Blockchain Papers

William J. Ledger

No abstract is available for this record.

William J. Ledger

No abstract is available for this record.

Martin Parker, David Jary

This paper uses elements of Weberian and Foucauldian social theory to speculate on the consequences of recent higher education change in the UK. We argue that changes in the political, institutional and funding environment have produced forms of HE organization that increase the power of management and diminish the autonomy of professional academics. These new forms of organization, which are increasingly bureaucratic and utilize sophisticated systems of surveillance, will make academics increasingly instrumental in their attitudes and behaviour. We conclude that the rationalization of HE should be resisted, but that nostalgia for a previous order should not be part of that resistance. `Mass' higher education organizations are not simply good or bad, but their rationale and consequences need to be clearly thought through if their negative aspects are to be addressed.

Lucy Gilson, Steven J. Russell, Kent Buse

Abstract Since the 1980s user fees for government services have become an accepted financing option for the health and social sectors in developing countries. Even countries which had a tradition of providing health services free of charge have now introduced fees and the focus of debate has shifted from whether or not to introduce them, to when and how they should be introduced. Proponents of user fees stress that equity and efficiency gains can be achieved through the implementation of a cost‐recovery policy package. Within this package user fees are complemented by decentralization and combined with two targeting mechanisms favouring low income groups: exemptions, and the use of fee revenue to improve the services offered to them. The extension and improvement of primary health care, for example, will disproportionately benefit low income groups by addressing their health needs in a cost‐effective way. However, targeting mechanisms, and exemptions in particular, have received little attention in theoretical debates within the health sector and current practices have rarely been reviewed. Relatively little is known about their effectiveness or about the conditions required to ensure and enhance it. This paper seeks to contribute to health financing policy debates by reviewing targeting options and assessing the available evidence concerning these issues. Success in protecting the poor appears to be limited and there are considerable informational, administrative, resource and socio‐political constraints undermining the development of effective targeting mechanisms. The paper, therefore, urges‐caution in developing health care financing policy and identifies a relevant research agenda.

Charles R. Doering, John Gibbon

Introduction In this chapter we show how the dimension of the global attractor ℕ can be estimated for the Navier-Stokes equations. The approach is an extension of that developed in Chapter 4 for ordinary differential equations where it was shown that if N -dimensional volume elements in the system phase space contract to zero, then the attractor dimension d L (ℕ) must be bounded by N . For partial differential equations the technical chore remains the same; namely, to derive estimates on the spectrum of the linearized evolution operator, linearized around solutions on the attractor, and to perform this operation in some function space instead of an a priori finite dimensional phase space. As we saw in Chapter 4 in the context of the Lorenz equations, this requires some knowledge of the location of the attractor, i.e., a priori estimates on the solutions. This approach is pursued in section 9.2 which deals with the 2 d Navier-Stokes equations. It was shown in Chapter 7 that a global attractor si exists in this case, and we have good control of the solutions on the attractor. It turns out that the result for periodic boundary conditions is quite sharp, within logarithms of both the conventional heuristic estimate for the number of degrees of freedom in a 2 d turbulent flow and rigorous lower bounds. The 3 d Navier-Stokes equations on a periodic domain are the concern of section 9.3. The lack of a regularity proof for this case results in some uncertainty concerning the very existence of a compact attractor. To achieve any formal estimate of the attractor dimension it is necessary to assume that H 1 remains bounded for all t .

