Blockchain Papers

Mohammad Kurniawan, Deni Harbianto, Digna Niken Purwaningrum, Tiara Marthias

Despite Indonesia’s health status improvement over the last decade, special efforts to achieve the MDGs goals are still warranted, especially in maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH). However, the current centrally driven MNCH policies do not address the geographical disparities and the different constraints faced by Indonesian provinces and districts. Moreover, the MNCH slow progress may have been hindered by various funding constraints, for example small local budget allocation specifically for MNCH, lack of evidence-based budget planning leading to unsound health planning and implementation. Therefore, this study aims to assess the current health financing mechanism used in one of Indonesian Province of Papua, that has low MNCH outcome. This was an observational study using mixed-methods. Study subjects were from the Provincial and four selected District Health Offices in Papua Province of Indonesia. overnment official documents analysis and direct observations on the study subjects were done to assess the financing and budgeting for MNCH in Papua. The study shows a low commitment from the local government in MNCH priority areas. The main reason was that the largest share of MNCH funding still comes from Central Government (ABPN), whereas the proportion funded from local sources is relativity low. Furthermore, there is a very limited use of evidence-based financing and budgeting, mainly due to limited capability of the human resources for health as well as the largely undocumented epidemiological and health system data. This limited human resource capability also largely affected by the low commitment of the local government. Despite the relatively large amount of MNCH funding in Papua, human resource limitation poses a serious problem in scaling up for priority interventions. Low local government commitment is still the main obstacle in health budgeting policy. These problems may also applicable to other districts of Indonesia and as unanticipated effects from ill-designed health decentralization.

Shujian Zhang, Jun Zhang, Shiyi Chen

Abstract Making use of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique and taking undesirable fiscal phenomena into account, this paper comprehensively quantifies the public finance performance of local governments in China during the course of fiscal decentralization reform. The introduction of undesirable fiscal outcomes into this assessment makes it possible to identify meaningful and informative characteristics of local public finance performance in China. When reforms are first implemented, local public financial performance improves because undesirable fiscal phenomena have not yet become too serious. The tax sharing system reform did not work well in its early stages, and negatively impacted public expenditure efficiency. The reform started to play a substantial role between 2001 and 2005, when local governments experienced better public finance performance. Corresponding to the deterioration of the financial sector in recent years, local public financial performance worsened after 2007. Further reform of the current fiscal and taxation system is necessary in China, to ensure a brighter future for the nation.

Jannik Dreier, Jean‐Guillaume Dumas, Pascal Lafourcade

Auctions have a long history, having been recorded as early as 500 B.C. [Auction Theory, Academic Press, San Diego, USA, 2002]. Nowadays, electronic auctions have been a great success and are increasingly used in various applications, including high performance computing [Concurrency and Computatio n: Practice and Experience 14(13–15) (2002), 1507–1542]. Many cryptographic protocols have been proposed to address the various security requirements of these electronic transactions, in particular to ensure privacy. Brandt [International Journal of Information Security 5 (2006), 201–216] developed a protocol that computes the winner using homomorphic operations on a distributed ElGamal encryption of the bids. He claimed that it ensures full privacy of the bidders, i.e. no information apart from the winner and the winning price is leaked. We first show that this protocol – when using malleable interactive zero-knowledge proofs – is vulnerable to attacks by dishonest bidders. Such bidders can manipulate the publicly available data in a way that allows the seller to deduce all participants’ bids. We provide an efficient parallelized implementation of the protocol and the attack to show its practicality. Additionally we discuss some issues with verifiability as well as attacks on non-repudiation, fairness and the privacy of individual bidders exploiting authentication problems.

Samuel Siebie Ankamah

Fiscal decentralization has gained support by most of the world’s leading development organizations including the World Bank, United States Agency for International Development and, Asian Development Bank among others in the last two to three decades. It is therefore of much importance that some form of thought is given to the operations of this system to make it more beneficial. Drawing selectively on large academic and practical literature on fiscal decentralization and the articles in this volume, this article outlines the state of fiscal decentralization in current times. It then goes on to outline some key arguments in favor of and against fiscal decentralization as a system of government. The theoretical framework of fiscal decentralization is also discussed in this article with regards to the stabilization, distribution and allocation functions. An overview of this system of government so far as Ghana is concerned has also been touched on with much emphasis on the legal framework and the key sources of finance for subnational governments. Finally, a number of factors for improving and making this system more beneficial and sustainable over time are identified.

