Krishna M. Singh, Meena Meena, Burton E. Swanson, M.N. Reddy · 5 authors
This In-Depth Study of the Pluralistic Agricultural Extension System in India is a full analysis of the pluralistic extension system in India, how it has changed over many years and the direction it is currently moving. \n \nChapter-1 outlines the Evolution of the Pluralistic Agricultural Extension System in India and the changes that have occurred since about 1871, including the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1882. Following independence in 1947, many changes have happened as outlined in this first chapter, including the Community Development Program (CDP), the Intensive Agricultural District Program (IADP), including dissemination of high-yielding varieties during the Green Revolution, the Training and Visit (T&V) approach and then the move to the decentralized, farmer-led and market driven approach influenced by the Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) model. \n \nChapter-2 gives an Overview of the Public Extension System within the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), the State Departments of Agriculture and then provides more detailed information about the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) and the public extension system in India. It starts with an overview of the organizational structure at the national level, including the Department of Agricultural Research and Extension (DARE), then into the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) and Directorate of Extension within DAC. Then, it moves into the KVKs, which are a critical linkage at the district level between research, extension and farmers. In short, KVKs focus on the specific agro-ecological conditions within each district and then, after conducting research on these different crops, livestock and other farming systems. Then it moves into the development of the ATMA model through two World Bank projects, which is now expand across all Indian districts. \n \nChapter-3 outlines the Directorates of Extension Education within each State Agricultural Universities (SAUs). India is unique in having Extension units established within each SAU, since this extension approach was first introduced by selected US Land Grant Universities into these SAUs in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This chapter outlines the historical development of the extension within each SAU and then outlines the mandate, organizational structure, human resources and methods used within these SAUs and their relationship with the public extension system. \n \nChapter-4 outlines the Private Sector Advisory Services being provided in India, especially in the provision of good advisory services through private Agri-Business Companies through the sale of inputs to farmers. In India, there are over 280,000 input supply firms, but many do not have sufficient knowledge and experience in providing good advisory services to farmers. At first, the public and private sector did not want to work together but through the ATMA approach, the public and private sector started working together and then, in 2004, the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) started training and giving diplomas to the participants from these private sector firms, especially in Andhra Pradesh (see: http://www.manage.gov.in/daesi/daesi.htm). \n \nChapter-5 summarizes the role and activities of the different Commodity Boards currently operating in India, including: Central Silk Board (CSB), Coconut Development Board (CDB), Coffee Board, Coir Board, Rubber Board, Spices Board, Tea Board, Tobacco Board, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), National Horticulture Board (NHB), Cashew Export Promotion Council (CEPC), National Jute Board (NJB), and the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF) and how each of these boards carry out extension and advisory services to the farmers being served. \n \nChapter-6 outlines the Institutional Mechanism for Capacity Building to strengthen the pluralistic extension system in India. This chapter starts with an overview of the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), which is an autonomous organization that has had the most impact on strengthening the extension system in India. Next, it discusses the paradigm shift within the National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NAIM) in India; and then outlines the role of the Extension Education Institutes (EEIs). Finally, it moves to outline the role and structure of the State Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institutes (SAMETIs), especially in strengthening the ATMA model in India. \n \nChapter-7 is the conclusion chapter that outlines the Strengths and Weaknesses of Indiaâs Pluralistic Extension System. It starts by outlining the Policy Framework and Reforms for strengthening the pluralistic extension system in India. Next, it outlines how to strengthen research-extension linkages as well as capacity building among extension workers. Next, it addresses how to empower farmers, including women farmers. It also outlines the use of Information Technology (IT) and how to strengthen it through different approaches. This chapter also outlines the changing role of government in extension and how the ATMA model can be strengthened following very specific details. The other issue is how to strengthen the SAMETIs, since they still need to be strengthened in providing service to district and block level extension workers. This chapter ends with a brief summary the key role that the public extension system can play in India.