Ron Martin, Richard Minns

MARTIN R. and MINNS R. (1995) Undermining the financial basis of regions: the spatial structure and implications of the UK pension fund system, Reg. Studies 29, 125–144. Regional growth theory and regional policy traditionally focus on the process of industrial development. Relatively little is known about the flows of money and financial capital that shape that development. This paper examines the spatial organization and implications of the UK pension fund system, one of the principal circuits of financial capital in the national economy. It is shown how the great bulk of pension fund contributions that originate right across the various regions of the UK are channelled into and controlled by financial institutions in the South East of the country. Moreover, those funds are then invested primarily back into companies and organizations located or headquartered in the South East. This spatially centralized system pursues liquidity rather than productive investment, and little of the money trickles down to the regions in the form of finance for capital investment or business expansion. The UK pension fund system thus undermines regions by extracting savings from all over the country and centralizing their management, administration and investment in one region. A key task for regional policy, therefore, should be to promote the decentralization of financial power and financial market structures to the regions so that a greater proportion of money funds remain in and benefit the areas where they originate. MARTIN R. et MINNS R. (1995) L'ébranlement de la base financière des régions: la structure gèographique et les retombées du système de fonds d'assurance-vieillesse du Royaume-Uni, Reg. Studies 29, 125–144. La théorie de croissance régionale et la politique d'aménagement du territoire portent sur le processus de développement industriel. Rares sont les preuves sur les flux d'argent et de capital qui influencent ce développement. Cet article cherche à examiner l'organisation géographique et les retombées du système de fonds d'assurance-vieillesse, l'un des principaux circuits de capital dans l'économie nationale. On démontre comment la masse des cotisations auprès des fonds d'assurance-vieillesse, qui proviennent de toutes les régions du Royaume-Uni, sont affectées aux organismes financiers qui sont situés dans le Sud-Est du pays et qui les gèrent. De surcroît, ces fonds-là sont réinvestis dans une large mesure dans des sociétés et des organismes dont les locaux ou les sièges se trouvent dans le Sud-Est. Ce système centralise du point de vue géographique, porte plutôt sur la liquidité que sur l'investissement productif, et peu d'argent s'infiltre alors dans les régions sous forme de finance désignée pour les dépenses d'investissement ou le développement des entreprises. De cette façon le système de fonds d'assurance-vieillesse du Royaume-Uni ébranle des régions en soutirant des économies dans tout le pays et en centralisant la gestion, l'administration et l'investissement dans une seule région. Par la suite, une tâche primordiale de la politique régionale devrait être alors la promotion de la décentralisation aux régions du pouvoir financier et des structures du des fonds en numeraire reste au sein et au profit des régions d'o[ugrave] ils proviennent. MARTIN R. und MINNS R. (1994) Die Untergrabung der finanziellen Basis der Regionen: die räumliche Struktur des und Implikationen für das britische Rentengeldersystem, Reg. Studies 29, 125–144. Regionalpolitik wie Theorie regionalen Wachstums haben sich immer schon auf den Prozeß industrieller Entwicklung konzentriert. Vergleichsweise wenig weiß man über die Finanzkapital- und Geld-ströme, die diese Entwicklung bestimmen. Der Aufsatz untersucht die räumliche Organisation und Implikationen des britischen Rentengeldersystems, eine der wichtigsten Runden des Finanzkapitals in der Wirtschaft des Landes. Es wird aufgezeigt, wie der Großteil der Rentengelder-beiträge, die aus verschiedenen Regionen des UK zusam-menkommen, Finanzinstituten im Südosten des Landes zugeführt und von ihnen kontrolliert werden. Diese Gelder werden überdies dann vorzugsweise wieder in Gesellschaften und Organisationen investiert, die ihren Standort oder Hauptgeschäftsstelle im Südosten haben. Dieses räumlich zentralisierte System verfolgt statt produktiver Investierung vorzugsweise Liquidität, und den Provinzen fließt nur wenig in Form von Finanzierung von Kapital-investierung oder Geschäftserweiterung zu. Das britische Rentengeldersystem untergräbt somit die Regionen, indem es aus dem ganzen Lande Esparnisse herausholt, und dann Management, Verwaltung und Investierung in einer Region zusammenfaßt. Es sollte deshalb eine Hauptaufgabe der Regionalpolitik sein, die Dezentralisation der Finanzmacht und der Finanzmarkstrukuren auf die Regionen zu betreiben, so daß ein gröberer Anteil der Gelder in den Herkunftsgebieten bleibt und ihnen nützt.

