Blockchain Papers

Kate Harts

As a parent of a teenage daughter and as a teacher of adolescents, I try to stay in touch with their entertainment world. I listen to their music, go to some of the “teen” movies, read adolescent novels, and watch television targeted to the teen audience. Two years ago, my daughter invited me to watch her favorite television program with her. Initially, I would simply enjoy sitting with her and sneaking in some conversation during the commercials. Since that time, I am surprised and a little embarrassed to discover that I frequently find myself sitting alone watching this program while my daughter busies herself with other activities. I'm hooked. That program is Buffy, The Vampire Slayer starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers. The series, which premiered on March 10, 1997, is a spin-off from the 1992 movie of the same name. Although the movie was not a box-office hit, it developed a loyal following of viewers who kept video rentals and sales active. The scriptwriter for the movie version of Buffy, Joss Whedon, also serves as creative executive—writer, producer, and director—for the television series (Genge). Although the show airs on the upstart network, WB, and is targeted at adolescents, it has received a significant amount of attention in entertainment and mainstream media. Buffy has been described as “the very best horror has to offer” (Genge xv); with “powerful] ludic elements [in] symbolism and language” (Wilcox 23); offering “transgressive possibilities for reimagining gendered relations and modernist American ideologies” (Owen 25) in “brainy, goodhearted, gloriously expressive TV poetry” (Carson 37) with “delightfully campy dialogue” (Genge xiv) centering around a slight, blonde, ex-cheerleader who “kicks vampire butt.” The framing narrative is about a young woman who inherited special skills as a vampire-slayer, and each episode sees her face assorted demonic forces challenging her and threatening humanity. The first three seasons were set in Sunnydale High School; the present season has moved to the campus of the college in the same town. Buffy has an assortment of friends and foes who are regulars or semi-regulars in the series. Her “Watcher” (or guardian) is Giles (played by Anthony Stewart Head) who has been charged with the duties of training and assisting the Slayer. Her best friend, Willow (played by Alyson Hannigan), displays exceptional computer skills and dabbles in witchcraft. Two other friends, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Oz (Seth Green), round out Buffy's inner circle who get entangled in demonic battles. Another character, Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) has left the series to join Angel in a spin-off show. Cordelia plays a shallow, narcissistic young woman who epitomizes the homecoming queen popularity of traditionally mainstream adolescent experiences. The show has generated an active following. My daughter has bookmarked several web pages that serve as electronic equivalents of fan clubs. These pages include episode summaries, electronic bulletin boards, current news regarding future episodes, personal information about the stars and Joss Whedon, lyrics and artists of the music heard in the show, and links to other related sites. Several of the sites solicit and receive stories and songs written by viewers that stay true to the characters, plots, and themes of the show. Recently two sites ceased including transcripts and sound recordings from the shows after executives (and probably their legal affairs department) contacted them from 20th Century-Fox. Fans are being urged to write letters of protest. In addition to the web pages, there are several chat line sites where fans can engage in a conversation about the show. My daughter's email receives an average of eight to ten messages a week from the chat line to which she subscribes. In addition to the large adolescent following, clearly, something about this show has touched a chord in older viewers as well, witness the critical reviews cited above. The adult magazine George revealed Buffy as second in a list of “20 Most Fascinating Women in Politics.” To apply the term “postmodern” (or any other term) to contemporary society can be problematic. The complexity and vastness of our society defies simple one-word categorization. Postmodernism, as defined by M. H. Abrams extended the contratraditional movements in arts and literature of the modern age to the breaking point where modern works were deemed as conventional and “high art” was devalued in favor of popular art forms. Some postmodernist works celebrated the “'meaninglessness' of existence and the underlying 'void,' or 'nothingness' on which any supposed security is conceived to be precariously suspended” (120). Susan Bordo proposes various origins of the “postmodern age.” Some posit that the postmodern era developed as a reaction to the breakdown of the Enlightenment notions of humanism, rational thought, and beliefs in Truth and Objectivity. Some cite the failure of a cohesive hegemony of Western culture as the beginning of postmoderninity. Some discuss the “information explosion” as evidence of the new era. And some, including Bordo, point to the runaway consumer capitalism of our present culture as the most visible proof of a postmodern society. The term “postmodernism” is used in discussions about literature and the arts in much the same way “poststructuralism” frames conversations about linguistics and literary theory. Poststructuralists discuss meaning, or meaninglessness, by exposing “the naively representational theory of language” (Eagleton 124). Because we are all powerless over the universal influence of language, our agency or our free will is lessened; in a sense, we are de-centered within the circle of our experiences. These structures of language have presented society in terms of binary opposites, of opposing dualities. Poststructuralists reveal these oppositions within a text or any other cultural artifact and neutralize them by deconstructing the binary altogether. This process, outlined by Jacques Derrida, suggests that a deconstructive reader (or viewer) will look for evidence of grammatical or linguistic oppositions—rich/poor, strong/weak, right/left, man/woman—that conform to culturally accepted hierarchical relationships which privilege the first term (or signifier) in the duality while subordinating the second. After exposing the opposition, the hierarchy is inverted by privileging the second term resulting in a new vision of the relationship—poor/rich, weak/strong, left/right, and woman/man. The final step argues for the futility and meaninglessness of structuring binary oppositions in general by exposing them as ideological and cultural contexts that limit and marginalize us. The writers of Buffy play with discourse of cultural patterns in a way that deconstructs many of the dualities of contemporary society. A recent episode (November 23, 1999) is set on Thanksgiving, a cultural tradition rife with ideology. Buffy wants to re-enact a traditional Thanksgiving celebration with her “family of friends.” (Like many adolescent narratives, parents figure little in the action (Donelson and Nilsen). Buffy's father lives in another city and has only been seen in a few episodes. Her mother, Joyce (played by Kristine Sutherland), was oblivious to Buffy's secret slayer identity until the last episode of the second season.) Willow voices the cynical postmodern summation of the hypocrisy of celebrating the genocide of an indigenous culture. Nevertheless, Buffy convinces Willow, Xander, and Anya (played by Emma Caulfield)—Xander's demon girlfriend who grants spurned women retribution towards men—to come to a “real Thanksgiving dinner” at Giles' home. When Giles asks why the dinner has to be at his house, Buffy replies, “You're the patriarch; you have to toast the festivities or it's all meaningless.” Giles notes that it's more a matter of leaving him with the mess to which Buffy agrees. Later as the plot develops, avenging spirits of slaughtered native Americans begin to attack and kill. Willow is reluctant to help devise a plan to kill the spirits due to her nationalistic guilt. Into the mix enters another recurring character called Spike (played by James Marsters), although an enemy of Buffy's, he has come to her for help because he has been implanted (neutered) so that he can no longer “perform” as a vampire. He speaks with a British accent and adds commentary to the discussion about the avenging spirits. He scoffs at the guilt feelings expressed by Willow and speaks with the imperialistic voice of the “natural order” and “might makes