Routing-Verification-as-a-Service (RVaaS): Trustworthy Routing Despite Insecure Providers

Computer networks today typically do not provide any mechanisms to the users to learn, in a reliable manner, which paths have (and have not) been taken by their packets. Rather, it seems inevitable that as soon as a packet leaves the network card, the user is forced to trust the network provider to forward the packets as expected or agreed upon. This can be undesirable, especially in the light of today's trend toward more programmable networks: after a successful cyber attack on the network management system or Software-Defined Network (SDN) control plane, an adversary in principle has complete control over the network. This paper presents a low-cost and efficient solution to detect misbehaviors and ensure trustworthy routing over untrusted or insecure providers, in particular providers whose management system or control plane has been compromised (e.g., using a cyber attack). We propose Routing-Verification-as-a-Service (RVaaS): RVaaS offers clients a flexible interface to query information relevant to their traffic, while respecting the autonomy of the network provider. RVaaS leverages key features of OpenFlow-based SDNs to combine (passive and active) configuration monitoring, logical data plane verification and actual in-band tests, in a novel manner

A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste by 20 Percent

The magnitude of the food waste problem is difficult to comprehend. The U.S. spends $218 billion a year -- 1.3% of GDP -- growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of food that is never eaten. The causes of food waste are diverse, ranging from crops that never get harvested, to food left on overfilled plates, to near-expired milk and stale bread. ReFED is a coalition of over 30 business, nonprofit, foundation, and government leaders committed to building a different future, where food waste prevention, recovery, and recycling are recognized as an untapped opportunity to create jobs, alleviate hunger, and protect the environment -- all while stimulating a new multi-billion dollar market opportunity. ReFED developed A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste as a data-driven guide to collectively take action to reduce food waste at scale nationwide.This Roadmap report is a guide and a call to action for us to work together to solve this problem. Businesses can save money for themselves and their customers. Policymakers can unleash a new wave of local job creation. Foundations can take a major step in addressing environmental issues and hunger. And innovators across all sectors can launch new products, services, and business models. There will be no losers, only winners, as food finds its way to its highest and best use

Role of rural business incubators in translating micro finance to sustainable micro enterprises

Present paper looks at how Rural Business Incubators (RBIs) & Enterprise Resource Centers (ERCs) together with Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) can contribute to inclusive growth. India’s informal sector has a very powerful presence of brilliant entrepreneurs, who can potentially contribute to India’s fight against poverty and have the potential for much more employment & income generation, if appropriate institutional mechanisms are created to provide needed & timely assistance. Here comes the role of RBIs & ERCs and MFIs. Approximately 93 percent of the enterprises are in the informal sector in India. Together with Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), informal sector contributes close to 60 percent to GDP and 40 percent or more to export trade. They create 95 percent of non-farm jobs. Informal enterprises are set-up by owners to alleviate their poverty condition. They could be termed as poverty alleviating enterprises (PAEs). Micro finance institutions need to reach out to such PAEs and empower them. Through the institutional mechanism called RBIs & ERCs, micro financiers can reach out to PAEs. Empowering PAEs and enabling their growth is indeed a challenging task. An institutional mechanism like RBI & ERC is a probable solution to poverty and unemployment. If an incubator & ERC can come up in each of the 6000 block panchayats, that would enable the creation of new enterprises in the formal sector as well as can contribute to empower PAEs in their growth & expansion. This would help create new jobs and alleviate poverty and generate employment. The paper ends with a model RBI & ERC. with a detailed description of service mix that can be delivered through this institutional mechanism.Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises(MSMEs); Rural Business Incubutors; Poverty Alleviation; Employment Generation; Rural Transformation; Information Needs of MSMEs

Spartan Daily, September 21, 2001

Volume 117, Issue 16https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9721/thumbnail.jp

ABSTRACTS OF SELECTED PAPERS

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

E-HRM: Innovation or irritation. An explorative empirical study in five large companies on web-based HRM

