Blockchain Papers

Diego Cúneo, Ignacio Cretini

In recent decades, the challenges of sustainable development and the urgency of accelerating the transition to cleaner energy matrices have renewed interest in the concept of Mission-Oriented Policies (MOP). Within this context, nuclear energy has regained legitimacy due to the emergence of a new generation of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). This paper proposes a characterization of the main national strategies currently underway for the development of these reactors and provides a comparative analysis of how they align with the MOP approach. The analysis identifies two general models of technological and industrial policy related to the promotion of the nuclear industry: the centralized-autonomous model and the decentralized-associative model. The POM schemes differ in the role of the state in technological and energy planning, the degree of concentration and centralization of technological capacities and decision-making, and the coordination and organization of actors and innovation projects, among other aspects. Finally, the implications for semi-peripheral countries with emerging nuclear sectors, such as Argentina, are discussed, highlighting the importance of proposing hybrid models tailored to the characteristics of the national environment.

Zambrano Pérez, Camila Fernanda

The Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008, shows the concern that the Ecuadorian government has in relation to the environment, therefore prioritizes the protection, preservation and proper use in its Chapter Two, Section Two, Healthy Environment, in Articles 14th and 15th. The main objective of this study is to analyze the South South Cooperation, at the regional level in environmental matters in Ecuador according to the 2008 Constitution between 2007 and 2012. The Theory of Interdependence was chosen for this study. The main referents of the theory are Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye. One of their main ideas is that in order to achieve optimal development in a State, it needs from the actions and experiences of others, which can be applied to the reality of itself, in this sense, foreign policy and domestic policy are closely linked to each other in order to form a single process. This points us to the international cooperation as a good tool to accomplish national and international goals. In the first chapter, we can find the several sources and ways of international cooperation. In this study, the technical cooperation is prioritized. Ecuador makes part of several international organizations that show the running of the international relations in the country, since being part of these organizations the government must achieve objectives and guidelines. CELAC and UNASUR are the two regional spaces that are prioritized organizations for this research. By giving importance to environment, laws and regulations applied at the national level must be adjusted to the objectives of Good Living, in that way environmental protection is ensured. Since Ecuador is a developing country, it is necessary to access to the international aid that exist in the region, but it is very important to follow national laws in order to participate in international cooperation projects. In this regard, it should be mentioned that in the Constitution of Ecuador, the regional integration is a priority. In the second chapter the situation of South-South cooperation between the years 2007-2012 was analyzed in order to have a greater understanding of its evolution and implementation in the country through regulating entities, that facilitate access and tracking of the activities performed in the framework, of cooperation such as SENPLADES and SETECI. It is clarified that each Autonomous Decentralized Government have the power to search and manage their own cooperation, without going through the process that SETECI has, but the goal should accomplish national objectives. In the government agencies case, such cooperation must be access through SETECI, but more international instruments such as Memorandum of Understanding cannot be excluded. In the third chapter, priorities of cooperation are known, these are given by the Ministry of Environment, and the main priorities are: adaptation, mitigation of climate change; solid waste management; bio trade; protected areas management; invasive species eradication; among others. Ecuador keeps relations of South-South international cooperation with countries like Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela. Three projects have been developed successfully in Ecuador and have been offered nowadays to be replicated in other countries of the region. It has been concluded that South-South cooperation cannot be measured or evaluated for amounts of money paid or received; as this cooperation is technical, administrative costs that are generated by the implementation of this cooperation are not always real, so the south-South cooperation is measured by the impact but not the financial part. The South-South cooperation projects on environmental issues, have increased since 2007, so we can see that under the State's and the Ministry of Environment priorities, a greater number of actions are identified at the regional level, actions that can contribute with the preservation of the environment in the country.

Eduardo Chaves, Julio Salazar

Elections around the world have become a major international concern since the inception of modern democracy. It is a fact that the success of any democracy depends largely on its electoral process. In conducting a free and credible election, the process must be transparent to be adjudged credible. The electioneering process begins with the compilation of a voter register; this register contains the details of every eligible voter as stipulated by law or guild lines that guilds the electoral process. As part of what makes up, the guidelines are age restrictions for every intended voter. It is forbidding by law in most countries for a child to register as a voter, but this is not so in reality in most countries, especially in a developing nation. Because the age restriction is not obeyed, this has resulted in the incidences of underage voters and disputed election outcomes. This work provides an efficient and effective solution for the above concerns, using multiple digital solutions. The model will be integrating a deep learning Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), an Interplanetary File System (IPFS), and an Ethereum Smart Contract Blockchain. The role of the CNN is to detect any underage individual who intends to register as a voter. The CNN is built with a pretrained dataset, and it was trained with an age classifier that grouped the age on the images on the data set into eight distinct groups. This age grouping will help the age predictive algorithm estimate and place every image on the camera in a unique age group. This will only produce a binary result, which is "eligible to voter or not eligible to vote." This outcome is based on the preset threshold cut-off on the age group. The Interplanetary File System (IPFS) will provide a large storage capacity that will allow for off-chain data storage and still provide the model with all the functionalities and benefits of the blockchain. It also provides a hashing function that will assign and identify every registered voter with a unique cryptographic Identity. This ID will prevent the storage of the same information into the database, in so doing, eliminating multiple voting. Finally, the blockchain will provide a voting platform where the model will be implemented. It will allow every registered voter with a unique ID to create an account and vote on the blockchain. The adapted CNN was tested and evaluated and shows 85.9% performance accuracy, and when compared against two other age predictive models, it recorded an increase of 1.2%. In comparison, the complete digital solution model recorded 95.3% in performance. We believe this model will perform even better when subjected to further research work.