Blockchain Papers

Stephanie Bayer

Zero-knowledge proofs were introduced by Goldwasser, Micali, and Rackoff. A zero-knowledge proof allows a prover to demonstrate knowledge of some information, for example that they know an element which is a member of a list or which is not a member of a list, without disclosing any further information about that element. Existing constructions of zero-knowledge proofs which can be applied to all languages in NP are impractical due to their communication and computational complexity. However, it has been known since Guillou and Quisquater's identification protocol from 1988 and Schnorr's identification protocol from 1991 that practical zero-knowledge protocols for specific problems exist. Because of this, a lot of work was undertaken over the recent decades to find practical zero-knowledge proofs for various other specific problems, and in recent years many protocols were published which have improved communication and computational complexity. Nevertheless, to find more problems which have an efficient and practical zero-knowledge proof system and which can be used as building blocks for other protocols is an ongoing challenge of modern cryptography. This work addresses the challenge, and constructs zero-knowledge arguments with sublinear communication complexity, and achievable computational demands. The security of our protocols is only based on the discrete logarithm assumption. Polynomial evaluation arguments are proposed for univariate polynomials, for multivariate polynomials, and for a batch of univariate polynomials. Furthermore, the polynomial evaluation argument is applied to construct practical membership and non-membership arguments. Finally, an efficient method for proving the correctness of a shuffle is proposed. The proposed protocols have been tested against current state of the art versions in order to verify their practicality in terms of run-time and communication cost. We observe that the performance of our protocols is fast enough to be practical for medium range parameters. Furthermore, all our verifiers have a better asymptotic behavior than earlier verifiers independent of the parameter range, and in real life settings our provers perform better than provers of existing protocols. The analysis of the results shows that the communication cost of our protocols is very small; therefore, our new protocols compare very favorably to the current state of the art.

Nicolas T. Courtois, Lear Bahack

Bitcoin is a "crypto currency", a decentralized electronic payment scheme based on cryptography. Bitcoin economy grows at an incredibly fast rate and is now worth some 10 billions of dollars. Bitcoin mining is an activity which consists of creating (minting) the new coins which are later put into circulation. Miners spend electricity on solving cryptographic puzzles and they are also gatekeepers which validate bitcoin transactions of other people. Miners are expected to be honest and have some incentives to behave well. However. In this paper we look at the miner strategies with particular attention paid to subversive and dishonest strategies or those which could put bitcoin and its reputation in danger. We study in details several recent attacks in which dishonest miners obtain a higher reward than their relative contribution to the network. In particular we revisit the concept of block withholding attacks and propose a new concrete and practical block withholding attack which we show to maximize the advantage gained by rogue miners. RECENT EVENTS: it seems that the attack was recently executed, see Section XI-A.

Andrew Mastin, Patrick Jaillet, Sang Chin

The minmax regret problem for combinatorial optimization under uncertainty\ncan be viewed as a zero-sum game played between an optimizing player and an\nadversary, where the optimizing player selects a solution and the adversary\nselects costs with the intention of maximizing the regret of the player. The\nexisting minmax regret model considers only deterministic solutions/strategies,\nand minmax regret versions of most polynomial solvable problems are NP-hard. In\nthis paper, we consider a randomized model where the optimizing player selects\na probability distribution (corresponding to a mixed strategy) over solutions\nand the adversary selects costs with knowledge of the player's distribution,\nbut not its realization. We show that under this randomized model, the minmax\nregret version of any polynomial solvable combinatorial problem becomes\npolynomial solvable. This holds true for both the interval and discrete\nscenario representations of uncertainty. Using the randomized model, we show\nnew proofs of existing approximation algorithms for the deterministic model\nbased on primal-dual approaches. Finally, we prove that minmax regret problems\nare NP-hard under general convex uncertainty.\n

