The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between selected budgetary expenditures for facilities and debt service and building conditions in the Commonwealth of Virginia. One research question and three sub-questions for selected school divisions were used to investigate this topic. The major data components used in this study were provided by the Virginia Department of Education. Twenty -two school divisions in the Commonwealth of Virginia were selected for the study, based on a previous study conducted by Crook (2006). Crook identified and classified selected school divisions as standard or substandard pursuant to the responses of principals who responded to the Commonwealth Assessment of Physical Environment (CAPE) assessment instrument. The line items of "facilities and debt service" were analyzed over a five year period for fiscal years 2000-2005. An independent t-test drawn from SPSS software was used to determine statistical significance between combined per-pupil expenditures for facilities and debt service. A comparison of the (1) means of total expenditures in the facilities and debt service line items, (2) total per-pupil expenditures, and (3) annual per-pupil expenditures was used to determine statistical significance. Analysis of the VEA measure of fiscal capacity and effort was conducted to ascertain the similarity of the two groups of school divisions. The findings of the study indicate that an analysis of total expenditure and per-pupil spending during the fiscal years of 2000-2005 reveal strong statistical significance in spending between school divisions with buildings classified as satisfactory and unsatisfactory in the line items of facilities and debt service. Analysis of five year total expenditure mean revealed there was strong statistical significance found in the two financial line items. Analysis of yearly per-pupil expenditures revealed that there was no statistical significance in the budget line item of facilities. Statistical significance was found in the financial line item of debt service during the academic year of 2000-2001 with a p value of (.025). / Ph. D.

Budgeten har länge kritiserats från olika håll för att budgetprocessen är tid- ochresurskrävande och för att den medför lite mervärde för företag. Dessutom blir budgetensnabbt inaktuell eftersom den inte tar hänsyn till dagens snabba omvärldsförändringar.Trots detta används den idag som ett centralt styr- och uppföljningsverktyg hos mångaföretag runt om i världen. På grund av att budgeten har ifrågasatts har rullande prognosersom ett alternativt styrmedel uppmärksammats mycket. Rullande prognoser ärfördelaktiga när det råder betydande osäkerhet i företagets omgivning och budgetendärför snabbt blir inaktuell. Dock finns det delade meningar om rullande prognoser rollsom styrverktyg. Vissa tycker att rullande prognoser helt borde ersätta budgeten medanandra hävdar att rullande prognoser istället kan fungera som ett komplement till den.Parker Hannifin är ett företag som har gått mot en kombination av budget och rullandeprognoser. Syftet med studien är att skapa förståelse för hur kombinationen rullandeprognoser och budget används i Parker Hannifin idag. Förståelsen används för attanalysera om rullande prognoser är ett alternativ eller kompletterande verktyg till budgetför Parker.Vi tillämpar följande metoder i vår uppsats: hermeneutisk förhållningssätt, kvalitativmetod, abduktiv ansats och som undersökningsmetod har vi använt oss av en fallstudie.Det empiriska materialet baseras på intervjuer.Slutsatserna av studien visar att både budget och rullande prognoser är nödvändiga ochkompletterande verktyg för företagets styrning. Budget och rullande prognoser var ochen för sig ger inte tillräckligt med information men båda tillsammans bildar ett godtagbartstyrsystem för hela verksamheten. Kombinationen av budget och rullande prognos kanförbättras hos Parker genom att koncentrera budgetprocessen till de mest betydelsefullaposterna, utveckla prognosverktyget samt skapa bättre kommunikation med säljbolagen. / Uppsatsnivå: D

SOFI est un outil logiciel commercialisé par la société MGDIS. Il est destiné aux institutions publiques comme des collectivités locales pour élaborer un budget pluriannuel. SOFI est basé sur une modélisation financière discrète. Par conséquent, le défaut de SOFI est qu’il utilise des tableaux de type Excel. Dans ce travail, nous avons conçu un nouveau modèle utilisant un autre paradigme. Ce nouveau modèle se base sur une modélisation en temps continu et utilise des outils mathématiques de types convolution, intégration, etc. Le modèle financier continu en temps s’appuie sur la théorie de la mesure. Nous avons créé des mesures et des champs, nous les avons utilisés dans notre modélisation pour montrer la cohérence de ce modèle. Nous avons montré dans cette modélisation comment certains aspects du