right” in Western colonialism. Within this single episode, Buffy has offered ironic commentary and parody of cultural icons such as nationalistic holidays, patriarchal customs, masculine libido, and colonial expansionism. For poststructuralist feminists, the duality of male/female becomes the most troublesome and its inversion and subsequent neutralization is the object of a collective activity. Feminists seek means to subvert the patriarchal nature of Western society. Feminists, like Luce Irigaray in “The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine,” re-write the psychoanalytic assumptions of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan to demonstrate that gender roles are male/female from the of the out that the has been conceived as a with other sees the as and and This of gender from of the gender roles as the of cultural and linguistic are not with or masculine we to them in with the culture of argues that from the nature of these proposes a that these the parody of traditional gender roles by as seen in of women not becomes are no longer as and which a of being of to in that of can in Although much of her discussion of with the roles in Buffy a to traditional gendered roles within the more and much of mainstream culture. the gender we all have new for and These new be in like Buffy has and traditionally to The two recurring in the show, Giles and Xander, are Giles is and Xander is about his in to the and action of the Buffy's is as “the most and of all the a the consumer of and These roles the of roles traditionally seen in action evidence of As a of the episode, Angel to Sunnydale because of a vision that Buffy was in he his to Giles not not to her although he is of some Buffy makes the final that in a episode on show, Buffy to to she his by a demon as he on the This is an of of the plot in episode in the first season with the the to the In this episode, a out other traditional gender roles to the point of the by and parents of adolescent of the of in voices this in a of three adolescent with am with the of of and is or that to in these stories and in the literature at young on to point out that although have that young women stories with there is a of such stories in and A of from the chat line on my daughter's Buffy the that young In the most used to Buffy's most is her to butt.” Buffy simply a tradition of or she a in young are in The first that are and has been written about the relationships in to of the of in the and each to their and are only the of a and Although there be many of in the or stories of many most Western have been and with on the in the action of the to the and of the and to contemporary many of the stories that adolescent literature of These stories to young because the of that the within the of the world. most of these stories with them more to young are to young that our young for or The High series, and adult written by writers like are to adolescent from to many about this in is that read stories where the in and due to a and it be stories that the in the in who a that the reader their and parents and for to them why have to find it for Another that in is the of to their of the High series. these within the the of each as by the As would their gender on their of the in the “The with and and with and that the narrative of these for a where and are where from action and The to cultural is not to in a with that with of and in at about her with adolescent and the of a culture that to their their and their free will in to be and be and to a in the in 1992 that over about their feelings as and of would to be while of the were Although the of age who would have to be the who were to these more of in their on their television and in their would more in the and possibilities of being suggests that can as on a by first the of her and she attack her she a her The so much a a or as a being at the of the figure to such are or rational also in the is also an on of society would to also its or of of and of The a or to herself from so that the can be developed in Buffy A average teen who inherited the skills to and who to in a that is on of the for a of the many of demonic most of the of including Buffy's mother, of and for Buffy's vampire father and Buffy inherited special and skills that her from her the of the second Buffy Sunnydale an episode that is described as the in the patterns of action that is an or The that most of this or of this are a about the of the culture for the very little about the nature of the The of these patterns are to be culturally in the same way as the of their to This about a it's another of on the This about A that has a woman as would lives as we would that women are and is and I and and I'm of that women by them After that in which the is the of traditional literature and that is not simply the of her she is the of the for I would that Buffy the same for our young television This is by a of the electronic conversation of Buffy fans on chat I of my daughter's Buffy chat line to to related to Buffy's as a A was as a very for young I can many that to her to that have to me in show as as to and the of that can shows that you have to more My discussion of has on Buffy is of the an of to the and only visible of and come with and more for The and and the Although these to more a of the have offered young and stories with many in the a psychoanalytic in her and to the we to with is by the way that the of patriarchal society has Her revealed in the narrative to the action while the also the of at another as an figure and the of with the as This is in where the of as for the of the and the patriarchal of contemporary society. And she vision of threatening woman as to the of women is the of the as the evidence on which is the for the of to the and the of the The of with the Buffy a point of for in the action of the Buffy, as the the The as and plot for her Although Buffy, as as all the other in the show, is and about the at in the of woman as and as active is in each is a of in the is as and her is a for American her face and are by the she and the there can be little that Buffy's agency the narrative and the (Owen the term apply to Giles and Xander, it would be for And the most of Buffy in of is the of woman as Although of the or with and about the and writers of the show have a psychoanalytic to the show, the of Buffy with a some to such a with the narrative as Buffy's are the point to the The have a for is you an am me the and the and the makes it the I was in a woman who was and who not only have a with that were of to A is with her mother, Although Joyce and Buffy enjoy from the first and second of the American little is about the of in American culture. to the Joyce is of and in the series. Buffy's and are not from the of of are her as a The series plays at as it is it to be seen play can relations of this society over adolescent in all of from them in to that the average to that are way me a to my I it's that these are TV shows their parents or older to the is that it's so at with the that the of in for my Buffy episode would with her a In a television shows would of from the critical of an and and would be to in of their television in the of these most of all watch television to be first and A program with the best of critical will not the of it on that entertainment our will the of the and to something for which we can some Buffy as the best of the like with in an age where television to be more and more Buffy to about young As a television like any to the audience. television from the In other we to the narrative and Buffy to young (and some and the The and are because ironic commentary on the of the and the of cultural to adolescent while to the of mainstream The symbolism of the Buffy and by the average is not on its young it also them over the with The also a of linguistic that to for its to the language of Buffy's mother, with other with a demonic to the out and of witchcraft. The (played by who to on and a for or After from the Giles and Buffy about to to be Giles' of on in of the on the parents who are more in their to out witchcraft. Giles to Buffy's about a mother, (played by who of active demon and Willow from who be in the Buffy and her about the of Later she her with her Buffy sees her at The to the with Buffy and Willow to a and their about to the until Buffy Buffy's and Giles is by his duties as the to Buffy's as a Buffy's father to to Sunnydale for a traditional he show. The episode also the Angel and Buffy to in her Buffy's friends to try to help her find out her. Buffy about In a Buffy and he the first he her. 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Richard Robinson, David Stiedl

