Blockchain Papers

Koen Verhoest, Paul G. Roness, Bram Verschuere, Kristin Rübecksen · 5 authors

Since the 1980s, the structuring and functioning of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) public sector has undergone major shifts (cf. OECD 2002a; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). One of the most observed trends in public sector organization in OECD states is the shift from a centralized and consolidated public sector to a decentralized, structurally devolved and ‘autonomizing’ public sector, including the disconnection of policy design, implementation and evaluation (Christensen and Lægreid 2001a, 2006). Systems of public administration have been disaggregated into a multitude of different kinds of (semi-)autonomous organizations, denoted as ‘agencies’ or ‘quangos’ (cf. Flinders and Smith 1999; Pollitt and Talbot 2004). This disaggregation through ‘agencification’ is the result of a process of vertical and horizontal specialization, based on geography as well as on different types of purposes, tasks, customer groups or processes (Christensen et al. 2007; Roness 2007). In this process of agencification and autonomization, the responsibilities and autonomy of public organizations are redefined (structural aspect). Moreover, the way that they are controlled by government, including the mechanisms of accountability, are redesigned, mostly from ex ante to ex post , and from input to results based rationals (functional aspect). 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.

Franz Michael Fischer

Today, the controllability principle appears throughout the management accounting literature (Merchant, 1985, p. 21). Historians trace the origin of the principle back to the founding of American railroads. Charles Perkins, who was president of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad in 1885, is quoted with the following statement: “It is obvious that to hold a manager responsible for results it is necessary to give him pretty full power over the property which he must use to produce those results” (Chandler, McCraw, & Tedlow, 1996, p. 26). At that time, companies were confronted for the first time with the problem of managing people who worked at considerable distance from central executive offices (Simons, 2007, p. 2). With companies being structured into decentralized and autonomous divisions, questions arose as to the best way to control such organizations (Sloan, 1963, p. 46). Results control instead of direct supervision of behaviors and the corresponding management by objectives (MbO) school of thought (Odiorne, 1965) gained in importance (Giraud et al., 2004, p. 3). It is Solomons (1965, p. 83) who closely relates the controllability principle to the decentralization of business operations. 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.

Kazi Md. Rokibul Alam, Shinsuke Tamura, Shuji Taniguchi, Tatsuro Yanase

This paper proposes a new electronic voting (e-voting) scheme that fulfills all the security requirements of e-voting i.e. privacy, accuracy, universal verifiability, fairness, receipt-freeness, incoercibility, dispute-freeness, robustness, practicality and scalability; usually some of which are found to be traded. When compared with other existing schemes, this scheme requires much more simple computations and weaker assumptions about trustworthiness of individual election authorities. The key mechanism is the one that uses confirmation numbers involved in individual votes to make votes verifiable while disabling all entities including voters themselves to know the linkages between voters and their votes. Many existing e-voting schemes extensively deploy zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) to achieve verifiability. However, ZKP is expensive and complicated. The confirmation numbers attain the verifiability requirement in a much more simple and intuitive way, then the scheme becomes scalable and practical.

