The present report provides a review of the financing of Macedonian education as the country comes close to completing the first phase of decentralization. Soon all municipalities will find themselves in the second phase of decentralization, so the natural question is, what has been accomplished and what should be the next steps. Is decentralization complete, and if not, what remains to be done. A more specific technical question concerns the financing of decentralized education in Macedonia, and in particular the functioning of per student allocation formulas, in use since 2006. Properly managed and updated, allocation formulas may be a strong policy instrument of the Government.
Abstract. In the standard definition of a commitment scheme, the sender commits to a message and immediately sends the commitment to the recipient interested in it. However the sender may not always know at the time of commitment who will become interested in verifying it. Further, when the interested party does emerge, it could be critical to establish when the commitment was made. Employing a proof of work protocol at commitment time will later allow anyone to “carbon date ” when the commitment was made, approximately, without trusting any external parties. We present CommitCoin, an instantiation of this approach that harnesses the existing processing power of the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network; a network used to mint and trade digital cash. 1 Introductory Remarks Consider the scenario where Alice makes an important discovery. It is important to her that she receives recognition for her breakthrough, however she would also like to keep it a secret until she can establish a suitable infrastructure for monetizing it. By forgoing publication of her discovery, she risks Bob independently making the same discovery and publicizing it as his own. Folklore suggests that Alice might mail herself a copy of her discovery and leave the letter sealed, with the postal service’s timestamp intact, for a later resolution time. If Bob later claims the same discovery, the
This article describes the social, economic, and political processes that have influenced educational reform in two countries of Central Asia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. It compares and contrasts the various educational reform initiatives that have occurred in each country, including legal and policy frameworks, curriculum change, decentralization, privatization, finance, structure, and emphasis of educational systems, and the fit between what is taught in educational institutions and demands of the labor market. A sector-wide framework for education reform is presented to facilitate understanding of the very complex set of processes involved.
This paper explores patterns of governance and public finance in development through dissecting the substantiation of transportation infrastructure. We propose three propositions: modern society has increasing demands for government in promoting socio-economic progress; infrastructure is the basis for economic development and requires government coordination and balancing central planning with decentralized implementation; and transportation facilities contain public goods elements and optimal transportation financing involves using central grants together with sub-central revenues. We examine two country cases, the United States and China that have run through “great experiments,” the former with federalism and the latter socialism. Our research questions are: Is government financing of infrastructure necessary in promoting development? Is infrastructure planning an essential policy tool in promoting growth? We draw four general lessons. First, government has an irreplaceable role in infrastructure substantiation due to its long cycle, huge investment and public good elements. Second, central governments need to provide blueprints and policy direction in the substantiation process. We found that transportation planning has been stronger in the U.S. than commonly perceived while in China, central planning has been less rigid than generally understood. Third, fiscal federalism is a universal principle detached from a country’s political system: China in fact has a long history of fiscal federalism. Finally, central, sub-central and local governments all have an important role in funding transportation facilities. This paper contributes to the literature in several ways: to clear government of its exaggerated negative effect on development, to provide positive evidence for overall planning in infrastructure, and to extend fiscal federalism beyond political boundaries.
The following news item is taken in part from the July 22, 2010 issue of The Economist titled “Agents of change,” by Philip Ball. Conventional economic models failed to foresee the financial crisis. Could agent-based modeling (ABM) do better? ABM does not assume that the economy can achieve a settled equilibrium. No order or design is imposed on the economy from the top down. Unlike many models, ABMs are not populated with “representative agents”: identical traders, firms, or households whose individual behavior mirrors the economy as a whole. Rather, an ABM uses a bottom-up approach which assigns particular behavioral rules to each agent. For example, some may believe that prices reflect fundamentals whereas others may rely on empirical observations of past price trends. A link to this article can be found at http://www.economist.com/node/16636121?story_id=16636121. The following news item is taken in part from the August 5, 2010 issue of Nature titled “Link communities reveal multiscale complexity in networks,” by Yong-Yeol Ahn, James P. Bagrow, and Sune Lehmann. Here, we reinvent communities as groups of links rather than nodes and show that this unorthodox approach successfully reconciles the antagonistic organizing principles of overlapping communities and hierarchy. In contrast to the existing literature, which has entirely focused on grouping nodes, link communities naturally incorporate overlap while revealing hierarchical organization. We find relevant link communities in many networks. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09182. The following news item is taken in part from the August 12, 2010 issue of Science titled “Stability of Ecological Communities and the Architecture of Mutualistic and Trophic Networks,” by Elisa Thébault and Colin Fontaine. Research on the relationship between the architecture of ecological networks and community stability has mainly focused on one type of interaction at a time, making difficult any comparison between different network types. We used a theoretical approach to show that the network architecture favoring stability fundamentally differs between trophic and mutualistic networks. A highly connected and nested architecture promotes community stability in mutualistic networks, whereas the stability of trophic networks is enhanced in compartmented and weakly connected architectures. These theoretical predictions are supported by a meta-analysis on the architecture of a large series of real pollination (mutualistic) and herbivory (trophic) networks. We conclude that strong variations in the stability of architectural patterns constrain ecological networks toward different architectures, depending on the type of interaction. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1188321. The following news item is taken in part from the August 5, 2010 issue of arXiv titled “Emergence of Zipf's Law in the Evolution of Communication,” by Bernat Corominas-Murtra, Jordi Fortuny, and Ricard V. Solé. Zipf's law seems to be ubiquitous in human languages and appears to be a universal property of complex communicating systems. Following an early proposal made by Zipf concerning the presence of a tension between the efforts of speaker and hearer in a communication system, we introduce evolution by means of a variational approach to the problem based on Kullback's Minimum Discrimination of Information Principle. Using a formalism fully embedded in the framework of information theory, we demonstrate that Zipf's law is the only expected outcome of an evolving, communicative system under a rigorous definition of the communicative tension described by Zipf. A link to this article can be found at http://arXiv.org/abs/1008.0938. The following news item is taken in part from the August 26, 2010 issue of Nature titled “The evolution of eusociality,” by Martin A. Nowak, Corina E. Tarnita, and Edward O. Wilson. Eusociality, in which some individuals reduce their own lifetime reproductive potential to raise the offspring of others, underlies the most advanced forms of social organization and the ecologically dominant role of social insects and humans. For the past four decades kin selection theory, based on the concept of inclusive fitness, has been the major theoretical attempt to explain the evolution of eusociality. Here, we show the limitations of this approach. We argue that standard natural selection theory in the context of precise models of population structure represents a simpler and superior approach, allows the evaluation of multiple competing hypotheses, and provides an exact framework for interpreting empirical observations. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09205. The following news item is taken in part from the August 27, 2010 issue of Science titled “Optimally Interacting Minds,” by Bahador Bahrami, Karsten Olsen, Peter E. Latham, Andreas Roepstorff, Geraint Rees, and Chris D. Frith. In everyday life, many people believe that two heads are better than one. Our ability to solve problems together appears to be fundamental to the current dominance and future survival of the human species. But are two heads really better than one? We addressed this question in the context of a collective low-level perceptual decision-making task. For two observers of nearly equal visual sensitivity, two heads were definitely better than one, provided they were given the opportunity to communicate freely, even in the absence of any feedback about decision outcomes. But for observers with very different visual sensitivities, two heads were actually worse than the better one. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1185718. The following news item is taken in part from the August 19, 2010 issue of Nature titled “Promiscuity and the evolutionary transition to complex societies,” by Charlie K. Cornwallis, Stuart A. West, Katie E. Davis, and Ashleigh S. Griffin. A phylogenetic analysis of breeding behavior in birds shows that cooperation is more likely when promiscuity is low—a circumstance in which helpers can be more certain that they are offering aid to relatives. Intermediate levels of promiscuity favor the ability to distinguish relatives from nonrelatives. At high levels of promiscuity, no form of cooperation is favored. Levels of promiscuity therefore provide an explanation for differences between species in levels of cooperation. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09335. The following news item is taken in part from the August 23, 2010 issue of arXiv titled “Network Complexity of Foodwebs,” by Russell K. Standish. In previous work, I have developed an information theoretic complexity measure of networks. When applied to several real world foodwebs, there is a distinct difference in complexity between the real foodweb, and randomized control networks obtained by shuffling the network links. One hypothesis is that this complexity surplus represents information captured by the evolutionary process that generated the network. In this paper, I test this idea by applying the same complexity measure to several well-known artificial life models that exhibit ecological networks: Tierra, EcoLab, and Webworld. Contrary to what was found in real networks, the artificial life-generated foodwebs had little information difference between itself and randomly shuffled versions. A link to this article can be found at http://arXiv.org/abs/1008.3800. The following news item is taken in part from the August, 2010 issue of PLoS ONE titled “A New Measure of Centrality for Brain Networks,” by Karen E. Joyce, Paul J. Laurienti, Jonathan H. Burdette, and Satoru Hayasaka. Recent developments in network theory have allowed for the study of the structure and function of the human brain in terms of a network of interconnected components. In the work presented here, we propose a new centrality metric called leverage centrality that considers the extent of connectivity of a node relative to the connectivity of its neighbors. The leverage centrality of a node in a network is determined by the extent to which its immediate neighbors rely on that node for information. Degree, betweenness, eigenvector, and leverage centrality were compared using functional brain networks generated from healthy volunteers. We propose that this metric may be able to identify critical nodes that are highly influential within the network. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012200. The following news item is taken in part from the September 10, 2010 issue of Science titled “Biodiversity Conservation: Challenges Beyond 2010,” by Michael R.W. Rands, William M. Adams, Leon Bennun, Stuart H.M. Butchart, Andrew Clements, David Coomes, Abigail Entwistle, Ian Hodge, Valerie Kapos, Jörn P.W. Scharlemann, William J. Sutherland, and Bhaskar Vira. The continued growth of human populations and of per capita consumption have resulted in unsustainable exploitation of Earth's biological diversity, exacerbated by climate change, ocean acidification, and other anthropogenic environmental impacts. We argue that effective conservation of biodiversity is essential for human survival and the maintenance of ecosystem processes. Despite some conservation successes (especially at local scales) and increasing public and government interest in living sustainably, biodiversity continues to decline. Moving beyond 2010, successful conservation approaches need to be reinforced and adequately financed. However, in addition, more radical changes are required that recognize biodiversity as a global public good, that integrate biodiversity conservation into policies and decision frameworks for resource production and consumption, and that focus on wider institutional and societal changes to enable more effective implementation of policy. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1189138. The following news item is taken in part from the September 6, 2010 issue of arXiv titled “Are large complex economic systems unstable?,” by Sitabhra Sinha. Although classical economic theory is based on the concept of stable equilibrium, real economic systems appear to be always out of equilibrium. Indeed, they share many of the dynamical features of other complex systems, e.g., ecological foodwebs. We focus on the relation between increasing complexity of the economic network and its stability with respect to small perturbations in the dynamical variables associated with the constituent nodes. Inherent delays and multiple time scales suggest that economic systems will be more likely to exhibit instabilities as their complexity is increased even though the speed at which transactions are conducted has increased many fold through technological developments. Analogous to the birth of nonlinear dynamics from Poincare's work on the question of whether the solar system is stable, we suggest that similar theoretical developments may arise from efforts by econophysicists to understand the mechanisms by which instabilities arise in the economy. A link to this article can be found at http://arXiv.org/abs/1009.0972. The following news item is taken in part from the September 3, 2010 issue of Science titled “The Spread of Behavior in an Online Social Network Experiment,” by Damon Centola. How do social networks affect the spread of behavior? A popular hypothesis states that networks with many clustered ties and a high degree of separation will be less effective for behavioral diffusion than networks in which locally redundant ties are rewired to provide shortcuts across the social space. A competing hypothesis argues that when behaviors require social reinforcement, a network with more clustering may be more advantageous, even if the network as a whole has a larger diameter. I investigated the effects of network structure on diffusion by studying the spread of health behavior through artificially structured online communities. Individual adoption was much more likely when participants received social reinforcement from multiple neighbors in the social network. The behavior spread farther and faster across clustered-lattice networks than across corresponding random networks. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1185231. The following news item is taken in part from the September, 2010 issue of Cognitive Science titled “Language Acquisition Meets Language Evolution,” by Nick Chater and Morten H. Christiansen. Recent research suggests that language evolution is a process of cultural change, in which linguistic structures are shaped through repeated cycles of learning and use by domain-general mechanisms. This paper draws out the implications of this viewpoint for understanding the problem of language acquisition, which is cast in a new, and much more tractable, form. In essence, the child faces a problem of induction, where the objective is to coordinate with others (C-induction), rather than to model the structure of the natural world (N-induction). We argue that, of the two, C-induction is dramatically easier. More broadly, we argue that understanding the acquisition of any cultural form, whether linguistic or otherwise, during development, requires considering the corresponding question of how that cultural form arose through processes of cultural evolution. This perspective helps resolve the “logical” problem of language acquisition and has far-reaching implications for evolutionary psychology. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2009.01049.x. The following news item is taken in part from the September 8, 2010 issue of Nature titled “Early warning signals of extinction in deteriorating environments,” by John M. Drake and Blaine D. Griffen. Although understanding the causes of population extinction has been a central problem in theoretical biology for decades, the ability to anticipate extinction has remained elusive. Here, we argue that the causes of a population's decline are central to the predictability of its extinction. Specifically, environmental degradation may cause a tipping point in population dynamics, corresponding to a bifurcation in the underlying population growth equations, beyond which decline to extinction is almost certain. A link to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09389. The following news item is taken in part from the September, 2010 issue of SFI Working Papers titled “Self-Stabilizing Decentralized Signal Control of Realistic, Saturated Network Traffic,” by Stefan Lammer and Dirk Helbing. A coordination of vehicle flows is usually reached by a cyclical operation of traffic lights, and by synchronizing these cycles. However, the typical conditions, for which traffic lights are normally optimized for, never occur exactly. Large fluctuations in the number of vehicles arriving during one cycle time may lead to an inefficient usage of green times, which are often either too short or too long. The method we propose here allows for variable adjustments not only of the duration, but also of the order of green phases, while it reaches at least the same intersection throughput capacity as an optimized fixed-time controller. A link to this article can be found at http://www.santafe.edu/research/working-papers/abstract/67d8c997e841b3a 2e253aacad4e2851b/. The following news item is taken in part from the September, 2010 issue of SFI Working Papers titled “Information Driven Self-Organization: The Dynamical System Approach