In many applications, when communicating with a host, we may or may not be concerned about the privacy of the data but are mainly concerned about the integrity of data being transmitted. This paper presents a simple algorithm based on zero knowledge proof by which the receiver can confirm the integrity of data without the sender having to send the digital signature of the message directly. Also, if the same document is sent across by the same user multiple times, this scheme results in different digital signature each time thus making it a practical one-time signature scheme.
Prior to 1994, South African taxpayers had little protection from fiscal legislation or the \ndecisions, actions or conduct of the South African Revenue Service (âSARSâ) that violated \ntheir common law rights. Parliament reigned supreme and in tax matters, the strict and literal \napproach to the interpretation of statutes was employed, with the judiciary often quoting the \nmantra that there is âno equity about taxâ. The Income Tax Act (Act No 58 of 1962) was \nlittered with discriminatory and unfair provisions based on age, religion, sex and marital \nstatus. Even unreasonable decisions taken by SARS could not be reviewed by the judiciary as \nâunreasonablenessâ was not a ground for review of the exercise of a discretion by SARS. On \n27 April 1994, the constitutional order changed. Parliamentary supremacy was replaced with \nconstitutional supremacy and the rights to privacy, equality, human dignity, property and just \nadministrative action were codified in a Bill of Rights. The codification of these fundamental \nrights has materially changed the nature and extent of the rights of South African taxpayers. \nThe objective of this thesis, therefore, is to identify, analyse and discuss South African \ntaxpayersâ rights from a constitutional perspective. \nThe following major conclusions can be drawn from the research done: \n \n- the judiciary have been forced to reappraise their approach to the interpretation of statutes \nfrom a âstrict and literalâ to a âpurposiveâ approach that is in accordance with the values \nunderpinning the new constitutional order; \n- new legislation has amended some of the so-called âreverseâ onus of proof provisions that \nwere constitutionally unsound â this should result in greater fairness and consistency for \naffected taxpayers especially in the area of when penalties may be imposed; \n- the concept of clean hands and good facts can influence the judiciary when arguing that a \ntaxpayerâs right to just administrative action has been violated; and \n- discriminatory and unfair legislation and conduct on the part of SARS may and should be \nattacked on a substantive law basis, especially where human dignity is at stake. \n \nThe overall conclusion is that taxpayersâ rights are more far-reaching than prior to 1994 but \nstill have some way to go before they are fully interpreted and developed.
Abstract : We perform a comprehensive measurement analysis of Silk Road, an anonymous, international online marketplace that operates as a Tor hidden service and uses Bitcoin as its exchange currency. We gather and analyze data over eight months between the end of 2011 and 2012, including daily crawls of the marketplace for nearly six months in 2012. We obtain a detailed picture of the type of goods being sold on Silk Road, and of the revenues made both by sellers and Silk Road operators. Through examining over 24,400 separate items sold on the site, we show that Silk Road is overwhelmingly used as a market for controlled substances and narcotics, and that most items sold are available for less than three weeks. The majority of sellers disappears within roughly three months of their arrival, but a core of 112 sellers has been present throughout our measurement interval. We evaluate the total revenue made by all sellers, from public listings, to slightly over USD 1.2 million per month; this corresponds to about USD 92,000 per month in commissions for the Silk Road operators. We further show that the marketplace has been operating steadily, with daily sales and number of sellers overall increasing over our measurement interval. We discuss economic and policy implications of our analysis and results including ethical considerations for future research in this area.
In early 2000 the city of Quito, Ecuador, established the Water Protection Fund (FONAG) to provide sustainable financing for the management and conservation of surrounding watersheds. FONAG was innovative in that it pioneered the use of trust funds in a voluntary, decentralized mechanism for financing watershed conservation. Since then, at least 15 similar water funds have been created or are under development in the Northern Andes, seven of which are in Ecuador. Ecuador's later water funds share many similarities with FONAG, but there are also important differences. This paper analyzes the evolution of Ecuador's water trust funds since the creation of FONAG and related changes in community-level watershed management. It does so by comparing the development and effects-todate of two of the most-recent Ecuadorian water funds: the Fund for Pramo Management and Fight Against Poverty in Tungurahua (FMPLPT) and the Regional Water Fund (FORAGUA). After defining the water trust fund model, the paper provides an overview of the FMPLPT and FORAGUA. It then compares these newer funds with FONAG to identify several trends in the financing of watershed conservation within Ecuador.
