Blockchain Papers

Loren Kinman, Scott J. Brodie, Che Chung Tsai, Tot Bui · 10 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

John W. Rich

Waste Processors Management, Inc. (WMPI), along with its subcontractors Texaco Power & Gasification (now ChevronTexaco), SASOL Technology Ltd., and Nexant Inc. entered into a Cooperative Agreement DE-FC26-00NT40693 with the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to assess the techno-economic viability of building an Early Entrance Co-Production Plant (EECP) in the United States to produce ultra clean Fischer-Tropsch (FT) transportation fuels with either power or steam as the major co-product. The EECP design includes recovery and gasification of low-cost coal waste (culm) from physical coal cleaning operations and will assess blends of the culm with coal or petroleum coke. The project has three phases. Phase I is the concept definition and engineering feasibility study to identify areas of technical, environmental and financial risk. Phase II is an experimental testing program designed to validate the coal waste mixture gasification performance. Phase III updates the original EECP design based on results from Phase II, to prepare a preliminary engineering design package and financial plan for obtaining private funding to build a 5,000 barrel per day (BPD) coal gasification/liquefaction plant next to an existing co-generation plant in Gilberton, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. The current report covers the period performance from July 1, 2003 through September 30, 2003. The DOE/WMPI Cooperative Agreement was modified on May 2003 to expand the project team to include Shell Global Solutions, U.S. and Uhde GmbH as the engineering contractor. The addition of Shell and Uhde strengthen both the technical capability and financing ability of the project. Uhde, as the prime EPC contractor, has the responsibility to develop a LSTK (lump sum turnkey) engineering design package for the EECP leading to the eventual detailed engineering, construction and operation of the proposed concept. Major technical activities during the reporting period include: (1) finalizing contractual agreements between DOE, Uhde and other technology providers, focusing on intellectual-property-right issues, (2) Uhde's preparation of a LSTK project execution plan and other project engineering procedural documents, and (3) Uhde's preliminary project technical concept assessment and trade-off evaluations.

Hartmut Surmann, Andreas Nüchter, Joachim Hertzberg

No abstract is available for this record.

Äsa Cristina Laurell

Latin American social medicine (LASM) emerged as a movement in the 1970s and played an important role in the Brazilian health care reform of the 1980s, both of which focused on decentralization and on health care as a social right. The dominant health care reform model in Latin America has included a market-driven, private subsystem for the insured and a public subsystem for the uninsured and the poor. In contrast, the Mexico City government has launched a comprehensive policy based on social rights and redistribution of resources. A universal pension for senior citizens and free medical services are financed by grants, eliminating routine government corruption and waste. The Mexico City policy reflects the influence of Latin American social medicine. In this article, I outline the basic traits of LASM and those of the prevailing health care reform model in Latin America and describe the Mexico City social and health policy, emphasizing the influence of LASM in values, principles, and concrete programs.

Wanzong Peng, Tongliang Lu, Wenju Peng, Zhongpan Wang

File sharing, being the foundation of the Internet, has traditionally relied on a centralized service architecture resulting in significant maintenance costs. Moreover, due to the lack of an effective file management system, instances of sensitive information going out of control and loss of confidentiality in file sharing have occurred frequently. In order to address the difficulty of tamper detection and the lack of supervision in the entire process of file transfer in the current Internet environment, this paper designs a blockchain-based system architecture for secure sharing of electronic documents. An efficient blockchain model is used in our framework, and with the help of distributed storage system and asymmetric encryption technology, file sharing can be controlled, reliable and traceable in the transfer process. Referring to existing consensus mechanisms, e.g., Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT), we propose a new consensus for efficient and secure file sharing. Our experimental results show that our framework can maintain a higher throughput than existing schemes.

Charlie Jeffery

The rules for allocating financial resources in decentralized states are both crucially important for the operation of government and deeply controversial, since finance is an easily politicized issue. This contribution focuses on this political dimension. Drawing on evidence from a range of decentralized states, it identifies the issues around which central–regional and inter-regional conflict tends to develop, including: the relation of revenue-raising powers to expenditure responsibilities; vertical fiscal imbalances between centre and regions; horizontal, region-to-region imbalances of fiscal capacity; and the processes for revising territorial financial arrangements. The article also draws on this comparative evidence to identify some of the issues the UK is likely to encounter as debate about the reform of its territorial financial arrangements unfolds.

