Blockchain Papers

Salil Vadhan, Shafi Goldwasser

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mathematics, 1999.

John Ashworth, Emma Galli, Fabio Padovano

No abstract is available for this record.

Jayavardhana Gubbi, Rajkumar Buyya, Slaven Marusic, Marimuthu Palaniswami

Ubiquitous sensing enabled by Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies cuts across many areas of modern day living. This offers the ability to measure, infer and understand environmental indicators, from delicate ecologies and natural resources to urban environments. The proliferation of these devices in a communicating-actuating network creates the Internet of Things (IoT), wherein, sensors and actuators blend seamlessly with the environment around us, and the information is shared across platforms in order to develop a common operating picture (COP). Fuelled by the recent adaptation of a variety of enabling device technologies such as RFID tags and readers, near field communication (NFC) devices and embedded sensor and actuator nodes, the IoT has stepped out of its infancy and is the the next revolutionary technology in transforming the Internet into a fully integrated Future Internet. As we move from www (static pages web) to web2 (social networking web) to web3 (ubiquitous computing web), the need for data-on-demand using sophisticated intuitive queries increases significantly. This paper presents a cloud centric vision for worldwide implementation of Internet of Things. The key enabling technologies and application domains that are likely to drive IoT research in the near future are discussed. A cloud implementation using Aneka, which is based on interaction of private and public clouds is presented. We conclude our IoT vision by expanding on the need for convergence of WSN, the Internet and distributed computing directed at technological research community.

Udani Samarasekera

No abstract is available for this record.

