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Project failures, especially in cost and budget management, challenge various sectors by straining financial resources, causing delays, and undermining stakeholder confidence. These issues disrupt schedules and damage organisational reputations, highlighting the need to address underlying causes for improved project success and sustainability. This paper is aimed at investigating the primary reasons for project failures, focusing on leadership and governance in managing project cost and budget performance. A qualitative approach in a form of exploratory design was used, and interviews were conducted with Middle and Senior Managers (n = 15) in their respective offices. Manual thematic analysis was used to analyses the data collected. The study found that lack of leadership, lack of stakeholder involvement, poor budget control, poor budget planning, poor communication, stakeholder dissatisfaction and stakeholder's engagement are the primary reason for project failure at Transnet. This paper suggests that Transnet Engineering should establish leadership development programs for project managers, standardised budget control and planning procedures to prevent financial overruns and adopt robust communication and stakeholder engagement framework to improve information flow and stakeholder involvement throughout the project lifecycle. This research is necessary to bridge the knowledge gap and provide policy and practical actionable recommendation to address leadership and governance challenges at Transnet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owning a home has become a distant, often unattainable dream for many Americans since the 2007–2009 recession. The shortage of homes has decreased affordability, forcing 43 million U.S. households to become renters rather than owners. Racially targeted policies and widespread discrimination, coupled with neoliberal urban renewal policies, have forced communities of color, especially immigrants and the foreign-born, at the greatest disadvantage in homeownership. This paper examines tract-scale disparities in homeownership across major racial/ethnic groups. Using the U.S. Census Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) 2019 definition of the 13-county-metropolitan statistical area (MSA) of Nashville, Tennessee, as the study area, I use five-year American Community Survey (ACS) (2015–2019) data estimates to examine the spatial disparity in homeownership and its predictors. Nashville MSA is one of the fastest-growing southern gateways, and it is also the largest, most diverse, and most intermixed metropolis in Tennessee. It contains higher than the state's overall share of foreign-born, and during 2019–2040, its share of immigrants is projected to grow by 40.7%, making it the best-suited laboratory for race/immigrant-focused research on housing. This analysis finds significant differences in race-based mean per-capita income, with Whites ($32,522) and Asians ($32,556) at the top, whereas Blacks ($25,062) and Hispanics ($20,091) are at the lowest. The ratio of race-based per-capita-income-versus-median housing values is the highest for Whites (15.19) and Asians (15.07) and the lowest for Blacks (11.49) and Hispanics (9.27), putting these two groups as the most disadvantaged regarding their affordability. Regression models suggest lower White homeownership in higher diversity tracts among foreign-born-not-citizens (FBNCs), whereas Black and Hispanic homeownerships are higher in tracts with higher diversity among FBNCs. Interestingly, Asian homeownership is high in tracts with high-income Black tracts, pointing toward the increasing significance of class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the information construction and taking a hospital as an example, this paper analyzes the current situation, existing problems, and reasons for financial management. This paper puts forward the scheme of optimizing hospital financial management and points out that accounting, asset management, cost management, and performance are all based on accounting. Even though with the continuous improvement and development of hospital informatization, various infrastructures have been built, the problems are more prominent. This can be solved by improving the focus on the products, and processes by reducing waste, or by increasing the quality. In hospitals, the core layer of hospital information technology is the financial management construction and development, and it is also an indispensable factor. It is better to improve the hospital's financial fine management level and promote the hospital's sustainable development. It is not enough to improve the assessment management and comprehensive budget management. It is necessary to integrate the perfect Health Information System, enterprise resource planning system, scientific research system, and structured query language database, establish a comprehensive financial management platform, and obtain data information and indicators of various economic operations in hospitals. Experiments show that the consumables sorting optimization algorithm in this paper can improve the equipment management of medical finance to some extent. In other aspects, this system also incorporates information technology to make enhancements to the original financial management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development of spending reviews from their origins in a set of budgetary innovations in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s – notably zero-base budgeting (ZBB) and Planning, Programming and Budgeting Systems (PPBS) – to their application internationally for budget management and fiscal consolidation. Spending reviews have been successfully developed and applied in mostly advanced economies but, because they rely on advanced tools of fiscal analysis and established public financial management systems, their application in low- and middle-income countries is more limited. Many countries use spending reviews to identify budgetary savings or to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the government's spending policies and programmes. The reviews can either be comprehensive or target specific programmes or areas of spending. Finance ministries are the cornerstone of an effective spending review process, which requires strong analytical skills and tools, as well as reliable data. Line ministries also play a key role and good use can be made of external experts. Political oversight and good governance are fundamental to success, but countries have followed a variety of models in designing their spending review processes; simpler approaches are available for countries with low capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of budget as a technique for planning and control is universal in modern organizations, especially, in the commercial (business) entities. However, for budget to succeed in its mission of enhancing the value of the business, human factor is of prime importance. The objective of paper was to ascertain the exact nature and influence of leadership style in budget implementation and performance in Nigeria. The paper investigated impact of leadership style in budget performance in Nigeria. It sampled a cross section of experienced junior and senior management staff in quoted and unquoted companies to gain in insight into the influence of leadership style in budget performance. The data were analyzed using exploratory and inferential statistics. It is recommended that managers should be wary of pseudo-participation in budgeting because of its likely negative impact. In addition, no specific leadership style should be completely discountenanced. A contingency approach is advocated in the