This study explored the opinions of central level extension employees about whether the Egyptian agricultural extension system needs to be reformed or not, and the alternatives they consider to be the best-fit options for extension in Egypt. The study covered 98 extension employees at the central level; findings show that all aspects of the Egyptian extension system are good candidates for reform and possible restructuring. These aspects could be ranked as financing, policy & organizational structure, staffing, and field operations as reported by 100%, 95%, 91%, and 68% of the respondents, respectively. Concerning the overall extension system, about 91% of the respondents reported that the Egyptian extension system is a good candidate for reform and possible restructuring. Findings also show that devolution, deconcentration, and delegation were the appropriate arrangements for extension decentralization as mentioned by 85%, 82%, and 55% of the respondents, respectively. Moreover, alternatives of providing and financing extension services were suggested and prioritized.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has made agribusiness a priority because of its potential for broad development impact and especially strong role in poverty reduction. As part of the Development Impact Department's evaluation strategy to increase learning and use of evaluations to identify what works and what does not, a series of meta-evaluations in strategic areas of IFC are being conducted. The significant findings of the evaluations are: 1) successful projects address farmer constraints along the whole value chain; 2) decentralized approaches to extension have some promise but most of them face financial sustainability problems; 3) traditional top-down approaches to providing extension/farmer training generally do not work; 4) there is generally no evidence of diffusion effects of training interventions; 5) access to finance interventions generally produce positive impact on agricultural outcomes; 6) relatively few evaluations show positive impacts on livelihood of farmers or their households; and 7) information and communication technology based models show promise as successful means of providing market information.
Background As All Year Round entered its second semester of publication in November 1859, Dickens was back in regular attendance at All Year Round Office in Wellington Street, following successful tour of fourteen public readings in provinces. Nine further reading engagements were scheduled for December and for spring of 1860, all in London's St. Martin's Hall, but this left plenty of time for concentrating on magazine business and plans for journal's first Extra Christmas Number. Dickens's health had improved since heat of summer and stress that composing instalments of A Tale of Two Cities against clock had brought on; novel was now readying for publication as single volume, with five weekly instalments left to run. On 10 November, Dickens dined out with G. H. Lewes and George Eliot, impressing latter as a man one can thoroughly enjoy talking to--there is strain of real seriousness along with his keenness and humour. We had delightful talk about all sorts of things, Lewes recorded, for his part. (2) A few days Christmas, Dickens took chair at London Tavern at annual dinner to celebrate founding in 1845 of schools for children of commercial travelers who had been orphaned or left in want. [N]othing less than your note, he wrote to George Moore, Schools' Treasurer, after initially declining society's invitation, have induced me to undertake chairmanship (Letters 9: 146-47). It was his first speech in over twelve months, this being longest gap between public appearances of this kind since 1849. As he had done in his toast at Commercial Travellers' Schools' dinner in December 1854, when Crimean War was raging, Dickens began by proposing health of army and navy, but added on this occasion the Volunteers, for, he declared, the plain meaning of Rifle movement was but revival of old brave spirit of our forefathers, and proof that all who had stake in country [...] were ready if occasion required to fight and die in its defence. (22 December 1859; Speeches 289) Numerous articles in All Year Round during ongoing half-year bear testament to this sense of national interest in and patriotic support for Volunteer Movement (see below, under Current Affairs). Dickens's principal toast was also notable for its reminiscences of night spent amongst commercial travelers at hotel in Leeds where he happened to be staying about seven weeks before (he had stayed at George Hotel, Bradford on 20 October, on his provincial Readings tour), and of trying to get material for his speech by look[ing] through advertisement pages of Bradshaw, railway timetable, or considering whether anything could be done with word Travellers. (Speeches 290) The trains of thought emerging here bear close comparison with opening he would write about fortnight later for his first essay in All Year Round under guise of Uncommercial Traveller (see below under Other Series and Short Fiction). As group of school children were present at dinner, Dickens also introduced vein of storybook adventuring into his speech, figuring himself as hero of fairytale, and school buildings at Pinner in Middlesex (Moore and he had apparently toured them previous day)--as castle of bright red colour visited in company of a friendly giant--a commercial giant (Speeches 291). In letters to confidantes, Dickens was accustomed to use simplifying fairytale imagery of his own private affairs, but perhaps less self-consciously and appropriately than here. (3) The speech was received with great warmth by company, and John Bellew, minister of parish church in well-to-do St. John's Wood, hailed Chairman hyperbolically as the man who had done more than any who had ever lived to advance cause of humanity, and one who had been specially appointed to break down with sledge-hammer anointed iniquity of high places. …
Spozhmai Zaryab and Her Narrative WorksBorn in 1955 in Kabul and holding a BA in French language from Kabul University and an MA and a PhD in comparative literature from Montpellier University in France, Spozhmai Zaryab is one of Afghanistan's major authors. She has published two collections of short stories, Sharang Sharang-i Zang-ha [The Jingling of the Bells] and Dasht-i Qabil [Cain's Desert], and a novel, Dar Keshwar-i Digar [In Another Country]. It is not the quantity but the artistic merit of her works that has established her reputation. Zaryab has been writing fiction since the early 1970s, but she emerged in the 1980s as one of the country's leading writers. She writes in a variety of genres, but her contribution to modern fiction in Afghanistan lies mainly in her anti-war works; she is considered the godmother of Afghan anti-war literature (Bezhan, Women Causes 264). This type of fiction emerged with the outbreak of war after the 1978 Leftist coup and the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops in late 1979. Neighboring countries, Iran and Pakistan, and the West chose to channel financial, military, and political aid to the armed opposition groups, known as the Mujahideen, or freedom fighters. Soon the war escalated and involved many players, from domestic to regional to international superpow- ers. To the present day the war has undergone many stages. But the peak of the war was in the 1980s, when Afghanistan became a battleground for internal, regional, and superpower forces. Although the protagonists changed, the misery of the people did not. As the conflict ground on, each side accompanied their military efforts with fierce public relations campaigns to promote the righteousness of their cause and to vilify their opponents.The significance of Zaryab's works lies in the ways