to Autonomous Robot Behavior,” by Nihat Ay, Ralf Der, and Mikhail Prokopenko. In recent years, information theory has come into the focus of researchers interested in the sensorimotor dynamics of both robots and living beings. One root for these approaches is the idea that living beings are information processing systems and that the optimization of these processes should be an evolutionary advantage. Apart from these more principal questions, there is much interest recently in the question how a robot can be equipped with an internal drive for innovation or curiosity that may serve as a drive for an open ended, self-determined development of the robot. The success of these approaches depends essentially on the choice of a convenient measure for the information. This paper studies in some detail the use of the predictive information of the sensorimotor process. A link to this article can be found at http://www.santafe.edu/research/working-papers/abstract/b67e300041 30f486027ea324c080a058/. Winter Meeting on Statistical Physics, Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico, 2011/1/4-7 https://sites.google.com/site/wintermeetingstatphys IWSOS 2011, Fifth International Workshop on Self-Organizing Systems, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2011/02/23-25 http://iwsos2011.tm.kit.edu/ IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence—SSCI 2011, Paris, France, 2011/04/11-15 http://www.ieee-ssci.org/ EVOSTAR 2011, Torino, Italy, 2011/4/27-29 http://evostar.org/ International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS 2011), Boston, MA, USA, 2011/06/26-07/01 http://www. necsi.edu/events/iccs2011/ GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 2011/07/12-16 http://www. sigevo.org/gecco-2011/ IJCAI 2011, The 22nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Barcelona, Spain, 2011/07/16-22 http://ijcai-11.iiia.csic.es/ ECAL 11: European Conference on Artificial Life, Paris, France, 2011/08/8-12 http://www.ecal11.org/
In October 1976, political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset studied recent polls and predicted that “if present trends continue,” the upcoming presidential election would be the first “in which Catholics have not been considerably more supportive of the Democratic nominee than Protestants.” Just a few weeks earlier, former governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter had enjoyed a comfortable lead over Republican President Gerald Ford in national public opinion surveys. But several different polls now revealed that no longer was the case. Lipset blamed the “Catholic defection” from Democratic ranks that he believed had come, at least in part, because of Carter's perceived shift to the left on a variety of issues; he appeared to many voters to be more liberal than he had been during the primary campaign. In addition, Carter's “cultural and religious style,” combined with a media fixation on abortion and his relationship with Catholics, had undermined his support among the nation's largest Christian denomination.1 This came at an inopportune time for Democrats, whose identity and relationship to the nation's religious people were in flux. As William Prendergast has written about the post–civil rights period: “Lost to the Democratic Party were millions of Catholics who would have enlisted under its banner in earlier times. Most had not become Republicans. They were adrift in a state of independence awaiting a candidate, a cause, a party more congenial to their values than the party of their fathers had become by the dawn of the decade of the seventies.”2 There were those who believed that Carter could have been that candidate. It was not to be. In short, Carter had what observers at the time labeled a “Catholic problem.” As it turned out, he also had a Protestant problem, as he represented the ways that the Democratic Party coalition was unraveling along religious lines. Both Catholic and Protestant problems resulted from the convergence of several interrelated forces. First, the civil rights movement that peaked in the mid-1960s had drawn its moral energy from a particular religious vision for America. The black freedom struggle legitimated religious activism to achieve a desirable liberal political end.3 After much internal struggle, Catholics and many Protestants accepted that vision—at least rhetorically—and reaffirmed America's Christian heritage. Protestants had long marginalized Catholics and neglected their place in that heritage. Now, however, Catholics demanded acceptance on their own terms. Carter's Catholic problem, then, came at a time when the nation's largest Christian denomination believed that they had finally been embraced as part of the nation's Christian heritage. At the same time, however, other events of the 1960s accelerated trends toward secularization. For some people, Carter—the most openly devout presidential candidate since William Jennings Bryan—represented the possibility to reclaim a moral and religious vision for America and to encourage Protestant and Catholic cooperation to achieve that vision. He symbolized a postracial, more inclusive South, the antithesis of a nation that had become increasingly secular. His religious vision for the nation, however, and his ideas about the separation of church and state meant that his candidacy threatened the avenue through which Catholics had participated in public life since the nineteenth century. In a bit of historic irony, the nation's perceived secularization had roots in Carter's Southern Baptist theology and ideas about church and state and religious liberty. In a sense, of course, Carter's Catholic problem was not new. Catholics and Protestants had long viewed each other with at least suspicion, if not outright hostility. What was different now was that Catholics' position in public life had changed since the 1960s. For the first time, Catholics qua Catholics were part of the public debate. That is, in 1960, John F. Kennedy had been elected president only after assuring American Protestants that he could govern in a secular manner, that his being Catholic in effect would not matter.4 Now, however, the civil rights movement had changed the nation's political and religious landscape and created new opportunities for religion in public life. At its best, the civil rights movement reflected Catholic inclusion and they now expected to be a part of the new religious and political dialogue. Despite Catholic misgivings, the fact that Carter was a man of faith encouraged them that a shared religious vision for America could give them common ground. Carter's problem with Catholics—or their problem with him, to be more accurate—revolved around several issues. In one way or another, all the issues touched on Carter's stance on the separation of church and state. The potentially most explosive issue was abortion and where the candidate stood on the need for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. Second was the possibility of state support for parochial schools. Finally, Carter's being an outspoken and active Southern Baptist layman aroused general suspicion among the nation's voting Catholics. In the 1970s, these were interwoven, a complex web of issues that were difficult to separate from each other. Together they pointed to the paradox of Catholic involvement in politics. On the one hand, Catholics now expected to be taken seriously on their own terms in public life. On the other hand, they continued to suffer (at least in their own minds) marginalization. One unnamed Milwaukee, Wisconsin, priest summed up the problem succinctly. He wrote Congressman Clement J. Zablocki about the “very real danger that Catholics are being alienated by the seeming indifference of these Democratic Leaders to the problems of American Catholics.” His parishioners were no longer solidly Democratic and were skeptical of Carter. “They seem to think that [Carter] and the Party is [sic] not concerned about a deterioration of respect for life, eg. [sic] abortion, about the deterioration of the cities, about those constitutional aids to parochial education.” Indeed, “Mr. Carter seems to favor secularization of all education.” This priest recalled “the anti-Catholic attitudes of the Baptists in Bay View,” and his and his parishioners' allegiance to the Democratic Party was shaken.5 For him and others, abortion, the separation of church and state, and secularization of society all were of a piece. Sociologist, Catholic priest, and Carter supporter Andrew Greeley was one of the most public observers of Carter's Catholic problem. The worst part of it for Greeley was that the problem was one that Carter could have addressed and alleviated, with only a little effort. In fact, “it took a lot of effort on his part to get into trouble on a number of ‘Catholic’ issues.” On abortion, according to Greeley, Carter's personal position resembled that of Catholics. Carter should have simply said nothing; however, he, was “under pressure from feminist militants who wanted another symbolic victory over Catholics.” Feminists would not suddenly favor Ford over Carter, Greeley reasoned, but Catholics might.6 The 1976 Democratic plank amounted to two sentences in a lengthy document that covered the full range of issues expected to face a president—from taxes and health care to foreign policy. Democrats acknowledged “the religious and ethical nature of the concerns which many Americans have on the subject of abortion.” Nevertheless, a constitutional amendment was “undesirable.” Roe v. Wade should be allowed to stand.7 Blaming Carter for the platform was not entirely fair, since the platform did not meet all of the standard bearer's demands. To be sure, his would not have many Catholics His would have neglected to it would have simply to health care and with their own In to abortion, and former and first pointed to Catholic in the Baptist a that had since the 1960s but was perceived Carter and its for for Catholic about Carter's President Ford an to