Search Results (627)

This paper investigates the macroeconomic determinants of Romania’s budget deficit over the post-EU accession period, drawing on quarterly data from Q1 2007 to Q2 2025. Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, we identify both short- and long-run relationships between the fiscal balance and a set of macroeconomic fundamentals. Real GDP growth proves to be the most robust positive determinant, with a short-run coefficient of 0.2718 and a long-run multiplier of 0.5152—a finding that firmly establishes sustained economic expansion as the primary structural force behind fiscal improvement. Inflation is positively associated with fiscal balance, consistent with nominal revenue buoyancy outpacing expenditure indexation in the short run. Public debt exerts a persistent negative effect, confirming that accumulated borrowing generates structural pressure on fiscal outcomes over time. A fiscal persistence parameter of 0.4724 reveals that nearly half of any quarter’s deficit is carried forward from the previous one—a feature that compounds temporary shocks into prolonged imbalances. Bounds testing confirms cointegration, validating the long-run interpretation of the estimated multipliers. The results contribute to the literature on fiscal reaction functions in emerging EU economies, particularly by documenting the interaction between cyclical conditions, external imbalances, and fiscal sustainability. The findings carry direct implications for the long-term sustainability of Romania’s public finances and welfare state. Persistent fiscal deficits and compounding debt dynamics constrain the government’s capacity to finance public investment, social transfers, and the green transition—highlighting the interdependence between fiscal consolidation and broader sustainability goals aligned with sustainable development goals: Decent Work and Economic Growth, Reduced Inequalities, and Partnerships for the Goals. Full article

In this paper, we introduce a new class of bi-univalent functions defined by a third-order logarithmic-type differential operator. By using the subordination principle and Carathéodory functions, we investigate the coefficient estimates for the Taylor-Maclaurin coefficients $|a_2|$ and $|a_3|$. Furthermore, we derive the Fekete–Szegö inequality and obtain bounds for the second Hankel determinant $H_2\left(2\right)$ associated with this class. Several consequences of the main results are also discussed. Full article

The proposition that expanding education uniformly advances the 2030 Agenda is widely held in policy discourse—embedded in SDG 4, amplified by UNESCO, and routinely invoked in national development strategies. This paper shows that this proposition holds only partially. Using a balanced panel of 193 countries observed over 2000–2023, we estimate 96 two-way fixed-effects regressions connecting eight measures of education—spanning expenditure, enrolment, completion, attainment, and accumulated stock—to twelve Sustainable Development Goal outcomes. The estimates reveal a pronounced block asymmetry. On the social side, educational expansion is a robust correlate of progress against poverty: a one-standard-deviation increase in secondary enrolment is associated with a 0.16-log-point lower $2.15/day extreme-poverty headcount and a 4.35-point lower value on the 0–100 SDG-1 composite, both significant at p < 0.001. On the environmental side, the same education measure is associated with a coefficient of β = +0.048 (p = 0.014) on production-based CO₂ per capita and β = −0.260 (p = 0.031) on forest area—associations that are statistically significant but directionally perverse, though small in magnitude (approximately 0.05–0.26 SD on the standardised outcome). Higher schooling is also associated with higher within-country inequality (β = +0.71 on the Gini, p = 0.006). The asymmetry survives Driscoll–Kraay standard errors, Oster sensitivity bounds, and two-year lagged specifications. The findings qualify the optimistic narrative that frames education as a uniform instrument for sustainable development: schooling is a robust predictor of social-block progress, but appears insufficient on its own for environmental progress and is best understood as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, dedicated environmental policy. The 2030 architecture may benefit from differentiated instrument–goal pairs rather than reliance on any single instrument across all goals. Full article

Background/Objective: Parental feeding practices play an important role in shaping children’s dietary intake, eating behaviours, and long-term health outcomes. Although several questionnaires assess feeding practices, few have been validated among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, despite these groups being disproportionately affected by food insecurity and diet-related health inequities. This study assessed the structural validity and internal consistency of the Feeding Practices and Structure Questionnaire—Solid Feeding version (FPSQ-S)—among socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers and fathers of young children. Methods: Two cross-sectional online surveys were conducted with 178 mothers and 94 fathers of children aged 5–35 months living in disadvantaged households. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the structural validity of the FPSQ-S. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha and Hancock’s H coefficients. Results: The original six-factor FPSQ-S structure was retained and demonstrated acceptable overall model fit in this disadvantaged sample (CFI = 0.846, TLI = 0.821, RMSEA = 0.070). Internal consistency ranged from acceptable to excellent across subscales (Cronbach’s α = 0.63–0.93; Hancock’s H = 0.64–0.93). Most items loaded satisfactorily onto their intended constructs; however, two items within the Feeding on Demand construct demonstrated weak factor loadings, and this construct showed lower reliability than the remaining subscales Conclusions: This is the first study to evaluate the FPSQ-S among socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers and fathers of children aged 5–35 months. The FPSQ-S demonstrated acceptable structural validity and reliability. While the six-factor structure was largely supported, further refinement of the Feeding on Demand construct and additional psychometric evaluation are warranted. Full article