The link between autonomy and federalism might seem intuitively obvious, but is far from easy to pin down with precision. Some scholars, indeed, question whether the two are linked in any meaningful way. Bernhardt, for example, nds the two terms âneither synonymous nor closely connected institutions, but very distinct phenomena in modern history with basically different underlying philosophiesâ (1981: 23). Benedikter concurs, arguing that âRegional autonomy is a speci c territorial political organization having its own constituent features. It should not be confused with a subcategory of federalismâ (2007: 2). This insistence that âRegional autonomy is a political and constitutional organization sui generis that deserves distinct attention and analysis in theory and practice,â is characteristic of the approach of specialists in constitutional or international law; political scientists writing on the subject are more inclined to emphasize similarity than difference and to recognize that the concepts of federalism and autonomy, while not synonymous, share certain key characteristics. The term âautonomyâ derives from the two Greek words auto, meaning self, and nomos, meaning rule or law (Lapidoth 1994: 276). Since the idea of self-rule is at the very core of most de nitions of federalism, it seems incongruous to argue that the two are ânot closely connected institutions.â In its broadest meaning, autonomy clearly encompasses a more diverse range of phenomena than federalism. Even when limited to territorially de ned expressions of self-rule, most de nitions of autonomy are exible enough to include cases that range from self-rule based on decentralization â the devolution of power from the center to the autonomous entity â to virtual independence in the case of associated statehood. In the former case, the powers delegated by the center to the autonomous region may be extensive, but they can be revoked unilaterally by the central government; in the latter case, the autonomous entity is legally endowed with statehood and may terminate the association at any time. The point of overlap between autonomy and federalism occurs somewhere between these two extremes. For current purposes, I take this point to be that at which an autonomous entity most resembles a subunit in a federation. When an autonomous entity enjoys self-rule that is reasonably protected from unilateral revocation by the center its legal/constitutional status is akin to that of a subunit in a federation. This protection may be provided in the common-state constitution, as in the case of Mindanao (the Philippines), in a special law, compact, or treaty between the national government and the autonomous entity, as in the case of Aceh (Indonesia), or even by an international agreement or treaty, such as that which protects the autonomy of the South Tyrol (Italy). When the autonomy (selfrule) of an entity is legally or constitutionally protected against having its status unilaterally revoked, it satis es the âself-ruleâ component of the denition of a federal system. Where territorial autonomy most obviously differs from federalism is in the organization of the rest of the system. A federal subunit is one unit among many in a system-wide institution; a territorially autonomous unit is one unit (or one of a small number) in an otherwise unitary system. For current purposes, a unitary system that contains one autonomous unit, or a small number of these, can be termed a federacy.
We study the effect of fiscal decentralization on economic growth for twenty-three Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries from 1975 to 2008. In order to proxy fiscal decentralization, we use both traditional Government Finance Statistics (GFS)âstyle measures and new measures that account for the degree of subnational tax autonomy. The regressions with GFSâstyle measures indicate that fiscal decentralization has a negative but statistically insignificant effect on growth. Regressions with the new measures also result in negative coefficient estimates. However, they are larger in absolute terms and statistically significant. For the empirical literature on fiscal federalism, these results imply that measures of fiscal decentralization that account for subnational tax autonomy should be preferred to traditional GFS-style measures. From a policy perspective, we conclude that policy makers should be aware of the economic trade-offs when pursuing reforms toward more fiscal decentralization.
Man Ho Au, Willy Susilo, Yi Mu, Sherman S. M. Chow
Dynamick-times anonymous authentication (k-TAA) schemes allow members of a group to be authenticated anonymously by application providers for a bounded number of times, where application providers can independently and dynamically grant or revoke access right to members in their own group. In this paper, we construct a dynamick-TAA scheme with space and time complexities ofO(log(k)) and a variant, in which the authentication protocol only requires constant time and space complexities at the cost ofO(k) -sized public key. We also describe some tradeoff issues between different system characteristics. We detail all the zero-knowledge proof-of-knowledge protocols involved and show that our construction is secure in the random oracle model under theq-strong Diffie-Hellman assumption andq-decisional Diffie-Hellman inversion assumption. We provide a proof-of-concept implementation, experiment on its performance, and show that our scheme is practical.
Assesses the extent to which the shift toward local participatory poverty reduction projects and decentralization efforts have enhanced the pace of development, increased equity in access to public programs, and improved the sustainability of development efforts. The evidence appears to indicate that local capture can overwhelm the benefits of local information, and demand-driven, competitive application processes can exclude the weakest communities and exacerbate horizontal inequities. Co-financing requirements can worsen the exclusion of the poorest households and communities and attenuate the impacts of poverty reduction programs. Greater community involvement tends to improve resource sustainability and the quality of infrastructure, and the most successful programs are implemented by local governments that have some discretion but are downwardly accountable. Few studies of participatory poverty reduction programs show clear poverty impacts, though some evidence indicates that projects with large livelihood components perform better than other participatory projects, and need more evaluations.
The transition from a communist to a post-communist society ushered in major changes in the housing system in Estonia. Processes and reforms connected with the decentralization of power, housing, and land privatization appeared in all Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries but each country (group of countries) has had its own specific features throughout the reform process and its own specific outcomes determined by the path dependence of specific policies and cultural patterns ( HegedĂŒs and Tosics 1998 ; Pichler-Milanovich 2001 ). The communist system treated housing as a public asset that is not part of the market and to which every citizen should have access ( HegedĂŒs and Tosics 1996 ; Kornai 1992 ). The principles of the system aimed at ensuring egalitarian living standards for all ( Smith 1996 ). The extensive nationalization of private housing was launched in Estonia in 1941 soon after its incorporation into the Soviet Union. At the end of the socialist period, two-thirds of the housing stock belonged to the state. The communist system did not use term social housing because state-owned dwellings were in principle accessible to all.
