Virtual currencies and mobile banking are technology advancements that are receiving increased attention in the global community because of their accessibility, convenience and speed. However, this popularity comes with growing security concerns, like increasing frequency of identity theft, leading to bigger problems which put user anonymity at risk. One possible solution for these problems is using cryptography to enhance security of Bitcoin or other decentralised digital currency systems and to decrease frequency of attacks on either communication channels or system storage. This report outlines various methods and solutions targeting these issues and aims to understand their effectiveness. It also describes Secure Bitcoin Wallet, standard Bitcoin transactions client, enhanced with various security features and services.
The government of Mongolia developed and passed a new Budget Law on 23 December 2011 in order to improve the legal framework for budgeting, budget relations and fiscal management by integrating the Budget Law of 2002 and Public Sector Management and Finance Law. \nThe purpose of new Budget Law is to ensure fiscal stability, enhance the efficiency and predictability of resource allocation, and to increase citizensâ participation in the budgeting process. The new Budget Law in its 11 chapters and 66 articles redefines the budgeting principles, scope, composition, classification of the budget, clarifies expenditure and revenue assignment, improves authorities and responsibilities of the bodies that participate in the budgeting process, and improves regulations on budget transparency and accountability.\nThe key new regulations introduced by the Budget Law concern the following areas:\nâ˘\tPublic investment budgeting;\nâ˘\tGovernment debt management;\nâ˘\tProgram budgeting;\nâ˘\tPublic private partnership;\nâ˘\tFormula based transfer allocation; and\nâ˘\tCitizensâ participation in budgeting.\n\nThe most important change introduced by new Budget Law is a reform of the intergovernmental fiscal relations system towards greater decentralization. The law clarifies expenditure assignments by clearly defining delegated functions and differentiating the functions among sub-national governments. It also introduces a formula based transfer allocation that will allow predictability and sustainability in the local budgeting process.
This dissertation contains three chapters and focuses on the optimal design of fiscal policy, both from a theoretical and from a quantitative perspective. In the first chapter, âWealth Taxation and Life Expectancy,â I address the optimal taxation of wealth in a class of dynastic overlapping-generations economies with heterogeneous mortality risk. Working individuals are indexed by skills which are private information. Skills not only determine earning abilities but also correlate with survival probability, so that more productive agents on average live longer. The analysis distinguishes between the tax treatment of two possible sources of wealth, namely, savings and bequests, and points to the mortality gradient as a crucial determinant for optimal wealth taxation. Specifically, due to differential mortality: (a) earned wealth should be marginally taxed, (b) transferred wealth via bequests should be marginally subsidized, and (c) marginal tax schedules on bequests and inter-vivos transfers should be separated. I calibrate the model to U.S. data and quantitatively evaluate its tax implications. For the median worker, mortality differences create a force for marginally taxing capital mortality differences create a force for marginally taxing savings by up to 1.7%, and for marginally subsidizing bequests by as much as 3.4%. These figures are robust to the value of the societal intergenerational discount factor and can yield significant welfare gains. In the second chapter, âTaxing Atlas: Using Firm Data to Derive Optimal Income Tax Ratesâ (joint with Laurence Ales and Jessie J. Wang), we analyze the optimal taxation of top labor incomes. Top income earners are modeled as managers who are heterogeneous across skills and operate a span-of-control technology, as in Rosen (1982). Managers privately observe their skill level, which increases the productivity of both effort and supervision, thus creating a scale-of-operations effect. We characterize optimal taxes in this environment and identify novel determinants linked to firm technology. Our main result is that to be consistent with U.S. firm data, the optimal top income tax rate should be roughly in line with the U.S. tax code, in contrast to previous results in the literature. In the third chapter, âRegional State Capacity and the Optimal Degree of Fiscal Decentralizationâ (joint with MartĂn Besfamille), we study the optimal degree of fiscal decentralization in a federation. In our environment, regional governments are characterized by two dimensions of state capacity; namely, administrative and fiscal. These gauge the ability to deliver public goods and to raise tax revenues, respectively. Two regimes are compared: partial and full decentralization. Under partial decentralization, regional governments have no tax powers and rely on central bailouts to refinance incomplete projects. Under full decentralization, regional governments refinance incomplete projects through capital taxes, in a context of tax competition. We show how the optimal degree of fiscal decentralization hinges on the relative magnitudes of each type of capacity. Specifically, for sufficiently low levels of fiscal capacity, bailing out regional governments is optimal regardless of the level of administrative ability. However, a combination of low levels of administrative capacity and high levels of fiscal capacity calls for fully decentralizing tax powers.