Abstract A study of decentralization of road administration in developing countries has been undertaken, including a literature review, and field studies in Nepal, Uganda and Zambia. The findings are reported under the headings of: constitutions and governance; policy and planning; financial and fiscal aspects; institutions, management and human resources; operations; and contribution to poverty alleviation. Decentralization of road administration has potential for improving the delivery of rural transport infrastructure services. But the evidence from this study suggests that it is proving difficult to realize fully the expected benefits. Problems include: lack of local government powers to exercise political influence; insufficient financial resources; lack of management capability; and a lack of accountability mechanisms. Limited data also suggest that there is little evidence of existing decentralized systems being particularly responsive to addressing the needs of the rural poor. There is a need for the poor to be involved more actively in the planning, financing and implementation process. Different models for administrative decentralization are described and recommendations are made for approaches likely to be the most appropriate for rural transport infrastructure administration and management. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Katarzyna Owsiak, Stanisław Owsiak

In recent years, the problem of reforming governmental systems has been a major issue facing Poland. This paper outlines the challenges of reforming Poland's public finance system, concentrating on the financial aspects of reform. Due to the constraints of public funding and efforts to diminish the total tax burden, reform is difficult. Yet, change in the redistribution of public revenues is absolutely essential for Polish society. We sketch the existing situation in Polish public finance and concentrate on the limitations and possible directions of the reforms. One crucial aspect of the forthcoming reforms will be a change in the revenue that local government derives from central government taxation. Reformers expect to involve local governments in the process of taxation through a new local tax and allow them to establish tax policy on both local and regional levels.

Tim Campbell

Abstract Decentralization in Latin America has dramatically transformed the public sector, producing a quiet revolution of popular participation in public choices at the local level. The process of decentralization has had its share of frustra tions, dangers, and false starts in the Latin American region. Fuzzy or overlap ping divisions of labor, associated threats of fiscal instability, and sustained finance for urban infrastructure still remain to be resolved in many countries. But decentralization has also produced a new generation of leaders, particularly at the local level. Several opinion polls have shown that local, elected officials were more trusted by voters and more responsive than ever to their constituents. They were also energetic, proactive, and vocal. New leaders exhibited a drive to deliver, and this made them eager consumers of new ideas and techniques. They have invented or adopted many ways to mobilize local participation, strengthen organizational capacities, and even raise local taxes, despite increasing fiows of shared revenues from central governments.