Manuel E. Contreras, Maria Luisa Talavera Simoni

This case study of the Bolivian education reform, synthesizes the first decade of the reform's design and implementation process, from 1992 to 2002, and, summarizes many recent unpublished reports on the reform, while weaving together various partial studies produced in Bolivia and abroad. The study presents a general background of Bolivia, and its socioeconomic and educational characteristics, traces the reform's background, its formulation process, and the main proposals of the Education Reform Law of 1994 (ERL). It also includes an analysis of the reform implementation, and highlights major changes in: teacher training, curriculum development, curriculum and pedagogical implementation, bilingual and intercultural education, institutional reform, decentralization, student achievement and testing (SIMECAL), and financing. The reform has improved the internal efficiency of public primary schools, and decreased access differentials between rural and urban areas. Lessons indicate that continuity in policy and leadership, is critical to achieve lasting results; there is a need for basic provision of materials in all schools in order for innovation to take hold; there is also a need to ensure that basic institutional capacities are developed within the ministries of education. The report further emphasizes that all levels of education systems have complementary roles to play in a reform. The study is composed of six sections: the first section presents a general background of Bolivia and its socioeconomic and educational characteristics; section 2 traces the reform's background, its formulation process, and the main proposals of the 1994 ERL; section 3 includes an analysis of the reform implementation and highlights major changes in teacher training; curriculum development; curriculum and pedagogical implementation; bilingual and intercultural education; institutional reform; teachers' unions and compensation; decentralization; student achievement and testing (SIMECAL); and, education financing; section 4 assesses the education reform and compares it to other countries in the region. It analyzes the reform's main influences, and the reformers' critical reform strategies, while section 5 presents the study's main conclusions, and the final section distills lessons learned from the Bolivian experience.

Nizar Allouch, Monique Florenzano

No abstract is available for this record.

Koko Warner, Georg Ch. Pflug, Leslie Martin, J. Linnerooth‐Bayer · 6 authors

This report was commissioned by the Natural Disasters Network of the Regional Policy Dialogue. This report constitutes Phase 2 of this project. While the first phase of the study discusses the components of a national system, the second focuses on instruments for financing reconstruction after a disaster. The research compares centralized, government-directed management systems with those that are localized and decentralized, and also analyzes the factors affecting the financial and political stability of alternative approaches. As natural disasters may result in major resource gaps for governments facing the task of financing reconstruction, the report presents case studies of four countries-Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador-to highlight the various policy options. Alternative sources of ex ante funding are identified, including reserve funds, contingent credit, and insurance. These innovative methods of funding are compared with ex post funding possibilities through international aid, loan diversions and increased external debt, budget reallocations, and tax increases.

Deanne A. Crone, Robert H. Horner, Leanne S. Hawken

1. Introduction to the Behavior Education Program 2. The Context for Positive Behavior Support in Schools 3. The Basic BEP: Critical Features and Processes 4. Getting a BEP Intervention Started 5. Roles, Responsibilities, and Training Needs Related to Implementing the BEP, Deanne A. Crone, Leanne S. Hawken, and K. Sandra MacLeod 6. Designing the BEP to Fit Your School 7. Measuring Response to the BEP Intervention and Fading 8. The Modified BEP: Adaptations and Elaborations 9. High School Implementation of the BEP, Jessica Swain-Bradway and Robert H. Horner 10. Adapting the BEP for Preschool Settings, Susan S. Johnston and Leanne S. Hawken 11. Cultural Considerations and Adaptations for the BEP, Joan Schumann and Jason J. Burrow-Sanchez 12. Frequently Asked Questions and Troubleshooting the BEP Implementation Appendices: Appendix A.1. List of Acronyms and Definitions Appendix B.1. Working Smarter Not Harder Organizer Appendix B.2. Request for Assistance Form Appendix B.3. Parental Permission Form Appendix B.4. Daily Progress Report-Middle School, Example 1 Appendix B.5. Daily Progress Report-Middle School, Example 2 Appendix B.6. Thumbs Up! Ticket Appendix B.7. Daily Progress Report-Elementary School, Example 1 Appendix B.8. Daily Progress Report-Elementary School, Example 2 Appendix C.1. BEP Implementation Readiness Questionnaire Appendix C.2. Voting Form for Implementing the BEP Intervention Appendix C.3. BEP Development and Implementation Guide Appendix D.1. BEP Check-In, Check-Out Form-Elementary School Appendix D.2. BEP Check-In, Check-Out Form-Middle/High School Appendix E.1. Reinforcer Checklist Appendix F.1. BEP Fidelity of Implementation Measure (BEP-FIM) Appendix F.2. BEP Acceptability Questionnaire-Teacher Version Appendix F.3. BEP Acceptability Questionnaire-Student Version Appendix F.4. BEP Acceptability Questionnaire-Parent Version Appendix G.1. BEP Contract Appendix G.2. BEP Support Plan Appendix G.3. Functional Behavioral Assessment-Behavior Support Plan Protocol (F-BSP Protocol) Appendix G.4. Functional Assessment Checklist for Teachers and Staff (FACTS) Appendix H.1. High School BEP Referral Form Appendix H.2. High School Daily Plan Agenda Appendix H.3. Reinforcer Checklist for High School BEP

