Abstract Generally, public spending on education, research, and development (RD however, such notion lacks evidence, particularly in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) member countries. In this study, panel data of BRI member countries from 2008 to 2018 is analysed using the generalized method of moments (GMM) method and data envelopement analysis (DEA) to assess the relationship between public spending on R&D and green economic growth and energy efficiency. The study found a fluctuating green economic growth indicator during the research period attributed to the non-serious nature of government policies. The findings reveal that the GMM method confirms both composition and technique effects in the entire sample. Nonetheless, the result of the sub-sample showed a heterogeneous effect on high GDP per capita countries. Moreover, the study shows that public spending on human resources and R&D of green energy technologies prompts a sustainable green economy through labour and technology-oriented production activities and different effects in different countries.
Dwi Siti Syarifah Usriani, Selmita Paranoan, Muhammad Din
et al.
Purpose: This study aims to assess the level of compliance of political parties in Palu in reporting their 2024 election campaign funds, with a focus on the transparency and accountability of reports in accordance with applicable regulations.
Methodology/approach: The method used is quantitative descriptive research with a descriptive statistical approach. Data was obtained through documentation, which involved campaign finance reports from 18 political parties. The research sample used a saturated sampling technique.
Findings: Most political parties were compliant in reporting campaign finances, with high compliance rates of 96,3% for RKDK, 95,8% for LADK, 100% for LPSDK, and 97,9% for LPPDK. Despite this progress, stricter supervision by the KPU and Bawaslu and more rigorous enforcement of sanctions are needed to ensure that campaign funds are clearly and transparently accounted for.
Practical and Theoretical Contribution/Originality: This study assists the KPU and Bawaslu of Palu City by demonstrating the effectiveness of existing regulations and increasing public political awareness of the importance of transparency in campaign finance reporting.
Research Limitation: This study is limited to the city of Palu and uses secondary data from audited reports, so it does not describe compliance dynamics throughout Indonesia.
Accounting. Bookkeeping, Business mathematics. Commercial arithmetic. Including tables, etc.
We use causal inference analysis with Bayesian structural time series modelling to identify the changes in the direction and amplitude of Ukrainian and Polish consumer and professional inflation expectations after the outbreak of war in Ukraine. The study spans January 2018–March 2024. The pre-invasion period is considered a training period. The most interesting finding of this study is about the behaviour of Ukrainian consumer who did not change their expectations during the war. As a reaction to the intervention, we reported an increase in expectations for Polish economic agents and Ukrainian professionals. This study provides the first empirical evidence of the evolution of expectations during the war in Ukraine and a neighbouring country.
The emergence of a new type of society in the wake of the information and digital revolution – Society 5.0. – is accompanied by social polarization, contributing to the occurrence and spread of technocratic metaphors with their humanitarian interpretation, generally complicating the formation of new realities and hindering their perception. This began to manifest itself during a period of rapid transformations in monetary circulation, when the cryptocurrency turned into a full-fledged innovative narrative, prompting the authorities to take retaliatory measures to curb the backstage sector of alternative finance. At the same time, there is no holistic, definite and understandable vision of the vector of digital transformation of the payment and settlement space, there is no concretization of the concept, theoretical approaches are not detailed, there is no prototype of the tested solution, no White Paper has been published, a high level of secrecy of piloting results is recorded, etc. Under these conditions, phrases applied to the sphere of money circulation and containing the word «digital» in their formulations most often look like a technocratic metaphor to attract public attention. However, the formal enumeration of breakthrough technologies and the local selective nature of their use as a criterion for digital transformation do not reveal either the essence of the technologies themselves or the «breakthroughs» into society 5.0. The historical perspective of the causal relationship between the cryptocurrency industry and the digital currencies of central banks, as well as an interactive approach to improving the settlement and payment space, taking into account the change in customer-oriented concepts to human-centricity, allow us to identify existing technocratic metaphors regarding the legislative interpretation of the digital ruble and establish the dichotomy of the virtual settlement and payment space (separation into digital and electronic).
Emergencies inflict heavy casualties, economic losses, ecological damage, and significant social harm to society. By segmenting information topics and analysing emotional shifts, we can identify corresponding real-world events and their impacts, thereby providing guidance for timely responses to emergencies. In the past, public opinion monitoring of emergencies was based mainly on single-topic detection or emotion analysis, which cannot comprehensively evaluate the evolution of public opinion. In this work, word segmentation is applied to video comments related to various emergency situations. By utilizing the co-word network and Louvain algorithm for theme division, along with sentiment analysis constructed through time series analysis of sentiment value changes for various emergencies employing the naive Bayes method, the evolution of public opinion is comprehensively assessed. As a result, the pivotal nodes in the evolution of public opinion are identified and the evolution process is divided into stages. Using this method, relevant management departments can effectively address the majority of public opinions for various types of emergencies, addressing them from the perspectives of prevention, adjustment, and recovery. This approach not only enhances rescue efficiency and strengthens safety management but also actively guides the evolution of public opinion, ultimately providing society with solid and reliable security safeguards.