that they give voice to the ordinary people who have no stake in the war. They demonstrate the impact of war on the population in general and women in particular. Her account of the war is from the victims' perspective. An essential element of this strategy involves bringing elements of oral storytelling, the people's medium, into her narrative frameworks. Zaryab incorporates two types of traditional stories into her works: epic and religious folktales. They represent literary, religious, and folk heritage and assume value in being the collective residue of the past. As well, they are the most popular types of storytelling across a wide spectrum of society, from the educated elites to illiterate groups. By using these types of stories, she also undermines ideological representations of the war by the warring partisans.The Leftist government and the Mujahideen had striven to create mas- ter narratives of the conflict that would serve to uphold their own political/ ideological outlooks. The Leftist regime portrayed it as a nationalist struggle, defending the homeland from the aggression of foreign powers who would install the Mujahideen as their proxy. The support of the Mujahideen by the regional governments and the West was proof of their intention to compromise Afghanistan's sovereignty and keep it a backward country. The regime's invitation to the Soviet troops simply served to defend the national sovereignty and the southern, eastern and western borders and to sustain socioeconomic and cultural progress. For the Mujahideen, Russian troops represented an occupying power that would transform Afghanistan into a satellite socialist state. They believed that the Russians would destroy not only the country's sovereignty but also its sociocultural and religious character. The war was fought (and is still being fought) not only for the liberation of the homeland from invaders but also for the liberation of Dar ul-Islam, the land of Islam, from the grip of infidels. Zaryab's use of epics and religious folktales had the intended effect of countering both sides' warring narratives.Storytelling in AfghanistanStorytelling has a rich tradition among women and men in Afghanistani culture, from courtly palaces to popular meeting places where ordinary people gathered. …
Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East
Indian History and Philosophy
Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Many want to know what bitcoin is and how it works. But bitcoin is as complex as it is controversial, and relatively few have the technical background to understand it. In this paper, I offer an accessible on-ramp for understanding bitcoin in the form of a model. My model reveals both what bitcoin is and how it works. More specifically, it reveals that bitcoin is a fictional substance in a massively coauthored story on a network that automates and distributes jobs normally entrusted to centralized publishing institutions. My model therefore falsifies a popular view according to which each bitcoin is a chunk of code.
Recently, the Bitcoin cryptocurrency has been an international sensation. This paper tells the story of Bitcoin hard-ware: how a group of early-adopters self-organized and financed the creation of an entire new industry, leading to the development of machines, including ASICs, that had orders of magnitude better performance than what Dell, Intel, NVidia, AMD or Xilinx could provide. We examine this story for clues as to how we can foster greater innovation in the semiconductor industry and enable this phenomenon to occur more broadly for more application areas, spawning a new age of hardware innovation tailored to emerging application domains-an Age of Bespoke Silicon.
2 source records
Advancements in Semiconductor Devices and Circuit Design
Advanced Memory and Neural Computing
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Tobias Bamert, Christian Decker, Lennart Elsen, Roger Wattenhofer · 5 authors
Cashless payments are nowadays ubiquitous and decentralized digital currencies like Bitcoin are increasingly used as means of payment. However, due to the delay of the transaction confirmation in Bitcoin, it is not used for payments that rely on quick transaction confirmation. We present a concept that addresses this drawback of Bitcoin and allows it to be used for fast transactions. We evaluate the performance of the concept using double-spending attacks and show that, employing our concept, the success of such attacks diminishes to less than 0.09%. Moreover, we present a real world application: We modified a snack vending machine to accept Bitcoin payments and make use of fast transaction confirmations.
We provide a first systematic account of opportunities and limitations of anti-money laundering (AML) in Bitcoin, a decentralized cryptographic currency proliferating on the Internet. Our starting point is the observation that Bitcoin attracts criminal activity as many say it is an anonymous transaction system. While this claim does not stand up to scrutiny, several services offering increased transaction anonymization have emerged in the Bitcoin ecosystem - such as Bitcoin Fog, BitLaundry, and the Send Shared functionality of Blockchain.info. Some of these services routinely handle the equivalent of 6-digit dollar amounts. In a series of experiments, we use reverse-engineering methods to understand the mode of operation and try to trace anonymized transactions back to our probe accounts. While Bitcoin Fog and Blockchain.info successfully anonymize our test transactions, we can link the input and output transactions of BitLaundry. Against the backdrop of these findings, it appears unlikely that a Know-Your-Customer principle can be enforced in the Bitcoin system. Hence, we sketch alternative AML strategies accounting for imperfect knowledge of true identities but exploiting public information in the transaction graph, and discuss the implications for Bitcoin as a decentralized currency.
Bitcoin is a digital currency that unlike traditional currencies does not rely on a centralized authority. Instead Bitcoin relies on a network of volunteers that collectively implement a replicated ledger and verify transactions. In this paper we analyze how Bitcoin uses a multi-hop broadcast to propagate transactions and blocks through the network to update the ledger replicas. We then use the gathered information to verify the conjecture that the propagation delay in the network is the primary cause for blockchain forks. Blockchain forks should be avoided as they are symptomatic for inconsistencies among the replicas in the network. We then show what can be achieved by pushing the current protocol to its limit with unilateral changes to the client's behavior.
Funds of district development sourced from district of earning and budgeting (APBD) constrained when source of revenue rely on district revenue (PAD) as like as taxes. An act penetration innovatory solution is needed to solve the budget deficit problem such as the potency of Sharia bonds (Sukuk). This article discusses what kinds of potency that become strengths and weaknesses then how opportunities and challenges are faced by Banten Province in an effort to take advantage of sukuk as the source of development budgeting in Banten. Furthermore, what strategis are effective to apply in an attempt to make sukuk as the source of development budgeting in Banten. An analysis of classical SWOT (SWOT Analysis-K) used to solve the problem above. First step of SWOT-K analysis is identifying the internal and external factors faced by the Banten province to take advantage of sukuk as a source of development budgeting in Banten. Second is making combination of internal and external factors. Final step is formulating appropriate strategies to be sukuk as an alternative of development funding in Banten.