management of budgets, particularly, during periods of crisis in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stability and security of public finances is a challenge not only for Slovakia and the countries of the European Union, but also for economies at the global level. Sound public finances are a prerequisite for the efficient functioning of the state, ensuring the fulfilment of its tasks at all levels. In addition to ensuring the efficient management of state budget expenditures, the lack of funds for the running of the state can also be addressed by improving tax collection through the elimination of tax evasion and tax fraud. The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare the state and development of public finances in relation to economic crime and tax fraud at the level of the Slovak Republic. The control activity in the framework of the fight against tax fraud requires a conceptual approach of all involved state components and the adoption of systemic measures and instruments to eliminate the damage caused in the effort to stabilise public finances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The level of household indebtedness in most countries has been growing rapidly in recent decades, and the recent pandemic only emphasized this growth and the problem of household budget management, which can lead to over-indebtedness. Previous research shows that a low level of financial literacy can be the reason for excessive credit borrowing and difficulties in meeting credit obligations. However, apart from the importance of financial knowledge in managing personal finances, personal non-cognitive attributes represent an important framework for understanding how household financial decisions are made. Therefore, this paper investigates the impact of financial literacy as well as self-efficacy on household over-indebtedness in Croatia. The study employed a quantitative research design, using the snowball sampling method to recruit the participants. The results confirmed the significance of financial literacy for sound financial decisions as well as the influence of self-efficacy as a personal attribute in preventing over-indebtedness and as a determinant of household financial stability. Additionally, the analysis confirmed the importance of debt structure for household over-indebtedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to examine the financial health of selected public universities in Malaysia. The study assessed the performance of Malaysian research universities, on the primary reserve ratio, viability ratio, return on net asset ratio and net operating revenue ratio, as well as the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index for revenue diversification from 2010 to 2020. Results suggest poor financial health, high dependence on government funding and revenue volatility. Several universities recorded consecutive financial deficits in recent years. Third-stream revenues are low, and the universities are struggling to generate the 25% self-generated revenue target set by the government. This paper provides longitudinal empirical data on the financial health of public universities and has important implications for policymakers and university management in budget allocation and financial management decisions, particularly given the adverse financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient budget management is crucial for the successful execution of construction projects. To achieve this, the design of a Construction Project Audit Budget Management System based on combinatorial optimization offers significant advantages. Combinatorial optimization techniques focus on finding optimal solutions from a vast number of possible combinations, making them well -suited for complex budget management scenarios. This system employs advanced algorithms to analyze and optimize various factors such as resource allocation, cost estimation, risk assessment, and scheduling. This paper focused on the construction of the Project Fuzzy Audit System in China. The developed model computes total investment decision, preliminary design, design, contracting, construction, completion acceptance and other stages of the investment/cost, namely investment estimation, budget estimate, control price, contract price and settlement price. According to the project total investment/cost control needs in China Project. The constructed model uses the combinatorial Optimization model for the estimation of the investment estimation of the Construction Project for the cost index. Through the Fuzzy Audit System new method abolishes the "maximum price" in the bidding document with the limit as the unit, and gradually terminates the preparation of the budget quota, highlighting the market price, so there is an urgent need for a set of cost index in line with the actual needs. The results demonstrated that with the fuzzy Audit system new method abolishes the "maximum price" in the bidding document with the limit as the unit, and gradually terminates the preparation of the budget quota, highlighting the market price, Through analysis it is concluded that with fuzzy based optimization model effectively accumulate fast and accurate calculation of the Project cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the basic tools of statistical analysis, random matrix theory builds a bridge for the study of microscopic and macroscopic properties of complex networks. The eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of the complex network after mapping correspond to the energy spectrum in the random matrix theory, so the characteristics of the complex network are concentrated in the volatility of the eigenvalue sequence. The eigenvalues of complex networks are analyzed through random matrix theory to find the relationship between their structure and properties. This paper discusses the design and realization of the comprehensive application platform of group enterprise financial management. Based on the current situation of the development of financial management software in domestic and foreign group companies, the thesis gives the goals and tasks of the platform research and design. The enterprise financial management platform has made a business and technical architecture design and has made an in-depth analysis and design of modules such as fund management, budget management, statement management, and accounting management. This paper finds that the critical point threshold makes the results of network community division below this threshold poor, and the results above this threshold are good. Furthermore, the tipping point threshold for the NYSE network is significantly lower than that of the CSM network. This paper further analyzes the dynamic cross-correlation matrix and examines the time-dependent changes in the number of outliers, the number of communities, the degree of network modularity, and the degree of decentralization of industry composition under the condition of two market critical point thresholds. From the magnitude of fluctuation, it is found that the NYSE network is much more stable than the CSM network, which may also be related to the basic characteristics of the two markets, because the capital chain relationship is much more stable than the supply chain relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an ensemble learning model that deploys a Gradient Boosting Decision Tree (GBDT) to predict two relevant functional indices, the International roughness index (IRI) and the rut depth (RD), considering multiple influence factors. To train and validate the proposed models, more than 1600 different records were extracted from Long-Term Pavement Performance database. The most suitable hyper parameters for the GBDT model