Blockchain Papers

Salvador Macip

No abstract is available for this record.

Chunming Tang, Dingyi Pei, Zheng‐an Yao

The concept of Zaps, two-round witness indistinguish- able proofs, was introduced by Dwork and Naor in 2000. They constructed Zaps based on non-interactive zero- knowledge proof. This left open the following problem: does there exist a non-interactive Zaps? Barak et al. and Groth et al. answered this question affirmatively under the assumption of the existence of Hitting Set Generators against co-nondeterministic circuits and Decisional Linear Assumption, respectively. In this paper, we will construct ef- ficient non-interactive Zaps under the existence of one-way function. In 2006, Chase and Lysyanskaya defined and con- structed signatures of knowledge based on non-interactive zero-knowledge proof. We prove that their signature is not secure and point out that they exist under the existence of trapdoor permutation. Feige and Shamir stated that digi- tal signature cannot be zero-knowledge(otherwise they are forgeable) and it can be witness hiding. In this paper, we will revise the definition of the signatures of knowledge by using witness hiding protocol and construct them under the existence of one-way function.

Javier Matamoros, Carles Antón‐Haro

In this paper, we address the problem of decentralized parameter estimation via hierarchical organizations of sensors. In this setup, the nodes are organized in clusters, and a sensor is designated as a cluster-head depending on its channel conditions. The task of the network is to estimate an unknown parameter with the minimum possible distortion, while ensuring a prescribed total power consumption. To this aim, we consider analog transmissions and, further, we decompose the problem into smaller subproblems, which can be autonomously solved for each cluster-head. We show that by balancing the total amount of power between the cluster-heads and the sensors, one can increase the estimation accuracy, and we derive a closed-form expression of the optimum balancing for the Uniform Power Allocation(UPA) case. Next, we propose some hybrid solutions which combine UPA with optimal WF schemes. Finally, we assess the performance of the proposed schemes by means of computer simulations, and we carry out a comparison with the non-hierarchical strategy as a baseline.

André Chailloux, Iordanis Kerenidis

In quantum zero knowledge, the assumption was made that the verifier is only using unitary operations. Under this assumption, many nice properties have been shown about quantum zero knowledge, including the fact that Honest-Verifier Quantum Statistical Zero Knowledge ($HVQSZK$) is equal to Cheating-Verifier Quantum Statistical Zero Knowledge ($QSZK$) (see ~\cite{Wat02,Wat06}). In this paper, we study what happens when we allow an honest verifier to flip some coins in addition to using unitary operations. Flipping a coin is a non-unitary operation but doesn\'t seem at first to enhance the cheating possibilities of the verifier since a classical honest verifier can flip coins. In this setting, we show an unexpected result: any classical Interactive Proof has an Honest-Verifier Quantum Statistical Zero Knowledge proof with coins. Note that in the classical case, honest verifier $SZK$ is no more powerful than $SZK$ and hence it is not believed to contain even $NP$. On the other hand, in the case of cheating verifiers, we show that Quantum Statistical Zero Knowledge where the verifier applies any non-unitary operation is equal to Quantum Zero-Knowledge where the verifier uses only unitaries. One can think of our results in two complementary ways. If we would like to use the honest verifier model as a means to study the general model by taking advantage of their equivalence, then it is imperative to use the unitary definition without coins, since with the general one this equivalence is most probably not true. On the other hand, if we would like to use quantum zero knowledge protocols in a cryptographic scenario where the honest-but-curious model is sufficient, then adding the unitary constraint severely decreases the power of quantum zero knowledge protocols.

Mohsen Sharifi, Alireza Saberi, Mojtaba Vahidi, Mohammad Zorufi

No abstract is available for this record.

Atsushi Takahashi

<!-- *** Custom HTML *** --> We associate to a regular system of weights a weighted projective line over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero in two different ways. One is defined as a quotient stack via a hypersurface singularity for a regular system of weights and the other is defined via the signature of the same regular system of weights. The main result in this paper is that if a regular system of weights is of dual type then these two weighted projective lines have equivalent abelian categories of coherent sheaves. As a corollary, we can show that the triangulated categories of the graded singularity associated to a regular system of weights has a full exceptional collection, which is expected from homological mirror symmetries. The main theorem of this paper will be generalized to more general one, to the case when a regular system of weights is of genus zero, which will be given in [5]. Since we need more detailed study of regular systems of weights and some knowledge of algebraic geometry of Deligne–Mumford stacks there, the author write a part of the result in this paper to which another simple proof based on the idea by Geigle–Lenzing [2] can be applied.

Mike Burmester, Fred Piper, Yvo Desmedt, Michael J. Walker

No abstract is available for this record.

