Blockchain Papers

Dror G. Feitelson, Dan Tsafrir, David Krakov

No abstract is available for this record.

Henri Casanova, Arnaud Giersch, Arnaud Legrand, Martin Quinson · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Nico Kuhlmann

No abstract is available for this record.

Edwin N Mwangi

No abstract is available for this record.

Konrad Zacharzewski

Autor w pionierskiej dla nauki prawa polskiego publikacji poświęconej bitcoinowi (oraz innym tzw. walutom wirtualnym) sformułował wiązkę podstawowych tez na temat tego przedmiotu stosunków prywatnoprawnych. Podstawowe znaczenie ma postawienie i wnikliwe uargumentowanie tezy, która głosi, że bitcoin (oraz inne tzw. waluty wirtualne) jest innym niż pieniądz miernikiem wartości. Jest więc legalny jako taki, w zakresie wszystkich wyobrażalnych sfer jego faktycznego i potencjalnego zastosowania. Zobowiązania przewidujące świadczenie wyrażone w bitcoinie są - ponad wszelką wątpliwość - zaskarżalne, możliwe do zasądzenia przez sąd i wyegzekwowania. Wykorzystanie bitcoina na płaszczyźnie stosunków prywatnoprawnych opiera się na znanych konstrukcjach prawa cywilnego, przewidzianych przez kodeks cywilny. Ponieważ bitcoin nie jest rzeczą, przechodzi ze zbywcy na nabywcę po spełnieniu przesłanek przewidzianych dla rozporządzenia wierzytelnością. Może być przedmiotem sprzedaży i zamiany, a także innych zobowiązań przewidujących świadczenie typu dare, a więc np. przedmiotem pożyczki, zastrzeżenia zadatku, czy też kary umownej. Konstrukcja prawna bitcoina wpisuje się w wyartykułowaną i wnikliwie uzasadnianą na łamach innych publikacji Autora koncepcję środków symbolizujących prawo podmiotowe. Na tej zasadzie bitcoin jest po prostu prawem podmiotowym związanym z nośnikiem, co tłumaczy jednocześnie charakter prawny oraz dopuszczalne płaszczyzny praktycznego zastosowania. Dlatego bitcoin zasadniczo należy zakwalifikować do tej samej kategorii, co znaki legitymacyjne stwierdzające obowiązek świadczenia, dokumentowe papiery wartościowe oraz zdematerializowane instrumenty finansowe. Niniejsza publikacja stanowi pierwszą z dwóch poświęconych przez Autora bitcoinowi. W drugiej Autor podejmuje więcej kwestii szczegółowych (zob. Monitor Prawniczy 2015, nr 4).

I Putu Gde Sukerta, Gede Sri Darma

The purpose of this study was 1) to determine and analyze the implementation and useof information systems technology in the integrated financial information and data processingservices that result in hospital inefficiency and decrease operational performance(management control). 2) To determine and analyze the impact of Integrated InformationSystem Technology to the performance as well as improved quality of service FinanceDepartment (Mobilization Fund) 2) To identify and analyze the factors that constrain andsupport the implementation of an integrated system of information technology in improving theperformance and quality of service parts Finance (Mobilization Fund) to the customer.The results found that iplementasi integrated information system in Sanglah GeneralHospital Center which has lasted from the 2000s to the present in dasrnya has been goingaccording to the plan set out in the master plan for the development of integrated informationsystems at General Hospital Center. In the implementation of an integrated information systemis currently still searching for the best format because there are many drawbacks encounteredin the design of the integrated information system implementation. Also encountered in thisstudy that the implementation of an integrated information system, the units appears to be stillrunning their own separate themselves so visible. This means that the implementation ofintegrated information systems tend to be at the start of the aspects of technology instead ofinstitutional aspects. Other findings generated relating to the above conclusion is fruitionGeneral Hospital Center in order to decentralize information, achieving accuracy andcompleteness of information, prevention of Informat on a particular group has been realizedin the implementation of integrated information systems at General Hospital Center..Keywords: technology information systems

Christian Thurow

No abstract is available for this record.

