Blockchain Papers

Andrew Thomason

No abstract is available for this record.

Roméo Ortega, Gustavo Sanchez Galindo

A complete proof is given of global convergence to zero of the prediction error and asymptotic optimality for a direct adaptive controller is established based on multistep quadratic cost minimization with a receding horizon philosophy. The only substantial assumptions are that the controller designed when the parameters are known, stabilizes the plant and the exact knowledge of the first N y (N y -optimization horizon) impulse response coefficients of the plant. The technical hurdles for the development of a comprehensive convergence theory of this type of controller are also highlighted.

Norman F. Johnson

Abstract The different forms of privatization all imply some diminution of the state's role in the provision, financing or regulation of welfare. Privatisation does not simply mean the sale of public assets and greater reliance on private enterprise and competitive markets; it also means the transfer of welfare responsibilities from the state to the voluntary and informal sectors. This is partly an ideological issue, concerning the state's relationship with individual citizens and social groups, and partly a matter of practicalities. Welfare pluralism implies a less dominant role for the state in the provision (as opposed to the financing and regulation) of welfare services: its major themes are decentralization and participation. Some doubt is cast on the capacity and the desirability of the informal and voluntary sectors substituting for the state in social service provision. The family is undergoing substantial changes which may reduce its capacity to provide care and, at the same time, the number of dependents is increasing. The voluntary sector is beset with problems of uneven and incomplete coverage, equity, fragmentation and accountability. The chief consequence of welfare pluralism has been the rapid development of the commercial sector.

Bernard H. Baum, Teri Strenski

Abstract Thailand's public health system is in transition, reflecting the economic status of the country. The decentralized system has made great strides in improving the health of its people. But paradoxes exist. While some urban areas have an oversupply of CT Scanners, rural villages still cope with hygiene‐related illnesses. Malaria and Yellow Fever no longer dominate health resources. Now AIDs, heart disease and accidents top the problem list. Like other countries, Thailand also struggles with health financing to address the unmet needs.

Jan H.M. Korst, Emile H.L. Aarts

No abstract is available for this record.

Charles Collins

Abstract The public sector in Latin America has been characterized by the proliferation of national semi‐autonomous bodies known as ‘decentralized agencies’. This article focuses on such agencies in Colombia from the 1960s onwards. Attention will be paid to their institutional proliferation and how this affected local government, particularly in the fields of water and sanitation. Such changes in state organization have not been problem free. The growth of ‘decentralized agencies’ has been associated with problems of inefficiency, administrative confusion and problems of social and political unrest. Indeed, such contradictions have resulted in the issue of decentralization being placed on the political agenda and the development of innovative and administrative reforms that could breathe new life into local government.

Donald R. Winkler

Evaluating decentralization in terms of three economic criteria - social efficiency, technical efficiency, and equity - the paper argues that some decisionmaking (about finance and teacher recruitment) should be provided for at the local level, and some (about school organization and curriculum) at the regional level. A system of central government grants should be used to correct problems of equity and inefficiency inherent in a decentralized system. Little is known about the economic and educational consequences of decentralization, despite a wide variety of country experiences. The effects of decentralization are difficult to isolate, so scholars have focused instead on issues of implementation.

David J. Ravenscraft, F.M. Scherer

No abstract is available for this record.

George E. Briggs, Stephen B. Lawton

This paper explores some definitions of school -eased budgeting and other forms of decentralization, attempts to determine the extent of their adoption, develops some indications of aecentralization results, and provides suggestions for further research directions. The paper addresses (1) how often decentralization involving a change in resource allocation procedures is mentioned as a possible response to demand for change in educational systems; (2) the nature of the demand for changes in school system organization; (3) whether decentralization reported in the literature shifts resource allocation procedures toward the school level; and (4) whether decentralization produces improvements in efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability. The study reviews 14 articles published between 1980-83. Each article was analyzed to elicit answers to the research questions, and the results were tabulated according to sample size, attitude toward decentralization, nature of demand for organizational change, classification of the type of decentralization, and the results of the innovation adopted. Decentralization appears to be a positive innovation for addressing the demands for organizational change in school systems. Further research into the definition of decentralization and the development of a model of decentralization is required. More concrete, reportable research data are needed, in addition to more school-level studies of decentralization effects, including their impact on the budgeting process in school systems. (28 references) (MLH) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * EFFICIENCY, EFFECTIVENESS AND THE DECENTRALIZATION OF LOCAL SCHOOL SYSTEMS George Briggs, Ridley College St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada and Stephen Lawton, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Toronto, Ontario, Canada Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Education Finance Association San Antonio, Texas March 9-11, 1989 U S DEPARTMENT OF ' ...ATIO' Deice or Fytucationsi eesesich and inn, a nom EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (010 his documar, has been rep duceo as isceiyed fro n the person or cocoa-Nation ortoinating tt 1 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction aLality 4 P0,13 01 view or opinions stated in this docu Merit do not necessarily represent officiat OEFI position or policy PERMISSION TO REPROL,CE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED eY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) EFFICIENCY. EFFECTIVENESS AND THE DECENTRALIZATION OF LOCAL SCHOOL SYSTEMS