are determined through a grid search and 5-fold cross-validation. Then, a sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the final input variables among the initial considered factors. Further, the optimized models utilise SHAP (Shapley Additive explanation) to interpret the results and analyse the importance of influencing factors. Finally, a comparison experiment with reference artificial intelligence approaches demonstrates that, the GBDT model can outperform the artificial neural network (ANN) and the random forest regression (RFR) methods in terms of quality of prediction results, reaching a coefficient of determination (R2) equal to 0.9. The proposed model can provide more precise pavement performance values and may be useful for providing accurate reference for pavement maintenance and optimising the available budget for road administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts the method of synergetic theory fused with a random matrix to conduct in-depth research and analysis on the innovation and entrepreneurship education of college students, discusses the existing problems, and develops ways of college students' entrepreneurship education from the perspective of synergetic students. The development history of entrepreneurship education of college students is explained, the development of entrepreneurship education in case institutions is introduced and the synergistic subjects of college students' entrepreneurship education are introduced, and the necessity of carrying out college students' entrepreneurship education is analyzed. The mechanism of cooperation mechanism of total budget management is studied from three perspectives of organizational cooperation, information cooperation, and resource cooperation respectively. From the perspective of internal and external collaborative training platforms, the idea of improving college students' entrepreneurship education is put forward. Among them, colleges, teachers, and college students form an internal system for the development of entrepreneurship education, and the three are synergistically dependent on each other and influence each other. Then, the problems in entrepreneurship education are analyzed, including weak teachers in entrepreneurship education in colleges and universities, systematic and professional entrepreneurship education to be improved, insufficient internal drive-in entrepreneurship education in colleges and universities, and insufficient initiative of college students to participate in entrepreneurship education. Finally, the ways to solve the existing dilemmas of entrepreneurship education of college students from the perspective of synergism are proposed, including improving the initiative of college students and the atmosphere of social and cultural environment, constructing internal and external platforms for entrepreneurship education of college students, and evaluating and giving feedback to entrepreneurship education of college students so that colleges and universities can better promote and carry out entrepreneurship education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the talent management issue as one of the effective human resource management practices during the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 and points to the main challenges and priorities in the research area. Talent management has undergone a dynamic development in recent years. It has recently become a frequently discussed concept among business and academics alike and one of the priorities of the modern management of all companies. The paper also presents the results of research carried out on a sample of 137 human resources managers. Respondents who participated in the questionnaire survey are human resources managers in companies operating in the Slovak Republic at national and international markets. Data were collected using the online questionnaire. For the research, two research hypotheses were established. The hypotheses aimed to determine whether there are statistically significant relationships between the scale of talent recruitment and selection process over the past year; the change in the management and organizational style of the company during the COVID-19 pandemic; the existence of the statistically significant relationship between the budget allocated to talent management and headhunting practices over the last year. The hypotheses were verified using correlation analysis and the methods of inductive statistics. Testing the statistically significant relationships verified hypothesis H1. It confirmed the existence of statistically significant relationships between the scale of the talent recruitment and selection process over the past year and the change in management and organization of the company during the COVID-19 pandemic. The hypothesis H2 was rejected. It stated the absence of statistically significant relationships between the budget for talent management in the organization during the COVID-19 pandemic and the competition for qualified talent for the last year. The questionnaire survey results pointed how human resources managers in companies operating in the Slovak Republic perceive the situation associated with the current COVID-19 pandemic. The findings identified the pandemic impact on talent management and how human resources managers see human resource management's future and priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Colombian government presented to Congress, the National Development Plan (PND) 2018-2022 "Pact for Colombia, Pact for Equity," which was approved by Law 1955 of 2019. The reflections and proposals included in this paper refer to the main components of the PND, the reforms proposed, the Multi-Annual Program of Investments that accompanies it, as well as to its apparent omissions. The paper does not intend to cover all the topics in the PND. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes one of the Italian sprawl drivers: the circle triggered by the use of urban charges to solve budget problems. From 2005 to 2018, Italian municipalities could use urban charges to solve normal budget problems: they could plan new urban areas to provide new urban charges, new building and services, and they could manage old and new services at the expense of normal budget. The planning of unnecessary urban areas was effectively influenced by budget problems. The paper illustrates this issue during a period without open data sources in order to improve land management and environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the financial status of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Thailand. The purpose of the study was to understand the common financial challenges that OFWs face, examine their current economic blueprints, analyze their financial coping mechanisms, and come up with a financial literacy guidebook. Using a purposive sampling technique and in-depth interviews, the primary data for this study was collected from informants who had lived in Thailand for more than eight years. After the interviews, the researcher employed coding and theming to analyze the data, along with descriptive phenomenological data analysis created by Colaizzi (1978). Five themes emerged from the analysis: financial mistakes, debt management and budgeting, savings and emergency funds, insurance and investment, and financial retirement plans. The results also revealed an alarming deficiency of financial intelligence among most OFWs in Thailand. Likewise, the results of this study showed many unforeseen problems and challenges that significantly entangled many OFWs in poverty. Lastly, this study has significant implications on the financial mindset of Filipino workers who trade their time, health, and effort for hard-earned money abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 2020, The Ohio State University Libraries was asked by The Ohio State University Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) to collaborate with them to provide expanded access to antiracism book content in support of continuing education, reading groups, and professional development across the university. The Libraries' African American and African Studies Librarian worked with ODI's Director for Strategic Diversity Planning, Training, and Assessment to identify antiracism book titles of interest to recommend to the Collections Strategist for purchase or expanded access. The African American and African Studies Librarian created research guides to supplement the reading lists, expanded them to support campus-wide antiracism educational opportunities, and iterated the collection practices. This paper details not only the process of collaboration with another unit within the university, but also outlines challenges and opportunities faced with budget management, publishing and vendor practices with antiracism resources, and COVID-19 implications. It also addresses critical approaches to antiracism within library collaborations to university campus communities, including outreach, teaching, and collections as part of the evolving Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access (DEIA) movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A "portfolio‐of‐systems" is a collection of systems related by common management and budgeting, and at least some relationship to mission or missions. A portfolio‐of‐systems describes the not uncommon situation where an office is responsible for multiple systems in multiple phases of development but those systems are not related by common design, common manufacturing, or necessarily interconnected operationally. The relationship is fundamentally one of management, although other linkages might be present or designed if such additional linkages are deemed beneficial. The portfolio‐of‐systems concept differs from systems‐of‐systems and product‐line or family‐of‐systems constructs. This paper describes generalizations of architecting techniques for portfolio situations, particularly recognizing the presence of many largely independent components in multiple stages of development with an ongoing or episodic process. The paper presents two case studies of actual portfolios: One a portfolio of operational demonstration systems and the other a portfolio of weather satellites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of civil engineering, specifically within railway projects, the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) has become imperative. However, the sector's adherence to traditional methods for infrastructure design and management has delayed the widespread adoption of BIM. This paper describes a BIM-centered methodology applied to a real-world High-Speed Railway Line (HSRL) project. Through an extensive examination of HSRL design parameters and the integration of various BIM-based tools, a 3D parametric design model is generated. This model serves as the foundation for evaluating up to five design alternatives, considering technical and economic aspects. Furthermore, a degradation model is proposed to assess alternative performance over the infrastructure's full lifecycle under specific rail traffic assumptions. This facilitates a rapid evaluation of alignment design's impact on maintenance costs. The paper draws two main conclusions with potential benefits for both private companies and railway administrations: Firstly, BIM proves feasible and advantageous despite some interoperability challenges, highlighting the need for continued advancements in BIM software compatibility. Secondly, the proposed approach can potentially lead to up to 40% cost savings in maintenance for railway administrations. [Display omitted] • The influence of the horizontal alignment design of a High-Speed Railway Line (HSRL) on its maintenance period is analyzed. • A BIM-centered method has been proposed to evaluate both construction and tamping costs. • The importance of considering the maintenance costs during the design phase has been demonstrated. • The interoperation between an alignment design tool and a budget management software has been tested. • The method is applied to a real HSRL project in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heritage buildings are considered unique assets with a significant value for the country where they are situated that must be conserved or preserved for the coming generations. However, heritage sites, as any other site where a construction is present, experience tremendous risks that impact both the condition and the withstanding of the building or asset they include. Therefore, a risk management framework is essential for these sites and buildings, in particular to be able to decide how to respond and act upon foreseeable risks when they occur or even before experiencing them. This study starts with investigating the most dominant risks in the heritage buildings context with a focus on Yemeni sites, and consequently 38 Yemeni experts in the field of heritage building management were surveyed to examine the identified risks in three case study heritage sites in Yemen. The significance of the risks as well as their impact, likelihood, and detectability levels were measured using an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) basis that reduces the subjectivity of the expert opinions. After risks were analyzed, a suitable response action was therefore suggested to manage and minimize risk impacts as much as possible. In addition to the relative scoring for the priority of each identified risk, an overall risk proneness metric is presented in this paper that can be used to compare the vulnerability of different heritage buildings and/or sites for a strategic efficient budget allocation for the management and preservation of those areas. The preliminary results revealed that armed conflicts, climate change, and flooding are three of the most critical risk factors in Yemeni heritage buildings. This framework is expected to aid heritage building managers in identifying the correct course of actions to prevent or mitigate risks from disturbing the heritage sites and help preserve their value and significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is a sizeable budget for biosecurity management in New Zealand, there will never be sufficient resources to intervene in all incursions of harmful species, including invasive freshwater plants. Given the inherent complexity in making decisions on interventions, responses are often decided in relation to specific incursions as they happen within their particular context. This paper uses New Zealand case studies to test if there are general economic principles related to intervention in invasive freshwater plants which can be used to improve decision-making. The general principles were; the sooner eradication is started and/or the smaller the incursion size, the lower the cost will be; eradication is more expensive than alternative responses in the short term but is cheaper than long term impacts of no intervention and/or ongoing control programs; and preventing new incursions is cheaper in the long run than eradication. The three principles were considered to be logical in an economic sense and can contribute to supporting intervention decision-making at a macro-level (i.e. across the majority of incursions) and provide more holistic outcomes for society in relation to management programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key function of centralized budgets in federal and political unions is to act as an equalizing mechanism to support economic