Ensuring accurate cost estimation for project implementation, while accounting for regional specifics, is a crucial task for pricing practices in the construction industry. To address this challenge, the transition from the base index method with cost item indexation to the resource index method for estimating project costs is planned in the 1st quarter of 2023. Additionally, starting from 2024, the mandatory use of information modeling technologies for project design will be implemented. This article examines the rationale behind implementing modifications in the pricing system, outlines the algorithm for estimating costs using the resource index method, identifies the advantages and challenges associate with this new approach, and highlights the prospects of integrating information modeling technologies. The study employs comparative and statistical analysis, as well as methods of synthesis and systematization of information. The analysis of data from the Federal State Information System of Pricing in Construction (TsS FSIS) focuses on regions that have already transitioned to the resource index method. On the basis of the research findings, the article reveals the issues related to the adoption of alternative cost estimation methods in a region. It also proposes approaches for enhancing the pricing system to effectively apply the resource index method for cost estimation in construction projects, while incorporating the use of information modeling technologies (IMT).

Mechanisms for assessing the readiness of urban areas for implementation of the smart city concept are investigated. The relevance of this topic is supported by the request for effective implementation of the concept in the current socio-economic situation. The state attracts much attention to the implementation of state programs and achievement of target indicators. The issue of urban development using modern digital technologies appears to be important, with the relevant ministries paying particular attention to its solution. The paper investigates the existing approaches to the assessment of urban digitalization processes, determines the relationship between the documents of strategic planning and plans for the implementation of state programs. Based on the systems approach, the main directions in assessing the effectiveness of measures on the implementation of the smart city concept in the Russian Federation are classified and formulated. Conclusions on the necessity of adjusting the existing assessment system are made. Options for optimizing and improving the methodology for selecting indicators to assess the effectiveness of city digitalization were developed. As a result, the proposed methodology for assessing the readiness of cities to implement the smart city concept will improve the indicators of the city digitalization project.

The situation in the venture capital market is continually changing, as evidenced by the statistics on the use of venture investment pools. Experienced investors, reducing their risks, give preference to firmly established startups that are at intermediate and late stages of development, as well as those in the sphere of IT development and high technologies. This approach leads to a situation when investors do not notice quite a number of interesting, impressive and promising projects at their early and seed stages. In this regard, it is relevant to consider some methods aimed at the evaluation of startups at different stages of their development. The traditional methods of evaluating projects with no operational history are not suitable. The instruments for preparing startup business plans as well as discounting and compounding tools are relevant up to the entry point of the search for financial resources. In a real situation, a perspective innovative startup risks to be taken over as a result of the only available way of mobilising resources – through the inclusion of investors in the startup owners (shareholders) pool. Other traditional sources – internal funds and bank loans – limit a startup’s resource, most often at the seed stage, due to their limited scope and high cost of borrowed capital. As a rule, the borrowed capital in the form of bank loan is basically unavailable for startup initiation due to no ways to ensure repayment guarantees, while the possibility of relying on a business plan for a startup in the process of raising bank funds is a common misconception. In recent years, the impact of the development of specific Internet resources on the structure of investment in economy has been tangible. In addition to innovative ideas in entrepreneurship, a number of instruments specific of new processes in investing are being realised. Business angels, accelerators, startup-oriented Internet resources are shifting to the mechanisms of remote assessment of startup potential and its subsequent funding.

The purpose of the article is to explore the current situation in the pricing reform as of the 2nd quarter of 2023 using the example of costing for operating machines and mechanisms in calculating the estimated cost on the basis of the resource-and-index method. The methodological basis of the study is represented by economic and statistical analysis, systemic approach, systematisation of theoretical and practical material. The analysis of estimated prices for operation of machines and mechanisms is made on the basis of the ones posted in the Federal State Information System of Construction Pricing as of the 2nd quarter of 2023 and calculated in current prices with the use of estimated cost change indices relative to a group of homogeneous resources. Most of the reviewed examples for basic machinery and mechanisms used in construction show a negative deviation when calculated using the estimated cost change index. The use of prices for the operation of machinery and mechanisms, obtained using the estimated cost change index, can lead to underestimation of costs required for construction and, as a consequence, emergence of obstacles to successful realisation of a construction project. Based on the results of the analysis, proposals have been made to improve the construction products pricing on the basis of due costing for operation of machinery and mechanisms. It is necessary to envisage a number of measures aimed at successful realisation of investment and construction projects and due development of the construction sector as a whole.

