The Mortality Due to External Causes in Ukraine: Lives That Could Be Saved

The article’s objective is to assess the losses of human lives in Ukraine, resulting from the mortality due to external causes (by absolute number, rate and structure), reveal the patterns by gender and age, with distribution by main cause. A comparative analysis of the mortality due to external causes in Ukraine and other countries is made by data on the distribution of deaths by gender, age and cause of death, taken from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, international and national databases. It is shown that the major share of deaths were due to four main causes accounted for more than 68% of all the cases: intentional self-harm (suicides); harm of undetermined intent; accidental poisonings caused by noxious substances; and transport accidents. An essential gender disproportion due to external causes is revealed: the mortality rate of males is 4.7 times higher than females. In Ukraine males account for 80.2% of the total deaths due to external causes (against two thirds, or 64.2%, in EU). The excess of males is the most significant in the causes such as drowning, suicides and accidental poisonings (with more than eight times to six times excess of the respective figure over females). In view of this, the share of deaths due to external causes in the overall structure of mortality was higher for Ukrainian males (8.4%) than for females (2.0%). The rate of sudden mortality (in the age younger than 65) due to external causes of death in Ukraine is 2.5 time higher than in Sweden chosen as a reference country, and thrice higher than in EU until 2004. The majority of deaths due to external causes in Ukraine are concentrated in this age group: nearly 80% in 2019 (against 49% in EU countries). A pressing social problem for modern Ukraine is the excessive mortality due to accidental poisoning and alcohol effects: from the age of 30 years and on, such cases exceed the poisonings caused by noxious substances (the gap being 1.75 times for the total population and more than trice (3.25 times) for the middle age of 45–49 years. Special attention is given to the problem of the increasing rate of deaths classified as “harm with undetermined intent” (which rate in Ukraine is seven times higher than in EU). It raises the need for analysis of the veracity of determined causes of death and quality enhancement of the official statistics for this class of causes in Ukraine, to have better understanding of the real situation and tendencies of change in the epidemiological situation with respect to external causes of mortality.

Improving the Professional Education of Accountants for the Effective Operation of the Economic Security System at Company Level

The effective company management involves the accounting of data about the likely misstatement or abuse that may impair the economic security of a company in the future. The current situation determines new requirements for the training of accountants, in particular as regards their knowledge of the effects of internal and external threats to the economic security. The study deals with the development of proposals to revise the requirements for accountants' qualifications in order to increase the accountant’s focus on enhancing the economic security of a company. The accountant’s activities have undergone structural change in the current business conditions. The accountant’s competencies on monitoring of the internal and external environment of a company lay the basis for providing reliable information about internal business processes and external environment to manage risks and prevent threats to the economic security of a company. The accountant may be entrusted with the functions of forming an accounting and analytical data set to facilitate control procedures and ensure the implementation of measures to achieve the economic security of a company. A review of the current content of professional education programs for Bachelor and Master training in the specialty “Accounting and Taxation” reveals that that neither scopes nor content of these programs are capable to ensure the competence of these professionals in issues of economic security at company level. It is proposed that professional education programs for Master training in the specialty “Accounting and Taxation” should include the discipline “Accounting and economic security of the company”, which content is expected to complement and integrate the acquired knowledge, and to build the competencies, skills and abilities for carrying out analytical research based on reporting and primary data, required to ensure the economic security of a company, forecast its performance and develop future business strategies. Teaching of this discipline will help improve the quality of the professional training of accountants and enhance the level of their retraining and qualification at all education levels.

Comparative Advantages of National Pharmaceutical Industries through the Prism of New Indicators

