Financial Budgets Research Articles

Exploration of cloud computing practices in university libraries in Kenya

Purpose Modern technological solutions are rapidly changing the information landscape in library and information establishments. One such innovative solution that is gaining momentum in information centers is cloud computing. The purpose of this paper is to explore and compare opportunities and challenges of “cloud computing paradigm” in handling and supporting delivery of information services in university libraries in the face of the present hard economic situation and limited financial budgets. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on current academic literature, document analysis, several editorials and articles on the potential and challenges of cloud computing paradigm in university library and information centers. Findings Cloud computing is proving as the best management practice of salvaging information services in university libraries due to numerous competing challenges and issues in institutions of higher education. University libraries in developing countries face many challenges of inadequate information infrastructure, limited financial budgets, manpower issues and rapid changes in technological systems. In the context of hard economic times, cloud computing is critical in adding value as well as advancing the goals and objectives of modern university libraries. Cloud computing is the “best technology practice” that is poised to play crucial roles in enhancing quality provision and delivery of information services in university library and information centers. There are many competing challenges and claims, but potential benefits count more. Research limitations/implications The study is based on the ideas of cloud services conceptualized from reading academic literature, document analysis, several editorials, articles and professional work experience. The paper identifies that cloud computing paradigm is useful in achieving the goals and objectives of university libraries in this hard economic situation facing institutions of higher learning. Practical implications The paper provides practical insights that cloud computing is the “must have technology” for modern university library and information centers already burdened with the demand to develop effective and efficient technological solutions due to subsequent changing needs of the digital information environment. This study is useful for university libraries, information professionals, information communication technology professionals and university management. Social implications Cloud computing paradigm provides university libraries with the business opportunity to use comprehensive technological solutions with reduced capital expenditure and safe methods of data storage. This eases the inconveniences normally caused by the need to develop and own such comprehensive technological solutions. Originality/value This research looks at the potential of the emerging trend of “cloud computing paradigm” in enhancing quality provision and delivery of information services in university library and information centers in the context of limited financial budgets. Cloud computing has been gaining momentum in Kenya, especially in business organizations as compared to library and information establishments.

How industry competition ruined windsurfing

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate a competitive evolutionary process we call “innovation overshooting” that has been observed in equipment-based sports, using windsurfing as a case study. Design/methodology/approach The case-study approach is based upon primary data gathered through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with pioneers of the case-study sport and through analysis of international and domestic industry publications and grey literature. Findings New sports, in particular equipment-based “lifestyle” sports, can experience a rapid rise in popularity but eventually technology-driven competition leads to equipment overshooting the capabilities and financial budgets of most users. This Schumpeterian market process leads to a rapid decline in participation and the eventual collapse of the market for the sport’s equipment. Originality/value Models of endogenous overshooting are established in the study of finance and business cycles, and have recently been extended to the music and design industry. The authors extend this to the sports equipment sector finding clear evidence of evolutionary competitive technological and market overshooting.

World Health Organization's Innovative Direct Disbursement Mechanism for Payment of Grassroots Immunization Personnel and Operations in Nigeria: 2004-2015.

