Summary DNA computing is promising in providing primitives of classical cryptography since it provides a variety of advantages over conventional silicon-based computing paradigms. These advantages include massive parallelism and data hiding capability which give it the computing flavor of Turing machine as well as the power of parallel processing which makes it suitable in different applications of classical cryptography. Although modern cryptography has expanded ideas of classical cryptography to include more rigorous security proofs and first class protocols based on concrete mathematics for ensuring secrecy in cryptographic protocols, the DNA computers have not followed the rapid pace by which cryptography community is going ahead and no biological computer has been designed to meet the growing demand of modern cryptographic protocols. For this reason, in this paper, we propose four DNA/RNA computers which implement some modern security primitives such as the mental poker game, zero-knowledge proofs, signature schemes and public key cryptography. Security protocols based on wetware for these primitives have been given which are intended for implementation in the wet lab using standard genetic engineering techniques on DNA and RNA molecules. Security proofs have been presented for each one of our proposed methods which complete the theoretical merits of our modern security protocols.
We construct a model of endogenous investment specific techological change in which the stock of public capital influences the real price of capital goods. We show that the growth and welfare maximizing tax rates coincide in the planned economy. When factor income taxes finance public investment infintely many tax-subsidy combinations can decentralize the planner's allocations. The optimal capital income tax can be positive in this environment. We then augment the model to incorporate administrative costs. A unique combination of factor income taxes now decentralizes the planner's allocations. A simple calibration exercise suggests that changes in factor income taxes does not cause a significant change in the optimal growth rate or welfare. Our framework broadens the environment in which investment specific technological change occurs, and characterizes the role of optimal factor income taxation in raising long run growth and welfare.
Introduction of the market, privatization and decentralization have been the dominant corner stones throughout the first two decades of China’s reform line after the introduction of the open door policy in 1978. Many China researchers (e.g. Wang 2008; Wu 2008) thereby judge, that China’s development path was not merely a transition from planned economy to market-oriented economy, but that a “market society” emerged, in which market principles permeate also noneconomic arenas and “threatened to become the dominant mechanism integrating all of society (and even political life)” (Wang 2008: 18). The marketization of the health sector thereby entailed that social security schemes and therewith financing of public health care collapsed almost completely and out-of-pocket payment became the dominant factor defining people’s access to health care. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Decentralized internal rating based models (self-regulation) which are substituted to public regulation are not able to hold a long-term macroeconomic vision or to take into account interdependencies among private units and markets. Therefore, they seem to be unable to tackle with systemic crises. Moreover, liberal supervision schemes reduce the field of action of monetary authorities and limit the systemic range of their interventions in case of large crisis. Then the absence of macro-regulatory schemes reveals to be one of the causes of the appearance and the persistency of generalized financial crises. A reappraisal of the Minskian financial instability hypothesis and the results of models of conventions, of financing by LBO and of cognitive dissonance points out that the current financial crisis casts doubt on two principles of the way of regulation of modern capitalism: 1) The capacity of market mechanisms for correcting errors of judgment of decentralized actors without structural public interventions; 2) The efficiency of the self-regulation of markets regarding public regulation schemes. These principles turn out to be unable to ensure the continuity in market relations under their present form. So, new research becomes compulsory in order to imagine new macro-prudential mechanisms seeking to strengthen the viability of economic and monetary relations.
The Slovak Republic as one of the transitive economics had implemented several reforms in the beginning of the 21st century. One of them, perhaps the widest, was the public administration reform, which includes also other partial reforms as public finance reform and tax reform. To complete all the reforming efforts the process of fiscal decentralization was realized in 2005. The fiscal decentralization touched the public budgets also on the revenue and expenditure part and directly referred to public administration reform realized in 2001 and tax reform realized in 2004. The aim of this paper is to describe the process of the reforms´ system changes implementation and to evaluate their impact on public finance with the accent on lower government levels´ financing and administration.
The paper reconstructs the path taken by the reform of public procurement in Italy which has gradually evolved from a and centralized market to an open and accessible one. Despite the development of the Electronic Public Administration Market Place (MEPA), information regarding its performance is scant. There are no available collected data on firm satisfaction. The paper discusses the role Consip, a public company owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, has played (and continues to play) to guide the decentralization of public e-procurement. At the same time it shows the results of a sample investigation aimed at analysing the level of satisfaction of small/medium enterprises (SMEs) participating in the MEPA. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Abstract. When secure arithmetic is required, computation based on secure multiplication (MULT) is much more efficient than computation based on secure boolean circuits. However, a typical application can also require other building blocks, such as comparison, exponentiation and the modulo (MOD) operation. Secure solutions for these functions proposed in the literature rely on bit-decomposition or other bit-oriented methods, which require O(ℓ) MULTs for ℓ-bit inputs. In the absence of a known bit-length independent solution, the complexity of the whole computation is often dominated by these non-arithmetic functions. To resolve the above problem, we start with a general modular conversion, which converts secret shares over distinct moduli. For this, we proposed a probabilistically correct protocol for this with a complexity that is independent of ℓ. Then, we show that when these non-arithmetic functions are based on secure modular conversions, they can be computed in constant rounds and O(k) MULTs, where k is a parameter for an error rate of 2 −Ω(k). To promote our protocols to be actively secure, we apply O(k) basic zero-knowledge proofs, which cost at most O(k) exponentiation computation, O(1) rounds and O(k(ℓ + κ)) communication bits, where κ is the security parameter used in the commitment scheme.