This dissertation contains three essays on Macroeconomics and Finance. The first chapter has been motivated by the fact that recoveries from financial crises are characterized by low investment rates and declines in capital stocks. The paper constructs an equilibrium framework in which financial shocks have a persistent effect on aggregate investment. The key assumption is that physical capital is traded in a decentralized market with search frictions, generating ``capital unemployment.'' After a negative financial shock, the share of unemployed capital is high, and the economy dedicates more resources to absorbing existing unemployed capital into production, and less to accumulating new capital. An estimation of the model for the U.S. economy using Bayesian techniques shows that the model can generate the investment persistence and half of the output persistence observed in the Great Recession. Investment search frictions also lead to a different interpretation of the sources of business-cycle fluctuations, with a larger role for financial shocks, which account for 33 percent of output fluctuations. Extending the model to allow for heterogeneity in match productivity, the framework also provides a mechanism for procyclical capital reallocation, as observed in the data. The second and third chapters focus on labor unemployment during financial crises. The second chapter uses a sample of 116 recession episodes in developed and emerging market economies to compare the labor-market recovery during financial crises with that of other recession episodes. It documents two new stylized facts. First, labor-market recovery from financial crises is characterized by either higher unemployment (``jobless recovery'') or a lower real wage (``wageless recovery''). Second, inflation determines the type of recovery: low inflation (below 30 percent annual rate) is associated with jobless recovery, while high inflation is associated with wageless recovery. The paper shows that this pattern of labor recovery from financial crises is consistent with a simple model in which collateral requirements are higher (lower) when a larger share of labor costs (physical capital expenditure) is involved in a loan contract. The third chapter paper conducts a quantitative study of the optimal exchange-rate policy in a small open economy that faces the ``credit access-unemployment'' trade-off: In the presence of nominal wage rigidity, exchange-rate depreciation reduces unemployment; in the presence of collateral constraints linking external debt to the value of income, exchange-rate depreciation tightens the collateral constraint and leads to higher consumption adjustment. It is shown that the optimal policy during financial crises generally features large currency depreciation, since welfare costs related to higher unemployment and lower consumption typically outweigh welfare costs associated with intertemporal misallocation of consumption. The optimal policy also implies a lower currency depreciation than that necessary to achieve full employment, which is consistent with a managed-floating exchange-rate policy, frequently observed during financial crises in emerging market economies. Sudden stops (or large current-account adjustments) are part of the endogenous response to large negative shocks under the optimal exchange-rate policy.