Sabino Cassese

The literature of the last ten years contains numerous references to two opposite trends: on one hand, “the end of administrative law,” on the other, the “new administrative law.” According to the first body of literature, which is mainly of French and Belgian origins, administrative law has lost its peculiarities (thus giving rise to the increasing difficulty in defining its status and scope); it has become a hybrid, has been destabilized and destructured, and is now in ruins. This situation is—according to this narrative—the product of various, conflicting causes: globalization, constitutionalization, destatization, privatization, decentralization. As a result of the pressures stemming from these diverse trends, administrative law is slowly losing its raison d’être—its center: the state.1 On the contrary, according to the second point of view, held mainly by German observers, a new administrative law is developing, due to a process of change, modernization, and reform. This new, or postmodern, administrative law is more open than the old administrative law, and is focused on “steering” rather than on ordering. This new administrative law is—in this view—the product of the new role of the state as a promoter, as a facilitator, as a risk regulator, and as the helmsman of economy and society. It therefore requires a new, more interdisciplinary, approach.2 Should we share the view that administrative law has reached the final stage of its life, or, on the contrary, that it is undergoing a process of intense change and renewal? What prevails now: continuity and decline, or development and modernization? Before providing an answer to these questions, I shall address the more general issue of continuity and change in administrative law. For a long time, administrative law was conceived as the domain of stability and continuity. Otto Mayer, in the introduction to the third edition of his Deutsches Verwaltungsrecht, observed that it was a common opinion of his times that “Verfassungsrecht vergeht, Verwaltungsrecht besteht” (constitutional law passes, administrative law remains).3 This conclusion was strengthened by the dogmatic approach adopted by administrative law scholarship in many European countries, where the dogmatic reinterpretation of Roman law by the German scholar Friedrich von Savigny was taken for granted and imported into the study of administrative law. For instance, in Italy, the founding father of administrative law scholarship, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, espoused the “systematic approach” developed by Savigny and by scholars of private law. Therefore, concepts and methods possessing a high degree of stability in the field of private law became familiar to administrative law scholarship. Administrative law was founded on timeless tenets or dogmas derived from private law. Continuity in paradigms of study paralleled the idea of continuity in administrative institutions. Over the last twenty years, both assumptions have become obsolete. Administrative institutions have undergone impressive changes. Consider the accumulation of these: globalization, privatization, citizens’ participation, new global fiscal responsibilities. The very idea that administrative law concepts could remain stable over time has been abandoned. The fast-developing phenomena in administrative law have rendered the field’s cultural paradigms inadequate. New concepts and ideas have penetrated the literature: new public management, governance, accountability, expert bodies, steering. But, as continuity and change go hand in hand, it is difficult to study this mosaic of contradictions using the old approaches. The purpose of this paper is to catalog and briefly review the major changes that have occurred in Europe over the last twenty years, and to mention the resulting changes produced in the methods used to study administrative law.4 Discontinuity in the realm of administrative institutions requires discontinuity in the approaches adopted for studying the new administrative law. The scholarship examining this new administrative law needs reorientation and a new framework, capable of explaining the changes that have taken place. According to Otto Mayer, “[t]he administration is the activity of the State for the accomplishment of its ends.”5 Therefore, administrative law originated as the product of the state, but has now become dependent on other powers of transnational, global, and local dimensions. Many complex phenomena are currently unfolding: the growth of ultra-national and intra-national powers; increasing “dédoublement fonctionnel” (functional splitting), in which national governments act both as sovereign powers and as “delegates” of ultra-national bodies; the development of certain basic principles of administrative law at global, national, and local levels (e.g., in Europe, the principle of “good administration”); open statehood (“offene Staatlichkeit”) and increased communication between national legal orders, thanks to which principles may circulate (e.g., the principle of proportionality, first developed in the German legal order, was then imported in the European Union, and from there into many national legal orders); development of principles that are shared by several legal orders, at the global, national, and local levels, which therefore become universal (e.g., the right to a hearing, the duty to give reasons, judicial review), and thus provide increased opportunities for popular participation, but also produce increasing conflicts; rights are not recognized only by national constitutions, but also by global rules and imposed by these on national legal orders; national governments are subject to a contradictory trend: on one hand, their sovereignty is diminished; on the other, they acquire new tasks (e.g., control of efforts against global terrorism or global warming) that they could not possibly have gained in previous times, but that they are now obliged to share with other states (for that reason, the relevant literature contains several remarks on the state’s declining sovereignty and on the need to “bring the State back in”). The most important of these developments is the growth of a global space and a global polity. These are not only arenas in which contending forces operate, but also sets of organizations claiming control not over territories and people, but over functions.6 These developments require administrative law scholarship to be denationalized. Thus far, nationalism has been the prevailing mode through which administrative law scholarship has been conducted. But, as common core principles have developed at the national, transnational, and global levels, administrative law scholarship must give up this traditional nation-based approach. Indeed, for example, to understand the European Union, it is necessary to draw inspiration from the imperial paradigm rather than the state one. Like the empires, the Union is a compound structure. Attempts to establish a common European area of research in the field of public law are already under way.7 Representative democracy and the traditional legitimacy paradigm (featuring governing bodies vs. governed) have been exhausted. In all countries, and globally, public powers and civil societies are in search of new sources of legitimacy, and new ways of holding power accountable have been tested. National and supranational legal orders are developing in two different directions. Vertical accountability is increasingly juxtaposed to horizontal accountability (inter-institutional accountability).8 National governments respond to other national governments and to supranational institutions, and independent regulatory agencies balance ministerial bodies. Power has shifted to “technocrat–guardians” who are shielded from political influence.9 Delegation of power through elections is now flanked by participation in the decision-making process: major urban planning, environmental, and regulatory decisions require public inquiries through which individuals can make their voices heard. Popular participation and deliberative democracy complement representative democracy. These constitutional developments also affect administrative law. At the global level, administrative networking and shared administration are made necessary by increased political cooperation in intergovernmental global institutions and in hybrid global regulatory bodies. At the national level, collaboration and horizontal accountability are products of the increased fragmentation of national executives into many different agencies. To enable participation, detailed procedural regulations are necessary; therefore, administrative regulation increasingly consists of regulation of procedures (freedom grows in the interstices of procedure). As a consequence of these developments, an entirely new area of study is opened up to the scrutiny of administrative law scholarship, which, in the past, developed essentially along vertical lines. This requires renewed attention to cooperation, codecision, and reciprocal accountability, as well as to procedures, disclosure, and access to information, notice and comment, hearings, and reasoned decisions. In particular, the proceduralization of administrative law makes a new approach necessary, because administrative decisions no longer take center stage and have been replaced by procedure. Administrative law was initially established as a “special” law, separate from private law. Globalization, overburdened governments, privatization, and new public management techniques have all de-emphasized and blurred the public–private divide. Private law invades the space of public law and erodes its specificity.10 In the global polity, hybrid and private bodies are as numerous as public bodies. National governments make increasing use of private law. Contracts between the state and private persons, once almost unknown (as they challenged the very idea of state sovereignty), are now a common feature of state activity. Consequently, the state becomes dependent upon collaboration with civil society. With the emergence of the enabling state, the focus of public activity has shifted toward measures aimed at financing benefits through the market. Therefore, a large part of social welfare has become a lucrative, privatized, commercial, and for-profit activity.11 Outsourcing and public–private partnerships increase efficiency and sectionalism, which in turn contribute to the fragmentation of the state. On the contrary, private institutions increasingly apply administrative law rules (two examples are the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) by-laws, which contain a sort of administrative procedure act and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) regulations12). As public bodies are not necessarily subject to administrative law, so too private bodies are not necessarily subject to