Mandy M. Archibald, Alexander M. Clark

All is not well for nursing in the new world. The use of social media to share research, access information and build professional networks – although gaining in popularity – has been met mostly with a slow response from those in nursing and its research (Ferguson 2013). Twitter is used by over 550 million people, with 135,000 new users every day (Statistics Brain 2012). Approximately 11% of nurses use Twitter compared with 20% of adults – which places nurses a year behind the general population's usage (Robinson 2013). This inertia is curious, given that reputable health organizations, such as the World Health Organization, now use Twitter (Redfern 2013). Do nurses understand the potential benefits of Twitter? With mainstream popularity and increasing reliance in daily social life, Twitter can allow nurse researchers to connect directly, rapidly and cheaply with communities, disseminate information, and promote translation of research into practice and policy. It has also been found to be effective in engaging with and recruiting potentially hard-to-reach populations (O'Connor et al. 2014). This provides huge potential for methods and dissemination and broadens our understanding of change. Academic institutions now have to consider the merits of ‘virtual impact’ alongside traditional metrics of evaluation, such as publications. As Ferguson lamented in JAN: ‘it is time for the nursing profession to leverage social media’ (2013, p. 745). However, identifying this need does nothing to address how nurses can use Twitter better. Diffusion of Innovations Theory can help. Proposed by sociologist Everett Rogers in 1962, Diffusion of Innovations Theory has become a commonly applied theory for understanding how and at what rate innovations are adopted in different settings. Five characteristics of innovations influence this rate (Rogers 1962/2003): • Relative advantage: ‘…the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being better than the idea it supersedes’. (Rogers 1962/2003, p.229) The purpose of Twitter may not be apparent to nurse researchers. Is Twitter a social networking site; a venue to confer and communicate celebrity status; a networking platform; a venue to disseminate research findings; a site for recruiting participants; or all of the above? This versatility of Twitter actually reduces its perceived relative advantage because it is unclear what Twitter can and should be compared to. Most of these appraisals of Twitter occur in an evidence vacuum. While other widely used forms of media – such as textbooks, television and the internet – are not subject to a similar burden of proof, academics focused on evidence and value may well bemoan the lack of evaluation measures available for Twitter. Given the lack of previous comparable social media platforms, the added value of Twitter to busy professional lives may be unclear. Twitter can create a new world that is highly responsive to each member's needs and interests. Because only tweets (messages of 140 characters or fewer) from followers are viewed, twitter ‘feeds’ tend to reflect common themes. Hashtags can be used to categorize tweets and organize twitter feeds. Based on these tailored preferences, papers, blogs and news stories come to one's attention that would not otherwise have done so. This ability to both benefit from and contribute to tailored twitter feeds is a reciprocal advantage that is very useful. The relative advantage of innovations such as Twitter can be expressed through economic gains and social visibility. Academics can ‘tweet’ at zero cost. Other cost investments such as buying open access for publications can be leveraged through Twitter by tweeting links to online papers and web profiles. Academics may conflate social visibility with social prestige – reflecting a lingering perception of Twitter as a celebrity-oriented/pop culture social platform. However, as high-profile organizations such as the Canadian Nurses Association and leading journal editors in nursing harness Twitter, the social status draw of Twitter may gain appeal for nursing academics. Using Twitter may come to symbolize contemporary thinking and innovation. • Compatibility: ‘The degree to which an innovation is perceived as consistent with existing values, past experiences and needs of potential adopters’. (Rogers 1962/2003, p. 229). (Rogers 1962/2003, p. 240) Twitter's predecessors, particularly Facebook, also influence perceptions of Twitter. Largely a social platform, Facebook's infamous ‘status updates’ contributed to perceptions of Twitter as a social site for quick quips and celebrity updates. Although researchers may not distinguish between such forms of social media, in reality, different platforms can serve distinct purposes (Ferguson 2013). This perception of Twitter as another social media site means that it has come to be seen as being part of a ‘technology cluster’ – a ‘set of distinguishable elements of technology that are perceived by individuals as being interrelated’ (Rogers 1962/2003, p. 249). The implication of the technology cluster is the tendency for users to group otherwise distinguishable technological innovations together (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) without recognizing their distinctive nature and merits. When the blurring of boundaries occurs for adopters, the potential benefits of specific platforms may not be recognized. That said, introducing innovations as part of a technology cluster may increase uptake and harness synergies between innovations. Twitter can be used with LinkedIn (a professional networking profile site) through which strategic