Blockchain Papers

Nobuki Mochida

No abstract is available for this record.

Gerrit Bleumer

. In this paper, we establish the notion of divertibility as a protocol property as opposed to the existing notion as a language property (see Okamoto, Ohta [OO90]). We give a definition of protocol divertibility that applies to arbitrary 2-party protocols and is compatible with Okamoto and Ohta's definition in the case of interactive zero-knowledge proofs. Other important examples falling under the new definition are blind signature protocols. A su#cient criterion for divertibility is presented and found to be satisfied by many examples of protocols in the literature. The generality of the definition is further demonstrated by examples from protocol classes that have not been considered for divertibility before. We show diverted El-Gamal encryption and diverted Di#e-Hellman key exchange. Keywords: interactive protocol, divertibility, zero-knowledge proof, Fiat-Shamir identification, blind signature, Di#e-Hellman key-exchange, El-Gamal encryption. 1

Donald Beaver

No abstract is available for this record.

Uwe Schöning, Randall Pruim

No abstract is available for this record.

Liqun Chen

No abstract is available for this record.

Kuotsai Tom Liou

POLICY AND MANAGERIAL ISSUES IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Policy and Managerial Issues in National and Local Economic Development, K.T. Liou Win-Win Policy System and Economic Development, S.S. Nagel Public Budgeting and Economic Development, A. Premchand Public Infrastructure and Economic Development, R. Krol Research and Development Activity and Economic Development, M. Gittleman and E.N. Wolff Strategies for Economic Development Under Decentralization: A Transformation of the Political Economy, R.W. Shin and A. Tat-Kei Ho Group-Based Micro-Finance and Economic Development, N. Bhatt and S.-Y. Tang Administrative Reform and Economic Development: Experiences in Selected Transforming and Developing Countries, S.K. Ma REGIONAL AND LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES Globalization and the Revitalization of U.S. Economic Competitiveness: Implications for Economic Development Policy, C. Clark and R. Montjoy Economic Development Strategies in the American States, M. Jo Waits The Logic and Pathologies of Local and Regional Economic Development Strategies, C.J. Robinson-Barnes and W.L. Waugh, Jr. Government Regulation and Economic Development, R.C. Feiock Linking Economic Development to Strategic Planning: Issues for Community Problem-Solving, W.J. Pammer, Jr. Citizen Participation and Economic Development, D.R. Elkins and E.B. Sharp Community Building and Economic Development, E. Berman and J.D. Jurie Partnering with the Poor: Why Local Governments Should Work with Community-Based Development Organizations to Promote Economic Development, H.J. Rubin Governmental Involvement in Local Economic Development: The Case of Professional Sports, J.D. Jurie Private Entrepreneurship and Grassroots Development Strategies, K.D. Grenell ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN DEVELOPED AND NEWLY INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES Economic Development and Environmental Protection in Australia, M.A. Newman and A.M. Michesen Local Economic Development in Canada, L.A. Reese Local Economic Development Policy in Finland: Key Actors View to Implementation, P. Vartiainen Economic Development in France: From State-Directed to Market-Oriented Economy?, V.A. Schmidt Economic Development Experience in Israel, I. Sharkansky Economic Development in Singapore: The Next Leap, S.B.Chew and R. Chew ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN DEVELOPING AND ECONOMIC-TRANSFORMING COUNTRIES The Political Economy of Development in India, A. Sapat Economic Development in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis, Y. Feng and A.C. Hsiang Policy Issues and Experience in Mexico: Trade, Economic Development, and the Environment, J.M. Rios Economic Development Experience in Nigeria, A. Sekwat Economic Development in South Africa, T.F. Buss and S. Dwivedi Accidental Freedom: Economic Development Experience in Post-Mao China, K. Chen The Imperitives of Economic Liberalization and Political Control in the Cuban Transition, M.A. Rivera Economic Development in Eastern Europe, T.F. Buss The Economic Development Experience of Mongolia, F. Nixson Economic Development in a Transforming Economy: The Vietnam Experience, K.V. Thai, R.G. Rhodd, P.T. Brannon, and L.J. Noe