Over the past twenty years, important changes in the Italian health system have led to different approaches in organizing, delivering and financing health services throughout the regions of the country. This study aims to examine the impact these factors have had on efficiency. The methodology adopted is based on the developments in bootstrapping Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). In particular, employing a two-stage procedure, we analyzed the impact that political interventions have produced on healthcare efficiency. The data, which were at the local health unit level for the period 2004-2005, were aggregated to the provincial level in order to take into account patient mobility. The study reveals that the organizational model adopted by the Lombardia region allows for the best results in healthcare efficiency. Second, administrative decentralization from the regional governments to local health units is a source of inefficiency. Third, adjusting the cost of delivering care, by taking into consideration regional health characteristics, improves efficiency. Finally, future policy interventions should make careful valuations of the impacts of patient mobility on healthcare efficiency.
Open access
Efficiency Analysis Using DEA
Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life
This paper examines health care reform in urban and rural China. Before health care reform, Chinese health service facilities were run entirely by the state and basically they performed a social welfare function. This health care system greatly improved the population health conditions but many problems started to emerge in 1980s when the economic reform started. Since then, the government has been struggling to maintain a balance between meeting people’s health care needs and develop the health care “industry”. Problems and their contribution factors in organization, financing and performance of the health care reform are examined and analyzed. In terms of organization, decentralization of the decision making power in health sector and marketization of the medical establishments constitutes the main organizational changes in the health care reform. This organizational reform of health sector as an imposed institution change, encounters lots of resistance in the process of implementation. A tremendous amount of conflictions arises because of the commercialization of health sector that used to perform social welfare function. In
Healthcare, Law, Governance, and Management Studies
OHADA, the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa, has a long tradition of drafting uniform business laws for the Francophone countries of West and Central Africa. However, OHADA has not so far addressed the topic of competition law, although several regional economic integration systems in Africa already have supranational competition law in place, such as the competition law of the West African Monetary and Economic Union (WAEMU), or are about to draft and implement such laws. This paper discusses what role OHADA could play in the future in the field of competition law. It thereby adopts a European perspective by relying on the experience of the European Union regarding the harmonization of the domestic competition law of its member states. As a basis for the analysis, the paper first describes the advantages of having competition law for African states in general. It identifies a dual economic and political function of competition law. First, competition law would help to increase the efficiency of the African domestic economies and protect these economies against restraints on competition initiated in particular by multinational firms. Second, competition policy should be part of a policy package of good governance that addresses problems of corruption and bid rigging in particular. The need for competition law and the advantages deriving from it as well as the institutional challenges it presents are illustrated by a discussion of the case of Tanzanian beer, which was dealt with by the Tanzanian Fair Trade Commission but which would have been a prime candidate for the new regional competition law of the East African Community. In a substantive analysis, the paper first explains that the EU and OHADA apply different concepts of harmonization. While the EU uses the term with regard to the harmonization of domestic laws, OHADA adopts uniform laws directly applicable in its member states. It may be surprising the EU has never forced its member states to harmonize their national competition laws. Yet, within the framework of Regulation 1/2003, EU law has set up a decentralized procedural system that integrates the national authorities and courts for the purpose of enforcing EU competition law. It is this procedural approach that has most recently accelerated a process of autonomous harmonization of domestic competition laws with the EU standards. The paper explains the reasons for this kind of “soft” harmonization against the background of the decisions of the German legislature in reaction to the adoption of Regulation 1/2003. The paper then discusses various options for OHADA to deal with competition law in the future. It rejects the classical approach, which consists of drafting a uniform competition law applicable in all OHADA member states, the adoption of a supranational OHADA competition law, which would also include the creation of an OHADA competition authority, and the harmonization of the domestic competition laws of member states. Rather, it proposes an approach consisting of “soft” harmonization. This approach would consist of the development of non-binding recommendations on competition policy issues, which could be followed by a competition authority–domestic or regional–that would take into account the specific socioeconomic situation of the region as well as the need for sustainable development and for integrating Sub-Saharan countries into the world economy. Finally, the paper criticizes the current EU policy of exporting competition law as part of its negotiations of Economic Partnership Agreements with developing countries in particular. Instead of promoting regional competition law, which might easily involve regional reorganization, the paper recommends that the EU support the creation of an African Competition Policy Center that would work on policy guidelines with a view to developing an African competition policy. However, whether the financing of such a Center should come from the EU and whether this Center should be established as part of the OHADA institutional framework are secondary questions.