Background. Following the 1988 World Health Assembly resolution to eradicate polio, the government of Nigeria, with support from partners, has been implementing several rounds of supplementary immunization activities (SIAs) each year. In addition to the technical requirements, the success of the polio eradication initiative depends on timely provision of adequate financial resources. Disbursement of funds for SIAs and payment of allowances to numerous vaccination personnel at the grassroots level are enormous operational challenges in a country the size of Nigeria. Upon donors' request for a transparent and effective payment mechanism, the World Health Organization (WHO), in consultation with national counterparts, created the innovative direct disbursement mechanism (DDM) in 2004. The objective of the DDM was to timely deploy operational funds at the field level and directly pay vaccination personnel allowances at the grassroots level.Methods. A detailed operational guideline for funds disbursement was developed in close consultation with central and field stakeholders. Multiyear financial resource requirements and operational budgets for every campaign were produced by an interagency-coordinated finance subcommittee. The WHO engaged a bank and an accounting firm as DDM partners to support disbursement of and accounting for the SIA funds, respectively. The 37 WHO field offices were equipped with electronic financial systems to support the DDM process, and temporary payment sites were set up to facilitate payment to vaccination personnel at the grassroots level. Coordination meetings among DDM partners were held regularly to reconcile financial records and address operational challenges.Results. Between 2004 and 2014, DDM supported 99 polio and nonpolio vaccination campaigns, disbursing more than $370 million to about 16 million beneficiaries across 280 temporary payment sites. To mitigate security risks and reduce operational costs, the WHO and DDM partners introduced mobile payment to vaccination personnel in May 2015 in compliance with national regulations. A total of 97% of the targeted 1871 beneficiaries in 2 pilot sites were successfully paid through mobile payment, although some challenges remain to be addressed.Discussion. The DDM has met its objectives with a high rate of financial accountability and transparency, despite persistent operational and security challenges. With support from Nigeria, the Pakistan polio vaccination program successfully adopted the DDM. The DDM continues to play an important role in effective implementation of the polio endgame strategy and the national immunization strategic plan. As part of polio legacy planning, we recommend the DDM as a model for other opportunities that involve the engagement of large field-level teams as new vaccines are introduced in Nigeria and elsewhere.

Budgeting Systems in the Strategic Management Accounting

Background: The purpose of the article is to investigate and determine the direction of development of budgeting, as well as to identify problems and solutions. Method: The dialectical method of cognition is a methodological basis of the study. We used general scientific methods of research, such as analysis and synthesis, classification, observation and generalization, logical historical, comprehensive and systematic approaches to the assessment of economic phenomena. The historical approach has allowed analyzing the process of budgeting through the prism of dialectic issues relating to the business patterns and in-process control. The application of a systematic and comprehensive approach to the problem required involving developments not only in business accounting, but also in economic analysis, operational and strategic management, economics, economic and mathematical modeling. Findings: The article considers the budgeting and management experience at the industrial enterprises of the leading countries worldwide. Particular attention is paid to the requirements of the British-American-Dutch and continental models. It was found that budgeting is an important supplier of information in management accounting, and its starting point. In the absence of a reasonable plan accounting, control and analysis lose all significance. Depending on the formulated management tasks budget classification has been proposed: general, private (operational or functional), flexible and static budgets. This task is solved by drawing up financial budgets. Operational budgets making the first block of the general budget may be 'tied' to the activities of an enterprise's particular segment. Thus, the sales budget plans the commercial department activities, the production budget determines activities of the company's production units, the administrative budget provides for expenses of management and administrative services. These budgets can be developed in any units of measurement - both in kind and in value terms. Budgeting of activities of the organization's segments is defined as a process of developing cost estimates for the individual business segments. The most appropriate stages of the budgeting process have been established, i.e., the study identified: budgeting objects, priority in the development of operating budgets, the composition and structure of the information covered by budgeting, financial consolidation of operational budgets, the persons involved in the budgeting process and responsible for it. Improvements: Using budgeting methods in the context of industrial segments will enable the organization to commensurate plans with the opportunities, which means to live within the income. The use of budgeting allows determining the company's future financial performance required to solve numerous administrative tasks.

