Tight Budget Research Articles

The Hidden Face of Consumption: Extending Credit to the Urban Masses in Montreal (1920s–40s)

According to many historians and sociologists, mass consumption did not arrive in Canada until the 1950s or even the 1960s. However, this article shows that consumption by low-wage earners in the Canadian metropolis of Montreal was already beginning to transform and expand during the interwar period. As much as consumers, government helped drive these changes by relaxing the legal framework regulating credit practices as well as relations between small debtors and their creditors. The growing use of consumer credit by working-class families was at the heart of these transformations. In this article, the files of depositors placed under the protection of the Lacombe Act provide a unique window on this phenomenon and associated consumer behaviours. An analysis of public debates on the consumer habits of urban workers offers additional insight and context. We advocate for a broad understanding of consumer credit, while rejecting the familiar dichotomy between the consumption of durable goods and the purchase of basic necessities. Necessities and luxuries are constructs that have evolved over time, and the Lacombe files highlight how low-income households combined different sources of credit to incorporate and balance these two types of expenses within their tight budgets.

Reducing Underreporting by Aggregating Budgeted Time

ABSTRACTUnderreporting, or reporting fewer hours than actually worked, is a prevalent behavior among auditors at all levels. Underreporting can result in negative consequences, such as tight budgets and reductions in future audit quality. In this paper, I propose a low-cost budget formatting procedure that reduces underreporting. Using an experiment, I document that individuals with higher underreporting incentives underreport less when given an aggregated budget relative to a disaggregated budget. When individuals have lower underreporting incentives, aggregating the budget has a smaller effect on underreporting. I also provide evidence of the process by performing a mediation analysis. In a second experiment, I examine a budget formatting procedure that reduces underreporting while also mitigating the loss of data richness that results from aggregation. This study provides important insights to audit firms, partners, managers, and regulators who rely on audit hours for budgets, measures of staff efficiency, and measures of audit quality.

What is multidisciplinary cancer care like in practice? a protocol for a mixed-method study to characterise ambulatory oncology services in the Australian public sector

IntroductionAn understanding of the real-world provision of oncology outpatient services can help maintain service quality in the face of escalating demand and tight budgets, by informing the design of interventions...

Metropolitan metamorphosis: A tale of two theater’s journeys to acoustical acceptance

Not every assembly space (be it a lecture hall, theater, multi-purpose room, GymaNataCafaConfraTorium, etc.) has the prestige or budget of Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, or the Kimmel Center, here in Philadelphia. Many of the day-to-day jobs that are encountered in the consulting field are renovations of existing spaces at local educational facilities or businesses, and they require the same love and attention but have different restrictions and challenges. Some roadblocks and hurdles include tight budgets, accelerated schedules, space constraints, and/or complex (sometimes fragile) bureaucratic procedures. Today we will look at two recent renovations: one a transformation of a space-restricted, dark and sterile school performance space into a modern, clean and functioning multi-purpose theater; the other a poorly laid out, non-functioning, outdated auditorium (better suited for a fall-out shelter) into a warm, comfortable, accommodating and inspiring space. These two case-studies outline the challenges encountered, solutions developed and heartwarming transformation details that made the renovations a success.

Minority Support: School District Demographics and Support for Funding Election Measures.

In the context of tight state budgets, local education funding is increasingly important. This article examines the relationship between district-level demographic characteristics and voter support for tax increases to fund the local school district. Using district-level panel data on California school district elections and demographics from 1995 to 2014, we ask the following questions: (1) What is the relationship between demographics and support for school district tax measures? and (2) Does this relationship vary by the type of tax measure? Results suggest that voter support varies by district demographics. However, results differ for bond and property tax measures and suggest that the proportion of Black students increases the likelihood of passing a bond measure but reduces the likelihood of passing a property tax measure. This heterogeneity offers one potential explanation for contradictory evidence in the literature. Results have implications for racial inequality of educational resources between districts.

How Do Russia’s Regions Adjust to External Shocks? Evidence from the Republic of Tatarstan

Since 2008, tighter budget constraints have forced the Russian federal government to adjust the system governing its relations with the regions. This paper argues that more advanced Russian regions have the potential to develop a constructive response to the recent deterioration in their operational environment. This argument is based on an analysis of the experiences of coping with the external shocks that have occurred over the last 25 years in the Republic of Tatarstan. The paper identifies key factors that have helped the republic successfully tackle previous shocks, such as elite cohesion and internal consensus regarding republican developmental priorities.

