Initial Budget Research Articles

Revisiting Bayesian optimization in the light of the COCO benchmark

It is commonly believed that Bayesian optimization (BO) algorithms are highly efficient for optimizing numerically costly functions. However, BO is not often compared to widely different alternatives, and is mostly tested on narrow sets of problems (multimodal, low-dimensional functions), which makes it difficult to assess where (or if) they actually achieve state-of-the-art performance. Moreover, several aspects in the design of these algorithms vary across implementations without a clear recommendation emerging from current practices, and many of these design choices are not substantiated by authoritative test campaigns. This article reports a large investigation about the effects on the performance of (Gaussian process based) BO of common and less common design choices. The experiments are carried out with the established COCO (COmparing Continuous Optimizers) software. It is found that a small initial budget, a quadratic trend, high-quality optimization of the acquisition criterion bring consistent progress. Using the GP mean as an occasional acquisition contributes to a negligible additional improvement. Warping degrades performance. The Mat\'ern 5/2 kernel is a good default but it may be surpassed by the exponential kernel on irregular functions. Overall, the best EGO variants are competitive or improve over state-of-the-art algorithms in dimensions less or equal to 5 for multimodal functions. The code developed for this study makes the new version (v2.1.1) of the R package DiceOptim available on CRAN. The structure of the experiments by function groups allows to define priorities for future research on Bayesian optimization.

Determinants and Consequences of Budget Reallocations*

ABSTRACTWe investigate the determinants and consequences of budget reallocations—that is, corrective changes to the budget made during the year. Using proprietary data from a large consumer goods manufacturer, we analyze the extent to which initial budgeting decisions drive reallocations. Examining this relationship is important because initial budget negotiations are often troubled by power struggles and politicking, which may give rise to the need for reallocations. We hypothesize that one important driver of reallocation decisions is the firm's aim to correct systematic deviations from the optimal initial budget that were driven by lobbying during the initial budgeting process. We find evidence that is consistent with this prediction. In a more exploratory analysis, we show that reallocations do not have the desired effects on market performance. In particular, budget cuts are negatively associated with a product's change in market share. More surprisingly, while budget increases do help product lines achieve their sales targets in the last quarter, they do not boost market share. Our results demonstrate that efficient investment planning is essential to achieve an improvement in market performance.

Deciding when to quit the gambler's ruin game with unknown probabilities

In the standard definition of the classical gambler's ruin game, a persistent player enters in a stochastic process with an initial budget b0, which is, round after round, either increased by 1 with probability p, or decreased by 1 with probability 1−p. The player wins the game if the budget reaches a given objective value g, and loses the game if the budget drops to zero (the gambler is ruined). This article introduces the decisional gambling process, where the parameter p is hidden, and the player has the possibility to stop the game at any round keeping earnings. In this case, the best a player can do is to maintain an estimate of p based on the observed outcomes, and use it to decide whether is better to stay or quit the game. The main contribution of this article is to bring the question of finding the optimal stopping time to the gambler's ruin game. Different heuristics are analyzed and evaluated according to their performance in maximizing the gambler's expected final budget.

Surrogate-based sequential Bayesian experimental design using non-stationary Gaussian Processes

Inferring arbitrary quantities of interest (QoI) using limited computational or, in realistic scenarios, financial budgets, is a challenging problem that requires sophisticated strategies for the optimal allocation of the available resources. Bayesian optimal experimental design identifies the optimal set of design locations for the purpose of solving a parameter inference problem and the optimality criterion is typically associated with maximizing the worth of information in the experimental measurements. Sequential design strategies further identify the optimal design in a sequential manner, starting from a initial budget and iteratively selecting new optimal points until either an accuracy threshold is reached, or a cost limit is exceeded. In this paper, we present a generic sequential Bayesian experimental design framework that relies on maximizing an information theoretic design criterion, namely the Expected Information Gain, in order to infer QoIs formed as nonlinear operators acting on black-box functions. Our framework relies on modeling the underlying response function using non-stationary Gaussian Processes, thus enabling efficient sampling from the QoI in order to provide Monte Carlo estimators for the design criterion. We demonstrate the performance of our method on an engineering problem of steel wire manufacturing and compare it with two classic approaches: uncertainty sampling and expected improvement.