Barbara S. McCrady

The USA is entering an era of major change in the financing and delivery of health-care services, including a greater emphasis on evidence-based treatment. Mainstream US alcohol treatment is an amalgam of experience- and evidence-based approaches; the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) alcohol guideline could provide a model for reform in the USA. The NICE guideline 1 on the diagnosis, assessment and management of harmful drinking and alcohol dependence should be required reading for anyone concerned about evidence-based approaches to alcohol treatment. The guideline was developed to ‘improve standards of care, diminish unacceptable variations in the provision and quality of care … and ensure that the health service is patient centred’ (p. 13). Under the UK single-payer model, once a NICE guideline is published and disseminated, local health-care groups are expected to develop a plan to implement the guideline. The guideline covers five major domains, offering a comprehensive set of recommendations that carefully distinguishes the needs of persons with harmful drinking/mild alcohol dependence from the needs of those with more severe dependence. Key recommendations focus on the therapeutic relationship; family involvement; use of standardized assessment tools; development of agreed-upon drinking goals; use of care coordination and case management; use of evidence-based treatments, such as motivational interviewing, Twelve-step facilitation, behavioral couple therapy, and pharmacotherapies; mutual help groups; treatment of comorbid psychological problems; and outcomes monitoring. This is an excellent guideline, but could it be applied in the USA? The delivery of alcohol treatment is quite different in the USA than in the UK; these differences might limit the applicability of the guideline. In the USA, alcohol and drug problems are typically treated in the same programs, and the administration of policy and services occurs through a single state authority over both alcohol and other drug issues. There are approximately 13 000 substance abuse treatment programs in the country. Treatment is provided through private programs, funded through health-care insurance, self-payment, or endowments; and public programs, funded through sources including Medicaid (for low income individuals and those with disabilities), Medicare (for older adults) and block grants from the Federal government to each state. Each of the 50 states independently governs the system of care within that state; sometimes authority is assigned at the county level (with 3033 counties or county-equivalents in the USA). The large number of programs and decentralization of authority challenge the application of any uniform standard across the country. The vast majority of US programs view alcohol problems from a disease perspective and incorporate Twelve-step principles into the treatment, but more than half also say they have adopted motivational interviewing, motivational enhancement therapy, and cognitive-behavioral approaches 2. The primary goal of treatment is typically abstinence from all psychoactive drugs. In contrast to the UK, the USA has no systematic approach to incorporating research findings into alcohol treatment, nor are there US-wide mandated standards of care. The US Preventive Task Force (USPSTF) is tasked with making evidence-based recommendations about preventive and treatment health services, leading to guidelines for clinical care that are adopted by Medicaid and Medicare. The only alcohol-related USPSTF guideline is for alcohol screening and counseling in primary care settings 3. Various other groups have developed and promulgated practice guidelines 4; some private insurance companies use such guidelines for the purposes of reimbursement. The structure and delivery of health-care services in the USA is likely to change considerably with the 2008 passage of mental health/substance abuse parity legislation, and full implementation of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) (upheld by the US Supreme Court in June 2012). The ACA requires that alcohol and other substance use disorders (SUD) be part of the ‘essential health benefit’ package and prohibits insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. The ACA mandates SUD/mental health screening and referral in primary care settings. It is anticipated that expanded health-care coverage will lead to a greater number of individuals with SUDs who have insurance, resulting in a greater demand for SUD services. The guideline represents a different philosophical approach to alcohol problems than that of the current US system and there are significant differences in the systems of care, but many of the assessment and treatment recommendations are highly pertinent to the USA. Philosophically, the mainstream US treatment system takes a medical approach. A formal Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) diagnosis is required, and individuals are referred to as ‘patients’ or ‘clients’ (versus ‘service users’ in the guideline) who receive ‘treatment’ (versus ‘care’). Although programs and providers aligned with the guideline perspective exist in the USA, they do not represent a majority. Views of the family also differ. The guideline recognizes family engagement and support as a central component of treatment; mainstream US programs rarely, or only superficially, include a family component in treatment. The guideline is supposed to lead directly to changes in the delivery of services; currently the USA has no similar system to enforce change. With the full implementation of the ACA, the USA will have to develop better ways to deliver evidence-based treatments and monitor/enforce their use; the UK system could provide a model. The US integration of alcohol and other substance use services within the same programs could make it more difficult to apply the guideline in the USA. However, there are sufficient similarities in the service delivery systems in terms of levels of care and differentiation of service needs based on problem severity that many of the guideline recommendations could be adopted. The guideline recommends the use of standardized measures to assess individuals seeking services. The US system also is moving to a standardized intake assessment model, with many states requiring the use of the Addiction Severity Index 5. The US system would do well to consider the more alcohol-specific measures recommended in the guideline. The selection of drinking goals continues to be more controversial in the USA than elsewhere. The guideline provides a sensible, evidence-based model for working collaboratively with clients to select treatment goals; the USA should more fully embrace that model. Finally, the guideline provides an excellent blueprint for selection of treatments based on presenting concerns and the severity of the drinking problem. The research literature that underpins the recommendations represents work of US, UK and other European scientists, suggesting a knowledge base that is generalizable across cultures. More fully adopting the assessment, goal-setting and treatments recommended by the guideline could improve outcomes and efficiency in the US system. In conclusion, the Guideline Development Group (GDG) has performed an incredible service for those affected by problematic drinking. The US system of care is in a state of change as the ACA and the attendant changes in health-care delivery are enacted across the country. Philosophical perspectives on drinking problems and approaches to treatment are evolving slowly in the USA; the perspective and recommendations of the GDG should form a blueprint for advancing efficacious treatments on both sides of the Atlantic. None.

Estefanía Argente, Olivier Boissier, Carlos Carrascosa, Nicoletta Fornara · 13 authors

The notion of Multi-Agent System (MAS) environment, as remarked by recent literature, has gained a key role, becoming a mediating entity, functioning as enabler but possibly also as a manager and constrainer of agent actions, perceptions, and interactions 1 while addressing the requirements of openness and scalability. According to such a perspective, the environment is not a merely passive source of agent perceptions and target of agent actions which is, actually, the dominant perspective in agency, but a first-class abstraction that can be suitably designed to encapsulate some fundamental functionalities and services, such as coordination and organization, besides agent mobility, communications, security, etc [2]. Then, the environment dimension appears to intersect with all the dimensions that should be addressed to define an agreement between autonomous agents, that is, all the different Agreement Technologies giving support to the building, development and management of agreements in decentralized and open systems between autonomous agents. Those dimensions are the ones related to the development of technologies dealing with: Semantics, Norms, Organizations, Argumentation & Negotiation, and Trust.

José Bacelar Almeida, Manuel Barbosa, Endre Bangerter, Gilles Barthe · 6 authors

Developers building cryptography into security-sensitive applications face a daunting task. Not only must they understand the security guarantees delivered by the constructions they choose, they must also implement and combine them correctly and efficiently. Cryptographic compilers free developers from this task by turning high-level specifications of security goals into efficient implementations. Yet, trusting such tools is hard as they rely on complex mathematical machinery and claim security properties that are subtle and difficult to verify. In this paper we present ZKCrypt, an optimizing cryptographic compiler achieving an unprecedented level of assurance without sacrificing practicality for a comprehensive class of cryptographic protocols, known as Zero-Knowledge Proofs of Knowledge. The pipeline of ZKCrypt integrates purpose-built verified compilers and verifying compilers producing formal proofs in the CertiCrypt framework. By combining the guarantees delivered by each stage, ZKCrypt provides assurance that the output implementation securely realizes the abstract proof goal given as input. We report on the main characteristics of ZKCrypt, highlight new definitions and concepts at its foundations, and illustrate its applicability through a representative example of an anonymous credential system