J.-F. Bellis

On 4 June 2009, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) handed down its judgment in a reference for a preliminary ruling made by a Dutch administrative court (College van Beroep voor het Bedrijfsleven). The Dutch court had referred questions to the ECJ in an appeal from the Rotterdam District Court, which had quashed a decision of the Dutch Competition Authority imposing fines on five mobile network operators for infringing Article 6 of the Dutch Competition Act and Article 81 EC. In its original decision, the Dutch Competition Authority imposed fines of €50 million on the five operators, Telfort, Orange, KPN, T-Mobile, and Vodafone, finding that they had exchanged confidential information at a meeting of 13 June 2001 regarding the reduction of standard dealer remunerations for postpaid subscriptions and allegedly agreed that the reduction would take effect on or about 1 September 2001. On appeal, the Rotterdam District Court annulled the decision in question and ordered the Dutch Competition Authority to adopt a new decision. In an appeal brought by T-Mobile, KPN, Orange, and the Dutch Competition Authority, the Dutch administrative court referred three questions to the ECJ regarding: (i) the criteria to be applied when assessing whether a concerted practice has an anticompetitive object; (ii) the evidence of a causal link between concerted practice and effect that must be adduced; and (iii) whether there is always a presumption of a causal link between the concerted practice and the market conduct when applying Article 81, even where the concerted practice was a single meeting. The ECJ responded stating that a concerted practice is prohibited by Article 81(1) where it is clear that its object or its effect is to prevent, restrict, or distort competition. Further, the ECJ found that there is no need to take the actual effects of the concerted practice into account once its anticompetitive object has been established. The ECJ also stated that the intention of the parties is not an essential factor in determining whether a concerted practice is restrictive, but it is a factor which can be taken into account. The ECJ held that a concerted practice of the kind at issue in the appeal proceedings before the Dutch court could be considered to have an anti-competitive object where the exchange of information removed uncertainties about the intended market conduct of the undertakings involved. With regard to the evidence of the causal link that must be adduced, the ECJ stated that its jurisprudence had established a rebuttable presumption that undertakings would take account of information exchanged with their competitors. The ECJ also considered that the presumption of this causal connection still applies where only one single meeting has been held, although the presumption is more compelling where undertakings have exchanged information on a number of occasions. to the the issue at is not the number of held but whether the information exchanged at the in question the undertakings the to anticompetitive market On the that it had imposed fines on and its and on for their in a that in the and between and in of Article 81 EC. The found that and of had agreed not to the in when they in to this to into and The found that the their even the European to in found to have on a at to have the of the in the and to have The imposed fines of million on and for their in the the the into account the of the the anticompetitive of the the in the and the the The was with in at the of in and On 2009, the ECJ an appeal brought by a judgment of the Court of of September a the million that the had imposed on in 2001 for its in a on the market was to In its the ECJ that when the of the account of the that had allegedly the of in the The a of a has on the of the the a of a a from its the even where the which would it to a the on the of in a an the to the of the In to a of the the decision referred to of evidence in which had been to the of the not to the that the on a for a of the In the this not to with the evidence that the had at its to in its decision a of the the ECJ found that had been from its of The judgment of the was it to the of its of the administrative the ECJ held had not been a of the the could in have the of the the judgment of the on the ECJ considered that the of the proceedings it to judgment on the In this the Court held that the not evidence of a of the The ECJ that the was not to a to on account of the from the Court to On 1 2009, the in its an by the European decision in the had the by the in of its decision to the a judgment of the ECJ that annulled the original decision of In its to the decision, a number of In it that the had no to its decision on the of the European and the in and that the to only 81 and and not the of the also that the ECJ has that it be held for the of in the that the is and that the its of to the and the to a The held that the was to that there had been an of Article of the and to a the of the to the the decision was on the in and the that the had not that the had its to for the of Article of that The only for the was that was in at the the new decision was The also that the decision not the of the of by or in one not be for the that the had the for the of the with and that the finding of was made the the that the was in of of in to the of or the to the On 2009, the European a decision imposing fines million on for their in a and the of and and in the of in the of a in to the the market for is million The was by an made by which brought the of the to the On the of its the found that between and the had a the to which they had the and agreed on for and number of also in to their in the of a for the that brought the to the from from the of million that would have been imposed on The of was by the had been for a in the On September 2009, the ECJ in its an appeal brought by and of its a judgment of the of In the the a decision of which and imposed a of million on the five for the in a on the market for the that the had in for the to not have its in the The that by that where a of the in a that Article 81 there is a rebuttable presumption that the its The found that this presumption had not been in the at and the imposed by the to the In its appeal, that the had not applied the of the of Article 81 and Article of In this the judgment for the of on the on ECJ and to that it is not for the to that a is by its in to to the must at the of the of that the in a its In the at in the of the intention to and with its was on the that had a in its in the decision, the also made reference to that the had a of the of on the which also its of in of 2009, the taken by the and that the ECJ the In its the ECJ has to the appeal, and that a be held for the anticompetitive of its even it not in The ECJ made it clear that where a has a in a that has the the can a the conduct of the and there is a rebuttable presumption that the in a the conduct of its with no to this The ECJ found that there was no in the for the of the presumption to the of to the actual of by the The ECJ that the not have to in its of or in its decision, evidence that to the of the in the also the judgment for held that the evidence to the and between the and its in to the of the and to the presumption of to the that the is to its to the of the in the that is to its conduct on the which is to the of and that the on to in a and at a that the of the conduct of the on the market in the would to a which is to the of by the of the The ECJ also in its The ECJ found that the conduct of the on the market be the only factor which the of the to be established. to the in to whether a its conduct on the market account must be taken not only of to the of the the of the and but also of the to the and that the to the The ECJ that the to be taken into account from to and be in an In the this not to the of a In this the ECJ that the is of the that has the the is and with the that for the and even where the not in the it the In that the ECJ that the of the be The appeal was from this judgment that it be in practice for a to the presumption that it the conduct of its the that the is of On September 2009, the ECJ in its an appeal by a judgment of in which the a decision of June that a of million for their in a of in the The which was the the of and of and by a number of in The by the brought an before the for of the decision or a reduction of the In its the the decision regarding its of the and but one of the fines The the it found that the had its on and had this market and that had been a of made a appeal to the of the decision or a reduction of their In their appeal to the the that the had in its of the Article 81 to the effect of anticompetitive conduct on between and of the of the In the that the had in in (i) that there is a presumption that a practice of applied the of a is to and (ii) that the three of the of the of an in the the of the its actual on the and the of the not the and that the of the the in determining its The also that the had in in the to from that the had an on the the of the the the judgment for held in to the the had not to the and for the the conduct of the by to the market of In in 2009, the regarding the of the market the and the to the of the market of in the the of the market the the that is to a of with regard to the when it that a has had an on the market for the of assessing the of the and the of the The that the ECJ the judgment and the fines imposed on the In its the ECJ a and the The ECJ that there is a presumption that a practice of that is applied the of a single is to and that that presumption can only be an of the of the and its the In the at the ECJ found that the presumption had not been In the ECJ that the not only the in but also a of and The ECJ that the had been to that the had the effect of and was to The ECJ also that the could the of the a by reference to the of the that not in the and in the of this the of the a in the of an The ECJ considered that the had not from the of the that the had had an on the the ECJ stated that the to the of the market of in the not of the conduct of to the In this the ECJ that by to the the market of in their the to that the of the fines imposed on the the of their that in this the essential by the their of information and of the the The ECJ also that in to the of the account must be taken of the of the to distort and the and the on of their to the it was to take into account the between the and the in the of the of the to could be that by their In the ECJ considered that the fines not have a effect the market of the not taken into account. The appeal was in its On September 2009, the ECJ the judgment and annulled the decision in the In the undertakings a of million for their in a of and concerted in the in of Article 81 EC. was million for this brought before the In its judgment of the the for of the decision and the fines for only of and and to the of the judgment and the decision or a reduction in their In of 2009, that the ECJ the judgment and the decision and the brought by and In its the ECJ has the of its and the from and which that the had evidence their in the or the of this and that the had the of and in the criteria by the for the In to the ECJ found that the had to from its finding that of had been to a between the of and the decision. In the of the had stated that it intended to only for