Specific ways of the emergence of new actors in the global market of pharmaceutical goods is investigated, with substantiating the role of transnational corporations (TNC), their investment and technologies in establishing pharmaceutical industries in developing countries. The cases of Puerto Rico and Ireland are taken in order to demonstrate the background for expansion of manufacturing of medicines and medical products and analyze the tendencies in their export capacity building. The factors making pharmaceutical TNC transfer production facilities to India and China are substantiated and implications of this process are highlighted. It is revealed that due to the production internationalization, countries that had been net importers of pharmaceuticals just several decades ago have joined the group of key suppliers to external markets. Because American and European TNC are leading in the pharmaceutical industry by R&D expenditure, they are the principal holders of advanced technologies in the industry. It follows that manufacturing of medicines and medical products in most part of countries either directly or indirectly depend on innovative products of TNC and their technology transfer via various channels (both licensing and imports of components, active pharmaceutical ingredients in particular). It is shown that with the emergence of new market actors coming from developing countries, traditional approaches to determining comparative advantages of counties in the global trade need to be improved. The cases of countries that are recipients of foreign technologies, on which territories powerful high tech pharmaceutical production facilities with high shares of intermediate consumption and heavy export supplies are located due to TNC investment or local public-private capital, give evidence that the classical RCA indicator allows to measure visible comparative advantages in the trade in goods rather than revealed ones. It is proposed that analyses of advantages at country level should include the indicator of high tech goods supplies, to provide for a more accurate description of the innovation component in advanced industries. A new approach to the assessment of comparative advantages of high tech pharmaceutical manufacturing is proposed and tested, which is based on the principle of specialization and use of the ratio of Comparative Advantage in Value Added Activity (CAVA) in particular. It is revealed that the pharmaceutical industry of Ireland, Jordan, Singapore, India or Columbia, with reliance on foreign investment and technologies, could gain advantages in value added creation and dominate the national economies. It is shown that Ukraine is enhancing the advantages in value added creation in the pharmaceutical industry; is it substantiated that due to low R&D and innovation performance and heavy dependence on imported components, capacity building of this industry and its current advantages result from global tendencies and global market conjunctures rather than from the implementation of the national science & technology priorities. According to the author’s recommendation, the proposed approach to determining comparative advantages in value added creation should be used for the assessment of other high tech industries, apart from the pharmaceutical industry, and that is should be supplemented by statistical tools for analysis of foreign trade in finished and intermediate high tech goods.

Vital Problems of the Career Guidance Work in Higher Education Establishments: The Socio-Economic Context

The latest years are marked by the considerably aggravated demographic situation in Ukraine, which enhanced the competition among higher education establishments (HEEs) on the education services market and intensified the vocational guidance work in HEEs among student youth. The vocational guidance work, gaining special significance as early as in times of Ukraine’s transition to the market economy, still remains an important element of the government policy. It helps identify and purposefully develop talents and inclinations of a person, his/her professional and cognitive interests regarding the choice of future specialty, effectively increase his/her social and professional mobility and form his/her needs and willingness to labor activities. The authors justify the need for essential change in the higher education system of Ukraine. The social background for the professional choice, the dynamics of value orientations and values of student youth, specifics of the vocational guidance work in HEEs are studied by case of the National Academy of Statistics, Accounting and Audit (NASAA). Details of the system for vocational guidance work in NASAA are given, with formulating its core objectives and outlining the phases and areas of implementation. Results of a survey lead the authors to the conclusion about a gap between the needs of the labor market in highly skilled specialists, on the one hand, and the professional orientations and choices of student youth, on the other, resulting in a higher probability of casual entrances of applicants to HEEs. This gives birth to moral and psychological collisions of the personal nature, with the subsequent dissatisfaction with the chosen profession, staff turnover and migration of young specialists across economic sectors. It is revealed that full-fledged and comprehensive information and education efforts and qualified vocational guidance services on professional choice rendered to student youth can be most effective given the concerted actions of HEEs, schools and other social institutes. The authors’ studies allow them to identify problematic points in the vocational guidance work and outline the main areas of further improvements in the vocational guidance.

The Evolution of Methodical Approaches for Evaluation the Efficiency of the Activities of Scientific and Research Organizations in the Czech Republic

The article deals with the evolution of methodological approaches used in the Czech Republic to assess the effectiveness of scientific institutions. This country shares common features with Ukraine in the organization of science and it is one of the most successful examples of socio-economic and organizational reforms in Eastern Europe. It is showed that the evaluation method, introduced in the Czech Republic since 2004, was initially purely quantitative and focused exclusively on research results such as publications, patents, prototypes, and the like. Authors conclude that the quantitative assessment did not take into account the quality of research; they also poorly reflected the importance of the results, and encouraged scientific organizations to play a dishonest game with inflating the values of individual indicators. Aggregation of all indicators into one complex indicator did not allow to evaluate the efficiency of the institution’s activities correctly, and bibliometric indicators strongly depended on the citation culture in a particular scientific discipline. The key elements of the implemented new assessment methodology (M17+) are considered, in which preference is given to the informed expert reviews, which involve a set of available indicators together with other information to make a decision on the overall assessment more comprehensive. Use M17+ will provide the following opportunities: to evaluate the results and impact of scientific activities; to make a general forecast for the development of enterprises; evaluate departmental structures and different missions of institutions under evaluation; to utilize views of the partners; evaluate the institution in the national and international contexts; provide information for the allocation of public funds secured for the institutional development of scientific institutions. The conclusion is made that the switching from the simplified, purely mechanistic approaches to assessment indicates the recognition of the complexity of scientific activities and the diversity of functions of research institutes in the socio-economic development of the state. Studying the experience of evaluating research institutions in the Czech Republic is of great importance for Ukraine as a country with European integration intentions, especially in the context of limited funding for science and increased difficulties with obtaining the budget money.