Payman Mohassel, Seyed Saeed Sadeghian, Nigel P. Smart
Abstract. We propose the first general framework for designing actively secure private function eval-uation (PFE), not based on universal circuits. Our framework is naturally divided into pre-processing and online stages and can be instantiated using any generic actively secure multiparty computation (MPC) protocol. Our framework helps address the main open questions about efficiency of actively secure PFE. On the theoretical side, our framework yields the first actively secure PFE with linear complexity in the circuit size. On the practical side, we obtain the first actively secure PFE for arithmetic circuits with O(g · log g) complexity where g is the circuit size. The best previous construction (of practical interest) is based on an arithmetic universal circuit and has complexity O(g5). We also introduce the first linear Zero-Knowledge proof of correctness of âextended permutation â of ciphertexts (a generalization of ZK proof of correct shuffles) which maybe of independent interest.
This article is about one type of cryptocurrencybitcoin.The main topic of this work is a level of risk connected with cryptocurrency market.The work consists of theory, a definition of cryptocurrency and bitcoins, an analysis of risk level in this kind of investments on cryptocurrency market and a bibliography. A definition of cryptocurrency and bitcoinsA Cryptocurrency is a modern digital medium of exchange.It is a new decentralized, limited and peer-to-peer payment system.Most cryptocurrencies are created to introduce new units of currency, whose total amount is limited.All cryptocurrencies use cryptography to control the creation and transfer of money.The first cryptocurrency was Bitcoin, created in 2008 and introduced in 2009.Nowadays it is the most popular cryptocurrency which is used as an open source software.The creator of Bitcoin was Satoshi Nakamoto, a person or a group of people.Nakamoto published a work on The Cryptography Mailing list in which he described the Bitcoin currency.Next year, the first Bitcoin software was launched on the network, which started Bitcoin's flow.Bitcoins are introduced to the market by a process called mining.In this process engage computer network participantsusers who provide their computing power, next verify and record payments into a network in exchange for minted bitcoins and transaction fees.Bitcoins are transferred by wallet software
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Economic and Business Development Strategies
Digitalization and Economic Development in Agriculture
Economic, Social, and Public Health Issues in Russia and Globally
Bitcoin is making near-daily headlines, whether about its volatile exchange rate, the regulatory issues it raises, or its criminal associations. As the public becomes familiar with the idea of virtual currencies, many people struggle to understand why users exchange government-backed (ârealâ) currencies for Bitcoin. This article explores the appeal and danger of investing in Bitcoin for speculative gain, for moral purposes, for its spending power, and for its criminal applications.
Small islands are disadvantaged by conventional development strategies and have sought unusual means of achieving economic development and raising their global profiles. The small Channel Island of Alderney, with a largely non-existent physical resource base, and steady population decline, has sought to develop several service sector activities, increasingly involving the internet and virtual activities. Internet gambling has proved successful. Bitcoin minting offers unique possibilities. Alderney has achieved economic development without significant local assets other than creativity and ingenuity, and a somewhat distinctive political status.
The practical and theoretical meaning of the rise and fall of new local and virtual currencies suggest that two basic theories of money both have their validity and reasons for coexistence. The drive for increasing efficiency in the payment mechanisms is in full swing and still presents many opportunities for improvement.
Many tasks requiring multiple autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are simple, with static goals, of short duration, and require few AUVs, often of the same type. Simple coordination mechanisms that assign roles to AUVs before the mission are sufficient for these multi-AUV systems. However, for tasks that are complex and dynamic, of long duration (implying that AUVs will come and go during the mission), and that have many heterogeneous AUVs, organization of the system will not work. In addition, due to changes in the situation, the system will likely need to be reorganized during the mission. We are developing a distributed, context-aware self-organization/reorganization scheme for advanced multi-AUV systems. This is a two-level approach in which a meta-level organization first self-organizes, assesses the context, and uses contextual knowledge to design a task-level organization appropriate for the context that can then carry out the mission. We are extending our prior work by distributing both the context assessment process and the organization design process. The result will be a system that can self-organize efficiently and effectively for its context and that can reorganize appropriately as the context changes.