and social cohesion. This is also the case with the European Union's (EU) budget, which operates as a redistributive mechanism that counteracts the cross‐national and cross‐regional inequalities created by the single market. Despite the limits on cross‐national redistribution imposed by a centrifugal system of representation, the net fiscal position of member states – what they pay to the EU budget minus what they receive from it – is very diverse and has changed quite remarkably over the last decades. In this paper, we investigate how and why the net fiscal position of each member state toward the rest of the EU changes over time. We develop a novel panel dataset (1979–2014) to study how key national and EU‐level political and economic variables affect the EU redistributive dynamics. We find that redistribution via the EU budget primarily targets developments in inequality within EU member states, and that an increase in domestic unemployment may also improve the country's fiscal balance. Moreover, we find that voting power in the Council is unrelated to a more positive fiscal balance. However, we find that governments with a centre‐right profile are in general more successful in improving their redistributive position vis‐à‐vis the other member states. This may create a problem of budgetary 'rent extraction'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of fiscal policy affecting interest rates is ever-evolving that depends on the structure of the economy and the strength of the financial markets. Hence, it is necessary to continuously validate this relationship between fiscal policy and interest rates. Towards this, the present paper tries to empirically examine and understand the transmission channels through which fiscal policy could affect short, medium, and long-term interest rates in India using Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) and Toda-Yamamoto causality approaches. Our results suggest that fiscal policy has a marginal impact on interest rates in the short run, while it has a larger positive impact on interest rates in the long run through the inflation route. In terms of the policy, in the long run, there is a need for containing the structural part of the fiscal deficit within the fiscal consolidation (Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act) framework in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In a recent paper in this journal, “ The Fallacy of Beneficial Ignorance: A Test of Hirschman’s Hiding Hand ”, Professor Bent Flyvbjerg claims that there is no such thing as beneficial ignorance and that ignorance is detrimental to project success. Moreover, he argues that if Hirschman’s principle of the Hiding Hand were correct, then benefit overruns would exceed cost overruns. Thus, with a statistical test, he demonstrates that the Hiding Hand is in fact less common than its “evil twin”, the Planning Fallacy. In this rejoinder, the author shows that Flyvbjerg’s test is built on a straw man fallacy and that he fails to refute the Hiding Hand. Contrary to Flyvbjerg—who focuses on the narrow costs and benefits—this paper provides evidence that while the Hiding Hand is found among projects that are project management failures but project successes, the Planning Fallacy fits with projects that are both project management and project failures. On that basis, the author analyzes a sample of 161 World Bank-funded projects of different types and finds that the Hiding Hand prevails. While future research should ascertain this finding, the author then points out the methodological limitations of Flyvbjerg’s test. Indeed, it is ironic that the Hiding Hand, a principle crafted against the very idea of cost–benefit analysis, is refuted on that very basis. Even worse, Flyvbjerg, in his cost–benefit analysis, ignores the full life-cycle project costs and benefits, the unintended project effects, the difficulties, and problem-solving abilities so dear to Hirschman, and, thus, treats the management of projects as a kind of “black box”. Finally, the author submits that Hirschman was a behavioral project theorist, and argues that it is more important to shed light on the circumstances where the Hiding Hand works than to question whether the principle of the Hiding Hand is right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with increasingly strict carbon emission control, high-emission enterprises need scientific and rational management systems and methods to strengthen carbon emission reduction management. Among the many management systems and methods, the carbon budget has become an effective emission reduction management tool, allowing the planning of carbon emissions and emission reduction activities and rational arrangement of economic inputs. However, judging from the research status and business practices in China and abroad, there is no general carbon budget system to guide the development of carbon emission and emission reduction activities. Based on this background, this paper first attempts to construct an enterprise carbon budget system comprising four sub-budgets: carbon emission, carbon emission reduction and cost, carbon emission rights trading, and carbon emission reduction net profit/loss. It draws on the idea of interactive control to consider the impact of changes in carbon prices, energy prices, and policy guidelines on carbon emission reductions and losses. A carbon budget management system based on interactive control is then constructed and applied to China National Aviation Holding Air China Group (AC Aviation). The research results show that the carbon budget system based on interactive control can dynamically adjust carbon emission reduction behavior based on changes in carbon and energy prices to make carbon budgeting a more viable carbon reduction tool and institutional arrangement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of budget participation on management attitudes, job satisfaction, and managerial performance of controllers of Brazilian companies. Methodology: a descriptive, survey, and quantitative research was conducted from a sample of 316 individuals with budgetary responsibility. Results: the results indicated that budgetary participation directly and positively influences managerial attitudes toward budgeting, job satisfaction, and controllers' performance in budget activities. Indirect relationships revealed that managerial attitudes toward budget and job satisfaction mediate the relationship between budgetary participation and managerial performance. It was found that budgetary participation positively influences the level of use of the budget for the purposes of performance evaluation and contributes to the development of budgetary knowledge of managers. Conclusion: the budgetary participation is responsible for important consequences on the attitudes and performance of these professionals. From a managerial point of view, it is essential to understand how the budgeting process can influence the attitudes, satisfaction, and performance of controllers in the budgeting context, since after this understanding, the managerial functions can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although three decades have passed since the fall of communism in Poland, the observed level of social activity in the country is relatively low. Participatory budget emerged as an idea to increase the involvement of citizens in decision-making processes concerning their immediate surroundings. In addition to their inclusion in the activity of local government, this form of citizen participation is expected to have a positive impact on residents' involvement in activities for the benefit of the local community. The aim of this article is to indicate the conditions that influenced the implementation