James L. Nkata, Angela Thody

This paper investigates the challenges that Uganda and England have faced in beginning to reestablish community participation in the governance of education. It investigates starting points for the possible development of school-governance systems in both countries. Outlined first are the formats for community involvement that have been adopted ip each country. The traditions and current philosophies that support active community involvement in each country are then examined. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible developments in both countries in light of their similarities and differences. Uganda's education system is officially centralized under a Ministry of Education; de facto, however, the system is decentralized because of the Ministry's lack of finance and poor communications infrastructure to link it with district or local staff. England's education system is officially both centralized and decentralized. Patterns of community involvement, their structures and representative mechanisms, powers, and teacher training and duties are remarkably similar for countries with such apparently different cultures. (Contains 80 references.)

Stephen Silverman

1. The proof consists of the observation that Tr(AB)= Tr(BA), where A = [aij] and B = [bji]. Note that if the field had nonzero characteristic then the argument would merely establish that the sizes of the two bases differed by a multiple of the characteristic. 2. The same argument can be used in an obvious way to define the degree of a finite extension of a field of characteristic zero. This leads directly to a proof of the double extension theorem: if E is a field of characteristic zero, F is a finite extension of E and G is a finite extension of F, then G is a finite extension of E and [G: E] = [G: F][F: E]. This approach can be used to demonstrate the impossibility of the duplication of the cube and the trisection of the angle using straightedge and compass to students who have no knowledge of linear algebra.

Priscilla Wohlstetter, Amy Van Kirk

This paper presents findings of a study that explored effective school-based budgeting practices within effective school-based management (SBM) contexts. The sample was comprised of 18 schools across 9 school districts (7 in the United States, 1 Canadian, and 1 Australian)--that had used SBM to improve school performance. During onsite visits, data were gathered through document analysis and interviews, usually with district administrators, selected school board members, the union president, and school-level administrators and staff. Findings suggest evidence of a broadened definition of school-based budgeting; however, a tremendous gap continued to exist between ideal and actual practices. Districts had decentralized some power, but schools had little discretion after district, and sometimes state, constraints were taken into consideration. Information sharing was often restricted by the political culture of the district and a lack of technology; staff development was relatively fragmented according to availability and demand; and there was very little experimentation with reward structures in schools. There was evidence to suggest, however, that there was a scaling-up process occurring as districts were working to use school-based budgeting to help create high-performance schools. One table is included. Contains 28 references. (LMI) ****?c*******A*:***************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that 'can be made * from the original document. ******A**************************************************************** School-Based Budgeting 1 School-Based Budgeting: Organizing for High Performance U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office W Educatonai Research and Imisovenenl EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER OKI liKue document has been reoteduced as received Iran the Denton or oqsamtat.on ofigtnalong A 0 Mona( Changes hays been mad. 0 .molove hKeOguCtIOn Quells Cants Ovens or OrhnlOnS datedm this clocu mini do not nOCOIanly represent ottoal OE RI isoSinOn Or pOhcs Priscilla Wohlstetter Amy Van Kirk The Center on Educational Governance University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA April 1995 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS RIAL yAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERICI Paper to be presented at the am al American Educational Research Association conference held in San Francisco, California. PRISCILLA WOHLSTETIER is Director of the University of Southern California's Center on Educational Governance and Associate Professor of Politics and Policy in the School of Education. AMY VAN KIRK is a doctoral student in the Policy and Organization Ph.D. Program at the University of Southern California's School of Education and a research assistant for the Center on Educational Governance. The research presented here is part of the Studies of Education Reform program, supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (0ERI), Office of Research. This research has also received generous support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Finance Center of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE). The opinions in this document do not necessarily reflect the position or of the U.S. Department of Education, the University of Southern California, the Carnegie Corporation or CPRE., and no official endorsement should be inferred. Author's Note: In preparing this chapter, the authors benefited in significant ways from Allan Odden's wisdom and policy sense. 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE

Robert D. Mitchell, Warren R. Hofstra

No abstract is available for this record.