the conduct of its in the decision, the also held for its conduct in to the that by not it the to on that at the of the administrative the had its of The that of had been but considered that this was not to the of the decision, could be held in for the of its The ECJ considered that the that in the decision, was held on the that it was in its on the of its not the decision been on conduct in of which was not to The ECJ that the of a applying the of which of the of in to the its the of must not only the on fines be imposed and be to that but also in which an is to the In of the ECJ annulled the decision in it to On September 2009, the ECJ handed down its judgment an appeal by and a judgment of September In the imposed fines of million on and for infringing Article 81 their in a the On appeal by the the of the that the had been not to on account of its the and the imposed on by brought a appeal the judgment before the In its appeal, that the had been in that there was no of the to in the of the of the market and of the of the In its the ECJ agreed with the of that the was by an of in that the the of the of the market by the to the of a to market and the of the the ECJ that when assessing the of and the the has reference to one of which is the of the In this the ECJ found that the was to that to to operators could be established by of to their market also that the had not applied the it the of the by to the of the and the of an a which could not be also considered that the had the of by to the of the infringing an The ECJ of finding that the had not the the ECJ appeal in its On June 2009, the that it has a in connection with proceedings brought by the European that has been its by for to a of in but also in a of which need to and have been by an standard of the The its into on when it that it had a of to the to the a by not its of to the and that to the to had to a from or its this the that was its by for the of its to the preliminary in the has to the it has to a for the of its to the the of for and of their in the and a for to with the of the In with for of for to and of for and to to at the be for a of five from the of the decision the of to The of the by in the June On 2009, the ECJ its judgment in the appeal of a judgment of the which had a decision finding that the for its an of a the ECJ that the of the proceedings was it of and the appeal in its The judgment of the ECJ was with the of the to the decision, was the on the market for and to a which to at the of or to for and a and a from could the on their to to that the could be by to the of or by The in its had agreed with the that of with it had on the number of on which the was the number of and by an of Article in of that no also the of on their The of this to the and the was to or from on the in that could not in for that of the with In that the judgment it its by it from determining could the and it to a of The ECJ a between (i) the of the by and (ii) the of the by to the was not its its into a with which that the be to The ECJ also that there was a for to for the of its the that it was to a of to the the held that be that the of the to whether of the or have a even it the actual of the and be to be to in for the of the the by the parties the ECJ that the decision the judgment stated that was to a or from an parties for of its the decision only imposed on with to its in and that the of the proceedings before the and of its with a The ECJ agreed that the was but found that the only for a was an for and had the of the On September 2009, the in its a decision of June that found that and its referred had its on the market for and to The decision considered that in (i) to and to for more and (ii) applying to between and The not a for but ordered to from in the brought the before the the decision the of the market and the of an of a and for a to be is the that that the and the have agreed on an and that the is to the in is the of the and between the and the the of the account three of of and (i) which in their and in to in in their and also in to and where the of of is in (ii) which and of or of in and have to the of and (iii) which their with to and the only in the European is the only in a to in In the decision appeal, the made a between and and to the decision, and by the that the in and by On the of this the the market the of and to to and that there is a single market in and at one in which the parties to the The only to it a the the that the the and by not the parties to the but and The that the only between (i) and the and (ii) the and its of which is to the to the by on of parties to the the on an of The that the not a by between and and in its of the With regard to the of an that it not to the that had for there was no the of to (i) only on (ii) was not to between and and (iii) in the on the of that of the of the and between the and and for to the in of had been by in there was no of had not an anticompetitive and the to that a that the applied to not In its the that and only to a of this it found that a by to the in the that there was no evidence of a for information in the before it that the between and could to that it was not to a and in that the could the a this the found that was not to between and With to that had to the that the that an is in a it of its to its when they the in undertakings in a be of the to adopt a of conduct or take not in and which would even be or taken by to this the that could not the of for to in of the to its this would its not to its conduct to on the to the that the conduct of an in a be an even in the of In the that it not an anticompetitive was to the of the the found that conduct was to to on the market even could In this the that had a with regard to the of and on the market and that could not the it had the that an its and on a European with regard to a the that by to the was to and In this the the judgment for the that it is not in to an of Article that on the market would be by a to but is that the at issue is or is on the The also found that the and for by to and in the in to Article by a to to On September 2009, in which the appeal of a judgment that annulled a decision to by Article of In that the Court of Justice the judgment and a ruling in the that the decision to the In its of appeal, the that the and the of The the from the that there of that had a on the of the of by the that be made the of Article the must be to the by the a of the The that undertakings need to that the a of the but that they for this by and by an decision with a The of by the a on the of their was the to the of parties by that the not was The that this not that the must to the to but that the must to it to in an and finding is the that the is of more by the which the in in the at by and that their to Article 81 In it that the that the is more of when the that to where the that be to be more The also a number of about the of that the considered could have the by the In the that they the issue of whether the the of an issue that was on In its the had that the of whether the by not from a of the was not on a The found this that the was to a when assessing the effects the would have on market and whether the to the would be is the on that one of was that must be to the need for a of the the would to the of the of to of even when the not on a of the the that the Court of Justice judgment in the the to the in with the by Article of the of the Court of In the that the Court of Justice the decision and on On September 2009, the the of the decision of 13 2009, and a of the decision was also in the of September The that the has (i) of or to on the that they or of their from from and to to at one on the that it only practice is referred to and (ii) to to or the of and to the to practice is referred to with to the the decision that the at issue the of the for finding an and an to that the had the of an which is to be of whether was to the In that the is for finding an Article the to the of its on in of the more of the Court in of appeal the decision have been in the of September that the in by to that its had an actual to and by to whether its in the of the European had and effects the European also that the to the standard of by to that its or of their from that the in applying its to whether of and to take account of of In that the essential which its of and the of the On June 2009, the European imposed a of million on the for the In in that held by made of this it to the the considered that its was to the of the be that to a the they in a of or the only be the the a although even a can be to for where the of the In into with the on whether or not the had in to in the of in more the had been On the the that there was only a between the parties and that there in in its decision, the the issue of the on which of The a into this which in its decision of June In this decision, the held that had in with of by the and at it a at was the of and had taken the held by in the of the and the of of by to of its with in 2001. to the this The that had the the by the In the at the into account the of a of the the of the the of the of the of the between and the and the that had with and have been of its to the In of the the considered the that the not to and that the to the the would have been had the on the decision is of the of the imposed on the that the would have been the had In the which was in by the fines for of the only a of the million imposed on in the for of a in it for three to a In the of Competition the decision a clear that the not of this of the the On June 2009, the European a to the on the of the of the the of the in with the of the and the for in the to the the in the have in between the and the the that there still a number of that not the and need to be in more one by the and have effects on competition. The that this that there is for a of at The also the to this that the the of the parties more of its one and the has been to the was to in the of a of the The that the has between that have effects and that the that there have been a number of with effects that have the a of the the for in the the on for to from the to the European and the in Article of the to this which was in parties can of to their from the to the European the not meeting the three or more of the is intended to the on parties by the to only one to the European to to the have the and of in the have the of between the and the the that have with regard to the and of the is the is and it the parties to an to the the to object to a the is the actual to the European that the is not an in parties no but to The not to the the that it to to the the with regard to the of the to the On June 2009, the European the of by a The found that the would have the a on from to and and that it would also to on between and and and In to the to that new to on of the where the also or and the in On June 2009, the an appeal the European decision the between the of and is the in has been a and The has an finding that appeal the decision was referred to the by the is of is the September decision to of a judgment by the the of the would no be of to The Court held by the appeal would have been would have been from the market for in the in September of could not be to to the market in to the to the decision. The considered in it was not to on appeal the decision. In the the of the an of the decision before the which annulled the