The simulation paradigm, introduced by Goldwasser, Micali and Racko , is of fundamental importance to modern cryptography. In a breakthrough work from 2001, Barak (FOCS'01) introduced a novel non-black-box simulation technique. This technique enabled the construction of new cryptographic primitives, such as resettably-sound zero-knowledge arguments, that cannot be proven secure using just black-box simulation techniques. The work of Barak and its follow-ups, however, all require stronger cryptographic hardness assumptions than the minimal assumption of one-way functions: the work of Barak requires the existence of collision-resistant hash functions, and a very recent result by Bitansky and Paneth (FOCS'12) instead requires the existence of an Oblivious Transfer protocol. In this work, we show how to perform non-black-box simulation assuming just the existence of one-way functions. In particular, we demonstrate the existence of a constant-round resettably-sound zero-knowledge argument based only on the existence of one-way functions. Using this technique, we determine necessary and su cient assumptions for several other notions of resettable security of zero-knowledge proofs. An additional bene t of our approach is that it seemingly makes practical implementations of non-black-box zero-knowledge viable.
The paroxysms of economic pain through which the world has been suffering for the past four years offer any number of possible vectors for analysisâfrom economic theory, to public policy, to sociology, to international affairs. An examination of the economic crisis through any of these lenses would reveal a great deal both about how we've come to be here, and how we might (or might not) find our way out of it. The âGreat Recessionâ is almost unique in modern political economics: a large-scale, catastrophic global economic meltdown, which may well persist for some time to come.1There have, of course, been other economic crises, recessions of greater or lesser duration, as well as global crises, such as the so-called âAsian Fluâ of the mid-1990s, but the Great Recession has come to be so named because its impact has been unlike anything the world has experienced since the 1930s (see Krugman 2008; Reich 2010; Stiglitz 2010). And given the increasingly interconnected and codependent nature of the global economic system, the negative effects of this downturn are affecting a much greater proportion of the world's population than the Great Depression. The reverberations continue, as we see in the ongoing European financial crisis; but the epicenter of the earthquake, in September of 2008, was the result of a conscious set of decisions and policies that led inexorably to a wide-scale economic meltdown. And the singular characteristic of that set of decisions and policies was the belief that economics had surpassed the realm of the merely human, to become a transcendent mode of thought, capable of near-omniscience regarding human actions and their consequencesâIssac Asimov's âpsychohistoryâ come to life, and given breath at Princeton and the University of Chicago.2This moment of economic crisis has intersected with another moment, one of renewed interest in the thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr's wide-ranging intellectual curiosity touched frequently on questions of ethics and economics, particularly during the period of his own economic crisis in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash. Niebuhr's insights during that period, which formed the core of what came to be known as his âChristian realistâ approach to issues of Christianity and public morality, have something to say to us as we grapple with the questions of justice, economics, and social reform in the wake of the 2008 collapse.In the aftermath of the economic crisis, and in response to its ongoing depredations, two mass movements (each boasting greater or lesser degrees of authenticity) have emerged on the American stage. The first, dubbed the âTea Partyâ movement, emerged as a reaction to policies pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations to solve the financial crisisâin particular, by offering relief to the banking and mortgage industries. Strongly libertarian in its ideological motivation, and often rooted in a particular vision of small government, states' rights, and nationalism, this movement directed its hostility primarily toward the Obama administration, seeing in many of its policies the roots of an incipient totalitarianism.3At root, the Tea Party's ideology is a reaction to what it sees as an overreaching federal government, which is believed to have caused the financial crisis of 2008 by coddling irresponsible and unreliable home buyers on the one hand and subsidizing a venal and corrupt culture of Wall Street traders on the other (see Berlet 2011). There is a vital streak of middle-class resentment that runs through the Tea Party movement, which sees itself as representing âordinaryâ Americans who work hard, pay their debts, and don't ask for government handouts.4 Demographically, it is predominantly white, male, and older (Ashbee 2011, 159â60). From the perspective of its adherents, the financial crisis was the result of government redistribution of wealth to the underserving, either in the form of social services and subsidies for the poor or in the form of bailouts to the financial industry (158). Additionally, there is a strong theme of personal antipathy toward Barack Obama and doubt about the legitimacy of his presidency (157).While it is difficult to pinpoint one branch of the Tea Party movement that could be said to speak for the whole, the movement does seem to coalesce around a set of general principles and positions. One concise expression of these positions is illustrated by the âContract from Americaâ (2009; not to be confused with the 1990s' Republican Party âContract with Americaâ). The document begins with an expression of a set of very broad principles, encapsulated as âIndividual Liberty,â âLimited Government,â and âEconomic Freedom,â and then moves on to a set of specific agenda items including requiring all federal legislation to include a statement of constitutional authority requiring a balanced budget amendment, a cap on government spending, and a repeal of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.What is particularly striking about this agenda, given the Tea Party's claim to be a reform movement emerging from outside of the corrupt infrastructure of both political parties, is the virtual identity of its agenda with that of the libertarian wing of the Republican party.5 This is not to suggest that the Tea Party necessarily works well with the Republican establishment. On the contrary, as Edward Ashbee observes: The Tea Party movement is largely drawn from independent conservatives or âdebrandedâ Republicans. The clashes between the movement and the Republican âestablishmentâ around some of the institutional arrangements that govern the party and structure electoral processes have added to the anger and rage that the movement feels towards the Obama