Decentralization is assumed to be an important tool for a quality health care service delivery. The objective of the study was to assess the impacts of decentralization on the health care service delivery Gozamin District, Amhara State, Ethiopia. Primary data for this study were collected through questionnaire, interview, and focus group discussions. Whereas secondary data were collected from annual official health sector reports and documents. The analysis part was supported by legal and official documents. The findings of the study revealed that the health care service accessibility and coverage of the District in terms of expansion of health care institutions has shown an improvement, and it reaches 100 percent. However, shortage of health personnel (midwifery, lab technician and pharmacy technician), shortage of finance for duty service and perdiem payment, and drugs shortage are the challenges of the District health care delivery system that affects the quality of the services. The costs of health care treatment is high as compared to the ability of most beneficiaries incomes, the free service scheme-which is very impressive were abused by kebele officials are the challenges of Gozamin District health care service delivery system. Keywords: Decentralization, Health Care Service Delivery, health center, and health posts
In the perspective of regulation, some basic things that needs attention is that the policy principles of financial balance, the basic local government funding, the source of local revenue, local revenue, the fund balance, miscellaneous revenue, borrowing, financial management in the context of decentralization, deconcentration funds, support funds, financial information systems area, as well as transitional provisions, must obtain a more serious concern. On the application of the dimensions of the Financial Balance between the Government and the Regional Government is a subsystem of the State Treasury as a consequence of the division of tasks between the Government and Local Government showed inconsistencies with the provision of financial resources of the state to the regional government in the implementation of decentralization. It is certainly a negative impact, because it is only based on the transfer of duty by the Government to the Local Government with regard stability and fiscal balance. Local finance should be managed in an orderly, obedient to laws and regulations, efficient, economical, effective, transparent and accountable with regard to fairness, decency, and the benefits to society. Keywords:State Financial Regulation,Relations Regional Center,Financial Decentralization
The realization of large and complex cyber-physical systems (such as "smart" transportation, energy, security, and health-care systems) is creating design and verification challenges which will soon become insurmountable with the current engineering practices. These highly heterogeneous systems, tightly combining physical processes with computation, communication, and control elements, would substantially benefit from hierarchical and compositional methodologies to make their design possible let alone optimal. Several languages and tools have been proposed over the years to enable model-based development of complex systems. However, an all-encompassing design framework that helps interconnect different tools, possibly operating on different system representations, is still missing.In this dissertation, we introduce a design methodology that addresses the complexity and heterogeneity of cyber-physical systems by using assume-guarantee contracts to formalize the design process and enable the realization of system architectures and control algorithms in a hierarchical and compositional way. In our methodology, components are specified by contracts, and systems by compositions of contracts. Contracts explicitly define the assumptions of a component on its environment and the guarantees of the component under these assumptions. Contract operations and relations, such as composition, conjunction and refinement allow proving that: (i) an aggregation of components are compatible, i.e. there exists a legal environment in which they can operate; (ii) a set of specifications are consistent, i.e. there exists an implementation satisfying all of them; (iii) an aggregation of components refines a specification, i.e. it implements the specification contract and is able to operate in any environment admitted by it. While horizontal contracts are used to specify components and aggregations of components at the same level of abstraction, we introduce the notion of vertical contracts to reason about richer refinement relations and mappings between different abstraction levels, possibly described by heterogeneous architectures and behavior formalisms. Moreover, we further investigate the problem of compatibility for systems with uncontrolled inputs and controlled outputs, by establishing a link between the theory of contracts and the one of interfaces, which rely on different mathematical formalisms, while sharing the same objectives. From this link, we derive a new projection operator on contracts that enables the preservation of the semantics of interface composition and compatibility.Resting on the above contract framework, the design is carried out as a sequence of refinement steps from a high-level specification to an implementation built out of a library of components at the lower level. To allow for requirement analysis and early detection of inconsistencies, top-level system requirements are captured as contracts, by leveraging a front-end pattern-based specification language and a set of back-end formal languages, including mixed integer-linear constraints and temporal logic. Top-level contracts are then refined to achieve independent development of system architectures and control algorithms, by combining synthesis from requirements and optimization methods.To enable efficient architecture selection under safety and reliability constraints, we explore two optimization-based methods that use an approximate reliability analysis technique to overcome the exponential complexity of exact computations. The Integer-Linear Programming with Approximate Reliability (ILP-AR) method generates larger, monolithic optimization problems using approximate but efficient reliability computations with an explicit theoretical bound on the error. Conversely, the Integer-Linear Programming Modulo Reliability (ILP-MR) method breaks the complex architecture selection task into a sequence of smaller optimization tasks without reliability constraints, interleaved with exact reliability checks. By relying on efficient mechanisms to prune out candidate architectures that are inconsistent with the reliability constraints, ILP-MR can run faster than ILP-AR on large problem instances.We further explore two methods to systematically design control strategies for a given architecture. The reactive synthesis-based optimal control mapping (RS-OCM) method generates controllers by combining reactive synthesis from linear temporal logic contracts with optimization techniques based on simulation and monitoring of signal temporal logic contracts. Different design concerns are then addressed by leveraging the most appropriate abstraction levels, using contracts from the pre-characterized library to accelerate verification tasks. The programming-based optimal control mapping (P-OCM) method uses, instead, a discrete-time representation of the system and a formalization of the design requirements in terms of arithmetic constraints over real numbers to cast the control problem as an optimization problem over a finite time horizon. The optimization problem is then solved with a receding horizon approach and scales better than monolithic reactive synthesis from linear temporal logic.We demonstrate, for the first time, the effectiveness of a contract-based design flow on real-life examples of industrial relevance, namely, the design of aircraft electric power distribution and environment control systems. In our framework, optimal selection of large, industrial-scale power system architectures can be performed in a few minutes. Design validation of power system controllers based on linear temporal logic contracts shows up to two orders of magnitude improvement in terms of execution time with respect to conventional techniques. Finally, our optimization-based load management scheme allows better resource utilization than a conventional one.