Charles N. O. Mordi

he ‗real‘ economy consists of firms, households and other agencies engaged in the production of goods and services which can either be consumed now or put to use with a view to producing more in the future. Economic activity is conceptualized as ‗real‘ because real resources are applied to produce something which people can buy and use. The financial system is mainly concerned either with moving funds around so that those who wish to buy can do so, or helping people to exchange ownership of the productive resources. The activities of the real economy are essential to life. The real economy produces food, heating, lighting, consumer goods and entertainment, among other activities. The job of the financial system is to facilitate that by making sure that funds are available when and where they are wanted. In that regard, the issue of the structure of the financial system is brought to the fore as it would provide alternative financing windows which the operators in the real sector can avail themselves. These institutions, therefore, become the conduit through which small or large manufacturing concerns can access finance and, ultimately, increase output. Directly related to the structure of the financial system, is the role the financial system undertakes to coordinate economic activities including the cost of finance, availability of investment funds and profitable investment outlets. Caprio, et al. (1994) states that ―... control through the financial system permits decentralization in decision making-the hallmark of a market economy: provided that some entrepreneur or group of investors is prepared to assume the risks of undertaking a project with borrowed funds and that some lender believes that the loan will be repaid, the project can go ahead.‖ This view obviously asserts the unquestionable need to ensure the solvency of financial institutions and instil confidence in the payments system which are intended to overcome systemic risk.

Terán Garzón, Dennis David

The present work of titillation was made through of the analysis of Constitutional Bills of 2008, it express in a detail way the Territorial Organization of the country, also it points the Decentralism Autonomous Government, at the same time the transference of faculties, rights and competences that will had take in a decentralization process. In this way we want to arrange to that process and get the ways that can support the best develop in this process, in our consideration will be the mechanism that with the politics of each interactive government in a direct way and promote the expand, one of them will be the “Autogestion”, an important model of that process. We will search the positive and negative causes that are in the implementation of the mechanism that help in the economic, social and cultural increase of the autonomous governments. Finding the advantages that this “autogestion” mechanism can offer the consolidation of an inside structure of one place, and that of this style we can fortalice the social relationship of the community with the government, offering a real participation sense that we can actually get in the law. In the same way we will see the negatives and positive consequences that could commit this mechanism in the Decentralism Autonomous Government that actually are defined in the Politic Bills, that establish in a decentralism process with a big structural order. For this we will take in consideration the actually local laws that refers to this plan with the Political Constitution of Ecuador, the Decentralism Law, the Municipal Regimen Law, and the “Ley de Juntas Parroquiales”

Nina Lúcia Prates Nielebock de Souza

The objective of this study is to analyze the process of health decentralization in the 1990’s according to the analysis of the politicians’ confrontation, the interest intermediations and the established articulations. Through the analysis of a concrete case, the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, tried to evidence the relation between the government’s spheres – federal, state and capital – established from the period of 1990 to 1999. The selection of the period sets the beginning of a health decentralization process in the municipality until the condition of a fully autonomous management of the municipal system. The health system notion in a federative country, with Brazil’s characteristics, implicates in the establishment of intergovernmental agreements which allow the articulation and integration of actions and health services in different territorial scales. The study showed that the intergovernmental negotiation presented particular characteristics in the two halves of the nineties decade, with strong protagonism of the municipal entity. In the first half, the municipality opted for an internal decentralization which demanded low level of intergovernmental articulation and, another moment, decided to municipalize in large scale involving intense negotiation between the City Council and the health ministry without the effective participation of the State Health Council. The questions concerned the health attention organization as observed, were not sufficiently equated in the intergovernmental relations plan and remain until today as a challenge for the health policies. The conclusions move around, the necessity of the reconstruction of an intergovernmental relations model in health, anchored with a culture-based on negotiation and respect with the entity autonomy for the deepening of decentralization.

Xavier Boyen, Céline Chevalier, Georg Fuchsbauer, David Pointcheval

No abstract is available for this record.