 Result of SWOT-K anafysis in Banten Province has the power of aspects of economic resources as basic capital to make use of sukuk for regional development budgeting. Whereas there are two weakness become obstacles, there are human resources and government management. Besides, the market opportunity to make use of sukuk is widely open because Banten Province is one of the provinces that have a positive economic growth. Opportunities become greater with decentralization right in district financial management, but faced challenges are none of juridis basis for the implementation of district sukuk. The existence of UU SBSN does not yet give potency for district to take advantage of sukuk as APBD because the utilization of new sukuk is allowed for APBN. Priority strategic is improving the quality of human resources in field of Sharia finance by increasing professionalism and accountability in management. Improvement of the
 quality of human resources is accompanied by efforts to encourage the central government and the legislature to revise the constitution of governing district finances in order that accommpodate the source of society loans as instrument of district Sharia bonds (sukuk).
 Keywords: Budgeting, Bonds, Sukuk, Banten, APBD.
Sandra De Urioste-Stone, William J. McLaughlin, Nick Sanyal, Ella Inglebret · 5 authors
Co-administration, as a joint protected area governance approach, has increased substantially around the world. In Guatemala, one of the most rapidly growing forms of co-administration is that of protected areas managed by municipal governments in conjunction with central government agencies. There are high expectations for these protected areas coadministered by municipalities to ensure local participation and strengthen the government’s ongoing decentralization and conservation processes. However, little research has been conducted on the outcomes of these types of arrangements. This study presents an in-depth understanding about the co-administration of the Regional Municipal Protected Area of Zunil, from the perspective of different stakeholders. The Participatory Action Research Methodology was used to promote participation, learning, and action. The key area of strength of the current co-administration efforts in Zunil identified by co-participants was increased institutional coordination as reflected in such operational programs as environmental education, wildlife monitoring, and patrolling. The key area of weakness identified by co-participants was administrative structures and processes such as inadequate financing mechanisms, lack of processes to increase capacities of personnel, high and frequent rotation of personnel, and lack of active involvement of local stakeholders. In this case, successful co-administration required building human and social capital; ensuring mutual benefits for stakeholders involved; promoting involvement and active participation of local communities; negotiating and signing a shared co-management agreement; engaging in inclusive decision-making; improving organizational structures at the local level; and promoting sustainable development initiatives (e.g. tourism).
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
Digital payment schemes show an ever increasing importance. Out of the countless different schemes available this article focuses on the popular Bitcoin system. The authors provide a description of Bitcoin's unique technological basis and its accompanying ecosystem of users, miners, trading platforms and vendors. Furthermore, this article discusses Bitcoin's currency-like features and the first regulatory actions take in the European Union and in the United States of America.
HERE I present a challenge to prioritarianism, which is, in Derek Parfit's words, the view that ‘we have stronger reasons to benefit people the worse off these people are’.1 We have such reasons, according to this view, simply by virtue of the fact that a person's ‘utility has diminishing marginal moral importance’2 —i.e., that equal improvements in a person's well-being matter less, morally speaking, the better off she is in absolute terms. It follows, from this view, that one might have stronger reason to benefit someone who is less well off rather than someone who is better off, even when this benefit would amount to a lesser increase in utility than a benefit to the better off person.3 In discussions of prioritarianism, it is often left unspecified what constitutes a greater, lesser, or equal improvement in a person's utility. In his own defence of prioritarianism, for example, Parfit explicitly prescinds from ‘difficult questions … about what it would be for some benefits to be greater than others’ and ‘simply assume[s] that we can distinguish between the size of different possible benefits’.4 Parfit just stipulates numerical benefits of different magnitudes that comprise intervals along a whole number cardinal scale that is meant to represent the absolute levels of people's utility in linear fashion.5 We are supposed to assume that this scale provides an accurate representation of people's utility. But we are not offered an account of what constitutes the measure of the size of the units on this scale. I shall argue that prioritarianism cannot be assessed in such abstraction from an account of the measure of utility. Rather, the soundness of this view crucially depends on what counts as a greater, lesser, or equal increase in a person's utility. In particular, prioritarianism cannot accommodate a normatively compelling measure of utility that is captured by the axioms of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern's expected utility theory. Nor can it accommodate a plausible and elegant generalization of this theory that has been offered in response to challenges to von Neumann and Morgenstern. This is, I think, a theoretically interesting and unexpected source of difficulty for prioritarianism, which I shall explore in the remainder of this article. In presenting this challenge, it will be useful for me to begin with a case that is closely modelled on one that Thomas Nagel presents in his essay ‘Equality’6 —and with which Derek Parfit opens his Lindley Lecture ‘Equality or Priority?’7 Imagine that you are the parent of thirteen-year-old twins. For the sake of interpersonal comparability, let us assume that they are identical twins with identical preferences. They differ, however, in the following crucial respect: one of them has recently been diagnosed with a condition that will soon give rise to a severe mobility-impairing disability, but the other has been given a clean bill of health. You need to change jobs and must therefore choose whether to move your family to cramped urban accommodations in an unpleasant and dangerous neighbourhood or to the and of a would be as your own well-being is But they would not be as the well-being of of your is you move to the your who and will be in and but your will have to that will but from the of his you move to the your will but your will not this marginal benefit to the of a move to the I shall be greater than the marginal benefit to the of a move to the It that a would for the Nagel would that you have reason to move to the Parfit would that you have reason to move to the but would that this reason is rather than In other words, Parfit would that you to move to the simply on account of the fact that improvements in well-being matter the worse off someone is in absolute terms. of such to the worse off is Parfit an the is as well off someone is in to someone to be a matter of moral that on the view, is well off people are in absolute the worse off they the well-being It not and well off they are in to In of this view, Parfit that would be just as to benefit the even who better the following of case a case in which you have a this thirteen-year-old has recently a that is a that will soon the severe and a that will that you must for the in the or the it is whether your will the the marginal benefit to your of a move to the in would be greater than the marginal benefit to of a move to the the and to the view just as a reason to move to the in this case as one has in the this prioritarianism for a of of expected the in is utility. It for the of the of the of possible that might be the of this the the of such is by the that it will utility of given is the of utility in that person's utility has been the but marginal moral in the of by simply by this by the that this will such a expected the of a