Designing a Blockchain Model for the Paris Agreement’s Carbon Market Mechanism

This paper examines the benefits and constraints of applying blockchain technology for the Paris Agreement carbon market mechanism and develops a list of technical requirements and soft factors as selection criteria to test the feasibility of two different blockchain platforms. The carbon market mechanism, as outlined in Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, can accelerate climate action by enabling cooperation between national Parties. However, in the past, carbon markets were limited by several constraints. Our research investigates these constraints and translates them into selection criteria to design a blockchain platform to overcome these past limitations. The developed selection criteria and assumptions developed in this paper provide an orientation for blockchain assessments. Using the selection criteria, we examine the feasibility of two distinct blockchains, Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric, for the specific use case of Article 6.2. These two blockchain systems represent contrary forms of design and governance; Ethereum constitutes a public and permissionless blockchain governance system, while Hyperledger Fabric represents a private and permissioned governance system. Our results show that both blockchain systems can address present carbon market constraints by enhancing market transparency, increasing process automation, and preventing double counting. The final selection and blockchain system implementation will first be possible, when the Article 6 negotiations are concluded, and governance preferences of national Parties are established. Our paper informs about the viability of different blockchain systems, offers insights into governance options, and provides a valuable framework for a concrete blockchain selection in the future.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli

Quantum Information Dynamics and Open World Science

One of the fundamental insights of quantum mechanics is that complete knowledge of the state of a quantum system is not possible. Such incomplete knowledge of a physical system is the norm rather than the exception. This is becoming increasingly apparent as we apply scientific methods to increasingly complex situations. Empirically intensive disciplines in the biological, human, and geosciences all operate in situations where valid conclusions must be drawn, but deductive completeness is impossible. This paper argues that such situations are emerging examples of {it Open World} Science. In this paradigm, scientific models are known to be acting with incomplete information. Open World models acknowledge their incompleteness, and respond positively when new information becomes available. Many methods for creating Open World models have been explored analytically in quantitative disciplines such as statistics, and the increasingly mature area of machine learning. This paper examines the role of quantum theory and quantum logic in the underpinnings of Open World models, examining the importance of structural features of such as non-commutativity, degrees of similarity, induction, and the impact of observation. Quantum mechanics is not a problem around the edges of classical theory, but is rather a secure bridgehead in the world of science to come

A new GIS toolbox for integrating massive heterogeneous GIS data for land use change analysis

Agricultural land use in Germany and related impacts on the environment and the use of natural resources are key research topics at the Thünen-Institute of Rural Studies. As spatial context is essential for the analysis of causal connections, GIS data regarding all necessary information was gathered during different research projects and prepared for processing in a database. In particular, the Integrated Administration and Control System, which was available for certain project purposes for several Federal Laender and years, serves as a very detailed data source for agricultural land use. We use different Open Source GIS software like PostgreSQL/ PostGIS, GRASS and QuantumGIS for geoprocessing, supplemented with the proprietary ESRI product ArcGIS. After introducing the used input data and the general processing approach, this paper presents a selection of geoprocessing routines for which Open Source GIS software was used. As an exemplary ’use case’ for the conclusions from the consecutive statistical analysis, we summarize impacts of increased biogas production on agricultural land use change highlighting the trend in biogas maize cultivation and the conversion of permanent grassland to agricultural cropland

Securing Peer-to-Peer Overlay Networks

Overlay networks are virtual networks, which exist on top of the current Inter net architecture, and are used in support of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications. The virtualization provides overlays with the ability to create large, scalable, decentral ized networks with efficient routing. Many implementations of overlay networks have come out of academic research. Each provides a unique structure and routing configuration, aimed at increasing the overall network efficiency for a particular ap plication. However, they are all threatened by a similar set of severe vulnerabilities. I explore some of these security deficiencies of overlay network designs and pro pose a new overlay network security framework Phyllo. This framework aims to mitigate all of the targeted security problems across a majority of the current overlay implementations, while only requiring minimal design changes. In order to demonstrate the validity of Phyllo, it was implemented on top of the Pastry overlay architecture. The performance and security metrics of the network with the pro posed framework are evaluated against those of the original in order to demonstrate the feasibility of Phyllo