Thomas R. Webb

The current dogma of cancer research is that the accumulation of gene mutations in a single cell is responsible for the development and progression of human cancers. “Almost everybody believes that cancer requires certain gene mutations,” noted Christoph Lengauer, Ph.D., associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. “Several genes have to be affected in order to generate cancer, and genetic instability [caused by gene mutations] allows for the accumulation of [these] mistakes.” But this theory is open to debate. Robert Weinberg, Ph.D., professor of cancer research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, agrees with Lengauer and believes that tumor cells arise from disruptions in critical signaling pathways as a result of mutations in various oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. However, Peter Duesberg, Ph.D., professor of molecular and cellular biology at the University of California at Berkeley, believes that aneuploidy, an abnormal number or complement of chromosomes, is the critical mutation responsible for all solid human cancers, independent of specific gene mutations. Both theories have plenty of research—and unanswered questions—behind them. As codiscoverer of viral oncogenes in the 1970s, Duesberg spent 10 years testing the hypothesis that cellular oncogenes cause cancer, but was unsuccessful. “I had my own interests at stake,” said Duesberg. “I realized that the fundamental difference that set apart human oncogenes from viral oncogenes was that viral oncogenes have very strong promoters and express [the gene product] 1000-fold higher. We cannot find such a dominant human oncogene.” Because of this, he criticizes the widespread use of viral promoters in already aneuploid cells, such as NIH3T3, to prove that an oncogene causes cancer. Duesberg began to explore alternative cancer theories. “All of a sudden you see a forest when you were looking for trees,” said Duesberg on aneuploidy, predicted to be the cause of cancer almost a century ago. “Aneuploidy is a very solid correlation.” It is present in nearly all nonviral, solid cancers, and it explains the growing list of nonmutagenic carcinogens and why human oncogenes cannot turn human cells into cancer cells. In addition, “aneuploidy changes thousands of cellular pathways,” he noted, explaining the unique properties of cancer cells. He said he believes that aneuploidy is the only somatic mutation that explains all of the characteristics of a cancer cell. William Brinkley, Ph.D., vice president and dean of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, is also examining the relationship between aneuploidy and cancer. “My view is that aneuploidy is an essential mutation for transformation to malignancy. Aneuploidy is brought about by defects in the mitotic apparatus that result in cell progeny with chromosomal imbalance. Therefore, a defective mitosis leading to aneuploidy is a decisive event in the initiation of genomic instability, a complex process that results largely in cell death but also favors selective clonal outgrowth of tumor cells.” However, Brinkley believes that aneuploidy “must be preceded by additional mutations or altered gene expression that results in defective mitosis.” He is examining the role of a specific mitosis gene that he believes is involved in this process. Duesberg believes that carcinogens generate defects in the mitotic apparatus by directly targeting the spindle apparatus or fragmenting the chromosomes. In addition to causing cancer, Duesberg predicts that aneuploidy, by reassortment of the chromosomes, is responsible for tumor recurrence and multidrug resistance observed in cancer patients. “Most people believe that aneuploidy is important for cancer development,” said Lengauer, who supports Duesberg’s work. “But [Duesberg] goes a little too far in his belief that cancer can occur independent of gene mutations.” Lengauer agrees that carcinogens may be able to induce aneuploidy in the absence of gene mutations, but he does not believe that this by itself can cause cancer. Weinberg believes that aneuploidy is only a consequence of the cancer process, and may not even be a requirement. “Over the last 25 years, no one had ever succeeded in taking a normal human cell and transforming it into a tumor cell through the introduction of mutant genes,” said Weinberg. However, Weinberg and colleagues did just that. In Nature last year, they described the first genetically defined human tumor cells, by adding three mutant genes to two normal human cell lines, embryonic kidney and fibroblasts. In this study, four cellular pathways were important. An oncoprotein of SV40 virus (large T antigen) simultaneously knocked out two tumor suppressor proteins, p53 and Rb. “And both of them must be inactivated, we believe, in order to create a human tumor cell. At the same time, hTERT [telomerase] must be upregulated [to enable cells to grow indefinitely], and finally the mitogenic growth-promoting pathway indicated by ras must also be upregulated.” The resulting cells were anaplastic, highly angiogenic, minimally invasive, and nonmetastatic. “They set the stage for the long process of trying to relate the genes that are damaged in a human genome with the complex behavioral phenotype of the cancer cell,” noted Weinberg. “Of course, there’s much that lies ahead because the genes that we’ve introduced are hardly representative of those that are found mutated in spontaneously arising human tumors.” In response to Weinberg’s publication, Duesberg analyzed the cells and published his observations in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, arguing that what was important about the tumor cells was their aneuploidy, not the introduced genes. “And in fact,” noted Weinberg, “he argued that this was a troubled hypothesis [gene mutation], and these genes were really an epiphenomenon of the whole process of cancer formation, rather than being at the center of the process.” Weinberg recently had the cells re-examined at the National Cancer Institute, and mentioned that one of the cell lines was found to be diploid, in complete contradiction to Duesberg’s observation. Weinberg believes this is proof that “aneuploidy is not an essential prerequisite to the creation of a transformed human malignant cell.” “If present at the scene of a crime, you are a suspect. If not present, you are excused,” noted Duesberg, an analogy to the observation that “not one gene [mutation] has been identified that is consistently found in a highly specific cancer.” Weinberg and others believe that many of the identified oncogenes/tumor suppressor genes lie in the same critical pathways that need to be disrupted for cancer development. Lengauer pointed out that 88% of nonhereditary colon cancers have a mutation in the APC gene, and a nonoverlapping 10% have a mutated β-catenin gene. Both of these genes lie in the same cellular pathway. But can gene mutations and aneuploidy really work independently to cause cancer? Can they work together? “Currently, I believe both may be involved in some cancers,” said Baylor College of Medicine’s Brinkley. “Carcinogens that are mutagens may target oncogenes that ultimately destabilize mitosis, setting conditions for errors that lead to aneuploidy. In the case of nongenotoxic carcinogens such as asbestos, aneuploidy appears to be sufficient to cause cancer. The fact that non-mutagenic agents can cause cancer, and the fact that it has been impossible to isolate cellular genes from cancer cells that transform normal human cells, leads me to seriously question whether gene mutation alone (without aneuploidy) can cause cancer.” Dr. Robert Weinberg Dr. Peter Duesberg The photos above show the 46 chromosomes (plus x and y) from a normal diploid cell (left) and the chromosomes from a cancer cell that exhibits aneuploidy—it has 85 chromosomes.