The study aims to solve the urgent problem of strengthening the subgrade of roads for heavy-duty vehicles. In the case of a limited road service life, it appears economically unfeasible to provide a strong cement-concrete subgrade. This case requires a solution maximizing the use of both local materials and production wastes, available in the work area. In order to perform calculations of stresses, arising at a great depth in the subgrade of the technological road under the influence of heavy-duty vehicle wheels, it is necessary to use appropriate mathematical models. In the present study, the calculations were carried out using a software application that implements the method of discrete elements. Using this method, stresses in highly inhomogeneous granular media can be calculated using the first[1]principle approach. The design of road structural layers suggests the use of geocontainers, made of used polypropylene big bags at the subgrade, which, due to their large size, have a greater shear resistance when filled with any soil mixture. The durability of the polypropylene fabric in the roadbed can reach several decades. The main task of the study was to calculate the protective layer of alternated crushed stone, clay soil, and polypropylene fabric. The thickness of layers was selected such that the tensile stresses during the passage of vehicles on the surface of a geocontainer remain within the strength limits of the container shell material.

The present study is aimed at providing systematic assessment and developing preventive measures for adverse technosphere effects emerging in the territories of municipalities in the context of climate change. The study emphasizes the search for methods, organizational-technical measures, and the best available technologies for preventing natural and anthropogenic emergencies, as well as their socio-economic, natural-resource, environmental and other adverse consequences. The paper considers assessing the dynamics, as well as forecasting climate change in environmentally-sensitive areas, taking into account the increasing global temperature associated with technosphere factors of human activity in the urban economy (heat and power engineering, housing and utilities infrastructure, transport, handling of hazardous solid municipal and other wastes). The impact of climate change on the natural environment is analyzed in terms of preventing adverse events and emergencies. Based on the generalization and systematization of materials, the present paper identifies directions and ways of preventing environmental hazards by reducing the technosphere load on the natural environment under the conditions of climate change.

The paper is aimed at considering the possibility of automated estimation of road facilities on the basis of data obtained from the bill of quantities at the design or construction stages. The authors accepted Tomita Parser as a for extracting facts and parameters from the bill of quantities. Further comparison of quantities of work with Federal Unit Rates and State Itemized Cost Estimate Standards is carried out by the program algorithm developed by the authors for calculating and estimating costs. The presented manual method for creating a database compiled on the basis of comparing the bill of quantities with the above federal regulations may be considered reliable. However, large data sets require machine learning technologies to be applied. The program algorithm considers many estimation settings, in particular, assigning the index to construction and installation works, the total coefficient to the positions by types of work (for example, performance of work on one half of the roadway), etc. The finished estimate is generated in a *.xml file and can be further integrated into the road information model and converted into *.gge format for using by the Federal autonomous institution “Main Department of State Expertise”. The results showed that all key parameters from the bill of quantities were taken into account by the program algorithm. The generated estimate considered all coefficients and prices to accurately reflect the cost of the works described in this bill.

Reinforced concrete is considered to be one of the most reliable structural materials. For this reason, it is widely used for mass construction of buildings and structures in Russia and other countries. In particular, reinforced concrete is predominantly used in the construction of multi-story buildings of any design in all Russian regions at any time of the year. Improvements in technologies, construction management and mechanical aids increase the industrialization of construction. Although this fact is generally regarded as extremely positive, it reduces the time allowed for concrete to gain the required strength characteristics. Sometimes, loads from upper structures of buildings are applied to fresh, immature concrete. Obviously, specific technical decisions are required to intensify the concrete hardening process and create favorable temperature and humidity conditions for its curing. Russian science and practical experience have a large arsenal of effective technical means for solving these problems. However, these means are reluctantly applied in practice, since this entails a rise in construction costs, even though slight. This creates a situation when unacceptable loads from the higher floors are applied to the lower floors of the building. The structures perceive static loads rather than dynamic ones, including seismic loads, with an inertial mass of tens of tons, thereby causing a risky situation at the site. This happens en masse. The problem is even more complicated in winter time. During the period of concrete thawing in spring, the entire facility can be classified as being in a metastable state. The paper considers the production circumstances associated with the above situations and proposes recommendations for their prevention.