use of a tweet can refer followers to a full professional profile. As the introduction of technologies has been sequential, beginning with email, faculty websites, LinkedIn, Facebook and many more that have preceded Twitter, the ‘added benefit’ of new social media innovations may not be recognized. It is natural to contrast the anticipated processes of Twitter to how academic dissemination has previously occurred – through longer formal academic journal articles that are read mostly by other academics. Twitter has been proposed as an alternative means to disseminate academic research; however, assuming that Twitter would be accepted readily as a supplementary form of dissemination risks committing the ‘empty vessels fallacy’ (Rogers 1962/2003, p. 256) wherein the previous knowledge and experiences of potential adopters are neglected. Compatibility with existing experiences is important and necessary for Twitter to ‘fit’ with nurse's existing knowledge related to academic dissemination. Developing links between Twitter and traditional avenues of dissemination can increase compatibility. For instance, integrating Twitter into conference activities by use of a conference hashtag, for example, may help. Indeed, Twitter's name alone could challenge many academics' values. Twitter is synonymous with chatter – the antithesis of academic discourse. Views of Twitter as a time-consuming platform not meritorious for academic career progression and promotion can further reduce its compatibility with extant values. As such, how Twitter is positioned within the nursing community, how it is incentivized as a knowledge translation tool and which of its benefits are emphasized influence its adoption. • Complexity: ‘The degree to which an innovation is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use’ (Rogers 1962/2003, p. 257) As with any innovation, Twitter has a learning curve. New terminology (e.g. Tweet, Twittersphere, twitterites) and ostensibly mysterious abbreviations (e.g. RT, FFF, BFN, T/J etc.) abound and necessitate a ‘Twittonary (n.d)’ of key definitions (see http://twittonary.com/ for an example). This learning is complex, especially for people less familiar with technology. Generally, different generations define and use social media in different ways (Cain et al. 2010, Taylor et al. 2010, Jones & Hayter 2013). Generational divides in the use of Twitter persist, but may diminish as technological literacy increases (Cresci et al. 2010). As such, the demographic characteristics and background of researchers in nursing also influence perceptions of complexity and use. • Trialability: ‘degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis’ (Rogers 1962/2003, p. 258) Trialability is a mixed bag for Twitter. Twitter can be experimented with easily through establishing, trying and deleting a user account. However, it takes time and effort to establish followers, identify other users to follow and both read and produce tweets regularly. Time and efforts are needed to understand the potential benefits of Twitter, but these also reduce its perceived trialability. This trialability is also constrained by preconceptions. For many academics, tweeting is a formative risk – tweets can potentially be read by many people, cannot be retracted and have been subject to high-profile legal debate and litigation in some countries. For those who have experimented with or regularly use Twitter, perceptions of such risk are diminished as tweets are only shared with and read by one's followers. Trialability is greatly enhanced by personal trials – suggesting a potential avenue for institutions looking to facilitate the uptake of Twitter by academic staff – via peer presentations on social media or hands-on ‘Twitter-sessions’ similar to library database search sessions. • Observability: ‘The degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others’ (Rogers 1962/2003, p. 258) Twitter is a virtual innovation that requires no new hardware and an internet connection. The platform itself is less observable. Aside from the occasional tweet showcased in print, radio or television, tweets are not visible to those not on Twitter. Promoting Twitter through educational sessions and generating awareness of communities of scholars who have adopted the innovation may enhance Twitter's observability. Finally, as researchers and academic institutions alike can be outcomes-driven, finding ways to qualify the impact and effectiveness of Twitter, and to communicate and value these measures within academic research communities are important. Diffusion of Innovations Theory promotes understanding of how academics use Twitter and offers some direction for developing strategies to increase its use in academic settings. Twitter's popularity is increasing and may soon reach a critical mass, tipping the balance in favour of further adoption (Toole et al. 2012). As the time for early adoption of Twitter has passed, waiting for this critical mass is not enough. Institutions can help by emphasizing the relative advantages of Twitter, such as its low cost, possible reach and high impact potentials. Highlighting parallels between Twitter and other dissemination strategies can promote compatibility with values and experiences. To minimize complexities, promote trialability and increase observability guidelines on Twitter, researchers should benefit from guidelines (e.g. Mollett et al. 2011), Twitter training opportunities and better integration of Twitter into professional conferences and meetings. M.A. acknowledges the Canadian Child Health Clinician Scientist Program and the Women and Children's Health Research Institute.