The performance evaluation is the process by which it is estimated the overall performance of the employee. Most of the employees sought to obtain feedback on the manner in which meets their activities and persons who are responsible for the direction of other employees must evaluate individual performance to decide the actions to be taken.
Although personnel department can develop different approaches to senior executives, professionals, managers, supervisors, employees and workers, needed uniformity within each category to get usable results. Although personnel department that designs the system of evaluation, rarely carried out the same evaluation, which in most cases is the supervisor of the employee task
Within the managerial strategies that seek to enhance the human talent, the autonomous decentralized Municipal Government of Windows inside, establishing a system of performance management as an essential direction in the administrative process technique.
The importance of this procedure in the improvement of the human talent, is constructed this document to guide the implementation of the evaluation of job performance, avoiding it is restricted to a simple superficial and one-sided view of the head with respect to the functional behavior of the appraisee.
Thus, it seeks to ensure that the performance evaluation provide information on weaknesses, capabilities, skills, motivation, needs, values and attitudes of staff skills and individual and institutional decision-making with a view to implement actions necessary to enable, ensure quality and competent servers to count.
Article 76 of the LOSEP, establishes that assessment is based on quantitative and qualitative indicators of management, aimed at boosting the achievement of the goals and institutional purposes, development of public servants and the continuous improvement of the quality of the public service provided by the entities, institutions, agencies or legal persons identified in section 3 of this Act. Tit V, chap.6, Art.76 (LOSEP)
It consists of continuous evaluation of the management of the human talent, based on institutional programming and results achieved in accordance with the parameters that the Ministry of labour relations issued to the effect, whose goals must be previously known by the server.
The scheduled performance evaluation and outcome, is intended to measure and stimulate the management of the entity of internal processes and servers, through the setting of objectives, targets and quantitative and qualitative indicators based on a managerial organizational culture based on observation and achievement of expected results, as well as a policy of accountability that motivates the development in the career of public service focused on improving the quality of service and to improve the quality of life of citizens.
This paper aims to describe and analyze the trajectory of public planning and management of tourism in the city of Rio de Janeiro and its degree of articulation with National Policies which deal with through the decades of 1990 to 2000. Throughout this interstitium, the relative importance of tourism in the public organization of the Brazilian state increases, leading to the development of the first guidelines that cope with systematically in some degree. This change is primarily reflected in the National Tourism Policy 1996-1999, and later in the National Tourism Plan 2003-2007 and 2007-2010. Meanwhile, in the wider institutional architecture, the powers of municipal governments change and they ascend in the new democratic system as primary instances of production and implementation of public policies. The transfer of political and administrative functions from the federal government to the municipalities and the emergence of new forms of intergovernmental coordination is the heading of this process. In the case of tourism, this element is apparent in the policies of the National Municipalization Tourism Program – PNMT and in the subsequent Tourism Regionalization Program – PRT. However, the general movement of decentralization creates new challenges for the conduction of local public policies to which are added, on the one hand, increasing restrictions, notably the fiscal ones of the central government, and secondly, the increased competition in a global scale, the latter reverberating especially in large cities. In the case of the city of Rio de Janeiro, a new conception of public planning is inaugurated with its first Strategic Plan – Rio Sempre Rio, in 1995, from which is made the city Tourism Plan – Plano Maravilha, in 1997. It is suggested that, in an attempt to reverse a context of decadence and financial dependence on the federal government, the municipal government has been guided by political and administrative routines, which, in turn, turned out to be unable to support proposals for a long-term planning. Moreover, the enduring political isolation of the city seems to have led also to a relatively autonomous path in formatting of the content of local tourism policies, hindering the city integration into the PNMT and later into the PRT. Considering the vastness of variables that intersect in the shaping of tourism, it is opted to focus this research based on the guidelines of intergovernmental articulation expressed in the official tourism plans – the national and local ones –, what is complemented by informations obtained directly through interviews with government officials and private sector agents which compose the city tourism superstructure. The results are discussed qualitatively.
Smartmeters report the current electricity consumption over the internet back to their energy providers. Finely-sampled power consumption enables the energy provider to learn the habits of the customer's household in which the smart meter is installed. This paper presents a protocol which preserves customer privacy but also allows the detection of unregistered smart meters and prevents spamming and replay attacks. A trusted-third-party is not needed. This protocol, whose security proof relies on the strong RSA assumption and the random oracle model, is based on zero-knowledge techniques. The protocol has been implemented on different hardware platforms and benchmark results are given.