reason to move to the rather than the will be just as in the case as it is in the In of the Derek Parfit a and to than the one just the that Parfit a the expected of the in just the a But in to in such Parfit that the to the of are simply expected the on Parfit's to these well as to the a person's expected the greater the moral of a marginal increase of a given size to his expected In other words, not are the levels of a person's utility that are the different possible of a morally in a that the but is a person's expected of utility that is with a given in a person's expected utility and his utility and to it a with with a with I shall this Parfit's of Parfit this view by just as such as are to about the of people's of as well as the of the they can and have for people's for utility as well as for of utility prioritarianism less reason to move to the in the case as with the the will that the parent to move to the in the and it would be to move to the prioritarianism therefore the what one to move to the the of prioritarianism that to to of prioritarianism, the I shall in this is simply in along the of the other than between the possible of a you are simply to this person's expected rather than to to prioritarianism in or it is therefore to for the in the following is a of defence of this one as I that are one that will the measure of a person's such will to axioms of expected utility theory. It that you will this with an other than that which it is in his to you to his expected utility. fact provides you with reason to his expected utility rather than to this reason is not by reason that you or for example, or that in of to other than what is in this In this are that might from the of a It is for the to the in from of to you not have you are to your expected utility in this case on that this is what it would be for to is the of prioritarianism in or In this I have to a case a parent and a a case is useful it that the of the parent to this a for the of this will in to They a of the to the and other of this one in from the and of They therefore us with a case of prioritarianism than one in which an is by and is, however, an of the that it for these parent is the of his the of a is someone who is to the of a parent has a reason to that This reason will to to other of who are whether they benefits to they are not even I to the that the parent the expected utility of his one this might from his and to a of prioritarianism as on of to with case that better would be one that that to the to a rise to reasons to on of the of a that are to or other such as that of an who is to let us in the to that who must the the move to the or the are the rather than his This in the to you as your or and is to You are however, his parent is the it that parent is an of a of which you are a but someone to you have of or the parent is a you not of the the parent is has and you must whether to the parent to in a or in a as the of the parent and of the are for of these are it is for you to just on the in which this on the of your one and In this I would argue even the view that you you are to the parent in a that the expected utility of the I shall argue in you are to on that this is what it is for to I argue that you are to on that this is what it is for your to I will not your to in what to with different of reasons from to with preferences. We often have reasons to what someone even when such from what it would be for to We for example, have such reasons not to in I have of what the or what would I shall that the has such a move are to his you cannot the to his This is you must a to the parent to the or the you not will of these with from a different and the parent will be of a to your to of the this the of not in of the the or They not therefore in of or what it would be for the to as I shall in is a move to the we have to some on someone and we this would us to we that we to be or this plausible and view, it would be to on this person's some of the that this choose to or she this for we to give to possible in which this would be worse In this I shall I Parfit's on of prioritarianism in the In this Parfit of the view that it be for you to on of that it would be for you to choose for This view a of in which own to is not as to be But the view to which Parfit is that it be for you to on of that it would be for to choose for This view is a less plausible than the It is to it might be for you to on someone in a that would be for to choose than it is to it might be to on someone in a that would be for you to we assume that one to be to on of such an not a rather than a of the of it the for example, that you a in the has just an You have you that this has an equal of in or You can or a This would benefit by the of his in the that But it has the following it would by a in the that that the in utility between and the is greater than the in utility between the severe and you are a you will rather than this as is what the person's expected utility. however, you are a who greater moral to in utility the absolute you will this that a of a rather than is what the person's expected In this an who is to on of will what rather than prioritarianism as in this you you will this to the in which you in the You will however, be on his you rather than the we not on of in by to to might this but that what is is a in that on the of such to as well as on the in the utility of is an of This is a moral of utility is captured by a the utility and the the morally of that utility. For utility is captured by such a it from the measure of the to which someone has a or a that such a of that I would the that such the utility of a and to be Rather, it is that in of in are other than in the they are for the of the of as this is the Parfit will not be to such in of a of utility. This is as I have just with the example, such will move one to what rather than prioritarianism in that a that one not be the of that might will move one to as the would prioritarianism would one to the rather than I the of the Parfit that a is by a of or to a rather than a person's In the remainder of that I this In this I shall the following difficulty with Parfit's that one to in rather than in such as the the urban or the of difficulty is given the soundness of expected utility what prioritarianism in such to what it would be for the to the and of expected utility which to von Neumann and a cardinal scale of a person's utility is of that to axioms of and a and an but the of these axioms have been as of is a that a these axioms has a utility an of which is that the expected utility of one is greater than that of and the is to the of an will often to of these they them it would not that the von utility would a measure of the well-being of the in is to that to which the moral well the of an is would In for the utility to a measure of we will need to the of the to that are rather than or in It will be to these a person's might be by or by of even they to to the von In to the measure of will need to be along the of that the would have with this I shall assume that the that give rise to a person's utility are in and in along the just I therefore from the of that the that as the of expected utility theory are in and by what people would I John who that the and of as which that in this need not be to a representation of a person's preferences. can be a utility it the a would have she and are and in this it is not by virtue of the of that the these provides a measure of the utility to which Rather, we can the following in of the that the utility provides a measure of the person's utility that is of to prioritarianism, which is to well-being or she and she would of the one that is better for a that the she would have she and … we for the sake of that the von axioms are the of prioritarianism the following Parfit that prioritarianism would be in with the it be to that we to people in in which they not choose to be Parfit however, that the is not to choose that the his expected utility by to the Rather, according to the choose that his in a by to the his for such a are that is a one in that would be better for and this would be better for is that Parfit to that other than what is for the in from well would in with In other words, to the or of such a given that the move to the is of expected utility than a move to the we can from expected utility theory that it is in the to choose a move to the the it is in the to choose and what would his expected utility cannot in the that Parfit This