دور اتفاقیة منظمة الصحة العالمیة الإطاریة لمکافحة التبغ فی حمایة الصحة والبیئة

تم وضع اتفاقية منظمة الصحة العالمية الإطارية بشأن مکافحة التبغ لسنة 2003 لغرض وقف وباء التبغ ومعالجة آثاره السلبية استنادا للقرائن العلمية التي أکدت بما لا يقبل الشک مدى خطورة زراعة التبغ وصناعته على الصحة العامة والبيئة، ولذلک حثت الاتفاقية أطرافها لاسيما الدول على تبني قواعدها وتنفيذها لمعالجة التعاطي المتزايد لمنتجات التبغ، وبخاصة في أوساط المراهقين والقصر، وما ينتج عن ذلک من مشاکل صحية واجتماعية واقتصادية تستلزم إيجاد البدائل وسبل للمعالجة تثقل کاهل الميزانيات المالية للدول خاصة النامية. وتکمن خطورة انتشار منتجات التبغ أنها تأخذ عدة أشکال وأنواع للترويج لغرض استهلاک منتجاتها المرتبطة بدوائر صناعية لها إمکانيات ضخمة تسعى لتحقيق أکبر قدر من الربح دون الالتفات لما تشکله هذه المنتجات من خطورة، وعلى هذا الأساس کان رد فعل الاتفاقية تبني عدة تدابير تهدف إلى الحد من انتشار منتجات التبغ وحماية المجتمع من دخان التبغ والقضاء على الاتجار غير المشروع، والتي تصب في إيجاد مستوى مقبول من الصحة، وکذلک حماية البيئة من مشاکل زراعة محاصيل التبغ وصناعة منتجاته التي أثبتت الوقائع والدراسات سببها في تدهور النظم البيئية؛ مما أدى إلى تلوث کثير من المناطق في العالم بفعل مخلفاتها السامة والحرائق التي حدثت. The development of the world health organization framework convention on tobacco control had set on 2003 on purpose to stop the tobacco epidemic, and the treatment of the negative effects on the basic of scientific evidence, which confirmed beyond any doubt how dangerous tobacco forming and industry to public health and the environment . Therefore, the convention encouraged her limbs, especially countries to adopt and enforce rules to cure the increasing abuse of tobacco product, especially among teenagers, and the resulting health, social and economic problems that require alternative and treating ways that put a big load on the financial budgets of countries, especially the developing ones . And the biggest of spreading of tobaccos products that it takes several forms and types to promote their products, for the purpose of consumption its products which associated with industrial entities that have huge possibilities that seek to achieve maximum profit without paying attention to the risk of these products. And on this basis, the reaction of the convention was to adopt several of the convention and several measures aimed of reducing the spreading of tobacco products, and protecting the society from tobacco smoke and stop illicit trafficking to find an acceptable level of health, also protect environment from the cultivation problems of tobacco crops and product that have proven the facts and studies that it cause degradation of ecosystems, which led to pollute many regions in the world by toxic waste and first that have occurred .

Screening the geomechanical stability (thermal and mechanical) of shared multi-user CO2 storage assets: A simple effective tool applied to the Captain Sandstone Aquifer

Multi-user storage systems are anticipated in the near future to permanently store CO2 captured at industrial sources to meet emissions reductions targets. Multiple storage permit applications will be required to exploit the immense potential capacity within extensive CO2 storage assets. To retain 99% of the injected CO2 for 1000 years the geomechanical stability of the sealing strata above the pressurised storage reservoir is a key factor which needs to be included in the geo-engineering design of shared storage assets The potential for interaction of increased pressure at multiple injection sites needs to be predicted and assessed at a regional scale to assure the integrity at all existing sites before a storage permit is granted. Geomechanical models coupled with the expected fluid pressure response predict the stability of the storage asset during and after injection of CO2 at multiple injection sites, and can be used as a tool to ensure efficient utilisation of the storage capacity. The geomechanical analysis of the thermal stress as well as local and regional fluid pressure changes requires a detailed numerical evaluation, often at a resolution significantly higher than the data available. Coupling of regional-scale static geological models, dynamic multi-phase flow models and detailed geomechanical models requires extensive computational resources. Such models often produce seemingly detailed results, but are usually only one or two realisations of a system populated by a statistically generated parameter set. Limits on time and computational resources prevent more simulations within fixed time and financial budgets. To enable a more time and cost efficient methodology of assessing the geomechanical stability of potential storage sites we present a four-tier modelling approach with increasing complexity that allows an in-depth evaluation of the geomechanical stability at a regional scale of a multi-user storage asset taking into account the fluid pressure increase and the thermal stress impact on the stability of the strata sealing the CO2 store. The tiers include: (1) development of a geo-mechanical facies model of the storage system, (2) development of an analytical geomechanical model for the storage site static stress conditions, (3) fitting an empirical multivariable polynomial function to the analytical modal, and (4) conditioning the empirical function using coupled numerical THM modelling for dynamic stress conditions. The result is look up function which gives the maximum possible fluid pressure as a function of location. This approach significantly simplifies the computational requirements and time for the prediction of geomechanical behaviour. In addition to presenting this methodology, using the Captain Sandstone of the North Sea as an example, three key findings are further examined. Firstly, detailed analysis of the stress changes as a result of cold fluid injection suggests that the redistribution of thermal stress can, in some cases, be beneficial to the storage system depending on the stress bridging which occurs. Secondly, pressure plume migration over time in dipping strata, from deeper injection sites to shallower sites, needs to be taken into account. Thirdly, the nature of the strata underlying the storage formation is critical to the pressure increase in response to the fluid injection. The methodology developed in this paper enables a rapid and efficient screening of the dynamic geomechanical stability and facilitates an efficient coupling to diverse discrete multiphase fluid flow models using commonly available computational resources.