Looking At The User Side Of Software Engineering For Project Success

As a general definition, software engineering is “the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.” The importance of user-related factors has long been recognized by various researchers as important to the successful implementation of any commercially available system. This study attempts to test the importance of these factors as determinants of software engineering project success as measured by adherence to specified requirements, compliance with initial budget estimations, timeliness of agreed delivery, and overall user satisfaction with the product delivered. It has brought together some user-related variables (degree of user participation, user expertise, user/developer communication, user training, user influence, and user conflict) previously studied separately by different authors into a more cohesive model. Data regarding 178 system development projects using software engineering methodologies has been used to test proposed relationships between the independent variables and project success as defined in this study. The results confirm the importance of user participation, training, expertise, user/developer communication, and lack of user conflict for improving project success.

Initiative budgeting: foreign experience and Russian specifics

Initiative budgeting: foreign experience and Russian specifics

Experience of the regions of the Siberian federal district in the field of initiative budgeting. Part 3

The publication, consisting of three parts, analyzes the experience of implementing participatory and initiative budgeting in the regions of the Siberian Federal District (SFD), which are participants in the Project of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and the World Bank «Development of initiative budgeting in the Russian Federation». The first part of this publication is devoted to the analysis of the experience of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the second part is devoted to the development of initiative budgeting in the Altai Territory and the Irkutsk Region. This section of the publication (the third part) it is devoted to the implementation of the practice of initiative budgeting in the Novosibirsk region.

Budget‐aware scheduling algorithms for scientific workflows with stochastic task weights on infrastructure as a service Cloud platforms

SummaryThis paper introduces several budget‐aware algorithms to deploy scientific workflows on Infrastructure as a Service Cloud platforms, where users can request Virtual Machines (VMs) of different types, each with specific cost and computing resources. We use a realistic application/platform model with stochastic task weights, and VMs communicating through a Cloud storage. We extend two well‐known algorithms, MinMin and HEFT, and make scheduling decisions based upon machine availability and remaining budget. During the mapping process, the budget‐aware algorithms make conservative assumptions to avoid exceeding the initial budget; we further improve the results with refined versions that aim at rescheduling some tasks onto faster VMs, thereby spending any budget fraction leftover by the first allocation. These refined variants are much more time‐consuming than the former algorithms, so there is a trade‐off to find in terms of scalability. We report an extensive set of simulations with workflows from the Pegasus benchmark suite. Most of the time, our budget‐aware algorithms succeed in achieving efficient makespans while enforcing the given budget, and this despite the uncertainty in task weights.

ПРИВЛЕЧЕНИЕ ГРАЖДАН К ПРОЦЕССУ БЛАГОУСТРОЙСТВА ОБЩЕСТВЕННЫХ ТЕРРИТОРИЙ

Abstract. The study examines the experience of participatory budgeting in Russia. The application of this approach to the distribution of municipal budgetary funds allows us to take into account the needs of the population in the field of improvement of the urban environment. In regional projects of initiative budgeting, various tools are used to involve citizens, which can ensure their maximum participation in the process of allocating budget funds for initiatives. The use of digital technologies makes it possible to organise the process of participatory budgeting more understandable for the population and increase the efficiency of projects.

Financing capital-constrained third party logistic firms: fourth party logistic driven financing mode vs. private lending driven financing mode

The accounts payable payment period for transportation costs is usually less than the accounts receivable cycle for transportation fees for a third-party logistic (3PL) firm in China; hence, a capital-constrained 3PL firm has a strong demand to seek credit loans from some competitive lenders (e.g., fourth-party logistic [4PL] firm or private lending [PL] organization). To investigate the attractiveness and effectiveness of different financing modes, two practical financing modes (4PL-driven and PL-driven) and an improved 4PL-driven financing mode are formulated in this work. We present a game-theoretical approach to investigate the equilibria based on the profile functions among 4PL firm (or PL), 3PL firm, supplier and retailer under different financing modes. We find that (1) the practical 4PL-driven financing mode will be the Pareto-dominant financing mode for 3PL firms, suppliers and retailers when the initial budget of the 3PL firm falls below a certain level. (2) The 4PL firm's profit is always higher when using the improved 4PL-driven financing mode. (3) The 4PL firm should use the practical 4PL-driven financing mode for start-up 3PL firms to support their growth; but when they grow to a certain scale, the 4PL firm should use the improved 4PL-driven financing mode to enhance its profit.