is expected utility theory the magnitudes of a person's expected from it would be in the to choose a move to the the on Parfit's that is a one in that would be better for and this would be better for is it that such a move to the would his expected us to the of the the that the own utility is identical to This is and provides a of the view, for the following case for than the on one is cannot on in between the and the of the can it on other in that utility This is prioritarianism is the view own utility as with the utility of one to moral to the utility of the less well off they are in absolute terms. therefore even on the that utility are this not would it be in the to a move to the the for but it would be for his to a move to the the for she in his it would be for the to that his that on his and it would be for his to that that on she in his and in of these are they a of the benefits of the the in In of it is to it be as a would rather than for the to choose the the for for prioritarianism to which I have been have the that the von axioms are of It is, I a matter of whether or not of the axioms are such I would that the is such a In other words, for given of it not to be that an one to the other or be between the of that are not is the for a person's need not be axioms of and have stronger than the of to be of in the case of these however, have been such for the of of prioritarianism, I for reasons I shall in the to assume the soundness of the axioms of and diminishing marginal moral of utility that is as a of the of are as on a cardinal scale. a representation is, a that than is by the however, be to that the view would be these that are in to the It for example, be to that prioritarianism would not such as that accurate and cardinal of levels of utility on a linear scale. therefore to the of the for the sake of the soundness of his that utility can be in such however, one this that the of are in such as on a cardinal for the of the and of would be a cardinal representation is, for example, with the of to which people in to the of even the of can be as a number on a cardinal one will be with will be such that one will one to and the is a on this cardinal scale than the however, this is the such not to be of the cardinal scale of utility would for the soundness of the however, be on This is reasons to this are not by the that utility can be in cardinal given on the of the of the is than the other axioms to the between prioritarianism and in that in of the of expected utility in such that this the his might a challenge to the that the is a of that are in the In other words, for increase in a given of the of a one will have the for such an increase or the For example, an increase of in of a will be to the whether the increase is from a of to a of that from a of a to a or from a of a to a of that of that are linear in the has been by who a of from the as response to that an of which to be such as have offered of the as a of I view that this is a of however, one with the of and the of that to be linear in the it not that one must expected utility theory is the of a which the of expected utility theory that to the von in been or of expected utility theory that or in a that the that from of these from this have been as with a generalization of von Neumann and Morgenstern's theory that has to be as expected utility this theory the of in the it with the expected utility theory of von Neumann and the following crucial the of utility is a of It is this that has been the of in this for the of from what prioritarianism in the case of prioritarianism will one the axioms of von Neumann and with the axioms of the generalization of theory. can a along to in which the of a move to the it would be in the for someone who to these axioms to be with the of It will be for the reason as that prioritarianism for a of the moral of magnitudes have been by In some such a will a for a to in a that is to what it would be in the for the to I have however, that it is for a to choose in with such I the of this Parfit in his defence of prioritarianism, from ‘difficult questions … about what it would be for some benefits to be greater than I to have that such questions cannot be Rather, the soundness of the view on It is a of this view for the reasons I have just in this it cannot accommodate one of the and of and expected utility In to the of to between the possible of a of the that has been the of this Parfit must a normatively compelling von measure of utility along with the expected utility theory that has been offered as an to the soundness of this must a different measure of utility which is not a of that to axioms of It is plausible to that such measure will of some in to the cardinal scale of utility that prioritarianism of has been by a number of as an to expected utility of a cardinal scale of utility the a cardinal scale of utility is from people's between of of in of that are by or the measure of utility is from of that are to about rather than the will not a between and the of prioritarianism in In however, the on the for given of in that condition are of marginal utility. This is and normatively It is plausible to assume that the marginal utility of will the for the which such utility an of expected utility theory the of in which one is not one will the in plausible not a clean to expected utility theory I have in the that von expected utility theory cannot the measure of well-being to which Parfit moral of Parfit might the soundness of this might on Parfit's that it from this that Parfit must the axioms of that theory. Rather, it is to Parfit to the view that the axioms are an accurate of of the of the that the measure of even when the in are to that are ‘utility of expected utility theory might simply a cardinal measure of the of the rather than a measure of Parfit can simply the von measure of well-being the of that the axioms are axioms of a of a person's well-being from what it would be in to is however, to this would be with the account of reasons, and the that and in to this account is the of the on which the of his In this of the to a person's Parfit that when ‘we some possible for in the we that this is the that this would have the reasons to to Parfit a between and In a are … when we give us reasons to are not … when we some that we have reasons not to and reasons, or reasons, to This of off the of the we Parfit's own to one reasons to a between and the measure of a person's of a such a that a person's and different that she might will be that is, they are that not other about the amount of some Rather, these the of which of a scale of of well-being This is is measure of the of different that to a person's I with that the fact of the that the measure of I not an of is to the case for a the to well-being of a of or the cardinal measure of or I think, be by preferences. for example, that the to well-being of a of the is the of to the cardinal measure of the of this It would be a to on a cardinal measure that in such as the number of that are of as might not give rise to that is as as even in the case of of the or of the as they the and of might be of greater or lesser on or well is This would be by the fact that it might be in to own to of such is to it is even we assume that these are in It would from the that is the that equal of are must be to Rather, of might have diminishing marginal to the absolute of well-being of the who We would to a between of and the of in to the of that the of has diminishing marginal the measure of the of are to the following that Parfit on of Parfit that prioritarianism from the fact that we have greater reason to that is off than we have to that person's she is an of the us to a case of someone by the on the of the that she has just … is by of and by the Parfit would that a moral would have reason to that person's rather than of an that the measure of utility however, have account the of from a given of one is well off or This is that from the of as well as the of a I in of of the of that it might be for a to from a of his is from that of his is it would be for the to will have account the of or is would to be for the to of the in the that is off even in would be of such provides for that it would be for the to expected utility by for the rather than the in with the of In that the is to expected utility rather than in I have been that the of for this of is in other than his to about his in the matter in other I have to one well the would in with I have is that the case