Background/Objectives: Occupation shapes time use, physical demands, stress, and access to health resources, yet it remains an understudied axis of inequality among working women in low- and middle-income countries. This study assessed occupational-group disparities in lifestyle behaviors and adiposity levels among Peruvian working women. Methods: We conducted a pooled repeated cross-sectional analysis of ten Peruvian DHS/ENDES rounds from 2014–2019 and 2021–2024 among working women aged 18–49 years. The exposure was standardized occupational group, using professional/technical/managerial workers as the reference. Outcomes included five lifestyle behaviors and four adiposity indicators. Crude models estimated descriptive prevalence ratios (PRs) or beta coefficients; secondary adjusted models included age group, survey year, education, wealth, residence, natural region, and marital status. Results: A total of 40,726 women were included. Agricultural workers showed lower crude prevalences of almost-daily television viewing (PR 0.49; 95% CI 0.47–0.52), current smoking (PR 0.14; 95% CI 0.10–0.19), current alcohol use (PR 0.39; 95% CI 0.36–0.42), and heavy alcohol use (PR 0.17; 95% CI 0.12–0.27); these contrasts attenuated but generally persisted after adjustment. Insufficient fruit and vegetable intake exceeded 87% in all groups. Sales, domestic/household, services, and skilled manual workers had higher adjusted obesity than the reference group, with adjusted PRs ranging from 1.22 to 1.35. Conclusions: Occupation identifies relevant heterogeneity in lifestyle behaviors and adiposity levels among Peruvian working women. Lifestyle and adiposity profiles did not follow a simple social gradient, supporting occupation-specific strategies for noncommunicable disease prevention. Full article

The main objective of this paper is to introduce and investigate a new subclass of Sakaguchi-type analytic bi-univalent functions in the open unit disk, defined by a two-sided subordination condition to the four-leaf function ${\Lambda }_{4L}\left(z\right)=1+\frac{5}{6}z+\frac{1}{6}{z}^5$, whose image is a four-leaf-shaped domain. For suitable choices of the complex parameter b with $\left|b\right|\le 1$, $b\ne 1$, and the real parameters $\alpha \in [0,1]$ and $\rho \ge 0$, we study the class ${\mathcal{G}}_{\Sigma ,b}^{\alpha ,\rho }\left({\Lambda }_{4L}\right)$ of bi-univalent functions f for which both f and its inverse $g=f^{-1}$ satisfy a Sakaguchi-type subordination condition involving the fundamental ratios $f\left(z\right)/z$ and $f^{\prime }\left(z\right)$ together with the difference quotient ${\left(f\left(z\right)-f\left(bz\right)\right)}^{-1}$. Coefficient inequalities for the initial Taylor–Maclaurin coefficients are obtained, and Fekete–Szegő-type estimates are derived for the associated coefficient functional. Furthermore, graphical representations of the image domains are provided, which illustrate the geometric behavior of the functions in ${\mathcal{G}}_{\Sigma ,b}^{\alpha ,\rho }\left({\Lambda }_{4L}\right)$ and confirm that the proposed class is non-trivial. The present investigation extends recent studies on subclasses of analytic and bi-univalent functions associated with geometrically structured mappings and contributes to the visual interpretation of their analytic properties. Full article

This paper investigates explicit coefficient-based estimates for a class of fractional Hermite functions defined through finite power series with Gamma-function coefficients. These functions may be viewed as a fractional Hermite-type family associated with the Caputo fractional derivative of order $\alpha \in (0,1]$. An explicit representation of the fractional derivative is obtained as a finite sum of monomials with computable Gamma coefficients. This representation is used to derive a preliminary uniform estimate on bounded intervals $[0,R]$ with an explicit constant depending on $\alpha$, n, and R. Consistency with the integer-order setting is established by showing that, when $\alpha =1$, the construction reduces to a Hermite-type polynomial family and the Caputo derivative coincides with the ordinary derivative. Explicit asymptotic formulas are obtained for the associated coefficient envelope as $R\to 0^{+}$ and $R\to \infty$. Numerical experiments up to degree $n=7$ show that the ratio between the coefficient envelope and the computed supremum norm remains below approximately $1.45$ for the tested parameter range. In addition, a weighted $L^2$ estimate is derived with respect to a fractional Gaussian-type weight, yielding an explicit coefficient-based bound. The estimates obtained in this work are preliminary in nature, being based on coefficient-wise majorization, and are not claimed to be optimal. Determining sharp constants and establishing genuine norm-comparison inequalities remain open problems. The results presented here provide a rigorous starting point for the study of explicit coefficient-based estimates for fractional Hermite functions and suggest several directions for future research in fractional approximation theory. Full article