The BG News March 23, 2010

The BGSU campus student newspaper March 23, 2010. Volume 100 - Issue 119https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/bg-news/9222/thumbnail.jp

Sanctions and Consequences: Third-State Impacts and the Development of International Law in the Shadow of Unilateral Sanctions on Russia

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO member states and their allies have imposed “unprecedented,” unilateral economic sanctions to hold Russia accountable, degrade its military capability, and limit its international financial access.1 From the outset, sanctioning states such as the United States have stated that they “designed these sanctions to maximize the long-term impact on Russia and to minimize the impact on [themselves and their] allies.”2 These sanctions on an economic power like Russia “have global economic effects far greater than anything seen before.”3 And there is concern that the unintended consequences of the sanctions will disproportionately harm developing states.Unilateral sanctions have long been a subject of contention within foreign policy and international law. Once conceived as the panacea to war, scholars have come to appreciate sanctions’ destructive impact too. Yet as the United Nations learned from the terrible humanitarian consequences of its sanction regimes in Iraq and Haiti and wound them down, there has been a rise in unilateral sanctions, particularly imposed by the United States, raising humanitarian concerns along with issues of extraterritorial jurisdiction and imperialism.The unilateral sanctions against Russia and the prospect of economic spillover effects felt worldwide, but most acutely in the Global South, call for a reexamination of how international law treats sanctions and their unintended consequences. Yet even in the midst of this fast-moving, massive, and complex set of unilateral sanctions there may be emerging welcome developments in the murky legal spaces.This Article proceeds in three parts. Part One reviews the unilateral sanction regime against Russia with particular attention expended on the unintended consequences sustained by developing states as well as exemptions that sanctioning states have crafted. The section also addresses the general literature on sanctions and humanitarian impacts. Part Two addresses the international law governing unilateral sanctions, focusing first on the principle of non-intervention and then exploring how sanctions may be classified as countermeasures. The section examines whether general-interest countermeasures are permitted and would apply to the current sanction regimes. The section also details how countermeasures do not adequately account for and protect the rights of non-targeted third states. Part Three then proposes both substantive legal changes and procedural mechanisms to mitigate unilateral sanctions’ unintended consequences. The section sketches a sanctioning state’s duty to prevent human rights harms to third states and to afford assistance to these states. The following section sketches a “lawmaking” and coordinating role for the General Assembly, clarifying what sanctions measures are lawful and resuscitating the UN Charter Article 50 process to ensure that third states enjoy a right to consult over sanctions and a right to necessary assistance. The Article concludes that a clarified legal and economic framework for unilateral sanctions is vital to the development of an international system dedicated to peace, security, and fairness

Resilient Consensus for Expressed and Private Opinions

This article proposes an opinion formation model featuring both a private and an expressed opinion for a given topic over dynamical networks. Each individual in the network has a private opinion, which is not known by others but evolves under local influence from the expressed opinions of its neighbors, and an expressed opinion, which varies under a peer pressure to conform to the local environment. We design the opinion sifting strategies which are purely distributed and provide resilience to a range of adversarial environment involving locally and globally bounded threats as well as malicious and Byzantine individuals. We establish the sufficient and necessary graph-theoretic criteria for normal individuals to attain opinion consensus in both directed-fixed and time-varying networks. Two classes of opinion clustering problems are introduced as an extension. By designing the resilient opinion separation algorithms, we develop necessary and sufficient criteria, which characterize the resilient opinion clustering in terms of the ratio of opinions as well as the difference of opinions. Numerical examples, including real-world jury deliberations, are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches and test the correctness of our theoretical results