for the to the the might be in other than the or of the or of it might be in might be as a of according to which the of utility is to the that this is what is from an of view rather than from the of the or of moral a would not be by the fact that the view a that is from the of view of the of the has a in the Rather, would that such a is on the of the that the would a better the to the in of the fact it would be from the of his own and for to such a what us about is not the but the by the It is the of the the need of the the of the and fact that they are worse off in the than is But it is not as an of is in that is greater, need and therefore for the the the and not for us give them It is when the is on a for and the of and other that the case for prioritarianism is when it an that from such of Parfit's and defence of prioritarianism is to that about that to in well be captured by a prioritarianism that is in moral view this of prioritarianism to which Parfit in his Lindley one not need to well off will or might be in to the of reason to benefit a given it not well off are in to of moral reason to someone a benefit can be simply from about his absolute of as well as in in the case of the in prioritarianism an to and other to in this prioritarianism, in or has been that it not a to that the moral of This is in to of the that has been the of this to in such a one be rather than to that in the that by give of to a worse off in other the of different such as the case with which I This provides for the that it is not simply on account of absolute expected or or a of the we benefits to the off than benefits to the well Rather, it is when and some or will or might worse off than that we must to benefits to We give to the worse off it that some are worse off than and not simply of absolute prioritarianism not
Norm R.C. Campbell, Daniel T. Lackland, Graham A. MacGregor
The World Health Organization (WHO) aided by investigators from the Cochrane Collaboration published an updated review of randomized trials and prospective cohort studies on dietary sodium conducted in healthy populations.1, 2 Their quantitative analyses indicated that sodium intake <2000 mg/d was associated with reductions in blood pressure. In cohort studies, higher sodium intake was associated with a 24% higher risk of stroke, a 63% higher risk of stroke death, and a 32% higher risk of coronary heart disease death. There was inadequate statistical power to address other endpoints in the analysis. There was no adverse effect on lipids, catecholamines, or renal function in adults with less sodium intake. High dietary sodium intake caused higher blood pressure in children.1 These findings resulted in a renewed WHO recommendation for dietary sodium to be <2000 mg/d in adults and to even less in children based on their relatively lower caloric requirements. The American Heart Association also recently updated its comprehensive review of the literature reiterating its recommendation for dietary sodium to be less than 1500 mg/d.3 Biomedical, evolutionary, and aspects of epidemiologic and clinical research were not included in the WHO review but also strongly support harmful effects of “higher than physiological levels” of dietary sodium.2-12 A wide variety of animal species exposed to higher than physiological levels of dietary sodium develop hypertension, vascular, cardiac, and renal adverse outcomes.4, 13 To our knowledge, barring settings of acute sodium depletion, there is no animal species in which higher than physiological sodium intake improves health, and, in all settings, sodium-induced hypertension is harmful. Increased dietary sodium is a procarcinogen in animal studies (gastric cancer) and is associated with gastric cancer in human studies,14, 15 particularly in association with Helicobacter pylori infection. Adult human physiological sodium needs are <1000 mg based on analyses in “hunter gather” populations or analyses of “primitive” diets.16, 17 Societies where sodium intakes remain <1000 mg have no increase in blood pressure with age and hypertension is uncommon.4 If people from the hunter-gather societies who consume physiological levels of dietary sodium migrate to communities where there is high sodium intake or if sodium is introduced into their society's food supply, blood pressure increases and vascular diseases develop.4, 18 Reducing dietary sodium in communities or populations has been associated with reduced blood pressure and vascular events.4 In clinical trials, lowering dietary sodium reduces blood pressure,4 and there is no evidence for less of an impact of reduced dietary sodium on blood pressure at the lowest levels of sodium intake tested (1200 mg sodium). It is estimated that there are up to 3.1 million sodium-related deaths per year and that reducing dietary sodium is one of the most effective (and cost-effective) interventions to improve health.19 Two reviews have recently generated controversy. A review by Yusuf and colleagues proclaims that “there is no convincing evidence that moderate intake of sodium (3–5 g/d2) is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease compared with lower levels of sodium consumption.”20 However, there are several issues regarding the conclusions reported. The methodology employed in the Yusuf review is similar to many of the previous critiques of attempts to reduce dietary sodium towards physiological levels in (1) not being a systematic review (there is not even a pretense of being comprehensive), (2) selectively highlighting inconsistent studies rather than totality of evidence, (3) dismissing or ignoring substantive science that indicates harm from increased dietary sodium, (4) citing research findings that find sodium reduction harmful as facts while not disclosing the study's major design and methodological flaws as likely explanations, and (5) not clearly indicating how divergent their opinion is but rather implying they are clarifying scientific understanding.21 Thus, this review may be affected by bias in selection and only focuses on selected studies rather than the full body of evidence. The 2013 report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) also claimed that the evidence supporting dietary sodium intake <2300 mg was “inconclusive,”22 but the IOM did not dispute the evidence for reducing sodium to this level. The IOM review was conducted largely by epidemiologists and several aspects of their review are flawed. The perspective that adding sodium to food has the potential to harm the public does not seem to have been the prime consideration. The main consideration was to assess whether interventions to reduce dietary sodium directly reduce cardiovascular disease. The review focused on recent controlled trials and cohort studies on sodium intake <2300 mg/d and on sodium reduction in the settings of disease. Although (1) hypertension is the most expensive cardiovascular disease category in the United States, (2) impacts 30% of the adult population, (3) there is a causal relationship between blood pressure and cardiovascular disease to the extent hypertension is the leading global risk for death and disability, and (4) 30% of hypertension is caused by increased dietary sodium, the IOM committee did not consider sodium-induced hypertension to be an outcome on which to base recommendations.23, 24 Furthermore many of the invited experts presenting at the public program of the IOM had in the past made public statements against lowering dietary sodium and or disclosed financial interests.22 The IOM committee examined cohort studies qualitatively and noted many had substantive methodological flaws. For example, nearly all the studies that did not find a benefit of sodium intake <2300 mg/d controlled for blood pressure and hence were not designed to assess sodium outcomes related to blood pressure. The controversial publication by Stolarz-Skrzypek and colleagues represents an example of where it was concluded that high salt intake did not cause cardiovascular disease, even though blood pressure was controlled.25 Some of the studies that did not find benefits of lower sodium intake used estimates of sodium intake that were frail and one even retrospectively assessed random spot urine sodium in trials where about 30% of participants were prescribed diuretic therapy. A series of 4 studies, representing a significant proportion of the research, were conducted by a single research group, all finding that high dietary sodium was associated with reduced