Charles Tilly

Armed with our 21st-century democracy-finder, suppose we speed back to 17th-century Europe. In one part of Europe or another, we will find roughly 200 regimes we can reasonably call independent states: relatively autonomous, centralized, and well-bounded governments exercising priority in some regards over all other organizations operating within their territories. On four counters marked “Breadth,” “Equality,” “Consultation,” and “Protection,” we take readings for the regimes we locate in a journey throughout the continent. Where and when do we encounter vigorous vibrations of democracy? Let's say we land in the year 1650. We might think it an auspicious year for democratic initiatives: except for continuing struggle between France and Spain the major disruptions of the Thirty Years' War have just ended with the Treaties of Westphalia, great fissures have opened in the Habsburg empire, and the success of their 16th-century rebellion against Spain has finally brought the northern Netherlands international recognition as a highly decentralized independent republic. What do we find? We find plenty of revolution and war, but few signs of settled democracy. Touring the British Isles, we discover a Scotland rebelling openly against English hegemony, and a Scottish military force in northern England backing Charles Stuart's claim to succeed his father Charles I; just last year, England's contentious revolutionaries united temporarily to decapitate King Charles. In Ireland, Catholic leaders are battling not only each other, but also the English invading force of Oliver Cromwell.

Sean O’Hagan, Milford B. Green

No abstract is available for this record.

Khaled Ragab, T. Ono, N. Kaji, K. Mori

The headway towards the outstanding future can be realized with the productive cooperation among peoples and organizations. Inspired from the spirit of cooperation in the rapidly social changing communities, we propose an autonomous decentralized community (ADC) concept. It is a group of autonomous members, whereas each member has his own objectives, complies with the community obligations and cooperates with the others for achieving his own objectives. ADC system has to meet the heterogeneous and continuously changing requirements of the community service utilization and provision. It requires support for real-time communication among community members. Therefore, we propose an autonomous decentralized community communication technique. It satisfies the fairness by granted an equal opportunity among the community members. Moreover, it approves the scalability of the system regardless with the number of the community members.

이환범, 주효진

The purpose of this study is to comprehensively examines the policy of local decentralization through some problems of decentralization reform in Korea. The reason is that a situation for implementing decentralization reform is not good enough to deal with fundamental issues(management of organization, human resource, finance, and legislation) in relation to the autonomy of local government. Under the circumstance, this study also evaluates the policy of integration or abolition for the local small business office, as a special local agency. Specifically, this study examines the meaning of local autonomy and some determinants, as pre-conditions, to obtain an effective local decentralization. Secondly, the research makes a comparison each role and function to support local small business between local small business office and local government. Thirdly, the research employs both a survey questionnaire to evaluate the satisfaction of customers or the quality of service, and case study research for small business supporting system through U.S.A, Japan, and U.K. The significance of this study is that it brings conceptual clarity to the dialog on improvement of decentralization reform and it represents an important research source for the development of further research on the role and function of local small business office, dealing with new small business supporting system based on the formation of local governance.