Shinsuke Tamura, Shuji Taniguchi

A scheme for anonymous tag based anonymous credentials is enhanced. Different from existing zero knowledge proof based anonymous credential schemes that require numbers of challenges and responses between verifiers and credential holders, the anonymous tag based scheme requires only small number of challenges and responses between verifiers and credential holders. This is because the scheme in this paper can be easily made sound even in environments where verifiers also may behave dishonestly. However, the original scheme has probabilistic features, i.e. verifiers must generate dummy fake challenges; therefore overheads for managing anonymous systems cannot be reduced to the minimum. The enhanced anonymous tag based scheme excludes these probabilistic features from interactions between verifiers and credential holders. The scheme also corrects several design errors included in the original scheme.

Yuli Andriansyah

Objective - This paper was aimed to explain the development of Islamic banks and their contributions in Indonesia local development. Methodology/Technique - The paper described data on essential financial data of Islamic bank in 8 provinces in Indonesia mainly in their economic growth, percentage of population living under the poverty line, along with Islamic financial indicators, i.e. asset, third parties fund, and financing. Findings - The results indicate that Islamic banks accomplish impressive financial performance reflected in fast growing in asset, third parties fund, and financing. In terms of financial intermediaries, Islamic bank also performs well as presented in a larger share of financing compared to third parties fund. Islamic banks are also resilient to local short-run shocks in the economy. However, the relation between these financial indicators with economic indicators is not likely very supportive mainly because Islamic bank's limited market share and issue in financial inclusion in Indonesia. Novelty - As a preliminary research in the relation between Islamic finance and local development particularly in a new emerging decentralized economy, this paper bear a worthy endeavour in expanding this field of study in the future. Type of Paper: Review Keywords : Local Development, Islamic Bank, Financial Intermediaries, Economic Growth, Poverty.

F. H. Healey, Luis Crouch, Robert Hannah

Egypt, currently in the throes of major political change, will likely undergo various reforms in the next few years. Some reforms are likely to give local entities, including schools, greater control over education finances. In 2007, the Government of Egypt began to decentralize some non-personnel recurrent finances from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) to lower-level jurisdictions using a number of simple and transparent enrollment- and poverty-based funding formulas. By 2010, a sizable amount of capital expenditure was also being transferred to lower levels of the system via similar equity-based funding formulas. Prior to these formula-based decentralization efforts, a large amount of education-related non-personnel recurrent finances had been moving from the MOF to the muderiyat. Analysis of these latter allocations reveals that they are highly inequitable on an inter-governorate per-student basis, ranging from EGP 966 per student in New Valley to EGP 25 per student in 6th of October. This paper examines the nature and potential causes of this inequity and puts forth a way in which these funds could also be transferred using an equity-based funding formula that “holds harmless” those muderiyat that would lose absolute amounts of money under a more equitable distribution scheme.

Yogesh Malhotra

Recently, such probabilistic, statistical, and numerical methods related concerns are in globally popular press related to cybersecurity controls and compliance. Earlier, similar probabilistic, statistical, and numerical methods related concerns were in the global popular press in the context of the global financial crisis. Future questions focused on the underlying assumptions and logic may focus on related implications for compliance, controls, valuation, risk management, etc. Likewise, recent developments about mathematical entropy measures shedding new light on apparently greater vulnerability of prior encryption mechanisms may offer additional insights for compliance and control experts. For instance, given related mathematical, statistical and numerical frameworks, analysis may also focus on potential implications for pricing, valuation and risk models. The important point is that many such fundamental assumptions and logic underlying widely used probabilistic, statistical, and numerical methods may not as readily meet the eye.

Sonal Basu, Rajeesh Sreenivasan, Tanya Y. H. Tang

No abstract is available for this record.

Alan Brill, Lonnie Keene

Virtual currencies — which are not legal tender in any country and are not issued or backed by any government — have become an important factor in global funds transfers. But features associated with these so called “cryptocurrencies,” such as transaction anonymity and irreversibility of payments, have made them extremely attractive to cybercriminals, drug dealers, money launderers and those involved in global terrorist funding. In this paper, we examine what these financial vehicles are, how they work and why they facilitate terrorist funding and offer suggestions to members of the antiterrorism community for investigating cases involving virtual currencies and bringing perpetrators to justice

Catherine Gamper, Claire Charbit

The share of public investment spending at sub-national level has been slowly but steadily increasing over the past two decades across OECD countries. Degrees and forms of decentralization in infrastructure vary widely across countries, but all governments share a common objective, that is to mobilize authorities along shared infrastructure policy objectives. This involves managing a complex web of vertical (across levels of government) and horizontal (across sectors and across the same levels of government) interdependencies, which require substantial coordination among actors to ensure policy alignment and quality investments. Asymmetric information, multiple principal-agent relationships and significant differences in capacities across levels of government in financing and implementing infrastructure investments have posed important political economic obstacles to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public investment outcomes. This paper will look at persisting coordination challenges more closely by using the results of a recent OECD questionnaire and case studies. It will identify remedies OECD and some selected non-OECD countries have found that work to address coordination issues. This paper will demonstrate that ultimately systematic collection and sharing of information is the key to making coordination work.