of the idea of the first participatory budget in Poland and emphasizing the importance of the civic budget in managing public administration through partial decentralization involving local communities in social dialogue for local investment initiatives, especially in large provincial cities in Poland. The following research question was adopted in the paper: has the introduction of a participatory budget in Poland increased social activity and has it been conducive to the development of civil society. In Poland, the initiative to create a civic budget met good political conditions in the relatively small city of Sopot, which had the resources to implement the project. After successful implementation, this initiative was relatively quickly adopted by other Polish local governments, which then on their own introduced social consultations called the civic budget. Not all poviats introduced the civic budget of their own volition. The government, seeing the possibility of political discounting of this new solution, decided to introduce a mandatory participatory budget in town counties and ordered the allocation of funds from their budgets, no less than 1 % of budget expenditure. The article relies on the case-study method, comparative analysis and trend analysis, qualitative and quantitative methods of description, document analysis and statistical data. The analysis focuses on the town of Sopot and provincial capitals. Local conditions are important for understanding the processes of shaping active civic attitudes in Poland, because cities are the poles of development of civil society and give impetus to innovative changes in the entire socio-economic system. The materials used in the article include reports, documents and legal acts regarding the functioning of the town of Sopot. The study showed that the participatory budget indeed activates the local community around various projects. At the same time, the question of directly translating this activity into an increase in the number of organizations, associations and foundations remains debatable. The introduction of the participatory budget to administrative management practice in local-government units in Poland should be considered in terms of the soft power impact of administration on the shaping and development of civil society, which is still in the development stage in Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Natriuretic peptide [NP] measurement is underutilised in acute heart failure assessment. • A value proposition is presented for NP in acute heart failure. • The value proposition will facilitate the uptake of NP testing. There is robust clinical trial evidence supporting the role of natriuretic peptides [NPs] in the assessment of patients presenting with suspected acute heart failure [AHF]. Despite the fact that clinical guidelines have for some time advocated NP measurement, the availability and uptake of NP testing in acute care services remains patchy and incomplete. The reasons for this are multifactorial but are underpinned by compartmentalised management and budget structures within complex healthcare delivery organisations. This paper outlines a value proposition for NP testing in the acute care setting which crosses the continuum of services and budgets. It articulates the expected benefits to each stakeholder in terms of efficiency of processes, clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness. It describes a pathway to implementation and suggests metrics that may be used to measure the effectiveness of introduction of NP testing. It is hoped that the value proposition will facilitate the uptake of NT testing fostering collaboration between laboratory, clinical, management and finance teams and by informing the development of business cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the Budget Management & Weeding out Systems in BGS Institute of Technology Central Library. Academic librarians are struggling balance between patron needs, budget pressures and the library's mission to preserve materials in the age of mixed digital and print collections, the library budget is very important to the all libraries. The budget determines the services that will be offered by your library and the resources devoted to each library program and Weeding is the new model distributes budget authority among all librarians based on subjects rather than academic departments and empowers librarians to make purchasing and weeding decisions within their subject areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• PV hosting capability for multiple locations is modeled as a feasible region. • The uncertainty of PV output is addressed by data-driven WDRCC. • Active management with limited budget is used to improve the hosting capability. • A systematic solution procedure is proposed to observe the feasible region. • Each PV integration request in the feasible region is a feasible request. The increasing integration scale of photovoltaic (PV) systems brings enormous challenges on distribution networks (DNs). To provide an explicit boundary of feasible PV integration capacity (PVIC) associated with each integration location, this paper proposes a novel depiction of PV hosting capability, which is the feasible region for PVIC in high-dimensional space. Next, a multi-objective optimization model based on information gap decision theory (IGDT) is proposed to observe the feasible region, where active distribution network management (ADNM) schemes with a limited budget are deployed to improve PV hosting capability. The impact of PV output uncertainty on security constraints is addressed by data-driven Wasserstein-distance-based distributionally robust chance constraints (WDRCCs). Finally, a systematic procedure is developed to solve the proposed model. Note that the exact power flow model associated with a new equivalent WDRCC reformulation method is deployed so as to guarantee the accuracy of the assessment. The effectiveness, solution accuracy, computational efficiency, and scalability of the proposed model and method are verified with the 4-bus system, the IEEE 33-bus system, and the IEEE 123-bus system. The output of the common method based on the linearized power flow deviates by more than 10% from the output of the proposed method based on the exact power flow in the 33-bus system. Each multi-location PV integration request is feasible as its locations and capacities belong to the proposed region. It implies that this region can provide guidance for PV allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a model in which a single buyer seeks to buy a continuum of objects from a continuum of sellers. The sellers specify prices at which they are willing to sell their objects to the buyer, and the buyer then decides which objects to purchase. I illustrate that the buyer has an incentive to commit to a binding budget constraint before seeking offers from the sellers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of linearity in wideband CMOS low noise amplifiers (LNA) and its relationship to power consumption in context of Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems and its future developments. Using proposed figure of merit (FoM) to compare 35 state-of-the-art LNA circuits published over the last decade, the paper explores a dependence between amplifier performance (i.e., combined linearity, noise figure, and gain) and power consumption. In order to satisfy stringent linearity specifications for LTE standard (and its likely successors), the paper predicts that LNA FoM increase in the range of +0.2 dB/mW is expected and will inevitably translate into a significant increase in power consumption--a critical budget planning aspect for handheld devices, active antenna arrays, and