H A ElZein, Maureen Birmingham, Z. A. Karrar, A A Elhassan · 5 authors

In 1993 a large outbreak of paralytic poliomyelitis occurred in Sudan as a result of an accumulation of large numbers of susceptible children that was accelerated by faltering immunization services. The extent of the outbreak led to the rapid rehabilitation of Sudan's Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI); the government began financing vaccine purchase, operational aspects of EPI were decentralized, vaccine delivery was changed from a mobile to a fixed-site strategy, a solar cold chain network was installed, inservice training was resuscitated, and social mobilization was enhanced. National immunization days (NIDs) for poliomyelitis eradication were conducted throughout the country, including the southern states during a cease fire in areas of conflict. Measles immunization coverage was increased by offering measles vaccine during the second round of NIDs and subsequently through routine immunization services. Supplemental tetanus toxoid immunization of women of child-bearing age began in three provinces at high risk for neonatal tetanus. From 1994 to 1996 reported immunization coverage increased and the incidence of all EPI target diseases fell. Trends in coverage, disease incidence, financing, and the implementation of WHO-recommended disease-control strategies suggest that more sustainable immunization services have been re-established in Sudan.

政三 大川

No abstract is available for this record.

Ross Rubenstein

recent years, a number of large urban school districts have begun efforts to decentralize important decision making authority from the central district office to the local school level, giving greater control over budgeting and management to school staff and parents. Mirroring this approach, school finance researchers are increasingly examining resource allocation issues at more microlevels, such as schools and classrooms. In analyzing funding equity, however, much of the focus has remained at the district-level. While district-level analyses are particularly appropriate for examining systematic relationships between funding levels and district tax bases, they can obscure important resource disparities that may arise between schools within a single district. These issues may be especially critical in large urban districts serving diverse student populations and many students with special needs. This study seeks to help fill this gap by examining resource allocations at the school level in the Chicago Public Schools. Specifically, this article investigates the equity of school-level resource allocations in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) for the 1994-95 school year, the sixth year following the passage of the Chicago School Reform Act. In order to better understand the intradistrict distribution of funding to schools, the article summarizes the results of quantitative analyses of CPS school-level budgets. Because of the inherent difficulties in measuring value-laden concepts such as equity, this article uses a variety of methods and mea

S. Weik, Eric Scherer

No abstract is available for this record.

Julien P. Stern

No abstract is available for this record.

A. T. GREEN, Klaus Jochem

National leprosy control programmes currently face a number of changes to the environment within which they operate. This paper examines the issues arising from these. It focuses, in particular, on those arising from changes in the structure of the health sector as a result of policies of health sector reform which are being considered or adopted in many developing countries. These include decentralization, financing strategies, greater role for the private and NGO sectors and the integration of vertical programmes. The paper is structured around a number of key steps in the development of a strategy for sustainability of appropriate leprosy services. These are the assessment of the epidemiological, social and health services context, development of programme objectives, planning of human and financial resources, development of the strategy, mapping the roles of potential actors, development of regulatory and incentive mechanism, action planning and managing change and, finally, re-evaluation of the programme objectives and service delivery organization. The paper stresses the importance of process in developing ownership of a strategy. It concludes with a set of key questions which it suggests need to be addressed by leprosy programme managers in the development of a proactive response to the changes.

Serguei Shishkin

Health reforms have been implemented in Russia for nearly a decade now. The first reform sought to improve the budgetary system for funding medical expenditures. In 1991, a health insurance system was set up. The major characteristics of Russian reform are: the complexity of the system of compulsory health insurance, which was introduced in bits and pieces ; the decentralization of reforms and regional differences in transitional models; and the attempts to oppose reforms and re-establish the former system for financing health care. The budget crisis has made it even more necessary to go on with reforms: a new phase was announced in 1997. The main tasks are to strike a balance between guarantees for access to free health care and public funds for such care; to correct financial flows to medical expenditures so as to overcome the piecemeal nature of health insurance; and to develop democratic procedures for administering and controlling the health system.