Catholic that the Carter to the Catholic to the of but to the and of by Catholics.” Carter should his personal to abortion and the fact that he had with Catholics, to his by the to the of on the Catholic John F. Kennedy for Catholics Protestants for their and it was time to the the of religious and Jimmy Carter as a a Southern and to as as a former candidate for the Carter that the problem was not the of or Greeley or Jimmy Indeed, it was and it would Carter on election Catholics were in and most of them were For they could not be or taken for For a to he Catholics to as a when they would be more to Catholics would not a way Americans would a with and on of the would they would for in a voting and give it to the The problem could be but not by with or of Catholic it first that Carter the nature of the problem and the to which Catholics the American and the Democratic the were two Democratic one of William Jennings and the other of The former is the was Catholic two had been at since the nineteenth but each to the party that did one The party of its roots to and was for most of the of American The with and was for most of the of as and of and As and other observers Catholics had been Democratic since the nineteenth century. At the same time, as a coalition of the Democratic Party Protestants as much of the liberal or Protestant to support for the time of Carter's however, that had to liberal Protestant support for and many of them their support to Democratic That liberal Protestant toward the Democrats to be the most of the political party in the of the to Carter could not the in his own party in the same way that he the and roots of the relationship and in the The the two Catholics and their of and the those Catholic “They were the most of people, as than his was Catholic of in the and political to were This parochial symbolic what the parochial if not that they were in to public that openly for the Protestant and for and all its and There were that Carter The first and problem was the 1976 Democratic Carter the with the support of and black with no active Catholic It was of to the of American Carter had Martin to on the platform at the But it was a not a Catholic to the for what be the first time in Carter's Democratic coalition be than and black Protestants a few In to a general it Catholics. What was that Catholics believed that Carter in to liberal on after the be to get was not a of Catholics. Indeed, in his of the problem, at they as of than with the political Nevertheless, the problem was more than one of perceived and It was real for many more for it had political Catholic revealed the of in the Democratic Party in the 1960s. As liberal and had taken of the party from and the of those Catholics. that by the 1960s Catholics had enjoyed opportunities that and movement up the In fact, were than the whose was the of during Nevertheless, they the of that and the and real of of and their the of by Greeley and that They marginalized and Greeley with that Martin a of the and to on the platform with Carter. of a of the an at left from a of anti-Catholic and Catholic of their place in the public Carter's acceptance the of a who have and had to for or to suffer from the public are or by their to For Greeley, that was a that “the fact that most of those who to Catholic are who are not Catholic but a for their that Carter people who were is, who had or This would be more than It would Carter who could problems and the candidate into and from of anti-Catholic The most of what could came with Carter's of the issue of to parochial the Catholic is its to What Carter did not seem to was that of church and state is an anti-Catholic It is to to parochial because it is the of all the and Protestant that to to to parochial and to their over To to would be political to parochial was one of two issues that as abortion other was that Carter could about a that would the first to in to with to be a to the of the This would parochial which were and to Catholics that Carter had their in they did not in Carter's not as as would have the had to Catholic One revealed the difficult position Carter was as he to these political with Democratic secular to his own personal That concerned the relationship church and state in It Carter's position as being one of a in the for the separation of church and state. a position reflected the “in that religious freedom be threatened by a from in the “the public to parochial The candidate continued to however, to to public schools. to religious at the of America's and it is also a the has Nevertheless, that a some to some from public could in the of that was to all and and of the they had as a public than a to The did an of “the of to freedom of at the same time, the public or to a After the is one way Americans achieve desirable the of and in 1976, the Carter a to the Catholic The Carter's a and for for to whose It that a parochial had a long and a and in the of What was at however, was “the of millions of and Americans to a religious for their This at the of America's and It is a not by Carter a on a Georgia that would give to and schools. In Carter that as be to that the freedom of and that parochial have in the in the Carter's in the separation of church and state was in his ideas about personal and should be from to his own and about moral issues on that to and moral to were the state should The American Protestant was that Catholics, who their allegiance to the in were not to their own is no that Carter shared the that threatened religious he did his about the of to the issue of This to the that was a Catholic As Catholic and political observers it threatened the political on the of the who had long up their In October 1976, a presidential among its President Gerald Ford of the Carter with by revealed abortion as according to a was no that those to the of the the more issue was the Democratic Party which a constitutional amendment Roe v. Carter's own position on abortion was He his personal to the but was to support to Roe v. long he had been to the is He the governor of Georgia after v. was in state and he had been governor for a of when it was with Roe v. the Carter's and that Carter to the in That is not in the but was a in that that to abortion What was Carter wrote the to a in by and an of and a of all of which for the need for of and The would be the of of In his Carter his in with him now the of each and to many they would to have and when they would to have them as an for and as an for and Carter was that it was now to these issues more it was the of each to what he or to the of to wanted into on a Carter's to in a problem for him in the but that after the appeared Carter's on abortion a bit and he his to This came in to in a public and to the of As a by the time he was a presidential candidate, Carter to a personal to abortion, but an to effort that would Roe v. He did the Carter as he would support a to national and that Carter had acknowledged that “under he would support a constitutional amendment on a Georgia state Despite the fact that of Carter's position on a constitutional amendment from in and appeared on to the that was to Catholic support for Carter over the only Catholic candidate in the After the Carter that the took his of and was in fact, a of his to a constitutional After he the he and his did to up his Catholic At the of on a in he with Catholic of of of the of Catholic John of John J. of and of were of the of the Catholic The Catholic were that Carter in his support of Roe v. but they were encouraged that he, according to a with not an effort to a constitutional to to Carter, he his own it that Catholics, or have a to an would to an At least one of people, Catholics for a that Carter was on the of his position on abortion in to Catholic on the Catholics for a had in a with Carter, a fact that to the was in of recent with the of Catholic Catholics for a was that Carter continued to a constitutional amendment and the to which most Catholic were to Indeed, the that that a of Catholics that abortion should be a a and in a of the in was At least one priest, his that the Carter and the Catholic would to President Ford and Catholic support for Jimmy The wrote in The was that on abortion threatened to the to a In fact, he the Democrats had long been more in with the of the church on issues than the stance of the Republicans. Both Democrats and Catholics are by a common for the of and the people of society and Catholics to the abortion issue to become a in the from Wisconsin, where the of Catholic believed that their own could be to the Carter campaign. The had for in wanted Democrats to a Catholic on life from abortion to to As to the life issues on the with if Life is the only one that the to would have a problem To that Carter could be to a constitutional “the Catholic and the political be to to a of the problem. Democratic Catholics are to a to In his that Carter should not his own position on abortion, which was as it and be in in the What was Carter should not be concerned about the in since the are more to than to lead Carter should that the movement at the and those have their own Carter should to and he did be all was that was the and who did not in to all that the or them to But abortion was to Catholics. It could not be as as to a of in fact, as out, the were in effort. in the revealed that abortion was the issue on which was of among The same could not be said for the nation's Indeed, if was on abortion it was that it was a Catholic issue that threatened to of religious liberty. In Protestant Catholics were to the separation church and state. This was the opinion of the of the Southern Baptist Christian Life was a of the of a in the in an effort to amendment that would have Roe v. The acknowledged among the nation's religious people about The issue for them was religious which “the freedom to abortion in of his or own and religious and in with Most Southern Baptists had the issue much in 1976, and Carter's position was with most of