The financial industry's growing demand for advanced natural language processing (NLP) capabilities has highlighted the limitations of generalist large language models (LLMs) in handling domain-specific financial tasks. To address this gap, we introduce the LLM Pro Finance Suite, a collection of five instruction-tuned LLMs (ranging from 8B to 70B parameters) specifically designed for financial applications. Our approach focuses on enhancing generalist instruction-tuned models, leveraging their existing strengths in instruction following, reasoning, and toxicity control, while fine-tuning them on a curated, high-quality financial corpus comprising over 50% finance-related data in English, French, and German. We evaluate the LLM Pro Finance Suite on a comprehensive financial benchmark suite, demonstrating consistent improvement over state-of-the-art baselines in finance-oriented tasks and financial translation. Notably, our models maintain the strong general-domain capabilities of their base models, ensuring reliable performance across non-specialized tasks. This dual proficiency, enhanced financial expertise without compromise on general abilities, makes the LLM Pro Finance Suite an ideal drop-in replacement for existing LLMs in financial workflows, offering improved domain-specific performance while preserving overall versatility. We publicly release two 8B-parameters models to foster future research and development in financial NLP applications: https://huggingface.co/collections/DragonLLM/llm-open-finance.
Financial sentiment has become a crucial yet complex concept in finance, increasingly used in market forecasting and investment strategies. Despite its growing importance, there remains a need to define and understand what financial sentiment truly represents and how it can be effectively measured. We explore the nature of financial sentiment and investigate how large language models (LLMs) contribute to its estimation. We trace the evolution of sentiment measurement in finance, from market-based and lexicon-based methods to advanced natural language processing techniques. The emergence of LLMs has significantly enhanced sentiment analysis, providing deeper contextual understanding and greater accuracy in extracting sentiment from financial text. We examine how BERT-based models, such as RoBERTa and FinBERT, are optimized for structured sentiment classification, while GPT-based models, including GPT-4, OPT, and LLaMA, excel in financial text generation and real-time sentiment interpretation. A comparative analysis of bidirectional and autoregressive transformer architectures highlights their respective roles in investor sentiment analysis, algorithmic trading, and financial decision-making. By exploring what financial sentiment is and how it is estimated within LLMs, we provide insights into the growing role of AI-driven sentiment analysis in finance.
The creation of Public Finance Journal (PF) is the culmination of several years of discussion about how best to address the divide between practitioners’ research needs and academic scholarship. PF’s origin is predicated on the expectation that for a professional discipline such as public administration and the subfield of public budgeting and finance, in particular, there needs to be an easily accessible forum for the dissemination of ideas and solutions. This journal would not be possible without the support of the Government Finance Officers Association, the oversight committees, the editorial board, and those helping with the journal’s management. We are excited about the inaugural edition, where we have reviews of three important books, three thought-provoking research articles, and an article that surveys current research needs in the budget and finance field as expressed by faculty and practitioners.
Farmland use regulation strictly regulates the conversion of agricultural land for other agricultural purposes and the construction of agricultural facilities, thereby optimizing the land use pattern in rural areas. However, different measures and intensities of farmland use regulation can affect the overall performance of green and low-carbon development in rural areas. This study utilizes system dynamics modeling and simulation to conduct a case study based on current land use data from 10 towns in Liyang City, China. The empirical results indicate the following: (1) Based on comprehensive measurements of green and low carbon development performance, Liyang City exhibits a pattern of higher indices in the south and lower indices in the north. Towns such as Tianmu Lake, Daibu, and Shezhu show relatively high average comprehensive indices of 0.31, 0.30, and 0.28, significantly higher than other towns. (2) Simulation of farmland use regulation’s impact on green and low carbon development performance reveals that Scenario One, involving additional construction land occupying farmland, achieves a comprehensive index of only 0.23, significantly lower than the other scenarios. (3) Based on calculations and field surveys, Liyang City’s villages are categorized into four types, with the largest number being industry-integrated villages (94 villages). Accordingly, policies for farmland use regulation are designed for different village types. Therefore, future farmland use regulation should be tailored with differentiated institutional designs according to the development needs of different villages. This study’s findings provide insights into green and low-carbon development in rural areas.