Open access
Cryptography and Data Security
Smart Grid Security and Resilience
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
For more than 20 years, black-box impossibility results have been used to argue the infeasibility of constructing certain cryptographic primitives (e.g., key agreement) from others (e.g., one-way functions). In this dissertation we further extend the frontier of this field by demonstrating several new impossibility results as well as a new framework for studying a more general class of constructions.
Our first two results demonstrate impossibility of black-box constructions of two commonly used cryptographic primitives. In our first result we study the feasibility of black-box constructions of predicate encryption schemes from standard assumptions and demonstrate strong limitations on the types of schemes that can be constructed. In our second result we study black-box constructions of constant-round zero-knowledge proofs from one-way permutations and show that, under commonly believed complexity assumptions, no such constructions exist.
A widely recognized limitation of black-box impossibility results, however, is that they say nothing about the usefulness of (known) non-black-box techniques. This state of affairs is unsatisfying as we would at least like to rule out constructions using the set of techniques we have at our disposal. With this motivation in mind, in the final result of this dissertation we propose a new framework for black-box constructions with a non-black-box flavor, specifically, those that rely on zero-knowledge proofs relative to some oracle. Our framework is powerful enough to capture a large class of known constructions, however we show that the original black-box separation of key agreement from one-way functions still holds even in this non-black-box setting that allows for zero-knowledge proofs.
We define a new notion of relatively-sound non-interactive zeroknowledge (NIZK) proofs, where a private verifier with access to a trapdoor continues to be sound even when the Adversary has access to simulated proofs and common reference strings. It is likely that this weaker notion of relative-soundness suffices in most applications that need simulation-soundness. We show that for certain languages whicharediversegroups,and henceallowsmoothprojectivehashfunctions, one can obtain more efficient single-theorem relatively-sound NIZKsas opposed to simulation-sound NIZKs. We alsoshow that such relatively-sound NIZKs can be used to build rather efficient publiclyverifiable CCA2-encryption schemes. By employing this new publicly-verifiable encryption scheme along withanassociatedsmoothprojective-hash,weshowthatarecentPAKmodel single-round password-basedkey exchange protocol of Katz and
The public school has always committed itself to strengthen some kind of discipline structure within itself,and to further upgrade the social integrating function of public school;some countries even try to make the public school to be a part of a bigger functional entity.However,the public school,as an imagined functional entity,has been confronting the separation of and conflicts between institutional structure and technological structure since the very beginning.A few scholars believe that it is not proper to relate the structural looseness with any kind of value judgment.They,therefore,define broadly as the decentralization of power,the actual causal independence,the invisibility of intervening behaviors or rules,the delaying of response,and the substitution among elements.In this way,loose coupling is equated with loose 'controlling',leaving a hint for their defense of the coupling.Such a broad definition of can refer to and blur several kinds of loose coupling.To understand as the conflict,separation and autonomous collaboration among structures will help us to recognize the flaw of loose structure within public school organizations.
This thesis addresses the issue of devolution and its relation to the Scottish National Party (SNP) through the lenses of historical institutionalism. It aims at answering the question, how and to what extent the devolution influenced the policies and political behaviour of the SNP as well as its internal organization. The change of the SNP is also viewed on the basis of various political theories and typologies of political parties. Because the primary aim of the SNP is to deliver independence to Scotland, the special attention is also paid to the mutual relation of devolution as a weaker form of self-determination and independence. It is possible to define three waves of the impact of devolution on the SNP. The last one leads to the establishment of Scottish autonomous institutions. Althoutgh the Labour Party tried to minimized the SNP in the political arena, the SNP took a full advantage of a new institutional setting and managed to form a Scottish government. Keywords New Labour, Labour Party, devolution, Scottish National Party, decentralization, Scotland
Abstract. We present a generic transformation that allows us to use a large class of pairing-based signatures to construct schemes for signing group elements in a structure preserving way. As a result of our transformation we obtain a new efficient signature scheme for signing a vector of group elements that is based only on the well established decisional linear assumption (DLIN). Moreover, the public keys and signatures of our scheme consist of group elements only, and a signature is verified by evaluating a set of pairing-product equations. In combination with the Groth-Sahai proof system, such a signature scheme is an ideal building block for many privacy-enhancing protocols. To do this, we start by proposing a new stateful signature scheme for signing vectors of exponents that is F-unforgeable under weak chosen message attacks. This signature scheme is of independent interest as it is compatible with Groth-Sahai proofs and secure under a computational assumption implied by DLIN. Then we give a general transformation for signing group elements based on signatures (for signing exponents) with efficient non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs. This transform also removes any dependence on state in the signature used to sign exponents. Finally, we obtain our result by instantiating this transformation with the above signature scheme and Groth-Sahai proofs. 1