private law. Topics such as state-owned enterprises, public–private partnerships, public incentives to private companies, and market-oriented regulation thus become crucial for the analysis of administrative law. These developments make it necessary to abandon the public law regime paradigm, to de-publicize the approach adopted by administrative law scholarship and to study the ambiguities and the richness of the interconnections between public and private law. Between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Weberian-style administration was a “machine,” with linear development and linear decision-making processes. According to this mechanical form of regulation, the executive branch was ruled from above (politicians governed bureaucrats), agencies developed according to popular demand for services as interpreted by parliaments, decision-making processes ran directly from the initiator (usually a high-level politician) to the deciding officer (again a politician), through the machinery of the executive agencies. Over the past fifty years, the picture has become more complex. Administration, politics, and society now form a triangle; there is no longer a clear dividing line between administration and society; negotiation runs side by side with command and control; as soon as new services require new structures, these new structures establish links with their institutional clients and attract new clients (both internally and externally); decision-making processes are replaced or accompanied by consultation, mediation, Parliament-like procedures, or, simply, muddling through. “The old image of a hierarchical public administration single-handedly implementing well-defined policy goals set down in legislation must today compete with a vision of the administrative process as open-ended, collaborative, and networked.”13 Administrative law scholarship must adapt its paradigms and research techniques to this new reality. It must be prepared to study administrative law less as a mechanical structure than as a market, where many intersecting negotiations take place. “To capture the new reality, comparative administrative law should be framed no longer as the rules and judicial-redress mechanisms that guarantee the effective working of administration, but rather as an accountability network through which civil servants are embedded in their liberal-democratic social orders.”14 This approach requires paying more attention to the rules of change and to a different conception of administrative law, which is to be seen not as a static set of rules and mechanisms, but as a dynamic system, capable of interacting with its environment. The executive branch, which once served the elected politicians and the state-provider of a few basic services (e.g., defense, public order, tax collection), has now become society’s largest artifact. It has also become increasingly separated from politics, becoming, rather, ever more embedded in society. The state is no longer extraneous to society, as it is not extraneous to the economy. These developments are noticeable if the size of government apparatuses is measured: a century ago, public employment occupied between one to five percent of the labor force, a figure that has risen now to between 10 and 50 percent.15 The state has become the largest employer and the most important financial intermediary. Further, it is the main actor in all major social and economic events. The emergence of the administrative state has rendered regulation pervasive. Moreover, the administrative “machine” has been able, over time, to adjust to political and societal pressures, first by expanding, then by reducing, and now by re-expanding its own dimensions. The administrative structure of government has become embedded in politics, in society, and in the economy, reproducing the main features of a corporatist state, where different branches of the executive or agencies become “captured” by their constituent interests, but still “capture” a certain degree of sectorial legitimacy from them. Therefore, while constitutional law is still organized around a center (Parliament, the government, a supreme court), administrative law has lost its center and has become fragmented and multipolar. Therefore, administration and its law cannot be understood if the administrative culture of a country and its civic values are not studied. For example, the degree of industrialization and the experience of wars and the need to maintain large armies all have a significant impact on the management of government, both in terms of diffuse managerial cultures and popular attitudes of skepticism or deference vis-à-vis the state. The next task for administrative law scholarship shall be that of bringing society and politics back into the study of the administration, analyzing the many links between society and administrative agencies, in which politics often acts as an intermediary. Traditionally, administrative law was based on the bipolarity between the “administré” and the “autorité publique.” In the last thirty years, two developments have occurred. The “administré,” subject to administrative authorities, has become a citizen, fully entitled to rights vis-à-vis the government: for example, he has a right to be informed, to make his voice heard, to receive reasoned decisions, and to have administrative decisions reviewed by independent courts. The “rights revolution” has produced many major changes in the field of administrative law, as well. Broadened suffrage, organized societies, and the fragmentation of executives have replaced bipolarity with multipolarity. Today, the administrative landscape is dominated by multipolar a of public bodies and conflicting private For example, there are numerous state and agencies in the field of private that with and The state is penetrated by conflicting private interests, which, state agencies must address (e.g., and economic also an administrative and require administrative or political far, administrative law scholarship has focused on the only as an of public orders or benefits and on the between the State and New administrative law scholarship has a new It must a view of and governing administrative not only as regulations of administrative power but as of citizens’ rights vis-à-vis administrative on agencies, to the of private It must study the in which conflicting one and and in which agencies act as and is subject to the an administrative law the law not public in their are and such as and in which the executive is from legal and once are now increasingly as to the of law and to the principle of judicial therefore, a between the executive powers and social for institutions. Moreover, there are where agencies must address complex and in a or the principle of (e.g., in and cannot be by of the executive makes to For example, it and or which are These developments open up an entirely new set of for administrative law scholarship. administrative law scholarship has on the of judicial decisions, and institutional The new scholarship has a more difficult to at institutional the of and judicial decisions. It must with and of and in to study these In the past, in the European and wars the main of changes in administrative law. the of and of wars has to an This has an impact on as they are from major change, or subject to a change that more Administrative law is more dependent upon and previous therefore, institutional is the Administrative law therefore consists of and “the approaches have not Administrative law has been a process of to societal the but their has been in the Moreover, administrative institutions and are by law in state is a The that administrative development are ideas and economic constitutional social time and according to This requires of the of of their and of their of rules and institutions are regulations which changes. The study of these complex structures first an attention to and the in which they to the different to the and it requires an analysis of the between the different to establish they and which rules and institutions As become increasingly legal become more National legal orders are no longer the and of institutions, and between are open legal space national The has become a where it is to go and sets of principles from one legal to are not only legal but also and and policy are at the in administrative law have This not that national legal orders have become and a major role in institutions and from one These developments require two major changes in administrative law scholarship. On one hand, they require it is increasingly that the law of one country cannot be fully understood if it is in Administrative law scholarship cannot to one legal Moreover, at this requires a that the study of the law as in and of law in of legal legal and and legal On the other hand, these developments require and into the picture of legal and the and impact of common ideas and principles in numerous legal In other the developments require the For example, to study the between common law and legal orders, it is necessary to the state on one hand, and on the the of the of law, and and their peculiarities and institutions and as to the state and the of developed in to the German of and its the global and the many national of “new public the of administrative and of the principle of the of and in a common judicial review of administrative the of the different national and as a result of increased communication between legal As administrative law developed first in Europe, it is also important to study the common European of the national administrative scholarship developed as a to mainly and must now more than as it should also and In the past, it was a to individuals for a of legal administrative law scholarship to its own Today, the upon it have and require new techniques of and not one Indeed, it is to state that its own of is no but rather and political of the with the important that administrative law scholarship should not be by a and of certain basic that legal Administrative law must its in the field of social and and its links with it to study the role by the State in the economy, the economic approach to is there that the economic analysis of public law can to the scholars of administrative the executive branch of government is embedded in the realm of politics, and if administration is part of politics, can the study of administrative law political can political in terms of methods and to administrative law and institutional are the in the field of administrative law. Therefore, is an of analysis for administrative law In a and open in which legal orders and become “the national of legal is a legal scholarship with the to be not national, but cannot be by the and must the idea that there is only one form of legal of law not necessarily an that a and organized system, or a must be It therefore, to of on a European on a universal