administration. (2011, 164) Nevertheless, rather than embodying a movement of the politically disaffected, the Tea Party looks much more like a set of organizations designed to co-opt and appropriate the genuine disaffection of many American voters and channel that disaffection toward the standard issue Republican policy goalsâif not necessarily toward the Republican party itselfâat least in economic matters.6 Its ability to do this largely relies on the coupling of legitimate economic grievances in the wake of the financial crisis with an essentially libertarian economic philosophy, heavily seasoned with class and racial resentment (Bertlet 2011, 13â14).The second movement, which has come to be known as the âOccupy Wall Streetâ or â99%â movement, emerged in the summer of 2011 as a direct challenge to the perceived oligarchy controlling the key policy makers in both political parties.7 The Occupy Wall Street movement's origins can be traced to a campaign by editors of the magazine AdBusters, who sought to capitalize on the Tahrir square protests in Egypt to launch a similar movement of nonviolent resistance in the United States. The target of the protest was, as they saw it, the corporate manipulation of democratic institutions (Schwartz 2011).Spreading quickly via social media, the initial Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan gave rise to an expanding circle of protests around the United States, and ultimately around the world. While inspired by the AdBusters appeal, the participants in the Occupy protests did not organize themselves around any set of leaders or institutions, but rather strongly and self-consciously resisted such formal organizational trappings, refusing for the most part to even offer any demands or proposals. Rather, they organized around a widely shared sentiment of a fundamental conflict between the interests of the â99%,â those disenfranchised and excluded from genuine participation in the institutions and structures of governance, and the â1%,â the very wealthy and powerful who have the ears of the president, the Congress, and the economic institutions of society.The refusal to issue demands or to propose particular policies was to a large extent rooted in the belief among many of the protest participants that the ultimate solution to this conflict was to destroy capitalism root and branch, replacing it with ⊠something. What that something might be was, of course, never specified. And the organizational structure of the Occupy protests was such that it almost by definition couldn't be specified, since the kind of consensus required to develop plans for genuine alternatives was to the organizational of what was may a and movement was 2011). social in the of among movements in from around the world. And any participants and small out in a from to public to both and the of 2011, the Occupy protests had to a as the and of the in the financial of many of the of the was with to the protests the and their ability to in large in many the to and on their to they with and that in some led to This is in striking to the Tea Party which both more in and more and to the that in some the the for this in may have been from the perspective of policy it that the of the two in the Tea Party directed its primarily toward political institutions, seeing the of the social as the root of the economic crisis, the Occupy movement directed its anger primarily at economic institutions, seeing and as an of the of the Occupy movement sought to the from particular and sought to itself as an way of as a in modern way of that in to both the economic and political of oligarchy and that they have come to social life, both in the United and the world. There was, in the Occupy movement, a about human social that was in both its organizational structure and its the Tea Party a form of social and resentment in both its and is a of two two strongly movements that have emerged in response to a genuine and both as to the Great ultimately to offer a of either the or the to the economic While of the rooted in very and political principles, both the to both the and the for that are emerging from the moment at is in this way that Reinhold Niebuhr's thought can offer The of the past years has his the public but in to issues of policy and the of the United in the international is not for that one of the key of the has been his of American which the of an American of its own in with the Niebuhr's touched on many of social life, and much of his was given to the of questions of economic in the of the Great of the from that period, with his of human and political life, can offer some possible for a response to the Great many the Great Recession those that are at the of Niebuhr's The Great Recession came about as the result of and on the part of the political and economic who to the and of the and for a life, in to themselves at the time those for a and to for the very they themselves and they to a financial that for those who had the least in the of the the for the mortgage crisis all the themselves from the of their actions through the of (see 2011, a given by on the crisis in the mortgage had been to the on to because the at in the thought they ⊠they all and the for an the of it for Wall Street to their mortgage and ultimately the The ⊠was that most of the participants had much more to the than to the was a of economic and the was the was in had at an and the global financial was on the of 2011, The of the time is in the of a who the financial The is about to the ⊠in the of all these necessarily all of the of those And of course, the did the was never to a that could for any of time in the but to a structure that would the financial services industry to home for it could And this structure was designed to a the to the with the own And the of their in as the banking industry was out to the of was to be to in to in the that they would the of who in of the do they the and it in the of that the financial in the a at in an for the how about their the have to their own as the come is don't of any but the and and to even they are not the or the most with the in to these heavily by American the banking and financial services industry has from the economic of the of the through the period of economic downturn since that the crisis has two movements as similar and as the Tea Party and the Occupy a similar set of at in his own of the from that period, often heavily by is of the of both political and economic in on the of an The political in any is by the which the most of it be economic or the ability to the processes of the the is to to this of an in itself as the government, a and a of it is to the of the of the to its and it The either itself to be or at to the that it either by some or by an of the to the of in and to the of the The ability of a to its political on the of its claim to government and the of to that the Great and the financial crisis from in which economic to claim a of for their of political for their own (see 2010). the intellectual of a of economic and political policy makers has been the of a at by to both