Just like the personal computer revolution, it is possible that Knowledge Management (KM) will in the 21 century experience a decentralizing revolution that gives more power and autonomy to individuals and selforganized groups. Seven decades after Vannevar Bushâs still unfulfilled vision of the Memex. Levyâs scenario stresses the dire need to provide overdue support tools for knowledge workers in our Knowledge Societies, not at the expense of Organizational KM Systems, but rather as the means to foster a fruitful co-evolution. With a prototype system addressing these issues about to be converted into a viable Personal KM system (PKMS), the author follows up on recent publications and considers the impact and potential of a novel memebased approach aiming to aid individuals throughout their academic and professional life and as contributors and beneficiaries of organizational performance and in light of the anticipated next generation of KM systems. 1 A NEXT GENERATION OF KM The first generation of Knowledge Management (KM) has been described as the capturing, storing, and reusing of existing knowledge including âsystems of managing knowledge like company yellow pages, experts outlining processes they are involved in, creating learning communities where employees/customers share their knowledge, creating information systems for documenting and storing knowledge, and so on. These first-generation KM initiatives were about viewing knowledge as the foremost strategic asset, measuring it, capturing it, storing it, and protecting it. They were about treating knowledge as an asset, recognizing how it influences strategy, and wanting to make the most of it by managing it properlyâ (Pasher & Ronen 2011). The second KM generation needs to focus on creating new knowledge and innovation, a process which starts with the âreuse or new use of existing knowledge, adding an invention, and then creating a new product or service that exploits this invention.â This process requires creativity and the awareness that old knowledge becomes obsolete. For reaping the appropriate rewards, it is essential to systematically exploit the knowledge captured and created (Pasher & Ronen 2011). In reviewing a wider range of features for the âNext KM Generationâ (suggested by Sveiby, Wiig, Snowdon, McElroy, Ponzi, Miles, St Onge, Allee), the identified seven key themes prioritize confirm this need, but also strongly emphasize the personal and social nature of knowledge (Grant 2008). 1.1 The Personal KM Agenda Despite these accentuations and in contrast to Organizational KM (OKM), Personal KM (PKM) has been placed historically in a narrow individualistic confinement (Cheong & Tsui 2011b). In limiting its scope, PKM has been labelled as sophisticated career and life management with a core focus on personal enquiry (Pauleen & Gorman 2011) or as a means to improve some skills or capabilities of individuals (Davenport 2011), negating its importance relating to group member performance, business processes, or new technologies. This state surprises in light of prominent past suggestions to develop a âMemexâ for making oneâs âintellectual excursions more enjoyableâ (Bush 1945), to offer assistance in allocating oneâs âattention efficiently among the [emerging] overabundance of information sourcesâ (Simon 1971), or to provide adequate organizational leadership for building, connecting, and energizing dynamic knowledge-creating environments and their expansion (Nonaka 2000). As a result, PKM remains âa real and pressing problemâ, and Bush's dream of a âMemexâ has yet to be fully realized on a wide scale (Davies 2011). Appropriately, Wiig argues for shifting the focus of KM toward strengthening the ability of people for enabling them to act in the best interest of their enterprise and its desired strategies and performance (Wiig 2004). In this context, PKM needs more appropriately to be regarded as a bottom-up approach to KM (Pollard 2008), as opposed to the more traditional, top-down Organizational KM. As such, PKM also âgoes beyond Personal Information Managementâ (PIM) which focusses predominantly on information processing without the emphasis on creating new knowledge (Cheong & Tsui 2011a). But, although there are many PKM tools available, âthey are not integrated with each otherâ, and the âcurrently available PKM systems can provide only a partial support to knowledge workersâ (Osis 2011). âWhile today we have many powerful applications for locating vast amounts of digital information, we lack effective tools for selecting, structuring, personalizing, and making sense of the digital resources available to usâ (Kahle 2009). Meanwhile, the organizational, commercial, social and legal innovations driven by technological progress and economic pressures continue to have profound