The escape from the 'Malthusian trap' can generate serious political upheavals. We analyze the demographic-structural mechanisms that generate such upheavals and develop a mathematical model of the respective processes. The model yields a forecast of political instability in African and West Asian countries for 2012-2050.

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This paper is aimed at designing new methods of assessing research efficiency.The well-established h-index is known to be used for assessing a scientist's productivity. Its introduction in 2005 was a considerable step forwardas compared to such indicator as the ratioof the number of references to researcher's publications and the number of publications themselves. However, h-index itself has got some shortcomings, the main of which is a weak differentiating capacity -the number of references to author's most quoted publications stops being a matter of importance upon reaching a certain level. There is an urgent need for designing a researcher's efficiency assessment method which will keep h-index strengths and make up for its weaknesses. This will allow reaching a more objective evaluation of research output. Methodology of the paper is based on the systemic approach (science is viewed as a social institution inseparable from society), meta-systemic approach (research output is viewed as a meta-system, i.e. a system with relatively independent components), statistically defined probabilitybased approach (research activities are viewed as a probabilistic process), synergetic approach (science is viewed as a selforganising system), qualimetric approach (research output is viewed as a latent variable resettable by a set of criteria)