Heiner K. Berthold, Olivier Descamps, Ioanna Gouni‐Berthold

Lipoprotein(a) has been associated with cardiovascular disease risk, but no randomized study has shown yet that lowering Lp(a) decreases cardiovascular risk. One treatment option for lowering Lp(a) in high-risk patients is lipoprotein apheresis, which has been approved for reimbursement now in Germany. This decision has been coupled with the mandate to perform a controlled endpoint trial. The ELAILa trial protocol has been filed (NCT01064934), but the study is on hold because of a negative ethics committee vote after strong opposition of part of the medical community due to ethical concerns. The authors argue that a randomized trial is necessary to investigate the effectiveness of the invasive, life-long and costly therapeutic procedure. Meanwhile, reimbursement continues. The study would be the first endpoint trial investigating whether lowering isolated Lp(a) elevation decreases cardiovascular endpoints. The association between lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk has generated much interest in the last few years [1]. However, randomized controlled trials examining the effects of Lp(a) lowering on cardiovascular outcomes are lacking, and thus, an assumption of a beneficial effect remains speculative. In Germany, there was recently an opportunity to perform such a trial using lipoprotein apheresis to investigate whether decreasing Lp(a) improves cardiovascular outcomes in patients with isolated elevated Lp(a) concentrations and progressive cardiovascular disease. Lipoprotein apheresis for this indication is reimbursable in Germany. The study is presently on hold due to the strong opposition of part of the medical community questioning the ethical justification of randomization. The aim of this study is to raise the discussion to an international level, to foster the debate across healthcare systems and to discuss the ethical considerations of not performing such a study. Lp(a) is a low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-like particle consisting of an apolipoprotein-B100 molecule covalently linked to the large glycoprotein apolipoprotein(a) (apo(a)) [2]. The precise physiological role of these particles remains unclear. The distribution of plasma Lp(a) levels in the population is skewed, ranging from <0·1 to >300 mg/dL, and there is an interindividual variation by a factor of ∼1000 [3]. In Caucasians, the 80th percentile of Lp(a) concentrations is 50 mg/dL [1]. Numerous prospective epidemiological studies and meta-analyses [4–6] have reported associations between Lp(a) concentrations and CVD [7]. Two recent studies provided strong evidence for a causal association between increased levels of Lp(a) and coronary heart disease [8,9]. However, it remains unclear whether lowering Lp(a) concentrations reduces atherosclerosis and CVD outcomes. This situation recalls the situation at the end of the last century when many physicians refused to accept that lowering LDL was beneficial until the results of the 4S study [10] unequivocally established that it was. With Lp(a), a major problem in proving such an effect is the lack of an agent specifically and substantially decreasing Lp(a) levels [2]. The current drug treatment of choice for elevated Lp(a), niacin [1], decreases its concentrations by only 20–30% [11] and may reduce cardiovascular events [12], but at the same time affects other lipoprotein fractions so that its overall effects cannot be solely attributed, if at all, to the modest decreases in Lp(a) concentrations. Lipoprotein apheresis, besides decreasing LDL cholesterol, is able to decrease Lp(a) concentrations by 50% to 70% [13]. In Germany, the Federal Joint Committee (Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss; G-BA), the highest decision-making body of the so-called self-governing health system, decided in 2008 to approve the reimbursement of lipoprotein apheresis for individual patients with isolated hyperlipoproteinaemia(a) (Lp(a) >60 mg/dL) and progressive CVD when all other measures to stop disease progression have failed. This reimbursement decision was coupled with a mandate to perform a controlled trial which would definitely prove (or disprove) the benefit of Lp(a)-lowering using apheresis in these patients. An independent steering committee was created, and an investigator-initiated study protocol for such a study (ELAILa trial; http://www.clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT01064934) was duly submitted to the competent ethics committee (EC). The study was rejected, however, after lengthy discussions with and appeals from various groups of medical professionals, mainly associated with the procedure. Their criticism was based on the argument that randomization for the study is not ethically justified. The EC eventually decided that it was indeed unethical to perform a randomized trial because an observational trial addressing this issue existed [14], and the data it provided deemed adequate proof of benefit of apheresis. However, this observational study did not include a control group. The question remains whether there is enough evidence to support that Lp(a) apheresis improves the outcomes of patients with isolated elevation of Lp(a) and progressive CVD, thus obviating the need for a randomized trial. To us, the answer is a clear no, as uncontrolled observations do not fulfil the criteria of evidence-based medicine in 2012. The ELAILa trial was designed as a hybrid trial, consisting of both, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) and an observational trial (OT) for the patients not willing to be randomized. In addition, patients having reached a nonfatal endpoint in the RCT could be switched over to the OT for long-term follow-up (Fig. 1). The OT would thus also serve the purpose of establishing a national registry of Lp(a) apheresis patients, another mandate of G-BA (the respective documents can be found on http://www.g-ba.de). Flow of participants. Primary outcome measure of the trial was a composite endpoint, defined as first occurrence of one of the following: myocardial infarction, interventional coronary therapeutic procedure, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), cerebrovascular accident, hospitalization due to acute coronary syndrome (ACS), peripheral arterial revascularization and death from cardiovascular cause. Secondary outcome measures were the components of the primary endpoint considered individually and death from any cause. Safety of the procedure and quality of life were also to be investigated. The trial would enrol male and female patients ≥18 years of age having Lp(a) concentrations ≥60 mg/dL, LDL cholesterol <100 mg/dL and progressive CVD. As demanded by G-BA, CVD progression despite maximally tolerated conservative therapy would have to be determined not only clinically but also with imaging methods. Patients with LDL cholesterol of <100 mg/dL were selected for the trial since the effect of lowering Lp(a) and not of lowering LDL cholesterol on cardiovascular outcomes was to be investigated. After randomization (1 : 1 ratio stratified by centre), patients would be treated by lipoprotein apheresis (all approved apheresis methods will be allowed in the trial). In the control arm, patients will be treated with maximally tolerated conservative treatment to reduce cardiovascular risk. Lp(a) concentrations would be measured in a central accredited laboratory with an isoform-insensitive assay, and changes in Lp(a) levels would be modelled as a covariate. In preparation of a reliable estimate of the predicted number of events and for calculating the required sample size, statistical considerations were hampered by a lack of data on the parameters of interest. A 50% risk reduction was considered to be clinically relevant, a decision based on the effect sizes usually observed in statin trials (about one-third event reduction) and on the high-risk state of the study population. The assumptions for the final sample size calculation for the primary outcome included equal allocation of patients to the apheresis or control group, an accrual time of 48 months and an additional follow-up of 12 months, a median event-free time for the control group of 24 months and an event-free time twice as large for the apheresis group. It was furthermore assumed that patients will be accrued uniformly over time. Calculating the sample size, a relative risk reduction of 50% can be detected at a two-sided significance level of 0·05 and with a power of 80% by evaluating a total number of 135 patients. The observational trial (OT) would also consist of two arms (see Fig. 1), an apheresis arm and a control arm (for patients unwilling to either be randomized or to receive apheresis treatment). If patients in the RCT would reach a nonfatal endpoint, they would be able to switch over to the OT arm. In December 2008, G-BA had agreed to the general outline of the ELAILa trial. Moreover, the German Cardiac Society and the German Society for Nephrology supported this trial. Financing would be supplied by four of the largest manufacturers of lipoprotein apheresis systems in Germany, which have established a consortium that would sponsor the organizational part of the trial. Importantly, in an additional decision of July 2009, G-BA ascertained that reimbursement of the treatment costs was granted for study participants by mandatory health insurance coverage. This decision has been endorsed by the Federal Ministry of Health. In January 2010, the finalized study protocol was submitted to the ethics committee (EC) at Charité University Medicine in Berlin. After several hearings and after having been contacted by groups of medical professionals who strongly opposed the study, the EC decided that it was crucial for their final decision to have an independent biostatistical expertise on a retrospective cohort study by Jaeger et al. [14], presumably showing a reduction of major coronary events with lipoprotein apheresis. Such a report was obtained, and a final decision was made in July 2010, ruling that the proposed RCT is unethical, while the OT received a positive vote. The EC came to the conclusion that it is unethical to randomize patients ‘as long as there is no active, probably effective control group and as long as there are no data from new cohort studies that question the results of the study of Jaeger et al.’. An appeal of the study trialists against the decision of the EC was rejected. The study has been ‘on hold’ since then. We believe that this decision is very unfortunate as (i) it deprives both patients and the scientific community of the true answer to a significant question and (ii) the study on which it was based [14] has significant limitations, most importantly because it is retrospective and uncontrolled. This nonrandomized retrospective cohort study in 120 subjects showed that decreasing Lp(a) levels by 73% using apheresis associates with decreases in the annual rate of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) from 1·056 to 0·144 before and after starting apheresis [14]. At first sight, this finding seems very persuasive; however, potential limitations in design and statistical methodology should be considered. For example, in time-to-failure data (or person–time data in general), the basic assumption is that the risk of failure (event) in one group is the same constant multiple of the other group at any point in the follow-up time. The study violated the principle of independence of observations and used a questionable statistical test. Other problematic issues with this study are the fact that the patients were not maximally treated (e.g. only 8·3% were receiving niacin and only 3·3% cholestyramine), that there was no prospective documentation of events (events were retrospectively assigned as such) and that events were not adjudicated independently. Calculating intraindividual ‘event rates’ is a statistically dubious concept [15]. In summary, the conclusions of this study are limited by its design, and it does not meet the criteria of evidence-based medicine in 2012. We thus believe that, although laudable, this study cannot be considered as an adequate alternative to a randomized controlled trial as proof of the effectiveness of Lp(a) apheresis. Moreover, a recent small randomized trial from Italy showed that in 21 patients with angiographically documented CHD apheresis decreased Lp(a) by 57% but showed no difference in the rate of cardiovascular events in a follow-up of 1 year [16]. While in their demand for a controlled trial, the G-BA did not specifically request a randomized trial, they characterize such as the ideal design. A nonrandomized trial design bears substantial selection bias (confounding by indication). In such a study, it cannot be excluded (not to say it would be rather likely) that patients with higher cardiovascular risk will be allocated to apheresis treatment while the ones with lower cardiovascular risk will receive standard care. In conclusion, another uncontrolled trial (or registry) will not be able to prove the effectiveness of apheresis over conservative treatment. We acknowledge that the decision in Germany to reimburse this procedure, suggesting to both, medical professionals and patients, that the required evidence for superiority of apheresis exists, would make randomization and therefore recruiting difficult. On the other hand, it could be argued that it is difficult to defend offering patients an invasive, expensive, life-long procedure without having high-quality, evidence-based, proof of benefit. Even the Committee on Ethical and Scientific Issues in Studying the Safety of Approved Drugs of the Institute of Medicine [17] concludes that ‘… the FDA may be justified in requiring studies that could expose patients to heightened risk–but only if a public health question of pressing importance is at stake, if no other study design could supply the needed evidence,…’. We believe that this approach exactly reflects the situation with Lp(a) apheresis. Of note, any cost-effectiveness data regarding Lp(a) apheresis for this indication are also lacking. Although observational data suggest that lipoprotein apheresis to decrease elevated Lp(a) concentrations may improve CVD risk, observational data cannot adjust for unmeasured confounders. However, they have been accepted in this particular case as adequate proof of beneficial effects of a life-long invasive procedure. How can this be explained? Certainly, the aspect of the ‘rare disease’ state of the patients was an argument involved in the decision. There is a clear need for guidance or guidelines evaluating the treatment of rare diseases to help health professionals navigate through the maze of various purportedly effective therapeutic options. On the other hand, one might ask why the scientific standards (and statistical methods) for investigating rare and common diseases should be different. Moreover, the decision may be a reflection of what has been described as ‘the illusion of validity’, the phenomenon of unwarranted confidence on a specific outcome which is produced by a good fit between the input information (significant decrease in Lp(a) concentrations) and the predicted outcome (decrease in cardiovascular events). Interestingly, this ‘illusion’, which has been observed even among the most experienced of researchers, persists even when the scientist is aware of the factors that limit the accuracy of his/her predictions [18]. The ethical basis for entering patients in randomized trials has been in general under debate. Some doctors espouse the uncertainty principle whereby randomization to treatment is acceptable when an individual doctor is genuinely unsure which treatment is best for a patient. Others believe that clinical equipoise, reflecting collective professional uncertainty over treatment, is the soundest ethical criterion [19]. Numerical modifications of surrogate markers of CVD risk do not automatically translate to an actual reduction of CVD events, as has been recently shown, for example, with CETP inhibitors, drugs that increase HDL-C and decrease LDL-C [20]. Observational and randomization data have often reached surprisingly disparate conclusions, and effects of surrogate markers were misleading in the field of cardiology, as we have seen, for example, with hormone replacement therapy and intensive glycaemic control in patients with diabetes. A randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of lipoprotein apheresis to decrease Lp(a) needs to be performed sooner than later. Randomization is a powerful tool that cannot be reliably reproduced by statistical modelling, and therefore, observational data cannot be used as substitutes for randomized trial results [21]. The ELAILa trial may be an illustrative example where selectively missing information on a research subject does not only pertain to studies that have already been performed but for the much greater challenge to understand how many potential studies do not exist when they could readily have been conducted [22]. Drs. Heiner K. Berthold and Ioanna Gouni-Berthold are members of the ELAILa trial steering committee. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the other members. The authors have no conflict of interest associated with the subject matter. Charité University Medicine Berlin, Virchow Clinic Campus, Lipid Clinic at the Interdisciplinary Metabolism Center, Berlin, Germany (H. K. Berthold); Evangelical Geriatrics Center Berlin (EGZB), Berlin, Germany (H. K. Berthold); Département de Médecine Interne et Centre de Recherche Médicale de Jolimont, Hôpital de Jolimont, Haine Saint-Paul, Belgium (O. S. Descamps); Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Preventive Medicine, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany (I. Gouni-Berthold).

