Sixth Workshop and Tutorial on Practical Use of Coloured Petri Nets and the CPN Tools Aarhus, Denmark, October 24-26, 2005

This booklet contains the proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Practical Use of Coloured Petri Nets and the CPN Tools, October 24-26, 2005. The workshop is organised by the CPN group at the Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark. The papers are also available in electronic form via the web pages: http://www.daimi.au.dk/CPnets/workshop0

E-Commerce in Asia: A Study of Its Economic Impact on the Region

In Asia, e-commerce has the potential to generate considerable economic benefits due to the significant opportunities it offers. Recent years have seen a significant development in the global economy that has been referred to as e-commerce (electronic commerce). In order for the Asian countries to be able to take advantage of the opportunities presented by this global trend of growth, they will still have to make progress in areas such as connectivity, services, rules and regulations, as well as labour skills. As a result of government policy, the market can be assisted to maximize the benefits of the information revolution, and to mitigate the risk of potential market failure, as well as to facilitate market mechanisms that will facilitate the transition. E-commerce has the potential to play a significant role in the development of Asia and the Pacific as a whole. Over the last few years, the Asia Pacific region has grown at the fastest pace compared to any other region of the global business-to-consumer e-commerce market, making up the majority of the global e-commerce market in the business-to-consumer segment. It is expected that Asian and Pacific countries will have a 25% share of e-commerce in their Gross Domestic Product by the end of 2025, according to the World Bank. Among the many advantages of e-commerce for small and medium-sized businesses, one of the most notable is the ability to reach global markets and to compete at a global level

Simulating high-throughput cryptocurrency payment channel networks

Payment channels secured with cryptocurrency as collateral enable users to make many transactions with few blockchain broadcasts. Networks of payment channels have emerged as a proposed solution to Bitcoin’s scaling problem. Since the proposal of the first payment channel network, the Lightning Network, alternatives promising significant improvements, such as the Sprites protocol, have been proposed. Without at-scale implementations to analyze in situ, it is difficult to make meaningful comparisons of payment channel network protocols. In order to bridge this gap, we introduce a new simulation framework that can be used to evaluate how different payment channel network protocols will perform in both the expected and worst cases. Our framework is generic and accommodates benchmarking across different variants of payment channel network protocols, network topologies, routing algorithms, and user behaviors. User spending behavior in our payment channel network simulator is generated based on behavioral modeling techniques used in credit card fraud research. Our simulation is the first payment channel network simulator to seed user behaviors with data from real-world credit card users. Our framework can be used to evaluate expected case performance and resiliency to attacks across different payment channel network protocols and routing algorithms. We demonstrate the utility of our framework through comparisons of the Lightning Network to Sprites. We also compare the proposed decentralized routing algorithm, Flare, to an ideal centralized routing algorithm. Our results reveal that if spending behaviors are similar to those of credit card users, scale-free network topologies achieve higher throughput and resiliency compared to small-world networks. We also confirm that the Sprites protocol enjoys numerous advantages over the Lightning Network including smaller durations, shorter path length payments, and greater resiliency, all of which are most significant in decentralized topologies using decentralized routing algorithms

New Instruments in Spatial Planning: An International Perspective on Non-Financial Compensation

'New Instruments in Spatial Planning' addresses the topic of transferring development opportunities between areas in planning practice by a debate between academics, lawyers and planning practitioners at an international planning symposium in Annapolis, MD, USA and the Van Doorne-Habiforum conference on Transferable Development Rights a year later. The idea of transferring development opportunities between areas is more than only the transfer of development rights. It relates more to compensation: not in money, but in a non-financial perspective. A comparative study on non-financial compensation was started, funded by Habiforum and linked to a number of research projects, such as Van Der Veen’s and Spaans’ research funded by the Delft Centre for Sustainable Urban Areas and Janssen-Jansen’s research funded by the Dutch Scientific Organization NWO-STIP. The chapters in this publication are representative of a close cooperation between planners, economists and lawyers from both science and planning practice. The exchange of knowledge within the framework of this book has arisen from divergent paths

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

A Market Model for Controlled Resource Allocation in Distributed Operating Systems

This thesis explores the potential for providing processes with control over their resource allocation in a general-purpose distributed system. Rather than present processes with blind explicit control or leave the decision to the operating system, a compromise, called process-centric resource allocation is proposed whereby processes have informed control of their resource allocation, while the operating system ensures fair consumption. The motivations for this approach to resource allocation and its background are reviewed culminating in the description of a set of desired attributes for such a system. A three layered architecture called ERA is then proposed and presented in detail. The lowest layer, provides a unified framework for processes to choose resources, describe their priority and describes the range of available resources. A resource information mechanism, used to support choices of distributed resources then utilises this framework. Finally, experimental demonstrations of process-centric resource allocation are used to illustrate the third layer. This design and its algorithms together provide a resource allocation system wherein distributed resources are shared fairly amongst competing processes which can choose their resources. The system allows processes to mimic traditional resource allocations and perform novel and beneficial resource optimisations. Experimental results are presented indicating that this can be achieved with low overhead and in a scalable fashion

Psychophysicality: rethinking the physicalist foundations of the mind/body problem

In this thesis, I shall examine the question of physicalism through two papers criticising the formulation of the doctrine. In the first chapter, I discuss Tim Carne's and D.H. Mellor's influential (1990) There Is No Question of Physicalism, in which they argue that there are no real criteria by which the science of psychology can be separated from the paradigmatically physical sciences, and so no principled reason to suppose that the predicates of pyschology do not describe real elements of the world's ontology whereas those of physics do. I shall explain why I find their arguments unconvincing, and to show how some of the reasons they consider not to support the noncontinuity of psychology with physics actually can support the distinction. Crane and Mellor take physicalism to be an epistemological doctrine, according to which the empirical world "contains just what a true and complete physical science would say it contains". Physicalism can, however, be taken as a metaphysical doctrine, and indeed I think that many modern physicalists do take it this way. In his (1998) What Are Physical Properties?, Chris Daly argues that no principled distinction can be drawn between physical and nonphysical properties, and that therefore any metaphysical programme which assumes such a distinction is misguided. I shall agree with much of his reasoning, but not with his 'downbeat' conclusion: while I agree that there are serious difficulties involved in setting constraints on the bounds of the physical, I think that enough can positively be said to make physicalism a meaningful position. Between the two papers, a fairly broad survey of some recent accounts of physicalism is made and these two distinct avenues explored: physicalism construed as a doctrine about science, and physicalism as a doctrine attempting to limit the contents of the world a priori through a definition of what it is to be a physical properties. All in all, I think that there is much to learn from these two papers, but not all of it is as negative, conclusive, or 'downbeat' as their authors might have intended. Rather, I think that some new directions are indicated by the failure of some of the avenues they explore