impacts. Work has suffered from a process of fragmentation which will continue to accelerate. Its implications include oneâs slipping control over constant interruptions, the loss of time for real concentration, and less learning by observation and reflection (Gratton 2011). With specializations and domain-specific knowledge on the rise, peoplesâ identification has shifted from their company to their profession, and vertical hierarchies and traditional career ladders have been replaced by sideways career moves between companies and a horizontal labour market (Florida 2012). The âFuture of Employmentâ study estimates 47% of the current US employment to be still at risk due to recent technological breakthroughs able to turn previously non-routine tasks into well-defined problems susceptible to computerization (Frey & Osborne 2013). What is overdue is in the opinion of the author â an innovative PKM technology to provide the means for life-long-learning, resourcefulness, creative authorship and teamwork throughout an individualâs academic and professional life and for his/her role as contributor and beneficiary of organizational and societal performance. It needs to support the notion that knowledge and skills of knowledge workers are portable and mobile and with it their options on where, how, and for whom they will put their knowledge to work. 1.2 Intents and Barriers to Overcome In Wiigâs opinion (2011), individuals need to be highly knowledgeable not only to function competently as part of the workforce, but also in their daily lives and as public citizens: âIn a society with broad personal competences, decision-making everywhere will maximize personal goals, provide effective public agencies and governance, make commerce and industry competitive, and ensure that personal and family decisions and actions will improve societal functions and Quality of Life.â But, âfor better performance, people must [also] be provided with resources and opportunities to do their best. They need knowledge and understanding as well as motivation and supportive attitudes.â Such resources may well be autonomous PKM capacities, networked in continuous feedback loops, where individuals are able to determine how their expertise will be used or exchanged with people, communities, or organizations close to them. Levy (2011) expects such systems nourished by the creative conversation of the many networked PKM devices to assume an elementary role that enables the emergence of the distributed processes of collective intelligence, which in turn feed them. Accordingly, he sketches a scenario which stresses the vital role of future education âto encourage in students the sustainable growth of autonomous capacities in PKMâ and which envisages KM to experience âa decentralizing revolution that gives more power and autonomy to individuals and self-organized groupsâ (Levy 2011). Although the author concurs that PKM Systems (PKMS) are destined to become potent drivers of human development (Schmitt 2014b), an enabling technological environment benefitting such a novel solution is presently facing severe barriers wasting individualsâ time and efforts (Schmitt 2014f). The remedies have been summed up into five provisions: 1. Digital personal and personalized knowledge is always in the possession and at the personal disposal of its owner or eligible co-worker, residing in personal hardware or personalized cloud-databases. 2.
According to EU competition law, the existence of an anticompetitive agreement can be inferred from a number of coincidences and indicia only in the absence of another plausible explanation of the facts at stake. According to U.S. federal law (antitrust law included), only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief can survive a motion to dismiss at the pleading stage. What is plausible, however? After explaining the relationship between facts and evidence law, this chapter analyses the general meaning of the notion of plausibility, discusses the degree of discretion that it introduces, how it affects the justifications that judges and fact-finders make for their choices, and remarks on how this concept relates to substantial accuracy. On the other hand, the chapter acknowledges that antitrust law, by relating our understanding of what is plausible to economic models, debunks these concerns and raises another striking issue. Since economics is rooted in various axioms and value-choices, the link that antitrust law establishes among plausibility, standards of proof and economics grants to these axioms and value-choices the possibility of affecting the antitrust decisions about facts, although these decisions (as all factual decisions) should amount to pure descriptions of the concrete facts disputed at trial or during the administrative procedure.