Guillaume Poupard, Jacques Stern

No abstract is available for this record.

James W. Barker

The focus of this research was the individual or small organization. These organizations include small businesses, community groups, K-12 schools or community colleges, local government, and the individual user, as well as many others. In this work, all of these organizations as well as the individual user were collectively referred to as users. The common element shared by each of these users was that they each have legitimate purposes for access to Internet services or each provides a service or services that could be enhanced if distributed via the connectivity provided by the Internet. However, the costs of establishing a conventional Internet server and the associated connectivity are prohibitive to such small-scale organizations. The objectives of this research were to: Establish a definition of a low-cost decentralized distributed computing environment for Intel-based personal computers that will provide users the capability to access the full spectrum of Internet services while enabling them with the ability to retain control of their computing environment. Develop a replication process to replicate and distribute the defined environment in a modular form so as to facilitate installation on a target system. Conduct testing and evaluation of the architecture and replication process to validate its ease of configuration and installation, and compliance with the requirements to provide users the capability to access the full spectrum of Internet services while retaining complete control of their computing environment. This was accomplished in three phases: (a) Phase I - Define an objective architecture, (b) Phase II - Develop a technique for replicating and distributing the architecture, and (c) Phase III - Test and validate the architecture and the replication and distribution processes. Definition of the objective architecture was accomplished through development of a prototype system that successfully demonstrated all of the characteristics required by the objectives of this research. Following the definition of the architecture on the prototype system, development of a technique for replicating and distributing the architecture was undertaken. This was accomplished by developing a group of programs that configured a system to the needs of a target user, captured that configured system on a removable medium, and restored that configured system on the target hardware. Finally the architecture, as well as its replication and distribution processes were evaluated for validity using statistical analysis of data collected from test subjects acting as users. All of these tasks were accomplished within the Linux Operating System environment using only software tools developed by the researcher or tools that are a native component of Linux. The first objective of this research was satisfied by the researcher's selection of Linux and its suite of associated applications as the operating system that would host the solution system. The second objective of this research was accomplished by the researcher's development of a suite of software tools that replicated the configured environment, moved the replication to an appropriate media and restored the environment on a target system. Inviting a group of Linux users to use the tools and provide feedback via a survey satisfied the third objective of this research. It was concluded that the three objectives of this research and therefore the overall goal of this research were accomplished. In each measured evaluation of the architecture, procedures and programs developed by the researcher, the resulting data were plotted in the advanced area or the area tending toward the advanced level of maturity as defined by the Boloix and Robillard (1995) evaluation scale. In a like manner the resulting data were plotted in the exceptionally compliant range or higher on the normal distribution curve survey scale. The trend of results was consistently at the advanced level of maturity on the Boloix and Robillard (1995) evaluation scale or in the exceptionally compliant range of the normal distribution curve survey scale. The researcher found that the results of testing the defined architecture and replication process revealed users are able to quickly implement a fully configured Linux system with all the capabilities defined in the architecture. This resulting Linux system provided a low cost, decentralized, distributed computing environment for Intel-based personal computers that enabled users to access the full spectrum of Internet services while maintaining control of their computing environment. By accomplishing this objective the researcher's Linux system can provide fiscally constrained individuals or small organizations full access to Internet services without the high costs of establishing a conventional Internet server and associated connectivity, prohibitive to a small-scale organization.

Alfredo De Santis, Giovanni Di Crescenzo, Giuseppe Persiano, Moti Yung

No abstract is available for this record.

Wallace E. Huffman, Richard E. Just, Huffman, Wallace E., Just, Richard E.