<p>This thesis develops Bayesian latent class models for nested categorical data, e.g., people nested in households. The applications focus on generating synthetic microdata for public release and imputing missing data for household surveys, such as the 2010 U.S. Decennial Census.</p><p>The first contribution is methods for evaluating disclosure risks in fully synthetic categorical data. I quantify disclosure risks by computing Bayesian posterior probabilities that intruders can learn confidential values given the released data and assumptions about their prior knowledge. I demonstrate the methodology on a subset of data from the American Community Survey (ACS). The methods can be adapted to synthesizers for nested data, as demonstrated in later chapters of the thesis.</p><p>The second contribution is a novel two-level latent class model for nested categorical data. Here, I assume that all configurations of groups and units are theoretically possible. I use a nested Dirichlet Process prior distribution for the class membership probabilities. The nested structure facilitates simultaneous modeling of variables at both group and unit levels. I illustrate the modeling by generating synthetic data and imputing missing data for a subset of data from the 2012 ACS household data. I show that the model can capture within group relationships more effectively than standard one-level latent class models.</p><p>The third contribution is a version of the nested latent class model adapted for theoretically impossible combinations, e.g. a household with two household heads or a child older than her biological father. This version assigns zero probability to those impossible groups and units. I present a proof that the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling strategy estimates the desired target distribution. I illustrate this model by generating synthetic data and imputing missing data for a subset of data from the 2011 ACS household data. The results indicate that this version can estimate the joint distribution more effectively than the previous version.</p>
This briefing paper has been prepared based on the basis of field level experiences. It highlights the emerging decentralized leadership in the WASH sector in light of the Master Plan and ODF movement in Nepal. The Master Plan has introduced innovative institutional arrangement of inclusive WASH Coordination Committees to lead ODF movement. These committees leadership of such committees hashave come up with several innovations in planning, financing, implementation and monitoring, and promoting inclusive and participatory governance process in sanitation development. Nepal's sanitation campaign has visibly scaled up ODF status despite some shortcomings. Mobilization of local resources is possible through local leadership, sustainability requires equal emphasis on behavioural and facility aspects and advocacy for health benefits of the improved sanitation are the prime drivers for changes. Similarly, cross-learning are vital for innovations in the sector and integration of sanitation with other development sector activities enhances synergy. The post-ODF intervention is leading the sanitation sector towards livelihood promotion and social wellbeing aspect too.
