Spending Money Research Articles

The Impact of Covid-19 on the State Audit in the Republic of North Macedonia - Lessons from the Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has left no area in the society that has not been affected. For auditing the spending of public money, especially in times of uncertainties imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the state audit is a crucial factor, hence the synonym for state audit is "watchdog of public money". The activities related to the state audit in the Republic of North Macedonia are performed by the State Audit Office (SAO), as the Supreme Audit Institution. This paper attempts to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the state audit in the Republic of North Macedonia, through the state auditors' perception of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the dynamics and the scope of SAO activities, with a special focus on ethical dilemmas and expectations for the post-covid period and what have the state auditors specifically learned from the crisis. For that purpose, a structured and detailed survey was submitted to all state auditors in the Republic of North Macedonia, covering all aspects of the audit process, the independence of the State Audit Office, changes in the environment, and the post-covid period. The obtained answers are analyzed through `descriptive statistics` and `analysis of variance`. In general, it can be concluded that the state auditors have retained their independence and the quality of conducting audits during the pandemic.

Defining Conjunto Quantitatively: Classical and Modernist Styles in a Texas-Mexican Genre

Defining <i>Conjunto</i> Quantitatively: Classical and Modernist Styles in a Texas-Mexican Genre

Prevalence of Cigarette Smoking and Influence of Associated Factors among Students of the University of Banja Luka: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background and Objectives: Cigarette smoking among the youth population has increased significantly in developing countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, no extant literature assesses the prevalence of tobacco use, nor identifies factors associated with smoking. This study determined the prevalence of cigarette smoking among a specific cohort of students and assessed factors related to tobacco use in this population. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 1200 students at all faculties of Banja Luka University. Data were collected from questionnaires adapted from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) and the Global Health Professional Student Survey (GHPSS) standardized questionnaires and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s χ2 test, and logistic regression. Results: When the prevalence of cigarette smoking within the last thirty days was recorded, we found that 34.1% of students smoked within this period. Nearly three-quarters (74.9%) of the student population had smoked or experimented with cigarette smoking. However, medical students were 27.2% less likely to smoke than their counterparts from other faculties. Overall, 87% of all students were aware of the harmful effects of cigarette smoking, 79% were aware of the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, and 65% reported that it was difficult to quit. Increased spending of personal money was associated with a higher probability of smoking, while exposure to secondhand smoke increased the odds of smoking by 62%. Conclusion: Policies, strategies, and action plans should be introduced in order to reduce the prevalence of smoking among university students and to create a smoke-free environment at the various universities involved.

Work and active aging: is there a relationship between health and meaning in life?

PurposeThis study aims to explain the health impact of work demands and organization, job content, leadership and values in the workplace. It also explores the extent to which health conditions influence the meaning in life in late career.Design/methodology/approachThe sample consisted of 1,330 Portuguese-based individuals aged 55–75 years. The structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for the data analysis and to test the research questions.FindingsThe results showed that stress and burnout are influenced by work demands and organization, job content, leadership and values in the workplace. Employment status had no influence. Health status affects the meaning in life.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough participants were asked to answer the questionnaire bearing in mind their last work experience, retirees could have had difficulty reporting on their last work; therefore, in future research, the use of a qualitative methodology could also be equated as to complement richer information regarding past experiences in the work context.Practical implicationsConsidering the main goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, this study contributes, namely, to the third one – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. In fact, directing a look at the condition in which older people work and at their health contributes not only to more productive organizations, to less spending of public money on health, but also to a more inclusive society. Bearing in mind workers are progressively retiring later and that the exposure to certain work conditions during the late career is problematic for organizations and for society in general, this study has practical and social implication.Originality/valueConsidering demographic changes and the aging of the active population in Portugal and the scarce studies carried out in the country concerning this relevant theme, the authors believe that the conclusions may constitute an important input for workplace policies regarding older workers. In addition, little research has focused on the effect of health in meaning in life.