Tom Conley

Reviewed by: Heuretics: The Logic of Invention Tom Conley Heuretics: The Logic of Invention, by Gregory L. Ulmer; xiv & 267 pp. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994, $40.00 cloth, $13.95 paper. Heuretics designates areas of logic devoted to discovery and invention. This book sets out to reconfigure the metaphors that have dominated investigation since the advent of print-culture and the Columbian voyages. Adventure, quest, risk, discovery: Francis Bacon’s analogy of scientific research to oceanic travel established the stereotypes that Ulmer strives to dismantle. In 1962 Claude Lévi-Strauss noted in The Raw and the Cooked that in our time: “It is no longer a question of sailing toward other lands: only the voyage is real, not the earth, and the routes have been replaced by the rules of navigation.” With the advent of hypermedia, creation becomes an art of selection and combination. Truth gives way to discovery. Creation is likened to a programmed mélange of material ordered by negotiation, intuition, and strategy. Ulmer performs his proof—and proves his performance—by constructing a virtual staging of a multilayered commemoration he fashions from cinema, architecture, Jacques Derrida’s oeuvre, American history, and autobiography. The result is a collage of signifiers that apposes literary theory, memory-arts, Gary Cooper’s persona in Beau Geste (dir. William Wellman, 1939), Columbian voyages, Platonic dialogues, and a canon of postmodern writings. Ulmer divides the book into four parts, the first of which crafts the overall method from Cartesian reason and Surrealist practices of juxtaposition and automatism. Part two offers a dynamic definition of choreography, the study of local, inherited, and originary areas in which subjectivity is born. In part three Ulmer [End Page 147] sets forth textual rehearsals, based on Lee Strasner’s Method (via Stanislavsky), that mobilize the space and time of his chosen materials. Part four, “Yellowstone Desert,” bring together the strands of the narrative embroidery into a gag-joke (a “puncept” on Custer and custard) that explodes in the author’s face. A good deal of the work turns on Ulmer’s treatment of chora. Exploiting its signifying potential (chora, corps, choral, chorus, coral) he discovers that the myth of the world’s creation recounted in the Timaeus begins when the demiurge makes an X from two strands of plasma. The chi is folded as colures of a sphere that becomes the globe. Nonetheless the presence of the self as an unknown (x) is inferred (in I, or ich). Ulmer shows that “in subordinating mystery to memory, and arguments to paradigms,” choreography will “engage the users’ premises in the process of learning, opening a mutually transforming circuit between judgment and theory, and hence affect not only (. . .) institutional practices (. . .) but human subjectivation as well” (p. 202). Patterned constructions replace the creation and resolution of enigmas. Hypermedia becomes the technology of new creation, while choreography comprises “the institutional practice for augmenting the intuitions of inference, for writing with the logic of the unconscious” (p. 224). Heuretics extends the field of play staked out in Ulmer’s Teletheory. Here is offered a scheme for creating multileveled texts that are both creative and critical and infinitely generative, and that invite readers to connect electronic media to the unconscious. Most readers will not fail to appreciate the wit of the exposition and the clarity of the creative method. Others will pause over some of its assumptions. Certain critical paradigms, such as the antithetical ontologies of Lacan and Derrida, appear easily reconciled. The unnameable traumas of history (genocide) and psychogenesis (the birth and growth of subjectivity) are glossed with an effortless art of citation (pp. 114, 233). The unconscious is assimilated into an easily “accessed” logic, the latter effortlessly “logging in” to the former. The redesign of the Columbian quincentenary indirectly ratifies some of the modes of control that flexible capitalism seeks to impose upon the unconscious. These four points require greater space of exchange in the rich and problematic dialogue that informs Ulmer’s stunning performance of theory. Tom Conley University of Minnesota Copyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press

Lucy Gilson, Anne Mills

No abstract is available for this record.