Walter J. Jones, James Allen Johnson

:The development and spread of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in American urban areas is challenging established policy making structures and patterns in a variety of ways. AIDS is forcing urban policymakers to engage in unusual efforts at large and nonincremental change while possessing relatively little understanding of the ultimate nature and course of the disease. A variety of uncertainties exist, involving the future scope and development of AIDS, current and future treatment costs, legal and administrative responsibilities, workplace concerns, education efforts, financing methods, and political effects. As a consequence, those making AIDS policy must rely upon what Jones (1984) terms ambitious decisionmaking styles. Successful control of AIDS will require decentralized policymaking centered on experimental efforts in each urban area confronted with the disease. Given the wide range of uncertainties regarding the nature of AIDS and effective policy measures, it is unlikely that a truly national AIDS policy will be established in the immediate future.

H. Kopetz, A. Damm, C. Koza, M. Mulazzani · 7 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

W.G. Wolters

The position of local and provincial elites in the Philippines has changed in character. At the beginning of the century the landed elite was relatively autonomous, keeping the state weak and using it to reinforce its position. Since the 1950s a new elite of mercantile entrepreneurs has emerged, dependent on state credit and political protection. Under the martial law regime in the 1970s the state ceased to be an extension of regional elites and acquired the features of a separate level of organization. The transition to the Aquino administration has led to some degree of decentralization. However, provincial politicians are more than ever interested in finding their slot in the central state apparatus.

Eric S.G. Shaqfeh, Ronald G. Larson, Glenn H. Fredrickson

No abstract is available for this record.

M.V. Tsebrenko, G.P. Danilova, A.Ya. Malkin

No abstract is available for this record.

M.A. Ioffe, Yu.M. Gershenzon, V.B. Rozenshtein, S.Ya. Umanskii

No abstract is available for this record.

Hirofumi Abe

Regional disparities in terms of income and employment showed marked decline under various regional policies during the Period of Rapid Economic Growth. However, the drastic changes in Japanese industries after the Oil Crises in 1970s have caused structural recessions in some regions which have been dependent on resourceand energy-intensive industries. Furthermore, the economic activities are rapidly concentrating in Tokyo Metropolitan Region under the internationalization of Japanese economy. Regional income disparities began to widen again since the early 1980s under these circumstances.This paper aims to examine the trend of industrial differences in Japanese regions in the postwar period, and to identify its current problems. Three analytical methods, namely the analysis of coefficient of variation, the rate-share analysis, and the shiftshare analysis are applied using employment data for the years 1955 to 1985.Major findings of the study are summarized as follows:(1) Manufacturing sector showed a clear decentralization of employment during the period 1960-1985, whereas the decentralization of tertiary sector was not very clear.(2) Marked decentralization was found in the high-tech machinery industry which have been rapidly concentrating in North and South Tohoku Regions. Despite the recession of manufacturing industries after the Oil Crises, these regions showed remarkable employment growth.(3) The shift-share analysis of manufacturing sector has showed low growth performance in the western part of Japan. These regions had been specialized in the heavy and petoro-chemical industries during the Period of Rapid Economic Growth, and suffered much damage in the Oil Crises.(4) Locational patterns of tertiary sector differ among industries. Finance, retail and wholesale industries have been concentrated in metropolitan regions, whereas local regions have been specialized in the service industry.(5) The shift-share analysis of tertiary sector has identified little difference of growth performance which comes from the industrial structure of each region. However, a marked difference has been found in the differential shift components between metropolitan and local regions, which indicates a clear gap of locational attractiveness among them.

John T. Foster

Hospitals came into the twentieth century as creations of local, usually altruistic, interests and wrestled with accelerating change throughout the decades. Their success brought third-party financing, employee health plans, and government guarantees for charity care. Success seemed to breed success, and they raced ahead with capital investment in bricks, mortar, and high technology, only to find themselves in increasing trouble as 1990 approached. Writing from the precarious perch of the year 2000, the author views the worsening hospital situation and raises questions about the contradictions of federal interventions, the efforts to create "systems," the plight of small hospitals, and the love-hate role of medical staffs. Offered for consideration is a scenario of a health care crisis in the early 1990s comparable to the savings and loan crisis of 1988. However, this time the federal intervention is not simply in dollars, but, instead, brings on a "health for all" program with national financing and decentralized "district health" management. As in other nations of the world, hospitals become an integral part of the commitment to attack the root causes of ill health.

Frederick van der Ploeg, A.J. de Zeeuw

No abstract is available for this record.