Gilles Brassard, Claude Crépeau

No abstract is available for this record.

Tatsuaki Okamoto, Kazuo Ohta

No abstract is available for this record.

Moti Yung

No abstract is available for this record.

Oded Goldreich, Hugo Krawczyk

No abstract is available for this record.

Donald Beaver

No abstract is available for this record.

Michael Ben-Or, Shafi Goldwasser, Joe Kilian, Avi Wigderson

No abstract is available for this record.

Mihir Bellare, Silvio Micali

No abstract is available for this record.

Joan Boyar, René Peralta

No abstract is available for this record.

Ivan Damgård

No abstract is available for this record.

Uriel Feige, Adi Shamir

No abstract is available for this record.

Yacov Yacobi, Zahava Shmuely

No abstract is available for this record.

Adi Shamir

No abstract is available for this record.

Mihir Bellare, Shafi Goldwasser

No abstract is available for this record.

Jens Groth, Steve Lu

No abstract is available for this record.

Frank J. Fabozzi, Pamela Peterson Drake, Ralph S. Polimeni

Preface. About the Authors. Chapter 1. The Changing role of the CFO: From Accounting to Accountable. Part One. Funding. Chapter 2. Capital Structure Decisions. Chapter 3. Types of Debt Financing. Chapter 4. Equity Funding. Chapter 5. Structured Financing: Asset Securitization and Structured Notes. Part Two. Strategy, Taxes, and risk Management. Chapter 6. Strategy and Financial Planning. Chapter 7. Basics of Corporate Taxes and Tax risk Management. Chapter 8. Corporate Risk Management. Part Three. Performance Evaluation. Chapter 9. Financial Ratio Analysis. Chapter 10. Cash Flow Analysis. Chapter 11. Decentralized Operations and responsibility Accounting. Chapter 12. Responsibility Center Performance Evaluation. Chapter 13. Transfer Pricing. Part Four. Asset Management. Chapter 14. Capital Budgeting and Cash Flow Analysis. Chapter 15. Capital Budgeting Techniques. Chapter 16. Capital Budgeting and Risk. Chapter 17. Leasing. Chapter 18. Managing Short-Term Assets. Part Five. Cost and Managerial Accounting. Chapter 19. Classifying Costs. Chapter 20. Costing and Control of Materials, Labor, and Factory Overhead. Chapter 21. Job Order and Process Costing. Chapter 22. Joint Product and Byproduct Costing. Chapter 23. Master Budget. Chapter 24. Standard Costing. Chapter 25. Direct and Absorption Costing. Index.

Hannibal Travis

In an information society, wealth and power are increasingly linked to access to knowledge and control over telecommunications media. Struggles over access to digital media in particular are presenting uniquely contentious First Amendment problems. The creation of about 200 million blogs worldwide has triggered legal action and legislative reform aimed at alleged trademark infringement by bloggers and cybersquatters. Authors and publishers seek expanded rights to curtail unauthorized digital uses for which they are not being compensated, and have sued Google for digitizing and indexing tens of millions of the world's books and periodicals. Finally, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and other Internet and e-commerce firms are trying to beat back plans by the nation's cable and telephone companies to finance upgrades to their networks by levying discriminatory fees on search engines, as well as on Internet content providers and aggregators. Internet users have often been on the losing side of these controversies, as the economic model increasingly adopted by the Supreme Court is that in order to reward corporations for collecting or disseminating information, its free flow in print and electronic form must often be impeded, and its cost to the user increased. This model threatens to empower broadband companies, copyright holders, and trademark owners to restrict the right of the public to utilize digital media for purposes of free speech. This Article argues that digital media such as the broadband Internet, the World Wide Web, and the blogosphere should be at least as free as the press was at the time that the First Amendment was ratified in 1791. In other words, bloggers could not be enjoined or fined for tarnishing the trademarks or goodwill of their employers or other corporations, for trademark law did not prohibit trademark dilution or other non-competitive uses in 1791. Similarly, Web sites and search engines such as Google could not be restrained from digitizing, indexing, andproviding short previews of books and periodicals, for copyright law in 1791 permitted abridgements, adaptations, reviews, and other value-added uses of copyrighted work. Finally, the cable and telephone companies would not be at liberty to levy discriminatory access fees upondigital media outlets, for their ability to monopolize local telecommunications networks is a legacy of anticompetitive state and federal exclusion of new entrants over the past century in violation of the First Amendment. The framers of the First Amendment would no more have countenanced an attempt by Congress and the federal courts to allow private entities enjoying the fruits of past official monopolies to restrain the freedom of speech over an essential facility such as the Internet than they would have endorsed the creation of a series of local book publishing or newspaper monopolies. The framers presumed that information would flow freely and cheaply to citizens and consumers, enabling them to ascertain their true interests without difficulty, and to make decisions accordingly. As Congress considered ratifying the FirstAmendment, Madison declared that by it the liberty of the press is expressly declared to be beyond the reach of this Government. The Supreme Court has construed most of the other amendments in the Bill of Rights to provide at least as much protection against infringement asexisted under the common law in 1791. Opponents of net neutrality requirements have opined that the First Amendment rights of corporate owners of telecommunications infrastructure should trump the First Amendment rights of individual speakers and users of telecommunications media. Under this view, the foremost free speech interests on the Internet are those of broadband infrastructure owners, rather than the senders and recipients of Internet speech such as Web content, blogs, eBooks, or online videos. This line of argument misconceives both the distinctive character of the Internet andthe purposes for which the First Amendment was enacted. The Internet and its principal applications such as the World Wide Web grew as rapidly as they did because they were designed to be open, flexible, and uninhibited by gatekeeper control. The high degree of concentration in the broadband market, the inability of many consumers to switch broadband carriers, and plans by broadband providers to discriminate among different sources of Internet content combine to threaten the Internet as an open, decentralized, low-cost communications platform. TheFirst Amendment is not offended by regulations designed to ensure that firms awarded local telecommunications monopolies by the government exercise their power to restrict mass communication in a manner consistent with the public interest. The overriding purpose of the FirstAmendment is to ensure that readers, listeners, and viewers of public debates obtain access to a wide variety of facts and opinions so as to be able to discern the truth as best they can. Even privileging the speaker's perspective, surely the First Amendment interests of the creators, editors, and aggregators of Web sites, blogs, and online videos - rather than the supposed speech interests of the owners of the wires along which content travels - should prevail in the event of a conflict.