Dengguo Feng, Yu Qin

This paper presents a property attestation protocol for the security chip TCM (trusted cryptographic module) via analyzing the problems of the current property attestation, which is built on the property attestation model with the online trust third party. In the protocol the prover utilizes the zero-knowledge proof by the attribute certificates, configuration commitment and TCM signature, and attests its configuration and status which are compliant with the declarative security property. The protocol is characterized by shorter signature length and lower computations. The security of the protocol is proved at the random oracle model. The protocol can help extend application and improve standard for security chip TCM, and it also has practical value and immediate significance.

Endre Bangerter, Thomas Briner, Wilko Henecka, Stephan Krenn · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Endre Bangerter, Jan Camenisch, Stephan Krenn

No abstract is available for this record.

Peter Linett

My congratulations to you—or should that be my sympathies?—on being chosen as Curator’s next Books Editor. On the positive side, you’re joining a team of thoughtful, creative editors who manage to generate sparks of camaraderie even though we’re scattered around the country. Your postal carrier and UPS driver will soon begin delivering a steady stream of books from academic and commercial publishers—review copies and sometimes bound proofs, all with chipper press releases slipped inside the covers and publishers’ glossy catalogues spilling out of the envelopes. Your bookshelves will gradually come to resemble mine, and visitors who don’t know about your editorial work will be wowed by the breadth and idiosyncratic coolness of your interests, which will appear to run from Pueblo pottery to Islamic calligraphy by way of the anthropology of world’s fairs and the latest scholarship in cultural property law and “glass studies.” Who else, your friends will wonder admiringly, would own that gorgeous coffee-table book celebrating Traditional Archery from Six Continents? Yes, the environmentally unfriendly truth is that a fair percentage of the books you’ll receive for Curator you’ll have no intention of getting reviewed, for the sensible reason that they’re not really about museums—their work or history or guiding ideas—and have little light to shed on those topics except indirectly and in the aggregate. Instead they’re about the objects that museums exhibit or the technical study and preservation of those objects. So they tend to appeal mostly to people who are already interested in and at least somewhat knowledgeable about those kinds of objects or the periods and places associated with them—which in many cases is a small, specialized audience. (If this sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because museums themselves have been accused of focusing on certain classes of objects largely for the benefit of people who already recognize and care about those classes. Not surprisingly, many of the review copies in this category are exhibition catalogues or scholarly texts published in association with new or upcoming exhibitions.) In other words, rather than books about museum practice, these are books of—that is, exemplifying or representing—museum practice. If museums’ traditional activities of collection, preservation, study, and public exhibition can be thought of as a kind of object-based discourse, then what you’re looking for as Curator’s Books Editor is a meta-discourse: stepping back from those activities in order to consider their origins, meanings, functions, and futures. Of course, a variety of those “about” books will arrive in your mail slot as well—books like Museums after Modernism or Museums and Community, books about trends in exhibition design, zoo history, visitor motivations, green museum construction, museum marketing, informal science education, museum philosophy, and the like. A quick taxonomy of these “about” books might be organized around a distinction—or rather, a continuum—between texts written by academics and those written by museum practitioners. At one end of that continuum are books from scholars in various branches of the humanities or social sciences (or, less frequently, the natural sciences) who happen to be interested in museums or museological issues from one angle or another. (Considered as a whole, the museum field is almost absurdly multidisciplinary, as East [2008] and others have reported.) Sometimes that interest is merely one among many and results in a single book about museums; in other cases the interest becomes primary and is sustained over a career. In the increasingly busy middle of the spectrum are texts by museum studies faculty. Here we may want to distinguish between museum studies programs that are . . . well, academic—theory-oriented, historically minded, linked closely to other university departments via interdisciplinary collaborations—and programs that keep one foot in scholarship but lean toward practice, whose faculty members often work in or consult to museums in addition to teaching. These latter programs may be interdisciplinary, but they’re also extradisciplinary: some of their priorities have less to do with the pursuit and creation of knowledge in some recognized domain than with preparing today’s and tomorrow’s museum professionals for the practical challenges they’ll face. Finally, at the other end of the spectrum, are books by the museum professionals themselves, including staff and consultants. Those professional books are the tip of an iceberg of museum discourse that also includes “gray literature” (conference presentations, blog postings, proprietary research reports commissioned by museums, and so on) as well as peer-reviewed journal articles and national research studies. Of course, many books fall somewhere between these categories. It’s a continuum for good reason. There have been collaborations between academics and museum practitioners; volumes of essays by museum professionals who write from essentially academic perspectives; scholarly musings about the minutiae of museum practice (for purposes other than professional training); and so on. It used to be easier to see the difference between the insider view (museum professionals writing largely for each other) and the outsider view (academics writing about museums, often critically and also for each other). But over the last two decades or so, the academic left’s critique of museums, which began emphatically outside the museum—think of the line that runs from Michel Foucault to Tony Bennett, Carol Duncan, Alan Wallach, and others—has been internalized (some would say co-opted) by museum studies programs and even by some influential museum professionals. What was once a disturbing attack that felt to museum practitioners “like being psychoanalyzed in public,” as one of our book reviewers put it a few years ago (Lindauer 2007, 362), has gradually informed the profession’s own rhetoric about its challenges and ideals. I think of Stephen Weil, Elaine Heumann Gurian, Robert Janes, and Nina Simon, although the influence of the postmodern academics on these commentators’ work seems mostly indirect. Our taxonomy would also have to take into account these books’ subject matter and what type or types of museums they deal with. It could draw distinctions between books by a single author, multi-author collaborative works, and collections of essays by various independent contributors. (The latter category includes the museum studies anthologies that have been published with increasing frequency in recent years.) Or between university presses, independent nonprofit presses, and commercial publishing houses. (You’ll occasionally receive an art-forgery saga or a great-man-of-science biography from the latter.) Or between museum studies programs in North America and those in the U.K. or other English-speaking countries. Constructing such a taxonomy in earnest would be a valuable service to the field, and I hope others take up the thread. My hope here is simply to give us a framework for discussing the challenge you’re undertaking. The good news, and the reason for those congratulations I offered, is that some of these museum books are terrific. The best of them may give you, as they’ve given me, a feeling of prickling excitement—a sense that something is at stake, is being risked. How they do this varies, of course. Whether or not you find a book exciting will have as much to do with you as with the book: we get most charged up about what we agree with and what we’re already invested in. (“A real book is not one that we read,” W.H. Auden observed, “but one that reads us.”) Still, as I pass the torch—or rather, the editor’s red pen—to you I’ll mention some of the characteristics I’ve been grateful to find on the page in the seven years I’ve been Curator’s Books Editor. Good museum books reveal the ways in which the familiar ideas and practices of museology (past or present, depending on the author’s project) are contingent rather than given. They put some critical distance between us and museums, making the ordinary seem unfamiliar, even strange. With the benefit of that distance, the authors are able to interrogate the actions, rhetoric, and structures of museums at a fundamental level. This is not easy for insiders to do; we have trouble seeing the assumptions we operate within every day. Philosopher and sometime-museum-historian Stephen Asma has likened this ability to “tasting your own tongue”—an illustration of how difficult it is (Asma 2001, 154). Good museum books also manage to ground themselves in the relevant literature or practice area while also lighting out for new territory. That balance is important. Without knowledge of what museum people have been arguing about, a new perspective reads as merely naïve. Conversely, without something new to say, the contribution feels like hackwork—an apologia for the status quo (a problem I’ll come back to in a moment). When good museum books do borrow theoretical constructs and examples from other domains, they do so in ways that preserve the complexity of those ideas and respect what’s irreducibly foreign about them—aspects that aren’t neatly assimilable to the museum issue at hand. More broadly, good authors of museum literature know how to sustain an argument or narrative over many paragraphs or