fonctionnement d’un emprunt à taux fixe peuvent être insérés dans un modèle continu en temps. Nous avons construit un modèle financier à taux variable qui permet de modéliser un taux d’emprunt fixe défini à la date d’emprunt. Nous établissons la densité de dépense algébrique σ en fonction de la densité d’emprunt (KE) par un opérateur mathématique. Cet opérateur n’est pas toujours inversible. Nous étudions ce problème inverse du modèle financier sur l’espace des fonctions de carré intégrable définies sur un compact, et sur l’espace de mesure de Radon. Nous avons développé deux librairies industrielles pour implémenter des mesures et des champs pour le modèle financier continu en temps. Nous les avons appelées LemfAN (Library Embedded Finance And Numerical Analysis) et Lemf (Library Embedded Finance). L’intégration et la validation de ces deux librairies / SOFI is a software tool marketed by the company MGDIS. It is designed to the public institutions such local communities to set out multiyear budgets. SOFI is based on a discrete financial modeling. Consequently, the default of SOFI is using tables of type Excel. In this thesis, we build a new model with using an other paradigm. This new model is based on continuous-in-time modeling and uses the mathematical tools such convolution and integration, etc. The continuous-in-time financial model relies on measure theory. We created measures and fields and we used them in our modeling in order to show the consistency of the model. We have showed in this modeling how some aspects of functioning of loan with constant rate could be inserted in continuous-in-time model. We build a financial model with variable rate which allows model a rate of constant loan which is defined at borrowed time. We set the algebraic spending density_ in terms of the loan density_E by a mathematical operator. This operator is not always invertible. We study this inverse problem of the financial model on the space of square-integrable functions defined on a compact, and on radon measure space. We have developed two industrials libraries to implement measures and fields for the continuous-in-time financial model. We called them LemfAN (Library Embedded Finance And Numerical Analysis) and Lemf (Library Embedded Finance). The integration and the validation of these libraries in SOFI are succefully made.

Soil moisture and ground thaw state are both indicative of a hillslopes ability to transfer water. In cold regions in particular, it is widely known that the wetness of surface soils and depth of ground thaw are important for runoff generation, but the diversity of interactions between surface soil moisture and ground thaw themselves has not been studied. To fill this knowledge gap, detailed shallow soil moisture and thaw depth surveys were conducted along systematic grids at the Baker Creek Basin, Northwest Territories. Multiple hillslopes were studied to determine how the interactions differed along a spectrum of topological, typological and topographic situations (T³ template). Results did not show a simple relationship between soil moisture and ground thaw as was expected. Instead, correlation was a function of wetness such that the correlation between soil moisture and ground thaw improved with site wetness. To understand why differences in soil moisture and ground thaw state arose, water and energy fluxes were examined for these subarctic study sites to discern the key processes controlling the patterns observed. Results showed that the key control in variable soil moisture and frost table interactions among the sites was the presence of surface water. At the peatland and wetland sites, accumulated water in depressions and flow paths maintained soil moisture for a longer duration than at the hummock tops. These wet areas were often locations of deepest thaw depth due to the transfer of latent heat accompanying lateral surface runoff. Although the peatland and wetland sites had large inundation extents, modified Péclet numbers indicated that the relative influence of external and internal hydrological processes at each site were different. Continuous inflow from an upstream lake into the wetland site caused advective and conductive thermal energies to be of equal importance to ground thaw. The absence of continuous surface flow at the peatland and valley sites led to the dominance of conductive thermal energy over advective energy for ground thaw. A quantitative explanation for the shallow soil moisture-ground thaw patterns was provided by linking hydrological processes and hillslope storage capacity with the calculated water and energy fluxes as well as the modified Péclet number. These results suggest that the T³ template and the modified Péclet number could be very useful parameters for differentiating landscape components in modeling soil moisture and frost table heterogeneity in cold regions.