Organizing Intellectual Competitions of Students in Universities: Forms and Areas for Improvement

The article outlines the tasks facing higher education institutions in the context of digitalization and acceleration of the knowledge updating process, which are aimed at creating a sustainable system for acquiring competencies, entrepreneurial skills and civic duties among students, teachers and employees. Performance indicators of all-Ukrainian student Olympiads, All-Ukrainian competitions of research works in Ukraine in 2009–2019 analyzed, to find out the patterns of organization of various intellectual competitions of students and their regional features. The factors contributing in the growth of participation of students from higher education institutions in these events were determined. It is indicated that the share of new organizational forms of Olympiads such as business games, blitz tournaments, solving situational problems, performing essay tasks, practical tours with employers’ support and participation is increasing. The results of a survey of 200 higher education institutions on student participation in international competitions held abroad and their prizes in 2015 and 2019 are presented. The tendencies of student involvement in international competitions abroad, in international, all-Ukrainian conferences, seminars for students and young researchers are outlined. Areas for improvement of intellectual competitions of students with account to priorities of modernization and technological development of the Ukrainian economy, employer needs and social demands are formulated. It is proposed to introduce comprehensive forms and methods for stimulating students' interest in learning and self-development, obtaining high-quality education through intellectual games such as scholarship, grant or competitive ones. Evidence is given of the need to reform the nomenclature of specialties with highlighting the disciplines or the modules of disciplines in which the following types of all-Ukrainian intellectual competitions of students should be held: subject Olympiads, competitions of student research works, professional competitions.

Estimating the Disposable Income of Households at the Local Level

The article is devoted to the problem of socio-economic indicators estimation of at the local level, first and foremost at the municipal and community level. Emphasis is made on approaches to the estimation of the households’ disposable income as a key indicator of the population’s standards of living, required for elaborating and implementing effective measures of socio-economic policy, implementing investment programs on the modernization of living quarters, objects of social infrastructure etc. The meaning of the term “disposable incomes” adopted in the official statistics of Ukraine, drawbacks of this definition and ways for its extension are illustrated. A broad description of studies focused on the assessment of population’s incomes at local level in various countries of the world is given. It is shown that the need for such problem solutions in the statistics caused the emergence of a separate theoretical field – small area statistics. A series of international and national projects aimed at the adaptation of elaborated theoretical and methodological approaches have been accomplished, in particular SAMPLE in EU countries and SAIPE in the U.S. Basically, results of the performed studies demonstrate a feasibility of the assessment of households’ incomes at local level with the acceptable degree of reliability. A review of the main data sources that can be used for estimation of households’ incomes at local level in Ukraine is made. It is stressed that data from administrative registers on salaries, pensions, stipends, social allowances, subsidies for utility services, taxes etc. have critical importance for the income assessment. Special sample surveys of households’ incomes and expenditures, performed at local or regional and national level, are highly significant for determining the patterns of correlations between incomes and principal characteristics of households, such as composition, region and locality of residence, type of dwelling, availability of movable and immovable property, land plots etc. It is substantiated that methods for quantitative estimation of disposable incomes should be given preference over expert assessment that tends to be used in the current conditions. Examples of the assessment of disposable incomes based on quite simple and comprehensible ratios are given. Areas of further studies focused on the estimation of population incomes at the local level are outlined.

The Role of Statistic Information in the Information Society

The article is dedicated to substantiation of the leading role of the necessity to understand and to apply the main propositions of statistics in scientific society with the aim to ensure its progressive development. In order to substantiate the currency of the solution of this questions there were considered the contradictions occurred in connection with the divergences in understanding the basic concepts, which are very often used by the society, in particular the concert “information”. Very often the concept “data” is replaced by the concept “information” that becomes in many cases the reason for appearance of incorrect terms. It was also noted the insufficient level of statistic competence of the society as to the possible character of any phenomena and processes, in the Universe and in the society, the results of which according to the results of observation, very often become false at all or mistaken conclusions. In particular, using the statistic approach the main conclusions, defined by some scientists-physicists in XX century were considered. It was proved that very often these conclusions were made without taking into account the possible character of all phenomena and processes that take place in the Universe. It’s stressed, that applying the statistic principles as for the collecting the data and creating the useful for making the decision information so for defining the conclusions according to the results of the analysis and prognostication of the phenomena and processes favours the higher of substantiation of managerial decisions. It was pointed to the drawbacks of the set of number, that make the so-called “modern sources of information” – Big Data, Business intelligence, Data mining, Smart-society, in the case of their usage for characterizing the social-economic phenomena and processes. The proposition was made about the necessity to gain the practical knowledge in statistics by all the persons who have to define the conclusions according to the results of observation of the objects and phenomena and also to develop the steps with the aim of their further changes. So while making the prognosis of social-economic phenomena and processes it is obligatory to take into consideration the main regularity of development – cyclicality. There were generalized statistic recommendations as to the forming the statistic information, the application of which will favour to higher the efficiency of the process of creating such information, which in its turn, will become the weighty factor of acceleration of the modern information society.