base stations operating in small cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a literature review on management accounting and it examines the necessity and the role of budgeting and budget controlling in the management process. Budgets are necessary to highlight the financial implications of plans, to define the resources required to achieve these plans and to provide a means of measuring, viewing and controlling the obtained results, in comparison with the plans. Many managers, especially those familiar with accounting, criticize budgets saying that this implies additional consumption of effort and waste of time, claiming that there are too many estimates in the budget and that these estimations are unreliable, for it to be useful. And yet, any large company prepares budgets. Why? Because it forces managers to foresee, to study trends and develop necessary strategies. Also, the budget can prevent imminent issues. Budgets are excellent communication tools, pointing out the operational and financial objectives of the period. Budgets communicate to the upper and middle management which are the top management's expectations, and also communicate the management's priorities to the lower levels. In some cases, it can give a manager the authority to dispose of certain funds, but being limited by the budget. Furthermore, the budget sets the prices for internal services and is the basis for performance evaluation. The controlling function confirms or not the compliance or noncompliance of the results with the predetermined objectives, highlighting occurred deviations and the causes that produced them. Budget controlling compares costs, revenues and actual performance with the budget so that, if necessary, it can be reviewed and corrective measures can be applied. This paper also includes a case study in a Romanian company and the collected data will be valued and interpreted in detail. Not all managers in our country understand the importance of budgeting. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the necessity of budgets in planning and controlling of a company's activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central element in the shift to a ‘personalised’ care system in the UK is the opportunity for disabled people to hold and manage budgets for the purchase of care and support, to replace local authority services. The delivery mechanisms of ‘Direct Payments’ and ‘Individual Budgets’ have allowed many disabled people to control their care and support better, and have promoted their social inclusion. However, the particular contexts and issues for people with learning disabilities in holding personal funding have been little considered. The paper sets out the broad themes of the introduction of personalised care, and examines the limited use by people with learning disabilities of Direct Payments and the subsequent development of Individual Budgets. The paper considers the challenges to the nature, spaces and relations of care commonly used by people with learning disabilities that personal budgets present, in particular for those with more severe disabilities. The paper concludes by suggesting ways in which people with learning disabilities can use personal budgets, whilst maintaining the collective relations and spaces of caring desired by many. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Value management (VM) is a useful method to use when dealing with issues such as budget and schedule challenges arising in the construction industry. However, little research has been done to measure the performance of VM studies, which has made many potential users reluctant to use VM. This paper presents a critical review of the development of performance measurement in general and the performance measurement in the construction industry, with a special focus on the performance measurement of VM studies in construction. The strengths and weaknesses of the existing measurement frameworks are investigated in the context of VM studies. It is concluded that traditional performance measurement of VM studies focusing on cost reduction is insufficient. Many other perspectives, such as clarifying objectives, and improving communication among stakeholders, should be considered seriously when making the measurement. This paper reveals that the existing frameworks to measure VM studies are inappropriate. It suggests that perspectives such as multicriteria measurement, flexible framework for different practice, and benchmarking to identify best practice could be adapted to develop a performance measurement framework for VM studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Propose a multi-horizon IGDT-based model for the resilient operation of a distribution network against wildfires. • Utilize a proficient multi-objective optimization method to solve the multi-horizon IGDT-based model. • Obtain a set of evenly distributed Pareto optimal solutions for a specific conservatism level. • Find the best solution among a set of Pareto optimal solutions using a posteriori out-of-sample analysis. • Introduce a novel resilience index to find the optimum crisis management budget. Extreme events may trigger cascading outages of different components in power systems and cause a substantial loss of load. Forest wildfires, as a common type of extreme events, may damage transmission/distribution lines across the forest and disconnect a large number of consumers from the electric network. Hence, this paper presents a robust scheduling model based on the notion of information-gap decision theory (IGDT) to enhance the resilience of a distribution network exposed to wildfires. Since the thermal rating of a transmission/distribution line is a function of its temperature and current, it is assumed that the tie-line connecting the distribution network to the main grid is equipped with a dynamic thermal rating (DTR) system aiming at accurately evaluating the impact of a wildfire on the ampacity of the tie-line. The proposed approach as a multi-horizon IGDT-based optimization problem finds a robust operation plan protected against the uncertainty of wind power, solar power, load, and ampacity of tie-lines under a specific uncertainty budget (UB). Since all uncertain parameters compete to maximize their robust regions under a specific uncertainty budget, the proposed multi-horizon IGDT-based model is solved by the augmented normalized normal constraint (ANNC) method as an effective multi-objective optimization approach. Moreover, a posteriori out-of-sample analysis is used to find (i) the best solution among the set of Pareto optimal solutions obtained from the ANNC method given a specific uncertainty budget, and (ii) the best resiliency level by varying the uncertainty budget and finding the optimal uncertainty budget. The proposed approach is tested on a 33-bus distribution network under different circumstances. The case study under different conditions verifies the effectiveness of the proposed operation planning model to enhance the resilience of a distribution network under a close wildfire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Jointly optimizing inspection, maintenance, and reconstruction for pavement systems. • The framework is defined as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process. • A bottom-up approach is proposed to consider facility-specific heterogeneity. • We use a statistical learning method for belief updates to reduce model uncertainty. • Condition-based strategies are found and validated through a numerical example. Due to the tighter budget for pavement management, schedules of inspection activities should be jointly optimized with the maintenance and reconstruction (M&R) plans for pavement systems. Conducting inspections every year