and of the since a all the in wealth to the of the past years has been for (see during of and it was to this course, many did during that period, and many came to themselves to be as they their and the of their by and in the aftermath of and increasingly economic crises, in the crisis of September 2008, it was possible to such a that in small to the that both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street the of and the of perceived social with even the and the to a great for as as the could be that a market could not all of us to with of economic it the interests of those who themselves by of the of at the of the great of participants in the that in the of a ideology of the had to be rooted in a vision of both the of human in the social and a of its genuine in response to by to and then claim for an that an industry that such social be as a of for the of the social of our This is a for our of libertarian financial The us is how we may to the of our in to between economic on the one and those that offer ultimately social on the is to of some of the in Niebuhr's work that are of in the of the ongoing financial crisis, and to what they may as we in the of emerging from to Niebuhr's was the of as a in all human social his was an not of human for While may have themselves the to rise their and are for the of human and to the of those of and that form the root of social Niebuhr's of is particularly given the in the to the financial it in The and of There is a of in which the human its and and itself all does not the and of its and itself to be the of its own the of its own and of its own The is in an form in all human but it to greater among those and who have a more than of social to the which to the of either the or some of human and is the for which has as its The does not and for more in to itself does not itself as or or and to its in nature and in The financial crisis is a of the that the of and can do it is that in large on the of of between those with great and those with our is to our own at the of such as large the to the is the of of to the and the toward is much to to more than anything to a movement for financial one that traders for and that they have a financial in the in the of their The ability to become by around with or even for the has us a set of among the most Niebuhr's of the of with the of is the human to that or one has in is the result of own work and the suffering of is never the result of or but is and the result of their own that this is fundamental to the of in The of the and are by and The and conscious of their interests with general interests and ⊠is in the of The are more than is that can be in of the of by that it something to the of the of are greater than could be the of is to the of of the that and that general interests are the they The of this in their own is the belief that the are to for their own the other hand it has been the of to the for the of and then to of what they have been the to was illustrated in the of the Tea Party movement, the by on the of the in that the government was by for policies to their and that the government the to those who can the of the was by many of the traders on the which is given their for the that it was the government and the home buyers who for the crisis, rather than traders who had of such as to be to a in The that these are what the of in the never the for and his the core of is the that it is a to us from the of our own the that those like to the what they to that the crisis was but their their of course, both and there are of from those on the political as its and refusal to many have Occupy Wall Street as a and set of it is possible that the refusal to is rooted in the of in a very many Wall Street traders to their own in the The belief that one even is on the and of the is not a of but of the it be that what and the Tea to is a of legitimate The of by out and was a very issue in the aftermath of the And the has been in a way by the Occupy as the government was on part an this us to another the of the of a economic the of the it is possible to one that is to a greater or lesser in which the and the of are shared in a is not at all that this has been given the it in our political the on economic in the Occupy movement has the for the about this the to such questions be One that form of can be in is because the of are to the which they are the of any particular in the of on the interests and at in the to it. be in What the Occupy movement can be given for is the about what the demands of be the both in the United and While one may at some of the more of social in the Occupy these protests the for the about that was to the of the And this was from by the political of the to and including Barack of Niebuhr's most are at the of with which was during the as this was by to be rooted in and of with the of the human particularly regarding questions of class interest and social While many for the of the poor and a to a more and they believed that the way to do so was through the of rather than through the of in An of The of the to the of to is a of and The that to by the of and that as well as to that that do so than but that the the which is to the has not it but that it has and more that the of the is not in but the to to the and this to the by are politically as as they are the had had and more its approach to the political would have been and to the social never the between and the of an seem to that even in the there is a in his which the that is in his this form of in a political which ultimately that movements for reform and and that the in a that the to in the of even a and could a of in political by specific policies designed to can these of Christianity by the of political that have been at the of much of the Occupy Wall Street all of the movement's its and refusal to any specific demands or it be by one or the other political a the ability to genuine policy agenda to it for political or economic institutions to to or to many of Occupy Wall there to be interest in genuine social reform than in their own fundamental in to the corrupt institutional of government and economic such of may be they ultimately the political and economic structures the movement and the in would be to ask how such a set of one on a more than one who is to a genuine policy even with the of the political and economic with the of a set of social for those who have been by the of the economic While an in us of our for it ultimately the and become politically those who the more of it is to grapple with the of the political and economic as they find theme has to do with the between and the of This is a of which Reinhold was given the of many during the to the of or that the in never their because they are Rather, be through the of by the form of has to with the of the of social and political in on the of an that in political a of is to that even the most political policy to of a conflict of and of interests in which is because are a does not the root of conflict which is to be in the corporate of as the and nature of is not something in human a and