Kai-Min Chung, Huijia Lin, Rafael Pass

We present a constant-round concurrent zero-knowledge protocol for NP. Our protocol is sound against uniform polynomial-time attackers, and relies on the existence of families of collision-resistant hash functions, and a new (but in our eyes, natural) falsifiable intractability assumption: Roughly speaking, that Micali’s non-interactive CS-proofs are sound for languages in P.

S. Nangle-Smith

A short, 30cm, test section was used to study the effect of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) forces on flow redistribution in a horizontal, shell and tube heat exchanger subject to both boiling and condensation. The use of a short test section allows for a consistent flow pattern across the test section length which provides further insight into the true effect of EHD. It was found that the voltage polarity of the applied voltages influences the flow distribution. For the current geometry studied, it was found that positive polarity voltages tend to pull liquid away from heat transfer surface and that negative voltages tended to repel more liquid toward the heat transfer surface. Using this knowledge we were able to show that positive voltages were more effective for convective condensation heat transfer enhancement, whereas negative voltages were more effective for convective boiling heat transfer enhancement. A twofold enhancement of convective boiling heat transfer was achieved for positive voltages and a 4fold enhancement was achieved for negative voltages. Similar pressure drop penalties were seen for both cases, approximately twice that of the no EHD case. Furthermore, the effect of DC level, peak to peak voltage, frequency and duty cycle waveform parameters on convective boiling enhancement were studied to explore the range of controllability for the current set of flow parameters. It was found that these various waveform parameters can induce different flow patterns and consequently different heat transfer and pressure drop configurations. In general the heat transfer is enhanced by EHD, but different pressure drop penalties can be achieved for a given enhancement ratio using different waveforms. High heat transfer for relatively low pressure drop was achieved using either negative DC signals or 50%duty cycle pulse waveforms. In some cases the enhancement is quite little compared to the pressure drop, for example the zero DC level, varying peak to peak voltage data. It is suggested that in a system where the heat exchanger pressure drop due to EHD is more dominant than the system pressure drop, it may be possible to use EHD as a method of retarding the system rather than enhancing it thereby broadening the scope of controllability. Finally we showed the proof of concept of using DC EHD as a rapid control mechanism for the load conditions. Using -8kVDC the water side heat flux could be varied by approximately ±3.2 kW/m² within 5 seconds. As a comparison, the same experiment was repeated using the refrigerant flow rate to control the load. Response times were similar for both experiments and although the power required for the flow rate control was less, the minimal variability in flow parameters for the EHD control make it a more attractive method of load control.