David W. Edgington

Cities, Autonomy, and Decentralization in Japan, Carola Hein and Philippe Pelletier (eds), London and New York, Routledge, 2006, 224 pp., £65.00 (h/b) During the early years of this decade the Japanese government set out a comprehensive agenda of reforms, including cuts in public works expenditure and fiscal reforms designed to reduce the country's public sector debt of nearly US$6.4 trillion, equal to about 150 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, the worst ratio among industrial countries. The process of reform also encompassed urban and regional development as in 2003 the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (2001-2006) created the so-called 'Trinity Reform Package'. In this context, 'trinity' means the decentralisation reform process that involves three factors: reform of local taxes, reform of the local allocation tax grant (the redistribution of funds to local governments) and reform of tied funds and national government disbursements to cities and local prefectures more generally. These fiscal decentralisation measures are still being worked through, but are likely to be significant as Japan has pursued one of the most active and consistent centrally directed regional policies in the OECD over the past 40 years. In light of these new policies a booklength study examining the background to central-local government relations, decentralisation, and city-community relations is most welcome. Hein and Pelletier's collection of essays dates from a 2000 conference and so does not cover in depth the more recent policy initiatives (see however OECD, 2005). Nevertheless, they incorporate an evaluation of earlier moves by the Japanese government set out in the Law for the Promotion of Decentralisation, 1995 (extended by further legislation in 2000). Four essays, including the introduction provided by the editors, deal with aspects of central government-local government relations. Planning historian Ishida Yorifusa examines why Japan differs from a more decentralised model of local government planning practised in the United States, Canada and most European countries. He charts urban and regional policy-making from Meiji Japan (1968-1911) to the current decade in terms of the relative shift of power relations between the central and local governments (and citizens), noting that until Japan's first City Planning Law in 1919, local governments were primarily responsible for urban improvement schemes and local zoning ordinances. The extremely centralised system that was established in 1919 survived the democratic reforms following World War II but led eventually to more administrative (if not financial) power for local government planning enshrined in the 1968 'new' City Planning Law. Since that time, the overall tenor of land use planning in Japan has emphasised (however slowly) both increased powers for local government and citizen involvement, mirroring wider moves in other industrialised countries. Another feature of decentralisation in Japan surrounds the power of the capital, Tokyo, relative to surrounding regions. In recent years politicians and bureaucrats have favoured complete removal of national government functions away from Tokyo to districts in Japan that are (slightly) less vulnerable to earthquakes. Urban planning scholar Nakabayashi Itsuki provides a historical overview of the various schemes to manage the growth of Japan's national capital. These include the ill-fated 'greenbelt' plan of 1939 and the five National Capital Region Development Plans of the national government, as well as the local plans of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The removal of national capital functions away from Tokyo has now been abandoned, mainly due to opposition from the Tokyo governor, Ishihara Shintaro, and a lack of finance. …