This study aims to identify the causes of delays in public construction projects in Thailand, a developing country. Increasing construction durations lead to higher costs, making it essential to pinpoint the causes of these delays. The research analyzed 30 public construction projects that encountered delays. Delay causes were categorized into four groups: contractor-related, client-related, supervisor-related, and external factors. A questionnaire was used to survey these causes, and the Relative Importance Index (RII) method was employed to prioritize them. The findings revealed that the primary cause of delays was contractor-related financial issues, such as cash flow problems, with an RII of 0.777 and a weighted value of 84.44%. The second most significant cause was labor issues, such as a shortage of workers during the harvest season or festivals, with an RII of 0.773. Additionally, various algorithms were used to compare the Relative Importance Index (RII) and four machine learning methods: Decision Tree (DT), Deep Learning, Neural Network, and Naïve Bayes. The Deep Learning model proved to be the most effective baseline model, achieving a 90.79% accuracy rate in identifying contractor-related financial issues as a cause of construction delays. This was followed by the Neural Network model, which had an accuracy rate of 90.26%. The Decision Tree model had an accuracy rate of 85.26%. The RII values ranged from 68.68% for the Naïve Bayes model to 77.70% for the highest RII model. The research results indicate that contractor financial liquidity and costs significantly impact construction operations, which public agencies must consider. Additionally, the availability of contractor labor is crucial for the continuity of projects. The accuracy and reliability of the data obtained using advanced data mining techniques demonstrate the effectiveness of these results. This can be efficiently utilized by stakeholders involved in construction projects in Thailand to enhance construction project management.

This paper assesses South Africa’s massive infrastructure drive to revive growth and increase employment. After years of stagnant growth, this is now facing a deep economic crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This drive also comes after years of weak infrastructure investment, widening the infrastructure deficit. The plan outlines a R1 trillion investment drive, primarily from the private sector through the Infrastructure Fund over the next 10 years (Government of South Africa, 2020). This paper argues that while infrastructure development in South Africa is much-needed, the emphasis on de-risking for private sector buy-in overshadows the key role the state must play in leading on structurally transforming the economy.

The world has complex mega-cities and interdependent infrastructures. This complication in infrastructure relations makes it sensitive to disasters and failures. Cascading failure causes blackouts for the whole system of infrastructures during disasters and the lack of performance of the emergency management stakeholders is clear during a disaster due to the complexity of the system. This research aimed to develop a new concurrent engineering model following the total recovery effort. The objectives of this research were to identify the clustered intervention utilized in the field of resilience and developing a cross-functional intervention network to enhance the resilience of societies during a disaster. Content analysis was employed to classify and categorize the intervention in the main divisions and sub-divisions and the grouping of stakeholders. The transposing system was employed to develop an integrated model. The result of this research showed that the operations division achieved the highest weight of information interchange during the response to improve the resilience of the system. The committee of logistics and the committee of rescue and relief needed the widest bandwidth of information flow in the concurrent engineering (CE) model. The contributed CE model helped the stakeholders provide a resilient response system. The final model and the relative share value of exchanging information for each workgroup can speed up recovery actions. This research found that concurrent engineering (CE) is a viable concept to be implemented as a strategy for emergency management. The result of this research can help policymakers achieve a collaborative teamwork environment and to improve resilience factors during emergency circumstances for critical infrastructures.

This article examines how financial technology determines bank performance in different EU countries. The answer to that question would allow banks to choose their development policy. The paper focuses  on the main and most popular bank services that are linked to financial technology. A SWOT analysis of FinTech is also presented to show the benefits and drawbacks of FinTech. FinTech-based services are very diverse and are provided by financial  firms and banks alike. This paper looks at the financial technology provided by banks: internet usage (internet banking), number of ATMs, credit transfers in a country, percentage of the population in a country holding a debit or credit card and whether that population has received or made a digital payment. Using the multi-criteria assessment methods of CRITIC and EDAS, the authors analysed and compared the countries of the European Union and the financial technology used in them. As a result of the application of these methods, the EU countries under consideration were ranked in terms of the use of financial technology. Subsequently, three banks from different countries with different levels of the use of financial technology were selected for the study. For these banks, financial ratios of profitability were calculated to characterise their performance. Correlation and pairwise regression analyses between the banks’ profitability ratios and financial technology were used to assess the relationship and influence between these ratios. The main conclusion of the study focuses on the extent to which financial technology influences the performance of banks in the selected countries. It is likely that further research will try to take into account the size of the country’s population when analysing all financial technologies. Researchers also needed to find out what influence financial technologies have on the such financial indicators as operational efficiency (costs), financial stability, and capital adequacy.

Formation of the latest scientific and methodological principles and the determination of the most important directions of the paradigm of the analysis of artistic creativity and text have been represented as actual problems of the theory of modern Kazakh literary criticism. The purpose of the work is to consider and analyze the modern concepts of Kazakh literary criticism, to evaluate the contribution of scientists from the period of independence of Kazakhstan in the development of theoretical analysis and interpretation of the artistic originality of national literature. The article discusses new trends in the theory of Kazakh literary criticism, changes in methodology, which are due to the leading positions of world literary criticism. In this regard, the article offers an analytical review of the main scientific and theoretical studies in the field of literary criticism, defines the evolution of the concepts of scientific and theoretical thought, identifies the principles and main aspects of the study of literature in a new way, shows certain achievements in close relationship with historical stages, as well as tasks future research; literary-theoretical and philosophical-aesthetic searches in modern Kazakh literary criticism are evaluated, the prospects for its development are determined.