Qian Zhang, De Han

In this paper, through introducing the Williams public-key cryptosystem in detail, the analysis of the characteristics of the system, and the combination with zero knowledge proof, we set up a zero-knowledge proof scheme based on Williams public-key cryptosystem. The scheme will enrich the theory of cryptography, and particularly zero-knowledge proof theory.

Jayavardhana Gubbi, Rajkumar Buyya, Slaven Marusic, Marimuthu Palaniswami

Ubiquitous sensing enabled by Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies cuts\nacross many areas of modern day living. This offers the ability to measure,\ninfer and understand environmental indicators, from delicate ecologies and\nnatural resources to urban environments. The proliferation of these devices in\na communicating-actuating network creates the Internet of Things (IoT),\nwherein, sensors and actuators blend seamlessly with the environment around us,\nand the information is shared across platforms in order to develop a common\noperating picture (COP). Fuelled by the recent adaptation of a variety of\nenabling device technologies such as RFID tags and readers, near field\ncommunication (NFC) devices and embedded sensor and actuator nodes, the IoT has\nstepped out of its infancy and is the the next revolutionary technology in\ntransforming the Internet into a fully integrated Future Internet. As we move\nfrom www (static pages web) to web2 (social networking web) to web3 (ubiquitous\ncomputing web), the need for data-on-demand using sophisticated intuitive\nqueries increases significantly. This paper presents a cloud centric vision for\nworldwide implementation of Internet of Things. The key enabling technologies\nand application domains that are likely to drive IoT research in the near\nfuture are discussed. A cloud implementation using Aneka, which is based on\ninteraction of private and public clouds is presented. We conclude our IoT\nvision by expanding on the need for convergence of WSN, the Internet and\ndistributed computing directed at technological research community.\n