James Roumasset, Christopher A. Wada

A theory of payment for ecosystem services (PES) pricing consistent with dynamic efficiency and sustainable income requires optimized shadow prices. Since ecosystem services are generally interdependent, this requires joint optimization across multiple resource stocks. We develop such a theory in the context of watershed conservation and groundwater extraction. The optimal program can be implemented with a decentralized system of ecosystem payments to private watershed landowners, financed by efficiency prices of groundwater set by a public utility. The theory is extended to cases where land is publicly owned, conservation instruments exhibit non-convexities on private land, or the size of a conservation project is exogenous. In these cases, conservation investment can be financed from benefit taxation of groundwater consumers. While volumetric conservation surcharges induce inefficient water use, a dynamic lump-sum tax finances investment without distorting incentives. Since the optimal level of conservation is generated as long as payments are correct at the margin, any surplus can be returned to consumers through appropriate block pricing. The present value gain in consumer surplus generated by the conservation-induced reduction in groundwater scarcity serves as a lower bound to the benefits of conservation without explicit measurement of other benefits such as recreation, biodiversity, and cultural values.

Jaroslav Havlíček, Martin Pelikán, Tomáš Šubrt

The development of renewable energy producers in rural areas creates new job opportunities for the countryside population. The decentralized manner of renewable energy in small cities is one of the ways how to meet the rural and small scale energy needs in a reliable, affordable and environmentally sustainable way. In 2010, the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague has finished the participation in the European IEE project RES COMPASS. In mutual cooperation, with seven partners from the Great Britain, France, Spain, Greek and Finland, the University has been involved in the extensive research concerning the impact of the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) on the future European labour market. The RES COMPASS project meets the objectives expressed by the New Skills for New Jobs Initiative of the EU and stressed also other initiatives, namely the Green Jobs Initiative, the UNEP initiative as well as the requirements of the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Organization of Employers in 2008. The RES COMPASS programme strategy was based on the implementation steps in three mutually supportive components: The first component Comparative analysis of the methods of identification of skill needs on the future labour market based on the renewable energy sources was concerned in the young generation of the today's students. The second component Career Orientation test was developed as a tool for the potential young people thinking about a future career in the emerging area of renewable energy. The third component focused on the future business opportunities for small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) in the RES sector. The paper informs about findings of the third component New businesses for SMEs in the RES. Realistic possibilities of the development of SMEs appear to exist in the provision of more complex services reacting to (1) needs of more rapid renovation of the morally depreciated devices, (2) interest of inhabitants and producers in the installations of at least two different autonomous alternative energy sources, (3) creation of informal groups of users who will share various energy sources, (4) need to support the installation of energy devices with other measures - energy audits and projects.