Reducing Underreporting by Aggregating Budgeted Time

Underreporting, or reporting fewer hours than actually worked, is a prevalent behavior among auditors at all levels. Underreporting can result in negative consequences such as tight budgets and reductions in future audit quality. In this paper, I propose a low-cost budget formatting procedure that reduces underreporting. Using an experiment, I document that individuals with higher underreporting incentives, underreport less when given an aggregated budget relative to a disaggregated budget. When individuals have lower underreporting incentives, aggregating the budget has a smaller effect on underreporting. I also provide evidence of the process by performing a mediation analysis. In a second experiment, I examine a budget formatting procedure that reduces underreporting while also mitigating the loss of data richness that results from aggregation. This study provides important insights to audit firms, partners, managers, and regulators who rely on audit hours for budgets, measures of staff efficiency, and measures of audit quality.

Higher education, social media and an era of emergencies: Tools for managing communication minefields

The start of the 21st century may go down in history as having been defined by crises, with populations facing rises in natural disasters, disease outbreaks, terror attacks and other emergency issues. Institutions of higher education are not immune. They have had to handle increasing numbers of natural and human-made crises, including hurricane evacuations, school shootings and violent political and racial protests. As a result, higher-education communicators have to navigate some tricky terrain, where spoken or printed missteps may threaten lives and the health of institutions. To do their jobs well, they need the sort of situational-awareness building and evidence of crowd sentiment that can come from social media scanning and social listening. At the same time, however — in part because of the proliferation of social media — communication duties have exploded, leaving teams with little time to stay abreast of the many issues that may appear online. Ideally institutions would increase staffing to meet this need, but tight budgets often make this difficult. This paper looks at tools and techniques — including crowdsourcing through virtual operations support teams — which may help communicators on a budget stay informed as they navigate communication minefields.

Importance of Rural Biomass Post-Harvest Waste – An Overview

This study rather than focus on food security examines the potential in utilizing Post-Harvest Waste (P-HW) materials and their benefits to the immediate rural communities where lignocellulose waste are found in abundance. It was observed that researchers have proposed a lot of unique approaches to managing solid waste generation; with emphasis on perfect waste collection and disposal, but these approaches are very expensive considering the tight budgeting expenses Nigeria is faced with. This study shows that some rural communities experience huge post-harvest organic wastes from their farms and the cost of these losses has been estimated, which then forms a good spot to start the implementation process for this initiative. The research highlights the overview benefits of adopting microbial and pyrolysis approach in converting the lignocellulosic aspect of these waste to economically viable products that will have a direct positive impact on the immediate community. This study proposed a modified fast pyrolysis approach in the conversion process to reduce the production of pyrolytic gas and optimize the production of biochar and pyroligneous acid. Adopting these approaches will reduce the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere when burning these waste and produce bio-products instead of synthesized chemical products that have health implications.

Overcoming Challenges in Large-Core SI-POF-Based System-Level Modeling and Simulation

The application areas for plastic optical fibers such as in-building or aircraft networks usually have tight power budgets and require multiple passive components. In addition, advanced modulation formats are being considered for transmission over plastic optical fibers (POFs) to increase spectral efficiency. In this scenario, there is a clear need for a flexible and dynamic system-level simulation framework for POFs that includes models of light propagation in POFs and the components that are needed to evaluate the entire system performance. Until recently, commercial simulation software either was designed specifically for single-mode glass fibers or modeled individual guided modes in multimode fibers with considerable detail, which is not adequate for large-core POFs where there are millions of propagation modes, strong mode coupling and high variability. These are some of the many challenges involved in the modeling and simulation of POF-based systems. Here, we describe how we are addressing these challenges with models based on an intensity-vs-angle representation of the multimode signal rather than one that attempts to model all the modes in the fiber. Furthermore, we present model approaches for the individual components that comprise the POF-based system and how the models have been incorporated into system-level simulations, including the commercial software packages SimulinkTM and ModeSYSTM.

