Options of Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations Reform in the Ukraine

Reform of the system of public finance is a key problem in the transformation processes of the Ukraine’s economy. Development of efficient methods of financial policy is especially important in the context of strategic challenges of economic growth, the competitiveness of the national economy, and convergence of the level of socio-economic development between different regions of the country. Most elements of the modern system of the Ukraine’s public finance were formed as far back as during the Soviet era, under the conditions of command and administrative economy, when neither the state budget, nor the local ones played any active role, but were a mere monetary reflection of the plans of socio-economic development. On the other hand, in market economies, public finance plays an important role in the provision of economic growth and efficient use of national economic resources, as well as in the solution of the problems related to social equity.During recent years, the attempt to reform intergovernmental fiscal relations in the Ukraine have failed either to create a well-balanced system for the distribution of powers between central state authorities and local government, or to elaborate adequate and transparent mechanisms for the formation of local budgets. The reason is that most problems of the local budgets are mostly treated by policy makers and local authorities in the context of the need to provide local budgets with “sufficient” financial resources.We emphasize that creation of an efficient budget system is not limited to a mere re-distribution of revenues between central and local budgets. Investigation of theoretic and methodological foundations of the development of the components of the system of public finance and intergovernmental fiscal relations in the Ukraine let us conclude that such development should be based on the use of economic principles and criteria as to the distribution of powers between the central authorities and local government. Furthermore, a consistent fiscal policy is needed, which would promote not only the convergence between the local budgets’ expenditures, but also, and first of all, the regions’ socio-economic development

Implementation of message authentication code using DNA-LCG key and a novel hash algorithm

With the introduction of electronic form of data, the need for an automatic system of security to protect the integrity of data while being transferred from one place to another is required. This is especially the case for a network in which the systems are accessed over a public network or internet. Security mechanisms involve the use of more than one algorithm. They further require that the participants should possess a secret key, which raises issues about creation, distribution and proper usage of these keys. The most effective technique used in provisioning security is Message Authentication Code (MAC) which helps in preserving integrity. MAC involves the use of secret key along with a hash algorithm. In this paper, we present an implementation of MAC using a secret key created by Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) and random output sequence of Linear Congruential Generator (LCG). The hash algorithm used is made more robust by adding complexity to the traditional SHA-160. The presented scheme RMAC (Robust Message Authentication Code) is tested on National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) test suite for random numbers, avalanche criteria and resistance towards network attacks. The results reveal that the scheme is efficient and is applicable for a variety of security demanding environments

Integration As A Competitiveness Instrument For Public Transport In Rural Areas

The market of interurban mobility to rural areas is one of the most challenging for Public Transport (PT). In Portugal it has been quite difficult for Public Transportation to establish itself in this market as an effective alternative to the use of private cars. Two of the main reasons for this are the low accessibility of long distance railway services and urban sprawl in many Portuguese regions. Integration facilitates the use of several services of the transport chain and facilitates a more efficient resource allocation on the supply side of the system. By making local distribution possible in connection with long distance services, even in low demand areas, integration may foster a higher patronage of PT and its competitiveness compared to private car. This paper presents the study of five short-range road transport services in connection to the railway network in the Médio Tejo region, including the key elements that are to be considered on their design. The research identified the possible interested agents and made an account of their related costs and benefits. The conclusion is that these services can be commercially interesting and may bring considerable increase in the market share of PT. Keywords: Integration, Multimodal Transport, Public Transport, Interurban Transport, Economic Evaluation.Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Faculty of Economics and Business. The University of Sydne

Integration As A Competitiveness Instrument For Public Transport In Rural Areas

The market of interurban mobility to rural areas is one of the most challenging for Public Transport (PT). In Portugal it has been quite difficult for Public Transportation to establish itself in this market as an effective alternative to the use of private cars. Two of the main reasons for this are the low accessibility of long distance railway services and urban sprawl in many Portuguese regions. Integration facilitates the use of several services of the transport chain and facilitates a more efficient resource allocation on the supply side of the system. By making local distribution possible in connection with long distance services, even in low demand areas, integration may foster a higher patronage of PT and its competitiveness compared to private car. This paper presents the study of five short-range road transport services in connection to the railway network in the Médio Tejo region, including the key elements that are to be considered on their design. The research identified the possible interested agents and made an account of their related costs and benefits. The conclusion is that these services can be commercially interesting and may bring considerable increase in the market share of PT. Keywords: Integration, Multimodal Transport, Public Transport, Interurban Transport, Economic Evaluation.Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Faculty of Economics and Business. The University of Sydne