more social a more social be to all of and conflict in human This has been one of the of the Occupy Wall Street movement its in a of and has that it has not been to for the of specific policy many of the movement, this has been as a and the it has to the that the of the the Occupy movement has about economic and oligarchy on the movement's ability to itself the the of its and its refusal to with questions of the of its ultimate was a that the Tea Party either quickly or from the The Tea Party was on by powerful political who saw in the ideological of the Tea Party an to themselves or their own a the Tea Party very quickly both among in government is not given that they merely the of the to as well as financial and may be of the Occupy movement to such of out of a not to be such come with a very strong at the of the the movement have been a in the the political to legitimate for social an that can the of in the of a more more and more for the in on the of an of the American class of his become conscious of its and its a to the of and to develop a This of and and is may be for this that a such as the are to have to the The class may many its ultimate because its social has not become and because its is either in or in intellectual ultimately to be we from the Great Recession a more and or and what these two protest movements in that The small toward economic experienced in may us that reform is or that we to with the of the financial services the market may so to and the economic and we do not deal with the of what for the of a we find much time has in the of the another economic The is not but and we the and political to to the of the financial crisis there is to that we be to do so in the
Being asked to make a short speech as part of accepting the award inevitably leads to some introspection and reflection on major factors that have influenced one's career, be they events or individuals. Past recipients of the award have been very influential in putting management accounting on the map. Some have been instrumental in developing the way we think about management accounting and teach the subject; some have developed important perspectives such as information economics, combining economics with psychology, the importance of national culture, activity-based cost management, and balanced scorecards. The way these recipients developed their thoughts is well told in their acceptance speeches and collectively provides a wealth of ideas and a historical perspective on the development of our discipline.I commenced my studies in economics, and I maintain a keen interest in economic approaches to management accounting. However, early in my academic career, I was pressed into considering an organizational approach to management accounting, not because it was an easier option; rather it addressed the world of management accounting within which I found myself. In this address, I will share with you some personal reflections on the process of my discoveries in the area of organizational approaches to management accounting from the mid-1960s.The backdrop to this address is that research is something of a growth model. Stage 1: starting from a baseline of skills and knowledge gained at undergraduate studies; stage 2: progressing through refinement of skills with more graduate study; and stage 3: consolidating through work toward publications and other academic outputs. Stages 1 and 2 are somewhat planned and incremental, while stage 3 is more often associated with less ordered processes, often stumbling across potential research areas by way of reading and personal interactions. Research projects can be focused around existing ideas, sometimes being somewhat formulaic, sometimes highly innovative. Often ideas can be serendipitous and develop in unpredictable ways. The key is to recognize when there is a management accounting angle that will relate to an important organizational or social issue.I initially thought I would pursue a career in science; however, when it came time to enroll in an undergraduate degree, I selected economics. In the 1960s, economics degrees in Australia were focused on macro- and microeconomics with a strong orientation toward public policy. Macroeconomics examined the behavior of entire economies such as overall price levels, unemployment rates, inflation, and the like. Microeconomics studied the behavior of individual decision-making units, be they individual consumers or organizations, and typically how decisions by these units are coordinated by the market mechanism. While there are many crossovers in examining macro- and microeconomics and both are required to educate economists, most students developed a preference to specialize in either macro or micro issues. I had a preference for matters related to microeconomics.Microeconomics stressed the importance of prices, income, and quantity from the perspective of consumers. Consumer choice was examined by way of indifference curves and budget lines. Market mechanisms were studied mostly assuming perfect competition. Theories related to production functions and cost curves heralded a need to consider the nature of the technology of the firm. Costs were separated into marginal, average, and total costs. Fixed and variable behavior was defined, with the curious idea of marginal fixed costs flagging that costing was deserving of more attention. Marginal analysis and profit maximization required understanding cost behavior, and the various time lines on decisions. Economic profit was seen as cleverer than accounting profit as it included a charge for capital, a notion that sparked much debate later in accounting on issues such as residual income and shareholder value models. Looking back, contemporary management accounting had much to offer these traditional theories in microeconomics as it can unpick the nature of costs and their behavior depending on activity, time, and the nature of decisions involving costs.In some courses, malfunctioning market mechanisms were considered with the economics of environmental protection, including energy and natural resources, flagging an area that would be important in management accounting 30â40 years on. I found these particularly interesting, but public policy in the 1960s was not as focused on the environment as it is now. Other topics that received limited attention but enough to whet the appetite were the economics of poverty, inequality, and discrimination. This list of issues from basic microeconomics is only illustrative of topics, but there are strong echoes in this 1960s material of research agendas that have captured the attention of management accountants over the past 20 years.It was common in Australia during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s for individuals to go overseas to undertake graduate education, typically to the U.K. or U.S. However, in the mid-1960s, after completing my undergraduate degree, I was keen to enter the workforce and joined a bank as an economic researcher. I was involved in doing feasibility studies for client firms. After a couple of years, I decided to