Использование принципов МСФО в процессе совершенствования системы управления финансами и бюджетирования на предприятии

The essence of methodological approach to an enterprise’s income and expenses classifier development is
 revealed in this paper. This approach takes into account the fundamentals of international financial reporting
 standards (IFRS).
 Three factors that confirm the fundamental changes in financial management quality in Russia have been
 emphasized. The author accentuates that the changes quality strongly depends on company and industry
 size, but the financial management culture is developing rather unevenly. In Russia the unambiguous
 understanding of the term “real economy” hasn’t been created yet. In some non-production sectors, including
 the sports one, which is actively supported at the state level, the management quality is behind the large
 state companies. This fact provides a great field of research for young Russian scientists.
 In that regard, the evolution of IFRS in Russia is analyzed in this paper. Specific group of companies for
 which the reporting use question is critical. In the context of proposed in this work methodical approach to
 the development of financial items classifier for the company budgets, the author explains the difference
 between the principles of Russian and international financial accounting standards.
 It is stated that even today some of the IFRS principles can be used to improve the system of financial
 management and budgeting at the enterprises. The author describes the budgeting implementing process
 and notes possibilities for using the IFRS principles in the budgeting.
 The role of financial items classifier formation in the budgeting implementation process has been analyzed
 in this paper. A comparative analysis of budget’s revenue and expenditure versus budget’s cash flow in
 conjunction with the IFRS figures has been carried out.
 Interpretation of comparative analysis data allows see the reasons for discrepancies between profit and
 cash flow. The comparative analysis results have been presented as a summary table. Logical structure and
 principles of items grouping are the basis for formation of unified chart of accounts for the enterprise, as well
 as for operational and financial budgets development.

The effect of agency budgets on minimizing greenhouse gas emissions from road rehabilitation policies

Transportation agencies are being urged to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One possible solution within their scope is to alter their pavement management system to include environmental impacts. Managing pavement assets is important because poor road conditions lead to increased fuel consumption of vehicles. Rehabilitation activities improve pavement condition, but require materials and construction equipment, which produce GHG emissions as well. The agency’s role is to decide when to rehabilitate the road segments in the network. In previous work, we sought to minimize total societal costs (user and agency costs combined) subject to an emissions constraint for a road network, and demonstrated that there exists a range of potentially optimal solutions (a Pareto frontier) with tradeoffs between costs and GHG emissions. However, we did not account for the case where the available financial budget to the agency is binding. This letter considers an agency whose main goal is to reduce its carbon footprint while operating under a constrained financial budget. A Lagrangian dual solution methodology is applied, which selects the optimal timing and optimal action from a set of alternatives for each segment. This formulation quantifies GHG emission savings per additional dollar of agency budget spent, which can be used in a cap-and-trade system or to make budget decisions. We discuss the importance of communication between agencies and their legislature that sets the financial budgets to implement sustainable policies. We show that for a case study of Californian roads, it is optimal to apply frequent, thin overlays as opposed to the less frequent, thick overlays recommended in the literature if the objective is to minimize GHG emissions. A promising new technology, warm-mix asphalt, will have a negligible effect on reducing GHG emissions for road resurfacing under constrained budgets.