Cryptography relies on Mathematics in all its aspects, beginning from the constructions relying on various mathematical theories, continuing with security evaluation of cryptographic systems, and proving their security, and finally ending in implementation.Recently, new security threats are posed by the emerging quantum computing technology.Specifically, quantum algorithms can break some public-key encryption schemes such as RSA and Elgamal, which are widely used for protection of computer systems and networks.This issue demands us to develop a new generation of cryptographic systems, which will serve as secure alternatives to the currently used ones.Such the new systems are referred to as the post-quantum cryptography.One promising direction in post-quantum cryptography is the systems whose security is based on hardness of mathematical problems arising in the context of coding theory.In particular, the problem of decoding random linear codes has been studied for over 30 years, and still no polynomial-time solution has been proposed, even when using quantum algorithms.In this thesis, we focus on this area, which is called the code-based cryptography.The first code-based public-key encryption (PKE) scheme was introduced by R.J. McEliece in 1978.Since then, various code-based public-key encryption, digital signature and identification schemes were introduced, but currently, one of the main challenges is to introduce more advanced cryptographic functionalities based on coding.In this thesis, first, we give a brief introduction about post-quantum cryptography and codebased cryptography, and then we provide the background information about the cryptographic primitives, which we will study, as well as the relevant notions and results from coding theory and cryptography.Next, we introduce our contributions as follows.Firstly, we study zero-knowledge (ZK) identification schemes based q-ary linear codes.We show that when q < 5, a straightforward generalization of Stern's ZK identification scheme (1993) is more efficient in terms of both communication and computation, as compared to the ZK identification scheme by Cayrel, Vron and El Yousfi Alaoui (2010), which is specifically designed for q-ary codes.Secondly, we introduce the first proof of plaintext knowledge (PPK) for the McEliece PKE and the Niederreiter PKE.These protocols allow the encryptor to prove the knowledge of the plaintext contained in a given ciphertext to any party, who does not hold the secret key for decryption.We also provide a performance evaluation for the proposed schemes.
Primary health care is an essential part of the health care system whose basic principles equality, health promotion and disease prevention, community involvement, appropriate technology and multiÂsectoral approach and the key elements of organizational and managerial decentralization strategy, strategic management, coordination and development of control systems. In the mid 80s, the World Health Organization initiated the program 'Promotion of Health', which is considered to be an essential strategy for achieving the common goal of 'Health for All' - improving the health of the population. Promotional preventive measures require the support of health policy, engagement of the whole society, multisectoral cooperation and political support. A special place in these measures has a health service, but need a reorientation of the entire health care system in terms of changes in work, health care financing and training of health workers. .
Bitcoin is the first and most successful digital currency in the world. It polarizes the news almost daily, with either glowing reviews of the many benefits of an alternative and international currency, or doomsday predictions of anarchy, deflation, and another tulip bubble.\nThis article focuses on the truly innovative aspect of Bitcoin - and that which has gone mostly unnoticed since its inception - the technological platform used to transfer Bitcoin from one party to another. This technology is called the Blockchain. The Blockchain eschews a bank or other intermediary and allows parties to transfer funds directly to one another, using a peer-to-peer system. This disruptive technology has done for money transfers what email did for sending mail - by removing the need for a trusted third party just as email removed the need for using the post office to send mail.\nIf this technology can be used for peer-to-peer money transfers, why not extend the technology to accomplish other forms of transfers? Imagine selling a house or buying a car peer-to-peer. What about using the Blockchain technology to buy and sell stocks? Stocks exchanged completely peer-to-peer could resolve many of the issues facing the stock market today, including high frequency trading and short sales. This article develops a peer-to-peer stock market system, the legal implications of such a system, and how this system will fit in with current legislation and regulation.
This study analyses the growing area of research that explores the evolution of technology from social and cognition perspective â and how the design and various implementation of technology are being shaped by the factors related to social-constructivism and beliefs systems of individuals. The newly developed technological phenomena of Cryptocurrency â the digital currency for all, provides us with an excellent case to study. We apply social and cognitive processes to understand technology trajectories across the life cycle of cryptocurrency. We thus deepen our understanding by analyzing why and what causes the various technological trajectories in the era of ferment and concluding our research by deriving various technological 'themes'. â that might evolve as the phenomena of cryptocurrency while moving towards the era of dominant design.
In this thesis we present our contribution in the field of post-quantum cryptography. We introduce a new notion of weakly Random-Self-Reducible public-key cryptosystem and show how it can be used to implement secure Oblivious Transfer. We also show that two recent (Post-quantum) cryptosystems can be considered as weakly Random-Self-Reducible. We introduce a new problem called Isometric Lattice Problem and reduce graph isomorphism and linear code equivalence to this problem. We also show that this problem has a perfect zero-knowledge interactive proof with respect to a malicious verifier; this is the only hard problem in lattices that is known to have this property.
