19,209 research outputs found

    Mechanisms for Outsourcing Computation via a Decentralized Market

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    As the number of personal computing and IoT devices grows rapidly, so does the amount of computational power that is available at the edge. Since many of these devices are often idle, there is a vast amount of computational power that is currently untapped, and which could be used for outsourcing computation. Existing solutions for harnessing this power, such as volunteer computing (e.g., BOINC), are centralized platforms in which a single organization or company can control participation and pricing. By contrast, an open market of computational resources, where resource owners and resource users trade directly with each other, could lead to greater participation and more competitive pricing. To provide an open market, we introduce MODiCuM, a decentralized system for outsourcing computation. MODiCuM deters participants from misbehaving-which is a key problem in decentralized systems-by resolving disputes via dedicated mediators and by imposing enforceable fines. However, unlike other decentralized outsourcing solutions, MODiCuM minimizes computational overhead since it does not require global trust in mediation results. We provide analytical results proving that MODiCuM can deter misbehavior, and we evaluate the overhead of MODiCuM using experimental results based on an implementation of our platform

    Trade unions and collective bargaining

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    The authors assert that changing world markets and new technologies are driving industrial restructuring. The ability of developing countries and the new transitional economies to compete in the global marketplace will depend on their ability to transform industrial relations policies involving trade unions and collective bargaining so that they promote flexibility in the workplace and encourage the formation and effective use of human resources. History has shown, they say, that there are certain key moments of transition in industrial relations systems. After that time, systems get set and are hard to modify. Often these key moments are the result of legislative changes (such as the National Labor Relations Act and the emergence of public sector unions after the burgeoning of public sector legislation in the United States). Sometimes they are the result of key historical or economic junctures (such as the postwar reconstruction in Japan and Germany, and independence movements in the developing world). Recent pressures for structural change in the developing world present an opportunity for major transitions in industrial relations. Drawing on the Japanese and German experiences, as well as experiences in the developing world, the authors focus on lessons that can be applied in guiding this transformation. Workers participation in decisionmaking, they contend, is critical for bringing about the essential popular acceptance of changes that will come with industrial restructuring. It is also important to coordinate and integrate industrial relations policy with other social, legal, economic, and educational policies. The education system, for example, should not be overproducing college graduates when there is an undersupply of unskilled and skilled workers.Labor Management and Relations,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Standards,Politics and Government,Work&Working Conditions

    The Collective Bargaining System in the United States: The Legacy and the Lessons

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    [Excerpt] From World War II to the 1990s, the collective bargaining system in the United States evolved through two epochs. The first, which lasted from the end of war to the late 1970s, saw the construction and consolidation of what one of us (and his coauthors) has called the New Deal system of industrial relations (Kochan et al, 1994). During the second era the New Deal industrial relations system came under severe pressures and it began to be fundamentally transformed. The transformation is still occurring, and we cannot say if or when a new equilibrium will be established. This essay examines and evaluates the evolution of collective bargaining in the United States between 1945 and 1997. We have a central theme - an hypothesis - that guides our examination. We believe American collective bargaining has been very adept at resolving workplace problems—what might be termed micro problems such as individuals\u27 complaints (in unionized settings). On the other hand, collective bargaining in our society has never been adept at (or has been excluded from) dealing with macro problems. We have in mind two categories of macro problems. The first is macro-organizational, by which we mean the issues and concerns associated with the management of the organization or enterprise. The second is “macroeconomic, and we have in mind especially the relationship between the industrial relations system and the macroeconomy

    Hybrid P2P Architecture for Transaction Management

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    Philosophy of Blockchain Technology - Ontologies

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    About the necessity and usefulness of developing a philosophy specific to the blockchain technology, emphasizing on the ontological aspects. After an Introduction that highlights the main philosophical directions for this emerging technology, in Blockchain Technology I explain the way the blockchain works, discussing ontological development directions of this technology in Designing and Modeling. The next section is dedicated to the main application of blockchain technology, Bitcoin, with the social implications of this cryptocurrency. There follows a section of Philosophy in which I identify the blockchain technology with the concept of heterotopia developed by Michel Foucault and I interpret it in the light of the notational technology developed by Nelson Goodman as a notational system. In the Ontology section, I present two developmental paths that I consider important: Narrative Ontology, based on the idea of order and structure of history transmitted through Paul Ricoeur's narrative history, and the Enterprise Ontology system based on concepts and models of an enterprise, specific to the semantic web, and which I consider to be the most well developed and which will probably become the formal ontological system, at least in terms of the economic and legal aspects of blockchain technology. In Conclusions I am talking about the future directions of developing the blockchain technology philosophy in general as an explanatory and robust theory from a phenomenologically consistent point of view, which allows testability and ontologies in particular, arguing for the need of a global adoption of an ontological system for develop cross-cutting solutions and to make this technology profitable. CONTENTS: Abstract Introducere Tehnologia blockchain - Proiectare - Modele Bitcoin Filosofia Ontologii - Ontologii narative - Ontologii de intreprindere Concluzii Note Bibliografie DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24510.3360

    Normative Power, EU Preferences and Russia. Lessons from the Russian-Georgian War

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    The Russian-Georgian conflict of August 2008 proves to be a useful case in order to understand the functioning of the EU as a normative power in times of crisis. The core of the article is focused on the six EU major countries – Germany, France, Great-Britain, Italy, Poland and Spain – which embody different sets of preferences, and the way they want to deal with Russia. In the end, it tries to understand how preferences are linked with norms in that geopolitical context.Normative power, Georgian-Russian war, Mediation, Sanctions
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