Technological optimistic voices assume that, from a technical perspective, the IT possibilities for HRM are endless: in principal all HR processes can be supported by IT. E-HRM is the relatively new term for this IT supported HRM, especially through the use of web technology. This paper aims at demystifying e-HRM by answering the following questions: what actually is e-HRM?, what are the goals of starting with e-HRM?, what types can be distinguished? and what are the outcomes of e-HRM? Based upon the literature, an e-HRM research model is developed and, guided by this model, five organizations have been studied that have already been on the "e-HR road" for a number of years. We conclude that the goals of e-HRM are mainly to improve HR's administrative efficiency/to achieve cost reduction. Next to this goals, international companies seem to use the introduction of e-HRM to standardize/harmonize HR policies and processes. Further, there is a 'gap' between e-HRM in a technical sense and e-HRM in a practical sense in the five companies involved in our study. Finally, e-HRM hardly helped to improve employee competences, but resulted in cost reduction and a reduction of the administrative burden

Determining key research areas for healthier diets and sustainable food systems in Viet Nam

Vietnamese food systems are undergoing rapid transformation, with important implications for human and environmental health and economic development. Poverty has decreased, and diet quality and undernutrition have improved significantly since the end of the Doi Moi reform period (1986-1993) as a result of Viet Nam opening its economy and increasing its regional and global trade. Yet poor diet quality is still contributing the triple burden of malnutrition, with 25 percent stunting among children under age 5, 26 percent and 29 percent of women and children, respectively, anemic, and 21 percent of adults overweight. Agricultural production systems have shifted from predominantly diverse smallholder systems to larger more commercialized and specialized systems, especially for crops, while the ‘meatification’ of the Vietnamese diet is generating serious trade-offs between improved nutrition and sustainability of the Vietnamese food systems. The food processing industry has developed rapidly, together with food imports, resulting in new and processed food products penetrating the food retail outlets, trending towards an increase in the Westernized consumption patterns that are shifting nutrition-related problems towards overweight and obesity and, with it, an increase of non-communicable disease-related health risks. While regulatory policies exist across the food system, these are not systematically implemented, making food safety a major concern for consumers and policy makers alike. Where data exists, it is not easy to aggregate with data from across food system dimensions, making it difficult for Viet Nam to make an informed analysis of current and potential food system trade-offs. In our research, we reviewed existing literature and data, and applied a food systems framework to develop an initial food systems profile for Viet Nam and to identify a comprehensive set a of research questions to fill current data gaps identified through the review. Insights on these would provide the comprehensive evidence needed to inform policy makers on how to develop new food systems policies for Viet Nam, and further refine and improve existing policies to achieve better quality diets and more sustainable food systems in Viet Nam. Based on these, we then engaged with stakeholders to develop research priorities in the Viet Nam context and identified 25 priority research questions. This paper aims to stimulate such reflections by clearly outlining key areas for research, government policy, and development programs on priority investment to build the evidence base around inclusive food systems interventions that aim to result in healthier diets and more sustainable food systems for Viet Nam

The Malleable Politics of Activation Reform: the ‘Hartz’ Reforms in Comparative Perspective

In this paper we compare the Hartz reforms in Germany with three other major labor market activation reforms carried out by center-left governments. Two of the cases, Britain and Germany, involved radically neoliberal “mandatory” activation policies, whereas in the Netherlands and Ireland radical activation change took a very different “enabling” form. Two of the cases, Ireland and Germany, were path deviant, Britain and the Netherlands were path dependent. We explain why Germany underwent “mandatory” and path deviant activation by focusing on two features of the policy discourse. First, the coordinative (or elite level) discourse was “ensilaged” sealing policy formation off from dissenting actors and, until belatedly unwrapped for enactment, from the wider communicative (legitimating) discourse. This is what the British and German cases had in common and the result was reform that viewed long term unemployment as personal failure rather than market failure. Second, although the German policy-making system lacked the “authoritative” features that facilitated reform in the British case, and the Irish policymaking system lacked the “reflexive” mechanisms that facilitated reform in the Dutch case, in both Germany and Ireland the communicative discourses were reshaped by novel institutional vehicles (the Hartz Commission in the German case, FÁS in the Irish case) that served to fundamentally alter systemconstitutive perceptions about policy. In the Irish and German cases “government by commission” created a realignment of advocacy coalitions with one coalition acquiring a new, ideologically-dominant and path deviating narrative. The findings suggest that major reform of labor market and welfare state policy may be much more malleable than previously thought