While land development opportunities stemming from planning regulations demonstrably influence rural household income, quantitative evidence quantifying these effects remains limited. Measuring and decomposing these effects can empirically support territorial spatial planning policies aimed at alleviating associated regional development imbalances and advancing sustainable rural development. This study selects Wuhan’s Sino-French Eco-City (urban development zone) and Xiaosi Township (wetland conservation zone) as typical zones. Based on 573 randomly sampled rural households, we explore the effects of land development opportunities on rural household incomes and find that: (1) Land development opportunities for non-agricultural conversion in the urban development zone significantly increase rural households’ total income, wage income, though their corresponding contribution rates are limited. Endogenously accumulated endowments such as human capital and economic status dominate the formation of such income gaps. (2) Planning-induced land development opportunities yield coefficients of 1.0442 for local employment income and −0.4567 for agricultural business income, with both statistically significant at the 1% significance level. Decomposition results show their respective contribution rates of 70.68% and 86.77%, demonstrating that such opportunities primarily account for cross-regional rural household income gaps. (3) Whereas non-agricultural land development opportunities narrow disparities in households’ local employment income, they raise inequality in rural households’ migrant employment, business, property and transfer income. These growth and equality-enhancing effects on local wage income are particularly pronounced for households possessing high-quantity but low-quality human capital. This study recommends supporting protected zones via farmer vocational training, expanded rural public service expenditure, and a benefit-sharing mechanism that channels land development gains to ecological and agricultural regions to strengthen households’ endogenous development capacity. Full article

Agricultural supply chains operating under rural infrastructure constraints face persistent logistical inefficiencies that reduce producer income and weaken territorial sustainability. This paper assesses how collaborative and coordinated distribution architectures reshape economic performance, efficiency, and equity in dispersed networks of cocoa producers in El Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia. The unified optimization framework compares three regimes: decentralized non-collaborative individual shipments, collaborative consolidation based on distribution centers, and coordinated distribution with time-window synchronization. The findings show a reduction in average logistics costs from $0.688/kg in decentralized distribution to $0.323/kg with collaborative distribution centers, and even further to $0.282/kg in coordinated distribution, representing an overall reduction of approximately 59%. A sensitivity analysis across 64 accessibility configurations shows that the advantage of coordination increases as time rigidity increases. These structural improvements translate into a 13.97% increase in total producer utility, raising average utility from $278 to $317 per producer. In addition, the distributional assessment based on Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients indicates that inequality remains stable despite gains in welfare. These results demonstrate that spatial consolidation combined with temporal synchronization is a decisive lever for resilient and inclusive rural supply systems. Full article

The accurate location of leakage points is a key part of underground gas prevention. To solve the problem of low positioning accuracy for gas extraction pipeline leakage, the gas extraction pipeline leakage experimental system was built, and the multi-source collaborative leakage localization method based on Stacking learning was proposed. The results showed that the Stacking–LSSVM–Elman–DBN (S-L-E-D) model with pressure–flow collaborative input achieved the best localization performance, with an accuracy of 0.932, Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 0.053, Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 0.082, Theil Inequality Coefficient (TIC) of 0.056, and a distance error below 1 m. Compared with a single-parameter input, the collaborative pressure–flow input improved the localization accuracy by more than 10%, while the RMSE and MAPE decreased by 39.0% and 37.4%, respectively. Under monitoring point fault conditions, the localization accuracies of monitoring points 1, 4, and 5 were 0.884, 0.891, and 0.881, respectively, while the dual-fault condition of monitoring points 1 and 4 still maintained an accuracy of 0.861. The study provides a feasible multi-source collaborative learning framework for leakage localization in gas extraction pipelines and offers a methodological reference for improving leakage monitoring and early warning. Full article