Anti-Money Laundering is a set of rules and guidelines designed and agreed among countries to use as standard policies and framework in establishing their domestic laws on prevention and suppression of money laundering activities. The expansion of the financial sector and businesses brings about the continuous development of innovative and new financial instruments to facilitate the businesses. In parallel with this development, criminals also take advantages of the unfamiliarity to the newly developed innovation and create new money laundering methods. In this circumstance, and whilst the financial sector is a foundation of the national economic, the government and relevant state authorities have to monitor closely and supervise such new innovations.Among other innovations, virtual currency is created to facilitate financial transactions. It was found that virtual currency is the new financial innovation and also the system that used to connect with the customers through the online network via the internet. The key points of this currency are the description of it which are anonymous account and the system used in the transaction which is the peer-to-peer or blockchain connection system. These features are different from the standard financial instruments such as fiat currencies, financial institution, bank and non-bank business.The virtual currency is considerably new in Thailand. To date, the laws have not been developed to effectively govern the transactions using the said virtual currency. Exchangers, administrators, and users of the virtual currency are not within the scope of governance of the Anti-Money Laundering Act; nor are they subject to any other regulations. That is to say, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, including rules, regulations and guidelines established thereunder, only regulates performances of financial institutions and some other businesses as specifically determined. In other words, obligations and requirements under the Anti-Money Laundering laws do not apply to the virtual currency transactions and/or the involving parties. Thus, there are certain loopholes for some criminals to use the virtual currency instead of money in various financial transactions to avoid detection by the state authorities. Lacking of government supervision in this part leads to a new risk of money laundering through the virtual currency. This thesis studies the Anti-Money Laundering processes in the United States in comparison with those in Thailand, specifically focussing on the issues of money laundering using a kind of virtual currency: Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the most prevalent kind of virtual currency and is addressed widely and extensively in US laws, regulations and court judgments. Those laws can be useful guidelines for Thailand to develop its appropriate solutions for the problem of money laundering through the virtual currency. The key preventive measures under the Anti-Money Laundering Act are customers profile verification and transactions monitoring and recording. These measures are the essential procedures to control and monitor transactions to reduce the risk of money laundering. Also, it can also examine the suspicious transactions or suspect profiles of each customer. These methods could apply to the virtual currency and their relating business for supervision and manage the risk of money laundering as same as the other financial business under the Anti-Money Laundering law and regulation.
The emerging digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin has made waves in mainstream media across the globe, as have the numerous extreme events that have rocked it. One such event, the bankruptcy of a prominent Bitcoin exchange called Mt.Gox, particularly shocked the emerging sociotechnical field. However, it is not clear how the numerous entrepreneurial firms operating in this field survived this shock. \\ \\ Studies of resilience in the face of extreme events have typically examined mature firms, characterised by formal structures and some slack resources. In such studies, the resilience, adaptability and trans-formability of the firm come into view. A new firm in an emergent field, however, is equally driven to survive â but must do so with far more limited resources, without a formal structure and little in the way of organisational learning. In our study, we find that such entrepreneurial firms rely on their col-lective identity in forming resilient responses. Furthermore, one outcome of this shock was a call for regulations and oversight â despite earlier dogmatic rejections of such formal control. \\ \\ Keywords: Bitcoin, Entrepreneurship, Resilience, Extreme Event, Qualitative Study \\
Cybercriminals use cryptocurrency Bitcoin since it come to existence. It is an ideal, anonymous platform for global money transfer. Bitcoin does not have authority or central issuer, so there is no way to steal it from its holder. It is therefore used by the criminal groups around the world. This article aims to increase the readerâs knowledge on new technologies of money transfer. This knowledge will help the reader to improve the quality of personal security on the Internet. In effect it will reduce the potential risk of various types of frauds and other cybercrimes.