Richard M. Bird, Jennie I. Litvack, M. Govinda Rao

A successful poverty alleviation strategy has four distinct elements: 1) identifying who the poor are, where they are located, and what they do; 2) analyzing why they are poor; 3) developing policies to improve their standards of living; and 4) supplementing income-improving policies with direct"safety net"policies to increase the poor's short-term consumption etitlements. The precise mixture of"capacity-improving"investments and"safety net"policies appropriate for any country will depend on the country's income level, the extent and nature of its poverty problem, and many other factors. The strategy chosen must be implemented effectively. Spending and revenue decisions need to be more decentralized to ensure that the poverty alleviation policies adopted reflect the preferences, needs, and fiscal abilities of different regions of the country. The nature of that decentralization depends on the country. Pro-poor services throughout Viet Nam are underfunded. This problem is particularly acute in the poorer areas. Improvements in the system of intergovernmental finances could help ensure that each level of government, even in the poorer provinces, is adequately funded - and provided with sufficient expenditure and revenue raising autonomy - to support local investments and their operation and maintenance. Since poor provinces are less able to mobilize additional local revenues to support services, well-designed intergovernmental transfers are particularly important. Provinces must play a greater role both in raising revenues and in allocating expenditures, with incentives built in to ensure that they do so responsibly and efficiently. Local governments must - if they are tobe held accountable for their actions - have some responsibility for determining local tax rates. This will allow them to vary rates to collect more revenues to finance higher levels of public services if they so choose, and at the same time allow the central government to design its transfers in such a way as to ensure that local fiscal efforts are not discouraged by the receipt of such transfers. Richer provinces will tend to collect greater revenues. When transfers are needed to finance local spending in poorer areas, they should provide incentives for local revenue mobilization and allow for some degree of equalization. Services deemed of national importance (for example, a minimum level of education, health care, and social relief) can be promoted by designing specific-purpose transfers. These services must be identified and varying matching requirements established for different provinces depending on such factors as their own revenue base and the cost of providing services in that province.

Vijaya Sherry Chand, Shukla Shailesh R

The inspection system is a visible link between the large numbers of village-based teachers and the district-level administration. While it may be successful in its ‘school audit’ function, dissatisfaction with the system seems to be related to its inability to play a ‘teacher development’ role. Perhaps this failure is not of the inspection system, but of the mechanisms for teacher development. Other institutional mechanisms like the panchayati district education committee, the in-service training opportunities currently provided, or the meetings of school complexes and the pay-centre schools are unable to pay attention to teacher development issues. An alternative to such “top down” mechanisms is necessary. A perspective which puts the practices of teachers first can lead to decentralized “peer learning systems”. These systems – teacher driven and controlled – can drawn on resources already available within existing information systems, for instance, the contributions of outstanding teachers or insights from the inspection reports. District-level management systems like the inspection set-up or in-service training centres, whether bureaucratic or panchayati, can play a supportive role in the financing and monitoring of such initiatives. Such a perspective can also provide an understanding of how, in the context of the current debate on democratic decentralization, a partnership between the teaching community, the administration and panchayati raj institutions can be solved.

Lorenz Nett

No abstract is available for this record.

R. A. Thiétart, B. Forgues

Many authors have stressed the existence of continuous processes of convergence and divergence, stability and instability, evolution and revolution in every organization. This article argues that these processes are embedded in organizational characteristics and in the way organizations are managed. Organizations are presented as nonlinear dynamic systems subject to forces of stability and forces of instability which push them toward chaos. When in a chaotic domain, organizations are likely to exhibit the qualitative properties of chaotic systems. Several of these properties—sensitivity to initial conditions, discreteness of change, attraction to specific configurations, structural invariance at different scales and irreversibility—are used to establish six propositions. First, because of the coupling of counteracting forces, organizations are potentially chaotic. Second, the path from organizational stability to chaos follows a discrete process of change. Third, when the organization is in the chaotic domain, small changes can have big consequences that cannot be predicted in the long term. Fourth, from chaos, new stabilities emerge—the strange attractors—which are assimilated to organizational configurations. Fifth, similar patterns should be found at different scales. Finally, during one single organizational life span or between two different organizations similar actions should never lead to the same result.

David Wellman

THE knot connecting the ILWU and PMA is a complicated one. Keeping the living agreement alive involves doing more than following contractual formalities. For the bargain to live and be jointly kept, private agendas are publicly presented as reciprocated efforts. The two sides try to look like they give as well as take, even when they do not. The union and PMA therefore do more than create contractual language to live with. They also cultivate a relationship in which each side can live with the other. When the appearance of reciprocity is not maintained, one side appears disadvantaged. At this point, living agreements die and defensible disobedience is no longer possible. Making the ILWU–PMA relationship work, therefore, means that the agreement must be kept alive in another sense: The impression of cooperation must be maintained even when one side takes advantage of the other. Expressed differently, a fiction must be established for the relationship to live. Constructing this social fiction is a selfconscious process; it is deliberate and two-sided. Each side is involved in making the illusions joint creations. The fiction is produced in a number of observable ways. CREATING THE ILLUSION OF NEGOTIATION One example emerged during contract talks. Coastwide negotiations began in May and concluded in the middle of July. However, because the ILWU is a decentralized organization and locals are relatively autonomous, the contract is not signed until working rules are negotiated for each port.