243 Effects of Initial Nursery Diet Budget on Growth Performance of 5.5- to 23-kg Pigs

Abstract An experiment was conducted to determine the effects of the initial nursery diet budget on growth performance. A total of 3,264 pigs (initial BW = 5.5 kg), placed in pens with 51 pigs each, were used in a 45-d trial. There were 4 treatments consisting of different feed budgets of the initial nursery diet: 4.1 kg, 5.4 kg, 6.8 kg, or 8.2 kg. The experimental diet was corn, soybean meal, and whey permeate-based and contained 1.38% SID Lys. After the allocated budget was consumed, pigs were provided a common corn and soybean meal-based diet. There were 16 replicates per treatment. Pigs were weighed weekly to calculate ADG, ADFI, and G:F. Data were analyzed with SAS MIXED procedure. In the first 14 d of the trial there was no evidence for differences (P > 0.10) in growth performance as all pigs were receiving their allocated budget of the initial diet. From d 14 to 21 as well as d 0 to 21, pigs that received a budget of 6.8 or 8.2 kg had improved ADG (quadratic, P < 0.05) and G:F (linear, P < 0.05) compared to those fed budgets of 4.1 or 5.4 kg. From d 21 to 45, when all pigs received a common diet, there was no evidence for differences (P > 0.10) in ADG. However, there was a linear response (P < 0.05) in G:F, with pigs previously fed the lowest feed budget presenting improved G:F. Overall (d 0 to 45), there was an improvement (linear, P < 0.05) in ADG and ADFI as feed budgets increased, with the best performance observed when pigs were fed 6.8 or 8.2 kg of the initial nursery diet. In conclusion, providing a 6.8 or 8.2 kg budget of the initial nursery diet resulted in improved overall nursery performance.

How to Change a Running System—Controlling the Transition to Optimized Spare Parts Inventory Policies

Inventory optimization approaches typically optimize steady‐state performance, but do not consider the transition of an initial state to the optimized state. In this study, we address this transition. Our research is motivated by a company that implemented an improved inventory policy for its spare parts division. The improved policy suggested new base stock levels for the majority of the parts. For parts with increased base stock levels, inventory increases were realized after the part lead times, but for low‐demand parts with decreased base stock levels, inventory reductions were slow. As a result, inventory cost increased over the first months after the new inventory policy had been introduced and exceeded the inventory budget substantially. To avoid such undesirable effects, base stock level changes must be phased in. We consider a multi‐item spare parts inventory system, initially operating under an item approach inventory policy that achieves identical fill rates for all parts. Our approach addresses the transition to a superior system approach inventory policy that maximizes the system fill rate. We model the inventory transition as a finite‐horizon optimization problem and apply column generation and a marginal analysis heuristic to determine transient base stock levels for all parts. Using data from the company that motivated our research, we illustrate how the transition can be controlled to quickly improve fill rates without exceeding the initial inventory budget.

Magma dehydration controls the energy of recent eruptions at Mt. Etna volcano

AbstractOlivine‐hosted melt inclusions (MIs) from tephra of the recent 2013–2018 activity at Mt. Etna were investigated for assessing the chemical evolution of magmas and quantifying their pre‐eruptive volatile budget. Microanalyses revealed two types of MIs present in all investigated eruptions; the inclusions, particularly the less evolved ones, appear to have experienced water loss coupled with SiO2 depletion. Restoration of the original SiO2‐H2O concentrations provides consistency with the thermodynamic modelling of magma evolution. The two types of MIs developed during crystallization of olivine plus clinopyroxene between 200 and 100 MPa, where magmas also experienced CO2 flushing. Degassing processes at these levels are responsible for water depletion in the melt and diffusive water loss from inclusions. Our data suggest that initial water budget is unchanged all over the last 20 years, reflecting therefore a potential in triggering highly explosive eruptions depending on degassing dynamics under open versus closed system conditions at shallow levels.

PROSPECTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING IN THE ALTAI REGION

A promising direction for solving the problems of improving life in rural areas is the implementation of the Local Initiatives Support Project, which is the most common and popular practice of initiative budgeting on the whole territory of Russian Federation.
 The theoretical basis of participatory budgeting is the republican theory of the organization of society and participatory democracy, which assumes a decentralized collective decision-making that affects the life of the community.
 The article considers the history of the development of participatory budgeting in the world, the Russian Federation and the Altai Region in particular, describes the applied procedure of initiative budgeting, and analyzes the implementation of the Local Initiatives Support Project on the example of the Kosikhinsky district, Altai Region.
 The performed researches indicate the expansion of the practice of realization the LISP in the Altai Territory.
 But already at this stage the authors note the need to improve relations between the project participants and suggest using the experience of implementing the adapted methodology developed by the European University in St. Petersburg and the Committee of Civil Initiatives in the cities of Cherepovets (Vologda region) and Sosnovy Bor (Leningrad region) for this purpose.

The New Hotel Development Project Life Cycle - Doing the Right New Hotel Project Holistically, and Doing it the Right Way

Based on previous research, the authors know that nowadays, new hotel developers in Asia typically appoint interdependent – but non-integrated – separate entities during various phases of their projects, to make the business case, and to design, build, open and operate each new hotel asset. Consequently, important opportunities for integration and synergistic improvements between phases in new hotel development projects can be missed. There are inherent inefficiencies and crucial conflicts of interest in this approach, which inevitably lead to difficulties and problems during and after the project. Previous studies have also demonstrated the root causes and consequences of poorly planned and executed new hotel opening projects, where time delays of multiple months and multi-million US dollar cost overruns against the initial project budget goals, coupled with massive opportunity costs, are the norm. In this paper, the authors introduce a well-defined project framework that hospitality asset owners and developers can follow, in order to avoid these problems and develop their new hotels efficiently and effectively. It also illustrates how this framework can be used to understand project costs and shed new light on how to develop new hotels cost effectively. There is surprisingly little research literature on these important topics. To ensure an optimal outcome is achieved, this paper advocates that all phases of this New Hotel Development Project Life Cycle must be considered holistically, in order to ensure coordinated planning and execution of project activities in each phase, and integration of the interdependencies across all phases.

Understanding Resource Allocation Processes in Social Care for Frail Older People: Lessons from a National Survey

Context: Traditionally local authorities in England allocated resources in social care following a professional assessment of need and a costed care plan. With the introduction of personal budgets, resource allocation tools have been used to provide service users with an initial indicative budget for their care. This is promoted as being more transparent, equitable and giving people greater control over decisions about their care. Objective: This study examined the different approaches to resource allocation and the content of resource allocation tools used for social care in England. Methods: Information was obtained from local authorities about their resource allocation systems. An analytic framework was developed and applied to the tools to explore: who identified needs; whether informal and formal support were recorded; and whether 17 need indicators covering functional status, mental health, and health and wellbeing were present and in what detail. Findings: Ninety-one per cent of 152 authorities responded and 61 per cent of authorities’ tools were analysed. Three approaches were identified: points-based self-assessment tools; standardised assessment data (FACE); and non-points-based/ready reckoner tools. Most authorities used a points-based self-assessment tool. All tools included the service user’s views and a high proportion included a professional’s view, while fewer covered the carer’s view on need. Coverage and presence of detail for the 17 need indicators showed high variation and was least on points-based self-assessment tools. Limitations: The study is the first to examine a large sample of resource allocation tools and provides a valuable baseline for future work. However, non-points-based/ready reckoner tools were under-represented in the sample. Implications: Further research could build upon this study to examine key properties of the tools used such as reliability, validity, sensitivity and specificity; and explore their impact upon service users and staff in terms of time use, cost, utility and equity.

