Consistently Inconsistent: What Is a Qualifying Investment Under Article 25 of the ICSID Convention and Why the Debate Must End

International investment has helped to pave the way for an increasingly globalized world community. Consequently, the International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID)—existing under the mandate of the World Bank and with the stated purpose of increasing economic development abroad—has become the leading international arbitration mechanism currently available for settling disputes arising out of such investments. It is unsettling, therefore, that the interpretation of “investment” within article 25 of the ICSID Convention (the provision that determines whether an ICSID tribunal may exercise jurisdiction over a dispute) has given rise to a unique interpretive controversy because the ICSID Convention fails to define “investment.” Accordingly, ICSID tribunals (bound neither by precedent nor a definition of “investment” contained within the ICSID Convention) have interpreted the term inconsistently, providing a source of unpredictability for investors and host countries alike, as they are unable to adequately ascertain whether an investment in their eyes is an investment that qualifies for ICSID protection. Given the associated risks with international investment generally, such unpredictability unnecessarily increases the costs of foreign investment, impeding efficient economic growth abroad. An unfortunate consequence of this controversy is that many ICSID tribunals have taken an investor-centric view, going so far as to exercise jurisdiction over activities that directly contravene the ICSID Convention’s stated purpose

Revisiting Deniability in Quantum Key Exchange via Covert Communication and Entanglement Distillation

We revisit the notion of deniability in quantum key exchange (QKE), a topic that remains largely unexplored. In the only work on this subject by Donald Beaver, it is argued that QKE is not necessarily deniable due to an eavesdropping attack that limits key equivocation. We provide more insight into the nature of this attack and how it extends to other constructions such as QKE obtained from uncloneable encryption. We then adopt the framework for quantum authenticated key exchange, developed by Mosca et al., and extend it to introduce the notion of coercer-deniable QKE, formalized in terms of the indistinguishability of real and fake coercer views. Next, we apply results from a recent work by Arrazola and Scarani on covert quantum communication to establish a connection between covert QKE and deniability. We propose DC-QKE, a simple deniable covert QKE protocol, and prove its deniability via a reduction to the security of covert QKE. Finally, we consider how entanglement distillation can be used to enable information-theoretically deniable protocols for QKE and tasks beyond key exchange.Comment: 16 pages, published in the proceedings of NordSec 201

Revisiting the Meaning of Leadership

During the past fifty years, organizational scholarship on leadership has shifted from a focus on the significance of leadership for meaning-making to the significance of leadership for economic performance. This shift has been problematic for two reasons. First, it has given rise to numerous conceptual difficulties that now plague the study of leadership. Second, there is now comparatively little attention to the question of how individuals find meaning in the economic sphere even though this question should arguably be one of the most important questions for organizational scholarship. This chapter discusses several reasons for the shift, arguing that one of the most important has been the lack of a clear definition and operationalization of meaningful economic activity. As a first step to redressing this shift, we offer a definition and operationalization of meaningful action, and we propose a typology of executive behaviors as a foundation for a systematic exploration of the meaning-making capacity of leaders. We conclude with a discussion of the relationship between the capacity of leaders to infuse meaning and the capacity of leaders to impact on performance

NATURALNESS IN TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH NOVEL INTO INDONESIAN

Naturalness in translation is a very important point in relation to translation product quality. This paper is a research-based article on the translation of English-novel into Indonesian. This research investigated the naturalness of the Indonesian language used by the translator in the translation of Anna Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl into Indonesian. The theories employed to help the analysis of data in this research meaningbased and componential analysis and of those by other scholars that are related to factors that can help identifying the naturalness of translation. Grammar of both languages involved can also be employed to help the sharp analysis of the data. Translation then should make sense; convey the spirit of manner of the original; have a natural and easy to comprehend form of expression; and produce a similar respond to that of the original. Beyond that, it is expected that some other factors triggering the less natural translation in target language be partially if not fully identified. The contrast between two languages involved in the translation, the cultural discrepancies, and the nature of meaning of each word make the translation process difficult. The use of different register, style, and targeted reader seem also to have role in influencing the naturalness of translation

Old Wine in New Skins? Revisiting the Software Architecture for IP Network Stacks on Constrained IoT Devices

In this paper, we argue that existing concepts for the design and implementation of network stacks for constrained devices do not comply with the requirements of current and upcoming Internet of Things (IoT) use cases. The IoT requires not only a lightweight but also a modular network stack, based on standards. We discuss functional and non-functional requirements for the software architecture of the network stack on constrained IoT devices. Then, revisiting concepts from the early Internet as well as current implementations, we propose a future-proof alternative to existing IoT network stack architectures, and provide an initial evaluation of this proposal based on its implementation running on top of state-of-the-art IoT operating system and hardware.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures and table

Music as Evidence for a Creator

Throughout history, mankind has made music. While music is artistic, it is also scientific and informed by natural occurrences within the physical world. Mathematical relationships between frequencies, the harmonic series, the materials necessary to build musical instruments, and naturally measured time provide bases for the musical elements of pitch, timbre, and rhythm. Though scientific discovery can inform the practice of music, the origin of music cannot be explained through scientific or evolutionary means because music is not a necessity for survival. The fact that music does exist and has natural bases suggests that music is designed, and its elements were placed in the physical world by a Creator who is beyond that which is physical

Modelling iteration in engineering design

This paper examines design iteration and its modelling in the simulation of New Product Development (NPD) processes. A framework comprising six perspectives of iteration is proposed and it is argued that the importance of each perspective depends upon domain-specific factors. Key challenges of modelling iteration in process simulation frameworks such as the Design Structure Matrix are discussed, and we argue that no single model or framework can fully capture the iterative dynamics of an NPD process. To conclude, we propose that consideration of iteration and its representation could help identify the most appropriate modelling framework for a given process and modelling objective, thereby improving the fidelity of design process simulation models and increasing their utility