Non-Interactive Blind Signatures for Random Messages

Blind signatures allow a signer to issue signatures on messages chosen by the signature recipient. The main property is that the recipient\u27s message is hidden from the signer. There are many applications, including Chaum\u27s e-cash system and Privacy Pass, where no special distribution of the signed message is required, and the message can be random. Interestingly, existing notions do not consider this practical use case separately. In this paper, we show that constraining the recipient\u27s choice over the message distribution spawns a surprising new primitive that improves the well-established state-of-the-art. We formalize this concept by introducing the notion of non-interactive blind signatures (${\sf NIBS}$). Informally, the signer can create a presignature with a specific recipient in mind, identifiable via a public key. The recipient can use her secret key to finalize it and receive a blind signature on a random message determined by the finalization process. The key idea is that online interaction between the signer and recipient is unnecessary. We show an efficient instantiation of ${\sf NIBS}$ in the random oracle model from signatures on equivalence classes. The exciting part is that, in this case, for the recipient\u27s public key, we can use preexisting keys for Schnorr, ECDSA signatures, El-Gamal encryption scheme, or even the Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Reusing preexisting public keys allows us to distribute anonymous tokens similarly to cryptocurrency airdropping. Additional contributions include tagged non-interactive blind signatures (${\sf TNIBS}$) and their efficient instantiation. A generic construction in the random oracle or common reference string model based on verifiable random functions, standard signatures, and non-interactive proof systems

Evaluating urban services using economic valuation techniques :towards better urban environmental quality and promotion of sustainable development

PhD ThesisThis PhD thesis examines and evaluates the importance of urban services in environmental quality using economic evaluation techniques. It is a consensus that one of the features of countries that are under development is the rapid growth of urbanization. Rapid urbanization is followed by an intense demand for qualitative and quantitative development in physical dimensions and urban systems. An efficient urban management system is required to tackle and solve the problems of urbanization, using appropriate policies, methods and data to ensure that not only has the urban population got access to the labour market, housing and urban services, but also urban environments are organized to enhance the quality of life for its citizens. Consequently, this research seeks to assess and define a method to help local authorities and policy makers in affective decision making and efficient city management. Thus, the main objective of this thesis is to establish a non-market benefits valuation models for use in current and future policy applications with the aim of better built environment quality and promoting sustainable development. This research shows that allocating appropriate urban services plays a key role in promoting urban environmental quality, and fostering essential amenities such as comfort, safety, aesthetic, attractiveness etc. to citizens. Distribution and accessibility of urban services plays an important role in people’s movements, forming the city size, shape, and density, and importantly living quality in the city. This research reveals how economic valuation techniques can be used to define the market and the value of the urban services and assesses public preferences by determining willingness to pay for better access to preferred urban services. By employing the perspective of welfare economics to identify the structure of public preferences, including preference differences between socioeconomic groups, this study provides valuable information which should help to inform public policy deliberations over city management and land use planning objectives of promoting sustainable development and increasing quality of life and environment

A Survey on Wireless Sensor Network Security

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently attracted a lot of interest in the research community due their wide range of applications. Due to distributed nature of these networks and their deployment in remote areas, these networks are vulnerable to numerous security threats that can adversely affect their proper functioning. This problem is more critical if the network is deployed for some mission-critical applications such as in a tactical battlefield. Random failure of nodes is also very likely in real-life deployment scenarios. Due to resource constraints in the sensor nodes, traditional security mechanisms with large overhead of computation and communication are infeasible in WSNs. Security in sensor networks is, therefore, a particularly challenging task. This paper discusses the current state of the art in security mechanisms for WSNs. Various types of attacks are discussed and their countermeasures presented. A brief discussion on the future direction of research in WSN security is also included.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Mesh Networks: A Survey

This book chapter identifies various security threats in wireless mesh network (WMN). Keeping in mind the critical requirement of security and user privacy in WMNs, this chapter provides a comprehensive overview of various possible attacks on different layers of the communication protocol stack for WMNs and their corresponding defense mechanisms. First, it identifies the security vulnerabilities in the physical, link, network, transport, application layers. Furthermore, various possible attacks on the key management protocols, user authentication and access control protocols, and user privacy preservation protocols are presented. After enumerating various possible attacks, the chapter provides a detailed discussion on various existing security mechanisms and protocols to defend against and wherever possible prevent the possible attacks. Comparative analyses are also presented on the security schemes with regards to the cryptographic schemes used, key management strategies deployed, use of any trusted third party, computation and communication overhead involved etc. The chapter then presents a brief discussion on various trust management approaches for WMNs since trust and reputation-based schemes are increasingly becoming popular for enforcing security in wireless networks. A number of open problems in security and privacy issues for WMNs are subsequently discussed before the chapter is finally concluded.Comment: 62 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables. This chapter is an extension of the author's previous submission in arXiv submission: arXiv:1102.1226. There are some text overlaps with the previous submissio