those who Nevertheless, as a political issue was After Roe v. Wade abortion a national voters who were their own of those Carter They that abortion would not most of Carter not to on the It was more that he his position and and former candidate for the Democratic presidential a Carter that is being up by the in the on abortion.” Nevertheless, Carter's position was the that fact, the what the Carter political should be. to Carter's was to to on the abortion than two left in the and with Ford that was of the has to be on to those Carter should the of the of to to to them only a of voters who were more concerned about Carter's to with the political Democratic William the of abortion as an issue that could In he a election when his him with the issue in the of their campaign. first Carter, not Carter's personal to abortion and to the as as his that should to encourage were general and become and a of voters in an effort to an few Carter and those for him on the on the the position on position should be as of political of about the of Carter should also Ford and personal about they would for abortion in their position no more than The to Carter's was to the The that Carter's Catholic problem did not him in In fact, he of the Catholic to along with of the Protestant That of the Catholic was considerably than the that had in it also was than Carter would in when he of the Catholic in he did little to his Catholic He did to the of to for This an among his and those who had him during the campaign. In a of Carter's in the of the the to the president for public the outspoken and addressed the president in a to be for and and over Carter's about for concerned among that Carter would position and support the of for when in the of the They also that Carter's to and and in a in an Carter's of that his position potentially of of the the an most these Carter the his would in he had much on state would have in his he that his was to during campaign. is more liberal than Despite pressure from his own Carter stood his that his own stance on the relationship church and state his in he to Southern Baptist and but with other In fact, the problem had the the of the polls that Carter to have the election all but he to a of with in an to up his The was that Carter's religious faith would lead him to a new state that would the of his In a on in the face of own however, Carter that he had on a lot of with have in many of was for a Southern Baptist Carter, and particular was a of on the But it came in the at the time for Carter. were by his of the and by the fact that his came the of a of and In a sense, Carter's to his and to to his was with his The support for separation of church and state was in the that and personal would This was most in an in which most people were with the of a that was at least in In the was not and Carter was not a But events of the 1960s had drawn the into the nation and the nation into the South, a that had to its by the Carter continued to that personal and but his to new religious revealed the to which position in national society had He a relationship with several of the Southern Baptist the Jimmy president of the from to As Carter encouraged the of a by the and Baptist to the for what appeared to be The of the Georgia Baptist The Christian his in a through the Carter's with Baptist in some The president should be for a with those religious the same as he would be with that the to the into the and to of and for the President to which become in and Southern Baptists to some Carter's of what Baptists that John F. Kennedy would have he their at in during the campaign. to for other Georgia Baptist In his to Carter by the personal and The as his and he with during his Carter had from but a As governor of Georgia and as president of the Carter had and to religious of all in the separation of church and state and would not to in at Carter's of a was from where Baptists believed their primary Nevertheless, Carter and he to be in the be that Baptists have no to be concerned about Carter's relationship with other religious the that expected from the in his Carter an effort to to religious then, however, it was In fact, his own denomination in The that of the denomination that with Carter on the nature of religious and the of the in a particular moral vision on the The new of the denomination was more concerned with they believed that Carter's of religious had encouraged the nation's secularization. This the for abortion to become a political issue for Southern Baptists in the and for them and Catholics to a shared religious vision of America that had in the of the civil rights Carter's had drawn into the political if Carter turned not to be their candidate. Carter had to from to his faith for political not an active a vision that to Carter's Southern As a most Southern Baptists their way into the Republican Carter's ideas about religious and about the separation of church and state. in the they the need to abortion as a moral and religious issue than a Catholic It an issue in the nation's religious heritage. One Baptist the to abortion a Catholic issue was a which the of the millions of who are not changed and in the a of Southern Baptists for Life acknowledged that Southern Baptists have the to to the of They to and they with over the the Christian Life should abortion in the They that but only after in Most Catholics and came to on Nevertheless, many Catholics continued to however, they now did the of a party that Carter's on the of religious The among many observers was that the Democrats had become the secular the one to religious In fact, Carter's position would be the one by Catholic Democratic in the a position that them at with of the
Education was one of the sectors that was being decentralized except 6 sectors ( Defense, Security, Foreign Affair, Justice, Finance, and Religious Affair) that are still under the management of the central government, centralized. During the decentralization of education, the mechanism of education planning has become difficult and complicated. This is due to the complexity of the procedure that the plan has to go through; a long process, starting from the preparation of supporting data until the final stage of deciding the most appropriate programs and activities for the country. Besides, this process has to involve all stakeholders of education, the approval from the parliament must be obtained so that the proposed budget can be funded.<br><br>The main objectives of this research are two fold. First, to make better or to improve the education planning mechanism at the Directorate for Development of Junior Secondary Education (DDJSE). Second, through improved planning, to expand the scope of service to the citizens of the country so that every citizen in Indonesia will have an equal access to Junior Secondary Education (JSE) and to improve the quality of JSE in Indonesia. To achieve these research objectives, practitioner research was used as an umbrella of research methodology with action research as the main research method. Data were collected by using data collection methods: questionnaires, observations, interviews, and document analysis from related sources. The research was done from 2004 until 2008.<br><br>This research involved all of the staff from the DDJSE, some staff from provincial and district education office, and other stakeholders of education. The involvement of all level of education staffs was aimed to find the most appropriate plan that suitable for all three levels of education offices. Whatever happens in one of the three levels of education offices will affect the other education offices. <br><br>During this research, the following actions were conducted as part of the education planning process: creation of current and complete data (EMIS), development of evaluation criteria for effective decentralized education planning, bottom up planning, coordination and synchronization, development of clear division of labour in education planning among the layer of education bureaucracy based on government regulation number 38/2007, capacity building, participation decision making, intensive and regular monitoring and evaluation. <br><br>At the end of the research completion, the researcher concluded that effective education planning had significantly increased the access to and the quality of JSE from year to year. The increase in access to JSE is shown by the significant improvement in Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) at JSE. The improvement of the quality of JSE is shown by the constant increase in students scores at the National Examination (UN). This research does not claim to be the only reason for the success of the DDJSE, but through this Research by Project there is clear improvement in JSE in Indonesia.<br><br>In addition, the research approach, results, and strategies have been very valuable for the DDJSE in improving the access and quality of JSE in Indonesia. <br>
Traditional electricity meters are replaced by Smart Meters in customers' households. Smart Meters collects fine-grained utility consumption profiles from customers, which in turn enables the introduction of dynamic, time-of-use tariffs. However, the fine-grained usage data that is compiled in this process also allows to infer the inhabitant's personal schedules and habits. We propose a privacy-preserving protocol that enables billing with time-of-use tariffs without disclosing the actual consumption profile to the supplier. Our approach relies on a zero-knowledge proof based on Pedersen Commitments performed by a plug-in privacy component that is put into the communication link between Smart Meter and supplier's back-end system. We require no changes to the Smart Meter hardware and only small changes to the software of Smart Meter and back-end system. In this paper we describe the functional and privacy requirements, the specification and security proof of our solution and give a performance evaluation of a prototypical implementation.
