided into those based on internal economies and those based on external economies, and also that each kind of economy can be viewed from the perspectives of scale, scope, and complexity. In our example, agglomeration economies are based on the internal economies. All analyzed towns are different in the level of industrial production, economies of scale and increasing returns. Industrial agglomeration effects are conceptually classified into localization and urbanization economies. We believe that agglomeration is strong only in small towns with the effective industrial production. As methods we used the Cobb-Douglas production function. Results of the research showed that only a town with industrial specialization (Verkhnyaya Salda) is characterized by constant returns to scale and the growth of total production which is mainly determined by increasing of capital. The other two cases of the towns (which are not industrial specialized) do not generate these results. Moreover, the town which not develops industrial production has no any effect of agglomeration. Agglomeration effects can be observed at different levels of aggregation. Large cities provide greater opportunity for economies of scale, availability of quality human capital, cluster effects, innovation processes and knowledge spillover, but under certain conditions smaller towns can also achieve some of the effects of agglomeration.

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The article shows organisational mechanisms and financial model of implementing e-learning in the Ural Federal University. The description is made of the cost options for open-type e-learning course development, investment parameters for their establishment, as well as costs of implementing educational programmes with the application of e-learning. The analysis of the activities of Ural Federal University on implementing e-learning gives the opportunity to further imagine the effect from the introduction of e-learning in other universities in the region.The results of the research may be applied in the institutions of secondary and higher education to help make decisions concerning the volume and form of the e-learning system.

Paper is devoted to the actual problem of managing resource flows of development projects as complex, unique, and open systems, across the different project lifecycle stages that differ in content and are distributed in space and time. The idea was to create a single throughout system for managing resource flow processes of the long-term projects. The research goal included development of theoretical and methodological approaches that can be used in order to manage the combination of development project resource flows using “order from chaos” paradigm. That includes by-stage organization of resource flow processes on of macro-, meso- and microscale, going from sources and sinks of the chaotic project environment resolve to ordered stages of project life cycles. It is proposed to implement resource flow management in form of the stage and resource-based “project-logistic” relay of a triune movement, ordering and transformation of the resource flow processes. This relay is created within a project-logistic field of project management that change by project phases. Synergetic effects of self-organization and self-control appear in the project logistic field due to horizontal interactions, sharing experience, competences, and values among the stakeholders in course of transforming entropic resource-flow processes into the negentropy processes related to project phase goals (attractors). Results can be used to forecast and develop multilevel resource-flow and process systems arranged by resource sources and sinks, and chaotically ordered for projects in different application areas. Further research perspectives include development of self-control and self-organization forms for development projects stakeholders that would comply with international best practices, and fit corresponding project stages.

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