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The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology for estimating scheduled and manual override heating events and heating settings from indoor air temperature and gas use measurements in UK homes.

Living room air temperature and gas use data were measured in ten UK homes built to low energy standards. The temperature measurements are used to establish whether the central heating system is turned on or off and to estimate the heating setpoint used. The estimated heating periods are verified using the homes' average daily gas consumption profiles.

Using this method, the average number of heating periods per day was 2.2 (SD = 0.8) on weekdays and 2.7 (SD = 0.5) on weekends. The weekday mean heating duration was 8.8 h and for weekends, it was 9.8 h. Manual overrides of the settings occurred in all the dwellings and added an average of 2.4 h and 1.5 h to the heating duration on weekdays and weekends respectively. The mean estimated setpoint temperatures were 21.2 and 21.4°C on weekdays and weekends respectively.

Manual overrides of heating behaviours have only previously been assessed by questionnaire survey. This paper demonstrates an alternative method to identifying these manual override events and responds to a key gap in the current body of research that little is currently reported on the frequency and duration of manual heating overrides in UK homes.

The results could be used to better inform the assumptions of space heating behaviour used in energy models in order to more accurately predict the space heating energy demands of dwellings.

Manual overrides of heating behaviours have only previously been assessed by questionnaire survey. This paper demonstrates an alternative method to identifying these manual override events and responds to a key gap in the current body of research that little is currently reported on the frequency and duration of manual heating overrides in UK homes.

This study aims to decrypt the efforts made by Chinese people's courts nationwide to protect the rights of Chinese posted workers in the Belt & Road (B&R) countries by investigating labour litigation cases with an extraterritorial application of Chinese labour law (under the “doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules”).

This study collected all labour litigation from 2014 to 2018 brought forward by Chinese posted workers in Chinese courts against Chinese enterprises regarding the performance of employment contracts in the B&R countries where Chinese labour laws were mandatorily applied under the doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules. The study adopted a qualitive research approach to analyse the compiled cases to explore their characteristics and effects.

This study found that the volume of labour disputes in the B&R countries had a somewhat positive correlation to the amount of investment from China. However, this correlation was rather superficial when compared with the correlation to the type of industrial sector (e.g. the construction sector) and to the claim category (e.g. remuneration claims). Moreover, labour disputes in both the B&R countries and China shared a great deal of similarity with regard to their concentration in certain sectors and in certain types of claims. Therefore, mandatorily applying Chinese labour law could be convenient for Chinese workers returning from abroad who seek remedies and could allow Chinese judges to issue affirmative decisions regardless of the territory in which the worker was posted.

The cases collected by this study were limited to those filed in China by Chinese workers who were hired by Chinese enterprises and sent to work in the B&R countries and did not include those filed in the B&R countries by Chinese posted workers. Future research should therefore attempt to gather a broader range of labour disputes to further clarify the issues and need for labour protection for Chinese posted workers in the B&R countries.

This study argues that the doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules is not entirely unproblematic because it might arbitrarily rule out the standards set by foreign labour legislation that could be more favourable to workers or offer them greater protection. Therefore, giving judges a certain degree of discretion is imperative to allow them to apply foreign labour standards when they have been proven to benefit workers.

Apart from a handful of reports on individual cases, there have been very few empirical studies regarding the general picture of labour protection for Chinese posted workers in the B&R countries. This study has adopted a novel approach to collect information on labour disputes in the B&R countries and to facilitate a qualitative analysis to test the practical implications of the doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules.

This paper aims to determine whether the “true and fair view override” (TFVO) principle is relevant and applicable in Islamic accounting. In addition, the paper examines the roles that TFVO could play in Islamic accounting and auditing.

A qualitative research method was used based on documentary and textual analysis of the Shari’ah fundamentals (Islamic legal sources) and relevant accounting standards and regulations.

The paper found that the TFVO is relevant and applicable in Islamic accounting and auditing and not contradictory to the rules of the Shari’ah. Therefore, the concept is acceptable for use in Islamic accounting. Moreover, based on the several roles played by the TFVO, in the Islamic context, the practicality of this concept in Islamic accounting provides further justification for its continued usage.

The findings of the paper provide a basis to support the inclusion of the TFVO in Islamic accounting standards, as well as possible usage by Islamic financial institutions (IFIs). Thus, regulators of IFIs and Islamic accounting standards setting bodies can consider it in their challenging task of standardizing accounting practices due to the different interpretations of transactions from the various Madhahib and multiple accounting concepts and practices. In addition, the discussion in the paper reminds accountants and auditors of IFIs and Islamic organizations that providing a true and fair view (TFV) is paramount; thus an override of inapplicable accounting standards and regulation is allowed, but not Shari’ah. Thus, TFVO can assist accountants to record transactions that reflect the economic reality of the IFIs, especially prior to accounting regulations keeping pace with the rapid business environment.