We prove a complete moment convergence criterion for weighted maximal partial sums of extended negatively dependent (END) random variables under slowly varying weights. For every $r>1$, and for triangular weight arrays that are uniformly bounded, quadratically non-degenerate, and uniformly non-degenerate on their active coefficients, we show that the summability of $n^{r-1}l\left(n\right)E\left[{(S_n^{*}/n-\epsilon )}_{+}\right]$ for all $\epsilon >0$ is equivalent to the weighted moment condition ${E\left[\right|X|}^{r+1}l\left(\right|X\left|\right)]<\infty$. The slowly varying factor l gives a refined borderline scale: it weakens the pure $(r+1)$-moment condition when $l\left(t\right)\to 0$, strengthens it when $l\left(t\right)\to \infty$, and recovers the classical scale when l is bounded away from zero and infinity. The proof uses weight-dependent monotone clipping, a Rosenthal-type maximal inequality for END sequences, Potter bounds and Karamata-type estimates for slowly varying functions, and a Bonferroni lower-bound argument based on a linear set of significant coefficients. Particular attention is paid to the preservation of the END structure under clipping, centering, and signed weights. Several corollaries and borderline heavy-tail examples are included, and possible modeling interpretations are briefly discussed without claiming finite-sample risk bounds beyond the theorem. Full article

This paper is devoted to defining and analyzing a new subclass $M(\nu ,\tau ,q)$ of q-valent harmonic mappings in the unit disk D, as well as investigating its connection with close-to-convex analytic functions. First, we prove that this newly defined class is non-empty and discuss its relationship with several known classes of harmonic mappings. Using arguments similar to those employed in the study of Mocanu-type harmonic mappings, we establish the close-to-convexity of functions belonging to this class. Necessary coefficient estimates for the analytic part are obtained, and auxiliary lemmas which play an essential role in the investigation of geometric properties of the class are derived. In particular, we establish distortion estimates for the derivative of the analytic part, which lead to a growth and distortion theorem for functions in the newly defined class $M(\nu ,\tau ,q)$. Furthermore, a covering theorem is obtained for these harmonic mappings. In addition, we also derive sharp bounds for the Fekete–Szegö-type functionals and several graphical examples are presented to analyze the geometric structure of the mappings in the class $M(\nu ,\tau ,q)$ that demonstrate how the parameters $q,\nu ,$ and $\tau ,$ affect the deformation of the unit disk. Full article

The inequitable redistribution of electricity price cross-subsidies constitutes a critical issue, as it compromises the implementation efficiency of tiered electricity pricing (TEP) policies and impedes the equalization of basic public services in the power sector. Drawing on residential TEP data from Hebei Province spanning 2016 to 2020, this paper employs the Gini coefficient method and reveals that high-income residential users receive substantially larger electricity price cross-subsidies than their low-income counterparts. Overall, the degree of such inequality has been rising annually. Furthermore, both high-income and low-income groups exhibit greater inequity in subsidy allocation relative to the middle-income group. Against this backdrop, this paper proposes a more rational tiering framework for TEP by adopting the rank-sum ratio (RSR) method, thereby identifying a viable pathway for residential users across all income brackets to share electricity costs equitably. This research contributes to the sound management of electricity price cross-subsidies, mitigates the inequity in subsidy distribution, and guides residents toward rational electricity consumption behaviors. Full article

Reliable public-sector labour-market forecasting requires models that can be updated as data sources, AI tools, and labour-market signals evolve. This paper proposes a provider-independent multi-agent framework for dynamic predictive evaluation of national and regional labour markets in Bulgaria. Implemented as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, the system coordinates specialised agents for data ingestion, preprocessing, semantic extraction, AI-adjusted transformation modelling, automated model evaluation, and reporting through stable input–output contracts. The empirical application integrates Bulgarian Employment Agency administrative registered-unemployment indicators, Eurostat labour-market data, World Bank macroeconomic data, and textual, audio, and video evidence on AI, skills, and employment change. The analysis covers the period 2015–2030. Observed official data are used up to 2025 for model construction and validation, while the 2026–2030 values are reported only as forecast and scenario projections. For youth unemployment among persons aged 24 years or younger, the semantic-enhanced model achieves the best predictive accuracy (RMSE = 0.2033; MAE = 0.1457), representing a small improvement over the structured baseline (RMSE = 0.2057; MAE = 0.1462) and a substantial RMSE reduction relative to the persistence benchmark (RMSE = 0.4750; MAE = 0.2891). The AI-adjusted coefficient does not reduce holdout error relative to the semantic-enhanced model, but provides an explicit and sensitivity-tested mechanism for regional scenario interpretation. Regional forecasts indicate persistent spatial inequality, with the Northwest remaining the highest-risk region and the Southwest the lowest-risk region. Full article

The paper is concerned with three-dimensional Hall-magnetohydrodynamics for partial viscosity terms. By applying basic inequality and energy estimates, we prove the global existence of classical solution for small initial data. Additionally, the local existence of classical solution is also obtained. The smallness conditions are given by the suitable Sobolev norms. Furthermore, the existence of classical solutions with large initial data can be obtained when the coefficients of viscosity sufficiently large. Full article