chapters, and they understand the difference between a string of assertions and the methodical intertwining of observation, inference, reference, and persuasively articulated belief that constitutes a genuine argument. Good museum books sometimes raise questions they don’t and can’t answer, which can feel like a radical act in a field that is has been trying for decades to establish certainties about itself and its cultural status. By problematizing rather than tidying up, these books have the potential to influence the collective agenda and spur debate. (I say “potential” because even the best books can do little good if nobody reads them. Jay Rounds has raised disturbing questions about how much of the museum literature is actually consumed and by whom [2007].) The best museum books display wit, in the sense of both mental quickness and disarmingly clever humor. These authors are confident enough to expect that they’ll be taken seriously even though they don’t take themselves too seriously, and relaxed enough to let a little of themselves into their texts, acknowledging the subjectivity inherent in any human enterprise and thereby helping us account for their presence in the argument as we grapple with it. This list could go on: I’ve had the pleasure of discovering museum books that were heroically well-researched, that spun nuanced historical narratives, that offered powerfully simple frameworks for thinking about complex things—frameworks I’ve found indispensable and passed on to colleagues. A few have permanently changed the way I experience and think about museums. The best museum books can be very good indeed. The problem—and the reason I offer sympathies mixed with the congratulations—is that such books are distressingly few and far between. Too many museum books that come across my desk display an intellectual thinness and logical slipperiness that limits their value to both scholarship and practice. They read as competent enough, but if you probe a little, you find they don’t support real analysis. Too often I’ve found myself wondering if there isn’t, at the heart of the text I’m reading, a kind of dodge, something avoided or elided because grappling with it would have been too troublesome or destabilizing. The Duke University interdisciplinary scholar Cathy N. Davidson calls this “fudging,” which she defines as intentionally or unconsciously “glossing over the nuances of a complicated, inconvenient, or even controversial topic” in order to fit in, as it were, within the cozy confines of one’s discipline. She notes that the “evasions and coverups” of fudging “arise most often when a scholar is confronted with the most fundamental and potentially contentious concepts of her discipline.” So fudging is “emotionally fraught, making you susceptible to exposure,” and instances of it in a text tend to be heralded by a momentary grandiosity that both marks and masks anxiety (Davidson 2009). Although Davidson has in mind science, literature, and other fields, her analysis captures something all too common in museum books. Too many museum books operate within a narrow and convenient sphere of reference, drawing mostly from sources, ideas, and examples already present within museum discourse. (Such books are about museums in a much narrower sense than, say, history books are about history, because the latter is inherently outward-referring: its subject—the human narrative—lies outside itself. Does an analogous dualism exist in museum studies?) This is especially true of books by and for museum practitioners, which sometimes feel hermetically sealed within the bubble of museums’ most gratifying assumptions about themselves. Even on the academic side of the spectrum, many are rife with what has been called (in another context) “unexamined postulates that answer the question before it is asked” (Ragland-Sullivan 1987, xvii). New or foreign ideas from various disciplines do make their way into these books, of course, but they tend to be ones that confirm rather than unsettle the ways museum people see themselves and their institutions and are often applied in reductive ways that reveal the author’s about the in which the The is a kind of in which the text can museum or practice, even when its seems to want to or Too many museum books make they don’t for argument and an of or for Those in can be of the because out that an has been before by is not the as that to it can the of Too much museum literature on this of which an of the is much I being about these If so, I’m not I a at a museum studies to review a new written by a museum scholar at another whose work she A after the she to she think it was her to review or the museum to were in no with much The book even her wonder about the of the press in which she had already as the of some to the museum they questions have come up in book we on my although they’ve been raised In one a at the University of a museum studies that the to the had the to their own or difficult questions with . . . and and that the had to the articles with each other or the they reviewers have for intellectual and we’re at and than they found in the sometimes texts they It’s that all of these books, including the one as were to an independent review in addition to editorial review before being for So at least two museum studies scholars or museum professionals not with the read each the author’s sometimes with This us that people will on such is to some in the of the But it also questions about the value of the review which may display some of the as the literature whose it is to it’s the of people most of the writing for and the of for and one might expect the and to both at the level. It might be easier for one museum to another to when a than to her own writing to those but it’s that she would have in mind very in the two the that those the profession’s or of can work There are also what we might on the of the review as you’ll see in the of your work with this journal articles also The review is to be but the museum is a sometimes it’s not for reviewers to the of the of the book or they’ve been or for the who those via to their The of people in those two is small, and they each in order to the they and so can work Of course, the of review are of the out the to our taxonomy of museum books and to it the distinctions been making between good museum books and their less but our continuum that runs from academic to or to practice, with museum studies programs in the It will come as no at the academic end and in some books by museum studies the critical which museums are is and the sphere of in which they’re is than at the professional The academics are also at museums among other human and to from other disciplines to understand both of which can be of the most are and while many work in museum natural history museums, few have museum the of their of and are also on the academic side, with What the professional and research reports written by museum practitioners or least in is too many of these books are on and so they fall into the category after be the practitioners who write these books aren’t trying to knowledge for its own they’re trying to support or museums in what they often by and that can be applied So it could be that I’m the of one type of museum literature another and with the But aren’t knowledge and practice of the we to do the in order to the and a little of our and us to do some in my outsider and academic museum books as as a than those by and for practitioners, most museum professionals the academic literature because they think it’s not too theoretical and to them their practical and as and have observed, the of scholarly writing may run than museum staff are of ideas and concepts that appear to But if I’m that books on the academic end of the spectrum are to outside concepts and to on museum then what we have is a between and breadth of in the will This is and are some of the ways new ideas a of practice, and new ideas can that with the it practitioners who academic books about museums are an to their own and I would the even in What museum professionals and museum scholars really to and books that aren’t about museums but which might shed light on the museum enterprise if we can read them with our I’m not to and although these may be relevant in certain this a of I’m that for you work at a science museum or are how science museums their purposes and you for the recent on in or the and you might a of The of a of the and from the and and give some thought to the between an and a (If you’re like me, you’ll at a science exhibit the way Or you could out another this from your into literature, at the of which the of narrative and in the of science concepts than any museum book could read and the for with its of how science from and in human somewhat to of a an on museological truth and by the of of these books raise questions about science museum and and these questions are in kind from those raised by the museum own literature on the they’re and rather than Even by to we something about what’s in the a science or natural history an At the I those coffee-table exhibition catalogues and technical as for a review in Curator on the that they really “about” museums, but were examples or museum here I’m for us to to books that are not “about” museums. The difference is that outsider books like because of their can be read as of museum practice and for new most exhibition catalogues are assertions of the of one over another. It’s not that we should be the outsider books of those that are about museums. should be them museum books, and we should be much to the museological questions they and the they If we can make that in our we may be able to take new in our scholarship and practice. you be able to review many of those outsider books in no matter how their for our be too busy trying to keep up with the stream of books about museums, of which seem to be published each as museum studies programs their to the new their to and museums themselves to in and around the I to seeing which you from this stream to review in Curator and which ones you to your between The of and More I to seeing how the reviewers you to write those to the and the they find in those A literature is as good as its by and can we that our books will be written and are all Your as Curator’s Books Editor will be to museum scholars and practitioners of what’s at each we put to or the of a