Feminised concern or feminist care? Reclaiming gender normativities in zero waste living

Growing awareness of environmental issues and their relation to consumption patterns has given rise to calls for sustainable consumption across the globe. In this article, we focus on the zero waste lifestyle movement, which targets high-consumption households in the Global North as a site of change for phasing out waste in global supply chains. Our article is concerned with asking how gender and household sustainability are mutually constituted in the zero waste lifestyle movement. We establish an analytical tension between understanding zero waste living as a further intensification of feminised responsibility for people and the planet and as offering potential for transformational change – as feminised concern or feminist care. Through qualitative content analysis of the 10 most influential zero waste blogs globally, we show how the five zero waste rules of conduct – refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot – guide consumers towards everyday and situated engagements with waste. Organised by three cross-cutting themes – communing with nature, organising time, and spending money – we present the normativities these rules call into being for reconfiguring domestic activities such as cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping. In the discussion, we draw out the implications of zero waste living’s emerging, contradictory gender normativities, while recalling the political economy in which it is situated, namely a neoliberal, postfeminist landscape. We identify a continued feminisation of domestic responsibilities that is uncontested in zero waste living but also explore the progressive potential of waste-free living to bring collective, naturecultural worlds into being as part of domestic environmental labour.

Factors Affecting Financial Literacy Rate of Millennial in Malaysia

Without being informed of financial management skills, many people are struggling financially as they are unaware of how to plan and manage money to make wise decisions regarding their finances. They are usually careless with spending money and do not plan effectively for their future. Most times, they would rely on cash in hand rather than doing effective planning to save or invest. Improper and inadequate planning can be a result of lacking financial knowledge and low literacy. This study investigates several factors of education, income, marital status, upbringing and influence, as well as its impacts toward financial literacy rate among millennials in Malaysia. This study employs quantitative research with primary data gathered using questionnaire from millennials residing in Malaysia. Results and findings of this study indicates that there is positive and significant relationship between education level and level of income with financial literacy rate of millennials in Malaysia.

Аксиологическая составляющая концепта деньги в русских пословицах

The article is devoted to the analysis of the axiologically heterogeneous concept "Den'gi" ("Money") in Russian proverbs. The research was carried out on the material of more than 700 Russian (including dialectal) proverbs with the components: den'gi, rubl', kopejka, etc. The analysis of proverbs allowed the author to identify a number of value-and-semantic dominants in this concept: frugality, censure of stinginess, the need to keep strict records of finances, a philosophical attitude to spending money, the high value of money earned in contrast to money received accidentally or by dishonest means. The research results indicate that in Russian proverbs, a high axiological status is assigned to money as the most important force that regulates the life of a person and society. In general, money is assessed positively in the picture of the world represented in Russian proverbs, which contradicts the Orthodox and Soviet cultural and historical traditions. This discrepancy gives rise to the axiological and semantic ambivalence characteristic of this concept, which is especially clearly seen in the opposition of money as a pragmatic dominant in human life and such culturally significant concepts as truth, conscience, love, friendship, mind. In the context of such comparisons, money does not acquire a properly negative connotation in its meaning, but acts as a marker of the honesty of friendship, love, since true spiritual values cannot be measured by money.

Money in a “Safe” place: Money anthropomorphism increases saving behavior

Saving has an important impact on consumers’ lives and life satisfaction. However, various indices indicate that consumers do not save enough. This research shows that a simple change in the perception of money by imposing humanlike characteristics (i.e., money anthropomorphism) can significantly increase savings. Specifically, we posit that imbuing money with humanlike characteristics can enhance both saving intention and real saving behavior because humanized money is considered to be capable of experiences such as pain or joy (perception of experiences) and, as a result, is more vulnerable and in need of protection (perception of vulnerability). By inserting money clipart or using first-perception language to describe money, we manipulate money anthropomorphism in six studies. In behavioral studies, we show that these money anthropomorphism manipulations increase real saving behavior by 18%. In addition, several alternative accounts, including warmth perception of money, autonomy toward money, perceived control over money, feeling guilty about spending money, and perceived importance of money, are ruled out. Furthermore, the results show that when the target account to keep money is considered risky, the positive money anthropomorphism on saving disappears. The findings provide important and practical implications for increasing personal savings.