Helge Kragh

Ever since the famous Eddington-Dyson solar eclipse expedition in 1919, it has been known that massive bodies cause space (or rather space-time) to curve. This happens not only locally, in the vicinity of celestial bodies, but also on the largest possible global scale. Einstein's first cosmological model of 1917 represented the finite universe by the kind of 3D spherical space that had been familiar to mathematicians for more than half a century. According to Einstein, the constant curvature K and radius of curvature R were given by the average density ρ of matter in the universe by where G is Newton's gravitational constant. Although Einstein's model only survived to about 1930, curved space remained an element in most later cosmological models. The question to be decided by a combination of theory and observation was the size of the cosmic curvature, as expressed by the curvature constant k = R2K. In the Einstein universe, k = +1. The present consensus view, in part based on the inflationary scenario, is that we live in a flat or Euclidean space, corresponding to k = 0, which implies that the universe is infinite in extent. However, this is a view that can never be proved observationally, not even in principle. Whereas the reality of curved space belongs to the 20th century, as a mathematical hypothesis it was discussed many decades before Einstein. The first scientist who not only realized the possibility of a closed universe, but advocated it as a model of the real universe, is little known today. Few cosmologists have ever heard about the German astrophysicist Karl Friedrich Zöllner, who as early as 1872 argued that the universe is finite, in the sense that cosmic space is positively curved (Jaki 1969, Kragh 2012). Zöllner's remarkable cosmology based on non-Euclidean geometry deserves more than just a footnote in the annals of cosmological thought. Naturally, questions about the curvature of space could only be asked after the recognition, in the first half of the 19th century, that geometries other than Euclid's are possible. As early as about 1815, Karl Friedrich Gauss in Göttingen came to the conclusion that Euclidean geometry is not true by necessity but can be justified only empirically. According to an often repeated myth - but it is a myth - he attempted to test the validity of Euclidean geometry by measuring geodetically the sum of angles in a triangle extending between three mountain peaks in the state of Hanover (Breitenberger 1984). While Gauss anticipated non-Euclidean geometry, it was left to the Hungarian mathematician János Bolyai and, independently, his Russian colleague Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky to establish geometrical systems different from the venerable one of Euclid. Of the two pioneers, Lobachevsky was the more empirically oriented. As he said in a paper of 1835, the truth of geometry “can only be verified, like all other laws of Nature, by experiment, such as astronomical observations” (Lobachevsky 1898). K F Zöllner, steel engraving from 1882. What Lobachevsky called “imaginary geometry” soon became known as hyperbolic geometry, characterized by a curvature constant k = −1 (and therefore an imaginary radius of curvature). Not only did he prove that in this kind of space the angle sum in a triangle always exceeds 180°, he also suggested that the geometry of physical space might be tested by considering stellar parallaxes. For example, while in Euclidean space the parallax of a star tends toward zero as its distance increases toward infinity, Lobachevsky showed that in hyperbolic space there is a minimum parallax for all stars irrespective of how far they are from the Earth. In his first paper on the new geometry, dating from 1829, he used a value of 1″.24 for the parallax of Sirius - three times as great as the real one - to conclude that space was flat to an approximation much closer than the error of measurement. Nonetheless, rather than concluding that space was Euclidean, he considered his calculations to be inconclusive. Perhaps, he speculated, a deviation from flat space would turn up in future measurements of much larger heavenly triangles. In a famous lecture of 1854, the young Göttingen mathematician Bernard Riemann completed and generalized the earlier ideas of Gauss, Lobachevsky and Bolyai. Emphasizing that curvature is an intrinsic property of space, he argued that although there is any number of possible geometries, there are only three that can represent physical space. These spaces of constant curvature correspond to the three values of the curvature constant, k = 0, ±1. Riemann paid particular attention to the case of a closed spherical space, pointing out that in such a space “we must distinguish between unboundedness and infinite extent.” A space of constant positive curvature “must necessarily be finite provided this curvature has ever so small a positive value” (Riemann 1873). A physicist as well as a mathematician, he speculated that the metrical structure of space on a microscopic scale might be of importance for the physics of atoms and molecules. On the other hand, he did not take an interest in the space of the astronomers. Questions about the global properties of space he dismissed as “idle questions”. Non-Euclidean geometry circulated slowly in the mathematical community, and even more slowly among physicists and astronomers. Only in the 1870s, in large measure due to popular lectures by Hermann von Helmholtz and William Clifford, did Riemann's ideas become generally known and seen as a vision of a possible geometrization of physics. Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner (1834–1882) is today recognized for his contributions to astrophysics and, in particular, his pioneering work in astrophotometry (Koerber 1899, Hermann 1982). A skilled experimentalist and designer of instruments, in 1858 Zöllner invented an astrophotometer to measure the feeble light from stars and planets. In 1862 he moved to Leipzig, where he was appointed professor and established an astrophysical research programme, the first of its kind. In addition to his experimental work, he also made important studies of theoretical problems in astronomy and physics. These included electrodynamics, solar theory, sunspots and the theory of comets. In his Natur der Cometen from 1872 (figure 2) he developed an electrical theory of comets that for a period was widely admired. Title page of Zöllner's 1872 book on the nature of comets, including his proposal of a closed-space universe. Zöllner was a tireless advocate of Heinrich Weber's theory of electrodynamics based on a fundamental force law acting between hypothetical charged particles. Not only did Zöllner accept Weber's force law and associated atomistic theory, he also argued that it was of universal significance and valid for all terrestrial and cosmic phenomena. He suggested that it could be translated into a law of gravitation superior to Newton's, in the sense that the latter was merely a special case of Weber's. In Zöllner's extended version of Weber's theory, the interaction between two charged particles of opposite sign differed slightly, by a factor of 1.7 × 10−40, from the interaction between two particles of the same sign. Thus, a very small residual force would remain between two bodies, and this residual electric force he identified with the gravitational attraction (Zöllner 1882). In effect, he recognized the later so famous (and still unexplained) ratio between the gravitational and the electromagnetic interaction, given by the pure number Fgrav/Fem ≅ 10−40. Among other things, he used his electro-gravitational theory in an attempt to explain the anomalous motion of Mercury's perihelion, one of the major problems in astronomy until it was finally solved by Einstein. Natur der Cometen (Zöllner 1872) was a remarkable work in more than one sense. The major part of the 600-page book was not about comets, but instead a strange mixture of philosophy of science and unconstrained, chauvinistic charges of plagiarism. Zöllner's main targets were British scientists, including luminaries such as William Thomson and Charles Darwin, but he also attacked Helmholtz, one of the most powerful men in German science. The book aroused a storm of controversy and had the effect that Zöllner became increasingly marginalized as a scientist. Although much of the last decade of Zöllner's troubled life was occupied with philosophical speculations, spiritualism and endless controversies, he continued doing scientific work. Thus, he developed a theory of the origin of the Earth's magnetism according to which the magnetism was due to electrical currents in the fluid core of the Earth. Natur der Cometen included a chapter on “The Finitude of Matter in Infinite Space” in which Zöllner offered an original solution to Olbers' paradox in terms of a universe of constant positive curvature (Jaki 1969). In his systematic discussion of the finite versus the infinite in the universe, he assumed, for the sake of discussion, that there is only a finite amount of matter in the world. He then argued that in an unbounded (and therefore infinite) Euclidean space any finite amount of matter would evaporate and dissolve to zero density in an infinity of time. Given the actual existence of matter of non-zero density, he concluded that either is space finite or the universe has only existed for a limited period of time. Unwilling to accept the latter hypothesis, he suggested that Riemann's geometry might provide the key that would unravel the secrets of the universe and dissolve the problems of a materially finite universe: “It seems to me that any contradictions will disappear … if we ascribe to the constant curvature of space not the value zero but a positive value, however small … The assumption of a positive value of the spatial curvature measure involves us in no way in contradictions with the phenomena of the experienced world if only its value is taken to be sufficiently small.” In this way he made Olbers' paradox disappear without having to assume a limitation of either cosmic time or space. While he noted with satisfaction that energy conservation would apply to his finite material universe, he did not address the problem caused by the increase of entropy in a spatially finite but temporally infinite universe. Clearly inspired by Riemann, and happy to admit the inspiration, Zöllner further speculated that curved space was dynamically active, in the sense of determining the laws of Nature. Not even the divine force law of Weber was true a priori but somehow of cosmological origin, a speculation that bears some similarity to the later Mach's principle. And Zöllner went further than Riemann: whereas the Göttingen mathematician had declared that physics represented the “domain of another science”, the Leipzig astrophysicist maintained that the science of the physical world belonged entirely to the field of Riemann's investigations. Later in the century a few mathematicians attacked the problem of Mercury's anomalous precession by assuming space to be non-Euclidean. In 1885–1886 Wilhelm Killing and Carl Neumann derived orbits for Mercury moving in spherical space, and in 1902 Otto Liebmann did the same in the case of hyperbolic space. Zöllner's innovative cosmological speculations attracted some attention in German philosophical circles, but were ignored by most physicists and astronomers. Not only was cosmology considered a somewhat disreputable field that scarcely belonged to science, the idea of a closed space was also widely associated with the (even more disreputable) notion of a fourth space dimension. To understand the lack of scientific response to Zöllner's universe, one must take into account his controversial ideas of a fourth dimension as the site of spiritual phenomena (Zöllner 1880). In 1877, after meeting the chemist William Crookes in London, Zöllner turned wholeheartedly to spiritualism (Treitel 2004). Convinced of the reality behind spiritualist manifestations, he investigated them in great detail, attempting to integrate the spirits with both Weberian physics and his own highly unorthodox version of Christian theology. The first major result of his efforts in this area of unconventional research was an elaborate Transcendental Physics published in 1878 and translated into English two years later (Zöllner 1880). As Zöllner saw it, the project of a transcendental physics including both material and spiritual phenomena was but a natural extension of the astrophysical project of accommodating terrestrial and celestial phenomena within the same theoretical framework. It was a strictly scientific project. Not satisfied with simply accepting the spirits of deceased persons, as they appeared in séances, Zöllner argued that they were visitors from a hidden fourth dimension of space. During the last decades of the 19th century, beliefs of this kind were widespread; Zöllner only took them more seriously than most. It was sometimes contended that if our space is curved, it must be contained in a flat space of a higher dimension, in the same way that a 2D space is embedded in our 3D space. Although 4D “hyperspace” was often mixed up with ideas of non-Euclidean geometry, in reality there is no connection between them. William Clifford dismissed the connection as groundless, as did other mathematicians. A curved space does not need to be curved “in” another space. Zöllner's belief in a spiritual fourth dimension received inspiration from his knowledge of non-Euclidean geometry, which he sometimes used for purposes of illustration, but it did not depend on it. Nor did his claim of a fourth dimension rely exclusively on his belief in a spiritual world, for he held the claim even before his conversion to spiritualism. In a book of 1876 he argued that a fourth dimension was needed for epistemological reasons, in order to understand the symmetry between 3D objects, such as left- and right-handed gloves. The phenomenal objects in our 3D world must be “projections of objects in a space of four dimensions” (Zöllner 1876). He considered the insight to be of revolutionary importance to science as it heralded a change in the world view on a scale comparable to the one Copernicus had initiated. His colleagues in physics and astronomy were not immune to the fascination of the fourth dimension, but they rejected his interpretation of it. Zöllner was the only scientist in the 19th century who found it probable, and not merely possible, that space is curved in accordance with Riemann's geometry. He was also the only one to use the hypothesis to solve a cosmological problem, namely Olbers' paradox of the dark night sky. From the late 1870s, non-Euclidean geometry attracted increasing interest among mathematicians and philosophers and a few astronomers followed suit. One of them was the Irishman Robert Stawell Ball, Royal Astronomer of Ireland and from 1892 professor of astronomy and geometry in Cambridge. Without committing himself, he suggested that parallax investigations might show space to be non-Euclidean. Characteristically, his guarded preference for a closed cosmic space turned up in his popular publications only. In The High Heavens of 1893, he expressed sympathy with the hypothesis, vaguely suggesting that a finite universe was more satisfactory than the consensus view of an infinite space filled with stars. Another astronomer of distinction, the American Simon Newcomb, also dealt with the possibility of a closed-space universe, if only cautiously and apparently without believing in it. In the first edition of his classical text Popular Astronomy, he discussed whether the heat radiated by the Sun and stars would be lost forever. Noting that this would not be the case in a spherical universe, he nonetheless denied taking a Riemannian cosmic space seriously. It was “too speculative to admit of discussion” he said (Newcomb 1878). He followed up on the subject in correspondence with the philosopher-scientist Charles S Peirce, who was much more sympathetic to curved space. Indeed, for a decade Peirce defended the idea enthusiastically, suggesting various astronomical methods by means of which the curvature might be measured. Newcomb advised him to calm down: “The task of getting the scientific world to accept any proof that space is not homoloidal [flat] is hopeless, and you could have no other satisfaction than that of doing a work for posterity” (Eisele 1957). The most elaborate pre-relativistic attempt to link astronomy with non-Euclidean geometry appeared in 1900, in a paper by the 26-year-old German astrophysicist Karl Schwarzschild (published in translation in 1998). I cannot go into the substance of this work, except noting its main results concerning the possible curvature of space. In the case of a hyperbolic space, Schwarzschild found R > 4×106 AU, and for the closed space he estimated a lower bound of R > 108 AU. Although he saw no way to go beyond this rather indefinite conclusion, from a philosophically point of view he preferred a closed universe, which he thought was more “satisfying to reason” (Schwarzschild 1998). So did Einstein, 17 years later. A knot experiment Zöllner made with the American medium Henry Slade. The ends of the cord were sealed together, yet Slade's “spirits” tied several knots in the cord. To Zöllner (1880), it proved the reality of a fourth space dimension. Following up on Schwarzschild's analysis, Paul Harzer at the University of Kiel argued that the universe might well consist of a finite stellar system located in a larger spherical space. He estimated the size of the entire universe by the time it would take a ray of light to circumnavigate it. For this journey round the world, Harzer (1908) gave the figure 8700 years. Neither Schwarzschild nor Harzer seems to have been aware of Zöllner's earlier work, at the time long forgotten. Ever since Lobachevsky, non-Euclidean geometry was associated with astronomy and yet it was a subject most astronomers were to were for one of them that space was not considered part of science. The motion of celestial bodies was the of not the space in which the motion took Newcomb for the of astronomers he among both and to of space as an in To interest in the astronomical community, of space would have to be or for problems of astronomical on both While astronomers realized that the curvature of space was they also realized that the kind of bound for the curvature that measurements was to distinguish curved from flat space. Given this no that they saw no to the Euclidean space that had them so well in the space be curved, the curvature radius would be so large that for all purposes it was infinite - that space could be considered So Among the few problems of cosmological that might have astronomers to curved space was the question of whether space is finite or infinite in extent. The question might be seen as merely as it often but it had such as Olbers' only in one Zöllner's discussion of was the problem by that the stellar universe might be closed in accordance with Riemann's His solution to the most of Olbers' in terms of and saw no between the dark night and an infinity of stars. The main for the to the of space non-Euclidean was just they had no need for the