This paper reviews agricultural research structural and organizational changes in western developed countries, examines new financing prospects for agricultural research, and provides some tentative conclusions about which organizations are best positioned to provide services for the twenty-first century. Given that these countries face many similar economic, political, scientific, and agroclimatic factors and fiscal issues, we can expect a set of similar new developments that have potentially important and widespread long-run implications. After three common developments are outlined, principles of impure public good financing are applied leading to the following agricultural science policy recommendations: (i) new political jurisdictions should be formed to finance research, e.g. new alliances across countries and subregions within large countries; (ii) intellectual property rights should be strengthened to increase the total amount and share of total (public and private) agricultural research that is privately financed and conducted, i.e. the private sector should find it profitable to undertake a large share of applied research but not be expected to finance public-sector agricultural research; and (iii) the public sector should redirect its research efforts increasingly to areas that are socially worthwhile, but not privately undertaken, e.g. in the basic and pretechnology areas, on environmental, resources, food safety and human nutrition, and policy. Finally, large countries that have developed a system of shared public and private financing and performance and decentralized public support of agricultural research seem best positioned for meeting the needs of the twenty-first century.© 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Frank Dignum, G.J.P.M. Houben

This paper describes a new approach to design modern information systems that offer an integrated access to the data and knowledge that is available in local applications. By integrating the local data management activities into one transparent information distribution process, modern organizations can offer better support for its workers in the execution and coordination of their work activities. Observing practical applications of decentralized, autonomous and heterogeneous information systems we see deficiencies in currently available approaches to model such information systems. They do not acknowledge the pivotal role that (informal) communicating workers play in the context of an entire organization. The interaction between the members of social and informal groups of employees makes it possible that (in many of today’s information-intensive enterprises) the local structured procedures can be effectively and flexibly integrated into global work processes supporting the business goals. Traditional design techniques concentrate on either the structured local procedures (and its local database applications), the structured global process (and its global business goals), or the informal (less structured) communication between individuals. We suggest to combine an activity-based model (suited to describe the structured parts of the processes) with a goal- or conversation-based model to tie the different elements together. Using an agent architecture we show that it is possible to implement this integrated approach. The different types of cooperating agents support the individual workers by assessing the goal of the activity, the applicability of the standard procedure, and the availability of alternative knowledge and information in order to supply the necessary information.

Daniel Verdier

The internationalization of capital markets that occurred during the era of the classical gold standard (1870-1914) was part of a broader set of trends that threatened to drain local markets from capital and channel that capital to the national financial center and, from there, toward other national financial centers. Still, internationalization was neither inevitable, uniform, nor irreversible but was a political choice informed by redistributional considerations between rival domestic interests and decided by politically dominant coalitions. The domestic institutional structure in each country determined the composition of the politically dominant coalition. Decentralized structures allowed potential losers to curb public policies favorable to capital market internationalization, whereas centralized structures allowed expected winners to promote such policies. As a result, economies with centralized states ended up being the most dependent on the international capital market, whereas economies with decentralized states took a less active part in the globalization of finance.

Liz Sperling

The past eighteen years have witnessed a shift in the locus of much public sector service provision from elected and heavily regulated local government to the more opaque, appointed sector of quasi‐autonomous non‐governmental organizations (QUANGOs). This shift has been the basis of much debate about the nature of democratic accountability and whether the users of public services are empowered by such decentralization. What has yet to be considered is how the displacement of local authority representation and service delivery may affect different groups of service users. This article is concerned with such issues in relation to women as consumers of public services who, from genuine political as well as expedient motivations, have been relatively well represented by local authorities. The concern here is that as decision making moves away from public view, the need to be seen to accommodate difference is lost, and representative diversity will suffer.