A New Configuration of Roof Photovoltaic System for Limited Area Applications—A Case Study in KSA

Increased world energy demand necessitates looking for appropriate alternatives to oil and fossil fuel. Countries encourage institutions and households to create their own photovoltaic (PV) systems to reduce spending money in electricity sectors and address environmental issues. Due to high solar radiation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the government urges people and institutions to establish PV systems as the best promising renewable energy resource in the country. This paper presents an optimal and complete design of a 300 kW PV system installed in a limited rooftop area to feed the needs of the Ministry of Electricity building, which has a high energy consumption. The design has been suggested for two scenarios in terms of adjusting the orientation angles. The available rooftop area allowed to be used is insufficient if a tilt angle of 22o is used, suggested by the designer, so the tilt angle has been adjusted from 22o to 15o to accommodate the available area and meet the required demand with a minimum shading effect. The authors of this paper propose a modified scenario “third scenario” which accommodates the available area and provides more energy than the installed “second scenario”. The proposed panel distribution and the estimated energy for all scenarios are presented in the paper. The possibility of changing tilt angles and the extent of energy production variations are also discussed. Finally, a comparative study between measured and simulated energy is included. The results show that August has the lowest percentage error, with a value of 2.7%, while the highest percentage error was noticed in November.

Paying the price? Academic work and parenting during COVID-19.

IntroductionThe shift to remote working/learning to slow transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has had widespread mental health impacts. We aimed to describe how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the mental health of students and faculty within a health sciences faculty at a central Canadian university.MethodsVia an online survey, we queried mental health in the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic quantitatively (scale: 1 (most negative)-100 (most positive)) and qualitatively.ResultsThe sample (n = 110) was predominantly women (faculty 39/59; [66.1%]; students 46/50; [92.0%]). Most faculty were married/common law (50/60; [84.8%]) and had children at home (36/60; [60.0%]); the opposite was true for most students.Faculty and students self-reported comparable mental health (40.47±24.26 and 37.62±26.13; respectively). Amongst women, those with vs. without children at home, reported significantly worse mental health impacts (31.78±23.68 vs. 44.29±27.98; respectively, p = 0.032).Qualitative themes included: “Sharing resources,” “spending money,” “few changes,” for those without children at home; “working at home can be isolating,” including the subtheme, “balancing act”: “working in isolation,” “working more,” for those with children at home.DiscussionAmongst women in academia, including both students and faculty, those with children at home have disproportionately worse mental health than those without children at home.

АНАЛІЗ РЕНТАБЕЛЬНОСТІ ПІДПРИЄМСТВА ТА ШЛЯХИ ЇЇ ПІДВИЩЕННЯ В УМОВАХ ЕКОНОМІЧНОЇ НЕСТАБІЛЬНОСТІ

The approaches of domestic scientists to the interpretation of the essence of the category's "profitability" is studied, the stages and parameters of their evaluation are substantiated. It is proved that profitability is the main indicator of profitability, which characterizes the efficiency of financial and entrepreneurial activities of the enterprise. According to the results of the study, the factors influencing the profitability of enterprises in the field of services were identified. It is substantiated that external factors have a significant impact on the efficiency of enterprises: economic and tax policy; stability of the financial and credit market; demand for services and the level of competition in the industry. It is proved that the value of profitability is influenced by internal factors: the quality of management, marketing, financial activities; innovative approaches in doing business, employee skills, coherence of the service delivery process. The profitability of operating activities of Ukrainian enterprises specializing in providing services to various segments of the population has been studied. A practical and analytical study of the activities of LLC "SILAND" as a business entity in the field of services. Its indicators of profitability (investment capital, equity, assets and sales of services) are analyzed, the factor analysis of formation of operating profit is carried out. To improve the economic stability of the enterprise in the market of services, increase its financial results, two alternative recommendations have been developed: reduction of operating costs; change in the direction of spending (investment) of money. According to the results of the analysis it is established that the increase in profitability of LLC "SILAND" is possible due to the increase in sales of services through: 1) the implementation of effective marketing policy in the field of sales; 2) diversification of the range by adding to the list of complementary and interchangeable services; 3) regional diversification of activities (expansion of the sales region); 4) the provision of those services that bring more income, and the elimination of non-profit types.