Brice Kombo

La nécessaire lutte contre la pauvreté découle d'un constat troublant : la richesse combinée des quinze personnes les plus riches de la planète est supérieure à la valeur annuelle cumulée de la production de biens /services de l'ensemble des pays de l'Afrique subsaharienne. 20% de la population mondiale consomme plus de 80% des ressources disponibles sur la surface de la terre. Ce double constat révèle l'ampleur des efforts à accomplir pour répondre au défi des objectifs du millénaire pour le développement (OMD). La responsabilité des Etats est évidemment engagée mais les solutions sont plus à rechercher au niveau des villes et des territoires. Au plus proche des habitants, les autorités locales peuvent et doivent jouer un rôle de catalyseur du développement. Il revient aux citoyens des territoires confrontés aux problèmes de sous-développement d'imaginer et de proposer ces solutions locales. La coopération décentralisée contribue à la recherche et à l'invention de telles politiques territoriales : cadre de dialogue privilégié entre gouvernements locaux. Définie comme un partenariat entre autorités locales de nationalités différentes, cette coopération décentralisée permet un partage d'expériences – micro finance, décentralisation, bonne gouvernance etc. En clair, tous les espoirs peuvent s'inviter dans la symbiose « Coopération décentralisée et Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement», en tenant compte de leurs enjeux et perspectives dans l'espace francophone subsaharien.

Stefano Braghin, Tan, Jackson, Rajesh Sharma, Anwitaman Datta

In this work we describe the PriSM framework for decentralized deployment of a federation of autonomous social networks (ASN). The individual ASNs are centrally managed by organizations according to their institutional needs, while cross-ASN interactions are facilitated subject to security and confidentiality requirements specified by administrators and users of the ASNs. Such decentralized deployment, possibly either on private or public clouds, provides control and ownership of information/flow to individual organizations. Lack of such complete control (if third party online social networking services were to be used) has so far been a great barrier in taking full advantage of the novel communication mechanisms at workplace that have however become commonplace for personal usage with the advent of Web 2.0 platforms and online social networks. PriSM provides a practical solution for organizations to harness the advantages of online social networking both in intra/inter-organizational settings without sacrificing autonomy, security and confidentiality needs.

Purna Prabhakar Nandamuri

Emerging economies are building up their education systems by overcoming the major challenges of finance, infrastructure and planning and control of resources and internal processes through ‘school-based management’ reforms. To achieve relative competitiveness, school management must deal with these challenges. Governments consider decentralization as an indispensable step in efforts to provide quality education. Many successful schools set up committees and undertake improvements in planning. The Indian school education sector is not an exception. This study sought to explore the nature of planning function being practiced at the school level as a source of competitive advantage. A sample of 188, among the population of 557 secondary schools in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh in India, was selected through stratified sampling. The primary responses were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to the respective school heads and analyzed with chi-square and simple descriptives. Decentralization is a management strategy which demands flexible implementation with a balance between the autonomy and the characteristics of its beneficiaries. Improvement of the quality of education needs the functioning and management of schools to improve. The findings indicate that the planning framework is either nonexistent or inactive in a majority of public sector schools. The inclusion of community members in school management is comparatively better in the public sector schools run by the State government of Andhra Pradesh than those run by private managements. The academic, infrastructure and financial planning activities are highly centralized, giving no scope for innovation and autonomy at the school level.

Anwar Shah, Riatu Mariatul Qibthiyyah, Astrid Dita

Indonesia has come a long way from centralized governance to decentralized local governance, and today Indonesia ranks among the most decentralized developing countries. The Government of Indonesia is revisiting all aspects of local governance to make appropriate legal and institutional adjustments based on lessons leaarned during the past decade. An important area of this re-examination and possible reform is the central financing of subnational expenditures. The system of intergovernmental finance represents one of the most complex systems ever implemented by any government in the world. The system is primarily focused on a gap-filling approach to provincial-local finance in an objective manner to ensure revenue adequacy and local autonomy but without accountability to local residents for service delivery performance. This paper takes a closer look at Dana Alokasi Umum -- the most dominant program of unconditional central transfers to finance provincial-local government expenditures in Indonesia. The paper also presents illustrative simulations of alternative programs and compares these with the existing Dana Alokasi Umum allocations. The paper concludes that super complexity leads to lack of transparency, inequity, and uncertainty in allocation. Simpler alternatives are available that have the potential to address autonomy and equity objectives while also enhancing efficiency and citizen-based accountability. Such alternatives would represent a move away from the complex gap-filling approach to simple output-based transfers to finance operating expenditures. Capital grants would deal with infrastructure deficiencies. And the alternatives would institute fiscal capacity equalization as a residual program with an explicit standard to ensure that all local jurisdictions have adequate means to deliver reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of tax burdens across the country.