Mark d’Inverno, G. Flucke

No abstract is available for this record.

Jiefang Li

College system is relatively widely adopted management model of decentralization in our country.Based on the analysis of prlblems in the operation of college system,the paper believes it necessary for colleges to be entrusted three powers autonomous financing,autonomous personnel placement and autonomous allocation of college resources so that the advantages of structural reform of college system can be made use of and the college itself will become a relatively independente ducational entity,The paper expounds the connotation and method of college autonomous financing which is the basis of power for college real operation,and makes an analysis of advantages of college autonomous financing.

Kojo Amanor

The Earth Summit of 1992 ushered in art era of global environmental management based on conventions signed by governments, international panels of experts, global environmental monitoring centres, and interventions of international non-governmental organization (NGOs) working in collaboration with donor nations and aid recipient governinents. The framework for global environmental management articulated within the Report of the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development (UNCED) is based upon a conception of sustainable development which draws together strands of economic development based on neoliberal, free market development with environmental protection. Breaking with previous conceptions of environmental protection, as being dependent upon a transformation of world capitalist markets and a limitation of economic growth, it is argued that environmental protection is dependent upon sustained economic growth and the expansion of new technologies that make more efficient utilisation of natural resources possible without depleting the natural environment. The UNCED report is participatory and inclusive. It places a special emphasis on community participation in the management of resources within localities and addresses the needs of ensuring the rights of minorities to natural resources and to participation in environmental management, including the rights of worriers and people. This is clearly seen in the capacity building programme on promoting Sustainable and Rural Development of UNCED, which lists as its objectives; a) To promote greater public awareness of the role of people's participation and people's organizations, especially women's groups, youth, indigenous people, local communities and small farmers, in sustainable agriculture and development; b)To ensure equitable access of rural people, particularly women, small farmers, landless and indigenous to land, water and forest resources and to technologies, financing, marketing, processing and distribution; c) To strengthen and develop the management and internal capacities of rural people's organizations and extension services and to decentralize decision-making to the lowest community level (UNCED 1992:185) This marks a turning point away from earlier mainstream approaches to environmental management, which were essentially based on legislation and regulations enacted and implemented by specialised government departments. The new emphasis is on a greater participation of civil society in managing the environment, empowerment of women in environmental decision-making, and respect for the cultural integrity and rights of people and the sharing of experience and knowledge. But does this really represent the empowerment of rural and their increasing control over the management of natural resources and their associated production systems? Participation may also be a device through which are cajoled into implementing systems of environmental management which they have not made an input in determining and which do not reflect their immediate interests. As Henkel and Stirrat (2001: 1834 84) argue; The attempt to empower through the projects envisaged and implemented by the practitioners of the new orthodoxy is always an attempt to reshape the personhood of the participants... [P]articipatory approaches to development, far from marking a radical shift away from an ethnocentric concept of modernity are intimately part of the process of modernization itself. In fact, we argue, they might provide even more

Jiahua Che

This paper analyzes financial dual track in China. We show that the co-existence of a soft-budget track (under centralized financing) and a hard-budget track (under decentralized financing) can be strictly more efficient than the two pure cases. Our argument is as follows. First, a hard budget constraint alone is not sufficient to induce sound firm performances, positive incentives in terms of firms' profitability are needed as well. Second, for an economy such as China where many firms are hopeless money losers, there is pecuniary externality in financing. That is, the total number of firms financed into operation in the economy can affect the profitability of all firms. This paper offers a number of examples of such externality. In such an economy, centralized financing helps internalize the externality, improving firms' profitability, and yet it leads to a soft budget constraint. Under decentralized financing, budget constraint is hard, but firms suffer from low profitability. A financial dual track does better: the existence of the soft-budget sector improves profitability, enhancing the disciplinary effect in the hard-budget sector. Based on this analysis, the paper sheds light on the complementary relation between soft budget constraint syndrome in the state sector and the remarkable growth of the non-state sector in China