In the last few years the efficiency of secure multi-party computation (MPC) increased in several orders of magnitudes. However, this alone might not be enough if we want MPC protocols to be used in practice. A crucial property that is needed in many applications is that everyone can check that a given (secure) computation was performed correctly â even in the extreme case where all the parties involved in the computation are corrupted, and even if the party who wants to verify the result was not participating. This is especially relevant in the clients-servers setting, where many clients provide input to a secure computation performed by a few servers. An obvious example of this is electronic voting, but also in many types of auctions one may want independent verification of the result. Traditionally, this is achieved by using non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs during the computation. A recent trend in MPC protocols is to have a more expensive preprocessing phase followed by a very efficient online phase, e.g., the recent so-called SPDZ protocol by Damgard et al. Applications such as voting and some auctions are perfect use-case for these protocols, as the parties usually know well in advance when the computation will take place, and using those protocols allows us to use only cheap information-theoretic primitives in the actual computation. Unfortunately no protocol of the SPDZ type supports an audit phase. In this paper, we show how to achieve efficient MPC with a public audit. We formalize the concept of publicly auditable secure computation and provide an enhanced version of the SPDZ protocol where, even if all the servers are corrupted, anyone with access to the transcript of the protocol can check that the output is indeed correct. Most importantly, we do so without significantly compromising the performance of SPDZ i.e. our online phase has complexity approximately twice that of SPDZ.
Bitcoin, a virtual currency invented in 2009, was created as a peer-to-peer currency that eliminated the need for a third party authority, such as banks or government, to be involved in monetary transactions. Having no intrinsic value but carrying no government guarantees relegates bitcoin and its competitors to the perpetual role of investment opportunity, deriving value not from a practical use, but from a nominal, dollar value. This will continue to be the case until the U.S. Government sanctions virtual currency as a viable store of value. Because the dollar plays such a large role in the worldâs economy, other countries will not adopt virtual currency technology unless the U.S. does so first. Substantial populations around the world must embrace bitcoin as a significant source of value before any monetary authority will relinquish the power associated with fiat currency. There are, however, many aspects of the virtual-currency model created by bitcoin that could be useful in improving the efficiency of money movement around the United States and the globe, through transaction memory, low transaction cost, and secure account information.
Some forms of money have been used since 2,200 BC. What constitutes money evolved from commodities with intrinsic value, such as gold, to commodity- backed paper money. In the United States, this was replaced by âfiatâ money issued by the Federal government that is âlegal tenderâ for all debts public and private. Eventually, payments evolved to credit cards, debit cards, and various forms of electronic payments. Virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin, are the latest innovation. They act like money but have no intrinsic value and are not legal tender. This article examines the pros and cons of Bitcoins.
The Spanish Agency for the Evaluation of Public Policies (Agenda Estatal de EvaluatiĂłn de las PolĂticas PĂșblicas y la Calidad de los Servicios â AEVAL) was established in 2007. One of the original justifications for creating this agency was to improve public policy evaluation with the end result of improving governmentâs coordination of public policy implementation in the context of a decentralized Spain. From the 1980s, Spain had been transformed from a highly centralized system to a decentralized territory composed of 17 regional governments, or Autonomous Communities, henceforth, ACs. Improving coordination was not the only reason to establish AEVAL, but it is on this task that this chapter focuses. Other important objectives included: promoting a more rational use of public resources; improving public service quality; and bolstering accountability to citizens. However, in the period leading up to its final creation, the political complexities underlying the urge to improve coordination issues as a result of decentralization became apparent. Today, the AEVAL functions as an evaluator of public policy, but significant issues related to coordination practices between central and regional governments remain. This chapter presents and evaluates AEVAL as regards its creation, organization, functions and performance to date. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
The implications of delegating fiscal decision making power to sub-national governments has become an area of significant interest over the past two decades, in the expectation that these reforms will lead to better and more efficient provision of public goods and services. The move towards decentralization has, however, not been homogeneously implemented on the revenue and expenditure side: decentralization has materialized more substantially on the latter than on the former, creating vertical fiscal imbalances. These imbalances measure the extent to which sub-national governments' expenditures are financed through their own revenues. This mismatch between own revenues and expenditures may have negative consequences for public finances performance, for example by softening the budget constraint of sub-national governments. Using a large sample of countries covering a long time period from the IMF's Government Finance Statistics Yearbook, this paper is the first to examine the effects of vertical fiscal imbalances on fiscal performance through the accumulation of government debt. Our findings suggest that vertical fiscal imbalances are indeed relevant in explaining government debt accumulation, and call for a degree of caution when promoting fiscal decentralization.
