Blockchain Papers

Therese J. McGuire

No abstract is available for this record.

E. Marcelpoil

This thesis is a contribution to the analysis of spatial organization: it aims at determining and analyzing the social and economic organization of the " Sillon Alpin ", which is the space going from Geneva to Grenoble in the Rhône-Alpes region. This research participates to public decision, and particularly to the definition of differenciated development policies. Due to Decentralization and European construction, the notion of " territory " has taken the place of the traditional levels of decision and action and is considered as the relevant level for development. The very polysemic term of territory results from the crisis of the seventies, which proved the importance of social, historical, cultural and institutional factors in understanding the diversity of development paths. The main hypothesis is that the concentration of population and economical activities remains the main trend but is not contradictory with a certain autonomy of territories, which leads to a wide range of territorial forms. Very cohesive and autonomous territories are indeed situated near territories which have lost this autonomy and have been included in the influence area of a metropole, whereas the situation of other territories is intermediate. If this diversity of territorial forms is to be taken into account, a method for identifying territories must be elaborated. Thus, every dimension of the territories has been represented by a statistical indicator. Using quantitative data for the " départements " of Isère, Savoie and Haute-Savoie, we have been able to show the spatial organization of " Sillon Alpin " : it is mainly structured by the agglomerations of Grenoble, Chambéry, Annecy and Annemasse, but, nevertheless, it also contains territories with a relatively autonomous development. We have thus characterized the diversity of typical territorial forms of the " Sillon Alpin ". However, using mainly statistical data implies taking also into account qualitative information, which could validate the qualification of a given territorial form on one hand, and, on the other, precise its functionment. Combining quantitative and qualitative data should also enable to analyse dynamically this territorial typology, by characterizing their different trajectories and by putting the stress on the part played by the actors in territorial evolution. / La thèse a pour objet l'organisation territoriale ; son objectif est d'analyser la structuration socio-économique du Sillon Alpin, c'est-à-dire l'axe Genève-Grenoble en région Rhône-Alpes. La recherche s'inscrit dans un contexte d'aide à la définition de politiques de développement différenciées. Les échelons traditionnels d'action sont remis en cause au profit du territoire, le nouvel échelon pertinent pour penser le développement. Ce terme de territoire est le fruit de la crise des années 70, laquelle a mis en évidence l'importance des facteurs sociaux, historiques et institutionnels dans la compréhension des modes de développement. Ainsi, l'hypothèse est faite que la logique de concentration de la population et des activités économiques reste prégnante mais s'articule avec des marges d'autonomie territoriale, conduisant à une large palette de formes territoriales. De fait, des territoires très cohérents avoisinent avec des territoires ayant perdu cette même autonomie relative au profit d'une intégration dans l'aire d'influence d'une métropole de proximité ; d'autres territoires sont eux qualifiés d'intermédiaires car sous l'effet de plusieurs dynamiques de développement contrastées. Appréhender cette diversité de formes territoriales impose une méthodologie d'identification des territoires, relativement exhaustive ; ce qui nous a amené à retenir une entrée statistique. La mobilisation de données quantitatives sur l'exemple du Sillon Alpin a permis de visualiser son organisation territoriale. L'axe est essentiellement structuré par les agglomérations de Grenoble, Chambéry, Annecy et Annemasse. Cependant, cette polarisation n'empêche pas l'existence de territoires, certes intégrés à l'aire d'influence des métropoles mais qui parviennent néanmoins à affirmer une certaine autonomie de développement. La thèse a donc permis de caractériser la variété des formes territoriales typiques du Sillon Alpin. Cependant, l'utilisation préférentielle de données statistiques implique en parallèle de mobiliser des informations qualitatives. Une telle articulation données quantitatives-qualitatives permettrait de dynamiser la typologie des territoires, en mettant en particulier l'accent sur le rôle des acteurs dans l'évolution des dits territoires.