Wolfgang Fengler, Frank Borge Wietzke

This note presents the methodology and
\n findings of a field study on the financing needs of
\n Madagascar's communes-the country's lowest but
\n most institutionally advanced level of subnational
\n government. Following a first round of municipal elections
\n in 1995, more than 1,500 communes are now formally
\n responsible for maintaining basic administrative services
\n and social and economic infrastructure, including local
\n waste disposal and sanitation. In addition, communes are
\n responsible for identifying and coordinating local
\n investments and for supporting implementation of the
\n national Poverty Reduction Strategy at the local level. To
\n finance these activities, communes receive population-based
\n transfers and small conditional transfers, and can collect
\n revenue from property, market, and consumption taxes as well
\n as user charges. Yet little is known about how much these
\n fiscal assignments satisfy local needs. As part of its
\n policy dialogue with the government of Madagascar, the World
\n Bank is engaged in extensive research that includes
\n geographic mapping of social spending and a review of
\n opportunities and obstacles to fiscal and sectoral
\n decentralization. This research generated the following
\n analysis of local and cross-sectoral service needs and
\n available financing.

Gerald W. Bracey

A GREAT deal has been made of student achievement data in international comparisons. Less information has been gathered about in various countries. We have a few field studies, such as those reported in The Teaching Gap, by James Stigler and James Hiebert, and in Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics, by Liping Ma. Neither depicts a particularly robust portrait of what American know about mathematics or how to teach it. With the new emphasis on highly qualified teachers from the U.S. Department of Education, teacher quality has moved to center stage. Two new studies add a bit to our knowledge of here and abroad. The first is Teaching Mathematics in Seven Countries: Results from the TIMSS 1999 Video Study, in which videotapes of actually teaching eighth-grade mathematics in seven countries were studied. The report (NCES 2003013) was put together by Hiebert and a host of other researchers and is available at www.nces.ed.gov/timss. The second is Preparing Teachers Around the World, from Aubrey Wang, Ashaki Coleman, Richard Coley, and Richard Phelps of the ETS Policy Information Center. It is available at www.ets.org/research/pic/teachprep.pdf. In 1995, as part of the original TIMSS (Third International Mathematics and Science Study), videos of were made in three nations: Germany, Japan, and the United States. In general, U.S. and German focused on teaching procedures, while Japanese emphasized conceptual matters. One accidental finding cropped up when people coding the videos had a What the hell was that? reaction to noises on the tapes. Those noises were mostly interruptions by the intercom, visitors, etc. More than 30% of American classes suffered interruptions. Zero percent of Japanese classes suffered an intrusion. The TIMSS 1999 Video Study extends the original research to seven countries, adding Australia, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and Switzerland and omitting Germany. (A more detailed summary of this study, by the TIMSS Video Mathematics Research Group, can be found in the June 2003 Kappan.) These countries all scored high or relatively high in TIMSS and TIMSS-R (Repeat). In TIMSS-R, only the Czech Republic did not have a score that was significantly higher than that of the U.S., which scored 502 as compared to the Czech Republic's 520. (The international average was 487.) Getting coders to agree on what they were seeing was difficult in the original study, and it was exponentially more difficult to get coders to agree about what they were seeing when viewing videos from seven countries. In addition, they might have missed something important, as overall judgments of quality did not correlate with judgments on the specific indicators of quality. (These results are from a presentation made at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in April, not from the report itself.) Coders first looked at how much time in different countries spent introducing new content, practicing new content, or reviewing earlier content. American spent more time reviewing old material than anyone else except the Czechs. None of the countries spent a great deal of time practicing new material, but Japanese did allot 60% of their time to introducing new content. Only Japan's lessons were considered to be of high or moderate complexity, 39% and 45% respectively. The U.S. had the fewest lessons considered to be of high complexity (6%) and the third-highest number judged to be of low complexity (67%), behind Australia (77%) and the Netherlands (69%). Only Japanese offered many proofs. Twenty- six percent of the problems in any given lesson contained proofs, and 39% of the lessons contained at least one proof. Second-place Switzerland posted just 3% and 11% respectively. The researchers asked whether the lessons consisted of stating concepts, using procedures, or making connections between mathematical facts. …