is unnecessary and will decrease the budget for M&R activities, while infrequent inspections may lead to suboptimal M&R planning due to the lack of accurate information. This paper presents a methodology for jointly optimizing the inspection scheduling and M&R planning for pavement systems, considering model uncertainty and facility-specific heterogeneity. The problem is defined as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) model, accounting for the tradeoff between the information value and inspection costs. Moreover, a statistical learning method is used to update the prediction of pavement conditions using the collected inspection data and, eventually, improve the condition-based decisions. This "belief update" process can gradually reduce the model uncertainty as the dataset size increases. We demonstrate the proposed stochastic optimization framework through a numerical example with a system of fifty heterogenous pavement facilities under a combined budget for inspection and M&R activities. Several managerial insights and implications are discussed. For example, the optimal inspection frequencies are less sensitive to the budget; and the agency should perform fewer reconstructions and more rehabilitations when the budget is limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment of budget sufficiency and resource utilization for a resource-constrained project schedule is crucial to ensure practical feasibility of the schedule and successful delivery of a construction project. This paper proposes a quantitative assessment approach for characterizing budget sufficiency and resource utilization for a resource-constrained project schedule in an objective fashion. The budgeted unit, deployed unit, and scheduled unit in connection with a resource-constrained project schedule are first defined. Next, two budget sufficiency metrics, named the budget sufficiency index and budget sufficiency variance, are defined for measuring the sufficiency of control budget in terms of deploying resources to execute the project schedule with resource constraints. In addition, two resource utilization metrics, termed the resource utilization index and resource utilization variance, are defined for indicating utilization efficiency of deployed resources based on the schedule. The proposed metrics are applied to objectively assess multiple alternative resource-constrained project schedules derived from various approaches, including a practical scheduling approach (Primavera P6) and resource scheduling optimization techniques recently developed from in-house research. A textbook example and a refinery plant turnaround project are used to demonstrate the effective application of proposed metrics on alternative resource-constrained schedules. It is concluded that (1) resource scheduling optimization techniques outperform Primavera P6 in terms of budget sufficiency and resource utilization thanks to streamlining resource supply limits and shortening project duration by optimization; and (2) a significant portion of the idled resource time in the Primavera P6 schedule turns into extra contingency in the optimized schedule that can be reserved against any work unforeseen or unknown during the planning stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sharing resources in hierarchical real-time systems implemented with reservation servers requires the adoption of special budget management protocols that preserve the bandwidth allocated to a specific component. In addition, blocking times must be accurately estimated to guarantee both the global feasibility of all the servers and the local schedulability of applications running on each component. This paper presents two new local schedulability tests to verify the schedulability of real-time applications running on reservation servers under fixed priority and EDF local schedulers. Reservation servers are implemented with the BROE algorithm. A simple extension to the SRP protocol is also proposed to reduce the blocking time of the server when accessing global resources shared among components. The performance of the new schedulability tests are compared with other solutions proposed in the literature, showing the effectiveness of the proposed improvements. Finally, an implementation of the main protocols on a lightweight RTOS is described, highlighting the main practical issues that have been encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of accountability in the federal government's acquisition process has been the topic of much discussion and investigation. While few argue th a t accountability is unimportant, it remains largely unexplored in the context of the acquisition process. This paper seeks to examine the acquisition process in some detail, and analyze the role of accountability in th a t process. We conclude with some broader observations about accountability in federal acquisition, and directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral economics is a newly emerging field that examines the impact of psychological factors such as attitudes, biases, and behaviors on decision makers' choices. Because many decisions in engineering and management involve subjective experience-based assessments of situations (e.g., bidding and fund-allocation), the psychological factors playing an important role in these decisions need to be considered. This paper thus introduces common behavioral economic concepts and examines the applicability of the most influential behavior loss aversion in the asset management domain, particularly infrastructure rehabilitation projects. Loss aversion refers to people's tendency to strongly prefer avoiding loss more than acquiring gain. Using a pavement case study, a detailed life cycle cost analysis model has been developed and extensive optimization experiments were carried out to compare the traditional approach of maximizing gain from a limited rehabilitation budget against loss-aversion approaches. The results show that incorporating behavioral aspects into asset management decisions can better justify the decisions made and account for the varying preferences of stakeholders and thus can lead to higher public satisfaction and more justifiable spending of tax money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence maximization problem in social networks is to find a set of seed nodes such that the total influence effect is maximized under certain cascade models. In this paper, we propose a novel task of improving influence, which is to find strategies to allocate the investment budget under IC-N model. We prove that our influence improving problem is 풩풫-hard, and propose new algorithms under IC-N model. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first one that studies influence improving problem under bounded budget when negative opinions emerge. Finally, we implement extensive experiments over a large data collection obtained from real-world social networks, and evaluate the performance of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the content of this article we emphasize the importance of flexible budgeting of expenses for an economic entity. We focused on indirect costs of production, since they include both variable costs and fixed costs, and the way of their budgeting is different. In the first part of the paper we illustrate how to prepare a flexible budget for more predictable levels of activity, and in the second part, we show how to recalculate budgeted expenses for the actual volume of activity. The budget recalculated for the actual volume of activity allows the comparison, in the correct way, of expenditure forecast to those actually incurred, expenses that relate to the same volume of activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]