Spatial Analytics Based on Confidential Data for Strategic Planning in Urban Health Departments

Spatial data analytics can detect patterns of clustering of events in small geographies across an urban region. This study presents and demonstrates a robust research design to study the longitudinal stability of spatial clustering with small case numbers per census tract and assess the clustering changes over time across the urban environment to better inform public health policy making at the community level. We argue this analysis enables the greater efficiency of public health departments, while leveraging existing data and preserving citizen personal privacy. Analysis at the census tract level is conducted in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on hypertension during pregnancy compiled from 2011–2014 birth certificates. Data were derived from per year and per multi-year moving counts by aggregating spatially to census tracts and then assessed for clustering using global Moran’s I. With evidence of clustering, local indicators of spatial association are calculated to pinpoint hot spots, while time series data identified hot spot changes. Knowledge regarding the geographical distribution of diseases is essential in public health to define strategies that improve the health of populations and quality of life. Our findings support that spatial aggregation at the census tract level contributes to identifying the location of at-risk “hot spot” communities to refine health programs, while temporal windowing reduces random noise effects on spatial clustering patterns. With tight state budgets limiting health departments’ funds, using geographic analytics provides for a targeted and efficient approach to health resource planning.

Resource stewardship in Canadian undergraduate medical education

New research suggests Canadian physicians order more than 1,000,000 potentially unnecessary tests and treatments each year. Strategies to educate medical students about the CanMEDs Resource Stewardship directive and judicious testing practices can help the healthcare system manage fiscal stress and improve healthcare experiences for patients. This article outlines several strategies that can be implemented at the undergraduate medical education level through Choosing Wisely Canada’s Students and Trainees Advocating for Resource Stewardship (STARS) program. The educational strategies feature group-based learning, lecture integration, and supportive online modules. Educating medical students across the country about judicious testing can produce the generation of resource-conscientious doctors that healthcare’s increasingly tight budget demands.

School Meals and Food Poverty: Children’s Views, Parents’ Perspectives and the Role of School

This paper addresses the importance of school meals in balancing food budgets and diets among 45 low‐income families in Portugal. Drawing on interviews with both parents and children (aged 11–15 years) we found that children’s views on the quality of school meals affect their willingness to eat at school and heighten parental concerns with health, food and resources. For parents, school meals are crucial to ensure children’s dietary variety and balancing tight food budgets. Schools’ role in food poverty alleviation is also critically addressed, contributing to current and future sociological studies of children, school meals and food poverty.

The cost of stroke in a public hospital in Brazil: a one-year prospective study.

Low- and middle-income countries face tight health care budgets, not only new resources, but also costly therapeutic resources for treatment of ischemic stroke (IS). However, few prospective data about stroke costs including cerebral reperfusion from low- and middle-income countries are available. To measure the costs of stroke care in a public hospital in Joinville, Brazil. We prospectively assessed all medical and nonmedical costs of inpatients admitted with a diagnosis of any stroke or transient ischemic attack over one year, analyzed costs per type of stroke and treatment, length of stay (LOS) and compared hospital costs with government reimbursement. We evaluated 274 patients. The total cost for the year was US$1,307,114; the government reimbursed the hospital US$1,095,118. We found a significant linear correlation between LOS and costs (r = 0.71). The median cost of 134 IS inpatients who did not undergo cerebral reperfusion (National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale [NIHSS] median = 3 ) was US$2,803; for IS patients who underwent intravenous (IV) alteplase (NIHSS 10), the median was US$5,099, and for IS patients who underwent IV plus an intra-arterial (IA) thrombectomy (NIHSS > 10), the median cost was US$10,997. The median costs of a primary intracerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and transient ischemic attack were US$2,436, US$8,031 and US$2,677, respectively. Reperfusion treatments were two-to-four times more expensive than conservative treatment. A cost-effectiveness study of the IS treatment option is necessary.

Emergency logistics for disaster management under spatio-temporal demand correlation: The earthquakes case

Emergency logistics is crucial to ameliorate the impact of large earthquakes on society. We present a modeling framework to assist decision makers in strategic and tactical planning for effective relief operations after an earthquake's occurrence. The objective is to perform these operations quickly while keeping its total expenses under a budget. The modeling framework locates/allocates resources in potentially affected zones, and transportation capacity is dynamically deployed in those zones. Demand uncertainty is directly incorporated through an impulse stochastic process. The novelty of this approach is threefold. It incorporates temporo-spatial dependence and demands heterogeneity. It incorporates the availability of transportation capacity at different zones. It incorporates tight budget constraints that precludes the total satisfaction of demands. The resulting model is a large size stochastic mixed-integer programming model, which can be approximately solved through Sample Average Approximation. An example is provided and a thorough sensitivity analysis is performed. The numerical results suggest that that the response times are highly sensitive to the availability of inventory at each period. In addition, all logistics parameters (except for inventory capacity) have approximately the same impact on the total response time. The elasticity for all these parameters indicate constant returns to scale.