Smart City: Concept, Models, Technologies, Standardization

The digital transformation problems of modern urban economy are considered. Their relevance for Ukrainian cities is caused by the fact that there are already a significant number of "smart cities" in the world, which are comfortable for their residents and for the management of urban services. The outlined problem for Ukraine is that a complex scenario of intellectualization and digital transformation of Ukrainian cities has not been formed yet. Unresolved problems and challenges that hinder the digital transformation of Ukrainian cities, namely the lack of municipal information networks, are described. Areas of further research are outlined, in particular, the statistical study of "smart cities", which is based on the collection and application of large data for this purpose, as well as the implementation of foreign experience in the Ukrainian realities of the economy. The digital transformation of cities is reviewed as a change of existing business models of urban services, the creation of smart mobility, smart resource consumption. An infographic unity of resources, services and management systems should be created in order to coordinate the actions of related structures and services in case of emergencies and unforeseen situations. This involves increasing technological literacy for different segments of the urban population. Three models of "smart cities" are proposed, the successful operation of each depends on investment, their rational management, as well as improving the level of digital skills of the population. The manufacturability of urban infrastructure should be based on megatrends in the field of information technology, namely: mobility, social communications, cloud technologies, big data and predictive analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, cybersecurity technology, the Internet of Things. These technologies are end-to-end for the whole set of technological solutions developed for "smart" cities. The scenario of development of "smart city" from the technological point of view is described; its basic components are: smart physical infrastructure; smart digital infrastructure; digital platforms; integrated digital platforms. The idea of building a digital duplicate, which is an accurate reflection of the real city in digital reality - the information comes to it from various sensors, monitoring systems and resource counters. The received experience of functioning can be translated into reality if it is successful, or to refuse it. All this is done at minimal cost, time savings and without harm to the real city. It is concluded that: information and communication technologies in the field of housing and communal services ensure the reliability and security of urban systems and resource efficiency; the formation of "smart cities" in Ukraine is limited by the lack of technical base for the creation of information technology platforms; a roadmap for the digital transformation of the national economy has not been developed.

Methodical Recommendations on the Formation of an Optimized Network of Vocational Training (Vocational Technical Training) Institutions in Keeping with the Needs of Regional Labor Markets

Optimization of the network of vocational training (vocational technical training) institutions (VT(VTT)Is) calls for creating new multidisciplinary and multilevel institutions and reorganizing (merging or transforming) the existing ones in order to provide vocational training services and build a model of the multipurpose center of professional excellence. This optimization is admitted by the overwhelming majority of scientists and experts as a necessary process allowing for optimization of resources, with streamlining them on quality enhancement of the professional training of the workforce. The core mechanisms for building up an optimized network consist of VT(VTT)Is integration and enlargement processes. The article contains an analysis of the processes taking place within the VT(VTT)Is network, with formulating methodical recommendations on its optimization. A stable downward tendency in the number of VT(VTT)Is and the respective decline in the number of trained persons are shown. The number of VT(VTT)Is decreased by 13 (or 1.8%) in 2019 compared with the previous year, and by 33 (or 4.4%) compared with 2017. The overall downward tendency in the number of VT(VTT)Is is accompanied by the following processes: reorganization and restructuring, dominated by incorporations in a larger institution, mergers of two or three institutions with establishing new ones on their basis, most commonly referred to as Regional Center of Professional-Technical Education; liquidations, changes of the status or title; withdrawals from or incorporations in the network depending on the existence or absence of a regional order for training of workers. The author argues that recommendations on forming an optimized VT(VTT)Is network in keeping with the needs of regional labor markets should be based on the computed integral index of the institution’s operation. According to the proposed method, the integral index of the institution’s operation is a synthetic index derived from factor analysis on the basis of a comprehensive set of statistical data and expert assessments on the institution’s operation. Computations of the integral index of the institution’s operation at city, region or country level can provide a rank for each institution, which will enable to substantiate the necessary measures for it as part of the overall network optimization with consideration to the needs of the regional labor markets.