The analysis of Brazil's, Russia's, India's, China's and RSA's opportunities allows to speak about the further development of BRICS potential in the near future due to increase of the FDI flows both within BRICS and in its relations with third countries. China which to date selectively takes foreign investments giving special priority to their qualitative characteristics will remain the most long-term country. Russia continues to be one of global leaders in the field of resource development and a country with plenty of unrealized opportunities in the industrial sector. By today, there is still much tension around the issue of new growth drivers and investment climate improvement. Given the decrease in the investment attractiveness of the Western Europe which led the way as a FDI recipient in the past, in 2011 Russia's indexes doubled as compared to 2005. As far as the Russian economy development prospects are viewed as advantageous in the whole, everything will depend on the state policy coherence, where it's worth to study the BRICS partners' experiences.

Subject. The article considers the application of machine learning methods to analyze students' academic performance. Objectives. The aims are to identify factors influencing the academic performance of students, detect hidden patterns, useful and interpretable knowledge about the results of educational process and its participants, using the intellectual analysis of educational data. Methods. The study rests on methods of econometric modeling, multidimensional classification, and big data clustering. Results. The developed models of intellectual analysis of educational data enable to perform a comparative analysis of students and forecast the level of student’s mastering an educational program, depending on factors like the total score of entrance tests, average score of academic performance, basis and form of education, course, the level of training, student’s gender and age. Conclusions. The results of the application of machine learning methods to analyze academic performance will help differentiate effective teaching methods and technologies for groups of students with different levels of academic results, timely take corrective actions regarding students from risk group. Eventually, this will contribute to retention of students and improvement of the educational process quality.

Subject. This article discusses the issues related to the zoning of the cross-border regions of Russia and Kazakhstan. Objectives. The article aims to assess the impact of certain indicators of the transport infrastructure functioning on the socioeconomic development of the cross-border regions of Russia and Kazakhstan. Methods. For the study, we used a comparative analysis. Results. The article identifies four groups of the regions under study according to the degree of influence of transport infrastructure on the development of the economy, identifies the main challenges of the transport infrastructure functioning, and determines the areas of its development. Conclusions. Specific management decisions to solve the problems of transport infrastructure’s development should be made depending on the belonging of the region to one of the four groups.

Ключевые слова: особенности, конкурентоспособное развитие, социально значимые и приоритетные рынки, факторы, регион Аннотация Предмет. Экономические, инвестиционные, организационные и иные отношения, возникающие в процессе развития конкуренции на социально значимых и приоритетных рынках региона. Цели. Выявление региональных особенностей конкурентоспособного развития социально значимых и приоритетных рынков. Методы. Основными методами работы стали социологическое исследование и количественная оценка полученных результатов. Проведение исследования осуществлено в соответствии со структурой пространственного и видового распределения экономических субъектов малого и среднего предпринимательства на региональном уровне. Результаты. Предложена методика исследования оценки предпринимательским сообществом величины конкурентоспособного развития социально значимых рынков на основе комплексной оценки групп показателей по следующим направлениям исследования: характеристика бизнеса, оценка состояния конкуренции и конкурентной среды, оценка барьеров ведения предпринимательской деятельности. Определено, что спецификой авторской методики является комплексное изучение мнения представителей малого и среднего бизнеса региона об изменении условий конкурентоспособного развития социально значимых и приоритетных рынков на основе количественной оценки. Представлены особенности и факторы конкурентоспособного развития социально значимых и приоритетных рынков на региональном уровне. Предложены детерминанты и условия конкурентоспособного развития социально значимых рынков на мезоуровне. Показано, что к региональным особенностям конкурентоспособного развития социально значимых рынков относятся наличие дифференцированных административных барьеров входа на рынки, недостаточное развитие институтов предпринимательства, проблемы в отношениях с естественными монополиями, недостаточная информированность предпринимательского сообщества о возможностях ведения бизнеса и ряд других. Выводы. На основании предложенной методики и проведенных социологических исследований были выделены факторы, которые, по мнению населения и бизнеса региона, оказывают как положительное, так и отрицательное влияние на развитие конкуренции на социально значимых и приоритетных рынках. Материалы статьи могут быть полезны специалистам, занимающимся проблемами конкурентоспособного развития мезоэкономических рыночных систем.

Purpose of the study: The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical underpinning and develop the information support for pro-competitive regulation of socially significant regional markets. Research methods: The study mainly employed the method of analyzing the content of Internet resources and quantitative evaluation of the obtained results. The study involved the analysis of 757 publications on major regional information resources regarding 15 types of priority and socially significant markets. Findings from the study. The paper suggests a method to evaluate publications on pro-competitive regulation of priority and socially significant markets on information resources available for businesses and consumers of products and services in the Orenburg region. The suggested method involved a comprehensive study of information openness of pro-competitive regulation of priority and socially significant markets and the assessment of rankings of priority and socially significant markets of Orenburg region by a set of indicators that were obtained through a survey of entrepreneurs and describe the state of the competitive environment. Conclusions. The paper presents information openness metrics for pro-competitive regulation of priority and socially significant markets. A disproportion was found in coverage of individual types of markets on Internet resources. The information resources were ranked by the level of activity in ensuring the information openness and availability of data on pro-competitive regulation of socially significant and priority markets for businesses and consumers of products and services. It is shown that the work toward information openness of pro-competitive regulation of priority and socially significant markets is inefficient. The paper has a practical value for specialists engaged in the competitive development of meso-economic market systems and professors of economics at higher education institutions