undertake a master's degree in financial management at Southampton University in the U.K. This was my formal introduction to more advanced ideas in finance, financial and management accounting. The area of financial accounting was heavy with theoretical debate on the meaning of income and asset valuation, with theories of finance being articulated and refined. Management accounting was pragmatic and practice oriented with the principles and practices being articulated in well-crafted books published out of both the U.S. and the U.K. In the main, theories were borrowed from financial accounting and finance to consider issues such as valuation, income, and discounted cash flows. There were some spirited debates on issues related to measuring income within divisionalized organizations and the transfer pricing issues that this might generate.Also, management accounting academics provided scholarly accounts on the application of operations research techniques to management accounting issues, such as linear programming and simulation. This generated much excitement but did not seem ever to fulfill its full promise. One suspects that the changes envisaged by the techniques were never accompanied by considering people and implementation issues in innovations driven by formal model building. In the 1990s, management accountants would address these implementation issues, in some depth, when considering changes accompanying the introduction of activity-based accounting and performance measurement systems such as balanced scorecards.On completing my master's degree, I accepted an appointment at Sheffield University. This opened up a new world of management accounting thinking, for me, being led at that time by Tony Lowe and Tony Tinker. While my background and predilections led me to study management accounting from a traditional economics approach, the Sheffield school was developing a much more sociological and critical orientation. More generally, these ideas were being advanced in the U.K. by scholars such as Anthony Hopwood, Wai Fong Chua, David Cooper, and others. While my background and orientation constrained my motivation to embrace these ideas fully at this time, the approach did open my mind to examining the assumptions behind many of the economic theories I had learned in my economics degree and graduate finance courses.My curiosity to examine economic theories with modified assumptions can be traced back to my work on feasibility studies and business plans for firms while working at the bank. Assumptions of rational behavior and perfect knowledge did not fit the business folk with whom I worked in both large- and medium-sized client organizations. While I knew that there were works in economics that had developed theories with assumptions that were flexible and realistic, I had not studied these in depth. My growing awareness that organizational context and individual behavior could be captured in solid economic theories derived from work on the behavioral theory of the firm (e.g., Simons 1947; Lindblom 1959; Cyert and March 1963), from economists who examined the behavioral ramifications of growth models (e.g., Penrose 1959; Marris 1964) and the ideas of Williamson (1975) on differences between market and non-market decision making, management, and service provision. These works had theoretical elegance combining economic and behavioral theories and resonated with my state of mind at this stage. Consideration of these works can still provide insights related to management accounting research and organizations, as can more recent work that focuses on economics and psychology.At about the same time, I became aware of another line of research that was examining diversified firms. The work of the business historian Chandler (1962) examined how divisionalized organizational structures were a response to growing diversification in U.S. firms. There followed a series of studies that examined this association between strategy and structure in the U.S. (Rumelt 1974), U.K. (Shannon 1973), France and Germany (Dyas and Thanheiser 1976), and Japan (Suzuki 1980). This was my introduction to the idea that an administrative arrangement might develop to suit a type of strategy. These studies followed an approach that was emerging known as contingency theories, or more correctly, organizational theories following contingency frameworks.More comprehensive contingency approaches were developed and articulated in the U.S. by Lawrence and Lorsch (1967), Thompson (1967), Perrow (1967), Galbraith (1973); in the U.K., Woodward (1958), Burns and Stalker (1961), the Aston school lead by Pugh and associates (Pugh et al. 1963); and later in Australia by Donaldson (1987). I found that these works combined interesting theories that context mattered when considering administrative change, and the ideas were embedded in practice. These works had a profound impact on the study of organizations and still provide important insights relevant to contemporary settings. Systems theory was also popular in some quarters but perhaps became overly complicated when applications were considered (Bertalanffi 1968). However, the seeds of configuration approaches can be seen in this thinking and important ideas, such as equifinality, are relevant to recognizing that different management control systems (MCS) can suit similar contexts.Around 1973, I returned to Australia, taking up a position at Macquarie University. 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Liang Yu, Tao Jiang, Yang Cao, Shiyong Yang · 5 authors
In Internet Data Center (IDC) operations, some uncertainties are needed to be managed. Otherwise, IDC operators will be faced with a high operation risk. In existing work, electricity forward contract is adopted to minimize the IDC operation risk in smart grid environment under the assumption that workload and spot electricity price are independent. However, the above assumption is unreasonable in smart grid environment, resulting in the unsatisfactory performance of electricity forward contract. In this paper, a novel scheme is proposed to minimize the IDC operation risk in smart grid environment considering the correlation between workload and spot electricity price, based on a portfolio consisting of electricity forward contracts and electricity call (put) options in electricity derivative markets. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can significantly reduce the IDC operation risk. Compared with electricity forward contract, the proposed scheme has more stable and better performance.
In this paper, a novel biometric authentication scheme is proposed, which combines zero-knowledge proof, - protocols and bit commitment scheme. The remote server compares biometric template using committed values, this can keep privacy of user's biometrics. To the best knowledge of us, this is the first scheme which uses - protocols as a basic tool to implement biometric authentication. Compared with the previous schemes, this scheme has advantages as higher security, lower computation complexity and privacy keeping of biometric template.