Ефективність SMM як інструменту збутової політики підприємства

The article is aimed at studying the impact of SMM on the sales activities of enterprise; substantiating the expediency of using SMM as a product promotion tool; grouping and determining the indicators of efficiency of the use of social networks in business activities. As a result of the study, the advantages of marketing in social networks are defined, which include: brand awareness, targeting, complementing PR strategy, expanding the circle of like-minded people, improving customer service and contact with them, etc. At the same time, the following problems in this area are identified: lack of sufficient knowledge in the field of SMM; the risk of inconclusive spending of money and time caused by the incorrect determination of the target audience; the complexity of measuring returns on investment (ROI) in digital marketing in general and in SMM in particular and others. It is determined that the marketing of social networks is an effective instrument for the strategy of enterprise in the conditions of the contemporary doing business. The trends in the development of SMM in the Ukrainian market, after distinguishing the content groups for social networks, and the peculiarities of business development in social networks are characterized. An important trend in the development of marketing in social networks is micro-influencer marketing, agile marketing, the tendency to change content from text to video format, the trend for exclusivity, high quality of service, the trend for live broadcasts. The indicators most often used in assessing the efficiency of social network marketing, which are recommended to be divided into internal and external indicators, are considered. The key performance indicators in SMM and the characteristics of each indicator are determined. The conclusion states that SMM is developing very actively, there are new tools for solving marketing problems, so the issue of assessing the efficiency of SMM remains relevant and has prospects for further scientific research.

Assessment of the Impact of the Armed Conflict in Ukraine on the Development of the Agricultural Sector and Price Setting

This paper analyses the impact of the armed conflict in Ukraine on the development of the agricultural sector and changes in average prices of agricultural products, and also identifies a possible relationship between changes in prices for agricultural products and financial expenditures for defence needs. The paper also investigates the possible relationship between changes in military spending, gross harvest of cereals and legumes, harvested and threshed area, their yield levels. The study considers how the presence and duration of armed conflict in the country affects: macroeconomic indicators, intensity of hostilities and their localisation in areas of economic activity, gross domestic product (GDP), government expenditures, export-import indicators; household expenditures and domestic investment, consumer and household expenditures. All this, indirectly, has an impact on fluctuations in average prices of products of different sectors of agriculture sold by enterprises. The study takes into account the importance of the agricultural sector of Ukraine, which is a significant part of the country GDP. The dependence of military spending on the size of GDP is the reason for analysing the relationship between the impact of the existing armed conflict on changes in the state of agriculture in Ukraine. One of the results of such actions was also the spending of more money on the purchase of agricultural products to support the defence needs of the state, etc. Therefore, to understand the magnitude of the impact of gross harvest factors, crop yields, and agricultural land volumes on the pricing of agricultural output using the method of statistical equation dependencies, the findings of the relevant analysis can be used as a basis for developing approaches, methods, and techniques to improve crop yields, or – initiate economic development of the country by increasing agricultural crop yields

REBORN: Transfer learning based social network alignment

Social network alignment (SNA) aims to identify the same person across different social networks. Existing SNA methods can be categorized as supervised, semi-supervised and unsupervised. However, for supervised and semi-supervised methods, obtaining supervisions is expensive and time-consuming; for unsupervised methods, their performances will reach to a bottleneck due to the lack of supervisions. In the real world, there exist many social networks which have already been aligned spending money and time, and many social networks to be aligned. To bridge this gap, we study the SNA problem from the transfer learning perspective, and propose to leverage the knowledge of two aligned social networks (source domain) to facilitate the alignment of two unaligned social networks (target domain). Specifically, we first propose Ego-Transformer to align two social networks in the same domain. Then, we propose WWGAN to eliminate the shift between different domains. Finally, we propose REBORN which tactfully incorporates Ego-Transformer and WWGAN together. We conduct extensive experiments on the datasets of Facebook-Twitter and Weibo-Douban, and compare REBORN with 8 state-of-the-art SNA methods including SNNA, MSUIL, BRIGHT, DeepLink, IONE, PALE, WAlign, and UUILgan. The results demonstrate that REBORN can averagely achieve 20.02% higher Precision@k and 23.23% higher MAP@k compared with these methods.