Safety Cost Estimation of Building Construction with Fuzzy Logic and Artificial Neural Network

The number of cases of construction work accidents continues to increase every year. To prevent work accidents, especially the fatality rate, Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) must be implemented in the construction project. Implementation of OHS can be a success if the availability of the budget is allocated explicitly for implementing OHS in construction projects. However, respondents’ current OHS budget is currently insufficient when referring to the guidelines regarding OHS costs applied in Indonesia. This condition will increase the initial budget and cause financial losses. So it is necessary to develop a cost estimation model that can estimate costs quickly and accurately. The results from this study will help estimator make OHS cost estimates quickly and accurately so that an estimator does not need a long time to do cost estimations at the beginning of the project, and the results of the estimated cost estimates are accurate. The fuzzy method uses to classify the contract value. The output of the fuzzy process will use as input in learning with the neural network. The Mean Absolute Percentage Error of tested data set for the adapted model is highly accurate (9.906%). The model obtained has a better MAPE value than the estimated cost by using regression analysis.

Energy, Economic, and Environmental Performance of a Single-Family House in Chile Built to Passivhaus Standard

The energy consumption of buildings accounts for 22% of total global energy use and 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In this context, this study aims to evaluate the energy, economic, and environmental performance of housing in Chile built according to the Passivhaus (PH) standard. The standard was applied to housing in eight representative climate zones with a single-family residence as reference. The analysis incorporated passive strategies, which are considered as pillars of the PH. The energy performance was analyzed using the Passive House Planning Package software (PHPP), version 9.6a. The results showed that when every passive strategy is implemented, the heating energy demand decreases by 93%, while the refrigeration demand is nonexistent. These results were achieved through a 37% increase in the overall initial budget investment, which will be amortized over an 11-year period. In this way, the primary energy consumption is reduced by 32% and, correspondingly, CO2 emissions are reduced by 39%. In modern Chile, it is difficult (but not impossible) to incorporate PH. However, governmental programs and aids could represent an initial step. Therefore, this research will help to identify strategies for incorporating PH in Chile, with the aim of improving the energy performance of housing.

РОЛЬ МЕХАНИЗМА ПАРТИСИПАТОРНОГО БЮДЖЕТИРОВАНИЯ В РАЗВИТИИ СЕЛЬСКИХ ТЕРРИТОРИЙ (НА ПРИМЕРЕ РОСТОВСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ)

Purpose: to determine the level of involvement and the effectiveness of the participation of rural settlements of municipal districts in regional programs of initiative budgeting. Materials and methods. The methodological basis of this research is dialectical, formal-logical, statistical methods. The empirical basis of the study was made up of data from the reports of the Center for Initiative Budgeting of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, the Federal State Statistics Service for Rostov Region, the results of the regional competition of initiative budgeting projects and reports of the regional government on their implementation. Results. The region has developed a legislative and regulatory framework for the initiative budgeting development. The diagnostics of the participatory budgeting development in rural areas of Rostov region is presented: the sources and amounts of initiative projects financing of villages and cities are determined, the ratio of the participating in the competition and the winning projects of rural settlements of municipal districts is determined, the amount of financing of initiative projects from the local budget per one villager is determined. The ratings of the municipal districts of Rostov region for 2020 and 2021 have been prepared by the level of activity of rural settlements and the effectiveness of their participation in initiative budgeting projects. Conclusions: the key factors hindering the development of civic participation of villagers in public finance management have been identified: low level of institutional trust of the rural population, insufficient social activity of villagers in resolving issues of local importance, significant income differentiation of rural and urban residents, low income of local budgets, insufficient competencies of local governments for the preparation of initiative projects. Improving the participatory budgeting mechanism in the region will have positive consequences for socio-economic development of rural areas.

Seeing is Believing: The Impact of Buyers’ Onsite Viewing Activities on Housing Transactions

Buyers’ onsite viewing activities reveal important information about their housing demands, yet empirically we know little about their impact on transaction outcomes. Using a unique proprietary dataset which includes 4,397,652 onsite viewing records and 621,040 transaction outcomes from the largest real estate agency in China, we find that buyers who are more active in onsite viewings are associated with higher deal likelihood and high purchase prices in completed deals. Also, they tend to exceed their initial budgets and end up buying units with larger sizes and more rooms than their initial plan. Further, the impact of buyers’ onsite viewing activities on deal likelihood and overpayment is stronger in a thin market with fewer housing supplies. To establish causality, we exploit exogenous variations in onsite house viewings caused by national basketball games as attention distractions in our instrumental variable analysis, and find consistent results.