An Overview of the Occupational Safety and Health Systems of Nigeria, UK, USA, Australia and China: Nigeria Being the Reference Case Study

This paper reviews the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) frameworks of Nigeria, UK, USA, Australia and China considering Nigeria as a representative developing country. The study looks at each of the five OSH regulatory and enforcement models against a range of performance themes with a view to uncovering strategic lessons for Nigeria and other developing nations. The study identifies some of the potential drivers behind the developments of the different OSH management frameworks. These drivers include robustness of the OSH laws, efficiency of the judicial system, degree of independence of the OSH enforcement agency, adequacy of financial budgets, good workforce-inspector ratio, accident history and activities of the civil/human right groups. Even though Nigeria is used as a reference case study, the observations and conclusions drawn are generic and applicable to typical developing countries. The paper may also be found beneficial by researchers looking to have a high level view of the OSH management frameworks of Nigeria, UK, USA, Australia and China. Although Nigeria is working to implement a new and more comprehensive OSH law, i.e. the Labour, Safety, Health and Welfare (LSHW) Bill (2012), this paper does not assess Nigeria’s current OSH standing against the provisions of LSHW Bill which is yet to be rolled out. (The second part of this bipartite series will address some of the key structural and potential implementation issues surrounding LSHW Bill).

How Competitive Evolutionary Dynamics First Created then Ruined Windsurfing

This paper investigates a competitive evolutionary process we call ‘innovation overshooting’ in equipment-based sports, using windsurfing as a case study. New sports, in particular equipment-based lifestyle sports, can experience a rapid rise in popularity but eventually technology-driven competition leads to equipment overshooting the capabilities and financial budgets of most users. This Schumpeterian market process leads to a decline in participation and the eventual collapse of the market for the sport's equipment. Models of endogenous overshooting are established in the study of finance and business cycles, and have recently been extended to the music and design industry. We extend this model to the sports equipment sector finding clear evidence of evolutionary competitive technological and market overshooting.

Ensuring Accountability and Transparency at Local Level Finance: A Study from Sylhet Sadar Upazila

This study examines the degree of accountability and transparency of local level finance in three unions (Khadim Nagor Union, Khandigaon Union and Tuker Bazar Union) of Sylhet Sadar Upazila. It is based on interviews and focus group discussions with general people and government representatives, as well as a detailed review of the existing literature. The study found that local government institutions in Bangladesh are very weak in providing basic services to the citizens and in promoting good governance to their constituencies due to a variety of constraints, including a lack of revenues, a low level of human capital in the local government bodies, the absence of participatory decision-making, and the lack accountability and transparency. The existing problems in transparency and accountability at local level finance are interrelated to a lack of people’s participation in the budgeting process and weak monitoring mechanism. The study recommends that (1) local authority should have enough power to generate revenue and to exercise financial autonomy, which also implies that grants from the government should be adequate, (2) every work area should be independently audited and supervised by the central government, and (3) there needs to be far more dissemination of local financial budgets.

Sustainability of the Public Health Service in Spain: An Approach to Governance

The health system sustainability is a key topic in Spain’s political debates. What a sustainable heath system should be poses a big concern for citizens and politicians. Foremost for managers and political actors, to ascertain the right way to build a good mid- and large-term finan cial model of sustainability is critical as well. However, to link exclusively the financial sustainability of the health system with a political objective could be a limited overview. Issues that affect the national health system have an impact on the entire society and its processes and activities result in environmental externalities. The analysis focuses on the triple bottom line: economic, social and environmental; displaying a wider view of the Spanish health models and their future strategies. Likewise, it needs to be understood whether the concept of sustainability goes beyond the economical concerns in the plans of the health authority and their financial budgets, and come to terms with the expectations of citizens and the political speech, considering that the health budgets of Spain and other OECD countries show a weakness point in this regard. This article analyzes the challenges of the health system and its critical points from the perspective of the health authority.