RegionSeeker: Automatically Identifying and Selecting Accelerators From Application Source Code

Embedded systems present stringent and often conflicting requirements. On the one side, the need for high performance within a tight energy budget favors inflexible Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) implementations; on the other side, a short time-to-market demands programmability. Hybrid architectures such as special-purpose customized processors represent an attractive solution, as they are programmable by software, but use dedicated hardware to accelerate parts of the computation. In such a scenario, the capability of automatically identifying the computation parts to be realized in hardware is highly desirable, in order to reduce design time and effort. This paper aims at advancing the state-of-the-art in this field. We recognize that subgraphs of control flow graphs having a single input control point and a single output control point, that we call regions , are good targets for the synthesis of application specific hardware accelerators. We therefore provide a method to identify them and an LLVM-based toolchain (named RegionSeeker) that, analyzing a software application, automatically selects its most profitable regions given an area constraint. Experimental evidence shows that the accelerators identified by RegionSeeker provide a speedup of up to $4.6\boldsymbol {\times }$ and, on average, approximately 30% higher speedup is achieved compared to state-of-the-art identification techniques.

Deployment of GIS + BIM in the construction of Pan Borneo Highway Sarawak, Malaysia

Construction of the Pan Borneo Highway across 786km of the Malaysian state of Sarawak is leveraging on technology to achieve greater efficiency and productivity throughout the project’s life-cycle. With a tight construction delivery timeline and budget to keep in check, the ability to design and plan efficiently, minimize errors and discrepancies during construction, manage risks, visually monitor and track progress at the site, and finally to establish accurate 3D as-built models for future asset management are among the challenges faced. To address such challenges of a linear construction, Project Delivery Partner, Lebuhraya Borneo Utara (LBU), has deployed the use of Malaysia’s first-ever Highway Information Modelling (HIM) as an integral part of its Integrated Project Management System. HIM is a combination of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) which incorporates three dimensional (3D) parametric highway models and optimal utilization of accurate and precise Geospatial Datasets. This paper discusses the application of GIS in development of the Pan Borneo Highway Sarawak project and its role as a foundation for design, planning, monitoring of construction and operation and maintenance of the future highway asset by providing precise data in a timely and cost-efficient manner.

Principles for designing accountability and responsibility plan in medical education that spreads across multiple sites

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. In the era of higher competition, less clinical clerkship sites and a tighter budget, many off-shore and on-shore medical schools resort to multiple training sites to meet the needs of GMC requirements. The greatest hurdle is to maintain comparable training sites while providing the reliability and validity standards of the accreditation bodies. The lack of direct supervision and the dilution of visible accountability despite any existing organizational hierarchy structure has minimized the effectiveness of the educational program. In this paper, I have simplified and refocused the chain of command by identifying the pillars of a medical school; reiterate the importance of organizational hierarchy, communication between the pillars and within the departments, recharge the accountability directives, motivate self improvement, on-going research and individual responsibilities within and between each of the multiple sites achieving competitiveness and comparable One-University.

Bayesian sequential data collection for stochastic simulation calibration

Simulation is often used to guide the decision making for real complex stochastic systems. To faithfully assess the mean performance of the real system, it is necessary to efficiently calibrate the simulation model. Existing calibration approaches are typically built on the summary statistics of simulation outputs and ignore the serial dependence of detailed output sample paths. Given a tight simulation budget, we develop a Bayesian sequential data collection approach for simulation calibration via exploring the detailed simulation outputs. Then, the calibrated simulation model can be used to guide decision making. Both theoretical and empirical studies demonstrate that we can efficiently use the simulation resources and achieve better calibration accuracy by exploring the first two moment dynamic information of simulation output sample paths.

Support, preparation key to successful leadership

To stretch a tight budget, Ingrid Wicker McCree, Ed.D., director of athletics at North Carolina Central University, continuously looks for creative and innovative strategies. It helps that she has surrounded herself with “really strong, really competent” staff members who know how to maximize resources, increase revenue, and manage the department's budget, she said.