Ossi Ala-Peijari

Bitcoin is a distributed, virtual currency without centralized control. While a few services accept bitcoins directly, it is also possible to exchange bitcoins into fiat currency and vice versa. Bitcoins are effectively computation puzzles that are mined based on a bruteforce algorithm. As computation requires electricity, it can be stated that the miners are exchanging energy for bitcoins. However, electricity is not usually free and the energy efficiency of the mining devices can vary. Thus, some low-efficiency devices could be considered mainly as an environmental hazard because the expense of using the electricity exceeds the profits. The miners are competing with each other to find solutions, which has resulted in an arms race to use specialized hardware for mining. While this improves energy efficiency, the computational limit for profitable Bitcoin mining is still a moving target. In this thesis, we study and analyse past developments in this limit and try to estimate its future directions.

Y V Reddy, Narayan Valluri, Partha Ray

This chapter identifies recent trends and explores the effects of global financial crisis on subnational finance. Sub-national finances have also been adversely affected by the global financial crisis, though in varying ways in different countries. Most of the policy responses to the crisis have been from the central governments in several forms. Transfers to sub-national governments have been biased in favour of earmarked transfers to sub-serve national goals, having regard to absorptive capacity. Drawing from the experience of sub-national finance, in the context of the global crisis, it is possible to identify some emerging issues such as possibility of further decentralization in governments in the post-crisis years; scope for increase in the space for fiscal management in sub-national levels; and possibility of building buffers against shocks at sub-national levels.

Joe Lao

A soft control of the network activity through varying reward in a proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency is reported. Rewards are the necessity to incent the contributors activities (i.e., mining) in order to maintain the PoW network. Contrary to constant rewarding in a certain period implemented in most of cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin, we propose a network-dependent rewarding model system, primarily including two phases: 1) activities encouraging phase in which higher rewards are issued at higher network activities; and 2) discouraging further increase of activities by reducing rewards. The advantages of this system include 1) fair distribution of rewards among a variety of contributors, and 2) enforcing a limit to the network activity and hence the cost of maintaining the PoW network. This mechanism requires network contributors to show their participation in order to earn maximum rewards, i.e., proof-of-mining.

Lillian J. Ratliff, Carlos Barreto, Roy Dong, Henrik Ohlsson · 6 authors

As smart meters continue to be deployed around the world collecting unprecedented levels of fine-grained data about consumers, we need to find mechanisms that are fair to both, (1) the electric utility who needs the data to improve their operations, and (2) the consumer who has a valuation of privacy but at the same time benefits from sharing consumption data. In this paper we address this problem by proposing privacy contracts between electric utilities and consumers with the goal of maximizing the social welfare of both. Our mathematical model designs an optimization problem between a population of users that have different valuations on privacy and the costs of operation by the utility. We then show how contracts can change depending on the probability of a privacy breach. This line of research can help inform not only current but also future smart meter collection practices.

Ferdinando M. Ametrano

In the history of money bitcoin represents an outstanding medium of exchange, independent from central authorities. Therefore, it has experienced impressive demand which, combined with inelastic supply, has led to huge price appreciation. Nonetheless, transaction volume has not been increasing accordingly. At the core of this conundrum is the very poor performance of bitcoin as unit of account: dramatic deflationary price instability makes bitcoin just impractical for commerce, but completely unserviceable for salaries, mortgages, and deferred payments in general. Ametrano (2014a) has championed as Hayek Money the proposal to engineer cryptocurrencies with fully automatic algorithmic non-discretionary elastic supply: the monetary rule of pegging to a price index would dynamically rebase the outstanding amount of money and achieve price stability. It is proposed here to implement Hayek Money as multiple coexisting units of account wrapped around the unmodified bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency). Prices would be stable in terms of these rebased-bitcoin units of account: different coexisting cryptocurrencies all backed by the same bitcoins, each one with its own floating bitcoin-equivalent rebasing index. These cryptocurrencies would define a new monetary standard, with striking resemblance to the gold standard as improved by the compensated dollar proposed by Fisher (1913). In this Fisher Money scenario bitcoin would be digital crypto-gold and exchange rates would be floating, not fixed, being just the relative prices of the respective cryptocurrency price indexes.