Bitcoin is the first decentralized peer-to-peer crypto-currency founded in 2009. Its main specificity is the fact that there is no issuer of this currency. On the other hand, the supply of this currency is software-programmed and limited. Among other things, its main features are relatively secure payments, low transaction costs, anonymity, inability of counterfeiting, irreversibility of transactions, but also extremely unstable exchange rate. Despite many advantages, the use of this currency is subject of numerous discussions, as this currency offers the possibility of performing various abuses and criminal activities. The future of this and other currencies in this regard depends on both security and privacy of these currencies, and legal regulation of such payments.
Bitcoin, a peculiar crypto-currency has been the loudest buzzword in global finance over the last year or so, both for its spectacular and seemingly robust appreciation trend as well as for more recent equally ostentatious demise. After reviewing the history of bitcoin and \nspecificities of its cyber-construct, this paper adds to the critical analysis of bitcoin as an international \ncurrency alternative. Lately, its volatility has been so excessive that it arguably cannot serve as a store \nof value. In addition, notwithstanding bitcoin's rising if bumpy credibility as a medium of exchange, since it has been immediately converted (by chief vendors) in either of the leading world currencies upon payment due to its extraordinary exchange rate volatility, bitcoin's unit of account potential appears to be dubious too. Moreover, bitcoin's next to none correlation with other major currencies' movements renders it unsuitable for managing FX risk or hedging purposes. Finally, having in mind that it lacks formal reserves or deposit-insurance scheme to back it up yet it's also prone to hacking, \nbitcoin resembles and behaves more like a pyramidal investment vehicle than a global currency alternative. Nevertheless, technology that made it be may still spawn an evolution in the way we posses things, transfer ownership and pay for goods and services in the near IT-ridden future.
This note explores the origins and workings of Bitcoin, its popularity and regulation in Germany, how criminal enterprises have used Bitcoin, and governmentsâ ability to regulate it. To date, there have been no cases challenging the power of individuals to make transactions using Bitcoin. However, policymakers and consumers around the world are calling for enhanced government regulations. This leads to the question of whether national governments can regulate a currency that is not their own, and if so, what exactly those regulations should look like. This note will show that national governments around the world have no legal basis to prohibit Bitcoin users from entering the marketplace. National governments should refrain from passing legislation or regulations that would have a chilling effect on the use of Bitcoin. This note suggests that if a dispute arises, contract law provides a suitable solution for all consumers, and taxation provides sufficient regulation for governments. Section II of this note provides an overview of Bitcoin, its technological foundations, and its use in the marketplace. Section III analyzes Germanyâs loose regulatory approach to regulating Bitcoin. Section IV examines how Bitcoin has been, or could be, utilized for illicit purposes by criminal enterprises around the world. Section V analyzes the arguments against increased regulation and proposes solutions that will not have a chilling effect on the adoption of Bitcoin.
The aim of this thesis is to provide a holistic analysis and an economic understanding of Bitcoin, answering two key questions: (i) Why do bitcoins have value? (ii) Why and how will governments seek to regulate the use of bitcoin? To answer these questions, the thesis begins with a discussion of money itself, developing a framework of different types of monies in terms of their uses and properties that will form the basis of the analysis. Based on the technical properties of Bitcoin the framework developed above is then applied to identify bitcoin as a digital commodity money. Following this identification, potential uses of bitcoin supporting its value will be discussed, drawing particular attention to Bitcoin s resilience to regulation. In addition, real world examples of other commodity monies will be used to support the claim that bitcoin may circulate without use value and state backing. Governments tend to seek economic control through controlling money, and it will be argued that there are good reasons to expect governments to be hostile towards widespread use of bitcoin. This is to be expected, as use of bitcoin undermines governments capacity to control money.