J. Emmanuel Raymundo

On February 25, 2011, the fashion luxury company Christian Dior suspended John Galliano, who had been its creative director since 1996, after his arrest over making anti-Semitic remarks at a Paris bar. Quickly following his suspension, a video from December 2010 was distributed showing Galliano hurling anti-Semitic invectives at several bar patrons. On March 1, 2011, Dior fired Galliano. At stake in the considerable interest and speculations regarding who takes over at Dior is control of a €24.6B business empire and access to a historic couturier’s archive. In this sense, its designer will influence the label’s "books" both financial and what will be stored in its physical repository as part of the brand’s creative and artistic repertoire. Despite fashion’s apparent ubiquity, the anticipation surrounding who takes over at Dior is proof that despite fashion’s professed democratization, there still exists a fashion hierarchy with Dior occupying its upper echelon. Since Galliano’s dismissal, fashion insiders have moved from breathlessly feverish in their speculations to desperately calling out for relief in the face of an unexpectedly drawn-out waiting game that is now over a year old and otherwise an eternity in fashion’s hyper accelerated production cycle. To purposely counter fashion’s accelerated internal clock, the purpose of this commentary is to keep fashion in a reflective state rather than a reflexive stance and uses fashion on film, and specifically Robert Altman’s Prêt-à-Porter (1994), to give cultural and historical context to all the online speculation and chatter. Altman’s film is the fractal, or the repeating pattern, in a dramatized form, as well as the cultural archive against which to examine the entangled relations of the designer Marc J

Alejandro Meleg

Investments for basic rural sanitation programs should not only focus on the construction of new installations, but also on the necessity of implementing proper management models that guarantee the operational and financial sustainability of the investments. The integrated rural sanitation system (SISAR) is based on the idea of creating a confederation of local user groups which come together on a regional basis, and through an adequate institutional setup, are responsible for managing SISAR and assuring the adequate provision of water supply and in some cases, wastewater services. Financial sustainability is achieved by the implementation of tariffs for water consumption and provision of wastewater services generating revenue which is redistributed among all systems in order to cover all operational, maintenance and administration costs. Important stakeholders in the model include, besides the users, local and state government and international financing institutions responsible for financing the investments in the construction of rural water supply and wastewater systems. This document focuses on the experience and results achieved by SISAR in the Brazilian state of Ceará. In 2001 eight SISARs began providing improved water supply services in 66 settlements. Today, more than 560 settlements (more than 330,000 inhabitants) are supplied by SISARs.