Amy Sparrow Phelps, Allan Watt

No abstract is available for this record.

Arlen D. Meyers

Physician entrepreneurs, technologists, investors, service providers, patients and other innovation stakeholders have embraced biomedical and health innovation and entrepreneurship in an effort to provide higher value care and lower the discovery and development costs of drugs, devices and digital health products and services. To that end, traditional brick and mortar cluster innovation models are being supplemented with virtual networks that are online, decentralized and community based. This paper reviews the evolution of these models and their future development and presents examples of virtual organizations that support biomedical and health innovation and entrepreneurship, fundraising, and new product development and clinical trial recruitment using crowd sourcing. Community based innovation and biomedical and health online innovation networks have the potential to speed new product development, offer alternative financing platforms for early stage ventures, provide education, information and support to those with particular diseases and help to lower the costs and speed of clinical trials. However, questions remain about their effectiveness in creating value, security, commercial and clinical validity, legal status and sustainability. Keywords: Bioentrepreneurship, collaborative online networks, crowd funding, crowd sourcing, health innovation, physician entrepreneurs.

Paul Smoke

Ensuring adequate subnational revenue is a core concern of fiscal decentralization. Public finance principles for selecting and designing subnational revenue sources have been widely used during the prominent wave of decentralization efforts in developing countries over the past three decades. Available empirical literature, however, suggests that subnational revenue generation often fails to meet needs and expectations, even where normative advice has been or seems to have been followed. Are the principles inappropriate, or are they just poorly applied? This paper argues that both factors are often at play. Basic principles are valuable, but they can be challenging to use and do not cover certain critical factors. Even if the principles are relevant and well applied, implementation commonly faces powerful constraints. Yet despite unsatisfying performance, revenue system design remains substantially based on a conceptually narrow normative framework that lacks a sense of pragmatic strategy and is often overwhelmed in practice by contextual factors it fails to or only weakly considers.

Michael A. Cusumano

Speculating on how the Bitcoin economy might evolve.

Thomas L. Brewer

Climate change threatens us all; therefore, we must bridge old divides and build new partnerships to meet this great challenge of our time . US President Barack Obama (2009) There are two fundamental political economy facts that must be taken into account in efforts to address climate change through international cooperation: Climate change mitigation through reductions in GHG emissions is a global public good. The benefits of mitigation are thus available to all countries, regardless of whether they participate in the mitigation efforts. Because the international nation-state system is highly decentralized and generally lacking in formalized enforcement mechanisms, it is a challenge to gain participation and compliance in international climate change agreements. It is therefore tempting for countries to be free riders through non-participation and/or non-compliance, and these core conditions pose formidable obstacles to the achievement of environmentally effective, economically efficient, and politically viable international agreements. Yet, progress in the development of an international climate regime has nevertheless been made incrementally over more than two decades. In order to understand the evolution of the system and the constraints on it, it is necessary to consider some key issues and the context in which they are addressed. As we have seen in the previous two chapters, international issues overlap with regulating emissions (Chapter 5) and advancing technologies (Chapter 6); but in addition, there is a wide range of other international issues – including institution-building, financing adaptation and mitigation projects in developing countries, and monitoring, reporting, and verifying emissions and mitigation actions.