Patricia Cochran

One of the questions that lies at the heart of the Insite case is this: what kind of connections should exist between the law and the people it governs? In this short comment, I explore one of the ways this question informs the treatment of evidence and proof by focusing on the section 7 aspect of the case and the question of arbitrariness. With the goal of inviting discussion, I suggest that in cases involving the constitutional rights of marginalized individuals and communities, the concept of the “burden of proof” can provide a way to help understand what is at stake, and what criteria we might use to relate the burden of proof to values of equality and justice.

Sabina Nuti, Chiara Seghieri, Milena Vainieri, Silvia Zett

The Italian National Health System (NHS), established in 1978, follows a model similar to the Beveridge model developed by the British NHS (Beveridge 1942; Musgrove 2000). Like the British NHS, healthcare coverage for the Italian population is provided and financed by the government through taxes. Universal coverage provides uniform healthcare access to citizens and is the characteristic usually considered the added value of a welfare system financed by tax revenues. Nonetheless, in Italy the strong policy of decentralization, which has been taking place since the early 1990s, has gradually shifted powers from the state to the 21 Italian regions. Consequently, the state now retains limited supervisory control and continues to have overall responsibility for the NHS in order to ensure uniform and essential levels of health services across the country. In this context, it has become essential, both for the ministry and for regions, to adopt a common performance evaluation system (PES). This article reports the definition, implementation, and first evidences of a pilot PES at a national level. It shows how this PES can be viewed as a strategic tool supporting the Ministry of Health (MoH) in ensuring uniform levels of care for the population and assisting regional managers to evaluate performance in benchmarking. Finally, lessons for other health systems, based on the Italian experience, are provided.

Sandeep Tambe, M. L. Arrawatia, Anil K. Ganeriwala

Rural development is a vast sector that encompasses infrastructure creation, sustainable livelihoods, and decentralized governance. Mountain landscapes, with their inherent constraints of remoteness, sensitive ecosystem, and marginality, pose unique challenges to rural development. We undertook an assessment of the evolution of development themes and rural development progress made in the mountain state of Sikkim over the past decade. We found that a rapidly growing national economy has facilitated a 4-fold rise in investment in key rural development subsectors in Sikkim over the past 5 years. This significant enhancement in financial investment, coupled with good governance and innovative policies, has ensured that human development indicators, along with social infrastructure creation, have shown impressive progress. Setting up village cluster-level support offices to strengthen governance, transforming regular programs to mission mode with great political determination by adopting a saturation approach, financing improved earthquake-resistant housing for poor households, and promoting climate change adaption measures to enhance rural water security are some of the innovative approaches that have the potential to be transferred to other mountain areas. We propose a further expansion of capacities and economic opportunities in rural areas by prioritizing the self-employment sector, by expanding the nonfarm rural economy, youth training and placement, and continuing commitment to strengthening democratic institutions and procedures to ensure more rapid and inclusive growth of the rural economy.

Gilberto Llanto

The 1991 Local Government Code devolved substantial spending, taxing, and borrowing powers to local government units. Moving governance closer to the people can generate a welfare gain but local governments must have adequate revenues to finance local development. The paper examines the current status of the tax-expenditure assignment and the intergovernmental fiscal relations, and identifies areas for reform. There is a need for a clearer and more accountable assignment of expenditure by eliminating particular sections of the Code, which serve as a route for national government agencies to be engaged in devolved activities, and for politicians to insert funding for pet projects, which distort local decision making and preferences. There is as well a need to review the tax assignment to improve local revenue generation. The allocation of intergovernmental fiscal transfers may be improved by introducing matching grants to improve equalization transfers to local governments, and performance-based grants to motivate greater local revenue mobilization. Without a clear funding source, unfunded mandates imposed on local governments defeats the purpose of the policy objectives set in those mandates. Local government alliances and cooperative undertaking may be a way to provide public goods with inter-jurisdictional spillover benefits. Consolidation, better coordination of local government activities, and resource pooling for better local service delivery are pathways indicated by successful experiences of LGU collaboration.