Decision Logics by Nurse Leaders: A Case Study of the Use of Accounting Information in a British Columbia Health Authority

The role of surgical nurse leaders within the health system of British Columbia is relatively unique. For, in addition to important medical issues, they are also largely responsible for financial budgets, output targets and key performance Indicators. The research determines insights as to how management accounting and related information systems influence surgical nurse leaders’ decision logics and their interactions with surgeons and other surgical professionals.The research employs a case-study using primarily semi-structured interviews and documentation review. Two theoretical frames are deployed for the research. The first is Institutional Theory as a possible trans-disciplinary explanation that challenges rational decision making. The second is Actor-Network Theory with the possibility that “networks” may supplement, sustain or collapse institutional forms.Key findings point to the limited accountability of surgeons and the importance of a selective range of surgical output incentives including a “fee for service” regimen of remuneration. Where common interests are established, persuasive power, judiciously applied by nurse leaders was found to significantly influence the medical practices of surgeons.The scope of the research was tempered by the relatively modest inputs from surgeons and surgical leaders. A more comprehensive study with greater input from surgeons would likely be more revealing and informative.Resource pressures on B.C. Health Authorities are intense and increasing. The research informs policy makers responsible for the design of cost controls, output incentives and key performance Indicators.

The “squeezed middle” on the Dutch housing market: how and where is it to be found?

New regulations on the allocation of social housing recently came into effect in the Netherlands as a result of a state-support complaint filed by institutional investors to the European Commission. At least 90 % of vacant social housing dwellings has to be allocated to households with a yearly income of less than €34,000. This has caused concerns about the availability of housing among (lower-)middle-income households. They can no longer access social housing, and due to the prevalence of social housing and the fiscal favoring of owner-occupied housing, the affordable private rented sector is almost absent in the Netherlands. Thus, currently they rely on the owner-occupied housing market with their restricted financial budgets and might lose out. This study substantiates this assumed “squeezed middle” problem with empirical data for housing regions in the Netherlands. The adopted spatial analysis method shows to what extent and where lower-middle-income households have access to homeownership in the Netherlands, and how the “squeezed middle” varies among the Dutch regional housing markets. The spatial analysis indicates that in some regions, there indeed is a group of middle-income households that is “squeezed.” Yet, the study also reveals that the problem might be more qualitative than quantitative in nature: households may not be able or willing to trade-off location for access to more affordable or more appropriate housing.

Cordaid’s Post-Disaster Shelter Strategy in Haiti: Linking Relief and Development

Haiti was struck by a heavy earthquake in 2010 and international aid poured into the country. News reports in 2011 were not very positive about the results of post-disaster reconstruction: “The relief efforts are only putting Haiti on life-support instead of evolving into the next stage of development”. One of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in Haiti was Cordaid, implementing a ‘transitional shelter strategy’ to support the transformation of neigh-bourhoods from a state of life-support into a state of self-sustaining development. The strategy was implemented in both a rural and an urban area. The main feature of the strategy was the provision of structures that could be adapted from simple shelters to permanent houses. Since the results of the strategy were mixed and ambiguous, a comparative case study was conducted to evaluate the shelter strategy in both areas. The objective was to draw lessons about what has to be taken into account when formulating future urban shelter strategies. The case study is discussed in this article. The main finding from the case study is that producing the intended number of shelters within the financial and time budgets that were set (efficiency), was more difficult in the urban area than in the rural area. But the conditions for linking relief and development (effectiveness) are more favourable in the urban context. NGOs may achieve long-term (effective) results in the urban context when a lower efficiency can be justified. That is why NGOs need to engage in a debate about the extent to which they are able to focus on long-term shelter or housing strategies. The important element in the debate is communication with the donors who are often focused on short-term relief measures. However urban areas cannot be rebuilt with only short-term interventions. The link between relief and development has to be made by a process-orientated approach focusing on capacities of local participants.

A GLOBAL FACTOR IN CONTEMPORARY ART CURATOR

The manner of reflection of the socio-economic factors coming along with the global capitalist system on “art and society” relationships in line with the current trends of contemporary art in 20th century resulted in the perception of “curatorship” as a new profession both nationally and internationally. The purpose of organizing contemporary art related projects “institutionally” with higher financial budgets as a principle underlies expositions having curators that have started to emerge as of 1980s in plastic arts. Except for the fact that contemporary art related organizations are sponsored with institutional supports, the way of actualization of these practices has paved the way for quite a few discussions in terms of content in art circles. In this essay, the starting point shall be museum environment which constitutes the fundamental basis of curatorial production by researching the relationships that curatorial organizations establish with the global capitalism. In the onward sections, critical approaches existing in the art environment shall be attempted to be presented from the point of this subject’s current significance. Furthermore, socio-cultural and socio-political dimensions of the problems ascertained regarding the subject shall be emphasized and an objective conclusion shall be attempted to be reached concerning the situation curatorship is in. Keywords: Contemporary art, Globalism, Capitalism, Curator, Critic