This article contributes to the limited empirical literature on the impact of decentralization on economic welfare by investigating the hypothesis that shifts towards more fiscal decentralization in health services would be accompanied by improvements in population health. Building on a conventional public finance model applied to health care, this hypothesis is tested on a panel data of the highly decentralized Canadian provinces during the period 1979 to 1995. The results of the exploratory empirical analysis presented in this article suggest that fiscal decentralization of health services in Canada has had a positive and substantial influence on the effectiveness of public policy in improving a population's health over the period studied.
The research theme is important for the local economy and financial literature on local public finance. It is known that the tax base of the territories is quite uneven and providing quality public services is impossible based on their own sources. The support for less developed local public administration from the financial point of view requires fiscal decentralization and involves financial equalization procedures or other similar measures aimed at eliminating the effect of unequal distribution for potential funding sources. Financial equalization is a group of financial actions made in order to overcome economic and fiscal disparities between territories. The purpose of financial equalization is the additional funding of less developed territories in order to reduce regional disparities. Key words: financial equalization, fiscal decentralization, inter-budgetary
The aim of this research is to better understand the effects of a decentralized health system of the Philippines on public health care expenditures by investigating determinants of local government public health spending for year 2007. Within the context of the Philippines’ decentralized health system and health externalities that arise at the individual-level and manifest at the regional level, particular emphasis is given to spatial spillovers and fiscal interactions among municipalities. The research addresses these issues in an empirical spatial econometric framework utilizing public finance local government data for the Philippines. Competition for health resources including doctors and drugs, thereby bidding up the costs of health inputs is one of the potential causes for positive fiscal spatial dependence cited in this paper. It is also anticipated that this could be an outcome of yardstick competition, where local agents strategically compete with each other by spending higher in order to be re-elected, 2007 being an election year.
A coin-tossing protocol lets two parties decide on a string that should be a random (or at least pseudorandom) string. In this paper, we focus on taking advantage of the perfectly hiding commitment scheme, constant-round perfect zero-knowledge arguments and arguments of knowledge to construct a two-party constant-round perfect protocol for secure coin-tossing, where both of two parties can obtain the common resulting coins and the resulting coins are guaranteed to be statistically close to uniform. The security of our protocol is obtained against malicious non-uniform adversaries that may arbitrarily deviate from the protocol specification. Comparing with the Barak's protocol, we utilize the black-box reduction in the process of security proof and the rounds of our protocol decrease obviously.
An identity-based threshold key management scheme without secure channel is proposed for ad hoc network. The master private key, which is shared among all nodes by the Shamir's secret sharing scheme, is produced by all nodes when network is formed. The nodes' public keys are derived from their identities. In order to get the private key, each node needs to prove their identity to distributed CAs using a zero-knowledge proof protocol to get the share of private key. Compared with former schemes, our scheme doesn't need any local registration authority(LRA), which is easy to be compromised by adversary. When a node leaves the network, shares of the master private key would be renewed. In the end, we prove our scheme is correct and secure.
This paper intends to study the promotion of fiscal decentralization and the ”trinity reform package”, which are important local finance reforms in modern Japan. Firstly, it introduces the financial relations between the central and local governments. Secondly, it analyzes the process of fiscal decentralization since the 1990s. Thirdly, it examines the effects and defects of the ”trinity reform package.” Finally, it describes the financial conditions in current Japan.
While large centralized sanitation projects are not affordable for most cases in urban and rural areas, the only way to increase sanitation coverage, especially for the poor, is to implement low-cost alternatives with decentralized sanitation management schemes where local community, administrative authorities and private sectors are involved in the decision making as well as in the exploitation process. Despite of that, there are some reasons discussed why decentralized wastewater management concept and its application is still not widely disseminated throughout Vietnam. Among institutional and managerial aspects there are weaknesses of environmental pollution control capacity at different, especially local levels, limitations of existing Vietnamese environmental standard system, and lacking of incentive measures to encourage consultants to go for the decentralized wastewater concept, as well as to force polluters to improve their situation. In term of finance, discussed pints are low wastewater fee, and limited participation of private sector in the business. In technical aspects, there are limited information of appropriate and proven technical options for different contexts, lessons on their performance and system setting up. Besides, difficulties in the household connection and in collection network are among factors. The paper also provides some examples of decentralized alternatives implemented in different sanitation projects at different scales in Vietnam.
BACKGROUND: Injury is the number one public health problem in Lithuania in terms of disability adjusted life years lost. The trauma system plays an important role in injury statistics. The objective of this article is to describe and assess the performance of Lithuanian trauma sector. METHODS: The framework for assessing the performance of health systems proposed by Murray and Frenk (2000) was employed. RESULTS: The primary intention criterion--to reduce the number of trauma cases, injury related mortality and disability rates by 30% by 2010-is well defined. The Lithuanian whole-trauma sector does not substantially contribute to improving the health of the population. The legitimate expectations of the community--respect of persons in terms of dignity, autonomy, confidentiality, client orientation--do not correspond with the responsiveness of the trauma service. Financing of the trauma sector does not correspond with the magnitude of the injury problem. Lithuanian trauma service is decentralized. There is no trauma leadership in the country. There is no national policy for unintentional injury prevention and control, no specialized injury research institute, no system of trauma centres, and no Injury Surveillance System in Lithuania. There is no such specialty as Emergency Medicine as of 2009. A political and public will to reform the trauma sector is not sound. CONCLUSION: The performance of the decentralized Lithuanian trauma sector does not match with the primary intention criterion and does not correspond to the needs of people. Lithuanian trauma service has to be conceptualized and changed to inclusive.
