Participatory budgeting as a social innovation: motives and outcomes of enactment: based on the example of the city of Tartu

The diffusion of Participatory Budgeting (PB) at a local level has attracted the attention of many researchers. PB has been invented in Porto Alegre, Brazil during the time of redemocratization of Brazil in 1989. Afterwards, it has been diffused globally and currently it exists in almost all continents. The diffusion of policies and social innovation is quite widespread and one policy can be applied to various kinds of contexts which, in their turn, can be quite different from each other. The current study explores the diffusion of PB at a local level, how it travels around the world and more specifically, how, why and with what results it was adopted in the city of Tartu in Estonia. The main aim of the thesis is to understand what drove the adoption of PB in Tartu and whether the expectations of city government and NGO from PB enactment have been met or not. The theoretical framework of the thesis is built on the existing literature about PB diffusion drivers around the world, starting from Brazil until Africa. Based on the existing theories, the main expectations of this study were that Tartu city government adopted PB for the purpose of gaining more popularity and votes as well as for increasing levels of citizen participation and awareness. Moreover, it was supposed that the city government wanted to find better practical solutions for various problems the city has. The research has been conducted using qualitative methods of research, relying on elite interviews with employees of Tartu city government and e-Governance Academy as the main source of empirical information. In order to ensure the validity of the research results, a triangulation of data was applied, combining statistical data and information from media articles with key-informant interviews. The results have shown that PB enactment in the city of Tartu was a result of a cooperation between an NGO (e-Governance Academy) and the city government of Tartu, both of them having the same objectives. The main incentives of PB implementation in the case of Tartu were citizen engagement and citizen education about the budgeting process of the city. During the six years of PB experience at Tartu (2013-2018) 3 only one of the main objectives has been met, which is the citizen engagement, as, every year the number of citizens interested in the process of decision-making is being increased. At the same time, PB failed to be a tool of citizen education about the budgeting process. This largely due to the fact, that only a very limited budget was allocated for the process, and there were not many opportunities for citizens to have a broader picture of the whole budgeting process of the city. In sum, this study contributes to the field of PB diffusion at a local level, and its results can be applied both in and outside of Estonia for understanding the objectives and possible results of PB enactment.https://www.ester.ee/record=b5239713*es

МАСОНСТВО И СОВРЕМЕННОСТЬ: ВОЗРОЖДЕНИЕ ДВИЖЕНИЯ В АРМЕНИИ (анализ республиканской прессы)

The paper is dedicated to the topic of Masonry given day-to-day realities. The publications in the Armenian periodicals related to the rebirth of Masonry movements on post-Soviet territory, in particular in Armenia, are analyzed. The study draws parallels between century-long Masonry and newly made Masonic lodges. Historical realities, as a rule, condition today’s perception of Masonic movement in Armenia which is why very often this phenomenon is interpreted ambiguously, at times being covered in a veil of mystery or, even worse, negativity. There is every indication of unreliability and lack of verification of information, various defamations and hypotheses which confuse the uneducated minds resulting in quite a natural misunderstanding.The paper is dedicated to the topic of Masonry given day-to-day realities. The publications in the Armenian periodicals related to the rebirth of Masonry movements on post-Soviet territory, in particular in Armenia, are analyzed. The study draws parallels between century-long Masonry and newly made Masonic lodges. Historical realities, as a rule, condition today’s perception of Masonic movement in Armenia which is why very often this phenomenon is interpreted ambiguously, at times being covered in a veil of mystery or, even worse, negativity. There is every indication of unreliability and lack of verification of information, various defamations and hypotheses which confuse the uneducated minds resulting in quite a natural misunderstanding

D-Trace precision matrix estimator with eigenvalue control

The estimation of a precision matrix has an important role in several research fields. In high-dimensional settings, one of the most prominent approaches to estimate the precision matrix is the ɭ₁ (Lasso) norm penalized convex optimization. This framework guarantees the sparsity of the estimated precision matrix. However, it does not control the eigenspectrum of the obtained estimator, and, moreover, it shrinks the largest eigenvalues of the estimated precision matrix. In this paper, we focus on D-trace precision matrix methodology. We propose imposing a negative trace penalization on the objective function of the D-trace approach, aimed to control the eigenvalues. Through extensive numerical analysis, using simulated and real datasets, we show the advantageous performance of our proposed methodology

The Fibonacci Sequence

A review was made of the Fibonacci sequence, its characteristics and applications

Education Policy in FYROM and its role in advancing the EU accession process

The aim of this study is to identify the role of education in advancing the EU accession process for FYROM. Two components of political criteria, namely “democracy” and “human rights & respect for and protection of minorities” have been addressed through the lens of education. According to the EU community, systematic efforts are necessary to maintain and strengthen the European values. A great role is attributed to education as a promoter of democracy and human rights. The importance of evolving and embedding European values is particularly high for the countries involved in the EU integration process – presently the Southeastern Europe, including FYROM. FYROM, in its official position admits the significance of education in disseminating the European values of democracy and human rights in the country. However, the potential of education is not yet fully employed in this sense.The aim of this study is to identify the role of education in advancing the EU accession process for FYROM. Two components of political criteria, namely “democracy” and “human rights & respect for and protection of minorities” have been addressed through the lens of education. According to the EU community, systematic efforts are necessary to maintain and strengthen the European values. A great role is attributed to education as a promoter of democracy and human rights. The importance of evolving and embedding European values is particularly high for the countries involved in the EU integration process – presently the Southeastern Europe, including FYROM. FYROM, in its official position admits the significance of education in disseminating the European values of democracy and human rights in the country. However, the potential of education is not yet fully employed in this sense