Habibullah Safi, Ali Imran Jehangiri, Zulfiqar Ahmad
et al.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a growing network of interconnected devices used in transportation, finance, public services, healthcare, smart cities, surveillance, and agriculture. IoT devices are increasingly integrated into mobile assets like trains, cars, and airplanes. Among the IoT components, wearable sensors are expected to reach three billion by 2050, becoming more common in smart environments like buildings, campuses, and healthcare facilities. A notable IoT application is the smart campus for educational purposes. Timely notifications are essential in critical scenarios. IoT devices gather and relay important information in real time to individuals with special needs via mobile applications and connected devices, aiding health-monitoring and decision-making. Ensuring IoT connectivity with end users requires long-range communication, low power consumption, and cost-effectiveness. The LPWAN is a promising technology for meeting these needs, offering a low cost, long range, and minimal power use. Despite their potential, mobile IoT and LPWANs in healthcare, especially for emergency response systems, have not received adequate research attention. Our study evaluated an LPWAN-based emergency response system for visually impaired individuals on the Hazara University campus in Mansehra, Pakistan. Experiments showed that the LPWAN technology is reliable, with 98% reliability, and suitable for implementing emergency response systems in smart campus environments.
As Islamic banks grow and evolve, pricing methods for their services have become essential to study and implement. This study highlights the significance of understanding the factors influencing Islamic banking service pricing in Algeria. The study aims to analyze how Islamic banks price their services, with a focus on cost, market, and value strategies. Additionally, it seeks to evaluate and recommend ways to enhance the current practices of banks operating in the national market. Algeria is experiencing rapid growth in Islamic banking, making it an ideal location to study this subject. The country is home to two Islamic banks, Al Baraka Bank and Al Salam Bank. Algeria was selected as a new market to allow the findings to be applicable to similar situations elsewhere. The research utilizes secondary data obtained from available information on Islamic bank service fees, comparing them with those of traditional banks. It also conducts financing simulations in both banks and compares them with the traditional theoretical framework. Data was gathered from various sources, including bank websites, annual reports, and previous studies. The research reveals that Algerian Islamic banks do not prioritize scientific methods in pricing their services. The results suggest that these banks operate within a traditional framework under the oversight of the central bank. The central bank's rules depend on the prices of services conventional banks offer. This shapes how customers perceive these banks as representatives of Islamic banking. Islamic banks can utilize the study's results to develop pricing strategies that are more effective and compliant with Islamic law. Regulators can utilize these findings to formulate enhanced policies to bolster the Islamic banking sector. The results also assist researchers in delving deeper into the realm of Islamic banking service pricing. This study refutes the hypothesis that Algerian Islamic banks have enhanced the efficiency of their service pricing by adopting models in line with Islamic finance principles, such as profit-sharing, while considering market conditions and service value. They should embrace more pragmatic and beneficial pricing strategies that align with Islamic law, cater to customer needs, and enhance their competitiveness and value in the national banking market.
Mengming Michael Dong, Theophanis C. Stratopoulos, Victor Xiaoqi Wang
This paper provides a review of recent publications and working papers on ChatGPT and related Large Language Models (LLMs) in accounting and finance. The aim is to understand the current state of research in these two areas and identify potential research opportunities for future inquiry. We identify three common themes from these earlier studies. The first theme focuses on applications of ChatGPT and LLMs in various fields of accounting and finance. The second theme utilizes ChatGPT and LLMs as a new research tool by leveraging their capabilities such as classification, summarization, and text generation. The third theme investigates implications of LLM adoption for accounting and finance professionals, as well as for various organizations and sectors. While these earlier studies provide valuable insights, they leave many important questions unanswered or partially addressed. We propose venues for further exploration and provide technical guidance for researchers seeking to employ ChatGPT and related LLMs as a tool for their research.
* Global Health Organization Leadership, * Regional Leaders in Health
Dear COP 28 President-Designate Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber,
This year, world leaders gathering in the UAE to take stock of their climate commitments will for the first time engage in official programming focused on health. We, the signatories of this letter, support your leadership in bringing health front and center at COP28.