Peran Pengawasan terhadap Pengelolaan Keuangan di Dinas Sosial Transmigrasi dan Tenaga Kerja Kabupaten Mamasa

This paper aims to find out how the development of the government apparatus is directed at creating a more efficient, effective, clean and authoritative apparatus and is able to carry out all general government and development tasks as well as possible based on the spirit and attitude of service to the community, nation and state. In this connection, the ability of government officials to plan, implement, supervise, and control development needs to be improved. The supervisory function in financial management is an important part of financial management itself, in order to ensure the suitability and accuracy of budget expenditures. Therefore, the function of internal control in the context of financial management in Indonesia, included as a function of controlling the use and receipt of finance. This study aims to determine the procedures for implementing supervision in the management of regional finances at the Transmigration Social Service and the Mamasa Regency workforce. And the extent of the role of supervision on the effectiveness of regional financial management at the Social Transmigration and Manpower Office of Mamasa Regency. The results of the study indicate that the role of supervision for the effectiveness of the financial management of the Transmigration Social Service and manpower can be said to be very instrumental because through this internal control all budget items which include routine expenditures and development expenditures can be in accordance with the Order of Spending Money by the treasurer, so that the function of supervision This has been placed as a means for the proper use of the issued budget funds.

ІНФОРМАЦІЙНЕ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ ДОСЛІДЖЕНЬ ФІНАНСОВОЇ ПОВЕДІНКИ ДОМОГОСПОДАРСТВ

The article substantiates the need for the formation of appropriate information support for the study of financial behavior of the population, due to the lack of official statistics. Existing sample surveys conducted by research teams do not always meet the objectives of this study, and most of them are not publicly available. It is argued that today there are difficulties in obtaining accurate and reliable data that represents the behavior of individuals and households. Official statistics form databases on households in terms of income and expenditure, material well-being, investment behavior, employment structure, migration, health and nutrition structure, education and other indicators It is determined that when studying the financial behavior of the population, it is advisable to establish not only the results of decisions about spending money, but also the motives. The constituent sources of information on the peculiarities of the formation of income and expenditure by peasant households are systematized and proposals for their improvement are developed taking into account foreign practice. It is established that there is a difference between the domestic practice and the European approach to estimating the value of products produced for own consumption. was donated to relatives and others. It is substantiated that in order to form a system of information support for the study of financial behavior of households, it is advisable to conduct a special survey, which should form indicators of available resources and cash expenditures and savings. It is established that this approach will create an information database that displays complete information on the amount of available resources, which includes in addition to cash income estimates of natural consumption from various sources, as well as the amount of loans and savings, as well as information on consumption expenditures and savings within households.

The role of individual income tax administration in managing the competitiveness of agricultural enterprisesvv