Tiago Sousa, Hugo Morais, João Soares, Zita Vale

No abstract is available for this record.

Étienne Parizet, Yogen Padayashi, Olivier Collery

Aircraft interior noise is a major design stake with respect to airline requirements for passenger and crew comfort. The focus was put here on cockpit noise. The goal of this study was to evaluate unpleasantness of such sounds and to propose metrics for its prediction. Six sounds recorded in various airplanes were used; one of them was modified in order to reduce the level of an emerging low-frequency component, leading to a number of seven stimuli. These stimuli were used in a pair-comparison experiment in a sound-proof booth. 31 listeners participated to the experiment. Results could be analysed using a BTL model, which provided an unpleasantness scaling of the stimuli. Unpleasantness was clearly related to loudness; due to the high level in the very low frequency bands, A-weighted level failed to represent loudness. Two loudness models were also used: the ISO-532 one and the ANSI S3.4 one. It appeared that the former gave better results. It is argued that this is due to the evolution of loudness values in the low frequency range, which is different between these two models.

Víctor B. Penchaszadeh

No abstract is available for this record.

Stéphane K. Lintner, Oscar P. Bruno

We deal with the general problem of scattering by open-arcs in\ntwo-dimensional space. We show that this problem can be solved by means of\ncertain second-kind integral equations of the form $\\tilde{N}\n\\tilde{S}[\\varphi] = f$, where $\\tilde{N}$ and $\\tilde{S}$ are first-kind\nintegral operators whose composition gives rise to a generalized Calder\\'on\nformula of the form $\\tilde{N} \\tilde{S} = \\tilde{J}_0^\\tau + \\tilde{K}$ in a\n{\\em weighted, periodized} Sobolev space. The $\\tilde{N} \\tilde{S}$ formulation\nprovides, for the first time, a second-kind integral equation for the open-arc\nscattering problem with Neumann boundary conditions. Numerical experiments show\nthat, for both the Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions, our second-kind\nintegral equations have spectra that are bounded away from zero and infinity as\n$k\\to \\infty$; to the authors' knowledge these are the first integral equations\nfor these problems that possess this desirable property. Our proofs rely on\nthree main elements: 1) Algebraic manipulations enabled by the presence of\nintegral weights; 2) Use of the classical result of continuity of the Ces\\`aro\noperator; and 3) Explicit characterization of the point spectrum of\n$\\tilde{J}^\\tau_0$, which, interestingly, can be decomposed into the union of a\ncountable set and an open set, both tightly clustered around -1/4. As shown in\na separate contribution, the new approach can be used to construct simple\nspectrally-accurate numerical solvers and, when used in conjunction with\nKrylov-subspace solvers such as GMRES, gives rise to dramatic reductions of\nKrylov-subspace iteration numbers vs. those required by other approaches.\n

Sanjay Kanti Das

Entrepreneurship on small scale is the only solution to the problems of unemployment and proper utilization of both human and non-human resources and improving the living conditions of the poor masses. The basic rationale of developing these industries are that they provide immediate large scale employment, ensure more equitable distribution of income, encourage decentralization of industries and eradicate poverty and unemployment. During the last three decades, many countries of the world have experienced the need and importance of entrepreneurship has been accepted as a strategy to achieve the twin objectives of promotion of entrepreneurship, particularly among the educated unemployed youth and also for rapid industrialization in the economy. The main object of this paper is to study the existing literature on entrepreneurship through Micro finance-SHG linkage in India in general and NER in particular. The analysis of this study is based on secondary sources. Efforts are also made in this paper to analyze the role of micro finance through SHGs in the promotion and development of entrepreneurship. This paper examines the different approaches of entrepreneurship and also explains the different key areas of micro enterprise development. Finally, this paper highlights the problems of micro, rural and women entrepreneurs and also suggested some specific measures based on the survey of existing literature, for the promotion of these industries in the country.