The paper has highlighted a very important issue relating to the TFV, specifically the TFVO, from the Islamic perspective. The paper is considered as the first paper that contextually analyses this issue based on Islamic legal sources using a qualitative approach. In addition, the paper has contributed to the literature in Islamic accounting and auditing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore why school districts in the USA made so little use of local sources of non-tax revenues, even when faced with declines in traditional revenue as occurred during the Great Recession? The analysis uses the case of Colorado, where historically districts have made more use of alternative revenues.

Data for the analysis are drawn from the NCES’s Common Core of Data with administrative data to create a panel of Colorado school districts. The paper presents estimates of traditional panel models, as well as spatial panel models, that give the correlates of variation in alternative revenue for education.

As is true nationally, in Colorado school districts made no increased use of non-tax revenues in fiscal downturns, while the presence of expenditure limits does increase use, though not as might be expected. Revenues from overrides of the limits and alternative local revenues appear to be complements. Further, there is no evidence of spatial relationships for the alternative revenue sources considered.

This paper uses richer data than has ever been used to explore the determinants of alternative revenues, making it possible to explore relationships others could not. In addition, synthetic cohort analysis is used to generate plausible instrumental variables for passage of an override of an expenditure limitation. Further, no existing analysis of nontraditional revenues considers the possibility that use of those revenues might be spatially correlated.

This article summarizes findings of a survey designed to obtain perceptions of municipal finance officers in Massachusetts regarding stabilization fund management strategies. Responses indicate that stabilization funds have become embedded components of municipal revenue management strategies, that municipalities are reluctant to tap stabilization fund balances, and that chief financial officers perceive these balances to be important to bond ratings. Some finance officers report active use of stabilization funds, generally because their communities either rely on the stabilization fund to finance capital projects or because they are currently vulnerable to revenue emergencies. A small number of communities report that they rely on voters to override statutory property tax levy limits, while maintaining stabilization fund balances above the statewide median.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a novel XML schema language called DTD Schema that solves major limitations of document type definition (DTD) and supports features that XML Schema supports in a simple and concise way.

DTD Schema is designed based on DTD and data definition language of object‐oriented and object‐relational databases. It extends DTD with namespaces, richer built‐in types and user‐defined subtypes, local elements and attributes, complex types with nonmonotonic multiple element and attribute inheritance with overriding, blocking, conflict handling, and polymorphism.

XML Schema is recommended by W3C as the schema language for XML. It uses a set of predefined XML tags to define the schema, which is often a long, intricate specification, full of details and concepts and its verbose syntax often doubles or triples the document length. It is so complicated that even XML experts do not find it human‐readable, mostly due to the XML‐based syntax.

The only limitation is that DTD Schema is not in XML. But for the same reason, it is simple and concise.

DTD schema is halfway between DTD and XML Schema and thus it is less complex and much easier for human to use than XML Schema.

DTD Schema supports all functionalities of XML Schema and also the best of object‐oriented features including multiple inheritance, overriding, blocking, conflict handling and polymorphism. Therefore, it is much more expressive than XML Schema.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the transfer of a concept issued in one culture to a different setting, featuring different characteristics from the one in which the concept appeared.

Secondary data have been collected by analysing accounting regulations issued after the fall of communism with respect to true and fair view (TFV). Primary data have been collected by conducting eleven semi-structured interviews with representatives of major actors involved in the process of financial reporting. We have further developed and tested two research propositions.

We find that the perception of TFV in Romania depends firstly on the category of actors. Second, we find that merely including a rule or a concept in the regulations of a certain setting does not automatically mean that they will be applied de facto consistently with their original meaning, issued from a different setting.

We conclude that concept intertranslatability cannot be assumed under the circumstances investigated in our chapter, with immediate implications for other cases presupposing that concept transfer works, such as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

The small number of interviews we have conducted may be viewed as a limitation of our study; however, special care was exercised when choosing interviewees, and they are key persons within their organizations, or representative of all the interested parties in the process of financial reporting in Romania.

We contribute to an increasing literature on accounting harmonization and applicability of global standards and concepts in local contexts.

Swedish legislators and financial reporting regulators have experienced the vagaries of legislating EC Directives into their statutes. By changing their mind about including “true and fair” in the auditor’s report regulators have drawn attention to the need for an override provision if financial reality is to be presented in the annual accounts. It appears that global companies with headquarters in Sweden will continue to reconcile their Swedish accounts to US or International GAAP in order to present their companies in a comparable manner even though these could contravene the mutual recognition of accounts mandate issued by the EC.