Yves Sintomer, Rudolf Traub-Merz, Junhua Zhang, Carsten Herzberg

Introduction: Participatory Budgeting - A Global View Y.Sintomer, R.Traub-Merz & C.Herzberg PART I: ASIAN EXPERIENCES Participatory Budgeting in the City of Ichikawa (Japan) A.Matsubara Participatory Budgeting in Dong-gu, Ulsan - A Korean Case Study A. Songmin Participatory Budgeting in Indonesia - The Tanah Datar Experience S.Mastuti & M.Neunecker Democratic Decentralization and Participatory Budgeting - The Kerala Experience (India) S.George & M.Neunecker PART II: FOCUS: CHINESE EXPERIENCES Participatory Budgeting in China: An Overview B.He Reflections on Participatory Budgeting in China - The case study of Minhang District W.Liu Assessing China's 'Sunshine Finance' Policy - offline and online: J.Zhang & L.Zhang Assessing Transparency in Provincial Government Budgeting: H.Jiang Problems of Participation in China Today: Urban Neighbourhood Communities T.Heberer PART III: EUROPEAN EXPERIENCES Participation and Modernisation. Participatory Budgeting in Germany: The Example of Berlin-Lichtenberg C.Herzberg Participatory Budgeting in Great Britain: Between a Neoliberal Agenda and Community Empowerment J.Hall & A.Roecke Participatory Budgeting and Social Justice - Implications of Some Cases in Spain and Italy G.Allegretti A Polish Case Study: Participatory Budgeting in the City of P?ock D.Dakowska Participatory Budgeting and Mobilisation in Spain: Who Participates and How E.Ganuza & F.Frances Participatory Democracy or 'Proximity' Democracy? The 'High School Participatory Budget' in Poitou-Charentes, France Y.Sintomer, A.Roecke & J.Talpin Conclusion

Richard Bird, François Vaillancourt

This paper examines the infrastructure–decentralization nexus in the production of health services with a particular emphasis on the issue of health infrastructure. The first part of the paper presents evidence on health services and infrastructure spending in health for various countries or groups of countries showing the importance of infrastructure spending in the provision of health services. The second part of the paper examines why and how health services are joint production with collective and private characteristics. These characteristics affect the decentralization of such services and thus the decentralization of health infrastructure; it also raises the issue of who should finance what in health care. The third part examines case studies and policy choices in USA, Canada and Switzerland related to various aspects of health care and health infrastructure financing.

Simon David Ellis, Aurelio Menéndez Menéndez

This paper will review the key elements required for effective decentralized implementation of rural roads programs. It will review the range of options available and the evidence for successful implementation where it exists. Section 2 makes the case for the importance of rural roads and sets out the evidence for the socio-economic benefits. Section 3 addresses the responsibilities for implementation and critical importance of having clarity over network ownership. Section 4 highlights the difficulties of finance, particularly for longer term maintenance, and sets out options for improving allocations and the reliability of receipt for those allocations. Section 5 sets out the project cycle from planning, design, implementation, maintenance and subsequent evaluation. Section 6 summarizes the key issues and highlights the main policy considerations.

Z.A. Konczacki, Jane L. Parpart, Timothy M. Shaw

For nearly thirty years the South African government has consistently and with increasing vigour promoted a policy of decentralizing industry to peripheral regions where many blacks live in poverty, prevented from leaving by apartheid laws. Of the state’s resources devoted to economic development, a very substantial proportion has been set aside for the programme. The funds devoted to direct industrial decentralization incentives alone currently swallow about one-half of the budget of the Department of Industry and Commerce. If other budgetary allocations to decentralization are included, such as those allocated to financing the Development Bank of South Africa and other funds devoted to the infrastructural development that makes the programme possible, decentralization takes a large bite out of the South African government’s budget.

