Global Service Nature of Contemporary Crypto-Currencies

Стаття присвячена проблемі, спричиненій кризою Ямайської валютної системи, а саме, пошуку нових форм грошей, що здатні замінити долар у світових розрахунках. Пошуком альтернативних грошей як оптимальної світової валюти пере- ймаються як уряди окремих країн, так і міжнародні організації, провідні науковці світу. Всі сучасні дослідження, а також наше дослідження ґрунтуються на історичному визначенні сутності грошей, їх форм тощо. Вивчення теоретичних постулатів дозволило підтвердити наші гіпотези щодо існування абсолютно нових форм грошей, зокрема електронних. В цьому дослідженні обґрунтовані всі умови існування електронних грошей як нової світової валюти. Проаналізовані основні ризики та можливі напрями нівелювання цих ризиків. В світлі цього проаналізована гіпотеза впровадження фідуціарних електронних грошей, вивчені історичні факти їх існування та здійснено обґрунтування доцільності їх впровадження.The article deals with the problem caused by the crisis of the Jamaican currency system, namely, with the search for new forms of money that can replace dollars in international transactions. Alternative currency as the best global option has been searched both by national governments and international organisations, as well as the world’s leading scientists. All current studies, and our research, are based on historical definition of the nature, forms and other aspects of money. The theoretical principles that have been studied helped confirm our hypotheses about the existence of absolutely new forms of money, including electronic. In this study, we proved that there are all necessary prerequisites for existence of electronic money as a new global currency. The key risks and possible directions of their neutralising were analysed. This allowed reviewing the hypothesis of introduction of fiduciary electronic money, studying historical facts of their existence and substantiating their implementation

Learning Sentence-internal Temporal Relations

In this paper we propose a data intensive approach for inferring sentence-internal temporal relations. Temporal inference is relevant for practical NLP applications which either extract or synthesize temporal information (e.g., summarisation, question answering). Our method bypasses the need for manual coding by exploiting the presence of markers like after", which overtly signal a temporal relation. We first show that models trained on main and subordinate clauses connected with a temporal marker achieve good performance on a pseudo-disambiguation task simulating temporal inference (during testing the temporal marker is treated as unseen and the models must select the right marker from a set of possible candidates). Secondly, we assess whether the proposed approach holds promise for the semi-automatic creation of temporal annotations. Specifically, we use a model trained on noisy and approximate data (i.e., main and subordinate clauses) to predict intra-sentential relations present in TimeBank, a corpus annotated rich temporal information. Our experiments compare and contrast several probabilistic models differing in their feature space, linguistic assumptions and data requirements. We evaluate performance against gold standard corpora and also against human subjects

Debating Transformations of National Citizenship

This open access book discusses how national citizenship is being transformed by economic, social and political change. It focuses on the emergence of global markets where citizenship is for sale and on how new reproduction technologies impact citizenship by descent. It also discusses the return of banishment through denationalisation of terrorist suspects, and the impact of digital technologies, such as blockchain, on the future of democratic citizenship. The book provides a wide range of views on these issues from legal scholars, political scientists, and political practitioners. It is structured as a series of four conversations in which authors respond to each other. This exchange of arguments provides unique depth to current debates about the future of citizenship

Debating Transformations of National Citizenship

This open access book discusses how national citizenship is being transformed by economic, social and political change. It focuses on the emergence of global markets where citizenship is for sale and on how new reproduction technologies impact citizenship by descent. It also discusses the return of banishment through denationalisation of terrorist suspects, and the impact of digital technologies, such as blockchain, on the future of democratic citizenship. The book provides a wide range of views on these issues from legal scholars, political scientists, and political practitioners. It is structured as a series of four conversations in which authors respond to each other. This exchange of arguments provides unique depth to current debates about the future of citizenship

Topics in electronic money

There has been an increased interest on the electronification of payments systems in the last two decades in general and on electronic money (e-money) on particular in the last decade with increased computing power and decreased cost of communication. E-money did not only attract attention from the academicians but also from central bankers, financial supervisory authorities, treasuries, finance ministries and innovators and operators all around the world. The purpose of this thesis is fourfold. Firstly, it seeks to define and critically assess e-money including the expected functions, necessary features, its potentials and major implications for different sides of financial system. Secondly, it tries to present empirical evidence on the current stage of e-money technology with two case studies, namely Mondei and Digicash. Thirdly, it investigates the perception of e-money innovators and operators with an assumption that they have the power and influence on the future shape of e-money. This section includes the analysis of two European surveys and one additional comparative survey conducted in Miami, the US. Lastly, it studies the free banking implications of e-money covering the impact on monetary policy framework and monetary policy instruments including whether e-money should be regulated or not. The research finds that the current definitions given to the e-money phenomenon is incomplete and defines the necessary functions and features for the future success of e-money applications. It describes e-money trends in Europe and compares it to the US perception finding no serious differences although the FED and the ECB have different approaches to money. Another conclusion the thesis reached is that e-money may result in a new approach to central banking with a contestable framework through the synergies with free banking. Finally, e-money is not seen as a danger for the successful conduct of monetary policy and the thesis underlines that when it is `representative', regulation is possible whereas `independent'money issuance may manage to stay out of the coverage of conventional regulatory frameworks

Thinking with Uncertainty: Scaling Up and Down in the Cryptocurrency World

Against a background of uncertainty, this thesis draws on an understanding of anthropology that disturbs the rushed neoliberal temporality, and looks for mushrooms (Bear, 2014, 2020; Tsing, 2017). It looks closely at the strategies and relations used by occupants of the cryptocurrency space to make habitable a highly volatile and uncertain world. My research participants occupy the heart of contemporary capitalism: in start-up spaces and banks, and also the peripheries: as multi-level marketing investors and 'noisy' retails traders (Preda, 2017). They are united in their engagement with a highly volatile market and uncertain space. They turn to practices of storytelling (Jackson, 2002); take to stages to scale themselves up and scale the world down (Hart, 2014; Tsing, 2012); 'cook money' (Carsten, 1989); form arborescent and rhizomatic networks (Strathern, 2017); and take chances in the face of 'wage slavery', in order to scale their knowledge of the cryptocurrency world

An Examination of the Evolution of Broadband Technologies in the UK

The aim of this thesis is to examine the reasons due to which Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) became the most widely used technology to deliver broadband connectivity in the United Kingdom (UK). The research examines the outcome starting with events in 1960s when broadband as it is defined today did not exist. The research shows that a combination of factors involving regulatory decisions, changing market conditions, and unexpected technological breakthroughs contributed to the current day mix of broadband technologies in the last mile access in the UK. To interpret the events that have shaped the development, deployment, and adoption of broadband technologies in the UK, the thesis draws from various theoretical ideas related to Science and Technology Studies (STS) to understand and analyse the events. In order to discover and establish the historical context, the thesis employs original, unpublished interviews along with the extensive use of archival material and secondary sources. Influenced by some of the core ideas of social constructionist studies, this research combines concepts from economic studies of technological change along with themes involving maintenance of technology, path dependence, and the role of bandwagon effect. These research threads are combined to understand the way development, deployment, and adoption of broadband technologies took place in the UK. The research is intended to contribute to the understanding of technology in a constantly changing regulatory and socio-economic environment and how it is shaped by multiple factors. The targeted readership is researchers, analysts, and decision makers working with broadband technology, telecommunications policy, and STS. Further research is suggested in the form of studies of wireless broadband technologies and the role of regulatory policies in the development of the UK communications market