The obstacles facing scientific and medical publishing in Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVESMedical and scientific publishing in Saudi Arabia has flourished in the last ten years. Such a form of publishing faces its own obstacles and the experience of the Annals of Saudi Medicine if analyzed can delineate such obstacles. The aim of this study is to identify the workflow obstacles facing the Annals of Saudi Medicine.METHODSRoot-cause analysis of the workflow process and output from submission till publication for the period January 2012–December 2013. Key performance indicators were developed and analyzed after being extracted from the online submission system.RESULTSFor the period of the study, 1058 manuscripts were received annually. These manuscripts originated in descending order from: Saudi Arabia 34%, Turkey 16%, India 12%, China 8% and Western Countries 3%. Categories of the submissions were: original articles 53%, case reports 31% and others 16%. Only 103 of the submissions were accepted annually for publication. Out of 7,709 requests to review a manuscript, only 1,579 (20%) resulted in a review. Out of a sample of 744 rated reviews, only 10% were poor in quality. The average turnaround time for review was 79 days. The main reason for the delay was the low response of the reviewers.CONCLUSIONThe Annals of Saudi Medicine is a regional or continental journal with substantial submissions as case reports. This affected its Impact Factor and Hirsch Index. Moreover, the review process is delayed due to the poor response of the reviewers.

The global standardization of regional disaster risk management

Natural disasters have become a heightened security issue in the last decade. Mitigating and responding to disasters, such as the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia and the 2011 earthquake in Japan, reflect a new security agenda that has spread across the globe and infiltrated most regional organizations. At first glance, the creation of regional programmes on disaster risk management (DRM) appears to be driven by the functional preferences of states. However, a comparison of ten regional organizations reveals some curious ambiguities. Despite different threat perceptions, financial budgets and geographical environments of regional organizations, a majority of states have formed DRM programmes that exhibit highly standardized features in terms of language, the referent points of protection and the apparent motivations for cooperation. World society theory is used to explain these striking similarities with reference to the global cultural system. This article also illustrates the analytical purchase of world society theory in understanding cooperation through regional organizations.

Applying value of information methods to prioritize elements for water quality management with an example of linear alkylbenzene sulfonate in the Yodo River, Japan

Narrowing the decision space is crucial in water quality management at the meso-scale for developing countries, where a lack of data and financial budgets prevent the development of appropriate management plans and result in serious water quality degradation in many rivers. In this study, a framework for handling this task is proposed, comprising a lumped water quality model, with sensitivity and uncertainty analyses, and a management domain, including loss estimation and value of information analysis. Through a case study with linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) in the Yodo River, it is found that non-point sources and flow rate are factors that influence LAS concentration at the hot spot location. By considering the entire process of water quality management planning, we identify that the definition of the cost function of LAS treatment determines the appropriate estimation for the expected loss in reducing LAS under uncertain water quality conditions. The value of information analysis with “expected value of including uncertainty” and “expected value of perfect information” further helps estimate the benefit of including uncertainty in decision-making and the financial cost for obtaining more information regarding inputs that have been previously prioritized.

Optimal Multistage PMU Placement for Wide-Area Monitoring

This paper proposes a novel optimization model to maximize the power system observability by placing phasor measurement units (PMUs) in a multistage manner. The problem is constrained by the financial budgets available at each installation stage. The budget may be spent on purchasing and installing new PMUs and relocating PMUs already installed in the power system. This problem is very difficult to solve when the problem size becomes big. Therefore, a newly developed meta-heuristic, called chemical reaction optimization (CRO), is used to solve this optimal multistage PMU placement problem (OMPP), and numerical studies are carried out on the IEEE 57-bus, 118-bus, and 300-bus systems.