Anwar Shah

During the past three decades, a large number of countries have introduced reforms to decentralize public decision making. Such reforms have proved controversial. Critics of these reforms argue that decentralized provision of infrastructure enhances vulnerability to corruption. Proponents of these reforms counter that corruption arises from lack of people empowerment and decentralization by bringing decision making closer to people shines sunlight on government operations and empowers people to hold government to account and thereby offers potential for combating corruption in the long run. They further state that decentralized provision of infrastructure holds a great promise in upgrading infrastructure to underserviced especially rural areas with local self-government. In theory such decentralization is also expected to improve integrity of such operations especially in the event of local financing. These debates, nevertheless, remain unsettled as empirical evidence on the impact of decentralization on infrastructure provision is scant or non-existent. Empirical work is hampered by a lack of reliable data on the incidence of corruption. This paper presents conceptual underpinnings of the impact of decentralized provision of infrastructure on the incidence of corruption and synthesizes scant available empirical evidence to make a case for further empirical research to document the real world experiences to update our current state of knowledge on this subject. Much work lies ahead to limit our wide zone of ignorance in this area.

Luis Andrés, Dan Biller, Jordan Schwartz

This paper proposes an economic logic for underpinning decentralization in the infrastructure sectors. It starts by detailing the definition of the infrastructure gap and the methodologies to calculate it. It provides some global trends for developing countries in terms of the gap and briefly discusses financing possibilities for developing countries to address the gap. Then it turns to the discussion of the link between the infrastructure gap and decentralization, providing a typology infrastructure subsectors and possible jurisdiction of service provision. It briefly discusses the potential for raising local finances for provision and the relationship between poverty and provision. While it is very difficult to provide blanket recommendations on decentralizing the various sectors and respective subcomponents of infrastructure services, the paper offers a set of guidelines to direct policymakers in their decision to decentralize or not. First, decentralization is intrinsically neither good nor bad for infrastructure; its impact depends entirely on the incentives facing the various decision-makers in the decentralization process; second, decentralization is most fruitful when the decision-makers bear the financial and political cost with respect to design, finance, operation and maintenance; and, finally, political leaders are accountable to their constituents for the manner in which they spend tax revenues and how they use and allocate transfers from the central government.

Jonas Frank, Jorge Martínez-Vázquez

The subnational dimension of infrastructure emerges as one of the greatest challenges in contemporary public finance policy and management. Given the localized nature of most infrastructures, ensuring its efficient provision represents a challenge for all countries irrespective of their level of centralization or decentralization. This paper introduces the fundamental questions surrounding the provision of infrastructure in decentralized settings and summarizes the findings from a collection of original essays prepared for this volume by a set of worldwide experts on this subject with the objective of advancing our understanding of the interplay between decentralization and infrastructure. More specifically, the paper discusses the extent of infrastructure gaps and the quality of subnational spending; inquires how functional responsibilities, financing and equalization can be designed; discusses sector-specific arrangements; drills down to the key steps of the public investment cycle and management aspects; and analyzes the political economy and corruption challenges that typically accompany decentralized infrastructure projects. The paper also presents avenues for the strengthening of decentralized public investment and infrastructure provision processes, concluding that they need to be country-, sector- and place-specific. While it is clear that institutional arrangements for infrastructure management will vary across countries, in all cases several decision-making steps need to be coordinated across levels of government in order to ensure efficiency in delivery, equity in spending, and accountability over final results.

Marc Cowling, Weixi Liu, Andrew Ledger, Ning Zhang

This article uses UK data to consider how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) 1 coped during the recent financial crisis. This is important, as SMEs are major contributors to job creation, but are vulnerable to falling demand. It finds that 4 in 10 SMEs experienced a fall in employment during the recession, and 5 in 10 experienced a fall in sales. Within 12 months of the recession, three-quarters of entrepreneurs had a desire to grow. This suggests that while the immediate effects of recession are severe, entrepreneurs recover quite quickly. Importantly, the analysis found that recessionary growth is hugely concentrated among entrepreneurs with the highest human capital.

Joel Sevilleja Febrer

No abstract is available for this record.

Nur Irma Habibah

This research is aimed to analyze financial working performance of Gresik District in Fiscal Year 2009-2013. The research method used is qualitative descriptive and used secondary data obtained from primary sources. The result of this research conclude that independence ratio is 37,26%, it means quite independent of the interest of local finance used own local revenues received. Dependence ratio of Gresik Districtin Fiscal Year 2009-2013 show the average amount 56,02%, it mean “Very High”. Fiscal decentralization ratio of Gresik District in Fiscal Year 2009-2013 show the average amount 22,38%, it mean “medium”. Effectivity ratio of local revenues have a tendency “very effective” with effectivity level 102,32%. Efficiency ratio of revenues Gresik District in Fiscal Year 2009-2013 have a tendency “Less Efficient”, with efficiency level 97,45%. Own local revenue was growth, but own local revenue was growth declined from 2009 to 2013. Whereas in 2010 decreased by 0,29%.Keyword : Gresik District, measurement of financial working performance, regional financial ratio, targets and realization report of APBD.