Андреас Каппелер, Albert Solé‐Ollé, Andreas Stephan, Timo Välilä

Spending on productive infrastructure is seen as an important contributor to long term economic growth. Several authors have documented a downward trend in public investment during the last three decades and warned about its possible detrimental effects on the economy. A not well-realized fact is that productive infrastructure investment is mostly provided by sub-national governments. The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of revenue decentralization on the provision of infrastructure at the sub-national level. We estimate the effects of revenue decentralization and earmarked grant financing on the level of sub-national infrastructure investment in 20 European countries over the period 1990-2009. The findings are compared to those obtained when using sub-national investment in redistribution, for which the theory predictions are different. To account for the high auto-correlation in the dependent variable, we apply a dynamic panel data approach. In particular, we use a Corrected Least Squares Dummy Variable (LSDVC) estimator with the lagged dependent variable included to account for the dynamic character of the dependent variable. The empirical analysis shows that decentralisation in terms of tax shares increases public investment in infrastructure; public investment in redistribution is not significantly affected by decentralisation. The positive link between total regional investment and decentralisation suggests that decentralisation on regional infrastructure investment is additional and does not go hand in hand with a considerable reduction in other types of regional investment, such as health, education or safety. As to investment grants, they have a positive impact on both types of regional investment. The negative interaction between investment grants and decentralisation for regional infrastructure investment suggest that the impact of tax decentralisation on regional infrastructure investment declines with increasing receipts of investment grants by regional governments. This result is intuitive. As the significance of the tax-decentralisation parameter suggests, higher regional decision autonomy leads to more investment in infrastructure. Attempts to undermine the power of regions through the backdoor - e.g. by introducing conditional transfers - will at least partly offset the positive effect of decentralisation.

Lenir dos Santos

This dissertation is a study on the organization form of the Brazilian Unified Health System -Sistema nico de Sade (SUS) that, according to article 198 of the Brazilian Federal Constitution, is a system of federative interdependence managed by autonomous entities, as set forth under article 18 of such Constitution. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach, with emphasis in the legal standpoint and interpretation of the major guidelines of the Principles embedded in the Constitution and the protection of the Basic Human right to Health. There is an initial focus on the conceptual framework of Federalism and the traditions where the Brazilian Model got its background. The Brazilian State and its organization form and structure for the Health are scrutinized: the role of the Federal State, its centralistic imposition and influence on SUS' management. The study analyses how the characteristics of federative interdependence and mutual relationship, are harmed by the strong presence of central authority, the Federal Government, through the Brazilian Health Ministry. Concerning the SUS, the federal centralism is materialized through the form of its financing, since a large amount of resources that supports it is assigned by the federal Government to programs and projects determined by federal scope, prevailing over a federal or decentralized system. That situation has a strong impact on SUS' organization, defining its priorities rather by the sources of its financing than by global health planning, that should have as its foundation the peoples need for health. The interdependence and autonomy require solutions that reaches a compromise between these contradictions, assuring to SUS a legal and administrative structure that allow overcoming its contradictions, in order to bring together an efficient system. To achieve this purpose, some ideas are presented, ideas that attempt to reconcile all required elements to a management that guarantees to citizens the right to health.

Tom Miller, James C. Capretta, Grace-Marie Turner

No abstract is available for this record.

Gover Baja Daza, Sergio Villarroel Böhrt, David Zavaleta Castellón

The second generation fiscal federalism (SGFF) approach is used as a reference to analyze the political and fiscal institutional design of Bolivia’s decentralization model and its evolution. Subnational public finance data up to 2008 is used to verify that decentralization of expenditure was higher than that of revenue, establishing a context of vertical fiscal imbalance that increased due to growing fiscal transfers during the positive external shock (boom) period. Consequently, the subnational fiscal surplus was not a result of internal efficiency but of excess revenues from such transfers. Panel models were estimated to identify and assess the implicit incentives embedded in fiscal institutions of the decentralization model. Findings at the municipal level are: i) misalignment of local spending with local interests due to dominance of transfers over own revenue (dominance of central government development policies); ii) incentive to spend transfers faster than own revenue (flypaper effect); iii) greater marginal contribution of own revenue to positive fiscal balances compared to transfers, thus introducing the seed for a soft budget constraint but hidden by the fiscal surplus; iv) disincentive to generate own revenue (tax and non-tax) due to the size and growth of transfers (disincentive to the culture of contributing to own revenue). Findings at the prefectural level are: i) misalignment with regional interests given the dominance of transfers over own revenue due to absolute lack of tax powers (until 2009); ii) high tendency to a soft budget constraint and, eventually, also fiscal bail-out, hidden by the fiscal surplus; iii) in only two departments collection of national-level taxes were higher, compared to transfers received in the same departments; iv) disincentive to pay the VAT (national-level tax) due to higher royalty transfers received, an effect not extended to other national-level taxes; v) high dependence from hydrocarbon-based transfers, and fiscal risk when this natural resource declines (both in volume and prices) due to volatility of international oil prices. Also, as a result of the decentralization model a positive and significant impact was found on education-coverage indicators, an important development objective of the national government.