Occasionally investigations by state boards1 take longer than desired. Sometimes complainants take months or even years to file a complaint with a medical board. Cases may be complex and finding witnesses and obtaining expert opinions can lengthen the time it takes to complete a case. Sometimes the medical board must wait for another entity to complete its criminal investigations before the board can begin an investigation or bring charges. A delay, however, may prejudice a physician's ability to defend against the charges. This installment of Legal Briefs looks at the doctrine of laches (pronounced “latches”) and its applicability to state boards, as well as alternatives to laches.First, what exactly is laches? In legal terms, it is the concept of unreasonable delay in pursuing a right or claim — in a way that prejudices the opposing party. When asserted in litigation, it is in the category of “an equitable defense” or “doctrine.” The person invoking laches asserts that an opposing party has “slept on its rights,” and that during the elapsed time period, circumstances have changed and a plaintiff's original claim should not be granted.The courts have five methods for handling cases that have become stale in this way. The first is to apply any applicable statute of limitation. The second is to apply the Due Process clause in the U.S. Constitution. The third is to distinguish precatory suggestions from mandatory requirements. The fourth is to use the equitable remedy of estoppel. The fifth is to use the doctrine of laches. After reviewing the first four, this article will focus on the doctrine of laches. While reviewing laches, it must be remembered that the purpose of a medical board's administrative proceeding is not disciplinary but public protection.2Brown v. State Personnel Board established that statutes of limitation, “like the equitable doctrine of laches, in their conclusive effects are designed to promote justice by preventing surprises through the revival of claims that have been allowed to slumber until evidence has been lost, memories have faded, and witnesses have disappeared.”3Nevertheless, Lindsey v. Miller's Lessee concluded that “[i]t is a well settled principle that the statute of limitations does not run against a state.”4 Specifically, “It has been held that there are no statutes of limitation applicable to [professional] disciplinary proceedings.”5Courts, however, may apply a statute of limitation to administrative proceedings.6 Sahu v. Iowa Board of Medical Examiners concluded that “if an administrative proceeding is in the public interest, such as disciplinary proceedings against a medical professional, courts will not apply the general statute of limitations.”7 Therefore, “courts have held without exception that in the absence of a statute which applies specifically to medical license revocation proceedings, statutes of limitations do not apply to such disciplinary proceedings.”8It is a well-established proposition that procedural due process requires notice and the opportunity to be heard in a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.9 Due process applies when the government seeks to deny a person of a property or liberty interest.10 Physicians have a property interest in their license. Therefore, due process applies to disciplinary proceedings. As one court stated, “[i]t is fundamentally unfair to make a physician defend a nine-year-old complaint when the complaint was not delayed by fraud or the lack of ability to discover the misconduct. To hold otherwise would be to hold that there is no constitutional outer time limit, and we will not do that. Due process is the New Hampshire Constitution's version of the principles of equity, and application of a laches-type doctrine is deemed a part of the process due a person whose economic life and professional career are on the line.”11Precatory language in statutes and regulations is merely a set of recommendations. Precatory language does not create an imperative obligation. Mandatory language in a statute or regulation establishes a duty that the agency must follow. Generally, if the statute does not contain a consequence for the agency's failure to act, then the statute is precatory. If the statute does contain a repercussion for failure to act, then the statute is mandatory.12One court concluded that a legislature, in implementing timeframes, could not have meant for the state to lose jurisdiction.13 Here as elsewhere the public policy of public protection predominates over an individual's desire for a quick resolution.Lake Havasu City v. Arizona Dept. of Health Services established that “uses of the word ‘shall’ in statutes and rules does not mean the language is mandatory because such a construction would undermine the authority of the government.”14 In holding that the secretary of labor, who failed to investigate a claim within a statutory timeframe, did not bar him from continuing with the case, the Supreme Court provided several factors for determining when timeframes divest agencies from acting outside a legislative timeframe. These are legislative history, the statutory consequences for failure to act within the period and the availability of less drastic remedy.15Thus, as established in Sierra Pacific Industries v. Lyng, “[a] statutory time limit is not mandatory unless it both expressly requires an agency or public official to act within a particular period and specifies a consequence for failure to comply with the provision.”16 Nonetheless, even if the language is precatory, laches may still apply.Equitable estoppel is used when a party seeks to enforce a right or perform a duty after the other party has relied upon the inaction. Equitable estoppel requires proof of reliance upon another's conduct to one's detriment.17 Brown v. State Personnel Board found that “The policy to expedite justice underlying the rule exists where the proceeding is before a local administrative agency exercising quasi-judicial functions such as the board… Thus, the administrative agency must diligently pursue the disciplinary action as if it were seeking equitable relief. In measuring diligence the courts will apply notions of laches borrowed from the civil law.”18 Estoppel is very similar to laches; however, laches is the better method for analyzing stale claims. Equitable estoppel focuses on detrimental reliance, while laches focuses on delay and prejudice.Laches is an “equitable doctrine premised on unreasonable delay in asserting a right, which causes disadvantage or prejudice to another.”19 Laches cannot be inferred by the passage of time alone. It must be determined from all of the circumstances of the case, one of which must be the existence of harm caused by the delay. According to Bash v. Board of Medical Practice, “The party asserting laches bears the burden of proving both that the delay was unreasonable and that prejudice resulted from the delay.”20In the administrative law arena, statutes of limitation do not apply, and it is not clear if the doctrine of laches applies. On the one hand, “[laches] has been made applicable to quasi-adjudicative proceedings as a common law policy pursuant to the inherent power of the courts.”21 On the other hand, as in State v. Josefsberg, “the contrary has been held, by the weight of authority, the defense of laches is not available against the government, state or national, in a suit by it to enforce a public right or to protect a public interest…”22If laches applies, the public may be exposed to harm because the board would be stopped from proceeding with the case. If laches does not apply, however, a physician may have to defend against charges that are many years old. In calculating the time to apply to laches, the party must look at both the time it took for the complainant to complain and the time it took for the agency to act upon the complaint.23The first element in demonstrating laches applies is unreasonable delay. What makes the delay unreasonable in the case of laches is that it results in prejudice.24 As noted in Brown v. State Personnel Board: “It is said, ‘[t]here is no fixed rule as to the circumstances that must exist or as to the period of time which must elapse before the doctrine of laches can be appropriately applied.’”25 Ordinarily delay alone does not constitute laches. “Thus ‘[d]elay is not a bar unless it works to the disadvantage or prejudice of other parties.’”26In Stebbins, the court rejected an insurance salesman's argument that he was denied a “speedy trial” because of a 10-month delay while the State Insurance Commission investigated a complaint against him before filing a charge.27 The court agreed that the investigation could have been conducted more expeditiously. As noted in Caldwell v. State Bar: “However, petitioner has cited no cases, nor have we found any, which invalidate an administrative decision solely on the ground that there was a period of unreasonable delay during an agency investigation that preceded the initiation of formal proceedings.”28However, the courts, using their inherent authority, have applied laches to quasi-judicial administrative actions.29 Therefore, the delay must be unreasonable, but delay by itself is not sufficient to apply laches to an agency action or inaction.The second element in demonstrating that laches applies is prejudice because of the delay. Prejudice “cannot be inferred merely from the passage of time.”30 As established in Brown v. State Personnel Board: “Because of the relationship between prejudice and delay, the circumstances which give rise to laches vary widely depending upon their interplay in the specific case.”31 Miller v. Eisenhower Medical Center viewed it this way: “Prejudice is never presumed; rather it must be affirmatively demonstrated by the defendant