disease. In addition, the senior investigator on that research team was a consultant with the Salt Institute. Two of the same databases were examined by other investigators and the repeat analyses found harm from increased sodium intake (albeit only in obese patients in one analysis).26-30 The refuted studies were still considered by the IOM (as were the refuting studies) without comment. The meta-analysis of cohort studies in healthy populations conducted by WHO does not seem to have been considered, or the updated Cochrane analysis.31, 32 Many of the cohort studies considered by the IOM were conducted in patients with substantive disease where people ingesting lower sodium were likely to be much sicker and sick people do not eat leading to a reduced sodium intake, ie, reverse causality. Perhaps most notable were a series of unusual but large randomized controlled trials conducted in patients with heart failure. Those with heart failure were treated with large, fixed doses of furosemide 500 to 1000 mg/d as well as spironolactone and drugs designed to block the renin-angiotensin system. Even though they had features of salt and water depletion, they were then randomized to lower dietary sodium and water intake and found to have worse outcomes. That it is possible to harm patients with heart failure who are sodium and volume depleted by very high doses of furosemide (or any other mechanism) and then restricting sodium and water is not surprising. It is surprising that such trial evidence is considered when clinical recommendations are to individualize use of diuretics and to use diuretics only to reduce clinical evidence of excess fluid.33 However, a meta-analysis of these studies has now been withdrawn due to obvious discrepancies in some of the results and therefore these heart failure trial results can no longer be considered until reanalysis of original data by an independent committee is published. Low-quality and poorly designed research on dietary sodium has become common and is a major source of controversy. Such studies are those (1) in patients with diseases with a high probability of reverse causality (in cohort studies, patients with more severe disease are likely to have worse outcomes but also likely to eat less sodium), (2) with flimsy assessment of sodium intake in settings where multiple days of carefully performed 24-hour urine sodium assessments (or in some specific circumstances dietary assessment) are needed to reliably define an individual's sodium intake, (3) that control for blood pressure (the major mechanism for sodium causing harm), (4) that do not adequately control for other substantive confounding factors, and (5) that disregard confounding pharmacologic agents (diuretics and antihypertensive drugs). Another potential marker of a low-quality study is when the author's discussion cites only evidence that supports the manuscript's findings without the context of the overall literature and its interpretation. There is a need for developing and setting standards for clinical research on dietary sodium. Such standards could be used by researchers in designing studies, funding bodies in assessing proposals, journal reviewers, and editorial bodies in selecting articles to publish. Setting standards have been successfully utilized in the past to improve designs for conducting clinical trials and systematic reviews but have not been disease-specific. WHO or major international scientific organizations could develop such standards. Notably, the Pan American Health Organization (of WHO) Technical Advisory Group on dietary salt reduction has proposed to develop such standards. Humans evolved on <1000 mg of sodium per day. There is an estimated 3.1 million deaths per year attributed to the widespread addition of sodium to food (making sodium additives to food one of the most lethal and disabling interventions of industrialization) and little evidence to select a safe threshold of adding sodium to food. Requiring incontrovertible proof of benefit to reduce dietary sodium to a given level is a food industry commercial perspective on a major public health issue. Establishing a safe level (if there is one) for the addition of sodium to food is the public health question at issue. Indeed, if incontrovertible proof for other aspects of nutrition is required, no public health policy on nutrition would be advocated, eg, no action on obesity, fruit and vegetable consumption, trans fats, saturated fat, and sugar consumption. The IOM, even with their limited scope, should have estimated the numbers of Americans with hypertension related to sodium intake >2300 mg/d vs <2300 mg/d and the direct costs. Given the public health context and causing hypertension in a large number of people, the IOM would likely have concluded (as have all other scientific review bodies, including the 2013 WHO report) that reducing dietary salt to <2300 mg/d is one of the more important health interventions to improve health. Another factor likely generating controversy is the examination of select research without the context that is known about dietary sodium or the context of public health research on food (where sodium has been more extensively and thoroughly studied than other nutrients). Performing limited reviews of the evidence, by those with great expertise in narrow areas of research with select perspectives on what constitutes acceptable evidence, does not seem to be a reasonable mechanism to address a major societal public health issue. The IOM review focused on limited evidence (cohort studies and randomized controlled trials published after 2003 with limited outcomes [mostly cardiovascular]). Given the importance, with the millions of lives and billions of dollars at stake, only comprehensive reviews of all the evidence by committees with broad expertise, conducted under the auspices of highly regarded institutions, should be considered relevant. Another major factor that has likely generated controversy is financial conflicts of interest. The food and salt industry has been active in promoting commercial interpretations of the evidence. Salt Institute consultants and staff regularly provide commentary and assist with media releases that support a commercially beneficial perspective sometimes without disclosure. Quite worrying are instances where academics have received funding or been consultants with the food industry but not disclosed, or even in some settings denied, these associations. The food/salt sector has (1) sponsored reviews of the sodium evidence, which counter those of the health and scientific community, and were published in an academic journal without disclosure of commercial interests and continue to be disseminated free of charge34 (International Life Sciences Institute Web site accessed June 19, 2013), (2) continued to invite dissident scientists to present at sponsored symposia, (3) developed educational material on the health benefits of sodium for schools, and (4) even promoted that sodium intake is associated with greater intelligence and longevity (http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e2769/rr/582338). Newspapers and even scientific journals require readerships to be commercially viable and seem to promote controversy around dietary sodium. The commercial sector and those with commercial interest should have a very limited and defined role in conducting and interpreting pivotal health research and an even lesser role in the policy development stage. Further, governments could and should hold and allow the public to hold industry and their consultants accountable for health costs, death, and disability. The more comprehensive and systematic the review, the more credible the review institution and reviewers, the less commercial influence in the review, and the better the science the less controversial the efforts to normalize sodium ingestion are. Much controversy is generated by limited or low-quality reviews, science, are commercial interests. Efforts to address these issues are needed to guide efforts to improve the health and well-being of our populations. Reducing dietary sodium by 30% is one of the agreed targets approved by the United Nations and the World Health Assembly, and reducing dietary salt to <2000 mg/d is one of a few recommended best buys to reduce noncommunicable diseases by WHO. There is an urgent need for coordinated actions by governments, industry, academia, and civil society to reduce dietary salt to maintain health and well-being.