Aisha Ghaus-Pasha

This article discusses how the 7th National Finance Commission award and the 18th Amendment to the Constitution have strengthened the autonomy of the federating units in Pakistan. The former has empowered the provinces by increasing their access to financial resources, but there is the danger that it may increase the consolidated fiscal deficit unless both the federal and provincial governments increase their fiscal efforts and rationalize their expenditures. The 18th Amendment has the potential to change the structure of governance, but has been implemented in such a way that effective decentralization has been at least partially rolled back. For devolution to work in Pakistan, financing and the delivery of devolved services will have to be more effectively organized and managed.

Peter Roderick, Allyson M Pollock

No abstract is available for this record.

Komali Yenneti, Premakumara Jagath Dickella Gamaralalage

The solid waste sector is a significant contributor to methane (CH 4 ) emissions with a global warming potential (GWP) of 21 times more than that of CO 2 bringing the need for preventive actions from this sector. In the recent years, composting projects both centralized and decentralized have proved to be addressing this issue. However, much of the decentralized composting projects failed due to their financial and other operational constraints that arise during the course of the implementation. On this regard, the current article reviews the potential of carbon finance as an opportunity for funding decentralized composting projects through demonstrating the application through emission calculation of four cities in Asia. On assessing the emissions, it also identifies the benefits associated with the emissions reduction from the composting projects which might not be available in the absence of the projects. The article also discusses the various carbon financing strategies available in the present market to identify the potential market for inclusion of decentralized composting projects. In the process, the article identifies the issues in the implementation of decentralized composting projects under Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and other carbon markets in general.

Hanieh JavadiKhasraghi, Shahriar Mohammadi

Web2 and the evolving vision of Web3 have a great effect on facilitation of information sharing, information aggregation, interoperability, user-centered design, collaboration on the World Wide Web, and crowd-centered services. New concept of Web is the intuition that drives crowdsourcing, crowd servicing, and crowd computing. With crowdsourcing emergence people get motivated to work through internet without being limited by time or geographical location. On the other hand employers could have their jobs done faster and cheaper. This paper is going to introduce an innovative approach for Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) crowdsourcing marketplace. In current AMT marketplace, workers especially new ones need to qualify themselves for each requester that has submitted Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) in AMT, and there is lack of shared reputation system; some workers may cheat on tasks in order to maximize their income, as a result requesters are uncertain of the quality of results, so they offer lower rewards and consequently qualified workers leave the marketplace.

Mønika Ambrus

Notwithstanding the general acknowledgment of its importance, there are still uncertainties and ambiguities as to the precise meaning and actual application of the precautionary principle in international environmental law. In the context of decision making at the inter‐State level, it has been explained that one of the interpretations of this principle means a ‘shift’ in the allocation of the burden of proof. Unsurprisingly, a similar effect of the principle can be, and has been, claimed in dispute settlement. Given these claims, the general aim of this article is twofold: first, to define what a ‘shift’ in the allocation of the burden of proof actually means; and second, to explore and assess whether this theoretical/conceptual understanding of the ‘shift’ is applied when the precautionary principle is at stake, and whether there are good reasons to apply it in dispute settlement and decision‐making processes.

Jinguang Han, Willy Susilo, Yi Mu, Jun Yan

No abstract is available for this record.

Jon Glasby

With successive English governments extolling the virtues of greater choice and control within welfare services, there is growing debate about concepts such as direct payments and personal budgets (in the UK and in many developed countries). With the evidence base inevitably patchy and incomplete, there have been increasing criticisms of these approaches from the social care trade press and from academic policy commentators alike. Against this background, this paper reviews the concerns that are emerging and explores some of the limitations of current debates—many of which make an implicit appeal to ‘the evidence’ in order to justify increasingly polarised views. In particular, the paper argues that many current accounts are based on an imperfect understanding of the principles at stake; on a failure to apply the same burden of proof to the old system as well as the new; on prior attitudes to state services and to current social care; and on a potentially limited adherence to more traditional forms of evidence-based practice.

Paul Rangongo

This research set out to explore the financial management by SGBs in public primary schools. The challenges as they were experienced by SGBs were identified. This study revealed that some public schools SGBs are dysfunctional with regard to the management of finances. The understanding of roles and responsibilities pertaining to the management of finances is insufficient. SGBs are still battling to understand the roles especially of the chairperson, treasurer and the secretary. There is a lack of monitoring and understanding of roles. Understanding of the financial legislative framework is still a challenge to rural public schools. Knowledge and interpretation of the other policies and regulations, Acts and prescripts is a major concern. There are transgressions of, and non-compliance with the financial legislative framework. The study further found that the SGBs’ perceptions, experience, feelings and thoughts with regard to management of finances are such that their lack of knowledge and skills in finance due to inadequate training makes them feel uncertain and unsure of their competence to manage finances. The quality of the training that they have received does not adequately empower them to manage finance successfully as it is offered by incompetent people. The contents of the prescripts, circulars, manuals and Acts are not clear at all to them. The English language used in the documents makes it especially difficult for SGB members, especially the parent component, to grasp what is needed. In some of the schools investigated, budgeting processes are done unilaterally by the principals who dominate every sphere of governance and relevant stakeholders are not involved. The PED should bear in mind that an investment in SGB training is an investment in their empowerment and decentralization of finances to public schools. If well trained SGBs could render a better service in managing public finances. A procurement management system should be developed, monitored and evaluated from the circuit level. Schools must be encouraged to create procurement clusters or budget clubs. Lengthening the time in office for the SGB from three to four or even five years will add value for money in the form of human investment. The issue of continuity must be ensured after each and every election or four years of re-election, especially in the portfolio of treasurers. This will enable governors to develop their experience over a longer period. During this time there should be continuous training as stipulated in section 19 of SASA. The PED should consider incentive programmes or honoraria for SGB members as a sign of acknowledgement, based on performance, to improve the quality of their effectiveness and efficiency in the management of school finances. The department must develop a financial assessment programme and remediation initiatives to decisively respond to schools that are dysfunctional in terms of financial management. Copyright

Nicolas Christin

We perform a comprehensive measurement analysis of Silk Road, an anonymous, international online marketplace that operates as a Tor hidden service and uses Bitcoin as its exchange currency. We gather and analyze data over eight months between the end of 2011 and 2012, including daily crawls of the marketplace for nearly six months in 2012. We obtain a detailed picture of the type of goods being sold on Silk Road, and of the revenues made both by sellers and Silk Road operators. Through examining over 24,400 separate items sold on the site, we show that Silk Road is overwhelmingly used as a market for controlled substances and narcotics, and that most items sold are available for less than three weeks. The majority of sellers disappears within roughly three months of their arrival, but a core of 112 sellers has been present throughout our measurement interval. We evaluate the total revenue made by all sellers, from public listings, to slightly over USD 1.2 million per month; this corresponds to about USD 92,000 per month in commissions for the Silk Road operators. We further show that the marketplace has been operating steadily, with daily sales and number of sellers overall increasing over our measurement interval. We discuss economic and policy implications of our analysis and results, including ethical considerations for future research in this area.