in order to sustain his burdens of proof and the production of evidence on the issue.”32Excuse is a defense against a laches claim. Occasionally a state agency may have a compelling excuse as to why a significant amount of time elapsed between receiving the complaint and filing charges. Brown v. State Personnel Board found that “In order to excuse delay, [the responsible party] must show exceptional circumstances prevented earlier action.”33 In Sahu, “the Board properly delayed filing the complaint during the pendency of the federal criminal charges, the disciplinary proceeding was commenced within a reasonable time after the conclusion of the criminal trial.”34 Therefore, excuse provides a valid response to a laches claim.Agency mistake may excuse delay. Fahmy v. Medical Board of California noted: “It is matter of common knowledge that statutes of limitation do not run against the State. That no laches can be imputed to the king, and that no time can bar his rights, was the maxim of the common law, and was founded on the principle of public policy, that as he was occupied with the cares of government he ought not to suffer from the negligence of his officers and servants.”35The principle applies to state and national governments, which necessarily act through its agents to preserve the public's interests.36 U.S. v. Nashville stated: “It is settled beyond doubt or controversy, upon the foundation of the great principle of public policy…which forbids that the public interests should be prejudiced by the negligence of the officers or agents to whose care they are confided…”37Lake Havasu City v. Arizona Department of Health Services established that “The United States Supreme Court [held] that there is and must be a strong public policy against allowing the mistakes of an agency or employee to limit the government's ability to enforce its laws.”38 And Brock v. Pierce County noted “We would be most reluctant to conclude that every failure of an agency to observe a procedural requirement voids subsequent agency action, especially when important public rights are at stake.”39The government acts within its sovereign authority when it acts to protect the public. Galang v. State Medical Examining Board concluded: “It is well established that the objectives of professional discipline include the rehabilitation of the licensee, the protection of the public, and deterrence to other licensees from engaging in similar conduct.”40 Thus, when the state regulates the medical profession, it is acting in its sovereign capacity and for the public good.41When acting in its sovereign capacity, laches is not a defense. The court has noted the general principle of laches on the part of the government in bringing suit is not to be a defense in the case of a claim which is founded on a sovereign right and held that since this action was brought by the state in its sovereign capacity to protect a public right, the doctrine of laches was not available.42 These are all within the states' sovereign authority to protect the public. Thus, a medical board's disciplinary proceeding should not be barred by laches.Even when, as noted in Webb v. West Virginia Board of Medicine, “there [are] circumstances in a physician discipline proceeding when…a substantial degree of prejudice to a physician that is caused by an unreasonable delay not of the physician's making might nevertheless be outweighed by the strong interests of the state, the public and the profession in fully addressing allegations of serious professional misconduct — so as to tip the equitable balance in favor of continuing with a proceeding.”43Fahmy v. Medical Board of California concluded: “There is without a doubt a realization on the part of the Legislature that administrative agencies such as the Medical Board take action for the public welfare rather than for their own financial gain, and should not be hampered by time limits in the execution of their duty to take protective remedial action. That is particularly true in the case of the Medical Board, which is charged with protecting the lives and health of the citizenry from incompetent or grossly negligent medical practitioners. It is apparent that the Legislature wishes to have the Board protect California patients from physicians who are incapable of providing appropriate services in life or death situations, regardless of how long it takes the Board to act.”44Although its application is rare, occasionally laches is successfully applied in administrative cases. There can be no doubt that time does not bar a sovereign entity when it is acting to protect the public. State government protects the public through medical and osteopathic boards. Therefore, the state boards are just one means for the government to exercise its sovereign authority. Thus, laches should not apply to state board administrative proceedings. The centuries-old axiom Nullum Tempus Occurrit Regi — No Time Runs Against the King — should continue to be the rule.
This study has attempted to comparatively analyze autonomous police system bills and determine a logical plan of action from the perspective of a large local organization. Although Korea became decentralize via local elections in 1995, an autonomous police system has not yet been introduced. The Lee Myung-bak administration has shown a willingness to introduce an autonomous police system through a partial revision of the Autonomous Police Act (draft). To ensure the success of an autonomous police system, the promotion of the following is needed: First, it is necessary to introduce an autonomous police system to large local governments that takes into consideration financial aspects. If the integration of administrative districts is coordinated, the introduction of a municipal/district/county autonomous police system would also be recommended. In terms of the type of organization, an autonomous police system should be under a municipal or provincial governor’s direct control. Second, a close relationship with related organizations should be maintained in terms of supply of manpower. Besides the expansion of this kind of force, it is important to build an intimate and cooperative relationship with the local society. Third, it is necessary to builde expertise and specializationin addition to security services. To fulfill the duties of special judicial police, support from government employees and experts is essential. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a support department such as the ‘Department of Special Judiciary’, which can connect and coordinate a cooperative system. Fourth, it is important to clearly clarify police duties. National police should focus on those issues associated with response to crime, establishment of law & order and ensuring a social safety network. On the contrary, the duties of local police should be limited to customized security services for the locals, support of the fulfillment of official duties and other special judicial police duties. Fifth, a cooperative and complementary relationship with national police should be established. Local police should set up and maintain an equal cooperative relationship with national police to efficiently manage and operate the police force. For this, it is necessary to make mandatory those details including mutual support, joint use of facilities, and establishment of a communication network, etc..
Cloud computing provides a novel computing paradigm for enterprises to store programs and data in the Cloud in a transparent manner, which poses the challenge of security and privacy. In this paper, based on homomorphic cryptography and Zero-Knowledge Proof, we present a novel privacy-preserving scheme for Cloud publish/subscribe service, which achieve efficient privacy-preserving authentication, data integrity, and publish-subscribe confidentiality. The performance evaluation and security analysis demonstrate the practice and validity of the proposed scheme.
Cultural policy in Europe is deeply rooted in the Welfare State doctrine that has been prevailing during the last half century. Its implementation has gone along with the invention and rise of educational policy, social policy and health policy. This paper sketches its evolution as a four phase move towards what has been emerging as the central dual content of the current public cultural policy: preserving and promoting heritage, and bringing the creative industries at the core of the so-called knowledge society. The general evolutionary trend shows four distinct phases: 1) the creation of a systematic cultural supply policy based on a limited definition of culture suitable for public financing and based on a vertical concept of democratization by conversion; 2) the gradual decentralization of public action, which leads to an increasing disparity in its aims and functions, and which challenges the initial universalist, top-down egalitarian model; 3) a revision of the legitimate scope of public action, which declares symbolically obsolete the founding hierarchy of cultural politics, that which would oppose high culture, protected from market forces and entertainment culture and governed by the laws of the industrial economy; 4) an increasing tendency to justify cultural policy on the basis of its contribution to economic growth and to the balance of national social diversity, which legitimises the regulatory power of public action as well encouraging the expansion of the creative industries and the demands for the evaluation of procedures and results. The last section of this paper moves away from the state centered perspective and focuses on the city as the incubator of cultural generativity, in order to suggest how a city-centered approach to cultural development challenges the state-centered doctrine of cultural policy.