As global health leaders, we are committed to achieving health and well-being for all; this is not possible without a safe and stable climate. The Paris Agreement enshrined the “right to health” as a core obligation for climate action. Yet, communities, health workers, and health systems around the world already face the alarming impacts of a changing climate. Climate change-induced extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe; many countries are grappling with the health consequences of extreme heat, unprecedented storms, floods, food and water insecurity, wildfires, and displacement. For COP28 to truly be a “health COP,” it must address the root cause of the climate crisis: the continued extraction and use of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas. We call on the COP28 Presidency and the leaders of all countries to commit to an accelerated, just, and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels as the decisive path to health for all.
Ending our dangerous dependency on fossil fuels will improve the health prospects of future generations and will save lives. Keeping the global temperature increase within the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement is essential to ensure good health and economic prosperity for all. This will only be possible if we rapidly phase out fossil fuels. Fossil fuel phase-out will limit global warming, thereby protecting health from the devastating impacts of extreme weather, and preventing further ecological degradation and biodiversity loss. Failing to do so will lead to overwhelming health consequences, as well as the loss of key natural resources and ecosystem services that are critical to both human and non-human species health, 1 there by undermining One Health and planetary health.
In addition to climate-related health impacts, air pollution caused in part by burning fossil fuels causes 7 million premature deaths annually. 2 The economic costs 3 of air pollution-related health impacts amounted to over US$8.1 trillion, or 6.1% of global GDP, in 2019. By improving air quality, governments can reduce the burden of disease from multiple cancers, heart disease, neurological conditions including stroke, and chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Investments in clean energy sources will save hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs associated with air pollution every year, while reducing economic losses from extreme weather events with damages worth US$253 billion (in 2021). 4
A full and rapid phase-out of fossil fuels is the most significant way to provide the clean air, water, and environment that are foundational to good health. We cannot rely on unreliable and inadequate solutions, like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which extend the use of fossil fuels but do not generate the real and immediate health improvements which a renewable energy transition provides. False solutions like CCS risk making harmful emissions worse, straining the health of overburdened communities, and delaying our progress toward meaningful climate progress.
The energy transition must be just and equitable for all. In transitioning to a clean energy future, there is an opportunity to undo the injustices of the fossil fuel-dependent system, taking a systemic approach and emphasizing health, care and community well-being, leaving no one behind. Global leaders must ensure everyone, including fragile states and the most remote and excluded communities, has access to non-polluting, affordable, reliable, accessible, and resilient clean energy, as well as to emerging technologies that make the best use of this energy. A just transition offers the opportunity to reduce health inequities faced by minority and marginalized communities, especially with respect to the health effects of ongoing fossil fuel use and dependence.
Unlocking finance is essential to deliver a healthy and just transition. Achieving climate and health goals will only be feasible if we stop investing in fossil fuels and invest instead in proven climate and health solutions. Each year, countries spend hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, money that could be spent investing in a healthy future. High-income countries, development finance institutions, and the private sector must dramatically increase and fulfill their commitments to drive investments in clean energy, clean air, and economic development for the communities most harmed by climate change and fossil fuel pollution.
Fossil fuel interests have no place at climate negotiations. The fossil fuel industry cannot be allowed to continue its decades-long campaign of obstructing climate action at the UNFCCC negotiations and beyond. Just as the tobacco industry is not allowed to participate in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, it is imperative to safeguard global collaboration on climate progress from the lobbying, disinformation, and delays in favor of industry interests.
Without ambitious climate action, the burden on health care systems and health care workers will be insurmountable. Health gains made in recent decades will be in vain and we will see the harmful impacts of climate change ruin our chances for a safe, equitable and just future.
In this extraordinary year, with health for the first time on the COP agenda, we urge you to deliver real climate progress: commit to an accelerated, just, and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels and invest in a renewable energy transition as the decisive path to health for all.