Don de Savigny, Godfrey Munna, Conrad Mbuya, Leslie Mgalula · 5 authors

The District Health Expenditure Mapping Tool has been developed by the Ministry of Health’s Tanzania Essential Health Interventions Project (TEHIP) in response to a District need and demand for a one-page summary and one-page graphical picture of their comprehensive, annual Council Health Plan. This tool is intended to help Districts understand the accumulated total financial resources they have budgeted (or expended) in their plan; the respective sources from which they expect their revenue; and the major interventions and activities to which these funds are allocated. The tool is based on a matrix relating activities to financial resources such that these health sector allocations can be determined at a glance. The tool calculates both the proportional shares of investment and the absolute per capita investments in the Comprehensive Council Health Plan (CCHP) in terms of all funding partners, and in terms of all core essential health interventions and health system support activities. In anticipation of the National Sentinel System of demographic surveillance sites for burden of disease estimates, it also integrates a District Burden of Disease Profile to provide a graphical comparison of the intervention addressable disease burden and the intervention priorities as selected and reflected in Comprehensive Council Health Plan budgets and expenditures. The tool further calculates the relative shares for curative vs. preventive/promotive expenditure; capital vs. recurrent expenditure; and direct support for health service delivery vs. general health system support. Finally, the tool provides additional basic statistics and specific graphs for the newly introduced Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) Council Health Basket Grant portion of the District Health budget and expenditure. Why is a District Health Expenditure Mapping Tool needed? Planning and budgeting for the health sector for typical Tanzanian Districts of several hundred thousand population is a complex undertaking (Tanzania Ministry of Health, 1998). One of the most detailed components of any Comprehensive Council Health Plan is the budget. District budgets often exceed 25 pages of detail and can contain in excess of a thousand budgeted items or activities, with hundreds of sub-totals, and dozens of major line items. These budgets are often built up from detailed operational activities and aggregate to total figures that typically run to hundreds of millions of Tanzanian shillings. At the end of District Health Expenditure Mapping: A Tool for District Health Planners de Savigny et al. 3 the process it is difficult for Council Health Management Team (CHMT) members, and even the Council Health Planning team itself, to have a good “feel” for the proportional content of their own budgets and plans. Since resource allocation within budgets reflects, to a large extent, the priorities of the Comprehensive Council Health Plan, it is important that the Council Health Planners can examine the final product of their plan in terms of how they have actually allocated their limited resources. Moreover, it is important at the end of the fiscal year, for the planners to be able to apply the same analysis to see whether the planned allocations were achieved in actual expenditure allocations. This need prompted TEHIP to start working in 1997 together with the CHMTs of Morogoro Rural and Rufiji Districts to develop a simple tool for analyzing Council Health Plan budgets and expenditures. The tool has been in continuous evolution since 1997, and has been piloted for four years in these two districts. In that period a number of additional needs and uses for the District Health Expenditure Mapping Tool have emerged and have been incorporated in the tool. One of the early challenges to easy comprehension and analysis of District Health Budgets was the overload of numerical information. Like all TEHIP planning support tools, the District Health Expenditure Mapping Tool has been designed to provide a graphical interface; ie to put numbers into pictures. We have found that this is a more effective means of communicating the core messages contained in complex numerical information contained in budgets and in Health Management Information System (HMIS) data. Hence the District Health Expenditure Mapping Tool provides an array of graphical analyses. Among other changes, health reforms bring increasing decentralization, diversification of financing, and broader partnerships for health. Modern Comprehensive Council Health Plans need to be increasingly comprehensive and need to reflect the efforts of all partners in the Comprehensive Council Health Plan, whether they are governmental, non-governmental, parastatal, private, or community contributors. Therefore the District Health Expenditure Mapping Tool was designed to capture and reflect these partnerships, and also to be a tool of communication for encouraging more partnership. When partners see their contributions mapped into the total District effort, they can see their roles more clearly and feel more Why do we need a District Health Expenditure Mapping Tool? Need for basic analyses of budget and expenditure to check against priorities (burden of disease), norms and standards; Need to reduce complexity of CCHP budgets for CHMT planners; Need for a graphical display of complex numeric information; Need for comprehensive CCHPs to capture all potential sources of revenue; Need for summary information on resource source and allocation for both budgets

Lawrence H. Thompson

No abstract is available for this record.

Dwight R. Lee

No abstract is available for this record.

Masanori Tahira, Kazuyuki Nakamura, Minoru Kunizaki

The purpose of this paper is to examine the redistributive effects of interregional transfer of local taxes and grants from central to local government. We also examine the redistributive consequences of decentralization in the local public finance system. Especially, we focus on the impacts of the devolution of revenue instruments on the local governments. To analyze the redistributive effects, we employ the Reynolds-Smolensky index based on the Lorenz function and its decomposition. Our results show that the devolution of revenue instruments to local governments may increase the income differences among the regions

Jennifer L. Mnookin, Nancy West

This Article, a collaboration between a law professor specializing in evidence and an English professor who writes about film, analyzes a film of the late 1940s - Call Northside 777 (henceforth Northside), directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Jimmy Stewart - as a study in evidence. We argue that the film, an explicit retelling of an actual Chicago wrongful conviction case, speaks powerfully to the question of what counts as proof and what persuades, both in the courtroom and in our cultural imagination. The film strongly suggests that legal conceptions of what constitutes good evidence may deviate from more broadly-held ideas of legitimate proof. Legal standards of evidence are portrayed as rigid and conservative, too willing to rely on the reliable and too resistant to novel forms of knowledge. The Article explores in detail how Northside sets up a hierarchy of evidence, with eyewitness evidence at the bottom, expert evidence in the middle, and photographic and visual evidence portrayed as the best evidence of all. We show, however, that in the end, Northside's hierarchy depends on a host of simplifications, both of the historical record on which Northside is based, and also of the ways that visual evidence is made and deployed. We also use Northside as a jumping-off point for a broader examination of the relation between films and legal evidence. We analyze the actual use of reenactments and other films as legal evidence in the period contemporaneous with Northside, and we show that for the most part, judges shared the vision set forth in Northside of film as a nearly transparent medium of truth. In addition, we look at Northside as a "reenactment," a hybrid form that lies between drama and documentary, and show that dramatic reenactments and trials have a special relation: they are both, at heart, attempts to capture the past in an authentic and credible fashion. Neither claims to capture the past directly, but both verdicts and reenactments want to be seen as being true to the past in all of the ways that matters. The Article, therefore, suggests an important affinity between the trial and the filmed reenactment: Both are attempts to create believable stories of the past, stories not literally true that nonetheless become substitute depictions for what actually occurred.