Soil moisture and ground thaw state are both indicative of a hillslopes ability to transfer water. In cold regions in particular, it is widely known that the wetness of surface soils and depth of ground thaw are important for runoff generation, but the diversity of interactions between surface soil moisture and ground thaw themselves has not been studied. To fill this knowledge gap, detailed shallow soil moisture and thaw depth surveys were conducted along systematic grids at the Baker Creek Basin, Northwest Territories. Multiple hillslopes were studied to determine how the interactions differed along a spectrum of topological, typological and topographic situations (T³ template). Results did not show a simple relationship between soil moisture and ground thaw as was expected. Instead, correlation was a function of wetness such that the correlation between soil moisture and ground thaw improved with site wetness. To understand why differences in soil moisture and ground thaw state arose, water and energy fluxes were examined for these subarctic study sites to discern the key processes controlling the patterns observed. Results showed that the key control in variable soil moisture and frost table interactions among the sites was the presence of surface water. At the peatland and wetland sites, accumulated water in depressions and flow paths maintained soil moisture for a longer duration than at the hummock tops. These wet areas were often locations of deepest thaw depth due to the transfer of latent heat accompanying lateral surface runoff. Although the peatland and wetland sites had large inundation extents, modified Péclet numbers indicated that the relative influence of external and internal hydrological processes at each site were different. Continuous inflow from an upstream lake into the wetland site caused advective and conductive thermal energies to be of equal importance to ground thaw. The absence of continuous surface flow at the peatland and valley sites led to the dominance of conductive thermal energy over advective energy for ground thaw. A quantitative explanation for the shallow soil moisture-ground thaw patterns was provided by linking hydrological processes and hillslope storage capacity with the calculated water and energy fluxes as well as the modified Péclet number. These results suggest that the T³ template and the modified Péclet number could be very useful parameters for differentiating landscape components in modeling soil moisture and frost table heterogeneity in cold regions.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1986.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Problematiken för vår undersökning grundar sig i den nya skollagen som trädde i kraft i juli 2011. Där står det reglerat att kommunen är ansvarig för alla elever i en kommun. Då det nu råder fritt skolval enligt den nya skollagen, kan elever och dess vårdnadshavare själva välja vilken grundskola de vill gå på. Eleverna kan antingen välja en kommunal grundskola eller en friskola och därmed blir planeringen och budgeteringen av elevantalet osäker för kommunerna då de inte vet hur många elever som kommer att gå i de olika skolorna. Vårt syfte med denna undersökning är att skapa förståelse för och en fördjupad kunskap om hur skolförvaltningen inom kommunen går tillväga för att planera och budgetera osäkerhet och om budgetarbetet har påverkats av det fria skolvalet och friskolorna. Undersökningen baseras på en kvalitativ metod med tre intervjuer av ekonomer på skolförvaltningen i tre kommuner; Helsingborgs stad, Lunds kommun och Kristianstads kommun. Utifrån det empiriska materialet har det framkommit att ledorden i budgetarbetet är; planering, kommunikation och kontroll. För att kunna budgetera för verksamheten som är oviss på grund av det osäkra elevantalet är dessa ledord viktiga i hela budgetarbetet, från förberedelser av budget till uppföljningen av budgetutfallet. Vad som har förändrats med införandet av det fria skolvalet och friskolorna är att det har blivit svårare att planera verksamheten och veta vilken skola som eleverna kommer att välja. Detta har medfört att behovet av långsiktig planering har blivit ännu viktigare och rektorerna har infört ett par tillvägagångssätt för att försöka ta reda på vilken skola eleverna kommer att välja. Det fria skolvalet och friskolorna har även bidragit till att kontrollen och själva uppföljningen har blivit än viktigare än det var tidigare. / The problem of our study is based on the new law of school which came into force in July 2011. In the law it is regulated that the municipality is responsible for all pupils in the municipality. Because of the new law of school the students and their guardians are free to choose which primary school they want to go to. Students can either choose a local school or an independent school and because of that planning and budgeting of the student population becomes more difficult for the municipalities when they do not know how many students will attend different schools. Our purpose in this study is to create an understanding and a deeper knowledge of how the school board in the municipality proceed in order to plan and budget uncertainty and if the budget has been affected by the free school choice and independent schools. This survey is based on a qualitative approach with interviews with economist on the school board in three municipalities; Helsingborgs’s city, Lund’s municipality and Kristianstad’s municipality. Based on the empirical material, it has emerged that the keywords in the budget are: planning, communication and control. To be able to budget for the schools which are uncertain because of the uncertain pupil numbers, these keywords are important throughout the whole budget process, from preparation of the budget to the monitoring of the budget. What has changed with the introduction of the free school choice and independent schools is that it becomes more difficult to plan for the schools and to know which school the students will choice. This has meant that long-term planning has become more important and principals have introduced a couple of approaches to attempt to find out at which school students will choice. The free school choice and independent schools have also contributed to the control and monitoring has become more important now than it was before.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Comm.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2002. / Advisor: Barbara Carroll. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 292-314). Also available via World Wide Web.