General or central government? Empirical evidence on political cycles in budget composition using new data for OECD countries

Previous studies used general government data to examine whether national governments’ electoral motives and ideology influenced budget composition in OECD countries. General government data includes, however, the state and local level. Using new data for general and central government over the period 1995–2016, I reexamine political cycles in budget composition. The results suggest that, both at the general and central government level, leftwing governments spent more on education and less on public services than rightwing governments. Defense expenditure was somewhat lower under leftwing than rightwing governments and in election years; especially in federal states. Effects of government ideology on the individual expenditure categories are larger at the central than general government level. Scholars need to re-examine results on ideology-induced effects that have been derived from general government data where central government data should have been used.     

A context-based service matching approach towards functional reliability for industrial systems

ABSTRACT

As service-oriented computing is commonly used in industrial systems to deal with the continually changing business environment, matching processes with existing services becomes one of the most important phases in constructing, integrating and optimizing information systems. The precision of semantic service matching becomes a critical factor in ensuring the correctness of functionalities in system processes. However, the dependability of semantic service matching cannot be warranted in complex contexts. To improve semantic service matching for industrial systems, a context-based semantic service matching approach named ‘Process-Based service MatchMaker’(PBMM) is proposed in this paper. It selects the suitable services for the process from candidate services through taking the dependencies of related services process into consideration.     

Rethinking bank shareholder equity: The case of Deutsche Bank

We introduce and apply an innovative accounting approach to analyse the equity position of a European systemically important financial institution, Deutsche Bank, between 2001 and 2015. According to our findings, the actual contribution by shareholders to bank equity capital was limited, while shareholder payout policies, including share buybacks and trading on its own shares, were both material. These findings raise concerns on the actual capacity by shareholder equity to assure protection against (residual) risk and loss absorption. Customer and investor protections appear to lay with bank entity equity dynamics. These findings have implications for bank financial sustainability and resilience, company capital maintenance, and regulatory capital requirements. Further developments based upon this innovative methodology may improve on existing prudential and accounting regulations.     

Assembly FG: An Educational Case on MRP II Integrated within ERP

This case teaches students how discrete (job order) manufacturing companies use Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II) within Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to plan purchase orders for direct materials and shop orders for work‐in‐process and finished goods. Students simulate MRP II integrated within ERP, using Microsoft Excel to learn MRP II's bill‐of‐materials (BOM) Explosion that plans order quantities and MRP II's scheduling logic that uses lead‐times to determine start dates for planned orders. Students explain why MRP II is most practical and effective when executed within ERP and how MRP II can reduce excess inventories, prevent inventory shortages, and help companies deliver quality products to customers on schedule. Also, students explain why BOM, inventory, and lead‐time inaccuracies can adversely affect the accuracy of MRP II‐planned replenishments and identify controls that reduce the risks of these inaccuracies.     

Assessing students’ equality of opportunity in OECD countries: the role of national- and school-level policies

This article analyses the relationship between equality of opportunity and the characteristics of the educational system, jointly considering country- and school-level policies. Because school social environment represents a fundamental channel in shaping educational opportunities, we consider all policies, recorded in PISA 2012 dataset, that affect the sorting of students to schools. We show that including sorting policies enriches the explanation of the socio-economic gradient, that is, the association between students’ performances and parental background, with respect to previous studies including only country-level features. The negative impact of early tracking on equality of opportunity is overvalued without including other sorting policies, while grouping students’ within-school by ability increases the socio-economic gradient and a greater students’ heterogeneity in the school reduces the gradient.     

基于模糊决策理论的中国外汇储备币种结构研究

借鉴模糊决策理论的满意度概念,从理论上建立外汇储备币种结构选择的一般最优化模型,从实证上模拟在不同隶属函数参数和不同汇率路径假设下的中国外汇储备币种结构,并分析了收益率隶属函数参数和利率对中国外汇储备货币结构的影响.     

马齿苋的营养成分研究进展

马齿苋是一种野生药食同源植物,富含蛋白质、脂肪、纤维素、矿物质等多种营养物质,具有消炎抗菌、利水消肿、止血化瘀、清除尘毒等功效,具有广阔的应用和开发前景。本文对马齿苋中所含的营养成分进行综述,并对其开发应用前景进行展望。     

不同化学成分对普洱茶发酵过程的影响

近年来,普洱茶对人体健康的价值越来越受人们的重视,普洱茶叶成为广受欢迎的饮品。基于此,对普洱茶发酵过程中的化学成分茶多酚、游离氨基酸、黄酮醇类化合物、水溶性多糖及咖啡碱的变化趋势及变化规律进行分析,以期为普洱茶发酵工艺的优化和质量评价提供一定的参考。     

电网短路电流的限制措施

针对短路电流增大给电网安全运行和管理带来的影响,从电网结构与变电站2个层面分析了短路电流的方法。电网结构方面的措施包括合理规划电网结构及电源接入方式、提高配电网电压等级等;变电站方面的措施包括将变压器分列运行、采用高阻抗设备及可控串联电抗器等。分析了这些方法的优缺点,描述各自在实际中的应用及今后的发展方向。并简要介绍了2种不对称短路电流的限制措施。     

净化水厂DCS综合管理系统

随着科技的发展,供水企业需要建立一套全集成的、开放的供水信息综合自动化的平台。现结合实际详细分析净化水厂DCS综合管理系统。