Supriyantoro Supriyantoro, Harimat Hendarwan, Yout Savithri

The implementation Of National Social Health Insurance by BPJS-Health that has been started on January,I, 2014 gives an impact to integrating local health insurance into national scheme.This study aims to describe implementation of local social health insurance as a basic in formulating policy model whichallows integration of local health insurance, particularly in the area of management, benefit packages, and government payed member in the frame of health decentralization policy. Study design is embeddedmulticases, using case study interpretatif method. Primary and secondary data were collected by explorativeapproach. Study area includes implementation of social local health insurance at 33 provinces, conducted in2013-2014. Results of this study show a gap in understanding and capacity of local authorities in managinglocal health insurance; various characteristics of local social health insurance in term of local monetarycapacity, benefit packages, management, and government payed member. This study recommends toaccomodate public health effort financing into benefit packages scheme, perception equalizing betweennational and local policy maker in understanding policy steps, and giving more flexibility forprovince/district/municipal in local social health insurance integration policy.

Motoki Kitahara, Junpei Kawamoto, Kouichi Sakurai

In the digital world, so many copyrighted works are made in an illegal way because it is easy to keep and copy. Digital Rights Management has proposed to prevent this theft. Contents providers often bring in one server who has charge of managing the normal user, but there are some problems that it flocks to the server. Against this problem, P2P based DRM system has considered. All users can transfer the encrypted content to other users, so the content server does not have to load so much traffic from users. As a problem with this method, it is hard to figure out usage situation of contents because P2P based system is divided into many pieces of users. In this paper, we propose a new P2P based DRM system using Bitcoin protocol, which is one of the electric commerce. Bitcoin protocol, timestamp server saves all transactions to prevent double spending. We can bring out all usage situations to apply this system.

Robert Michnik, Piotr Wodarski, Dariusz Mosler, Roman Maciej Kalina

Background Cognition of kinematics of body movement during balance loss, fall and collision with the ground in various circumstances is a basic condition of both expanding our knowledge of these phenomena and optimizing effective prevention of falls and collisions with the ground and vertical obstacles. The aim of the study is to determine whether a substantial difference in age of men training combat sports results in differentiation of body balance during professional, externally forced fall to the side. Material & Methods: Two men have been subjected to the study: 65-years-old scientist (A), who has been training judo and other combat sports for over than fifty years and is professionally involved in teaching people how to fall down safe ly; 24-years-old physiotherapist (B), who trains judo as an amateur, have completed specialist course on safe falling and used those exercises in his kinesitherapy practice (including patients with psychological disorders). The analysis of kinematics of body movement during forced fall has been performed by an assistant. Tested person was trotting in place on the hard ground and each ankle joint was wrapped with a separate judo belt (obi). The assistant was knocking each joint out of balance by pulling one of the belts. Tested person was not aware in which direction (right or left side) he would be knocked out by the force causing the fall. The anal ysis included four falls to the left side. Measurements have been performed with the use of MVN Biomech system (XSENS) based on inertial sensors equipped with accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetic field sensor. Results: Most falls of both subjects are similar in terms of duration and trajectory angle of the mass centre. The be ginning of lowering mass centre occurs later in person B. At the end of the performance of the fall person A causes a slight flattening of the trajectory of the mass centre which may indicate that such preparation of the body and movement of its parts is to slightly decrease the vertical speed of mass centre before contact with the ground. Person B finishes the fall with setting the torso angle of around zero degrees relative to the ground (therefore, directly after collision with the ground it is relatively motionless). After reaching zero degrees, the torso angle of person A passes to negative values (–25°), indicating performance of rolling the trunk. Such behaviour allows for additional dispersal of energy reducing thereby the force of body impact on the ground. Conclusions: The retirement age does not necessarily involve a deterioration of ability to control the body during unintend ed fall and collision with the ground. On the contrary, suitable training results in the fact that such person can optimally protect his body in such circumstances and function more effectively in comparison with consider ably younger people. Obtained results are, moreover, an empirical proof of methodological correctness of safe falls modelled on techniques used in judo (ukemi waza).