Tsuneo Yoshikuni

The stormy years which Salisbury underwent immediately after World War II present a singular contrast to the politically tranquil pre-1945 era. Yet, looked upon as a people's history, the postwar urban protest had long historical roots: it was very much the consummation of the urban traditions and organizations which the people had created in the prewar years.Before the early 1930s Salisbury's African community was a segmented and decentralized one. Urban institutions and associations did exist, but the town's ‘preindustrial’ topography and other circumstances hardly encouraged the interlocking of workers' institutions and the growth of a ‘self-conscious’ community. But after the Depression the community was considerably structured and centralized. Instrumental in this development was the Mashonaland Native Welfare Society, which promoted sports and recreation among urban Africans for the social control purposes. Many sport and social clubs, old and new, came under the Society's umbrella, with their daily activities coordinated by the Sports and Games Committee.After 1942 the people were outgrowing the Welfare Society's basic tenets. Location residents took a greater interest in improving living conditions, seeking a more autonomous power. Clubs and societies in the meantime distanced themselves from the Welfare Society. A few community activists even espoused political radicalism, when they joined the Labour Party's African Branch, and had C. Mzingeli, the Branch chairman and a former ICU activist, as their leader.The postwar years witnessed a groundswell of labour and community protest, and the ascendency of the re-constructed ICU to the apex of urban politics. The situation, though it might appear totally novel, was in many ways the product of prewar urban traditions: the Reformed ICU was launched by African Labourites, who were also long-established community leaders. Behind the grassroots mobilization by the Union, moreover, lay the growing structuring and centralization of the urban community.

Carmel Shalev, David Chinitz

Israel's ongoing health reform provides lessons regarding attempts to combine universal coverage under national health insurance with a version of managed competition. Based on principles of 'justice, equality and mutual aid," Israel's National Health Insurance Law, 1994 guarantees access to a broad basket of basic services to be provided by four competing sick funds, and the availability of resources adequate to finance the basket. The new rights of citizens to universal coverage and to move freely among sick funds constituted a major policy breakthrough. However, successive amendments to the Law reflect continuing controversy over the amount of resources required to finance the basic basket. Despite the intention to base the system on decentralization and competition, successive amendments have placed more control over health system finance and sick fund management in the hands of the Ministries of Finance and Health. Updating the basic basket to take account of new technologies and drugs has raised unresolved dilemmas. In the Israeli case the dialectic of management vs. competition and of government vs. market, obscures fundamental issues related to the right of citizens to health services. The process set in motion by adoption of The National Health Insurance Law, 1994 calls on public managers and politicians to design institutions which can set priorities within a limited budget and effectively regulate the health care system.

Phyllis R. Magrab, Peter Evans, Phillpa Hurrell

This study addresses the interprofessional training of professionals necessary to function in an integrated service delivery system for children and youth at risk. Information was collected in seven OECD member countries on current multidisciplinary training capabilities, including country information and exemplary program descriptions. A number of significant findings were identified from the study regarding national policies, effects of decentralization, organizing mechanisms, training components, implementation strategies and financing. Clear policy implications emerged from the study, including the need to incorporate national policies on training in the policy framework for serving children and youth at risk, encouraging universities to develop curricula relevant to coordinated systems of care for their children and youth, and establishing national mechanisms for supporting and linking local training initiatives.

Eiichiro Fujisaki, Tatsuaki Okamoto

No abstract is available for this record.

N. El Karoui, S. Peng, M. C. Quenez

We are concerned with different properties of backward stochastic differential equations and their applications to finance. These equations, first introduced by Pardoux and Peng (1990), are useful for the theory of contingent claim valuation, especially cases with constraints and for the theory of recursive utilities, introduced by Duffie and Epstein (1992a, 1992b).

Paul J. J. Welfens, Cornelius Graack

No abstract is available for this record.

