Perspectives on a 6G Architecture

Mobile communications have been undergoing a generational change every ten years. Whilst we are just beginning to roll out 5G networks, significant efforts are planned to standardize 6G that is expected to be commercially introduced by 2030. This paper looks at the use cases for 6G and their impact on the network architecture to meet the anticipated performance requirements. The new architecture is based on integrating various network functions in virtual cloud environments, leveraging the advancement of artificial intelligence in all domains, integrating different sub-networks constituting the 6G system, and on enhanced means of exposing data and services to third parties.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, one tabl

Agro-Dealers and the Political Economy of Agricultural Biotechnology Policy in Kenya

Public and private actors and their networks are committing substantial resources to support agro-dealers to deliver novel technologies and information in line with the New Green Revolution for Africa. The main point of entry has been the cereal seed system, with a focus on maize seed in particular, which is seen as both a key staple and a politically important crop. In Kenya, the seed system landscape has been changing dramatically in recent years, with the entry of highly influential seed companies, biotechnology research and legislation of the biosafety regulations. Thus, the prospect of genetically modified (GM) crops being pushed through agribusiness networks is an emerging issue, raising the question of whether small-scale, independent stockists or ‘agro-dealers’ have the capacity to deliver these technologies and provide local regulatory control over the new seeds. This study sought to investigate the policy and institutional environment within which agricultural biotechnology agro-dealers have evolved, as well as the agendas that are being pushed by particular interests in the new pro-GM policy and institutional environment in Kenya and their expected outcomes.DfI

Systematizing Decentralization and Privacy: Lessons from 15 Years of Research and Deployments

Decentralized systems are a subset of distributed systems where multiple authorities control different components and no authority is fully trusted by all. This implies that any component in a decentralized system is potentially adversarial. We revise fifteen years of research on decentralization and privacy, and provide an overview of key systems, as well as key insights for designers of future systems. We show that decentralized designs can enhance privacy, integrity, and availability but also require careful trade-offs in terms of system complexity, properties provided, and degree of decentralization. These trade-offs need to be understood and navigated by designers. We argue that a combination of insights from cryptography, distributed systems, and mechanism design, aligned with the development of adequate incentives, are necessary to build scalable and successful privacy-preserving decentralized systems