J. Michael Dash

B o o k R ev iew s that a capitalist bourgeois class was driven to overthrow a feudal aristocratic ruling class to which it was intrinsically opposed” (18). Rethinking the French Revolution provides a useful overview of both the revisionist historians whose work justifies that statement and of the classical historians whose work is under attack. Even casual inquiry into the French Revolution demands knowledge of the historiographical issues raised when historical facts are mentioned, and Comminel’s book is an informed and informative guide to the schools and debates with significant historiographical impact. But the book’s principal purpose is to give a Marxist response to what its subtitle identi­ fies as the revisionist challenge to Marxism, a challenge that is all the more pressing because of the long dominance of the Marxist concept of class struggle in Western understanding of the Revolution. Precisely because certain passages of The Communist Manifesto provide such handy summaries of traditional understanding of the Revolution’s underlying causes, the refusal of traditional views is—explicitly as often as implicitly—a refusal of the Marxist vision of the historical process in its entirety. As the violent eruption of a contradiction between the vital class interests of bourgeoisie and aristocracy, the French Revolution was an object lesson in Marxist thought. If no vital class interests were at stake, the violence becomes incomprehensible and the object lesson disappears. Comminel’s thesis is that the new consensus should not be understood as a challenge to Marxism because there never was a legitimately Marxist vision of the French Revolution as a struggle between bourgeoisie and aristocracy. That vision was in fact the self-conception of the bourgeoisie, first produced while the Revolution was in progress and then repeated throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although Marx wrote much that shows him to have shared the dominant misconception, he did so only because he failed to submit bourgeois history to the same relentlessly materialist interrogation that allowed him to overturn bourgeois economics. According to Comminel, the long agreement between Marxist and non-Marxist historians of the French Revolution came not because Marx was right but because he was wrong. What was seen as the best proof of Marxist historiography was in fact its worst error: “ the theory of bourgeois revolution which [Marx and Engels] accepted was in fact a central expression of liberal bourgeois ideology, one which is intrin­ sically at odds with M arx’s own concepts of historical materialism” (50-51). Comminel sets himself the task of defending Marxism against Marx by establishing an authentically materialist approach to what could not have been the kind of Revolution Marx believed. He does so by contending that, because class struggle always entails the exploitation of one class by another and because the aristocracy in no way exploited the bourgeoisie in eighteenth-century France, the concept of class struggle is inapplicable to the conflicts between two hegemonic groups during the French Revolution. Comminel’s position is original and tightly argued. In combination with his survey of Revolutionary historiogra­ phy, it makes Rethinking the French Revolution a welcome contribution to bicentennial réévaluation of 1789 and its consequences. S a n d y P e t r e y SU N Y at Stony Brook Ronnie L. Scharfman. E n g a g e m e n t a n d t h e L a n g u a g e o f t h e S u b j e c t in t h e P o e t r y o f A im é C é s a ir e . Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1987. Pp. 133. $14.50. The divided self is one of the major preoccupations of Caribbean literature. The Carib­ bean writer is haunted by the darker implications of the polarities which divide master Prospero and slave Caliban, King Christophe and fool Hugonin, Castaway subject and cast-out other. The task of self-definition becomes the only valid response to a world made unintelligible by the coloniser’s signifying presence and traumatised by self doubt. As LéviVOL . XXIX, NO. 2 93 L ’E spr it C r éa te u r Strauss...

Brian Abel‐Smith, Andrew Creese

As a result of economic stagnation and international debt burdens many developing countries are encountering difficulties in financing the recurrent costs of their health services. In 1986 with support from the US Agency for International Development a study was initiated in Mali Jamaica and Costa Rica to 1) identify the nature extent and principal consequences of present and prospective recurrent budget shortages in publicly financed health care and 2) assess the feasibility and sustainability of alternative financing and resource allocation strategies to promote equity and efficiency in the provision of primary health care. The main source of health sector financing is direct payments from private households in Mali taxes in Jamaica and contributions by employers and employees in Costa Rica. Decentralization of control of local services local retention of revenue from user charges and the purchase of generic drugs by international tender represent the most feasible strategies for re-establishing poorly maintained and underutilized health facilities in Mali. In Jamaica where a fee-for-service system predominates a compulsory insurance scheme for those in regular employment is being considered but provisions must be made for the many indigent and near-indigent patients. In Costa Rica compulsory health insurance is able to make a substantial contribution to health care financing because a sizeable proportion of the population is employed; a shift to a system of paying doctors in primary care on a capitation basis seems feasible.

Susan Leigh Star

No abstract is available for this record.

STEVEN S. WITKIN, JAN JEREMIAS, WILLIAM J. LEDGER

No abstract is available for this record.

Peter Baumgartner, Sabine Payr

No abstract is available for this record.

Gilles Brassard, Claude Crépeau, Moti Yung

No abstract is available for this record.