Richard Graham Halliday, A.L. Drasdo, Cynthia E. Lumley, Stuart Walker

A survey of 45 leading pharmaceutical companies has been used to investigate aspects of their Research and Development (R&D) strategies, the allocation of resources including the financing and staffing of R&D functions, and the numbers of New Chemical Entities (NCEs) in the development process. The companies included the top ten by R&D expenditure in 1992 (top 10 companies). The study identified characteristics of leading companies and provided comparative data. The principal findings are that: top ten companies had the highest R&D to sales ratios, progressed more NCEs after the drug candidate selection stage in 1992 and had achieved a greater geographical decentralization of staff than any other company. Japanese companies differed in some respects from western companies, even those of a similar size. They operated with smaller clinical and regulatory affairs functions and made detailed plans for R&D expenditure further ahead than western companies, on average, more than 5 years compared with 3 years. an increase in aggregated R&D staffing had occurred between 1990 and 1992 in 33 companies for which data for both years were available and staff numbers had decreased in only five of those companies. top ten companies differed from others in their apparent productivity measured in terms of staff or R&D expenditure per NCE after the drug candidate selection stage, utilizing more staff and having greater R&D expenditure per NCE. The results also appear to indicate early signs of a change in the structure of the industry according to R&D expenditure, which has since become more apparent. There was a distinct polarization by R&D budget size among the respondent companies: five companies were spending $900m or more on R&D in 1992 while the majority of the rest were spending less than a third of that amount.

Oded Goldreich

No abstract is available for this record.

Jonathan Hamilton, Steven Slutsky

A model of a central government and two local governments is used to study the role of fiscal federation in reducing the effect of revenue externalities between local jurisdictions. Immobile consumers buy goods in both their own and the other local community and pay sales taxes in each community. Depending on demand parameters, the fiscal externality may be positive or negative. In the former case, the local governments set tax rates below those a central government would choose. With a positive revenue externality, the central government can use the same tax bases as local governments to finance revenue sharing grants, stimulating local public expenditure, and thus raising welfare. If communities are heterogeneous, this revenue sharing system will not be fully optimal, but it can dominate a system of exclusive central revenue collection.

Mitsuyoshi Kawase

No abstract is available for this record.

William N. Evans, Sheila E. Murray, Robert M. Schwab

No abstract is available for this record.

Bao Guo

The discussion of the zero-knowledge proof protocol of the nonisomorphism of graphs (GNI) has appeared in many papers, but they are not complete zero-knowledge proof protocols at all. This paper proposed a complete zero-knowledge proof protocol on the problem.

Alfredo De Santis, Giovanni Di Crescenzo, Pino Persiano

No abstract is available for this record.

Emmanuel F. Esguerra

Drawing from the public finance literature on expenditure assignment, this paper analyzes how devolution in the health sector is being operationalized in the Philippines. A central issue is how the central government can ensure that national and local objectives coincide. The pattern of health spending after devolution is described, and the financing of national health priorities at the local level through the Comprehensive Health Care Agreements is examined. The paper concludes by suggesting some guidelines for a financing mechanism for locally implemented health projects.

Manju Ahuja, Kathleen M. Carley, Dennis F. Galletta

Today’s organizations face a dynamic and turbulent environment which imposes a requirement for flexible and fast responses to changing business needs. Many organizations have responded by becoming decentralized, team-based and distributed (DeSanctis and Jackson, 1994; Drucker, 1988). These distributed organizations have also been described in recent literature as virtual, network, or cluster organizations, employing selfmanaging teams and autonomous business units (Goldman, 1995; Beyerlein and Johnson, 1994; Camillus, 1993; Mills, 1991; Drucker, 1988). Advances in communication technologies have enabled organizations to acquire and retain such distributed structure by supporting interaction among people coordinating their efforts from different locations.

Norihiko Egi

No abstract is available for this record.

Giovanni Di Crescenzo, Kouichi Sakurai, Moti Yung

No abstract is available for this record.