Jan-Willem Olliges, Harm Meijer

Listed real estate companies, just like all other listed companies around the world, have to publish quarterly as well as annual reports, informing the public and especially the share and stake holders about the current development of the company. These reports are always awaited with great anticipation. Will there be bad news or good news in the report? And if there is bad news, is it as bad as suspected or better and vise versa are good financial news as good as everybody expected. Depending on this news, changes in the stock price are expected, as well as observed changes in stock price are often explained with an interpretation of the content of the reports. It is commonly expected and believed that bad news have a negative effect on the performance and vise versa with god news. As obvious as it seems, so difficult it is to proof, as god and bad is not an absolute definition but rather a relative one in the eye of the beholder. An interesting question arising from this is, if the publication of financial reports have an general impact, meaning ìalwaysî significantly positive or negative, basically regardless of the content. In order to verify whether the publication of these reports has an effect, an event study shall observe abnormal returns around the time of the publication. Further options are to test if relatively late / early publication has an effect ñ a problem here will be the definition of the ìnormalî time of publication ñ and if the timing within the week or the timing with regard to the period of the year have an influence. // ï The aim of this study is to find out whether a general effect (always positive or always negative) on stock performance can be observed caused by the publication of financial reports, although it is commonly expected to depend upon the content; ï Does it matter whether the reports are published relatively early or relatively late; ï Does timing matter with regard to day of the week or period of the year // On a scientific level, the contribution of this study lies in analyzing whether behavioral effects influence the stock performance of listed real estate companies. From a professional point of view, implications for an optimized investment strategy can be obtained as well as implications for the optimal information strategy of listed real estate companies with regard to their stock performance.

Maciej Bernatt

The concept of procedural fairness plays an important role in the enforcement
\nof competition law, which must not only be effective but also fair. Thus, legal
\ninstitutions should guarantee a proper level of protection of the values of procedural
\nfairness. This paper is dedicated to the possible conflict between the guarantees
\nof procedural fairness that find their expression in the right to be heard and in the
\nprotection of confidential information.Both guarantees, the right to be heard on the one side, and the protection of
\nconfidential information on the other, should be properly balanced. Unlike EU law,
\nPolish legislation and jurisprudence proves to be inefficient in this respect. Article
\n69 of the Competition Act fails to show clearly what the limits of the protection
\nof confidential information are in situations when the right to be heard of other
\nparties of antitrust proceedings is at stake. Business secrets are predominantly
\nprotected over the right to be heard also in the jurisprudence of Polish courts.
\nBy contrast, the Competition Act does not seem to properly protect confidential
\ninformation other than business secrets. Such situation poses a risk for the adequate
\nlevel of protection of procedural fairness in Polish antitrust enforcement. Moreover,
\nneither Polish legislation nor jurisprudence explains to companies what shall prevail
\nin the case of a concrete conflict between the protection of business secrets and
\nthe right to be heard. An answer to this questions is needed seeing as proof of a
\ncompetition law infringement which should be accessible to the parties, can at the
\nsame time constitute a business secret.