Sincerely,
Global Health Organization Leadership (Alphabetical by organization)
• Githinji Gitahi, CEO, Amref Health Africa
• Pam Cipriano, President, International Council of Nurses
• Salman Khan, Liaison Officer for Public Health Issues, International Federation of Medical Students' Associations
• Naveen Thacker, President, International Pediatric Association
• Dr Christos Christou, International President, Médecins Sans Frontières
• María del Carmen Calle Dávila, Executive Secretary, Organismo Andino du Salud (Andean Health Organization)
• Luis Eugenio de Souza, President, World Federation for Public Health Associations
• Lujain Alqodmani, President, World Medical Association
Regional Leaders in Health (Alphabetical by surname)
• Mary T. Bassett, Director, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University
• Fiona Godlee, Former Editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal
• (Dr.) Arvind Kumar, Chairman, Institute of Chest Surgery, Chest Onco Surgery and Lung Transplantation, Medanta Hospital, India
• Dame Parveen Kumar, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Education, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
• Lwando Maki, Secretary, Public Health Association of South Africa
• Jemilah Mahmood, Executive Director, Sunway Center for Planetary Health - Malaysia
• Kari C. Nadeau, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard School of Public Health
• (Dr.) K Srinath Reddy, Past President of Public Health Foundation of India
This letter is supported and endorsed by:
National Health Organization Leadership (Alphabetical by organization)
• Rosana Teresa Onocko Campos, President, Associação Brasileira de Saúde Coletiva (Brazil)
• Katie Huffling, DNP, Executive Director, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (US)
• Dr Latifa Patel, Representative Body Chair, British Medical Association
• Kamran Abassi, Editor-in-Chief, British Medical Journal (UK)
• Frances Peart, President & Board Chair, Climate and Health Alliance (Australia)
• Kate Wylie, Executive Director, Doctors for the Environment Australia
• Agonafer Tekalenge, President, Ethiopian Public Health Association
• Diederik Aarendonk, Forum Coordinator Global Health Organization Leadership, European Forum for Primary Care
• Kevin Fenton, President, Faculty of Public Health (UK)
• Ansgar Gerhardus, Board Chair, German Public Health Association
• Vital Ribeiro, Chair, Associação Civil Projeto Hospitais Saudáveis (Healthy Hospitals Project)
• Sheila Sobrany, President, Royal College of Nursing
• The Board of the Public Health Association of South Africa
• Diana Zeballos, Executive Secretary, Sustainable Health Equity Movement (SHEM)
• Adeline Kimambo, Executive Secretary, Tanzania Public Health Association
• Richard Smith, Chair, UK Health Alliance on Climate Change
Abstract Background The university years are a developmentally crucial phase and a peak period for the onset of mental disorders. The beliefs about the changeability of negative emotion may play an important role in help-seeking. The brief digital growth mindset intervention is potentially scalable and acceptable to enhance adaptive coping and help-seeking for mental health needs in university students. We adapted the Single-session Intervention on Growth Mindset for adolescents (SIGMA) to be applied in university students (U-SIGMA). This protocol introduces a two-armed waitlist randomized controlled trial study to examine the effectiveness and acceptability of U-SIGMA in promoting help-seeking among university students in the Greater Bay Area. Methods University students (N = 250, ages 18–25) from universities in the Greater Bay Area will be randomized to either the brief digital growth mindset intervention group or the waitlist control group. Participants will report on the mindsets of negative emotions, perceived control over anxiety, attitude toward help-seeking, physical activity, hopelessness, psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, and perceived stress at baseline and the 2-week and 8-week follow-ups through web-based surveys. A 30-min digital intervention will be implemented in the intervention group, with a pre- and post-intervention survey collecting intervention feedback, while the control group will receive the link for intervention after 8 weeks. Discussion This protocol introduces the implementation plan of U-SIMGA in multi-cities of the Greater Bay Area. The findings are expected to help provide pioneer evidence for the effectiveness and acceptability of the brief digital intervention for university students in the Chinese context and beyond and contribute to the development of accessible and effective prevention and early intervention for university students’ mental health. Trial registration HKU Clinical Trials Registry: HKUCTR-3012; Registered 14 April 2023. http://www.hkuctr.com/Study/Show/7a3ffbc0e03f4d1eac0525450fc5187e .
This paper explores the journey of AI in finance, with a particular focus on the crucial role and potential of Explainable AI (XAI). We trace AI's evolution from early statistical methods to sophisticated machine learning, highlighting XAI's role in popular financial applications. The paper underscores the superior interpretability of methods like Shapley values compared to traditional linear regression in complex financial scenarios. It emphasizes the necessity of further XAI research, given forthcoming EU regulations. The paper demonstrates, through simulations, that XAI enhances trust in AI systems, fostering more responsible decision-making within finance.
Nowadays, it is thought that there are only two approaches to political economy: public finance and public choice; however, this research aims to introduce a new insight by investigating scholastic sources. We study the relevant classic books from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries and reevaluate the scholastic literature by doctrines of public finance and public choice. The findings confirm that the government is the institution for realizing the common good according to scholastic attitude. Therefore, scholastic thinkers saw a common mission for the government based on their essentialist attitude toward human happiness. Social conflicts and lack of social consent are the product of diversification in ends and desires; hence, if the end of humans were unified, there would be no conflict of interest. Accordingly, if the government acts according to its assigned mission, the lack of public consent is not significant. Based on the scholastic point of view this study introduces the third approach to political economy, which can be, consider an analytical synthesis among classical doctrines.