The subject of research is theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of managing the efficiency and competitiveness of agricultural enterprises, taking into account the administration of personal income tax. The purpose of the article is to determine the role of personal income tax administration in managing the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises, identify its problems and justify proposals for their solution. The methodological basis of the article is historical, monographic, system-structural analysis and synthesis, statistical and economic, accounting, problem-target. The results of the article. It is determined that the administration of personal income tax as one of the most important in filling the state budget has a significant impact on the efficiency and competitiveness of agricultural enterprises, especially in terms of the tax rate on wages and other personal income; spending time and money on taxation processes. It was found that its rate of 18,0% on the wage bill is quite rational, but it can be optimized to the world average of 16,1% or less in order to stimulate employment and the formation of the middle class in rural areas. Other problems, which concern rather large (almost 2,0 times more than the world average) expenditures of time and money), should be solved by automating accounting processes, online consultations with tax authorities, internal control over timely payment of taxes. Field of application of results. In educational institutions of higher education, in managing the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises and corporations. Conclusions. The administration of personal income tax is an important factor in shaping the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises and its management. Its impact is directly through the amount or rate of tax; the procedure for its accrual and payment; time and money costs associated with administration. It should be noted that the share of PIT in relation to wages is quite acceptable and, on average, reaches 18,0% at 16,6% of the world average. However, together with the shares of SDRs and military dues, tax accruals increase significantly and exceed the 30% barrier, which is much higher than in the European Union. In general, high wage accruals do not motivate the work of the rural population. This is especially noticeable when rent for land shares is used as a source of passive income. The next problem that needs to be addressed is the significant cost and time spent on PIT administration. It allows automation to solve. Automation of personal income tax accounting is an important part of the automation of management processes and accounting of agricultural enterprises. It provides an opportunity not only to organize the automated workplace of each accountant, but also to improve the work by creating in the accounting department responsible for keeping records of inventory and other resources; labor and wages, taxes; production; product sales.

Green Energy Sources Assessment Using Sentinel-1 Satellite Remote Sensing

Due to the growing use of Green Energy Sources (GESs), the activities of mapping, monitoring, measurement, and detection of various GESs have become crucial. Assessing and measuring GESs are very complex since different environmental conditions occur. This importance is even greater when researchers face a shortage of measuring instruments and tools in many parts of the world. GES assessment is a challenging task that requires accurate and continuous measurement methods. Currently, traditional methods are very time-consuming and require spending money and human sources. So, the use of accurate and fast measurement methods and tools assessing measuring GESs potential are seriously recommended, which can greatly help the growth of the use of GESs, especially to cover and focus large areas. Satellite remote sensing is used to observe the environment in many fields and new and fast applications. Satellites remote sensing technologies and techniques for GESs assessing are fast, accurate, and can help to reduce costs and decision-making risks of GESs converters installations projects and provide suitable products to the public end-users. These could also be used to identify regions of interest for energy converter installations and to accurately identify new areas with interesting potentials. In this case, researchers can dramatically reduce the possibility of significant error in assessment methods. There is a lack of in-situ measuring tools mainly due to their high economic costs in the interested areas; an accurate analysis was carried out to assess the GESs energy potential. Since there are only limited options for further expanding the measurement over large areas, the use of satellites makes it easier to overcome in-situ limitations. Actually, to use and develop it as much as possible, a correct interdisciplinary understanding is needed. Satellite remote sensing technology for identifying suitable areas for GESs power plants could be a powerful tool that is constantly increasing in its new and fast applications but requires good planning to apply it in various GESs converters installations projects. In this article, a comprehensive review on wind, wave, biomass, geothermal sources assessment using Sentinel-1 (S-1) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite estimation has been summarized along with the different techniques available to measure GESs using satellites. In the paper, several of the successful estimation techniques were introduced in each section and compared for the understanding of limitations and strengths of different methods of GESs availability evaluation.

Is Electronic Health Record Safety a Paradox?

Is Electronic Health Record Safety a Paradox?

Multiplex social influence in a freemium context: Evidence from online social games

An increasingly popular trend in digital businesses is the adoption of the freemium model, in which premium features are provided along with free features. Because this model separates use (spending time) from purchase decisions (spending money) and people treat spending time and spending money differently, it derives two distinct types of social influence: social influence from peer spending time and peer spending money. This multiplex social influence, however, has not received sufficient attention. We investigated a popular online social game and studied how multiplex social influence jointly affects players' spending time and spending money in a digital freemium environment. We uncovered spending time has a more substantial effect on players' spending money than does spending money. The dependence between two different types of social influence provides evidence of multiplex social influence and its asymmetricity. We further tested and discovered that personal characteristics and network measures moderates multiplex social influence. Because the freemium model proliferates in many online environments, the current study enlightens the value of free users' social influence in the operations of businesses with freemium models.