Gina Scutelnicu Todoran

ABSTRACTIn an effort to reduce the cost and size of government, service delivery has become more decentralized, flexible and responsive. One of the strategies for reducing the cost and the size of service delivery is the establishment of special districts. Community Development Districts (CDDs) are a particular type of special created to manage and finance infrastructure services that accommodate new development within the State of Florida. They have significant implications for service delivery since they are considered flexible institutional choices for infrastructure service provision. In trying to assess the CDD performance this study aims at identifying the contribution of the to service delivery and at determining whether they represent an effective and responsive institutional choice for service delivery. Findings demonstrate that the CDD institutional model is both an effective and responsive service delivery tool but only in certain circumstances.INTRODUCTIONSpecial represent an important component of the American governing structure. They are independent, special- purpose units of local government (other than counties, municipalities, townships or school districts) that have administrative and financial independence from general-purpose governments such as counties and cities (U.S. Census, 2007). These entities of government are established by a legislative body to provide specialized services within limited boundaries (Mitchell, 2001).Special are the most common form of local government. According to the U.S. Census (2012) there are 89,004 local governments1 in the United States. Special represent 41.8% of the total number of local governments, followed by municipalities with 21.6%, townships with 18.4% and counties with 3.4%. Besides being the most common form of local government, special have also increased dramatically in the last six decades. Districts more than tripled their number in the last 60 years in comparison with a 8.6% increase for municipalities and a slight decrease of 0.7% for counties and 4.9% for townships. This increase in the number of special is explained by numerous reasons: service delivery for certain areas is better handled by special (Bollens, 1957), were created as a consequence of legal, institutional and political factors (Foster, 1997) and are financial mechanisms (Leigland, 1994; Porter, Lin, Jakubiak & Peiser, 1992) whose proliferation overcomes the fiscal restrictions placed on local general-purpose governments (Bowler & Donovan, 2004; McCabe, 2000).The extant literature distinguishes special purpose governments by different names. Eger III (2006) classifies special purpose entities into three main typologies: ''public authorities,'' ''special districts,'' and ''government corporations.'' He asserts that the degree of financial and governance autonomy explains the diversity of special-purpose governments. Therefore, special purpose entities range from controlled authority which is the least autonomous combination of financial and governance criteria to the most autonomous entities called directly accountable (Eger III, 2006). Porter et al. (1992) acknowledge that special are known by different names such as authorities, and commissions. Foster (1997) divides special-purpose governments in two categories: districts which are local governmental entities with the power to tax and levy special assessments and public authorities which are government corporations without property taxing powers. Even though the aforementioned typologies of special-purpose entities - ''public authorities,'' ''special districts, ''government corporations,'' boards and commissions are used interchangeably in the extant literature, this study will focus on the category of independent special or those special- purpose entities that have both high governing and financial autonomy in Eger's III (2006) words. …

Huijian Dong, Dong Weiguo

Bitcoin has two major roles: as currency and as financial asset. This paper attempts to address these roles: whether Bitcoin is a real currency, and what its financial features are. Using daily data of the exchange rates quoted from the world major Bitcoin dealer since the inception of Bitcoin and the spot market exchange rates, we calculate the triangle arbitrage asset price to decompose the features of this currency. The results suggest significant liquidity discount of Bitcoin and risk premium as a financial asset in terms of British Pound Sterling (2.46%) and Chinese Yuan (0.3%). There is idiosyncratic risk component associated with Bitcoin implied by the Granger causality tests. Bitcoin, as investment objectives instead of currency unit, is associated with excess risk and low returns. Such poor performance discourages investors to spend Bitcoin as currency and to pursue the arbitrage profit. Investors store and hold Bitcoin as fixed asset. In addition, both arbitrage stickiness and low Treynor ratio are persistent over time.

Kay Noyen, Dirk Volland, Dominic Wörner, Elgar Fleisch

Sensing-as-a-Service (S2aaS) is an emerging Internet of Things (IOT) business\nmodel pattern. To be technically feasible and to effectively allow for broad\nadoption, S2aaS implementations have to overcome manifold systemic hurdles,\nspecifically regarding payment and sensor identification. In an effort to\novercome these hurdles, we propose Bitcoin as protocol for S2aaS networks. To\nlay the groundwork and start the conversation about disruptive changes that\nBitcoin technology could bring to S2aaS concepts and IOT in general, we\nidentify and discuss the core characteristics that could drive those changes.\nWe present a conceptual example and describe the basic process of exchanging\ndata for cash using Bitcoin.\n

Trilok SinghPardhi, Rajeev Pandey, Uday Chourasia

Provable data possession (PDP) is one of the techniques to ensure the integrity of data in storage outsourcing. Here in this paper, we speak to the creation of an efficient PDP method for distributed cloud storage to maintain the scalability of service and data migration. On the basis on homomorphic verifiable response and hash index hierarchy we projected a cooperative PDP (CPDP) method. We confirm the security of our method based on multi-prover zeroknowledge proof scheme, which can satisfy knowledge soundness, fullness , and zero-knowledge properties. As well, we expressive performance optimization mechanisms for our method, and in particular present an capable method for selecting finest parameter values to reduce the addition expenses of storage service providers and client. Our experiment shows that our solution introduces lower addition and communication overheads in evaluation with noncooperative approaches.