Kaoru Kurosawa, Wakaha Ogata, Shigeo Tsujii

In this paper, we consider ZKIPs for promise problems. A promise problem is a pair of predicates (Q; R). A Turning machine T solves the promise problem (Q; R) if, for every x satisfying Q(x), machine T halts and it answers "yes" iff R(x). When :Q(x), we do not care what T does. First, we define "promised BPP" which is a promise problem version of BPP. Then, we prove that a promise problem (Q; R) has a 3-move interactive proof system which is black-box simulation zero knowledge if and only if (Q; R) 2 promised BPP. Next, we show a "4-move" perfect ZKIPs (black-box simulation) for a promise problem of Quadratic Residuosity and that of Blum Numbers under no cryptographic assumption.

Miroslav Urban

The Accreditation Commission of Slovakia was created in 1990, six months after passage of the Higher Education Law. The accreditation procedure stresses decentralization and participation at all levels; however, it leads to major decisions concerning the disapproval or approval of given faculties and appointments to professorships. Institutions as a whole are still not subjected to accreditation procedures. The Accreditation Commission has gained wide acceptance. Its judgments can be expected to influence the financing of given faculties and programmes in the future.

Françoise Chancerelle

Private businesses and local authorities (cities, districts, regions) are linked by many interests. Firms, a source of income for local collectivities have been in ever increasing demand by the local authorities to finance their investment since the new modality of corporation tax in 1980. But with fewer businesses and jobs, companies are an important issue for these local powers and are becoming more important now with new economic responsability given in 1980 by decentralization laws.

Gustavus J. Simmons

No abstract is available for this record.

Stefano D’Amiano, Giovanni Di Crescenzo

No abstract is available for this record.

John M. Luiz, Leon Roets, Hiske Smart

As of July 1994, there were 565,856 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected persons in South Africa, half of whom were 18-25 years of age, and 27% of the adult population is likely to be infected by the year 2010 if current risk behaviors persist. By 2005, the cost of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) to South Africa's health service could reach R18 billion. The newly established National AIDS Task Force seeks to prevent further HIV transmission by promoting condom use, improving control of sexually transmitted diseases, providing a safe blood supply, adopting universal precautions for skin piercing and surgical procedures, preventing intravenous drug use, providing information about prenatal transmission, promoting policies that raise women's status, and socioeconomic development. The personal and social impact of HIV infection will be ameliorated through comprehensive health care and counseling for AIDS victims and their families, protection of infected individuals from discriminatory practices, sustainable social services and benefits to meet the needs of those with AIDS, and promotion of policies that address the socioeconomic consequences of AIDS. On the administrative level, interventions are planned to promote intersectoral coordination, ensure adequate financing, promote community involvement, decentralize planning and management, ensure program monitoring and evaluation, forecast HIV trends, and share technical expertise.

Arne Seli

The evolution of radiotherapy in Denmark is traced from its early inception in 1896 to the first three radium centres in 1913-1914, the establishment of which caused a roar of protests among the surgeons of that time. Private initiative pioneered the Radium Foundation which raised money for radium and financed erection of new buildings for the three centres in the 1930's. Radiotherapy became a separate speciality in 1950. The early 1960s saw the introduction of megavoltage therapy and the first promising results from chemotherapeutic management of solid tumors. The consequent referral of patients to centres for non-surgical therapy created a need for two new centres (Aalborg and Herlev) and called for a gradual closing down of decentralized low-voltage treatment at county level. However, the decentralization of health care in 1970 partly reversed this trend and some patients were therefore referred for decentralized treatment at major county hospitals. Such treatment mainly consisted of adjuvant or palliative chemotherapy, though in a few countries palliative therapy was supported by low-voltage therapy. In 1987 the medical speciality of radiotherapy was officially renamed oncology.