Emily L. Sherwin, Kevin M. Clermont

In common-law systems, the standard of proof for ordinary civil cases requires the party who bears the burden of proof to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the facts alleged are true. In contrast, the prevailing standard of proof for civil cases in civil-law systems is indistinguishable from the standard for criminal cases: the judge must be firmly convinced that the facts alleged true. This striking difference in common-law and civil-law procedures has received very little attention from either civilian or comparative scholars. The preponderance standard applied in common-law systems is openly probabilistic and produces, on average, more accurate results. This makes continued civilian adherence to a standard of virtual certainty mysterious. The article offers both historical reasons for the divergence between common-law and civil-law standards of proof and tentative explanations for the modern persistence of a high standard of proof in civil-law countries. The most plausible of these explanations is that the high civil-law standard conveys an impression of accuracy and certainty, and thus enhances the perceived legitimacy of judicial decisions. Increasing public confidence in adjudication is a valid procedural objective, but in this case carries costs in terms of accuracy and informed development of evidentiary doctrine.

Alexis Derviz

The paper introduces a model of bid/ask price formation in an imperfectly centralized forex dealership market in continuous time. The dealers have costly access to best quotes. They interpret signals from the joint dealer-customer order flow and decide upon their own quotes and trades in the inter-dealer market. The lowest ask/highest bid price of a foreign currency becomes the single transaction price in equilibrium. Each dealer uses the observed order flow to improve the subjective estimates of relevant aggregate variables, which are the sources of uncertainty. These are: returns on domestic and foreign assets, the equilibrium FX transaction price and the size of the aggregate dealer transactions in the FX market. These uncertainties have diffusion form and are dealt with according to principles of portfolio optimization in continuous time. The price information content of the local order flow observed by the dealer, has to do with the existence of ifgloballo investors in the dealer's customer base. Global investors have access to bid-ask quotes of more than one dealer, along with superior information about fundamentals. These two factors help them generate better estimates of the future inter-dealer transactions than both the ihlocalli investors (i.e. those who only trade with their single local dealer) and any of the dealers themselves. I obtain the formula for the dealer spread around the equilibrium price. I also show how informational customer-dealer asymmetries generate non-stationary cumulative order flows as well as deviations of the inter- dealer transaction price from uncovered parity of national asset returns.

George G. Triantis

Recent scholarship has described a venture capital cycle which finances start-up technology companies. This cycle, however, bears striking similarities with its counterpart in the old economy under which banks financed young firms. Indeed, with one notable exception, venture capital has introduced little innovation in financial contract design between financial intermediaries and entrepreneurs. The same approaches to information problems are used by banks and venture capital partnerships alike. The significant exception is the frequent use in venture capital finance of convertible instruments in the place of secured debt financing by banks. This paper explains (i) the functional similarity between venture capital and bank contracts with entrepreneurs and (ii) the valuable role played by convertible debt or preferred stock in technology start-ups.

Ellen E. Deason

This article explores competing policies between accurately enforcing mediated settlement agreements and maintaining the confidentiality of the mediation process. Attempts to enforce or resist enforcement of settlement agreements are an increasingly common source of challenges to mediation confidentiality in two contexts: claims of oral settlement agreements and defenses to agreements such as fraud, duress, or lack of authority. In both these settings communications and events that took place during mediation are often relevant to evaluting the validity of settlements, yet this evidence would undermine the promise of confidentiality associated with the mediation process. State legislatures and courts have taken a myriad of approaches to this inherent conflict in deciding if mediated agreements are enforceable. Professor Deason considers the policy choices in light of the potential harms from disclosure to the process of mediation, the values expressed in traditional contract rules, and the central role of party autonomy in mediation. In her view, the importance of mediation confidentiality justifies requiring a signed writing or some other form of record to show the existence of a mediated settlement. The draft Uniform Mediation Act also takes this approach. For contract defenses, however, she supports a case-by-case balancing, despite the uncertainty it introduces. The article also proposes ways for courts to minimize the need to consider mediation disclosures and suggests proceduress to maintain confidentiality during the decision process when it is necessary.

Lars Calmfors, Asa Johansson

We show in a union-bargaining model that a decrease in the unemployment benefit level increases not only equilibrium employment, but also nominal wage flexibility, and thus reduces employment variations in the case of nominal shocks. Long-term wage contracts lead to higher expected real wages and, hence, higher expected unemployment than short-term contracts. Therefore lower benefits reduce the expected utility gross of contract costs of a union member more with long-term than with short-term contracts and thus create an incentive for shorter contracts. Incentives for employers work in the same direction. Lower taxes associated with lower benefits also tend to make short-term contracts more attractive.