Tao Zhang, Heng‐Fu Zou

In this paper, we present an analytical model for examining the growth impact of intergovernmental and intersectoral allocation of public expenditure. The model helps us quantify the role of fiscal decentralization in regional economic growth and identify whether central and local allocation of public spending among various sectors are growth-enhancing. Applying our analytical framework to a panel data set of 16 major states in India, we have found that, in many cases of our regressions, fiscal decentralization is positively, and even statistically significantly, associated with state economic growth. The state allocation of public spending in various sectors is broadly consistent with "growth-maximizing", whereas increases in the central allocation of its budget among development projects, nondevelopment projects, and social and community services by cutting the center¡¯s spending on all other functions can promote regional growth. Furthermore, the distortionary effect of the state tax in India is dominated by the productive effect of tax-financed public spending, whereas the reverse holds for the central tax.

Joe Kilian, Erez Petrank, Gábor Tardos

In the course of constructing these PCP'S we abstract a tool we call locking systems. We provide the definition and also a locking system with very efficient parameters. This mechanism may be useful in other settings as well.

Karine Chemla

The Argument To highlight speculative trends specific to the mathematical tradition that developed in China, the paper analyzes an excerpt of a third-century commentary on a mathematical classic, which arguably contains a proof. The paper shows that the following three tasks cannot be dissociated one from the other: (1) to discuss how the ancient text should be read; (2) to describe the practice of mathematical proof to which this text bears witness; (3) to bring to light connections between philosophy and mathematics that it demonstrates were established in China. To this end the paper defines its use of the word “proof” and outlines a program for an international history of mathematical proof. It describes the sense in which the text conveys a proof and shows how it simultaneously fulfills algorithmic ends, bringing to light a formal pattern that appears to be fundamental both for mathematics and for other domains of reality. The interest in transformations that mathematical writings demonstrate in China at that time seems to have been influenced by philosophical developments based on The Book of Changes (Yi-jing) , which the excerpt quotes. This quotation within a mathematical context makes it possible to suggest an interpretation for a rather difficult philosophical statement.

Ronald Cramer, Ivan Damgård

We present zero-knowledge proofs and arguments for arithmetic circuits over finite prime fields, namely given a circuit, show in zero-knowledge that inputs can be selected leading to a given output. For a field GF(q), where q is an n-bit prime, a<br />circuit of size O(n), and error probability 2^−n, our protocols require communication of O(n^2) bits. This is the same worst-cast complexity as the trivial (non zero-knowledge)<br />interactive proof where the prover just reveals the input values. If the circuit involves n multiplications, the best previously known methods would in general require communication<br />of Omega(n^3 log n) bits.<br />Variations of the technique behind these protocols lead to other interesting applications.<br />We first look at the Boolean Circuit Satisfiability problem and give zero-knowledge proofs and arguments for a circuit of size n and error probability 2^−n in which there is an interactive preprocessing phase requiring communication of O(n^2)<br />bits. In this phase, the statement to be proved later need not be known. Later the prover can non-interactively prove any circuit he wants, i.e. by sending only one message, of size O(n) bits.<br />As a second application, we show that Shamirs (Shens) interactive proof system for the (IP-complete) QBF problem can be transformed to a zero-knowledge proof<br />system with the same asymptotic communication complexity and number of rounds. The security of our protocols can be based on any one-way group homomorphism with a particular set of properties. We give examples of special assumptions sufficient for this, including: the RSA assumption, hardness of discrete log in a prime order group, and polynomial security of Die-Hellman encryption. We note that the constants involved in our asymptotic complexities are small enough for our protocols to be practical with realistic choices of parameters.

Jeni Klugman

This paper develops a framework by which the impact of decentralization of government on child welfare can be assessed. Consistent with the child welfare perspective, it is suggested that equity should be given greatest weight, in terms of both equality of opportunity and progress in reducing disparities in access. Allocative efficiency, a notion that has figured prominently in the economics literature about the merits of decentralization, is shown to have limited value once we accept the existence of externalities and public goods in the provision of basic services. The review of available evidence for Asian and transition countries suggests that there is a significant risk that equity can be adversely affected by the decentralization of education and the associated financing arrangements.