Yvonne Hartman, Sandy Darab

Introduction The counterculture that arose during the 1960s and 1970s left lasting social and political reverberations in developed nations. This was a time of increasing affluence and liberalisation which opened up remarkable political opportunities for social change. Within this context, an array of new social movements were a vital ingredient of the ferment that saw existing norms challenged and the establishment of new rights for many oppressed groups. An expanding arena of concerns included the environmental damage caused by 200 years of industrial capitalism. This article examines one aspect of a current environment movement in Australia, the anti-Coal Seam Gas (CSG) movement, and the part played by participants. In particular, the focus is upon one action that emerged during the recent Bentley Blockade, which was a regional mobilisation against proposed unconventional gas mining (UGM) near Lismore, NSW. Over the course of the blockade, the conventional ritual of waving at passers-by was transformed into a mechanism for garnering broad community support. Arguably, this was a crucial factor in the eventual outcome. In this case, we contend that the wave, rather than a countercultural artefact being appropriated by the mainstream, represents an everyday behaviour that builds social solidarity, which is subverted to become an effective part of the repertoire of the movement. At a more general level, this article examines how counterculture and mainstream interact via the subversion of “ordinary” citizens and the role of certain cultural understandings for that purpose. We will begin by examining the nature of the counterculture and its relationship to social movements before discussing the character of the anti-CSG movement in general and the Bentley Blockade in particular, using the personal experience of one of the writers. We will then be able to explore our thesis in detail and make some concluding remarks. The Counterculture and Social Movements In this article, we follow Cox’s understanding of the counterculture as a kind of meta-movement within which specific social movements are situated. For Cox (105), the counterculture that flourished during the 1960s and 1970s was an overarching movement in which existing social relations—in particular the family—were rejected by a younger generation, who succeeded in effectively fusing previously separate political and cultural spheres of dissent into one. Cox (103-04) points out that the precondition for such a phenomenon is “free space”—conditions under which counter-hegemonic activity can occur—for example, being liberated from the constraints of working to subsist, something which the unprecedented prosperity of the post WWII years allowed. Hence, in the 1960s and 1970s, as the counterculture emerged, a wave of activism arose in the western world which later came to be referred to as new social movements. These included the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, pacifism and the anti-nuclear and environment movements. The new movements rejected established power and organisational structures and tended, some scholars argued, to cross class lines, basing their claims on non-material issues. Della Porta and Diani claim this wave of movements is characterised by: a critical ideology in relation to modernism and progress; decentralized and participatory organizational structures; defense of interpersonal solidarity against the great bureaucracies; and the reclamation of autonomous spaces, rather than material advantages. (9) This depiction clearly announces the countercultural nature of the new social movements. As Carter (91) avers, these movements attempted to bypass the state and instead mobilise civil society, employing a range of innovative tactics and strategies—the repertoire of action—which may involve breaking laws. It should be noted that over time, some of these movements did shift towards accommodation of existing power structures and became more reformist in nature, to the point of forming political parties in the case of the Greens. However, inasmuch as the counterculture represented a merging of distinctively non-mainstream ways of life with the practice of actively challenging social arrangements at a political level (Cox 18–19; Grossberg 15–18;), the tactic of mobilising civil society to join social movements demonstrates in fact a reverse direction: large numbers of people are transfigured in radical ways by their involvement in social movements. One important principle underlying much of the repertoire of action of these new movements was non-violence. Again, this signals countercultural norms of the period. As Sharp (583–86) wrote at the time, non-violence is crucial in that it denies the aggressor their rationale for violent repression. This principle is founded on the liberal notion, whose legacy goes back to Locke, that the legitimacy of the government rests upon the consent of the governed—that is, the people can withdraw their consent (Locke in Ball & Dagger 92). Ghandi also relied