Jorge M. Rebelo

In 1991, the Republic of Brazil asked the World Bank’s assistance in the decentralization program of its urban rail systems run by the Companhia Brasileira de Trens Urbanos (Brazilian Urban Trains Company-CBTU). The systems were to be transferred (decentralized) from the Federal Government to the local (State and Municipal) authorities. The local authorities agreed to receive the systems as long as they were rehabilitated and modernized but also requested that the Bank acted as “honest broker” between the parties and financed the program. The Bank agreed to embark in this program because it saw an opportunity to revitalize very important trunk corridors of the metropolitan regions which, if properly integrated with the existing bus systems and land use could greatly enhance mobility in the region, particularly for the main users who are low-income. From 1992-2002, the Bank lent more than US$1 billion for the decentralization program and follow ups in the States where decentralization was completed. This paper examines the main issues involved in a program of this nature, the institutional obstacles faced and the lessons learned.

G Friesecke, R L Pego

No abstract is available for this record.

Wojciech Kopczuk, Joel Slemrod, Shlomo Yitzhaki

No abstract is available for this record.

Mark S. Miller, Marc Stiegler

Hernando de Soto, in The Mystery of Capital (de Soto 2000), shows that the poor of the world have, in his terminology, assets vastly in excess of their capital. In one study, de Soto’s associates surveyed neighborhoods in various poor countries, assessing the value of buildings which were not formally titled. The extrapolated value of just the informally owned buildings in the Third World amounted to $9.3 trillion – more than half the combined value of all publicly traded US companies. In identifying a crucial mystery – the failure of these assets to serve as capital for their owners – de Soto has identified a great opportunity for economic betterment.

A. Chernyavsky, Karen Vartapetov

This paper reviews Russian municipal budget revenues and expenditures reforms in 1992–2002. Recent tax reforms have resulted in the decrease of local fiscal autonomy. Municipal budget revenues have dropped sharply in relative as well as absolute terms. Despite significant formal expenditure powers Russian municipalities are completely financially dependent on higher-level governments. Within regions regional governments have continued to increasingly finance municipal social expenditures. The examination of possible scenarios of development after the enactment of the draft law"On the General Principles of the Organization of Local Self-governance in the Russian Federation" shows that the fiscal centralization trend will continue.

Chengzhi Wang, Mary Bergquist

Basic education (primary and junior secondary schooling) in China has experienced phenomenal development in the reform era from the late 1970s. The most important reform policies; namely, decentralization of governance and diversification of finance, have been translated into an unprecedented scale of resource mobilization for schooling expansion. This article examines China’s education finance reform and basic education development. It analyzes international aid and assistance, particularly major basic education projects financed by the World Bank and other international organizations. The article argues that China is not necessarily “in the driving seat” in cooperation with the World Bank, and that the bank does not play purely “a pivotal positive role” in helping develop Chinese basic education. In spite of its huge aid and assistance in China, the bank, to a certain extent, also contributes to the formation of China’s bifurcated schooling system.

Emmanuel Godard, Yves Métivier

No abstract is available for this record.

Hee Joon Song

This paper examines government reform including decentralization and e-government services in Korea since 1990s. Since the full-scale implementation of local autonomy in Kim Young-sam Administration, Kim Dae-jung Administration, inaugurated in February 1998 just after financial crisis, launched an intensive reform program covering finance, corporate, labor, and public sectors. Among main reform strategies introduced according to New Public Management paradigm were reshuffling local governments, manpower reduction, delegation of central government's functions and resources, paperwork reduction, and so forth. In addition, e-government services were initiated as one of software-oriented reform strategies. In spite of some arguments, Kim Administration gained the performance of e-government as well as government reforms to a considerable degree. Roh Administration, taking office in February 2003, also made public the Roadmap to Government Innovation including decentralization and e-government. It is expected to contribute much to enhancing efficient and effective operation of local governments. Government reform, however, may confront with a contradiction between decentralization of central power and centralized e-government. Seamless integration of works and processes at all levels of government requires cross-agency collaboration and coordination carefully coupled from the central government. In order to mitigate this contradiction, it is recommended to develop a proper reference model for business and technology, which can be applied flexibly to the central and local government all together.