The creation of a transport network with high performance characteristics of the roadbed is an urgent task in the field of road construction. Foreign practice in the construction and operation of such facilities indicates the need for research studies aimed at obtaining an optimal concrete stone structure by optimizing the concrete composition (controlling the concrete mixture properties at the microlevel) and using state-of-the-art complex additives. The technological properties of concrete mixture and concrete were studied in accordance with the requirements of the current regulatory documentation using verified equipment. The compressive strength of concrete was determined using an MS2000 testing machine (with a measuring range of up to 2000 kN and a loading error of no more than 1%). The abrasion level was estimated by the loss of the sample mass during operation of an LKI-3 device (abrasion disc). The mass water absorption was determined by variations in the sample mass during water saturation. The article presents the physical and mechanical characteristics of heavy concrete (strength, abrasion, water absorption) obtained using TechniFlow-61, TechniFlow-178 PRO, and PowerFlow-3100 additives. The results indicate the positive effect of the above additives, which can be used to decrease the water-cement ratio for obtaining concrete mixtures of a given mobility, produce concretes of a denser structure, and reduce the number of open pores. The conclusion is made about the effectiveness of new-generation additives with plasticizing and water-reducing agents for improving the technological properties of concrete mixtures, as well as the physical and mechanical characteristics of the resultant concretes.

In this work, we carry out a technical evaluation of steel roof trusses for a large basin of the Del’fin pool in the city of Ust-Ilimsk with the purpose of determining their further operability. This task involves establishing the damage degree of building structures and the category of their technical condition based on a comparison between the actual values of quantifiable attributes and those established by the project or regulatory documents. The studied objects are represented by steel trusses with a span of 15 m, located in plan with a spacing of 6.0 m and conditionally divided into 2 groups: reinforcement trusses (F-1 and F-4) and existing trusses without reinforcement (F-2 and F-3). We analyze the technical, as-built, and operational documentation, and carry out visual and measuring control procedures. The verification calculation of the most loaded truss elements is presented (not provided in the article). According to the analysis of the obtained data, the condition of the studied steel trusses can be concluded as unacceptable and emergency. The emergency technical condition of the F-2 and F-3 trusses is due to the unprovided bearing capacity of support brace struts and insufficient length of welds, fastening the support brace struts. The unacceptable technical condition of the reinforcement trusses F-1 and F-4 is due to the insufficient length of the welds, fastening the support brace struts, as well as the deviations in a number of technical solutions, outlined in the reinforcement project, from the current norms. Recommendations on the further operability of roof structures are provided.

The present study is aimed at searching the most effective, easy-to-use method for seismic zoning, in order to consider the ongoing environmental change in real time. The study demonstrates the relevance and necessity of tackling this problem, provides characteristics and peculiarities of current microzonation methods, and discusses the problem of seismic microzoning. The paper highlights traditional and neural network approaches as two directions in solving the problem, and determines their advantages and disadvantages. In addition, the paper provides significant arguments for applying the neural network approach and defines the perspectives for the solution. An intermediate problem of geophysics is suggested to be solved using the neural network approach. The current study results involved searching networks able to provide sufficient accuracy for obtaining pictures of geological sections and conducting analysis of predicted results for a number of neural networks. Multilayer perceptron is considered to give the most reliable results. The future work is supposed to develop an algorithm for building a map of seismic microzonation by means of neural network technology.

The paper is aimed at developing a system configuration for GIS-monitoring of the technical and environmental condition of living facilities for the subsequent prediction of technosphere threat in the format of prevention of natural and anthropogenic emergencies, as well as their environmental consequences. The methodology involved the system analysis of information obtained from monitoring the interrelated technical and resource-environmental parameters. The analysis considered the impact of various conditions, as well as limitations in the functioning of the living facilities. The obtained results underlay long-term and medium-term forecasts of options and scenarios for the development of hazardous processes, phenomena and consequences of adverse factors. The system analysis of information on technosphere hazards in housing and utility sector on the basis of the proposed GIS-monitoring determined areas for improving methods, algorithms, and tools for forecasting environmental hazards in order to prevent the associated threats and risks for population, natural environment and normal functioning of economic facilities. The proposed system configuration for GIS-monitoring of the technical and environmental condition of living facilities (on the example of housing and utilities services) can be used by the Unified state system for prevention and termination of emergency situations, regional and local authorities for forecasting and preventing natural and anthropogenic emergencies and their consequences for human life, environment, and sustainable livelihood systems in municipalities and regions.

The article presents an analysis of variations in the internal resistance of standard and fiberreinforced cement composites under non-stationary low-temperature and humidity effects. Various aspects of the response kinetics of prismatic samples in the monotonous compression mode are considered. The sample set included control samples and those subjected to cyclic freezing and thawing according to their standard frost resistance. Test samples (100 × 100 × 400 mm) were made of conventional (B series) and fiber-reinforced (FB, polypropylene fibers df = 0.8 mm, lf = 40 mm, µf = 1.5 vol%) concrete with a component ratio of cement: sand: crushed stone: water = 1:1.42:3.57:0.55. The accepted base of T-W cycles corresponded to the standard concrete grade in terms of frost resistance, established in control tests (F200). Static tests of composites were preceded by low-temperature exposures according to an accelerated method for assessing frost resistance with a temperature decrease down to minus 35℃ and thawing in a 5% NaCl solution. Samples were automatically loaded (Instron 5989 test complex) according to a special program with a constant deformation rate of 5·10-5 mm/s and continuous recording of deformations. Significant differences were observed in the strength kinetics, magnitude and structure of deformations, along with a high sensitivity and quantitative informativeness of the significant parameters of the strength kinetic concept for solid bodies. The expediency of a differentiated approach to the selection of calculation models and criteria for the temperature and humidity transformations of cement-matrix composites, which takes operational requirements into account, is substantiated.