Biometric Identification and Security
User Authentication and Security Systems
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Mohammad Kurniawan, Deni Harbianto, Digna Niken Purwaningrum, Tiara Marthias
Despite Indonesiaâs health status improvement over the last decade, special efforts to achieve the MDGs goals are still warranted, especially in maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH). However, the current centrally driven MNCH policies do not address the geographical disparities and the different constraints faced by Indonesian provinces and districts. Moreover, the MNCH slow progress may have been hindered by various funding constraints, for example small local budget allocation specifically for MNCH, lack of evidence-based budget planning leading to unsound health planning and implementation. Therefore, this study aims to assess the current health financing mechanism used in one of Indonesian Province of Papua, that has low MNCH outcome. This was an observational study using mixed-methods. Study subjects were from the Provincial and four selected District Health Offices in Papua Province of Indonesia. overnment official documents analysis and direct observations on the study subjects were done to assess the financing and budgeting for MNCH in Papua. The study shows a low commitment from the local government in MNCH priority areas. The main reason was that the largest share of MNCH funding still comes from Central Government (ABPN), whereas the proportion funded from local sources is relativity low. Furthermore, there is a very limited use of evidence-based financing and budgeting, mainly due to limited capability of the human resources for health as well as the largely undocumented epidemiological and health system data. This limited human resource capability also largely affected by the low commitment of the local government. Despite the relatively large amount of MNCH funding in Papua, human resource limitation poses a serious problem in scaling up for priority interventions. Low local government commitment is still the main obstacle in health budgeting policy. These problems may also applicable to other districts of Indonesia and as unanticipated effects from ill-designed health decentralization.
Abstract Making use of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique and taking undesirable fiscal phenomena into account, this paper comprehensively quantifies the public finance performance of local governments in China during the course of fiscal decentralization reform. The introduction of undesirable fiscal outcomes into this assessment makes it possible to identify meaningful and informative characteristics of local public finance performance in China. When reforms are first implemented, local public financial performance improves because undesirable fiscal phenomena have not yet become too serious. The tax sharing system reform did not work well in its early stages, and negatively impacted public expenditure efficiency. The reform started to play a substantial role between 2001 and 2005, when local governments experienced better public finance performance. Corresponding to the deterioration of the financial sector in recent years, local public financial performance worsened after 2007. Further reform of the current fiscal and taxation system is necessary in China, to ensure a brighter future for the nation.
Auctions have a long history, having been recorded as early as 500 B.C. [Auction Theory, Academic Press, San Diego, USA, 2002]. Nowadays, electronic auctions have been a great success and are increasingly used in various applications, including high performance computing [Concurrency and Computatio n: Practice and Experience 14(13â15) (2002), 1507â1542]. Many cryptographic protocols have been proposed to address the various security requirements of these electronic transactions, in particular to ensure privacy. Brandt [International Journal of Information Security 5 (2006), 201â216] developed a protocol that computes the winner using homomorphic operations on a distributed ElGamal encryption of the bids. He claimed that it ensures full privacy of the bidders, i.e. no information apart from the winner and the winning price is leaked. We first show that this protocol â when using malleable interactive zero-knowledge proofs â is vulnerable to attacks by dishonest bidders. Such bidders can manipulate the publicly available data in a way that allows the seller to deduce all participantsâ bids. We provide an efficient parallelized implementation of the protocol and the attack to show its practicality. Additionally we discuss some issues with verifiability as well as attacks on non-repudiation, fairness and the privacy of individual bidders exploiting authentication problems.
Auctions have a long history, having been recorded as early as 500 B.C. With the rise of Internet, electronic auctions have been a great success and are increasingly used. Many cryptographic protocols have been proposed to address the various security requirements of these electronic transactions, in particular to ensure privacy. In 2006, Brandt developed a protocol that computes the winner using homomorphic operations on a distributed ElGamal encryption of the bids. He claimed that it ensures full privacy of the bidders, i.e. that no information apart from the winner and the winning price is leaked. We show that this protocol -- when using interactive zero-knowledge proofs -- is vulnerable to attacks by dishonest bidders. Such bidders can manipulate the publicly available data in a way that allows the seller to deduce all participants' bids. Additionally, even if non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs are used, we show that the protocol is vulnerable to a different attack, which allows to recover one targeted bidder's bid.
Bitcoin is an electronic currency designed to use a public protocol that implements it in a totally decentralized manner, so as not to need the control of any central issuing organization that manages it. Though still in development, it has been proven to be a modern payment system referred to have been used in some procedures commonly associated to money laundering or trafficking of illegal substances of various kinds. Thus, in this article, we analyse those features which transform such a cryptocurrency in a useful tool to perform any kind of transactions far from the control of any kind of regulatory agency, as well as we pinpoint some of the fields in which their usage can derive in new illicit behaviours. Keywords-bitcoin; cryptoanarchism; cryptocurrency; fraud; speculation; virtual money.
Fiscal decentralization has gained support by most of the worldâs leading development organizations including the World Bank, United States Agency for International Development and, Asian Development Bank among others in the last two to three decades. It is therefore of much importance that some form of thought is given to the operations of this system to make it more beneficial. Drawing selectively on large academic and practical literature on fiscal decentralization and the articles in this volume, this article outlines the state of fiscal decentralization in current times. It then goes on to outline some key arguments in favor of and against fiscal decentralization as a system of government. The theoretical framework of fiscal decentralization is also discussed in this article with regards to the stabilization, distribution and allocation functions. An overview of this system of government so far as Ghana is concerned has also been touched on with much emphasis on the legal framework and the key sources of finance for subnational governments. Finally, a number of factors for improving and making this system more beneficial and sustainable over time are identified.