upon this idea when formulating his non-violent approach to conflict, satyagraha (Sharp 83–84). Thus an idea that upholds the modern state is adopted by the counterculture in order to undermine it (the state), again demonstrating an instance of counterflow from the mainstream. Non-violence does not mean non-resistance. In fact, it usually involves non-compliance with a government or other authority and when practised in large numbers, can be very effective, as Ghandi and those in the civil rights movement showed. The result will be either that the government enters into negotiation with the protestors, or they can engage in violence to suppress them, which generally alienates the wider population, leading to a loss of support (Finley & Soifer 104–105). Tarrow (88) makes the important point that the less threatening an action, the harder it is to repress. As a result, democratic states have generally modified their response towards the “strategic weapon of nonviolent protest and even moved towards accommodation and recognition of this tactic as legitimate” (Tarrow 172). Nevertheless, the potential for state violence remains, and the freedom to protest is proscribed by various laws. One of the key figures to emerge from the new social movements that formed an integral part of the counterculture was Bill Moyer, who, in conjunction with colleagues produced a seminal text for theorising and organising social movements (Moyer et al.). Many contemporary social movements have been significantly influenced by Moyer’s Movement Action Plan (MAP), which describes not only key theoretical concepts but is also a practical guide to movement building and achieving aims. Moyer’s model was utilised in training the Northern Rivers community in the anti-CSG movement in conjunction with the non-violent direct action (NVDA) model developed by the North-East Forest Alliance (NEFA) that resisted logging in the forests of north-eastern NSW during the late 1980s and 1990s (Ricketts 138–40). Indeed, the Northern Rivers region of NSW—dubbed the Rainbow Region—is celebrated, as a “‘meeting place’ of countercultures and for the articulation of social and environmental ideals that challenge mainstream practice” (Ward and van Vuuren 63). As Bible (6–7) outlines, the Northern Rivers’ place in countercultural history is cemented by the holding of the Aquarius Festival in Nimbin in 1973 and the consequent decision of many attendees to stay on and settle in the region. They formed new kinds of communities based on an alternative ethics that eschewed a consumerist, individualist agenda in favour of modes of existence that emphasised living in harmony with the environment. The Terania Creek campaign of the late 1970s made the region famous for its environmental activism, when the new settlers resisted the logging of Nightcap National Park using nonviolent methods (Bible 5). It was also instrumental in developing an array of ingenious actions that were used in subsequent campaigns such as the Franklin Dam blockade in Tasmania in the early 1980s (Kelly 116). Indeed, many of these earlier activists were key figures in the anti-CSG movement that has developed in the Rainbow Region over the last few years. The Anti-CSG Movement Despite opposition to other forms of UGM, such as tight sands and shale oil extraction techniques, the term anti-CSG is used here, as it still seems to attract wide recognition. Unconventional gas extraction usually involves a process called fracking, which is the injection at high pressure of water, sand and a number of highly toxic chemicals underground to release the gas that is trapped in rock formations. Among the risks attributed to fracking are contamination of aquifers, air pollution from fugitive emissions and exposure to radioactive particles with resultant threats to human and animal health, as well as an increased risk of earthquakes (Ellsworth; Hand 13; Sovacool 254–260). Additionally, the vast amount of water that is extracted in the fracking process is saline and may contain residues of the fracking chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive matter. This produced water must either be stored or treated (Howarth 273–73; Sovacool 255). Further, there is potential for accidents and incidents and there are many reports—particularly in the United States where the practice is well established—of adverse events such as compressors exploding, leaks and spills, and water from taps catching fire (Sovacool 255–257). Despite an abundance of anecdotal evidence, until recently authorities and academics believed there was not enough “rigorous evidence” to make a definitive judgment of harm to animal and human health as a result of fracking (Mitka 2135). For example, in Australia, the Queensland Government was unable to find a clear link between fracking and health complaints in the Tara gasfield (Thompson 56), even though it is known t

Luca Cetara

No abstract is available for this record.

Michael Sonnenschein, Ontje Lünsdorf, Jörg Bremer, Martin Tröschel

No abstract is available for this record.