The present paper considers methods and algorithms for determining the values of horizontal stiffness of multi-story buildings based on experimental laser measurements of their natural vibrations. The developments findings are used in determining the residual stiffness of various structures in a certain operation period, subjected to intensive dynamic loading. No need for a close inspection of buildings associated with the inevitable dismantling of enclosures and emptying of the buildings is considered as an advantage of such methods for determining the stiffness parameters of buildings. Direct method for determining the horizontal stiffness of buildings by means of specified displacements and corresponding forces in their elements implies fixing of tension elements in specified nodes – mass centers of structures. However, in some cases, they fail to be implemented. The suggested approach demonstrates its potential in the inspection of a large residential area consistent of buildings under different operating conditions, thus requiring the development of an action plan to ensure the functionality of the structures. In addition, the paper demonstrates that using the dynamic low-size models in the estimation of stiffness parameters implies determining the principles of forming the types of such models.

The present work is part of the author’s series of articles that analyze historical conditions for the formation of residential areas in the cities of the Irkutsk Oblast, their social and spatial environment, as well as the possibilities of an integrated territorial development. The study into the stages of residential development in the city of Usolye-Sibirskoye will contribute to prioritizing their modernization and preserving the historically valuable areas. In the work, the ontogeny of residential areas was determined by a retrospective analysis and a clustering method in accordance with the key periods of historical development. Further, using empirical research methods and stratified sampling, residential types were revealed, the dominant characteristics were identified, and their description was given. An analysis of residential types was carried out with the provision of absolute and relative indicators. The performed study identified the four main stages of residential development. A generalized analysis of 17 residential development types was carried out. The data is tabulated. The results of the study in the form of a report were presented at the 24th session of the International Baikal Winter Urban Planning University in 2023 at the Irkutsk National Research Technical University. During the study of the living environment in the city of Usolye-Sibirskoye, the relationship between the main historical and political events and the state of the society, which were reflected in the formation of a particular residential development type, was established. Guided by the materials of the article, urban planners and architects will be able to focus on the most valuable fragments of existing buildings and take them into account during further planning of integrated territorial development. The article contains the schemes and results of the conducted research.

The paper presents a design of a scientifically-based, theoretical model for organization of riverside territories of the Irkutsk area under contemporary conditions. The work set out to analyze the factors influencing the formation of the riverside territories, problems and possible directions for necessary transformations; to systematize and adapt the current theoretical and methodological base; to develop a theoretical design model for spatial organization of the territories. The research methodology involves system and landscape-geographical approaches. Urban ecological analysis of riverside territories included analysis of spatial and strategic planning documents, field investigation of the territories, graphical analysis of world experience in terms of patterns and trends in organizing riverside territories, as well as conceptual modeling with consideration to the urbanization level of the territories. The study consists in developing the following definitions: scientific ground for spatial organization of riverside territories in urban area; global trends in organizing riverside territories in urban area; theoretical design model and perspectives for transformations in the territories. The study results include the development of a theoretical design model for the riverside territories in the Irkutsk area, enabling the growth potential and organization principles of the riverside territories to be effectively identified with consideration to their urbanization level. In addition, the authors offer a definition for the concept of “riverside territories in the urban area.”

The development of urban agriculture is an inevitable trend for future cities, including Ho Chi Minh City, since it is one of the most important aspects for sustainable urban development aimed to ensure food security and other socio-economic and environmental benefits. The purpose of the article is to explore the issues of zoning of the existing areas in Ho Chi Minh City as well as assessing and analysing their characteristics and the level of capacity to develop urban agriculture as a basis for efficient operation of the land reserve and other city resources. In order to properly develop urban agriculture in Ho Chi Minh City, it is necessary to distinguish the features of each area of the city for efficient use of land and spaces. The present article provides some criteria and methods for zoning of the existing Ho Chi Minh City areas, evaluating and analysing their distinctive characteristics as well as the levels of urban agriculture development resource. The obtained results can serve as a basis for applying urban agriculture design models suitable for each area.