Dániel Kondor, Márton Pósfai, István Csabai, Gábor Vattay
The possibility to analyze everyday monetary transactions is limited by the scarcity of available data, as this kind of information is usually considered highly sensitive. Present econophysics models are usually employed on presumed random networks of interacting agents, and only macroscopic properties (e.g. the resulting wealth distribution) are compared to real-world data. In this paper, we analyze BitCoin, which is a novel digital currency system, where the complete list of transactions is publicly available. Using this dataset, we reconstruct the network of transactions, and extract the time and amount of each payment. We analyze the structure of the transaction network by measuring network characteristics over time, such as the degree distribution, degree correlations and clustering. We find that linear preferential attachment drives the growth of the network. We also study the dynamics taking place on the transaction network, i.e. the flow of money. We measure temporal patterns and the wealth accumulation. Investigating the microscopic statistics of money movement, we find that sublinear preferential attachment governs the evolution of the wealth distribution. We report a scaling relation between the degree and wealth associated to individual nodes.
Up-to-date market dynamics and intense competition have forced a production system to be more widely distributed and decentralized than ever, and the production system itself can be regarded as a collaborative network of autonomous production resources in which the responsibility of decision making is also decentralized into individual autonomous entities. The conventional resource management models, however, are not suitable for the distributed and decentralized environment because of their centralized nature. In this paper, an agent-based resource management model is proposed. The proposed model applies employment relation-driven fractal organization (FrOrg) into organizational model for distributed production resources and presents a resource management framework based on employment contracts. The fractal organization is a structured association in which a self-similar pattern recursively appears, and employment relations between production resources are recursively constructed throughout the entire production system.
The present work aims to study the public finances and the economic behavior of Municipalities alagoanos between the years 1999/2010, using the fiscal and economic indicators commonly used. Therefore, it is considered the theoretical training of Public Finance, the influence of government in the economy to theoretical assumptions about the process of decentralization / centralization in Brazil. The Constitution of 1988 is a milestone in the pursuit of decentralized fiscal federalism, since from that moment, the municipalities now receive the status of a federated entity and had the largest increase in revenues and collection mechanisms itself. Thus, subnational, closer to the wishes of the population could more effectively meet the state's role in the production of public goods and the solution of the demands of the population. However, in the years after the Constitution of 1988, the political changes in the country, especially with Brazil's adherence to the neoliberal project, the advent of the plan and the actual enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Law, led to a new process of fiscal centralization in Brazil, with consequences for the 5565 Brazilian municipalities. In this context, it is statistically analyzed the finances and economy of the municipalities in Alagoas. The GDP of them indicate the growth of the service sector and centralization of wealth in a small number of cities, as well as the lack of dynamics in small towns, which the government has the primary component in your product. The analysis of municipal finances, with the support of development indicators and the index itself FIRJAN fiscal management, confirm the initial assumptions of the work: the low collection itself, high dependence on federal transfers, effort and compliance with the limits established by LRF for personnel expenses and low levels of investment. Thus, the main findings indicate that the decentralization process of the 1988 Constitution was undermined by the next decade, penalizing the poorest municipalities in case of most in Alagoas.
Geeta Sethi, Laura Zoratto, Oscar Calvo‐González, Lorena Viñuela · 14 authors
Fiscal consolidation remains the central challenge facing Honduras, mainly due to increasing current expenditures. The widening fiscal deficit has been driven by a significant increase in current expenditures. These increased current expenditures, which add rigidity to the budget, have occurred at the expense of investments. The efficiency of spending remains a key constraint. Limited improvements, especially in health and education outcomes despite high allocations to these sectors, suggest the need to improve the efficiency and quality of expenditures. Increased public expenditures have not delivered in terms of growth and improved public services, and whether the country is ready for decentralization remains an open question. Growing fiscal deficits and weak public financial management practices have constrained the ability of the central government to implement and finance the decentralization process. Current decentralization targets would pose significant fiscal challenges to the central government. The deterioration of the fiscal deficit is not a result of fiscal decentralization. However, further decentralization efforts could pose significant fiscal challenges to the central government.
As the last Soviet republic to become an independent nation, Kazakhstan has worked diligently to transform and develop its educational system including systemic changes related to decentralization, financing changes, and the shift to a credit system. A professional health sciences education workshop delivered in Kazakhstan exemplifies progressive educational approaches. Attendees were educators from universities across Kazakhstan. The workshop was the product of collaboration between educators in the United States and Kazakhstan. Team-based learning was both a pedagogic method and topic of the workshop. Technology played a central role in the workshop, as it was integral to workshop development, collaboration, and evaluation. Furthermore, technology became a key content area of the workshop, as the educators presented advances in technology and specific tools to aid in the education of future medical professionals in Kazakhstan. In the months following the workshop, attendees embraced the challenge to take what they have learned back to their own universities by telling their stories. Using the collaborative learning approach and technological tools from the workshop, the attendees‘ spirit of sharing reflects the dynamic development of education in Kazakhstan in the post-Soviet era
Open access
Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Research
Central Asia Education and Culture
Legal, Health, Environmental and COVID-19 Challenges
Alina Florentina Cucos, Кукош, А., Trif, N., Триф, Н. · 5 authors
Water supply and sewerage services represent utilities that must be provided to all users, both the urban and the rural. The responsibility to ensure these services in terms of non-discrimination and affordability belongs to the local authorities, which in the spirit of decentralization have exclusive jurisdiction on their establishment, organization and operation. Regardless of the chosen management, the funding of water supply and sewerage services, is accomplished by means of the prices and tariffs paid by the users. Their quantum, specific to some social services, covers the costs without allowing the accumulation of consistent profit margins, which would ensure the development of the specific infrastructure from the operators' own funds. It is therefore necessary that funding for the creation and rehabilitation of water supply and sewerage systems to be provided from other sources than the budgets of operators, such as: budgetary allocations of local public authorities, government or European funding programs. This paper is of interest because it captures just how the prices and tariffs for these services are composed, and the entire procedure for foundation, adjustment and modification that follows different rules from those of pricing in the market economy, and it provides a review of the types of programs through which the development of the specific technical-urban infrastructure and the significant increase in the number of users in the past 25 years.