Henry D. Jacoby, Ronald G. Prinn, Richard Schmalensee

Taking the Long View on Global WarmingEven well-informed observers disagree about what the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change will accomplish.Some gaze at its text and see a battle won.They cheer the fact that the generally richer nations participating in the protocol agreed to cut their collective emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming to around five percent less than 1990 levels by early in the next century.These optimists also applaud features of the Kyoto accord designed to hold down the costs of achieving these reductions.In computing their emissions, nations can include changes in the six major greenhouse gases emitted because of human activity, not just carbon dioxide, the most important of the six.In addition, countries can factor in reduced carbon dioxide levels from changes in land use and new forestry techniques that take the gas out of the atmosphere.Groups of participating nations may comply jointly and reallocate commitments among themselves, as the European Union (EU) plans to do within a European "bubble," and there is agreement in principle to some form of emissions trading.Joint implementation, under which agents in one country can get credit for reductions they achieve in another, is to be permitted between participating nations, and a new "Clean Development Mechanism" will provide access to these opportunities in nonparticipating countries, mainly in the developing world.Finally, emissions targets are not rigidly tied to a single year, but to averages over a five-year "commitment period" from 2008 to 2012.Pessimists, on the other hand, see Kyoto as a costly defeat.They note that there is no solid proof that human-induced climate change will occur or that its adverse effects would be serious were it to happen.At the same time, the expense of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet the Kyoto targets will be substantial, and pessimists believe that the effort will make participating countries less competitive.In the darkest interpretation, the Kyoto agreement is a pact among rich nations that will cripple their economies for decades to come, made simply because today's political leaders needed to burnish their environmental credentials.Neither of these schools is correct.Still a third group, whose views are much closer to the mark, believes that Kyoto mainly postpones much needed work on what may prove a very serious longterm challenge.To them, Kyoto is a quick political fix to a problem created at the First Conference of Parties to the Climate convention held in Berlin in 1995.The so-called Berlin mandate instructed negotiators to seek short-term, legally binding targets and timetables for emission control for participating countries only.In the run-up to Kyoto, many leaders publicly committed themselves to this idea.Not surprisingly, avoiding embarrassment on this score became the dominant focus of the negotiations.As a result, this group argues, the Kyoto agreement allows political leaders to declare success, but it does not address the larger climate issues at stake.

Cynthia Dwork, Amit Sahai

. An interactive proof system (or argument) (P; V ) is concurrent zero-knowledge if whenever the prover engages in polynomially many concurrent executions of (P; V ), with (possibly distinct) colluding polynomial time bounded veriers V1 ; : : : ; V poly(n) , the entire undertaking is zero-knowledge. Dwork, Naor, and Sahai recently showed the existence of a large class of concurrent zero-knowledge arguments, including arguments for all of NP, under a reasonable assumption on the behavior of clocks of nonfaulty processors. In this paper, we continue the study of concurrent zero-knowledge arguments. After observing that, without recourse to timing, the existence of a trusted center considerably simpli- es the design and proof of many concurrent zero-knowledge arguments (again including arguments for all of NP), we design a preprocessing protocol, making use of timing, to simulate the trusted center for the purposes of achieving concurrent zero-knowledge. Once a particular p...

Thomas D. Wu

This paper presents a new password authentication and key-exchange protocol suitable for authenticating users and exchanging keys over an untrusted network. The new protocol resists dictionary attacks mounted by either passive or active network intruders, allowing, in principle, even weak passphrases to be used safely. It also offers perfect forward secrecy, which protects past sessions and passwords against future compromises. Finally, user passwords are stored in a form that is not plaintext-equivalent to the password itself, so an attacker who captures the password database cannot use it directly to compromise security and gain immediate access to the host. This new protocol combines techniques of zero-knowledge proofs with asymmetric key exchange protocols and offers significantly improved performance over comparably strong extended methods that resist stolen-verifier attacks such as Augmented EKE or B-SPEKE. 1 Introduction Password authentication protocols come in many flavors, b...

Matt Blaze, Gerrit Bleumer, Martin J. Strauss

No abstract is available for this record.