Greg Murtough, Matthew Waite

The ABS definition of a "casual employee" includes: many workers who do not have a casual employment contract; a large group whose work is not casual (in the sense of being occasional, irregular or short term); and aggregates across distinct groups of casual contract employees who have very different entitlements and work arrangements. In August 1999, more than one in ten people categorized as casual employees by the ABS were in fact owner managers. This upward bias in the data has increased since the late 1980s and is most evident for people working full-time. Using alternative data from a new irregular ABS survey, it is estimated that there were 1.5 million casual contract employees in August 1998 (equivalent to 17.7 percent of employed persons, compared to 23.2 percent who would have satisfied the ABS definition of a casual employee). In August 1998, 95 percent of casual contract employees had an implicit contract for ongoing employment, only 4 percent had a job which their employer had indicated was short term, and many perceived that they were able to progress to an ongoing contract job. More than a third of casual contract employees had an implicit contract for ongoing employment and regular earnings in August 1998. Many of these "ongoing casuals" have been granted entitlements associated with ongoing employment (such as long service leave) because the true nature of their work is ongoing. However, 80 percent of casual contract employees in August 1998 were not protected by unfair dismissal laws, 62 percent had irregular earnings (excluding overtime), and 40 percent wanted to work more hours. They were also concentrated in low skill occupations. The welfare impacts of particular job traits will depend on the preferences of those affected. Casual contract employees tend to be young, female, and full-time dependent students. A large minority (29 percent in August 1998) are aged over 24 and have dependants, although this group is more likely to have employment conditions closer to ongoing contract employees. Hence, whether an employee has a casual contract provides little information about his or her welfare. Where the concern is about so-called "precarious" employment, analysts need to identify such employment on the basis of work arrangements rather than the type of employment contract.

Ira Mark Ellman

This short essay was written for a symposium on the 25th anniversary of Marvin v. Marvin, the California Supreme Court decision recognizing the enforceability of cohabitation contracts. It observes that Marvin turned out to be far less significant in the lives of cohabiting couples than many had thought at the time it was decided, and argues that the reason is its misguided reliance upon contract as the basis of claims between partners in an intimate relationship. That reliance was misguided because while couples often think of their relationship as reciprocal, they do not think of it as contractual in any sense that the law can sensibly employ as the basis of liability. A legal regime in which contract is the main source of legal obligation will therefore lead to the rejection of compelling claims by courts unwilling to distort contract doctrine. The difference between reciprocal and contractual relationships, and ease with which they may be confused, is briefly explored. The essay concludes that there is a separate source of legal duty arising from relationships themselves, distinct from contract; that obligations arising from marriage are in fact relational rather than contractual; and that sensible rules governing legal duties between unmarried cohabitants would not ask whether they had a contract, but whether their non-marital relationship shares with marriage those qualities which lead the law to impose reciprocal legal duties on husbands and wives. The essay finally observes that a relational approach, based upon status rather than contract, has been recommended by the American Law Institute, has been enacted in many other countries, including Canada, and is the likely future of American law. Marvin's contract conception of obligation in intimate relationships therefore seems a relic of a failed experiment more than a harbinger of the future.

Eric Bennett Rasmusen

A number of issues in the common law arise when agents make contracts on behalf of principals. Should a principal be bound when his agent makes a contract with some third party on his behalf which the principal would immediately wish to disavow? The tradeoffs resemble those in tort, so the least-cost-avoider principle is useful for deciding when contracts are valid, and may be the underlying logic behind a number of different doctrines in agency law. In particular, an efficiency explanation can be found for the undisclosed principal rule, under which the principal is bound even when the third party is unaware that the agent is acting as an agent.

Rafael Gely

Recently, a number of commentators have questioned the validity of the use of default rules in contract law, by challenging the assumptions that lead, in the first place, to the wide use of default rules. (See e.g., the University of Chicago Law Review Symposium on Formalism Revisited, 1999). Motivated in part by this debate, this article challenges one of the most basic assumptions in employment law: that employers and employees are silent about a number of important issues concerning the employment relationship, and thus, that courts are justified in developing default rules to apply to employment law disputes. This assumption has been used to develop default rules in a number of areas, but has been particularly relevant in the development of the law regarding privacy rights and employment security (the Employment-at-Will debate). In the article I argue that the parties to employment contracts have been telling us more than what conventionally we have recognized. In particular, I argue that by carefully analyzing aspects of the employment contract which the parties normally specify (such as the form and the basis of compensation), very specific, non trivial, understandings on other important issues are made apparent. I rely on recent developments in labor economics theory to explore the exchanges employers and employees make, and to analyze how these exchanges are reflected in the compensation provisions of their employment contracts. I argue that the information embedded in the compensation provisions of employment contracts provides valuable insights for the resolution of disputes regarding privacy rights and job security. The article advances an alternative approach to the use of default rules in the employment area, similar to the attempts to advance alternative approaches to the use of default rules in commercial law.

Shi Rong

For information protection system, based on Harn's digital signature scheme and zero knowledge proof, this paper presents a double way authentication access control scheme. The scheme is safer than previously proposed schemes. In the scheme, double way authentication may be done between a user and the system without exposing their secret information, and their sharing secret is used for authenticating the requesting user not to illegitimatimately access the protected information body. The scheme can perform the access operation in dynamic environments, such as change access privileges and insert /delete users or information bodies without implicating any user's secret key, and need not restructure the information protection system. Thus, the scheme's dynamic feature is perfect. The proposed double way authentication access control scheme's computation security, based upon Harn's digital signature scheme and Zero knowledge proof, does not lower than the computation complexity of solving “Discrete Logarithm Problem”.