Albert Nowacki

According to a contemporary Pole, Ukraine is a country which, having broken out of the clutches of communism, makes its way towards Europe, the place it has always belonged to. The proof of that are the Ukrainians’ European aspirations—to become a member of the EU or NATO, as well as the events of the Orange Revolution, which proved that Ukrainians are mature enough to break free from Russia for the sake of democratization of the country, following the example of Western European countries. However, Ukrainians themselves are no longer so unanimous. A careful look at the country of our neighbours makes it evident that both in the sphere of politics as well as culture the Ukrainian nation is strongly divided. This was demonstrated by the Orange Revolution, which made the West realise that in Ukraine a fight is taking place, where the choice of an eastern or western variant is at stake. Ukrainians are also divided as far as their identity is concerned, both cultural and national, for whose roots they are still searching, both in Russia and Western Europe. We may say that as far as the matter of their place on earth is concerned, Ukrainians are almost in exactly the same place as they were eighty years ago.

Wan Mohammad Taufik Wan Abdullah, Mohmad Sakarnor Bin Deris, Noriza Binti Mohd Saad, Marziana Bt. Hj. Mohamad · 5 authors

Government procurement is a business process within a political system of a government. Failure to properly balance these elements can lead to wasted effort and poor development results within the most important single marketplace in developing countries. Procurement in Malaysia is largely decentralized. The Government Procurement Management Division of the Ministry of Finance sets the procurement policy and rules. The minister of finance or the chief minister for the state procurement boards appoints a tender board in each procuring agency to administer specific procurements. This project aims to explore the perception of suppliers towards the government procurement system. It also aims to evaluate the effectiveness and identify the obstacles arise in the existing government system in the perspectives of stakeholders and to suggest for improvements in terms service quality standards. The results of this study indicated that even though the perceptions of suppliers is good towards the Malaysia government procurement system, the level of effectiveness of the public procurement system is still at a satisfactory level since there are still loopholes which allow opportunity for corruption to occur. This is due to obstacles arisen in the existing government procurement system which need to be eradicated and improved. This study suggests that a major reform need to be in place in order to improve the level of effectiveness of the system

Abdallah El Farissi

No abstract is available for this record.

Authors unavailable

No abstract is available for this record.

Keqin Liu, Qing Zhao

No abstract is available for this record.

Wendin G ouml ran

The SOLID concept is to develop small solid-state hybrid systems with 3-8 qubits capable of performing elementary processing and communication of quantum information. This involves design, fabrication and investigation of combinations of qubits, oscillators, cavities, and transmission lines, creating hybrid devices interfacing different types of qubits for quantum data storage, qubit interconversion, and communication. The agenda is to provide proofs of concept, to identify roadblocks, and to stake out roads that seem particularly promising, including practical applications of quantum technologies.

Carlos Monasterio Escudero

As a way of decentralizing Public Sector, the Foral System is a clear example of Asymmetrical Federalism, since Foral Finance can apply tax measures which the rest of Spanish Autonomous Communities cannot use. From the perspective of Fiscal Federalism, the Foral System gives great tax autonomy to Subcentral Finance, but as a result the Central Government has almost no tax devices. Nowadays, this system presents serious problems regarding to the contribution to national public goods financing and the cooperation to economic stabilization. In quantitative terms, analyzing financial relations between the Foral System of Basque Country and Central Government as a whole, the paid amount underestimates more than 2500 million of euros a year the contribution of Foral Finance for period 2002-2006

Olivier Blazy, Georg Fuchsbauer, Malika Izabachène, Amandine Jambert · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Michael Backes, Stefan Lorenz, Matteo Maffei, Kim Pecina

No abstract is available for this record.

Kenyi Paulino Kamba

The purpose of this study is to explore what governance structures and leadership styles enhance community participation in school governance. The study specifically explored community participation and democratic leadership in improving school governance and management. Qualitative research approach was applied and twenty three (23) informants were interviewed for this study. The study sample comprises of Ministry of Education officials, School Management Committee (SMC) and Parent Teachers Association (PTA) members who represent the parents and the community, Head teachers, and teachers. Interviews, documents evidence, and general observation have been employed as a means of data collection methods. This use of interviews is to allow the informant express his or her views based on the subjective school of though. The data collected was analysed inductively. Educational decentralization is the common way through which community can participate in the governance and management of the schools in Sub-Saharan Africa. Governance and community participation, and organization theories which comprises of critical organization theory, bureaucratic theory, stakeholders theory, and Role theory form the bedrock of the study. The study reveals that the schools have formal structures (SMC and PTA) that promotes community participation in school governance, and that these formal structures are an expression of democratic governance that allow the community to participate in the governance and management of the school through democratic practices and democratic leadership that allows broader participation of the stakeholders in the governance and management of the school. The research findings reveal that community through the SMC and the PTA participate in the governance and management of the schools as the community is engaged in resources mobilization, planning, budgeting, school development, policy formulation, administration and financing of the school, but policies on the curriculum and exams is under the government and that the community is also limited with lacks training, and skills. As such the roles played by the community are underperformed and financed. The study concludes that community participation and democratic leadership enhance school governance and management, as educational providers are hold accountable by the community in this democratic school governance and management.